Rick Green

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's Friday, so it's Good News Friday here on the Wall Builder Show. This is the place where we take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Here with David and Tim Barton, I'm Rick Green, and they're going to be sharing a lot of good news with us today. I know you're going to enjoy it, but I'm going to ask you to do something. So just be planning whether you want to do it right at the end of the program or whatever, but find this link here that you're listening through whether you're on one of the apps out there or maybe you're on our website at wildbuilders.show and share it.

Folks need good news. Right now. A lot of people have given up David and Tim. They think it's all bad news. They don't hear the good news, so they only hear about the cultural decay and they're not hearing about all the people out there that are picking up the pieces and rebuilding and all these victories that you guys always share with us on Friday. So it's really important, I think, for people to hear good news, which is why we're on. I don't know what is this like our 500th Good News Friday. I forget how many we've done. Actually, I think it's more like six or 700, but it's why we started this at WallBuilders years ago. We know this good news is important for people to hear. So, david, what's your first piece of good news today?

David Barton

Okay, guys, this is a follow up from last week. Apparently, last week I didn't have the last chapter in the book and so I've got another chapter to add to the book, and it goes back to the fact that what we've seen over the last really four to six years is a turnaround in judiciary that I'm not sure any of us thought we would see in our lifetime, where the court has actually gone back to reading the Constitution. As a result, they've struck down the federal permission for abortion, they've given religious liberties back, they've actually read the Second Amendment, so there's been a real return to original intent in many areas.

Tim Barton

Let me interject real quick. You said the last chapter of a book. I'm not sure what book you're referring to. Did I miss it? Did you talk about a book?

David Barton

Well, when I signed off last week, I'd finished the story, but I now found there was a chapter I hadn't read in the story, so I can't close the book that I had open last week, so I'm going to have to add some more.

Tim Barton

What Last week book book? Is this from a radio show or the book you're writing? A book you're reading?

David Barton

uh, just just just follow with me. Here we last. 

Tim Barton

I'm trying.

David Barton

 We were talking. We were talking about good news, friday, and we talked about the second amendment and that the massachusetts supreme court said it's okay to have a switchblade, even though that was illegal previously. You, you can have a switchblade. And then we, that was illegal previously, you can have a switchblade. And then we went and Rick got excited about this. I ran out and bought a machine gun. I wish I had. But.

Rick Green

I hate to be the guy that is going to side with, because I'm right in the middle of y'all's ages, right? So sometimes I side with the young guys, sometimes I side with the more seasoned guy.

I said it's more seasoned, I'm a more seasoned guy and I'm siding with the more seasoned guy. I said more seasoned, I'm a more seasoned guy and I'm siding with the more seasoned guy here. I totally got that. It's like a chapter. You have multiple chapters in a book and you were giving us all this good news on a lot of the gun legislation and in the courts and you didn't realize there was a whole other chapter. I guess you're saying it's the end of the book. So I don't know, we beat this one to death guys.

But yes,

David Barton

 I could make a comment on how education has gotten worse for the younger generation.

But since he was home school, 

Tim Barton

no, it's true, my teachers wow oh man, 

Rick Green

now it's getting personal.

David Barton

That's why I avoided that comment, since he was home school, I can't comment Right right.

Rick Green

So you did, you covered. I think it was like three, wasn't it Two or three?

David Barton

cases last week. It was two second amendment cases last week where.

Massachusetts struck down the ban on switchblades and where the federal judge said no, you can't own machine guns. It's not illegal to own machine guns. I thought that was a good second amendment ending last week. And yet I pick up a case this week and I'm just going to read you what it says here last week. And yet I pick up a case this week and I'm just going to read to you what it says here. This is from a federal judge in Illinois and I would say Illinois is one of the most anti-Second Amendment states in the United States. Put them up there with New York and California and a few others. And this is what the judge says. He says, federal judge, after an exhaustive review of the party's filings and the historical record as required by Supreme Court precedent, the court finds the defendants failed to meet their burden to show an American tradition of firearm regulation at the time of the founding would allow Illinois to prohibit plaintiffs who hold concealed carry permits from carrying concealed weapons for self-defense on the metro buses. So what they're saying is Illinois said hey, even if you're licensed to carry, you can't carry those weapons on public transit, public transportation, public buses, whatever. And the federal judge says well, can you show me that in history? Can you show me where the founding fathers would not have allowed weapons in public transportation? And the judge said you didn't show me that. You didn't show me historical precedent where the founding fathers, under their original understanding of the Second Amendment, would have disallowed people from having self-defense in public transportation.

And so here's a third chapter to this book. The court is still making progress in giving these rights back per the original understanding. I mean, we're getting more constitutional freedoms on a regular basis, and I will also say this is a result of elections back in 2016. It was the result of a president elected in 2016, took office 2017, who put judges on the court who actually read the Constitution. So the good news we're talking about now is downstream of an election, which should be a good reminder that we have an election coming up in November and four years from now we'll be looking downstream based on the kind of judges that that person puts on the court. So if you want these kinds of decisions still upholding the constitution, think hard about who you choose for president in November.

Rick Green

Very, very good segue to some sort of election good news. Tim, I know I'm setting you up here. I have no idea what your good news is, but you know. So courts good news. How do you get good news out of the courts? By winning elections and getting good appointments to the courts. Any chance you got anything in that stack?

Tim Barton

I mean yes, it's election related, for sure. This one says House passes bills require proof of citizenship for voting in federal elections. Now, this was something from earlier this summer, but it's just been in my stack now for many weeks. I'm finally getting to it, and this is something that we don't expect the Senate take up. The White House, president Biden, has already said he's against this. He's not going to sign it, which is just crazy that this is even controversial the idea that only US citizens should vote in United States elections.

But I have seen all kinds of interviews on social media. I've seen man on the street interviews, especially for the rising generations maybe Gen Z, millennials, both where people have gone up and just asked them hey, what do you think about requiring proof of citizenship to vote? Well, I don't think you should have to be a citizen to vote, because if you live here, you should be able to vote. And then the last question is like well, if you were over in Germany and you're not a German citizen, should you be able to vote in German elections? They would say oh well, no if you're not a. But this is a disconnect we're seeing in culture right now, and it is because that we have seen one party, specifically Democrats, advocating for giving full rights to these non quote unquote new title non documented or undocumented individuals that are in our nation. And by saying they're undocumented, it's it's people that have come illegally. Because if you come here legally, you get documents of some kind, but the documents you get still does not authorize you to vote in US elections and federal elections. You have to go through a legal process and become a citizen, which you can do, and this is not suggesting that we're against immigration reform. I absolutely support immigration reform. Were against immigration reform. I absolutely support immigration reform.

But there was a reason strategically. We talked about it yesterday on an immigration issue on a question from Foundations of Freedom Thursday. There was a reason the founding fathers put some boundaries around immigration, required people to live here for five years to go through the process of adjusting, becoming an American, so they would understand American values, the American way of life. They would understand more of the constitution, the checks and balances, that the separation of powers are three branches of government, so that we're not going to have people that have come from a socialist, communist nation and they think, well, this is what we're supposed to have and so they vote for communist, socialist policies that, ultimately, are probably the reason they left their nation. They vote for them again in America. All that to say, back up in the House, under Republican control, they passed out of the House a bill that would require a proof of citizenship before voting, and this would include things like passports and different kinds of IDs.

Interestingly, there were only five Democrats that voted. Every Republican voted in favor of this. Five Democrats voted in favor of it. The rest there were only five Democrats that voted. Every Republican voted in favor of this. Five Democrats voted in favor of it. The rest of the Democrats voted no. Again, we don't think this is going anywhere in the Senate. President Biden has already said he's not going to sign it, but it's at least good news that somebody is acknowledging the fact that elections are supposed to only there's only supposed to be participation, voting in American elections by American citizens. That really shouldn't be controversial. You can't go visit another nation. You can't go, have an extended stay in another nation and expect to vote in their elections. If you're going to vote in another nation's election, you'd have to become a citizen of that nation. That should not be controversial, and so it's why it's good news that in at least the House, there was enough Republicans there who acknowledge this. Every Republican voted in favor of it, and that is good news.

Rick Green

Very good news, David. I think we get one more in before the break. Where are you headed next?

David Barton

Well, I'm headed to Ford, the entity that that made the pickup truck that I'm driving right now up truck that I'm driving right now. Ford has announced a new policy and, as this article says, they have slammed the brakes on their DEI policies. So diversity, equity and inclusion those policies they've been losing ground in universities for the last several years as legislatures have stepped up and said no, no, we want the best person available, we don't care what they look like or what their gender is, we want the best knowledge, best character, et cetera. And that has now started happening in the business world as well, not just the educational world. And so Ford, its shareholders, have made it really clear that, look, the positions you're taking and what you're doing and what you're promoting socially is not where your constituents are, nor is it where they want to be. And so when you talk about the shareholders or the stakeholders, or those who own stock, that's just the average American that has stock programs to their work or anything else. And they've made it really clear that they're not woke. So the head of Ford just sent out this memo and it's now out on social media anything else anybody wants to see and he says that they are no longer participating in these DEI programs, including the fact they will not do the annual survey by the Human Rights Campaign. Now, most folks don't know what Human Rights Campaign is.

Hrc is one of the very first activist LGBTQIA plus groups that were out there. They were promoting LGBTQIA plus stuff way back before it was popular, way back when the nation was not for it. They were one of the early pioneers of that era and they got people to be scared of them and they were able to deliver a lot of Democrat money in elections and other places that were able to scare a lot of people into being afraid of them. And so they have this annual survey that goes out and they will issue all these results of how companies show on this LGBTQIA plus type stuff. And if you show up bad on their list, man, that really gets the gay community mad at you. But they're at the point where, no, no, we don't care anymore. We're just going to turn out, and I love what he said here. He said we want to continue to build high performance culture focused on what we deliver, with aligned objectives, high standards and accountability, and how we deliver it, through excellence, focus and collaboration. In other words, we're just going to turn out a good product and that's going to speak for itself.

So Ford has now announced that they're backing out of the DEI kind of stuff. And in the article and I have a whole stack of articles here, rick, more than one and they all deal with the same thing but just reading from the article it says Ford's reversal on DEI follows that of other major corporations, including Tractor Supply. I couldn't believe Tractor Supply had gone that direction. I mean, that's where we go for the ranch and stuff here. And it says John Deere is also reversed. I couldn't believe John Deere went there, because that's our tractor Harley Davidson. Are you kidding me? Have you ever been to Sturgis North Dakota for the Harley?

Do you not know the folks who show up there who buy your machines? They are not DEI folks. Polaris, which we have, polaris four-wheelers on the ranch, indian Motorcycle, lowe's and Molson Coors and all these companies. So there's been 25 companies in the last three years where the stockholders have said we've had it with your DEI. We don't want that. We want good business. We're tired of the DEI. And again I've got a stack of these articles. Here's one that says Harley Davidson disavows DEI goals amid social media backlash. John Deere rolls back DEI measures after backlash, and just on and on it goes. So what's happening is people are getting tired of the woke and it's showing up now with their pocketbooks and where they put their money. Now I hope getting tired of the woke will show up November in the election and they'll get tired of the woke and we'll vote a bunch of woke people out of office in November. But this is good news America's shifting.

Tim Barton

Well, one of the things I would add to that, dad, is it's important also that people stay vigilant in this, because we've seen in a few locations where people said they're getting rid of DEI but they didn't fire anybody.

They reallocated those individuals to other jobs, other positions within the company. But if they were hired under a DEI thought or perspective, they came in with those values. And if they're keeping them in the company, then the company maybe is only saying something externally to take the pressure off of people that don't want to support something woke. And I'm saying this only because we should be vigilant to make sure that we're not getting played on some level by some of these organizations who are going to say what they think helps them make the most sales, but they don't change their values. We want to make sure that we're supporting the right kind of values. But at least it is good news there's a recognition that for so many of these organizations, these companies, they recognize that the majority of the people, their clientele, their customer base and maybe even the majority of Americans, are not supportive of that DEI position.

David Barton

Well, I will tell you very clearly that I do vote with my dollars and when I find out that someone's got a bad position whether it be a position against Israel or a position on this DEI kind of stuff there are companies that will do the right thing and I much prefer they get my money, and that's one of the ways I vote and I encourage people to do the same with their money. Just look at where you're spending it. Don't support things that destroy your family, that destroy your family, that destroy your country, that destroy the education of the nation. Use your money to promote things that will help strengthen the nation and getting away from these kinds of programs. If you're a stockholder man, you make sure the companies you have stock in that they understand that you don't want this anti-America DEI, anti-declaration constitution kind of stuff. So vote with your money as well.

Rick Green

Yeah, this was huge, guys, and for several reasons. I mean one, I think, was the training and conditioning of our people to vote with their dollars, just like you just said. You don't remember how, every year, we'd have Tim Wildman on and we'd talk about American Family Association's. I can't remember what they call it naughty or nice list.

They're naughty and nice list yeah yeah, naughty or nice list.

Naughty or nice list, yeah, naughty or nice list. And so we started voting with our I mean, that's been 10 or 12 years we've been doing that with them. And then you had the technology available especially with the free speech now reinstated on X, where guys like Robbie Starbuck has been able to reveal a lot of this and then people got outraged. Like you said, David, I mean tractor supplies right down the road from my house. We spend a lot of money there, you guys spend a lot of money there, our people are their customers and for them to go woke was a big deal. And once the pressure was put on and we talked about it at Flashpoint and other places and everybody started calling and telling them and going in and telling them why they were removing. And I just want to read from their letter, because this really adds onto your good news. They said we work hard. This is from Tractor Supply. When they reversed this completely, they said we work hard to live up to our mission and values every day and represent the values of the communities and customers we serve. We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart.

Going forward. We will ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business. For instance, this means and they got specific. I love this because this is what Tim was talking about holding them accountable to making sure they're doing this. They said, for instance, this means we will no longer one no longer submit data to the human rights campaign, which is far left-wing, lgbtq nonsense stuff. Number two refocus our team member engagement groups on mentoring, networking and supporting the business. Number three further focus on rural American priorities, such as ag, education, animal welfare, veteran causes and being a good neighbor, and stop sponsoring non-business activities like pride festivals. And four eliminate DEI roles and retire our current DEI goals while still ensuring a respectful environment, and withdraw our carbon emission goals and focus on our land and water conservation efforts. And you guys are going to love this. We look forward to celebrating our nation's independence and also celebrate our more than 50,000 team members across 2,250 stores. Rural communities are the backbone of our nation and what make America great. We're honored to be a part of them.

Okay, I just had to read all that, because that is really, really good news. And then one more thing Jack Daniels backed off before Robbie Starbuck even had to share what he had on them because they were doing the same thing. So what happens is this stuff, snowballs. So you listed I don't know how many companies there, David, but I mean there's a lot of other ones out there that are going to stop this crazy DEI, divisive, communist, Marxist junk because their fear of losing dollars because of what's happened with Tractor Supply, john Deere, Harley Davidson, all the ones that you named. So I just want to emphasize, bro, this is massively good news because, don't forget, dei is the poison and the shot that they have used to spread communism in our schools and in these corporations. So the fact that there's a tide turning on that with the companies tells us we can also make this tide turn in the political arena and the agencies and all of that as well. So, anyway, I just wanted to emphasize that I'm going to add to it again.

David Barton

I'm going to say it again Make sure you help the tide turn in the elections as well. Yes, we need to get the same kind of philosophy out of the elections that we're starting to get out of business. Vote in the election according to this same philosophy.

Rick Green

Yeah. So if you've got candidates out there that have been blatantly for DEI or maybe they're actually a DEI appointment themselves, kamala Harris, run away from those things and actually go to candidates that are willing to say hey, we believe in the MLK dream that we ought to be treated based on the content of our character, not the color of our skin. Let's get back to not being racist instead of being overtly racist, which is what DEI and CRT and all that stuff does. Okay, I was talking fast because I was supposed to take us to break a few minutes ago, but we're going to go to break now. Here we go. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with more good news here on the Wall Builder Show.

Break

Rick Green

Welcome back to the WallBuilder Show. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday, and I think that last one that we enjoyed for such a long period of our program was David's, so I think we go to Tim right.

Tim Barton

Correct. This one is coming from First Liberty. It was an update from Kelly Shackelford on one of their cases, and back in the COVID era there were a group of Navy individual seamen. There was a group of Navy SEALs, but I think I'm reading here they represented 33 or, excuse me, 35 Navy SEALs members, other members of Naval Special Warfare, community Naval Special Operations, and they ended up expanding the case to include over 4000 Navy personnel, and all of it was based on the COVID vaccine that these are people that lost their jobs over the COVID mandate. And in 2022, they won a huge victory and a district court issued an injunction. But even though the injunction prohibited or prevented the Navy from taking further actions against those Navy members based on their religious exemptions and objections to the Department of Defense vaccine mandate, it was not fully resolved yet, but it was actually this summer and so it was two years after this judge's mandate.

They finally reached a settlement with the Navy, and part of the settlement it was to clear the records of some of these guys who, because they were discharged, they didn't get the honorable discharge they should have, or they should have been discharged at all, really but they have the opportunity to get their records corrected and their careers protected. So the navy agreed to post a statement affirming the navy's respect for religious service members, provide more training for commanders who review religious accommodation requests and revise its policy for accommodation requests. That was changed during the mandate Because when the mandate came down they said we're not doing any religious exemptions. Those are done and because of that that's why so many of these individuals lost their jobs and had their lives really changed forever. And with that looking back, I mean for some of them it's been four years before they had any resolution for this. And when you're dishonorably discharged there was one Navy SEAL, for example, his first name only his name is Gabe and Gabe had been in the military for more than 20 years and he was removed from the military. He was kicked out. But after more than two decades in the military, if you were to retire honorable discharge, you would get some decent compensation in your retirement because of how many years he put in. But because they're removed for not taking the vaccine, they got no retirement and so they've been living years without having any kind of compensation after all the years and work and effort and labor they put in.

The ultimate good news is there's been some resolution, there's been some level of restitution, records cleared and again this goes back to the work of First Liberty and we have applauded the work of First Liberty Kelly Shackelford, his team, so many guys who have worked so many years. And of course, there's Liberty Council and there's Pacific Justice Institute and Alliance Defending Freedom and we can go through so many great organizations that are out there that have been fighting to defend freedoms and religious liberties and constitutional rights. And this is just one more example of a really good new scenario where some of our friends, this incredible warriors at First Liberty, got involved and helped defend our military, where so often it's our military defending us. In this case it was First Liberty defending the military and helping get some of of the resolution and restitution needed in their situation. So really good news for them yeah, 

Rick Green

I try not to get um too riled up every time I hear one of those stories, because I think about when you're talking about navy seals, how healthy they are and you know it's like we're gonna abuse them and tell them they can't serve over this.

Tim Barton

Oh anyway, so young guys in their 20s who are the most in shape people of any American and what we know, especially looking back now, if you were young, if you were healthy, if you didn't have these pre-existing comorbidities, then it's a 99.99% survival rate. If you had COVID, but we were told to trust the science, even though there was no science. We were told to trust Fauci, even though he changed his mind every couple of weeks. I mean so much nonsense surrounding this. Part of the good news, too, from this case is what it says was the accommodation request. They were able to revise that. Hopefully it will be something.

The Pentagon will not put out mandates in the future and say, well, there's a new bird, swine flu, something, and so now we're going to mandate it again. This will be something they can point back to and they can point to this injunction. They can point to this. The revision going back to it doesn't matter if there's some new something hitting. If there's religious mandate, there has to be a religious accommodation. And ultimately, what we know with the science, with common sense, is we never should have believed the nonsense in the first place. But when you don't know the truth, it's easy to believe a lie, and they kept the truth from us, however, still really good news for these Navy SEALs.

Rick Green

Yeah, and I just think about even the money right, how much we invest into a warrior like that, with all the training and everything else, and we're going to drum them out and then have to start over and invest in. Anyway, just terrible policies, very, very bad decision making. But a great victory here and hopefully more to come. It's taken a lot longer to get there than we had hoped, but we're starting to win a lot of those lawsuits and people are being reinstated and there's being restitution. So, lord willing, we'll continue to have some good news to share with you on that front In future Fridays. Make sure that you're listening to Wall Builder Show all throughout the week, monday through Friday, but especially those Good News Friday programs, and be sure you share this program with your friends and family. Thanks for listening to the WallBuilder Show