The numbers were probably stacked against them from the start, but Friday's protest of Chick-fil-A by GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) didn't turn out nearly as many participants in the planned LGBT "Kiss-in" as the chain was able to generate at former Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee's nationwide "Appreciation Day" for the restaurant chain on Wednesday.

Or gauging by another measure, by mid-afternoon Friday, nearly 14,000 Facebook users had subscribed to GLAAD's "National Same Sex Kiss Day at Chick-fil-A" event, while some 630,000 subscribed to Wednesday's "appreciation day," according to a report by Politico.com.

And while Politico reported that the "kiss-ins appear to have occurred without incident" in Chick-fil-A restaurants, there was one ugly scene: The exterior of a Chick-fil-A in Torrance, Calif., was defaced with graffiti reading, "Tastes Like Hate."Continue reading...

If Mike Huckabee ever runs for U.S. president again, he’ll be sure to get the Chick-fil-A vote. The former Arkansas governor suggested that consumers go eat at the fast-food chain in order to show their appreciation for the organization’s disdain for same-sex marriage. 

Chick-fil-A pulled in $12.7 million a day in 2011, according to ESPN’s sports business reporter Darren Rovell. And that’s without doing any business on Sundays, since the chain closes down in case its workers want to attend church.

Observers on both sides will be paying close attention to how much traffic and how many dollars Chick-fil-A pulls in today. (According to Huckabee's podcast and BuzzFeed's report, Chick-fil-A restaurants saw line-ups across the country.) But the chain will also get a few customers on Friday as well, CNN reports, when GLAAD is encouraging same-sex couples to visit Chick-fil-A’s across America to protest with a "Kiss Day" public display of affection.Continue reading...

Recognizing the outsized role that use of social media by his critics has played in peeling advertisers away from his radio show, Rush Limbaugh has gone on the offensive. And not in the usual way, through his monologues. He finally decided to take Twitter seriously by launching and authoriing a @RushLimbaugh account.

"I'm activating my account and using it for strategic purposes," he declared on Thursday before letting loose a series of tweets that has included, for example, calling out a "good story" on the Daily Caller website about the contretemps and another one on the site LegalInsurrection.com about the role that the liberal media watchdog group, Media Matters for America, has played in inflaming marketers' passions against the Rush Limbaugh Program.

"Thare are a [few] things I want to get out there and not waste valuable broadcast time to do it," Limbaugh stated by way of partially explaining his newfound fondness for Twitter. "And you [listeners] can re-tweet it, so it ends up saturating the Twitterverse."Continue reading...

True to his tweet, Newt Gingrinch officially threw his hat in the ring today and announced he's running in the 2012 US presidential race against Barack Obama. Polling in the high single digits, his GOP rivals include Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney, while Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and (maybe) Donald Trump have yet to confirm their plans.

If Keith Olbermann were one of those National Football League players he used to cover for ESPN, and he had just been fined by the commissioner for a helmet-to-helmet hit, he’d probably be an unapologetic linebacker with a nickname like The Decapitator.

Olbermann survived the TV-news equivalent of a two-game suspension when MSNBC put him back on the air last night after a few days without pay for violating the network’s policy banning political contributions without a doctor’s note (er, prior permission of the honchos). Olbermann’s offense? $7,200 in pre-election political contributions, undisclosed to the brass – one of them coming immediately after airing an interview with the candidate.

But rather than apologize to the MSNBC chieftains after the brief if pointed unpaid leave, Olbermann resurfaced – surprise – with a big chip on his shoulder.Continue reading...