You've found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture. It's WallBuilders. Thanks for joining us today we're taking the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I'm Rick Green America's constitution coach and a former Texas legislator here with David
and Tim Barton. David is America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, Tim's national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, you can find out more about us at our two websites WallBuilders.com. That's our main site. And then WallBuildersLive.com is our radio site where you can get archives of the program. And you can also make your donation. Yeah, one time or monthly, whatever's convenient for you.
But when you come alongside us with those dollars, it amplifies our voice, we can reach more people, we can train more pastors, train more young people, teachers, all the different things that we're doing to restore America's constitutional republic, if you're looking for a good way to invest in freedom, make that donation today at WallBuildersLive.com. Alright, David and Tim, let's as we've been doing throughout February, and we'll do that for the rest of the month. Let's get to a
hero of history. Tim, who's our hero today?
The hero today is Stagecoach Mary fields. And guys, this is one of the more unique heroes we will highlight this month. And I say unique, because we've looked at some entrepreneurs, we've looked at some soldiers and military heroes. She is someone who is in a category all by herself. Dad, you and I did a episode on her for TBN a couple of years ago.
And it was so fun, being able to do a deeper dive into her story finding out more about her as we actually got to go on location in Montana telling part of the story and even like the Hollywood connection she had, she was a really fun individual to highlight.
She was fun to highlight and it was fun to be there on site in Montana, where she was where the mission was. She had grown up as a slave. She was a slave in the South. She was owned by a judge. She was enslaved by a judge, a Democrat Unionists judge. He was a Democrat who supported slavery, but it didn't think the United States should split over it. So he ends up being elected Democrat and my goodness, he went all over the United States, especially after the war ended.
I mean, he ends up helping write the constitution of I think it was... Was it Nevada, and California. He started a, actually started a mission in Florida. He served in Arizona. He's in just all sorts of states. And Mary after she was freed from slavery, decided to stay with the family. And so judge Dunne was married, they had children, but his wife ended up dying. And when the wife ended up dying, he said, Look, I can't raise the kids by myself.
Why don't you take them to my sister and the sister was up in Ohio and the sister was a Catholic nun. And, and so Mary took the five kids up to the nun in Ohio. And the Nan actually ends up getting called out to Montana to start a school out there for girls. And so it ends up that Mary goes with her out to Montana. So here's Mary, that is just, you know, following the family on this trek to Montana.
Well, let's point out that there was Mary field, Stagecoach Mary fields, and then it was Mother Amadeus, who was the sister, but it was Mary Amadeus. So there's a couple Marys involved. And even for mother Amadeus, who was in Ohio that she was called to Montana to go start this school. This was significant. So a mother she's more than just a individual nun, right? She's the leader of a convent, and she's going to Montana and Cascade Montana at that time, was not
this really docile place. And in general, Montana is not a docile place. It is one of the more beautiful states in the union, love visiting Montana, big open sky but as a southern boy, as a Texan. I do not know what to do when five months of the year you can't see the ground and there are feet and feet and feet of snow and it's in the negatives and like it's, it is crazy. This is not for the faint of heart. But mother Amadeus goes and so Mary fields goes with her out as
they're establishing this. And guys, for the sake of time, I know we need to condense this. For people that want more information, go to the WallBuilders website. You can learn more of her story, you look it up online, but the short of it is she goes out there she is a six foot tall woman she's 200 pounds. This is an era in American history where the average male was like five,
eight. So she is bigger than nearly every man she finds, that there was construction going on to the convent and Mary, really Mary field decides she's wants to help and she starts helping stuff where she ends up getting an argument with one of the construction workers and a fight ensues. She draws a pistol they get in a gunfight, nobody dies, nobody got a shot, but it led to the individuals actually...
Does that mean they were all just bad shots? Or was it the guns at the time?
I don't know if there was one warning shots involved, right? Like I don't know what was happening right now what we know is there was an exchange of gunfire. And the leaders there said, Hey, this is not going to be the most suitable place for you. That's not how we do things here. She was asked to leave. But Mary fields, her heart was so much, that she wanted to help the mother and the girls here the convent that she was trying to find a way to get back, well turns out that they needed a new
stage... or a mail carrier. And at the time, there wasn't a stage that would would make it out to where they, the women, the children were. And so Mary fields decides she's going to sign up and they actually had the...
The convent's 14 miles out of town with nothing there but rugged wilderness to get to. So you can imagine that mail route, I mean, there is nothing from the time you leave town, to the time you get the convent, except a lot of really rugged, dangerous stuff.
And in order to find a mail carrier for this route, there apparently was some level of competition in town. And apparently, Mary Field was able to harness a team and faster and drive it better than all the men in town at least the men that competed in this vying for this position as mail carrier. So she wins this competition. She's chosen to be the mail carrier. And one of the noted things about her is that Mary Fields was America's first black female US postal carrier. So this is
kind of significant for her. She had a mule named Moses, and she preferred not to take it like a stage or some kind of wagon.
Then how did she get the name Stagecoach Mary?
Well, that's a great question because what they recognized out at the convent is she never once failed to bring in the mail Not even once. And this was a big deal because even though she preferred to ride her mule, Moses, there were times when the weather was so bad that she couldn't ride Moses in the
snow. She had snow shoes, and she would make the 14 mile hike on her snow shoes through blizzards there were reports at times she had to fight off packs of wolves like this woman's life was crazy in what she did, but she was so reliable. She never missed a delivery. They said she's as reliable as a stage as a stagecoach. The stagecoach, you can depend on it, the stagecoats... right, when they're going to come to town, they're going to bring you your
mail she's just as reliable. So she got the nickname Stagecoach Mary, because she always brought them their goods, always delivered their mail. As the course of her life goes on, there was a really fun biography that was written about her and I'm gonna say after her death, but it was written by a Hollywood like A-level big deal Hollywood actor, who was?
One of my favorite actors Gary Cooper, He did the big movies with Cecil B DeMille, the the Unconquered back at the French and Indian War and he did all these great movies. And he grew up there in that little town of Cascade. And she, when she... because she couldn't stay at the convent, but she loved it. They... Mother Amadeus helped her get set up with the business in town, helped her open a restaurant. And so Mary is there taking care of the people and feeding them but she
wasn't a good businesswoman. If you couldn't pay for the food, she just give it to you because she wanted to help you. And so she went out of business in the restaurant two or three times. And then she got into a laundry business but everybody knew her and apparently it's a small town and she babysat all the kids in town. I mean, she was like an aunt for everybody. And so Gary Cooper grows up in this town
with her there. And it was so interesting that she... you know, Tim as you said, she said she was rough and tough and tumble she she cussed a lot. She fought a lot. She drank a lot. She was the only lady allowed in the saloons in town. The mayor gave an exemption for her
Right, the mayor passed a special exemption, which also related to her they... every year on her birthday, they would have a town holiday a town celebration all the kids would get out of school for this, which I can only imagine every kid had to love her. Right? She's got to be the greatest thing ever. We get out of school on her birthday. This
is awesome. One of the things that Gary Cooper wrote about her was that she was born a slave somewhere in Tennessee, Mary lived to become one of the freest souls ever to draw a breath, or a 38! referring to a pistol. So many fun things about her that the end of the story is she does end up getting saved. She had such a heart for Mother Aamdeus for the other nuns for the kids there, on the mission and she ends up converting to Christianity a really neat end
of the story. There's so much more but when you look at some of the accomplishments, the first black woman to carry the mail US Postal Service, that's significant. And then the fact that she was so tough and so courageous and really just like made for the Wild West. She's someone that should be remembered way more than she is today.
So, she's the lady born in the 1830s. So that's back when Andrew Jackson was president, and she lived to 1914. So think about all the things she saw across her life not on the Civil War. She lives in the World War One, you're talking about planes and cars and all sorts of things. Just her lifestyle what she would have had that's an amazing story for a woman, that's a really good hero to look back to.
And as always, there's more information at WallBuilders.com You can download these biographies and also for her, you can go to America's Hidden History, a series we did for TV, you can get the episode you can get the whole series where we actually go on site and tell more of the story, but she was a really fun person to help re-cover and re-tell her story.
Another great story guys, we got a lot more coming throughout the rest of the month here in February, we're getting close to halfway but a lot of great stories to share and everything's available at WallBuilders.com After the break, guys, we got Chris Ruddy with us from Newsmax he's one of the cofounders and CEO of Newsmax and of course everybody's kind of seen this in the news I think where Donald Trump has spoken out against what DirecTV did here in
canceling Newsmax. It's not the first one they canceled One America News first, apparently you know Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House was asking them to do... it's just bad guys I mean this is bad collusion between government and these distribution outlets for major media and when I say that it's it's almost like a utility, it's getting to be that way. But more importantly, why is government telling these outlets like direct TV who is fake news and who's not who's quote-unquote
misinformation. So it's a bad thing to happen so we're gonna find out from Chris exactly what happened and what people can do about it. So Chris will be with us when we return. Stay with us you're listening to WallBuilders? Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. We got Chris Ruddy with us we're talking about the whole Newsmax thing and just the continued effort to cancel anybody that's not part of the woke culture.
Chris thanks for some time today, man, appreciate you coming on.
Thank you. Thank you for your incredible work.
Well so tell us about what how did this happen with DirectTV? What is the you know... And if you can give us a couple of minutes of just education on how Newsmax gets carried by folks like DirecTV and then how the cancellation happened.
Well, let me start this way saying we know that the liberal left is trying to close down conservative voices, Christian voices. They've been doing this in a big way since '20 election and Newsmax has suffered like a lot of other media in that area. By big tech, Facebook, Google YouTube and we also are a cable news channel.
We reach a lot of Americans maybe 30 or 40 million Americans regularly through our channel and there are a lot of people want to close us down in the House Democrats under Nancy Pelosi actually sent a letter to AT&T, Direct TV and other cable channels saying remove One America, Newsmax and Fox News for spreading misinformation, largely about the election. We want them off, and AT&T actually complied they removed the One America channel. They now have removed Newsmax channel, all in
the past year. And Newsmax was in 13 million cable homes on DirecTV. We had a very large footprint there. And now all of that's been removed. They claim that both One America and Newsmax were for cost cutting, to save money for people. Well, there's a couple of problems with this. First, they're keeping 22 liberal channels, news channels, that cost you
hundreds of dollars. And they're very costly and most of them have lower ratings and Newsmax were the fourth highest rated cable news channel in the US. That's Nielsen numbers. And so that doesn't make any sense that we were seeking a fee hundreds of cable channels have agreed to give us a small fee at all cable channels get a license fee so if you don't know this, ESPN, Fox News and HBO they all make money on their licence fees from these
cable subscribers. And Newsmax wanted a fee of about $1 per year. per subscriber. And Direct TV said this is not acceptable was too excessive. Well, we have based on our readings we should be getting like $5. And we see that CNN gets $14. Everybody else previously agreed some minor rate. And they don't want us. So they said, Look, we're not going to give you $1. We're not going to give you one penny we don't believe Newsmax should
ever get a license. We're the only cable news channel not getting a...
So they're paying the other guys.
They're paying every one of the other guys and a lot of money and a lot more they owe... they get usually a multiple of $1. And you're paying for it actually the customers that send in their bills. And DirecTV makes a lot of money and made almost $3 billion last year in profits alone. So they've got plenty of money. This was a message and you know, President Trump has spoken out and said this was political discrimination. And Ron DeSantis, has said something
very similar. We're being targeted because we're conservative. They want an excuse to get us off. They've gotten us off. They're limiting the ability of conservatives to reach Americans. And we got to fight back. And we need support.
How big of a blow is this? How big is direct TV just kind of in the market? In... and for you as Newsmax?
Well, it's a serious impact. I don't want to underplay it. They have 13 million subscribers. They're one of the major players in cable, one of our major distributors. And it was about 30% of our cable audience. We do have a lot of subscribers on the OTT a lot of people watch us on streaming. For the moment, that's free altough that that will change at some point. But we're on Dish satellite systems, you can get us on Dish, you can get us on Verizon, you can get us on
Spectrum. Many other systems carry us almost every major system, except for DirecTV. So we're available, we're out there, we're still going to have an amazing impact. But we're not gonna... Obviously, we're being targeted at closing down conservative voices.
And Chris, Yeah, and that's the... that's the huge problem here that the fact that a speaker of the house, obviously, this was Nancy Pelosi, this is not the current speaker of the house, Kevin McCarthy, but the fact that a speaker of the House would demand of media outlet or Media Distribution outlets to remove voices in America and this whole idea of this new word misinformation that's to become this, you know, orwellian experience the fact that a speaker of the House would do
this, and we know from the whole Twitter files being released how much they did lean on an influence Twitter's canceling of people. I mean, this is... this should alarm everyone whether they're a Newsmax fan or not. This should alarm everyone. And and I think that's how people are responding. I mean I'm seeing a lot of people that didn't speak out on other cancellations say, Well, this is
too much. Now. We're getting into a freedom of speech area, and a freedom of the press area that we didn't think we would see. Is that the kind of thing you're hearing from people as they respond to you?
Well, President Trump has said that he thinks it's disgusting what they did second channel, he's urging everyone to cancel DirecTV just cancelled them. Cancel AT&T. He said he's canceling his DirecTV. He's canceling his AT&T cell phones his wireless internet. And that's the only way they're going to learn is if you just give the... send them a message, by canceling. We have an easy
number for people to call. It's 877-Newsmax its toll free 877-Newsmax and we'll connect you to DirectTV, we'll connect you to U-Verse. They also canceled us with DirectTV. And we also have a way when you call 877-Newsmax to connect you to your congressman and senator. And if you could call them and ask for hearings on this and that this is important. You know, those phone calls do play a role. So we're appreciative of those.
I love it. 877-Newsmax. Now, Chris before I let you go- How are you responding to those who are saying it's just a free market issue this is just you know, they didn't like Newsmax or they weren't getting enough out of Newsmax. it's just the free market. Whenever you've got government collusion with you know people in supposedly the free market which this is not so much...
So think about this for a second: 50% of the country is Republican-leaning or Republican, 50% of Democratic or Democrat-leaning. that's what it seems like in these elections and you only have Fox News, but you have 22 liberal news channels on the left. And they seem to pay a lot of these channels to do their reporting or the even though they don't have any audience so they're funding them. So you by in the free market, buying AT&T and DirecTV, you're supporting this.
And the free market also says that you cannot support that go to channels that have more fairness and diversity. So if they're arguing the free market applies, you can argue that the free market applies here too. The other thing that's very concerning is a clear implication that the Pelosi Democrats, the Biden administration wanted Newsmax gone. It was that letter. AT&T acted on that letter. And so that's collusion of the government to impede the First Amendment rights to free speech,
maybe a free press. So that actually could be an illegal act. We don't know. We don't have all the evidence on that yet. But it appears that there's evidence that may have happened. So I just encourage people, you know, the left, they'll use free speech to, to close down any conservative but if you use it, well, then you're censoring them. Right? And conservative, I don't know any conservative that ever said closed down CNN. I never like CNN, I never said... I never heard a conservative say
close it down. That's right. The left today is a lot different than it was 30 years ago, it's a radicalized left. They want to... they want to Venezuela state here, don't you... people need to understand the old days when we were responded by saying, Oh, that's not right. This is... you actually have to respond much more vigorously today, because the left is far more dangerous than it was 30 years ago in America.
No, you're right, Chris, they've been scratching and clawing in the trenches for decades and we've been playing tiddlywinks. It's you know, it's... You have to fight back in and you have to be willing to stand and fight them where the fights taking place and we used to say I disagree with you but I'll fight and die for your right to say that. And now it's their side is basically saying if I disagree with you, I want you silenced. And that is it without question not the
American way. Chris, God bless you man keep up the great work over Newsmax and we definitely will spread the word. Again the phone number 877-Newsmax and then your... the operators that answer that will connect people with with the, you know, where they can cancel DirecTV cancel AT&T which is the free market response to this is exactly....
They'll also connect you at 877-Newsmax with Congress and senators even if you're not a subscriber, you can stand up for us. We also have a website. iwantnewsmax.com iwantnewsmax.com with an online petition.
Special thanks to Chris Ruddy from Newsmax for joining us. Stay with us, you're listening to WallBuilders Live. We're back here on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Chris Ruddy from Newsmax for joining us as well. David And Tim, of course, we saw this with Twitter files we might not have ever known about the Twitter stuff if it wasn't for Elon Musk taking over and
releasing those files. But we saw this with you know, COVID all these things that misinformation has now become basically a hammer to go after your political opponents with
well, you know, when you can limit what people know, then you affect how they think. And that affects how they behave. So if you can take a voice away, that is contrary to what the progressives are, that's going to end up affecting behavior. This is a big deal.
Also, how are we defining misinformation? Because what we are hearing from these big tech companies, right, well, it's misinformation. Wait a second, who was the one who said if you got the vaccine, you couldn't get COVID? Right? Who was the one who said if you got the vaccine, you can't die from COVID?
Who was putting out the misinformation here? Yeah.
Right! And the argument now is people that who want to defend that, they say, well, guys, you know, science is always changing. If science is always changing, then why in the world, were you so draconian, and you were canceling people the very beginning and actually medical professionals who were coming out with a different
opinion. And then guys, we saw a federal judge in California actually strike down the state's COVID 19 misinformation policy that they wouldn't allow doctors to say things that did not line up with what the government agreed was the correct thing and what... It's just ridiculous.
When a doctor can't give their medical opinion, their medical professional opinion on something, which I thought the whole idea used to be you went to a doctor and they said something and you weren't really sure you said you know what, what should we do? Let's go get a second opinion. Now you have big tech, you have big government, you have these industries that are saying we're not going to let you get a second opinion. And again, going back to why they think it's
misinformation. Everything that was accused of being misinformation a year and a half, two years ago now come to find out was correct. There was a reason over the last couple of months we've all seen the memes about conspiracy theorists are having to find new conspiracy theories because all their old ones turned out to be true. This is the reality of the argument misinformation and so for DirecTV to say they are going to cancel Newsmax for
misinformation. Well, what misinformation are you referring to? And who promoted misinformation? And I've never heard them say we're gonna go after CNN for misinformation and I think if you did a side-by-side comparison. If you had honest fact checkers go through and look at what CNN has said, and look at... and by the way, we can include MSNBC, we include all the liberal outlets and you compare that to some of the more conservative outlets like a Newsmax and do a
side-by-side comparison. I don't think you would find nearly as many incorrect statements from Newsmax as you would find from the liberal outlets, but you're just seeing a political promoted propaganda idea, not a truthful, honest concern about factual information.
Having a second voice is really important to being healthy. When you lose that second voice you get into the Inquisition, star chambers, all the bad stuff, we're only one side gets to present it. So this is why it's worth calling that number. Get connected to congressmen have a hearing on this, get connected to DirectTV cancel, get connected, AT&T Cancel, you got to have a second voice otherwise, you'll never be able to identify truth.
Well, and listen folks, I know it's a pain, sometimes. You cancel your cell phone, move to another cell... I'm doing it. I'm getting off AT&T. I'm going to Patriot mobile. And it's a pain because I got like, I don't know 14 accounts on there between the kids and the iPads and everything else, but we're gonna do it because enough is enough. Thanks for listening. You've been listening to WallBuilders