The World and Everything in It - August 23, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

President Biden is filling holes on the federal judiciary at a rapid pace.

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll talk about that on today’s Legal Docket.

Also today, the political effects of the Afghanistan collapse here at home.

Plus, the WORLD History Book. Today, the 15th anniversary of a planetary down-grade.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, August 23rd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

REICHARD: Time now for the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Terror threats loom over Kabul evacuations » Terror threats from ISIS are forcing the U.S. military to develop new ways to get evacuees out of Kabul.

President Biden addressed the crisis in Afghanistan from the White House on Sunday.

BIDEN: We know that terrorists may seek to exploit the situation and target innocent Afghans or American troops. We’re maintaining constant vigilance to monitor and disrupt threats from any source.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a new security warning Saturday, telling U.S. citizens not to travel to the Kabul airport without individual guidance from the U.S. government.

The British military reported on Sunday that at least seven Afghans died in a panicked crush of people trying to enter the airport. Thousands are still trying to flee the country in a chaotic exodus.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters over the weekend…

KIRBY: You have seen the images over the last 24, 48 hours yourself of the situation outside the perimeter of the airport, and it changes. It changes almost by the hour, and it changes in locations around the airport. It’s very, very fluid and dynamic.

President Biden says despite the chaos, evacuations are speeding up. He said Sunday U.S. and allied troops airlifted 11,000 people out of Kabul in a 36-hour period.

The Pentagon on Sunday ordered six U.S. commercial airlines to help move evacuees from temporary sites outside of Afghanistan.

At least 10 killed in Tennessee flash floods; dozens missing » President Biden also addressed catastrophic flooding that killed at least 22 people in Tennessee over the weekend.

BIDEN: I want to begin by expressing my deepest condolences for the sudden and tragic loss of life due to this flash flood. I know we’ve reached out to the community and we stand ready to offer them support.

Rescue crews on Sunday searched for dozens of people reported missing.

Gushing water swept cars off of roads, took out cellphone towers, and caused untold damage in rural areas just over an hour west of Nashville.

Dickson County Emergency Management Dir. Rob Fisher...

FISHER: It’s the most rain I’ve ever seen come though Dixie County. We’ve had areas flooding that we have never had flooded before.

Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said many of the missing lived in the neighborhoods where the water rose the fastest.

Tropical Storm Henri stikes New England coast » Meantime, in the Northeast, Tropical Storm Henri slammed the Atlantic Coast with heavy wind and rain on Sunday.

The storm blew ashore on the coast of Rhode Island, knocking out power to over 100,000 homes.

The storm was downgraded from a hurricane before reaching New England. Many breathed a sigh of relief in a region that has not taken a direct hit from a hurricane in decades.

But FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said the storm posed a threat to communities many miles from the coast.

CRISWELL: As we go inland into the mountainous areas that have already seen a tremendous amount of rain over the last couple of weeks, this additional rain is just going to cause more flooding inland.

Several major bridges in Rhode Island, which stitch together much of the state, were briefly shuttered Sunday, and some coastal roads were nearly impassable.

Supreme Court temporarily halts Remain in Mexico reinstatement » The Supreme Court is temporarily halting a lower court ruling that would have forced the government to reinstate the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy at the southern border.

The Trump-era policy required migrants seeking asylum in the United States to wait south of the border as their applications were processed. President Biden reversed that policy.

Justice Samuel Alito issued the temporary stay over the weekend. It will remain in effect until tomorrow night so the high court can consider filings in the case.

A federal judge in Texas had previously ordered that the program be reinstated Saturday.

Officials have reported a months-long record-shattering surge of migrants at the southern border.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: President Biden’s picks for the federal judiciary.

Plus, the shortest war in history.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 23rd day of August, 2021. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Legal Docket.

First, an update on last Monday’s story. It had to do with the law professor at George Mason University who sued the school over its vaccine mandate. Todd Zywicki recovered from COVID-19 and has multiple antibody tests to prove it.

The day after that story ran, the university granted Zywicki a medical exemption from having the shot. Officials gave no specific reason for changing course.

But Zywicki will still have to submit to Covid testing once a week.

REICHARD: Here’s what I received from the school. No one would talk with me about Zywicki’s case, but the school’s PR department sent a five-paragraph statement and I think this is the key passage:

“Professor Zywicki has been treated the same as any other Mason employee and is required to comply with all Mason policies regarding vaccination, testing, face coverings, physical distancing, and other COVID safety precautions. His litigation had no impact on the consideration of his request for a medical exemption from the vaccination requirement.”

EICHER: Now for today’s Legal Docket: President Biden’s picks to fill the bench on the federal courts.

Since taking office, the president has kept a campaign promise—and sent a steady stream of judicial nominees to fill vacancies in those courts.

At first glance, Biden’s nominees appear to align with campaign promises: to wit, promising his progressive supporters he’ll make “diversity” the centerpiece of his choices.

Yet, some progressives are unhappy, saying his nominees are not diverse enough.

REICHARD: Here to talk about it is Maryrose Delahunty. She is a practicing attorney and correspondent for World Magazine, and wrote about this topic for the August 28th issue.

Good morning, Maryrose!

MARYROSE DELAHUNTY, REPORTER: Thank you. I’m glad to be here!

REICHARD: Well, let’s start with a brief overview of President Biden’s judicial nominations so far.

DELAHUNTY: Sure. As of his last round of judicial picks, President Biden has sent 33 candidates to the Senate to fill open positions for judges on the federal district and appeals courts.

REICHARD: So 33 candidates so far. Before we get to that, how does President Biden’s pace of nominations and confirmations compare to past presidents?

DELAHUNTY: With 33 nominees, he has exceeded every president in their first term at the same point in the last 40 years. And with nine confirmed judges, he has practically doubled the number Trump and George Bush appointed by August of their first years. Not to mention Obama and Clinton, who each had only one judge confirmed at the same point in their presidencies.

REICHARD: And tell us about some of these candidates?

DELAHUNTY: Well, twenty-six are women. Twenty-three are people of color, and two identify as lesbians.

REICHARD: President Biden touted LGBT diversity in his latest round of nominations this month. Not something Christians put forth as a characteristic of merit for the job of judge.

Not to conflate sexual orientation with race or sex here. Women make up 70 per cent of his nominees. People of color make up 78 per cent.

Am I correct to suppose progressive supporters of the president are pleased?

DELAHUNTY: I can answer that like a lawyer: yes and no. Most of his nominees do check the boxes for progressive ideas of diversity- mostly meaning boxes for gender, color, and sexual orientation. Still, progressive advocacy groups are vocal in their dissatisfaction with some of Biden’s choices. Groups like Demand Justice, for example, a progressive left-leaning group that claims its goal is to restore balance to the courts by implementing reforms, such as expanding the number of Supreme Court justices.

REICHARD: Let’s talk specifics. Tell us about a few particular judges that caught your attention.

DELAHUNTY: One is Judge Zahid Quraishi, previously a federal magistrate judge and two-time Iraqi war veteran. He’s the first Muslim American to ever serve on a Federal Bench with his confirmation to the District Court of New Jersey.

While many celebrated that “first”, Slate reported some Muslim Americans in the legal community were hostile to his nomination. Opponents cite his prior work as a problem. He worked for U.S. Immigration and Customs and as an Army legal advisor for detention operations in Iraq.

Another nominee is Regina Rodriguez. She has a Mexican American Father and a Japanese American mother. She’s confirmed to the District Court of Colorado. Progressive groups criticize her for her background as a former prosecutor and corporate lawyer representing large companies such as Eli Lilly and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

REICHARD: I can guess the answer to this, but why would her background elicit criticism from these progressive groups?

DELAHUNTY: Demand Justice views the federal bench as already too packed with judges brought in from large law firms that mostly represent corporations. They want a bench with more judges who have experience as “civil-rights litigators, public defenders, and legal-aid lawyers.”

That belief was echoed in a letter that White House Counsel Dana Remus sent to Senate Democrats. She requested, and I quote here: “individuals whose legal experiences have been historically underrepresented on the federal bench.”

Others from Biden’s base complain that the bench needs more judges with experience representing consumers and workers.

REICHARD: Maryrose, you looked into this. How serious do you take these criticisms?

DELAHUNTY: Frankly speaking, not very.

I recently spoke with Thomas Jipping, a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He served as chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee under Senator Orrin Hatch. According to Jipping, the objections are basically a smoke screen to make Biden’s picks appear to be more mainstream than they really are.

REICHARD: We’ll get to that as a strategy in a moment. But for now what else can you tell us about some of the other nominees?

DELAHUNTY: Certainly each the nominees have unique characteristics, but I’ll highlight three nominees announced earlier this year who’ve been confirmed.

Judge Tiffany Cunningham is the first black judge to sit on the U.S. Court of the Federal Circuit. She’s a Harvard Law grad with a Bachelor of Science from MIT. She once practiced patent law.

And she’s followed by Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, the second black woman to serve on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. She’s a Yale Law alumni with 10 years as a public defender who represented over 400 indigent clients.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is also a former public defender. She was confirmed to the DC Court of Appeals. And as you know, Mary, that court is viewed as the farm team for future Supreme Court justices. Judge Jackson has the bona fides for a potential high court nomination: undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard, law clerk to three federal judges including Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. And prior to her confirmation, she sat on the US District Court for DC. Only one thing is lacking: an actual vacancy on the High Court.

REICHARD: She sounds like someone to keep an eye on?

DELAHUNTY: Definitely.

REICHARD: Maryrose, we mentioned a strategy earlier by groups like Demand Justice. Why do you think they seem so zealous to advocate for particular judicial nominees?

DELAHUNTY: These groups see the federal courts as being in crisis because of the conservative judges President Trump added to the bench. Groups like Demand Justice, the American Constitution Society and Take Back the Court. Trump successfully appointed over 230 total, including 54 to the appeals court and three highly publicized Supreme Court justices. Progressives see that as a serious imbalance in the federal judiciary.

REICHARD: You mean an imbalance between liberals and conservatives? Or leftists and conservatives?

DELAHUNTY: Yes, but according to Heritage Fellow Thomas Jipping who I mentioned earlier – the words liberal and conservative are political terms. The actual distinction is a difference between ends and means. Outcomes versus process. Judges are supposed to follow an objective process, whatever the result, like a baseball umpire. An umpire doesn’t pick who wins or loses, he applies the rules impartially.

The kind of judge advocated by the Left is one who focuses on outcomes, what political interests they serve and what political outcomes they want to achieve.

REICHARD: Many consider the most important judicial appointments to be those to the U.S. Supreme Court. But that’s not true, is it?

DELAHUNTY: It’s not true. The power judges wield at federal district and appellate courts should not be underestimated. Of the over 7,000 cases submitted each year for appeal to the Supreme Court, the justices accept only 100-150 of those cases. For the remaining cases, the appellate courts have the final say.

REICHARD: And Americans live with the results of those lower court decisions in critical areas, including vaccine mandates, religious freedom, and abortion – just to name a few.

DELAHUNTY: Right! You’ve heard the saying “the hand that rocks the cradle may rule the world, well, in modern society – the hand that holds the gavel makes the laws.

REICHARD: Certainly seems that way! Maryrose Delahunty is a correspondent for World Magazine. You can find her articles at wng.org. Thanks for joining us today Maryrose!

DELAHUNTY: My pleasure, Mary.

NICK EICHER, HOST: When was the last time you curled up in a comfy chair and read a really good instruction manual?

Yeah, I know. Nobody likes instruction manuals, especially us guys.

But what if I told you that someone just paid a fortune for a manual for an old computer nobody even uses anymore?

Now, it was, when it was made, the best selling computer in the world.

VIDEO: Apple has taken the Apple II, refined its designed, and added some of the most popular features available on personal computers.

That doesn’t explain why the manual was so valuable. But this does:

Inside the cover, somebody hand wrote the following words:

Your generation is the first to grow up with computers. Go change the world!

(signed) Steve Jobs

The autographed manual just sold at action for, get this, $787,000 dollars.

Quite a sum for a book nobody ever wanted to read!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: the Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen joins us now for our conversation on the economy. David, I’ve missed talking to you over the past few weeks. Good to see you. Good morning.

DAVID BAHNSEN, GUEST: Well, good to be with you. Welcome back.

EICHER: I know—strictly speaking—the story of the collapse in Afghanistan is the big news story, but do you see any economic import in the extraordinary events unfolding right now there?

BAHNSEN: Well, I think that in terms of the new cycle, and in terms in terms of the global stage, that Afghanistan story is certainly the predominant story right now. But that's probably less true when we narrow it down to the economy and to the market. And the various things that I'm mostly focused on. But an angle that I studied quite intently this week, Nick was where the Afghanistan story it could become relevant to the domestic spending and tax story. Because I do believe that the President, I guess, the polite figure speeches, he's taken on some water. With the handling of Afghanistan issue, I actually think it's much, much worse than that for him politically. But I'm more just making the sort of pragmatic comment that the President with a little less political capital, has less leverage when you're trying to pass legislation. These things can become very troublesome on the margin. I think the size of the eventual spending package got smaller this week, because I think the political leverage that the President and the progressives have has been weakened.

EICHER: Weakened in the sense—and maybe not a direct-line relationship—not, “Biden blew it in Afghanistan, so we’re going to punish him legislatively,” but because he’s weakened in terms of political capital, you’re saying to the extent that he lacks political strength, he lacks the ability to push through something controversial or difficult.

BAHNSEN: That's right. And I think he more specifically, he lacks the the fear factor to moderates in resisting him. And so I think that generally with a popular president of your party, it's very difficult to resist, especially when it says, quote, unquote, signature legislative achievement, the 3.5 trillion, they would be heralding as kind of a generational legislative achievement. I would argue it is a generational legislative achievement as well, just I would argue that negatively they would argue it positively.

So I think that the willingness to resist is somewhat emboldened. And by the way, I think it existed even before the tragic events here with the Taliban and coming back to power in Afghanistan. I think that there already was a pragmatic realization of particularly House Democrats are up for reelection, obviously, in a year, that voting with the President on this could cost them their seat, not help them with their seat.

Now, what you have here, Nick, is very interesting is a dilemma where the house moderates can be pacified, they will pass a bill, they wanted to be smaller, they want a couple other things in it, they want a lot of things taken out of it last tax increases, but then I think you lose some of the progressive votes that are also needed. So it isn't just keeping the moderates happy. It's keeping the moderates happy while keeping the other side of the boat happy.

And that's a tension that I'm not saying cannot be resolved. I have a very high regard for Speaker Pelosi's political and tactical giftedness. And I mean that just only within the category I specifically specified, but I don't know how they're going to do it. And so that's what bears watching. And that's what is really playing out right now.

And with each passing day, things are not getting better for the White House. They're really getting worse day by day.

EICHER: Quickly before we go—as we turn the corner out of summer and into flu season, do you have the sense that the Delta variant of Covid is going to have any kind of economic ripple effect at all? That Covid fires back up and the economy slows down?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, no, not a ripple effect. But it was last week that we talked about a marginal effect, and I'm quite confident of that. I think that there will be on the margin events that get cancelled or or or capacities that get limited. The number one thing offsetting it, though, and this seems to me to be overwhelmingly true, is it the people just won't do it.

There's almost no real way at this point. You know, I don't have any fear at all of the extreme nonsense that's going on, let's say like in New Zealand and Australia. For the most part, I think, even the most statist prone of lawmakers are going to play off of the declining data that will inevitably get here in the weeks to come.

So you've seen the kind of spike up in it, the data will start to improve and then people will back down. But even in the ramping up, I think it's been marginal in what people have tried to do to slow down economic activity, not ripple effect.

EICHER: David Bahnsen, financial analyst and adviser. He writes at dividendcafe.com. And that’s your Monday Moneybeat. Thanks David, appreciate it.

BAHNSEN: Thanks, as always, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: The WORLD History Book. Today, a planet falls from grace, the shortest war on record, and a linguist makes a Kingdom impact. Here’s senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

MUSIC: INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: India’s third most popular religion is Christianity—after Hinduism and Islam. Some scholars believe Thomas, the apostle of Jesus, introduced the Christian faith to the region as early as 52 A.D. South Indian Christians credit missionary and linguist Robert Caldwell with making the gospel available in the local vernacular. Caldwell died in his adopted home state of Tamil Nadu 130 years ago, on August 28, 1891.

The son of poor Scottish parents, Caldwell trained with the London Missionary Society before arriving in India at age 24. There, he took on a serious study of the Tamil language so he could effectively evangelize to the locals.

SONG: “AMAZING GRACE” IN TAMIL

Being able to speak the local vernacular is crucial. Sarah Colby grew up as the child of missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators. She recalls a story about one of Wycliffe’s founders, William Cameron Townsend, and an interaction he had when serving as a missionary in Guatemala.

COLBY: … was preaching the gospel, and someone approached him and said, “Look, if your God loves me so much, why doesn’t he speak my language?”

Caldwell made inroads with the locals, particularly in the lower castes. Alongside his evangelism efforts, Caldwell took up a scholarly interest in linguistics. Linguists previously believed South Indian languages had roots in Sanskrit, but Caldwell wrote a book asserting they should be a language class all their own. Today, linguists generally agree that those languages—known as Dravidian—stand alone.

In recognition of Caldwell’s 50-year mission, a statue of the evangelist sits near Marina Beach in Chennai. In 2010, the government of Tamil Nadu issued a postage stamp in his honor.

And going westward across the Indian Ocean, we find ourselves in the island country of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania.

MUSIC: ZANZIBARI MUSIC

That area saw the shortest war in history 125 years ago, on August 27, 1896.

The Anglo-Zanzibar War lasted just over half an hour—from 9:02 to 9:40 local time. The furor erupted after the sudden death of Zanzibar’s pro-British sultan. When that sultan’s nephew assumed the throne, he violated a treaty with England that said the British would pick the next leader. England’s leaders asked Sultan Khalid bin Barghash to step down so they could install their preferred sultan, but Khalid responded by barring himself in the palace and calling up the palace guards.

SOUND: NAVAL BATTLE

The British responded with force, sending their navy to depose Khalid. Nearly 3,000 defended the palace against the British—some civilians, but most were palace guards, servants, and slaves. In minutes, British forces sank three Zanzibari ships, and at some point during the skirmish, a fire broke out in the palace. The fighting ceased when the sultan’s flag was shot down from the palace.

About 500 Zanzibaris died or sustained injuries during the fighting. Only one British soldier was wounded, but he later recovered. Khalid fled to German East Africa, while the British installed their preferred sultan as the head of what was largely a puppet government.

Moving from a sultan’s fall from power to the demotion of a planet.

SONG: “NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN,” MODEST MUSSORGSKY

Fifteen years have passed since the International Astronomical Union redefined the term “planet,” and kicked Pluto’s planetary status to the curb. It designated Pluto a “dwarf planet” on August 24th, 2006.

At the time of Pluto’s discovery in 1930, scientists classified it as the ninth planet in our solar system. Dave Farina, a science educator, says the decision to downgrade Pluto after over 75 years of “planethood” wasn’t personal…

FARINA: This decision had a firm logical basis. Besides Pluto’s tilted and eccentric orbit, Pluto is much, much smaller than any of the planets.

As celestial bodies go, Pluto is small. It’s only about two-thirds as wide as Earth’s moon.

And it’s one of a series of objects in a ring—called the Kuiper belt—on the fringes of the solar system. Many of those objects have the same volume as Pluto. There’s just a lot of big stuff around it. So when the IAU instituted some new conditions for “planethood” back in 2006, Pluto failed on the third and final condition: Planets must have “cleared the neighborhood.” So, Pluto joined the ranks of a handful of others before it—Ceres and Juno, to name a couple—to be demoted from “planet” status.

SONG: “INTERGALACTIC,” THE BEASTIE BOYS

But, those of us who grew up with the mnemonic device, “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas” to remember the order of the planets may be hoping Pluto starts getting a little more respect in astronomy circles.

That’s this week’s History Book. I’m Katie Gaultney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: abuse at Native-American boarding schools. After grisly discoveries in Canada, the United States launches an investigation into similar schools in this country.

And, the Paralympics. We’ll take you to a museum devoted to the event and talk to an athlete about what it’s like to compete on the world stage.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

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

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths.

Go now in grace and peace.

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