Rick Green: 0:12

Welcome to the intersection of faith in the culture. This is WallBuilders where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Thanks so much for joining us today on this good news Friday. I love these programs, it's a chance to catch up on some of the good stuff that's happening out there. As you know, we we give the good, the bad, the ugly, we don't shy away from the bad the ugly, but on Fridays, we like to focus on the good and get some of those victories that have taken place. I'm Rick Green, America's constitution coach and a former Texas legislator honored to be here with David Barton and Tim Barton. David is America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, Tim's national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. Lots of great information on David and Tim and the great work that WallBuilders has done over the decades at WallBuilders.com That's our main website, WallBuilders.com. Check that out. And then also check out our radio site WallBuildersLive.com, where you can get archives of the program, make a contribution so the program can grow, and just become a part of what we're doing. We love locking shields with people all over the nation. Whether you're teaching a biblical citizenship class right now, or you're sharing in some other way, this great information, it's equipping and inspiring people to restore our constitutional republic. Alright, guys, before we get to the good news, let's continue what we've been doing throughout February, which is getting those incredible heroes of history stories, who is our hero of history today?

Tim Barton: 1:28

All right, guys. Well, our hero today is Henry Highland Garnet. And for those who want to follow along, if you go to the WallBuilders website, you can download these PDFs or you can get us to mail you a printed out version, we are literally just going kind of the top of the stack through number 20 In these black heroes as we go. And today, Henry Highland Garnet, one of the things noteworthy about him and there's many things we will highlight in the story today. But one of the things is that he was the first black American to speak on the floor of Congress. And there's actually quite a fascinating story as this unfolds, because he was a pastor, a noted pastor, and when the 13th Amendment was passed, and things are now changing, even civil war related, there was the thought that we need to actually preach a sermon, we want to invite a pastor to come in and deliver a sermon in the US House of Representatives in Congress. And Henry Highland Garnet was a pastor invited to do that. He actually brought people from His Church, His choir, I mean, really incredible deal. But, Dad, let's back up. Let's walk through a little bit of the story of Henry Highland Garnet.

David Barton: 2:34

Yeah, Henry Holland, Garnet starts his life as a slave. And he was a slave in Maryland. But with the help of Quakers, he's able to escape and get his freedom. And so he grows up, he has a real love for the Lord. He has a love for freedom, has love for the Lord. And he's very active and in fighting against slavery. And so he works with a number of organizations that fight slavery. And he ends up as a preacher being actually up in New York City at a major Church in New York City. And while he's there, he's able to communicate with President Lincoln. And he's one of the first guys to start urging President Lincoln to allow blacks to fight allow blacks to fight for their own freedom, put blacks in the Union forces, so he starts lobbying that and that comes through finally with the Emancipation Proclamation, but throughout that time, one of the things Henry Highland Garnet did was he really liked to highlight the contributions of blacks that were significant. And one of those was Robert Smalls. We talked about Robert Smalls earlier. He was from South Carolina, he's the guy that was able to take the the Confederate ship and, deliver it to Uncle Abe as he said, delivered to Abraham Lincoln and, and so that he became the first black captain of a US naval ship. And once he had been able to take that ship and give it over the union, he went to this big meeting in New York City, and it was at Henry Highland Garnet's church, and he brought him up there and say, Hey, guys, look at what's happening. Look at fighting for our own freedom. These are guys fighting for their freedom. And so they gave Robert Smalls, a five minute standing ovation, five minutes straight of clapping for his heroism and what he had done. They also minted at a special gold medal they gave to him on that occasion. So Henry Highland Garnet, then has an opportunity to move and be a pastor in Washington, DC, 15th Street Presbyterian Church. And so he decides to take that opportunity, because that puts him in close contact with the President and with political leaders, their Republican leaders in the House and Senate. And so he works there in Washington, DC meets with the President and, and has ideas for the President. And so things go really, really well. And here's the guy... and by the way, when he was younger guy, even in the anti slavery part of the nation, he went to a school he attended a school and he worked on a farm that was part of the way he earned his money to go to school. And he got in an accent on that farm that really crushed his leg, crippled his leg, but he went on to school and then went to a higher school of higher education and one night a bunch of ruffians attacked that school because they didn't want any School blacks were attending. And so they started trying to hurt the kids and he actually pulled out a shotgun and went after the guys and drove them off and saved lives. So he was willing to fight for defense of life and liberty. But that leg eventually had to come off. It just never got well, and so he had to amputate that leg when he was much younger. So as a pastor, he was on crutches and he had that amputated leg when he's in Washington, DC, the same thing. And finally, when they pass in Washington, DC, they passed the 13th amendment to end slavery. At that point in time, the House says, All right, we need to celebrate this. How do we do this? And they said, well, let's get Henry Highland Garnet because here's a guy who was a slave. He worked his way into freedom. He is now free. He's a great leader. He's a great spokesman. Let's have him come in. And Tim, as you mentioned, he came in he brought the choir, they had a two hour sermon. It was a great, great time. We actually have one of those original sermons that he preached there in the house. We have actually two copies of that original sermon. It's really fun stuff. But Henry Holland Garnet went on to serve in federal administration. He served for example, under President Garfield, and he went to Liberia to help blacks that were emigrated into Liberia. Actually died in Liberia of a sickness he caught there. But his life was spent. Great black hero, first black man to speak in the halls of Congress.

Rick Green: 6:21

Alright, time to jump into that good news. David, what's our first piece of good news?

David Barton: 6:25

Okay, if you are with us on Wednesday, for good news Wednesday, because we had so much good news, we had to cover some then, I'm still riding the same horse I was riding on Wednesday. So here we are two days later...

Tim Barton: 6:34

So you rode to town on Friday, you stayed three days. And you left on Friday, how'd you do it?

David Barton: 6:39

The horse's name is Friday, so I'm still on the same horse. And now it is Friday. So now that little riddle actually works, and is staying with the fact of what's happened since the Republicans have taken the house- It's not being covered much in the media. And a lot of it is process stuff. And I really liked that process stuff. Because that really has a huge effect on everything else. As we're told

to in 2 Timothy 2: 7:02

5, if you don't run according to the rules, you can't win the race. So rules are really important. And so that change of rules they made has been very significant. And under that change of rules, one of the things that happened was they changed the way that federal lands are handled. Now, I'm talking about the rules and the US House, they changed the rules in the house and the rules in the house, now by having changed them, it makes it easier for the federal government to transfer property back to the states. Now this goes back. We've had a few programs on this over recent years. But it's the fact that out in the west, particularly states like Nevada and Utah, it's like 85 to 87% of the state of Nevada is owned by the federal government. And when those territories like Nevada territory became a state, the agreement was the federal government was going to transfer all federal territory to the states. So all those states are out there, and they have all this federal territory that they can't get access to. The federal government runs it. And there has been a move for a long time for the federal government to keep its word. You promised in the enabling acts of these states that you're going to return their state territory to them and you've held on to it. Now, when you're on the east side of the Mississippi River over in the eastern states, I think it's only about 3% of that territory, the federal government actually owns on the east side of the river. And on the west side of the river, as you go west, it's around 65-68% of western land is owned by the federal government. So actually rules passed in the House make it easier for the federal government to transfer land back to the States. That's a really good deal. Now, whether the Biden administration will do that or not, who knows. But now the rules are such that it can be done much easier. And there's certainly a lot of support in Congress for moving some of that territory back because the federal government keeps taking that territory and making it unavailable to citizens, they make it all sorts of reserves for things that don't even exist on it. We've had that in Texas, where they declared all these Preservation Areas for the yellow breasted warbler, nobody could find one even but they made the Preservation Areas, so farmers and ranchers couldn't even use the land anymore. So they do that in a number of areas to declare these refuges for things that people can't even find, supposedly, they're out there somewhere. And so they're non productive, they're not used at all. This is a really good step. And it came from the change of leadership, that they changed the rules, which goes back to those guys holding out for 15 votes not to get a different speaker necessarily, but to get different rules package. And it's paid off in a number of ways. And hopefully we'll see it pay off with the transfer of western lands back to some of the states.

Rick Green: 9:40

All right over to Tim, what is our first piece of good news from you today, Tim?

Tim Barton: 9:44

I'm going to say in Washington, DC and this is something that came out January 30. Is when this was reported. The title says White House caves to House Republicans now where did they cave? Well, back on the 27th, majority leader Steve Scalise announced that House Republicans would bring up legislation to vote immediately to repeal the public health emergency for COVID 19 and the national emergency declared over COVID 19. So Congress was going to vote on this, the White House said, Wait a second, guys, we will take care of this. So on Monday, January 30, President Biden inform Congress that he would end COVID-19 Public Health Emergency and COVID-19 national emergencies, but not till May 11. Because all of us know, it's still crazy right now. You can't get on a plane unless you wear a mask. Wait. Yes, you can. You can't go out to eat unless you... wait. Yeah. Oh, yep. Yep, no, no, it's over. What are we doing, and yet, because the White House recognizes that they don't want to give up power, they don't want to give up control and authority. They don't want to stop promoting fear so that they can manipulate people. They don't want to walk away from this. But the good news is having, Dad, as you mentioned, different leadership up in the house, we are seeing some different things happen. Now, we don't expect this to go as well in the Senate as maybe getting passed in the House. And even saying as well, in the Senate. You know, it's a little relative, that how many Democrats in the House are going to be against this and what that looks like, as we go forward. Nonetheless, it's great that we are at least seeing positive pressure in the right direction. And it's because there is a change of leadership. I remember back in after the 2020 election, when the idea was, what we... the media kept telling us is the adults are back in charge now. And then from the adults, all we've seen are dumb decisions over and over and over under this Democrat leadership. But now the Republicans have the house again, we are seeing a positive push in the right direction to change some of these rules. So this is yet another good indication, a piece of good news with some of the changes in leadership, at least for Republicans having the house

David Barton: 11:51

you know, part of this is pure politics. Because the measure you talked about, there were actually three measures that they were bringing up to end COVID. Now, granted, it's just a house measure. But what happens is, you have the media talking about the House passed this measure to end, the COVID protocols have declared the emergency over. And so that becomes the media talk. So what happened was the White House just before that vote says, Hey, we're lifting it. Well, they didn't make a big deal out of the fact that they're not lifting it for several more months, they just made sure to suck the air out of the room, so the media talks about them. So there was very little media coverage of what happened in the house, because it's all moot. Now the President's already ended the emergency. No, he hasn't. And he could change his mind 15 times between now and May. But that's part of the Washington DC politics you play with a lot of times, is who gets the messaging who gets the credit. So they want that White House to get the credit. So just before this... and there was no indication the White House was going to lift the emergency status at all, nothing until these measures came up in the house. And so kudos to the house, even though didn't get credit for it, they pushed the White House into at least declaring it into the emergency. That's what people heard. They hadn't heard that it's May, so we'll see if they actually do it in May. But at the meantime, this is still a really good result coming out of the house.

Rick Green: 13:07

Hang on, guys, we got to take a quick break. We'll be back with more good news, you're listening to WallBuilders. Welcome back, WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us today. Let's dive back into some good news. David, our next piece of good news?

David Barton: 13:28

Okay, my horse could be getting really tired of this, but I'm still riding the same horse. It's been three days I'm on this horse. But I'm still riding the same horse. And this is again back to the house. I love the tactical consideration that went into this. The House leadership and house... the Republicans in the house came up with a measure. And they wanted the whole house to vote on a resolution denouncing socialism. Now the resolution has no impact at all. It just puts people on record for what they believe about this. And so what they did was they talked about how bad socialism... and a lot of this is because you get so many Democrats in Congress that are socialists, but they won't say that but you know they are because the way they vote and what they do. And if you actually had them voting in support of socialism, it becomes much easier to run an ad against them to say hey, you know, your person here your Congresswoman/man, actually, likes socialism, voted against a resolution condemning socialism. And it's just something that hits in politics is not going to make a whit of difference, except it might change the composition of the house if word gets out there who voted for and against us. So part of the resolution. Here's part of what it says. It says that whereas socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of 100 million, and many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialists ideologues, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong II, Kim Jong Un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro and others and it goes on to talk about all the horrors that have happened, the 10 million that are in the gulags of the Soviet Union and the Soviet... And by the way, Soviet Union was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And it just goes through and list all the bad things about us. So when it comes time for a vote, how does it go? I was really surprised that you had 99 Democrats who did not vote in favor of this resolution condemning 100 million deaths, 10 million and Gulags all the other stuff, you actually have 87 Democrats who voted against the resolution condemning socialism, and you had another 12 who voted present rather than vote either way. So essentially, you have 99 Democrats, which is essentially half the Democrats in Congress, that would not condemn socialism, that is really big stuff. Now, hopefully, word will get out to constituent and others because the tone is changing in America toward socialism. It's no longer what it was three, four years ago, when colleges and everybody were teaching this and promoting this really good. And the polling showed that it was on his increase. It's not increasing the way it was. And as socialism has become more violent through Antifa, and Black Lives Matter and others, it turned a lot of people against it. So it's good to have this vote on record. Now. We'll see what happens with it. And by the way, this is not just Republicans, Democrats do this all the time to try to get votes with Republicans that they can they can capitalize on elections. But this I thought was a really smart idea, because this is something that the American people are very firm on and they're moving in the right direction. And having this vote I think is another good thing coming out of Congress.

Rick Green: 16:37

Alright, Tim, we got time for one more piece of good news today. Where are we headed?

Tim Barton: 16:40

All right. Well, guys, this one is going to a court case that came out recently. The title is articles as federal judge acquits Mark Houck and win for pro life movement. I actually have a couple of different articles highlighting this another article title says, Father rated by FBI found not guilty of federal charges alleging he assaulted abortion worker. Now this is something that probably many of you listening have seen something about this, at least, I would assume so. If you are involved in any of the kind of conservative pro life circles, this was a big news story when it came out just a couple of weeks ago. One of the things that brought notoriety to this was Mark Houck was a... is a pro life activist and an activist becomes a little relative of how that becomes an accusatory term at times, if you're a pro life nonetheless, he was with his son, and they were outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, in the course of their time, out there trying to counsel people in the sidewalk trying to engage in conversation with women, offer help. There's another option. There's another way. There's people that want to help you can we pray with you. There was a worker from Planned Parenthood, apparently, a volunteer perhaps, but it was an escort. And this escort came over to Mark and his 12 year old son and began yelling at Mark yelling to the 12 year old son, and they were telling the 12 year old son that your dad's a bad man, your dad hates women, etc. Well, the dad pushes the worker away from him and his son, pushed a second time. And so then police were involved and they came and they showed up well, the police declined to pursue the case they dropped it. A judge tossed a civil lawsuit because this abortion worker escort then brought lawsuit on a civil case, a civil claim and said, Whoa, this was wrong. And I want to sue them because it hurt my emotions and my feelings got hurt when they did this. And the judge said no, you have no grounds for this. They tossed it. After the case has been dropped by the police and a judge tossed the civil suit. The Justice Department said well, we will step in and we will pick this case up and so at this point Mark Houck was approached not just somebody knocking on the door saying hey, we want to talk to you. No, no. FBI raided his home. And we're talking about like Swat, we're talking about shields, as if you know he's going to return fire. These guys are showing up in masks and drawn weapons...

David Barton: 19:11

I think I remember it was more than a dozen guys that came in withdrawn weapons into the house, broke through the door. More than a dozen guys had their weapons drawn, went in with the AR 15 look and attacked through the... through the door. The family standing there terrorized. They don't know what Dad's done. Here he is with all these guns pointed at him looking like they're gonna blow him up. It was bad.

Tim Barton: 19:32

I mean this goes back to one of the things we saw with some of the January 6 defendants when by and large these were peaceable people and if you were just shown up knock the door and said hey, we want you to come down police station come talk to us. Right whatever the case is like this did not have to be the deal you made it. These were not crazy, violent Antifa members, right? That's not who you're dealing with here. This was a pro life guy. Well, the Justice Department decided that they're going to charge him with violating The Face act F-A-C-E act. And what this was intended to do when this came out, it was to prohibit violent threatening, damaging and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate or interfere with the right to seek, obtain and provide reproductive health services. Now, we already have issues calling abortion, reproductive health services, because it stops you from reproducing and actually murders the unborn child that is in the mother's womb, nonetheless, what's worth noting is the law, under the law you have to be 50 feet away from the clinic, which they were and then it doesn't mean that you can't defend your 12 year old son, if someone gets in their face starts yelling at them, starts right throwing all kinds of accusations at them against the Father. The Father wants him, the son to have space from this accuser. There's so much more to the story. And there's a reason the police officers dropped it. There's a reason the judge dismissed the civil lawsuit. And yet the Justice Department thought they would take this up so they took it up. The good news is the federal jury acquitted Mark Houck. And this accusation brought against him and what was recognized. The Thomas Moore Center are the ones who were with Mark Houck and his movement, they identified the great news this is. The Biden Department of Justice, intimidation against pro life, people and people of faith has been put in its place. There's a lot of statements that were released in this article. But the bottom line is, it is really great news that a federal jury recognized that not just that this Face act is ridiculous. But that what Mark Houck did was not a violation of this and the Justice Department was way out of bounds in what they tried to do. And as we've seen guys, the weaponization of the federal government against average citizens, this is a yet another example of the weaponization of federal government. The good news is the federal jury recognized that no, this is totally wrong Justice Department, you are way out of bounds way out of line. And Mark Houck got the win, which is the good news.

David Barton: 22:07

Now I'm going to follow up on that story, because I've got another one on the freedom access to clinics act. That was a act as I remember that went back to Bill Clinton. And Bill Clinton at that point in time got this Act passed that says hey, you can't block federal clinics. It's a federal crime if you do. And so Houck it was released because he didn't violate that law. He wasn't 50 feet as you point out. So here's all the stuff and we're scratching our heads and a wait a minute, why would you arrest a pro life guy who didn't even violate the law and leave alone 250 pro life pregnancy centers and churches that have been firebombed because the abortion stuff? How come you're not showing equal justice here on both sides? And considering especially the fact that what happened with the firebombing and other things that goes back to the leak of the Dobbs case from the Supreme Court when word came out that they were going to overturn abortion and all that firebombing started and all the pro life side just getting their brains beat in, except I've got an article here where the Department of Justice has just indicted two people under the freedom of access to clinics act under Face, because they firebombed a Pregnancy Clinic. And the DOJ said Pregnancy Clinic that's a reproductive health clinic. So we're going to protect it too. I mean, this is amazing out of 250 places firebombed, the Justice Department has now stepped up and said, No, we're coming after you. And so they've arrested two people. And they could face 12 years in prison and fines of$350,000. But I love the fact that they quoted the face act. And they said using threats of force to intimidate and interfere with the employees of a reproductive health services facility, which is pro life, and intentionally damaging destroying facilities properties for reproductive health services, which they viewed as pro life. This is great that they're using face also against the abortion activists.

Tim Barton: 23:52

And this is something that as we've talked about before, and so many these agencies, there are really good people in some of these agencies in the FBI and the CIA and the Department of Justice. There are good people there. The problem is, generally speaking, the leaders those organizations are not good. And there certainly are very corrupt people in there as well. So as you're even saying this, it just makes me think okay, so there has to be somebody, right, some level of sanity in Department of Justice, but they're probably way out numbered. And it's still a major problem.

David Barton: 24:19

Well, this is the Florida branch and so they probably have DeSantis-itis down there and probably caught some common sense or something. So that's branch of the DOJ that did this.

Tim Barton: 24:28

So good news, that in this case, at least, you do see department of justice going after the prosecution of individuals that did firebombing of these pro life pregnancy centers. That is additional good news.

Rick Green: 24:41

Okay, folks, we're out of time for today's good news. But there is more at our website WallBuilders.com And WallBuildersLive.com. Check that out today. And be sure to make that one time our monthly contribution. That's what makes it possible for us to train pastors and teachers and young people and put out all the great material, the program all the things we're doing to rebuild the walls just like it says in Nehemiah arise and rebuild the walls, that we may no longer be a reproach. We need to continue to do that and just like it took funding to rebuild the walls in Nehemiah's day, it takes funding to do the things we're doing here at WallBuilders and rebuild the culture rebuild the foundation. So thanks for being a part of it making that contribution today. We appreciate you listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders.