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The Fox News morning show Fox & Friends on Friday declared that a law in Michigan that weakens unions was a "Victory for Capitalism!"

On Thursday, the Republican-controlled state legislature in Michigan had quickly pushed through a new measure that would make the birthplace of the country's labor movement a right-to-work state, crippling unions by prohibiting requirements that employees join or pay dues.

"Yesterday, the legislature of both of houses passed a law making Michigan the 24th right to work state, bans mandatory union dues," Fox News co-host Steve Doocy reported while a graphic on the screen read, "Victory for Capitalism!"

"If you work for the UAW, you work for Chrysler, Ford, places like that -- there are a lot of people who are upset," Doocy noted.

"But that's where it's going," co-host Brian Kilmeade asserted. "If you want to know what's good about our economy, look at Indiana, look at Ohio and now look what's happening over in Florida [with anti-union laws] and that's what they want to do in Michigan. It's governors making tough choices."

Hundreds of protesters turned out on Thursday, briefly shutting down the Michigan state Capitol Building and causing State Police to use pepper spray and arrest several demonstrators. But lawmakers jammed through the legislation and Gov. Rick Snyder has promised to sign the bill after final passage, which is expected before the Republican majority is reduced from a 64-46 margin to a 59-51 margin in January.

(h/t: Media Matters)

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Media Matters has been following this discredited story for some time now and you can read some of their past posts on that here -- Rich Lowry Clings to Discredited Obama-Bullied-Ford Story, Claims Denials Mean "It's Probably True". As they noted last week, The Washington Post's Greg Sargent already debunked this story, but that didn't stop the panel on Fox News Watch this weekend from continuing to treat it as a scandal.

Wash. Post's Sargent Deflates Story That White House Pressured Ford Over Ads:

The Washington Post's Greg Sargent reported today that the White House and Ford Motor Co. are both denying a story about the White House pressuring Ford to yank TV ads critical of the auto bailout. These allegations originated with a Detroit News column and have been spread by right-wing bloggers, including Michelle Malkin and RedState. From Sargent's post:

Apparently some right wing bloggers think they may have found their next big scandal: The White House may have pressured Ford Motor Company to yank a TV ad critical of Obama's rescue of the auto companies!

That would be quite a story indeed -- the latest example of heavy handed White House bullying of the private sector, all in service of its hated auto bailout. Except there's a small problem: Ford and the White House are both denying the tale, and the original report that is the basis for all the chatter today is not even sourced at all.

As Sargent also wrote, the ad ran its normal four week course and both parties denied there was any pressure placed on Ford to pull it. That's not going to stop Fox from continuing their latest feigned outrage over the latest non-scandal coming out of the Obama White House.

The other thing that kills me about the fact that Ford ran this ad in the first place is one, those auto bailouts started under Bush and not Obama -- a point that seems to get overlooked by the yappers at Fox here.

Another point I think bears discussing is that if both the Bush administration and the Obama administration had not supported bailing out the auto industry in America, even though Ford did not directly participate in the bailout, what do they think would have happened to their company if their suppliers had started going out of business as a result as this article from last year discussed? Frankly I find it pretty astounding that Ford thought it was a good idea to run the ad in the first place. They may not have been directly helped by the program, but they sure as hell were indirectly helped.

I don't expect that's a topic we'll be hearing discussed on Fox any time soon either. They'd rather drum up phony scandals to be outraged over, play the conservative victimhood game and trash the United Auto Workers Union as they did here.

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From Meet the Press Rachel Maddow calls out Rep. Aaron Shock for taking credit for what the stimulus bill has done for his district while at the same time touting his vote against the stimulus bill. Schock tries to shift the argument to whether any Republicans were included in drafting the bill or not. David Gregory follows up and asks Schock if that means he won't take any federal money for his district or not and Schock responds that he thinks it is a ridiculous argument and is Rachel Maddow going to give back her Bush tax cuts she rails about and says his district deserves their share of federal spending. As Rachel points out though, that's not the problem but rather the rank hypocrisy of voting against something and then touting it.

If MSNBC actually cared about their ratings on this show, they'd get rid of Gregory and let Maddow host it.

MR. GREGORY: Congressman Schock, where are the Republicans going to be on this?

REP. SCHOCK: Well, look, I think, unfortunately, it's more of the same. I mean, all of this talk about bipartisanship, and yet the rhetoric doesn't match the reality. As David Brooks mentioned, there was some, some Republicans who worked with Democrats in the Senate to come up with a jobs bill only to have their leadership put the kibosh on it. We, we are for creating long-term economic growth. You do that by incentivizing entrepreneurialism, risk taking, and investment. You do that through creating certainty in the markets through certain tax incentives. And that's where we'll be on a jobs bill.

MR. GREGORY: So it sounds like you're--you like what the Democrats are doing here?

REP. SCHOCK: Well, I don't like all the pork that was in the bill. Seven hundred eighty-seven billion dollar stimulus bill, the largest spending bill in, in history, one of the reasons why it didn't create long-term growth is it didn't have stimulative tax cuts in it, but rather a lot of pork and spending.

MS. MADDOW: Which are the least stimulative things in the stimulus. I mean, when you assess what creates jobs, in the stimulus band it's the tax cuts that were put in in order to try to win Republican votes that didn't come anyway that are the least effective thing in the stimulus bill. So the theory doesn't match the practice here.

But, I mean, you, in your district...

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Speaking today at the National Press Club for the Gerald R. Ford Foundation journalism awards, Dick Cheney said:

"I think that freedom means freedom for everyone," replied the former V.P. "As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don't support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. ... But I don't have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that."

And in truth, Darth Cheney has said similar things on the subject in recent years. But it is a little odd that one of those most rightwing of all national political figures can have any position to the left of the current president.