Biker Club Saves WWII Veteran’s Home – Major Cities Refund The Police – A biker club in Maine steps up to save a Veteran from losing his home, major cities backtrack on defunding the police and much more!

Air Date: 06/18/2021

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

Listen:

Download: Click Here

Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

You find your way to the intersection of faith and the culture. Welcome to WallBuilders, where we’re taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. We’re here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, and my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s constitution coach.

Well, today is our special day of the week for talking about good news. We always do the good, the bad, and the ugly when we look at history when we look at what’s going on in the world. But Friday programs, we dedicate to the good news of things that have happened over the last few weeks and months. David and Tim have been compiling all kinds of great stories. Let’s dive in. David Barton’s got the first piece of good news for us today.

David:

The first one I’m going to do comes from Texas, which is not surprising. We have a lot from Texas, and oh, that’s a Texan talking about Texas. Okay. So it goes to the fact that a lot of the legislators have ended their session recently, or they’re ending their session now. There’s some legislators that pretty much go all year, but a lot of them go 30 days or 60 days, Texas 140 days. So as our legislative session has wound down, there’s a lot of bills passed in the last few days that have ended up on the desk of Governor Abbott.

And interestingly, he signed a batch of bills, four different bills that increased criminal penalties for protesters, and it actually defends the police and says, if you’re going to defund the police, you’re going to lose your state funds, etc. So the four bills, two of the bills deal with you cannot reduce spending in law enforcement. It’s interesting. We’ve seen recently news articles that have been very interesting on this.

For example, there’s a city councilman who ran for mayor in Atlanta, and he’s been a huge guy for defunding the police, defunding the police, defunding the place. So he gets carjacked. And so he calls the police, which normal thing to do, except he wanted to defund them. But they were so overwhelmed with all the calls they’ve got because they’ve been knocking the police department down in Atlanta that it took them a long time to even answer his call.

Tim:

And by the way, when you have attorneys who are not going to prosecute certain crimes any more, it encourages certain crimes. And so as crime is increasing, violent assaults are increasing, murder rates are increasing in pretty much every city that’s called for defunding the police, they’ve seen an outbreak of criminal activity and all of these places, Atlanta is certainly one of those places. And so their police were overwhelmed with the crime going on, as the continued cries for defunding the police are going on.

David:

And it’s ironic these guys wanted to defund the police and when they want the police they want them to be there. Even in Austin, Austin is a city in Texas that defunded the police by 1/3, took 1/3 of their budget, $150 million off their budget. And they had a bad incident recently where a man was shot in the head, and when they call the police, the police were so backed up because they were so understaffed. It took them like 15 minutes to even show up at the scene where this guy had been shot in the head. So all these guys who have been claiming they wanted to defund the police suddenly want the police to show up when they get a need.

And so we’ve seen a real trend over recent months of a lot of states and a lot of cities that had defunded the police are now refunding the police, including New York City, because their philosophy didn’t work out real well. They thought that if you defund the place that would deescalate violence and crime, and that just wasn’t right. So here in Texas, we said okay, any city in Texas that defunds the place or reduces the funding for place, you’re going to lose your state funding, you lose the ability to raise city taxes, you lose the ability to raise property taxes. I mean, they really went after them.

And they also went after anyone who tries to block an emergency vehicle. We saw that in protest was the emergency vehicles tried to get into people who’ve been hurt, protesters wouldn’t let them get in. So they really have gone very strong after this anti-police mentality that’s out there. And it’s interesting, this anti-police mentality is so big that we’ve seen over in Virginia that three Democrat sheriffs in Virginia have now switched to the Republican Party, because the Democrats had been so outspoken, anti-police, defund the police, get rid of the police. It’s interesting to see that there is a big law and order contingency in America. And the good news is that people are moving in that direction.

Rick:

Alright, great news on that front, David. We’re moving over to Tim, what’s your first piece of good news today?

Tim:

Well, guys, this one is coming from a biker gang up in Maine, which already has lots of interesting thoughts and implications. And I’m saying gang, they’re not really a gang. It’s a club, right. Let’s clarify. These guys, to my knowledge are not participating in criminal activity. Actually, there is a biker gang that really are doing some very heroic things and definitely props to them.

So there is what is known as the Gary Owen Motorcycle Club. Certainly not a gang, I was saying that a little tongue in cheek, not a gang at all. But these are a group of motorcyclists, and they were in a town and they found out that there was an army veteran from World War II, his name is Joey Comeau 97 years old, and the town was foreclosing on his house, kicking him out of his house, because he owed $13,000 in taxes, and he could not pay it as a 97 year old World War II veteran. Now we could get on a tangent about the issue with taxes and the way tax are done…

David:

I would love to get on that tangent. I’m all over that, but that’s a different story. But I’m with you.

Tim:

Well, let’s at least make the point. As we have talked so much in the last several weeks and months about how people need to get involved and run for school board, this is another really good example that we need to get involved in run for city council, for some of the tax structure the city, run for your state legislative body and change some of the tax laws in your state.

It’s always bothered me, guys, when you go to own a home and you buy the home, but then if you don’t continue to pay your property tax or what is also known as your lease payment to the city, then they can take your home away from you and kick you out even though you already bought that home. So as much as we’ve encouraged people get involved and run for school board so that we can stop some of this nonsense that is being imposed on our kids, is Marx’s ideology happening all over the nation. We have to get involved in school boards and stop that. We also need to get involved city council. We need to get involved and state legislative body to help stop nonsense and other areas as well. But here’s the good news.

So the Gary Owen Motorcycle Club, when they found out what was going on, Warren Ard, the President said that they were going to do a fundraiser. They had a barbecue. They held signs. And he said we’ll stop traffic, we’ll put boots out there. We’ve got to get this guy’s taxes paid. So he can do what he wants in the last part of his life. Well, within one hour, they’d raised $600. There also was a social media crowdfunding page that was open, promoted on social media. There was $4,400 that was given to this and this is the time of the article.

So this article is written very fresh to when this event was unfolding. At the time of our reading his article now, I don’t know where it stands. I certainly can look it up. And I want to know what happens on this. But for Joey Cuomo, his neighbor said that he served not only for several years in World War II, he was part of the Normandy invasion. And they told some details about him, really an incredible guy, but a record of some really incredible moments in American history. And to think that town’s going to come in and do something is just crazy.

But one of the things that article highlights is one of the really positive aspects is when people found out what was going on, how many people from around the city showed up and said they’re going to do whatever they can to help. So I would expect at this point that Joey Comeau has probably been taken care of. And by the way, that last name is C-O-M-E-A-U, first name is Joey, you can look up, find more information. If you want to help contribute to this course, there’s a crowdfunding page that you can help contribute the course, make sure he’s taken care of.

But it’s really cool that we’re seeing in this case, again, I jokingly refer to them as a biker gang, right, but this biker club that shows up and if you see a group of bikers coming in, right, like for some people, that would be intimidating, like, oh, my gosh, all these big bikers, right, these strong hairy men and tattoos and whatnot. And like, no, these guys showed up and said, we want to help someone who needs help, and they were leading the fundraising effort. So just really cool piece of news coming out of Maine.

Again, don’t know the end of the story yet, probably there’s more help that could go toward Joey Comeau. Nonetheless, this is really cool to see Americans stepping up to help other Americans.

Rick:

Alright, guys get time for one more before we hit the break. David, you got a quick before us?

David:

Yeah, sure do. It relates to the fact that for the last 16 months, there have been record sales of guns in the United States. A lot of this stemmed from the fear of what might happen with guns being taken. Some has been because of the riots and the protests and people wanting to be more secure. There’s really been a spike recently after President Biden started talking about taking AR-15s, and taking anything that kind of loads like an AR-15 has that lower mag, etc. They’ve taken off again. Here’s what I find really interesting. Now, in addition to 16 straight months of record breaking gun sales, when you look at first time gun buyers, what do you think the profile is for first time gun buyers? What would you guys guess?

Rick:

You mean, like male or female?

David:

Yeah, anything. If you walk in, you’ve never bought a gun before, who do you think is most likely to be buying guns right now?

Tim:

40 to 50, maybe 60 year olds.

David:

Okay, part. Take gender?

 You know, it would be easy to say female.

Rick:

Yeah, yeah, that’s…

Tim:

I kind of feel like there’s a lot of men who have never owned a gun or maybe they grew up around guns, you know, their grandpa hunted or how to shot gun, I feel like there’s a lot of men who are buying guns for the first time, so that could be a closer number like a 60/40 or 55/45. But I’m going to say men…

David:

It’s actually women, women are well, it’s a half-half.

Rick:

I was going to say women only because of our people that come with us to Front Sight for the Constitutional Defense course. Believe it or not, is women more than men; it’s about 55% women. And usually it’s the wife dragging the husband along. So I’m a little biased on that one. But that’s training versus buying a gun, so I’m not sure.

David:

Well, it sounds like those that are buying are also wanting to get trained, because it’s about that same percentage with first time buyers. It’s right at 50/50, about 50% of women. So it sounds like the women are wanting to get trained, which is really good. And by the way, Rick, your training in Front Sight is terrific. For people who are first time gun buyers, go with Rick on the training to Front Sight, good stuff. But it’s 50% being women 20% being Hispanic and 20% being black. So that’s three demographics. I would not have immediately picked as being the ones that are buying guns right now. So it’s 16 consecutive months. And it’s a different demographic than we’ve seen before. But gun sales are soaring right now, and people are wanting to get trained. And that’s good.

Rick:

Alright, guys, let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back. Folks, it’s Good News Friday. You are listening to WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN STORY

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today.

And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil, and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things, like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out the statement Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America not as the story of a perfect nation of a perfect people. But the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out wallbuilders.com, The American Story.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. Tim’s going to have the next piece of good news. But real quick I’m going to read an email we got from Doug in Lone Jack, Missouri. I love this. He said “I wanted to let you know my wife is a graduate of Loan Jack High School of 2004 all of 43 students and I’m from the town next door Lee’s Summit, Missouri. And we’ve been married for 13 years, had our fifth kid last year.” Congrats on that. “And I had been faithfully serving this country for 17 years in the Marine Corps, and currently stationed in Okinawa, Japan. We’ve been faithful listeners to WallBuilders Live for the last 10 years.” Guys, that’s pretty cool. “I have purchased several of David Barton’s books, he’s written about original intent and who our Founding Fathers really were. It’s greatly impacted my misunderstandings I was taught in high school, and I constantly recommend him as an author that should be read by my young Marines that are serving today. Their illiteracy of our foundation and Constitution is mind boggling. Please keep up the great work. I look forward to meeting you all one day.” That’s from Doug and Jamie.

God bless you all. Thanks for serving. And just thanks for the good email and the good news that you have been listening that long, and that you’re in force multiplier, that you’re sharing the program, that you’re sharing David’s books with your friends and family and with those other Marines. Pretty cool, guys. I know, you know, you’ve got family in the military. It’s just cool to know that all the way over in Okinawa, Japan, members of our military are listening to WallBuilders Live and studying the book. So let’s jump into our next piece of good news. Tim, what you got?

Tim:

Alright guys, this one’s coming from Florida State and there was a student in Florida State who was removed from his student senate president position. Jack Denton last year was removed because he said a lot of things that, according to Florida State University were not appropriate. They were not inclusive, that maybe they were not loving. There are a lot of kind of things they threw out about this.

Well, it so happens that Jack did it as a Catholic. And one of the things that is now kind of silly is he was in a private message with a conversation among other Catholic students. And there was a suggestion that maybe from what they were doing, they should begin funding organizations like the Blacklivesmatter.com reclaimed the block and American Civil Liberties Union, advocating that these are groups that should be funded.

Well, Jack pointed out that as Catholics and he was again, he was in a group talking to Catholics. He said, guys, as Catholics, we have to make sure we’re careful of what we support that we follow the church’s teachings on common ground. And this is literally a quote from him. He said, “It’s important to know what you’re supporting when you’re Catholic. If I stay silent while my brothers and sisters may be supporting an organization that promotes grave evils, I have sinned through my silence. I love you all. And I want us to be aware of the truth.”  

Now, for those of us who have paid attention very long, Blacklivesmatter.com, or the Black Lives Matter organization was not just arguing for social justice or racial justice. They actually were arguing for lots of LGBTQ plus issues and agendas. There was a lot more to their agenda than just valuing black life.

David:

And socialism and Marxism as well.

Tim:

Correct. Same thing with American Civil Liberties Union who advocate for abortion. There’s a lot of things with these groups that they identified that are very contrary to the position of Catholics. And so Jack pointed out that guys, as Catholics, we shouldn’t be supporting this and he was trying to be helpful to other Catholic students. One of the students took screenshots and posted on social media, then there was outrage, how dare he as a practicing Catholic trying to be a good Catholic, how dare he not support some of these institutions, etc.

So Florida State University as a public institution, and now the student Jack Denton who was the President of the Senate, that’s actually a paid position, although the pay is very relative, but he actually gets paid by the school for helping run their student government. So they fired him from that position, and really reprimanded him and lots of other things that followed. In the midst of this, he got connected with Alliance Defending Freedom and worked with several different attorneys that work for Alliance Defending Freedom.

But one of the attorneys who released a statement after they won was legal counsel, Logan Spena, who identify they were very pleased that Florida State University reversed their position. Well, not only did Florida State University reverse their position, they restored the $1,050 that didn’t lost in his wages, they also are paying him $10,000 in damages, and they’re covering his $84,000 in attorney fees. So in all, it’s a $95,000 check, which is not that big of a deal, except Florida State has now come out and said that we recognize that people’s religious convictions are important, and that every student no matter their religion, has the right to participate in student organizations and hold positions in student government.

Remember the reason that they said he shouldn’t be there was because he was upholding and supporting very clear doctrinal Catholic positions. And they said that’s unacceptable. How dare you say we shouldn’t support people that promote abortion or that promote Marxism or etc, etc. So the good news is that, there’s again groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, who do a great job standing up to fight for religious freedom of students, but also that a student like Jack Denton would not kowtow and cower to Florida State University bullying him for being a Catholic for a Christian position that he is holding.

And it’s great news that the Judge upheld this position that jack was saying what he thought was his first amendment right to be able to do his freedom of religion, to build a practice to express that belief to other Catholics, the Judge agreed. So all in all a very good outcome from this scenario. And hopefully, as Florida State acknowledged, they’re now going to try to do a better job of upholding the religious rights for all of their students, regardless of their religion, etc. So that is good news coming from Florida State University.

Rick:

Great news out of Florida. We seem to get a lot of good news out of Florida. If you all noticed that, David, you get the next piece of good news.

David:

That comes out of the US Supreme Court. It’s another 9-0 decision, which means the liberals, the conservatives and the squishes are all on the same page with this. This is unanimous. And in this decision, they overrule the Ninth Circuit, the Federal Circuit out on the west coast. Now, we used to joke about that a lot two or three years ago. We talked about how wack in the Ninth Circuit was they were the most overturned circuit in the United States. I mean, it’s crazy how many times the Supreme Court overturn them.

I think there was one session where that out of 80 or so cases, the court had 28 or 29 came out of the Ninth Circuit and they overturned all but one. So the Ninth Circuit really had been crazy. But under President Trump, they got a lot more conservatives then. So they haven’t been nearly as crazy. We haven’t been able to make those jokes at all. But this is a decision recently where that 9-0, the US Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit decision dealing with emigration.

Now, the standard for immigration is when you have these trial dates, an immigrant comes here and they want to seek asylum here or they want to become a US citizen, you have to go before an immigration Judge and determine your status, etc. And so the Ninth Circuit has held this position that says the immigration Judge has to go with whatever the immigrant says. So whatever story the immigrant tells, that’s what you go with. Well, the judicial standard is find the truth, see if the immigrant’s telling the truth, see if there’s other credible evidence that would show otherwise and go with what the truth is.

So what happened was you had this guy that came to America over in California, he arrived from China on a tourist visa. And when he got here, he claimed asylum. He says, hey, I’m being persecuted back home, my life’s in danger. It’s a big threat. I need to be received here. And the Judge, the immigration Judge asked a bunch of questions and found out well, no, that’s not true. Your life’s not in danger. You’ve been going back and forth to China. Your wife’s over in China, she comes and goes. And the guy just wanted to be in America.

But he had learned the line that this is what you say, if you want to be accepted in America, and the Judge dug deeper and found out no, that’s not the evidence, that’s not the truth. So the Judge denied him asylum here because his story just did not meet the facts. But the Ninth Circuit overturned that Judge and said, no, we told you whatever the immigrant says, you go with the immigrant says. And so the Ninth Circuit says you have to accept this emigrant, even though the story doesn’t line up.

And this is where the US Supreme Court came back on a 9-0 decision, essentially saying, the truth does matter. You go with the evidence. You got with the fact. You find the story, and you go with the story. You don’t just accept whatever someone says. And that is so cool. Man, if we can get this same message down and the way we look at nightly news or the way we read social media or anything else, we need to be going for the truth and not just what’s being said.

So, great decision out of the US Supreme Court, 9-0 unanimous ruling from the left the right and the squishes, that truth does matter when it comes to courts.

Rick:

Alright, Tim, back over to you. What’s our next piece of good news?

Tim:

Alright, guys, this is another one from Florida, and this one is a very different kind of story. I actually have a couple different articles that are covering the same story, a really cool piece of good news. Let me start with this. So, guys, I know that we all have been athletes of some kind on some level in our past. Dad, you and I have done a lot of scuba diving in our years. We’ve been in the water a lot. One of the things we also enjoy about scuba diving is that you can navigate currents differently because you’re under the water you have a tank on.

But we know currents can be strong and they can take you under, they can take you away from where you want to be. Especially we know in some situations, there’s lots of rain, you know flash floods, strong currents come through and wash people away. So let’s say that there’s a strong current that comes by. Guys, how long do you think you can swim in a strong current?

David:

Oh, wow.

Rick:

Me about 30 seconds.

David:

Yeah, with a tank, if I was close to the surface, 70 minutes, if I was deep, about 10 or 15. Yeah, it’d be based on my tank, because I couldn’t swim that long in a strong current for very long.

Tim:

With your fans, right. So here’s the story. There is a seven year old boy being hailed as a hero after he swam through a current for more than an hour trying to reach the shore. His dad was out, they were fishing on a river, strong current came. And the seven year old boy was in the water with his four year old sister, four year old sister was wearing a life jacket, the seven year old boy was not, he was not required to by law. They were right around the anchor while dad was fishing, strong current content starts to wash them away. Well, the four year old got washed away in her life jacket. She’s just flown with the current.

So the seven year old, his name is Chase Poust. And he let go of kind of where he was holding on to the boat to try to follow a sister, dad see, so dad jumps in. And so now none of them are at the boat. Dad’s trying to chase to catch up the four year old. And dad finally gets close to where the seven and four year old are, and they’re just trying to stay afloat as this current’s washing them around and pushing them and they’re not able to get out of the current.

First of all, the dad says he told them both he loved them. He wasn’t sure he was going to make it, wasn’t sure what was going to happen. He told the seven year old swim as hard as you can, try to get to shore, try to get help. I’ve got to stay here and try to get your sister. So seven year old Chase starts working for shore. He spent more than an hour trying to get there. When he got exhausted, he said he just floated on his back so he could try to stay afloat and then he would try to swim and fight across this current.

After an hour, he finally gets to shore. He finally is able to make it to somebody’s house. He tells them what’s going on. They call the police, Fire Department, rescue comes and they find the dad and the daughter, everybody’s okay. The dad says we’re here by the grace of God, we are here. And now the seven year old boy Chase is being hailed as a hero after he swam for more than an hour in this strong current. Not only did he survive, he saved his dad and his sister. Guys, Chase Poust might be tougher than all three of us. Kudos to Chase, that is awesome.

Rick:

Wow. Oh man, no doubt tougher than me. I’m no good in water, guys. You guys have spent a lot more time in water. But that’s a phenomenal story, just the willpower of that kid. What a great hero. And thank you to David and Tim both for the good news. I mean, you guys do this research all week long, you bring all these good news stories in. Most of us never get to hear any of these good news stories on the major media. So it’s really exciting to get that good news.

Share it with your friends and family, folks. Go to wallbuilderslive.com, click on those links from today’s program, and please get it out there on social media. The more people that listen to these programs, the more they’re encouraged, they get inspired to do something to get involved and make a difference. When you hear they being involved in the system can make a difference, you realize that, hey, I can do my part in my community as well.

So we challenge all of you out there listening today, look for something that you can do this weekend, to be a force multiplier, to spread the good news, to get this truth into people’s hands. And then of course, you could take that step of being a coach, actually taking some of our materials we do all these different constitution classes, gives you a chance to actually take that information and get into the hands of as many people as possible. So you can be a part of that at constitutioncoach.com.

You can do the Biblical Citizenship class or Constitution Alive or Constitutional Defense. As we mentioned last week, we get a lot of growing classes across the country, 300, 400 people. But then we’ve got lots of classes where it’s just you and two or three other people. So don’t be intimidated by those big numbers. You can make a difference, double yourself, triple yourself. That’s what being a force multiplier is all about. And we give those classes away to you for free. So check it out at constitutioncoach.com and get signed up today.

Wallbuilderslive.com is where you can make your contribution. So make that one-time or monthly contribution. You’re coming alongside us, you’re locking shields with us, you’re becoming part of the solution. Our founders gave their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. Let’s do a little bit of all three today. Thanks for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.