A Patriotic Night In Washington

Eight hundred fifty thousand fireworks can light up the sky, but it cannot fix a country that forgets what it is celebrating. We start with the 250th weekend energy in Washington, D.C., including the heat, the crowds, and a fireworks display so massive you could feel it from miles away. Then we talk about one of the most moving parts of the celebration: a patriotic show-and-tell of historic American flags, from Revolutionary War victories to Iwo Jima, paired with the presence of veterans and Medal of Honor recipients.

From there, we pivot to the week’s core “good news” theme: a Supreme Court term that, in several major rulings, nudges the nation back toward constitutional originalism and clearer separation of powers. We walk through immigration and asylum policy, why Congress can set limits on judicial review, and what it means when the Court actually acknowledges boundaries on its own reach. We also unpack the growing debate over the federal bureaucracy, including decisions that strengthen presidential authority to remove certain agency leaders and pull “independent agencies” back toward accountability.

We close with a fast, practical roundup of other headline rulings touching free speech and religious liberty in counseling, parental rights, Second Amendment public carry restrictions, redistricting and race, campaign spending limits, and fairness in women’s sports. If you care about how Supreme Court decisions shape daily life and who holds power in government, this conversation connects the dots without the legal fog.

Subscribe for more Good News Friday updates, share this with a friend who follows Supreme Court news, and leave us a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] How do you start Good News Friday after such an incredible once in a lifetime 250th weekend that was so amazing. It's Good News Friday. And there's so much to share and I'm sure everybody else is still on their red, white and blue high from an incredible, incredible 250th, of course there's been stuff leading up to it, but man, last weekend guys, absolutely amazing. Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton, it's Good News Friday. And I know you guys got a lot to share, but I just first got to ask you. Wasn't that an amazing weekend? I mean, all the way around. In DC, at the campus, I mean all over the country, celebrations of our birthday. 

Tim Barton [00:00:42] It was absolutely incredible. We got to be in DC for mostly the entire week. I think we were, we weren't there Monday. We flew in Tuesday, but so we're there most of the week. It's very hot. Especially there was a couple of times we were doing stuff from the main stage. It was over a hundred degrees. The heat index was over 110. I mean, and we're generally speaking, walking around in sports coats or suits, so it's just ridiculous. It was actually nice when we weren't doing some of the main stage events and we didn't have to wear the suits or the sports coats in general, but man, it was incredible. And guys, we've all traveled to places where you take pictures of something. And you look at your picture and you're like, that did not do justice to what I just saw. That's how I feel about the fireworks show. That was the most incredible, unbelievable fireworks show that we've ever been around. And by saying around, we had our, Gabby and I, my wife, we had our two little girls there. So we're in a hotel miles away and our girls are in bed. The fireworks are starting at midnight Eastern time. And my wife is like, I can't believe we're missing this. And we said, look, let's just go. Girls are asleep. Let's go outside and see if we can see them from the front of the hotel. Because you can hear them so loudly. So we go out and miles away, we are watching this unbelievable firework show that seems incredibly, not just loud, but incredibly large from miles away. It was astounding. Dad, I know you got to see a little bit more of it than we did, but when we talk about all the amazing things that happened, and there was a lot of amazing things that happened that week, genuinely incredible stuff. That was, to me, one of the most mind-blowing. We didn't even get into all the flyovers and what some of those planes were doing and how impressive and incredible those planes were, but that fireworks show was absolutely amazing. 

David Barton [00:02:46] Yeah, that fireworks show was amazing. 850,000 fireworks. That ought to keep several businesses going for the next year just resupplying fireworks. But I was super impressed with the program that night. It was not what I thought it was gonna be. I didn't know what Trump was gonna talk about or where he was gonna go, but I did not expect him to do an entire patriotic program just by doing a show and tell of American flags. And I was floored with some of the flags they brought out. I didn't know we still had a 1777 battle flag from Saratoga, the first major victory in the revolution and bringing that flag out and seeing that, and it was in, you know, they preserved it really well. It was a remarkable shape. But then going through all the other flags and it got to the one, the flag at Iwo Jima, you know the one we see on the Marine Corps Memorial where the Marine guys are raising that flag at Iwo Jima. And then having a guy who was on Iwo Jima and saw that flag being raised there to salute that flag. It was just awesome having Medal of Honor recipients and some of the other soldiers who had been in those various wars, who had seen those historic flags and were part of it. I thought that was just an awesome way to make a really positive look back at history through the eyes of heroes and through the eye of flags that had seen so much. I thought that I thought the program was just really remarkable and then cap all that off with that firework display it was a great, great, great patriotic night a night of a lot of history. I loved it. 

Rick Green [00:04:19]  Well, guys, I know we're not supposed to be envious or jealous, but I got to admit after our fireworks show here at the campus, biggest one we've ever had, biggest one I've ever seen in person. Thank you. Our friends, Jane and Terry Bailey and Flash Point for contributing to that. But then I came back home and I watched the DC fireworks and I thought, wow, I thought we had fireworks. We didn't have fireworks. We had like the little, you know, California version, like the little sparklers. That's basically all we had compared to. Like you said, David, 850,000 shells, what it looked like on TV. Now you guys were looking at it in person, but it looked to me like the whole horizon is lit up with constant fireworks and then you go up another couple hundred feet and there's a whole nother layer of fireworks. It wasn't just, I mean, it was incredible to watch even just on screen. 

David Barton [00:05:07] Well, I tell you, bro, it was amazing because if you've ever seen a plan of Washington DC, it's a historic map that's out there, Potomac River flows along the outside of the city. If you're at the White House and look toward the Jefferson Memorial, Jefferson Memorial sits right on the shore of the Potomac River. What they had, the Potomac River, which kind of surrounds about half the city, two sides of the city are bounded by the Potomac, and then the other two sides are kind of land bound. But on the Potomac, they had all these barges floating on the Potomac that were platforms for the launching. So really the platforms from which they were launching fireworks stretched out for nearly four miles down the river. So, all over the city of DC, it was really kind of close to you at some point because of all those barges, fireworks barges they had on the river, it was just remarkable. I mean, we were a good two miles from the White House at the apartment. And we looked right down the street at the bottom of our street, which is the Potomac down toward the Navy yard. They had a barge down there firing off and it was, it was just amazing. It was somebody said that it was the, the width of it was four miles long, but two miles wide is the perimeter around the city that they were firing fireworks in not just one location, but really many, many, many locations. It was, it was remarkable. 

Rick Green [00:06:27] Absolutely amazing. Well, and of course, as we've said in the year leading up to this, it's more than just waving the flag and having fireworks and all that. It's of course understanding why we're celebrating, understanding why the flag is, is worthy of being waved. And there's been so many great opportunities for that. And, uh, just every, you know, special event, the rededication, I mean, all of it's been a great civic lesson, the state fair and everything that's happened has just been fantastic. And of course it doesn't stop now. And even more important to do it over the course of the next year, but, uh, but man, I didn't mean to derail us from your regular good news guys, but I knew y'all got to see some of that stuff in person. I had to hear it. So, what, uh what, what do you want to do first on good news, David? 

David Barton [00:07:07] Well, I'm going to start with some Supreme Court review and I know that over the over the months we've had individual cases we talked about and I don't know you and Tim even talked about some of this week or two ago but an article came out that kind of looked back over the whole term the eight, nine months and looked at some of the major highlights and when I looked at that article there were so many things that were fundamental shifts in the way we've been doing things in the courts that are back more in the direction of original intent, more in direction of constitutionalism. I thought you know might be fun just to kind of walk through some of those overviews this, I don't want to call it post-mortem because this is really that the good decisions that came down and there were some we didn't agree with but overall man this was such a strong, good year I thought might be funded just kind of go back and review some of those good decisions and came down from the court and what it means for the country 

Rick Green [00:07:57] All right, good. So actually there, and I guess that means not just this last week or two in the final decisions, but you're looking at kind of the whole term of the court. 

David Barton [00:08:06] Yeah, going back for the last eight or nine months that the court's in session, and I remember some of these from, we had them on Good News Fridays five, six, seven months ago, and I thought, oh yeah, I forgot about that. So, it was fun looking back. And two that came down within the last couple of weeks that I thought were really significant is the fact that the Court upheld the right of President Trump to fire heads of agencies. And that's part of the bureaucracy, the fourth branch of government that we fought with for since the seventies. And, and it's, it's amazing because, and there's two, two decisions I want to point to here, but one of them is so significant and it was, it was where the President ended, some of the deportation protections that have been there under other presidents. And the one that really, I thought was really significant was the one they said, okay, you can apply for asylum without being in the United States. And what you gotta do is when you leave your country, the first country you go into outside of your country you can apply for asylum right there. You don't have to come to the United State and do that. So if you're way down in South America, you don't need to go through a dozen Central American countries and then get to Texas or California and then declare asylum when you get here. When you get out of your county in South American, the next safe country you come to, you can apply for asylum right there. And why that is so significant is that's the way the law was written decades ago, and within that law it had one of these exceptions clauses, which goes to the Constitution, Article 3, Section 2, where it says this part of this law is not subject to judicial review. In other words, court, keep your nose out of this. This is a congressional power the right to decide what happens with immigration, it is not the control of the court, and despite that clause being there, and it's been there for several decades, courts in recent years have been saying, no, no, you can't tell us what we can and can't look at. You can't tell us what we can and can't make rulings on. Yeah, we can. I mean, this is what the Constitution specifically says, that Exceptions Clause. And so the court actually upheld that and said, no the Exceptions Clause is there. And if the president and Congress want to make immigration policies and tell us to keep our nose out of it, then they can do that. And I thought that is such a massive power shift and to allow the President to say, and by the way, people didn't like the birthright decision that came down, you know, that once you're in the United States a child is born here. That's why you don't need the Birth Right Decision because when you're another country and the child might be born there, that doesn't give them automatic citizenship. And so the way it was until the court started getting judicially involved in this. The Birthright Citizenship wasn't the big deal that it is today because you were still outside the country of the United States when you gave birth oftentimes, unless you'd already been accepted as a citizen here. And so going back and limiting that power and telling the courts to back off, I thought that was really, really significant. And the other one was ending deportation protections. And he said, hey, we gave a temporary status to Haitians and Syrians. They're not facing the crisis they were at the time we gave that status and so we're not we're saying that it's not a temporary crisis anymore the crisis is over you guys can go back to your country you don't have temporary status to remain here and the courts agreed with him on that which is really big 

Tim Barton [00:11:34] Yeah, and also the fact that there's people that were in the U.S. That had temporary status that were here for 15 or 20 years on temporary status. So it's one thing right, if we were looking and there's a crisis happening because even if the argument was look the crisis happened a year and a half ago but they just haven't recovered you could make a a much better case if you're still in the realm of a year or two from when the crisis occurred but when you're 15 or 20 years removed at this point it's just utterly ridiculous which is part of what, Rick, you and I were able to get into a little bit. And man, at this point wasn't it maybe two weeks ago. I don't remember when it was. We've all been traveling so much. Rick, I know you are still on the road up in, I don't know, are you still in Delaware, wherever you are for leadership Congress? Dad, you're up in D.C. I'm in Arkansas. We are still constantly on the go and move with a lot of stuff happening. But Rick, as you and I got into it, it's refreshing to see, to some, for some decisions, the court does seem still, does seem to still have common sense. Whereas in other things, as Justice Thomas pointed out, you know, I don't know what some of these other justices, what they've been referencing and reading, like the 14th Amendment, saying, no, that applies to anybody that just happened to, you, know, walk through that open border. They're clearly a U.S. Citizen, because that's what the 14 Amendment says, and Clarence Thomas is like it's actually the exact opposite of what the person presenting the bill in the Senate, like the speech he gave where he laid it out, it was the exact opposite of what you are saying. So, in some areas of the court still, it's mind boggling how they could arrive at their decision. But in things like Dad, some of the things you're mentioning now, there is some really good things that came, which at this point, I don't think we should be optimistically hopeful that they're going to make all these great constitutional decisions going forward, but at least In some areas, they didn't completely disregard original intent and constitutionality. 

David Barton [00:13:40] But I'm a little more even optimistic than that. The fact that the court itself said, hey, you can tie our hands. We do understand that we can't review every single thing we want to and that we've done in the past 20 or 30 years. Even the fact that they acknowledge the Exceptions Clause and said Congress told us to keep our nose out of this, even doing that once, I don't know that I can recall that being done two times in the last 40 years. And to see one of them here. And Tim, you mentioned Justice Thomas, and it's interesting, in that Remain in Mexico Policy that you don't have to be in the U.S. to claim asylum. He made such a profound statement. He said that, look, illegal aliens don't equal protection rights under the Constitution. The Constitution gives rights to citizens. If you're not yet a citizen, you don't have equal protection rights, the Constitution is not the document that protects you if you're a not a citizen. And I thought, you know, that's another really good understanding of the 14th amendment, as citizens’ rights belong to citizens, they don't belong to non-citizens. If you become a citizen, then they belong to you, but not until you become a citizen and just seeing them make those distinctions, I just haven't seen the court kind of tie its own hands in a really long time. And it was nice to see that kind of stuff in those decisions. So, I thought that was a real fun one. 

Rick Green [00:15:04] Well, in fact, David, I think the only thing I would add to what you guys said, not really a correction as much as an addition. You said it was a shift in the direction of the court. I would just say it's a restoration of the direction, of the, of the court, right to actually go back to the Constitution, which was your point that this is getting us back to Exception Clause and, and for them to actually acknowledge that, which, which is taking away their own power, right, or acknowledging limits on their power, which we see so little of that in the political sphere these days, most people are grabbing power. And this would be a direction of them actually saying, no, this is something we cannot do, and we choose not to. Really, really good stuff. Hey, quick break. I know we're going to stay on the courts for a little while longer. We'll be right back. You're listening to Good News Friday on The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:16:50] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday, celebrating some of the Supreme Court decisions. As Tim pointed out, there have been some bad ones too, always good, bad, and ugly, but more good than bad. And some of these good ones are, as David said, a major shift back to some of those basic constitutional principles of Separation of Powers. 

David Barton [00:17:08] Well, another one that category that I thought was really significant was the court upheld the right of the President to fire certain people, like he wanted to fire the head of the Federal Trade Commission. That's an independent agency. I think it's created in 1921. And under that there, there was a court ruling in 1935 that said, hey, you know, you can't, you, can't get into those agencies. And the court said, yeah, he can. He's the head. You can't have an agency that's not accountable to somebody. So, you have the Federal Trade Commission, you're saying that the President can't change the head of that if they're going in a direction he thinks is wrong or that Congress can't do that. You're saying when they get put in there, they're just there for as long as their 12-year term regardless of what they do. And that's essentially the way they've done it since 1935. And so there were a couple of Supreme Court decisions where the court said no, the President has the right to do this. And so. They didn't give him all the agencies he wanted, but they definitely gave us some agencies that have been independent of the people and Congress and really anybody, except the persons running the agencies. So, it's a good step in starting to pull agencies back under the Executive Branch as to where they belong. Now, oftentimes Congress creates those agencies. And so, if Congress creates an agency, it too has the right to give rules and regulations. But the President is the one that has to execute it. And so, for the courts to have not allowed the Congress or the President to get involved in some of these agencies has really helped grow the swamp. And for President Trump to be able to step in and say, hey, your philosophy is wrong. It's opposite of where I'm trying to lead the nation financially or militarily or anywhere else and take some of the agencies and replace their heads. That's more of the way it should work and that's more the way should be because it then is a government of the people, by the people and for the people not of the agencies. Which is that fourth branch of government that's been so unaccountable for so long. 

Rick Green [00:19:10] So much good news there, man. I know, Tim, you may want to stay on the courts. I don't know if you want to go to another topic, but you know, this is the end of the term, right? So we won't see any more. I'm guessing we won't see any anymore. They're not dropping any more decisions during this term.  

David Barton [00:19:23] No. Not dropping anymore and if you want me to, I'll just hit the other highlight which just kind of remind everybody, Colorado they upheld Colorado's what's called a conversion therapy ban, which said hey you can't counsel young people in Colorado that that you can be something other than a homosexual or transsexual 

Tim Barton [00:19:42] And let's, let's clarify on this too. So, one of the things that the left is often really, really good at, and really, it's, it's whoever is in charge of, the naming and the phrasing of a lot of things we see in states, whether it be ballot measures or amendments or even court cases,  one side often, if they're in charge, they will frame it in a way that seems favorable for them. And again, we've seen this politically our entire lives. Politicians have done this is the reason that when you look at a leftist who are very much in favor of murdering unborn children, they say no, no, no it's women's health care. They have framed it in a way that seems favorable to them. And often is misleading from what it is. So, when we talk about Dad, when you’re referencing the court's decision and somebody in Colorado is like, what you're trying to do Conversion Therapy, no, when you have an individual and they have a same-sex attraction, and they're going, man, as a Christian, I don't want to carry this burden. What do I do? How do I navigate it? You know, I read my Bible, and I see that God made male and female to come together. How do i navigate this? In Colorado, they said, wait a second, if you're a Christian counselor, and if you are trying to help someone who actually wants help on this issue, well, you're trying to convert them from who they actually are, and so this is Conversion Therapy. And then there's all these crazy things that get associated with it that is not at all how Conversion Therapy works now, where they say you're going to use like these weird electroshock, whatever, you know, nonsense is out there. That's not how it works at all. But they do a really good job framing it. I'm saying all of this because, ultimately, what the decision was from Colorado was about saying that we allow any counselor to promote any ideology they want unless you are a Christian counselor and you are promoting Christian ideology. If you are Christian counselor, promoting Christian ideology, then that is discrimination and we don't allow that. The Supreme Court upheld and said that's utterly ridiculous that Christians actually can give Christian counsel to people that are coming to them for that very reason. And again, I say all this because a lot of times the way that things are phrased or worded, it's phrased to help a certain side promote an ideology. So, it sounds like they're the good guys in this decision, but that's not at all what's happening in this Colorado case. It was something that Colorado was yet again, discriminating against Christians for holding Christian ideals and the Supreme Court smacked him down and said, no, you can't do that. 

David Barton [00:22:21] Yeah, it was really cool to the way the court went at it because like you're saying, Tim, conversion is a ridiculous term. That's not what it is. And the argument from the left is, oh, you're trying to take a trans person and convert them into a straight person. It's a conversion therapy. That's it. And as the court pointed out, well, the trans people are trying to convert straights into trans, but that seems to be okay in Colorado. Is it not okay to give the other side of that story? And so that conversion therapy is They're so good at naming things opposite of what they really are. And they do exactly the same thing, but it's for a different purpose and different end. And the court pointed that out. 

Tim Barton [00:23:01] Yes, and broadly speaking too, and then I don't mean to get in the weeds because there's more to cover but just to help people see the illogical position of this everything about counseling under this Idea is conversion to some extent. If you have an unstable person, you're trying to convert them to be more stable If you have an angry person, you're trying to convert them to be more kind or compassionate or loving. So everything about counseling, you are trying to help them be something other than what they feel or are motivated in that moment. Whatever it might be. Obviously, I am, this is not, it is generality. There's more details than that. But I'm just pointing out. This is where the inconsistency is, because they would never look and go, wait a second, you're talking to a bipolar person, you're trying to help them to manage and navigate their emotions, and you're talkin' to this angry person, you're tryin' to help him not be angry, you wouldn't be like, oh, that's Conversion Therapy and that's wrong. And I'm saying this because it's very clear what they were targeting was Christian ideology and Christian values of a specific issue, not the idea that you're tryin' to help somebody be something different then how they feel or they are acting in that moment. Because that is much of what counseling actually is about in many ways. Again, not to digress. There's more cases to get to, but the other side is often so intellectually dishonest, but when they can frame it a certain way to help promote their worldview and ideology, that's why they do it. 

David Barton [00:24:32] Some of the other things that happened, going back weeks, it was way back months ago, literally, is the Supreme Court struck down California's law that said, hey, if a kid wants to convert, change genders, don't tell the parents. And the court said, no, no. You don't withhold from parents that information. It is their kid, they have a right to know and you can't counsel them and keep that away from the parents, and so that was the good one upholding parental rights. And Hawaii, they said, hey, you can't tell people they can't carry guns into public places unless they have previous permission from the owner of the business or whatever, of the businesses. So, Hawaii's anti-gun law got struck down, which that's one that's used in other states as well. There was, of course, we talked earlier about how they said you can do redistricting based on race. You can't create a district to keep a black person or any other color from being elected or to cause a black or any of the color to be elected. You got to redistrict without regard to race, which that changed so much that's been interpreted opposite to that for about 40 years, going back to the sixties, maybe 60 years, um, campaign spending limits. They also struck that down and said, you can't tell people how to spend their money that you can have disclosure, but you can't, you can't, tell Republican parties they can't spend money on Republican candidates. And that was some of the coordination that was going on. There was also the issue of the girls' sports. They upheld the law banning guys from being involved in girls' sport. They said that did not violate equal protection according to sex. So there's just a lot of things that happened this year that have really substantially reinforced I guess you say a direction against judicial activism. It's getting the courts out of so many things that they pushed themselves into over previous decades. We saw the courts backing out of several areas and leaving more freedom in place which they should do. 

Rick Green [00:26:31] Well, huge victories. We've got more good news to get to next week. Running out of time for today. Make sure you have a great weekend and go to our website wallbuilders.show to find more good news and our other programming there as well. Thank you for listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders Show.