Terri Lynn “mom with two kids” Land, the Michigan Embarrassment™, has taken on a new role: blackmailer. And the Detroit Free Press is having none of it:
[Terri Lynn Land’s] GOP Senate candidate’s campaign is refusing to attend an endorsement meeting with the Free Press editorial board unless the newspaper changes an Oct 4. op-ed by columnist Brian Dickerson, which called Land as accessible “as a music video diva recovering from plastic surgery.”“You will never see us acquiesce to this sort of blackmailing in the way to try and condition an endorsement interview on some sort of effort on our part — that’s just not how we do things,” Free Press editorial page editor Stephen Henderson said in an interview. “I have never seen a campaign condition an endorsement interview on an apology for a column before. I’m beyond puzzled, mystified would be the right word.”
Henderson said the Land campaign has “dodged” their request for an endorsement interview for more than a month. After sending an initial invitation in late September and answering some questions from the campaign, the paper sent a second invitation on Oct. 6.
The first they heard from the campaign was on Wednesday, when the blast email said the campaign was calling on the Free Press to “to correct (a) sexist attack on Terri Lynn Land.” For Land to be “open to considering a meeting” with the Free Press editorial board, they would first have to correct the “deeply offensive” column.
This is a textbook case in how NOT win over the press, if I ever saw one. The chutzpah, it burns.
In other mom with two kids news, while she was the Secretary of State, Land held nearly 50 meetings attended by official staff in offices owned by Land & Co., the company she has repeatedly claimed to have no role in. She can’t allow herself to be tied to Land & Co. or she risks facing election fraud charges.
Kinda hard to say you had no connections with the company that let you use their office space for dozens of meetings, if you ask me.
Meanwhile, Land’s lack of support of equal pay for women came back into the news this week during former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s pass through Michigan. A guy asked Bush if Land should support the Paycheck Fairness Act. What transpired is a bit hilarious because the man-who-would-be-president didn’t even know what the Paycheck Fairness Act was:
Jeb Bush: What is the Paycheck Fairness Act?Guy: The Paycheck Fairness Act is a piece of legislation that would ensure women receive the same pay as men…equal pay for equal work.
Bush: Equal pay for the same work, not for equal work – I think that’s the problem with it. I think there’s a definition issue.
Guy: So you don’t think Secretary Land should support it?
Bush: I don’t know. You’d have to ask her.
Dumb and dumber.
Finally, in 2008, while she was Secretary of State, Land brokered a deal that imposed $190,000 in fines on Meijer, Inc. but shielded them from facing criminal charges for secretly financing recall efforts against seven Acme Township officials who were against allowing a Meijer development in their community near Traverse City. The deal Land brokered prevented any further legal action against the company.
Now that same development is causing an environmental problem in the beautiful Grand Traverse Bay that has reached an alarming state:
On Sunday, Sept. 21, prompted by the suspicion something was wrong, [Steve Stinson] and girlfriend Stacey McCalpin donned jackets, grabbed cameras and trudged up Acme Creek toward the site of a big mixed-use development under construction.The pair found what watershed experts called the source of an “unprecedented” plume of clay-laden silt leaching into East Bay from the new Grand Traverse Town Center, a 160-acre development that will be anchored by a 196,000 square-foot Meijer store.
“When I saw that first big long snake plume, like coffee with lots of cream in it, I knew exactly what it was,” Stinson said. “When I saw the second one, it was like, ‘OK, something is obviously wrong.’”
Stinson’s photo and video evidence prompted state and county officials to begin investigating permit violations in earnest last month at the construction site, located northwest of Traverse City at M-72 and Lautner Road in Acme Township.
Environmental experts and local residents worry that the silt, which likely contains nutrients that feed algae blooms, could be fouling the bay for months before fixes underway take hold. Stinson, who has been closely watching the site for weeks, took more photos on Tuesday, Oct. 14 that showed the creek muddy with silt after a rain.
That’s despite efforts by developers to stem the flow of sediment polluting Acme Creek, a stream that runs along the site’s southwest border. Since late September, site workers have been “working ’round the clock” laying down new topsoil, seed, mulch, spraying clay-binding chemicals and other mitigation attempts.
Looks like those crazy environmentalists that Meijer targeted for recall may have been right after all.
[Image & photo by Anne C. Savage using caricature by DonkeyHotey. Land image adapted from: Wikipedia – State of MI / HHS – Chris Smith.]
