Rick Green [00:00:07] Yeah, it's the best day of the week. That's right. Friday. Good news Friday, my favorite part of the WallBuilder Show, mainly cause you know, David and Tim had to do all the work and I just say, Hey David, what's the next piece of good news or Tim? What's the piece of, no, actually I love it because it sends me into the weekend, you know just kind of a optimistic about all the good stuff that's happening and knowing that our hard work is, is paying off. So I love Fridays. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. You're listening to the WallBuilders Show where we take on things from the, you know, biblical historical constitutional perspective. And today we're celebrating a lot of good news stories. So David, get us started, man, what's our first piece of good news today? 

David Barton [00:00:41] You know, yesterday, as we were going through Foundations of Freedom, one of the questions was asked about, really it was a federalism question, having a Republican form of government in every state, Article 4, Section 4, and how the Trump has stepped into like sanctuary cities, and he's taken over D.C. Police enforcement as far as that goes. He hasn't taken it over, but he's certainly augmented it and redirected it. And he's threatened to do the same with cities like Chicago and New York and places have runaway crime and so here, from a couple days ago, I've got this report that talks about what's happened in D.C. Over the last 11 to 12 days at the time of this report, that he's been kind of taking over the police function there and kind of directing it to become police chief. And by the way, that sounds really weird that the president's police chief... Let me remind you that the constitution puts Washington D.C. Directly under the president. That's why when Thomas Jefferson was the first president in Washington D.C, he was also the president of the school board in Washington, D. C. And that's just pretty hard for people to imagine. President of the United States and president of D. C. School board at the same time. So for Trump to be The the president United States and and kind of the chief of police if you will I can't say the chief applies because the police in DC are supporting him wholeheartedly, they're behind what he's doing, they like what he was doing the the political 

Rick Green [00:02:01] Yeah, you know if the police association guy came out in you know, the union or association president there came out and in favor. Sorry to interrupt you David, but now be stuck on Jefferson being both School board president and president. I'm just curious. Do you think he got more hate mail as School board President or president because if you're on a school board you get a lot of hate mail so anyways, I probably didn't get any back there, but yeah, sorry .Yeah, sorry, go ahead, man.

David Barton [00:02:24]  If it was today, I would definitely say school board. The more love you get, the uglier the fights get. No question about it. 

Rick Green [00:02:30] That's right. So you were talking about him being over the police. 

David Barton [00:02:33] And in the sense of what's happened over the first 11 days that Trump has taken over the city and sent in police enforcement through national guard, et cetera. They've arrested 1,007 people. They've confiscated 111 illegal firearms and they have not now they average a death in Washington, DC, about every two to every two and a half days, they've gone 11 days without any deaths since he's taken over, there's not been a homicide in Washington DC and it's. 

Rick Green [00:03:03] Yeah. When you say death, you mean a homicide. 

David Barton [00:03:05] Homicide. Just, uh, no, no murders in Washington D C that there've been traffic deaths, I'm sure, but no murders. 

Tim Barton [00:03:10] And that's the time of the article you're reading, because that number could even be up higher, right? Which I haven't checked to see the last couple of days, but I feel like if somebody would have been murdered over the last few days, that probably would have been news, because that would be the first one that's happened recently. And I don't want to have to fact check you right now in the middle of it, so I'm going to just say as of the time of this article, it was 11 days, which does the article highlight what kind of record that sets in DC? Like how long has it been in DC since they had 11 days without a murder? Because it kind of turned into one of those cities like a, a Chicago or Memphis where it was, it was a very violent city just based on the data and the shootings, the, the homicides, et cetera. What kind of record does this set for DC? 

David Barton [00:03:59] It's gotta be a pretty high record, I would think. And that's just comparing to other cities, because one of the things that the mayor complained about when Trump took it over was, hey, our murder rates down 25% from last year. Yeah, and it's still about 25% higher than the other major cities in the United States. So it's come down. So that's an improvement for DC. But when you compare it to other big cities, you're still super high, I think. Baltimore is still probably the, the murder capital or had been for a while. I think per capita that there's desert, but I think when you go to Chicago over the weekends, they average a homicide every eight hours or so over weekends. And so it's kind of different in different cities. So I don't tell them, I don't know where exactly it falls into that. I, I just know it's headed in the right direction. It's trending in an upward direction for sure. And I love what Trump's, you know, Trump is getting so chewed up by the leftover. This. And he says, Hey, he says I want to make sure crime doesn't come back. So we have to take care of these criminals and get them out of here. Who would object to that? How can Democrats object to getting criminals out of the city? And they're, I mean, he's getting stuff done that you guys should have been doing good. He's saving lives, which, you know, Democrats say they're all about. Well, they don't save lives because they kill unborn babies. Maybe they save the lives of criminals and illegal immigrants. But outside of that, it's just hard to see anybody lining up. And saying, hey, we think we should go back to the city running it where we have more homicides and more crime and we're not saving citizen lives. There have been so many citizens who have been talking about I haven't been able to walk in Miami neighborhood in years and now I'm walking down the street. And so that's all anecdotal, that's not evidence. But nonetheless, there is a different tone in the city as a result of what President Trump has done. I love the fact that this is kind of the essence of Romans 13, what government is supposed to do. Is supposed to punish the wicked and reward the righteous and at least the wicked are starting to get punished now in Washington D.C. 

Rick Green [00:05:59] well having  zero idea as to where you're going to go Tim. I thought about what if we create parameters like if if David does DC Tim's not allowed to do any good news from Donald Trump the White House DC or anything else. I wonder what would happen so I literally have no idea what you have next but is it from DC or is it a state good news? 

Tim Barton [00:06:17] It's neither, it's far more random and interesting. It, deals with alcohol consumption of all things but the title of the article says fewer Americans are drinking alcohol than ever before. Now this is basically the Gallup survey. So these are people that are participating. So you might question to some extent, but as far as the people that participate in an identifying kind of their position, 54% of adult respondents said they drink alcohol. Now that's down from 58% in 2024, it was 62% in 2023, it was 67% in 2022. So that the trend is going way down. It's 1% lower this year than the previous low recorded in 1958. And Gallup has been doing this same survey on alcohol consumption since 1939. So at this point you're talking we're getting close to a hundred years they've been doing this and they identified there are fewer adult Americans drinking now than at any point that they've identified in the survey what's kind of interesting in the breakdown of the survey is the people that are drinking the least are the youngest adults 18 to 34 are the ones reported drinking the least amount in the Survey which is kind of Interesting generally, in my mind, for lots of reasons. Actually, the older someone is, the higher the percentages that they drink. And I don't think it's just cause maybe the idea is once you're over 60, everybody has a glass of wine at dinner. I don't know that that's necessarily what's happening in this survey, but to me, not only was it interesting that the younger generation was reporting self-identifying they drink the least, it was equally fascinating that they had a breakdown based on political affiliation. And 19% fewer Republicans reported drinking from 2023 to 2025. There was a drop of 6% among independents and 3% among Democrats. Now, I am not totally sure how to process information, but it appears Democrats are drinking far more than our Republicans.

Rick Green [00:08:32]  But you have to be, you have to be miserable to be a Democrat. So it's like, it makes sense. It's almost biblical, right? Cause didn't Paul say something about for not a merry heart, what was the language you used? 

Tim Barton [00:08:42] He told Timothy, for the sake of your stomach, drink a little wine and I just thought between Kamala Harris, arguably a raging alcoholic, with her own staffers reporting, she was drunk at half the things she did. Um, right. 

Rick Green [00:08:55] I thought you were gonna say her her speeches would be something that would drive you to drink. I thought that's where you were going. Sorry 

Tim Barton [00:09:00] Well, there's all of the above, right? Because if the numbers are looking at specifically, there's a decline overall. But in 2023, there were some very high numbers, 2022 very high numbers. And it's declined the least amount in Democrats, maybe it's because they didn't see as much hope coming in the, you know, upcoming election as Republicans. There's a lot of things you could analyze with this. I think it's interesting. But yeah, the conclusion, and a majority respond, it's 54%. Now say they think it's bad to drink, even in moderation. 54% of Americans think alcohol is not good for you. And that's up from only 39% had that opinion in 2023. So for whatever reason, there's a major shift happening, even with the perspective of alcohol consumption. And I don't know that this is necessarily one of the great indicators we would point to, that God is on the move, that there's a revival. Because I don't know that we necessarily can correlate, you love God more if you don't drink a glass of wine at dinner than if you do. Although, you know, obviously between us three, we all have opinions on alcohol and they might not even agree, but I do think it's interesting. That we are seeing a shift in some of the moral perspective where the majority of Americans are saying, hey, alcohol is not, it's not really great for you. Stay away from it. It's so different than where we used to be. And obviously as we live in a nation that is incredibly divided as, you know, we can look at the fact that early in the week there was a school shooting, right? A transgender individual and there's still lots of problems. There's lots of chaos. There's a lot of trouble in the nation. But I think it's just interesting. That there are so many things we can look at like this, where you see that there is a shift happening in our culture. It's not everybody, but it's impacting an awful lot of people. And so to me, this is just good news that there are people identifying that they're not going to be alcoholics, they're going to consume alcohol, or they're going to go a different direction. And I think it's maybe a reflection of something bigger happening in our culture and again, I think that's the overall 

Rick Green [00:11:05] some good news and think Tim that's that's four years ago we were at a point where because of you know locking people in their homes and all the crazy stuff that happened abuse was way up I mean substance abuse went way up people were falling back into old addictions I mean it was just it was looking really dismal so here you are just four years later that's a short period of time to see that kind of a shift in such a huge cultural trend and and one of the things found really interesting just watching, you know, Andrew Huberman and other if you w if you want to call them life coaches, I mean, he's obviously a doctor and does the studies and all that kind of stuff, but even from a non faith perspective, necessarily the push to say, this is just bad for you. You're burning brain cells. You're doing this. It's not good for your, you know, um, brain fog and all these things it, it's a good cultural trend just to say we need to be healthier. We need to do this. So you've got it coming from both directions, I think. And that may be part of why we're seeing that, uh, that huge shift. So yeah, very positive thing. Quick break, we'll be right back. David's up next with our next piece of good news. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:13:16] Welcome back to The Wallbuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. Back over to David for the next piece of good news. 

David Barton [00:13:21] Well, it's gonna be a little shout out for a minute. Got this note in for Lene, and Lene has a piece of good news. She says, Oregon just did something big, which we don't have all that much good news, Morgan. She said, due to state bill SB 1098, our public charter school now will not deny faith-based curriculum. Oregon doesn't do a lot right. But now we have a lot of homeschool Christian moms who are very happy as many are part of a full time online charter school in Oregon that the state now has Christian curriculum with that. So there's something good from Oregon. Good, good information out from Lene. So thanks for sending that Lene my big kind of article to go to next is back to Trump. So here we are, Rick, you predicted to be back to Trump. And Trump in this case has picked a fight and he's deliberately picked a fight, it's a legal fight, and I am thrilled he has picked this fight. I wish someone had done this a long time ago rather than simply saying, you know, the U S Supreme Court said this, I'm going to let it rest there. He's saying, you know 30 years ago, actually in this case, it happened to be at 36 years ago. The Supreme Court reached a decision. And we're not willing to let that rest. We're going to get the court a chance to re-examine this. Now, he did not say he's doing this because he wants it to go to the court, but everybody in his administration on the legal side, Pam Bondi, anybody else, the slasher general, they all know that this is headed to the Supreme Court. And what he did was he just made a real clear declaration. He came out with an executive order that says, if you see flag burning going on in the American flag, you will, you'll arrest and prosecute those people. We don't want to see our flag burned or spit on. And so it's back to a flag desecration law. Now we'd had this for a while. Uh, then they, they passed a law after, after all the anti war demonstration in the sixties with Vietnam and we hate America and America war stuff. And so at that point in time, Congress came back with another anti flag desecrational laws called the flag protection act of 1968. It outlawed the burning the defacing the filing the mutilating or the trampling of the flag and that's the stuff we've seen with all these college protests going on so many of them. They burn the flag they stamp on the flag the the pro-hamas Protests are going on. They burned the American flag burned the Israeli flag. And so Trump has said we're just we're not gonna do that he said we want to recognize the thousands of Americans who fought bled and died to keep the Stars and Stripes waving proudly. Now, this was the way it had been. And then in 1989, a case that came in Texas where Texas prosecuted a flag burner, 1989, the case Johnson versus Texas, the Supreme court and a five, four decision said, no, we don't think that you can prohibit flag burning because that's freedom of speech. Now, my point has always been I'll support your right to talk about burning the flag, but when you start doing it, that's no longer speech, that action. And laws regulate actions. We have the right legally to regulate actions, it's one thing to talk about it, it's another thing to do it, and don't tell me that doing it is free speech because that's not free speech, that's an action and behavior. And so they know in the administration that what he has just done is going to be sued. And here come the legal guys, they're gonna say, oh, you're violating the court decision in 1989. Well, this is a set up to get it back to the court. And I love I love what he explained about this. He says, desecrating the flag is uniquely offensive and provocative. It is a statement of contempt, hostility and violence against our nation. The clearest possible expression of opposition to the political union preserves our rights, liberties and securities. And that's exactly it. You're attacking everything that flag stands for. And that is an attack on fundamentally the Constitution, our form of government, the way we do things it is a fundamental change here. So I love the fact that he is taking this on and again he hasn't said anything and I don't think they will say anything about looking for the Supreme Court to pick this up but we know good and well that this is something the left is going to come after they will file a suit and hopefully it will work its way up to the Supreme court and hopefully with what the court has done in the last eight to ten years I would predict we get a very different decision out of the court on something like this. 

Rick Green [00:17:45] Okay, I should have put the parameters on David to Tim. See, I mean, it wasn't fair. He got to go for the low hanging fruit. Cause there's so much good news coming out of DC and now it goes back to you and you're not allowed, no, I'm kidding. Uh, you might have a good news for DC. What you got next? 

Tim Barton [00:17:58] Well, this one is connected to DC as many things are, but I think a lot of it's happening not in DC. This headline says ICE receives over 100,000 applications in two weeks. Now, this article is also two weeks old, but it goes through when Christine Ohm, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, she said, our country is calling you to serve at ICE in the wake of the Biden administration's failed immigration policies. Your country needs dedicated men and women of ICE to get the worst of the worst criminals out of our country. This is a defining moment in our nation's history. Your skill, your experience, and your courage have never been more essential. Together, we must defend the homeland. And in the midst of this, ICE offered a bonus, incentives for joining, and part of the incentives included a maximum $50,000 signing bonus. Uh, which I can imagine when incentivize an awful lot of people to at least apply. We also know that Dean Kane, and this is part of the article too, Dean Kane who played a Superman from the Lewis and Clark, the TV show, uh, he told Newsmax recently that he had begun working for ice, uh and, and so it's just, it's really interesting to see how many Americans are coming out and not just in support of ice, cause that is true, but even wanting to sign up and be part of this. And one of the things that I saw even earlier this week, there's reports coming out from places like Boston, which is a very liberal city. They have very liberal policies and they're one of these places that have kind of identified as a sanctuary city. And yet the police have identified that behind the scenes, they are working with ICE because they wanna help their streets be safer as well. And I think it's interesting that you have some of these major cities where the police are acknowledging they're having to do this behind the scene because This is not what the mayor, it's not what maybe their local police chief supports, which is very telling, but the fact that law enforcement are so appreciative and supportive of generally what ICE is doing to try to make America a safer place. And then I just love that there's a hundred thousand applications. In a two-week period, leading into when this article is written. So overall, really good news that ICE has done so much and they're getting not just advertising, they're giving so much interest from Americans wanting to help protect America, arrest bad people, arrest, bad guys, and make the streets safer again. So really good. 

Rick Green [00:20:31] I was just, as you were saying that Tim, looking up the poster, you know, cause I wondered if they use the old uncle Sam, right? Where he's pointing at you and he says America needs you or I want you. And they did it. They got uncle Sam on the poster. So it's, it's that old thing of him pointing to say America needs you America's been invaded by criminals and predators. We need you to get them out. Then it talks about the signing bonus you're talking about. So brilliant marketing on their part. It's kind of like the military, right. To have such an increase in the recruitment right now, people willing to serve their country, willing to take on these tough jobs. Just a really, really positive sign of where things are headed and a restoration of patriotism, just wanting to be a part of the country. I mean, obviously you could be cynical and say, oh, it's just the signing bonus or it's the money or whatever, uh, which sometimes that does happen. Of course but man, I mean that this is clearly a line in the same kind of thing. You're not going to go take the job with ice just for the money. At this point, you have to believe in the cause to take the abuse that these guys are taking. So good stuff. Okay, David, back to you. And what do you think Tim, parameters though, do we put any parameters on him or does he get to go anywhere? 

Tim Barton [00:21:29] He's already picked the one he wants, so this time I didn't let him go. 

David Barton [00:21:33] I see that piece of paper there. Here it goes. 

David Barton [00:21:34] Yeah, I would like to see you try to put a perameter on this , go ahead, tell me how that works out for you. 

Rick Green [00:21:42] No holds barred. 

David Barton [00:21:43] Yeah. Well, actually this kind of tag teams with what Tim just did with ICE, and this is the fact that we have 55 million in the United States right now who are here on legal visas. So 55 million visa holders in the United States. That's great. 

Rick Green [00:22:00] So that's like what is that 15 percent of the country? It's huge. Yeah, it's huge that be 

Rick Green [00:22:07] Yeah, yeah 

David Barton [00:22:07] Well, out of 330, that would be 160. Yeah, that'd probably be in the vicinity of 14 to 16 percent, somewhere there. Yeah, we're close so

Rick Green [00:22:15] That's legal. That's that's like a visa. 

David Barton [00:22:18] That's a visa. They're not naturalized citizens. They're here on a visa and they, good for them. They did the right thing. They followed the law. They're hear legally. Good for them and Trump has said, oh, by the way, you are here on the visa and that can be revoked at any time. Let's see how you're doing with keeping the law and so they have started reviewing these 55 million visas and they're looking only for lawbreakers. They're, they're not looking to throw people out. They're looking for the law breakers. And if you're a law breaker, go commit your crimes in some other country. We don't need to invite you here, especially, and give you a status to come here to commit crimes. So they're looking for indicators of criminal activity or terrorism support or immigration violations, anything that's a violation of the law and I love the message. If you're, if you are violent, if your law breaker America is not for you. This is not the country that we want you in or that you want to come to. And so. Oh, now this this surprised me already this year, they revoke six thousand student visas. So six thousand students visas this year for crimes ranging from burglary to driving under the influence or for support of terrorist organizations. Three hundred student revocations were tied to fundraising for Hamas and other terrorist groups as the, as the department points out, it says every single student visa revoked under the Trump administration has happened because the individuals either broken the law or they've expressed support for terrorism while they're in the United States. And so the result of this is, is you, in addition to what they have identified, uh, 1.6 million illegal immigrants have left because they're a force in law. Now these are visa holders, but these are 1. 6 million illegals who voluntarily deported. And so now it shows that the United States foreign born population this year has dropped by 2.2 million, which is the first decline in immigrant population or foreign population in 50 years. So this was the first time in 50, years, the foreign population has not grown to the United states. And it's not because Trump is throwing everybody out. He's just throwing the lawbreakers out. And people who are self-deporting because they don't want to be arrested. But it's really nice to have upholding laws, actually enforcing laws. That's, that's really good news. 

Rick Green [00:24:42] All right, Tim, we got time for a quick one. If you got one left. 

Tim Barton [00:24:45] Yes, this could have been much longer than a fast update, but I'll make it a fast update. The article headline says Trump takes aim at grant spending and new executive order. So on August 7th, he signed an executive order and this is part of the executive order, it says every dollar the government spends should improve American lives or advance American interest. This often does not happen. Federal grants have funded drag shows in Ecuador, our train. Doctoral candidates in critical race theory and develop transgender sexual education programs on it goes and And and what they're pointing out is they want to make sure that we're doing things. It may be institutional changes in some of this because A lot of things are being funded that are very pro-palestinian or very pro diversity equity inclusion like the dei programs. Of course, we've seen this in academia There was a fact sheet that came out from the White House related to this that said federal grants will undergo more rigorous evaluation by Trump's appointed officials to verify that each grant dollar benefits Americans instead of lining grantees pockets or furthering causes that damage American. And ultimately, they want to make sure that whatever it does promotes American values and they can't be anti-American and receive any grant funding. Now, the fact we had to have an executive order to clarify this is a little crazy that we're not gonna fund things that are anti-American, but I think it's great that we do have a president saying, hey, we're gonna make sure we're not giving grants to people that are doing things that oppose American values or the American people. So this is really good news. 

Rick Green [00:26:20] Well guys, I know you've got more good news. We just can't get to it today out of time. We'll have more next Friday. And of course, there's always some additional ones from previous weeks. If you missed any of those Fridays over the last couple of months, visit wallbuilders.show and you can catch all of our other programming there as well. Also visit wall-builders-dot-com for everything else when rebuilding the walls that we're working on across the country. You can be a part of that as well at wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show. Thanks for listening to the wallbuilder show.