The World and Everything in It: May 26, 2025

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: Good morning, it’s Memorial Day.

And today a Supreme Court case involving religious liberty turns on a technicality.

Christian businesses arguing an advisory board that became a powerful agency upsets our system of checks and balances.

KAGAN: You know, the idea that we would take a statute which doesn't set up an independent agency and declare it one strikes me as pretty inconsistent with everything that we've done in this area.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today the Monday Moneybeat. David Bahnsen is standing by to talk about market reaction to the big, beautiful bill.

And a musical History Book today.

ROUGH: It’s Monday, May 26th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Jenny Rough.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

ROUGH: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Budget bill latest » Senate Republicans now are taking a hard look at the budget bill passed in the House last week. That is, of course, what the president calls his ‘big beautiful bill.’

It includes tax cuts and funding for the president’s other top priorities on border enforcement and national security.

Those are things all Senate Republicans can get behind. But some, like Sen. Rand Paul, say it fails to address Washington’s spending problem.

PAUL:  I support spending cuts. I think the cuts currently in the bill are wimpy and anemic, but I still would support the bill even with wimpy and anemic cuts if they weren't going to explode the debt.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill would add trillions to the national debt over a decade.

And Paul says the spiraling national debt is a threat to America’s national security.

House Speaker Mike Johnson responded Sunday:

JOHNSON:  The national debt is our, the greatest threat to our national security and deficits are a serious problem. What I think Rand is missing on this one is the fact that we are quite serious about this. This is the biggest spending cut in more than 30 years.

Speaker Johnson adds that turning the debt around takes time, but the president and Republicans in both chambers are committed to that end.

While some Republicans are concerned about overspending. Democrats slam the bill, claiming it will cut important benefits and hand tax cuts to the wealthy.

Trump speech to West Point » President Trump addressed graduating military cadets at West Point over the weekend.

TRUMP:  Every cadet on the field before me should savor this morning 'cause this is a day that you will never, ever forget.

The president blended praise with politics In his commencement address. He criticized past administrations for involving US troops in what he framed as unwise overseas entanglements.

TRUMP:  They sent our warriors on nation building crusades to nations that wanted nothing to do with us, led by leaders that didn't have a clue in distant lands.

He also took aim at the prior administration for DEI initiatives and imposing social ideology on the military.

Those days, he said, are over.

Nuclear power » Republicans are pushing back against criticism of President Trump’s push to speed up production of nuclear energy.

Trump signed executive orders Friday to grant the energy secretary authority to approve advanced reactor designs and projects. Critics claim the moves could compromise safety.

But GOP Sen. John Barrasso says:

BARRASSO:  Never again can we de be dependent on Russia or China for nuclear material or anything related to energy. The president is absolutely right. Uh, we need to meet uranium here. The next generation nuclear power plants here.

Barrasso says ramping up energy production is key to America’s economy and national security. He adds that we’ll need massive amounts of energy to win the AI race against China.

Friday's orders would reorganize the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ensure quicker reviews of nuclear projects, including an 18-month deadline for the NRC to act on industry applications.

SNAP sugary foods » Numerous states are asking the Trump administration for waivers banning food-stamp recipients from using those benefits to buy sodas and candy.

Indiana Governor Mike Braun:

BRAUN:  It doesn't make sense, and that's where you get the worst of government involved. They want to push it, I think, for the wrong reasons. Then you get industry buying into it. Yeah. That's not gonna fly with the current administration, nor with mine here in Indiana.

Some companies and lobbying groups are pushing back against the change, including the National Confectioners Association, which argues that the restriction is not really affecting change. They claim candy purchases represent only 2% of purchases using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance benefits - or SNAP - benefits.

Last week, a panel commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services issued a report identifying poor nutrition as a key driver of chronic disease in America.

SOUND: [Ukrainian prisoners return]

Russia and Ukraine complete prisoner swap hours after Moscow launches major aerial assault » Former Ukrainian prisoners of war heard there returning to Ukraine after Kyiv and Moscow complete a major prisoner swap.

The two countries exchanged more than 300 prisoners on Sunday after exchanging hundreds more on Friday and Saturday.

At least one soldier plans to head right back to the front lines.

AUDIO: [Speaking Ukrainian]

He said, "We’ll return anyway and we'll enlist again, we’ll take weapons into our hands and defend Ukraine once again.

Sunday’s exchange came just hours after Russian drones and missiles again rained down on Kyiv in other regions in another massive attack, killing at least 12 people.

I'm Kent Covington.

Still ahead, the Monday Legal Docket. Plus, a musical History Book commemorating Memorial Day with WORLD’s Bob Case.

This is The World and Everything in It.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: It’s Monday, the 26th of May. Happy Memorial Day!

We do want to honor those who gave their lives in service to our country. We’re grateful for their sacrifice—and the freedom we have to speak the truth boldly and report the news without fear.

So if you’re making time for us today, we’re glad you have. This is The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Jenny Rough.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good word, Jenny. It’s always right to express gratitude for the fact that freedom is hard fought and costly. So happy Memorial Day to all!

Well, we’re also grateful for the many new donors who joined us Friday and over the weekend as we kicked off our Spring 2025 New Donor Drive. Welcome, welcome!

Your support is what makes WORLD possible. The New Donor Drive continues today and this week and as we emphasized on Friday, generous long-time donors are offering to give alongside all new donors. Every new dollar that comes in is eligible for a one-to-one match … so your new giving power is doubled. It’s also a demonstration that no one gives alone … this is a team effort and so if you make a first-time gift … we have friends who will match it and make your money go twice as far. Be sure to visit W-N-G-dot-org-slash-new-donor.

Next up on The World and Everything in It, Legal Docket!

You know we cover every case the Supreme Court hears each term, but this case involves some content that may not be suitable for young listeners. So if you have children nearby, you may want to fast-forward 12 minutes and listen later.

ROUGH: Today’s case may not seem unsuitable, it centers on the Appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution. But this little known clause plays a critical role in our system of separation of powers and checks and balances.

To help unpack this case, and here’s where it might become unsuitable for younger ears, we’ll go back 44 years to June 5th, 1981.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published an article in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Five previously healthy young men in Los Angeles had contracted a rare form of pneumonia. Two had died.

AUDIO: More cases started popping up in other cities, like San Francisco and New York. They were different illnesses, but all reflected immune systems that were not working.

The audio from WUSA-9.

EICHER: By 1982, scientists identified the condition as AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It’s caused by the human immunodeficiency virus … H-I-V.

It’s largely preventable given that it’s transmitted most commonly through dangerous sex acts and injection drug use. Today, medication can help control the virus in those who have it. But there’s no cure.

For those who don’t have HIV, drugs have been developed that are designed to be taken before exposure. They’re delivered by pills or shots to a person who plans to engage in the behaviors just described. The drugs are known as PrEP … pre-exposure prophylaxis.

ROUGH: In 2019, a government task force recommended PrEP for preventive medical services. Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance plans are required to cover these drugs with no cost to the consumer. No copays, no deductibles.

A group of Christian business owners and individuals filed a lawsuit. They’re opposed to a drug that conflicts with their conscience and goes against the biblical design for sex, a drug that’s marketed to make harmful behavior quote-unquote safer.

EICHER: The plaintiffs argued the mandate violated their religious freedoms by requiring them to pay for these drugs. They’ve made arguments on religious liberty, but they also took aim at the task force that’s making them pay.

That argument concerns the structure of the task force, the way the members are chosen. They say it violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.

That’s the issue before the Supreme Court.

ROUGH: The Appointments clause says, the president shall appoint “Officers of the United States” by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

In other words, when nominating key government officials neither the president nor the legislature goes unchecked. The president’s picks are subject to the legislature’s approval. These are known as principal officers.

EICHER: Keep reading and the Appointments clause also talks about a second category of officers, inferior officers. These can be appointed the same way or Congress can pass a law vesting the power to appoint inferior officers in the president, a court, or a department head. So again, two branches at play to keep any one from having too much control.

ROUGH: So to summarize: Officers fall into one of two camps, principal or inferior. The line between the two can get a little fuzzy. The parties to this lawsuit are fighting about which side of the line the task force falls on.

The task force at issue in the case was originally established in 1984. It was made up of experts who recommended ways to prevent disease. Screening for diabetes or lung cancer, for example. The statute establishing the task force requires them to act independently and free of political pressure.

EICHER: Back then, in the 1980s and 1990s, none of this was a big legal issue. The task force made recommendations … advice, guidance, suggestions. Task forces do that all the time.

But along came the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare became law and some of those task force recommendations had the force of law. So the task force had real authority.

ROUGH: Let’s turn to how the parties tried to resolve this problem.

The government takes the position that the task force members are inferior officers. An agency within the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for convening the group. At oral argument, deputy solicitor general Hashim Mooppan for the government said that set up means HHS Secretary Bobby Kennedy ultimately oversees it.

MOOPAN: Task Force members are inferior officers because they are subject to ample supervision by the Secretary in issuing recommendations that bind the public.

Mooppan said the Secretary can review the recommendations, or ask the task force to rescind them before they take effect.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the task force has technical expertise in science and medicine. Is the Secretary really supposed to supervise technical advice?

ROBERTS: I mean, is the Secretary really supposed to be in the position of going down the line and saying, yeah, I mean, I know you think we should use this particular thing with this atomic structure and all that kind of stuff, but I’ve got a different view on that?

Mooppan said the Secretary does have that authority, even if he defers to the expertise of the task force.

EICHER: Justice Sonia Sotomayor bolstered Mooppan’s argument. She gave the example of Supreme Court law clerks. They research technical legal issues to help the justices.

To offer more proof the task force members are inferior officers, Mooppan said Secretary Kennedy has the power to fire them.

MOOPPAN: Most importantly, the Secretary can remove Task Force members at will. … And this court has repeatedly recognized that at-will removal power is a powerful tool for control.

That’s important, but it’s not the only factor. Justice Sotomayor returned to her law clerk analogy to show that subordinates who are subject to at-will firings can and do exercise independent judgment all the time.

SOTOMAYOR: My law clerks I ask to give me their independent judgment of what an answer should be, and they’ll tell you there are some times — a lot of times — I don’t accept it. And I certainly have the power to fire them, and they still do it. (Laughter)

MOOPPAN: Correct your Honor.

SOTOMAYOR: That’s nature of asking people to advise you, correct?

ROUGH: Lawyer Jonathan Mitchell argued for the Christian businesses. He said the task force is doing a lot more than merely advising.

Mitchell made the argument they are principal officers … because they make final decisions that bind citizens and insurers. And because they weren’t appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate, the task force is unconstitutional.

Mitchell went on to say that even if they lose that argument, he doesn’t concede the other. He argues the members of the task force aren’t inferior officers either as the government suggests.

MITCHELL: They cannot be inferior officers because their preventive care coverage mandates are neither directed nor supervised by the Secretary of Health and Human Services or by anyone else who has been appointed as a principal officer.

The statute establishing the task force doesn’t allow it.

MITCHELL: require the Task Force members and their recommendations be kept independent and, to the extent practicable, protected from any type of political pressure.

EICHER: But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked: How can it be that the task force is independent, if the Secretary has a one-year period of review before a recommendation goes into effect?

JACKSON: Mr. Mitchell, can I ask you about the interval? … We have something in this statute … the requirement that the Secretary establish this minimal interval after the recommendation is made before it comes into effect. … [Mr. Mooppan says, during that interval, the Secretary can not only delay the recommendations but can also, in his view, take some steps as to the constitution of the Task Force. … The Secretary's getting involved. He's making decisions.

Mitchell clarified: The one-year interval is there for the sake of the insurers, to give them time to adapt to the rules.

He again emphasized that regardless of whether the court considers task force members principal or inferior officers really doesn’t matter. There’s still a constitutional problem.

Mitchell emphasized nothing in the statute gives the Secretary the power to appoint. The statute simply says an agency director will convene the task force. And Justice Clarence Thomas agreed - he said convene usually just means calling a meeting.

THOMAS: The Court was convened this morning. The Chief didn’t appoint any of us.

ROUGH: The government argues convene does mean appoint. The statute allows the agency director to appoint. And under the law, the Secretary has all the powers of a director.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Mitchell for his take on that. Reading the relevant statutes—

KAVANAUGH: —those together give the Secretary the authority to essentially stand in the shoes of the director. You want to respond to that?

Mitchell said it’s still problematic. Under the current structure, sure, the Secretary can appoint. But so can others.

KAVANAUGH: And you just said then you could read the statute to allow the Secretary to appoint, that's kind of the end of it.

MITCHELL: No, I don't think so. That's not vesting. Anyone can appoint under the statute. The Secretary of
Energy could appoint. The president could appoint. The AHRQ director could appoint. Someone from the private sector could appoint. The statute doesn't say anything at all about who appoints. No one is vested with the
authority because the statute takes no position
on who appoints.


KAVANAUGH: Yeah. So okay. I think I understand your argument. Your argument's something's got to speak specifically to appointment.

Again, the conflict here stems from the fact that the law establishing the task force was passed when it was still just advisory. The ACA essentially upgraded the task force into an agency and its members into officers.

Nobody disputes that.

Still, Justice Elena Kagan found it odd.

KAGAN: Still, I mean, we don't go around just creating independent agencies. More often we destroy independent agencies. (Laughter.)

MITCHELL: That seems to be —

KAGAN: You know, the idea that we would take a statute which doesn't set up an independent agency and declare it one strikes me as pretty inconsistent with everything that we've done in this area.

The court could go in a lot of different directions here … both with clarifying the Appointments clause parameters and the appropriate fix if it finds a constitutional violation.

EICHER: Finally, the Court handed down two opinions last week.

First, in a unanimous decision, the Court upheld a fraud conviction of a government contractor even though the victim of fraud suffered no economic loss.

And in the case on the constitutionality of a religious charter school, the court reached a stalemate. We reported this one two weeks ago. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused from the case, and that resulted in an evenly divided court, 4 to 4. That means the lower court’s decision shutting down the charter school is affirmed, and because the Supreme Court’s opinion is deadlocked … it sets no nationwide precedent.

ROUGH: And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group. He is here now. Good morning to you, David.

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

EICHER: David, Speaker Johnson pulled off a razor-thin vote and the House passed its “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill. Yet markets gave a shrug. You’ve called the usual explanations off base—walk us through why investors didn’t cheer.

BAHNSEN: Well, my view is that a lot of the narratives around the market response are a little lacking—in the sense that I don’t believe that markets didn’t know that a bill was going to get passed.

I think there is no way markets could have known when and exactly what, because there was a lot of unpredictability on those specifics—based on what you said, the razor-thin majority that speaker Johnson had to work with. But that’s different than the markets being expected to breathe a sigh of relief that we extended the Trump tax cuts.

I just have never believed that there was a point at which markets didn’t know one way or the other that this was going to happen. In terms the bill itself, it’s hard for me to believe that markets would be that surprised, because most of what we’re talking about here is not really all that great for markets.

The extending of the Trump tax cuts is status quo. Not extending the Trump tax cuts would have been disastrous. But I’ve referred to this before as asymmetrical risk/reward. There was risk if the tax cuts are not extended, but not a lot of reward if they are. I mean that in the sense that people are going to be paying the same taxes that they were the year before. That isn’t a pro-growth tax cut. It’s just an avoidance of a problematic tax increase, Nick.

The issue is the spending. Okay?

The issue is that there is $36 trillion, almost $37 trillion, of national debt; that the deficit for this fiscal year is over $1.8 trillion that we’re going to be adding to the national debt. Is there a chance that the Senate ends up dealing with some of this? There’s a chance.

But I think it’s pretty clear the politics of this: the Republicans have been asked to get in line. Maybe we’ll see some modest adjustments, some modest tweaks. But for the most part, there just still is not a political will to deal with the spending, and there’s a willingness to add to the deficit further, which is disappointing. It’s not what markets were responding to this week. I don’t believe markets are remotely surprised that we’re still in a big spending mode.

But you know, personally, I’m disappointed. I’d hope more could get done there.

EICHER: So let’s talk about the debt. It’s been a while since we’ve talked much about the problem of federal debt, which if I have it right, has ballooned to $37 trillion dollars. Public debt, $29 trillion dollars. Debt-to-GDP ratio, 120%. What does that mean for us? We’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating. Talk about what it means to carry this kind of debt.

BAHNSEN: Yeah. Well, there’s one other metric that you you didn’t share: the deficit-to-GDP. That’s the percentage of the annual deficit divided by the total goods and services of the economy. That’s running 6.1%.

Between 2000 and 2020, the deficit-to-GDP was somewhere between zero and 3%. What I’m getting at is we were growing the economy around the same level that we were growing the debt. Now, the deficit is growing more than the economy. That is the metric that has to change now.

We have grown the debt from about $10 trillion when President Bush left office to nearly $40 trillion. Now we have an even larger need to deal with this. Imagine if we said, “Hey, we’re going to live with $37 trillion of debt forever, and in the meantime, we just want to stop the growth.” To do that, you need to have the debt growing slower than the economy.

So you need a more pro-growth policy. And I’m sorry, but “no tax on tips” is not the pro-growth prescription the doctor ordered.

Now there is some pro-growth in this tax bill, okay? I think the 100% business expensing incentivizes further capital expenditures. The R&D—research and development—deduction gets enhanced, but neither of those are permanent. So, you might get a kind of spurt of additional expenditures, but this temporary stuff that makes it fit in a budget window is suboptimal for growth.

Ultimately, the debt has to be dealt with. I’ve said this countless times. I’m never going to stop saying it. No honest person, left wing or right wing, conservative, Democrat, it doesn’t matter. Nobody is talking about dealing with the debt if they’re not talking about entitlements. You have to talk about Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, these are the issues primarily feeding it. I would have hoped that this bill would have done more for discretionary spending. It didn’t do that much.

Look, I just want to remind everybody, the House Republicans, when President Biden was in office, passed a budget to cut spending over 10 years by $17 trillion. It didn’t go anywhere because they didn’t have the majority in the Senate or the White House. But you know what? The House Republicans just passed $2 trillion in cuts over 10 years. So somehow $15 trillion extra could be cut when they’re not in power that can’t be cut when they are in power.

I mean, come on!

EICHER: David, we’ve got to run in a minute, but one last thing: You wrote in this week’s Dividend Café about bond yields, and I wonder if it’s worth taking a minute or two to kind of talk about the particulars of the bond market reaction to “big beautiful.” You’re saying there’s a false narrative around it and I’d like for you to talk about why that matters.

BAHNSEN: Well, it matters a great deal to always be immunized against false narratives. I think it’s important for investors and for people who listen who are trying to learn more about the economy. It’s become quite systemic, this narrative of, “Oh boy, the debt issue is bad—a premise I agree with—and the bond market is rebelling against it—a conclusion that is just demonstrably false.

My own view is that we have to understand bond yields for 10-year bond are really the best measure we have of what people expect total economic growth to be, what’s called nominal GDP growth. That figure is a combination of inflation expectations plus real growth—expectations growth net of inflation.

So let’s say this, Nick: I would be really happy if we got 1-1/2% inflation for the next 10 years and 3% real GDP growth. For reference, 3.1% is what we’ve averaged from World War II all the way to the financial crisis. If you combine those two together, that would be 4-1/2%. That’s exactly where we’re at now.

People that are sitting here going, “Oh, 4-1/2 is so high! The bond market doesn’t trust American creditworthiness.” Do they want a 3% yield? Because we had a 2% to 3% bond yield from the financial crisis up to COVID. Why? Well, because of both very low inflation and very, very low growth.

So I doubt we’re going to get 3% real growth. I certainly don’t believe we’re going to get higher than that. Yet, I don’t understand the hand-wringing over bond yields—unless they get to 5%, 6%, 7%. Then you start saying, “Okay, it’s either measuring fears of higher inflation, or it’s measuring some sort of concern about the creditworthiness of the United States.”

But neither is even remotely on the table right now, and I think there’s some maybe using it as a political diversion. I have a problem with that, because I want to be critical of the things that need to be criticized for the right reasons. But to try to do fearmongering about something that isn’t true in the present just desensitizes people. It makes them numb and not pay attention to what is a real fear.

That’s the reason it matters, Nick.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, May 26th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough.

Up next, the WORLD History Book. Today is Memorial Day, a day that has its roots in the Civil War. It began in the 1860s as “Decoration Day” when hundreds of new war cemeteries were established. Families gathered to lay flowers at the graves of their sons, husbands, and fathers. By 1890, every Union state had adopted it.

EICHER: After the two world wars, Memorial Day became a day of remembrance for all members of the U.S. military who fought and died in service. Congress in 1968 set its yearly observance to the last Monday in May.

Today, Bob Case considers how both the Bible and the Great American Songbook honor the fallen.

ROBERT CASE: The first national commemorative military memorial service recorded in the Biblical Songbook is in 2 Samuel 3. The great Jewish king David and the nation of Israel gather to remember the great Israelite general, Abner—murdered by a rival general Joab. In verse 31 David in full mourning:

“Then David said to Joab and all the people with [Joab]. ‘Tear your clothes and put on sackcloth and walk in mourning in front of Abner.’”

King David himself walked behind the bier. At the memorial service, David publicly recites a lyrical elegy with the closing refrain:

“Do you not realize that a prince and a great man has fallen in Israel this day?”

This acclamation has reverberated for centuries in English-speaking military funerals ever since the publication of the 1611 King James Bible.

MUSIC: [GOD OF OUR FATHERS by United States Marine Band]

A common hymn at religious commemorations this Memorial Day is “God of our Fathers” — the unofficial hymn of the United States Armed Forces, played beautifully here by the President’s own United States Marine Band.

The lyrics include references to our collective reliance on God. “In this free land, by thee our lot is cast; be thou our ruler, guardian, guide and stay.”

MUSIC: [BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC by United States Army Field Band]

Turning now to a great American song of remembrance. In the years before the Civil War the United States had no universally recognized national anthem. As the clouds of war gathered it was thought that an anthem was needed to inspire American patriotism. In the fall of 1861, Julia Ward Howe attended a Union Army camp outside of Washington, D.C. She heard the soldiers singing the famous song, “John Brown’s body lies a moldering in the grave,” set to the tune of an old Methodist camp meeting song.

MUSIC: [JOHN BROWN'S BODY by Paul Robeson]

She loved the vigor and martial spirit of the music but found the words inadequate for a lasting hymn of patriotism. Her famous Unitarian minister, Rev. James Freeman Clark, suggested she write some new lyrics. Early the following morning in her Washington, D.C. hotel room she wrote the words we sing today. They cast the war as a terrible conflict in which one side has the advantage of God’s “terrible swift sword.” The great military historian Henry Steele Commager called her lyrics “the one great song to come out of the Civil War, the one great song ever written in America.”

It is hard to find serious songs that celebrate and honor our fallen warriors in the Great American Songbook—it’s mostly dedicated to love and romance. Most songs written during wartime were patriotic, catchy, and geared to the universal themes of service and adventure.

MUSIC: [BOOGIE WOOGIE BUGLE BOY by Andrew Sisters]

Don Raye became famous for his novelty song “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” performed by the Andrews Sisters.

But a year earlier he and movie score composer Al Jacobs wrote one of the most popular patriotic songs to come out of the Great American Songbook. This is my Country.

MUSIC: [THIS IS MY COUNTRY by Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians]

Not long after publishing “This is my country” Don Raye enlisted in the U.S. Army himself.

MUSIC: [THIS IS MY COUNTRY by Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians]

Christians are citizens of a heavenly country. We are called to love Christ and His kingdom most of all. But we’re also to seek the good of the land God has placed us in. Memorial Day is a day to be thankful and remember those who have fallen in the service of our country. They gave what President Abraham Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion” —supporting the principle of liberty and justice for all.

In the U.S. we consider Memorial Day the unofficial start of summer, but we mustn’t forget its true meaning. As we gather with friends and family today, let’s take time to reflect on, and remember the uniformed “fallen princes” who will not be with us as we celebrate.

I’m Robert Case.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: As more U-S states even more countries embrace assisted suicide, what can be done to counter society’s embrace of the culture of death? Also, remembering one of the victims of last week’s shooting at the Jewish Museum. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough.

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 Psalmist writes: “Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name. Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me.” —Psalm 119:132-133

Go now in grace and peace.

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