Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Love these Friday programs. If you're a long time listener, you know, this is that time of the week where we get to get caught up on at least some of the good news. We never get it all in on a Friday, but David and Tim are out there collecting all week. We save as much as we can for Fridays. And we call it good news Friday. If you want some more of it, be sure and visit our website at wallbuilders.show. That's our radio website or at wall builders.com for information about all of our other programs. Rick Green here with David and tim Barton. And I'm going to keep it short guys. Let's jump into some good news, David. What's first up on your list today? 

David Barton [00:00:37] Well, I've got one, I'm going to go back. What, what did we call the war with Iran? Is that the 12 day war? Is that what it has become officially? Is that's the title now? I hope that sticks. I think that's good. You know, it works. I mean, 12 day War. So while that was going on, Tim had me, had me sit out and watch a movie. And, and so I'm just going to run through the storyline here. So they drop bombs on a set of ventilation shafts that are coming out of an underground facility. And there were last minute changes to that ventilation shaft where they put some concrete caps on them. So they had to change some things, but they dropped that first weapon, knocked the cap off and then weapons two, three, four and five go into the shaft and they go down a thousand feet per second and explode and they take out the facility. Did I get that story wrong? 

Tim Barton [00:01:23] I mean, it's kind of close. There might be a few nuanced details from Top Gun Maverick, but it was pretty close. 

David Barton [00:01:34] The thing that should have stood out as Top Gun Maverick didn't drop five bombs, they only dropped four. And this that I just read was the description that Kane gave, that General Chief of Staff Kane gave on what they did. I had no clue that it was that close, that they actually had ventilation caps and at the last minute they put concretes on ventilation caps. I mean, in describing that, I go, how did Tom Cruise, I mean how did Cruise know two years ahead of what was going to happen? It's just, it's amazing to me. 

Tim Barton [00:02:04] I think really it was Iran who saw the movie and they're like, you know what? We're going to have to protect these things even better. Let's put some concrete on it. I think everybody saw the move and they were like, Hey, you know what, you can't pull this off. Only Tom Cruise could, right? It was, it was only Mavericks character. There's not a Maverick in real life. We're fine. Come to find out, they, they, they were not so fine. 

David Barton [00:02:26] Well, this, I tell you, Kane went through some details I had not heard. And it's really cool. So I want to, I want give some backstory on this, this strike on Fordow and Fordow was the nuclear facility in rent. It began in 2009 when they took some officers into a facility. They took them underground. They did a secret intelligence thing and said, look, here's what we're looking at here's a nuclear site built inside a mountain about 200 feet in, and we don't have any bomb. They'll do anything. And so For 15 years, these guys worked on it and that bomb we used, the GBU-57, they started 15 years ago for the purpose of taking out Fordow facility in Iran. That's what's amazing to me. For 15-years, we were working and so the development of that bomb, that 30,000 pound bomb that they used, they start that 15 years ago with an eye to Iran. That's unbelievable to me that we were thinking Iran nuclear facility, take it 15 years ago. And what's also kind of interesting is General Keyne said that over that period of development, that the largest user of supercomputer hours in the United States of America was that team, that they were testing and retesting and remodeling and doing things to figure out ways to take it out. And so, I mean, it's just so many things that people would have looked at and said, I wonder where all the hours are going to supercomputers was going to take out of that nuclear facility. This is, this came out of an agency called the defense threat reduction agency. So they're there to reduce the threat and who would have known that you reduced the threat by taking a, taking a super bomb and taking out nuclear facilities. And I think the best part about it was,  that these guys, he said they dreamed about it for night for years. They would go to sleep, dreamed about what they're doing. But he said that he, he talked to him after. The operation and was so successful you can imagine how late they are but it's such a cool story. 

Tim Barton [00:04:27] Yeah, it's so cool. And, and we have talked about before if there were certain agencies we would want to remove,  what would they be, you know, the fact that there's more than 400 government agencies, we don't even know what they all are, we couldn't name them all and Rick, when we were together doing, the, oh, help me out the course on Monday. It is the rebuilding Liberty. Cause I wanted to say biblical citizenship. 

Rick Green [00:04:50] Oh, Rebuilding Liberty. 

Tim Barton [00:04:51] Yeah, it's rebuilding Liberty, but this is one of the questions that one of the people asked is, right, if we could pick one agency to get rid of. And I was like, man, basically we can get rid of like 90% and feel good about it. But it's it's now worth acknowledging I didn't know all these agencies and now this threat reduction like that's one I want to keep around that sounds awesome. Let's identify bad guys and just take them out This this is this is an agency that I definitely am now supportive of there's not many Government agencies I am and depending on who's in charge might make a difference, but right now super cool didn't even know this agency 

Rick Green [00:05:25] Well, and, and I have to say, Tim, I got to brag on you for a second. Because when we did the class the other night and you got asked that from the audience randomly, like neither of us were expecting that question. It was like, okay. If, uh, you know, department of education is going to get shuttered pretty much after the Supreme court decision, what's your next agency and ATF was what came out of your mouth. And then the next day there's a hearing about really scaling back the ATFs. I was like, okay, Tim had a crystal ball. I don't know where he got it, but it was spot on when he, when he said that. And, and I also have to say being a Mitch rap fan, which is the Vince Flynn novels,  I think there's like 20 of them or something. And, and there was a Vince Flynn novel years ago. I can't remember which one it was, but it was probably 15 years ago and it was a lot, only very, very similar to the Top Gun story and very similar to the you know, bunker busting bombs, hitting, hitting Iran. So, uh hats off to Vince Flynn. He saw it coming. 

David Barton [00:06:20] And I guess I could say if you want to see kind of how that thing in Iran works, go watch Top Gun Maverick, but that's not quite the same because they dropped it from 20, 30,000 feet, whatever it was, but it was still an awesome movie. And yeah, watch it anyway. Cause it's just patriotic. 

Rick Green [00:06:35] Yeah, right. Yeah. 

David Barton [00:06:36] It is, it is so good, but just after I watched it, and then after a week later, I saw this report from Kane. It was like, that is unbelievable. How did, how did Tom Cruise to Hollywood get the script on this? Cause that's exactly what it was. 

Rick Green [00:06:51] Good stuff, good stuff. Tim, how about you, man? What's your first piece of good news today? 

Tim Barton [00:06:54] Well, the first one, I have an article, but I also have a letter. I want to acknowledge something. Last week we were doing our teachers conferences, at WallBuilders. We had a conference Monday through Wednesday. We had one Thursday through Saturday. They both were great. A lot of really awesome teachers from around the nation were there. We were able to cover the kind of information that we would want our kids to learn in school. We were trying to help equip these teachers to go navigate in their schools and what they can do and how they can engage in their schools. And... We had a teacher from Nebraska, her name was Trissa Nelson, who brought us these ice cream containers full of popcorn from Nebraska. Now, I already know people are thinking, why would you bring popcorn from the Nebraska? Apparently this is like very special popcorn. These are like the magic beans that Jack sold the cow to get, right? It did grow something very special. These, these popcorn apparently are like mushroom sized popcorn. Super cool. But she brought some for my dad, for me, for our staff. I just, it was awesome. She also was sending us some recipes that their family enjoys and recommends. I just wanna give a shout out to Tressa Nelson, to her husband, Mark, the two kids still at home, Miranda and Levi. Thank you guys for listening. And of course, now thank you for the popcorn. We probably will send some pictures as with my girls. We will definitely pop it. Campfire experience is gonna be awesome. Huge colonel super pumped. So that's a side note, but good news articles that wait 

Rick Green [00:08:26] Does Tressa know that the Bartons are like movie buff family? Like this is a movie family with closets full of movie DVDs. So popcorn is like a perfect gift. Does she know that? 

Tim Barton [00:08:38] Well, her family does listen, have for years, to our radio program. So they probably not only know that we have closets full of movies, that they probably also know that my dad listens to Christmas music all year long. That, you know, probably all of the nuances that people that listen for very long at all know, they probably know them all because they've been listening for years and years and years. And so, yeah, the fact that they brought us more popcorn than we know what to do with. It's like- You know, when the Israelites go to the promised land, and it was a land flowing with milk and honey, I feel like we're now the people flowing and overflowing. My cup runneth over with popcorn. There's so much. But yeah, we're having movie night. We're getting some pop, probably tonight. We're gonna get some popcorn. Super excited, but very grateful to Tressa. As far as the articles I have, this is one that came out last week. And I really appreciated that it gave a really nice list of going down. The title says, Congress codifies 28 of President Trump's executive actions. In one big beautiful bill. Now I appreciate this because it literally is just a a numbered list one through 28. This was speaker.gov is where this came out so it looks like you know probably we're we're thanking uh the Speaker of the House for this but it goes down what this bill did and so number one it secures the borders, number two declaring a national emergency at the southern of the United States, three, protecting the American people against invasion for ending taxpayer subsidization of open border. Five restricting the injury of foreign nationals protect the United States on it goes 28 and it lists some of the things that were Accomplished in the big beautiful bill and the reason again I appreciate this is because there definitely are things that we know that we're in the bill There's things that We have talked about that were part of the bill not the least of which is the defunding of Planned Parenthood For ten years, but this one goes through and by the way not even mentioning that which does tell us probably that they're identifying the action steps that this is 28 things President Trump said he was going to accomplish. And it's showing 28 things that are fulfilling part of what President Trump said. So not the entirety of the bill again, because President Trump didn't run on a defunding Planned Parenthood. That's just a bonus that we are rejoicing on the backside of the big, beautiful bill. But going through and seeing this itemized going down is really encouraging and recognizing this wasn't a perfect bill. As President Trump might argue, not to disagree with the President, but it didn't cut everything that we would have liked cut. We know there was a lot of negotiations in the House and the Senate, the fact that JD Vance had to do the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. The fact that Freedom Caucus was working really hard to try to get the cuts where they could. A lot of really positive things, but one of the things on the list that certainly we guys can really appreciate, not only is the 26th enforcing the Hyde Amendment great, 27, celebrating America's 250th birthday with a garden of heroes. So this is funding part of what president Trump was going to do to honor some of our great noted American heroes and then making the district of Columbia safe and beautiful. So saying, we're going to make sure DC doesn't go the way that these Democrat leaders have been allowing it to go with trash and crime and, you know, all kinds of issues, uh, the homeless encampments all over the city said, no, we're gonna clean up the city. So just so many things on this list that again, very encouraging that were part of President Trump's acknowledged stated things he wanted to accomplish in his agenda, and it goes through so many of them. So just, again, another list identifying some really positive things that came out of the big, beautiful bill. 

David Barton [00:12:12] And you know, I think there's another aspect of that that's awesome because we were talking earlier that all the things Trump's doing by executive order can be undone by the next president. Well, this is not executive order. Those 28 things are now statutory and that's really hard to undo with the next president and so that is that that makes it even better is they're going to probably long outlast Trump. Some of these good positive changes. It won't be from president to president. They'll get reversed. That's going to be there for a while. And that's, that's great. 

Rick Green [00:12:42] Very good stuff. All right, guys, we're gonna take a break. As we're going to break, I have to tell a Barton story. Okay, so since we talked about all the movies, my first, maybe my second or third trip to Aledo, Texas, I'm just starting to work for the Bartons. I mean, I'm really just barely kind of getting to know the Barton's. And so David's like, come stay at our house. We spent the day at the office. He's teaching me all this stuff. I'm kind of laying the land, starting to go out and speak for wall builders. He's like hey, let's watch a movie. So we watched a movie and then, hey, lets watch another movie. We watched another movie and then it's like two in the morning. Hey, let's watch. You want to watch another movie? I'm not kidding. It was, I don't know what time it was, but I'm like conking out, falling asleep. He's working on his computer and watching a movie at the same time. That was one of many times where I learned to stay up until five in the morning, if I'm going to stay with the Barton. So that's the, we joke at the campus about it being green standard time, but it's really Barton standard time. That's where I learnt it all that. And I still don't have any popcorn. I'm just saying folks, as we go to the break. You notice Tim said popcorn for David popcorn for Tim popcorn for staff. I didn't hear popcorn for Rick. Okay. Yeah, I'm 

Tim Barton [00:13:47] and I'm being a snowflake. Yep, all right. Okay, so the next time people are coming, constitutional offense, coming to leadership Congress, just, if anybody's listening, load up the popcorn. Right, you know, we just, we have to help our buddy out. We don't want Rick to feel left out. So anybody listening. See, that's why I'm. 

Rick Green [00:14:07] And last thing, before we go to break, we had a little get together at the campus and this sweet, sweet family that they got a lot of kids and they had come down to help with the city of doing Constitution City. And they played me this video where the family had used the soundtrack of McClintock and all the kids were playing the parts including John Wayne and the whole nine yards. And as they're playing it, I was thinking, that's where I saw McClintoc was at the Bartons. That was the first time I saw that John Wayne movie. Anyway, all right, let's go to break. We'll be back folks. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show.

Rick Green [00:15:45] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. It's good news Friday. We got a lot of great news coming your way and David's up next and it probably has something to do with a John Wayne. No, just kidding. We're done with that one. Okay, go ahead, man. 

David Barton [00:15:54] Well, this one is, it's good news to me. I don't know how many other people are gonna think it's a good news. I think it's really good news because I think is something really healthy and I hope we see more of it. But just to set this up, this is a story that comes out of Great Britain, United Kingdom. And so over there, one of the members of Parliament is a guy named Chris Coughlin and he is a Catholic, he's a member of Parliament. And what happened was his local priest at his Catholic church, announced that he would not allow that member of parliament to partake of holy communion there at church, and he announced it publicly. And of course, that creates a furor. And it's because he called this member of Congress and said, look, if you vote for assisted suicide, you're going against church doctrine. And the scripture is really clear that if you're not consciously trying to get out of sin, if if you not, if you're trying to move into it or living with it. On a conscious basis the scripture is really clear. You don't get to take communion and so I said this is this will be church discipline I'm just letting you know if you vote for assisted suicide I will not let you have communion when you come to church and he voted for assisted suicide and the priests would not let him have communion and as they point out the Catholic Church teaches that suicide,  assisted suicide and euthanasia are all grave evils and it prohibits Catholics to support those measures and it also teaches the priest that if you take communion in a state of mortal sin, then it's sacrilegious. You're demeaning communion. Now what happened with all this was, the member of parliament now has been publicly embarrassed. He was warned, he went ahead and did the vote. The Catholic priest would not give him communion when he, the church. And so he's complaining, well now my kids have heard about this publicly. And as other people pointed out, said,hey, you know, that vote you took, that was also public too. You know? So it's crazy. But the, the Catholic member of Congress, he said, well, my private religion will continue to have zero direct relevance on my work as a member of parliament. Yeah, that's the problem buddy is your faith is not changing anything you do and you're not in the state scripture wise, be able to take communion. And just in case it sounds weird to folks, I encourage you to read 1st Corinthians 11, particularly there there's five verses twenty seven through thirty one and it says whoever eats or drinks the cup of the Lord or the bread of the Lord in an unworthy manner is guilty concerning the body and blood of the LORD. Let a person examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup and anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the Lord's body eats and drink judgment on himself and it just keeps going through and talking about how you have to judge yourself before you take communion. And so that's become such a part of going to church for people, they don't even think how real that is. And particularly with Catholics, where the doctrine is that literally becomes the body and blood of Christ, you're desecrating the body and blood to Christ. And so Romans two, first Corinthians five, Galatians six, Hebrews 12, there's all these verses about church discipline. And it's like we've gotten to where we don't ever do that again. So what happens? Here comes out a survey on church discipline in the United States. And more than 80% of churches in the United States have provisions for formal church discipline. And how often does it happen? Like never. More than half of pastors don't remember anytime in their lifetime when there's ever been church discipline, and as the group, Lifeway group, Baptist group came out and they did the poll, they said, well, you know, the infrequency of church discipline is not because church members aren't sinning, because there's a lot of sinning going on. But it's like nobody takes that serious and we've gotten to where we tolerate and accept anything. And I do think that that's a really serious teaching in the Bible. I am really proud of the church there in England for putting the stake in the ground where the scripture says you should put it in the ground and hopefully we can get serious about our faith over here as well and make it to where that just because you go to church doesn't mean we accept everything you do and that there shouldn't be discipline because the scripture makes really clear that's part of what needs to happen. 

Rick Green [00:20:14] You know, David, I'm struck by what you said about the comment where he said, you know, don't worry. My personal faith is not going to have any bearing whatsoever. I have any impact or influence on, on how I govern or how our vote or whatever. I mean, that just, to me, that means your faith must not mean much. I mean it's not, it doesn't really guide your life at all. You're certainly not, you now, as a Christian saying that, that he's Lord over everything in my life. So, man, it just seems like such a disconnect, but we've got a lot of people in public office that have bought that lie that they're supposed to check their faith at the door. 

Tim Barton [00:20:45] Well, and, and not to derail this, but I'm going to, you know, just Rick, as you made the comment, you, know, what's the John Wayne and dad, you're talking about church discipline and people that need to be called in line. I just thought, you now, there, there is from the movie that we have been talking about so far, a moment where she says, shoot him daddy, shoot them. And he says, well, you are my daughter and I do love you. And he shoots and he goes, you shot him. And he says, well, if he dies first, whenever I would start a pistol. I'm just thinking like there was, that maybe there could, we could have made a John Wayne connection, you know, where there was discipline needed. There was discipline that came. It might be too much of a stretch for McClintock. I'm Just thinking like, I feel like we could, this isn't like a church where we're, you know the good news at the movies kind of scenario. But if we had to, we know enough movies, we could probably do it. 

Rick Green [00:21:38] Well, I thought you were going to the spanking. I thought you were going to go to the Spankin' and that part of the McClintock scene, but anyway, that would be some interesting- 

Tim Barton [00:21:45] Well, at that point, we can throw in the Quiet Man. You know, there's a lot of things you can throw into that point. 

Rick Green [00:21:50] Yeah, I even watched a John Wayne clip on X last night where he throws the kid in the pond. You know, the six-year-old says he can't, yeah, that's it, he says he's can't swim. He's like, you can't swim, and he just throws him in. That's so good. Mama comes running, oh, he can't swim. Well, he's learning. Yeah. All right, Tim, take us home, man. What's your last piece of good news? We might get another one from David, depending on how long this one goes. 

Tim Barton [00:22:13] Yeah, well, this one, the title of the article says Trump administration in taxpayer funded education for illegal immigrants. And guys, I tell you, a lot of times as we see some of these headline articles, I think most Americans had no idea that we were doing taxpayer funding for illegal immigrants to get their education. As we say that there's probably many Americans who even people listening right now shaking their heads like, oh yeah, we knew that we knew it was a problem. I think if you polled the majority of Americans. They don't know what the government is doing their tax dollars, they don't know what they're paying for, how things are being funded, and how mismanaged so many of those funds are. And so just along these lines, the impacted programs include career and technical education programs under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, and adult education programs under Title II of the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act. Now I know that's a bunch of kind of legislative ease. Nuance in the weeds. Here's the bottom line. The article highlights illegal aliens will no longer be eligible to receive taxpayer subsidized education the Trump administration announced this on Thursday of last week the Department of Education confirmed that it revoked a Clinton-era interpretation So since Bill Clinton, this is the way it's been going by and large a rule that allowed undocumented individuals to access taxpayer funds for career, technical, and adult education programs. And, Educational Secretary Linda McMahon pointed out, under President Donald Trump's leadership, hardworking Americans won't have to foot the bill for educational programs that should be reserved for legal residents. So, when we're looking at times, the lack of education, the underperformance of the educational system for Americans, and instead of saying, how can we better serve the taxpayers themselves, that the people that are missing the education, that have been cheated by much of the educational system. But under Bill Clinton, he said, nope, let's give it to illegal aliens. And it takes away from actual legal Americans' ability to use it. The last thing I'll point out from Linda McMahon, she said, post-secondary education programs. Funded by the federal government should benefit american citizens not illegal aliens and guys we've talked about this a lot this should not be controversial that this should be something that we clearly agree on as a nation the government's role is to take care of its citizens and take care of being relative like protected citizens and if you're providing a service that service should be primarily for the citizens that are the taxpayers to the government system itself, not giving them to people that have no part in the system that haven't been taxed and haven't given dollars to the system. We could go on not to digress, but certainly this is really good news that President Trump is finally the one putting a stop to this. 

David Barton [00:24:59] I'll take you guys back to five years ago. We were having conversations with our state legislators and they were counting the state for redistricting and to see how many new Congress Texas picked up three new congressional seats and they we're doing all the counting and they were counting all these illegal aliens. So we said, guys, that's not what Republicans do. We're conservatives that doesn't know we have to because while that does not count in the congressional tally for how many people in districts. We do have to provide them education. We have to provide them welfare, we have, to provide the hospitals. We have to provide them health. I said, wait, whoa, whoa. You're talking about people here illegally. Absolutely. We're required by law to provide illegal folks who are here with all the benefits that a citizen gets. And so the fact that Trump is rolling this back, I mean, this is something, as you point out to Tim, this goes back to Bill Clinton era. So this is a massive turnaround. It's like we treat everybody in the world like they're American citizens. We're going to give them all the benefits. Then why do we pay taxes and they not pay taxes? It makes no sense. So this is a huge turnaround of common sense. 

Rick Green [00:26:02] Almost like the theme America, you know, make America great again and America first, we can also say Americans first. And, and it is to see this up and down the line and so many different agencies, the first piece of good news that you started with them on the, on all of that stuff that is in the, in the bill that is not even out yet, just to go into the list. I mean, we're going to have a lot of good news to catch up on just as we discover some of these other things that have been done. And as we watch these agency heads and secretaries that Trump put in place, actually implement the make America, great again policy agenda. So very good stuff. Everybody have a great weekend. We'll have some great interviews for you next week. And of course, Foundations of Freedom Thursday next Thursday and Good News Friday next Friday. So look forward to a great week next week, enjoy your weekend. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.