Good News Friday – Indiana Wins Case To Keep Nativity Scene And More – Join us today for some good news! Indiana wins case to keep Nativity scene, Kentucky Bill passed to hold abortion clinics accountable to the same standard as other places during COVID, and more!

Air Date: 02/12/2021

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:

You found the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s where we’re talking about the hot topics of the day, from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. If you are wanting to know about a political issue, a historical issue, maybe something to do with the Constitution or how government should be operating, or what the role of Christians are in the American society, whether that’s political or entertainment, journalism, education, the pulpit, whatever area of the culture, we look at all of those hot topics of the day, but we always come back to a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. That’s how you get the right position. And then you turn around and influence your family, your neighborhood, your community, your state, and our nation with that correct position from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And I have the privilege and honor of working with the Barton family. Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor and he’s president of WallBuilders. And David Barton is America’s premier historian. He’s our founder here at WallBuilders. And I just loved getting to do this show with these guys, especially on Friday. I love Good News Friday. We all need a little good news now and then, or frankly, every day, I think we need good news. If you don’t get enough good news today in our program, then be sure and go to wallbuilderslive.com and check those archives out and get some more of that good news on our website.

Our first piece of good news is going to cover David Barton. Where are we starting today, David?

Tim:

How many days till Christmas?

David:

Yeah, well, it’s only been six weeks. So it’s time to go back to Christmas, and going back to Christmas, on this occasion, indicates going to Indiana. Because Indiana, they have won a lawsuit there where they can keep the nativity scene up, I guess for this year, 2021. So we’ve got what’s at 10.5 months ago, but when 10.5 months come around, Indiana will be able to keep a nativity scene up. And it’s an interesting decision, because as this thing went through, there was a plaintiff who complained about the nativity scene, etc. And so the lower court official, which is an Obama official said no, no, nativity scene has to come down, that’s religious, you can’t have a nativity scene up.

And so it went to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals looked at it said, yeah, you’re right. That is religious stuff and it can stay up because this is part of the longer tradition we have in America of having nativity scenes for the holidays. So this really goes back to what happened two years ago at the Bladensburg decision where the Supreme Court said, hey, look, we’re just going to take this new rule, we’re going to get rid of what was called the old lemon test from back in 1973 that says if it has a religious purpose, has to come down. And we’re going to the history test that says if it’s been a part of American history for a good while, that’s going to be a tradition that we uphold.

And so this is the kind of case that we would have lost more than two years ago, probably would have gone down just as the Obama Judge ruled. But the Seventh Circuit went with what the Supreme Court said two years ago and said, this is a long standing American tradition. We’ve been doing this for a long time, we’re not going to take it down. And by the way, they said this is not the proverbial dissenters veto. And a lot of times, dissenters veto is where you’ll have, for example, a nativity scene in Texas, somebody from the Freedom from Religion Foundation in Wisconsin will object to something in Texas, they don’t live here, they don’t see it, but they just heard about it. Well, in this case, this was actually someone who lived in the area, lived in the district, they objected to it. So they had standing to bring the case, but the court still said tradition wins. So that’s good news on the nativity scene.

Tim:

That was this in a county, a city, was it a state capitol?

David:

Let’s say, this was an Indiana County courthouse. So the county courthouse gets a keep us nativity scene up and like many courthouses, they had Santa’s up and they had other things as well. So it’s not that it was only a nativity scene. But in so many previous cases, even when it’s been kind of if, you will, secularized and de-religitize, if you want to say it that way, because you have sand on the reindeer and whatever, even then they were still taking it out. But the court said, look, it’s part of a whole bunch of stuff, but it’s still part of our tradition of Christmas in America. This is a federal holiday. And the birth of Christ is the reason for the federal holiday and you can’t take out the reason.

And so really, it was a good decision from the standpoint that it did upheld that tradition. So good news on the front from Indiana. That’s the reason for the Christmas. Actually, the reason for the Christmas music is just like Christmas, so I’m going to find a reason to do Christmas music anytime. But…

Rick:

Wait, I got to ask was that Sinatra, who was our Christmas music?

David:

Yeah, it was Sinatra.

Rick:

Sinatra, okay. Alright.

David:

Where do you go, man? You recognize somebody from really old school.

Rick:

Well, I always expect Bing Crosby for some reason at Christmas. And I was like, that’s not Bing Crosby. Who’s that? It? Who’s that? Okay. I just had to know.

David:

Good job. Good guess. That was a good recognition, bro.

Rick:

So is that all the Christmas good news or do you have another?

David:

That’s all the Christmas good news, but that’s not all the good news. I can’t tell you how impressed I am with Governor DeSantis in Florida, and how aggressive he’s been and how much he’s pushed back on so many things. We talked recently about what he’s done to just change the election laws in Florida. And you know, Florida goes from the state with a hanging Chad and it takes them days to figure out who won the election. And with DeSantis, it did take them days to figure out, even weeks to figure out he wanted. And he was just so frustrated and just went in and threw incompetent people out of the election office and passed laws to clean it up. And there was just no controversy with Florida this time. And Florida has been battleground state for years, and now they cleaned up the rolls and cleaned up their voting procedure. It was an easy call. It was one of the first calls we were able to make on election night.

So now he is targeted the big tech guys who are shutting down so much. And we covered a few weeks ago how that Poland has come up with this interesting initiative that in Poland, if you censor conservative speech in Poland on the big tech guys, your fine is $2 million until you stop the censoring. And so Poland and others are going after these big tech platforms and Poland’s very conservative nation. And so DeSantis has adopted some of that same aggressive mentality. And in setting this up, this measure that he announced, he talked about how that these platforms have changed from neutral platforms that provided freedom of speech to having preferred narratives. And we all know that, we’ve all seen it, we saw particularly in this presidential election.

And then he talked about how the 2.8 million Americans had downloaded Parler, and then suddenly, that gets shut off by all the guys because that’s too conservative, so you can’t download that anymore. And he’s a huge supporter of open, robust debate, and that’s why he’s supported the big tech companies originally being a platform for all sides to be able to voice their opinions, but they don’t do that anymore. And so as they’ve started to take a position and take sides, the law he introduced will now get a daily fine of $100,000 a day for any candidate whose material is taken down until that decision is reversed.

So if you happen to be a Trump or even a city or a county official, and they take your message down because it’s too conservative, each time they do that, it’s $100,000 a day fine that they’ll be facing. And then if they promote a candidate for office against another one, then they have to report that as income contribution, and that has to be recorded with the Election Commission in Florida. Because if you’re…

Rick:

It’s about time. Man, that’s been needed. I’ll tell you they’ve been helping candidates to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and not having to report, it’s been ridiculous.

David:

It is right. And so that now becomes a campaign contribution. And it also lets the Attorney General bring action against those companies under unfair and deceptive trade practice. They’re claiming to be neutral platforms, and they’re promoting the candidate or oppose another candidate. So now you have deceptive trade practice. And then if they use any algorithms to change your search things so that the things you want to find don’t come up any more, than that also is subject to daily fine. So I mean, they have really gotten aggressive and comprehensive and is great and that’s just going to be really good stuff if that log is through.

But it is about time that somebody got some backbone and started going after these guys and you know, gratefully, DeSantis is doing that and I hope he does really well with this new law.

Rick:

Man he’s just been fantastic. I mean, backbone, common sense. Just when you thought common sense was dead, a Florida’s reviving it through their governor, Ron DeSantis. Fantastic news. Quick break, guys, we’ll be back. We’ve got more good news, folks. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBulders Live.

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This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment American history. The Second Amendment to the Constitution which guarantees to every individual the right to keep and bear arms has been targeted for years now by those who are determined to dismantle the individual right to self-protection. Opponents argue that only the militia, the military, and law enforcement are to have and use firearms. But those who wrote the Second Amendment strenuously disagreed, including Founding Father Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration, a president of the Continental Congress, and one of those who actually framed the Second Amendment.

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Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. This segment Tim Barton’s got some good news for us. Tim.

Tim:

Alright, guys, well, in Kentucky, there was a piece of legislation that actually was vetoed. Good news was the legislative body that state house and state senate said yeah, we’re going to go ahead and pass this through huge override the veto. And here’s the background.

So there was a state rep Joseph Fisher, who introduced HB II, House Bill II and it was to do a couple of things related to some state laws and in dealing with abortion and the abortion industry. And one of the things that happened in the midst of this COVID shut down was the abortion industry largely got to pass, and elective abortions were viewed as the urgent medical or emergency medical procedures. And so abortion clinics got to stay open in Kentucky in the midst of all the other businesses being shut down. And they also weren’t following other state laws that had already been implemented in Kentucky.

Well, the governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear is very much a pro-abortion governor. In fact, one of the things pointed out in this article is that he received significant campaign donations from the largest abortion facility in the state. And so it’s very clear what side he was on. But one of the things that this this House Bill II did was said that elective abortions are not emergent or urgent medical procedures, so they don’t get to stay open when everything else gets to close down. And the abortion facilities in Kentucky you have to follow the existing laws that have already been passed and put in place. And so the governor vetoed that.

Well, it came back in the House decided 73-20, and the Senate voted 32-5 to override the veto. Also in the state is the Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, who seems like just such a strong conservative leader, he came out and said he was really excited because he said it would give his office clear legal authority to act when an abortion provider breaks the law. And so it looks like that even though you see a governor going one direction, the vast majority of this legislative body, elected officials in Kentucky have stood up to defend the unborn and also have some common sense in the midst of saying look, selectively choosing to murder an unborn child is not an emergency medical procedure that needed to be done in the midst of a shutdown.

And of course, not surprising the ACLU of Kentucky so the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky criticized state lawmakers for overriding the veto. They said that they were trying to push constitutionally protected abortion care out of reach, which also just makes you pause for a second and go now wait a second, you’re saying this is constitutionally protected. Explain to me, show me in the constitution where abortion is constitutionally protected. And of course it’s not. It’s been upheld by Judges said, well, this is constitutionally protected, but certainly that’s nowhere in the Constitution. Obviously, that goes directly against the original intent of the Founding Fathers. That’s certainly not what they imagined or desired. And actually, they were completely the opposite direction.

If you go back and read the Declaration, which is what sets a tone and spirit for our nation on how we operate, even it laid the foundation for the Constitution. In the Declaration, they acknowledged that we have God given rights of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, that government exists to secure these rights. And they were very clear with that right to life did include the unborn. You can go back to Founders’ writings like James Wilson, like John Witherspoon, Benjamin Rush, many individuals who highlighted the fact that this included the unborn child in this right to life.

Anyway, all that to say ACLU is clearly wrong saying this was constitutionally protected. It’s not. It was out of control Judges who have done this. But in Kentucky, the good news is their state legislative body have overridden the veto of a very pro-abortion governor and so innocent lives will be again protected in the midst of pandemics and shutdowns, abortion industry will have to close down, and they have to follow the law in Kentucky that have already been put in place. So more progress being made in the prolife front in Kentucky.

Rick:

Even in a city where the governor was very much against them, and that takes some guts on the legislators’ part to do that. So very good news. We’d love to see more legislators across the country doing that, especially in regard to some of the COVID crackdown issues as well. Great news out of Kentucky. Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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Rick:

Welcome back. It’s Good News Friday. We’ve got more good news for you, this time from David Barton. David.

David:

Well, the good news is that fundamental principles still work. And one of those fundamental principles is the free market produces jobs and it produces prosperity. And here’s a great indication that that works by going to California. And in California, the City Council and Long Beach, and that’s a Democrat City Council and the mayor there, Robert Garcia, they wanted to honor those who were essential workers in this time of COVID.

So during the emergency crisis that was going on with COVID, and so what they did was they ordered that all stores that have more than 300 employees nationally, or that have more than 15 employees in the store locally that they all have to give a $4 an hour increase to essential workers who work during that time, what they call “Hero Pay”. They’re calling essential workers heroes, and so you have to give “Hero Pay”. And so Kroger’s grocery store is now required to pay $4 an hour more for each of its employees that worked during the COVID crisis. As a result, all the Kroger stores affected by that and Long Beach have shut down. They’re gone. No more jobs. That’s not the good story.

The good story is that when government stays out of the free market enterprise, you have jobs, you have prosperity; when government gets involved, it drives down the prosperity, it limits jobs, it kills jobs. So the good news is the principle works. This is a really good example of how government can make an economy go really bad by simple city council action. Think what it does at the national level. So the good news is the principles still work.

Tim:

Well, and one of the things too from that article that point out that Kroger had made a profit, and Kroger had taken all of this massive profit and they were reinvesting it to buy their stocks back, which gives them more control of their company. And the argument from local government was wait a second, if you guys have made a profit, you need to be giving the profit to all your employees. And this is where this redistribution of wealth notion of socialism doesn’t understand the way that capitalism and the market works.

And so certainly, people who have not taken very many economics classes or have never run a business don’t understand, when you are turning the profits back into your company to make your company a better company, that is not the owner of the company pocketing that money. And the owner of the company now has just made an extra $18 million personally. No. No. When you reinvested in the company, it’s to make the company better. And so those are not realized profits in your bank account. Those are things reinvested in the company.

And again, this is where, from a very surface level, I understand where people would say, wait a second, they’ve made all this money, they need to give it to all their employees. That’s fine. But it’s also unrealistic to imagine that if you are in a certain industry, there are certain jobs that just pay a certain amount. And the reason they pay that amount is because I can replace a night stalker with another individual who wants that job for $9 or $10 an hour. So for me to have to pay you $15 or $18, or $20 to come in and stock my shelves at night, doesn’t make sense when I can find somebody who would do that job for much cheaper. Certain jobs are only going to pay so much because that’s what it would cost to replace that person in that job.

And the idea that we need to now give people pay beyond what the ability or what the demands of this job requires just doesn’t make sense in a market. And again, this is, dad, to your point when the government gets involved and tries to manipulate the job or pay in the market, it is always destructive. The good news is, the more the government stays out, generally, the better it is for the people and for the industry as a whole.

David:

I’ve got one more piece of good news that also demonstrates a certain fundamental principles work. This one deals with, I don’t know, global warming or climate change, or whatever we want to call it. And we know that since this thing kind of started 35 years ago, where it become a factor, that the global temperatures have increased over those 30-35 years by about six-tenths of one degree. Well, this year, the global temperatures have increased nearly two-thirds of one degree. In other words, the increase in temperature this year is almost the equivalent of what it’s been for the last 30-35 years.

And so when you look at that, and you say, wow, what do we do with that? You know, maybe the earth is going to burn up. The new report out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research indicates the reason that the temperatures have shot up so much this year. And they point out that it’s been because of COVID. COVID has caused the earth to warm up because they said, COVID is keeping people from going to work and other things and so they’re not driving as much. And because they’re not driving as much, we don’t have all those particulars from fossil fuels going into the air. And when you have more particulars and fossil fuels in the air, it actually cools down the planet, because it keeps the sun’s rays from reaching the earth. So having the pollution from fossil fuels is what keeps us cool. I actually thought that getting rid of fossil fuels is what was going to keep us cool.

Rick:

I was about to say this, sounds backwards. Wait a minute, what’s going on? How do we ever know?

David:

Well, so this, again, is the irony of environmental science is they are so inconsistent, so often contradict themselves. And for government to get involved, again, with choosing winners and losers, even in things like climate change, it just again shows how ridiculous it is and how… And they say, well, it’s the aerosol effect. That when you take particulates out of the air from fossil fuels, you create the aerosol effect, which cools the planet. And this contradicts everything they’ve been saying in climate change for the last 30-35 years.

So, you know, again, government getting involved does not solve the problem, it exacerbates the problem. And whether that’s free market, or whether that’s affecting the free market through climate change kind of stuff, here’s another great example of what happens when the government gets outside of its lanes and runs outside of its lanes.

Rick:

Alright, guys, we got time for one more good news before we close out today. Tim, you got a quick one for us?

Tim:

Yeah, and Iowa, there was a school teacher, part of the public school system. And guys we have for several years, maybe even decades criticize the public school system. And we’ve had some pushback from people saying, wait a second, I teach there. And I feel like you’re criticizing me and my job. Look, we’ve acknowledged there’s some really, really good people working in public schools. We just think the system is very broken, right? The way that the format goes, some of the hierarchy, there’s the educational objectives, there’s a lot of things in the system that are not good. And we even encourage people to get locally involved in the school board to help make a difference, make your school district better. So we criticize the system, but we recognize there are very good people that are operating inside the system. There’s some really good missionaries to the public school, these teachers who are really trying to invest in love on kids and make a difference. And so we acknowledge that too. Well, this is a story of one of those teachers who wants to invest to make a difference.

So his name is Nate Evans, and he teaches in Ankeny in Iowa. And he is, like many teachers has been forced to teach online for quite a while now because of all the COVID things happening. And he noticed that a lot of the students didn’t have good workspaces, that they were having to work off of their bed or maybe somewhere kitchen tables, but there was just so much noise and surrounding, and acknowledging that online is already a tough environment to learn anyway. But then not having really a suitable way to do this, he thought that he wanted to help his students be able to have a better workspace.

He went to the hardware store, took $300 and he bought lumber, and he went back to his house, and he began making desks for his students. Well, word got out what he was doing, and the community said we want to help. Well, as soon as he finished making those desks with that lumber he’d bought for $300. He checked his Venmo and somebody had or maybe a couple people have put in $300. And so it had been replenished, he said, well, then I’m going to go make more desks.

At this point, 795 desks have been made for students to use at their home for online learning. The community is now coming around wanting to help students. And certainly, we would point out that students shouldn’t be having to do online learning, right, that CDC even acknowledges; kids should be going back to school. So big picture. This is not a situation they should be in. This is another example of the fact that there are really good people in this broken public school system who are working to make a difference and invest in the lives of these kids and the community surrounding. So this is just a cool story from Iowa about a community coming together trying to make things better for the students who are learning online.

Rick:

Well, that’s all the time we have for good news today. But we will have more on our website for you there at wallbuilderslive.com. And then of course, we’ll get more Good News Fridays coming. Next couple of weeks, we’ve got some great presentations from the ProFamily Legislators Conference that we’re going to be sharing with you. You do not want to miss next week, Tim Barton is going to be sharing in a response to the 1619 project. It’s incredibly powerful. Don’t miss that. And then the following week, we’re going to have David Barton’s presentation at the ProFamily Legislators Conference on a response to the COVID crisis. So a lot of great information coming your way. But it also means we won’t have a Good News Friday again for two more weeks. So if you’re needing some more good news, and you get a little bit of a drought on good news there, then go to our website wallbuilderslive.com, check out the archive section, and grab some more of that good news.

We should appreciate you listening today, I hope you will consider making a one time or monthly contribution at wallbuilderslive.com. That helps us to amplify our voice, reach more people educate and equip more people. And you can be a part of that on a local level as well. In fact, we’re looking for folks to be biblical citizenship coaches, to actually take our class, “Biblical Citizenship in Modern America” and open up your living room or your church and bring people in to get educated on these things. It’s entirely free. You get all the materials at the website. We even coach you through it. Go to Biblicalcitizens.com today and check it out. You will be so glad that you did and the people you get involved in the class will be glad that you did as well.

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