The World and Everything in It — February 8, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning to you!

The Supreme Court considers overreach by an agency. That,  according to a convicted payday loan lender.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket. 

Also the Monday Moneybeat. Another round of stimulus is on the way. And student-loan debt. Today we’ll talk about the economic concept known as “moral hazard.”

Plus, the WORLD History Book. 75 years ago this week, the beating of a World War II veteran that galvanized the Civil Rights movement.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, February 8th. 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 news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Republicans, Democrats argue impeachment ahead of Trump Senate trial » Former President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial starts this week. 

Presentations begin tomorrow. But lawmakers made arguments on Sunday in the court of public opinion. 

Republican Senator Rand Paul says he sees a double standard. He told Fox News that if inflammatory rhetoric is grounds for impeachment… 

PAUL: I mean really we ought to impeach Chuck Schumer then. He went to the Supreme Court, stood in front of the Supreme Court and said specifically, hey Gorsuch, hey Kavanaugh, you’ve unleashed a whirlwind and you’re going to pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you continue with these awful decisions. 

But the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff said impeachment managers will speak not only to Trump’s public comments, but also to his efforts to reverse the election result.  

SCHIFF: His efforts to intervene with local elected officials, the secretary of state in Georgia, indeed the Justice Department to help him overturn the election results; many Americans, and indeed many senators, may not be familiar with all of those facts that led up to that incitement of that mob. 

A conviction of the former president is highly unlikely, as most Republicans oppose the trial and say it’s time to move forward. 

Rep. Cheney shrugs off censure vote » Meantime, one of the top Republicans on Capitol Hill is facing backlash over her decision to vote in favor of impeaching Trump. 

The Wyoming Republican Party voted Saturday to censure GOP House Conference Chair Liz Cheney. 

Darin Smith, who lost to Cheney in the House primary in 2016 argued that “All President Trump did was call for a peaceful assembly and protest for a fair and audited election.” He added that the party needs to put Cheney “on notice.”

Cheney responded on Sunday, shrugging off the vote. She has maintained that Trump was responsible for inciting the riot. 

CHENEY: Our most important duty is to the Constitution. And as I’ve explained and will continue to explain, the oath that I took to the Constitution compelled me to vote for impeachment, and it doesn’t bend to partisanship. 

Wyoming Republicans counter that a commitment to the Constitution should have demanded Trump receive a formal hearing and due process in the House. They argue that Cheney voted “yes” even though Trump did not receive that due process. 

Liz Cheney was one of 10 Republicans to vote in favor of impeaching Trump for a second time. Last week, GOP lawmakers voted to retain her as party’s no.3 leader in the House. 

California to revise indoor church guidelines after ruling » California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office says the governor is working to revise guidelines for indoor church services after the Supreme Court lifted the state’s ban on indoor worship.

The ruling was the biggest legal victory against California’s COVID-19 health orders. The high court announced the rulings late Friday in two cases where churches argued the restrictions violated their religious liberty. 

Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Joseph Cordileone reacted to the decision on Sunday, telling Fox News… 

CORDILEONE: Naturally, I’m very pleased by this decision of the Supreme    Court. I’ve said from the very beginning of these lockdowns that we accept the authority of the government to tell us what we have to do to keep them safe when they worship, but the government has no authority to tell them they cannot worship or to issue restrictions so severe as to practically ban public worship. 

The justices said the state can still limit attendance to 25 percent of a building’s capacity and restrict singing indoors.

Longtime Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz dies at 100 » President Ronald Reagan’s longtime Secretary of State George P. Schultz has died. He was 100 years old. 

Schultz played a key role in efforts to wind down Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. 

Speaking at an event in 1993, Schultz recalled a meeting he brokered between President Reagan and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin.

SCHULTZ: Unexpectedly to him I said ‘how would you like to go meet the president?’ And being a quick and alert diplomat, he said ‘fine,’ so we just wheeled down the back elevator in a special car so we wouldn’t be noticed. 

Schultz, a lifelong Republican, also held several top posts in the Nixon administration. He then became the longest serving secretary of state since World War II, leading Reagan’s State Department for more than six years.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a claim of federal overreach at the Supreme Court.

Plus, a milestone in the civil rights movement.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Monday morning and time to get back to work on The World and Everything in It. Today is February 8, 2021. Good morning to you!  I’m Mary Reichard.

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

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two opinions last week. 

First, a surprise loss for Jewish families who’d fought for compensation from the German government. Specifically, a group of heirs of Jewish art dealers had sued Germany in American courts to try to recover medieval art relics. 

The heirs say the Nazis forced sale of the artwork for far less than its true value. 

This property is known as the Guelph Treasure.

REICHARD: They did lose. But the case isn’t over. The unanimous decision returns the case to lower court to consider whether a different argument might permit the case to go forward. 

The heirs sued under a law that does not generally permit lawsuits against foreign nations in American courts. But a pretty clear exception allows for that, if it involves property taken in violation of international law. 

Germany argued it took property from its own citizens, making this is a domestic matter. So the exception doesn’t apply. 

But the heirs say their relatives were not German citizens; therefore, it’s not a domestic matter.

The lower court will now have to sort all that out.

EICHER: Second, a 6 to 3 ruling in favor of a retired railroad worker. 

The federal Railroad Retirement Board had refused to reconsider a decision that declined disability benefits. The Supreme Court ruling gives that worker the right to have the courts review that decision.

REICHARD: Now, on to the one oral argument for today.

ROBERTS: We will hear argument this morning in case 19-508 AMG Capital Management versus the Federal Trade Commission.

EICHER: The founder of AMG Capital Management is a man by the name of Scott Tucker. He’s also an amateur race car driver. 

And a federal inmate.

Tucker’s currently serving a 16 year prison sentence for making illegal payday loans. His company made internet loans at interest rates that were unlawfully high and automatically renewed them. 

With the profits, Tucker funded his race-car ambitions, and he’s something of a known entity. Apparently Justice Amy Coney Barrett had heard about him. 

Listen to this comment to the attorney for Tucker:

BARRETT: I don’t understand you to be arguing he has clean hands.  I mean, he’s been convicted. He has the dubious distinction of being the subject of an episode of “Dirty Money” on Netflix.

REICHARD: Nobody disputes his conviction. What Tucker does dispute is how the Federal Trade Commission went after his money.

The FTC used a part of the Federal Trade Commission Act to do that. Tucker’s lawyer Michael Pattillo argues the agency used a portion of the law that permits an injunction. Meaning, a court order for someone to stop a behavior. 

But it doesn’t permit the agency to go after money. The FTC isn’t playing by its own rules, says Pattillo, again, for Tucker. Note I’ve edited for flow.

PATTILLO: I heard the Commission say that sometimes one pathway might be more attractive. Well, of course it’s going to be more attractive for the Commission to proceed …where it doesn’t have to comply with for example the heightened proof requirement.  Here, the Commission first investigated this conduct, it first asked Mr. Tucker about his disclosures, in 2002. Yet, subject to no limitations period, it sat on its hands for a decade.

Sitting on its hands, wasting time, letting memories fade. That makes mounting a defense harder as time goes on. Time limits on when an agency can go after a person is one protection for the accused.

Other protections against government overreach is due process. The accused receiving a hearing, for example. 

Or making sure the government itself follows the law, before going after citizens.

Each side of this dispute draws support from different sections of the FTC Act.

The agency wants to use the section that gives it the power to seek an injunction against a business “that is violating or is about to violate” the law.

That language is forward-looking. Nothing about past money damages mentioned in that.

And yet, the courts have let this slide for decades. Here’s how lawyer for the FTC, Joel Marcus, put it. When he says “petitioners,” you should know he means Tucker.

MARCUS: The Petitioners are asking you to rule that when Congress allowed the Commission to enforce the FTC Act in federal court, it intended that the Court would merely stop the violations while letting the violator keep his stolen money.

Not so fast, Tucker’s lawyer argues. Another section is what should apply to his client, one passed a little later than the section the FTC relies upon. It allows the agency to win monetary relief, but only after it jumps through some hoops. 

First, an administrative hearing to see whether a cease and desist order was sent out, and two, only for behavior that a reasonable person would have known is “dishonest or fraudulent.” 

Neither one nor two happened and Tucker’s lawyer argues that means the FTC exceeds its authority to go after the money.

Chief Justice John Roberts made note of how things have changed since the FTC Act passed a half century ago. He sets it all up in a question to Tucker’s lawyer, Pattillo.

ROBERTS: …and in the intervening years, there’s been a significant change in how this Court interprets statutes. Back when this one was passed, we had a pretty free-wheeling approach. You know, we weren’t as confined to the specific language. You sort of look at what Congress had in mind and — and figured out the meaning in light of that. And, of course, today, we have a more disciplined approach, you know, I think more suited to our role under the Constitution. But shouldn’t we construe this statute in the environment in which Congress passed it in light of the, as I said, more free-wheeling approach?…So why would we adopt a view that is current today but wasn’t current back then?

Well, here’s why, Patillo answered: Just look at the text itself. The right answer is right there. Never mind past practices.

But Marcus for the FTC argued of course past practice matters. That’s where the analysis should lie.

Justice Stephen Breyer wondered about that history. He mentions Marbury v Madison. That’s the decision from 1803 that gave American courts the power to strike down laws, statutes, and government actions they find violates the Constitution.

BREYER: Law isn’t perfect. Courts make mistakes. We make mistakes too. And this, if it is a mistake, has been around for 50 years and there’s a pretty uniform interpretation before the Seventh Circuit. And if we never say “let bygones be bygones,” I mean, we’re going to be here to Marbury versus Madison and beyond. So too much time has passed, water under the bridge, good-bye.

Justice Breyer asking what’s the principle for correcting mistakes? Maybe better to accept them for the sake of judicial sanity?

Justice Brett Kavanaugh offered some insight, given his resume:

KAVANAUGH: I worked in the Executive Branch for many years, so I understand how this happens. When you’re in the Executive Branch or an independent agency, you want to do good things and prevent or punish bad things, and sometimes your statutory authority is borderline…could be war policy or immigration or environmental or what have you, but with good intentions, the agency pushes the envelope and stretches the statutory language to do the good or prevent the bad. The problem is it results in a transfer of power from Congress to the Executive Branch to decide whether to exercise this new authority. That’s a particular concern, at least for me, with independent agencies.

The concern is separation of powers. That protects the rights of citizens from the concentrated power of government. 

Marcus countered that the legislature spelled out the authority for the executive agency to go to court, and it’s right there in the text. If Congress intended to let agencies go to court and ask for all sorts of remedies, then there is no separation of powers problem to worry about.

The main problem seems to be undefined terms. The law gives the FTC power to prevent, prohibit, or punish “unfair or deceptive” business practices. But as The Wall Street Journal pointed out, and Justice Kavanaugh alluded to, the FTC tends to see whatever it’s investigating as an unfair or deceptive practice. To a hammer, every problem is a nail.

So even though Tucker the unscrupulous payday lender has unclean hands, the Constitution still protects him from a government arrogating power unto itself. 

Judging from the way the questioning went, I think the FTC is going to be nipped of some power this time around. 

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A man in Massachusetts had to undergo surgery after a bizarre medical incident at his home. 

Brad Gauthier told NBC Boston 10 that he was trying to drink a glass of water last Tuesday morning, but he couldn’t.

GAUTHIER: The water just filled up my esophagus and I literally had to lean over and let it drain out.

Gauthier drove to a local emergency clinic where an x-ray revealed why he was having trouble swallowing. 

It also revealed why he was missing one of his two wireless earbuds! 

Turns out, Gauthier had fallen asleep with his Airpods in his ears the night before, and somehow, he swallowed one of them in his sleep. 

The good news is the earbud still works, but the microphone is a bit glitchy now. And you know, Airpods aren’t cheap.

GAUTHIER: So I think I’m going to look up a YouTube video on how to fix it myself, replace the mic.

Sensible man. And a good reminder: Airpods are for external use only!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen joins us now, as he does on a regular basis here on Mondays. David, good morning.

DAVID BAHNSEN, GUEST: Good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.

EICHER: Well, let’s talk politics. Looks like the table’s set for another round of stimulus to pass the Congress without the need for Republicans, and they’re gunning for $1.9 trillion. Think they’ll get it?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, I don’t think they’re going to be able to get $1.9 trillion on a simple majority vote. I don’t think they have the votes from the Democrats to do that. But already it looks like they’re having to shed the corporation of a federal $15 minimum wage out of it. And it looks like they’re having to dramatically lower the income thresholds of who would get the additional direct taxpayer payment of $1,400. So, ironically, that’s actually something that President Trump wanted. And because of Joe Manchin and some of the moderate Democrats, they’re going to have to peel that back. 

But the irony of it politically is that the Republicans kind of gave President Biden a really interesting opportunity to get most of what he wanted—certainly get the most important things policy-wise—and provide a sort of optic of bipartisanship by taking a kind of compromised bill and working with these 10 Republican Senators that would enable them to do this without budget reconciliation and he didn’t take the bait. And so I think that they’re pretty willing to take their chances with the voters. I don’t think anyone seems to feel—on either side—that bipartisanship is really important right now politically. I think most people feel that they look better to their own bases when they don’t work with the other side.

EICHER: So, that’s the politics, but what about the economics? Do you think there’s anything in this package that’s going to hasten the end of bad economic times?

BAHNSEN: No, because the bad economic times that we face ultimately will come from the excessive indebtedness. This isn’t going to cure bad economic times, it ultimately is adding onto it. But that doesn’t mean that in the short term there aren’t things to specific people in a specific timeframe that will be beneficial. I certainly get that. 

But this is really piling on at this point. It’s not targeted. I mean, that’s my biggest critique is we can talk about what dollar level is appropriate or inappropriate to spend in general and why for some reason we have to keep coming back to a second, third, fourth bite of the apple. 

But interestingly, Bill Clinton’s old treasury secretary, Obama’s old economic czar, very highly regarded center-left economist Larry Summers wrote a really high profile op-ed this week that was just all the talk of the town in Biden-land saying that the problem with this proposal is not only that it was way more than is needed to fill the economic gap and, therefore, has various wasteful elements to it fiscally. But he said you’re spending the money that you could be spending into infrastructure and other goals of a left-wing agenda—so, you’re shooting bullets and you’re going to leave yourself without bullets in the gun for the future. And I think he’s right. 

If I were a progressive, I’d be very frustrated with this bill because they’re really spending a lot of the money for the sake of saying they spent it. And I think there’s a lot of silliness in the latest bill. And I think there was a lot of silliness in the $906 billion bill that was passed in December. This is not a partisan thing for me and I’m actually quite irritated by some on the right who have all of a sudden gotten really fiscally worried about this. I would remind them that the last $3 trillion of stimulus came under a Republican president.

EICHER: Yeah, good reminder. Let me go to another issue. 

Here’s Senator Elizabeth Warren last week, urging President Biden to sign another executive order and by so doing wipe out virtually all student loan debt—up to $50,000 per borrower—when the average debt load is 25K at the high end. Let’s hear this.

WARREN: Canceling student loan debt is the single most effective executive action that President Biden can take to kickstart this economy. Canceling student loan debt is the single most effective executive action that President Biden can take to help close the racial wealth gap. Canceling student loan debt is the single most effective executive action President Biden can take to lift the economic prospects of tens of millions of young Americans. Data show that canceling the student loan debt would result in greater home ownership rates, more housing stability, improved credit scores, higher incomes, higher GDP, more small business formation, and more jobs. Canceling student loan debt is good for you whether you have student loan debt or not because it is good for our economy.

Now—same day—at the White House, spokeswoman Jen Psaki had the answer to this and she said Congress needs to pass a bill—not an EO—and the president wants $10,000, not 50. 

So what do you say to the economics claim Senator Warren makes?

BAHNSEN: Well, I actually wrote a whole chapter in my book about Elizabeth Warren on this very topic of student loan debt and was really shocked at all the research I did to find how overwhelmingly clear the evidence is that everything she just said is not true. 

First of all, it’s stunning for a progressive to be saying, “I want to use a huge chunk of federal treasury to go help doctors and lawyers,” and not the lowest-income people in society. The bottom deciles of wage earners do not have college degrees, ergo they did not have college education, did not attend college classes, and do not have student debt. Ergo this is a bill intended to help out people of higher-income producing capacity. 

It also is so riddled with moral hazard it is unbelievable. 

Why in the world would anyone believe the government will not come in and wipe out credit card debt? Credit card debt is certainly impacting people’s economic well-being. Every argument she just made on student debt can be made on credit card debt. So this will create significant moral hazard. This is unethical and immoral to the core because of how it rewards people who have not paid off debt and punishes people who have paid off debt. This is divisive because it will build resentment at those that feel that they did the right thing. 

There’s really nothing good I can say about this. 

Now, that’s not to say that I look at the whole system and say, hey, everyone got a great deal with this student debt. Too bad for them. I actually think the entire higher education system is a joke. But the reason it’s a joke is because now an education that’s worth $10-$15,000 costs $50-$60,000 a year and the reason it does is because of the subsidies that university professors have no price competitive pressures at all because of unlimited loan financing from the federal government. So, there are ways to fix the system. They’re doing it the exact opposite way.

And the idea that this would be a boon to the economy by people getting their debt forgiven is a classic broken window fallacy. They’re simply saying that they’re going to divert money from one place to the next and viola it’s going to be better for everyone, with no consideration to the longer term effects and the broader amount of people that it impacts.

EICHER: Quickly and we’ve got to go, what do you think President Biden will do?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, that part is tricky because he does have some advisors who are for it and he does have some advisors who are against it. And he has been on the record being opposed to it in the past. All this stuff about him giving into the progressive left is piling up and I kind of think he’s going to want to get some kind of street cred, if you’ll pardon the expression, of how he doesn’t capitulate to the far left all the time. And I know a lot of people don’t believe that or don’t think he’s headed that direction, so this is somewhat of a contrary view. This may be an area where he says, no, this is where I’m standing up to the far left. It’s totally unaffordable, it’s totally ill-advisable, it’s bad policy, and riddled with moral hazard. This would be a great opportunity for Biden to say, hey, this is one area where I’m going to draw a line.

EICHER: Financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen. Thank you, David. Have a great week.

BAHNSEN: Thanks. Always enjoy being with you, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: the WORLD History Book. 

Just two entries this week. First, a Bible translation creates controversy, and then a tragedy becomes a springboard for civil rights. Here’s WORLD senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

HEBREWS 4:12a: For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit…

MUSIC: [How Firm a Foundation]

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: That portion of Hebrews 4:12 in the King James Version tells about the Bible’s power, able to divide even “soul and spirit.” But 75 years ago, a new version of the Bible threatened to divide believers. 

On February 8, 1946, the New Testament portion of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was published for the first time. The Old Testament was published eight years later.

With its readable, modern English, the RSV presented an alternative to the Authorized King James Version. 

The RSV was also the first translation of the Bible to make use of the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah. But that proved controversial, when the translation committee opted to use the word “woman” in place of “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14. Katherine Sakenfeld, Old Testament professor at Princeton University, explains in this 1999 Odyssey Productions documentary. 

SAKENFELD: The King James Version traditionally translated “a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,” and the RSV changed this based on the understanding of the Hebrew word “almah” and its meaning in the Hebrew Bible in general to “a young woman shall conceive.”  

Disapproval over the committee’s change galvanized the “King James only” movement of some Christian denominations, and it prompted some pastors to burn portions or entire copies of the RSV in protest. 

But for many, the easy-to-understand language made Scripture easier to apply. That was true for Andrew Young, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. 

YOUNG: When I first saw the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, it was the first Bible that I ever opened up that I could read and understand. It changed my life in more ways than I can imagine.

In 2017, President Trump took his oath of office on an RSV Bible that his mother gave him in 1955. The RSV served as the basis for the English Standard Version of the Bible in 2001. 

And now for a difficult milestone that became a rallying point for the American civil rights movement: the beating of Sergeant Isaac Woodard on February 12, 1946. 

WELLES: Officer X will never pay for the two eyes he beat out of the soldier’s head. How can you assay the gift of sight? What are they quoting today for one eye? An eye for an eye?

That’s Hollywood’s Orson Welles on his radio broadcast in 1946, talking about Woodard’s plight. Woodard was an African American U.S. Army veteran. Only a few hours after his honorable discharge, he was in his army uniform, riding a bus from Georgia to his home in South Carolina. At some point, Woodard and the bus driver had a dispute.

The bus driver called the police, who met Woodard in Batesburg, South Carolina. Police dragged Woodard off the bus and beat him with nightsticks. They took him to jail, charging him with drunkenness and disorderly conduct. That night, Police Chief Lynwood Shull permanently blinded Woodard in both eyes with a billy club. Woodard stated in court that the blinding came because he answered the officer “yes” instead of “yes sir.” 

The brutality sparked national outrage, helped in part by Welles’ radio broadcasts. Shull’s name was redacted from Woodard’s affidavit, so Welles referred to him as “Officer X.”

WELLES: Wash your hands, Officer X! Wash them well. Scrub and scour, you won’t blot out the blood of a blinded war veteran. Nor yet the color of your skin.

Police Chief Shull faced trial, openly admitting he blinded Woodard, but an all-white jury acquitted him of all charges. The defense attorney played on Confederate sympathies. Here’s a reenactment from a classroom video series on African American history.   

DEFENSE: All I can say to you fine, upstanding sons of the South is this: If you rule against police officer Shull, then let South Carolina secede again! 

The injustice caught President Harry Truman’s attention. Here he is, recounting Woodard’s story:

TRUMAN: He protested that he was just on his way home, and they charged him with being drunk and disorderly, and he wasn’t drunk at all. And he got hit over the head with a black jack, and hit across the face with a billy club and blinded him for life. 

Truman established a national interracial commission and called civil rights “a moral priority.” He submitted a civil rights bill to Congress in February 1948, and issued executive orders desegregating the armed forces and the federal government. In doing so, he made civil rights a national issue for the first time in the 20th century. 

SONG: [Keep Your Eyes On the Prize—Peter Seeger]

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: President Biden wants to change the federal government’s definition of sex. We’ll tell you about the widespread implications of that.

And, we’ll talk about the coup in Myanmar and what it could mean for U.S.-China relations.

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.

Jesus said: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. 

Go now in grace and peace.

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