First Amendment

Walmart is Suing the DFW Union Workers Who Have Been Protesting Their Stores

For almost two years now, like an angry minnow nibbling at a whale, a coalition of labor groups operating as OURWalmart has been organizing nationwide protests against the retail giant, complaining of low wages, terrible benefits and the company's general hostility toward organized labor. It start ... More >>

Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer Highlights Cultural Divide

By C. Townsend Rizzo It's not news that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects our right to free speech, press, religion and peaceful assembly. Though reasonable and righteous, it has become a crutch of complacency. Everybody has something to say, but generally, they're on ... More >>

Dallas Morning News to Pension Fund: We Weren't Trying to "Wrongfully Record" You, and Your Lawsuit Threats Are Silly

The Dallas Police and Fire Pension System has had a rough few months, what with the widespread public perception that they've installed a big, fancy Eye of Sauron downtown . Also, they're having to deal with a lot more reporters than usual, which no one enjoys. One of those reporters is The Dallas M ... More >>

Peace Activists Can Protest the New Bush Center, Judge Rules, So Off They Go

Last week we told you about a group of activists who were suing the City of Dallas, claiming they're being illegally barred from participating in a protest during SMU's dedication this week of the new George W. Bush Presidential Center. On Friday, noting a "strong public interest in the freedom of e ... More >>

Six Activists Are Suing Dallas In Federal Court, Claiming They're Being Illegally Barred From Protesting George W. Bush Center Dedication

Six long-time progressive activists have filed suit against the city of Dallas, claiming they're being illegally barred from protesting the April 25 dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. The group says they were threatened with arrest if they show up at the dedication; the suit was f ... More >>

Metroplex Atheists Square Off Against Rowlett's Mayor. The Mayor Says He'll Pray for Them.

This week in godlessness brings us to Rowlett, where Mayor Todd Gottel is feeling pretty good. He'll be running unopposed soon for his second term as mayor and third term on the City Council. The rest of the time, he owns a "sales and marketing" company, per the city of Rowlett's website, is a preci ... More >>

Looks Like the City May Allow Free Speech on JFK 50th After All

There are signs -- hints, indications, wisps of smoke in the wind -- suggesting we might get out of the JFK 50th observations in one piece after all. I've been quick to suggest Dallas would blow itself to smithereens with a bizarre compulsion to shut down free speech at Dealey Plaza come November 22 ... More >>

Conspiracy Theorists Will Leave Their Mark on Dallas' Kennedy Commemoration, at Least According to the Wall Street Journal

From the outset, Mayor Rawlings and the city of Dallas have made it clear that they intend to control the narrative on November 22, 2013 when they mark what they're simply calling The 50th. The 50th what? Never mind that. Just remember that this is about celebrating the life of a president, not dwel ... More >>

Assassination? What Assassination?

When it comes to JFK, Dallas is stuck in the denial stage of grief.

On CNN, Reddit Troll Michael Brutsch Is "To Some Degree Apologizing For What I Did"

A few days after Arlington's now-outed Reddit troll Michael Brutsch sat for an interview in a Fort Worth hotel room with CNN reporter Drew Griffin, the rest of us finally got to see it. It's a bit of a trainwreck. CNN's first shot of Brutsch shows him fidgeting nervously as he licks his lips and o ... More >>

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.

Avi Adelman Claims Phillip Kingston's Campaign is the Real Reason for Wife's Lawsuit

Avi Adelman, Lower Greenville's resident pot-stirrer, now claims that the lawsuit against him, filed by neighborhood organizer Melissa Kingston, is actually an effort to silence him during her husband's run for, and potential stint on, the Dallas City Council. See also: Lawsuit Calls Barking Dog Av ... More >>

The Revisionaries Explores the Texas Board of Education's Fight Against Science, History

The Dallas Observer Has New Owners; Village Voice Media, Backpage Split

The longtime owners of the Dallas Observer have sold the paper and its 12 Village Voice Media sister publications to a group of VVM executives, creating a new holding company and cutting ties with Backpage.com, the controversial classified advertising company. So: We have new owners, but the same o ... More >>

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 >>

The President of the American Atheists Seems Pretty Mad At Movie Tavern For Refusing To Run Atheist Ads

Last week we told you about the Dallas Fort-Worth Coalition of Reason's tiff with Movie Tavern. Once more, briefly: DFWCoR signed a contract to pay Movie Tavern three grand to show a pro-atheism ad as part of the coalition's new campaign, "Our Families Are Great Without Religion." But Movie Tavern d ... More >>

Appeals Court Won't Rehear Attempt Trying to Overturn Texas's New Sonogram Law

In news that should make Rick Perry tingly all over, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order today denying the Center For Reproductive Rights' request for a new hearing in their suit against Texas's new sonogram law. The CRR had previously requested that the court hear the case en banc ... More >>

Ranger Says Dallas ISD Has Reinstated Teacher Put on Leave For Letter to Edwin Flores

​But a few hours ago, Rena Honea, president of AFT-Alliance, held a press conference and posted this petition demanding the Dallas Independent School District reinstate fourth-grade Central Elementary bilingual teacher Joseph Drake, who was put on leave late last week after he sent trustee Edwin F ... 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 >>

Look Out, Belo: Amidst Solicitation Ordinance Chat, Talk of Fines Over Unwanted Papers

At this morning's Quality of Life Committee meeting, we finally got to hear about that proposed new home solicitation ordinance with which we wrapped last week. We know what you're thinking, and let us reassure you right away: Your Girl Scout cookies should be unaffected. Exhale. As City Attorney ... More >>

Judge OKs Texas's Sonogram Law, Making Governor Rick Perry Very, Very Happy

Texas's dandy new "sonogram law" -- which requires abortion-seeking women to look at a sonogram, hear a description of it from her doctor and listen to a fetal heartbeat -- is legal, a federal court ruled today. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a temporary injunction, issued by Judge ... 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 >>

An Offended Occupy Dallas Responds to City's Demands; Last Arrestee Due Out of Jail Today

Photo by Chris Howell​At the end of business yesterday City Hall sent that memo from City Manager Mary Suhm and that letter from First Assistant City Attorney Chris Bowers. Both said more or less the same thing: Occupy Dallas has till 5 p.m. Saturday to clean up its mess behind Dallas City Hall, o ... 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 >>

Occupy Dallas Protestors Arrested for Blocking Entrance to Chase Bank Branch Downtown

Photo by Anna MerlanThe two Occupy Dallas protestors who stayed behind following the arrests of their comrades​So happened that Anna was hanging out at Chase Tower earlier today awaiting Occupy Dallasites who said they were going to parade, two by two, into the bank to close their accounts and tra ... More >>

At Feel-Good Hearing, City and Occupy Dallas Hash Out Deal to Move Downtown Campsite

If you need one of Dallas's occupiers come Sunday evening, this is where they'll be.​A hearing this morning at the Earle Cabell could have been a First Amendment showdown over Occupy Dallas's right to remain in Pioneer Park in downtown. Instead, it became a simple formality after protesters ca ... More >>

Yesterday, Caraway Visited Pioneer Park. But Tomorrow, They Occupy a Federal Courtroom.

Photos by Chris Howell​One week ago today we walked alongside the Occupy Dallas-ites as they marched from Pike Park to the Dallas Federal Reserve airing their laundry list of grievances, echoing those who stormed Wall Street almost a month ago and never left as their ranks swelled. But in the week ... More >>

City Hall Tells Dallas Occupiers to Get Insurance or Else. They're Leaning Toward "Or Else."

​At 1:20 this morning Boston police stormed an Occupy encampment in Boston Greenway park, hauled off more than 100 protesters in cable-tie cuffs and tore down their tents. Everybody in the Occupy Dallas encampment I talked to at about noon today was aware of what just happened in Boston. The ... 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 >>

Kids, Trust No One. My Work Is Done Here.

​Oh, wouldn't you know I'd wind up agreeing with my opponent? You know what's wrong with me? I am just too damn much of a sweetheart, that's my problem. Too nice, too smart, too good-lookin'. I've got to drop at least one just to make things fair. So this morning I met on the field of battle ... More >>

After All That Legal Wrangling Over Dallas's Sign Ordinance, Now the City's Doing a Rewrite?

The Institute for Justice may get what it wanted after all. Sort of. Ish.​For two years Matt Miller, executive director of the Institute for Justice Texas Chapter, fought with the city of Dallas in federal court over the 2008 ordinance that prohibits store owners from covering the top two-thirds o ... More >>

Swingers Club, "Outreach Mission" -- Same Dif. Why, Just Look at the Photos From Inside.

From the Playground party pics​After we broke the story about the Dallas City Attorney's Office going after The Playground, a Harry Hines swingers club operating with a house-o'-worship certificate of occupancy, Glenn Hudson or someone working for him had some of the club's websites taken down, am ... More >>

"A Great Day for the First Amendment": Appeals Court Tosses HP Developer's Defamation Claims

Carla Main​At this late date I won't detail the case pitting Highland Park developer Hiram Walker Royall against author Carla Main, which we've been following for the past three years. Let's just put it like this: Royall, who was involved in an eminent domain case down in Freeport, became the subj ... More >>

So, Wait, Rick Perry May Not Speak at The Response? Well, That Seems a Bit ... Odd.

​That's what CNN's reporting, anyhow -- that Rick Perry, who called for that ''day of prayer and fasting" down in Houston on August 6 and has been the face of the franchise, could wind up on the sidelines during The Response at Reliant Stadium. That's according to Eric Bearse, spokesman for the Am ... More >>

Wisconsin Group Files Suit, Claiming Perry's Prayer Event Has "No Secular Rationale"

​Now this is a response: Perhaps you've heard that a Wisconsin-based "state/church watchdog" group opposed to mixin' government and religion today filed for a temporary injunction down in Houston, asking a federal court to put the kibosh on Gov. Rick Perry's star-studded prayer rally scheduled ... More >>

Center for Reproductive Rights Has New Site For Lone Star Ladies and Other In Utero News

​Starting September 1, if you're a woman in Texas seeking an abortion, a few new things are going to happen at the doctor's office. You're going to be given a sonogram, have the image of the fetus described to you "in detail," and possibly be asked to listen to a fetal heart monitor (although you ... More >>

Dealey Plaza Redo: Beware the Goon Squads

​Yesterday's city council committee briefing on restoring Dealey Plaza was all very well. The well-intended and the well-heeled have joined together to raise money for a well-designed refurbishing of the place where President John F. Kennedy was ... well, you know ... shot. I'm sure it will b ... More >>

Pot References By Beer Companies And How They Tried To Evade The Feds

​OK, we'll be the first to admit that the whole idea of turning 4/20 into a pot-smoking holiday is pretty stupid. If you're an adult, you should be able decide if and when you want to smoke on your own, without a numerical coincidence putting any extra emphasis on the activity. But the date has ... More >>

Mayor Caraway Loses Legal Battle to Bury Police Recordings Made at His Home In January

Sam Merten​Arthur and Archie did it. At 8 p.m., after a marathon hearing, Judge Teresa Guerra Snelson shot down Dallas Mayor Dwaine Caraway's request for an injunction barring the release of an audio recording Dallas Police officers made at his home on January 2, when cops showed up to to investi ... 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 >>

Dealey Plaza Vendor's Lawyer Has a Very Strong Opinion About New "Solicitation-Free Zones"

Robert Groden​Yesterday, in the comments to the item about the city's new-and-improved panhandlingsolicitation ordinance, longtime Friend of Unfair Park Syd Nancy wondered: "Will this affect the JFK Conspiracy Guy who sells stuff down by the Depository?" Syd's referring to Robert Groden, who's cur ... More >>

Hunt on "New" Panhandling Ordinance

Via​On Monday we sneak-peeked the ordinance creating those so-called Solicitation-Free Zones in downtown, Deep Ellum, Uptown and Victory; yesterday, with little to say other than "yay," the council approved the revision to the City Code, adding to the existing law a $500 fine for panhandlers and e ... More >>

Rock n Taco Brings the Death Metal! Arrrr!

Photo by Sara Kerens​I just wouldn't feel like a food writer if my first e-mail of the morning didn't have the subject line "Fuck You." Fortunately, Rock n Taco co-owner Billy Salsberg -- or, as he claims, someone using his Yahoo e-mail account -- came through for me today. I reviewed his restaur ... More >>

Federal Lawsuit Claims Dallas's Sign Ordinance Violates First Amendment

April Gilliland, owner of a FastSigns franchise, is among those suing the city​The Institute for Justice -- which bills itself as the "nation's only libertarian public interest law firm" -- sends word this morning that it's unhappy with the city of Dallas's year-old law that prohibits business own ... More >>

Cost of Doing Business

Biting the hand that feeds you

1-Hour Arrest

When does a snapshot of a mother breast-feeding her child become kiddie porn? Ask the Richardson police.

Eschewing the Fat

Interest groups battle over your next meal

Temper, temper

Judge John Henry McBryde ruled his court like a minor despot, angering lawyers and fellow judges. Now they're lined up to depose him, and the Constitution be damned.