The World and Everything in It - December 9, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The U.S. Postal Service is slowing down some of its services ahead of the Christmas rush.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also the only member of NATO in the Middle East is cozying up with Russia. We’ll talk about the implications.

Plus we’ll get our reporter’s take on Truth Be Told, our four-part series on abuse of power in a church.

And commentator Cal Thomas on what happens when America’s enemies think she’s weak.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday December 9th. 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: Time for the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden: Military action to defend Ukraine against Russia “not on the table” » President Biden said Wednesday that he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that Moscow will face severe consequences if it invades Ukraine.

The White House has threatened sanctions. But as for military action...

BIDEN: That is not on the table. We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies if they were to attack under Article 5. That is a sacred obligation. That obligation does not extend to Ukraine.

But he added it would—quote—“depend upon what the rest of the NATO countries were willing to do as well.”

Tensions continue to mount with Russian troops amassed near the Ukrainian border.

NATO allies are not obligated to take up arms on Ukraine’s behalf, but they would be if Ukraine were to join the organization. Moscow wants assurances that will not happen.

Biden said he hopes to announce high level meetings between NATO allies and Russia “by Friday.”

Putin, for his part, promised that Moscow will submit its proposals for a security dialogue with the United States in a few days.

Pfizer says COVID booster offers protection against omicron » President Biden also said Tuesday that he’s encouraged by a just-released report from Pfizer.

The company said a booster of its COVID-19 vaccine appears to ramp up protection against the omicron variant even though the initial two doses appear less effective.

Biden told reporters...

BIDEN: That’s very encouraging news. That’s the lab report. That’s the lab report, there’s more study going on. But that’s very, very encouraging.

Pfizer tested blood samples taken a month after a booster and measured levels of omicron-neutralizing antibodies.

Lab tests showed that two doses may not be strong enough to prevent infection. But a booster increased antibodies 25-fold.

It found the level of protection after a booster is similar to the protection that two doses provides against earlier variants.

But Pfizer said even those fully vaccinated people who have not yet had a booster still have strong protection against severe illness.

Scientists don't yet know exactly how infectious or dangerous the omicron variant really is. Right now, the delta variant remains the biggest threat. 

Allies join US in diplomatic Olympics boycott » Several U.S. allies are joining America’s diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

JOHNSON: There will be effectively a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. No ministers are expected to attend.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson heard there on Wednesday. Canadian officials will also stay home.

Those announcements came after the Australian government said it was joining Washington in the diplomatic boycott over human rights abuses in China.

But Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the boycott is strictly diplomatic. Australian government officials won’t attend the games…

MORRISON: Australian athletes will, though. Australia is a great sporting nation and I very much separate the issues of sport and these other political issues.

U.S. and British officials also say they have no plans to block athletes from competing in Winter Games in February.

China reacted angrily to this week’s boycott announcements, vowing to react with—quote— “firm countermeasures.”

Supreme Court hears arguments for religious schools case » The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared ready to rule that the state of Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a voucher program that helps residents with private school tuition. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The parents of students turned away by the state argue that excluding faith-based education from the program violates their religious rights.

The court’s conservative justices seemed to agree. Justice Brett Kavanaugh called the state’s decision—quote—“discrimination on the basis of religion at the neighborhood level.”

But the court’s three liberal justices appeared more sympathetic to the state’s case. Justice Elena Kagan said Maine seemed to design its program to avoid raising “questions of religious favoritism, religious division and so forth.”

Last year, the high court ruled 5-4 that states must give religious schools the same access to public funding that other private schools receive.

But even after that ruling, an appeals court upheld Maine’s exclusion of religious schools.

The Supreme Court could use this case to more broadly resolve the extent to which religious schools may use public funding.

A decision in the case is expected in June.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

India military chief, 13 others die in helicopter crash » India’s top general and 13 others are dead after a helicopter crash on Wednesday.

Sixty-three-year-old Gen. Bipin Rawat was flying to the army defense services college along with aides and his wife when the helicopter plunged to the ground.

The crash occurred near the town of Coonoor in southern India. One officer survived. He was the only survivor.

The Indian military is investigating the incident and has not disclosed the cause of the crash.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: the reason your Christmas cards might not arrive on time.

Plus, America’s standing on the world stage.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 9th of December, 2021. You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we’re glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. First up: a longtime U.S. ally drifts away from the West.

Turkey is the only NATO member nation in the Middle East and it was once a reliable friend to the United States and Europe.

BROWN: But in recent years, Turkey’s relationship with the West has grown increasingly icy as it continues to deepen its ties with Russia.

And now Turkey's voting rights and membership in the Council of Europe is at risk.

So what does all of this mean for the United States and its allies?

REICHARD: Joining us now to explain why this matters is Aykan Erdemir. He served as a member of the Turkish Parliament for four years, until 2015. He worked on the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee and the EU Harmonization Committee, among others.

Today he is Senior Director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Good morning to you, sir!

AYKAN ERDEMIR, GUEST: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

REICHARD: Let’s start with this question: Why is Turkey important to the United States and Europe? What has made it a valuable ally in the past?

ERDEMIR: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

REICHARD: Let’s start with this question: Why is Turkey important to the United States and Europe? What has made it a valuable ally in the past?

ERDEMIR: Turkey has been the second largest military in the NATO alliance. It was one of the key fighting forces, for example, during the Korean War. And Turkey has been a member of the Council of Europe since 1950, you know, right from the very start. Turkey used to be a bulwark of the Western alliance, but those days are long gone. For the last 19 years, Turkey has been ruled by Islamists through the Justice and Development Party, and its strong man leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. And the news piece you just mentioned that the Council of Europe is now considering suspending Turkey’s voting rights and possibly even its membership is very telling. In the history of the Council of Europe, has only taken place once before. It was against Azerbaijan for its failure to abide by the binding rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. And now Turkey has become the second country ever to be in that position for its continuing detention of philanthropist and minority rights advocate, Osman Kavala, who has been in a maximum security prison for over four years in solitary confinement.

REICHARD: Last week, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe said it would begin infringement procedures against Europe. That jeopardizes the country’s membership in the council after 71 years. First of all, explain what the Council of Europe is and then why they are taking this action against Turkey?

ERDEMIR: Now, the Council of Europe is an extremely important human rights organization and umbrella organization. It was established in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. And the key goal was to avoid atrocities that Europe experienced firsthand during the Great War. And this institution also had a court—namely the European Court of Human Rights—and the way in which this court functioned was that it overrides national courts. So, citizens of  European nation states can take their grievances beyond the nation state to Strasburg, to the European Court of Human Rights. And the judgments there are binding. So they are key to protecting human rights and freedoms. And over the years, for example, the court has proven very important for upholding minority rights and freedom of religion or belief.

And Turkey has been under Erdoğan, one of the worst offenders, and last week finally, the Council of Europe had enough. There was the required two thirds majority to go forward with infringement procedures. I think the hope here is that Erdoğan will just do the right thing, release Osman Kavala, and Turkey can remain a member.

REICHARD: What do you think the odds are of Turkey being expelled from NATO? And if that were to happen, what would it mean?

ERDEMIR: Now, NATO has a consensus decision making mechanism, as opposed to the Council of Europe, which has a two thirds majority required. So, Turkey is there to remain in NATO, because ultimately, any NATO decision needs to have Erdoğan’s approval. But at the same time, we know that there has been an informal mechanism through which the Erdoğan regime has been increasingly marginalized. Because over the last year, we have seen again and again, Erdoğan coming to Russia's aid and Belarus's aid within NATO. For example, when NATO was trying to come up with a strong statement of criticism, and even some punitive action against Belarus for its dictator’s downing of a Ryanair jet to arrest a dissident, Erdoğan toned down NATO's rhetoric and action. And this followed earlier attempts, again by Erdoğan to tone down NATO rhetoric and action against Russia. Now, this is a very troubling pattern. As a key NATO ally, Turkey acts again and again in collusion with Russia and its partner Belarus to undermine transatlantic unity. The hope here is that in 2023, when Turkey has the next presidential and parliamentary elections, the Turkish electorate will finally vote Erdoğan out and Ankara will return once again to the rule of law so that it is once again a member in good standing within NATO so we no longer have to discuss this issue of whether Turkey belongs in NATO or not.

REICHARD: Last question: You’ve written about Turkey’s growing ties with Russia. Do you think Turkey shares more in common now with Russia than it does with the West?

ERDEMIR: Turkey remains a divided country. Erdoğan and his loyal followers definitely share more with Russia's authoritarianism, Iran's Islamism, and Venezuela’s kind of rogue state characteristics. But then there is the other half of Turkey that believe in western values, market economy, separation of mosque and state, and they would like to reinstate rule of law and democracy. So they definitely belong in the Council of Europe. They definitely belong in NATO. And I think it is everyone's hope in the Western alliance that in 2023 Turkey makes a big comeback after two decades of Islamist rule.

REICHARD: Aykan Erdemir has been our guest. Thanks so much!

ERDEMIR: It has been a great pleasure. Thanks for having me.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Up next: delaying your mail!

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: With just 16 days left until Christmas, it’s time to start getting those cards and packages to the post office. Or maybe it’s past time! Just ahead of this year’s holiday rush, the U.S. Postal Service rolled out a new, slower delivery schedule. What will that mean for the agency’s future? WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: The Post Office on East Market Street in Leesburg, Virginia sits right across the street from the Loudon County Courthouse. The street is full of cars, but few of them were turning into the Post Office parking lot. That’s not to say nobody’s dropping by, though.

I asked a few of the people who did drop by whether they were concerned about the Postal Service’s decision to slow down mail deliveries.

PERSON: I’m not. But other people are, I’m sure.

SCHUMACHER: Do you think it's a good decision for them to do that?

PERSON: Probably not. But they did it anyway.

PERSON: Well, I think it's the strategy may backfire, but any Postal Service is better than no Postal Service.

SCHUMACHER: Why do you think it may backfire?

PERSON: Because people may go to other modes of shipping. And, and you know, FedEx and UPS and Amazon. They're pretty well equipped.

Earlier this year, the Postal Service released a new 10-year operating plan. It included a controversial strategy to control costs that began on October 1st: slowing down mail deliveries. According to the plan, the Postal Service hasn’t been able to meet its standards for mail delivery for the past eight years. It called the lower standards more achievable.

But it’s not just the time it takes to deliver mail that’s changing. The cost of mail delivery is also going up, at least temporarily.

Kevin Kosar is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies the U.S. Postal Service. He says all these changes are a matter of economics.

KOSAR: Paper mail is down 40 percent over the last decade, and paper mail was for the longest time, the vast majority of everything that the Postal Service carried, like 99 percent of its volume was paper mail. Well, that's going down. And as that goes down, that means less revenue. Meanwhile, parcels, boxes are skyrocketing.

Kosar says 15 years ago, just over 10 percent of the Postal Service’s revenue came from shipping parcels. Now, boxes make up about 40 percent of its revenue.

And that’s a problem because the Postal Service wasn’t designed to handle bulky items.

KOSAR: The entire Postal Service logistics network was built to deliver paper, and now they're being clobbered with tons of boxes. And so they're having to swap out everything they do in order to be able to handle the volume. And last holiday season, they weren't ready and they got crushed.

The Postal Service has a mandate to be “self-sufficient.” In other words, it’s required to support itself just like a private business—on its own revenue. If that revenue drops—or if it stays the same while costs increase—something has to change.

But Kosar says change is hard, especially when it comes to cutting costs at the Postal Service.

KOSAR: Eighty percent of its total operating costs are people. It's the salaries you pay, the total compensation you pay, and also the retirement benefits, pensions and health care. And the Postal Service can't move those needles very easily.

That’s partly because of retirement benefits mandated by Congress. Advocates have long said until lawmakers rescind the mandate for the Postal Service to pre-fund retirement benefits 75 years in advance, the Postal Service will continue to lose money.

People may be expensive, but the Postal Service needs them to handle the increased volume of parcels. This holiday season, it’s trying to hire 40,000 more people to process all those extra shipments.

KOSAR: And then they're gonna take some of these people and shift them over to permanent status, make them full, full on permanent union workers for the Postal Service. So if you can't cut people costs, that leaves not a whole lot else to cut.

Except mail delivery standards. But critics say that strategy might backfire.

Monique Morrissey is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. She says slashing mail delivery standards could do irreversible harm.

MORRISSEY: If you become unreliable, if it's no longer clear when something's going to arrive, then companies might say, “Well, I'm not going to do this anymore, I'm just going to do it another way.” And that might not be reversible.

Morrissey says some of the other new cost-cutting measures are equally problematic.

MORRISSEY: There are also other service cuts that are embedded in the 10 year plan, like they're going to be reducing some postal office hours, things like that. But you know, some of these things could do irreversible damage to the post or close to irreversible damage to the post office.

Back in Virginia, customers didn’t seem that worried. Some of them said they hadn’t even heard about the slowdowns.

PERSON: I don't think it's gonna affect me very much.

SCHUMACHER: And why is that?

PERSON: I can wait an extra day or two for mail. I don't have any special need that I can think of.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher in Leesburg, Virginia.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Myrna, you can’t make this stuff up. Get a load of this story:

Beauty pageants for camels are a thing!

MYRNA BROWN: You’re kidding.

REICHARD: I kid you not. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz Camel Festival kicked off. That’s an event where camel breeders compete for $66 million in prize money! The animals are judged on the shape of their heads, necks, humps, posture and dress.

The rules clearly say: no artificial beauty enhancement is allowed.

But some breeders paid no heed and got caught using Botox injections and face lifts on their animals! They stretched out the lips, used hormones to beef up muscles, used face fillers, and more.

Strict penalties will be imposed for this “deception.”

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, December 9th, 2021. 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. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to listen to WORLD Radio’s latest special podcast series written by Senior Correspondent Kim Henderson. Over the last three weekends we’ve highlighted the Lamb family, the Gipson sisters, and a handful of others—all affected by abuse.

BROWN: This weekend is the fourth and final installment of this compelling story, and Kim Henderson is here to talk with us about it. Good morning Kim, and congratulations on your powerful piece of reporting. Just great!

KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, y’all, thank you, and before we get going here, I also want to thank WORLD’s donors for making this kind of investigation possible.

I think this project is a clear example of why our December Giving Drive is so important. Deep reporting takes time - this month marks a year for me with this story. And I know it takes resources, too. So if you’ve given already, and I see we’re off to a good start, I want to say thanks—and if you haven’t yet, I sure hope you will!

BROWN: Every dollar really makes a difference.

Well, Kim, I can’t wait for the conclusion this weekend—I’ve been completely immersed—and the story sounds so fresh, even though you’re walking us through an abuse case that happened 20 years ago. What prompted you to revisit something two decades in the past?

HENDERSON: You know, you’re not the only person to ask me that. Several times during my investigation I got the question, “Why cover a story that’s 20 years old?” But I think the answer is going to be obvious to listeners who follow the story through all four episodes. And it’s this: Twenty years offers some perspective that only time can provide.

We get to learn what it’s like for the victim’s family to deal with continuing court issues. Here’s a clip from Nate’s mother. She tried to shield him from the appeals that came up.

DARLENE: It was like something going on every six months to a year down through the whole time they was in jail that I would get, you know. I was having to deal with all that stuff. I had to call the district attorney's office . . .

The episode that drops Saturday also shows the limitations of earthly justice. Listeners will get a surprise. They’ll hear about an additional arrest that took place 10 years after King’s trial.

And, of course, Nate says the possibility of his abusers getting parole was always out there, hovering.

NATE: There was word that King was going to play out his revenge through Shawn when he got out of prison, when Shawn got out of prison . . . And Mom had gotten wind of that and rightfully so, she was concerned. And she just expressed it to the parole board and said, “Will you please keep them in there as long as the sentence.”

But here’s what I think is the biggest benefit of a longview of this case. We get to find out how the survivor is doing 20 years later, this survivor who has told us he has firmly laid hold of Christ. So really, what we’re waiting to find out is, are God’s promises true? Can He help us overcome life’s fiercest trials?

And 20 years in, Nate has matured. He’s reached some conclusions about his abuser.

NATE: No one else can say on how many times God has shown him mercy. How many times God dealt with him. How many times God sent people to warn him, but yet he turned his heart against God. And, um, I, I truly believe that his conscience was seared.

BROWN: How has this story affected you? What have you taken away from it?

HENDERSON: Lots of takeaways, but here’s a top one. A couple of years ago WORLD gave backpacks to its reporters and staff, and mine went with me to every interview for Truth Be Told. And sewn on the front there’s a WORLD logo with these words beneath: Every day, earn their trust. This kind of story really required me to earn the trust of my interviewees. I had to work for it. Wait for it. But it was equally important to me that at the end of the project I still have their trust. That Nate and the Gibson sisters and the prosecutor and the officers all know that we’d told their stories truthfully and carefully. And my big takeaway is that’s tough. It’s a high goal. But it’s a worthy one, and I love writing for a news outlet with that kind of core value.

BROWN: The conclusion to Truth be Told airs this weekend and will be available online at: wng.org/truthbetold. Kim, thanks so much for all your hard work on this story.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday December 9th. 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 commentator Cal Thomas.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: President Biden’s virtual meeting Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin might be thought of as a final check-up before Russian troops invade Ukraine. Biden has threatened consequences, but they sound too weak. The president of Ukraine sounded bolder than the U.S. president when he threatened to “derail” any invasion of his country by Russian forces.

And Russia isn’t the only U.S. adversary making moves that need to be addressed.

China for the first time is building a naval base in the Atlantic Ocean, off the African coast. Beijing is also ratcheting up military flights over Taiwan and again threatening to invade the democratic island nation. Biden’s response? Cancel diplomatic participation in next year’s Beijing Olympics. That isn’t likely to put fear into Xi Jinping’s heart.

Iran appears to be proceeding with its program to build nuclear weapons. Why shouldn’t it, given the religious regime’s belief that Allah wants it to have one. That’s key to its pursuit of the destruction of Israel and eventually the “great Satan.” That would be America.

As a recent Wall Street Journal editorial accurately put it: “The Biden administration’s problem is that it came into office believing that the main threat to world stability was Donald Trump.” And that serious problems can be solved diplomatically.

Rogue regimes only engage in “diplomacy” if they think they can pick the pocket of their adversary.

The West too often believes everyone wants to be like us. If that were true, wouldn’t they already be more like us? Evil must be opposed, or it grows in nations as well as in individuals.

If Putin invades Ukraine, if China invades Taiwan, if Iran finishes building a nuclear bomb, if North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un decides to move against South Korea, it will be because they see this as the ideal opportunity to engage in behavior they might think twice about if they feared America’s response.

Criminals tend to avoid places with effective security. And bullies only prey on people they perceive as unable or unwilling to fight back. So, too, do leaders of “evil empires” feel emboldened when they conclude they will not face opposition from the “strongest nation in the world.”

I’m Cal Thomas.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Tomorrow: John Stonestreet joins us once again for Culture Friday.

And, we’ll review the new documentary series about The Beatles.

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.

A reminder that if you appreciate this program, please consider supporting us during our December giving drive. Just go to wng.org/donate. And thank you so much!

The Bible says: Commit to the Lord whatever you do and He will establish your plans.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.