The World and Everything in It: August 21, 2025

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Illegal immigration is a problem for both the US and the EU but the reasons for that are different.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: That’s straight ahead.

Also today, the push to completely eliminate synthetic food dyes.

MANDE: They've been controversial almost from 1906 when the FDA got its start.

And a cancer survivor picks up a paintbrush and a canvas to heal and finds a new calling.

CLEMENTS: As I start working with my hands, getting those creative juices flowing, your mood improves.

And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas on taxes and population changes from blue states to red.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, August 21st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning!

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

KENT COVINTGON, NEWS ANCHOR: Texas redistricting » In Texas, after a two-week walkout by many Democratic state lawmakers the House finally had the needed quorum to vote on a new Republican-drawn congressional district map.

AUDIO (vote count): 88 ayes, 52 nays … House Bill 4 passes to engrossment.

And that vote went, as expected, straight down party lines.

Prior to the final tally, the top Democrat in the Texas House Gene Wu had strong words for Republicans while addressing voters directly:

WU:  You may not understand gerrymandering, you may not understand redistricting, but I hope you understand lying, cheating, and stealing. When they can't win, they cheat.

But GOP Rep. Todd Hunter said Republicans did win the majority in the state House and that is why they now have the authority to draw the district lines.

TODD HUNTER:  Congressional redistricting is allowed. The law allows it.

Hunter quoted the US Supreme Court saying that to hold the legislators cannot take partisan interests into account when drawing district lines

HUNTER: Would essentially countermand the framers’ decision to entrust districting to political entities.

The new congressional map is expected to result in five more GOP-leaning districts in the state.

NATO meeting » Top NATO defense chiefs held a video conference Wednesday to talk about how to provide the security guarantees Ukraine would require as part of any deal that ends Russia’s three-year war.

Vice President JD Vance was not a part of that conference, but he said yesterday that the White House is looking to Europe to shoulder most of the load.

VANCE:  We should be helpful if it's necessary to stop the war and to stop the killing, but I, I think that we should expect, and the President certainly expects Europe to play the leading role here.

Ukraine says military assurances against the threat of future Russian invasions are critical moving forward.

Vance visits National Guard in D.C. » Also on Wednesday, Vice President Vance paid a visit to National Guard troops now deployed in the nation’s capital.

The troops are supporting local and federal law enforcement now patrolling the streets of Washington.

Vance’s visit came a little more than a week after President Trump declared a public safety emergency in DC and gave the Justice Department authority over DC Metro Police for 30 days.

VANCE:  I think that we're gonna make a lot of progress over the next 20 days. I think that we're nine days into this thing, but if the President of the United States thinks that he has to extend this order to ensure that people have access to public safety, then that's exactly what it'll do.

Extending federal authority of DC police would require approval from Congress.

Critics have called the federal takeover heavy handed and unnecessary.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters yesterday that her office will cooperate with a Justice department probe, examining whether DC crime statistics have been manipulated. But she added:

BOWSER:  We know, uh, that crime has gone down in our city and it has gone down precipitously over the last two years.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller joined Vance in greeting National Guardsmen.

Israel/Gaza latest » The head of an Israeli-backed humanitarian aid group says Hamas is actively trying to stop desperately needed supplies from reaching the Gaza Strip.

John Acre is executive director of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor working with Israel to feed hungry Palestinians.

He says Hamas has forced many of his local workers to move their families repeatedly.

ACREE: Nearly everyone associated with GHF who has gone public has faced death threats, harassment of their families and vandalism of their homes simply for trying to feed the Palestinian people in Gaza, myself included.

He also said the four aid distribution sites currently in operation are nowhere near enough, and called for an end to hostilities.

ACREE: We are absolutely pro-ceasefire. We welcome any type of a ceasefire. If there have been recent discussions, that's positive.

But for now, Isreal appears to be ramping up its war on Hamas.

DEFRIN: [In Hebrew]

Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin says Israel will call up another sixty-thousand reservists by September. And another 27,000 will see their current deployment extended.

That comes ahead of a planned expansion of Israel's military operation in Gaza City.

Venezuela tensions » The Pentagon deployed maritime patrol aircraft near Venezuela Wednesday. That follows the deployment of Navy Destroyers and submarines along with some 4,000 U.S. Marines near Venezuela’s coast.

It’s part of what the Trump administration calls “counternarcotics operations” aimed at drug cartels in Venezuela, which President Trump has designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

It comes just days after Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a $50 million dollar reward for the arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.

BONDI:  Maduro uses foreign terrorist organizations like TDA, Sinaloa and Cartel of the Sons to bring deadly drugs and violence into our country.

Maduro called on millions of the country’s militiamen this week to take up arms and be ready.

The current operations are aimed at blocking fentanyl and other drugs from being pipelined into the United States.

Hurricane Erin effects » Hurricane Erin is raging over the Atlantic Ocean well off the U.S. shoreline. But it is still causing problems along the East Coast triggering storm surge warnings and evacuations in North Carolina.

Gov. Josh Stein:

STEIN:  Our state emergency response team stands ready to quickly and decisively respond to any needs along the coast. We have already pre-positioned three swift water rescue teams and 200 National Guard troops to various locations on the coast, along with boats, high clearance vehicles and aircraft.

And Erin is causing dangerous rip currents and hazardous beach conditions from Florida to New England.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: comparing illegal immigration data in Europe and America. Plus, how some states are shooting themselves in the foot by raising taxes.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 21st of August.

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

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

First up: Illegal immigration numbers.

For years, Democrats have argued the US should open its doors wider to immigrants.

Here’s Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, speaking here in 2023:

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Economically, we need these populations.

She says the US doesn’t have enough workers, especially as baby boomers retire:

OCASIO-CORTEZ: And let me tell you, as boomers begin to age, and as they enter retirement, the amount of strain on labor is going to require from, for example, home health care and our care systems overall, we do not have the people to sustain that.

REICHARD: But what AOC and other Democrats fail to mention is that the United States already takes in more immigrants than the rest of the world.

WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more on why that’s so. 

JOSH SCHUMACHER: When it comes to the numbers, it’s easy to see just how different illegal immigration is in the US compared to Europe.

In 2023, 450 million people lived in the European Union. It had an estimated illegal immigrant population of 1.26 million.

That same year the United States’ had a population of about 340 million people—so, about 110 million less people—but its illegal immigrant population was 10 times higher than Europe, roughly 12 million people.

Why does the United States have more illegal immigrants? Well, to begin with, they usually have an easier time succeeding here.

David Bier is the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute.

BIER: Low-skilled immigrants in the United States, are much more successful than low-skilled immigrants to Europe are. If you look at their unemployment rates, their their ability to integrate into society across other metrics. Low-skilled immigrants just excel in the United States in a way that they do not in Europe.

That’s because the United States has different labor laws than most European countries do.

BIER: It's actually much more difficult in Europe to work illegally than it is in the United States for a number of different reasons. One, just for, for broad labor market reasons, the United States has a lower minimum wage, more flexible labor policies. You can fire people at will. So there it's just easier to hire lower skilled workers here in the United States.

Now a common concern about illegal immigration in the United States is the economic drain on government resources. Those include forcing the state to cover the cost of uninsured medical expenses, pouring more resources into increasingly crowded classrooms, and other pressures on local infrastructure.

Yet it turns out that illegal immigrants in the United States aren’t nearly as dependent on government welfare as many in Europe are. That’s one of the main reasons for the rise in immigration crackdowns there.

According to David Bier, the motivation for reforming the system in the US is much less financial. He says Americans care more about the fact that undocumented immigrants are here illegally than they do about the amount of resources they consume.

BIER: People in the United States just don't like to see people entering the country illegally violating the law…

That’s not to say that Europeans don’t want to uphold the rule of law, but their laws make it more difficult to arrest, detain, and deport illegal immigrants. So many countries in the EU have focused instead on making it less beneficial for them to stay.

David Bier explains:

BIER: It's the restriction on access to the labor market. It's efforts to incentivize them to leave through financial incentives, cutting them off from social services. So those are some of the mechanisms that are more common in Europe.

The Trump administration is also trying to motivate illegal immigrants to self-deport while trying to promote proper immigration.

BIER: I think Trump fits, I don't like to see illegality, I don't like to see chaos, but I'm not actually against having people come here to work and be an immigrant who's here legally, and, you know, contributing to the country. He's less upset about that.

Compared to the EU, the US annually deports about twice as many illegal immigrants in total, but by percentage, the EU is deporting much more of its illegal immigrant population per year.

Probably the biggest difference between the US and EU on the topic of illegal immigration is access. Even though the journey may be equally difficult, once here, immigrants can usually get into the country much more easily, leading many to risk the trip.

Steven Camarota is the director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies.

CAMAROTA: It's very dangerous to march through Central America and cross the Darien Gap and then into Mexico and you have a chance of being, you know, robbed, killed or raped, you're not likely to do it unless you're pretty sure that when you get to the border they're going to let you in.

Those more open-border policies in the U.S. have existed alongside much more closed-border policies in Europe. And that means many immigrants who would have an easier time getting to Europe have instead come to the United States.

But Camarota says one of the most common reasons people enter the US improperly is even more practical. They’re following friends or family.

CAMAROTA: People don't want to wake up one day and say, I'm going to America. What happens instead is that they had a brother in America said, You know what things are, pretty good here, I'll do it. You can stay with me. When you come they have a cousin who says, look, I can get you a job at the warehouse.

The fact that the United States has so many illegal immigrants begs the question: Why haven’t they been deported before now? There are a couple of reasons. First, there’s an incredible backlog.

HANKINSON: In the United States we have now, there are about 1.4 million people who have final orders of removal.

Simon Hankinson is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

HANKINSON: So they've had all the due process that they're entitled to, often multiple appeals, and they've been ordered deported.

He says another reason is years of catch-and-release policies have meant the problem has been getting worse, not better.

HANKINSON: If an alien was detained through the duration of their hearing then there was like a 99% chance that they were going to be removed. Because they're detained, right you got them right there. You put them on a plane, you send them home. But if the alien is released, the percentage of those removed just plummets down to, it's like 20% for unaccompanied adults and like 2% for families.

But the Trump administration is trying its best to turn that ship around as fast as it can. It’s made massive efforts to remove illegal immigrants eligible for deportation, going after many of those 1.4 million who have as-yet-unenforced orders for removal.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: banning artificial food dyes.

Nestle, General Mills, and Heinz say they are phasing them out of all of their products. And Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pushing for a nationwide ban on synthetic food dyes.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: The FDA has wrestled with this issue since its earliest days. So why are companies removing them now, and is it really the health victory Kennedy says it is?

WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

BILL SABO: You can just tell when kids have artificial colors.

MARY MUNCY: Bill Sabo founded Newport Flavors, which specializes in natural flavors and colors. He took artificial dyes out of his company’s offerings because he says he saw the effects of artificial ingredients personally in the kids he used to coach.

SABO: They all had a Gatorade to drink during break. But this boy, especially when he would drink that blue Gatorade, we lost him.

The boy wouldn’t be able to focus on the game and would start annoying the other players.

SABO: So I went back into the lab and I created a drink, which we still sell to this day.

When he started offering that instead of Gatorade, he says all of the boys’ behaviors changed for the better.

So he and his wife started taking as much artificial dye out of their family’s diet as possible, and Sabo started making the switch to natural colors and flavors in his company too.

SABO: We started embracing things like cherries for red color and hibiscus flowers for red color, and beets and turmeric for orange and an annatto for yellow.

Natural dyes are a little harder to work with. They’re more affected by the acidity of the food you’re trying to dye, usually have a shorter shelf life, and many don’t tolerate heat as well.

It’s not a simple science either. If you crush a bunch of blueberries, you’ll find their guts are actually reddish-purple, but if you put them in something alkaline like muffin mix:

SABO: It instantly turns blue. And when you bake that blueberry, the entire blueberry turns blue.

Sabo thinks that companies are open to switching now because more Americans are starting to think like him, avoiding foods with synthetic dyes.

THE NATIONAL DESK: Kraft-Heinz announcing today it will remove artificial dyes from US products by the end of 2027.

WE ARE IOWA LOCAL 5 NEWS: Nestle says it will soon eliminate artificial colors from its US foods an beverages by the middle of next year.

CHANNEL 3000: Welches is the latest of several major companies to announce it’s eliminating artificial food dyes.

He thinks that if consumers continue to be activists with their money, companies will keep changing.

And this isn’t the first time synthetic dyes have been under scrutiny.

JERRY MANDE: They've been controversial almost from 1906 when the FDA got its start.

Jerry Mande is CEO of Nourish Science and adjunct professor of nutrition at Harvard. He’s also worked with the Food and Drug Administration. When the FDA first started, companies were using hundreds of food dyes, some with lead and arsenic in them. Within a few years, the FDA had cut the number of allowed dyes down to around ten. Ones that were less harmful and determined to be safe for human consumption. But Mande says they only knew so much about the chemicals and their long-term effects.

MANDE: If something is an additive, a chemical, a color, and you eat it, you're going to get sick right away, and it could maybe even kill you. That's something you can know within days. Then the question becomes, what about an additive that you're going to feed somebody over their lifetime? You know? What about that? How do you determine the safety?

Right now, there are nine FDA-approved artificial dyes in the American diet… and the agency recently approved three natural dyes. But that’s too many synthetics for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: We are going to, we're going to get rid of the dyes and one by one, we're going to get rid of every ingredient and additive in, in food that we can legally address.

California, Virginia, and West Virginia have passed laws limiting almost every synthetic dye, and 23 other states have proposed some regulations on the additive.

Mande thinks these laws will have a big effect because companies won’t want to reformulate a food just for a few states, and they can’t just stop using dyes altogether.

MANDE: We choose food, and find it delicious or not, based on the colors and flavors. And so colors have always been kind of a key interest in a way to make food seem more attractive and delicious.

Mande says that’s why artificial colors are so prominent in ultra-processed food—that’s basically any food that you can’t make in your kitchen.

MANDE: In my work, in the years in government, visiting countless food factories and watching food made, you know, I noticed a shift. At one point. I see the raw ingredients that went into the food that they were processing. Now, when you go into a factory, I don't recognize anything as food.

He thinks these  “consumables” are a bigger threat than artificial dyes because people tend to overeat them—leading to obesity.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. agrees.

KENNEDY: There's no one ingredient that accounts for the child chronic disease epidemic. And let's be honest. Taking petroleum based food dyes out of the food supply is not a silver bullet that will instantly make America's children healthy. But it is one important step.

So while Mande doesn’t see artificial dyes as the biggest threat to Americans’ health, he does think removing them may make these foods less attractive to consumers.

But not everyone agrees with Mande. Marion Nestle is a retired professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health.

NESTLE: I'm happy to be getting rid of them, but I think if they really want to make America's children healthy again, they have to get restrictions on marketing to children.

TRIX COMMERCIAL, RABBIT: A circus, and they have Trix! Yikes! Going down.

KIDS: Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!

She says a single mom working two jobs can only resist a begging child for so long. Not to mention, these foods are typically cheap and quick to prepare.

So far the FDA has maintained that while some people may have problems with dyes, they’re generally safe to consume. But it's undeniable that they cause clear harm to at least some people and a growing body of research suggests it’s a much bigger issue than many in the FDA and food industry have been willing to admit.

For now, Nestle says if you’re that overworked parent trying to keep artificial dyes out of your child’s diet, start by trying to get them to eat what you eat.

NESTLE: Try to feed kids as relatively unprocessed foods as they're willing to eat, and you have the patience for getting them to eat, kids will develop tastes for healthy food. If given the opportunity. But that takes work, and it takes a great deal of patience. If you, as an individual, are trying to feed your child healthfully, you are fighting an entire food system on your own. That's a lot to ask.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Myrna, what in the skibidi is going on with the English language?

More than 6,000 new words showed up in the Cambridge Dictionary: words like “tradwife,” “delulu,” and yep, “skibidi.” That one means…well, whatever you want it to mean.

Christian Ilbury is a lecturer on sociolinguistics. He says there’s something about short internet videos that lend itself to this.

ILBURY: Because they’re based on kind of a limited attention economy.

So, not paying attention, so people think up distinctive ways to talk and get noticed.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: If you don’t know your tradwives from your rizzlers, don’t be all delulu. Just look it up! And if none of this makes sense to you?

RECIHARD: Ask a teenager. They’re fluent.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYNRA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, August 21st.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Healing through art.

Art therapy as its own practice has been around for more than 80years. It helps people heal in surprising ways: music, theater, a mural.

BROWN: Well, Mary, I met a cancer survivor who found his therapy in a traditional Japanese art form.

A year ago, Lance Clements never imagined he’d be here.

ANNOUNCER: Are ya’ll ready? Are ya’ll ready? All ya’ll ready?

Clements has joined a few thousand people surrounding an asphalt stage that empties into a marina. All eyes are on a huge Blue Marlin hanging from its forked tail. It’s a surprising part of Clement’s post-surgery therapy. More on that in a minute.

ANNOUNCER: 645.6!! [fog horns, applause]

Today is the weigh-in finale of the Blue Marlin Grand Championship, a four-day sportsfishing tournament in Orange Beach, Alabama.

CLEMENTS: They’ve got a lot of security here.

68-year-old Lance Clements is hoping for the chance to literally get his hands on a Marlin, a billfish known for its speed and strength.

Clements is a budding Gyotaku artist. Gyotaku is the traditional Japanese method of printing fish, using ink and rice paper. In the mid-1800’s fishermen used it to record their catches. Now it’s an art form of its own.

Clements is also a general contractor. For decades he’s built houses and condos, many along the same beach that hosts this fishing tournament. Last year he started thinking about a career change.

CLEMENTS: it’s just not been as satisfying in the last five years that we’ve done it. It got to be more stressed. And my age has something to do with it.

While flipping through a magazine one day, Clements noticed a Gyotaku print.

CLEMENTS: I said that looks like something that would be fun to do. I should try that. And I did. I was surprised I could actually do it.

Then, in June of 2024 the husband, father and grandfather of eight got sick.

CLEMENTS: Just so happens around the same time frame, we found out about this tumor.

Cancer in his esophagus. Post surgery and immunotherapy, Clements is recovering well. He attributes his healing to his faith in God, his doctors and the time he spends fish printing.

Studies show the arts are emerging as an important and integral component of healthcare. Jill McNutt is an art therapist.

JILL MCNUTT: I interviewed fifteen cancer patients that underwent art therapy and we found art therapy benefitted patients directly.

One benefit is known as interactive distraction.

JILL MCNUTT: Bending in that creative and imagination will easily help us slip into that flow zone where time disappears. Patients who are going through long arduous treatments, don’t want to sit there and worry all the time.

CLEMENTS: And as I start working with my hands, getting those creative juices flowing, your mood improves.

Clements is still a fish printing novice. The Blue Marlin fishing tournament will put his knowledge to the test.

AUDIO: [Watch your feet…watch your feet]

The crowds, the heat, and the tight security are putting Clement’s mission, to print one of the Blue Marlin onsite, in jeopardy.

CLEMENTS: The captain of the boat. That’s who we’re looking for. He’s the one that runs the show and can tell us if we have access to the Marlin.

To find a captain who’ll cooperate, Clements needs to be in the right place at the right time, somewhere between the stage and the marina.

MONTAGE: Let’s see if we can get up closer. Ok. Following you. You think that’s a better spot? Yes, this is a better place to be. How did we miss them getting on the boat? We’ll go back up to where we were at.

The next hurdle, getting the captain’s attention as he and his crew haul their catch from the dock to the stage.

CLEMENTS MONTAGE: Captain, captain…captain…captain Captain, captain…you have a second…

MYRNA TO CLEMENTS: How do you know who’s the captain? I don’t know. I just call them all captain.

After several attempts, Clements spots a crewmember having a conversation with another spectator. He heads over and gently interrupts.

CLEMENTS: You ever had one printed before. I do Gyotaku prints.

CAPTAIN: No I haven’t.

CLEMENTS: I would love to do one for you.

CAPTAIN: How much would it be to do something like that?

CLEMENTS: I’m not in any rush for money. What I need right now is to be able to have access to the fish for a quick print on.

CAPTAIN: Let me uh…. You know what let me skip out on this one, but I would like to do that in the future. That sounds cool.

Rejection stings, but Clements says practicing Gyotaku has taught him patience and perseverance. Traits that have served him from the confines of a hospital bed to the dock of a marina.

ANNOUNCER: Take a look at how we get these fish unloaded…

As more boats return to the dock…

CLEMENTS: Captain, congratulations….

Clements keeps pitching. Then, just like that…

CLEMENTS: Captain, captain..would you be interested in a print of the fish. I do Gyokatu.

CAPTAIN: Oh yeah!

…the opportunity he’s been praying for.

MYRNA TO CLEMENTS: What did he say? He said yeah. I want a print. We’re good.

Clements heads toward a 500-pound, 12-foot Blue Marlin, laying on a horizontal dolley. Clements is equipped with paint brushes, ink and fabric. But none of that prepares him for what’s coming.

CLEMENTS TO MALE COMPETITOR: Where you out of? Mississippi….

CLEMENTS TO FEMALE COMPETITOR: Where you live? I’m local here. I’ve been doing fish prints since ‘08.

Two fellow fish printers, competitors, already at work.

CLEMENTS: Yeah, I feel a little nervous about that.

But when it’s Clements turn to capture the print, he’s fast and deliberate. He applies the dark, non-toxic ink on every inch of the Marlin.

CLEMENTS: Yeah, this is Japanese ink.

Then he takes a long, white, cotton fabric and carefully places it on the inked fish. He firmly presses the fabric into the ink to transfer the image.

CLEMENTS: How much pressure are you applying? Quite a bit. Just like we’re pressing somebody’s old tombstone. We’re making sure we get all the details with it that we can.

A handful of people have now gathered to watch Clements carefully peel off the fabric. He smiles and inspects his work.

CLEMENTS: I can work with that. We can make a nice painting out of that. I’m proud of it.

AUDIO: [Sound of knock at the door/dogs barking]

Five days later, Clements is hunching over the dining room table.

AUDIO: [Sound of erasing and sketching]

He’s filling in and touching up the outline of the Marlin. It’s the last step before he’ll begin to prime and paint. Clements says immersing himself in his art is as helpful as the immunotherapy treatment he received the day before. He says art helps him focus on something other than cancer.

CLEMENTS: What you’re thinking about is how can I recreate what God has created here? How can I get close to the colors? You can’t do it for one thing.

AUDIO: [Sound of staples]

Tuesday, August 12th. Clements is stapling the white canvas over the wooden frame.

CLEMENTS: The final stretch. We’re stretching it lengthwise. We’re stapling it down. This is the same fabric that we saw in Orange Beach. Yeah.

It’s exactly one month to that very day back in July.

CLEMENTS: We’re gonna stand it up and take a look and see how it turned out. You’re ready? Here we go. It’s huge isn’t it?

MYRNA: Wow! Look at those colors!

Brilliant blends of blue cascade over the Marlin’s back. Silver, copper and a hint of purple fade into the side and belly of the big fish.

CLEMENTS: It’s good. But when you look at that next to a fish that just came in, someone brought up to the boat, and you see all the different colors that are in there you realize only God can do that.

Clements says his next move is to share the painting with the captain that commissioned it. He says he trusts God with that outcome, too.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, August 21st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Here’s WORLD commentator Cal Thomas with a little lesson in civics and how humans behave.

CAL THOMAS: During the high inflation days of the Biden administration, many of the less than well-off were forced to cut back on their spending, whether it was food, gasoline, or in some cases medication. Some migrated from blue states to red ones where taxes, housing, and prices were often lower.

Blue states are reacting to losing residents not by reducing taxes, but by raising them. Their philosophy seems to be that they are losing money so taxes must be raised to make up for the shortfall. The exact opposite should happen, but they are so wedded to “tax the wealthy” they can’t see any other way.

Democrat Maryland Governor Wes Moore signed a bill in May which increases income taxes on residents making more than $500,000 a year. His republican predecessor Larry Hogan touted that his administration cut state taxes by $4.7 billion over his eight years in office. Under his watch the state’s economy moved from 49th to 6th in the nation. Hogan claimed to have left behind a $5.5 billion surplus and $3 billion in a rainy-day fund. That surplus is gone…and likely among the reasons why Maryland is experiencing a net population outflow.

A Wall Street Journal editorial points out the potential political fallout for Democrats from this modern great migration. Between 2020 and 2024 California lost nearly one and a half million residents to other states. New York wasn’t that far behind, losing nearly a million more. Illinois lost more than 400,000.

Guess which two states are benefitting the most from the influx of new people? Texas and Florida. These two states gained the equivalent of West Virginia’s entire population. Other states to see newcomers include Utah, Idaho, Arizona and North Carolina.

The political benefits to these lower taxing states could be seen in coming elections. The Journal predicts Democrats could lose as many as 10 house seats in 2030, the year of the next census. This would likely overcome the gerrymandering California and Illinois are fashioning as they draw districts to give Democrats an even larger advantage than they currently enjoy.

For those who don’t remember or never took high school civics, here is the way the process is supposed to work. Census data taken every 10 years in even decades determines the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives. The House is currently fixed at 435 members. States gaining population may gain seats, while states with slower growth or declines may lose seats. This is the blue states’ great fear.

Following the census and apportionment, states redraw their congressional and state legislative district boundaries to reflect population shifts and ensure districts have roughly equal populations.

According to the Campaign Legal Center Independent Redistricting Commissions, separate from state legislatures, are then responsible for drawing district boundaries.

It doesn’t take a political genius to realize that if people are taxed more on what they have earned, many—including businesses—will look for places that tax them less. Democrats who think raising taxes on the successful will benefit them in future elections, may be sowing seeds for future electoral defeats.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet is back for Culture Friday.

And, animated movies are grabbing the spotlight this year, especially those drawing on Asian folklore. Collin Garbarino reviews them.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Mary Reichard.

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.

The Psalmist writes: Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the Lord! Verses 47 and 48 of Psalm 106.

Go now in grace and peace.

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