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March 11, 2025 31 mins

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Daid Failing was the Speaker of the House, very
powerful position in state of Texas. The Speaker of the
House has, among other perks, an entire house within the capitol.

(00:22):
It's nice, it's really nice. They have a full staff
and a good speaker who has good lieutenants, who's not
overly petty. A good speaker can remain the speaker for
quite some time and they can get a lot done.

(00:45):
It's only one hundred and fifty days every other year,
so it's not like it's overly stressful. And you have
a whole team of lieutenants who are other state reps who,
if you can rely on them, can help you do
what you do. You have an incredible influence over state government.

(01:07):
You got the House over here, you have the Senate
over there. Those two have to sign, have to ratify
a law that then goes to the governor to sign.
The Senate has more power, to be sure, but Speaker
of the House a big deal. Well. Dade Falan kind
of like Hunter Biden, was born into a prominent family,

(01:31):
the Falans in Beaumont. Faling investments pretty well to do family.
They own a fair amount of Beaumont and the Golden
triangle and develop and manage real estate. From what I
understand across the state, all Dayde had to do was

(01:53):
wear khaki slacks, you know, a good pair of boots,
polo shirt, put horns up and show up. It's it
and he was made for life. Then he decides going
to go into politics, as as many scions of wealthy
families will do. Not a particularly accomplished professional man, not

(02:19):
particularly striking in charisma, leadership, vision, intelligence. In fact, quite
the opposite. Decent enough looking to play the part, sawed
off little bitty. But there was no reason that drunk
Day that Dade failing had to be a failure. But

(02:43):
old Dade, he still kind of has a i'm partying
with my boys in college mindset, And the rumors kept
percolating that his nickname was drunk Dad among some members
of the house, and that he would during the session

(03:05):
repair with his buddies to the apartment and they'd all
fix them up a nice drink and come back out.
Because these meetings go late endo the night and they
put everything off until the end of the session. They're
doing it this year, although I don't think they'll ever
get anything done. And then at the end of the session.
Oh my goodness, the House is racing to get through

(03:26):
their work, racing to get through. They've been on vacation
most of the session. Problem is now you've got these reformers,
these Ted Cruz, Donald Trump type reformers, Ran Paul. You
got these kind of guys with this kind of mindset
in the House. Steve Toath from the Woodlands area. Brian Harrison,

(03:49):
who was accomplished in his own right before he came in.
Mitch Little, who gained fame as a lawyer when his
legal skills were on display in the Paxton impeachment trial.
So you've got some guys the likes of which we
didn't see in the State House before. These guys are reformers.

(04:09):
They're not trying to come up through the ranks of
your game the way. We've got some state reps around
the Houston area that just they're just so happy to
be there. They're just boy, they are men. Being a
state Rep is a highlight of their life. Makes them
feel important. They give some speeches, maybe you know Rotory
club here and there. State Rep. You hang around long enough,

(04:31):
state Senate seat might open. But even if it doesn't
make a little money on the side. Especially if you're
a lawyer, you'll notice a lot of them have a
law practice. If you're a lawyer, you can pick up
some clients in a sketchy, questionable sort of way. You
hang around along on us, pretty good life, pretty good life,
end up at some good football games, get to take

(04:53):
some good trips. It turns out to be a pretty
good life. Well drunk Day that somebody's filming and they
catch drunk DAIDs slurring and it is bad. But that's
not what got drunk dat in trouble. What got drunk

(05:14):
Day in trouble was he got into a battle with
Dan Patrick, and it was inevitable that it would happen,
because drunk Dade was elected, just like his number two,
who's now the Speaker of the House, Dustin Burroughs. They
have fewer than the seventy six votes they need to
get to seventy six to be the majority leader. They

(05:36):
have fewer than that, but they have enough to couple
with the at this point sixty two Democrats. They only
need fourteen Republicans. Well, you can get fourteen Republicans to
sell out and now they'll be in charge. The Democrats
will negotiate that deal, because now the Democrats have an
incredible influence over the office when they really should be
squashed as a minority, which is what they would do

(05:57):
if they were in charge. But here we are so
drunk day because of his many failures. Then he let
the rich boys tell him what to do, and they
told him they would they would have his back, and
he would he could. He was going to knock Paxton out.

(06:19):
The reason they wanted to knock Paxton out is because
Paxton is the obvious challenger to John Cornyn. Everybody knows it.
At the end of the day, the big money boys,
there's not that many of them, and Paxton talks to
those guys, and word gets around that Paxton is considering

(06:41):
a run against Cornyn. Well they know good and well
this is a real challenge. And cornn is their boy,
not Ted Cruz, Corns their boy. The rich Houston folks
that were for Nicki Haley, you can read the list
of who it was. They love John Corny, You despise

(07:02):
John Corny, and they love John Corny. And they find
you to be pesky, grassroots folks. They find you to
be extraordinarily pesky. So the word gets out that Paxton
is contemplating a run, and Paxton has proven to be very,
very popular. They tried to take Paxton out in multiple elections.

(07:26):
Paxton came up in about I think he was fourteen.
He was a state rep. And he was a state rep.
Who was causing a lot of problems for the for
the establishment Republicans. There's more to this, we'll get to
in a moment. Drunk Dade has written a bill to
make it illegal to criticize him. I'm not going One

(07:48):
insider told me every day was a Fiji party at
the Capitol under drunk Day. He wasn't involved in the details.
His quote unquote team ran the ship. Scary thing about
Dustin Burroughs is that he's very smart and maniacal and

(08:08):
he's running the show. So back to drunk David. He
became the face of the split in the Republican Party.
The problem is the Republican Party has basically dominated State
of Texas statewide politics going back to nineteen ninety four.

(08:33):
Quick rewind nineteen ninety Ann Richards gets elected Governor. Clayton
Williams rich Oilman never been a candidate himself, outsider so
to speak, Big Aggie and likable guy. Everybody likes Clayton.

(09:00):
He had donated to A and M, he'd donated the causes,
He'd run an old company. He was a good old boy.
Everybody liked Clayton Williams. It was the kind of guy
that ought to be governor. Well, Texas had changed, and
even though he was winning, he was leading in the polls,
the media was out to get him. And there was

(09:22):
the statement, you know, they're out at his ranch and
the media loved hanging out with him, and it's raining
and he's going out to give him a tour. And
he said, well, that's kind of like rap. I can't
do anything about it. Might as well laid back and
enjoy it. Oh did they run with that? And that began.
I think it was a thirty six point swing. If

(09:43):
I remembers by a thirty five point swing a thirty
let me say, I remember it being over a thirty
point swing, and Richards had no chance and there was
no way Clayton could lose. But it went downhill from there,
and now all of a sudd this outsider who had
never been a candidate before and everybody always loved him,

(10:06):
he sort of recoiled and that change. He wasn't charming anymore,
wouldn't shake her hand at the debate. There were a
lot of things that happened in ninety and so here
comes this crass and Richard's and she was exactly what
white liberals wanted at that moment. She was quick witted,

(10:29):
she was foul mouth, and she was extremely progressive for
nineteen ninety she was extremely progressive. And yet she could
convince you know, rural school teachers, and she's one of
them because you taught like ed. That was the basis

(10:49):
of the whole Harley photoshoot on the cover Texas Monthly.
You needed to make her more likable. So in nineteen
ninety four, George W. Bush runs for governor, wins vanquishes
and Richard's and we've pretty much had Republican domination across
the state since then. Every statewide elected official ended up

(11:13):
being Republican. So that means your Supreme Court, your Court
of Criminal Appeals, your railroad commissioners, your land commissioner, all
of that, your governor, everybody, attorney general. Well, what happens
when you get this level of a hegemony is this
complete domination means that the battles start happening in the primary,

(11:40):
not in November. But the establishment doesn't want to have
to fight in the primary because you get to vote.
The establishment wants to fight behind the scenes. They've got
very clever lawyers, the lobbyists in Austin. These are very

(12:00):
sharp guys. They've got good relations with the media, particularly
the Austin Press, Texas Monthly and the Light. And these
folks are the reason our party in the state of
Texas is not as conservative as say Florida, which you
would have expected it would be. It does not represent
the Texas voter. Greg Abbott does not represent the Texas voter.

(12:24):
Neither did drunk Day. So drunk Dad got o riskys
he gets defeated or he gets he's trailing going into
the runoff. A woman from Jasper, a man from Orange,
both of them first time candidates, and they take him.
David Covey from Orange takes him to the runoff. Well,

(12:46):
this had never been seen before. The sitting speaker of
the House, and they kept telling people, oh, Golden triangles
never have speaker. Drunk Day's got all the power. It's
good for Golden Triangle, Orange, Jasper, Jefferson County. Beaumont's and
Jefferson County. Well, people say they ain't doing me any good.

(13:07):
Must be doing his family some good. Might be doing
beaumonts some good. Ain't doing me any good? Besides, why
did he try to take out the attorney general? So
drunk Dad barely manages to win his seats barely. In fact,
they had to have a thousand Democrats vote in the
Republican primary runoff. That's never happened before, will never happen

(13:28):
again unless Drunk Days in another runoff. So they poured
millions of dollars. There were big fundraisers in Austin. They
managed to hold onto his state rep seat, a pyrrhic
victory for them. So they knew, we got to get
Drunk Date out of the way or more of us
are going to lose our seats because the number of
state reps did lose their seats. So he goes back.

(13:48):
He's got no power, he's got nothing, poor old drunk Day.
So what does he do. He authors a bill that
would make it a to make a meme, you'd have
to have a government approved disclaimer. This is Soviet level.

(14:10):
It's sad, really, it's embarrassing, and a lot of folks
from making the point that this is the Michael Berrybill,
which it just kind of brandishes my outlaw credentials. If
I'm the bad guy here, you wrote a law that
you're trying to get through the House so that we'll
stop making fun of you. Okay. So the thing that

(14:32):
gets him, apparently is the memes that we make that
show how little he is. And then we do things
like this, We do the drunk Day phone calls. Everybody
knows their parody. He wants us to have to announce
it multiple times or else serve a year in prison.
Like remember when President Trump slapped down the President of
Columbia when he smacked off at Trump. Right after you

(14:53):
got elected, We did a phone call drunk day to
the President of Columbia. Oh I got less miles level
of clock management. You know. Well, well, well, lucky you.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
The Michael Berry Show continues your lucky day.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
To be surprised how the world of media and politics
work hand in glove in ways you wouldn't expect. There
are people the State House is the State House is amazing.

(15:41):
The number of people who will share with you things
going on there that never make the news, and some
of them is not worth me repeating, you know who's
screwing who? Who's mad at who? Because she was screwing
him and now she's screwing the new chair of the
committe whose son is a lobbyist and he's he's screwing

(16:05):
the guy that his dad used to be married. Oh,
it's it's it's ancestuous. It is uh, it's something else.
It's a big party for five months every other year,
and the lobbyists are paying for this. It's it's steakhouse,
booze sex. It's a it's an interesting it's an interesting dynamic.

(16:34):
And there's also a lot of gossip in the state
capitol in Austin, Texas. And the gossip we had heard
was that what we were doing with the drunk Dade
material was being talked about constantly, and that Dade feeling

(16:55):
the Speaker of the House was you know, banging his
gavel and saying, my daddy's rich and I'm the Speaker
of the House. And how does Michael Berry get to
get away with this? Well, he loses the first round
of a state rep seat, which means he's not going
to get to be speaker anymore. And it's embarrassing because

(17:16):
he's going to lunch and dinner every night, and they're
having big fund raisers for him every night, and all
these rich guys are coming in, and all these lobbyists
especially are coming in, and they're telling date, he's real pretty,
but the people hate him. And it's not a secret
that you're walking down the hall past the State Reps

(17:36):
office and one of their staffers is listening to one
of our parodies of him. That gets to you after
a while, So the story from Texas Scorecard. Dade Feeling's
bill would criminalize political means. Courts have routinely struck down
laws that regulate political discourse based on content, citing the
First Amendments strong protections for satire and parodyd Walton's posting

(18:02):
a political meme could soon land you in jail. If
State Rep. Dade Feeling gets his way, House Bill three
sixty six would make it a crime to distribute altered media,
including political memes, without a government approved disclaimer. Violators could
get up to a year in jail. What are you

(18:24):
here for? Murder? No? I made a meme? The State
Affairs Committee will take up the bill by the former
Speaker of the House on Wedness Day, alongside a slate
of energy transmission legislation, so in the middle of laws
affecting the state utility grid. Dade would also like, hey,

(18:48):
also they're picking on me, if you could consider my
bill as well. It is the first hearing of the
Committee on Legislation this session. So here we are. It
is March eleventh. We're finally getting down to the bills,
and this is what drunk Data has brought to the table.

(19:11):
The bill specifically targets political advertising that features an image,
audio recording, or video recording of an office holders or
candidate's appearance, speech, or conduct that did not occur in reality.
This broad language includes media altered using generative artificial intelligence technology.

(19:31):
Shame on you, I'm insulted. We didn't use AI. Let's
just chance mclein doing a hell of a good drunk date.
The Texas at this commission would have the authority to
determine the specific format, font size, and color of the
required disclaimer. Critics say the legislation raises serious First Amendment concerns. Notably,

(19:54):
the legislation would have sweeping implications beyond political advertising. For examp,
the Drunk Dade parody call ins on Michael Berry's radio
program would seemingly be criminalized under the proposed law, as
they involved audio recordings that portray an officeholder's speech in
a way that quote did not occur in reality. Well,

(20:16):
of course it didn't. We don't expect you to believe
that after President Trump slapped down the president of Columbia
who talked big and then had to send his plane
up to pick up these illegals. We don't think you're
dumb enough to think we actually got a recording of

(20:36):
drunk dad calling the President of Columbia. Record your message
after the tone.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
Heistavo Fedro, Presidents Columbia. This is a good old boy,
Dave Falen in Texas. I used to be speaker on
top of the house and I just want to tell
you I thought this is cool of you to do
that thing where you you use your airplane pick up
Colombian drug cartel. Because Trump said they were gonna come

(21:05):
home Columbia and you said plane couldn't come, then he
was gonna tear a few man. I got it gets
too deep in the weeds.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
Of politics politics.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
Listen, Gustavo Pedro, Gustavo, my friend, you think we get
together and play pickleball? Maybe hasle cocktails but gets a.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
Good Colombian wine.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
Or I don't know what else y'all have about whatever
it is. But when I went to Greece, I drank uzu,
so I'll drink Colombian version of uzo. Sen that airplane
gets your drug cartel people, get them back to Colombia,
so everything be cool. A little more tariffs this, We'll

(21:52):
do my part, do my part as we work on
the negotiate nations between Texas and Colombian drug cartel. All right,
give a call Gustavo Pedro.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Can you end of your message? Press one as required
by House Bill three sixty six. I would like to
inform you that, to our knowledge, drunk Dad did not
actually call the President of Columbia, and to our knowledge,

(22:29):
drunk Dad did not leave him a message, And to
our knowledge, the aforementioned message was not actually a part
of the Colombian president's voicemail messages for the day, And
to our knowledge, the Colombian voicemail that you heard, the
president may not actually even have such a voicemail system.

(22:54):
And to our knowledge, drunk Day doesn't even have the
phone number to the President of Columbia. Why would he
He's not even the Speaker of the House of the
State House of Representatives in Texas. He's just a lowly
state rep elected by Democrats in a Republican seniors smart

(23:17):
devices from Michael's brain, every single one of them to
your ears. This is the Michael Berry Show. When Anthony
Wiener first had his problems, he was sending Wiener pics,

(23:38):
which are picks of himself but also his Wiener which
makes it Wiener's Winner, and he was sending pictures of
himself to an underage girl. Bad enough problem became. It's

(23:58):
October before the November election in twenty sixteen. His wife
is chief of staff and maybe more to Hillary Clinton,
and Hillary allegedly people have died for Hillary to be

(24:20):
here at this moment. You cannot screw up Hillary's moment. Well,
Wiener's Wier pick ends up in I think it was
Baltimore where this minor girl, underage girl child was that
he's sending his Wiener picks and the mother of the

(24:45):
little girl gets wind of it. That's Wiener's Wiener. It's
clear what the account is. It's not even a Burner account.
It's in his name. So the mother goes to local authorities,
local authorities begin an investigation. That investigation, they say, uh,

(25:08):
Wiener's a congressman, a big deal. They go in and
raid his house to get his computer to get the
images which are evidence. When they raid his computer, Uh oh,

(25:30):
turns out that Huma Abadine, who ended up going on
to greener pastures with a billionaire afterwards, Huma and he
were sharing information on the same computer. So there's Hillary

(25:50):
Clinton's campaign on that computer that becomes evidence. And that
was when Jim Komy had to tempt this thing down
because he didn't want Trump to be elected. And now
you kind of see why, because Trump wanted a cash
ptel type FBI director, not Jim Comy. His first term,

(26:15):
he tolerated Komy. He learned his lesson from that Boo
me once. Remember Comy was hiding behind the curtain. Big
fellow to be hiding behind the curtain, kind of like
those memes you see of the really fat guy with
the big belly trying to hide behind the little skinny
sapling and like, uh, we can still see you. Well then,

(26:39):
way Wayiner got him into more trouble, do you remember,
And it just seemed like the more things he tried
to do the worse it got. So I'm imagining there's
old drunk Dade sitting in his office. Nobody's coming around
to have a drink with him, nobody's telling him how pretty,

(27:03):
how smart, how powerful he is. He's having to sell
a little real estate on the side for his family's business.
Everybody's making jokes about him, and he says, I'll teach them.
I'll make it illegal to make fun of me. So

(27:26):
drunk Day, Ever, the little frat boy has to get
somebody to write up a statute for him, and he
submits it as house built three sixty six. God bless him,
and he doesn't have friends good enough as friends to say,

(27:50):
drunk Day. Sure, we can get this through committee. We
might even get it through the House, but we're not
going to get it through the Senate, and the governor's
not going to sign it. And the Attorney General, remember
who you impeached, He's going to get this thing struck down.

(28:11):
Drunk Day, take your lumps. You've had a good run.
You're not smart. You've managed to be the Speaker of
the House. You went way further than anybody ever expected you.

(28:31):
You got to sit on the lawn bus this time
be happy. Nope, I got this bilt. We're gonna make
it illegal. They'll have to have a disclaimer on everything
they do, and I'll right the disclaimer. What are you
going to say? We're about to play drunk Day calling

(28:55):
Dolly Parton. Now, to our knowledge, never called Dolly Parton.
To our knowledge, drunk Day doesn't even have Dolly Parton's
phone number. But this is certainly not an accurate portrayal

(29:17):
of that phone call that may never have happened. Record
your message after the tone.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
Hello, Dolly, this is Texas Speaker of the house, Dad failing. Listen.
I watched you at super Bowl halftime shows weekend. I
gotta tell you you put on a hell of a
heck of a show. I asked my buddy, I said, he,
are you watching the super Bowl halftime because Dolly Parton's

(29:46):
got a whole lot of swing going on. Remember er
swing from Austin Powers.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
That was hilarious. Hold on, hold on, d.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
Give me ice cream, ice cream, ice huge trade yellow shots.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Okay, green green, yellow.

Speaker 4 (30:15):
Dolly visiting our call?

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Is my name?

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Day has two d's. In high school, they call me
double d failing because two d's. I thought you could
relate because Dolly. Because Dolly Parton has.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
Two l's, double l's.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
We both have doubles.

Speaker 4 (30:40):
Double Hey call me back?

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Did you just call it?

Speaker 4 (30:44):
Id? Be like they was?

Speaker 2 (30:46):
What?

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Man, it's the day.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Let's go sing song together? Man, you and me and
Kay Rogers? Gont play football?

Speaker 2 (30:55):
You mean Kenny All?

Speaker 3 (30:57):
What?

Speaker 4 (31:00):
Finally, I'm so sorry for your loss. I didn't know
he Rogers passed away recently.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
Islands in the Stream of my favorite song of the seventies.
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