Nebraskan Governor Declares Day Of Prayer To End Abortion And More – The Governor of Nebraska declares a day of prayer to end abortion, a pro-life bill comes out of South Dakota and more! Tune in for our Good News Friday Program today.

Air Date: 02/25/2022

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

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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:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks for joining us today on WallBuilders Live. Also visit our website wallbuilderslive.com, lots of great information there for you. I want to encourage you to check out the archive section you might have missed some programs last couple of weeks or months. And every program is power packed with information on how to take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

You may even want to just listen to some of the Good News Friday programs from the past few weeks just to be encouraged, just to know that the principles of liberty work when we work them, that biblical answers to everything we’re facing today actually work. God’s way is not only right, it also works best. So check out those Good News Friday programs, Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs where we actually dive into your questions, which you can send to [email protected]. And also there at our radio website wallbuilderslive.com is the place where you can make a donation. Thank you to all of you across the nation for coming alongside us and helping us to spread this message and equip people all across America to save America’s constitutional republic.

I’m Rick Green, America’s Constitution coach and a former Texas legislator. Here with David Barton. He’s America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and also Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And today is a Good News Friday, so we’re going to dive into some of that good news. David Barton has the first piece of good news. David.

David:

Well, we’ve looked at a number of polls in recent weeks and there’s some things that indicate some really healthy trends kind of develop in America. We’ve talked about how that really Christianity is starting to rise again in the country, more people reading the Bible. We’re seeing more boldness, particularly from young Christians, Gen Z Christians and others being a lot more bold. And there’s just some good stuff out there.

And one of the other trends deals with kind of communication issues. I’m going to back up a little bit because when we do campaign schools, and we teach candidates about running, and you get into all the things that are out there, you know, fundraising and messaging, everything else, one of the things we would teach them about is called the Elevator Pitch. You need to be able to talk to someone about your campaign and tell them why you’re the person that needs to be elected in the same length of time it would take to ride an elevator. So 15, 20, 30 seconds, we would have the coffee Table Pitch, one to two minutes at a restaurant, you know, tell somebody why you’re the person.

And so you always bolted down these really short things. And that was based on the fact that at the time that Richard Nixon ran for office back in the 70s, the average soundbite that was played on the media was around 70 seconds. So when they cut to the President saying something, you’re going to get about 70 seconds, which gives you a lot of context. And then the way it was 10 years ago, the average soundbite was down to 6.8 seconds. So you’re going to take a phrase, and it could be taken completely out of context. And so things has just shortened up. We saw that the YouTube videos, were going from 15 minutes down to 12 minutes down to 8 minutes down to 2-3 minutes. And so everything was shortening and teaching candidates about getting your message shorter and get it down.

Well, it looks like it’s now headed the other direction. We’ve seen in the last couple of years that a lot of podcasts, the really popular ones sometimes go two hours. You know, Joe Rogan will go as long as he needs to on that. And he didn’t have a particular time, but he’s really popular. And then a lot of the rising podcasts are up around an hour or so, and they’re not as short as they used to be. And so there was something indicating that people are starting to want more knowledge and want more information, and willing to listen longer and not just doing drive by kind of sound bites.

And so here’s a new poll out that says among evangelicals, only 7% want shorter sermons. They’re really wanting more content, more teaching. I want to hear more. And so this is, I think, a really, really healthy trend that we’re getting away from being run and dominated by soundbites and we’re actually wanting to hear some of the background in the context and the strategy and some of the apologetics and some of the things behind it.

And so this is really good for Christianity because you can’t live a solid Christian life on soundbites. You got to get in God’s word and stay in God’s Word. Jesus said in John 8, if you continue in my Word, then you’re my disciples. And continuing in his word is not what you get when you get a 7 second devotional on some site somewhere. So the fact that we’re seeing in Christians a desire to hear more, and only 7% want less, I think that’s a really, really, really healthy thing in America. And I think we’re seeing it not only in church, but in politics and in just general information. In the culture war as well, people are wanting to be more equipped and better able to handle the apologetics of what they believe.

Rick:

It almost puts, I guess, a responsibility on every individual to pick sources carefully and choose where you’re going to get your information and your news because there are so many options out there. And so if you’re going to do more than just the five minute drive by, and you’re going to dive in for an hour at a time or two hours at a time, man, you got to find good sources that you know are doing their best to give you truth; you know, nobody’s going to be perfect.

But David, you did that talk a year or so ago when we went to Georgia, and then I think we included it in Biblical Citizenship as well. But just seeking truth, put some effort into finding good sources for truth is a big part of the battle and then being disciplined enough and willing enough to dive in longer than 5 or 10 minutes so that it looks like people are willing to spend the time we just got to find the good sources as well.

David:

And Rick, that’s a great point, you do have to make sure you’re getting the right sources. Because there’s even a lot of conservative and quote constitutional sources that it’s easy for us to pick apart and say, no, that’s not true. Here’s what the Constitution actually says about this and other areas as well. And so sometimes we have to take on our own folks saying no, no, that’s not right: you quoted one clause of the Constitution, here’s two more that go with that. And that changes the context of what you’re saying.

So you’re right, they do have to get to good sources. And that’s why we’re told in 1 Thessalonians, you have to test everything and hold on to that which is true. So you really do need that context. That’s a great challenge, Rick, not just to listen to longer stuff, but to make sure it’s the right stuff, and the true stuff that you’re listening to. And sometimes you have to go to people you trust that are really solid and say, where do you get your info?

Sometimes you just have to go in and analyze it yourself and check the truth. Because now there will be articles out on every side of every issue that if you’re just looking for something to support your beliefs, you’ll find that. But if you’re looking for what’s true, that’s totally different than finding support for your beliefs. Being willing to challenge yourself and say, you know, I’ve always believed that, but it turns out that wasn’t grounded, right. And that’s a great challenge, Rick, that people really do need to look at the sources they’re getting and make sure they’re true and accurate.

Rick:

Well, let’s sell let’s get some more that good news out there. Tim, what’s your first piece good news today?

Tim:

Well, guys, this deals with prolife, and actually I have several articles, I just literally pull from the top of the stack, but the stack is several inches deep. And it happens to be there are several prolife pieces of good news in here. And so I’m going to read through a couple of them just to give an indication of the positive direction that things are going in the nation in so many states.

So, for example, the article headline is “Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts declares Day of Prayer to stop killing babies and abortion.” And this was January 22nd. Governor Pete Ricketts did a statewide Day of Prayer to end abortion, this is a proclamation. And so calling on people on January 22nd to pray that abortion would be ended in the nation, and Nebraska has actually taken several positive steps over the last several years against abortion.

In this proclamation it says Nebraska is a prolife state which is already a great statement from Nebraska. It says “Nebraska State law states it is the will of the people of the state of Nebraska and the members of the legislature to provide protection for the life of unborn children whenever possible.” It goes on in this proclamation and it identifies that if there are Nebraskans who know of an expectant mother or father or families in need, that they should step up and help us families in need, offer aid for families that will soon have a child.

Anyway, several things in this, but this is from the governor of Nebraska. Then literally the next article is from the Lieutenant Governor of Nebraska. And apparently, like I don’t know, he filled in for a day or something. The article says he was acting governor on that Friday. I don’t know. He’s lieutenant governor. That’s the important part. Lieutenant Governor Mike Foley, he had his own proclamation the following week.

So the following week, he does a proclamation and he said “We proclaim the human dignity of the unborn.” And actually, Governor Pete Ricketts supported the proclamation said that’s kind of the position of Nebraska where they stand, etc. And this is Nebraska so far. But the end of this article, the second article I have, it says “The Guttmacher Institute predicts that Nebraska would be one of 26 states that would ban abortion if the US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade.”

And one of the things these articles highlighted was that there is a case this year at the US Supreme Court, the Mississippi prolife slash abortion case, that is something that could directly go against Roe v. Wade back in 1973, where the US Supreme Court unconstitutionally came up with this right to abortion which they don’t have the constitutional power or authority. Congress actually could pass a law on some level, which they have not, or it does really only belong in the states more specifically because it’s not something expressly stated in the Constitution.

And what we know is if it is not expressly stated in the Constitution, it does not belong to the power of the federal government, it belongs to the States. It’s The 10th Amendment identifies and clarifies from the actual Founding Fathers themselves. All that to say, there are some really positive things we could see some major rollbacks of abortion in the nation because if Roe vs. Wade is undermined or overturned on some level and it goes to the States, as this article highlights Guttmacher Institute identify 26 states that they believe would end abortion in those states.

Well, along those lines, the next article I have is from South Dakota. It says South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem files bill to ban abortions when unborn baby’s heartbeat begins. And right now, South Dakota legislature is in session. And the Governor has actually suggested several pieces of legislation she thinks need to be passed in the state. But among them, there actually were two prolife bills that she suggested need to be passed. And this one was to say abortion is wrong as soon as a heartbeat is detected. So it’s a heartbeat bill, the trigger bill.

And this is where, guys, we’ve talked about for literally years, we have seen so much progress made on the prolife front. Well, now we’re not just seeing it from state legislators, we’re seeing actual governor’s lieutenant governors, major leaders of the states standing up for the basic dignity of the unborn and recognizing that abortion is wrong. There’s a lot of positive news. And actually, I’ve got more in my stack, but I know we need to go to break very shortly. There is even more good news happening around the states, happening in some of these major cities and kind of hubs of people.

The good news is that it does look like the prolife movement is gaining ground and steaming areas, even though there are people who are fighting adamantly against this movement, right. We talked before on the program, there are Satanist clubs and actually individuals who believe human sacrifices a part of their worship to Satan. And so, they’re totally in favor of abortion. They’re against all this stuff. There will definitely be some fights, spiritually speaking, especially in some of the state level depending on what happens to the US Supreme Court. But guys, so much good stuff happening in the prolife movement.

Rick:

Alright, guys, we got to take a quick break. We’ll be right back with more good news. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. It’s Good News Friday today. We have a lot more good news at the website at wallbuilderslive.com. So check that out today as well. Let’s jump right back in. David, next piece of good news.

David:

This goes back to what were called the Abraham accords. You remember that President Trump was able to bring peace the Middle East, got a bunch of the Arabic nations there to sign peace treaties with Israel to stop the hostility and stop the inherent belief that because you’re Israel we hate you. And so the Abraham accords really did a lot to shift the dynamics of the Middle East.

And one of the first countries to join on in recognition of Israel was UAE, United Arab Emirates; you have their like big places like Dubai, etc. And so they were part of the first ones there. And by the way, they’ve been really good and so many other areas as well. Even as we were working to take folks out of Afghanistan back in August and September and October and we got about 13,000 folks moved out of Afghanistan, most of them went to Dubai, they went to UAE. And so this was a country willing to take those folks. And even though they initially said well, we’ll take 10,000, they ended up taking like 100,000. It was kind of amazing what they were willing to do and willing to help. And so, they have been really, really favorable toward America, toward Israel, toward the Western world and really done great stuff.

And so one of the things that happened back in 2019 was for the first time ever a UAE citizen went into space as an astronaut, so was in space on one of the space missions and came back. And so now last year, in the latter part of 2020, Dubai had this international expo, and they actually had Israel there as part of the international expo which would have been unheard of just three or four years ago. So Israel is there. And it turns out that the astronaut, the UAE astronaut, who went on this mission showed up over the Israel pavilion wearing his spacesuit. And he gave the Israelis the flag that he had taken into space with him, which was an Israeli flag.

So here’s this guy from UAE who has taken his Israeli flag in the space. This is a country long time has been kind of enemy hostile to Israel and now you’ve got this astronaut that shows up with a flag honoring Israel in a spacesuit. And so it’s just really good to see what Abraham Accords have really done in bringing peace of that area. But great story of cooperation between neighbors that used to be enemies.

And by the way, on a totally different note, this is a shout out I want to do to the founder of Seal Team Six and the founder of Red Cell. Richard Marcinko was the guy who started this back at the early Vietnam War days. And turned out I mean, he was just quite a Special Forces guy himself. He headed SEAL Team Six. He started SEAL Team Six. And he’s a guy that over the course of his career. He got four Bronze Stars. He got the Silver Star. He got Cross of Gallantry, he’s got 34 citations in medals. And he recently passed away and just a shout out to thank him for all he’s done for the military and for the United States and the security that came through all the things that he created. So, just a great guy who’s passed away.

Rick:

Alright, Tim’s next piece of good news. We got time for a few more today.

Tim:

Well, guys, I’m going to pick back up, again, just going down the stack, I have several pieces of good news related to the issue of prolife and victories in life. So this one, the headline reads “Lubbock, Texas becomes abortion free after Planned Parenthood drops lawsuit against abortion ban”. And kind of the history is that they had passed an ordinance in the city, the citizens voted on it to say that they don’t want any abortion in their city, that they want to be abortion free city.

Planned Parenthood had a chain, had a location in the city. And so they filed suit, and said, wait a second, you can’t kick us out of the city. We want to kill babies. Probably not exactly what they said, but that’s what the argument ultimately is. And a Judge dismissed their lawsuits. And what’s significant about this is, Lubbock was the largest city so far in the US, largest US city to this point to have passed an ordinance that protects unborn babies. But not only really the largest one or two to this point, they were the first city that actually had a Planned Parenthood facility in their city.

So this directly impacted a Planned Parenthood facility in their city. And this was upheld by the first Judge. They appealed it. Second Judge says you really don’t have grounds for this appeal. And so the end of January, they actually filed a motion to dismiss their appeal. And this is where the director of Right to Life East Texas Mark Lee Dixon, he’s also the founder of Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative came out and said, we knew when we created these policies, the city ordinances they would largely be bulletproof when it came to the court.

And to this point, it looks like that is correct. When you have planned parenthood being kicked out of a city and they’re dropping even their challenge to this, recognizing they don’t have the legal grounds to stand on, guys, this is really good news that you are seeing a city that is not only empowered but having the courage to stand up and say we want to be abortion free. So Lubbock, Texas, did that.

Also, I have another article that identifies there are legislators in eight states that have filed bills to ban abortion like Texas did. So following that Texas piece of legislation that says individual citizen can be the ones who challenge these abortion providers. So it’s not necessarily the state shutting them down. But it is the individual citizens that gives them the ability to sue on grounds of more or less a wrongful death that it is murder.

But Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and South Dakota, have all had legislators in their states file those pieces of legislation. And the last thing, and this is not exactly the same genre of prolife, but it kind of is prolife, the last article is “States can’t close Catholic adoption agency for placing kids with a mother and father”. And it’s prolife in the sense of we’re talking about kids, this is what we care about, is right to human life.

And there was a Catholic agency that was told that because of your views that a child should be placed in a home with a mother and father and not two mothers or not two fathers, right, not in a homosexual relationship and a homosexual family, so to speak, they were told they couldn’t continue on as adoption agency. But the good news is, and this is for Michigan, that they actually were there their ability to maintain their religious beliefs and maintain the ability to operate as an adoption agency was upheld in court. And so we are seeing a lot of things.

And again, I do think this is a little bit related to a prolife issue because we’re talking about kids and their life. Nonetheless, we’re seeing so many positive things happen around the nation, when it does come to the prolife movement, or in this case, even an adoption agency. So, really good news on the prolife front.

Rick:

Alright, David, we’ve got time for another piece of good news.

David:

I’m going to Georgia, and this is, man, it seems like the election that never ends. Georgia just begins a new probe of illegal 2020 ballot harvesting. Now, you know this thing, people are so tired of hearing this, at least the media is tired of hearing it. Citizens aren’t tired of hearing it because we want fair elections. And I think we’ve found so far that since the last election, there’s been 242 different pieces of legislation introduced to tighten up election laws and to make sure that cheating is not occurring. We saw that just this last week in Arizona, they introduced six new election laws in Arizona out of the Senate committee. And they’re all designed to shut any loopholes that are in there.

One of the things that we mentioned back even when Youngkin was elected was the number of churches there, they trained about 1,300 people as poll watchers and 300 were trained by the state as certified election officials that can challenge ballots and they challenged the legal ballots there. And the initial challenges about 7.25% of the ballots were challenged as illegal. You can’t have a mail-in ballot in Virginia if it doesn’t have the last four digits of Social Security on there. And all these mail-in ballots didn’t have that. Well, that violates state law. And wait a minute, this guy has been dead 30 years what’s he doing voting?

And so just having people watching that has so cleaned up elections, and you saw the results in Virginia. You can imagine what would happen if 7.25% of the ballots that were, let’s say were challenged as illegal had made it through in that close election could have had a different outcome. So it’s not just the thing, oh, the Dominion machines, we can never win an election again, because the Dominion machines. No, no, there’s all these other laws. We’ve seen Wisconsin pass a law that said, hey, by state law in Wisconsin, you can’t have no excuse voting. You have to be registered. You have to show your ID. You can’t just pop up and suddenly start throwing in ballots. So this has been a big deal.

And so one of the things we’ve known about for nearly a year, at least since the last election, is the fact that they have identified and have video footage of a number of people in Phoenix and in Atlanta and in Philadelphia elsewhere, making circuits to drop ballot boxes throughout the night. One lady made 28 stops at dropping ballot boxes wearing gloves, and just cramming handfuls of ballots into these boxes. We have the footage. We’ve seen that.

So the Attorney General has have really refused to do anything on that. So now it’s been given over, and Dinesh D’Souza now has a video that’s coming out on that showing all the footage. Because they went to the state attorney general’s first and said, hey, you got to prosecute this. And so now you can go to Rumble and you can see the trailer for this new video and it shows you the actual footage of these people repeatedly stuffing handfuls of ballots and ballot boxes. So it’s now public, is now out where people can see it.

So as a result, the Secretary of State of Georgia said, hey, we need to investigate this stuff. Yeah, that’s what you’ve been told for a year and you’ve been saying no, this is the most secure election in American history. And I mean, you’ve been riding… And I’m convinced that part of the reason he’s taking the position he is, is because Jody Hice has entered that race. Jody Hice is a strong congressman from Georgia. He’s been in three terms. Jody was a pastor before he went in. He’s just a really good guy.

And it just drove Jody crazy that the Secretary of State would not investigate the claims or even find out. He just took the position that the media took that no, this is a safe, secure election. And so the polling shows that Brad Raffensperger who’s the current Secretary of State is really in trouble now in this race with Jody Hice. And so suddenly, he’s saying, hey, we need to investigate this stuff. Exactly. He should have been doing that earlier. But the good news is that the investigation is now going on. And there is now a lot of evidence coming out to the show things weren’t what they should have been. But hopefully they’re getting better.

Tim:

Well, it’s worth pointing out that had he investigated this to begin with, Jody Hice might not have gotten in the race.

David:

That’s exactly right.

Tim:

And you know, one of the things we talked about even here in Texas where Governor Abbott is considered to be a conservative governor, but certainly, there were things when COVID was coming out, lockdown policies that we absolutely disagreed with on some fundamental levels, and it calls people like Allen West and Don Hofheinz and Chad Prater, I think there’s other names out there too, but some people that we know, individually we respect.

David:

Rick Perry is out there.

Tim:

Is he running for governor?

David:

Rick Perry is number one on the ballot, except it’s not the Rick Perry that was the governor. Somebody recruited Rick Perry, just a common name to be number one of the ballot.

Tim:

Name recognition.

David:

Name recognition and so he’s really not running race, he’s designed to take away votes from the other candidates.

Tim:

Well, and with that being said, right, one of the things that’s worth noting about some of these individuals that are running is we know sometimes for some people that they feel called that God’s called them to get in a race and they don’t always win those races. But sometimes they do help sway the individual who is in that position to a more conservative or more honest position. And so this is something that we would love to see Jody win that election because we respect him. We’ve known him for a lot of years. I think he’s an awesome guy. With that being said, it’s great that sometimes that political pressure of a challenger in the primary can cause people to do what they should have been doing all along.

Rick:

Alright, friends, we’re out of time for today. But there is more good news at our website. So be sure to visit that today, wallbuilderslive.com, you can go into the archive section, as we talked about at the top of the program and you can listen to Good News Friday programs, Foundations of Freedom, Thursday programs, our interviews the other days throughout the week, it’s all available for you right there at wallbuilderslive.com. Also, please consider making that one time or monthly contribution. We appreciate all of you that have come alongside us and help us to spread this message.

And last thing if you want to see more good news and maybe see good news right there in your community, then you become the catalyst for a restoration of biblical values and constitutional principles. You can do that by becoming one of our Constitution coaches, and teaching a biblical citizenship class in your own living room, or at your church, or your local library, or wherever you can gather people together. I actually like the idea of doing that at a restaurant because frankly, I like to eat when I’m learning. Anyway, do it wherever you want to host your class, but definitely become a constitution coach and start hosting those classes. You can find out more at biblicalcitizens.com. That’s Biblicalcitizens.com.

Thanks so much for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.