The World and Everything in It - November 15, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

A man on death row wants his pastor to say prayers out loud and have physical contact with him as he dies. Texas sees delay tactics.

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

Also today the Monday Moneybeat: consumer prices are really high—you’re feeling them—but now we know how high: the highest in 30 years. I’ll ask economist David Bahnsen to explain.

Plus, the WORLD History Book. Two hundred fifteen years ago, an explorer attempts to climb one of America’s signature mountains:

REICHARD: It’s Monday, November 15th. 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: It’s time for news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden to sign infrastructure bill today at White House » President Biden will sign the bipartisan infrastructure bill today. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle will join him for a signing ceremony at the White House.

Brain Deese is director of the National Economic Security Council. He told ABC’s This Week that it won't take long for Americans to feel the impact.

DEESE: While a number of those pieces will be longer term, there are things that will go into effect right away to try to get money out to help, for example, upgrade our ports, upgrade our airports, upgrade our roads. We’re going to work without delay to get that money working for the American people.

The Senate passed the $1.2 trillion bill back in August with bipartisan support. The House approved the bill last week—also with some GOP backing.

But plenty of Republicans opposed it, including Congressman Jim Jordan. He will not be celebrating today’s signing. He worries the spending will only fuel more inflation.

JORDAN: You want to buy a home, it’s going to cost more. You want to rent an apartment, it’s going to cost more. To put food on the table it costs more. To put gas in your car it costs more. A Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas presents are going to cost more.

Democrats are now turning their attention to passing a near-$2 trillion social spending bill. The Biden administration claims the spending will actually help to curb inflation.

Nations compromise on coal to strike UN climate agreement » Leaders from almost 200 nations accepted a compromise deal over the weekend aimed at keeping a key global warming target alive. But it contained a last-minute change that watered down language about coal.

Several countries said they were deeply disappointed by the change promoted by India to “phase down,” rather than “phase out” coal power.

Still, the summit broke new ground by singling out coal, setting rules for international trading of carbon credits. The pact also says big polluting nations must come back to the table next year with stronger pledges for cutting emissions.

After two weeks of U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said “We haven’t beaten climate change …

JOHNSON: Because there is so much more that still needs to be done. But what we do have now is a viable roadmap.

And U.S. special envoy for climate John Kerry said while the deal isn’t perfect, it’s definitely a win.

KERRY: We all know the old adage of negotiation. You can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and this is good. This is a powerful statement.

Kerry said governments had no choice but to accept India’s coal language change. He said “If we hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have had an agreement.”

FBI says no sensitive information compromised in email hack » Hackers broke into the FBI’s email system over the weekend and sent thousands of emails warning of a possible cyberattack.

The messages appeared with the subject line “Urgent: Threat actor in systems.”

The bureau on Sunday confirmed that hackers were able to send fake emails appearing to be from the FBI.

In a statement, the bureau said it quickly took the system offline and that the hackers did not access any personal identifiable information. It also said the FBI has fixed the software vulnerability that allowed hackers to send the emails. 

Biden, Xi Jinping set to hold virtual summit this evening » President Biden and China's Xi Jinping will hold their much-anticipated virtual summit this evening. Both sides say they’re hoping to dial back tensions between the two countries.

But the White House is tamping down expectations for the meeting. Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters not to expect any big news to come from it.

PSAKI: I wouldn’t set the expectation that this is intended to have major deliverables or outcomes.

She said the leaders will discuss how to manage the countries' competition and cooperate in areas where interests align.

President Biden is expected to stress that the two nations need to set guardrails in deepening areas of conflict.

Beijing over the weekend warned against the dangers of the United States supporting Taiwan’s independence and warned that such support “would only boomerang in the end.”

For decades, the United States has been careful not to formally recognize Taiwan as an independent state, but it does provide weapons to the island for self-defense.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: a fight for prayer in the death chamber.

Plus, explorers scale a famous Rocky Mountain peak.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It on this 15th of November, 2021. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

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

Several blockbuster cases are before the Supreme Court this term. If you listen each Monday, you will hear something about each dispute.

Today, a case that asks the question: what religious liberty rights does a death row inmate have in the execution room?

REICHARD: First, some background.

John Henry Ramirez is on death row because a jury convicted him in the murder of Pablo Castro in Texas seventeen years ago.

Ramirez was on the hunt for drug money. Castro happened to be emptying the trash at the market where he worked when Ramirez stabbed him to death.

Ramirez got away with $1.25.

But he didn’t get away with the crime. Station KRIS-TV:

REPORTER: Ramirez went on the run until he was arrested near Brownsville in February 2008. He was convicted of capital murder and sent to death row in 2009.

Sent to death row, but legal proceedings since that time delayed execution several times.

The Supreme Court granted his request to stay the execution scheduled for September and now considers his latest request: that his pastor be with him as he dies, while saying audible prayers and laying hands on his body.

Ramirez’s lawyer, Seth Kretzer:

KRETZER: Across Texas's 572 executions spanning four decades, the State's policy was to allow a spiritual advisor to be present in the execution chamber to lay hands on a condemned inmate and to audibly pray. In 2019, that long-standing practice changed suddenly when the State chose to forbid any religion advisor from the execution chamber...

The reason Texas changed its rules? Inconsistency from the Supreme Court.

In 2019, the high court allowed the execution of a Muslim inmate in Alabama, despite his request for an imam to be present.

But soon after that, the court blocked the execution of a Buddhist inmate who’d made a similar request. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote at the time this problem could be solved if states either permitted all religions in the death chamber, or allowed none of them.

Texas chose the latter option: no religious guide in the chamber. Then, two years later, the state once again allowed the presence of a spiritual advisor.

Defending Texas, state Solicitor General Judd Stone:

STONE: Petitioner has twice received the extremely exceptional remedy of having his execution halted at the last minute. Each time he litigates around an execution date, he receives another lengthy reprieve. This Court should not countenance the delay of a fourth execution date.

Some of the more conservative justices seemed to lean in that direction. Listen to Justice Clarence Thomas address Kretzer, lawyer for Ramirez:

THOMAS: If we think that Mr. Ramirez has changed his requests a number of times and has filed last minute complaints, and if we assume that’s some indication of gaming the system, what should we do with that with respect to assessing the sincerity of his beliefs?

KRETZER: By looking at the best evidence that there is in the record which is a seriatim  one handwritten signed grievance after another repeatedly requesting the same thing...

Kretzer argued that governing law dictates this analysis. A law with the acronym RLUIPA, The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, says to balance the inmate’s request with the state’s concern for protocol.

Justice Samuel Alito envisioned the problem with that: suppose this inmate wants a pastor to touch his knee, another his hand, someone else his head, or his heart—do we have to go through the whole human anatomy?

ALITO: Like virtually every application for a stay of execution, they come to us at the last minute, the day before, sometimes the day of….what you have said so far suggests to me that we can look forward to an unending stream of variations.

Kretzer for Ramirez pounded on the law: his client has a Constitutional right to exercise his religion; Texas must meet the highest standard of legal review to burden a religious right; and RLUIPA is on his side. You’ll also hear Chief Justice John Roberts:

KRETZER: RLUIPA is specifically designed to take these matters of religious exercise up on an inmate by inmate basis. This court has said in several cases the classic rejoinder of bureaucrats throughout history: If I make an exception for you I have to make it for everyone.

ROBERTS: Very eloquent.

Judd Stone, for Texas, said Ramirez changed his requests; he didn’t want hands laid on him in 2020, then he did. Whipsaw tactics used to delay.

Justice Stephen Breyer chimed in with some exasperation about this “he said, they said” scenario:

BREYER: It's very technical and it's excellent lawyering, but, you know, you sit there and you read it, and you used to let them in, and now he reads it and says no, they can't come in. And we have the case still, and, finally, it gets out of here, and you go back and, no, they can't come in. So, obviously, he says, please let him in. And then, finally, when you change and let them in, he says, by the way, we would like hands plus ...audible prayer. That's what you used to do….And so my question was, what do we do about that?

Lawyer Stone for Texas countered: it’s up to the inmate to make requests in a timely manner. If he doesn’t, that’s on him.

The state’s interest is to prevent interference with the execution in the death chamber, he argued. For example, a microphone hangs from above the inmate’s head for the staff to monitor in case of something unexpected as death occurs. Someone could exploit that moment to make a political statement. Staff wouldn’t be able to hear the inmate, and it could traumatize the victim’s family in attendance.

Justice Breyer wanted to know how often that’s happened? Kretzer:

KRETZER: As far as anyone has looked, Justice Breyer, for 100 years or longer, there’s not a single instance of any chaplain ever causing any such disturbance.

But Stone for Texas countered just because it hasn’t happened, doesn’t mean it won’t. He mentions TDCJ. That’s the Texas Department of Criminal justice. You’ll also hear Justice Elena Kagan:

STONE: And it turns out TDCJ is a correctional institution dealing with the extraordinarily charged and choreographed area of a death chamber. There is a very significant difference between having an outsider with no relationship whatsoever --

KAGAN: Are you aware in any other states of an execution going astray because of an outside spiritual advisor?

STONE: No, Justice Kagan...This is the sort of thing we would anticipate to be a very low likelihood of occurring. It just has a catastrophic potential of potential damage if it did.

Stone said the state wanted to minimize the risk of the execution going awry.

Justice Kavanaugh acknowledged with emotions so high, nobody can know how someone might react.

KAVANAUGH: I mean we have to think of the victim’s family members too with this, oh it’s gonna be a stay here and stay there and each time they’re brought to the execution room decades after the crime where their father was beaten to death and stabbed to death in a parking lot. I mean, I just think we -- that's all by way of saying that has a legal point to it, if we're going to rule for you, I think we need some clear lines so...we're not putting future victims' families in the same position of time after time having these delays.

KRETZER: Justice Kavanaugh, I have nothing but the greatest sympathy for the family of Pablo Castro.

Yes, Kretzer responded, victims matter, and the court must consider that along with Congress’ intent when it passed the law protecting inmates’ rights. He emphasized one amicus brief that made a larger point:

KRETZER: ...where they showed the historical examples of where pastoral or spiritual guidance has been given throughout history to people as risible as the Nazis, and the point was made it was not a luxury afforded for who those people were— but something that religion affords in larger society because of who the society is.

Lawyer for the federal government Eric Feigin shed light on how executions are carried out at the federal level. That’s done on case-by-case basis, accommodating requests as much as is reasonable.

He said physical contact with the inmate is a concern, as it could interfere with the IV lines. The Bureau of Prisons permits touch before administration of the drugs. And vocalization is allowed.

Zero risk just isn’t possible, he said.

A decision is expected by July.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Doorbell cameras capture a lot of things these days from wildlife to porch pirates. But this has to be a first.

Emily Johnson was one week from her due date when she and her husband decided it was time to head to the hospital. But no big rush. Her contractions were 10 minutes apart and they lived 5 minutes from the hospital. But ...

JOHNSON: The contractions went to five minutes and three minutes and two minutes and one minute in the matter of about 20 to 30 minutes. And we’re like, oh, we gotta get in the car. We gotta go!

But she told TV station KCRA, the driveway was as far as she made it before she realized it’s time.

JOHNSON: Got to the car, stood at the car, and just said no. I can’t get into this car!

So she laid down in the front yard and a short time later, with fire engine lights flashing and paramedics pitching in—baby Thomas was born right there on their lawn.

Emily said the front yard birth will make a great story for the rest of their lives. Thanks to their doorbell camera, they even have video footage.

But, from now on, I think they really want to stay indoors. 

It’sThe World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It: the Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen joins us now for our weekly conversation and commentary on business, markets, and the economy. David, good morning.

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

EICHER: Well, the worst month for consumer prices in more than three decades. The price index, the CPI, is up 6.2 percent for the month of October and we’ve not seen price inflation like that since 1990. What’s the best way to unpack what this means, this huge story?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, it's the biggest story of the week. And it should be. It's a significant impact to the economy. And it's a very practical impact. It's actually unlike a lot of categories of economic news and data that gets discussed, this one has, you know, a lot of impact practically to people's lives.

Milton Friedman famously said that inflation is “too much money chasing too few goods.” And I think that that quote has held up over time, the only thing I add to it is “and services.” Too much money chasing too few goods and services, especially as the economy has become more service oriented over the years. So everyone talks about the first part of Milton Friedman's line, too much money chasing, but they forget about the second part, too few goods and services. And this is unbelievably clear, what we have going on right now is it has to do with the second half of Milton Friedman's line, the ‘too few goods and services’.

This is a supply side related issue. And the fact of the matter is that even if the supply level came up, because by the way, it's in goods higher than it was pre-COVID. ‘Services’ has still not caught up. But the problem is the demand has skyrocketed. And so the delta between the demand and the supply is what is creating this price inflation. So what is going on? Why is supply being held back? I believe that demand flew way higher than people expected post-COVID. The same people who told us a year ago, ‘the economy's in dire straits, no one will ever demand anything again’, are now saying a year later, ‘the economy's in dire straits, people are demanding too much’. You will not fix this by trying to get people to demand less consumption cannot be controlled as a matter of human action. You need incentive to supply, people leaving the workforce is a disaster. Businesses not having an incentive to invest being afraid of high government debt. Being afraid of high regulation, you have to stimulate the supply side, you don't need artificial stimulation, you need natural organic market driven incentives. This is not only what is best for growth, it is what is best for what they are calling inflation. Now, these are fixable problems, but they're not fixable instantly. Market incentives will have to fix it. Government's not our friend here.

EICHER: Government’s not our friend here—okay, but is there anything at all it could do, or maybe not do to try to remedy this rather frightening problem?

BAHNSEN: Well, I think that whenever we talk about what the government can do to make it better, there are central planners and progressives who believe that that means there's a problem, government should fix it. And then there are conservatives and classical liberals, of which I am one who believe the government should be doing something to hurt it, and they should stop doing that. But I don't believe that this is primarily a matter of policy. You know, the notion that the government is at the centerpiece of all economic activity is I think what the central planners believe - not what I believe. However, the number one thing that the government can do when you have a supply-oriented problem that is hampering growth, and that is causing price inflation, is to stop doing any bad thing that they may be doing. And so an example is raising the rates on taxation, marginally on business income, on personal income, on investment income, on capital, would all be a very bad thing. And so the answer is almost what they should not be doing versus what they should be doing. Now, on the margin, there are regulatory things they can do to drive a higher supply. But the fundamental thing here, Nick, is the incentives for business investment. Why do we have a supply-oriented problem? We need more productivity, we need more production, we need more goods and services. How do you get more goods and services? Humans acting in their own self interest, the profit motive. What's standing in the way of that right now? I suppose the biggest thing they could do long term is have a less regulated and less taxing government. But on on, that's not really what people mean in the question and the here and now short term. What can they do? I think it's to look at state, local, and perhaps federal ways in which there is something hampering the ability of an organic economy to produce at its full capacity. But I do not believe that quote, unquote, stimulus is needed. The government doesn't need to put its hand on a scale to drive production, they need to not disincentivize production. So that's, I think, the right non interventionist, conservative answer, and it would yield quite a bit in this situation.

EICHER: Let me ask you about another government report from last week, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey—my favorite economic report acronym, the JOLTS report—joltingly reporting a record number of people quitting their jobs and then the same old sad story that we continue to have more than 10 million open jobs, more jobs than job seekers and we’ve been talking about this for months. 

BAHNSEN: Well, it's the same story, but it's still significant. It's the major story. We have a ton of openings and a ton of people that don't want to fill them. And we have a mismatch of skills and needs in the economy. We are 80,000 truck drivers alone, short of what we need to meet present demand. These are not low paying jobs, that may not be the most attractive job in the world. And it may be something that fits a certain demographic, a person at a certain stage of life. But you would think that with a certain number of millions of people that are out of work and kind of be looking and with that many millions of job openings available, that there'd be an ability to meet in the middle. But I don't think there's any doubt that we have created a cultural, pardon the expression, a pandemic, around the work ethic, and around the role of work in society, the attractiveness of having some of your needs met without having to work. These things are taking their toll on the productivity of the society. And it's anecdotally illustrative of that very point.

EICHER: David Bahnsen, financial analyst and adviser. He writes at dividendcafe.com. Thanks again, David!

BAHNSEN: Thank you so much.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It on this 15th of November, 2021. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next up: The WORLD History Book. Today, tiny tech, the birth of the NRA, and purple mountains majesty. Here’s senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

SONG: “Rocky Mountain High,” instrumental

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: We’re all familiar with Lewis and Clark, but their expedition wasn’t the only one to explore the Louisiana Purchase. At roughly the same time that duo was charting a course by way of the Missouri River, President Thomas Jefferson tasked U.S. Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike with his own expedition: exploring the Western Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. And Pike first spotted what would become known as Pikes Peak—the highest summit of the southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains—on November 15th, 1806.

Pike and his team tried to summit the 14,000-plus-foot peak, but waist-deep snow and two days without food hampered their efforts. Pike wrote in his journal:

PIKE: I believed no human being could have ascended to its pinnacle. This with the condition of my soldiers who had only light overalls on, and no stockings, and every way ill provided to endure the inclemency of the region.

SONG: “America the Beautiful”

Pike called it “Highest Peak.” But in 1890, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names honored Pike by making him the mountain’s namesake.

The view from the top inspired Katharine Lee Bates to write the song "America the Beautiful" in July 1893.

SONG: “America the Beautiful”

From mountaineers to marksmen…

New York granted a charter to the National Rifle Association 150 years ago, on November 16th, 1871.

SONG: “Over There,” by George M. Cohan

Its founders envisioned a recreational group that would advance rifle marksmanship. The Wall Street Journal produced a brief piece on NRA history, noting the organization's creative efforts.

WSJ: By 1903, the NRA promoted shooting as a sport at colleges and universities and later created a summer youth camp.

Its efforts improved the shooting skills of American soldiers in World Wars I and II. Over the years, along with gun competency and safety training, the NRA entered the political fray. In 1934, the NRA began mailing information about upcoming firearms bills to its members and voicing opinions about gun-related laws. In 1975, the organization formed a lobbying wing, and two years later, its own Political Action Committee to direct funds to friendly legislators.

NRA head honcho Wayne LaPierre has long advocated against what he calls cumbersome and faulty gun restrictions proposed by legislators. In a 2013 speech, he called for alternatives that would provide more safety without restricting gun rights.

LAPIERRE: We want the federal gun laws on the books right now to be enforced against felons with guns… If they would just do that, those violent criminals would be off the streets, and they wouldn’t be on their way to their next crime scene…

The NRA has been a lightning rod for controversy as it lobbies against gun control measures and for Second Amendment rights. Illinois Senator Adlai Stevenson on a 1977 60 Minutes segment:

STEVENSON: The issue isn’t any longer control of pistols. The issue is the gun lobby! It’s whether or not the government can stand up to the gun lobby, and so far, it hasn’t been able to.

Today, the state that gave the NRA its first charter hopes to end the group. After coming under fire in New York in 2020 for questionable financial practices, NRA leaders announced plans to file for bankruptcy and reincorporate in Texas. A Texas judge rejected the filing. New York’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit aiming to dissolve the group.

And for our last entry, we’ll move from a big organization to a small technology.

A microprocessor is a computer chip that merges all the electronic circuitry of a computer into a single component. Engineers equip these tiny technologies with instructions and the capability to follow through on those instructions. That makes up the heart of how a computer functions. And 50 years ago, on November 15th, 1971, Intel released the world’s first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

INTEL: About the size of a piece of candy, the 4004 incorporated 2300 transistors and had as much computing power as ENIAC, the world’s first electronic computer, which was called “The Giant Brain” when unveiled in 1946.

Federico Faggin led the team that developed the first microprocessor. Intel had a Japanese customer that was using three chips in its calculators. Faggin aimed to reduce the complexity and improve the integration of the devices. And he saw the potential for broader applications of this new tech:

FAGGIN: Nobody at Intel thought that it could be useful other than making calculators, and I say, “No, no, no, this is excellent to make controllers, you know, micro controllers… but they won’t listen. So I actually developed a tester of the 4004, using the 4004 as the controller of the tester…

SONG: “Computer Love,” Kraftwerk

Faggin managed to pull off something unprecedented: fitting a general-purpose computer processing unit onto a small, commercial silicon chip. The 4004 set the stage for all kinds of technological development and propelled the industry forward. In fact, in many ways, it was the forebear of the device you’re using to listen to this podcast.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: sports betting. We’ll tell you how the legalization of online gambling has affected pro-sports.

And efforts to restore democracy in Myanmar. We have a report on how that’s going, 10 months after the coup that overthrew the elected government.

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.

November is the month we’re asking you if you’ve never given before to support biblically objective journalism: would you consider making this the year you make your first-ever gift? WNG.org/donate—thank you!

Jesus said: Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.

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.