Good News Is Real When Truth Shapes Culture

Decline is not inevitable, and neither is renewal. We bring you a rapid-fire Good News Friday with stories that cut across health, culture, courts, and American history, all through a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective that stays practical and grounded in real headlines. 

First up, we react to new data showing smoking among adults has fallen to an all-time low, with youth smoking also down, and we connect that to the simple idea of stewardship: when people choose healthier habits, families and communities feel the ripple effects. We also swap notes on World War II history, including a standout D-Day film recommendation and why honest storytelling about leadership and sacrifice still shapes how we see the nation’s 250th anniversary. 

Then we dig into a major cultural flashpoint: a member of Congress introduces a resolution to replace Pride Month with June as Family Month. We talk through what’s actually in the public statements around it, the history of which presidents issued Pride Month proclamations, and why local action matters just as much as federal action. If you serve on a city council, work in your county, or simply know your mayor, we lay out how these proclamations can shift at the community level. 

Finally, we cover two big legal developments: Florida’s case calling out Planned Parenthood for allegedly false advertising about the abortion pill mifepristone, and the NRB appeal challenging the Johnson Amendment and its chilling effect on church speech. We wrap with a surprisingly hopeful DC update as long-neglected fountains and memorials come back to life and new heroes are set to be honored. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people find Good News Friday.

Links to Good News Stories:

https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/06/03/congresswoman-ditches-pride-month/

https://nrb.org/nrb-filed-notice-of-johnson-amendment-appeal-to-the-fifth-circuit-court/

https://www.lifenews.com/2026/06/01/judge-rules-against-planned-parenthood-in-false-advertising-case/

https://www.theblaze.com/news/the-fountains-in-dc-are-back-on-it-turns-out-that-decline-was-a-choice

https://apnews.com/article/adult-smoking-cigarette-decline-survey-3dfc9d82fcc106e49a5706819d438239

https://notthebee.com/article/check-this-out-im-not-used-to-seeing-our-national-monuments-so-clean-

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the WallBuilders Show. This is the place where we take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Today though, it's Good News Friday. Looking forward to a lot of good news from David and Tim Barton. I'm Rick Green. You can learn more about all three of us at wallbuilders.com. Wallbuilders.com for all things historical, especially in the 250th this year. And then wallbuilders.show. If you want to catch up on the radio program. Enough of that guys, let's jump in. David, what's our first piece of good news today? 

David Barton [00:00:34] Well guys, my piece of good news is good news at least to me. I don't know if it's good news to everybody, but I've got this mentality that I like it when things go well for people and when they do things that, even if they don't understand why, it turns out right for them. And I believe that any time you apply God's Word, even people who don't understand it, don't know it, don't study it, that it's good for you. The scripture tells us, God says, everything I command you is for your good. And He tells us twice in the scriptures that our body's the temple of the Holy Spirit and we need to treat it like that. We need to treated it as a good place and keep it clean. And he talks about how you kind of clean out the inside and get the junk out. We're being told that things like bodily exercise are good for us over in First Timothy, that there is some benefit to bodily exercise. So I like it when people do things that are biblically correct, even if they don't have a clue that it is, even if don't a clue that it's good for them. I just like it. And it just, I'm really gratified when I see people doing things that I know are going to be good for them and good for the country, et cetera. So I'm going back to World War II days. Growing up, some of my great uncles and others that were in World War II, I recall everyone that I knew from World War II, a family member, was a smoker. I think smoking was just absolutely in back then. If I'd been at the time of the Founding Fathers with George Washington, those guys, I think nearly all of them smoked in some way. And they knew that until Benjamin Rush came out later in life and he said hey we now know smoking tobacco causes lung cancer, chewing tobacco causes mouth cancer, but if I hadn't known that I mean there's nothing in the Bible that says smoking is a sin, but if it hurts your body then there are principles about that. So the new study is just out now in the last few days and smoking among adults in America has dropped to an all-time low, only nine percent. With young people and we've seen a lot of expansion of smoking with young people in the last six to eight years. That even came down to seven percent. So it's really good news to me that there's so much more health going in America even if people aren't aware of why. You know there's not a Bible verse I can put to this. I just think it's a good biblical principle that once you know that something is healthy you need to do it. You need to do the things that they help keep that that temple where God resides on inside of us. Keep it in good shape, keep it keep it fit. And so I just I love that piece of good news that may not be good news to anybody else but that was good news for me to see that more and more Americans are becoming fit and that goes back to even a month ago when talking about how that Trump has reinstated the fitness thing for schools back like JFK used to do and then it went out under Obama but is back in now. So I think things that that lead to good physical health are positive things and I consider that good news. 

Rick Green [00:03:23] Well, and David, just a note for our listeners who may hear some of the background noise there, where you are, when you say we're going back to World War II and some of your uncles and that sort of thing, you're not in a, like time machine. You're in a regular airport. You're just stuck traveling tonight. And, anyway, I'll say, cause as soon as you said that we're going back, I heard the, you know, announcer at the airport there is, I thought, well, maybe the listeners are thinking, wow, he's really going to travel somewhere. 

David Barton [00:03:50] Rick, by the way, well you mentioned World War II and it reminded me yesterday. I saw the movie Pressure That's the movie about D-day and all the stuff that led up to it how that they were going to do it on a different day than June the 6th and how the weather and meteorologists are the ones who made the decision on it. And it is one of the best movies I have seen in forever. It is great. Now I'm going to say there's probably half a dozen scenes in there where there's cussing in it. But everything else is really pretty straight, it's moral. It's, you know, there's not stuff that I'm gonna worry about hurting my soul over. But I'm telling you, man, it was so accurate down to the dialog and the lines they had between each other and the fights that were going on internally over who's in charge and who's gonna make the final... It was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, so I'm going to throw it out with the caveat that oh it's got some language in it. But it's a historically accurate movie unlike few others that we've seen in a long time. 

Rick Green [00:04:49] Well, I had not even heard of it. I'm looking it up as you're saying that and yes, Brendan Frazier, Damian Lewis, got some star power. And I can't believe I hadn't heard of this. Okay Pressure. That's interesting. All right 

David Barton [00:05:01] I recommend it man it's especially you know I'm sitting in airport and then I'm about to get in another airport and I'm flying out to the USS Midway because this weekend we do a 250th celebration event out on the USS Midway which is named after the World War II battle Midway and that was an aircraft carrier that was used for 47 years all the way through Desert Storm. So, it's gonna be awesome doing a 250th celebration on that awesome ship. They were building it during World War II. They never got to use it. It came into line eight days after World War II ended, but it was the monster aircraft carrier back there in that time. So just World War II mind is kind of on my mind right now. But I saw that movie yesterday and I highly recommend it. 

Rick Green [00:05:44] I'm definitely getting some FOMO, some fear of missing out cause I was with our mutual friend JP Decker today at the White House and he said he was headed there with you to go, he's gonna be meeting you there I guess and for that Midway event with Moms for Liberty. So super excited about that. That's gonna, y'all are gonna have a great time out there and we appreciate all that the ladies at Moms For Liberty are doing as well. Tim, all right, now we'll finally toss over to you. Your dad and I are just having a great time talking about World War II and everything else. Maybe give you a chance to get in here. 

Tim Barton [00:06:13] Well, yes, this actually, guys, is a really great piece of news. One of our good friends, congresswoman Mary Miller, one of our favorite members up of the 435 members of Congress. She is one of her favorites. She's incredible. Congresswoman from Illinois. She introduced a resolution this week to replace the moniker of pride month and call June Family Month. Now there's a lot in this interview she did there's one article, even the resolution. Let me just highlight a few things she said. She said the traditional family is the greatest obstacle to the left's cultural agenda. Now this is from an interview, not the resolution to be clear. In an interview she was telling the reporter the traditional family is the Greatest obstacle to the Left's cultural agenda. Which is why they have spent decades trying to redefine, weaken and replace it. As America celebrates its 250th anniversary We should honor and strengthen the nuclear family, a husband and wife committed to one another for life and raising children with faith and purpose. Guys, we have seen moves, really for at least maybe the last couple of years, maybe a decade, maybe more people have talked about the idea of replacing pride month with something else, but to see a member of Congress and she started a caucus. It's a family caucus, which of all of their caucuses. That there are up in Washington, DC. There was not a family caucus because she started that. She has done so many incredible things. But one of the interesting things about this article, which by the way, the title of the article says, No More Pride, Congresswoman Ditch's Perverse Pride Month Gives June a New Name. And perverse in quotation marks. One of the things the article highlights is when a president actually recognized June as Pride Month. So guys, trivia. Who was the president who recognized June as Pride Month? 

David Barton [00:08:14] I'm gonna say it's gotta be Obama. This is probably wrong, but I'm going to go for Obama. 

Rick Green [00:08:18] Yeah, I'm thinking you guys always do this, right? It's like the obvious answer can't be right. You know, Obama, it can't be Obama, so it's got to be. 

David Barton [00:08:27] Rick, I got the same problem. I know it's Obama, but I know it's not because I know it’s Obama, because I know it, I know it can be. 

Rick Green [00:08:34] It's like the Price is Right and since you said Obama I'm gonna go one below you or one above you, you know how they would do that to try to bid. So I'm just gonna get George W right before that 

Tim Barton [00:08:44] Uh, so guys, let me, let me tell you, first of all, you're both wrong. It was president Bill Clinton. 

Rick Green [00:08:51] Ah, that far back. Huh? Wow. 

David Barton [00:08:53] 93?

Tim Barton [00:08:53]  But here's where it gets interesting. George Bush did not recognize June as Pride Month. President Barack Obama brought it back. Joe Biden promoted it. President Trump in his first term, uh, in 2019, so his third year in office in 2019... He had a post about Pride Month, but there was no official proclamation or government document done, and that was the only thing he did in all four years. And after Joe Biden, when he is now back in office, he says, we don't recognize Pride Month. In fact, the Department of Education, they're identifying June as Title IX Month because the landmark woman sports ruling was issued in June of 1972. So guys, just to be clear, The only presidents that issued proclamations in the last nearly 30 years were Democrat presidents. President Trump had a post, like social media posts, about it one time. And that's been all there is. And now you have a Republican congressman coming back and saying, Hey, we're changing this thing. We're not going to call it Pride Month or this, you know, perverse pride month. We're going to it Family Month. And again, in this interview, congressman Mary Miller, said, our survival as a country and civilization depend on the continuation of traditional marriage and family. It is fitting to observe a month of rededicating our nation to the importance of the traditional nuclear family. Strong families are the foundation of a strong nation. So guys, in the midst of the celebrations we could have, which I might have some good news articles on this coming later, of all of the major industries, the corporations, the sports teams. That are not promoting and celebrating Pride Month, we can celebrate that so much of the woke promotion is gone. It's also worth noting that we currently have a White House that is not lighting up. Or excuse me, we have a president in the White House who is not lighting up the White House with rainbow colors, being gay, not because of Noah's and God's promise to Noah, right? The wrong kind of rainbow colors. And we now have members of Congress that are actually working to reclaim June as Family Month. Overall, guys, this is really good news. 

Rick Green [00:11:16] I love it, man. And you're right. Mary's one of our best members of Congress. Just so classy and so good, so articulate, super proud of her and thankful she's there. And, I was just thinking though, Tim, the, you know, this is one we can encourage people to do at the local level too, right? Because you have all of these like city celebrations and, and county celebrations and proclamations. And I remember one of my mayor's, one of the pastors that got elected mayor after going through some of our trainings. And I want to say it's Lake Wales, Florida. It's one of those smaller towns outside of Tampa. I think it is. Anyway, Jack Hillagos, he got, he gotta like the mayor there. And he like two or three years ago turned June into Fatherhood Month and, and refused to do the pride thing called it Fatherhood Month, but, and I've heard of some other, you know, family type things at the, at the local level. If she could get this done at the federal level, just phenomenal. And even just getting people talking about it. We've got a lot of people out there that have gotten elected mayor. Are there on a city council, you can push this, folks. You can do this in your community. So don't just listen to us talk about good news in other areas. You be the one that goes and create some good news in your area and then let us know about it. So David and Tim can tell us about it on a Friday. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back, folks, you're listening to The WallBuilders Show on Good News Friday. 

Rick Green [00:14:34] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show, it's Good +News Friday. We've got David Barton stuck in an airport somewhere, hopefully gonna make a flight at some point. But David, it back over to you, man. What's your next piece of good news? 

David Barton [00:14:44] This deals with a federal court case out of Florida, and the Attorney General of Florida has sued a Planned Parenthood clinic there for false advertising. And here's what the clinic says, and boy, have I heard this with so many on the left, talking about Mifepristone, the abortion drug, the abortion chemical that can be prescribed, and it's a big issue because even all these states that now have banned abortion after Dobbs' decision, people in that state can get abortions by just through the mail. And Biden took all the barriers off this. It no longer requires a doctor's prescription kind of stuff. It's just pretty, I mean, it kind of does. You have to have a consult, a referral, but it's not like a typical prescription. It's kind of go see a doctor and now you can have it. So there's about 70% of the nation's abortions right now that are happening outside of abortion clinics. They're happening with this chemical abortion. And the statement that Planned Parenthood says on their website is these abortion pills are, quote... Safer than many other medicines like penicillin, Tylenol, and Viagra. Those aren't dangerous medicines as far as we know per se, but if you happen to get that abortion drug, and again it takes a physician consulting on that and recommending it, one out of 20 women end up in the emergency room with serious emergency complications. Now that's about 5%, I think it's 4.9%. And right now, the FDA triggers all sorts of warnings, even if it's one one-hundredth of a percent, not five percent, or 4.9, but one-one-hundredth. And so the Attorney General has gone to court on this, federal court, and said, hey, that's false advertising. The judge said, you're right, that' false advertising, because the numbers are really, really, really clear, so that's a significant win. It's a sit back for the left, a propaganda we know is not true, they're not bound by the truth anyway. And so what they're telling these women about how safe it is, it is not safe, not to mention the fact that we know that it takes at least one life away with that abortion. It hurts more than that life. It hurts the mother's life as well, as we know how many regret that afterwards after they find out more. So all this is a really good decision out of the First Circuit down in Florida that false advertising was part of Planned Parenthood pushing the abortion pill. 

Rick Green [00:17:10] Good news there, all right, Tim, back to you 

Tim Barton [00:17:11] Well guys, this one's coming from East Texas, but really it's a, it's a national issue, the title of the article says, NRB filed notice of Johnson amendment Appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court. This is something guys, I don't know if we've talked about on radio before. I know we've talk about it some individually off air, our friend Michael Farris, who, was part of Alliance Defending Freedom, ADF. And he actually, well, was a attorney for a lot of years defending, a lot of homeschool related issues and cases, trying to get homeschooling legal in all 50 states back in the days of the eighties and nineties when it actually was illegal in many states for parents to be in charge of their children's education. As crazy as that might feel, today to say that. And maybe depending on what state you're in, it doesn't feel as crazy. Cause some states are going, no, the hoops we have to jump through in our state to homeschool our kids is crazy. So not that this battle of, of the, the freedom of parents to educate their children has been fully won and, and being able to be freely enjoyed in all states, but Mike Farris is the guy who helped kind of lead the way on this. He's been a constitutional attorney for more years than I've been alive, quite honestly, and I'm in my forties. This guy's been doing this a long time. He's a friend for a lot of years for us, many decades. And he is the attorney in this case. He's the general counsel for NRB, which is National Religious Broadcasters. And this is a statement they released; Today, the plaintiffs in NRB versus Besant filed their notice of appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from the decision, the district court of the Eastern District Court of Texas in their case of the Eastern District Court said, you don't have standing to bring this. And what essentially what they point out and what they argue is they were saying that the IRS and the Johnson Amendment has been unevenly punishing or unevenly applying the law to punish conservative churches while allowing liberal churches and nonprofit organizations free reign when they support or oppose candidates. And as I was reading this guys, I thought of many times that, that candidates like Kamala Harris, as an example, would be in a church and the pastor would get up, even Joe Biden, we saw this. The pastor would get up and say, this is a man we need to hear from and we need the support or Kamala Harris. This is, this has someone we need get behind and support. And this is the person you need to vote for. And where pastors are literally saying the things that the IRS has told conservatives, you're not allowed to say, and so in this case, the NRB has intentionally filed suit saying, we think you are misapplying this. And ultimately We have argued for decades that this is unconstitutional from its inception for lots of reasons, which of course Mike Farris also believes. One of the things that he said about this, the Supreme Court has made it clear no one has to violate a law in order to challenge its limitations on freedom of speech or religion, recognizing that what the Eastern District Court has done saying, you don't have standing, he says, that's not true at all. He says, if you are, if there are If there are laws in place or there's application of the law, which would hinder people's freedom of speech or religion, we can challenge it. Now, the good news is it's going up to Fifth Circuit and hopefully it will be favorable to Fifth Circuit. But guys, the reason I wanted to highlight this on a Good News Program, it is good news that we are seeing people go on offense where a long time we've said, man, these things aren't constitutional. But there haven't always been the people who have said, well, let's just, let's bring a lawsuit. Let's put an end to this. And when you have a guy like Mike Farris, who has been a leader on so many issues and actually with Alliance Defending Freedom has won Supreme Court decisions, dealing with some basic constitutional rights, inalienable rights and freedoms. He's someone that has a proven track record. And now that they're targeting the Johnson Amendment, guys, this is in my mind really good news because this is the one thing that so many cowardly pastors will say, well, we're not allowed to talk about politics. You know, we are nonprofit status and I think ultimately, they're just more cowards than they are actually concerned about nonprofit status at this point. Again, though, I think it's good news that we are seeing people like the NRB, like Mike Farris go on offense. To try to bring an end to some of these unconstitutionally dictated things that have been misapplied, targeting conservatives and Christian nonprofits. To see this done away with will be really encouraging. 

Rick Green [00:21:52] Yeah, I love what you pointed out how long Mike's been in the fight and seeing these things and just knowing it takes time sometimes to get to the point where you can win these kinds of battles. But then even when you get the big wins, like even with homeschooling being, you know, over the hump in terms of being legal in most places, anyway, that the fight doesn't actually ever end. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and being willing to go after these things every, every chance we get. All right, David, let's see how fast your last one goes. We might get a chance to toss back over to Tim. Depends on how good this last one is. 

David Barton [00:22:20] This is good news about Washington DC. One of the guys in the Trump administration is a guy named Vince Haley and he is over all the domestic policy for Trump which puts him over all kind of the internal stuff in the US and one of the places we're really seeing that and I love this article it's talking about the fountains in DC are back on. So if you've ever been to Union Station and it used to be a really elegant place, I mean it was it was the depot in the United States that and Detroit at one time was just as good back in the early 1900s, but that's where trains came in and that's when busses would come in and people would get off there. And man, you knew you were in the capital city. It was elegant, the artwork was fantastic, and it has pretty much turned into a slum over the last 20 to 30 years. It's just gone downhill. And so outside Union Station is a big fountain, a beautiful marble fountain. It's Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain. And of course, Christopher Columbus in the era of COVID got to be, you know, everybody hated him. So, but the fountain has not been on in 20 years and they've cleaned it up. They took the graffiti off it. When Netanyahu came to America a couple of years ago, the pro-Palestinians got out there and painted on it, "Hamas is coming" to threaten Netanyahu’s entry in the US. I mean, all this graffiti on it, it's now gone. It is clean. The fountain is back on. I love what the White House said about it. They put a picture up with it, and it's beautiful, pristine white, and it said simply, decline is a choice. And that's true, decline as a choice, if you're gonna let this stuff go down, that is a choice. But they didn't just stop there. They turned the fountains back on at Lafayette Square, at Freedom Plaza, at Meridian Hill Park, and at six other historic fountains that have been dark in the last several decades in the U.S. They're coming back to life. And nine more memorials, the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, the Franklin, FDR Memorial, they're all getting upgrades on all their stuff. The reflecting pool there in front of the Lincoln Memorial, they just redid all that. So it is so cool to see that coming back and the pictures, I mean, it is bright white. It's almost like you got to have sunglasses to see the whiteness of that stuff. And I have not seen that in my record, I'm gonna say my recorded memory. I don't know, we've been going to DC for 40 years and maybe that Columbus Fountain was on back then, but they make a point here that the last time the Columbus Fountain was on was before the iPhone was launched. So it goes back a ways and so it's just wonderful to see the city being cleaned up and being turned around and Vince Haley is doing just a fabulous job. 

Rick Green [00:25:03] I think my first time to DC that I really remember and getting to see stuff like that was close to 40 years ago, about 36, 37 years ago. And I remember being so inspired by the beauty and the, and the you know, like you're saying the lit up monuments and everything else where it was clean. So it's, it's nice to get that back and Tim, you didn't you get to guy, I remember seeing a video of you at some of the new statues that President Trump is bringing in. 

Tim Barton [00:25:26] Yeah, I was going to say, guys, not only is it cool that they're cleaning up some of the statues that have been there for a while, they're making it much nicer. They're actually highlighting lots of other great American heroes that should be remembered and their story should be known and they should be celebrated. And there's actually people in the White House that we've been able to help pass on some stories and heroes that, hey guys, here's people you should consider and they've taken them because these are genuine American heroes. And so over the next couple of months, there will be hundreds of statues that they begin to put up around Washington DC. And so not only are we seeing the traditional really noted ones, cleaned up and restored, we can go back and appreciate again. There is an entirely new group of heroes. Most Americans have never heard or seen that they can go learn and discover, and it is so exciting to see. 

Rick Green [00:26:21] Man, that was a good, Good News Friday. I mean, they're all good, but that was lot of really unique stories, guys, across the board. So many good things happening out there. Hope everybody has a great weekend as you go into the weekend. Just be thankful, man. Have a heart of gratitude for the things that are happening in our country right now. It really is encouraging to see so many things turning around. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.