Back in 2011, when the UK was being inundated with revelations regarding the extent of News Corp’s nationwide espionage, it was interesting to muse on the hacking victims that weren’t coming forward – and the seamy secrets that weren’t spilled in the tabloids. After all, was there a powerful person in the land whose phone wasn’t tapped – you had to ask yourself what Rupert Murdoch didn’t now know about this country? It was such thoughts that made the subsequent castigation of News Corp so comic, as peasant after peasant was obliged to gingerly hurl a rotten tomato at a master who would all-too-soon be released from the stocks.

And, a few months on from “Hackgate” – wouldn’t you know it – there was “Savilegate.” These consecutive scandals betray a quite provocative symmetry. In the former, a media corporation was raked across the coals because of its perceived callousness towards a victim of pedophilia (the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone), leading to a limb of that corporation – the News of the World – being lopped off. In the latter, another media corporation (the former’s nemesis, no less) was raked across the coals because of its perceived callousness towards the victims of pedophilia, leading to a limb of that corporation – Newsnight – almost being lopped off. Curious.

The genesis of Savilegate is interesting. An excellent source tells me: “the Savile accusations were going nowhere until the Spectator picked them up. An interesting osmosis then occurred: News Corp spotted it, and Rupert Murdoch himself said ‘we can use this.’” Indeed, who else would have the “great clanking balls” (to borrow Tony Blair’s unforgettable phrase) to break that longstanding media taboo?

While one presumed intention in Newscorp lifting the lid on Savile is obvious enough – “screw you, BBC” – an additional, subtler motivation is also feasible. Put simply, by instructing his media empire to turn up the volume regarding the real Jimmy Savile Murdoch must have known he would be sending very awkward reverberations through the wider establishment that was tentatively standing up to him and holding him to moderate account at the Leveson Enquiry.
 

 
Yup, Labour, the Tories, the Royals, the cops – Savilegate must have had the lot of them squirming. You can release all the shtick you like about there being “no pedophile ring” involved (I actually caught some BBC Savile coverage where this reassuring message scrolled ceaselessly across the foot of the screen) but his lifetime license to abuse and access the nation’s children without a hint of trouble suggested otherwise, while his manifest intimacy with the great and the good carried further uncomfortable messages into the national unconscious.

Meanwhile, Leveson was still promising to damage News Corp’s reputation and influence around the world…

Step forward Labour MP Tom Watson, the person deserving of the most credit for the development of Hackgate. Savilegate certainly appeared to have influenced his research and thinking in the logical direction, and so, fresh from inflicting a flesh wound on Rupert Murdoch, Mr Watson thinks “fair enough,” and turns his trusty ole .45 on the Devil Himself, asking at PMQs about that “powerful pedophile network linked to Parliament and Number Ten.”

David Cameron’s expression said it all (“won’t someone rid me of this meddlesome priest”), and the ripple of silence that spread through Parliament betrayed the sense that this had an outside chance of going down as one of the most significant moments in British political history. You can only admire Watson’s chutzpah, but the damnedest things will happen if you try to shoot the Devil, and in this incident it was to transpire that the gun was loaded with some very magical bullets indeed – ones that whizzed away from their intended destination to bury themselves in the enemies of… Rupert Murdoch.
 

 
Initially, it had all looked eerily promising, and the effect of Watson’s words on the public imagination was compounded when he revealed the death threats he had subsequently received. Coupled with Savilegate, all this was threatening to wake the British public up from its long, deep sleep. Nothing better illustrated the unlikely places extreme disquiet was creeping into than Phillip Schofield’s outright heroic (and, of course, widely reviled) confrontation with the Prime Minister on daytime television.
               
Then, of course, there occurred that piece of grandiose chicanery regarding Newsnight’s incorrectly “naming” Alistair McAlpine as an abuser of Steven Messham. Only they didn’t name him – and his name had anyway already been in circulation for years, presumably due to a mix-up with a certain Jimmie McAlpine, his deceased cousin (the less said about him the better). This went almost completely unremarked of course, and most of the public was once again successfully frightened away from waking reality.

Understandably, much has been made on the blogosphere of the following exert from Alistair McAlpine’s 2001 book, The New Machiavelli: The Art of Politics in Business, and the following – shall we say coincidental? prophetic? fishy? – suggestions regarding dealing with the media.

“Another useful ploy is the false accusation. First, create a situation where you are wrongly accused. Then, at a convenient moment, arrange for the false accusation to be shown to be false beyond all doubt. Those who have made accusations… become discredited. Further accusations will then be treated with great suspicion.”

What was really interesting, however, is how the effects of this apparent masterclass in mass manipulation weren’t delimited to “discrediting” those who would like to see powerful pedophiles exposed and prosecuted, but also influenced Leveson, providing a smokescreen behind which Lord Leveson himself could switch costumes – when it cleared he was no longer the judge of News Corp (as he was supposed to be) but of the Internet, and the “online dilettantism” that had supposedly resulted in the conveniently close-to-hand defamation of Alistair McAlpine.
               
Admire and wonder at the course of those magic bullets! Did someone get to Leveson (or rather the Establishment he represents)? Furthermore, was Savilegate somehow the instrument of this manipulation?

Certainly something is going on behind the scenes. The question is how much the British Establishment is able to put its collective interests (in other words, survival) above its intestine disputes. Since the outbreak of hostilities we’ve seen suspicious deaths (Christopher Shale and Sean Hoare) and death threats (Tom Watson and Steven Messham) – the stakes are clearly high. Meanwhile, there are thousands more people – including some honest and intrepid politicians and journalists – for whom Pandora’s Box is now very much ajar. Certainly the British Establishment can often look too rotten to burn, but you might once easily have thought that about the Catholic Church….
 

 

 
Yesterday British writer Julie Burchill published an opinion piece on the website of the Guardian Media Group that was a very open attack on the transgender community. She called them “bedwetters in bad wigs,” “shims”(!) and a whole host of other disgraceful terms. The full story is at Queerty.

While I take it she’s a nobody in the States, Burchill is well-known in the UK media for being a self-defined “feminist” who lashes out semi-regularly, and who constantly rabbits on about being “working class” even though her class status changed many, many years ago. Her transmisogynist article has created quite the media storm over here, and with good reason. Her bigoted words left readers agape, for all the wrong reasons, and have opened up a huge debate around feminism and discrimination, and in particular discrimination by certain types of feminists. 

Today I went on The Guardian’s “Comment Is Free” website and published a comment which took her exact words and swapped the gender of some of the people involved. Instead of referring to transgender people, I made the general beef to seem as if it is about women and feminism. I simply swapped out some words and terms, like a “Mad-Lib.”

To my surprise, the comment was deleted by The Guardian website’s moderators. For what exact reason, I don’t know, but it has left me bewildered.

Surely if they saw fit to publish Burchill’s original piece, they shouldn’t have had a problem with mine? After all, THEY ARE PRETTY MUCH THE EXACT SAME ARTICLE.

Personally, I don’t want to give any oxygen of publicity to this frankly terrible, woefully self-important writer, but if you really want to read what she has written, it’s here. Knock yourself out. In the meantime though, and for all the people who have been asking what the reaction would be if the article were aimed at another minority group, this is my original “Mad-Lib” of the piece.

Yes, this is offensive. To be clear, I do not stand behind or advocate any of the views published below. It’s satire. However, the original article was not, and was published on one of the biggest national news forums in Britain.

[...] I was incredulous to read that my friend was being monstered on Twitter, to the extent that he had quit it, for supposedly picking on a minority – women. Though I imagine it to be something akin to being savaged by a dead sheep, as Denis Healey had it of Geoffrey Howe, I nevertheless felt indignant that a man of such style and substance should be driven from his chosen mode of time-wasting by a bunch of chicks in slutty clothing.

Bitches, hos, whatever you’re calling yourselves these days – don’t threaten or bully us lowly wholesome, decent men, I warn you. We may not have as two lovely big bouncing PhDs like you, but we’ve experienced a lifetime of pissing standing up and female admonishment and many of us are now staring Viagra and the middle-age spread straight in the face – and still not flinching. Trust me, you ain’t seen nothing yet. You really won’t like us when we’re angry.

So what do you think? Were The Guardian* website moderators right to remove this comment? If so, shouldn’t they also remove Burchill’s original article?

Thankfully, an awful lot of people have shared their disgust at Burchill’s bigotted nonsense, coming as it does from a supposedly “respectabe” liberal news outlet. The Guardian themselves published a retort from noted trans writer Roz Kaveney, and some brilliant replies have been published by Paris Lees (via Diva magazine) and Ruth Pearce (via the Lesbilicious blog).

Most interestingly of all, the right-wing paper The Telegraph (commonly known as “The Torygraph”) have published a thoughtful and inspiring response. Wait a minute, are the British press playing switcheroo with their political allegiances?!

*The Guardian is at serious pains to distance itself from the article, claiming it was published by the Guardian Media Group’s Sunday title The Observer, and not The Guardian newspaper itself. They now need to distance themselves from Julie Burchill full stop.

UPDATE:

The Guardian has withdrawn Burchill’s article and issued this statement:

We have decided to withdraw from publication the Julie Burchill comment piece ‘Transsexuals should cut it out’. The piece was an attempt to explore contentious issues within what had become a highly-charged debate. The Observer is a paper which prides itself on ventilating difficult debates and airing challenging views. On this occasion we got it wrong and in light of the hurt and offence caused I apologise and have made the decision to withdraw the piece. The Observer Readers’ Editor will report on these issues at greater length.

 
Via Rock Speaks Quotes from the NME 1980-1994:

The only thing I’ve got in common with Mark E Smith is that Morrissey was once asked which one of us he’d shoot, and he said he’d put one in front of the other and shoot both of us.

Robert Smith

And the same last name, too, of course.

With thanks to Post Punk Tumblr!

 
Several of our readers have tipped us off about a little-noticed Reuters article from June 16, 2012, regarding Facebook settling a proposed class-action lawsuit in California over their controversial “Sponsored Stories” product. I’m not an attorney, but I would imagine that Facebook have similarly left themselves wide open to a potential class action lawsuit over their “Promoted Posts” scheme as well. It would seem to be just a matter of time before charities, online publishers, bands and especially those who have paid Facebook for more “likes” only to be told that to actually reach all of the “likes” they paid for, well, they’ll have to keep paying, realize that they have common interests.

Especially the bit about the folks who paid for additional “likes” and yet can only reach 15% of them without forking over more cash to Facebook! That would a pretty absurd position to have to defend in court, don’t you find? It could get really “hot” for Facebook in 2013 if they keep treading the same path of remarkably ill-advised corporate hubris they seem to have set course on just after their badly-managed IPO last Spring.

From Reuters, June 16, 2012:

Facebook Inc has agreed to pay $10 million to charity to settle a lawsuit that accused the site of violating users’ rights to control the use of their own names, photographs and likenesses, according to court documents made public over the weekend.

The lawsuit, brought by five Facebook members, alleged the social networking site violated California law by publicizing users’ “likes” of certain advertisers on its “Sponsored Stories” feature without paying them or giving them a way to opt out, the documents said.

A “Sponsored Story” is an advertisement that appears on a member’s Facebook page and generally consists of another friend’s name, profile picture and an assertion that the person “likes” the advertiser.

The settlement was reached last month but made public this weekend. Facebook declined to comment on Saturday.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Jose, California, could have included nearly one of every three Americans, with billions of dollars in damages, according to previous court documents.

In the lawsuit, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg was quoted as saying that a trusted referral was the “Holy Grail” of advertising.

But he just doesn’t want to share any of that holy revenue with you, the referrer? That’s not playing very nice, now, is it?

If you care to look it up further, the case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California was “Angel Fraley et al., individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated vs. Facebook Inc., 11-cv-1726.”

The thing is, a judge in San Francisco has rejected the settlement. In August, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg listed many concerns with the proposed settlement, including a request for more information as to why the agreement does not award any money to Facebook members.

 
It’s the first Notes column of the new year, and it’s time for a little bit of self-promotion!

When I first joined the DM crew I remember talking to Richard Metzger (he;‘s not just bigger than Jesus, you know, he’s bigger than God!) about self-promotion on the site. I explained that the British people are actually pretty shit at promoting themselves, and he agreed. Not that I’m British, mind you. But it’s just one of those things that Americans do so much better than Europeans: selling yourselves, without coming across like utter cocks. Most of the time, anyway.

One of the points of starting this NFTN column was to have a little corner of the site all to myself, where I could talk about the more niche stuff I am interested in, but also to show off some of the stuff I do beyond blogging for Dangerous Minds. And I do a lot. Film-making, event organising, writing, djing, and, first and foremost, making music. 

So anyway, enough beating around the bush.

I’ve just released my latest single, remixes of a hip-house cover of Missy Elliot’s “Work It”, which is available to buy now, exclusively, from Juno Download.

The release contains six remixes, with the lead-off track being a rework by the legendary founder of electro music on the West Coast, Egyptian Lover. I gotta admit, I was pretty stoked when he said he liked my track enough to remix it, but that was nothing compared to how I felt when I heard it. It’s classic Egypt, a straight-up electro-funk bomb, and I am honored to release it. In fact, it made my year.

That’s not to knock any of the other artists who provided remixes, oh no siree. This release is really strong from start to finish. Additional mixes are supplied by upcoming legend Hard Ton, who turn in an Italian piano-house version that would have rocked the original acid raves at Shoom, Berlin based Electrosexual, who comes on strong with a percussive industrial mix, and rising star Ynfynyt Scroll, who turns in a mix half-way between southern hip-hop and Jersey club banger.

There’s also a remix by the mysterious new act Cunt Traxxx, in a “vogue house” style, but you’ll be hearing more about them right here in the very near future. For now, here are the tracks for your earholes:
 

 
If you want to purchase any of the “Work It” remixes, hop over here.

The original version of “Work It” is available on my mixtape AKA, which came out last year. You can hear it, and download the whole tape for free, at my Bandcamp page.

And here’s a video I put together for the track, featuring footage from our annual Vogue Brawl party, where only the most fabulous and fierce survive, and everybody is made to werrrk it…

THE NIALLIST “Work It” (AKA album version)
 

 
You can follow The Niallist on Twitter:

 
Experimental film and video pioneer Jud Yalkut made Turn! Turn! Turn! in 1966 with input from his frequent collaborator Nam June Paik.

In addition to Paik, Yalkut credits various sources and artists for the imagery in the film:

“cybernated light-refracting sculptures (Nicholas Schoffer), moving reflected ‘lumia’ light (Julio LeParc), electronically controlled and strobed light (USCO), and the ‘pure’ electronic light which the cathode ray tube emits (Nam June Paik).”

Turn! Turn! Turn! was created at a time in which film makers believed that cinema had the power to raise consciousness or to be a part of, in Yalkut’s's words, a “spiritual transformation.” His vision resonated with the psychedelic culture of the moment and his films made the rounds of be-ins’ concerts and happenings. The alchemical power of his work is still pretty mindblowing.
 

 
Earlier this year, Lester Chambers posted a photo on his Facebook page that went viral. It showed the septuagenarian singer holding up a statement that explained how the record business had ripped him off for 5 decades:

I AM the former Lead Singer of a 60’s BAND. I performed before thousands at Atlanta Pop 2, Miami Pop, Newport Pop, Atlantic Pop. I did NOT squander my money on drugs or a fancy home. I went from 1967-1994 before I saw my first Royalty Check.

The Music Giants I recorded with only paid me for 7 of my Albums.

I have NEVER seen a penny in Royalties from my other 10 Albums I recorded. Our Hit Song was licensed to over 100 Films, T.V. & Commercials WITHOUT our permission. One Major TV Network used our song for a national Commercial and my payment was $625. dollars. I am now 72, trying to live on $1200 a month. Sweet Relief, a music charity is taking donations for me.

Only the 1% of Artist can afford to sue.

I AM THE 99%

Like nearly everyone else I was moved by Lester’s plight and posted his picture on Dangerous Minds. Co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian was also moved by Lester’s photo, but he was inspired to do something even more positive about it - to help Lester record a new album.

Alexis contacted Dangerous Minds and explained how he ‘wanted to reach out to tell you about a new project we’ve been working on together.’ I wrote back, asking for more information, and Alexis kindly obliged.
 

 
Paul Gallagher: When and how did you first hear about Lester Chambers’ problems?

Alexis Ohanian: I heard about it when that photo he posted made the #1 spot of r/Music.

Paul Gallagher: What did this inspire you to do? Why?

Alexis Ohanian: At the time, not much. We were planning and running other campaigns for breadpig like this one for the novel Trial of the Clone as well as keeping up the heat on DC to fight for internet freedom, which included an awesome bus tour across the heartland. Things calmed down a bit this fall and we reassessed our ‘wishlist’ and tried reaching out to Lester. I want to make the world suck less and I’ve tried to help promote all the awesome people (like Lester) who are doing the inspirational work the internet is so perfect for sharing. It’s one thing to talk about how important internet freedom is to all Americans, it’s another thing to actually show it. He’d been robbed and I thought there was a chance the internet public could make it right.

Paul Gallagher: What happened?

Alexis Ohanian: Kat (who works with me) and I reached out and we were on a conference call with Lester and his son within a day or two. They were incredibly hospitable and opened their home and lives to me and my video crew for a day of shooting with only the promise that we’d do our best to help them make a successful kickstarter.

Paul Gallagher: How important has the internet been in all of this? Why?

Alexis Ohanian: Extremely. The internet is an incredible network that cuts out the middle man by connecting supply with demand—in this case, artists with their fans. In the worst cases, these middlemen, the record labels, have abused artists like Lester, but this new technology is forcing labels (and there are good ones!) to work for their artists and settle for a much smaller (more reasonable) percentage since artists have more and more options every day to find an audience. Look at the hundreds of musicians on kickstarter alone who get funded for rather esoteric albums that never would’ve gotten in the door of a traditional record label. For instance, I love living in a world where a Daft Punk tribute via New Orleans brass band gets $20,000 to make their art. That only happens in a world with the open internet.

Paul Gallagher: What’s happening with Lester now? What’s your involvement?

Alexis Ohanian: We just released his two Christmas tracks (early!) to all of his backers and he and his son are getting things in order to go into the studio to record this album! I’m just helping drive awareness while the kickstarter campaign is still running. This is all Lester—at last, he’ll have an album that’s all his.

Paul Gallagher: What can we do?

Alexis Ohanian: If you can afford to, contributing to his campaign is the best thing you can do for Lester, but even if you can’t, you have power in your network—please spread the word! Every upvote, tweet, and like counts.

For more information on ‘Lester’s Time Has Come Today by Lester Chambers and Alexis Ohanian’ check here.

Check here for Lester’s Facebook page and here for Alexis Ohanian’s website.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:

The Legendary Lester Chambers and the Reality of the Music Business for the 99%
 

 
DM pal, Mark Ebner has posted an excellent article “The Rat” about a former drug king pin turned informant, over at his Hollywood Interrupted site.

“The Rat” tells the story of the man who “ran one of California’s biggest drug empires… …complete with all the trappings — Ferraris, strippers, tricked-out jacuzzis, and garish fake waterfalls – then, the Feds ran him.” 

Mark first met “The Rat” while he was working on one of his books:

‘While researching Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, from out of the blue I received an email from someone claiming that he knew more about one of the criminals I was writing about than anyone. Intrigued, I phoned him, and soon realized that it was HIS story I wanted to tell…

‘“The Rat” and I have remained friends through the years, and I trust him with my life. Once, when I had to confront a pair of Russian mobsters operating out of a pawn shop front, The Rat flew down from Seattle to simply stand behind me and look intimidating. Only a true friend would do something like that.’

Mark also tells Dangerous Minds that “The Rat” will be going public this Thursday, when he will reveal his true identity for the first time on camera.

For my money, Ebner is the best investigative journalist around. He digs up stories long before anyone gets a whiff that there is anything bad going on, and delivers top drawer copy every time. He has also written 3 killer books:  Hollywood Interrupted, Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, and We Have Your Husband: One Woman’s Terrifying Story of a Kidnapping in Mexico, and is currently working on his next.

Here is an extract from Mark’s article on “The Rat”:

The first sign that something was wrong was when a car followed him onto his street – a one-way cul-de-sac at the top of Nichols Canyon in the Hollywood Hills where the mansions start at a million dollars. He was driving back from Bad Boys Bail Bonds, where he’d just dropped three grand to spring one of his drivers who had gotten popped in Santa Monica on a routine haul. Earlier in the day, he had pulled off the kind of transaction that some dealers go their whole lives without seeing – 300 pounds of primo weed for $1 million, which had netted him a cool $90,000 for two hours work. His senses heightened, he could feel the vibe going sour as he steered his discreet rental car past his own driveway. Another 60 feet, and suddenly there were searchlights washing every street corner – at least 30 undercover police cars – with a helicopter swooping down on top of him in case he decided to make a run for it down the open cliff face.

“I hadn’t done a deal in six months,” says Oz (most names in this story have been changed), a 48-year-old ex-marijuana trafficker and big-time baller who once dominated the I-5 corridor from British Columbia to Tijuana, was responsible for 70 percent of the marijuana smoked in Los Angeles and saw $4 million move through his operation every two weeks. “They take me inside – they’re stripping the house, and here’s my $90,000 all out on the table. I said, ‘Dude, just shoot me now. I don’t blame you guys, but I’m not going to rat on any of my people, so I’d prefer to be dead.’ The Fed says, ‘No, man, I can’t do that. But we need to talk.’”

Cruising through the Hills in a tricked-out Lincoln Navigator, on loan from a fellow drug runner who got out of the game when he found religion, Oz can’t help but point the sites of his former glory: The Russian tanning salon in Hollywood where you could order up Vicodin or steroids on demand; the Melrose Avenue tattoo shop that moves 50 to a hundred pounds of weed a week; the Mexican restaurant that serves up kilos of coke with its carne asada. But he is less expansive when describing his life since the 2004 bust that curtailed his hand-built empire – and his uneasy resurrection as an undercover informant for the Drug Enforcement Agency. In the world he lived in for over 20 years, the worst thing you could be was a rat – a turnabout of fate that obviously weighs heavy on him. In the past three years, Oz has survived three suicide attempts – not counting his choice of livelihood.

Still retaining the hard angles and displaced muscle mass from his early years as a bodybuilder and protracted steroid enthusiast, Oz today most resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger if you put him through a threshing machine and then tried to spot-weld the bigger pieces back together. He’s had his bicep torn off from trying to break a guy’s neck in a bar, all his teeth are capped from being broken off in fights and he’s literally got screws in his head to hold his skull in place. He earned the sometimes nickname “Shrek” from taking so many punches to the face that his eyebrows calcified into scar tissue, leaving a large protruding ridge in his forehead. And in the kind of colorful anecdote that no doubt made it easier for him to do his job, he once bit his best friend’s ear off in the back seat of a limo.

“I have a short man’s complex,” admits the 5’8, 220-pound brawler, still capable of flashes of intense anger and pervasive menace, as well as intense emotion over the secondary victims of his chosen lifestyle. “I realized at one point that most people were my friends because they were scared of me. I’ve never killed anybody, but I’ve hurt a lot of people – and every one of them deserved it.”

Now read on…

More from Mark Ebner at his site Hollywood Interrupted.

Update

My DM colleague, Marc Campbell has passed on this episode of Media Mayhem, with Mark Ebner, which contains the first on-camera interview with ‘The Rat’.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Being a Short Tale of Mark Ebner and His Adventures on Drastic Radio

 
The only film I want to see this Holiday Season - Carry On X-Men - a fabulous poster by comics artist and writer Chris Weston.

From the back row, Jim Dale as Cyclops, Bernard Bresslaw as Colossus, Hattie Jacques as Storm, Peter Butterworth as Beast, Joan Sims as Dr. Jean Grey, Kenneth Williams as Magneto, Barbara Windsor as Rogue, Kenneth Connor as Professor Charles Xavier, Sid James as Wolverine, and Charles Hawtrey as Nightcrawler. Now this is how to do the X-Men!
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Carry On Zombie
 
Via Chris Weston

Who wouldn’t want to punch this face?

Steven Crowder, a self-described “comedian” and Fox News contributor, got punched in the kisser today, repeatedly, during a heated exchange at an organized labor rally in Lansing, Michigan.

What did Crowder expect would happen when he showed up with a camera crew at the angry protests at Republican Governor Rick Snyder signing a hastily-passed right to work bill into law? It’s pretty obvious what he expected—and hoped—would happen, preferably on camera so he could run right back to Fox News with the footage. Riling up some union workers? Piece-a-cake and then Fox News can call them “union thugs” and demonize organized labor. So predictable, but then again this is Fox News, and old people, i.e. their pension-drawing, Depends-wearing viewers, like things to be predictable, don’t they?

For a talent-less, witless, conservative wiseass like Steven Crowder, getting punched in the face by a “union thug” is just the big career break he was looking for (as deeply fucking pathetic as that might be). Via Huffington Post:

Crowder argued with protesters who began to tear down a tent pitched on the Capitol lawn by the pro-right-to-work group Americans For Prosperity. According to MLive, Michigan State Police Lt. Mike Shaw said they were contacted because several people, including two in wheelchairs, were trapped under the tent.

He was then punched repeatedly in the face by a protester, while another man speaking off-camera threatened to kill Crowder with a gun. Crowder said there was no police presence in the area during the altercation.

Over 12,000 protesters gathered in Lansing on Tuesday to show their opposition to the hastily-approved right-to-work legislation, which they say will weaken unions financially and make it more difficult for labor employees to negotiate with employers. At least two protesters were arrested, while a former Michigan Democratic representative was hit with pepper spray.

Speaking on the Dana Loesch radio show immediately following the physical confrontation, Crowder said “Dana, they literally would have killed me where I stood if I’d have fought back and defended myself after the sucker punch. They literally would have torn me limb-from-limb.”

Crowder tweeted:
 

Even if you hate me, nothing I could have done warranted being suckerpunched and threatened with murder. ow.ly/g1aeq #RTW

— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) December 11, 2012

 
(*whistles quietly*)

Crowder also tweeted about further footage that will be seen tonight—surprise, surprise—on The Sean Hannity Show. It will shock no one that Michelle Malkin and Dana Loesch want in on the union-bashing action, too:

Below, Gov. Rick Snyder’s Wikipedia entry as of a few moments ago:
 

 
An edited version of reality…