The World and Everything in It: November 4, 2024

PREROLL: It’s decision time, and we’re calling on our listeners to pray. In fact, we’d love it if you’d record either a prayer or scripture reading and send it to us to include in our programs for the rest of the week. You can send those to editor@wng.org. Thank you. And now for today’s program

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

A showdown at the Supreme Court in a dispute over dog food and fine print:

ALITO: Do we have liberty to read them a little bit differently? 

WELLINGTON: Of course the court has the liberty to read its footnotes how it would like. (laugh)

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

Also today the Monday Moneybeat: an uneven jobs picture, with strong growth in red states but blue states not so much.

And the WORLD History Book: today, a famous actor’s publicity stunt.

ROGERS: With Congress, every time they make a joke, it’s a law. [laughter]

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump campaign » On the eve of Election Day, candidates are pushing hard to turn out the vote in critical swing states. 

TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you. And a very, very special hello to Pennsylvania. What a great, what a great place.

Former President Trump has closed with a consistent message on the campaign trail, calling the current administration inept. 

TRUMP: But this is all you need to know. Kamala broke it, and we will fix it, and we're gonna fix it fast.

Pennsylvania, just one of several battleground states he visited on Sunday. An average of recent polls there continue to show Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris locked in a virtual tie.

He also stumped in Georgia, and North Carolina, where his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance campaigned as well. 

VANCE: And I believe it's just in two days that we're going to turn North Carolina red and make Donald J. Trump the next president of the United States.

Recent polls suggest Trump is leading in both Georgia and North Carolina by about 2 points.

Harris campaign » Meantime, in Michigan:

AUDIO: Ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the United States, Kamala Harris! Come on, let’s receive her!

Vice President Harris campaigned during a Sunday morning church service in Detroit. While in other recent speeches, Harris has hammered Trump as a threat to the nation, her pulpit speech struck a different tone. 

HARRIS: Church, God as a plan for us. He has good plans for us, plans that will heal us and bring us together as one nation. 

She did not highlight abortion access on Sunday morning, a cornerstone policy for her campaign.

But those talking points were front and center in Atlanta, where Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz urged the men in the crowd:

WALZ: I want you in your mind right now, think of those women in your life who you love.

He then suggested that because of pro-life protections, the women they love could die if Trump is elected.

WALZ: Literally, this election, their lives are at stake on how we vote, quite literally. Donald Trump appointed those Supreme Court justices.

Walz again claimed the high court’s reversal of the Roe v Wade decision endangers women’s health.

NBC/FCC Harris SNL equal time » NBC is at the center of a campaign controversy after Vice President Harris made an appearance on Saturday Night Live, just a few days before Election Day.

And FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr says the broadcast network may have violated federal policy that requires candidates be offered equal air time in the run-up to an election. And if Trump was not also invited to appear, NBC may be in violation of that rule. 

CARR: NBC knows this because this exact issue has come up time and time again with respect to this exact program, SNL.

Trump’s campaign says he was not invited.

Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of SNL, told The Hollywood Reporter in September that neither candidate would appear on the show.

Voting process » Election integrity and the voting process has been a hot topic leading up to the election. Former President Trump has been highly critical of voting machines and some potential delays in tallying the votes. 

TRUMP: Everything should be paper ballots put in boxes, voter ID.

He argues that a paper-only system would be safer and faster.

But some Republican officials have pushed back, insisting their machines are 100 percent secure and efficient. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger:

RAFFENSPERGER:  Working with the counties, they have to do constant updates every hour, every 45 minutes. We want to see uploads, you know, as they continue their work and finish their work. Before the end of the night, you're going to have all that done.

He said the only thing his office will be waiting for after tomorrow will be “any of the absentee ballots that  come into the elections office."

Netanyahu vows to response 'firmly' to Hezbollah » Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says several things must happen before the bullets and rockets can stop flying across Israel’s border with Lebanon. That’s where the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah is based.

Netanyahu donned a green bullet-proof vest as he spoke on the ground from the northern border. 

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

He said “with or without” a cease-fire agreement his military must do three things.

First, push Hezbollah back beyond the Litani river about 20 miles from the border in Lebanon. Second, ensure that the terror group cannot re-arm. And third, “respond forcefully against any action against us.”

The Biden administration is pushing hard for a cease-fire in the region.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a case about prescription dog food is before the Supreme Court. We’ll hear more from Mary Reichard in just a moment. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat with David Bahnsen.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 4th day of November, 2024. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Time now for Legal Docket.

We have two Supreme Court arguments to analyze today. One is an employment dispute. The other concerns … 

Pets, not people …

… and specifically …

Misbranded pet food …

a dispute over the food to be fed to a dog named Clinton, the pet of Anastasia Wullschleger.

Her beloved Clinton had some health problems. So the veterinarian she took him to put him on special dog food—the kind that requires a prescription.

Wullschleger says that’s bogus. Why a prescription when there’s no medication in the food?

The FDA didn’t evaluate it either, she says, so it’s really just a ruse to increase profit margins for pet-food companies.

EICHER: So Wullschleger filed a class-action complaint against two companies, Royal Canin and Nestle Purina.

She was joined in this by Geraldine Brewer who owns a cat named Sassie. The women accuse these companies of a conspiracy to drive up prices, to monopolize the market, and to mislead consumers with so-called “prescription” diets.

The accusations are tantalizing morsels of law, but the legal question for the Supreme Court is dry kibble, by contrast.

It’s highly technical and narrow: Where is this dispute rightly resolved—state court or federal court?

To be fair, it’s no small question, because each court system can only hear certain kinds of cases based on the laws involved. State courts generally handle local matters while federal courts handle disputes related to federal law or matters between citizens of different states.

And the procedures for each court differ.

REICHARD: This dog-food case bounced back and forth between state and federal court a few times.

The pet owners filed first. They went to state court. The companies moved the case to federal court—citing some federal claims included in the complaint. In response, the pet owners stripped out those references to federal law and so seek to move the case back to state court.

So given all that, does the federal court still retain the right to hear this case? Ashley Keller argued for the pet owners, saying of course not:

KELLER: The life of the law has not been logic. It has been experience. And experience should have taught us by now that a suit arises under the law that creates the cause of action. That should be the definitive test for arising under jurisdiction for at least three reasons.

EICHER: …reasons being the plain reading of the law, that’s one. Avoiding constitutional problems, two. And three, saving decades of pointless litigation over who hears what. 

But the dog food makers argued the appeals court decision that went against her clients is an extreme outlier. Here’s lawyer Katherine Wellington:

WELLINGTON: Respondents cannot cite a single decision of this Court, a single decision of a court of appeals outside of the Eighth Circuit, or a single treatise that supports their position. 

…p 71 And I think it's quite telling here that the Eighth Circuit reached the decision it did by apparently missing all of the footnotes that it should have read, including in Rockwell but also in the Second Circuit and the Eleventh Circuit decisions that it cited. So I think that's the reason we're here today. 

….in particular, a footnote written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

After Wellington brought that up, it led to a back and forth on the importance of footnotes—and how the justices ought to think about them. 

Here’s an exchange among Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor, and Wellington, the lawyer:

JUSTICE ALITO: Well, do you think that—that courts of appeals read our decisions differently than we may? I mean, you know, I'm—I was on a court of appeals for 15 years. If I saw a strong dictum in a Supreme Court decision, I would very likely just salute and move on. But, here — (Laughter.) We have —

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Not now. (Laughter.)

JUSTICE ALITO:—more of an obligation—it depends, Justice Sotomayor — (Laughter.) both when we're considering—you know, when we're considering what we've written—we know how these things are written. You know, we know how these footnotes are written. Can—do we have liberty to read them a little bit differently?

WELLINGTON: Of course, the Court has the liberty to read its footnotes how it would like. But (laughs)...but I do think it is important to keep in mind here that the question is what did Congress intend?

REICHARD: Then there’s the matter of what’s known in the legal profession as “forum shopping.” Known, but frowned upon. To “forum shop” is to look for the most favorable legal venue and get the case heard there. Wellington for the dog-food makers warned against that, but it didn’t seem persuasive to Chief Justice John Roberts:

JUSTICE ROBERTS: I don't see how that's a problem here. They wanted --they start in state court; they want to go back to state court. They're not trying to manipulate anything.

WELLINGTON: So we think that it is forum manipulation, particularly in this case, where they waited almost two years to amend the complaint after they lose in the Eighth Circuit.

Listening to the full arguments, though, it seemed to me the justices were flummoxed by both sides.

On the other hand, the pets here: Clinton the dog and Sassie the cat? I think they just want dinner.

EICHER: This case may seem inconsequential, but however the court decides, there are big implications. State courts want to retain their authority to say what their own laws mean, while individual litigants do like to forum shop when they can.

Alright, now for that employment dispute. 

This case concerns a commercial truck driver by the name of Douglas Horn. He lost his job because he tested positive for THC, the substance in marijuana that creates “the high.” 

Horn says he didn’t know he’d ingested THC. 

He said he was in pain and sought out a remedy. He said he found and took a CBD product made by Medical Marijuana, Inc that advertised zero THC. He’d researched that claim and called the company’s customer service line to confirm it.

REICHARD: After random testing showed otherwise, he sent the product for independent testing. That’s when he learned the product did contain THC. 

So he sued the companies that made the CBD oil he’d ingested. His lawsuit alleged mislabeling. He brought the case under a federal law called RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

EICHER: But here the question for the Supreme Court is: can he sue under a law that was designed to fight organized crime?

His lawyers, of course, think so and they point to the words in the RICO statute. Namely, any plaintiff can sue for what the law spells out as “injury to business or property by reason of” the defendant’s criminal actions. 

Note that phrase: injury to business or property. Nothing in there about bodily harm. 

So the CBD companies argue Horn has a personal injury claim, not a RICO claim. Lisa Blatt represents the companies:

BLATT: Let's just start with the text. I don't think there's a response to the fact that the other side is reading this as any person injured in his person, business, or property can recover three times the economic damages. So they're adding the word "injury," a personal injury, to the injury requirement, and they're adding the economic restriction to the damages. It completely flips this statute on its head. And this is the way the Clayton Act has been read since eternity, that personal injuries are not recoverable.

Justice Clarence Thomas invited Horn’s lawyer Easha Anand to explain:

JUSTICE THOMAS: Okay. So just walk me through factually what is the injury here.

ANAND: So the injury here is we were fired. That's the injury to our business. Now, as a measure of compensation for that, the damages we claim are an amount equal to the salary we would have made and the other economic benefits we would have gotten had we remained employed.

JUSTICE THOMAS: But Medical Marijuana did not fire you.

…correct, Anand replied, but loss of income from being fired is a business injury.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson carried that line of questioning even further, pointing out that it was Horn’s boss that fired him, not the CBD company.

You’ll hear Justice Jackson interrupt Blatt:

BLATT: But, if I ate poppyseed bagels and failed a drug test, it's a personal injury. If I took a medicine like doxycycline, which is an antibiotic, and I can't be out in the sun and I lose my job as a lifeguard, it's a personal injury claim.

JUSTICE JACKSON: But why are you saying that? You can --I mean, you're just saying that. I'm asking you, you know –

BLATT: Why am I saying it?

JUSTICE JACKSON: --there are there are personal injury claims that derive from a person being harmed by --by the ingestion of the product, right? They're bodily, physically harmed because they have taken this thing. I don't read this claim to be that kind of injury. He's not saying that the product itself injured him in any way.

BLATT: I think it is inconsistent with all of tort law to say a bodily invasion is not a personal injury just because you didn't have to go to the hospital or cough.

JUSTICE JACKSON: He voluntarily took the product.

BLATT: Well, we all do. We all take products that can be mislabeled. We take them and we either get sick or we don’t.

EICHER: Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed concern that any lawsuit about false advertising could easily become a RICO case. And that would expand an already difficult area of law.

Anand for the truck driver tried to assuage that worry:

ANAND: And I think, most importantly, again, the mine-run of cases, the big chunk of recovery is pain and suffering or economic distress, and you cannot get those in --under civil RICO, right? Those are not injuries to business or property.

I just want to say that my bottom-line position here is defendants have come to this court for decades and said the sky is going to fall if you interpret RICO the way its text literally says it should be interpreted. The sky hasn’t fallen. This court has, time after time including unanimously in Bridge said, you know, Congress probably wrote a statute that’s a little too broad in some ways, but here we are and it should stay the course here.

REICHARD: My bottom line is the court must grapple with the difference between two complex things:

What’s the difference between suffering a personal injury versus suffering injury in one’s business?

They’re not the same thing, and the justices will need all the tools of statutory interpretation to get this right.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

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: Well, good morning, Nick, good to be with you.

EICHER: We have the final jobs report of election season … and former President Trump was on it.

SOT: So in breaking news, the economy created a pitiful … you won’t even believe this … four days before the election, they did 12-thousand jobs. Normally you’d … 250, 300-thousand, 400-thousand, they did 12. Think of it, 12-thousand jobs.

Now you can slice and dice these figures in any number of ways. If you look at the revised six-month average for the first half of the year, it was around 200-thousand jobs a month. Then in the next two months, you had an average of 150-thousand, based solely on the strength of September … and now this 12-thousand outlier … what do you make of it?

BAHNSEN: Well, I really am in the camp that it almost doesn’t count. There is so much tracking error, lack of survey response, two hurricanes, the strike with Boeing—just various things that make it lumpy. And there are things like this that come up, Nick, that give an overly high number at times, and there are things that give a low number.

I can’t count how many times I’ve said we have to look at three-month running averages. We have to do it with the weekly jobless claims. Get a few weeks in a row because of accounting for lumpiness. And we really have to do it with the month-to-month as well. All things being equal, you know, the number is so low that you assume it’s still going to be low when it does kind of correct and normalize.

And of course, if you look at the month before, it was 100,000 higher than expected. So it’s hard to gather any economic conclusion from it. The weekly jobless claims continue to stay very tightly range-bound, so the overall conclusions about the job market nationally, for me, have not changed at all.

EICHER: Still, the political punch is hard to deny, which was a theme of The New York Times story that came out day-of, but then it added this about the jobs report, quoting: “It also strengthened the case for another interest rate cut when Federal Reserve policymakers meet next week.” I know you love it when business writers make these linkages.

BAHNSEN: Well, this is where I get disappointed that some of the reporters who cover the Fed don’t have Google or a web browser. Because I think that would be a powerful journalistic tool. The futures market had the Fed at a 100% chance of cutting rates before this report, and it’s a 100% chance after the report. So if somehow we went from 100 to 100 because of the report, I am lost on cause and effect there.

The whole thing, and I have talked about this quite a bit on Moneybeat, is somewhat granular. I don’t think we’re talking about what’s going to cause the Fed to do anything. I think we’re talking about what gives cover in an explanation. The Fed has to cut because rates are too high for borrowers that have the rate resetting in the next year, and because they believe they’ve done what they needed to do on price stability in all but housing. Bringing it back down to below 2%, and with housing, they ironically need lower rates to unfreeze housing, not higher rates.

So that’s why the Fed is going to be cutting rates. But does a low jobs report help give cover in the way it gets explained? I mean, sure. It’s just that has nothing to do with their decision-making calculus behind closed doors when the futures market already had it at 100%.

EICHER: And before we go … I mentioned the political nature of this jobs report … but your Friday piece for WORLD Opinions—which ran over the weekend and to which I’ll add a link in the transcript today—it tackles the political story differently. You say despite low unemployment nationally, the problem the Harris campaign faces is the job-growth disparity in the swing states. In other words, those so-called blue-wall states the vice president cannot win without … Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin … those states have really been left behind as far as jobs are concerned.

BAHNSEN: Yeah, and I think that there is a presidential electoral college message that you can extract from the data. But even larger than that, and much clearer than that, is this very basic fact: Where the jobs were before COVID, starting on January 1, 2020, to where they are now, the top 10 states are red. Now, Nevada is an exception. So, okay, nine. 9.5 out of 10, and then the bottom 10 are all blue, with the exception of Louisiana.

So, when you’re looking at states like New York, New Jersey, and Michigan, what is it about the red states that are creating the most new jobs on a percentage basis, percentage growth of new jobs, when more or less the top 10 are red and the bottom 10 are blue? I mean, that’s an unbelievable statistic in a country as diversified as ours, with 50 different states, 50 different makeups of industry and commerce and attraction and population demographics and all this kind of stuff.

Then you look at the Michigans, Wisconsins, Pennsylvanias in these battleground states, and it’s very underwhelming in the job growth. You’re looking at Michigan with 0.63% job growth since 2020, the beginning of 2020, pre-COVID. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, 1.7 or 1.9%, respectively. And you know the ones at the top 10—Idaho over 13%, Utah over 12%, Texas over 10%, Florida over 10%—it’s very easy for some to draw the conclusion that whether it’s crime, homelessness, economic policy, regulation, tax, education, school choice, take your pick. There’s some issues that are positively impacting some states and some issues that are negatively impacting others. This could play into the results in the election of this week.

EICHER: David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. If you’re not subscribing to David’s regular market writing, you can find out more at dividendcafe.com. It’s free, and you can receive it in your inbox.

Well, David, it’s going to be a day tomorrow … can’t wait to talk again after we know more about the outcome of the election. Have a good one!

BAHNSEN: I’ll look forward to talking to you more about it. Thanks, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, November 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. Up next, the WORLD History Book. Today … remembering the death of a prominent businessman who’s known more for the New York City museum he left behind than what he did for a living. And, an actor runs for office … on a fake presidential ticket.

EICHER: But first, a Christian archaeologist discovers two ancient cities. Here’s WORLD’s Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER: On November 8th, 1845, Sir Austen Henry Layard begins an archaeological dig in modern day Iraq. He’s convinced that he will unearth the long buried city of Nineveh.

English born Layard begins his career as a lawyer, but soon leaves the practice to adventure around the Middle East. As he travels on horseback, he becomes interested in the ancient history of the region. And he soon dedicates his life to discovering empires that once ruled the land in Biblical times.

After days of digging southwest of Mosul city, Layard find the ruins of a royal palace belonging to the Assyrian King, Ashurnasirpal II. Enormous, carved sculptures on the walls, called reliefs, depicted winged, humanlike spirits. Audio here from Christie’s.

CHRISTIE’S: The palace was one of the largest known in antiquity. All the reliefs in the palace were designed to impress and overwhelm. Every aspect is related to the strength and power of the King.

Although Layard initially thinks that he had discovered Nineveh, he later realizes that it is actually the city of Nimrud … the historic capital of Assyria during the 8th and 9th centuries B.C.

But Layard remains convinced that Nineveh exists because of the Biblical account. After two more years of faithful excavations, Layard finds what he was looking for. Several inscriptions found on the walls corresponded with biblical accounts of the siege of Jerusalem and the reign of King Hezekiah. Nineveh’s discovery reaffirms the reliable, historical accuracy of the Bible.

Sadly, a 2015 ISIS terrorist attack destroys priceless stone carvings and statues in Nimrud. Audio here from CBS Evening News.

CBS: The men use sledgehammers and jackhammers to take down walls, and power tools to cut through stone. “God has honored us to remove all of these idols and statues worshiped instead of Allah,” one Jihadist says.

Local Iraqis are trying to restore the site, but it is expected to take years, and much original work has been lost.

Next, November 3rd, 75 years ago, Solomon R. Guggenheim dies in Long Island, New York … but he leavesbehind what becomes an architectural landmark. Audio here from Fox Business.

FOX: Controversy on which he thrived in life follows Frank Lloyd Wright to his grave with the opening of the cylindrical Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

A successful businessman, Guggenheim loves collecting artworks. When he meets the artist and collector Hilla Rebay in 1927, she introduces him to the beauty of abstract art. Together they want to display their large collections. Guggenheim begins planning a modern art museum with the help of an eccentric architect.

CLIP: Frank Lloyd Wright is considered by many people to be America’s greatest architect. He is a man who really revolutionized the way we build, the way we live.

The project takes 15 years to complete due to wartime supply shortages and internal disagreements. When it finally opens in 1959, the concrete building defies the norms of the popular skyscrapers of the day.

An enormous skylight shines down on a ramp system that spirals upward. Guests walk up the ramp while admiring paintings on the curved walls along the way. Audio here from the Guggenheim Foundation.

CLIP: Here we have people, people are in the walls, people are moving in the fabric of the building. And the building is part of them. It’s a strange and wonderful feeling.

In 2019 the building is dedicated as a World Heritage Site for its value and importance. Ranking it among monuments like the Statue of Liberty, the Sydney Opera House, and Monticello.

And we end with Will Rogers’ birth on November 4th, 145 years ago. Growing up on his family’s Oklahoma ranch, Rogers practiced horse and rope tricks for fun. But his hobby soon turned into a profession.

Rogers regularly performed in East Coast theaters, throwing in funny ad libs to liven up the act. The audiences loved Broadway shows featuring his folksy cowboy persona. And his dry one-liners often poke fun at politics and current social events. Audio here from RSU Public TV from one of Roger’s political addresses.

ROGERS: With Congress, every time they make a joke, it’s a law. [laughter] And every time they make a law, it’s a joke!

Roger’s biggest political joke came in 1928 when he launched a presidential campaign, running as the “bunkless candidate” for the “Anti-Bunk Party.” Life magazine jumped in—sponsoring him in an effort to increase readership. When asked who his running mate was he said: “The answer to that is easy: we haven’t any, and we don’t intend to have one. In fact, one of the major forms of bunk that we plan to eliminate is the Vice-Presidency—thereby saving the taxpayers a salary of $15,000.”

Rogers declared victory on Election Day and then resigned. Though he remained critical of politics, he became friendly with Calvin Coolidge and the Roosevelts. And he welcomed the new governor of California after the 1930 election …

ROGERS: I have to welcome the governor, I want to welcome him too, because that’s one thing we do in California is welcome, we welcome anything who’ll come here.

Rogers died in an airplane crash at 55 years old. But his witty social commentary rings just as true today as it did 100 years ago.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: a new law in the UK criminalizes standing silently outside an abortion facility. We’ll talk to an attorney for a man convicted under that law.

And, you’d think early voting would equate to quicker tabulation of the results on election night. But that’s not necessarily so. We’ll find out why.

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: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” —I Corinthians 6:19-20.

Go now in grace and peace.

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