Good News Wednesday!: In order to get caught up on our Good News Friday stack, we’ve decided to bring you some good news, today on Wednesday! We start off the program with another segment from our black history segment on Christian Fleetwood. We follow it up with our good news topics- Increased oil and gas drilling bills being passed in the House, in the NHL teams are declining to wear special pride jerseys, the constitution was read before the State of the Union address and a judge in California blocks COVID-19 disinformation law. All of this and more today on Good News Wednesday!

Air Date: 2/8/2023

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

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Transcription:

Rick Green
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s the WallBuilders show where we’re talking about the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Appreciate you joining us today. We hope you’ll join us online as well, two websites to give you a WallBuilders.com our main website and WallBuildersLive.com where you can get archives of the radio program, maybe you missed a good news Friday, and you want to dial in for that or a foundation of freedom Thursday, or some of the interviews happening out there. In fact, if you missed a good news Friday, we’re going to make up for it today. I know it’s Wednesday, but we’re going to do a good news Wednesday, because we have so much good news to get to we can’t get it all in on Fridays. So we’re going to make up for today. But first, we’re going to do our heroes of history segment, who is our topic today, Tim and David?

Tim Barton
All right, guys. Well, the hero today is Christian Fleetwood and also just for everybody listening. As a reminder, you can go to WallBuilders.com , we do have the PDF version, if you want to purchase and download or we do have some sample packets, and that as we go through these on radio, we’re literally just going to the order of the packet. And this again, just to keep everybody in mind of why we are doing this is as we are seeing the growth of the movement of things like the 1619 project or critical race theory as we are seeing Disney plus or, or Hulu. But the 1619 project, we’re seeing some of these, these stations, these networks, these streaming platforms that are promoting such propaganda and nonsense and sometimes rooted in a kernel of truth, but then so distorted when the 1619 project said they want to highlight some of the Black Heroes of black contribution to the contributions of black Americans to the American story. I totally support that notion, but they seem to leave out some of the more significant ones. And so that’s where again, today, we will highlight one of those heroes, one of the more significant contributors in American history is Christian Fleetwood. Now Christian Fleetwood, to you give you the big picture highlight of this guy, he was a Medal of Honor recipient from the Civil War. Now to have a medal of honor to receive one of those, you have to do something significant, heroic, courageous, generally speaking, under fire in the cause… the course of battle. And if you look in American history, there’s been like, approximately 3500 Medal of Honor recipients in all of military history for American history. Well, if you look also, at the span of how many people have been involved in the military over all of American history, you’re talking about roughly 57 million people who have served in the military in some capacity, and only 3500. I’ve received a medal of honor. This is a very elite group to be in and Christian Fleetwood is in that very elite group. And what he did is a little different maybe than some of the other Medal of Honor recipients. He received the Medal of Honor for protecting the American flag. And this is certainly something contrary to the 1619 project contrary to this wokeism critical race theory that promotes that America’s evil and, and the flag has been oppressive. That’s not the way it was viewed in the Civil War. And certainly not what Christian Fleetwood thought as he was defending or upholding the American flag.

David Barton
Christian Fleetwood grew up in Maryland, and he grew up working with anti slavery movement, the Maryland Colonization Society and organizations like that. And in 1863, when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Christians in the north, not the South, and the Emancipation Proclamation’s for the South. But one of the things Lincoln did with that is he encouraged black soldiers to enlist and fight for the Union. And Christian did that he went and enlisted. And he got involved in action and was fighting in North Carolina, other states as well.

Tim Barton
And just to keep in mind, he’s been a free man his whole life. So he was born into a free family. And he lived with freedom his whole life, but he still recognized the value significance of going to sign up to be a part of the military to fight for the freedom of other slaves and really to preserve the Union. So he signs up, recruit other people to be involved. So he’s part of the Civil War later in the Civil War.

David Barton
And in the first part of the Civil War, you had a lot of battles that were kind of quick move, and you had calvarys charging eachother, he showed that you get an open field and fight and then leave and find another place for battle. By the time you get to the middle, the end of the war, you were into sieges. And this is where Christian became famous who was in the siege, the larger siege of Richmond and Petersburg, it was a 10 month battle. And that 10 month battle had a whole lot, probably couple dozen smaller battles tucked into it. And one of those smaller battles was the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm and it’s in that battle for what Christian did in that battle. They received the Medal of Honor. And so what happened in that… by the way, that was a really bloody business. That one battle alone resulted in 5000 casualties on just one day. So this is what happened and again, the siege warfare. Each side is kind hunkered down, they dig entrenchments. And they dig pits and they protect themselves from cannons. It’s not like running across an open field like Gettysburg. This, this is really entrenched warfare. So as you start attacking the other side, you’re attacking people that are well defended, and it’s really tough. And so as they started out, he said that in his company that morning, they had 350 soldiers and 11 officers, and they started charging the enemy. And as they did, they just started getting mowed down. And as he was beside Alfred Hilton, who was an officer, and he himself had become an officer fairly quickly, he went from private Sergeant Major, really quick. As he’s going forward, he saw that Alfred Hilton beside him got shot and Alfred Hilton was carrying the flags. And by the way, being a flag carrier back in the Civil War, is like being in charge of that part of the battle. everything revolved around the flag if the flag rotated, right, that’s where everybody went, because they didn’t have communications. There was no way you could hear among all the cannons and everything else. So you watch the flag. So that’s the guy that the enemy wants to shoot first off as you shoot the flag carrier because he’s in charge of the battle. So Alfred Hilton went down and before he hit the ground, Christian dropped his gun and grabbed the flag, he contended charge. So everybody’s watching him. And as he goes, he’s getting bullets flying all around. And he talked about how the bullet grazed his leg, one cut through his stocking and what cut through his pants and so he’s he’s definitely a target, but he survived. And he actually did get wounded as he was charging, but they were able to take the Confederate emplacement. And as he’s trying to get back to, to his groups because at the end of the battle, he said, there’s 85 guys left, there’s three officers, he’s trying to get back and regroup his group. He’s wounded and he’s in tough shape. But for his courage in that battle, he receives the Medal of Honor. And he’s one of six black soldiers that in the Civil War received the Medal of Honor for saving the American flag. Unlike what we hear today, they they thought the American flag stood for freedom. And it was a confederate flag that stood for slavery. They love the American flag and six, six black Americans received a medal of honor for protecting that flag. After the war’s over, Christian goes on. He has a great career in the military. He starts military academy in Washington, DC, he trained young men to serve and became officers in the Spanish American War in World War I, etc. But he was quite a musician as well. He’s a very strong Christian, and Washington DC, he started all these musical concerts and became good friends with First Lady Lucy Hayes and First Lady, Francis Cleveland, and they helped with the concerts. And so he was well known in Washington, DC, a very significant figure. One of that, Tim, as you said, a handful of folks who receive the Medal of Honor for what he did, but the bravery he showed in the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm is what caused him to receive the Medal of Honor,

Rick Green
Alright guys, so many great stories we’re sharing throughout the month of February. So folks, if you missed any programs, be sure and check out the archive section. David, let’s jump into some of that good news, even though it’s Wednesday. What’s our first piece of good news for today?

David Barton
Okay, guys, I’m going to start with good news that’s kind of a throwback to what I’ve been on for the last two or three weeks. And it’s what’s going on in Congress. All eyes were on Congress when they were having the speaker’s election and went through 15 votes, and etc. And now the Congress is moving and going forward. There hasn’t been all that much coverage on what they’re doing. That’s why I want to focus on a fair bit, because it really is significant. And we talked about back at the time that McCarthy was elected it wasn’t really battle, anti McCarthy as much as it was, we want to change the way things are done in the house. And so they changed the rules. And those 20 or so folks held out for rules package changes, we’re now seeing the result of the rules changes, they made a just go to one example. They voted on what’s called House resolution 21. Now, when they have lower numbers like that, like one digit or two digit, that means they’re really early in the Congress. And these are the numbers that are held kind of like for congressional leadership. By the time we get to the end of next year before the election, they’re going to be up and five digit numbers, but they’re down at one and two digit numbers now. So House resolution 21 is one that deals specifically with what’s happening with Biden pulling down to strategic petroleum reserves. And so what this measure says is, okay, every time Biden pulls down those strategic petroleum reserves and lessons that he has to increase drilling somewhere in the United States, he has to open more permits, if he’s going to take the oil out, he’s got to find a way to put it back in. And it says it’s called to provide for the development of a plan to increase oil and gas production under oil and gas leases of federal lands under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Agriculture. So in other words, all these land permits that they’ve been sitting on. If you’re going to suck the oil and gas out of the strategic petroleum reserves, you got to find a way to put it back in. So this goes for vote. And one of the things we pointed out was that what they’re doing now is under the rules changes. The Rules Committee doesn’t just stamp out just one rule and we talked about how that the general rule there’s four types of rules you can get out of the rules committee one says when it comes to the floor, all you do is vote out Upper down on it, you can’t amend that you can’t change it. The congressional leadership decides what you’re going to vote on and you don’t have a voice in it. And and this is the way it’s been really since about 2000. So we’ve been 23 years of just up or down. So whoever the speaker is, it’s like being the dictator of the house that rules change allows members to make amendments. So just this one measure, this one measure that went through on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Tim, how many amendments you think they would have added something like that?

Tim Barton
Well, it’s really tough given what we know about Congress,

David Barton
let me also say the rule on this was called a modified open rule. So you don’t get to make every amendment you want. That’s an open rule. This one means you have to submit the Amendment One day in advance. So modified, open means that you have to go to the Rules Committee, you have to turn in your amendment one day ahead of the vote. So this is modified open rule. So how many how many amendment?

Tim Barton
If you’ve turned it a day in advance, I’m gonna say is going to minimize the amount of amendment that are turned in, let’s say, six,

David Barton
how about 99,

Tim Barton
I was really close. If you turn the six upside down, and then do it twice, if I was really close.

David Barton
They had 99. Imagine that 99. And now what this is going to do, Democrats are going to do a ton of this because it slows down the operations of Congress. Fine. So it does. Still go for it because everybody’s got a voice. But on the other hand, nine of those amendments passed. So the body thought that were nine really good ideas that leadership hadn’t come up with, they got added to this thing. So you’re looking at nine amendments that got added, which makes a lot more grassroots a lot stronger than it was. And so that really is something really, really good out of what came back with the speaker’s election, the change of rules, is now allowing each member to have a voice. And if the other members agree with that, then they’re going to pass it as they did with nine out of the 99 members. So I just think that’s terrific news. It’s not making the national news. That’s fine. This is part of change in the process, and you have to change the process to change the results. This is a good change of process.

Rick Green
Alright, headed over Tim. Now, Tim, what’s your first piece of good news for our special good news Wednesday that we’re having?

Tim Barton
Yeah, let’s squeeze in one more real quick before we go to break this one is coming from the NHL, which just Rick if you’re not familiar with the National Hockey League,

David Barton
He doesn’t know… if it’s not round and has has some kind of stitching on it…

Tim Barton
there’s stitching involved usually after most hockey games on somebody’s face or body, right? That’s different. Okay. So, and this was something that did make some national news, but it’s just worth highlighting on a good news Wednesday as we are going. So the headline says New York Rangers decision to yank pride jerseys could up in sport status quo. So there was a big LGBT kind of gay pride night. And on what most teams were doing was they were having rainbow flag insignia they were having rainbow tape on their hockey sticks. And the Rangers said, Yeah, we’re not going to do that. Now, there still was rainbow stuff all over their arena. They still had someone who identifies as a homosexual come sing the national anthem. Somebody from Broadway, Michael James Scott came and sang the national anthem. And they were still I mean, the whole arena was filled with rainbow things, but they chose not to wear the rainbow jerseys or have tape rainbow tape on their sticks and the left the media just lost their minds. How dare they did a slap in the face for the LGBT plus community. And on and on or on it goes now again, the entire arena was filled with all of this propaganda, all of this rainbow stuff for gay pride nights. What’s interesting is the team did put out a statement. They said our organization respects the LGBTQ plus community. We are proud to bring attention to important local community organizations as part of another gay pride night in keeping with our organization’s core values. We support everyone’s individual right to respectfully express their beliefs now, the idea of individual right turns out their players were not in favor of wearing these pride jerseys or having this rainbow tape on their sticks. And so apparently there was enough of a pushback from their own team that they said okay, we’re gonna have to push against the big NHL organization that’s promoting all this and even guys the fact that the media went crazy and basically lost their minds on this…

David Barton
I didn’t see a positive story about that at all it came out I mean, they just they excoriated those guys in the media.

Tim Barton
it goes to show right that they’re not really into saying let people live their lives, let them exist right that this is not live and let live this is not you know, acknowledge our right to exist this is you support us or we will try to publicly shame and crucify you.

David Barton
But it’s really not that because they also have constitution night at the hockey they have Christian night at the hockey they have family night at the hockey…

Tim Barton
No, no, no, no, I don’t think they do. Although, if they started doing those nights, I can imagine like Second Amendment night would be awkward because you’re not allowed to bring weapons and firearms in. So its different, right? Nonetheless, what’s interesting is, you know, just a couple weeks ago, we had a good news Friday story about a NHL player, a hockey player who said, I’m not I’m not doing this, I’m not going that direction. And you know, guys, we really haven’t seen a professional athlete push back like this since maybe two years ago, maybe three years ago, now. It’s been a while. Jonathan Isaacs, he was the NBA player when COVID was going on. And they did the NBA in the bubble and, and he was not going to kneel for the national anthem. He wasn’t gonna wear the BLM jersey, he said, Look, I’m a Christian. And I’m not going to prioritize and play these racial games and put one group over another. We have not seen a player or a team take so courageous of a stand literally in years. And it is refreshing to see people have the courage and backbone to stand up and say, this is ridiculous, this wokeism is going too far. And God willing, we will see a lot more people standing up to this woke culture and wokeism, saying we’re not going any further. So guys, this is good news that we are seeing, at least this point from New York, the New York Rangers where we think so often New York is woken they’re so liberal, and they are, but not everybody there is going crazy to see the New York Rangers actually say yeah, you know, we’re not gonna go as far as the left and the woke want us to go that is good news.

Rick Green
All right. Hang on, guys. We got to take a quick break. We’ll be right back. Get some more good news on this special edition of our Wednesday program. Stay with us. You’re listening to the WallBuilders show.

Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Let’s jump back into some good news. David, what’s our next piece of good news today?

David Barton
Okay, guys, I’m still riding the same horse. I was riding when I started this program. So I’m back to Congress and the rules changes, what’s happened there.

Tim Barton
So, you rode to town on Friday. You stayed three days and you left on Friday. How did you do it? Your… The horse was named Friday, you’re on the same horse. That’s how you did it. I win the rental. You may continue.

David Barton
That was really good. I haven’t heard that riddle in a while. So picking up with what was… we were talking about before the new changes in Congress. Last night was the State of the Union address with precedent,

Tim Barton
Which I’m sure we will get to, at some point to talk about some of what we heard last night worth getting into. But nonetheless, today is good news. So what is the good news?

David Barton
The good news is that before the President had the State of the Union address, there in the House chamber. Guess what happened? The Republicans had a resolution they passed House Resolution five that said that they will read the entire US Constitution in the house before the State of the Union address. It’s kind of like, let’s just remember what this is all about. You know, and people complain. So well, that’s just perfunctory. Well, it didn’t get carried by the national news for sure. But it’s not perfunctory. Because it helps those in Congress remember, there actually is a constitution. It’s what they swore to uphold. It’s nice to remember it every once in a while just just seeing it and hearing about it. That’s really good. And then it gives folks like us a chance to talk about it, which helps us remember that it’s a really important document helps us remember the kind of people we want to elect to Congress. So just just having that last night, it may have been symbolic now. I don’t think it was other people might think so i think is a really good deal. And by the way, with all the voting that’s been going on since McCarthy has become speaker, one of the rules changes they hadn’t something McCarthy did was he ended proxy voting in the House, Nancy Pelosi allowed that you didn’t have to be in the House to vote, you can just send your vote with somebody else. Let somebody vote for you. Kind of like mail in ballots. I’ll just let you go vote for me. McCarthy has entered that you have to be in the chamber. And if you’re not in the chamber, your vote doesn’t count and you can’t send it with anybody else. You’re getting paid $180,000 a year there abouts. You ought to at least take that seriously and show up and represent people. And I love the fact that McCarthy has put that proxy rule out to pasture. It’s gone.

Rick Green
Alright guys, we got time for one more piece of good news and that gets to be Tim’s. Tim, what you’re closing us out with today.

Tim Barton
Alright guys, well, this one’s from California. And the title of the article says judge blocks California’s COVID-19 misinformation law. Now, first of all, it’s worth noting that in September of 2022, Newsom signed a bill that went into effect January 1 2023. And the law said that, you know, we can’t have misinformation and misinformation was defined as false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus. What does that mean? It means whatever the scientists tell us about COVID-19 that you need to be quadruple vaxxed or however many numbers we’re gonna go above that that whatever it says that no doctor can say anything that might contradict now, I also just want to stop and point out that this is so nonsensical on multiple levels, because one of the things that was always basic is if you went to a doctor and you Got a report back from the doctor? And you’re like, I’m not sure about that, you know what you would do? You would go get a second opinion. Why? Because it could be that this doctor was wrong on some issue or area. And California said, Well, we’re not going to allow second opinions if it deals with COVID. Because then you’ll be guilty of COVID misinformation, doctors can be penalized for various things. And specifically, doctors who deviate from the established US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance, by attempting to assess and advise their patients as individuals may run afoul of the new law. So if they were to suggest or encourage things that have been shown to be effective, that were not the vaccine, or the booster or whatever else, they could get in major trouble impacting their medical license, among other things. So the good news is, there was a judge with common sense. And the judge said, Yeah, we’re not going to do that. So California judge on Wednesday hauled to the state’s so called COVID-19, misinformation and disinformation law. And it goes on to explain these two lawsuits to doctors that are involved. Judge William Smith was a George W. Bush appointee. He wrote his ruling and goes into this. But guys, it is crazy to me that California passes a law. And I’m saying that I’m hearing myself say that I realize it’s not as crazy given the state of California and what Gavin Newsom is doing. It’s also interesting that we think Gavin Newsom probably is trying to position himself maybe for 2024 presidential run, at least people around him are. And maybe that’s the reason for some of the expose as coming out, even from Democrats holding the Biden administration accountable for some of the ridiculous things they’ve done. Why? Why have they been covering him for so long, and now they’re starting to turn on them? Well, maybe they’re trying to, to position him where he’s not the best candidate run for 2024. It looks like Gavin Newsom is someone they’re trying to promote to be ready for that position. But these are the kinds of policies that Gavin Newsom has promoted, that if you don’t do what we want, if you don’t say what we want you to say, if you don’t walk, in step, where we want you to step if you don’t close your business when we want to, we will just shut you down, we will take away your medical license. This is the kind of nonsense it’s been happening. Now, the good news in all of this is that a judge did block this law. And so these doctors have won their lawsuit, it would not surprise me, if in California, they’re going to appeal this. And so that we might not have seen the end of this. However, I cannot imagine this is going to go any different direction than what this ruling was. So this is really good news that there is a judge in California at least upholding some basic decency and common sense when it comes to some of the bad policies being passed in the legislature in California.

David Barton
You Know, founding Fathers talked about having a frequent recurrence, to the fundamental principles of what they talked about, keep going back to the basics, go back to the basics. And that good news story really is a core basic that I think we’ve forgotten a lot, even in the debate on big tech stuff. Proverbs 18:17 is part of our due process where it says that you have a right literally to hear the other side of the story. Proverbs 18:17 says, one side sounds good till you hear the other. That’s why you have a jury so that you can listen to both sides and see where truth is. And that’s the problem with California’s policy. That’s the problem with big tech is they say, oh, there’s only one side you need to hear. Well, that’s not a good policy. So going back to fundamental principles, always remember that you need to hear a second side, even if the opinion you hear agrees with you. You need to hear a second side, because there might be something you hadn’t thought of. There might be a perspective you’re not aware of, there might be evidence you don’t know. And so don’t ever shut it off, because this is what I believe, and therefore I’m stopping right here. No, no, always listen to the other side, be like the jury that gets all the evidence and makes a decision. And that’s why California is in such crazy shape right now. But the good news is that you still have judges who understand what Founding Fathers said about going back to the basic principles, they did that, and it’s a great decision, but that federal judge.

Rick Green
Alright folks, we’re out of time for good news today, kind of a special Wednesday. You know, this is normally what we would do on a Friday. In fact, if you’re missing those good news Friday programs, you need to listen to that at least once a week getting that good news. It’s good for all of us. It encourages us it lets us know that. You know we can win and that there are victories happening out there across the culture. But we’ve had so much of that good news for Fridays. We just couldn’t get it all in. So we decided to give you a special program today. I don’t think good news Wednesday is going to become a trend. We got too many good interviews we got to do as well. So we just wanted to do something special for you this week. This Friday. Of course, we’ll have more good news. Don’t miss tomorrow for foundations of freedom Thursday. And then of course, check out our websites today, WallBuilders.com And WallBuildersLive.com and either of those websites, you can make that one time or monthly contribution. Thank you for coming alongside us locking shields with us and being a part of the solution. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders.