The World and Everything in It - May 4, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Betrayal at the Supreme Court intentionally creates a crisis. What are the implications?

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also today, WORLD Tour.

Plus we’ll meet the man behind a popular Texas BBQ stand and find out why he does what he does.

And WORLD founder Joel Belz on his very good idea.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, May 4th. 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 news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Fallout continues over leaked Supreme Court draft Roe ruling » The fallout continues in Washington after someone leaked a draft of a Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the authenticity of that document on Tuesday. He called the leak “egregious” and has launched a probe into the matter.

Republicans, like Ohio lawmaker Matt Dolan, say the person responsible must be held accountable.

DOLAN: I am really concerned about the leak. And I hope the DOJ and the FBI take it seriously, find the leaker, and prosecute them.

Justice Roberts said the document is real, but the ruling is not final.

Democrats are decrying the potential decision as an injustice. President Biden says he wants Congress to codify the 1973 Roe decision in law.

And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer declared on Tuesday…

SCHUMER: The Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years.

But most Republicans say it would, in fact, be the greatest restoration of rights in a half-century, the right to life itself for millions of unborn children, at least in many states.

Overturning the Roe v. Wade decision would return authority over abortion law to the states.

Russian forces storm steel mill in Mariupol » Russian forces Tuesday began storming the steel mill containing the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol.

Russian forces backed by tanks began invading the sprawling plant, which includes a maze of tunnels and bunkers spread out over 4 square miles.

That marks a shift away from Vladimir Putin’s stated strategy of starving out the remaining troops.

The renewed attacks came just as scores of civilians evacuated from the bombed-out plant reached relative safety. One of the evacuees described the terror she experienced.

AUDIO: You can’t imagine how scary it is when you sit in the shelter of a wet and damp basement, which is bouncing, shaking. When we were able to go outside, I saw the sun for the second time in two months. When you go out, you see craters 49 feet in diameter.

The Red Cross helped coordinate the evacuation of more than a hundred women, children, and elderly Ukrainians.

Slovakia, Hungary won’t back EU sanctions on Russian energy » Slovakia and Hungary say they cannot support sanctions against Russian energy. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

JOSH SCHUMACHER, REPORTER: The two Eastern European countries said they’re too reliant on Russian supplies to back proposed EU sanctions. They said they have no immediate energy alternatives.

The European Commission has drafted new proposals for sanctions. The plan could phase in an embargo on Russian oil.

Slovak Economy Minister Richard Sulik said switching from Russian crude to another kind of oil means changing technology. And that would take several years.

The 27 member countries are expected to huddle over the new sanctions starting today, but it could be several days before the measures take effect.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the commission wants to hit more banks, target those accused of spreading disinformation about the war and “tackle oil imports.”

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Top Pentagon officials pitch defense budget raise to lawmakers » Meantime on Capitol Hill, top Pentagon officials said they’ve learned a lot about the Russian military’s shortfalls over the past two months. But Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyed Austin warned that Moscow is learning from its mistakes.

They said Russia remains a global threat. But they reminded lawmakers that Russia is not the only threat.

MILLEY: We are now facing two global powers, China and Russia, each with significant military capabilities, both who intend to fundamentally change the current rules-based order.

Milley and Austin pitched the Defense Department’s $761 billion dollar budget proposal to a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday. It would raise defense spending by almost 5 percent over the current year.

Austin said the budget request includes upgrades on land, sea, and air, and…

AUSTIN: The department's pacing challenge remains countering aggression and bullying from China. So this budget invests some $6 billion dollars in the Pacific deterrence initiative.

The budget also includes a roughly four-and-a-half percent pay raise for military and civilian personnel.

Employers post record 11.5 million job openings in March » Employers posted a record 11.5 million job openings in March. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has more.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: U.S. employers are now posting two job openings for every person who is unemployed.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the data on Tuesday, further highlighting a tight labor market.

A record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in March. That’s a sign that many are confident they can find better pay or working conditions elsewhere. That’s a trend that has also added to spiraling inflation.

Employers have added an average of more than 540,000 jobs a month for the past year.

The Labor Department is expected to report on Friday, an unprecedented 12th straight month that new hires have topped 400,000.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: the leaked Supreme Court opinion.

Plus, the seeds that sprouted WORLD’s unique brand of journalism.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 4th of May, 2022.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: A leak at the Supreme Court.

As we reported just moments ago, Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed it yesterday: that a draft copy published by Politico Monday night of a ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade is authentic.

REICHARD: So what are the effects here? Not only of the draft opinion itself—assuming it becomes the final, official decision—but also the unprecedented betrayal of high court protocol?

EICHER: Joining us now to help answer that is Barry McDonald. He is a professor of law at Pepperdine University. He’s a former law clerk for Chief Justice William Rehnquist. And Prof. McDonald is a recognized scholar in constitutional and First Amendment law.

REICHARD: Professor, good morning.

BARRY MCDONALD, GUEST: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

REICHARD: Well, let’s start with the leak of this draft.  How does something like this happen?

MCDONALD: That’s a good question because it really hasn’t happened that I know of before, where a draft of an opinion was leaked, at least in modern times.  But it's an egregious violation of the duties of confidentiality that surround both law clerks and regular employees at the Supreme Court.

REICHARD: What is the expected procedure for releasing a final opinion? What changed? What’s different about this?

MCDONALD: Well, I mean, nothing changed. It's just what happens is that the Justice who's assigned to write the majority opinion then circulates a draft of the opinion like it seems like Justice Alito was the one assigned to write this opinion. And I've got to believe it was Justice Clarence Thomas who made the assignment of that opinion, because my guess is Chief Justice Roberts was not in the majority in favor of overruling Roe vs. Wade. So since Alito had the assignment to write the opinion. And he was in the, you know, he was in the majority, obviously, after the conference vote. So how it happens is that you have oral arguments in a case and then the court convenes the Friday after the oral argument, and they have a straw poll, and they say, Okay, well, where are you leaning on this case? And if you're in the majority, then the senior justice in the majority assigns one of the other justices or takes the opinion himself to write, or herself. If, for example, the chief justice is not in the majority, then the next senior justice either takes the opinion to write or assigns the opinion to another justice. So here, Justice Alito had the assignment to write the first draft of the majority opinions. And what happens is that once you have that draft in hand, then you circulate it to the other chambers and the other justices read it and either they send a memo saying, “Okay, well, we're joining that opinion,” or they confer informally with the other justice—usually through law clerks—and say, you know, “look, if you can change this, or you can change that, I'll join the opinion,” or they'll join it, and they'll write separately expressing some reservations or adding some additional insights. And, of course, a lot of times they'll just dissent. But that first draft opinion is very important, because it sort of focuses all the other justices on whether they're going to join this, whether you're going to write a concurrence, whether they're going to write a dissent, but it's all part of the deliberative process.

REICHARD: And what impact does this leak have on the h igh court’s process?

MCDONALD: Well, I think what it's going to do is they're really going to tighten up their processes. they're surely going to beef up whatever procedures they have for ensuring the confidentiality of law clerks. I'm just sure they're just going to really tighten up around that institution.

REICHARD: Well, let’s talk now about the draft itself and what it could mean. I’m sure you’ve read it. Explain the reasoning outlined in this draft for potentially overturning Roe v. Wade.

MCDONALD: Well, I haven’t put it under a magnifying glass but I have, you know, it's 70 pages of dense opinion. I have sort of skimmed through it and read through it. It is what I expected. It's the new five justice conservative majority essentially saying that, from a textual perspective, there is no right of abortion in the text of the Constitution.

There was no historic deeply-rooted history and tradition of protecting a right to abortion. He says quite the contrary. And then he sort of criticizes the more modern policy rationales that the Roe majority relied on, like, for example, saying that there is a right of abortion up to fetal viability, which at that point was at the end of the second trimester. He essentially said that was a modern policy determination that had no basis in the Constitution. And then he turns to stare decisis and says is there you know, “we think that Roe was very poorly reasoned. Is there a good reason not to overrule it?” And there he says, “No, we don't think that there is,” and then ends up concluding that Roe versus Wade is overruled. And that's exactly how I would have expected this opinion to have read.

REICHARD: If this draft opinion becomes the final opinion, it would return authority over abortion law to the states. What do you see happening next?

MCDONALD: Well, I don’t see much different happening in the blue states like California and New York. The more conservative states are passing very restrictive abortion legislation. So what you're going to have is, you know, probably what the framers of the original Constitution envisioned, which is sort of important social policy decisions or questions like this being decided on a state by state basis by the people of the states and their representatives. And so abortion, presumably, at least in the more purple states and perhaps in some of the red states is going to become a very controversial topic, probably, where it's going to be fought out as a matter of state politics.

REICHARD: So I’m hearing language there about abortion restrictions. There are those on the pro-life side who say it’s just as much protection for mother and unborn child. So it’s as though certain language has entered the legal parlance to adopt language from the left that talks about restriction rather than protection. Do you see that? Do you see any correlation between language changes and the law?

MCDONALD: Well, it has, you know, since Roe versus Wade, the Supreme Court did frame it. They essentially ruled that the mother had liberty rights to obtain an abortion, and that a fetus was not a protected person under the Constitution. And so Roe set the stage for speaking of the abortion discussion as restrictions on a woman's right to get an abortion. Had the Roe court decided that a fetus was a protected person under the Constitution—like, for example, the German High Court has as a matter of the German constitution—had that been the outcome of Roe vs. Wade, I think the dialogue would have been different. I think that we just wouldn't be talking about restrictions on a woman's right to an abortion. I think the phraseology would be different. But Roe set the stage for that.

REICHARD: What do we know regarding which justices agreed with draft opinion author Alito?

MCDONALD: Well, we don't know anything from the draft, but the Politico magazine article that discussed the draft and disclosed it said that whatever confidential informant supplied the draft also indicated that there were five votes behind it. And that, you know, Justice Barrett, Justice Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Thomas—what I call the new conservative five majority of the Supreme Court.

REICHARD: Barry McDonald has been our guest. Professor, thanks so much!

MCDONALD: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour. Here’s our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Spyware in Spain—Today’s World Tour starts in Europe.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Spanish]

Government officials in Spain admitted on Monday that someone used spyware to hack into mobile phones belonging to the country’s prime minister and defense minister.

Members of the country’s Catalan separatist movement say hackers also targeted their phones.

The Israeli-developed spyware Pegasus is behind the breach. It’s only supposed to be available to government agencies. That has prompted a growing scandal over who might have ordered the hack.

Last month, the European Parliament launched an investigation into Pegasus following alleged cases of spying against Hungary, Poland, and Greece.

Rescue efforts in China—Next we go to Asia.

AUDIO: [Clapping]

Rescuers in central China celebrated after they pulled a woman from the rubble of a building, four days after it collapsed. State media called the rescue a miracle.

The commercial building housed apartments, a hotel, and a cinema. Officials say at least two people died. Nine have been pulled from the rubble, with 14 more trapped but still alive. Thirty-nine others are unaccounted for.

Building collapses in China are often due to weak construction standards and widespread corruption among enforcement agencies. Police arrested nine people following Friday’s collapse, including the building’s owner and several safety inspectors.

Heat wave wilts India and Pakistan—Next to Southeast Asia, where summer has arrived early.

AUDIO: [Sound of splashing, laughing]

Children dove into the muddy canals of Lahore, Pakistan, last week to stay cool during a punishing heatwave. Power outages compounded the sweltering conditions, with city residents facing up to eight hours a day without electricity. Residents of some rural areas only have power for half the day.

AUDIO: [Man speaking Urdu]

This man said swimming in the canals is the only way to cool off.

AUDIO: [Sound of hoses, high spray water]

Meanwhile, firefighters in New Delhi struggled last week to contain a massive fire at a garbage dump. Officials said the blaze ignited spontaneously in the smoldering heat.

March was the hottest month in India in more than a century. April was similarly hot, with temperatures topping 109 degrees in several cities. And forecasters don’t expect the heatwave to ease any time soon.

Qantas announces longest passenger flight—And finally, we’ll land today in Australia.

AUDIO: [Plane noise]

Airline Qantas announced Monday it will soon offer the world's longest non-stop commercial flight from Sydney to London. Alan Joyce is the company’s CEO.

JOYCE: So there is a wellness area in the economy cabin, we could have put more seats into it. The seats were taken out to give this spacious area where people can exercise and hydrate, deliberately to allow people to do that on the long flight.

That room to stretch will be important because passengers will spend nearly an entire day on the plane: 19 hours.

Singapore Airlines currently operates the world's longest non-stop flight. Traveling from Singapore to New York takes just under 19 hours.

Qantas will begin its non-stop service by the end of 2025.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: If you’ve ever run a marathon, you know that running one race is quite an accomplishment.

How about 104 marathons? In a row?

Jacky Hunt-Broersma did that. She ran one marathon a day for 104 days straight. And she did it on one leg!

Twenty years ago, she lost a leg to cancer and so now she runs with a prosthetic leg. Why?

BROERSMA: Just to show the world that you don’t need to have excuses, and you can achieve amazing things, even if you have a slight disability. There just is no excuse, and I want to show world that you’re stronger than what you think.

Broersma set a Guinness World Record in the process and raised nearly $70,000 to help buy prosthetic limbs for others.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, May 4th. We’re grateful you’ve turned to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Texas BBQ! 

Recently, WORLD’s Whitney Williams and her family stopped by a roadside BBQ stand. Turns out there was a whole lot more on the menu than brisket, turkey legs, and banana pudding.

AUDIO: [WILLIAMS FAMILY ORDERING, MUSIC PLAYING]

WHITNEY WILLIAMS, CORRESPONDENT: It’s a sunny day in small-town East Texas. A bit windy. Barbed wire and big oak trees line a small, country highway that connects Emory’s Dairy Queen with Canton’s Whataburger. Just about smack dab in the middle of the 20-mile stretch sits a small, roadside BBQ stand. Picnic tables over here. A pond and pasture over there.

Mouth-watering smells drift up from large iron smokers. A towering, husky, bearded man in his mid-40s hangs his tattooed arm out the window of a small, red, wooden shed, greeting customers and taking orders.

Borgstedt is his last name. His first name, well, that was a bit of a controversy between his grandmother, a Catholic, and his mother, a Baptist…

BORGSTEDT: And so my name ended up being John, after John the Baptist, Christopher after St. Christopher. [Laughing] And I didn’t turn out to be either one of them. Maybe later on in life, but you know [laughing]

Borgstedt’s exuberant laugh masks his heartbreaking history.

BORGSTEDT: I was considered one of the worst cases of child abuse in Texas history to live.

Borgstedt’s parents severely beat him--leaving him unconscious. Frequent trips to the ER. His mother regularly medicated him to the point of paralyzation. Borgstedt’s mom would abandon him for months—even years—at a time at psychiatric hospitals and homes for troubled children under false pretenses. The facilities would eventually send him home, only for him to be locked away in an isolated “quiet” room outside of his house—no toilet, no windows. Once, Borgstedt’s mother even tried to kill him.

At age 10, Borgstedt was coerced into making a confession to arson and became a ward of the state.

BORGSTEDT: There are some days I wanted to give up. You know, I did try to commit suicide several times, overdosed one time.

But someone always found him.

BORGSTEDT: God didn't want me to go.

When Borgstedt turned 17, Texas released him into the wild.

BORGSTEDT: I had nothing. I didn't have any coping skills. I didn't have any job skills. They didn't even give me 50 bucks. They didn't give me 25 bucks. It was: “You’re discharged. Where do you want your bus ticket?” And so I had to figure out a way to make money and survive.

His girlfriend’s dad helped him find a job. Gun-running for a Mexican drug cartel.

BORGSTEDT: That was my first prison sentence and I did five on a five.

When he got out, Borgstedt decided to visit his mother. He wanted to make things right. Tell her he forgave her. She said she’d prosecute him for trespassing if he ever stepped foot on her property again. She died soon after.

Still, Borgstedt felt free. God had bound up his wounds. He was no longer angry. No. Now, he was determined. Borgstedt spent the next 16 years advocating for victims of childhood abuse. He traveled the country—even internationally—speaking at youth and runaway homes, schools, prisons, child advocacy agencies ... He got married, wrote books, produced a documentary, won awards. God was using Borgstedt—and his testimony—to inspire hope and change.

Then, it all fell apart.

BORGSTEDT: You know, we get to a certain level in life with any of us and I think that we let the stardom get to us. And I did that. I ended up back in prison even after I accomplished all that. And I almost lost everything.

Borgstedt had opened a gaming room in Tyler, Texas. He thought he had done everything by the book. His arrest and six-month jail sentence said otherwise.

BORGSTEDT: I felt ashamed. I felt like I didn't belong there. But God had a reason.

God used that six-month sentence to humble Borgstedt. Mature his faith. He also used Borgstedt to minister to his fellow inmates—many of whom also endured childhood abuse.

BORGSTEDT: And they'll say, John, how did you feel after your mom did that? Did you forgive her and blah, blah, blah, you know, I've tried and tried and tried and I said, Well, you don't have to keep banging your head on the wall. You can forgive someone, but it doesn't mean you have to socialize with them.

After his release in 2017, Borgstedt went to work on an oil pipeline. A year later, while in the oil field, he shattered over half of his spine.

BORGSTEDT: And so I was wondering, you know, what am I going to do, because really motivational speaking wasn't something that I wanted to continue to do. I felt like I'd let everybody down.

His pastor’s wife had a suggestion: How ’bout BBQ?

BORGSTEDT: We started on a picnic table. And we were selling meat out of a cooler. And the guy that owns the property said ‘Do want to stay here?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I said, but I don't know about working in the winter.’ And he said, ‘Well, I'm gonna buy y’all a building.’ And so yeah, we've been really blessed.

FACEBOOK VIDEO: Good morning everybody. How are you all doing? Well, we’re here at the BBQ Place… 

Word of mouth and social media posts are Borgstedt's primary marketing tools. Sprinkled between all the photos of mouth-watering meats are hopeful reminders of God's love. And customers come for more than brisket and ribs. One family drove over six hours to meet Borgstedt.

BORGSTEDT: She was on meth for 10 years. And now she's not. And she said, ‘You know, I just want to come out and I want to share that with you and let you know that I'm making it too.’ And she said and ‘I love barbecue.’

Borgstedt and his wife Virginia are grateful for the chance to bring gospel hope and healing to others.

FACEBOOK VIDEO: If you do need some prayer today, let us know. We’ll take time out of our day and pray for you…

But sometimes it can be overwhelming...

BORGSTEDT: It's like a sense of responsibility. I mean, and we all have it in our life, but it just puts more accountability on you. Because everything about you is watched, you know.

But Borgstedt doesn’t promise perfection. No. Instead, the sign out front keeps it simple: BBQ and a Prayer.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Whitney Williams in Edgewood, Texas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, May 4th. 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. Here’s WORLD founder Joel Belz on the idea that became so much more.

JOEL BELZ, FOUNDER: If I’ve heard the question just once, I’ve probably heard it a hundred times: “What made you think of WORLD in the first place?”

It’s as if people imagine a time and a place when God tapped me on my shoulder and said, “Joel, when I look at how news journalism is being practiced these days—both in America and around the world—I see a big gap. Here is how I want you to fill it.”

Indeed. God could have done something like that. Such specificity would have been pretty handy along the winding path of WORLD’s 40-year history. It would have helped us address myriad issues we struggled with along the way.

But he didn’t. God never handed me a corporate startup blueprint or instruction manual. No dazzling cloud formations or skywriting airplanes. God typically has less sensational tools for teaching us.

I think God may have started planting the seed for a Christian news magazine way back when my dad sat me down—maybe with my four brothers and three sisters—to introduce us to the wonders of a 3x5 Kelsey printing press. Somehow, things clicked. I saw that folks paid attention to the printed page—and perhaps especially so when they could witness first hand the process by which that page was being printed.

The ink, you see, was getting in our blood. We didn’t mean to move from tiny business cards to church bulletins, and then from school newsletters to college yearbooks. Most pointedly, we never intended to get involved in helping create and refine the editorial content of the dozens of printed pieces we helped produce.

But we discovered it’s pretty hard to be so totally involved in the technical side of things and not develop an interest in the ideas being expressed. Even when it was just a single sheet of paper.

One day, a homeless style fellow stopped by and asked us to print him a letterhead. From the beginning, Dad had established a basic rule meant to keep us from competing with other local printers. The rule was simple: Everything we printed had to include some brief portion of Scripture. “I don’t know any Bible verses,” this particular customer said. So we handed him a Bible, and he sat for most of an hour, leafing through its pages. Finally, he scribbled a note and handed it to me. I’ve never forgotten his choice: Job 42:12.

“And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.”

I still find reason to believe that was not altogether bad preparation for launching a Christian news organization.

I’m Joel Belz.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: house hunting. We’ll find out just how hot the real estate market is these days.

And, on-campus housing. We’ll meet a woman fighting to keep boys out of girls dormitories, and vice versa.

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: Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. (Proverbs 14:29 ESV)

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.