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Tag: bias

FREEP shills for MDP and I scream "Ficus!"

By Nick, Section News
Posted on Thu Jul 23, 2009 at 07:09:24 AM EST
Tags: MSM, media bias, bias, Brewer, minimum wage, House GOP, Republicans, budget, tax hikes (all tags)

Shame on the mainstream media. Again.

Yesterday's announcement of House Republicans' plan to rescue the state budget from drowning in red ink, free up millions of stimulus dollars to plug directly into the economy and completely avoid the tax hikes the Dillon Majority and the Granholm-Cherry administration have promised didn't just get short shrift... at one "news" outlet it actually got NO shrift.

MLIVE provided a prominent link for part of the day yesterday, the Lansing State Journal has the story and the Detroit News buried the story in fine print half-way down their front page but our friends at the Ivory Tower decided a massive package of reforms and cuts that'd actually solve this dag-blamed budget crisis simply wasn't news worthy.

What do we get instead from the FREEP? The front page contains "above the fold" stories (as it were) about the Red Wings (which is actually OK with me), Michael Vick, Delphi workers frustrated by part of the "bailout" plan... and a discussion of a boat race.

Maybe on their dedicated "Politics" page? Nope. The top five actual stories, in order:

-Obama defends healthcare plan to Americans
-Dems line up as possible Macomb County Exec
-Michigan Democrats test water for ballot proposals
-Union-tied lawyer joins Michigan governor's race

In between the third and fourth is a pro-Obama puff piece Q & A page ostensibly designed to help viewers better understand what the President said during last night's television address.

Anyone notice a trend? National Dems, local Dems, statewide Dems and Dems in the biggest race this election cycle.

If you only read the FREEP it isn't that you don't know House Republicans proposed a massive spending and regulatory overhaul that ends the state's budget crisis without raising taxes... it's that you don't even know Michigan Republicans exist!

Alas... this morning eeeeeveryone knows that Mark Brewer exists and job providers across the Mitten have already begun looking at real estate listings in other states. That's the sort of thing that can happen when the Chairman of the Democratic Party stands up in an overwhelmingly Democratic state and tells anyone listening that he may be looking to launch a ballot proposal aimed at using rocket fuel to propel the minimum wage to an astronomical $10 an hour.

(Read on...)

(11 comments, 724 words in story) Full Story

The New Cherry Commission: If at first you don't succeed, hope everyone forgets you tried

By Nick, Section News
Posted on Mon Jun 15, 2009 at 06:54:58 AM EST
Tags: Cherry, task force, government efficiency, EPIC FAIL, graduation rates, Cherry Commission, MSM, bias (all tags)

Credit where credit is due. Easy to give the mainstream media a hard time for their all-too-often biased, incomplete or one-sided reporting habits but every now and again they do a cracker-jack job. Case in point, this morning's Detroit News which has taken it upon itself to actually dig into the results of a Granholm-Cherry promise dating back to the early re-election campaign days halfway through their first term.

It was in 2004 that the Guv first tabbed her second-in-command (and current Democratic gubernatorial candidate) John Cherry to head up a fancy commission to identify and establish plans to double the college graduation rate here in Michigan. Because if you form a special task force it shows you're serious, whether or not it delivers the bacon, apparently.

And if that kind of a move sounds familiar, it should. Earlier this calendar year the Guv tabbed her second-in-command (and current Democratic gubernatorial candidate) John Cherry to head up a fancy commission to identify and establish plans to ostensibly reduce the size of state government. Because the two of them have shown such a strong commitment to that concept these past six-plus years. (But that's a rant for a different post.)

No one's quite sure when or where Cherry's fancy NEW task force is going to be holding it's supposedly (but not really) public hearings... and if YOU'VE gotten wind of the specific when and where, please, leave a comment... but we've already got the results, recommendations and battle plans that emerged from the 2004 group of talkers. A lot of talk and bluster and posturing and promises. Results? The Detroit News:

It was a lofty goal: Double the number of Michigan residents with a higher education within a decade.
But nearly five years after Gov. Jennifer Granholm's call to educate the work force to a more prosperous economy, Michigan's rate has merely inched forward.
The number of degrees and certificates awarded in Michigan increased just 4.4 percent over four years, according to data compiled by The Detroit News.

OH! 4.4 is 93.6 LESS than 100. What is it the kids are saying these days? "EPIC FAIL?!"

Are these the kind of results we can expect from John Cherry's super-secret, wasteful, duplicative "government efficiency" task force? Here's hoping. Frankly, a 4.4 percent success rate is better than I'd normally expect from Lansing Democrats.

(1 comment) Comments >>