Rick Green
Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for joining us today on the Wall Builders show. We're taking on all the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. You can learn more about us at wallbuilders.com. That's wallbuilders.com. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach, here with Tim Barton. He's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. Also David Barton, America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and all three of us welcome you to this Good News Friday.
We're going to be getting into some of that good news in just a second. I want to encourage you to visit that website at wallbuilders.com so that you can get equipped and inspired, get you some good tools, and also want to encourage you to go there so that you can perhaps come alongside us. You know, listen, it's not for everybody, but if you're listening and you're encouraged, if you are blessed by the program, we would ask that you consider making a contribution one time or monthly, but come alongside us and support what we're doing. You know, to save this country, its lives, fortunes and sacred honor, we've got to be willing to invest in freedom and we've got to be willing to sacrifice right now because the nation is on the brink and we've got the answers. God's given us all the answers in his word. We need to amplify the voice of truth in this country and every donation you make at wallbuilders.com helps us to reach more people with these truths, and that makes it possible for us to equip and inspire them and get them engaged in the fight for liberty in our nation, and that increases our potential of being able to save this constitutional republic. So thanks for doing that. Check it out today at wallbuilders.com.
All right, David and Tim time to send folks into the weekend with good news. That's why I like this being on Friday. You know, if we gave all the good news on Monday, by Friday everybody would be worn out from the week and have to go into the weekend. So we end the week with good news. So let's load them up, David, what’s our first piece of good news today
David Barton
I'm going to go to Idaho with this one and this deals with a growing movement we've seen across the nation to deal with or to address all this trans procedures. I mean schools have gotten so much into pushing trans stuff and it's become part of the culture. Clearly the White House is part of that. I mean the Easter proclamation that came out from the white house is pushing the trans culture. What an Easter proclamation. That was definitely a first in American history. So this is all over and there's at least some pushback going on with that.
Tim Barton
Well, dad, let me also point out that you know, this day of visibility. I felt like that was a big deal for those that don't know, The Biden administration determined that Easter Sunday was going to be a day of visibility for the transgender community and I felt like that was really important because up until Sunday, like they weren't visible, nobody even knew that there was a transgender movement, that transgender people were a thing. So you know, that was it, or maybe we just, you know, for us, we had superpowers and we knew there was a transgender movement and we knew they were very visible because they're all over social media. They're trying to get into every school library. They're trying to get in, uh, city libraries. I mean, like it's crazy, we're saying they're not visible. No, they're like the most visible thing on news right now.
But it does indicate that, as you're kind of indicating the perverseness of the Biden administration that they felt like they needed to highlight on easter sunday, right, arguably, uh, the, the holiest day in in Christendom, as far as, like, what is being remembered, what is being celebrated like this this is the day the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, this is what Christianity is all about. And the Biden administration is saying well, we're going to focus on, instead of, the resurrection of Jesus, we're going to focus on transgender and that movement. It really is despicable and evil. And it does clarify a lot where they're coming from, because the Biden administration did not do any kind of proclamation, any kind of day for Easter. They did it for the transgender movement
David Barton
and, by the way, I love the fact that you're trilingual.
You speak English, you speak Texan, you speak sarcasm really well, those are three great languages to handle. It's good, and jumping in with what you're mentioning about, even with Easter. Not only did Biden come out with that proclamation and, by the way, despite what he said, that he didn't do that, it still has his name at the bottom. He did that. It's on the White House website but you also have for the White House Easter egg roll, which is a traditional thing that happens in the White House on Easter. They would not allow any Easter eggs that had any type of religious artwork on them.
So Easter, what's that about? Well, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but don't put a cross on there and don't put a tomb on there, don't put a risen on as part of the resurrection. So here we have an Easter holiday in America that we're saying, hey, nothing religious on the day, but what we will do is we'll celebrate the Day of Visibility for Transgender. So crazy stuff. But the good news is we're more frequently seeing pushback in the culture against the woke movement. We've seen it now for three or four years with what's happened to Disney, what's happened to the Bud Light, what's happened to Target, all these things, and to Target's credit, I think they've kind of gotten the message. I mean the fact that they actually shut down on Easter and recognize it as a significant holiday. That's not necessarily what secular-minded secularists really do. They respected that holiday. I appreciate that.
Tim Barton
Now, dad, hang on a second. Are you just saying retail, not Walmart Target?
David Barton
Target closed down on Easter. Target closed down on Easter and there were more than 10,000 stores that closed down on Easter. Target closed down on Easter and there were more than 10,000 stores that closed down on Easter. I think there was 28 major chains that closed down on Easter and Target was one of them. To their credit, wow. So give credit where credit's due. Target did the right thing on Easter.
Tim Barton
Yes, I will give credit where it's due, but I think the credit is like a broken clock that just happens to be right twice a day.
Because, right has Target changed their bathroom policy or do they still let men in the women's bathroom? I'm not sure that I'm giving like full credit, but at least they didn't do something as dumb as a Biden administration. They didn't do something as dumb as a Biden administration and it is great I mean to your point, it's great that they recognize this is a day we need to shut down and not do things on Easter. If that's what every store did and recognized, that's great. I'm still not in the place that I'm. Really I don't want to give Target too much credit because I don't want them people to think, because I can imagine right, I know so many ladies listening right now like, yes, I'm shopping at Target again. That's not what we're encouraging, right, that they're still, that they're not embracing the right kind of values in a lot of areas. They just weren't dumb in this one.
David Barton
So what we're seeing is that we're seeing some pushback on that kind of stuff, and, you know, maybe they're getting some messages. I hope they are. But in Idaho, Idaho, last year they came out with a bill that said look, if you're a healthy young person, we're not going to allow in this state any kind of irreversible medical procedure that is contrary to your biological gender. So all the medical mutilation, transgendering, et cetera we're not allowed that in Idaho. And so what they've done this year is they've stepped up and said by the way, we're not even going to allow Medicaid, which is the state funding insurance. We're not going to allow Medicaid or any state funds to be used in anything like this as well, and so they're really backing off. And now we're up around, I think, two dozen states that have done this. And it really is significant If you go back to what the Bible says in Deuteronomy 6:24 and Deuteronomy 10:13,.
The Lord reminded his people. He says everything I tell you is for your good, to prosper you, to keep you alive, to make sure you have a good life. And so when you look at that man, what God says about gender is really clear. There's messed up stuff, sexual gender stuff in the Bible and there's always judgment that goes with it.
But it's significant to me that just this past week I saw a new medical study that has come out that says young people who are involved in any kind of gender transitioning have a suicide rate that is now two times higher than normal young people, and young people are troubled. Right now. Suicide is way too high for young people. But if you get into a gender transition and if you transition which is an irreversible process if you have a medical transition, you're looking at suicide rates now that are twice as high as any other group. So, whether people recognize it or not, this type of law passed by Idaho will have good lasting effects on those young people who may not have the judgment yet to know what the right or wrong thing is, or they're being led by school teachers and other counselors in the wrong direction. This will help stop some of that. But it is a pushback against that woke agenda and I really appreciate what Idaho and a lot of these other states have done to help these young people.
Rick Green
All right, that's a good place to start Tim. Where are we headed from Idaho?
Tim Barton
Well, this one is going to a presidential campaign and not somebody that I am supporting in this endeavor, but it's Robert F Kennedy Jr. And specifically the reason I'm highlighting this is during an interview he talked about the dangers of a central bank digital currency, and we've talked about that several times on this program. This is something that we've actually worked to help educate state legislators on some of these dangers in their state, things that they should do to try to protect the freedom of people. Because if there's a central bank digital currency, when all currency is digital and the government is able to control it, where they can make it programmable, or they can maybe, like in China, do a social credit system, and this is actually what RFK Jr talked about. He said that one of the many dangers of this it's like what happens in Canada, where they had the truckers protesting and then their bank accounts were frozen and all these issues they dealt with. If you do something the government doesn't like, they can freeze your accounts and there's nothing you can do. You have no recourse of action, necessarily. They can bankrupt you, they can kick you out of your home because you're not making your mortgage payments, he said, or it can be and this is RFK Jr talking. He said or it can be like China. In China, they use facial recognition and you can't buy groceries unless you're approved, but they run your facial recognition and make sure your credit score is high enough that you can buy your groceries, and so there's a central bank digital currency. It could be like in China where now, because they control your money, they can do a credit system, a social credit score, and if you do things the government doesn't like, they can shut you down.
Well, the reason this is significant is there are people and this is not RFK Jr talking right, this is me talking now but the reason this is so important and significant is there's people on the left. There's conservatives that have been talking about this, but really there haven't been many voices on the independent, the moderate or even on the liberal side that have been discussing the dangers of this, and Robert F Kennedy Jr is one of the biggest voices on the left. Now, I mean, you might point out, you have guys like Elon Musk I think that's talked about maybe Joe Rogan there have been some people that maybe have mentioned this and especially if it was one of those guys, they have a pretty big following, but you're talking about a presidential candidate who acknowledges how bad and dangerous this is. It's not good for America. It's worth noting that Ted Cruz has actually introduced a proposal seeking to ban the central bank digital currency in the United States, which would be incredibly important, and there's actually a couple of quotes here from Ted Cruz in this.
If people want to read more of the article, it's from the Epoch Times.
The Epoch Times and it's Robert F Kennedy Jr Issues Dire Warning Over CBDC Adoption.
But overall, it's good news when you have people not just on the conservative, the right, the Christian side of the aisle talking about the dangers of a digital currency, of government control, of social credit systems, when you have people across the aisle recognizing this is really dangerous, that is good news that now you have a very leftist. And for those not paying attention, Robert F Kennedy Jr is not a conservative because he holds positions that are similar or parallel with conservatives on certain issues, because we agree on certain issues. Some people think, hey, this guy is not crazy, we support him. Well, he's not crazy on some issues, but there's other issues we might be able to point out and go. He's kind of crazy on this one when it comes to a conservative, a constitutional, a Christian perspective. So this is not supporting the RFK Jr campaign, but it is acknowledging how great it is when you have people from multiple positions acknowledging the dangers of a central bank digital currency, because this truly is a dangerous thing and not something we want in America.
Rick Green
I was wondering if you guys had seen the clip of Robert F Kennedy I think it was CNN where the gal asked about how dangerous Trump is, you know, and he totally flipped it on her and says well, actually you think Trump's a threat to democracy? Joe Biden's the only president in history to silence his opposition like this and of course you guys could probably counter with Andrew Jackson on that to silence his opposition like this, and of course you guys could probably counter with Andrew Jackson on that, but he was still very. I mean, he went off on Joe Biden and gave example after example, after example, and of course it's personal. I mean, for Robert F Kennedy Jr to be denied Secret Service protection when both his dad and his uncle were murdered, I mean it just it's crazy, but that's just one of the things. I mean Biden colluded to silence him online, all kinds of crazy stuff. So he really I think he made Biden look way worse than Trump on that.
Hey guys, let's take a quick break. We've got some more good news coming when we return. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show.
Tim Barton
Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to let you know about an opportunity coming up for pastors and ministry leaders. We are doing our annual pastor's briefing in Washington DC and we do this every year. We do one in the spring, we do one in the fall. This spring it's April 16th and 17th. This fall it is September 10th and 11th. This is one of the most significant things we do to encourage and challenge pastors in this culture we live in.
It's in Washington DC and Tuesday night we do an after hours tour of the US Capitol where we introduce pastors and ministry leaders to the history of the nation. The following day we have congressmen come and they give a briefing on what they're doing and how God is challenging and motivating and using them. And, frankly, most pastors, most ministry leaders, they don't know the rich spiritual heritage of the nation or what God is still doing moving in the hearts and lives of leaders in this nation. I would encourage you if you're a pastor, ministry leader, you need to come to this. It's one of the best things we do at WallBuilders. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and look for the pastor's briefing.
Rick Green
Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. It's Good News Friday and we've got a lot of good news to get to. We'll see how many more we get in the second half of the program. David, what's your next piece of good news?
David Barton
Well, it actually deals with the upcoming election and voter integrity type of issues, and, as the election is coming, people are thinking, hey, the election was stolen and this is not a good deal in 2020. And why should I vote in this election? Because it's already rigged, and et cetera. Listen, there are a lot of things that have changed in the last three years, going to be the last four years when we have the presidential election. And it's not just about the president anyway. It's about Congress, it's about state governors, it's about state legislature, state attorney generals, it's about school boards, it's about everything.
So, just because you get frustrated with what you think is happening with the elections, or that they're cheating or the machines are robbing it, whatever you think, you can't stop voting. God doesn't hold you accountable for what other people do. He holds you accountable for what you do or you don't do. And if you don't show up and don't get involved and don't vote, it doesn't matter whether somebody else stole your vote or not. You don't answer for that. They will. You answer to God for whether you did the right thing. So, as we come into election season and you're hearing all this stuff going on, and even with stuff we're covering today. Don't blow it off and say, look, I tried it, I voted in 2020. It was all stolen, all rigged and it doesn't matter what I do. No, no, no, that's not an option for you. You have to do the right thing, regardless of what anybody else does.
Now I will point out that there are seven battleground states that we're looking at. This election same as we had last election and already in four of those states you've had some major changes happen in a very favorable direction. You have had Arizona, who has passed some very good election laws to tighten up a lot of things. It's going to be harder for them to have anything like they had four years ago. Georgia definitely has tightened up their election laws. It's going to be really hard for Georgia to have a repeat of what they had four years ago. We're seeing a lot of states step in and I'll point out that two years ago I was doing a lot of stuff with Faith Wins.
I still do a lot of stuff with Faith Wins, a great organization really engaged in getting pastors and churches involved in these states battleground states, every state, getting them involved. They've made a big difference in so many states and it was interesting that two years ago we had Sunday school classes and others Chad Conley. We had these Sunday school classes to say, hey, we'll help check the voter registration rolls in our state. And so they were doing that. And you know Chad would say, hey, look for people who are over a hundred years old and still voting Not that they can't, because you might be 120 and still vote but to have a really high turnout of 100 plus people voting, that may be a little unlikely, so at least check to make sure they're real people. And if you have more than six people living at the same address voting, check to make sure. And that's where we found that you know, 17 people had registered from a cow pasture, wasn't even structured there. 17 people are voting out of a cow pasture. No, no, no. So the Sunday schools in Virginia.
They're able to uncover about 5.2% of the voter registrations were fraudulent. They went in and checked them and I remember really clear in Michigan that in Michigan we're looking for people over a hundred years old and found a guy named Jason Daniels and Jason Daniels had voted. He's over a hundred years old and he voted twice in the 2020 election, which that is not a good deal. Anytime you vote twice not a good deal, but he voted twice in the 2020 election, which that is not a good deal. Anytime you vote twice not a good deal, but he voted twice in 2020. But what made Jason so amazing was the fact that Jason was born in 1850. The dude lives through the civil war and he's still voting for either Biden or Trump in 20, really. So that's the kind of stuff that they were able to pull out, and so he started putting pressure on Secretary of State to clean that up, and so the Secretary of State actually sued the state to be able to keep the names of dead people on the voters' rolls.
Now the problem is that you have federal law that says you can't do that. Federal law requires all these states to preserve a good, clean list and to work to keep stuff off the list. I think I saw this week Georgia passed a law that says look, if you're registered to vote in two states, you can't vote in Georgia If your registration is in. For example, if you're, I think there's 52,000 people that are registered to vote in both Florida and New York. You know kind of snowbird people who come south for the winter. But if you're registered to vote in two states, you're not going to be able to vote here. You got to change your voter registration one place or the other, not two states. So we're seeing that go on.
Well, we heard that, with all the dysfunction at the Republican National Committee, trump said, hey, we need a change, and so that had changed, got rid of their current Republican National Committee chairwoman and they brought in Michael Watley, who is the state chairman for the Republican Party of North Carolina, and brought in the co-chairman, who's Laura Trump, his daughter-in-law, and they promised to come in with new aggressive approaches, and you know what it actually looks like.
That has happened, and so now the Republican National Committee has actually sued the state of Michigan over the fact and I grab this in 2020, there was one county in Michigan that had more voters on the rolls than there were voters in the county.
Now, that's a problem. When you have more people on the voter roll, you have voters in the county on the voter roll than you have voters in the county. But now there are 53 counties in Michigan that have more people on the voting rolls than actually are voters in the county, and so they're actually suing to get those names off, because the more fake voters you have, the more fake votes you can have, quite frankly, and so I'm really happy to see some aggressive actions going after the enforcement of existing laws, and sometimes that's all it takes. You have to put sunlight on it, you have to go to court, you have to get the judges to order some things to change that uphold the law, but at least that is starting to happen now with the new leadership of the Republican National Committee. Hopefully they'll do this in all the other states and have any kind of fraud going on, but that's good news coming out of anything leading up for election integrity, voter integrity this is good stuff.
Rick Green
Well, it's one of the biggest concerns, right for everybody that's paying attention right now, so that's an area we need some good news. Tim, where's your next piece going?
Tim Barton
Well, this one's in Texas, and it's something that we've talked about before. Our state legislators has been working on this for several years, but the article says Texas targets ESG ends $8.5 billion investment with BlackRock. And essentially, the ESG for those that don't know, maybe don't remember is the environmental, social, and governance. It is one of these big promotions from leftists that want to go green. Right, this is the environmental side go green. We don't want to have any oil or any natural gas. We don't want people to drive gas or diesel vehicles. We think farmers shouldn't even have cows, because these cows release methane and that's bad for the environment, and so it's very woke policies. The S is social governance, and so if you don't support all of the current political trends of the left right, if you're not in favor of the transgender movement or whatever the gender ideology of the day happens to be, if you're not in favor of boys and girls transitioning quote, unquote, whatever it is if you're not favoring the social position, you get in trouble. The governance is if you don't do what the government tells you. If they're like, hey, we're locking down for the new COVID and you say no, you get in trouble. So ESG is a measuring rubric, that they want to hold companies to the standard. Well, all this to say, blackrock is this incredibly large investment firm and they were following the standards of ESG. And BlackRock said we will gladly take a loss to promote these policies. And so that's what they did with their investing. They only wanted to invest in companies that were doing these things.
Well, there's a lot of irony in this. But for Texas, Texas is a huge producer of crude oil, a huge producer of natural gas. In fact, according to this article, back in 2022, Texas accounted for 42.5% of the country's crude oil production and they also Texas produced about one quarter of the nation's natural gas, and Texas was taking their money. Specifically, this article deals with the Texas Permanent School Fund, which is where the 8.5 billion comes from, and the Texas Permanent School Fund is what funds all the retirement programs from education other things included in that. But they were investing with BlackRock, who is saying, with these ESG policies that we're following, we want to remove crude oil and natural gas, what Texas does and produces. It actually makes a lot of sense.
And Texas says you know if you're trying to destroy our industry and part of what has helped Texas thrive and be successful and part of what helps a nation function with crude oil and natural gas, what powers and enabled us to withstand cold winters, what gives us electricity, all these other things that are benefits and byproducts. Then Texas said you know, maybe we should invest money in companies that are trying to destroy who we are and what we do. And so the article goes on to identify part of what Texas has done, what has led to this. But it does just point out the good news that we have seen this growing trend, and I think we've talked about this many times on Good News Friday. We have seen so many companies, so many states come out against ESG, recognizing the dangers of it and saying we want to do something different, knowing this ideology is very destructive. And this was just another article highlighting where, in Texas, Texas is taking some steps to make sure they are not investing retirement funds or whatever other accounts into ESG.
David Barton
You know it's really significant because BlackRock has such a large amount of money, but to take that many billion away, that is a huge cut at BlackRock. You've already seen West Virginia do the same thing they pulled all their funds out. Florida's done the same thing, and so now you have all these lawsuits going at BlackRock because just average investors, 401k and others what you have. These companies have a fiduciary responsibility to retired people, to teachers, to everyone to take their money and make it produce as well as they can. And there is absolutely no question that BlackRock was investing in things that were underproducing. They were way under the market.
David Barton
ESG stuff does not produce economically. So they've also got a bunch of lawsuits from states saying, hey, you're not upholding your fiduciary responsibility. So it's really good to see that the free market aspect is starting to win out on this stuff and starting to drive these guys who really hate competition, hate the free market, drive them into a place where they no longer have the massive influence. So, Tim, that's a great story from Texas and BlackRock. That is a big bite out of BlackRock's apple that they tried to use for making money for themselves. Pulling that many billion out. That is a massive victory.
Rick Green
All right, folks, that's all the good news for today, but we'll have more for you next week. Make sure you tune in for all the other programs next week as well. You don't want to miss Foundations of Freedom Thursday or the interviews throughout the week. Check it out at wallbuilders.com if you'd like to get some good downloads and some good materials for the kids and for the whole family, wallbuilders.com. Thanks for listening to our good news program today. You've been listening to the WallBuilder Show.