Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. You found us on a Friday, which means we're going to dive into some good news. The WallBuilders Show. We take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. And regardless of those hot topics, Friday is to bring you good news where people have gotten active out there in the culture. Maybe it's Congress, maybe it's a state legislature, maybe it's a local school board, Maybe it's you as a listener to WallBuilders actually applying some of the things that you learned here. We love hearing all these good news stories and David and Tim compile them and then we try to get through as many as we can on Friday. So thanks for listening and joining us today. I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton. And let's jump in. David's got the first piece of good news for us today. 

David Barton [00:00:44] Well, it's actually going to be kind of a review of what's going on because we're so close to the election. There's so much happening now and there's so many legal cases going back and forth, some with good decisions, some with questionable decisions. So I'm just going to kind of survey that and I'll put out that there is a definite difference between the two parties on how they approach the election type of stuff. The Republicans right now have 130 lawsuits going on in 26 states, and it's like trying to clean up voter rolls, make sure illegal stop vote, make sure you follow the law and then the Democrats are suing. No, no, no. We don't want to do that. We want to have all these options for our officials to say what we do with elections. Laws don't really matter as much. We just want to be able to have the latitude shows. Or we do think that the legal should be able to vote or 17 year olds or so. It's a real mix when you look at who's filing lawsuits or what they're filing over. So one is kind of the Republicans trying to go for the rule of law. Now we're we're getting into a period and Rick, you may remember that this case, I think, was called Purcel back in maybe 2006. It was an election case. And the Supreme Court said, look, we're not going to make any radical changes when it gets really close to an election system in place. People are already voting. We're not going to go out and make radical changes. So at this point, it looks like things are just happening in the federal courts and in the state courts, but they're not happening at the Supreme Court. I think the decision we got this this last week from the fifth Circuit Court down, which handles Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, that may be about as far as it's going to go. I don't think we'll see much cases coming down. Now, it's interesting that Justice Supreme Court Justice Brown acknowledged that they're expecting a lot of a lot of lawsuits after the election. So the court apparently has left open slots to be able to do some emergency decisions after the election in case something happens like happened, you know, four years ago or happened with Bush. They're actually talking the Bush-Gore election back in 2000. And so we'll see. But they're kind of that's. 

Rick Green [00:02:46] A good sign, right, David, Because, you know, they avoided taking up any of the cases in 2020 that really would have allowed review of the constitutional violations in those states that that made election law changes without legislatures, all that kind of stuff. You know, they rejected Paxton's case and all the others. So if they're actually are they signaling that, hey, they're not going to remember what Clarence Thomas said when they turned down all those cases? In his dissent, he basically said, if we don't do this, we're going to be right back at the same spot four years from now that we need to review these things and make it clear. And so maybe they're signaling that they know we're right back in that same spot. And one of the two, there's going to be lawsuits no matter who's declared the winner next Tuesday. 

David Barton [00:03:27] There's no there's also no, no, no. There will not be lawsuits on the Democrat side because they said you have to accept the results of the election. You don't file lawsuits. Yeah. And if you if in Michigan, if you file a lawsuit, you can't get a recount. So, you know, that's the Democrat plan. As if you don't accept the will of the people, then that's just not going to happen. 

Tim Barton [00:03:45] But that only applies to Republicans. You missed that part of the law. 

David Barton [00:03:48] That's right. 

Tim Barton [00:03:50] That was clearly implied in the law. 

Rick Green [00:03:52] You know, Tim, I think David actually still believes in blind justice. Equal justice, like applying the law the same to everybody. Like, where is he getting these crazy theories? Almost sounds American. 

Tim Barton [00:04:02] Well, it's certainly not something I'm seeing modeled right now. 

David Barton [00:04:05] I forgot who we're talking about. I didn't mean to bring common sense into it, that that was a mistake. I was just, you know, sorry. 

Rick Green [00:04:11] You know? You know, it's crazy, though. They really do. They turn on a dime so quickly because don't forget, they were the ones claiming election, you know, computers, you know, are fraudulent, all that stuff in 2016. And boy, they flipped their tune so quickly in 2020, they will have no problem flipping right back and and taking the opposite position once again. But that is why it's important for the court to take it up, because, you know, there's some of those issues like the constitutionality of of, you know, whoever the secretary of state, governor, whatever, like what the Fifth Circuit just ruled that you can't take mail in ballots, what, three, 4 or 5 days after you have the deadline really is the day of well, the Supreme Court's going to have to say, okay, if that's the case, then that's not just Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, that's the whole Country. 

David Barton [00:04:55] Well, I thought it was so cool and that this circuit is this you mentioned because the Fifth Circuit was actually reversing a federal judge below. And I love the Fifth Circuit because that. The justices who are the judge. She's not just a Supreme Court justice, but the judge who penned that opinion for the three three judge panel said, look, it is called Election Day. It's not election five days after. It's not election. Ten days after 100 days out. It's not even an election month, which is why some states have handled this. They're still receiving ballots, as many as 13 days after the election. You guys probably saw that earlier. I guess it was earlier this week that Arizona said it would probably be 10 to 13 days after the election before they have everything tabulated and all the all the ballots and etc.. So not every circuit is going the direction of the Fifth Circuit. Some of the others have said, no, we're not going to had that direction where that you can't have three extra days of five. And I don't think Pennsylvania is going to have five extra days. They have what they call clearing the ballot. So if you send a mail in ballot as something was wrong, they say, well, we need to call the voter and tell them that they got it wrong and come fix their ballot, cure the ballot. And, you know, that's that's part of the line, by the way, so much this goes back to Koven 2019 because 2019 and shut downs, that's where they started putting up all the drop boxes and letting you bend the rules. And the election officials are saying, well, let's do this and roll out this another. The the law doesn't say this, but and they say emergency. And so the courts let them get away with a lot of that. But it's just not look that they're doing that this time. They keep driving back the law. So I'll just try to go through some of these real quick. Absentee ballots have been a big hot spot. There's a lawsuit in Pennsylvania. And how they do that, how they do mail in ballots. That's been a big one in nearly every battleground state. And we talked to a couple of weeks ago that in the seven battleground states, right in the Can you guys name the seven battleground states? 

Tim Barton [00:06:53] Yes. 

Rick Green [00:06:54] Milford just happened to be all I need to look at, as is David's flight schedule. The coincidence. 

David Barton [00:07:01] Right. For those. 

Rick Green [00:07:02] That's right. For like a hundred times. And each one, I think, in the last six months. What? Yep. Yeah. So we got the rust belt, right? So we got Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Those three up there. Yep. And then is Minnesota still considered battleground or kind of medicine? 

David Barton [00:07:19] Minnesota? Well, Minnesota was not supposed to be a battleground, but it may be becoming a battleground. It may actually be Minnesota's say. 

Rick Green [00:07:28] And please know, we've seen enough of Walter for the last few years. We know how that is. Please. No. 

David Barton [00:07:34] It's. Yeah. Minnesota is one of those. That may be a surprise. There could be a couple surprises on election night and that that may be one of them for sure. 

Rick Green [00:07:43] Well, Georgia, right? Is it Georgia? 

David Barton [00:07:44] Georgia? Yeah. You got Georgia. That's for. 

Rick Green [00:07:47] Nevada. Is that right? And that one's leaning. Leaning. I heard. And then what am I missing? 

David Barton [00:07:52] Arizona six. One more. 

Rick Green [00:07:54] Zone to. 

David Barton [00:07:54] Go. North Carolina, Go. That's it. Yeah. North Carolina. 

Rick Green [00:07:58] Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, Yes. And a lot of those also have big governor's races and and Senate races, too. Right. 

David Barton [00:08:05] And this is the stuff we were seeing. Even I was seeing some Trump polling numbers just a day or so ago. And it's really interesting that the top of the ticket is not reflecting what's necessarily under the ticket. And it doesn't look like Trump necessarily has coattails, which coattails, what you call it, when when you kind of affect all the races down under you. I'm not sure that's true yet, but the polling doesn't seem to reflect that. It seems to reflect that top of the ticket is one thing and down under is separate, and that usually does not happen in elections. Usually we have somewhat and it's it's looking right now national news is reporting that that Trump actually has a chance of taking the popular vote in all the national vote in all 50 states and that really doesn't matter because it's the electoral vote. But when you get when you get the popular vote, that means a lot of people supported you. So we'll see if that happens. So there's a lot going. But in those seven states, battleground states, five of the seven states passed state laws to tighten up and give greater security to the ballot. And so those have all been under fire and all the states and they're by and large won in most of that. So there was there were states like Texas. Some of our laws got struck down. We would ban ballot harvesting. And a federal judge said, no, you can't do that. Paid ballot harvesting. You can pay people to go collect votes. So that one will be litigated after this is all over and done with. But that was something that we didn't want to go the way of California. And so then what's happening with overseas vote coming in? They're actually in place, is trying to give them, what, three weeks after the election to get the votes in from overseas, which, hey, guys, you know what day the election is and you can vote early enough to send that ballot in and get there on time. So it seems crazy that they keep extending that. But Michigan's had a had a lot of activity and Georgia had a rule that they passed that said, hey, you have to we're not going to certify the election results until we get them all in. And then a judge said, no, you have to certify the election results. On election night. So that's an interesting one because if they have contests like Fulton County was last time where they had a recount and recount a recount. Now you got a judge saying, hey, recounts don't matter. You go ahead and certify the election results. So that makes it interesting to that point. The Justice Department has sued both Alabama and Virginia because they've been removing noncitizens off the voter rolls. And so that that's a problem. Now, some of that rests on the fact that federal law says you have to clean your voter rolls up 90 days before the election. And so it's not necessarily the Justice Department saying we want illegals on the voter rolls. It's just that you didn't do it within 90 days. You can't start doing it now because that's that's what the law says. So that's that's part of it. I can't fault the Justice Department necessarily on doing that. These states should have been cleaning it up a lot sooner than what they did. And then you got Michigan. On the other hand, we were just up Michigan and you guys were ready to talk about looking to fly a schedule. And the last six days, we've been in six different states with a dozen different rallies. So it's, you know, one of those battleground states every day. And we're in Georgia right now and we're headed to a congressional race up in Nebraska. And so we're all over. But having said that, going back to to all all the other stuff that's happening with all the all the numbers, there's just so many lawsuits going on right now. And I can just keep going through it. But you get the ideas. By and large, there's a lot more tightness on elections this year than there was four years ago. And the states have passed a lot of good laws, and so they are really doing a good job. The Republicans are this time have tried to defend those laws and not let them get dumped. So we'll see what happens. The other thing that may be interesting is Pennsylvania, one of those Rust Belt states you talked about. It literally could be the Amish people that decide the outcome in Pennsylvania. And if the election's really close, that could decide the presidential race. Because Amish typically have not voted at all. That's just not part of what they do as anabaptists. They just don't do that. And then it was Congressman Joe Pence probably 20 years ago that started saying, guys, you're living under policies and you better have a voice in those policies. And so horse and buggy and everything else, they come to vote. And there are now communities there's eight states with major Amish communities in Wisconsin and in Pennsylvania and in Michigan, etc.. I mean, they're having in those Amish community sometimes up to 100% voter turnout. Not everybody's registered, but the ones that are registered, they're getting them turned out. And so that's really significant because when you look the Amish as a population of 92,000, roughly 93,000 people, and Biden won that state by 82,000. So there's more Amish than there was difference last election. The same in the other states. So that's another interesting factor going out. People don't think of the Amish community, but it could turn out to be a very significant community. So that's a little bit on the overview of elections, good and bad. But overall, I say it's a whole lot better shape now than it was four years ago. We also have poll watcher eyes on the ground in so many crucial battleground areas and their eyes on the ground that have been trained in state certified so they can't throw them out like they did at Fulton County in Atlanta four years ago through the people out there wanted to watch. You can't do that because it's state certified now. So it's a lot better condition than it's been four years ago. 

Rick Green [00:13:31] Yeah, it just seems like there's a lot more, you know, with a lot more eyes on what's happening. It's it's less likely or makes it harder for anybody to to do anything untoward and more likely that it gets discovered and gets shared. We are seeing a lot of shenanigans, you know, or at least it feels like shenanigans when they say the machines went down or that we're hearing stories of them turning people away from the polls or shutting down at two instead of seven or whatever. I don't know whether that's in Republican areas or Democrat areas or literally just act by accident across the board. But we're starting to hear some of that stuff. But the difference this time in the past, like you said, there's more eyes, there's more eyeballs watching it and more places to go to to report it. Our Tim, you want to get a quick one in before we go to break? 

Tim Barton [00:14:13] I don't know how quick it's going to be. We might need to go to break and come back. Okay. There's a lot on this one I want to talk about. 

Rick Green [00:14:19] All right. Well, good. We'll take a quick break. We'll be right back. Folks, stay with us. Lots more good news for you when we return on WallBuilders. 

Break [00:14:24]  

Rick Green [00:15:32] We're back here on the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us on this good news Friday, tossing it over to Tim for how did you put it? Really want to go? We're going to go deep on this one. That's going to be good. Hey, your dad took up half of the first half of the show already, which is one piece of good news. Okay. It was like ten pieces of good news on one topic. To be fair. 

Tim Barton [00:15:49] He does it a lot. He's like, Guys, I got one. And then he just, like, shamed that along and he keeps picking up pieces of paper off his desk. And I'm like, That's not one. Now you're on like, number seven. And he's like, No, but it's the same thing. Okay, that's pretty good. 

Rick Green [00:16:01] So much good news. He's got to have. I'm glad. I'm glad that we can't get through it all. 

Tim Barton [00:16:06] No. There's a that is that's a really important good news, especially considering part of what we saw back in 2020. Much better situation where we are now. This is a couple of articles. So following my dad's lead on this that go together, this is really a first of all, with Israel. 

Rick Green [00:16:27] I feel like they're going in the apple in a tree here. Apple doesn't fall or something like that. 

Tim Barton [00:16:32] I don't know. I'm glad you went. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree and not like this is the first great sin and it's awful and you need to stop. Anyway, on October 17th, earlier, I guess it was now last month because now we're in November. But Israel reported that the Hamas leader Sinwar was killed in Gaza and Sinwar is that was considered the chief architect of the attack in Israel that on October 7th, 2023, that had killed 1200 people, thousands more wounded. They took 251 people captive. And to this day, 100 of those captives still remain in the Gaza Strip. And Sinwar was the guy behind all of that. And so after that, he had largely been in hiding. He had been largely in the network of tunnels beneath the Gaza Strip with other Hamas terrorists as they were trying to evade Israel. There was a video footage of him, I think from earlier this year, maybe the spring earlier this year, they showed him walking through the tunnels. What's interesting is that Hamas has yet to identify that this guy, Sinwar was taken out. But the reason Israel is so confident is because Israel had arrested Sinwar back in 1988, which is really significant. Sinwar, I think was 61 years old, somewhere around there when he died. Yes, 61 is what this article says. He was 61 when he died, but in 1988 he was arrested and charged with abducting and murdering two Israeli soldiers and others that he was accused of collaborating with and the Israeli government, then this terrorist kind of plot. He received four consecutive life sentences. He remained in an Israeli prison until 2011, when Israel agreed to release more than a thousand Palestinian detainees in exchange for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas had captured and held captive for five years. Now, the reason that matters is because when they had him in prison from 1988 to 2011, that is DNA. And so after they took him out in the Gaza tunnel, they thought it was him, but they did a DNA test and confirmed that is, in fact, him. Now, why did they have to do a DNA test? Because facial recognition didn't really work after his elimination. 

Rick Green [00:18:59] If there's if there's no face to recognize. 

Tim Barton [00:19:02] That was that was the problem. No, there was no face to recognize. Now, what's also interesting is in 2015, the U.S. Department of State labeled Sinwar a specially designated global terrorist, which means any U.S. citizen that offered any aid or help would be found guilty of terrorism as well. And so I'm saying that to point out that America, Israel, both of us recognize this guy as a terrorist, he's really, really bad. Well, the good news is Israel took out the guy who's the mastermind behind all of this. Well, that's part of one article, the follow up. And this really ties into something that Kamala Harris said at the debate. But it says the Pentagon to send advanced missile defense system its troops to Israel. Now, this is the middle of October as well. Pentagon spokesman Major General Patrick Ryder said President Biden directed Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin to authorize deployment of the terminal high altitude area defense system, which is known as the Thaad System THAAD system and Israel and the Middle East conflict with both Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups, according to the parliament and the Associated crew, meaning American troops will be sent to Israel to operate in that system. The article highlights that in 2019 we had American troops over that were working with Israel on that system, seeing how it worked and how functional would be and how much they could help Israel. Well, according to an April report by Congressional Research Service, the army has seven thaad batteries. Generally, each consists of six truck mounted launchers, 40 interceptors, along with radio and radar equipment, and requires 95 soldiers to operate. So not only have we set this incredible missile defense system over to Israel, we've said at least 95 soldiers over to go operate this. Now, why does it matter? Because for those who remember, Kamala Harris said we have no American troops. She are so proud that under the Biden-Harris leadership that we're currently under, she said there are no American troops deployed anywhere in active combat zones. And of course, that was absolutely incorrect. The very famous viral videos of troops that were in those active combat zones who are watching the debate, taking video going, if no troops are deployed in combat zones. And where are we right now? I think there's some profanity interlaced in there as well, just the discretion of parents. Go watch that later. Those kids are out. But Kamala Harris had said, no, we don't have anybody deployed anywhere. Clearly, that's incorrect. I mean, clearly and we don't need to go into details of where all the troops are, but they are in lots of places, active combat zones happening right now. But in this situation, at least, there's a positive connection that we are aligning ourselves with Israel, which of course, as people of faith, as students of the word of God, is a valuable and important thing. So not only has Israel taken out the mastermind behind the October 7th, 2023, terrorist attack. At this point now, America is also joining with Israel on some level, not as much as maybe we should be supporting them and really sometimes even supporting them by saying, hey, we're not you know, we're we are not going to encourage you to show restraint and taking out terrorists. These are bad guys. Do what you need to do, clear them off the board. But in this case, it is good news that we actually are sending some aid and assistance over to Israel. So those are a couple of big takeaways from these two articles. 

David Barton [00:22:24] Tim, did you see all the fact checking that came out when Kamala said that there were no troops anywhere in any combat zones? She noticed all the people who jumped on that, The New York Times and L.A. Times and not. 

Rick Green [00:22:38] Your normal not. 

David Barton [00:22:39] All the. 

Tim Barton [00:22:40] I did not see a lot of mainstream media covering that. But in fairness and see that a lot of mainstream media. So if they did, I wouldn't know it, but I did not see that. 

Rick Green [00:22:49] Think someone is being facetious, Do you think, Tim, do you think. 

David Barton [00:22:54] A stronger than facetious, a sarcastic. It's not is not facetious. It's sarcastic. 

Rick Green [00:23:00] But but, you know, they're they're unbiased. They're America's newspaper. They're. 

Tim Barton [00:23:04] Yeah, they report. 

David Barton [00:23:05] What's going on. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. You know. 

Rick Green [00:23:09] Yep. And Tim, you know, to your point, though, what what an embarrassment to actually not even a what? A slap down to all of those that are fighting for our country. Right. Right. I mean, to ignore that and and and to do what she did for political gain and and and or to just be so ignorant. Right. I mean, either way, whether it's ignorance or on purpose, it's terrible. 

Tim Barton [00:23:30] Well, and especially when you had the moderators that were fact checking Trump all over the place and did something like this, that is so obvious and nobody asks a question. And then it's also why, I mean, for us that there's no surprise for us that there's an all time recruiting low right now happening for the military, where when you look at the branches, I mean, virtually nobody wants to be part of the American military right now. And I can't really blame them because of the leadership we have. And this is maybe even follow up. Some of we talked about yesterday that elections have consequences. It matters who our leaders are because as we talked about some yesterday, it's not the personality that's as important as the policy. Now, I do say that recognizing there can be some significance, having a personality. I think Donald Trump's personality, when it came to interacting with foreign leaders and telling them like, I know where you live and where you sleep, right? And we will do whatever X, Y, and Z to you. Yes. At that point, his personality might be helpful in talking down some of these dictators from around the world. However, much more important is what is the policy? And when you have a policy that puts America first, that is going to help our build our military, where our military's top focus is to be really good at at destroying things, at blowing things up by killing people, that that is the job of the military. And right now, what we've seen is some of the top focus of the military is more of the Denard set, is more of the transgender movement nonsense, is more of this woke stuff happening. And so even though we do what you believe, we saw the best military in the world, our military readiness is not where it needs to be. And again, this is why elections matter. We talked about it a lot yesterday, but I'm going to plug again. Election Day is coming up as this weekend even approaches where a lot of us are getting ready to be in charge, We're going to be around friends where we have. Going out with people. Encourage your friends to make sure they use their voice in this election. Encourage your leaders at church to speak out and say something. This really does matter. The future of our nation is going to be determine what direction we go based on the leaders we have. We need to make sure we vote in this election. 

David Barton [00:25:50] And one quick good news to add to that. We got a note from Embassy Church talking about the fact that this Sunday they are preaching an election sermon. And that be good for all pastors do preach an election sermon on election Sunday. That goes back to of the 1600s in American history. You go to wallbuilders.com you can look at tons of election sermons preached on election day by pastors. We need to get back engaged in helping people understand this is biblical. So in election sermons, great. 

Rick Green [00:26:16] And it's not the reason to do it. But pastors, I'm telling you, your flock will love you for it. There is a need and a hunger for it right now. And also, Tim, to your point that patriotism is being restored, which is just like 1979, 1980, Jimmy Carter did the same thing to the military and Reagan rebuilt it. And we can feel that rebuilding coming by rebuilding the patriotism. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Have a great weekend. Make sure you're telling all your friends and family to vote. And let's look forward to next Tuesday being a great day in America. Thanks for listening to the WallBuilders.