The World and Everything in It - January 24, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The city of Boston flies all sorts of flags outside City Hall, except for one.

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

Also today the Monday Moneybeat. A market slump, one of the major stock indexes enters what’s known as a correction, and the worst week since October of 2020.

Plus, the WORLD History Book: a somber anniversary in the space race.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, January 24th. 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: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: UK accuses Russia of trying to replace Ukraine government » While Russia’s military has not yet further invaded Ukraine, Western leaders say Moscow is already attacking the former Soviet nation in other ways.

The British government over the weekend said the Kremlin is trying to replace Ukraine’s government with a pro-Moscow administration.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Sunday said that should surprise no one.

BLINKEN: We’ve been concerned and have been warning about exactly these kinds of tactics for several weeks. And we talked about that publicly, that Russia would try to in some way topple or replace the government. Just a few days ago, we sanctioned four Russian agents in Ukraine who were engaged in destabilizing activities.

Britain’s Foreign Office also named several other Ukrainian politicians it said—quote—“have contact with Russian intelligence officers currently involved in the planning for an attack on Ukraine.”

The British government made the claim based on an intelligence assessment, without making its evidence public.

The U.K. also said Moscow wants to install a pro-Russia former Ukrainian lawmaker, Yevheniy Murayev, as head of Ukraine’s government.

Murayev called that report “absurd.”

MURAYEV: It’s absurd because I’m under sanctions of the Russian Federation since Nov. 1st 2018. I have been denied entry to Russia. I represent a threat to Russian security.

Britain has sent anti-tank weapons to Ukraine as part of efforts to bolster the country's defenses.

Thousands rally against COVID-19 restrictions, mandates » Thousands gathered in Washington on Sunday for what organizers dubbed the “Defeat the Mandates” March.

AUDIO: No more mandates!

Marchers demanded an end to vaccine mandates nationwide. Some also carried signs denouncing mask mandates.

Speakers at the event included Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. Critics have accused him of spreading vaccine misinformation.

Washington D.C. last week imposed a vaccine mandate for anyone over the age of 11 to enter any indoor facility.

Meantime, across the Atlantic, police in Brussels fired water cannons and tear gas Sunday to disperse protesters there.

AUDIO: [Protests]

Demonstrators called for an end to COVID-19 restrictions. Some set fire to large piles of masks and a small number of protesters shattered windows and vandalized buildings.

Demonstrations in the Belgian capital drew an estimated 50,000 people with some traveling from France, Germany, and other countries to take part.

Talks with Taliban underway in Norway » Taliban officials are gathered at a hotel in the snow-capped mountains above Norway's capital city for three days of talks. They’re meeting with Western leaders and representatives from citizen-led groups as a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan continues to worsen. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: Conditions in Afghanistan have deteriorated since the U.S. pullout and the Taliban takeover.

In addition to human rights abuses, poverty is spreading. The United Nations warns that as many as 1 million Afghan children are in danger of starving.

On day one of the talks on Sunday, Taliban representatives met with women's rights activists and human rights defenders from Afghanistan.

And the State Department said a U.S. delegation planned to focus on “the formation of a representative political system,” the country’s humanitarian crisis, “security and counterterrorism concerns … and human rights, especially education for girls and women.”

The Taliban, for its part, is demanding access to currently frozen cash.

After the extremist group seized full control of the country last year, Western governments froze nearly $10 billion from the Afghan central bank.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher. 

Authorities: 17 dead in nightclub fire in Cameroon's capital » A fire erupted at a nightclub in Cameroon over the weekend, setting off explosions that killed at least 17 people and wounded seven others.

Workers there initially said a short circuit sparked the fire. But a government spokesman later explained—quote—“The tragedy, which was caused by the explosions from fireworks regularly used in these places, first consumed the ceiling of the building and then caused two strong explosions.”

The tragedy comes as the country hosts thousands of soccer fans from across the continent for the African Cup of Nations tournament.

Authorities said they were still trying to determine the names and nationalities of the dead and wounded.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: a question of flag equality.

Plus, an iconic toy takes its first flight.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Monday, January 24th, 2022. You’re listening to The World and Everything In It from WORLD Radio. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. It’s time for Legal Docket.

The Supreme Court handed down one opinion dealing with a criminal defendant’s right to confront witnesses against him—what are known as “adverse witnesses,” as guaranteed by the 6th Amendment.

By a vote of 8-1, the court ruled in favor of Darrell Hemphill. A jury convicted him of murder partly based on evidence allowed into the trial from someone who was out of the country and not cross-examined. The majority justices found that the trial court violated Hemphill’s rights in allowing this evidence. The case now returns to lower court and Hemphill’s legal team is going for a new trial.

EICHER: Now on to oral argument in a case out of Boston’s city hall, or rather, the plaza in front of it.

Three flagpoles stand there. One flies the American flag along with a banner that honors our military missing in action.

Another flies the state flag of Massachusetts.

The third flagpole is changeable; sometimes it flies the city flag of Boston, sometimes it flies a flag raised to commemorate a cause, a person, a group, or an event.

REICHARD: Over the years, that’s included an LGBTQ Pride flag, a flag to honor Malcolm X, and various countries including China, Cuba, and Turkey.

But one flag the city would not approve.

Harold Shurtleff wanted to fly a flag in honor of Constitutional Day and Citizenship Day back in September, 2017. Shurtleff runs a group called Camp Constitution that teaches about the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage and about our founding documents. This flag is white with a red cross on a dark background in the upper left corner.

The city rejected that flag.

So, Shurtleff sued because he thought the city discriminated against him in violation of his First Amendment rights.

Here’s his attorney, Mat Staver:

STAVER: After 12 years with 284 flag-raising approvals, no denials, and usually no review, one word caught the attention of a Boston official: the word ‘Christian’ on the application, The flag itself was not the problem. Had it been called anything but Christian, the same flag would have flown for an hour without incident. The policy does not limit the flagpoles to subject matters or speakers. All applicants are welcome, except religious viewpoints.

But the city of Boston defends itself by pointing to its flag policy.

Here’s lawyer for the city, Douglas Hallward-Driemeier. Note I’ve edited his comments to make them a bit clearer.

HALLWARD-DRIEMEIER: Also, on the City’s website—under the policy, the first rule is that we, the City, will not put up a flag that is discriminatory, offensive, or that supports religion. It’s—the—the City is going to stay silent, neutral, with respect to religion. We’re not going to support a religion. Neither will we offer something that is derogatory of religion. And that’s consistent with the principles of the Establishment Clause.

Hallward-Driemeier emphasized the city’s desire to celebrate diversity without getting tangled up in religion.

Justice Clarence Thomas asked if diversity is the end all and be all, then how about a clarifying definition of it?

THOMAS: You mentioned diversity several times, and what I don't understand is your definition of diversity because it would seem to me that Christians in Boston would be a part of that diversity calculus.

HALLWARD-DRIEMEIER: The -- the -- the specific form of diversity that the City was trying to celebrate was national origin diversity, the references to countries throughout the -- the -- the world. Of course, there are other aspects of diversity. The City can choose to celebrate those aspects of diversity in many ways, and the City does celebrate religious events in other ways.

Those “other ways” do not include flying a Christian flag, though. That’s because the city official who turned it down thought the flag promoted a particular religion. And that ran afoul of the so-called separation of church and state.

The justices grappled to understand what line the city actually drew here.

Listen to this exchange between Justice Samuel Alito and Hallward-Driemeier, lawyer for the city:

ALITO: If someone in Boston wanted you to put up the North Korean flag, would you do that?

HALLWARD-DRIEMEIER: I -- if there was a --

ALITO: I don't know what the current flag of Afghanistan is, but if it becomes -- if it's -- becomes the Taliban flag, would you fly that?

HALLWARD-DRIEMEIER: If – if there was a community in Boston that sought to -- they may be refugees from those countries.

So, a flag that represents refugees from a certain country is fine.

What about other kinds of flags? The court needs to instruct cities on what policies they can have. Suppose cities like using flags for civic engagement but they also want some limits?

Here’s Justice Elena Kagan with Staver, lawyer for Shurtleff and his flag:

KAGAN: So the city has a policy of that kind, and then somebody comes to it and says, we'd like to put up this swastika on your pole. Does the city really have to say yes at that point?

STAVER: If it's a designated public forum, I think the answer is yes. But, on the other hand --

KAGAN: So, really, what you're saying is that a city can't possibly have a kind of open policy like this because no city is going to want to put up a swastika or a KKK flag or something like that. So, really, what you're saying is that this is just a kind of policy that a city can't have.

STAVER: No, Justice Kagan. In fact, the City could have a more limited policy. It didn't choose to do that.

That’s the hinge around which this dispute turns, that limited policy. And that depends on whether flying flags is government speech, or private speech. Just who is it that is expressing the pro-Christian message on the flag? Harold Shurtleff or the city government?

That matters, because depending on how you classify certain speech, the government can regulate it. Even discriminate against certain viewpoints.

The legal pathway here is murky because the case law is confusing. The Supreme Court decided before that a permanent monument in a public park is government speech that the government can regulate. But the court’s also said that trademarks issued by the government are not government speech and it cannot regulate those.

Other decisions warn against the government speaking or acting in a way that a reasonable person might perceive as an endorsement of a religious viewpoint.

But that raises another question: How do you define “reasonable observer”? Would he or she be a tourist? How about someone who lives there and passes by the city hall everyday on the way to work?

Justice Stephen Breyer imagines what that someone might think:

BREYER: Of course, you think it has something to do with the City, something. And so -- so they're saying, look, on the one hand, anybody -- anybody in his right mind would think it does have something to do with the City. And, number two, there isn't some huge diversity for any group in sight. All there is is the flag -- the flag of Paraguay and -- and a couple of exceptions for groups that we support.

So much for the reasonable observer. That hypothetical person could have all sorts of ideas about the meaning of flags.

Here are a few other factors past Supreme Court decisions have considered to determine whether an object is government speech or not: the historical use of the forum, like the flagpoles in the plaza in this case, and whether the government maintains control over the area.

The Biden Administration sides with Shurtleff. Listen to Assistant to the Solicitor General, Sopan Joshi:

JOSHI: I'm saying they can draw the lines based on content and based on even speaker status or identity. So, for example, nonprofits only or—I think, Justice Kavanaugh, you mentioned al Qaeda—a no-terrorist rule seems pretty reasonable to me. So that would probably pass muster. But they can't draw lines based on viewpoints. So, if the program is such that, for example, a group could raise a Black Lives Matter flag, they probably would have to be able to raise a Proud Boys flag. I mean, that's just what the First Amendment demands, even in a non-public forum.

Justice Kavanaugh thought the problem in this case is that the city government here has a mistaken view about the Establishment Clause. One that says government property opened up as a forum to speak should allow only secular groups to speak and not religious groups.

KAVANAUGH: And it seems like we’ve had case after case after case that has tried to correct that misimpression of the Establishment Clause, and that seems to me what the root cause is here.

Justice Elena Kagan put a fine point on that, and I think pointed to a win for Harold Shurtleff, his flag, and religious freedom:

KAGAN: It’s not a crazy mistake, you know? A city could not put a cross in my view on City hall. But, in the context of a system where flags go up, flags go down, different people have different kinds of flags, then it is -- a violation of the free speech part of the First Amendment and not an Establishment Clause violation. The end.

Here’s the thing: court watchers on both sides of the political aisle think the city of Boston did wrong here. Outlets from Vox-dot-com to the ACLU to The Wall Street Journal agree. The flag with the cross on it ought not to have been excluded.

I want to stop to savor this pleasant agreement!

As soon as the Supreme Court accepted this case, Boston decided it wouldn’t accept any more flag raising applications. The city says it’s “re-evaluating” things.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

NICK EICHER, HOST: The world-famous park in Portland, Ore. is again open to the public after being temporarily closed for road work.

Guinness World Records recognized Mill Ends Park in 1971 for its size, not for how big it was, but rather, how tiny it was.

And just how small is it? The entire park is 2 feet wide and less than 500 sq. inches in total. It’s located in the median of Portland's Naito Parkway.

The story dates back to 1946. A town in Ohio boasted that it had installed the world’s largest municipal rose garden. And a reporter for the Oregon Journal thought it might be good publicity to install the world’s smallest rose garden.

The park was removed for a time but was later reinstalled.

It’s no longer a rose garden. It now consists of one tree surrounded by some flowers.

So, go small or go home.

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: Time now for our regular conversation on business, markets, and the economy. Financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen is here. Morning, David.

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

EICHER: Let’s talk about the markets—that seems to be where the biggest news is—all three of the major stock indexes—the Dow Jones Industrials, the Nasdaq, the Standard & Poor’s 500—those indicators we hear about on a regular basis. All three of them dropped for the third week in a row. For the Nasdaq and the S&P 500, it was the worst week since October of 2020. The Nasdaq is now by definition in a correction. What do we need to know about this?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, this has been a pretty big theme of ours for some time, you have the majority of dividend stocks actually up on the year, a lot of value stocks up on the year. Energy Utilities up on the year. But then those things that we refer to as ‘shiny objects’ at our firm, that are a bit more popular, have a lot more momentum, are a little more exciting, and of course, can be very susceptible to just people acting a little bit crazy. And so a lot of the, well, not only crypto stuff has just gotten hammered, it's now down 50% from its very recent high, and that's in a quick period of time. But a lot of the tech side, you mentioned the NASDAQ—a correction is over 10%. The NASDAQ is now down about 13%. It's still up roughly 6% from where it was a year ago. But it's given back a significant amount of the gains it had from last year. And all of these things essentially come down to one of two things. First is things like the broader S&P, the FAANG stocks, the big tech, large cap growth stocks, some of which are just very profitable companies, very well-run companies. But what's happening right now is that they were just overpriced, there was just purely a matter of valuation. And many people believe valuation doesn't matter when it continues going higher. My view has always been valuation always matters. It's just that you don't know when it will matter. Well, it seems to be mattering right now.

EICHER: Let me stop for just a second. You mention the FAANG stocks—that’s a common acronym in the markets—but not every listener is going to know it. Maybe take a quick minute and explain what you mean when you talk about the FAANG stocks.

BAHNSEN: Yeah, I apologize. The acronym FAANG has become so common even outside of our vernacular that I sometimes take for granted, everyone uses it. And of course, you're right. Many people don't. FAANG is a reference to some of the really big brand name, large cap growth stocks that became some of the leaders in the stock market over the last 10 years. And it stands for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google. So once you say all five of those names, everybody has heard of all five of them and knows what they're about. But that but that kind of acronym was meant to capture the sort of this ‘us versus them', that there's kind of like these five stocks, and then there's everything else, and it’s happened throughout history that you've had a few names become disproportionately powerful or impactful in market performance. And then that tends to come to an end. So these names are a bit different than all the other things I've been talking about, just simply because of their size and their their profit-making capacity. Yet again, the valuation story, I think is a real concern there as well.

EICHER: All right. We’re talking about the rough patch the market indexes have run into here—I interrupted you—but you were explaining that it comes down to one of two factors and the first you mentioned was valuation.

BAHNSEN: The other element outside of valuation, it has more to do with companies that may not make any money at all, they may not have any definable value, even things in that crypto space, for example, just various things that are much more speculative than they are investment oriented. And again, you can have sustained periods of time where those look very good, feel very good. And in fact, it can look and feel very bad to not be participating. And yet I think the laws of logic, the laws of mathematics, the laws of economic finance always catch up. So we may be going through one of those periods now. It certainly has felt like it the last few weeks. But it could also reverse back the other way. You know, you'll get to a point where all of a sudden speculators want to come back in and think that they have an opportunity to bottom fish on some of these things. You have a company like Netflix that was down over 20% just yesterday alone. But my point is that that speaks to how challenging the environment is. Because Netflix beat expectations on earnings - they outperformed expectations and the stock dropped 20% in one day. How's that possible? Because it's priced for something better than perfection and perfection itself is very difficult to achieve. And when any, the slightest glance of forward looking, disappointment could be out there, it causes the whole thing to kind of tumble. So risk assets have had a great day. The Feds pumped a lot of liquidity out there. A lot of people have felt good in a speculative environment. You're up against a very easy comparative investing environment, meaning interest rates are very low. safe assets have not been attractive. Yet here we are a couple weeks into the new year, and emerging markets are performing great and oil is performing great and and commodities are performing great and all the fun, exciting stuff is not. So this is the way 2022 has at least started off.

EICHER: All right, David Bahnsen, financial analyst and advisor, head of the financial planning firm The Bahnsen Group. He writes at DividendCafe.com—daily email newsletter on markets and the economy. You can sign up there. David, thanks for this. See you next week.

BAHNSEN: Thanks for having me.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Monday, January 24th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Next up: The WORLD History Book. Today, a woman becomes Secretary of State for the first time ever, a tragedy claims the lives of three astronauts, and an inventor sells a toy destined to become a classic. It’s all in the wrist. Here’s senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

COMMERCIAL: Want fun? Get Frisbee! It flies through the air with the greatest of ease.

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Before it was “Frisbee,” the iconic toy was inventor Walter Frederick Morrison’s “flying disc.” He sold the rights to his invention to the Wham-O toy company 65 years ago, on January 23rd, 1957.

COMMERCIAL: It’s the newest, fastest, most flying fun under the sun!

But, Morrison owes his success as a toy inventor to William Frisbie of Connecticut. He started a pie business in 1871, and young people quickly made a game of throwing the empty pie tins to each other.

COMMERCIAL: Frisbee is a brand new kind of toy. It’s the sensational flying saucer that you command!

Nearly eight decades later, that tradition was still going strong when Morrison and his business partner made a plastic version of those pie tins, calling them “Flying Saucers.”

The company changed the name to honor the pie company founder, but misspelled it with two e’s in the process. Wham-O had a track record of hits, including the Hula Hoop. “Playing Frisbee” became a popular pastime, leading Wham-O to sell over 100 million units by 1977.

COMMERICAL: “Frisbee’s the way to lots of fun”

And from a whimsical toy to a somber milestone in aerospace.

Fifty-five years have passed since January 27th, 1967, when three Apollo astronauts perished in a fire during a test of their Apollo 1 spacecraft. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died that day at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

RECORDING: Hey! Hey, we’ve got a fire in the cockpit!/ Gus, can you read us?

An electrical flaw caused the spark that started the fire, and the high-oxygen environment in the pressurized module caused the fire to spread rapidly. CBS devoted a special program to reporting the tragedy.

MIKE WALLACE: There was a flash and that was it, according to a NASA spokesman watching the television screen in the blockhouse a few hundred feet away from launchpad 34...They died silently and apparently swiftly. Their bodies have been left in the spacecraft, according to the latest information…

And it put America’s space program in jeopardy. Chaffee was a relative rookie at the time of his death, but Grissom and White had celebrity status. White had been the first American to walk in space. Grissom had gone to space twice, grabbing headlines as command pilot of Gemini 3.

HEARING: We suffered a very grievous accident, from something we were taught wouldn’t happen…

Lengthy investigations—in Congress and within NASA—followed. Ultimately, it took a year and nine months for an Apollo crew to make it to space.

Several memorials to the fallen astronauts exist throughout the United States. All three men received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor posthumously. And, future Apollo crews left mementos on the moon: an Apollo 1 mission patch, a plaque, and a small statue to memorialize White, Grissom, and Chaffee.

Moving now from three revered men to one stately woman. Twenty-five years ago, on January 23rd, 1997, President Bill Clinton swore in Madeleine Albright as U.S. Secretary of State—the first time a woman served in that role.

CLINTON: I’m very pleased to preside at Madeleine Albright’s swearing in today. I thank the Senate for its swift and unanimous approval of her nomination.

The child of a Czech diplomat, Albright grew up in Europe until age 11, when her family emigrated to the United States so her father could join the faculty of the University of Denver. She was a young child during World War II, and several of her Jewish relatives—including three of her grandparents—died in Nazi concentration camps.

ALBRIGHT: My life reflects both the turbulence of Europe in the middle of the century and the tolerance and generosity of America throughout its existence.

She earned advanced degrees and headed for Washington, working first for a senator, and then for President Jimmy Carter’s administration. A Democrat, Albright entered the nonprofit world during the Republican administrations of Presidents Reagan and Bush.

As Secretary of State under Clinton, Albright pushed for military force to pressure authoritarian governments in Europe and the Middle East. She took polarizing stances in some of her foreign policies, like trying to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to turn over more territory to the Palestinian Authority. And she played an active role in urging NATO to bomb Yugoslavia to force the country to withdraw troops from Kosovo. Public criticism followed her support of the near-total financial and trade embargoes against Iraq, despite humanitarian concerns. From a controversial 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl in 1996:

CLIP: We have heard that a half a million children have died. That’s more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?/ I think this is a very hard choice, butt the price, we think, is worth it. It is a moral question…

She left active politics after Clinton’s second term. Today, the 84-year-old serves on several boards and teaches at Georgetown University.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: missing babies. We’ll find out why American families are shrinking, even in churches.

And, the March for Life. We’ll talk to pro-life activists about their plans for a post- Roe v. Wade future.

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.

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Go now in grace and peace.

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