First Amendment Rights

Is Barrett Brown the Threatening One, or Is It the Guys Who Locked Him Up?

After the "Anonymous Spokesman's"arrest, toeing the line between speech and threats.

Liberty Institute: Assault on Religious Liberty is at All-Time High (and That's Just Counting Christians)

You know the Liberty Institute as the group that has steered Plano's infamous Candy Cane Case through the courts. More recently, it's championed the cause of Angela Hildenbrand, the Texas high school student who wanted to pray during her valedictory speech. As part of its work, in 2004 the nonprofi ... More >>

Robert Groden: The Plaza Man

In this week's Dallas Observer, we profile 30 of the metro area's most interesting characters, with new portraits of each from local photographer Mark Graham. See the entire Dallas Observer People Issue here On November 22, 1963, the day President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot in Dealey Plaza, R ... More >>

Fort Worth Senator Wendy Davis Wants to Use Strip Club Tax to Pay for Untested Rape Kits

Fort Worth Senator Wendy Davis announced this week that she'll be teaming up with the Texas Department of Public Safety to remind state law enforcement agencies, once again, that a new law requires them to report how many untested rape kits they have in evidence. At the same time, she announced the ... More >>

Center For Reproductive Rights Wants All Fifth Circuit Judges To Hear Sonogram Law Case

Rick Perry, signing the sonogram legislation​The saga of Texas's brand-new, Rick-Perry approved sonogram law continues. First, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a preliminary injunction issued by Judge Sam Sparks and allowed the law to go into effect. (That law, just to refresh, ... More >>

Suhm's "Very Disappointed" By Turn of Events as Occupy Dallas, City Head Back to Courthouse

Photo by Chris Howell​Below you'll find the original agreement the city of Dallas and Occupy Dallas entered into last month after that trip to the courthouse that was all fist-bumps and high-fives. Problem is, the agreement is affixed as an exhibit to even more legal docs Occupy Dallas's attorneys ... More >>

Mayor Awaits Report on Occupy Dallas; Group Vows It Won't Protest Omni, Vets Parade

Photo by Chris Howell​In the wake of two reports concerning the city's response to Saturday's arrest of eight Occupy Dallasites, some Friends of Unfair Park have asked: Is the city going to boot the protesters camping out behind Dallas City Hall, allowed by agreement following last month's trip to ... More >>

Fifth Circuit Judges Spend 100 Pages Debating Plano "Candy Cane" Case, First Amendment

​When last we checked in on the nearly 8-year-old (!) case involving those Plano ISD students (and their parents, more to the point) suing the district over those "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" pencils and candy canes they weren't allowed to distribute during winter-break parties, one of the ... More >>

Six Months After Groden's Arrest in Dealey Plaza, Muni Judge Rules: Case Dismissed!

Robert Groden​Back in June we broke the news that Robert Groden, perhaps the most familiar (and certainly the most respected) of all the Dealey Plaza vendors peddling JFK assassination materials, had been arrested and detained by Dallas Police officers on the clean-up crackdown. Groden filed a fed ... More >>

If Nothing Else, We Learn That In a Fight Over a Goat Sacrifice, the Goat Always Loses

Brandon ThibodeauxJose Merced​The sleepy suburb of Euless seems an odd spot for a battle over goat sacrifice. Perhaps that's what first attracted us to the story of Jose Merced, a commercial flight attendant who also happens to be a high priest in the Afro-Cuban religion called Santería, in which ... More >>

A court case forced a Santeria priest to reveal some of his religion’s secrets. Its ritual of animal sacrifice, he revealed on his own.

With the Daytime Curfew Nearly a Done Deal, DPD Chief David Kunkle Explains Why the Opposition Should Chill Out

Kunkle says the daytime curfew is less about slapping minors with fines and more about shaping behavior to curb crime and truancy. Sometime this morning, we expect the Dallas City Council to approve a daytime curfew for minors under the age of 17, which, according to the ordinance, will "help combat ... More >>

Brian Cuban, Facebook at Odds Over Service's Decision to Allow Holocaust-Denial Group

Since November, a Dallas attorney with a familiar last name has been at odds with Facebook over its decision to allow Holocaust-denial groups to post to the service. The story's generated some heat in recent days, culminating today with this CNN story in which Brian "Brother of Mark" Cuban, who main ... More >>

In Dallas District Court, that Preston Hollow Elementary Lawsuit You Forgot All About

Illustration by Brian StaufferWith little fanfare and hardly any spectators, the trial in the case of Graciela McKay vs. DISD wraps up this week in U.S. District Court, with a verdict expected as early as tomorrow. McKay is the Preston Hollow teacher who filed a federal lawsuit against the district ... More >>

Kids Rule

You Call That a Dress Code?

Cyberstalking? Or Free Speech?

The Fair Can Be So Unfair

Scarlet letter

Church of Buzzery preaches, "Trust no one."

Apparently, Plano ISD Doesn't Like God

Letters

Play Nice or Else

Plus: Unripe Banana Case

Letters

Bare Knuckles and Bare Breasts

Forget talk of a settlement. Bachman Lake homeowners vow to fight their war against bare nipples to the bitter end.

Censor.com

Plano wades into the thicket of Internet access, porn, and the First Amendment

Conspiracy Theory

JFK assassination buffs who peddle their wares on the grassy knoll think there's a plot to put them out of business. They may be right.