The World and Everything in It - June 13, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Oberlin College appeals a multi-million dollar judgment against it for defamation for fanning the flames of false accusations.

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

Also today: the Monday Moneybeat. Inflation hits a 40-year high and the Biden administration’s point person on the economy faces a grilling in Congress.

Plus the WORLD History Book. Five years ago this week—an early morning shooting in the nation’s capital.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, June 13th. 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: Now the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: House panel probing Capitol Riot readies for second public hearing » The cameras will be rolling again today on Capitol Hill as the House panel probing the Capitol riot holds another public hearing.

Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff said they’ll lay out evidence that incriminates allies of former President Trump.

SCHIFF: We will show the evidence that we have that members of Congress were seeking pardons. To me, I think that is some of the most compelling evidence of a consciousness of guilt.

During the first public hearing last week, Democrats and a handful of Republicans laid blame for the riot at the feet of Donald Trump.

But most Republicans say the special committee investigating the riot is highly partisan and the hearings are political theater. GOP Congressman Jim Jordan said Sunday that the panel is conveniently ignoring certain facts, including that, in his view, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned away help from the National Guard.

JORDAN: President Trump said if you need the National Guard there that day, they’re available. She didn’t take him up on that offer because, according to correspondence, according to testimony that we have received and media reports, I should say, the sergeant at arms says that the speaker's office didn’t like the optics of that.

Today’s hearing is expected to gavel in at 10 a.m. Eastern Time.

Senators agree on framework for gun & school safety legislation » A bipartisan group of senators struck a deal on Sunday announcing the framework for new gun and school safety legislation. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: The proposal falls far short of the stricter gun controls that many Democrats have pushed for. Instead, this legislation would focus on areas of common ground.

The agreed upon measures would strengthen school safety and mental health programs.

And it would make the juvenile records of gun buyers under age 21 available when they undergo background checks. The suspects in recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde were both 18 years old.

The agreement would also offer money to states to implement “red flag” laws. Such laws make it easier to temporarily take guns from people considered potentially violent.

Twenty senators, including 10 Republicans, have released a statement calling for passage. That means the compromise likely has enough support to pass in the Senate.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Roe v Wade decision could fall today » Today could be the day that U.S. Supreme Court reverses the Roe v. Wade decision.

The high court does not announce in advance which opinions it will release, but it is expected to announce new rulings today and on Wednesday.

The court has nearly 30 rulings to announce before its summer break. And among them could be a ruling striking down the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. That would return the issue to the states.

Security will be tight around the Supreme Court this week as authorities brace for potential violence.

Gas prices hit new record, topping $5 per gallon » Five dollars a gallon. That’s the new national average for regular unleaded — $5.01 to be exact—another record high for the United States.

But gas is even higher in Brooklyn where resident Katisha Thompson said she’s feeling the pinch.

THOMPSON: It’s a lot, especially when you’re trying to feed a family, and it’s not just gas, it’s groceries, it’s everything that’s going up.

She said she just paid almost $80 to fill up with 13 gallons of gas.

The national average has jumped 19 cents in just the past week, and it’s up almost $2 per gallon from this time last year.

The lowest average price in the country right now is in Georgia, $4.48 a gallon. California, as usual, is the highest—$6.43.

Box office: Jurassic World Dominion dominates » At the weekend box office, dinosaurs have not lost their allure.

TRAILER: Humans and dinosaurs can’t coexist.

Jurassic World Dominion took in an estimated $143 million domestically in its opening weekend.

The latest Jurassic movie kept Hollywood’s winning streak alive, following huge openings from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Top Gun: Maverick. It took in another $50 million. That brings its domestic total to nearly $400 million.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: a defamation case against Oberlin College.

Plus, the birth of a modern composer.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Monday morning, June 13th, 2022 and we’re glad you’ve joined us for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning to you, I’m Mary Reichard.

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

We expect the U.S. Supreme Court to hand down opinions this morning. Thirty argued cases remain to be decided out of a total of sixty-five accepted.

Last week, the justices handed down four opinions.

One is a unanimous decision dealing with corporate bankruptcy, what’s known as Chapter 11. An amendment to that law raised the fees U.S. Trustees earn for managing those bankruptcy proceedings. The problem is that North Carolina and Alabama were exempt from the law, because those states use a different system of bankruptcy.

The justices found that exemption violates the clause in the U.S. Constitution that requires uniform laws on bankruptcies throughout the country.

The case isn’t over. It’s now remanded to lower court to figure out what to do in light of the Supreme Court’s finding.

REICHARD: Alright, second ruling, also unanimous. It says an airline employee can take up her wage dispute in court in lieu of arbitration.

The Federal Arbitration Act provides for private resolution of contract disputes, but explicitly exempts contracts involving employment of “seamen,” “railroad employees,” or “any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.”

The high court agreed with the airline employee who argued she falls under that last class of workers. So she doesn’t have to arbitrate her wage dispute and may proceed with her overtime pay claim in court.

EICHER: On to the third decision, this one 7-2 against the family of a severely injured child. The case involved a 13-year-old girl, who suffered a catastrophic brain injury when she stepped off a school bus and was hit by a truck.

The state Medicaid agency in her home state of Florida paid for the girl’s immediate medical needs. Then the family settled a lawsuit against the school district for $800,000. The state then placed a lien on that money, citing a law that entitles the state to recover a percentage for medical expenses. In this case, around $300,000.

The family argued the state is entitled only to a portion of the settlement that covered the girl’s past medical expenses.

But the majority justices disagreed. They found the relevant distinction is between medical and non-medical expenses, not past and future medical expenses.

The family must reimburse the state the $300,000.

The girl is now in her 20s and remains on life support with the state Medicaid fund covering her ongoing expenses.

REICHARD: This last ruling is 6-3 in favor of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent who showed up at an inn without a warrant and roughed up the owner. The innkeeper sued for violation of his civil rights.

Generally, you can’t sue federal officials for civil rights violations. Some exceptions exist, and those are called Bivens claims. And here, the court declined to let the inn owner pursue either of his two civil-rights claims: one for unreasonable search and seizure; the other for freedom of speech. The opinion says Congress is best positioned to create remedies in this context than is the high court.

It’s not an unexpected result, but it is disappointing for those working to hold federal officials accountable when they violate the rights of others.

EICHER: Today we return to our summertime Legal Docket, talking about cases that don’t make it to the Supreme Court but that are nonetheless noteworthy. Today’s case involves Oberlin College in Ohio and how the school acted toward a local business owner who fought back.

Oberlin in May filed an appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court after it lost tens of millions of dollars in a lawsuit by a local bakery.

Here’s the background to the case. In November 2016, an Oberlin student used a fake ID to try to buy alcohol at Gibson’s Food Mart and Bakery. The student also tried to shoplift and when confronted, he ran.

Two more students jumped into the fray and began beating the employee. All three of the students eventually pleaded guilty to theft.

But the case didn’t end there. It just got started. Accusations of racism against the business owners took off like wildfire. The students are black, the business owners white.

REICHARD: The facts weren’t in yet.

Bakery owner David Gibson told CBS News in 2019:

GIBSON: Our feeling is that is what you have in life, is your reputation. It had taken us generations to build that reputation for us, and in just one day, we’d lost it.

One person who’s followed the case from the start and attended every day of the trial is William Jacobson. He’s a professor at Cornell law school and founder of the Legal Insurrection blog.

I wanted some context for what happened at Oberlin.

JACOBSON: …they were already, in the words of the student newspaper, melting down over Trump's election. A student writing in a student journal called it Oberlin’s culture of theft, that the students felt that it was their right to steal from the local stores. So the Gibson family was already very attuned to the problem of shoplifting. They had called the police many times regarding shoplifting.

The protests got bigger and went on for several days outside the bakery.

Things went from bad to worse:

JACOBSON: There were calls for the college community to boycott the bakery. And I think you could imagine the impact that would have if you're in a college town, and nobody at the college will come to your store. That's pretty devastating...

The store owners tried to restore their business and their reputation without resorting to litigation.

JACOBSON: And so David Gibson testified that he had meetings with the college, where he asked the college to please rescind the accusations that they're racist, to please rescind the accusations that they engaged in racial profiling, and that if they would do that, it would help the bakery restore its reputation and we could move along. The college refused to do that, refused to either. He didn't even ask for an apology. He just asked for a statement clarifying the college's position and they wouldn't do it.

The college also indicated that if the Gibson's wanted their bakery business, with the food service vendor back, they would have to agree to certain conditions. One of the conditions would be that anytime they stopped an Oberlin College student for shoplifting, they would have to call the college, not the police. And the Gibson's couldn't agree to that either. And ultimately about a year later they filed the lawsuit.

I reached out to the top administrators of the school at the time of these events for comment: College president Marvin Krislov. General Counsel Donica Thomas Varner. Meredith Raimondo who was Dean of Students.

None got back to me for comment.

Jacobson told me what he observed at trial:

JACOBSON: There was testimony by multiple witnesses that the college’s Dean of Students, Meredith Raimando, not only participated but led the protests and also led the handing out of a flyer, which became the basis for the defamation claim, of accusing the bakery of having a long history of racial profiling and of having assaulted these students…The dispute percolated for many months, the college directed the food service provider to cut off the bakery that ultimately became the basis for a claim which nobody seems to want to pay attention to, which was tortious interference with business. 

So part of the ultimate verdict was defamation. And part of it was also tortious interference with contract, because they had an independent contract with a food service provider, who then had a contract with the college and the college got them cut off.

One aspect that caught Jacobson’s attention was the cavalier attitude of the school toward this small business and the damage done to its century-old good reputation in the community.

JACOBSON: They were extremely dismissive in their answer towards the bakery. They were pejorative towards the Gibsons in their answer. And I remember writing that based on everything that's publicly known at that time, this approach is not going to work, because these were actual shoplifters. There's no evidence they were stopped because they were black. And in fact, the evidence had come out from analysis of police records, the percentages of non white people reported by the Gibsons for shoplifting almost exactly mirrored the percentage of non white people in the community. So basically, they called the police and tried to get arrested anybody who shoplifted.

The jury didn’t believe the school’s defense that it hadn’t defamed anyone or interfered with any contract.

The jury came back with $11 million in compensatory damages. And not only for defamation or tortious interference with a contract:

JACOBSON: And it was also intentional infliction of emotional distress as to Grandpa Gibson because he was particularly targeted by people. 

The end result was that the compensatory and punitive damage component was, and I'm going to round numbers here, $25 million dollars. In addition to that, the plaintiffs, the Gibsons, whose lawyers were on contingency fee, got over $6 million in attorneys fees and costs…

The fees for the school’s attorneys? Over $5 million.

JACOBSON: Which goes to show you this was very vigorously defended. This college fought everything- motion after motion after motion after motion- for multiple years before it ever got to trial. And so the judgment that was entered was just under 32 million dollars, 31 million and change. And the college was, to avoid execution on the judgment, to avoid the Gibsons being able to seize assets, were required to post an appeal bond in the amount of $36 million.

So Oberlin lost. Then it appealed, and lost on appeal. Now the college has appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. No word yet whether it’ll take the case.

And that’s where things stand today.

But all this didn’t come out of nowhere.

JACOBSON: There were controversies that made national news at Oberlin, about alleged cultural appropriation in the dining hall, that there were ethnic dishes that were not being properly prepared. And that was racist. And that was a terrible thing. And the students protested, and everybody laughed at it.

But this was Oberlin. It was a culture of always looking for a victim, always looking for a reason to accuse people of racism. One of the things that was seen is one student during this turmoil supposedly saw somebody in a Klan robe walking on campus at night. It turned out that it was a female student who had wrapped herself in a blanket to protect herself from the cold when she was walking home one night. It was not a KKK sighting, but that was the atmosphere on campus.

That erroneous KKK sighting happened in 2013. The Gibsons’ debacle occurred three years later.

It’s sad to report that two of the older Gibson men, 90 year old Grandpa Allyn Gibson and his son David Gibson, have both died during this dragged-out litigation, still on appeal.

Jacobson tells me the bakery business is just hanging on.

Meanwhile, top administrators I asked to interview? The general counsel, the president, the dean of students? They all have jobs at other colleges.

JACOBSON: And that, I think, is the moral of the story here, which is that there is a very, very nasty, oppressive trend in higher education that we've seen play itself out in the Gibson's bakery case.

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: Time now for our weekly conversation on business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. Good morning.

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

EICHER: Let’s talk about a third month in a row now of eight-plus-percent year-on-year inflation, measured by the consumer price index. We received the newest figures on Friday for the month of May. And so now we’ve been north of 5 percent for a year now—7 percent or above for half a year—and, as I say, around 8-1/2 percent for three months straight. That’s got to be the big story of the week, doesn’t it?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, I do, I think the goods inflation was at a lower inflation rate than it had been in the month prior. And that was the only positive in the inflation data. It was still very elevated, still up year over year. But it's now come down in that inflation rate on the goods side, but services was higher, which was expected. And then the food and energy side was higher.

I remain very firmly in the camp that that's really the area here that matters. When you hear consumers talking about inflation impact, I think they feel it at the grocery store, and other areas, but I think it's primarily the gas tank. And that's the area that to me, the administration has the most control over because it is supply-side oriented. There are things that can be done to ramp up production, and to give confidence to the markets that more production’s coming.

No, they can't go build another refinery tomorrow. But they can indicate a willingness to allow more drilling, to allow more permit approvals, leases, and to just generally increase the flow of oil and gas that would bring those prices down. So I think that's the big story.

And I would say that fuel costs driven, of course, by oil and gas costs, that will be the inflation story for the remainder of the year. But I expect that we've seen the peak in goods inflation.

EICHER; Right, and to the extent that inflation’s peaked, that doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods—as you’ve explained before—even if it drops a percentage point or two, these high prices are packing a punch! Any idea how long this might persist?

BAHNSEN: Yeah. It's not that I wouldn't have a number to throw out. It’s that I believe that even providing a projection of such a thing is really futile, as far as when numbers are back to, you know, acceptable levels.

However, as far as a declining rate of growth in inflation, there is a lot of economic importance in that. And you're exactly right, though, something that has been inflating at 8%, now inflating at 7% is incredibly high inflation.
It's just that getting to the rate of growth to peak is sort of the next step that I think will become relevant. And I do think we're close to that. But as far as the more important factor for consumers after that, which is when the level actually comes down to something more bearable to their pocketbooks. That's very, very hard to forecast.

EICHER: Speaking of inflation, the Biden Administration’s top cabinet official on the economy made the rounds in Congress last week. Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary. That gave Republicans the chance to give her a grilling in her appearances before House and Senate committees. Did you have a big takeaway from her testimony last week?

BAHNSEN: Well, it was really a pretty awful set of things. And I could go on to a number of different directions here. I do think that a lot of people on Wall Street are surprised when Chairwoman Yellen was the Fed chair, as opposed to Secretary Yellen, many believed her to be much more pragmatic, much more data driven kind of a typical academic, Ph.D.-holding central bank governor.

And she is all those things, but then I think we're seeing a kind of woke side in her, that is very, very surprising. She made some comment about any change in abortion laws will be bad for the economy, which is just not only so patently unnecessary from the treasury secretary, obviously immoral, but also untrue. You know, population growth is part of economic productivity. Anyone who doesn't know that doesn't know one of the most basic components of economics, that population plus productivity equals economic growth. And this is a tautology, it isn't debatable, and suggests that by taking people out of the population that's better for the economy, to me, that is a really bizarre thing for her to have said.

But most of her comments focused more on inflation and the notion of greedy oil companies being behind some of it and other such distractions. I think there's also a tension in the Biden administration. I don't think she's gonna make it much past the midterms. But you know, there is to me a growing dissatisfaction with some other Democrats on the Hill with various members of the Biden economic team. And Secretary Yellen is at the top of that list.

EICHER: And quickly before we go, another tough week for the markets. 

BAHNSEN: Yeah, it was a brutal week in the markets. The markets had been up 2,000 points in the two weeks before, and they were down nearly 2,000 points last week. So their volatility stays very high.

Most of the downside this week came late day Thursday, and then on Friday. And again, I think people are just trying to get some indication of where the Fed will take their foot off the gas in hiking rates. They're going to hike, I believe, 50 basis points for the next couple of meetings. You know, there are people saying, Why don't they just go do 100-150 at once? But they're not going to do that. They want to telegraph to the markets ahead of time.

So, again, you're seeing the exact same theme we've seen all year: high multiple, highly-levered high-risk companies, particularly consumer discretionary and technology, are getting hit hard. Higher quality companies and especially energy companies are doing much better. And that continues to be the theme in the volatility that is coming from tightening monetary policy.

EICHER: All right, that's David Bahnsen. He's a financial analyst and advisor and head of the financial planning firm, the Bahnsen group. David writes daily at DividendCafe.com. You can sign up there to receive his daily newsletter, the DC today. David, thank you so much, and we will see you next week.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Monday, June 13th. 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. We’re into week two in our Spring Giving Drive.

We do this in June, because that’s the end of our Fiscal Year—and it’s the final few weeks that we have to meet our fiscal ’22 budget—and lay our plans for 2023.

If you’ve benefited from this daily program or any of our longer form podcasts, I do hope you’ll consider a gift of support this month.

REICHARD: Please visit WNG.org/donate if you can help. Now, we do realize these are very difficult economic times, the prices of everything are just up, up, up, and it affects everyone—as it does us: travel is more expensive, paper, printing, you name it. But we realize not everyone has room left in your family budget—inflation is no respecter of persons—and so we’ll ask those who are able to help, to please do so in any way that you can.

What everyone can do is pray that the Lord will supply WORLD’s financial needs, so would you do that, please? You can follow along online and see how it’s going. As of first thing this morning, I can see we have fallen off the pace a bit, but join us in asking God’s blessing on our efforts.

EICHER: Next up, the WORLD History Book.

This week marks the anniversary of two significant events in Washington D.C.

But first, we celebrate the birthday of one of the 20th century’s most influential composers. Here’s WORLD arts and media editor Collin Garbarino.

STRAVINSKY’S “THE FIREBIRD: FINALE”

COLLIN GARBARINO: This week marks the 140th birthday of Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky. When he was young his work drew the attention of influential producers. Before he was 30, he was living in France writing symphonies for a Russian ballet company.

STRAVINSKY’S “THE RITE OF SPRING: PART I ADORATION OF THE EARTH”

In 1913 he staged The Rite of Spring at a theater in Paris. It caused quite a stir. The ballet is set in Russia’s pre-Christian past and a woman must be sacrificed to bring about the change in season. But it was the music’s atonality and erratic rhythms coupled with experimental dance that outraged the audience.

STRAVINSKY’S “THE RITE OF SPRING: PART 2 VI THE SACRIFICIAL DANCE”

Years later rumors circulated claiming the performance ended in rioting and fistfights. Toward the end of his life, Stravinsky complained the audience wasn’t ready for his symphony.

STRAVINSKY: They came for Scheherazade or for Cleopatra. And they saw Le Sacre du printemps. And they were shocked. They were very naive and stupid people.

But Stravinsky wasn’t merely a modernist challenging the established conventions. Later in life he composed many neo-classical and religious pieces that met audience expectations. He was a life-long member of the Orthodox church, but he even wrote a Roman Catholic mass.

STRAVINSKY’S “MASS: AGNUS DEI”

Stravinsky died as an American citizen at the age of 88 in New York City.

From one of the 20th century’s most famous composers to one of the century’s most infamous political crimes.

SONG: “BEEN CAUGHT STEALING” BY JANE’S ADDICTION

Fifty years ago this week, police arrested five burglars at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in the Watergate Complex in Washington D.C. Four of the men had worked with the CIA, the fifth worked for a committee working on President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign.

Former attorney general John Mitchell who chaired the president’s campaign denied any involvement from his party.

MITCHELL: Neither the president obviously or anybody in the White House or anybody in authority in any of the committees working for the reelection of the president have any responsibility for it.

For the remainder of the campaign, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein used information from an anonymous source called “Deepthroat” to tie the break in to Nixon’s inner circle. But Nixon won the election in a landslide, carrying 49 states.

In January of 1973, seven men connected with the break in were found guilty of burglary and conspiracy. But the scandal was just beginning. The Senate opened an investigation into the affair that dominated that first year of Nixon’s second term. At his state of the union address in 1974, Nixon tried to put the issue to rest.

NIXON: I have provided to the special prosecutor, voluntarily, a great deal of material. I believe that I’ve provided all the material that he needs to conclude his investigations and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to clear the innocent. I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Watergate is enough.

But as evidence came to light that Nixon had tried to cover up his campaign’s involvement in the break in, public opinion turned against him and he lost his support in Congress. Facing a possible impeachment, Nixon resigned in August of 1974.

From crimes by politicians to crimes against politicians.

EYEWITNESS VIDEO CAPTURES CONGRESSIONAL BASEBALL SHOOTING

Five years ago, terror broke out at a fun event promoting goodwill among Washington’s politicians. In the early morning of June 14, 2017, Republican members of Congress were practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game for Charity. And James Hodgkinson of Illinois opened fire. Then-congressman Ron DeSantis who left practice early said Hodgkinson specifically targeted Republicans.

DESANTIS: And a gentleman walked up and approached us, we were both in the car by now. And he said, “Hey are those Republicans or Democrats out there.” And Jeff said they’re Republicans. So the guy immediately turned around and then started walking to the field.

Capitol Police were on site providing security for House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. When Hodgkinson opened fire police responded quickly—but not before the shooter hit four people including Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner. But in the 10-minute shootout Hodgkins was also hit. He would die later that day. None of his four victims died, but Scalise arrived at the hospital in critical condition. After extensive surgeries and a long recovery he returned to the Capitol on September 28.

SCALISE: When I was laying out on that ball field, the first thing I did when I was down and couldn’t move anymore is I just started to pray. He really did deliver for me and my family, and it just gives you that renewed and understanding that the power of prayer is something that you just cannot underestimate.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Collin Garbarino.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: tracking disinformation. We’ll tell you about the Biden administration’s effort to determine what’s true and what’s not—and how that’s a government function at all.

And, teacher retirements. We’ll find out why so many educators are leaving the classroom for good.

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 Bible says: As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. (1 Peter 14:15 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

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