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Reclaiming America's Christian Heritage in Culture and Politics- Good News Monday
The revival of America's traditional values is happening right before our eyes, with sweeping changes restoring religious liberty, national security, and pro-life protections across the country.
At the Merchant Marine Academy, a powerful symbol of faith has been resurrected. "Christ on the Water," a painting created during World War II by a Merchant Marine veteran, has returned to its rightful place after being banished to a leaky basement during the previous administration. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy's announcement was met with thunderous applause from cadets who had long drawn inspiration from this artwork during challenging times. This restoration represents more than just the relocation of a painting—it signals a renewed commitment to protecting religious expression in military institutions.
America's strategic interests are once again taking priority on the world stage. A landmark security agreement with Panama has reestablished American military presence at key installations overlooking the Panama Canal, including Rodman Naval Station and Howard Air Force Base. This vital agreement ensures U.S. warships receive "first and free" passage through this critical waterway while diminishing Chinese influence in our hemisphere. As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boldly declared, "The era of capitulating to coercion by the communist Chinese is over."
Meanwhile, state legislatures are advancing pro-life protections despite opposition from the executive branch. In Kansas, lawmakers successfully overrode gubernatorial vetoes to pass two groundbreaking bills: one requiring courts to consider child support from the moment of conception and extending tax exemptions to preborn children, and another mandating scientifically accurate fetal development videos in school curricula. These victories demonstrate how determined representatives can overcome obstacles to protect life at all stages.
From halting payments to illegal immigrants with criminal records to reinstating military service members discharged over COVID-19 vaccine refusals, America is witnessing a return to common sense governance that prioritizes citizens' wellbeing and traditional values. These developments aren't just political victories—they represent a fundamental realignment with the principles that made our nation exceptional.
Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on The WildBuilders Show. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And we're gonna do something a little different here. So normally we have Good News Friday. That's almost every Friday. Sometimes we have some interruptions with special programming or whatever. But we have not been able to catch up with all the good news in 2025 that has happened already. Of course, last weekend, an amazing weekend with Easter and the celebration of the shot heard around the world, 250th of Lexington and Concord. Just so many good things. But last Friday, we didn't get to anywhere near the amount of good news you guys wanted to cover and we said we might do a good news Monday. Well, let's do it. Let's have a Monday. What could we call this? Start the week with, I don't know. I'm not even going to try. Let's just jump in and pick up where we left off last weekend. David, get us started with some good news at the beginning of the week, this time, instead of the end of the week.
David Barton [00:00:51] Well, this one's gonna start with kind of an unusual story, a historical story. And it goes back to, we've mentioned a couple of times over the last few weeks that one of the books we're working on right now in the American story, the next one of this series deals with World War II, especially World War Two and stories with World war II and things out of World War two. And one of things that I think most Americans know very little about would be the Merchant Marine. You know, we know the branches of the federal government, we got the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Space Force, et cetera, the Marines. Very few people know that the Merchant Marine is actually one of the services and they have a service academy. Like you have West Point or like you have Annapolis, et cetera. There's the Merchant Marine Academy. And so there are individuals that go there and that was a big deal, particularly in the wars because this is the way we move supplies. It's the way that we moved all sorts of, you know, whether it was gasoline or anything else. That were needed by all the ships overseas. This is the way we move stuff. And so they were really targeted for destruction by Japanese submarines, by German submarines. They wanted to blow up our merchant Marine ships because that's how we're supplying troops with stuff. And so there really was a lot of loss of life. Thousands of ships were sunk. And so these guys are part of the surface academies and they still go today, but because people know very little about it. It's become a fairly dilapidated academy. I mean, it's not in good shape. Down in the basement of the academy, they got water leaks and rain and other stuff creates problems. And so it just hasn't been given attention because people don't know much about it. By the way, let me just throw out, you guys may know this. Rick, Tim, have y'all ever seen Humphrey Bogart movie, which now we're in the black and white days, but it's called Action in the North Atlantic. You guys remember anything about that?
Rick Green [00:02:39] Hmm
Tim Barton [00:02:40] All I could think of was quotes from Casablanca and the African queen. So let me think. Yeah, I'm running down my inventory.
Rick Green [00:02:48] I thought Tim was going to say, well, sweetheart, something like that.
Tim Barton [00:02:54] Yeah, I've got Sabrina. I gosh I'm trying to think of all of my Humphrey Bogart repertoire, and I'm not sure that I know that one
Rick Green [00:03:01] I don't know that one.
David Barton [00:03:02] Action North Atlantic was it was a movie that a war movie that was filmed during World War Two. So in the middle of the war and it is about the merchant Marine. Humphrey Bogart is one of the guys on the merchant marine ships and he gets attacked. His ship gets attacked and something by by German submariners, etc. And actually in the movie, there's there's several guys that get killed when when the subs hit one of his ships and it has maybe the best sermon. in any movie in however many decades, but he goes through and it's the barrel of these guys that see and they go through Jesus Christ as a resurrection of the life and they commit him to Jesus Christ. It's a very Christian service that he has and the prayer and everything else and quoting scriptures throughout. And it's right in the middle of World War II. So, I mean, this is literally what's happening for thousands of ships that have been sunk by the Germans, lots of families that have lost loved ones. And so just seeing the movie, if you watch that movie, you get a good feel for what the Merchant Marine was doing, especially in time of war. So all of that to go back that Mikey Weinstein, I got introduced to him not in a favorable measure, but he's an atheist head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. And it's really the Freedom From Religion Foundation back 25, 30 years ago. He went after the Air Force Academy because they had too much Christianity there. And under Democrat presidents, if he calls If he says, hey, I object to this religious expression of the military, man, they shut it down. They get it down, and so while we've had, I think, 67 different additions to the Bible created by the federal government for the use of military servicemen, when Mikey Weinstein objected under Obama, they said, oh, we won't have any more military Bibles put out for our soldiers. And so, since Obama, we've not had... That Obama forbid the use of the military emblems on any Bibles, and that used to be part of all the Bibles. We got so many from different wars. So Mikey Weinstein just kind of walks in, Democrat administration says I want this stopped and this stopped and that stopped and whatever, and they just seemed to jump for him. And so with the Biden administration, he said, hey, over here at the Merchant Marine Academy, there is a picture of Jesus on the water, and this picture of, it's called Christ on the Water. And it was done by a Marine, a merchant Marine guy who had been in the merchant Marine. He did it in 1944. So this is in the middle of World War II with all the destruction and the loss of life. And based on his experience in the Merchant Marine, he painted this picture of Christ on the water. And it has been inspiration for all the decades since. And so many of these cadets here at the Merchants Marine School say, man, when we think there's a hard time, sometime we'll just go sit under it and think about him and. And what he did, and he gets us through the hard times. And, and so it's been a real inspiration. Well, Mikey Weinstein said, you can't have that up in the military service academy. And so they jumped right to it and they took that picture down and they put it down in the basement down with all the water leaks in the basement. Well, guess what? New sheriff in town, Trump's in office. And so now what you've got is the, the secretary of transportation, merchant Marine is a transportation force. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy just went to the school and say, Hey, how about let's bring up Jesus out of the basement and just got standing hoop and holler and standing ovation. The, the cadets were just thrilled over that. And so Jesus has now come out of the basement. He's back up where he belongs in the Merchant Marine Academy. And that's, that's pretty good resurrection story after Easter. You know, Jesus rose from the dead and, and kind of in this figurative sense, he rose from the basement where they tried to kill him with the Biden administration. But he's now back up to a prominent place in the Merchant Marine Academy.
Rick Green [00:06:46] Good news across the board Tim. What's the next place on the board? We're gonna hear some good news
Tim Barton [00:06:51] Well, going through this incredibly large stack of good news, which is why we're doing this on Monday, there's so much in all seriousness, there's, so much happening. And we said, we're never going to be able to get through while it's still relevant because there's still so much good stuff that's still coming. And we want some people to know and remember and be able to celebrate some of the stuff that is happening. So this headline says, U.S. Signs deal with Panama to secure canal deter China's malign influence. And this was a big deal when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was down signing stuff in Panama, April 9th, is what this article highlights, is when it was announced that U.S. And Panama, they signed a memorandum of understanding on bilateral security matter. So they agreed to work together. The agreement will reestablish a rotational joint presence. And this is maybe a different conversation. It's interesting, a rotational present. At a handful of previously operational U.S. Military installations, including Rodman Naval Station and Howard Air Force Base, as well as Fort Sherman, Hegseth also noted that jungle operations would be revived at an operation center so the US and Panamanian troops could train side by side. So there's just several things that struck me as interesting. Some of the bases back in operation were back in some kind of jungle warfare training. Interesting. But from this deal, it says officials also plan to sign a separate declaration related to the security and operation of the Panama Canal that would provide framework for US warships and auxiliary ships to travel first and free through the canal. And I think that was that there were a couple of problems as as maybe I'm remembering it the best of my recollection was that the American ships didn't have preference. Number one, and number two, China had control over it. And what's happened is now, the American ships are, especially the warships, they're getting preference, first and free going through, and then it's removing some of the Chinese control and even some of businesses that were. In control of some of the area surrounding the canal. The article points out the era of capitulating to coercion by the communist Chinese is over and this is still Hegseth. He said the Chinese regime's growing and adversarial control of strategic land and critical infrastructure on this hemisphere cannot and will not stand. So this is something that at this point I think happened over a week ago, but it still is really good news. Probably a lot of us saw but when it happened... But the fact that we are now working not just in places like Missouri, where they're saying that we're not going to allow Chinese to own farm land and maybe even strategic land by military bases in the U S even recognizing the influence of things like the Panama Canal, which is significant for the U.S. Navy, among other things that we now have a government that is putting America first, that is not giving away America's best and strategic interest to a communist regime. Overall, this is really encouraging. And so just grateful once again for President Trump and who's appointed that disruptors like Pete Hegseth, people that actually care about America, that want America and Americans to succeed. And this is just one more piece of that and really good news.
Rick Green [00:10:13] Yeah, and I think Tim, it's worth pointing out. You think about all the agencies and all the people that like, like what you're talking about, the disruptors that he appointed, there's so much good news. We're never even going to know about, you know, there there's things they're doing behind the scenes to right the ship and get this thing going the right direction that we're, we're not, we were either not going to have time to cover it or it's just going to be lost in the, in all of the good news so anyway, there just no folks. We're not going get to all of it, but David.
David Barton [00:10:37] I want to remind you guys too, that this thing really kind of started, I think it was before Trump was actually sworn in. After he elected, before he was sworn in, he said, oh, by the way, we're gonna go take the Panama Canal back from Panama. I mean, he just announced it flat out. He said, China's running it on both ends. That's an enemy of the United States. And we're not gonna, we put too much in the canal. We're taking it back from them. And within a week, it's like the president of Panama said, wait, can we talk about this? And I just love the fact. That he just lays it out at the table. This is what's gonna happen. And then suddenly they wanna start negotiating again. It's great.
Tim Barton [00:11:12] So it makes me wonder. Does that mean Canada or Greenland is going to be the 51st state? The way that he's been saying stuff and it's been happening. You know, I'm just curious what something's going to happen with Greenland and Canada, maybe it's tariff related, trade related, but, uh, it, it just does make you wonder.
David Barton [00:11:29] Well, I'm gonna throw out another one. I mean, we kind of mentioned this last week, but he just says, hey, I wanna do tariffs on everybody. And then suddenly 70 nations come and say, hey, can we talk about that? How do you get 70 nations to respond to anything that well? 70 nations that come to the United States and said, wait a minute, let's talk before you do something drastic here. I mean it's just, it's amazing to see that people believe what he says, they know he's gonna do what he's says. And suddenly. We're in a position where we are the greatest superpower in the world and now we're starting to act like it. And I don't mean in a sense of being heavy handed. He's just laying the law down. We're just not going to put up with the stupidity and 70 nations suddenly on tariffs. And so, as Bob McEwinr was explaining last week, man, when you go back to what the founding fathers had and we had tariffs basically running nearly all the federal income until FDR more or less. I mean, it's so nice to be able to get back to some things that actually worked for a long period of time. And that Panama Canal is just, I just marvel at how quickly it got done after he put his foot down because people believe what he says and he means what he said.
Rick Green [00:12:39] Well, I don't know if you guys know off the top of your head what the landmass of Greenland is, because I was just going to cast my vote, Tim, you asked which one, which one will be the 51st state is going to be Canada or Greenland. I just want to make sure that Texas doesn't become number three. It's bad enough that we're second behind Alaska. We can't be third. So maybe we get half a Canada. I don
David Barton [00:12:57] I'm going to vote. I'm gonna vote for Greenland over Canada. Cause Canada's got way too many secular progressives. I mean, we think our universities are bad, man. They, they've got a bunch of secular socialist progressives in Canada. I'll go for Greenland first. That's my vote. If we get one over the other.
Rick Green [00:13:15] No doubt. Alright, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. We've got more Good News. It's Monday, not Friday, so you're a little confused, but yes, it's Good News Monday for the first time ever. Stay with us. You're listening to The Wall Builder Show.
Rick Green [00:14:32] Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Monday. Yes, we're carried over from last Friday trying to get more good news in your hands. And while we were on the break, Tim thought of a third option. We don't have to choose between Canada or Greenland to be the 51st state. Tim thinks we should choose parts of Canada, choose the ones that.
Tim Barton [00:14:48] I'm just saying, a lot of Canada, there are the outdoors people, and really, I mean, like British Columbia, there's only a couple hundred people there anyway, so it's not like we'd have to worry about this huge voting bloc coming in and changing things dynamically, and with Greenland, you know, one of the things that I think the British Empire learned is when you have a lot of stuff off of your land that you have to have boats to get to and whatever, it's a little harder to maintain that. Whereas in Canada, there's incredible outdoors, there is wildlife, there's hunting, there are some good people.
David Barton [00:15:26] There's cowboys, I mean Saskatchewan and Calgary and Northwest Territory and Yukon man. That's kind of like West, Texas There's about four people in each of those each those Canadian states, you know, but it is cowboy I'd love that if we could pick and choose I don't know Maybe maybe we kind of let Quebec go and you know that that French secular atheist influence there
Rick Green [00:15:46] Can I throw can I throw out a fourth option? Can we do like a barter thing to a trade? Can we give them San Francisco and Austin and then we take? Alright, alright, alright David. I know you got a lot of good news. Sorry I derailed this again. Go ahead, bro
David Barton [00:16:01] This one deals with Trump actually keeping his word again and how this is trickling down in certain areas. One of the things he said is, look, in this federal government, there is only two genders. That's all there is. That's always ever been. When it comes to mammals, there's only two gender. That's the way God made it. That's way we've always had it. That's where our laws are set up. And this nonsense where American professors have 81 different genders now, we're not doing that. And so they have gone back to Title IX. We're not funding programs that do more than two genders. And here's a piece of news that came out of Maine, and it deals with the correction department in Maine where that Maine has moved a biological male who calls himself a female into the women's prison in Maine. And Trump administration said, well, that just costs you $1.5 million because we're now withholding the money, the grant that we were giving to the prison system there in Maine, you don't get that money anymore. I mean, if you can't understand the difference between genders, And if you can't tell which is which gender, then you're not getting the money. So that's that is good news. A million and a half is massive to all of us. That is nothing for for the federal government. But that's a lot for states like Maine. And that does have a huge impact. And so I appreciate the fact that he's following through with the announcement he made and they're they're following that all the way down to little bitty, tiny amounts like one point five million, which is nothing to the federal government, but they're doing it even as something at that level. And they're watching what's happening in these other states. If you have a DEI program, if you can't tell how many genders there are, et cetera, I just appreciate the fact that they're bringing common sense back and enforcing it, or I guess they're not forcing you to believe that, but it's gonna cost you money if you don't go with where the science is instead of where your craziness is. So I appreciate that with Trump administration.
Rick Green [00:17:50] All right, Tim, back over to you, brother.
Tim Barton [00:17:52] Well, this one's from Kansas. And guys, I honestly had not seen this until right before as we were getting ready and just going through the stack of good news. And this was just from last week, although maybe it's a week and a half ago now because this isn't Friday, it's Monday. So yes, it was a week-and-a-half ago, but it's in Kansas and the Kansas legislature overrode Governor Laura Kelly's veto of pro-life bills, specifically House Bill 2062. It is something that would require the courts to consider child support from the moment of conception and extends tax exemptions to preborn children. Now, just those two thoughts are very fascinating that courts can look and right, if there's a pregnancy and some in this case, the father would say, hey, we want, I want you to have an abortion. She says no, and she wants to keep the child. There actually can be considerations for child support, depending on what those medical bills might be, et cetera, just fascinating. And then extending tax exemptions to preborn children. I am so supportive of that because every parent that to be a parent you have to have kids, but every parent has had kids has understood the reality of the expenses that there are surrounding childbirth. And the fact that we have to pay all of these expenses for the birth of a child, which is totally worth it. It's amazing. It's such an incredible gift of God. But then to not for the government, not necessarily to always recognize the money that's being spent on this process. Well, now that in Kansas, they're saying, Hey, we should look and these tax exemptions for preborn children. We should consider and include those. So it's huge. They overrode the veto. The house voted 87 to 38. The Senate voted 31 to 9, then there's House Bill 2382, which requires schools to include scientifically accurate fetal development videos and science curriculum. Now, the fact that the governor vetoed this, how unscientific are you to say, no, well, we wouldn't want kids to see how a fetal develop of an unborn child actually works. Right? Like, no, we don't want them to see what, what does a child look like an unborn child when they're six months or seven months or eight months that that would be terrible for school kids to see. And of course, the only reason you'd be against the students learning is because it would make them more pro-life. It would make recognize the evils of what abortion actually is and so the governor vetoes this again, the good news is It, the veto was overridden by the state legislature. The house voted 84 to 41 and the Senate 31 to nine to override the veto. So one of the things that we've actually talked about last week when we were up in Arkansas and so many good pieces of legislation came out of Arkansas, dad, one of points that, that you made was in many cases, if you don't have a governor who's willing to sign these things in the law, and maybe at times even champion some of these, there are many where these bills are not as successful because you don't have the leaders in favor of it. You have a governor against it. Well, in this case, the governor was against these pro-life bills, and yet... There was enough support in the house and the Senate and the house and Senate were courageous enough to stand up against the governor and say, nope, governor, you are wrong on these issues. And they voted to support and defend the unborn and even help students in school learn the actual scientific process of human development of an unborn child in the mother's womb overall, incredible news and kudos to the Kansas legislature.
David Barton [00:21:37] And actually, I've got to add to that, that Kansas in many ways is like what we have with North Carolina. They both have super majorities of conservative legislators. And when you look at a state rep, how many governors you got in the state? You got one in the State. How many state reps you have in the legislature? You know, 70, 90, 100, 150. So what you're seeing is at the low level, these people are voting in conservatives across the state by huge numbers. 60, 70, 80% of the legislature is conservative. But they're not voting in a conservative governor at the top. And so what you have with North Carolina for the last eight to 10 years is they get all this stuff passed but it's by overriding the governor's vetoes. And now you've got three pro-life laws passed in Kansas, it's overriding the governor vetoes, if you're gonna send all those pro-lives legislators to the legislature, why don't you send a pro-live governor as well? Makes it a whole lot easier. So they overwhelmingly have these numbers in the states and by the way, going back to... You know, Tim, what you were just talking about, showing the science of fetal development, she vetoed that. Isn't it ironic that Democrats are the ones who kept saying, follow the science when it came to COVID and there was no science. And now that you can follow the signs when it comes to fetal develop, we don't want that happening. I mean, they're the most anti-science group maybe out there. Their science that they wanna push is not science and the science that is there, they don't wanna push. So just an irony to that. Jumping into another piece of good news and this kind of goes back to Trump administration stuff again. They have just taken 6,300 individuals off of federal payments. There are 6, 300 illegal aliens who are getting federal payments and they have criminal records and they're listed in the terrorist screening database. Now why in the world would we be paying payments to people who are here illegally who also have criminal record who are also in the terrorists watch list database and this is the kind of stuff that previous administrations were doing. They've stopped that and they said, you know, this this is part of how you you get get self-deportation when you stop paying people to come here and break the law and stop rewarding them when they come here And do break the law you're gonna have less people come here to break the laws. And so this is this is good news from that standpoint and I love the announcement they put out when that when they stop paying these these sixty three hundred. They said these programs do not serve a significant public benefit. Really? Paying people that are breaking the law, yeah, that doesn't serve a significant public benefit, nor are they necessary to reduce levels of illegal immigration, that's true because it's inviting people to come, nor does it sufficiently mitigate the domestic effects of illegal immigration, and it's not serving their intended purposes and it is inconsistent with our foreign policy goals. So just real simple, this doesn't line up with what needs to be happening, and it so good to see them following through, again, down even to these little, $6,300 is not that much when you have tens of millions. But you know what? They're doing the right thing wherever they find this stuff and that's really good to see.
Rick Green [00:24:34] Well, and, and like, like we said earlier, we may not, we may not learn about a lot of these things ever. And then some of them we won't learn about till later. And, and sometimes we just won't be able to, you know, catch up with it. And so we may, we maybe giving good news a year or two or three years from now, but hey, we just wanted y'all to know two years ago, they found this and they did this and it was really good. And we wanted you to know about it. All right, Tim, go ahead.
Tim Barton [00:24:54] All right. Well, real quick, the last one, it says the military starts reenlisting troops ousted for refusing COVID-19 vaccine. And we've talked a little bit about what that might look like for some of those, depending on when they're removed, if they already have another job, do they want to come back now and would there be some kind of damages, et cetera, but in this article, it does highlight, in this case, they're the second paragraph says there's three activity soldiers that have been brought back and it lists them by name, it goes through some of the details, at least to some extent now bringing back as I was reading this article highlights, it's not a huge amount it then identified there's 40 Marines that they've completed the initial questionnaire, which is the first step to re-enlistment. So there's a process of people that are now going through it's nowhere near the amount of people that were fired, were discharged, whatever terminology we want to use with it. But the bottom line is there are some people that are coming back now and how refreshing it is to have a commander in chief, to have a secretary of defense that not only welcomes them back to a hero's welcome, but is once again, working to put the interests of America and her soldiers first.
Tim Barton [00:26:10] Yeah, Tim, that was one, you know, we talked about a long time, prayed for a long time, we heard the awful stories. We all knew people had friends and family that went through all that. So yeah, this is one of those that we really wanted to see happen for sure. So many, so many stories, folks do we need a good news Tuesday? No, we can't. We gotta get, we gotta catch up with some of our interviews, but who knows? Maybe we'll just have a good Nnws week at some point to catch up with all this, if you missed any of it, be sure and visit our website, wallbuilders.show for the radio program. And then of course, go get those good tools. And resources at wallbuilders.com. Thanks so much for listening to The WallBuilder Show.
