Seriously, you didn’t think we’d notice?
As I noted in my piece earlier, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), the public-private group that runs the Pure Michigan campaign, has a page on their website called “Right to Work” that isn’t linked by any other pages on the site. (There’s a screenshot of it HERE in case it “goes away”.)
It got me wondering, why wasn’t it linked from anywhere else? Was it linked at one point but the links quietly disappeared in the hue and cry about their bragging about crushing unions in Michigan in their full-page Wall Street Journal ad???
Turns out, that’s exactly what happened.
I did a search for “Right to Work” on their website and this is the result:
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Take a look at the second result, “State Trade Export Promotion (STEP). Under the title of the link, you get a short preview of what’s on the page. The second one has:
Why Michigan · Right To Work · New Tax Cuts · Pure Michigan Business Connect · Retention and Relocation Tools · Sites & Buildings · Site Selection Resources
Those are the sections under the “Grow Your Business” page:
Click image for a larger version
On the current page, in the left column, you see:
- Why Michigan
- New Tax Cuts
- Pure Michigan Business Connect
- Retention and Relocation Tools
- Sites & Buildings
- Site Selection Resources
- Growing Industries
- Diversification
- Export Assistance
- Michigan Tribal Business Development
The first seven are the same ones you see in the search preview with the exception of “Right to Work”. At some point, that link was on the site but it has been removed. The cached preview, however, still shows it. In fact, the cached preview for ALL of the pages that are nested under the “Grow Your Business” page show those same links, including the now-scrubbed “Right to Work” link.
It’s pretty clear that in their drunk-with-power stupor, the Republicans that run the show in Michigan government didn’t even consider the outrage their crowing about the defeat of Michigan unions would inspire. Don’t forget: Rick Snyder was the first Chair of the MEDC and still has lots and lots of pals there.
What he did by running the full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal was disgusting. And he and everyone at the MEDC know it.
