Remember when right wing pseudo-comedian Steven Crowder provoked and insulted and shoved union demonstrators at the Michigan Capitol until someone took a swing at him? Remember how he used a blatantly edited video to try to push this phony story of “union thuggery,” and Sean Hannity and Fox News and Breitbart.com and the whole right wing blogosphere hyped it like crazy?

Well, after reviewing unedited video of the incident, the prosecutor has decided there’s no case.

The prosecutor in this case has determined that there’ll be no charges against anyone who popped Crowder on that December day. Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III “will not be authorizing criminal charges in this case,” Shanon Banner, a spokeswoman for the Michigan State Police, wrote in an e-mail to the Erik Wemple Blog this morning.

Dunnings said in an interview that the video his office originally reviewed on the matter “appeared to have been edited.” A subsequent review of what the prosecutor termed “unedited” video helped the office reach its decision not to proceed with a case.

“A look at the unedited video, taken in conjunction with the statements of the alleged victim and the alleged assailant, led me to the conclusion that I would not authorize issuance of the warrant,” Dunnings said.

According to a witness to Steven Crowder’s nasty little stunt at the Michigan protest yesterday, he was provoking and insulting demonstrators, deliberately trying to goad them into violence.

Knowing how the Fox News/Breitbart gang love to stage these kinds of fake incidents to picture their targets as violent thugs, it was already pretty obvious. But now a witness has confirmed it.

Ken Spitzley, a state agriculture department employee, told HuffPost that he walked to the protest at the state Capitol during a break from work and that he witnessed Crowder getting in protesters’ faces and goading them.

“He was just after everybody,” said the 56-year-old Spitzley, a procurement technician whose workplace is represented by the United Auto Workers. “There was no question he was there just to start a fight, to start some kind of trouble.”

According to Spitzley, Crowder had an exchange with two pro-union men wearing blue jeans, hard hats and Carhartt clothing. One of them asked Crowder what he did for a living, according to Spitzley.

“He said, ‘I sell soap. I should sell you some,’” Spitzley said, quoting Crowder.

Spitzley said he did not witness the punching incident or the exchange leading up to it. But in Spitzley’s estimation, Crowder “wasn’t going to go home until he got punched.”

Crowder has staged similar stunts before, as Adam Shriver points out here: Fox News Steven Crowder & Americans for Prosperity Use Breitbart-Style Film Editing to Show “Union Thug Brutality”.

When BlogCon (a conservative blogging conference) was held in Denver, Crowder and a group of angry right-wingers surrounded Occupy Denver protesters and screamed at them. Crowder later claimed he was “assaulted” while part of a large, screaming mob surrounding five people. Here are the relevant videos:

Crowder getting in someone’s face:

Crowder apparently pushing a lady from behind, then acting like she attacked him (see especially after the 3 minute mark):

He then claimed she “assaulted” him:

Crowder going on Fox News to whine about how “violent” occupy Denver was:

It’s almost as if they do the same thing every time. Huh.

So, useless right wing pseudo-comedian Steven Crowder waded into the demonstration outside the Michigan Capitol yesterday, and started goading the already pissed off union members who had just seen their livelihood stripped away by a dishonest bunch of Republican 1 percenters, spewing anti-union talking points at them and trying to get someone to take a swing at him.

To no one’s surprise, Crowder got what he wanted, and of course he had someone there to record it all: Steven Crowder, Fox News Contributor, Punched During Right-to-Work Protests.

And it was coordinated with Fox News, for maximum propaganda effect:

Vid will be be up by 3:15 with more exclusive footage released on @seanhannity later. You’ve never seen anything like it, trust me.

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) December 11, 2012

Naturally, the entire right wing blogosphere is shrieking in unison about “violent union thugs” today. I have to say, this wingnut stunt did take an enormous amount of … what do you call it? Bravery? No. Stupidity? Not exactly. Balls? Not really.

He’s lucky he got out of the crowd alive. I absolutely do not condone the union member who punched Crowder in the face, if it really was a union member. But in the words of Chris Rock, I understand.

Related:
Video: Steven Crowder’s Racist Rap at CPAC

That incredibly obnoxious, blatantly racist CPAC “rap” video (Steven Crowder and Chris Loesch, wearing powdered wigs) spread rapidly across the blogosphere yesterday, and now, unbelievably, an anonymous writer at Andrew Breitbart’s “Big Journalism” website is actually trying to claim that Crowder and Loesch’s use of the word “knickers” was totally innocent: Dog Whistle Progressives Fabricate Racial Incident at CPAC - Big Journalism.

(Note: this dishonest trash was written by “P.J. Salvatore,” the sock puppet account that Breitbart’s bloggers use when they want to avoid putting a real name on an article.)

Earlier today Comedian Steven Crowder and Chris Loesch, a production artist, performed a satirical (by design) number called “Mr. America” at CPAC as a last-minute request to mark the launch of the same name video. The video (and the performance) features Crowder and Loesch dressed as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson opining about the loss of American exceptionalism. “We were fighting off Red Coats while we were brewin’ our beer” raps Crowder. At one point in the song the duo say “knickers,” while referencing their old-school pants.

Remember this claim — we’ll be coming back to it. “P.J. Salvatore” continues:

A writer at Huffington Post, with an apparently inability to spell, convinced herself that they said a racial slur, based on the sole observation that the audio technician, who happens to be black, which blogger Amanda Terkel was quick to note, walked out of frame to fix the audio levels.

There was one particularly awkward moment in the performance, when they used the word “knickers,” which happens to sound a lot like a racially loaded word beginning with the letter “n.” The music then stopped and they joked, “What? Knickers? I can say knickers!” At that moment, coincidentally, a technician — who happened to be one of the only African-American individuals in the room and was working at the front at the time — stood up and walked away.

Terkel’s scope of journalistic integrity doesn’t include actually interviewing the subjects about whom she’s writing. Terkel did not stay or ask either Crowder or Loesch for comment, nor did she interview the audio technician. She didn’t post the original video, either, until asked, because it’s easier to blow the race whistle without context.

OK, so here’s some context for “P.J. Salvatore.” This was no “dog whistle,” it was an air raid siren. Crowder and Loesch deliberately used the word “knickers” as a play on the N word, and there’s no doubt at all about it. They weren’t just talking about their pants. Here are the pathetic lyrics in that section:

Yeah but right now you’re high, ain’t you big hitter
But I’m back from the dead now bringing back all my knickers

Man you think I’d say that, come on what’s wrong with you
I’m just talking about my short pants that tuck into my shoe

Get it? Actually, you’d have to be pretty dumb indeed not to get the point they’re making. This is apparently what conservatives consider “comedy” — finding sneaky ways to use racial slurs. And they’re doing it while mocking a specifically black American musical genre. Any questions about the “context” here?

There’s more context, too, because Crowder and Loesch posted a video of their awful “rap” song, with slightly higher production values than the hand-held iPhone version. And that video uses the exact same “outraged African American” schtick that they pulled at CPAC. They stop the music and protest, “What? Knickers? I can say ‘knickers’ because I WEAR knickers.” Get it?

Here’s that video, set to start at the point where they do their sneaky “joke:”

Obviously, this was not just an innocent synonym for “pants.” They deliberately used the word “knickers” in a context that makes it very clear they were invoking a racial slur, and wrote a whole little skit to go with it.

“P.J. Salvatore” adds:

Big Journalism is working to identify and interview the audio technician.

Really? Well, you could start by asking your fellow blogger Steven Crowder.

But Mr./Mrs. “Salvatore” isn’t finished yet.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, the man who once accused Andrew Breitbart of using a sandwich board as a computer (Ed. note: false), cracks out this lie:

Yes, they’re yelling the N word, pretending they’re saying “knickers.”

Johnson wasn’t there, of course, nor has he watched the video. Not that it would matter; everything any conservative does is somehow racist. Somewhat relatedly, Johnson thinks our Marines are “bloodthirsty killers.”

The first sentence contains a link (which I removed) to a blog run by obsessed right wingers who stalk me around the web, people who deny the Serbian genocide against Muslims and recently posted a video from a neo-Nazi group praising the racist, antisemitic novel “The Turner Diaries.”

And the last sentence is another outright lie, to add to the pile. Here’s the tweet I sent to Breitbart editor-in-chief John Nolte, when he laughingly praised the soldiers who got in big trouble with the Marine Corps by desecrating corpses:

Crazed partisan wingnuts like @NolteNC are now way to the right of the US Marine Corps. And much more bloodthirsty.

— Charles Johnson (@Lizardoid) January 14, 2012

I know logic isn’t a Breitbart blogger’s strong point, but I think it’s pretty clear that I was calling John Nolte “bloodthirsty” (which he is), not the US Marines.

John Nolte is also more bloodthirsty than a blue soap dish, which isn’t known for thirsting after blood at all.

This has been your daily ration of wingnut dishonesty, brought to you by Andrew Breitbart and his sock puppets.

Yet another jaw-dropping moment from CPAC, as right wing “comedians” Steven Crowder and Chris Loesch perform an absolutely nauseating “rap” song, wearing “founding fathers” powdered wigs. And don’t miss what happens at about the 2 minute mark, as an African American walks out.

Yes, they’re yelling the N word, pretending they’re saying “knickers.”

Right wing humor.

Normally, I wouldn’t inflict something containing this much derpitude on the LGF audience, but here’s Steven Crowder’s stand-up routine at today’s Tea Party convention.

You don’t have to watch the whole thing. Just know that it exists. Watch a few seconds and you’ll get the drift.

Wingnut humor: painfully unfunny racial stereotypes, followed by even more painful whining about being accused of racism by the evil liberal establishment. Rinse. Repeat.

“Corpseman!”

Applause!

Sorry, Steven, but Andrew Breitbart is much funnier when he’s yelling “F*CK YOU!” at Richard Trumka.