The World and Everything in It: August 20, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Rich Gaffin. I live in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C., and I work as an international policy advisor for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the National Bank regulator. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

The government’s investigating possible Iranian hacking of presidential campaigns. 

YODER: People are the biggest vulnerability, both in cybersecurity and in politics.

How will we protect against cybercriminals and foreign interference this year?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, religious discrimination masquerading as anti-discrimination in the state of Maine.

And later the story of two Israeli Christians burdened by war but not crushed.

ANDRE MOUBARAK: They call us the Hallelujahs wherever we go. But when there’s war, they come to us, “Why you are staying? What is this joy in you?”

BROWN: It’s Tuesday, August 20th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

BROWN: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: DNC day one » Just one month ago, President Biden had been expected to speak on the final night of the Democratic National Convention accepting the presidential nod for a second time.

[Applause]

Instead, he addressed party leaders and delegates last night passing the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.

BIDEN: She’ll be a president our children could look up to. She’ll be a president we all could all be proud of. And she will be a historic president who puts her stamp on America’s future.

The president, of course, late last month caved to pressure from party leaders to bow out of the race and make way for a younger contender.

And Democrats heard another familiar voice last night.

CLINTON: Kamala cares, cares about kids and families, cares about America. Donald only cares about himself!

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heard there.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former President Barack Obama are among those who will take the stage tonight on day-2 of the convention.

Blinken - Israel » Secretary of State Tony Blinken says Israel has accepted a proposal to bridge differences holding up a cease-fire and hostage release in Gaza.

BLINKEN: It's now incumbent on Hamas to do the same. And then, the parties, with the help of the mediators, the United States, Egypt, and Qatar, have to come together and reach clear understandings about how they'll implement the commitments.

Blinken spoke after a 2 1/2 hour meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. He’s expected to travel to Egypt and Qatar today.

U.S. intel: Iran behind campaign hacks » U.S. intelligence officials say they're confident that Iran was behind the cyber-hack attempt against Donald Trump’s campaign. Intel officials said it was part of a brazen effort by Tehran to interfere in American politics.

Private-sector cybersecurity investigators had previously said Iran was behind the cyber attacks. But this is the first time the U.S. government has assigned blame.

The joint statement from the FBI and other agencies said Iran was behind attempts to hack Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign as well.

Flooding in northeast » In Connecticut, two women have died after being swept away by floodwaters brought by torrential rains.

Connecticut State Police Colonel Daniel Loughman:

LOUGHMAN:  State police, uh, urge all motorists to check road conditions before driving to their destinations. Motors, motorists should not drive over water or in roadways that are closed, um, due to the water.

And U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called the damage shocking, especially near the town of Seymour, where a river overflowed.

BLUMENTHAL:  Who would have thought the little river would turn into a gushing torrent of destruction, which is what happened.

As much as a foot of rain fell Sunday and early Monday not only in Connecticut but on New York’s Long Island.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman:

BLAKEMAN:  We are dealing with damage reports throughout this county. As a result of that, I am signing a declaration of emergency.

He said the declaration is aimed at trying to get aid to local homes and businesses.

House impeachment report » House Republicans have released their initial report on the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: After a yearlong probe, the nearly 300-page report asserts the Biden family traded on its “brand” in business ventures in corrupt ways that rise to the Constitution’s high bar for impeachment.

However, the report stops short of accusing Biden of any specific crime related to his son Hunter Biden's business dealings.

With Biden no longer running for reelection, next steps are highly uncertain.

The White House has long dismissed the House impeachment inquiry as a political “stunt.”

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

George Santos » Former U.S. Congressman George Santos has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in his federal fraud case.

His trial had been set to start in early September. Santos was indicted on charges that he, among other things stole from political donors, used campaign cash to pay for personal expenses, lied to Congress about his wealth.

Outside a Long Island courthouse, Santos said his ambitions led him to make unethical decisions.

SANTOS: You also trusted me to represent you with honor and to uphold the values that are essential to our democracy. And in that regard, I failed you.

He was expelled from Congress after an ethics investigation. Santos faces more than six years in prison and owes at least $370,000 in restitution.

Donahue obit » Phil Donahue has died. He was a pioneer of the daytime TV talk show genre.

Donahue was the first to incorporate audience participation in that kind of talk show.

SOUND: [Donahue show music]

The “The Phil Donahue Show,” later renamed simply “Donahue” ran for almost three decades.

He’s heard here in a 1996 interview talking about the power of his tv talk format:

DONAHUE: I believe daytime television is closer to the street, less pretentious, closer to the people, and also, a place where powerless folks can be heard.

He won 20 Emmy awards through his decades on the air. Phil Donahue was 88 years old.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Cybersecurity in the 2024 election. Plus, Aramaic Christians shining a light in Israel.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 20th of August.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Up first, Iran’s hacking scheme.

Last week, Google released a report saying it has been disrupting Iranian hacking attempts against presidential campaigns. That’s after Microsoft released a separate threat analysis saying Iran is creating fake news sites and using phishing techniques to target the campaigns.

NICK EICHER, HOST: This isn’t the first time bad actors overseas have tried to influence U.S. elections by stealing sensitive information. But just how dangerous is this?

WORLD Radio’s Mary Muncy has the story.

DONALD TRUMP: It looks like it's Iran, because Iran is no friend of mine.

MARY MUNCY: Two weeks ago, former President Donald Trump’s campaign said he had been hacked by an Iranian group. He said the hackers sent internal campaign documents to several news sites, including Politico—which said they received the information but didn’t publish it. Now the FBI is looking into it.

TRUMP: The reason is because I was strong on Iran, and I was protecting people in the Middle East that maybe they don't they aren't so happy about that.

And this isn’t the first time hackers have targeted presidential candidates.

CBS NEWS: Microsoft says it has found evidence foreign entities are working to meddle in the 2020 election.

Google and Microsoft say Iran, China, and Russia have been trying to influence American elections since at least 2016.

JANATAN SAYEH: This has been a growing pattern with Tehran's foreign policy strategy.

Janatan Sayeh is a research analyst on Iranian influence operations at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He says Iran is always operating influence campaigns within the U.S., but they tend to ramp up before elections.

SAYEH: Iran really sees it as its own interest to prevent the Trump reelection.

Sayeh says Iran suffered under the Trump administration’s sanctions, so they seem to be targeting his campaign more than the other side. That said, they will also do things like feed propaganda to the opposing side of an issue… any issue.

SAYEH: The main purpose there is chaos, and they do that by capitalizing on civic unrest.

According to a National Intelligence Council report declassified in 2021, bad actors did not attempt any major hacks of election infrastructure in 2020.

Instead, the report says Iran used influence campaigns to sow discord among the American public and undercut Trump.

With that in mind, Sayeh says supposedly leaked information coming from any unverified source should be carefully examined.

SAYEH: Iranians are not known to be reliable actors when it comes to sharing leaked information about different actors.

In the most recent reports, Microsoft and Google identified phishing as one of the main ways Iran and other bad actors are targeting campaigns. That’s phishing with a P-H.

GARRETT YODER: Phishing attacks are essentially putting out a link or a piece of information or something else as a bait, so to speak, and trying to get your target to interact with it.

Companies ask Garret Yoder to try to find the weaknesses in their cyber infrastructure and then help them fix them.

YODER: General phishing goes to everyone. Spear Phishing is a much more specific approach, where, particularly in the context of intelligence gathering, they say, ‘Okay, we know that these three people talk to this campaign a lot. We know that they have a trusted flow of communication. Anywhere there's trust, let's try to exploit that.’

Yoder says that creates a chain. A hacker may go after a friend of someone at a think tank, then from there get to someone lower in the campaign structure, and finally to the campaign manager.

YODER: ‘Now we can take the next steps and see what else we can attack’ but it all has to start from that initial a person clicked a link, someone opened the door to something that they didn't realize what they were letting in.

While software can be flawed, Yoder says people are almost always the weakest link in any organization’s security.

YODER: It's not a question of is it possible for someone to hack your system?  It's a question of, how hard is it?

And then how quickly can you get the hackers out of your system?

But once you get them out, Yoder says there isn’t much more to do.

The reason many cyber security reports use the words “disrupted” an attack, instead of “stopped” an attack is because trying to find the hacker and hold them accountable is often nearly impossible.

YODER: Hackers are very good at covering their tracks.

And actually prosecuting someone is another can of worms. If the hacker is an Iranian or Chinese actor working on behalf of the government, the odds of extradition and prosecution are low, unless that person wanders into a country friendly to the U.S.

YODER: Prosecuting really only comes into play when it comes to crime syndicates and criminal actors, and even then, they pretty much have to be operating out of a friendly country, otherwise, there's really not much you can do.

For now, Yoder says Americans will need to be on the lookout for misinformation.

YODER: A lot of these propaganda sites, and the sources of them are pretty new. So regardless of what you think about the mainstream media, they are less likely to be sharing straight-up propaganda than some blogger site. Blogger sites are kind of infamous for that.

Sayeh and Yoder both say that the odds of a technical hack that could actually change the course of an election are very low, but bad actors are certainly using social media and fake news sites to sow discord among the American public.

YODER: People are the biggest vulnerability, both in cybersecurity and in politics. If you can influence the people and get them to make a decision or be as upset and angry and violent about whatever decision gets made as possible, that plays right into the enemy's hands.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this podcast segment reported that the FBI had not yet confirmed Iran’s attempted hack of presidential campaigns.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: blocking benefits.

Back in 2022, the Supreme Court struck down a law in the state of Maine. It specifically barred sectarian schools from a state program that provided tuition assistance. The specific program was for families in rural areas where no public high school existed. In Carson v. Makin, the court ruled that the law ran afoul of parents’ free exercise of religion, because it had different standards for religious and nonreligious parents.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Case closed, but the issue is ongoing. A federal judge recently ruled that the state can continue to deny tuition benefits to most religious schools.

Joining us now to talk about it is WORLD legal reporter Steve West.

Steve, good morning.

STEVE WEST: Good morning, Myrna.

BROWN: Steve, this ruling seems to flout the Supreme Court’s prior decision. What’s going on here?

WEST: Well, you know, legislators here clearly have an objective. It's not they say that the schools are religious. It's that they don't support the state's viewpoint on gender and sexuality. Ostensibly, religious schools can be accredited and receive tuition funds from parents, but only if they agree not to discriminate in hiring or admissions on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. They also have to allow equal time for all religious expressions.

BROWN: So how did this case arise?

WEST: Keith and Valori Radonis are Roman Catholic. They'd like to send their children to a Catholic school, one that affirms the beliefs and values they've taught them at home. St. Dominic Academy is a Catholic school, but it's not accredited because the school can't agree to the unbiblical demands the state is making—demands that would change the very character of the school. But maybe it's better to hear it directly from the Radonises in this excerpt of a Fox News Interview in June:

KEITH: You know, as a parent, you want to provide the best for your child. You want to give them, you know, every key you can to unlock the door to success, no matter how big or small that door is, and and I think that that's a right every parent in Maine has, and so having—

VALORI: One size doesn't fit all right. And so being in a rural area where we have, we have choices, you know, we can, we can fit each child— dependent on their needs— with the right school, the best choice for them, and when the state closes down options, I don't, you know, that's not, it's not right.

BROWN: Okay, so, Steve, what are the arguments here?

WEST: Well, the state is saying, “Look, this is a neutral law. It doesn't target religious people or schools, is also generally applicable, meaning it applies, without exception, to all schools. All of them have to follow anti-discrimination guidelines. That being the case, the court needs to defer to what legislators think is best.” It's a minimal standard, very deferential, and almost always means the government wins.

BROWN: Well, what about the parents and the school?

WEST: The parents are represented by Adele Keim, an attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious liberty. When I talked with her recently, she had a different view. She said this was neither a neutral law nor a law that was generally applicable. For the state to prevail, this means the court has to strictly scrutinize the law if it substantially burdens religious exercise. This has to be one of those rare instances where the government's interest is compelling enough to overcome the constitutional right to free exercise of religion. The state also has to have used the least restrictive means to accomplish its objective.

BROWN: And it doesn’t pass the test, right?

WEST: That's right. It isn't neutral, she said, because the state targeted religious schools. She pointed to statements by Maine Attorney General, Aaron Frey, issued after the Supreme Court ruling in Carson, where he publicly stated that the state would explore ways to continue to enforce the state's anti-discrimination objectives. He said, “They promote a single religion to the exclusion of all others, refused to admit gay and transgender children and openly discriminate in hiring teachers and staff.”

It isn't generally applicable, Keim said, because parents can use the tuition assistance at schools outside the state, in Canada or really anywhere in the world, even though the state can't enforce its anti-discrimination guidelines in those places.

BROWN: Okay, so those are the arguments. How did the court rule?

WEST: Well, the judge agreed with the school and the parents that the law wasn't generally applicable. There were exceptions, and so the law had to be strictly scrutinized. But he said this is one of those rare times when the state's interest is compelling enough to overcome the constitutional right. So bottom line: anti-discrimination—really, the state's view of gender and sexuality—trumps religious liberty.

BROWN: Steve, what does this mean for Maine parents?

WEST: Well, if you live in a rural area with no public high school, you can't use your tax dollars to send your children to a school where their faith will be reinforced. You have to pay the full tuition to do that. It's exactly the same result that the Supreme Court struck down in Carson v. Makin. You know, ironically, it's religious discrimination under the guise of anti-discrimination.

BROWN: So what happens now? Is there any hope for parents like the Radonises?

WEST: Well, it may be a long road, but I think so. Because this case has been appealed, the federal appeals court and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court will have to reckon with whether anti-discrimination—or at least the state's view of what that is—is more important than one of our first freedoms, religious liberty. There's a lot at stake here, not just for this Maine family, but for all religious families.

BROWN: Right. Well, Steve West is a legal reporter for WORLD and editor of the weekly Liberties newsletter. Steve, thanks for this report.

WEST: My pleasure, Myrna.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Self-driving cars certainly have a long regulatory road ahead: big concerns with safety, privacy, liability, even concerns over hackers getting control of cars.

But add one more problem to the list: noise.

Randol White lives in a condo next to a parking lot for Waymo, maker of self-driving cars. One early morning he startled awake at 4 a.m. to car-horns blasting.

RANDOL WHITE: Then it happened again, and again, and I started thinking, well this is an issue.

The “issue” was that a bunch of Waymo automotive automatons were circling the lot and honking at each other all night long! Gives new meaning to the name Waymo, like way-way-way-mo.

Neighbor Russell Pofsky is another who’s had it up to here with the robot road rage!

RUSSELL POFSKY: I could not be more cranky today after these past few weeks. It affects the way you feel.

For its part, Waymo says it’s working on a fix and the noise ought to be way-less from here on out.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Tuesday, August 20th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Light in dark spaces.

As the Israel-Hamas war continues, the focus is on Hamas, Israel, and the international mediators trying to put an end to the conflict.

But what about the civilians whose lives and livelihoods have been uprooted by the war?

BROWN: I met two brothers from a tiny, forgotten Israeli community who are trying to rebuild with help from Christians in America. Here’s their story.

AUDIO: [Tea brewing, chatter in background]

BROWN: Standing in their spacious kitchen, Carmen Mayfield and her husband Kim, are serving tea.

AUDIO: Alright, one more coming… [children at play]

Just a few steps from the Mayfield’s wrap-around-porch, their three grandchildren play hide and seek under a canopy of oak trees.

AUDIO: [Child’s play]

And nestled on the opposite side of their five acres, the family’s 89-year-old-great grandmother. She lives in a two-story brick cottage.

KIM MAYFIELD: We built my parent’s house first. And my middle son calls and said, “Dad I want to move home. Can we convert your barn into a house?” And so we said, “Well, are you bringing our grandchildren?”

Multi-generational living is an uncommon family dynamic in the United States. But in the Middle East, it’s a way of life.

TONY MOUBARAK: In the Old City of Jerusalem. When you enter, it’s one shared courtyard and there could be about six, seven families all around. And there is no privacy at all. Can smell what they’re cooking, we can hear them snoring.

That’s Tony Moubarak.

ANDRE MOUBARAK: In our culture and our communities, how we live together, we’re all relational. 

And that’s Tony’s 49-year-old identical twin brother, Andre. Between the two, they speak five languages.

ANDRE: Arabic is my mother tongue. My second language is English. Third language is Hebrew and the fourth language is French.

TONY: Add to that, Aramaic language, the language of Jesus, because we belong to the Aramaic community, the Maronite Christians of Jerusalem, of which we are only 25 families. Not more than 100 people. It’s a mega church in Jerusalem.

Tony and Andre never imagined they’d be having tea with the Mayfields, nearly seven thousand miles from their home in Israel. They first met Carmen Mayfield in 2018 on a short-term mission trip in Israel.

CARMEN MAYFIELD: Tony was our tour guide, and because they were Christians, we knew we would go on a tour with that Biblical perspective.

The Moubarak brothers started Twins Tours in 2000. As boys, the Via Dolorosa was their playground. That’s the street in Jerusalem’s Old City, believed to be the path Jesus walked to his crucifixion. Andre says that’s where their journey as tour guides began.

ANDRE: Walking to school everyday, I’m going find a tourist who would tell me, “How can I get to Jaffa Gate,” or “How can I get to the church?” It’s became our destiny to be teachers and tour guides and teach people from all over the world.

AUDIO: [Sound from Hamas attack]

But all of that ended abruptly on the morning of October 7, 2023. Hamas-led terrorists attacked Israeli civilians, communities and military bases. The attack happened at the height of Israel’s tourism season.

ANDRE: The whole country was depending on that month and all of a sudden from the peak of tourism to zero in a week. No tourists at all.

Tony says they prayed about next steps and believed God gave them a vision.

TONY: To use Western technology to bring Eastern Christianity from Jerusalem to the entire world.

VIDEO: Day number one…

Twins Tours Academy was born. Andre began recording hundreds of hours of online teaching, helping people understand first century culture and customs. Tony produced videos offering virtual tours of Israel.

VIDEO: Welcome everybody… from Jerusalem…

But in an oversaturated and competitive eLearning market, the brothers needed a way to stand out. So, they reached out to the Christians they’d met as tour guides.

CARMEN MAYFIELD: When it started I was one of their first members.

And when Mayfield found out the twins were traveling and speaking at churches around the country…

CARMEN MAYFIELD: I immediately thought, ok, I need to go talk to our pastor and say, this is an opportunity of a lifetime.

AUDIO: [People coming and taking their seats…]

On a recent Sunday night about 50 people gathered in a small church auditorium.

TONY: We’re going to help you understand how we do church in the Middle East…

In a room full of millennials, boomers, and Gen-Xers, Andre and Tony spend the next 45 minutes talking about their heritage as Aramaic-speaking Christians and their Arab ethnicity.

ANDRE: There’s a misconception in the West here that when they hear the word Arab they think of Muslims of Islam. But you have to know that Christian Arabs existed all the way back from the beginning of the church in Jerusalem. We read that in Acts chapter 2 verse 11.

They provide statistics on the dwindling numbers of Christians in the Holy Land.

TONY: We know that the church started in Jerusalem and spread throughout all over the world, but now sadly I say that in Jerusalem the Christians are less than one percent.

And they say while they are small in numbers, they are mighty in purpose.

ANDRE: We want to be a good bridge for the Muslims and the Jews. Despite that, it's very hard. They make fun of us and call us the Hallelujahs wherever we go. But, you know, whenever there is war, they come to us. Why you are happy? Why you are staying? And what is this joy in you? And then we can build a relationship with them and we tell them about Christ.

At the end of the twin’s talk, a circle of friends from the church gathers to process what they’ve heard. 25-year-old Katie Kemp, 60-year-old Amanda Beyer, and 77-year-old Al Cook.

MYRNA: What did you hear tonight that surprised you the most? 

KATIE KEMP: I had assumed that there were more believers in Israel than what I realized.

MYRNA: How were you challenged by what you heard?

AMANDA BEYER: To really step back and remember that they are people and loving them no matter what.

AL COOK: More fervently pray for people like these twins. And then apply it to our country and what God would have me do here.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Myrna Brown in Fairhope, Alabama.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Tuesday, August 20th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

SOUND: [DEMONSTRATIONS IN CHICAGO]

Demonstrators in Chicago dressed as the abortion pill combo  misoprostol and mifepristone, a costume that makes the wearers appear as walking tablets.

Meanwhile, a local Planned Parenthood affiliate offered vasectomies and abortion pills for free yesterday and today in honor of the Democratic Convention. Turns out interest was so great that the mobile clinic was all booked up. No appointments left.

BROWN: That’s Chicago. Across the country, though, major retailers are facing pressure to offer chemical abortion in their communities. WORLD Opinions Commentator Jerry Bowyer now on a method of market pushback.

JERRY BOWYER: Last week, I joined a coalition of investors and asset managers who sent a letter urging Costco, Walmart, Kroger, and other pharmacies to think long and hard before caving in to pressure tactics urging them to sell the abortion drug mifepristone. Chief among the pressure groups is New York City’s pension plan and its comptroller, Brad Lander, who has been using the assets of the city’s pensioners to cajole the companies to sell the controversial and risky pill.

According to Lander, investor “concerns include the company’s responsiveness to a growing market opportunity, its mitigation of potential reputational risks, and its commitment to maximizing sales and long-term shareholder value.” What investors is he talking about? All the pressure to sell the drug is coming from political actors, not financial ones. That’s because the business case for the drug is pitifully weak, and the case against it is strong.

Let’s do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation. Thanks to Walter Billingsley, the chief financial officer of the American Family Association, for providing the numbers. Mifepristone sells for roughly $200. That is, tragically, a one-time thing. Costco averages roughly $3,000 in revenue per customer per year. The average household is 2.5 people. So, for a Costco member, the average per capita spending is roughly $1,200. Over 10 years, that’s $12,000. The grim mathematics of abortifacients show that Costco can monetize one death for $200, or it can hope to enjoy revenues on $12,000 of sales over 10 years, or $7,000 in present value.

In short, life is more financially valuable than death. How could it be otherwise? The data will vary somewhat from company to company, but the principle holds. A company can sell the stuff of death once or it can sell the stuff of life for many years: diapers, Pedialyte, Vicks VapoRub, bigger diapers, antibiotics for toddlers’ ear infections, shoes, vaccinations, Halloween outfits, candy, Band-Aids, bigger shoes, Wiffle balls and bats, still bigger shoes, and on it goes. It doesn’t take a degree in finance to know that $7,000 in revenue is better than $200 in revenue, even if New York City’s chief financial officer fails to grasp it.

Retailers need to take a moment and think hard before stepping into the most divisive issue of our time. They need to consider the reality that the drug is entirely outlawed in many states and partly outlawed in others. And remember, mifepristone’s availability in the retail setting was rushed through the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process by the Biden administration despite serious health risks and so far has survived a Supreme Court challenge only on the technicality of legal standing, not the substance of the issue.

And the bottom line is that capitalist economies need people. People produce goods and services and people purchase goods and services. The current labor shortage, looming pension crises, and lackluster growth testify to the reality that family formation and childrearing are the only proper foundations on which the capitalistic system can function.

I’m Jerry Bowyer.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: A report from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Washington Wednesday. And, a camp for teenagers training to become missionary pilots. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Jesus said, “Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” —Luke chapter 6:38

Go now in grace and peace.

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