First Amendment for Me and Not For Thee

David Flash has found our site! We have been waiting to see what the response would be. First, last week, David’s 2 ‘news’ sites went silent. No new grudge articles at bigbendtimes.com since last Monday, then no articles at all since Thursday. His other AI generated site, texreporter.com hasn’t had a new post since last Wednesday where Flash posts about a new GoFundMe capitalizing on the Gulf Of America controversy. At least this time Flash didn’t create his own controversy to fund raise on. The editorial team here was hoping that Flash had decided to leave Jeff Davis County alone. If he did, we would have stopped posting new content here. But David Flash has decided to keep the magic going. Today bigbendtimes.com posted 6 AI generated articles scraping content and pics from other places, and then what we had been waiting for, Flash has responded to bigbendtimes.org directly.

David’s article is titled “Jeff Davis County Officials Pose for Smear Site While It Reveals More About Them Than Their Target.” Smear site? Well I guess that’s not far off. When you call someone out on their bullshit, the bullshitter often feels smeared. When you go after a small community on false pretense over and over for two years, people get tired of it. Flash claims the site is “designed to spread libel, deflect scrutiny, and discredit public-interest journalism.” Merriam-Webster defines libel as “a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression of someone.” They define defamatory as “the act of communicating false statements about a person that injure the reputation of that person.” Key phrases there are “unjustly unfavorable” and “false statements.” It would be interesting to see what a jury would say about what bigbendtimes.org has written about Flash compared to what Flash has written about bigbendtimes.org.

Flash claims in his internet post “The site, BigBendTimes.org, was built to imitate Big Bend Times in name alone—but its purpose is clear: to attack Flash, mock his reporting, and smear any effort to hold local officials accountable. It publishes obsessively long, rambling hit pieces that recycle personal insults, misrepresent facts, and dive into laughably niche defenses of county spending.” If you want to call what you do ‘reporting’ I guess you have that right, and yes we are definitely mocking it. Flash claims we attack him directly, but also claims he is trying to “hold county officials accountable.” It seems very clear that Flash is the one doing the attacking and we are the ones documenting it. One might notice that while Flash claims libel, he doesn’t point to any statement on bigbendtimes.org that is actual libel when he says that. He just throws the word out there hoping people won’t notice. And while complaining about our protected speech, Flash does the same thing he complains about, mocks and smears bigbendtimes.org.

In the next paragraph Flash states ‘In one such post, JP Luedecke is shown smiling next to the very county truck Flash has reported on. The article goes out of its way to defend the vehicle—not by explaining why a justice of the peace has a take-home truck at all (which is rare across Texas), but by fixating on irrelevant technical details: “a standard radio,” “a modest light bar,” and a clarification that the radio “cannot be considered advanced” because the county’s system hasn’t been upgraded.’

The picture I posted on this site was picked from many that Mary Ann posed for. She is smiling in some of them, but I selected one where she has a stern look because I felt like it better fit the story. Flash describes her as “smiling” in the picture. I don’t cover why the JP has a take home truck in the article Flash is referencing. But there is a reason. The JP is responsible for human remains after someone passes away. In remote areas of the county, an ambulance cannot get to the site where the person passed away. When this happens, the JP puts the remains in a body bag and transports them to a place where the ambulance or other vehicle can receive the body. Mary Ann drives the truck home at night because she could be called to respond to a death at anytime, night or day. Flash claims this isn’t normal, but doesn’t provide any data that demonstrates that. Flash goes on to mention the comments I made about the radio and light bar installed in the truck, saying “Who talks like that? Who cares about that level of equipment detail? Only someone inside government, trying to justify a purchase.” Dude, you posted 5 stories about your fake truck controversy and mentioned the radio and light bar insinuating that they were expensive and unjustified. I’m responding to you spending a ton of words about details related to the truck. Talk about projection. And saying that only someone inside government would care about that lever of detail is libel. You didn’t qualify that, you stated it as fact. I don’t work for JDC.

Next we have ‘The site even confirms that the photo was “taken with permission”—a quiet but damning admission that Luedecke knew exactly where the photo would appear and approved its use. She participated in the smear campaign willingly. So did Judge Evans, who also appears in photos used to give the site credibility it hasn’t earned.’ I say the photos on the site were taken with permission as a dig at you because you take everyone’s pics and post them on your site without permission. You allegedly run into offices with the camera rolling when people are in a meeting. You send hundreds of emails to county officials and then complain when they don’t respond. My site is a First Amendment Project that is shining light on your unethical behavior. I understand you don’t like it, but my community doesn’t like what you are doing either.

A little further down:

“And when Big Bend Times reported that a community member had contacted us with allegations about a known predator—including video and a 911 call—the site mocked us for not having more details. But the story wasn’t about the individual. It was about the fact that we requested information from the sheriff’s office and received nothing.

No callback. No statement. No engagement.

That is the story.”

Flash is correct, this “story” isn’t about the individual. Our editorial team does send thoughts and prayers to this person if they do exist. We are concerned they do not exist. Flash claims to have video and pics of the incident, but hasn’t posted any of them. And he continues to try and make this a story about our Sheriff even though as Flash describes it, there wasn’t much for the Sheriff to respond to. Seems like a fake controversy, but if there is someone out there who actually reported this incident to Flash, we apologize to that person and hope they have been able to work the situation out.

Flash’s obsessively long, rambling hit piece goes on to state:

‘The site’s anonymous author repeatedly calls Flash “a clickbait grifter,” “a guy with an ax to grind,” “a wannabe constitutional scholar,” and “mentally unstable.” They dig into which side of the road someone pulled over on. They talk about “green grass,” “modest sirens,” and park-host volunteer schedules. They even speculate—grotesquely—on whether Flash will kill himself for publicity.’

First he says I repeatedly call him “a clickbait grifter.” I just search all the articles at bigbendtimes.org and that phrase does not appear in any article. Clickbait is in there many times but David’s quote doesn’t appear at all. Who is lying now? Next he says I call him “a guy with an ax to grind.” Another search of all the articles does not find that phrase. I do remember typing ‘ax’ in an article so I searched for that and the actual quote is from this article https://www.bigbendtimes.org/2025/04/28/anatomy-of-a-grudge-david-flash-cant-get-over-being-asked-to-follow-the-rules/ and the quote is “This reporter feels after reading this article that David Flash has an ax to grind with Officer Barton.” Similar but David quoted the article and got the quote wrong. Stupid journalism by David Flash. Next quote: “a wannabe constitutional scholar” also does not appear on this site. But I remember typing constitutional scholar so let’s search just for that. Here is what appears on my site: “David will quote constitutional scholars in his writing, but he never names the source or explains why he isn’t naming them. Perhaps Flash considers himself a constitutional scholar and is once again quoting himself?” Again, his quote isn’t that far off, but “wannabe” is something he made up and then put in quotes. Seems unethical. The next quote claims we call Flash “mentally unstable.” A search for “mentally” and/or “unstable” doesn’t bring anything up at all. David Flash appears to have simply made that one up. What is the definition of Libel again?

I’m going to skip some of the other ridiculous accusations and head straight to “They even speculate—grotesquely—on whether Flash will kill himself for publicity.” Pretty hilarious to see Flash use the word grotesquely, as it so perfectly describes all of Flash’s websites and his fake journalism. One might wonder how I could possibly speculate about such a thing. I talked about that in the article likening Flash to the Westboro Baptist Church referencing this statement that Flash made: “If Jeff Davis County continues its dangerous trajectory, it risks inflicting irreparable harm on someone unable to endure the strain.” Flash made that statement in a post he made trying to claim his situation is like Backpage. One of the defendants in the Backpage case killed himself. It’s not grotesque speculation, it’s honest reporting on a very strange person who posts very strange things on the internet.

Speaking of strange things: “Because here’s the truth: they can’t sue us without revealing who they are. And they won’t reveal who they are—because they’re public employees misusing government resources to run a smear campaign.” Once again Flash describes our editorial team incorrectly, as public employees misusing government resources. I prefer not to reveal my identity because you are clearly a troubled person who can’t let go of a grudge.

Let the record show, bigbendtimes.com was created to drive traffic and clicks. It’s tough to look at the site in its entirety and not see that it’s a fake news site, a clickbait site, a site where David Flash can air his personal grudges and create fake controversy that he can fund raise on. And his response to this site is full of false statements. So many that it seems like an unethical attempt to smear #ThisReporter.