AM Show Hr 1 | Redistricting Battles, Ohio Shakeups & Harris County Controversies

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time time, luck and load. The Michael
Berry Show is on the air. Helloly, good everybuddy. This
is mile old Hamilton astros w again had a good

(00:25):
morning to the TZAR. Good morning, Michael Berry. It's Sean Connery,
but you had a little radio show. Pity I wash
it in, DI find it. Good morning, Michael Berry. I'm
all jaked up on Mountain dew. Good morning, Michael. It's
Hannibal Lecter. I'd like to eat Ramon's liver with some
fava beans and a nice kante. Good morning, Michael. That
boy ain't right. Damn it. Lector, have some respect for

(00:48):
the ladies and let Shirley Q talk. Good morning you,
Michael Beery, how you learned? Did I read it to
mamah most Good Morty Texas. Morning your car, Barney, Texas.

(01:09):
We're happy to talk about everything.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
We're not wearing Good morning cases.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Good morning Texans, Good Brandy, We go.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
The strict content. Good morning. Republicans currently hold a slim
narrow majority in the House of Representatives, but a majority
is a majority. You get to elect the Speaker of

(01:55):
the House, who sets the committee chairmanships, who decides what
you're gonna have the major hearings on You have to
have a majority in the House of Representatives or they'll
impeach President Trump. At least articles will come out of
the House, as they did twice during his first term.
So it's very important to get to four hundred and

(02:17):
eighteen two hundred and eighteen out of four hundred and
thirty five congressmen. In the midterms, the sitting president typically
takes a bloodbath. They lose a number of seats. Well,
we have plans in place for how the congressmen are
going to be apportioned. That are apportioned that are not

(02:40):
representative of the districts. So in the state of Texas,
President Trump demanded a redistricting and we did, and it
should yield two new Republican Senators, one of them here
in our community, which was Al Green's seat. When you
redistrict it properly in a portion of votes as they

(03:01):
should be geographically rather than racially, you end up with
a new congressional seat. Al Green loses his. Now you
may be thinking, but I thought he's running for office.
Al Green loses his, He moves over and runs it
runs for Sheila Jackson Lee's district which was also a
racially Jerrymander district back in the early seventies, which is
the eighteen congressional district. He's up against Christian Menafee. They're

(03:24):
in a runoff right now. So Green lost his congressional seat.
He's running in a different congressional district. And if you're asking,
are you required to live in a district in order
to run in it for congress, you don't. Some congressmen
don't live in the congressional seat district that they represent. Well,
now we have created Congressional District nine a new district,

(03:47):
and Alex Mieler is running against Briscoe Caine. She's winning
pretty big in the polls and appears to have a
commanding lead. She has President Trump's endorsement. Jim Jordan has
campaigned there for her. More importantly, she appears to have
the grassroots support. I saw a letter that came out
the other day from one of the mayors along one

(04:07):
of the port cities. She's got a lot of the
it's East Harrice County all the way through Dayton and Liberty,
and she's working hard and appears to have a lot
of support there in Louisiana. We had a Supreme Court
decision that came out that said Louisiana's two congressional districts
are racially jerrymandered, and if you look at them on

(04:30):
a map, you'll see it. It's grotesque. And so those
have been struck down, and the governor, Jeff Landry, said,
we're sending the legislature in to redraw the districts, even
though their election was a few weeks away. We're going
to do the right thing to lay the election, at
least congressional election until we can draw proper districts. So
that's Texas, Louisiana, in Alabama and Tennessee. Those governors have

(04:52):
sent their legislature back to say, redraw the districts, so
there's no longer any racial jerrymandering. When this happens, Democrats
are going to win seat because they have seats they
wouldn't otherwise win. Well. In December, you will recall in Indiana,
Republicans shot down President Trump's redistricting plan for that state.
Here was CNN in December, just a few months ago.

(05:14):
I voted for him three times. I like a lot
of the things he's done. It didn't like this. Why
would I cave to what I would tell you is bullying.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
That was Indiana Senator Jene Lysning, a Republican who just
voted no along with the majority of her Republican colleagues
in the Indiana Senate on President Trump's redistricting push. Is
a major political review for the President, who had been
looking to Indiana to add two more seats via new
congressional mass in time for next year's midterm elections as

(05:45):
Republicans try to hold on to their narrow House majority.
Licening and several other Republican senators described to CNN an
intense pressure campaign cameed at convincing reluctant Republican senators to
support the re districting plan do.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
You Win, Change Mind by d me, and the efforts
were mean spirited.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Gleising and other Republican senators said that President Trump's threats
were primary opponents against those who didn't give him the
votes that he wanted, and violent threats that some of
them based swatting attempts at their homes, bomb threats of
their businesses ultimately hardened their opposition in Indiana.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
We're not going to be intimidated, Edwards. We're strong people.
Well forty out of the sixty senators in the state
of Indiana are Republicans, and yet twenty one of the
Republicans joined with ten of the Democrats to shoot down
the redistricting plan thirty one to nineteen. So out of
those twenty one Republican senators, seven of them remember it,

(06:46):
six year terms every two years, or third of them Europe.
Seven of them were up for re election. Five of
the seven lost their reelection to candidates who were indoors
Donald Trump. The story from WTHRTV out of Indiana.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
We're looking at seven of those races today where the
incumbent Republican in the Senate race, they voted against that
congressional redistricting in that special session just a few months ago.
And you've probably seen a lot of these campaign ads.
Those cost millions of dollars on both sides of this.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Now, out of.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
Those seven races, five of those incumbents lost their seats
in the primary election. So we're gonna start you in
District one this morning on the northwest side of Indiana.
Daniel Dirnal, the incumbent, losing to Trevor Devrees by four
thousand votes, a big margin there in this one District six,
James Starkey beating rick Neymeyer. Those are just some of

(07:44):
the big ones. Let's move over to District eleven this morning,
where Linda Rogers beat by Brian Schumoltzer. In District nineteen,
Travis Holdman he was beat by Blake Fitcher. He's the
chair of the Senate Majority Caucus and has been in
office since two thousand and eight. And in District twenty one,
Jim Buck lost to Tracy Powell. He's actually the longest

(08:05):
standing lawmaker on this list, first elected in nineteen ninety four,
and the last one that lost their race, Greg Walker
out of District forty one.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
L Bring it on. What would you do with a
brain if you head one? Bring it on? Because there
is nothing here to Michael Berry show. Did you ever
hear justin Vin Sain sing this song? I think we
had a manager at the RCC who just nailed this song.
It's fantastic. Sang out the side of his mouth and everything,

(08:38):
just like you both do. I mean, he just nailed it.
He would get aggravated with me because I'd wanted to
sing this song and he was supposed to be in
the back yelling at the chef or we'd be at
the end of the night he was managing. Right, it's
a job. It's it's a club, it's a restaurant, it's

(08:59):
a bar. There's a lot going on. You're pulling every
different direction. Sing Johnson is a good sport by though.
For the record, he was a singer and a headliner
before he was our manager. Yeah, and then, uh that
probably hurt him getting gigs because then we had to
double schedule the manager. But he's a good dude. He

(09:22):
actually works for a friend of mine named Chris Spears
now and uh, guys, no, I can't stand when I
can't remember anything what Spears his partner's name. Real crazy.
He was a good baseball player. Left, he had a
kid who was a superstar baseball player, just absolute superstar
baseball player. Anyway, they have a company that worked good.

(09:44):
You're about the Iranian woman who smoked weed. She got stoned.
My local Kentucky Fried Chicken was celebrating Star Wars on
May the fourth. May the fourth be with You with
an Anakin special, which apparently is an extra crispy chicken

(10:07):
with no legs and only one wing. Jim Olde had
to explained that one seen that one, not that, not
that particular. I had a woman tell me last night
she'd given birth to two baby goats. I said, you're
clearly kidding. On this day in eighteen sixty four, and

(10:34):
one of the most moving incidents of the Civil War,
Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered these celebrated hoods Texas
Brigade to the front, and they in turn ordered him
to the rear. Such respect for the general did they have.
During a critical moment of the fierce Battle of the Wilderness,
as the southern battle line was crumbling, Robert Lee, Lee,

(10:56):
commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, was heartened to
see the Texas Brigade, under the command of John greg
arrive on the field as reinforcements. With a cry of
Hurrah for Texas. Lee ordered them forward against the Union Army, and,
carried away by his enthusiasm, began to lead them into
the charge. The Texans said no, unwilling to risk their

(11:20):
idol in battle, they stopped and gathered around him, yelling
Lee to the rear, and held onto his horse until
he withdrew what was the name of his horse from
all The Texas Brigade suffered severe losses, but the Union
Army was once more fought to a standstill. Last night's

(11:40):
results in Ohio Vivek Ramaswami cruise to a victory and
the Republican primary for governor Vice President. J. D. Vance,
of course served in the Senate from Ohio, very popular
in Ohio, had trek to the Buckeye State earlier Tuesday
to cast his ballot for Ramaswami and give him a
last minute boost before the polls closed. Ramis Swammy told

(12:01):
the crowd last night that quote, We're going to revive
that American dream in Ohio once again with lower costs,
bigger paychecks, and better schools for all Ohioans. He's going
to take on Democrat doctor Amy Acton in the November
general election, which polls show could be a close race
down ballot Senator not General. Senator John Houstead, Republican from Ohio,

(12:27):
ran unopposed in the special election Senate race. He set
the square off against former Senator Sharrod Brown, an anti
Trump Democrat Attorney general candidate who vowed to kill Trump
if elected, was also rejected by Ohio's voters. Former state
lawmaker Elliott Forum lost his Democrat primary bid months after
causing a stir for threatening that he was quote going

(12:48):
to kill Donald Trump end quote by securing a legal
conviction against the president quote resulting in a sentence duly
executed of capital punishment in the quote. Columbus attorney John
Koulowitz defeated Foreign in a sixty six thirty three contest
and will face Republican Keith Faber. In November. Kulowitz had

(13:11):
condemned Forum's comments as disgraceful. I'd say they were disgraceful.
Let's say they were actually a whole lot worse than that.
Ohio is an interesting state, as Virginia has moved from
a right leaning purple state to a seemingly closer to sorry,

(13:34):
from a right leaning from a right leaning purple state
to a left leaning now they've had a route by
Democrats in that state, and those democrats were not moderate democrats,
which Virginia was more famous for producing. They are very progressive,
very left wing, and in their first week alone undertook

(13:56):
some extraordinary liberal measure and we'll see how voters react
to that when first they have an opportunity in Virginia. Likewise, Ohio,
which had been a right leaning relatively purple state has
moved far more solidly Republican over the last few years, producing,

(14:19):
among others JD. Vance on the national stage. That's the
state of Bob Taft. So historically that was a solidly
rock ribbed Republican that had moved with its urban areas Cleveland, Cincinnati,
Columbus to being a more purple state. But it appears

(14:40):
that the suburban and rural voters of that state have
moved rather markedly to the right, and it's a good
thing for all of us. It's going to be interesting
to see JD. Vance and his role in the midterms.
He's been out over the last few days helping Republicans

(15:01):
and he's expected to be a big asset. It's very
popular right now.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
JD.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Van's very popular. Michael Barry, my.

Speaker 5 (15:17):
Heart goes out to the pilot who's now lost his
job with Spirit Airlines with them going under, and he
doesn't appreciate me making jokes about how terrible the airline is.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
And I take that to heart. For all I know,
he's a qualified, competent, diligent, committed, passionate pilot doing the
best he can. I don't know that anybody's criticism of
Spirit Airlines extends beyond the door that separates the cockpit.

(15:51):
I think it is the staff, some of the staff,
the ticket agents, and the types of people who get
on there. The reality is there is something going on
in this country that starts in the schools and the
projects and spills out into fast food restaurants and discount

(16:16):
air carriers, and that's where we see it. It's been there,
it will be there. It's always there now. It's omnipresent.
It's just that most people don't have to interact with it,
and nobody, regardless of color, wants to because it's too much.

(16:40):
It's loud, it's obnoxious, it's confrontational, it's irrational. There's definitely
signs of the type of people that flew Spirit Airlines.
Jeff Foxworthy with how you could tell ladies.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
And gentlemen, Jeff Swarthy, you thank you. Look at this
guy in the front row, wife beater ice cold Schlitz
beer eating a cold hot dog. Hell, I think he's
tailgating for the Spirit Airlines funeral. I ever reheated crab

(17:18):
legs before boarding a plane, you might have flown Spirit Airline.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
If you have a support chicken, you might have flown
Spirit Airline.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
If you've ever given yourself a peticure on a flight
with a pair of scissor.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
You may have flown Spirit Airline.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
If a trip to Walmart is considered a vacation.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
You might have flown Spirit Airline.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
If you call a trash bag and duct tape a suitcase,
you might have flown Spirit Airline. And finally, if you
booked a flight on the way to your carnival cruise vacation,
you definitely lose Speed Airline.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
We've seen fraud in the states of Minnesota, Maine, California
that have made big news stories, but you'd be naive
to think it's not happening here. You remember this story
from July of last year. The executive director of the
Harris County Flood District, Tina Peterson, was asked by ABC

(18:37):
thirteen why she requested eighty one hundred dollars for a
three day conference.

Speaker 6 (18:47):
Director, Can I ask you about the Urban Land Institute
trip that you were requesting? Can can you explain why
you wanted eighty one hundred dollars to go to a
three day conference?

Speaker 1 (18:58):
I don't have anything to say. We can currently talk
with you once I get back to the office.

Speaker 6 (19:02):
Requested thirty five hundred dollars for a hotel. I called
the conference. They said, the rates are two forty nine
at night. You wanted thirty five hundred for a three
day conference. Can you explain why you had that number.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
We do estimates for our travel, and certainly we try
to be conservative in our numbers.

Speaker 6 (19:20):
The registration fees are one thousand, seventy You requested seventeen hundred.
Why did you get such a higher number there.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
We can prevent your response. Yeah, we'd be happy to
do sense, all right.

Speaker 6 (19:31):
You also ask for fifteen hundred for airfare.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Round trip is two hundred to corn Expedia. It's it's grotesque,
it's pervasive. It's everywhere in local government. It's disgusting. None
of them care. These are people who hate you. These

(19:58):
are people out to steal, and that's what that is.
Every penny they possibly can, every penny they possibly can.
They're the worst possible people to be stewards of the
public dollar and servants of the public. Harris County Democrat

(20:21):
Judge Melissa Morris has been sanctioned over the handling of
child sex crime cases in her court. The State Commission
on Judicial Conduct says she improperly ended probation early, because
why wouldn't she for four sex offenders who pleaded guilty
to crimes involving children and were required to register as

(20:42):
sex offenders. They say their failures were hurt. They say
her failures were quote willful and persistent. You think Rodney
told her to do it, She did it, saying they
cast quote public discredit on the judiciary or on the
administration of justice. In fairness, I don't think they actually

(21:06):
cast public discredit on the judiciary of Harris County that
wasn't already there. Her defense should be, Look, we're running
a crime syndicate anyway. How am I going to make
that any worse? ABC thirteen with the story.

Speaker 7 (21:22):
In the three page public warning, the State Commission on
Judicial Conduct reprimanding District Judge Melissa Morris, calling her failures
quote wilful and persistent, which have quote cast public discredit
on the administration of justice. The discipline based on complaints
related to cases from twenty twenty four during which Morris,

(21:43):
the Commission says, improperly ended probation early by issuing discharge
orders for four sex offenders who pleaded guilty to a
sex crime involving a child and were required to register.
The Commission also noting that Moors was not paid, patient,
dignified and courteous towards a prosecutor when he sent her

(22:04):
an email asking for hearing to reconsider her decision, and separately,
when she shared confidential grand jury information they found with
a defense attorney when she shouldn't have. It's not the
first time Judge Morris has been.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
In the news.

Speaker 7 (22:18):
Last July, the Harris County District Attorney's office wanted her
off the possible retrial of a man who was sentenced
to fifty years in prison for shooting his ex wife.
They claimed the judge's comments and facial expressions had shown
that she was biased against domestic violence victims and unfit
to preside. The recusal was denied. Morse defended herself against

(22:41):
the recent allegations of the Commission's findings, read saying the
mistakes were not intentional or in bad faith. A courts
spokesperson did not respond to a late request for comment.
Judge Morris is running for reelection in November, and while
no judge wants a public warning life this on his
or her record, it really has no teeth. She will

(23:04):
continue presiding over the two hundred and sixty third District
Court until she is voted out, but she can appeal.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
And we could vote out a lot more of these
judges if we would actually recruit criminal court judges as Republicans.
And that's where I'm supporting non Hooper to be the
new party chairman, so we fill every election seat available.
So let's take a party out of this. Let's just

(23:37):
assume you went to the grocery store, not the most expensive,
not the least expensive, moderate grocery store in a moderate neighborhood.
And let's say it's one of those kind of middle

(23:59):
in income neighborhoods that has some working class, some professionals,
some professors, two income bureaucrat or public service or a firefighter,
and a police officer. Let's say you went into the
grocery store there. Where would those people shop ramon, what

(24:23):
would that be? Kroger? Okay, so they be at the Kroger's,
the hand ca you pay lots if you will. And
you went in there and you went walking around, and
you weren't sure of someone's politics. You're going to have
You're gonna have some Asian first generation You're gonna have
some Asian second generation. Uh, you're gonna have a good

(24:47):
disparity range of ages. You're gonna have blacks that are
not down with the cause, but more more college educated
blacks who you couldn't guess their politics, they're not wearing

(25:07):
a shirt that's you know, provocative, or and you were
to start asking people in the line their thoughts on
criminal justice, I don't think you'd find people who would say, hey,
if a guy beats his girlfriend half to death and

(25:32):
they show up, she's bleeding out and take him home.
He's got a rap sheet a mile long, what I
hope you'll do is release him because of slavery. I
don't think you'd find white people saying, well, it's probably
not his fault. Or you got a guy that's been

(25:53):
a home burglar and they've been he's been arrested twenty
eight times, convicted six I don't think any of them.
And it's in your neighborhood, by the way, I don't
think anybody that you stopped would say, you know, let
those guys go, you know, give them a twenty ninth chance.

(26:15):
Nobody would say that, And those would be Democrats and Republicans.
If after you did your field survey. You then at
the very last question said not are you Democrat or Republican?
Did you vote for Biden or Trump? And you just

(26:36):
pulled the people that voted for Biden. Nine out of
ten of them would say that we need more crime fighting,
we need to put bad guys away. Interestingly, you're much
more likely to be a victim of crime if you're
a Democrat than a Republican. You're much more likely to

(26:59):
be a victim of crime if you are black then
you are white. I've had people argue with me on this,
and I'll say, well, before we go to the data,
let's discuss why this is. Because people tend to commit
crime as close to home as possible, and people tend

(27:20):
to live around people who are also their skin color.
The reason you don't believe that is there is a
very different opinion on speaking publicly about crime. White people
are very against crime, and they will say so publicly.
They'd like somebody strung up and hung up on the

(27:44):
cul de sac of their street where everybody can get
some shots in before they drag him and throw him
in a grave. They will come outside and be a
witness to the officer they'll sign the report, they will
show up at public town hall meetings. Democrat will show
up at a town hall meeting saying, do something about

(28:05):
the crime in our neighborhood. There has become this insidious
element among many blacks that you don't speak publicly about it.
You don't side with the bad guys, which is the cops.
You don't contribute to the police state that's run by
the Nazis, because that's really the Republicans. And so you've

(28:30):
got Democrat candidates who will talk about how our neighborhood's
gone to crap, Send me there for hope and change.
But realistically, the number one thing you have to do
to fix a neighborhood almost every neighborhood is there three
to five bad guys that are terrorizing that neighborhood. You

(28:51):
pull them off the street and immediately that's like splashing
a new code of paint power washing the streets, getting
the graffiti off the walls. It's all of it at once,
and it's not very many guys. So you think to yourself,
why are the Democrats doing this? It should be an

(29:12):
election loser, but it's not because they don't get punished
for it. I think you have some people who've left
the Democrat Party who may say, you know, I'm not
a Trump guy. Maybe the Republicans help the rich. That's
a big theme when they say the Republicans help the rich,
the Democrats help the rich. But that's not based in truth,

(29:34):
nor does it need to be. That is based in
the class warfare. You got to get the poor people
convinced that Democrats are your party. Democrats the only one
that care about you. Democrats are the only one that
will continue to fund and expand these these massive social
programs that you can figure out a way to trick

(29:55):
into getting more money and care. I mean and welfare
fraud is not is not frowned upon because we're gonna
get ours. But on this issue of crime and especially judges,
one thing, if you're a legislator, but especially judges who
are releasing you know, this woman Melissa Morris TV a

(30:22):
bell if they got an asked if they got an
apostrophe in their name on the Harris County judiciary. They
are releasing criminals, the worst criminals, again and again and again,
sometimes multiple times in front of the same judge with
real victims. Now, if you if you had libertarian leanings,

(30:48):
and you said, ah, this guy's brought down here for
a time. He's brought down here for smoking pot in
his living room. He's Brad Pitt and true romance. He's
not harming anybody. Give him his bong back and send
him on his way, not bothering his neighbors. That'd be
one thing, But we're talking about people who commit crimes
with the highest rate of recidivism. That's sex crimes. We're

(31:12):
talking about guys that shoot into houses and burgle homes armed.
If you're an armed burglar, you are going to kill
someone because eventually a homeowner is going to be home
and they're going to want to defend themselves and their
property and you're going to shoot and kill them or
they're going to kill you. So for you to continue

(31:35):
to release these people tells you this is not an
election winner. Nobody campaigns on the basis we're going to
let the criminals out, the pedophiles, the rapists, the wife beaters,
and these crimes are falling most heavily on blacks. So
why aren't blacks able to see this and say we're

(31:57):
going to vote Republicans, We're going to fit the judiciary
that is a very very powerful question and a disturbing answer.