The World and Everything in It - July 12, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Sidewalk counselors who try to reach abortion-minded women are often stymied in their efforts. That’s where a good lawyer can come in handy.

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

Also today the Monday Moneybeat: a new White House executive order on economic regulation and a perilous investment story shows the uncertainty of companies that have to answer to the Chinese government.

Plus the WORLD History Book. Today, the 15th anniversary of the founding of a social media giant that decides who speaks and who doesn’t.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, July 12th. 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: U.S. officials to evaluate conditions in Haiti following troop request » U.S. officials are expected on the ground in Haiti this week  where violent gangs increasingly rule the streets as turmoil grips the nation.

They will evaluate conditions there and report back to the White House. That after the Hatian government asked the United States to deploy troops to Haiti to help stabilize the country in the wake of President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination.

Haiti’s Elections Minister Mathias Pierre defended the request.

PIERRE: We’re not asking for the occupation of the country. We’re asking for small troops to assist and help us.

Pierre said the local police force is weak and lacks resources.

His government is asking for troops to help protect key infrastructure and stave off anarchy as it prepares for elections.

On Saturday, a senior Biden administration official told the Associated Press that the United States has no immediate plans to send troops to Haiti.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had only this to say…

PSAKI: We will be sending senior FBI and DHS officials to Port Au Prince as soon as possible to assess the situation.

Haiti also sent a letter to the United Nations, asking it to deploy peacekeeping troops to Haiti.

Death toll from South Florida condo collapse reaches 90 » The confirmed death toll from the condo collapse in South Florida is now up to 90. More than 30 people are still missing.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Danielle Levine Cava made this request of the public:

CAVA: Please pray for all of those who have lost loved ones and whose hearts are broken from this unspeakable tragedy and for those who are still waiting.

Authorities say it will take weeks to complete their search at the site of the collapse. With the possibility of more survivors now ruled out, searchers are taking a little bit more time, prioritizing safety.

Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said Sunday that workers are also recovering many possessions from the rubble.

BURKETT: The work is still so delicate that we’ve even found unbroken wine bottles in the rubble. We’re also finding personal possessions as small as rings.

On Saturday night, members of the community gathered to thank the crews that have come from across the country and across the globe to help.

A search and rescue team from Israel that arrived shortly after the June 24th collapse departed on Sunday.

Trump headlines Conservative Political Action Conference » Former President Trump on Sunday headlined the final day of the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas.

Trump took aim at cancel culture and denounced big social media companies that he is now suing for shutting down his accounts after the Jan. 6th Capitol riot.

TRUMP: The radical left and Big Tech’s attack on free speech is unlawful, it’s unconstitutional, and it is completely un-American.

CPAC was the latest of several recent high profile public appearances by Trump, fueling speculation that he’s gearing up for a rematch with President Biden.

And with Trump headlining the event, several other potential presidential hopefuls sat out. Notable absences included former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Florida Gov. Ron Desantis.

Billionaire Branson travels to space aboard private rocket ship » Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Galactic, rocketed into space on Sunday aboard his own winged rocket ship.

The nearly 70-year-old Branson and five crewmates from his space-tourism company reached an altitude of about 53 miles over the New Mexico desert. That was high enough to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. The spacecraft then glided safely to a runway landing.

BRANSON: I think like most kids, I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid. But honestly, nothing could prepare you for the view of Earth from space. The whole thing, it was just magical.

The brief, up-and-down flight was a splashy plug for Virgin Galactic, which plans to start taking paying customers on joyrides next year.

Branson became the first person to blast off in his own spaceship, beating Amazon founder Jeff Bezos by nine days. Bezos plans a space flight soon aboard a private rocketship built by his space tourism company Blue Origin.

‘Black Widow’ marks Marvel’s return to big screen … and small screen » Marvel made its return to the big screen in a big way over the weekend…

TRAILER: Before I was an Avenger, I made mistakes and a lot of enemies.

The long-awaited Black Widow debuted after multiple pandemic delays. And it enjoyed the biggest opening of any film since before the pandemic, hauling in $80 million domestically on the big screen.

But it also earned almost as much on the small screen. It raked in another $60 million dollars from premier streaming access on the Disney+ platform.

The ninth installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise finished second with another $11 million in ticket sales.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: defending pro-life sidewalk counselors.

Plus, a famous outlaw makes his last stand.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for Monday the 12th of July, 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.

The Supreme Court’s in recess for the summer—meaning, for us, we’ll turn to what’s going on elsewhere in the legal world.

On occasion over the summer, we’ll hear from different religious-liberty advocates about the sorts of cases they’re working on. And today is one of those occasions …

REICHARD: …’tis!

The Thomas More Society is one of those firms devoted to religious liberty, particularly in the area of pro-life causes.

The firm’s been able to protect the free-speech rights of women who want to help other women understand their options when faced with an unexpected or unintended pregnancy.

One of those women is Marilyn Hatch. She lives in Montana and volunteered for decades as a sidewalk counselor. (When I talked to her last week, by the way, she was suffering from a case of strep throat, but she was determined to talk to me! I think she did just fine.)

HATCH: I'm a woman that bought the lie of abortion many years ago back in the 70s, and became a Christian after that in 1980. And my eyes were totally open to what the truth is about abortion. And God forgave me and healed me. And so I immediately tried doing everything I could to try and dispel that lie that women are being told.

And ever since then, Hatch has sought to speak the truth. She’s stood outside abortion businesses in Missoula holding up signs and offering pro-life alternatives to women going in.

She’s not the sort to back down.

HATCH: I've been involved in this for a long time. And I've been charged a lot of times, I've actually had to serve jail time.

Earlier this year, Missoula law enforcement charged Hatch with a criminal misdemeanor: obstructing access to the clinic.

Hatch retained Matt Heffron, a lawyer with Thomas More Society. Heffron’s been an attorney for 35 years. He’s a former federal prosecutor and now devotes his time to disputes involving religious liberty, the family, and the unborn.

To help Hatch with her misdemeanor charge, Heffron did what good lawyers do: the research. He examined the facts and he examined the law and discovered that the officer cited Hatch for obstruction, even though she was outside the boundaries the city set.

Besides that, Heffron saw that the city ordinance creating a buffer zone around abortion businesses fit the description of another zone the Supreme Court found unconstitutional.

HEFFRON: I think sometimes law enforcement get the idea that they're tired of dealing with this sort of stuff. And that if they file some charges that it'll all go away. Well, it doesn't if these people are represented adequately.

Heffron sent a letter to the city outlining the law and let it be known that he and his client were prepared to go to trial.

Not long after that, the city moved to dismiss its charges against Hatch.

HEFFRON: And sure enough, the local city attorney decided better of it and decided that they would drop the charges against Mrs. Hatch. So it's all sometimes it seemed like an awful lot of effort just to get back to square one. But if you can do it with a letter, we're much better off because then we move on to the next case, which is bearing down on us. If not, we file a lawsuit and we'll try to accomplish the same thing that way.

Marilyn Hatch is mindful of what allows her to do this work.

HATCH: You know, as July 4, Independence Day, has come and gone, you know, we're reminded of the sacrifice of our Founders, what they gave, and I've always felt like we're squandering that, you know, as Americans...

Another woman who does sidewalk counseling is Sonja Knight in Everett, Washington. I asked about her motivation.

KNIGHT: When I realized and understood the women, when they were coming to Planned Parenthood for abortions, it wasn't that they wanted to have an abortion or terminate their baby, they just felt like they had no choice. That they were feeling either pressure or just didn't have any other options. And so to me, it just felt important to let them know that there were options, that there were people that loved them, that would help them.

So, Knight got involved with Sidewalk Advocates for Life and with Forty Days for Life.

But her groups ran into legal trouble, too. And again, Matt Heffron helped out.

HEFFRON: Everett, Washington, State of Washington is quite liberal in their approaches to abortion. And since approximately the time that President Trump got elected, as we've seen all over the country, a lot of these abortion counselors are being beset upon by pro abortion agitators, the people who come up and are really rude, obnoxious in their face and trying quite honestly sometimes to make, to raise conflicts. And that's what happened in Everett.

These conflicts led local police to push the pro-lifers across the street and farther away from the abortion businesses while allowing the pro-choice advocates to stand directly across the street from the entrance.

KNIGHT: We’re not protesters, you know, so to be set down the block and across the street, you know, just made what we were doing totally ineffective. But they just never seem to understand what we were doing or being even willing to change in any way.

Lawyer Heffron emphasized these clients make his legal work easier by following protocols—the rules of engagement put forth by groups like Forty Days for Life and Sidewalk Advocates for Life.

HEFFRON: And they are both known for having requirements that their people, their affiliates, avoid all sorts of conflict. No violence obviously at all and and they're there primarily to pray, pray and the sidewalk advocates also to talk to the women, talk them out of abortion. So our people never were violent and there's no one that would be violent. They weren't even in a conflict. And so that gave us real good standing when we approach the city of Everett.

With good facts on his side, well-behaved clients, and a clear understanding of the law, Heffron wrote a letter to the city explaining the situation. The city violated Supreme Court precedent by using police to block the counselors’ access, even if it hadn’t enacted a buffer zone around the abortion building. Different method, same effect. A no-no.

At first, the city wouldn’t give an inch. Heffron sent a second letter.

HEFFRON: And they decided to back down and the pro lifers were allowed once more to get back to where they were right next to the entrance of the abortion clinic. And so it's another matter where... in this case where we had our attorneys lined up, we had the complaint ready to file and the city attorney backed down just in the nick of time. A lawsuit which we're pretty confident they would have lost.

The last pro-life advocate I spoke to did not want to use any identifying information. Out of fear of reprisals.

This story has a different legal angle to it. For years, law enforcement kept this person’s sidewalk counseling group out on a major busy and noisy street. Too far from the abortion center to do any good.

She persistently dug around for answers and found it in the laws about property. A public easement in front of the abortion facility legally allows for anyone to use that space. But nobody would listen. Police, city attorney or officials. Nobody.

Enter Matt Heffron and his team.

He found other lawyers with expertise in property law and a passion for pro-life work.

Those lawyers encouraged the pro-life group to see if it could just rent an office space along the commercial corridor near the abortion business. Then there’d be no question whether the sidewalk counselors could use the public easement the rental space provided. And they’d avoid a trial.

HEFFRON: And wouldn't you know, an office came up in a building right across the street from the abortion clinic. And so with the help of these real estate attorneys, we work through some issues. And on Good Friday, just before Easter, her group held a worship service right across the street from the abortion clinic. This abortion clinic had not known this sort of pro life activity for at least a dozen years. And it was a major triumph.

Each of these women and their lawyers know the work they’re involved in is more than what the eye can see.

You heard from Sonja Knight earlier.

KNIGHT: I'm such an introvert. It can be scary, going out on a sidewalk, suddenly talking to people, but I just felt like it. It's really the Lord that's just using us. And we're just out there, just offering people the help and the resources. And I just felt like, especially being a mother, you know, I know that there's mothers praying for their daughter, and I just felt it was so important that I could be there, you know, approaching and helping that one daughter maybe that mother's praying for, it's almost like the last, the last place to be where they could make that decision...

For his part, lawyer Heffron reminded me that the real heroes in all of these cases are the pro life counselors. The lawyers? Just the backup. He compared them to a repairman who you keep around to keep the place going. He encourages the counselors to keep doing what they’re doing, and do it peacefully, within the law. It helps make his repair job more efficient.

As he put it:

HEFFRON: And that's why I continue to tell these various government attorneys, I deal with that, look, no, we don't have any great desire to see you. But we're not going to be pushed around. Our clients are not going to be pushed around and give up their constitutional rights either.

That’s this week’s Legal Docket.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A big bust in the Big Easy. Law enforcement at Louis Armstrong International Airport halted what the Associated Press called an eye-popping smuggling operation.

The feds intercepted and seized 6,000…

…fake eyelashes.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents seized the shipment after officials determined they were illegally imported from China.

The agency said the eyelashes hadn’t been approved by the FDA and weren’t labeled with the distributor’s or manufacturer’s name.

That means there’s no way to tell whether the eyelashes had been exposed to disease during manufacturing or whether they were stored properly and kept away from insect-infested areas.

As one g-man said to the media: “There’s no telling what’s on these eyelashes.”

Fake mascara?

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 regular conversation and commentary on the economy. David, good morning to you.

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

EICHER: Shortened week, with the markets closed for the Fourth of July holiday. What stands out to you on markets and the economy this week?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, to me, I think that there was a big market story this week and a big economic story this week.

The economic story was really quite positive: reopening data that in some cases was a bit surprising. We're within 9 percent now of hotel reservations being back to 2019 levels. We’re within 20 percent of passenger data on airlines being back. The month over month numbers in airlines are up over 15 percent.

But when you look to the bond yield, dropping to 1.25 percent this week with the 10 year, I think that you're getting a screaming message from financial markets about the two things I've been saying for quite some time, which is that inflation is not the primary fear right now. And that inability to create sustainable growth after COVID recovery is the big fear.

Markets were highly volatile this week. And I don't think that volatility is coming from people wondering how the vaccines are going and I don't think the volatility is, you know, right now related to the shorter term considerations that we've been talking about for six to nine months—how jobs report looks and things like that.

At this point, markets are really having to start to wonder what things will look like into 2022 and beyond. The bond market is saying we have handcuffed our growth. And that's my viewpoint. And I think it's gonna make for a very difficult time in the economy, but that is not inconsistent with saying that we're in a really robust period of pent up demand playing itself out as we continue through this post COVID period of time.

EICHER: David, could you talk about the broad executive order last week that President Biden signed? The White House says the aim is promote competitive markets across the U.S. economy and it specifically singles out big tech as needing reform and regulation.

BAHNSEN: Yeah, I think that this is the power of the regulatory state.

These executive orders, which is true of almost all executive orders are generally a lot more bark than bite.

But what is interesting here is the political ramification of the Biden administration wanting to look tough on big tech, which is usually, or I should say more lately, a right-wing talking point.

And then the meat on the bone, I think is more in the financial side—where they said they wanted to have a lot more crackdown on approval of mergers and acquisitions in the banking sector. And I think that this is potentially very discriminatory against smaller community-, local-regional banks, because all you've done is allow incredible amounts of M&A in with the big banks since the financial crisis. And if they come in now and decide to kind of shut the barn door, it helps those larger banks and hurts the smaller ones that might need greater resources or greater capital partners, particularly in a heavier regulatory framework.

So I think that there's unintended consequences and intended consequences that are damaging. And then I think there's also just a lot of rank posturing.

EICHER: And it’s going to take a really long time to implement. There’s a rule-making process and it could be years, couldn’t it, before things start to change.

BAHNSEN: I think that's right. I think I will be surprised if they come up with anything very mutually satisfying—meaning that it satisfies the center left and the progressive left. That's a theme we're going to continue to see right now with the administration. You see it with the infrastructure bill. I think we'll see it with the American Families Plan and some of the tax plans. There are conflicting objectives, even within the Democrat Party. How they go about preparing for enacting some of these executive orders is likely to be too much for some and not enough for others.

EICHER: Also wanted your thought on Didi—the Chinese rival to Uber and Lyft. This was a big initial public offering, a China-based company coming into the American capital market, the New York Stock Exchange—unique situation—with a company that has to answer to the communist government and all the risk that goes with that. So Didi had its IPO, the stock price went up, then Beijing yanked the leash, so to speak, and all the sudden the stock lost something like a third of its value.

BAHNSEN: Yeah, there's a lot of misinformation on this. I want to clarify some things. What happened here was a debacle. But it was not a debacle because we were showing favoritism to Chinese companies. It was a debacle because the Chinese came in and slaughtered the IPO after it happened by basically coming in with a whole lot of new oversight and regulations and other things after the company began trading.

And this is to me a really consistent theme: We're seeing that companies in China, they're not state owned enterprises, that cozy up with China before entering American markets, do themselves a big favor. And those that don't cozy up with the CCP are begging for trouble. And I think this is going to be the law of the jungle for quite some time.

And if I were a US investor looking at Chinese issued companies, I would you have to factor that into the risk. profile of the investment. I think that it speaks to a larger issue, not of American exchanges or regulators giving favorable treatment to Chinese companies, but of the danger that the CCP itself represents to what tentacles they have in Chinese companies, and then beginning to trade on American exchanges, doesn't change that dynamic as we saw with Didi.

EICHER: David Bahnsen—financial analyst and adviser. He writes at dividendcafe.com. And that’s your Monday Moneybeat. Thanks David, see you next week.

BAHNSEN: Thanks Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything In It: The WORLD History Book. Today, social media gurus hatch a plan, a celebrated songstress celebrates 65, and an outlaw is outgunned. Here’s senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

SONG: “Billy the Kid,” Marty Robbins

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: In just 21 years, American outlaw Billy the Kid amassed several lifetimes’ worth of notoriety. But, the gunslinger’s life came to an end 140 years ago, on July 14th, 1881.

Born Henry McCarty, he had a rough go of things. He became an orphan at 15, then worked for the owner of a boarding house to earn a room. He began stealing food and clothing, and by the age of 17, he had killed a man. More followed. He adopted the sobriquet “Billy the Kid” working as a ranch hand in the American Southwest, always running from the law.

YOUNG GUNS: Let’s dance! (gunfire)

After he killed a sheriff in New Mexico, law enforcement took McCarty into custody. He escaped—as he had after previous arrests. But he couldn’t run forever. Two years passed before another New Mexico sheriff, Pat Garrett, apprehended McCarty. Newspapers advanced “Billy the Kid’s” legend as the criminal gave interview after interview. A judge sentenced him to hang until he was “dead, dead, dead,” but McCarty managed to evade his jailers yet again. He had eight murders under his belt when he escaped.

He was on the run for three months this time before Sheriff Garrett tracked McCarty down for a second time, this time fatally shooting the outlaw in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

As happens with high-profile figures in the Wild West, McCarty’s legend grew, with many claiming that he hadn’t actually died at Garrett’s hand. Several men claimed to be “Billy the Kid,” as recently as 1948. Those claims remain unsubstantiated.

Moving from the death of a gunslinger to the birth of a songbird. Sandi Patty, dubbed “The Voice” in the Christian music industry, celebrates her 65th birthday July 12.

SONG: “Via Dolorosa,” Sandi Patty

Patty was born in Oklahoma City to a family of church musicians. She moved with her parents and brothers to Phoenix and then San Diego, performing in churches as the “Ron Patty Family” band. She studied voice and piano through college, singing backup and performing commercial jingles, like this one for Juicy Fruit gum in the 1970s:

COMMERCIAL: Let’s pick a pack of Juicy Fruit gum…

About that time, famed Christian musician Bill Gaither took notice of the gifted singer and provided Patty opportunities to shine.

She routinely sold out music venues, performing about 200 concerts a year at the peak of her career. But after a meteoric rise, Patty’s star began to fall amid rumors of marital infidelity. Patty and her former manager, John Helvering, announced their divorce in 1993. She married one of her backup singers, Don Peslis, two years later, and confessed to her church that she and Peslis had carried out an extramarital affair. She spoke to Family Life’s Ron Deal last year, after 25 years of marriage to Peslis, about repentance.

PATTY: … I wish I could take that back, I can’t take that back. All I can do, and I think this is what Don and I have really tried to do is… biblical steps of restoration.

After spending the latter half of the 1990s out of the spotlight, Patty began performing with symphony orchestras in the early 2000s and had guest spots on television shows like 7th Heaven. She joined the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2004. Patty has decided to hold off on touring to spend more time with her family, including several grandchildren. She’s written seven books and released over 40 albums.

SONG: “Sandi’s Song,” Sandi Patty

And we’ll round off today’s entries with the chirp heard round the world.

SOUND: TWEET

July 15, 2006, saw the birth of Twitter. Today, the social media platform is a digital behemoth, boasting about 6,000 employees and over 300 million users worldwide. But it took 15 years to get there.

It started as a side project by Odeo, a podcasting platform. Tech engineer Jack Dorsey stepped up to the plate with an idea that would allow users to send short group texts. That morphed into microblogging similar to what we see today.

The platform launched to the public in July with a 140-character limit for messages. Its popularity exploded. President Obama routinely used the service.

OBAMA: I am going to make history here as the first president to live tweet.

When the company went public in November 2013, analysts valued it at just over $31 billion.

In contrast to other networks, like Facebook and Instagram, people regard Twitter as a place to find cultural analysis and breaking news. Politicians have used Twitter to great effect—notably former President Donald Trump. He leaned into the power of the “Twittersphere” to promote his brand and platform in 2016, only to land in hot water with the Twitter “powers-that-be” in the fallout from the contentious 2020 election. CBS reporting last year:

CBS: Mr. Trump lost his primary megaphone overnight when Twitter permanently shut down his personal account, breaking off his connection to nearly 90 million followers.

Today, that engineer with the idea for a group text service is now Twitter’s CEO. Jack Dorsey has come under fire for his efforts to censor his site’s content in this age of tense public discourse.

DORSEY: We believe in free expression. We believe in free debate and conversation to find the truth. At the same time, we must balance that with our desire for our service not to be used to sow confusion, division, or destruction.

The jury is out on Dorsey’s tactics.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: prison transfers in California. A new rule allows gender identity to determine prison placement. And that as you can imagine has triggered some problems.

And, turmoil in Haiti. We’ll talk to a missionary doctor about the upheaval that has followed the president’s assassination.

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.

The Apostle Paul wrote: “Among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it isn’t a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.”

Go now in grace and peace.

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