The World and Everything in It - July 5, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The Supreme Court finishes out the term upholding some state rules and throwing out some others.

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

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat. Some analysis of the June jobs report.

Plus the WORLD History Book. Today, the 50th anniversary of reducing the voting age from 21 to 18. 

REICHARD: It’s Monday, July 5th. 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, news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Tropical Storm Elsa takes aim at Florida » Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared a state of emergency in 15 counties as Tropical Storm Elsa takes aim.

DESANTIS: We’re preparing for the risk of isolated tornadoes, storm surge, heavy rainfall, and flash flooding. Now, the severity of the storm is still uncertain.

Forecasters on Sunday said there was still a small chance that Elsa could strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane tomorrow … when it’s expected to impact Tampa and central Florida.

Andy Latto with the National Hurricane Center said the storm will hit Florida today.

LATTO: By midday Monday, you should expect tropical storm conditions in the Florida Keys and then begin to spread north, primarily along the western portion of Florida.

The storm bashed Cuba and several tropical islands on a northward track toward the Sunshine State. Current forecasts show Elsa trekking up the East Coast of the United States throughout this week.

Surfside rescue paused for demolition of remaining structure » The threat of the looming storm has complicated the ongoing search for survivors at the site of a condo collapse in South Florida.

Rescue crews made way for demolition teams over the weekend to bring down the portion of the 12-story condo tower that’s still standing before the storm strikes.

Rescuers had to halt operations on Saturday so workers could begin boring the holes to place explosives in the concrete.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava explained on Sunday...

CAVA: Bringing down this building in a controlled manner is critical to expanding our scope of the search and rescue effort and allowing us to explore the area closest to the building, which has currently not been accessible.

Officials are anxious to access parts of the garage area that they’ve been unable to get to. That could give a clearer picture of voids that may exist in the rubble that could possibly harbor survivors.

No one has been rescued alive since the first hours after the June 24th collapse.

Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said the remaining structure was also extremely dangerous for rescuers. He said if they left it standing, it could come crashing down without warning.

July 4th celebration crowds return » After a year lost to the pandemic, July 4th celebrations returned across the country. In New York, the traditional Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks display returned over the East River.

AUDIO: [Fireworks]

And crowds were once again allowed to attend Nathan’s Famous July Fourth hot dog eating contest in Brooklyn.

Fireworks were also back over the National Mall in Washington.

And heading into the holiday weekend, President Biden hosted a naturalization ceremony at the White House on Friday.

BIDEN: It's dreams of immigrants like you that built America and continue to inject new energy, new vitality, new strength.

Twenty-one new U.S. citizens took the oath of allegiance.

Taliban continues advance in northern Afghanistan » As America celebrates its freedoms, millions in Afghanistan fear their liberties are slipping away as the Taliban continues its takeover mission.

The Taliban over the weekend captured several more districts in northern Afghanistan from fleeing Afghan forces. It now controls roughly a third of all 421 districts and district centers in the country.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin Miller, told ABC’s This Week...

MILLER: So as you watch the Taliban moving across the country, what you don’t want to have happen is that the people lose hope and they believe they now have a foregone conclusion presented to them.

U.S. Troops recently withdrew from Bagram Airfield, handing it over to Afghan forces.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration says it intends to relocate Afghan interpreters who have helped U.S. troops amid the drawdown.

GOP Congressman Michael McCaul said he agrees that’s the right thing to do.

MCCAUL: We made a promise to them. They served with our special forces, these interpreters. We told them we’d take care of them, and we can’t turn our backs and leave them to die. They will be slaughtered by the Taliban. They’re targeted by the Taliban. We have to get them out of there.

But McCaul, the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee is one of many GOP lawmakers who disagree with the near total pullout of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He warned of a humanitarian crisis and long-term consequences for the United States.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: state rules get a hearing at the Supreme Court.

Plus, 18-year-olds get the right to vote.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Monday, July 5th and you’re listening to The World and Everything in It. Thank you for joining us today! I’m Mary Reichard.

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

The U.S. Supreme Court wrapped up its term and went into July for the second year in a row and you can probably blame it on Covid. Because prior to that, the court hadn’t gone into July since 1996.

But operating as per normal, the court did save perhaps its most controversial decisions to last and we’ll do the same as we tell you about the Supreme Court’s final five.

REICHARD: Right, we’ll bat them back and forth as we did last week. And then I want to talk about an intriguing report I saw, about the number of years spent behind bars by innocent people.

EICHER: Yes, an interesting interview—lots to think about.

Well, let’s get to those opinions before we do that.

And you no doubt remember the frightening shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline system that supplied almost half of the energy for America’s east coast. This first case has to do with creating more pipelines to supply the fuel we need.

A five-justice majority cleared the way to build a pipeline from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.

A consortium of energy companies obtained a certificate of public necessity for the pipeline from the federal agency that regulates the transport of fuel. Then the companies sought to seize land along the proposed route using the power of federal eminent domain. New Jersey objected to that, citing its sovereign immunity against such a taking.

But the majority justices sided with the pipeline companies. They read the Natural Gas Act as giving states or private parties the power to condemn all necessary rights of way—after the energy commission grants a certificate of need. The opinion says states consented to federal eminent domain when they joined the union—(back when they did).

REICHARD: I’ll add that this is the first time—that I could find —the majority lined up in this way. Quite an ideological surprise! Chief Justice John Roberts, then justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, plus liberals Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

The dissenting justices did not think the federal government could delegate its power to a private party to take state-owned land. And some think this invites mischief because almost anything can arguably be “in the public interest.”

EICHER: On to the second opinion, this one dealing with immigration. Six justices ruled that people who sneak back into the United States after being deported and get caught have to stay in detention while their cases are pending.

You can hear the eventual reasoning in the opinion from the government’s lawyer, Vivek Suri, during oral argument:

SURI: Our point is simply because these particular aliens have come back into the country illegally and been caught, there’s a particularly strong basis for concluding that those aliens are a flight risk.

Because of that flight risk, non-citizens cannot get out of detention on bond while they contest their deportation orders.

The ruling affects relatively few people. The question in these cases is only to what country a person can be deported, not whether the person is deportable.

Bottom line: they stay in detention.

REICHARD: Okay, third opinion now in a patent case.

This one split 5-4 and says you can’t challenge your own patents once you’ve assigned them to someone else. In doing that, the court upholds an old doctrine called “assignor estoppel.”

Here, an inventor assigned his patent, then went on to create a similar device. That got him sued for patent infringement. He defended himself, saying the patent he’d assigned earlier had discrepancies in how it was described in the paperwork.

That didn’t persuade the majority. If what he said at the time of assignment contradicts what he says about it now, he loses.

EICHER: Fourth opinion upholds voting laws in Arizona. The state does not count votes cast on Election Day in the wrong precinct, nor does it allow for ballot harvesting. Meaning, that the state doesn’t allow political operatives collect up a bunch of absentee ballots from the homes of voters—harvest absentee ballots—and take them to the election office. The concern of course is to place barriers in the way of unscrupulous harvesters who might commit fraud.

The Democratic National Committee and the Arizona Democratic Party sued, arguing the rules were passed with discriminatory intent and hurt minority voters.

The conservative six justices found that the law is perfectly in harmony with the federal Voting Rights Act. They found that Arizona’s voting rules protect the integrity of elections and are equally open to participation in voting.

REICHARD: The dissenters pointed out that some minority voters have a hard time getting to the polls. In response, Justice Alito for the majority wrote, quoting now: “A procedure that appears to work for 98% or more of voters to whom it applies—minority and non-minority alike—is unlikely to render a system unequally open...”. He goes on: “The dissent is correct that the Voting Rights Act exemplifies our country’s commitment to democracy, but there is nothing democratic about the dissent’s attempt to bring about a wholesale transfer of the authority to set voting rules from the States to the federal courts.”

Justice Kagan wrote a caustic dissent, going so far as to invoke the ghost of the Dred Scott decision. Joining Kagan were Justices Breyer and Sotomayor saying that the opinion undermines the Voting Rights Act.

One thing this ruling will do for sure is stymie challenges to similar rules in other states.

EICHER: Now for the final ruling that slaps down a California requirement that charities must disclose details about their donors.

Here, two charities followed the rules and filed Form 990s that contain general information about charitable contributions. That sufficed for years. When then California attorney general Kamala Harris came to that office, she asked for Schedule Bs that contain detailed information with names, addresses, and total contribution. And she threatened the charities with suspension and fines if they didn’t comply. She said her office needed that information to ferret out fraud, even as massive data leaks compromised her promise to keep the information confidential.

Six justices say the disclosure requirement is unconstitutional and chills the right to free association.

You can hear the echo of that in this exchange between Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the lawyer for the charities, Derek Shaffer, during argument:

BARRETT: Do you think the right to anonymously associate is an inherent part of the freedom of assembly?

SCHAFFER: Yes, it is. It was precious to the Framers. Anonymity was a core concern of theirs that’s reflected in this court’s precedents but, also, the right to assemble is the right to assemble privately and peaceably. And when the government comes asking us who your donors are, that is a direct infringement.

The liberal justices in dissent put trust in the state’s claim that it had plugged the leaks. They were not persuaded that the charities showed any real burden on their freedom to associate.

Nevertheless, this is yet another reversal of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Case is remanded.

REICHARD: Opinions now complete!

And now for that report about innocent people behind bars. You may have heard that expression, better a guilty man go free than an innocent go to prison.

In June, a grim milestone reached: 25,000 years behind bars, collectively served by innocent people.

Tracking all this is the Newkirk Center for Science and Society along with the three universities and a law school. The Center uses data based on decisions made in court by people authorized to make decisions about exonerations, like prosecutors who dismiss a case. Sometimes it’s new evidence that comes in.

The project only looks at data since 1989 in this country.

I spoke to Maurice Possley, a senior researcher for the project. He said he hopes the data will evoke changes in the criminal justice system.

POSSLEY: The 25,000 year report is another way of looking at the data that we collect, and a way of assessing the cost of wrongful convictions. This report looks at two issues. One is the time lost between the date of conviction and the date of release of people who are convicted of crimes they did not commit. As well as compensation based on a study that's ongoing at university, George Washington University Law School, on whether and how people are compensated.

Possley said $3 billion has been paid out in various forms of compensation - through state compensation schemes or lawsuits. But more than half of these people were not compensated.

He told me the problem of wrongful convictions can be expressed in different ways. One is in time lost. Another way is in the number of wrong convictions: 2,800 as of June 1. About 200 a year are added to that number.

Possley said it’s important to think about this, and not only from the perspective of the innocent prisoner.

POSSLEY: When you look through this this way, you see 25,000 years lost. You say, well, how many of those involve people who not only shouldn't have been imprisoned, but the real perpetrator went on to commit crimes, and, and how many of those cases and actually, this is kind of an astonishing number to me, always. About 30% of these crimes never occurred. They were convicted of a crime that never occurred, they were convicted of a drug crime, and which later lab tests showed there was no controlled substance. They were convicted of an arson and it was an accident, they were convicted of a murder and it was a suicide.

As Possley puts it, this report only tells the ones the researchers know about, and that he doesn’t know how many people were wrongly convicted but never exonerated.

POSSLEY: Our purpose, our intention is to provide sunlight in a way that no other organization has before. And we admit that we only know about the ones we know about... We have a list on our website of everyone who served more than 25 years before their exoneration. We had a recent case that went to the top of the leaderboard, if you want to call it that: 47 years. Now, the fact that he was exonerated after 47 years is remarkable. It's even more remarkable, I think, that he lived. And you wonder how many people whose pleas fell on deaf ears died, knowing that they were innocent, but no one ever believed them, or they never got their day. You talk about a voiceless group of people.

Well, the Bible does tell us that the Lord hears the needy—as Psalm 69:33 says—and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

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: Happy Fourth of July on the Fifth.

BAHNSEN: Yes, yes. 

EICHER: June jobs report is out  and finally a really good one. Actually beat expectations: 850,000 jobs added. Lots of superlatives here, beginning with the point that it marks the biggest increase in jobs in 10 months.

The unemployment rate ticked up in this case, but it’s for a good reason: because we had workers coming off the sidelines and actively beginning a job search.

The definition we use for the unemployment rate you read about in financial-press stories measures the unemployed actively seeking a job, so that’s why it can be a good thing if the rate ticks up as it is in this case.

And it’s especially good because of so many job openings.

But let’s listen to President Biden on Friday, talking about the economic recovery we’re seeing.

BIDEN: We've now created over 3 million jobs since I took office, more jobs than have ever been created in the first five months of any presidency in modern history, thanks to the incredible work of the entire team. This is historic progress. None of this happened by accident. Again, it's a direct result of the American Rescue Plan. And at the time, people questioned whether or not we should do that, even though we didn’t have bipartisan support. Well, it worked.

David, is he right to claim credit here?

BAHNSEN: Well, of course not. But that's not a partisan comment. That's just always true. And you know, it isn't right, when you only hear it on a good report, and you hear the opposite on a bad report.

So when there is report that underwhelmed, there's all these different reasons as to why things are going on. And then when there's a report that's a little better than expectations, it's because of something politicians did. Now, the only problem I have with saying that is that there's a president right now, that is in the Democrat Party. And so people may assume, oh, well, David's are Republicans saying it because there's a democrat there. But I promise you, I've been saying this for many, many years, I don't really like the idea that we coincide something like a monthly movement in jobs, with something that the president of the United States has done, I think it's really kind of silly. What I do like as an analyst, and trying to affect honesty, economics, is to look where there is an impact from policy.

And that's something we've done now on this show for months, is to look at the very traceable, empirically verifiable connectivity between people not going back to work because of an enhanced an extended governmental supplement, what they did is get two or three bad jobs reports in a row because of that policy, then you finally get one that's a little bit better than expectations. And they're saying, ‘Oh, look, this is what we've been able to create.’ I don't really think it's that bad, because it's just what politicians do. That's what their business is, is to take credit for things that have nothing to do with them.

EICHER: Okay, so let's get into the substance of the report.

It was higher than expectations. But I guess what you’re saying is these are just jobs that should’ve shown up months ago and finally now they have.

How do you look at this report overall?

BAHNSEN: Well, first of all, this report doesn't even really show that many more jobs coming back. I mean, I think overall, it is better to have had 850,000 non farm payrolls come back. But when you were expecting 1 million 3 months ago, and you got 200,000, you had a pretty big deficit relative to expectations.

The private sector payrolls rose in June, almost half coming from leisure and hospitality. Okay, so what about that could not possibly be tracked to just the delayed reopening of the economy, the leisure, hospitality jobs should have been come back months earlier. And there was both incentives for people not to take available jobs. And there were some states that were way slow on the go in terms of the post vaccine reopening.

I'm really glad to see those numbers go in the right direction. I'm really glad to see some people go back to work.

But at the end of the day, I broke down the whole kind of scorecard this week, where you essentially had about 20 million jobs go away at the bottom of the COVID, the worst of the COVID. You locked down, you've had about 13 million come back. So now you say there's about 7 million to fill, and there's 9 million job openings. That's the scorecard of this, that technically, we should be back to pre COVID employment, and then some except for that it doesn't work exactly that way because some of those jobs are not filled because they don't have qualified candidates, I get all that.

But my point is that numerically, we have a big gap to fill still and we employers are not looking to fill it. That's a really big problem.

EICHER: And you're out in the economy with the traveling that you do. I travel a good bit myself, and I see a lot of the same things you see. It just seems that we're in this weird period where a noticeable number of businesses aren't open their normal hours. You'll walk by plenty of places that are open and full and then other places that are closed or have restricted hours because they just simply cannot find the workers to run their businesses the way they used to.

Do you think that that is going to continue for a bit, the economy opening up in fits and starts? Or do you think structurally something has happened to the economy, that businesses will figure out how to automate and a lot of these low-level, entry-level, starter jobs we’re just going to lose?

BAHNSEN: There's a few different things going on at once, I think that the majority of the low level jobs will end up getting filled, but they will get filled with people that are a year behind in their own maturity and development, and progression in training, you cannot get back to the time that people were not on the job learning experiencing, dealing with customers dealing with co workers.

It is very hard to find any data that measures this, but I know because of my belief that economics is human activity that people have lost out on a year of human activity. And that is very difficult to measure.

But to say it doesn't matter is to totally misunderstand economics, people losing out on opportunity to grow to show their boss that they have more capability, therefore, set the stage for some advancement, that stuff doesn't come back, the bulk of these jobs come back a lot do end up getting structurally replaced because of the kind of advanced incentive to pursue automation, get by with lower employees kind of embed a lower job structure into a certain business.

But then the final piece to this is the thing that happened in spades after the financial crisis. And it's by far the worst thing. And that is just those who decide I like not being employed. So it's not so much the 25 year old who decided to take a government check and not go back to his, you know, entry level type job for a little while. I'm more thinking of the 57 year old that had a particular job and stayed out of the job for long enough that even when that economic transfer payments, and they are in a position where they maybe don't fully have to go back to work, and on the margin decide not to.

It's what we call the labor participation force, people that are working, and people that want to be working but aren't. That latter category is a big deal because I think when people remove themselves from even the pursuit of a job, then it opens up a whole lot of issues regarding their dignity, their self worth, mental health, spiritual engagement, societal engagement.

That's my biggest concern right now, post COVID is that we have done yet another hit to the labor participation force in this country. We need more people working, not less people. And I'm not just saying that because of the economic impact. I'm saying that to the existential impact of our society.

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

BAHNSEN: Great to be with you. Wonderful to celebrate our country's independence.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, July 5th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next up: The WORLD History Book. Today, the youth vote, information unbound, and a farewell to Founding Fathers. Here’s senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

MUSIC: “The Star Spangled Banner”

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: July 4 means so much to so many. Of course, in America, it means a celebration of freedom—Independence Day. And this July 4 marked 195 years since the passing of two men who gave their all to “the land of the free.”

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson—the second and third presidents of the United States—died that same day: July 4, 1826.

The two maintained a healthy sense of competition—spurring each other on with constant jockeying for precedence of their political ideas. In short, they were frenemies, and much of the strength of our Constitution came from their back-and-forth. The 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams frequently featured depictions of the statesmen working together.

JOHN ADAMS: You’re about to take a leap in the dark, Mr. Jefferson./ I would gladly lend my hand to sink the whole island of Great Britain in the ocean.

Both statesmen possessed sharp intellects, but their personalities stood in contrast. Jefferson’s quick wit and passion allowed him to easily advance his vast political visions. Adams, meanwhile, had a reputation as a contrarian, and often found himself without many friends—personally and politically.

When they teamed up, though, they were a dynamic duo. Jefferson became Adams’ vice president, and then had a falling out. HBO’s John Adams again, depicting a tense meeting between the president and vice president.

JOHN ADAMS: I am a party of one, Thomas, as you well know./ Why blacken your fragile reputation by an assault on the freedoms for which we both fought?

But they renewed their friendship after a decade. Adams broke the ice, sending Jefferson fond New Year greetings in 1812.

The letter-writing continued for 14 years—up until the Founding Fathers’ passing. Jefferson died in Monticello five hours before Adams, at age 83. Adams was in Quincy, Massachusetts. The news hadn’t reached him when he uttered his last words: “Thomas Jefferson survives.”

Incidentally, the fifth president of the United States, James Monroe, also died on July 4—five years later, in 1831.

And in our next entry, another U.S. president: Lyndon B. Johnson. He signed many important pieces of legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Social Security Act of 1965 that created Medicare and Medicaid. But today we tip our hat to the tall Texan for another piece of legislation: The Freedom of Information Act.

SOUND: Filing cabinet opening and closing

He signed that into law on July 4, 1966—55 years ago. The act went into effect the following year.

SONG: “Think,” Aretha Franklin

Also referred to as FOIA, lawmakers designed the act to create public transparency for U.S. government agencies. In 1983, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit described the purpose of the law as opening “up the workings of the government to public scrutiny.” It went on to reference the Founding Fathers, saying “an informed electorate is vital to the proper operation of a democracy.”

People often think of journalists when we think of FOIA, but fewer than 10 percent of requests actually originate with news media. Businesses, law firms, and individuals make up the bulk of FOIA requests.

SONG: “FORTUNATE SON,” CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL

And for our last entry of the day, another presidential contribution. Fifty years ago, on July 5, 1971, President Richard Nixon formally certified the 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

NIXON: That amendment, as you know, provides for the right to vote of all of our young people, 18 to 21, 11 million new voters as a result of this amendment…

President Nixon speaking there at the formal signing ceremony. Debate over lowering the voting age from 21 began in earnest during World War II. In fact, in 1943, Georgia led the country in lowering its voting age to 18. President Eisenhower expressed his support for a federally approved change in his 1954 State of the Union address.

EISENHOWER: For years our citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 have, in time of peril, been summoned to fight for America. They should participate in the political process that produces this fateful summons.

But popular frustration reached a fever pitch during the Vietnam War. The U.S. government was conscripting young men with no voting rights to fight and die for their country. “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote” became a common refrain among those calling for a constitutional amendment. A 1970 Supreme Court case determined Congress could regulate the minimum voting age at the federal level, but not in state or local elections. The Senate voted unanimously to pass the amendment lowering the federal voting age to 18, and the House showed significant support too. The necessary three-fourths of the states ratified the amendment with historic speed. Less than three months after the vote, Nixon signed the amendment, making it official.

SONG: “FORTUNATE SON,” CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: bathroom signs in Tennessee. We’ll tell you why a new policy in that state provoked a fight in the courts.

And, summer reading. Emily Whitten will have July’s Classic Book of the Month.

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.

Proverbs says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

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.