Students Stand Up Against Fidel Castro Quotes On Campus And More – Foreign students on campus speak out against Fidel Castro quotes, New Mexico Church pays off huge medical debt and more!

Air Date: 08/06/2021

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

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Rick:

This is the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. We are talking about the hot topics of the day, but from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

You found us on a Friday. We love Fridays around here. It’s Good News Friday at WallBuilders Live. And that’s a chance for us to catch up on a lot of the good news that’s happened out there. You often hear about all the negative, how everything’s falling apart, that culture is crumbling, some of which is true. But there’s also a lot of great things happening. God is still moving, and he is still in charge, and his principles have not changed, and when we apply his principles, we get good results. So when those principles are applied in a family or in a community, we get to see results there. When we apply them nationally, we get good results there.

But most of our good news stories we’re going to be highlighting, obviously, over the next few weeks and months are probably going to be more local stories, because people like you are doing something in your community. I hope that you’re becoming a part of the solution. I hope you’re looking for ways to get educated on these things.

One way you can definitely get educated on this is join us on Monday nights. We’re doing our Biblical Citizenship in Modern America class. It’s a live class on Monday nights. It’s got the videos of the biblical citizenship class, but then we’re also there live to answer your questions, and just visit with each other and talk about what’s going on. We have thousands of people that are a part of this. So if you’d like to be a part of that, then go to biblicalcitizens.com, biblicalcitizens.com, click on the button for the “national class” and you can join us. It’s totally free and we’d love to have you be a part of it. When we’d love for you to host a class in your community. That’s the way to really spread this around. That’s the way to get more people engaged in being biblical citizens. So check that out today at biblicalcitizens.com.

It’s Good News Friday. So let’s dive into our first piece of good news. We’re here with the premier historian of America. I mean, this guy for 30 years, has been influencing the culture in a positive way. He has this amazing library of original documents and resources so that we can go back to what the Founders actually intended. If you’ve never had a chance to visit, you should go to wallbuilders.com and find out more get some of those materials. But David Barton, America’s premier historian here with us to share some good news, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders: tey’re both going to give us a lot of good news today. I’m Rick Green, former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. David, let’s dive in first piece of good news today.

David:

Yeah, Rick, I’ll start off with some international news. Certainly, we have seen in recent weeks stuff going on in Cuba. I don’t know that anybody really knows the depth of what’s going on in Cuba. But there’s apparently maybe some kind of insurrection, certainly, riots were going on. And it looks like the government’s taking a really hard fist to respond to that. So internet has gone away, cell phone inside the country has gone away.

And so I know Ron DeSantis, governor Florida has been calling on tech companies to help restore some kind of internet there to help do something to get communication going again. And it’s just assumption, but probably that’s trying to disrupt the coordination between the insurrection, those that are fighting communism, those that want freedom. Certainly, under Fidel Castro going back, my gosh, it’s got to be in the 50s when he came to power, you know, he had it for a long time, and the country really did a nosedive. They were really tied to the Soviet Union. But poverty was up, and freedom down, as it goes with all communist countries.

And then his brother came in and then I don’t even know who’s got it now. I mean, it’s become a major third world country in so many ways. And there are so many who have escaped from Cuba to the United States, and they’ve got family back there. And so they’re wanting to see that become a free and independent nation.

But nonetheless, Castro is not a good guy. Castro has never been a good guy. And it’s interesting, I had no clue, but apparently, Penn State had quotes from Fidel Castro as part of his abilities. I mean, it’s like they’re honoring him there. They’re lifting it up and saying, hey, here’s a really good quote. And so here’s the quote that they had. It says, “The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food, security, culture, science, and wellbeing – that is, the same rights we proclaimed when we began our struggle, in addition to those which emerge from our dreams of justice and equality for all inhabitants of our world – is what I wish for all.” That’s an interesting quote.

The dreams of justice and equality for all inhabits the world he didn’t give that to his own people, and making sure that they all had health, education work, food, security, culture, science, wellbeing: they definitely didn’t get that. So this is part of the Communist propaganda that’s out there. But it’s on a building. It’s posted on a building there in Penn State.

And so what happens is, is not the American kids who rose up against it. It was a lot of the foreign kids who have been under communist regimes that went to the administration said, guys, what are you doing? And particularly, one of the students who really kind of started this is from Venezuela, who certainly they’ve had the same similar kind of stuff there in Venezuela under Chavez and even before that. So he went to the administration and said, guys, what are you doing, and so many others on campus that also come from communist nations voice the same concern.

And the good news is that Penn State has said, yeah, we’re going to take that down. And that’s not a good quote to have up there. It does kind of speak to the fact that they were willing to happen up there in the first place, kind of the leftist bent that we know is on college campuses. But it’s really good that even on a left leaning college campus are willing to say Castro is not a good guy, we’re going to take that quote down.

Rick:

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

Tim:

Alright, guys. well, this one is from New Mexico. This is a really interesting piece, because the headline says, “New Mexico Church Clears Nearly $1.4m In Medical Debt For 782 Households”. Now, as you get into this, first of all, that it churches going to help clear medical debt for families is quite remarkable, the very impressive thing. And certainly, one of the things is we talk about with the gospel message is, of helping the poor, the needy, the widows, the orphans, and just so much cool stuff here.

But as you start reading the article, what’s fascinating is this church was able to clear $1.38 million in debt, but they did it with a $15,000 donation. Now, how in the world does $15,000 clear that medical debt? Because they were able to buy the debt and a fraction of the cost, because a lot of these families, when they had medical procedures done emergency happen, whatever the case was, they didn’t have the money then and so they’re on a payment program, and a lot of families were having a hard time with that payment program.

It’s interesting looking at the data in America, there’s approximately 128 million households in America. And according to that the Census Bureau data, approximately 24 million American households have a medical debt of some kind. And many people have a hard time paying that medical debt. And this is where a church said, let’s see what we can do to help these families. And they went in, they were able to buy that debt at a fraction of the cost of what the medical bills actually were. But in many situations, the hospitals were grateful to get something and clear their books and move on with whatever else is going on. And so the other thing this church does is after they bought the medical debt, they then start working with families to be able to help them restore their credit. And so they’re working to repair their credit score so that they can hopefully get back on their feet, they can do something.

So guys, big picture. This is really impressive that a church is stepping up and with a $15,000 donation, which obviously $15,000, that can seem like a lot of money, except when you consider that $15,000 was able to pay off $1.38 million worth of medical expenses, or at least they bought that debt which alleviate or relieve that medical expense. It is remarkable. And so really cool this church had that idea of prospective understanding to go in and do that. And this was from Santa Fe, New Mexico, the church was St. Beatty’s Episcopal Church. So congratulations to them. Great job. Really cool piece of good news coming out of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Rick:

Good news story. Alright, David Barton, next piece of good news.

David:

I’m going to go to the other side of the United States, at least from south to north, and going up to Michigan. And Michigan has been a model throughout all this COVID stuff over the last year, year and a half of how not to run a state. Whitmer, the governor up there has really used a lot of powers, has usurped a lot of legislative powers, has really become just a kind of tyrannical executive in the eyes of many people in running the state. The courts have struck down her orders and she continues to issue them.

So rogue is also another word that I could associate with her, because the fact of the courts. And I would not expect Michigan courts necessarily to be very conservative, considering the state and what it is and how it’s been for so many years. Yet nonetheless, even the courts have been against her. So with all that’s gone on with her orders…

And just to give some background, when this COVID stuff hit, she went back to a 1945 Emergency Powers Act and said, okay, under this 1945 Emergency Powers Act, I am going to start issuing orders because it’s an emergency with COVID and I need to take control of the state. She added to that what was called the 1976 Emergency Management Act, a lot of states have lost about that period, that was kind of the Cold War period. And so we need to be able to do things in case of a nuclear attack. And so she started doing that.

But interestingly that 1976 law said, okay, you can do an Emergency Powers, but you have to come back to the legislature every 28 days, your Acts cannot extend more than the 28 days. And if they go more than 28 days, you have to have the approval of the legislature that these, whatever the Acts are from the governor in that Emergency Powers, you have to have our approval to keep them going.

Well, she kept on going a lot more than 28 days. And so the legislature weighed in and said no, we don’t recognize these orders. We think this shutting down in the state needs to stop. And so the legislature would not recognize and validate her orders and she kept ignoring them and kept issuing more orders. And it really was rode.

And so with all this going on, the people in the state said, okay, we’re going to do something. And so there is a provision under Michigan law and Michigan Constitution, where the people can rise up and demand that some type of repeal be placed on the ballot for state measures. And it takes, I think, about 320,000 signatures on the ballot to have that happen. And they ended up with about 540,000. And I think it ended up that the Board of Canvassers actually certified maybe 420,000, which is a ton more than what they needed.

But even after they certify that there were enough signatures to get this on the ballot and let the people the state vote on whether they wanted to open the state or not, at that point in time on the Board of Canvassers were two Democrats, and they refused to honor the 420,000 signatures and said, wait a minute, this is not right. And so they didn’t get put on, and it’s gone back and forth with the courts. And finally, it gets certified.

So they finally certified the 420,000 signatures. They only need 320,000. And what that means is the people now get to vote on whether to repeal the orders of Whitmer and open the state back up. But there’s also another interesting provision. It says that once the people have that kind of initiative that should be placed on the ballot, if the House and the Senate go in and vote with the people, then it doesn’t have to go to a statewide vote. In other words, if the legislature says yeah, they’ve got a petition here, and we in the legislature agree with that petition, then it doesn’t have to be voted on statewide. And that’s what just happened.

So you have the House and the Senate of Michigan, both are voting to repeal the law that Whitmer has been using, and they both voted to do that. And that now means that the shutdown has ended in Michigan. She can’t use the executive powers anymore to shut the state down. She has lost that power. Now we’ll see if she continues to try to do things through other laws that has been the tendency of many of these blue state governors to keep things shut down and keep imposing restrictions.

But the good news is that in an upper Midwest state that has voted blue for several elections, or at least been purple for several elections, they’ve really pushed back on this and the state’s going to be opening up again.

Rick:

Good news. Okay, Tim, what’s our next piece of good news?

Tim:

Yeah, let me try to squeeze one more in real quick before the break. This one is, the title is “Christian Motivational Speaker Starts Bank in Response to the Rise of Cancel Culture in the Private Sector”. Now, a little background in context. This is from Nick Vujicic who’s a motivational speaker. He is the founder, president, CEO of the Ministry of Life Without Limbs. He’s the individual, I mean, really impressive. His testimony is available all over YouTube. Really fun guy to hear his testimony and to see his joy and energy and the courage he has in the midst of all the stuff that he’s dealt with in his life.

All that being said, one of the interesting things that came out was that Nick Vujicic was recently somewhere and discovered that he was not able to use his debit card or his check card, or his banking, or his credit cards, because his bank kicked him out, they froze him out, and he had nothing. And he didn’t understand what was going on, and come to find out that he had some positions that the bank didn’t like and support. And so they said that they would no longer allow him to be a customer.

Now, also keep in mind, this is a guy missing all of his limbs, right? His organization is called Life Without Limbs. This is a prolife advocate speaking purpose into every single human being on this planet. And somehow, his bank said, yeah, we disagree with your position. We don’t think you’re a good client for us. Like this is crazy on lots of levels.

But in the midst of him getting kicked out of his bank, one of the other things he discovered was that his bank actually was, and many banks do this; many organizations, they actually will do philanthropical social responsibility giving, is kind of what they call it, and they will take some of their profits, and they will give it to different organizations. And his bank actually was one of the biggest, or one of the biggest organizations they gave to was abortion. So they were a major funder for abortion of the profits that the bank was making. And so he says this whole thing is just ridiculous.

Also worth noting, the reason he was canceled he believes it’s because of him having a low ESG score. An ESG score, now there are things related to well, is known as the Great Reset. And the Great Reset, there’s the World Economic Forum, which is very pro-socialism, very pro-communism, and they say we should eliminate all wealth in the world, everybody should have the same. And anytime the government’s going to make everyone have the same, it’s only going to make them the same in misery, not the same in wealth or capacity. We’re not all going to be blessed and rich and enjoying life. We’re not going to be miserable together. That’s what the government does when they redistribute wealth, they redistribute misery and poverty.

Nonetheless, he believes was because he had a low ESG score, because in the ESG score is the environmental, the social, and the government’s considerations. And so they look at your life and just like communist countries, just like what China does, they will rank you based on how you are living your life. And if you are doing things that they fundamentally disagree with, and they will take points away from you. If you do things that supports their goals and initiatives as a government, they add points to your score.

And so for example, and knowing that we are in a culture that is very concerned about the environment and global warming, if you drive a smart car, you get extra points because they view that as an electric car, you’re saving the environment. But if you were to drive a truck, if you were to drive, something that is a gas guzzler, so to speak…

David:

So in other words, if you’re a Texan, you got a problem?

Tim:

I mean, anybody who drives truck, right, almost anybody in the south. On some level, we have family. If you don’t drive a truck, your family does. Anyway, the point is, they would take points away and so that affects your ESG score. And a lot of big corporations are now using ESG scores on what’s going on. Here’s kind of the end of the story, though.

So Nick Vujicic decided that he is going to open his own bank, and the bank is called Prolife Bank. And they’re going to take 50% of all the profits from their bank, and they’re going to give it to Judeo-Christian line nonprofits. And so as were some banks are now helping fund the abortion industry, he says our bank, we’re going to help fund nonprofits with people who are biblically aligned and doing the will of God.

So this is a really good countercultural move, where so often we see what happens in culture, and we get frustrated, sometimes we get discouraged, we’re disappointed. And yet in this situation, there are people saying, I’m going to do something about it, I’m going a different direction. So guys, I’m going to look up, I’m going to see what we’re prolife bank is. I’m going to see what I can do about maybe opening account, maybe getting a card with them, something because this is certainly the kind of bank that I would want to do business with, the kind of organization I would want to support.

David:

You know, this is something you can only do in a free market country. If you don’t like what’s going on, you can start an alternative to see if the people want to respond to it. In a socialist country, which is where they’re trying to take us, you couldn’t do this. Nick cannot offer that alternative. So in a free market country, you get choices you don’t get elsewhere. And this is a great, if you will, commentary on what you’re able to do with the kind of freedoms we’ve had for a long time. So I’m glad to see Nick doing that. I hope it goes really well. I hope people join in and support it and help that bank prosper.

Rick:

Well, so important, these Good News Fridays, I love you guys bringing this good news. And it’s such an important thing for people to remember we won’t have those big victories in 2022 and potentially 2024 if you grow weary in well doing, if you stop acting, if you if you check out, if you get so frustrated with the just complete insanity coming out of Washington DC right now that you buy into the lie that the system doesn’t work anymore. System works, we got to work the system and we got to stay involved. And so I think if we do that, if we continue to be active, it is going to be a really big banner year in 2022, which means even more positive legislation coming in 2023 when those sessions start.

Quick break, guys, we got more good news coming right here on WallBuilders Live.

WORLD WAR II VETERANS

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One of the very special things we get to do is interview World War II veterans. You’ve heard those interviews here on WallBuilders Live from folks that were in the Band of Brothers to folks like Edgar Harrell that survived being Indianapolis, there’s so many other great stories you’ve heard on WallBuilders Live. You have friends and family that also serve.

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Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. It’s Good News Friday. We’re diving back into that good news. David Barton’s turn, David.

David:

I want to go to something that I think has been talked to a whole lot about in the last year or so. And that is what big tech has been doing to censor viewpoints they don’t like, and it doesn’t matter what this COVID or whether it’s the elections or after the election we saw 70 prolife groups get deplatformed because they were prolife groups and they had messages these guys didn’t like. It was like after the election they felt a release to be able to go after groups. And so we saw so many groups coming down that weren’t necessarily doing election stuff or weren’t necessarily doing COVID stuff. They were just doing conservative stuff and that started going away.

So we’ve seen a lot and there’s been a lot of states starting to take action to say hey, at the state level, we want to pass laws that are limiting what can be done here, because the big deal is Section 230 of the federal law. These guys were given immunity from lawsuits, immunity from lab for what they did on their platforms, because they were supposed to be platforms and not publishers. In other words, they were supposed to be like a bulletin board, where that anybody can come post a message on there, crazy or not, right, left, center, middle, anything else, you can use this as a platform to post your messages. And then suddenly, they became a publisher, that is they were saying, well, here’s what we’re going to allow you to publish on our platform: here’s our bulletin board, but you can’t use it unless you say certain things.

And that was not the reason the federal government gave them immunity from lawsuits. If you’re a bulletin board that everybody can post on it, then you don’t need to be sued because you allowed somebody posts something crazy on it. But if you’re a publisher, then you take control of it and you say, here’s what we’re going to allow. Well, you need to be able to face lawsuits at times, if you specifically are defaming someone or limiting their ability to engage in inalienable rights such as free speech. And so that’s what we’ve seen.

So what’s interesting now is up in the second Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, and that’s up in the area with New York and Connecticut and Vermont, more of a liberal area, that is the one Federal Circuit Court of Appeals that has done the least looking into Section 230 of the federal law with big tech, they just haven’t done anything on it.

And so there’s a lawsuit that came through the lower courts in that area, where they said no to Section 230 protects these big tech guys, so we’re not going to hit them for censoring people and for chopping content. And then the three judge panel of the second Federal Circuit Court of Appeals said, yeah, that’s right. We’re not going to do that.

In what’s really unusual, the second circuit has decided to hear this entire case En banc, which means instead of having maybe 20 judges in this thing, and I think there’s 23 judges, and picking a random three judge panel, what happens is if you got like 23 judges, and you pick this random three judge panel, and the panel reaches a decision, unless the rest of the circuit judges are really opposed to that, they kind of let it stand. The En banc means that no, we want you to come back and argue this in front of all 23 of us. Because we don’t think that what the three judge panel did in upholding the lower court decision that they have immunity because of Section 230. We don’t necessarily really agree with that.

Now, it could be they want to come back and hear it because they want to make a stronger statement that they’re upholding the lower courts. But generally, when something like this happens is because there’s enough resistance and enough pushback within the judges themselves, that they’re likely to overturn that decision. And so what you have here is the second Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has specifically asked, bring us this case back, we want to give us a look. We’re not content with what the way it’s gone so far.

So this could be a really, really big thing. It’s at least good news that they’re re-looking at it En banc. We’ll see if the decision comes back differently. But I think we’re going to start seeing some federal courts start saying no, the Section 230 stuff you guys are abusing that. That’s not why you were given the immunity. So we’ll see what happens. But good news out of the second Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.

Rick:

Alright, fellas, time for one more good news story. Tim, take us home.

Tim:

Alright, guys, this one is coming from Texas, actually from Centerville, Texas, which is close to College Station, Huntsville, and Waco. For those not familiar with Waco, that is where Chip and Joanna Gaines are from. For those not familiar with Chip and Joanna Gaines, then you probably don’t watch TV, or the Baylor Bears, actually where the NCAA men’s national champion. So anyway.

Centerville is closed Texas. They became the 33rd city in the United States to pass a ban on abortion. And actually, the City Council voted unanimously for this prolife ordinance in a 5-0 vote. The mayor came out was talking about it, and said that he actually talked to the city attorney and talked to the state municipal leaders, and they both told him don’t do this. It’s a bad idea.

Well, Centerville, Texas, guys, any guess on that population?

David:

I would say 5,000.

Tim:

Try 892. Now, it’s possible after, right, new census data finally comes out, maybe they are up to a couple 1,000, now that would actually make sense. But currently, it shows 892. From these 892 individuals…

David:

By the way, they’re called Centerville because that’s the center of Texas. So this is the heart of Texas, and so literally, you’re talking about here.

Tim:

Well, for those 892 identified people from Centerville, they actually, the city council received hundreds of petitions from residents urging them to become a sanctuary for the unborn. And so they did. It was unanimous. The mayor said, look, I talked to these people, and they said no. But he said, I want to go from my heart and what I’ve been praying about, and so he said, that’s why we’re doing this. So he was praying about it, felt God leading him in the direction. And so Centerville is now the 33rd city in the United States to ban abortion, which is a pretty cool deal.

Also, one of the things that happened up in Illinois, and Illinois is not one of the places that we’re usually giving a lot of good news from, especially not if it’s coming from Governor J. B. Pritzker. But one of the things that did happen in this legislative cycle is they passed Senate Bill 119, it passed unanimously, which it should have. But it actually is allowing children to operate lemonade stands without being closed down. Because one of the things that happened is there was some children operating a lemonade stand and they were shut down, because they didn’t have the food permit they needed from the local health officials, this is insane, like this is so crazy.

David:

I think it was $250 permit they had to get just to operate a neighborhood lemonade stand.

Tim:

Right. So the good news is in the Senate bill, they said from now on anybody who’s 16 years and under, they can operate a lemonade stand, they don’t need any regulations, they don’t need a food permit. They can just go for it. So as much as we talk about sometimes some of these guys were not super excited with, this is at least one that we’re going to give some credit or honor where honor is due. And so good news to people up in Illinois, if you have children, they now can operate lemonade sand without having to get permission from the government.

Rick:

Alright, guys, thanks for all the good news today. Folks, there’s more good news at our website, be sure and check it out at wallbuilderslive.com. You can just click on that archive button and go back to several past Friday programs and get more good news. There’s also a lot of other great programming in there as well. And that website is where you can come alongside us for the contribution, so be sure and check that out, your contributions help us expand the program, add more stations, reach more people, train more pastors and legislators and young people, you get to be a part of what we’re doing here at WallBuilders by donating there at wallbuilderslive.com. Thanks for checking us out today and thanks for listening to WallBuilders Live.