Rick Green: 0:12
Welcome to Good News Friday on WallBuilders. Thanks so much for joining us here. It's a place where we take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective, and we love Fridays a chance to get into some of that good news. So I know you're going to enjoy today. Encouraging you also to visit our websites WallBuilders.com and WallBuildersLive.com. Make a one-time or monthly contribution there. It helps us to reach more people, train more pastors, train more students and legislators and constitution coaches and all the different things that we're working on to save our constitutional republic by restoring those biblical foundations, and we're thankful that you're a part of that. I'm Rick Green, america's Constitution Coach, and I'm here with David and Tim Barton. They're going to be sharing a lot of good news for us today. I've been mentioning this as often as possible because it's frankly top of mind, right now. We all need to be ready and able to defend ourselves and our families. We enjoy putting on something called Constitutional Defense, which is the best handgun defense training on the planet with the best instructors you can find, and also good intellectual ammunition by learning the history of the Constitution and then specifically the Second Amendment, but also getting that really good physical training so that, God forbid, the wolf shows up at your home or church or school or restaurant, wherever you are, but that you are trained as a sheepdog to defend those around you. So check that out today at PatriotAcademy.com. Again, we call it Constitutional Defense and you will greatly enjoy that training. It's needed now more than ever. Let's jump into some of that good news.

David Barton: 1:41
Well, I've got a stack of good news stories that all relate to the same topic, so I'm going to kind of cover them all together. And it deals back when the attack on Israel started, back when Hamas launched that surprised the attack against Israel, and so initially there was a lot of early coverage on that, and that's when we started seeing a lot of reactions that surprised and shocked a lot of Americans, particularly on college campuses. College campuses started having all these pro-Hamas things and saying Israel is evil and Israel is bad, and I know that surprised a lot of people and that's the headlines I've got is all these people said we're not funding those schools anymore. But that shouldn't have come as a surprise. Over the last several years, literally 1100 college campuses a year hold anti-Israel events and this had been going on for a number of years. So we've been steadily indoctrinating kids at state universities and private universities all over America to be anti-Israel, that Israel is the oppressor and all the Palestinians who kill and murder. They're not. They do that because Israel forces them to do that. They're doing that in self-defense. And so what's happened with all that indoctrination? It should not be a surprise that when this happened and Israel got hit that they were cheering and hollering and hooping and shouting and saying this is really good news, what a glorious day. But it did surprise a lot of Americans. And this is part you know, Tim, Rick, we've all said if you've got your kids in universities, you need to be really aware of what they're being taught and unless they're super strong and can handle that, that's a dangerous place to be philosophically and spiritually right now.

Tim Barton: 3:17
Well and you know we can go even further that there's people out there like Charlie Kirk who his kind of mantra for this now is college is a scam, because of how much money some of these universities are making and how much detrimental information they are ingraining in these young minds. It really is true in so many respects. With it being said, we are not anti-college, we're anti-most college. We support, if somebody wants to be a doctor, please go to college, right. Go learn how medicine works. If you're going to be an engineer, please go to college. I would like bridges to still work in the future, right. Like we are not anti-college, however, we are very much anti the idea that everybody needs to go to college, number one. We're very much anti the idea that if you would go to college, then you could figure out what you want to do in life, because that's what a lot of people do. They think, well, this is the next step, I'm going to go to college and then I'll figure out what I'm going to do and who I'm going to be. And there are better ways to do that. Actually, you can get a job and start making money while you're trying to figure out what you want to do with your life and who you want to be, and you would be way further ahead of the game. Because what we know is it's less than 25% of college students that actually get a degree that will find a job in that degree field or even in that area of their degree field. The vast majority of people end up not using their degree. And so if you are having kids that you're going to send to a university to indoctrinate them in anti-Christian, anti-American nonsense, and then they're not even going to use that degree, and it costing you how much money. None of that makes sense. And there are some great Christian universities out there, and so if somebody wants to go to university and maybe they know what God's calling them to do. And they need to get a degree to pursue that, well, there are some great Christian universities out there that you will not lose your mind or your soul in the process. But we have got to come to the place that we recognize that college now is not what college was hundreds of years ago, or maybe even 50 or 60 years ago. What college is now is indoctrination camps for wokeism, anti-America, anti-God, anti-Christian, and that's not what we want our kids to go through.

David Barton: 5:48
By the way, just kind of jumping into what you said, Tim, with Charlie Kirk, that the college is a scam. That is now even more abundant In the last couple of weeks. We're finding out that colleges are dropping entrance exams to get into college. We don't care what you know, how much you know, just come on to college, we need you at college. So there's a real desire to indoctrinate and they're not looking for how much you know or how good you are at it, we just want you coming. So the scores have gotten so low academically that they're not even using testing anymore. They just want you to come to college where they can pour into you and get the craziest up. But, Tim, as you said, there's about a dozen colleges that we point to that we like, that we think are really sound, where you're not going to lose your mind or your soul or your spirit. So, shifting back to what was going on, it shocked a lot of people how radical the universities had become anti-Israel. And so here's one New York University. The head of the student law group cheered for the Hamas attack and said Israel, basically said Israel deserve this. And all these alums of New York University said do what? And the university didn't do anything to discipline this guy and you're supporting the position? And so they're jerking funding from that and that's a big, prestigious university, big law school there NYU big law school, and so they got the donors all upset there over at Harvard, there were about three dozen groups that came out Hurray for Hamas, for knocking Israel. Israel needs to be whacked. Hamas is a really good group. Here's one of a billionaire and he I don't know looks like he maybe gives 300 million a year to Harvard, but he said I'm not giving another cent to Harvard. It's not gonna happen. Here's another billionaire who said the same thing. All these donors are coming out saying we've had it with Harvard, one really big donor, university of Pennsylvania same thing. So all these schools, they came out anti-Israel. And all these people that are now coming out saying and actually, over in the case of Harvard, just having a Harvard degree used to be an open door for all sorts of stuff into certain law firms, into certain business firms, certain investment firms, and so now, over on the Harvard side, there's a dozen of these CEOs that say, hey, we want to specifically know who the kids are in those three dozen groups, because we're not gonna hire a single one of them. I don't care if they do have a Harvard degree after their name. We're not hiring them. So it's a big thing going on. Now with that, here's the article that really kind of got me, so I'm going to read a little bit of this, because it summarizes all the stuff we're seeing about education in universities. I'm just going to start reading. This says elite universities are under fire for their weak support of Israel while allowing students to celebrate terrorism. Left-wing university students who support Palestine and blame Israel for the savage Hamas terrorist attacks on Jews are finding themselves increasingly on the receiving end of the very cancel culture they embrace. Prominent CEOs and, by the way, I think that's ironic the cancel culture is now being canceled in a great degree. We've seen part of that happening with other parts of the cancel culture, whether it be Bud Light or Disney or Ben and Jerry's or whatever, but now universities are being canceled. Prominent CEOs and influential law firms have pledged not to hire pro-Hamas students, blaming Israel for the carnage of October the 7th. Deep pocket donors have cut off funds to universities that did not strongly condemn the massacre that many have compared to the 9-11 terrorist attack on New York. Harvard University became the epicenter of the debate after 34 Harvard student organizations signed onto a letter from the Harvard Palestinian Solidarity Committee the day Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel stating they held Israel quote entirely responsible for the Hamas brutality. Other universities were University of Pennsylvania, columbia University, new York University. Cornell University professor actually said the Hamas attack on Israel was exhilarating. That was his word. So what's happened is this guy named Agman. He's the CEO of Persian Square Capital Management. He posted on X that a number of CEOs had contacted them about none of us hiring inadvertently any of these members. So he's pushing Harvard to say who are these kids? Harvard is protecting the kids. There was. Town Hall came out with a listing of the groups and of the students they knew associated with those groups, and so one of the billboard kind of vans that have the digital ads on the side started driving around the Harvard campus with the names of the students that were supporting the Hamas type stuff. So they've had all these billionaires cutting, cutting things. Well, going a little further, I'm just going to tell you some of the consequences. Neil Barr, the managing partner of Davis Polk, a big law firm, revoked the job offers to students in leadership positions at Harvard and Columbia University. New York law firm Winston & Strawn, one of the biggest in the nation, resented an offer to the president of New York Student Association's Bar Association. He probably would have started out with a heavy six figure income just because of where he came from going to that law firm he's gonna start big would have been way up into seven figures, probably pretty quick. So he's been told by the law firm he's not going to be hired by them anymore. Other CEOs the restaurant chain Sweetgreen they don't want any of those kids Doverhill Capital Management, FabFitFun, L Brands, which is Victoria's Secret, and Bath Body Works, they don't want any of those kids. So I mean the list of corporate stuff coming out. This is not the list I would have chosen to have been pro-Israel and anti-Hamas, because a lot of these groups are fairly liberal, but even at that they're pro-Israel.

Tim Barton: 11:18
Well, Dad too, you know, I think it's interesting I don't know that all these corporations are as much pro-Israel as much as they are anti-terrorism. Because, right, if they were like, hey, you have to like Israel to work for us. I don't think that's a requirement, but when they see these groups saying we think it's great that these terrorists went door to door and they were executing people, they were torturing people, they were raping people, they were dismembering or decapitating people, including children and babies, I think this is where it's nice to see that you do have some corporations, organizations, that still have enough moral clarity. As confused as their clarity is on some of the moral issues, they have enough moral clarity on this issue and I'm not sure for all of them it's that they're pro-Israel as much as they are recognizing you can't be pro-terrorism on this level and then be a good employee for us. So I think it could even be pragmatic on some level more than pro-Israel, but it still is really, really good news.

David Barton: 12:20
Yeah, it really is. There's four articles I saw that had really good quotes in them summarizing where we are, and one, a law professor at Cornell University, said it's ironic that the boycotters complained about being boycotted and so many of these were anti-BDS and they wanted boycott Israel. But now that they're being boycotted and they can't get the jobs they're complaining, that's not fair. Here's one from Heritage Foundation says the universities are experiencing a backlash that they're not accustomed to. They've let radicals run rampant and universities are now reaping what they have sown. And that's really true. This is what they've been fostering. It's now come back on them and they don't like it. Here's one from Apollo Global Management. He said microaggressions are condemned with extreme moral outrage on campuses. So don't call me by my pronoun name. I'm really upset. And yet violence, particularly violence against Jews, anti-semitism, violent against conservatives seems to have found a place of tolerance on campuses. So we can't have the microaggressions, but it's okay killing people? I don't think so. And they noted the irony too, that they want to cancel all these conservatives that come on campus, but they want their voice not to be canceled. And that was another irony. And so here's the final one. It's with the National Center for Public Policy Research and they said I think we're going to look back on this as a tipping point moment, and I hope that's right. I hope this is what starts cleaning up some of the nonsense we've been talking about for years here that people have seen, but it's now manifested itself with fruits, and this is where the Bible talks about. If you sow the wind, you're going to reap the whirlwind. They've been sowing these wild oats for a long time and now they've got a crop of wild oats and then like what they're seeing, and I'm glad that business owners and the cultural people and that entrepreneurs and capital management whatever they're saying this is not what we want working for us and hopefully that will lead to some major reforms in universities. We'll see.

Tim Barton: 14:17
And it's still worth pointing out. This is not, this is not everybody, but the fact we are seeing this, this much of a response, is very encouraging and positive. Because, right, guys, we talked about how many major cities in the US where there're pro Hamas marches Right after this happened. Obviously, that's why some of these, these organizations, have responded, because on so many campuses there was this attitude in the sentiment. And so you still have, right, your squad members from Congress that are super woke, that are super anti Israel, they're anti Semites, I mean just really racist, not good people. But the fact that you have anybody, and especially when you're talking about major law firms or major companies, when you have anybody saying that we're not going to do that here, right, that's not who we are. In fact, if that's who you want to be, then we're not a good organization for you. That is just so encouraging that somebody still has some small little piece of moral clarity left on an issue that should not be controversial.

Rick Green: 15:26
Yeah, guys, and I think it. I mean we're talking generally right now, right, like just money and things going to colleges and liberal community and that sort of thing. But it's really interesting, even specifically the liberal Jewish community. So obviously there's conservative Jews, there's liberal Jews, there's some who don't pay attention to this stuff at all, but the liberal Jewish community is seeing exactly what you've been describing, David, and at some point at least some of them are saying wait a minute, the left is celebrating with Hamas. Why would we support the left anymore when they're doing the things that they're doing? So maybe even specifically in the Jewish community, especially in America, where you have a lot of liberal Jewish communities that man, it's shocking to me how much they side with the Democrats. Maybe there we'll see some change as well.

Tim Barton: 16:08
Well, I think this is another one of those indications of why we keep saying we think we're in an awakening. If you look back at the first and second Great Awakening, they weren't peaceful times in American history, that they were very controversial, dividing times. The second Great Awakening the defining issue of the second Great Awakening was the issue of slavery, and so you have the abolition movement growing and you have the pro-slavery movement that is growing in the 1830s and 1840s. It's not a unifying time and yet it was a time where, for so many people, they were awakened to truth, they were awakened to righteousness and many of them met Jesus for the first time, but moral clarity was established for so many people and to this end, I think this is why, when we're looking at what's happening over the last several years, when you have people like a Bill Maher and Elon Musk and Joe Rogan waking up to what's happening, we are seeing something shift in culture and it's really sad that for a lot of this awakening to happen, it had to be things like COVID. It had to be these government shutdowns in these various states. It had to be one of the most horrific attacks in Israel's history and then the left celebrating, or at least many people on the left I won't say everybody on the left because not everybody celebrated it, but there were many people on the left celebrating this and there are people continuing to wake up, which is again why we think it's an encouraging time to be alive, even though it's a great, incredibly divisive time in American history. It is something. It's a time that we will look back and I think we will see and recognize that God was moving, God was waking people up, God was stirring people up, God was giving people new backbone and courage and boldness to stand up and make a difference, and I think ultimately, that's what we will see. Dad as kind of one of the articles you concluded with was, this could be a tipping point for us At some point. We think that tipping point is coming and it's not going to be an easy time even when we reach the tipping point, but when you see people that will start to push back against the wokeness and the nonsense and the evil that is celebrated, that is something we certainly should be celebrating on Good News Friday.

Rick Green: 18:23
Very, very good news, guys. Okay, quick break, we'll come back. We've got more good news for you folks. Stay with us. You're listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 18:36
Hey, this is Tim Barton, with WallBuilders, and, as you've had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you've probably heard the welcome information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional, and you might be thinking, as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school or some political event or activity. If you're interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.WallBuilders.com and there's a tab for scheduling and if you'll click on that tab, you'll notice there's a list of information from speakers, bios to events that are already going on, and there's a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilder's website and bring a speaker to your area.

Rick Green: 19:36
We're back on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. And Tim hey, you finally get to give us a piece of good news.

Tim Barton: 19:42
Well, with a few minutes left, it's now my turn to share one piece of good news. This one is something that we were just flabbergasted by, as we've seen the Biden administration do so many things that did not make sense, that have been destructive for America, for families, for the economy. For those that might remember just at this point, maybe a month ago, there was a family in Tennessee, a German family. They came to America so they could homeschool their family, specifically because in Germany they weren't allowed to homeschool their family. And the family was concerned. It was a mom and dad, seven kids. They were concerned that the schools in Germany they were very anti-Christian, the education they were getting and there was so much sexual stuff that was being promoted in these schools over in Germany which, even when I was reviewing some of these articles that was highlighting this family, I just inwardly kind of chuckled at the irony that they left Germany to escape the thing that America is now doing, on a worse level, arguably, than what Germany was doing back in the time they left. But they're homeschooling, so they're not dealing with that in the American public schools. Nonetheless, they have normal appointments every year. They meet with immigration and customs officials and for whatever reason, when this year, on September 6, 2023, they went to a routine check-in at their local immigration and custom enforcement office and they were told they had four weeks to secure passports and go back to Germany, they could not stay in America anymore. And this is where, again, like just the mind-boggling perspective, when we have an open southern border, when Biden was literally telling agents to go cut holes in the fence to make it easier for people to walk in, when they're not having to, even people coming to America they're not all of them they're coming across southern border, they're not even being officially registered or identified and they're being turned to loose in America. And you have a family who is a solid member of society and you're going to tell this homeschool family of nine mom and dad, seven kids, you're really not the kind of people we're looking for in America we're going to have to send you back to Germany. Just again, mind-boggling. Well, the good news was that there was organizations that stepped in trying to help this family, one of them being Homeschool Legal Defense Association. Great, great group that really went to bat and there were a lot of people that were making phone calls, that were reaching out trying to do it. They could help this family. The good news is that the family gets to stay. Now it's still in my mind is very crazy, because they were given a one-year stay before they have to deal with this issue again. So the fact that they're, when we look back in, president Obama years ago just did this blanket amnesty for five million people and said, hey, you're all Americans now, you can all stay. We're giving blanket amnesty to people we don't even know who they are, we don't know their backstories, we don't even know if they're going to be contributors in a positive way to society. And then you have a family who came to America to find freedom, to educate their kids in the fear and understanding of the Lord according to the dictates of their conscience. I mean really like in the vein of what the Pilgrims and the Puritans were doing hundreds of years ago. This is what America has always been about, and the Biden administration has said well, we're going to give you a one-year stay and then we'll review this. So the good news is, for one year they can have a little bit of peace of mind. The bad news is they will have to deal with this at some point in the future. But we can at least celebrate the short-term win and then add them to the prayer list that hopefully, as we get closer to an election next year, maybe with a change of leadership, certainly I would have confidence that under Republican president this would not be an issue, but maybe with an election coming and pressure, they'll give another extended stay or just grant the amnesty. That should be there. But there's good news. To this point, the family was given a one year extension.

David Barton: 24:13
Just so everybody understands too, tell me you said they'd come from Germany. They had been nearly five years in Germany homeschooling their kids because of how radical Germany was, how far they had gone left, and they were in state schools. And when they were homeschooling their kids the state came to throw them in jail, said no, no, the kids belong to the state, they don't belong to you. And so this was the philosophy they were dealing with. Homeschool Legal Defenses is fighting for them over there. But you have a fundamentally different legal system over there that says kids belong to the state, they don't belong to the parents. And so that was what they were fighting and they couldn't get it stopped over there. And so they did get to America, which is a really good deal. But now that they've been here several years, some of their kids have grown up and they're now married and their kids are now married to American citizens and becoming American citizens themselves. And we're going to deport them when they're becoming citizens in the legal way and they're married to American citizens and the State Department and immigration going to send them. That's crazy. So it is good news that it's at least a temporary stay. You know, hopefully that'll stay on the radar of people enough that it'll be a press story that the Biden administration doesn't want to deal with in a year or six months from now, if they're still in office. But we'll see. But it's just mind boggling to me that you can be good citizens like that and be here in America. Your kids have grown up, they're now married and productive and working and we're going to send you back. So it's crazy stuff that's been happening, but the good news is that that has been put to a halt and they get to stay at least for another year. Hopefully it'll be a lot longer than that as well. They've been a great family, great citizens.

Rick Green: 25:48
Alright friends out of time for good news today. But, as always, we will be bringing you more in future weeks. So if you only have one day a week to listen to WallBuilders, Friday's the day, man. I love these stories and I love just being encouraged. You know we're in the fight, folks. We're saving a country. We're in a Nehemiah situation here where we're rebuilding the wall. So we know the American culture's crumbling, but we're not going to curl up in the fetal position and cry and give up. No, we're going to pick up the pieces and rebuild, and these good news Friday programs help give us the courage we need to go out there and continue to impact the culture in a positive way. So be sure and go to WallBuilders.com today to learn more and to get engaged. Become a Constitution Coach, today. Get that biblical citizenship class and share it with as many people as you can. We appreciate you listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders.