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One would imagine that Geezer and Raptor would be very anxious for the full context to be on display.

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Steven Crowder went to Michigan in search of a stereotype. “I went out here to prove the left for who they truly are, certainly these union thugs,” Crowder told Fox’s Sean Hannity Tuesday night, a few hours after he was assaulted on camera outside the Michigan statehouse in Lansing. In a sense, he succeeded. He found union protesters and one of them clocked him in the face a few times.

Crowder is a conservative standup comedian and Fox News contributor. He calls himself a social/political commentator, which is a highfalutin label for the level of commentary he offers. (“Liberalism is a disease,” his YouTube account explains.) As protests intensified in Lansing after the Michigan legislature’s passage of a pair of right-to-work bills, he waded into a crowd of angry union workers, asking them basic questions about why they opposed right-to-work legislation, according to the videos posted to the Internet.

Crowder was trying to provoke the protesters — or, failing that, to make them look stupid if they couldn’t muster an eloquent response. He was trolling a bunch of angry people who had just lost a battle that could cost them a big chunk of their salary. He irritated the wrong guy and got hit in the face.

Which isn’t to say he deserved what happened, or that there’s any excuse for violence. Crowder didn’t invite the punch or return it. But he certainly got what he wanted, which was evidence for the widespread conservative caricature that union members are thugs. (“Union thugs” yields 2.76 million hits on Google.) He got footage of a small group of union workers supporting a stereotype--threatening to shoot people, and so on.

Ideologies and the protest movements they give rise to are easy to caricature, and caricatures serve a political purpose. Promoting the stereotype that union members are thuggish is the right’s way of demonizing a group they ideologically oppose. So when Crowder tells Hannity that he “never went out here to try and be assaulted,” he’s surely telling the truth. He probably never imagined his trolling would work quite so well. http://swampland.time.com/2012/12/12/a-punch-turns-political-in-michig
an-labor-protests/

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People familiar with conservative media videographers’ penchant for misleading edits immediately smelled a rat when the Crowder clip surfaced on Youtube, edited to show the fight already in progress. Excerpt from http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-contributor-steven -crowder-confirms-he-started-fight-with-union-protester/

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Crowder says he actually did push the protesters: “We didn’t get violent with them,” Crowder said, “but we did try to push them off the tent. That is true. We tried to push them off the tent" Excerpt from http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-contributor-steven -crowder-confirms-he-started-fight-with-union-protester/

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Although I've been reporting my suspicions (and other people's) about the truthfulness and integrity of Fox News contributor Steven Crowder's report of being assaulted by pro-union "thugs" at a Lansing, Michigan union protest of "right-to-work" legislation, Crowder's dishonesty is no longer in doubt. His video has been shown to be selectively edited and he has admitted pushing the man who later hit him (after pretending otherwise).
On the night that Crowder first appeared for his lapdog interview with Sean Hannity, I wrote that there was something a little too James O'Keefe about Crowder that made me think he was not being honest about the "vicious attack" on him, caught and presented in an edited video, and which just happened to coincide with his virulently, Breitbart-esque anti-union, anti-left agenda. I became even more suspicious when, during the interview, Crowder admitted he had gone to the pro-union protest to make trouble. Still, he told Hannity his beating was “completely physically unprovoked.”

The next night, in another Hannity segment, a guest accused Crowder of first pushing the man who later punched him - which Crowder, despite a series of dancing, diversionary responses, did not deny. However, Crowder did accuse that guest of being a liar after he made the allegation.

Crowder could hardly have been less forthcoming or more deceptive about what happened. On the night of his second segment with Hannity, after the other guest had accused Crowder of pushing the union protester, Hannity said, "Wait a minute. Steven, you didn’t push anybody.” Crowder did not correct the record other than to say that Hannity had the "unedited tape."

Fox deliberately inserted itself into this story and made it a big deal. Its viewers deserve a big "mea culpa" from them now - and a full airing of the unedited video and all the facts that are known. More at http://www.newshounds.us/it_s_official_fox_news_contributor_ steven_crowder_selectively_edited_his_video_and_lied_about_what_happened_12132012

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At about 1:13, as the tent is coming down, Crowder comes over to the cameraman and waves him off as if to say, “that’s enough filming.” The reason for this becomes clear if you watch this longer, less edited version of the video.

What they apparently don’t want you to see is union members using knives to cut the tent open to let people inside out. Rather, the message that is being sent by the conservative media and blogosphere is that the union members deliberately cut the tent to pieces in an act of malicious vandalism. As Matt Allen points out in his comments HERE, the union members actually ask, “Is everybody out?” and then proceed to make sure that they are.

At 1:49 in the longer video, one union members notes that an AFP guy has a gun and brags that he’s “killed plenty of mother fuckers with a gun” (i.e., he’s killed people who were in possession of guns.) This is being played up as if a UNION MEMBER had a gun. Not true.

There is no question in my mind that AFP and Fox employees set out to incite a huge crowd of very angry people....Crowder uses a technique of intentionally invading your personal space to make you uncomfortable and then peppers you with questions to make you angry. It is an intentional act to incite an angry response. The Capitol grounds were a tinderbox of angry folks and both AFP and Fox News tossed a lit match into it and then blamed the wood for catching fire.Excerpts from http://www.eclectablog.com/2012/12/fox-news-steven-crowder-americans-f
or-prosperity-use-breitbart-style-film-editing-to-show-union-thug-brutality.html

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"...the man who was coming at me I think tripped over the tent peg, fell towards me, and that’s when I said ‘You assaulted me.’" http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2012/12/14/what-did-steven-c
rowder-say-about-his-video-editing/

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