▼ POLITICS YUCK YUCKS T COLLIN COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS LAUGHS OVER AN OLD MAN’S FRACTURED SKULL. BY JACOB VAUGHN he Collin County Republican Party’s executive direc- tor has dismissed criticism after the party’s Facebook page posted a meme mocking a violent attack on U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. David DePape, 42, allegedly entered Pelosi’s San Fran- cisco home in search of the Democratic politician and ended up attacking her husband, 82-year-old Paul Pelosi, with a hammer. Paul Pelosi suffered a skull fracture and injuries to his hands and right arm. DePape has since been charged with attempted murder and attempted kidnapping of a U.S. offi- cial. (He’d allegedly intended to kidnap Nancy Pelosi.) As right-wing figures spread conspiracy theories and misinformation over the attack, the Collin County Republi- can Party jumped into the fray. In a Facebook post last week, the party shared a meme that showed a hammer holstered to a person’s waist with the caption, “Open carry in San Francisco.” People responded with comments that the post was inap- Unfair Park from p6 great teacher and during her time at the college demon- strated good performance through high evaluations and was respected by her students and many of her colleagues.” The settlement with Jones is the second in an ongoing free speech saga. In January, Collin College agreed to pay $70,000 to Lora Burnett, a history professor who said she’d been sacked after criticizing former Vice President Mike Pence in October 2020 and speaking out against the college administration. FIRE also represented Burnett. In March, history professor Michael Phillips, author of White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841–2001, filed a lawsuit against Collin College, its presi- dent and school officials. Phillips, who is also represented by FIRE, alleges that the school similarly terminated his contract over his public crit- icism of the school’s COVID-19 policies and other free speech concerns. “I never dreamed I would teach at a college where I would be ordered to not share facts, particularly life-saving ones, with my students,” Phillips said in a FIRE release at the time. “We should model for our students how to hear speech and ideas we don’t like, skills necessary for partici- pating in a democracy.” Phillips’ suit is ongoing. ▼ CITY HALL A BAD TURN FOR POKER FANS D 8 8 COURT RULES THAT DALLAS IS ALLOWED TO SHUT DOWN TEXAS CARD HOUSE. BY JACOB VAUGHN allas poker rooms are not out of hot water yet, espe- cially after a ruling on a lawsuit by Civil District Court Judge Eric Moyé. According to Moyé, the city had the right to take back the certificates of occupancy it had initially granted to poker rooms, allowing them to oper- ate. Texas Card House, the poker club at the center of the suit, didn’t respond to a request for comment, and the city of Dallas doesn’t comment on pending litigation. But their legal arguments are laid out in court filings. Before the city started acting to snatch the certificates back, it dished them out under an interpretation of Texas law that seems to make exceptions for gambling operations. Here’s the deal: If the gambling was being done in a private place, all players had an equal chance of winning and the house didn’t take a cut of the pot, you were in the clear. Shomari Williams has made a living from playing poker. Mike Brooks That’s how Texas Card House and other poker estab- lishments in the state have been running, gathering mem- bership fees and selling concessions to make their money. Then, the city of Dallas changed its interpretation of the law. To Dallas Senior Assistant Attorney Gary Powell, these businesses aren’t private places, and this part of the law was intended to refer to private places like your home. So, the city started denying certificates for other poker businesses. One of them appealed because Dallas had al- ready granted the certificates to Texas Card House, and this one planned to run under a similar business model. Then, despite the fact that nothing about the business had changed since opening in 2019, Dallas revoked the certificate for Texas Card House. Texas Card House ap- pealed the decision to the city’s Board of Adjustment and won, largely because nothing about the business had changed. The city didn’t like that and sued the Board of Adjust- ment over the decision to see what a judge would say. That judge, Moyé, sided with the city, saying the Board of Adjustment had abused its power in restoring the certifi- cates to Texas Card House. So, the revocation of the cer- tificates still stands, according to the district court. The whole thing will likely end up in the Texas Su- preme Court one day. Texas Card House is working on an appeal to the recent decision, asking Moyé to suspend en- forcement until the appeal makes it through the courts. Texas Card House argues in court filings that enforce- ment should be suspended during the appeals process be- cause of the damages enforcement could do to the business. Lawyers for the club wrote in a Nov. 1 court filing that if en- forcement isn’t suspended, it will be forced to close and dis- miss more than 200 employees. The $2 million in construction and other start-up costs that have been spent on the club will essentially be thrown away. From there, the club may also have to break its lease, cancel bank accounts and pay off creditors. The court will decide whether to suspend enforcement after a hearing on Nov. 28. To Shomari Williams, a local professional player, now is the time for the poker community to come together. “The poker landscape is definitely unstable,” he said. “If they can go after the Texas Card House, who also probably has the biggest legal team, then they can go after any room and re- voke permits. The rooms definitely need to be working to- gether at this point.” propriate. “How disgusting,” one person wrote. “Y’all should be ashamed of yourselves.” The group responded to the crit- icism in the comments, “Looks like we’ve struck a chord with either some Facebook bots or highly sensitive leftists.” Reached for comment by phone Tuesday, Terry Wade, executive director of the Collin County Republican Party, seemed to buy into some of the conspiracy theories and mis- information about the attack; she also dismissed criticism about the meme, making light of it. She said she hadn’t seen the meme, but complained that Democrats haven’t been held accountable for similar rhetoric against Republicans. “Did you reach out to [Congresswoman] Maxine Waters when she was attacking conservatives?” Wade said. “You know, my concern is that there’s not equal representation. There’s not equal angst when, you know, the right is at- tacked compared to the left being, quote, unquote, attacked.” Asked for examples, Wade said it was our homework to look into it. In the past, some pundits have claimed that tra- ditional media outlets gave Waters a pass on some of her rhetoric against former President Donald Trump’s adminis- tration. For instance, she called on people to confront Trump’s cabinet members and “tell them they’re not wel- come anymore, anywhere.” The Observer has never reached out to Waters, mostly because she represents a district about 1,450 miles west of Dallas. A better comparison may be the attack on House Mi- nority Whip Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, in 2017. At the time, House Speaker Pelosi condemned the at- tack, calling it “despicable and cowardly.” The assailant was a man in his 60s who had volunteered for Bernie Sanders when he was on the campaign trail, according to Time. He also had a history of sending letters to the media in support of Democratic policies. Wade questioned how DePape could enter the Pelosi home, suggesting security should have been able to prevent this. She made the false claim that both DePape and Paul Pe- losi were in their underwear. “Where’s the security on such a high profile family?” Wade said. “I find that kind of hard to believe – that two men in their underwear … How did that come about?” When we pointed out that this claim wasn’t true, she asked if we’d seen what Fox News was saying about it. (A Fox News affiliate issued a correction to an article about the attack after falsely claiming that DePape was in his under- wear.) Wade then said she didn’t really have any further com- ment, just that her concern is that both sides get fair cover- age. “I don’t feel like the mainstream media does a fair job of representing the truth,” Wade said. “It’s unfortunate. If he was attacked, that’s unfortunate. Nobody wants something like that to happen. But I also don’t believe that we have all the facts in this case.” >> p10 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 NOVEMBER 10–16, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
