The claim that it is menacing or intimidating and so isn’t covered by the first amendment seems nonsensical to me. No rational person expects that the ballon to attack them.
Do we then get into a constitutional battle over what feature of a inflatable rat makes it unacceptably menacing? You can’t have three of the following items, sharp claws, red eyes, bleeding cuts, ulcers.
I like that they immediately follow that statement with something that is (especially given the time involved since they first started saying it) an obvious lie.
"We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism."
Oh, are you now? Got a bridge to sell me next?
Really makes me feel a sense of trust in a publication's journalistic integrity when they censor themselves abroad and lie about their intentions.
Banning this is extremism and proves the balloons work. I live in Chicago and see the rats. They get important conversations started for everyone about what's going on, wage suppression and class consciousness. If you're not fighting in class warfare, you're losing it, because as we see here the investment class doesn't stop. The labor movement made life better for all of us, so I always support these working class heroes. You know we're losing when we can't even have a balloon because business doesn't like it.
That seems... like first amendment protected activity to me. Let’s suppose scabby is outlawed by the NLRB. What’s to stop me, a third party libertarian whackadoodle, from bringing my own rat to other peoples’ strike?
Speaking of which, is this how Scabbers, in Harry Potter, got its name?
