We haven't covered the Chick-fil-A controversy here and I wasn't planning to. The company supports social policies supported by about half the country; the loudest voices on the other half are acting like monkeys flinging poo over it. It was a stupid story full to the gills of stupid people saying stupid things.

But this has gotten way out of hand. The mayor of Boston is telling Chick-fil-A to stay out of his city. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel today supported the decision of an alderman to block a building permit for a new Chick-fil-A restaurant.

That is wrong. Denying a business a building permit over its owners' political views is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.

Even when it comes to government contracting — where the government is choosing how to spend government money — the government generally may not discriminate based on the contractor’s speech, see Board of County Commissioners v. Umbehr (1996). It is even clearer that the government may not make decisions about how people will be allowed to use their own property based on the speaker’s past speech.

And this is so even if there is no statutory right to a particular kind of building permit (and I don’t know what the rule is under Illinois law). Even if the government may deny permits to people based on various reasons, it may not deny permits to people based on their exercise of his First Amendment rights. It doesn’t matter if the applicant expresses speech that doesn’t share the government officials’ values, or even the values of the majority of local citizens. It doesn’t matter if the applicant’s speech is seen as “disrespect[ful]” of certain groups. The First Amendment generally protects people’s rights to express such views without worrying that the government will deny them business permits as a result. That’s basic First Amendment law — but Alderman Moreno, Mayor Menino, and, apparently, Mayor Emanuel (if his statement is quoted in context), seem to either not know or not care about the law.

I don't eat at Chick-fil-A and I encourage others not to eat at Chick-fil-A.* What I don't do is deny Chick-fil-A's right to do business with other folks. If these mayors had their way, they'd go so far as to deny Chick-fil-A's right to exist. That's oppression. That's wrong, and we should say so.

*I didn't have to think about it when I lived in L.A. because there was no Chick-fil-A nearby. I was aware of the company's charitable giving to activist groups opposed to gay marriage. So when I moved to D.C. near a Chick-fil-A, I decided not to eat there since I don't want to help fund such groups.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:42 PM | Comments (507)
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Becket Adams and the folks over at the Blaze looked at six of the instances of media mythmaking about the Tea Party that I wrote about in the NY Post yesterday.

A taste:

University of Alabama in Huntsville professor Dr. Amy Bishop on February 12, 2010, opened fire on 12 of her colleagues with 9-millimeter handgun, killing three and wounding three more. After the horrific incident, Reuters Foundation Fellow Jonathan Curiel pondered her motivation: “Does racism explain the tenure shooting and the tea party movement?”

No. It doesnÂ’t.

Had Curiel done a little legwork, he would have discovered not only Bishop’s long history of violence, but the fact that, according to one family source, she “was a far-left political extremist who was obsessed with President Obama,” the Boston Herald reported.

Go read the whole outstanding piece.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:41 PM | Comments (59)
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. . . I like to check in over at Reason magazine's blog, Hit & Run once or twice a day. We all have our own pangs to slake -- some more "interesting" than others. Based on what I've seen in the comment section here at the HQ over the years, there's a whole heap of pang-slaking going on among the Moron Horde -- the vast bulk of it being of questionable legality. And that's why we need people like the good folks over at Reason; they don't judge.

Still, hedonistic tendencies aside, Hit & Run can be one of the most entertaining blogs on the web on any given day. And, yes, there are days when it can be dour and humorless, but that could be said of any blog that actively advocates an ideology. God knows I've engaged in my fair share of self-righteous navel-gazing over at my own blog. But, when the folks at Reason do lighten up, it's usually to good effect.

For example, Reason's reporting on the apparently recent nuptials of Kim Jong Un, who announced to the people of North Korea that he does indeed have a wife, and that her name is Ri Sol-ju. How long the pair have been married remains unknown.

There had been some speculation that Kim Jong Un was dating Hyon Song-wol -- a wildly popular (officially, at least) pop singer. And, to see her in photographs, she's not a bad-looking lady. But, what no doubt attracted the attention of the budding young tyrant was her patriotism and strong work ethic, which can be seen below in her smash hit music video for the song, "Excellent Horse-like Lady". Hit the jump for the video and what purports to be a partial translation of the lyrics. more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:39 PM | Comments (179)
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This is from HQ pal @anthropocon, who created the ad after it was suggested by @RBPundit over at The Right Sphere.

The Obama people can't even produce rapid response ads. Obama's super-PAC ads are so bad they are getting mocked on MSNBC.

By contrast, the Romney people are putting out killer ads left and right. And now even that is supplemented by grassroots ad-making. Grassroots ad-making!

Do me a favor and spread it around.

We're blessed to live in an age where you don't need a studio editing room to make these things.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 12:55 PM | Comments (173)
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Yesterday Drew did a post on a BuzzFeed piece by Andrew Kaczynski that alleged Mitt Romney was a hypocrite on the White House's national security leaks because of his prior defense of Scooter Libby. Sure, this seems like a minor point in the grand scheme of things, but Drew made the following observation:

Why is this even remotely important? Buzzfeed's political posts can be launching pads of MSM story-lines. Once a false version of something gets going, it's impossible to unring a bell.

Shocking no one while proving Drew right, both DNC Daily Newsletter Politico and the NYT's execrable Maureen Dowd picked up the story overnight. David Axelrod tweeted a link to Dowd's column this morning.

A question I have is, where did this story originate? As Drew pointed out, Kaczynski was informed of a fundamental error in his piece by several people on Twitter. And he interacted with them, so it's not like he was unaware of the criticism.

One thing I'm reminded of here is the Daily Caller's takedown of Media Matters from a few months back.

“Ben Smith [formerly of Politico, now at BuzzFeed.com] will take stories and write what you want him to write,” explained the former employee, whose account was confirmed by other sources. Staffers at Media Matters “knew they could dump stuff to Ben Smith, they knew they could dump it at Plum Line [Greg Sargent’s Washington Post blog], so that’s where they sent it.”

I wonder if Kaczynski was so insistent on sticking with the original storyline because he didn't have a say in the matter? My interactions with him on Twitter have generally been pretty good, but he blocked Slublog after Slu was so rude as to tweet the following observation/question to him:

@BuzzFeedAndrew Conjecture is not reporting. Do you have proof the Romney camp leaked to Drudge, or are you just pulling it from thin air? (@Slublog)

Yeah, that's some block-worthy stuff right there.

If Kaczynski and the BuzzFeeders can speculate on whether the Romney campaign floated the Condi Rice for VP rumor to Drudge, I think it's more than fair for us to speculate that the Scooter Libby story may have been planted by the Obama campaign or Media Matters (BIRM). I don't have any evidence, but that doesn't appear to be the standard, does it?

This is really a shame, because Kaczynski appeared to be a pretty fair-minded guy for a while, especially compared to his hack of a boss Ben Smith and the rest of the left-leaning media generally.

But like the old adage goes, when you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. My unsolicited advice to Kaczynski would be to get the hell out of there while he still has a shred of dignity left, but it may be too late.

Posted by: andy at 11:42 AM | Comments (250)
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You've Contaminated Your Last Cheeto, Vermin

This one is too fun to stay in the sidebar.

I love the dubbed-in 'thud' every time a fly hits the dirt:

Frickin' COOL. Getting one for every member of my extended family, including the babies.

Our previous pest-control efforts were fun and effective too, but it will be so nice to finally be able to spackle over all those #8 birdshot holes in the kitchen walls.

Thanks to Andy.

Posted by: LauraW at 09:26 AM | Comments (358)
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Per Mitchell Research, you're damn right it's in play.

Last poll- Obama by 1.
This one? Romney by 1.
Two firms in a row showing more movement to Romney (Rasmussen went from O+8 to O+6 yesterday). For what it's worth, Mitchell has the largest sample size of Michigan polls released this week, 825 Likely versus 500 for Rasmussen, and with it a smaller margin of error.

Marist (Obama+4), Epic-MRA (Romney+1), WAA (Romney+2) and a host of other firms who found Obama-Romney within MOE either way a few weeks back have yet to release new numbers. When they do they will either confirm this trend or...ok...

Before anyone points out the giggle-inducing PPP release today, remember Wisconsin when they came in sixth for accuracy. They have a long, long way to go before I take their independent polling seriously (like when they switch over to a likely voter model in September). When they are paid (ex- for DailyKos), they sober up. Now? Funnytime at the crazy bar. Give em traffic if you like, but a 14-pt outliner like the one they are smarming about? No linky today. Also amusing- this time in 2008 they had no problem using likely voter models for polling. I wonder why they are holding out this go-around...

Posted by: CAC at 08:31 AM | Comments (200)
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Americans Crossroads is one of those evil super PACs affiliated with Karl Rove and they've been coming up with some nifty ads this campaign cycle. The media loves to portray the SCOAMF as some big sports fan, so it's appropriate they use a sports-themed ad to bludgeon him with here.

You'll notice a small scoreboard and clock at the bottom. The time remains at 11:06 throughout, just reminding you when election day is.

The rapid response of the PACs and Team Romney have Obama and his flying monkeys so off balance they just don't know how to react.

Sucks when you no longer control the narrative.

Via Charlie Spiering. more...

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 07:47 AM | Comments (215)
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Considering how thin-skinned this guy is, one wonders why he's not taking his own advice. It's from the Politico and you can look it up, but they don't get linked here.

President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he's losing his patience over the Republican attacks aimed at his “you didn’t build that” comment.

“I have to tell you, I generally have patience with what the other side says about me, that’s a requirement of this job,” Obama said during a $5,000-per-plate fundraiser here, according to the pool report.

“And if you don’t like folks talking about you, you probably shouldn’t run for president. The one thing I do have no patience for is this argument that somehow what I’m criticizing is success… I want to promote success," Obama said.

Poor baby.

Still reeling from the blowback following his Roanoke remarks, he's taken a break from his relentlessly negative campaign to try and explain what he really meant.

But it's not going to work.

“Those ads taking my words about small business out of context; they’re flat out wrong,” he says. “Of course Americans build their own business.”

The above quote is 100 percent accurate. You can even go to the White HouseÂ’s own website, click on Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event in Roanoke, Virginia, and it will appear, clear as day in black and white.

And that fact is a mortal threat to ObamaÂ’s reelection effort.

Posted by: Guest Blogger at 05:47 AM | Comments (406)
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Someone needs a dictionary.

How does this headline ... "Greenland ice melt 'unprecedented', says NASA"

... square with this paragraph?

"Ice cores from [Summit Station in central Greenland] show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data.

Why, it's almost like these things go in some sort of cycle. Or something.

Koenig adds, "But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome."

Even more worrisome ... loss of those sweet, sweet Global Warming™ research funds if the green herd finally tires of being stampeded.

(via @DonSurber)

Posted by: andy at 05:00 AM | Comments (129)
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