Why Having A Convention Of States Is Vital – With Mark Meckler: Do you know what a Convention of Sates is and why it is more important than ever? Can the Democratic Party be defined as Fascists? What do the woke mob, Red Guards of Mao, and the Brownshirts of the Nazi Party all have in common? How do we push back against the literal type of Fascism taking over our country and limit the federal government? How can we keep our elections from being rigged for years to come? What can you do today to help protect our liberty and restore our freedoms? Tune in to hear Mark Meckler explain!

Air Date: 03/17/2021

Guest: Mark Meckler

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.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. We are talking about the hot topics of the day of policy, culture, I mean everything that affects the culture, that affects your life, your children, education, our churches, our freedom of religion, our ability to open a business to provide for our family.

I mean, all of these issues are the hot topics of the day and how we interact with government, what government’s proper role should be and when it oversteps that proper role, what can we do about it as citizens, those are the types of things we cover here on WallBuilders Live.

You can find out more about us at our website, wallbuilderslive.com, and you can also learn about the three of us that host the program. David Barton, he’s America’s premier historian and the founder of WallBuilders. Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. Again, learn more at wallbuilderslive.com.

And then while you’re there at our website, if you would, you might want to look at the stations we’re on across the country. If you’re traveling or if you want to be able to listen to us on a local station there in your community, you can also find archives of the program on the website, which means you can go back over the last few weeks and months. 

If you’re a new listener to WallBuilders Live, you can go back and listen to some of those Good News Fridays, I promise you, those will lift you up. They’re just rapid fire good news stories of things that are happening across the country. Even in the midst of the bad things that are happening, there’s still a lot of good stuff happening. And you can listen to those Friday programs in the archive section.

Send In Your Questions

On Thursdays, we do what we call Foundations of Freedom Thursday. And that’s where we take your questions. You send those in by emailing us [email protected]. It’s [email protected]. Those can be questions about the Constitution, about history, about application of the Constitution and biblical worldview to the things going on, send those questions in, we cover those on Thursdays and those programs are available at our website today.

And then our Monday through Wednesday programs are interviews with folks that are out there on the front lines. Sometimes it’s a citizen that has been taking action in their community, sometimes it’s an attorney arguing before the US Supreme Court or other courts.

And, sometimes it’s a congressman or US senator or a state legislator or someone that’s involved in the political realm,  and then often it’s the folks that are helping to organize grassroots and do things across the country to help save our nation. But those interviews are Monday through Wednesday, all of those shows available at our website wallbuilderslive.com.

That’s also the place I would ask you to consider making a contribution. Can be a one time or monthly contribution. But when you come alongside us at Wallbuilders Live, you are helping to save the nation, you’re helping to equip and inspire folks all across the nation, the pastors, legislators, citizens to be involved, all of us have a role to play in this, all of us have a responsibility to preserve the freedom we’ve been given. And you can be a part of that when you make that contribution at wallbuilderslive.com.

Special Guest Mark Meckler

Alright, folks we’ve got Mark Meckler back with us from Convention of States. My brother, always good to have you, man. Thanks for coming back on WallBuilders Live.

Mark:

Absolutely. Brothers from another mother living only like 50 miles apart or some ridiculous amount like that.

Rick:

Since you found your way to Texas, we’re so glad you’re here. Hey, man, you have been running like crazy all over the country. This is the busy time for Convention of States because so many states right now, not only are in their legislative session, but have legislation right now going through for Convention of States. But before we get an update on each of those states, this is a perfect time for why Convention of States is so important.

People are frustrated with what’s happening in Washington. They feel helpless. They’re watching, not only Biden, but Schumer and Pelosi and the whole left wing crowd in DC. They have total power at this point and they are trying to take us off the cliff, and so people are going to, what can I do, what can I do? 

Well, the founders thought of this, as you and I said right there and independent at all, there’s an app for that. So talk to us about why Convention of States is more important than ever, and why the legislators the state legislators have the ability to overrule the nonsense in Washington.

Washington

Mark:

Yeah, I almost feel like I there, what can you say, right? I just say Washington. And that’s pretty much that is the answer why right now. But to dig in a little bit, I think I think the important thing is to place what’s going on in America in historical context. 

And in context of what we see actually rising in America, I have been calling the Left the new democratic fascist party for about the last three years. And honestly, Rick, I’ve gotten a lot of blowback from it, not just from the Left, but from people on our side, like that’s extreme rhetoric, Mark. And you can’t call people fascist.

I’m not name calling. I’m actually looking at what the actual political science is, the actual definition of fascism. Benito Mussolini, the inventor of fascism said that fascism was everything inside the state, nothing outside of the state, and nothing against the state. 

And this is the state of play in Washington DC today among the radical Left. In other words, they believe that government can should and must do absolutely everything. 

It is cradle to grave. It is your private life. It is your public life. It is your worship life. It is your commercial life. It’s literally everything. The federal government today is the biggest lender, the biggest creditor, the biggest landlord. I mean, they’re just the biggest employer in the nation, the biggest land holder in the nation…

Rick:

Well, wait, wait, I got to interrupt you, Mark. Everything in the state, I mean, not everything because I mean, king Biden said, if we’re really good, if we obey every command, we can actually get together with a few of our friends and family, maybe on July 4th for independence… 

I mean, he’s going to let us have a couple hours to have hot dogs, so it’s not everything, I mean, we get that if we’re good.

It’s Un-American

Mark:

You know, it’s so funny, Rick, because somebody was mentioning that to me, and I talked about coming out to your place. Remember, when Trump gave his acceptance speech, we had, I don’t know, 600 people…

Rick:

Oh, it’s huge, it was packed.

Mark:

So that was a long time ago. So we’re getting together with more than six way back when and hanging out together and enjoying each other. Like, we do not accede to that. As far as I’m concerned, Washington DC can go pound sand. 

So this is the point, right? They’re telling us when and how and where we can be free, and that’s “un-American”. So the Founders gave us a methodology to push back against this kind of stuff. They put it in the second clause of Article 5…

Rick:

And then I’m so sorry to interrupt you again. But before we go to solution, just to take home the point you were making, though on fascism being the correct term, they do. They want everything to go through government, everything about our life in the state. 

And so your terminology has been right for three years. They may not have done it all at once three years ago, but you saw it coming in so many of the things that we’re pushing for, and now all of America is seeing it specifically from the federal government that micromanaging everything that we’re doing.

Mark:

A lot of it in the states as well too, but there’s one more piece of that which is, and this is kind of unique in modern America, is this idea of nothing against the state that used to be only enforced by the state. And if you go back to the Soviet Union, and they actually owned Pravda, which was the state media network, news network. 

If you go back to Nazi Germany, if you go back to Maoist China, the state controlled all this stuff. Well, today, we actually have a tech oligarchy that is allegedly private, but perfectly aligned with the state and the tech oligarchy. 

Nazi Germany and Maoist China

Some of these countries are these companies are actually bigger and more powerful than countries. But they are perfectly aligned with the federal government and they are perfectly happy to say nothing against the state. You can’t speak against the state orthodoxy. So we actually are living in a state of fascism.

And what’s unbelievable about this, as we say, and you said, this is sort of creeps in over time, fascism comes in, or totalitarianism always comes in slowly until it doesn’t. And then it just a gap loads and it sweeps civilizations into the dustbin of history. We’ve seen this with multiple countries. We’re seeing it now with our country. And the question is, what do we do to resist?

Rick:

Yeah, and again, just putting off the solution a little bit more here, because when you say nothing against the state, that used to be something we took so much pride in, in America that, hey, we may disagree, but I’ll fight for your right to say what you believe. And that was just a big part of who we were, that we let people speak, even we thought they were crazy, or we thought they were way off base, that is not the case anymore. 

Now, it’s we don’t want to hear opposing views. When I say we, I mean, certainly the state, but frankly, a lot of people in America no longer value civil discourse, and debate and letting the other guy have his say. That is a fascist value that has been adopted, the value of nobody speaks except the ones that agree with me.

Mark:

Yeah, and you’re pointing out something that’s historically correct, which is really important, which is it doesn’t even take the state sometimes. If you look back to Nazi Germany, and look at what the brown shirts are, these are people just regular citizens going out and enforcing Nazi doctrine. I

f you look at Mao’s China, and you look at the red brigades, these are just regular citizens going and hauling people out of their houses, publicly shaming them and humiliating them and beating them and ultimately, sometimes killing them for not standing with Maoist Orthodoxy.

Now we’re seeing this in the form of the woke mob, the Twitter mob, the Facebook mob, “unpersoning” people, I’m working on a documentary right now called “Unperson”. And basically what they’re doing is trying to erase people from the public sphere. It’s not totally, I’ll talk about this, by the way, so this goes back to the American founding. 

Kicked Out of the Public Square

It’s not just the idea that we disagree with you. It’s we’re going to remove you from society in every way. And because of our digital world right now, much easier to remove people. You can cancel them off of Facebook, I know you guys have experienced some of this, cancel their Twitter accounts, digital companies will refuse to do business with you. So it’s not that hard to erase people from the digital world right now.

Rick:

Which is the public square and in many ways, I mean, we do more of that in terms of interaction with our neighbors, family, even church now than we do face to face. So if they can erase you there, they really do erase your voice.

Mark:

It really is the public square. You know, in the time of the founding, the public square really was the public square, the town square. You could literally go out stand on a soapbox and preach and talk and get your opinions out there. You could print some small pamphlet and give it out in your town or city and get wide distribution. 

Today, if you’re not digital, if you’re not able to be on Facebook or Twitter or, frankly, in my case, I would say on Parler, if you’re not allowed to do those things, then you have been effectively “unperson”, you really have no influence in society any longer.

Rick:

Everything in the state, nothing outside the state and nothing against the state, that’s what we’re facing. The Founders 240 years ago, saw this coming in some ways, at least, knew that it was happening in the nature of man, happened in other countries, so they gave us a tool to keep that from happening at the federal level. 

You’ve tried twice to tell us what it is and I keep digging down these other trails. So how do we push back against this type of liberal fascism?

Pushing Back Against Tyranny

Mark:

So we’re incredibly blessed that the Founders put this safety mechanism in the Constitution. It’s the second clause of Article 5, it allows us to call a Convention of States, the states get together, they propose amendment to restrain to push back against federal tyranny to limit the federal government, potentially impose term limits on federal officials that would include judges, bureaucrats and staffers, the deep state as we know it, to impose a balanced budget amendment, spending and taxation caps.

We just saw this $1.9 trillion blown, nobody even knows how much money that is. But I can tell you, your grandkids will not be able to pay that off, outrageous. And then the last thing is just to limit the scope of power and jurisdiction of the federal government things like telling the federal government no, you can’t be involved in education.

No, you can’t tell us that men are allowed in women’s bathrooms, no, you can’t force us to use wind power or solar power, whatever. And so these are things that we actually have the power to do right now. We have this power. The question is, do we have the fortitude exercises?

Rick:

And it’s not only can they not tell us that, but we would not tell other states that. Each state would be able to decide for themselves on these issues, all of the things that the Founders consider to be internal issues instead of external issues and let the states do those internal issues and the feds, only the external. 

So it also I guess, I’m kind of speaking to our conservative friends out there that might want to tell California how to live and say, hey, let them be and then you decide which state you want to live in and push for your way of life in that particular area. It seems like that’s the only way we’re going to hold this thing together, we’re not going to make all Americans the same.

Mark:

No, and we’ve never been the same. There’s some kind of weird fantasy, I think, that at the time of the founding, we’re all the same. And they talked about the Founders as if it was this unified homogenous bloc. But the reality is, the colonies really disliked each other a lot, mostly along Christian sectarian lines. 

But the schisms were deep, the hatred and the distrust ran deep, and out of that we were blessed to get a federal government. A government that was designed for people who can’t really get along, we don’t really have the same views on things. And that system was designed so that the federal government had the limited enumerated powers. Why?

States Rights

Because we said, hey, look, you know, I don’t trust those people from those other states that much. So we’re only going to give them a little bit of power over the broader stuff, as you said, the external stuff, but mostly, we’ll just run our own states the way we won. And that was the design of our government specifically designed for people who don’t necessarily get along or like or trust each other that much. That’s where we are today. And the way to fix all this is to go back to the original design, go back to real federalism, let California be California, Texas be Texas and so on across the country.

Rick:

Worked great for about 150 years then the Supreme Court started handing down decisions to allow the federal government to do all of these things it was never designed to do. And we began to try to create this, this sameness, which is actually a communist idea that everybody’s going to be the same across the country. 

Mark, the solution is doable. You’ve been working on this for several years. There’s great momentum in this solution. And frankly, the things that have happened over the last year, I think have awakened a lot of people to realize we have to do this.

Quick break. When we come back, we’re going to talk about that solution, talk about which states are moving forward right now and what you at home can do with it. Stay with us, folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

The American Story

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have here at WallBuilders called The American Story. For years, people have been asking us to do a history book and we finally done it. We start with Christopher Columbus and go roughly through Abraham Lincoln. And one of the things that so often we hear today are about the imperfections of America, or how so many people in America that used to be celebrated or honored really aren’t good or honorable people.

One of the things we acknowledge quickly in the book is that the entire world is full of people who are sinful and need a savior, because the Bible even tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And yet what we see through history and certainly is evident in America is how a perfect God uses imperfect people and does great things through them. 

The story of America is not the story of perfect people. But you see time and time again how God got involved in the process and use these imperfect people to do great things and impacted the entire world from America. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and check out The American Story.

Rick:

We’re back on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Mark Meckler is with us from Convention of States, the website conventionofstates.com. No matter where you are in the country, go to that website, click on your state and you can find out what’s happening in your particular state to be a part of this. This is a citizen movement. Mark, I’ve heard numbers as high as 800,000, 900,000, maybe even a million people that are part of this and want to be a part of the solution.

Convention of States’ Progress

So kind of catch us up on where we are. I know the Constitution says we got to have 34 states ask for this to happen, actually have a call for this Convention of States where the states will come together, not the folks in the federal government, not the people that are running the show in Washington DC right now, and that includes Republican and Democrat both, not them, it’s going to be the states that will do this, 34 states needed to call it. Catch us up on where we are in terms of how many states and where you’ve been going. Because I’ve been watching you, man, you’ve been testifying all over the country.

Mark:

Yeah, so first of all, update your numbers now, over 5 million people involve, Rick, all over the country. They’re in every single state legislative and congressional district in America. And so the numbers are just extraordinary. 

There’s never been another organization I’m aware of with membership in every single state legislative district. What’s going on right now is the legislatures, most legislatures are in session all over the country. That’s generally what happens in the first quarter to a third of the year. And so virtually, all of them are in session. We’re moving all over the country right now.

Just in the last week or so, we had a victory in Iowa, in a subcommittee in Iowa. We had a victory in Wisconsin, in committee in the House I testified there. We had a victory in committee in Wyoming. I actually didn’t testify, I Zoomed in. But the grassroots did such a good job, they didn’t need me. And so all of these things are moving forward right now.

West Virginia looking really good to go in the next couple of weeks, incredible movement there. They have super Republican, super majorities, speaker is a big fan of ours, Speaker Hanshaw, great speaker. So I think we’re going to get it down there. North Carolina looking really strong. South Carolina looking really strong.

I’ll be in South Carolina in next week. And we have over 53 sponsors in the House in South Carolina. We’re going to do a subcommittee hearing. I expect to come out of that hearing strong. 

I think we had 23 sponsors in the senate there, so I think we look really strong in those places. In Ohio, the Senate President Matt Huffman, big fan of Article 5, been a big fan of ours and a sponsor since he was in the House. 

A Lot of Great Things Are Transpiring!

We look really good in Ohio and both the Senate and the House. There’s just a lot of good stuff going on all over the country right now.

Rick:

I am blown away, man 5 million! I mean, that is enough to move the country. You don’t need half the country, you need a small percentage that is active and engaged. 

That is phenomenal. And so all of these states right now the activities taking place, remind me again, is it 16, what do we have, 15 or 16 that have already done it, they’ve already called for the convention?

Mark:

Yeah, we’re at 15 right now that have completed the call. And the numbers are interesting when you really break it down. Over time, 49 states have filed the Convention of States resolution at some point or another. In 30 states we’ve passed out of the committee in one House or the other.

Twenty-three states, we’ve actually passed the resolution in one House or another. And 15 states have now passed it completely. This year, I’m looking for say another between five and nine states, I feel really strong about five to six days. We could go as high as nine states passing this year.

Rick:

You know Mark the things that have happened over the last couple of months even seem to be waking people up. I mean, let’s just pick one thing here. H.R. 1 that completely decimates any level of election integrity in the country, federal government takes over elections with this bill, if it passes the Senate. 

It’s a Disaster

It’s a disaster. You can’t reject an absentee ballot. You can’t require voter ID. I mean, it sets up a formula for just election disaster everywhere.

This is technically by the letter of the Constitution allowed for the federal government to have a say here it did. It was never intended in terms of what Hamilton another said why they put that in there. But it is the second half of that Article 1, Section 4 paragraph one clause, where the states decide the time, place and manner. 

But then there is that last half of the sentence that says from time to time the Congress can weigh in on this and make some modifications. Well, they’re taking that and running with it. I see the only solution on that, not just if it passes the senate now but to prevent it from happening in the future, an amendment to the Constitution that strikes that federal power to dictate to states how they do their elections. And the only way we’re going to get that amendment done is a Convention of States. Am I wrong on this?

This just seems like something that should motivate a lot of people to say, okay, yes, we have to have that convention to prevent them from rigging the elections, not just for federal elections, but even though that only gives them power on federal elections, most states are not going to have to separate elections, so it’s going to affect state elections. 

And I’m sorry to ramble so long, we’ve taken so much of your time today. But that one seems like a big one to me and I would hope that wakes people up to say we’ve got to do this sooner rather than later.

Death of Democracy Act

Mark:

I completely agree with you. I’ve been listening to talk about this. It terrifies me what they’re trying to do here. You know, I would say it’s a roll the dice right now whether they’re actually going to be able to get away with it and do it. We obviously have the filibuster, which is potentially in the way. They could do a simple rules change and remove the filibuster, even just for this bill. So I’m not sure exactly what they’re going to do.

I want to clarify something, narrative really matters. I don’t even call it H.R. 1, what do they call it, like the we, the people Act or something crazy like that. What I actually call this is if this is the DDA, this is a “Death of Democracy Act”. 

Literally, they are killing our democracy with this Act. The intention is to permanently rigged elections so that this becomes a one party system, a complete fascist state. This is the attempt to complete everything in the state, nothing outside of the state and nothing against the state.

The state is right now, Democrat establishment, and it’s run by the Left. The deep state is run by the Left. The House, the Senate and the White House run by the Left right now. And they are trying to ensconce that in law so that it’s permanent. I’ll give you another example right now going on. They’re talking about Biden is being encouraged to unpack the FEC, the Federal Election Commission, and he can stack it, he could stack it with Democrats. 

Those people, who do you think they’re going to go after? They’re only going to go after Republicans. They’re going to attack Republicans.

The intent is to prevent our organizations, our C4 organizations, the PACs that have risen up against citizen united, who are actually standing against the teachers unions and the other big unions that support only Democrats. And they’re standing against mainstream media, which is essentially just a big Democratic PAC, essentially, giving free airtime to Democrats. 

And they’re going to try and wipe that out using the Federal Elections Commission. So again, we can structurally change these things. We can structurally change the FEC, we can cut their power. We can make sure they’re neutral. We can do away with the Death of Democracy Act through a Convention of States.

Look, I know there are people out there, Rick, that listen to WallBuilders that think, oh my God, it’s going to be a runaway convention and they’re so scared. And I just have to tell you, to be frank, you’ve been scammed by the radical Left in America. The radical Left is against this. They’re not for it.

The Left Hates This

I mean, in just in the last couple of weeks, Rick, there was a huge article that came out it was written by an organization called Common Dreams, had the partnership between Common Cause, a Soros organization, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Soros organization. 

And under that umbrella is Planned Parenthood dailycausemoveon.org, the Socialist Party of America, code pink. Every radical leftist group you can imagine. There’s a personal hit piece on me talking about how radical I am, and I’m trying to do this radical Convention of States.

So if you’re out there, and you’ve heard, oh, my God, this is a Leftist plot, just go read that article. The Left hates this. They hate me. They hate that we’re doing this. They do not want us to regain control of our government for the people. And that’s what we’re really fighting for.

Rick:

Absolutely. And you’re right. I mean, we need to at least, we don’t have time to address all the concerns, objections, and all that, people go to the website conventionofstates.com or watch some of the videos that Mark and I put out together. In fact, we need to get more of those out there. 

But this whole idea of not using this tool that the Founding Fathers gave us, I mean, they knew this point would come where the federal government would be outside of its boundaries and the only way to get it back in its boundaries was for the states to do it and to disarm, to not use that tool seems like national suicide to me. And I think that national suicide is playing out. We have the tool to stop that. We have to use it.

And for those that have concerns, objections, whatever, go to the website, conventionofstates.com, all of that is addressed there. Watch our Constitution courses. Dial in with us on Monday nights. Mark joins us on Monday nights as often as he can, where we have our videos play, and then we have a live Q&A, just about all kinds of areas of the Constitution.

Critical in Saving the Country

Mark, the work you’re doing is critical to saving the country. I want to ask our listeners to be praying for Convention of States, praying for you, and Patty, as you as you travel the country as you really devote your life to this cause of saving our constitutional republic and I encourage them to get signed up and help. 

If they’re in a state, if they go to the website and they find out their state has already done this, they’re still things they can do. Right? They should still sign up, because this network of 5 million people that you’ve got is still influencing legislation, is still doing things to say the republic and addition to the convention.

Mark:

Yeah, and that’s correct, like we’re building the largest self-governing grassroots army in American history. I would say the vast majority people who are involved are people of faith. We’re praying for the country, but we’re also working for the country. 

So in a lot of the states where we’ve already passed, they’re fighting for ballot integrity, election reform, prolife laws, pro-gun laws, property reform laws, privacy laws. Our activists are engaged in just numerous causes, whatever is near and dear to their heart. We provide them the support network for doing it, they go out and they do the work.

So whatever state you’re in, what you do is click on “Sign the petition”, after you sign the petition, click on the take action tab and go volunteer. It’s not enough to just sign, we need you in the fight.

ConventionOfStates.com

Rick:

Mark. God bless you, brother. Appreciate you so much. Conventionofstates.com. Let’s get you back again soon. Keep up the great work.

Mark:

Thanks, Rick. God bless you.

Rick:

That was Mark Meckler that had joined us for today’s program. Learn more at conventionofstates.com. And as I said earlier, do pray for Mark and Patty Meckler and their whole team at Convention of States, they are doing tremendous work. The organization is growing by leaps and bounds. 

And they’re getting good stuff, not only in terms of this very important, I’ve said this since we began teaching our Constitution classes more than a decade ago that we cannot save the nation if we’re not willing to use the constitutional tools at our fingertips, and most importantly, that Convention of States tool that is found in Article 5 of the Constitution.

Thank you, George Mason, all those years ago, towards the end of the convention, standing up and saying we have to have this tool for the States. In fact, when he proposed that, there wasn’t a single objection, everyone agreed, it was unanimous, and they put it in the Constitution and we need to use that tool. So very thankful for Mark and his whole team and thankful that he gave us so much time today on the program to catch us up to speed on what’s been happening out there.

Why Having A Convention Of States Is Vital – With Mark Meckler

Thankful to you for listening, and also encourage you to study the constitution more, take one of our classes. You can go to wallbuilderslive.com today and get Constitution Alive. You can host that in your home or at your church. 

We actually have a new version of that out, called Biblical Citizenship in Modern America, that’s available at biblicalcitizens.com. But choose one of these courses, start studying yourself, but also get your friends and family together. It’s a great chance for fellowship and a great way to restore biblical values and constitutional principles right there in your community, in your state, and in our nation.

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