The World and Everything in It: October 16, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Lauren Koranek. I live in Springfield, Ohio. I was introduced to the podcast through my husband. Our five month old daughter and I listen to the program every day while making dinner. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! Hotels are required to post details about accessibility for the disabled. The question for the Supreme Court: who can sue when they don’t?

CORKRAN: They signal that disabled people are unwelcome participants in the marketplace and contribute to their day-to-day experience of being isolated, invisible, and ignored.

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

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat. New figures signal to the Fed that inflation is sticking around. And the WORLD History Book. Today the Arab-Israeli conflict.

1967 MOVIETONE NEWSREEL: For the third time since its birth as an independent state, Israel is embroiled in a war with the Arab nations that surround her.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, October 16th. 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: Time for news with Kristen Flavin.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew] Tear Hamas apart

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel - On-the-ground news » Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opening the first meeting of a new emergency government with a solemn promise … Israel will, quote, tear Hamas apart.

The Gaza-based terror group Hamas attacked Israel last weekend. Thousands of civilians died in the attack and in the battles that followed.

The Israeli government over the weekend warned residents of Gaza to flee the area as it readied for a ground invasion.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency says hundreds of thousands of people have fled and the situation in Gaza is harrowing.

Philippe Lazzarini heads the agency.

LAZZARINI: Gaza is running out of water and electricity. In fact, Gaza is being strangled and it seems that the war right now has lost its humanity.

He added that no place is safe in the region.

IRAN FM: [Speaking Arabic]

Israel - International Response » Meanwhile, the foreign minister of Iran is warning Israel against a ground invasion of Gaza, saying it will result in what he called a huge earthquake against Israel. He said the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah might get involved.

A bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators was in Tel Aviv on Sunday to meet with Israeli officials and the families of those who lost loved ones in the Hamas attack.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer:

SCHUMER: When we met them. There was not a dry eye in the house we cried openly. It was so moving, these people what they're going through right now because of the vicious, horrible, inhuman nastiness of Hamas.

The U.S. government has already promised and delivered military aid to Israel.

House Speaker » In Washington, the House of Representatives is in a holding pattern … until it chooses a new speaker.

Republicans have nominated House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan for the role.

To take the speaker’s gavel, Jordan will have to win a vote planned for this week on the House floor.

Republican Congressman Dan Bishop says that should give Jordan plenty of time:

BISHOP: I believe by Tuesday we'll see that he is indeed the person who can accomplish that objective.

Republicans previously nominated House Majority Leader Steve Scalise for the speakership.

He withdrew when he couldn’t muster the votes.

GOP Congressman Mike Turner told CBS’s Face the Nation that voting in a new speaker might require Republicans to work with Democrats.

TURNER: If there is a need, if the radical, you know, almost just a handful of people in the Republican side, make it unable to make it us unable to be able to return to general work on the house then I think obviously there was a deal will have to be done.

Some Republicans voted with Democrats earlier this month to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Political fundraising» President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is leading the field in political fundraising. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The president brought in tens of millions more than any Republican White House hopeful has so far reported for the third quarter of the year.

That’s partly because the Democratic National Committee is already backing Biden’s reelection campaign. It raised more than $71 million dollars the three months ending September 30th.

Former President Donald Trump raised over $45-and-a-half million during the same period.

The Republican National Committee has not yet thrown its support behind a possible presidential nominee.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Louisiana has a (new) governor » Louisiana has elected Republican Jeff Landry as its next governor.

He is the attorney general of the state. His campaign received an endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

LANDRY: We’ve got over seven thousand houses of worship in a state of only 4 and a half million people because we know that all things are possible through God.

The governor-elect supports a state law protecting babies from nearly all abortions. He also backs a law protecting children from medical attempts to change their sex characteristics.

Landry will replace Gov. John Bel Edwards, a pro-life Democrat who is stepping down due to term limits.

Poland » Poland will likely see its government turn over once the results of a weekend election are final.

The ruling Law and Justice Party won the most seats in Parliament, but it does not have enough conservative allies to make a majority.

Instead, opposition leader Donald Tusk says he will lead a coalition government of liberal and centrist parties.

CZARZASTY: [Speaking Polish]

Wlodzimierz Czarzastsy leads another opposition party and says he has his fingers crossed for the future government.

Gas prices » Gas prices monitorAAA says Americans are paying slightly less at the pump… It puts the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded at roughly $3 dollars and 60 cents. That’s down from last week’s $3.70 a gallon and nearly twenty cents lower than a month ago.

California currently has the highest statewide average price at $5 dollars and 62 cents per gallon. Georgia has the lowest at $3.07.

I’m Kristen Flavin.

Straight ahead: the standing to sue in a disability case on Legal Docket. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat. 

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Monday morning, October 16th and you’re listening to The World and Everything in It from WORLD Radio. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. It’s time for Legal Docket.

Today, we’ll cover two disputes before the U.S. Supreme Court argued this month.

And one began like this:

ROBERTS: Mr. Scalia? 

SCALIA: Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court ...

You heard that right! Mister Scalia would be Eugene Scalia, son of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The younger made his first argument before the Supreme court in a case called Murray v UBS Securities, LLC.

It’s a case about a financial expert who worked for UBS Bank. The “Murray” in this case is Trevor Murray. His job was to report on the markets to the bank’s customers with regard to its commercial business in mortgage-backed securities. Under regulations by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those who prepare these reports must certify that they reflect their own views, independently prepared.

EICHER: But Murray says higher-ups pressured him multiple times to skew his research to support UBS business strategies. He refused, and published his reports as he saw fit. Murray reported the pressure he received to his immediate supervisor.

Eventually, Murray got fired.

REICHARD: Murray saw that as unlawful retaliation, so he sued the bank under a law called Sarbanes-Oxley. It forbids employers from taking adverse actions against workers who lawfully blow the whistle.

But the bank says Murray doesn’t qualify to sue under that law, because he didn’t claim he reported the misconduct to the SEC.

Now the question before the high court is who has to prove what. In other words, who bears the burden of proof?

Is it Murray’s burden to prove his employer had retaliatory intent when it fired him? Or does the bank have to prove that it did not?

Lawyer Easha Anand represented Murray. She argued the answer of who has to prove what is in the plain text:

ANAND: Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the wake of the Enron meltdown to encourage whistleblowers to report misconduct that could threaten the finances of millions…

Congress believed that employees shouldn't have to have evidence of what was in the head of the decision-maker at the moment of the decision before the burden shifted.

EICHER: Arguing it’s enough for Murray to show he was fired around the time when his employer found out he was blowing the whistle.

On the other side for the bank, lawyer Scalia argued intent and causation are two different things and should be considered separately:

SCALIA: In Sarbanes-Oxley, Congress employed a phrase, “discriminate because of,” that has long been recognized to require a plaintiff to show discriminatory intent. It is this transplanted phrase with its rich soil that decides this case.

REICHARD: What Scalia called “rich soil” he meant as other employment discrimination laws that place the burden of proof on workers to prove their boss meant to discriminate.

The bank says Murray was fired along with thousands of other employees simply because it needed to cut costs.

EICHER: The Biden administration backs Murray. Assistant to the Solicitor General Anthony Yang argued that discrimination in employment doesn’t turn on intent to harm the employee. It’s enough if whistleblowing is a contributing factor to being fired.

REICHARD: Either way, it seems obvious that none of the justices on the court wants to put off a resolution of the issue and have to revisit this debate later on.

Justice Kagan asked Yang how much of the dispute would remain if the justices decide for Murray.

Listen to this exchange among Yang and Justices Kagan and Neil Gorsuch:

YANG: I don't want to fight you on that, but I think what that may mean is, at some point in the future, we have to ...

KAGAN: Have this conversation all over again?

YANG: Maybe.

GORSUCH: I don't think anybody wants to have this conversation all over again. (Laughter)

YANG: I certainly don't.

However the court decides, employers should exercise caution when firing someone close in time to that person making a whistleblower report. It’s a good idea to have excellent documentation to counter a natural presumption of intent to retaliate.

EICHER: On to our second case, titled: Acheson Hotels v Laufer.

Here are the facts. Deborah Laufer is known as a “tester,” who files disability-rights lawsuits against hotels. She’s sued more than 600 hotels in the past five years for noncompliance with the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Laufer is herself disabled and has to use a wheelchair. What she does is pour over business websites to see if they comply with the ADA. Under ADA, hotel websites have to post information about handicap accessibility. The aim is clarity for the disabled so they can know, for example, whether they can get a wheelchair through the door and use the bathroom.

REICHARD: When Laufer visited the website for Acheson Hotels in Maine, she discovered that information was missing. So she sued.

Her lawyer, Kelsi Corkran:

CORKRAN: There is no serious dispute that at the time Ms. Laufer filed suit, Acheson provided no accessibility information on its reservation website, thereby excluding disabled people from using its online reservation services and engaging in unlawful discrimination under the ADA. As Congress recognized, when places of public accommodation fail to take reasonable steps to make their services available to people with disabilities, they signal that disabled people are unwelcome participants in the marketplace and contribute to their day-to-day experience of being isolated, invisible, and ignored.

But Acheson Hotels says Laufer has no right to sue because she didn’t actually visit the hotel in person, and had no plans to do so. In legal parlance, she has no “standing.” She suffered no injury sufficient to support a claim for damages, either.

Here’s the lawyer for the hotel, Adam Unikowsky.

UNIKOWSKY: This Court has held that a person is injured when she is personally subject to unequal treatment. But that requirement is not satisfied by a plaintiff who searches for hotel websites on the internet to check whether they comply with her interpretation of the ADA. The Court should not bless a legal strategy of filing large numbers of lawsuits, settling almost all of them, and abandoning the rare case that threatens to create adverse precedent so as to facilitate the filing of another round of lawsuits.

EICHER: The Supreme Court agreed to answer the question of standing when it accepted the case for review.

But now there’s a wrinkle: Laufer dismissed her case in lower court, even though she won there. She said one of her lawyers had been suspended for unethical behavior. She didn’t want his problems to taint her case.

REICHARD: So the justices shifted from analyzing standing to analyzing mootness. That is, whether the case lost its practical significance because the underlying controversy is resolved. Courts only have constitutional authority to resolve actual disputes.

You can hear what I think the eventual ruling is going to be in these comments from the justices. First, Justice Clarence Thomas.

THOMAS: So why should we decide this? I -- it seems as though it's-- it's finished.

UNIKOWSKY: Well, Respondent has withdrawn her suits. I mean, she hasn't promised not to bring new suits in the future. And if she doesn't, another plaintiff presumably will.

EICHER: Repetitive and unresolved legal questions cost time and money. So why not just go ahead and resolve this?

But Justice Samuel Alito called this case “dead as a doornail.”

Justice Elena Kagan put it even more bluntly:

KAGAN: But, when you look at a case that's dead as a doornail several times over, you know, the case has been dismissed by the plaintiff. The defendant is totally different. The defendant's website, everybody agrees, is now in compliance with the ADA. So this is, like, dead, dead, dead in all the ways that something can be dead.

REICHARD: Justice Amy Coney Barrett expressed concern about wasting resources by punting this case, when the merits are sure to arise again later.

Some discussion revolved around the line drawing for standing to occur: is it enough if Laufer stated in her complaint that she did intend to visit the hotel? How soon? Next month? Ten years?

Pondering that aspect, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson outlined the categories of people who access online content:

JACKSON: So my thought has been that we need to distinguish between the person who's getting online and they're a documentarian, a passionate observer, a person who's going there just to see, are you following the rules, Hotel X, Hotel B, et cetera, and a person who, I think you're saying, is trying to use the service.

My sense is the court will defer to its practice of only deciding what is before it, no more and no less, and say this case is moot. Which means, it’ll come up again another time and we will get to the conclusion then.

As for practical advice to America’s innkeepers, consider this an early warning to post accessibility information onto your websites, and do it post haste.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

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

EICHER: It’s time to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. He’s head of the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group and he’s here now.

David, good morning!

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

EICHER: All right, September CPI, the government’s consumer price index report. Last month the CPI rose 3.7 percent versus last September, and no change from August which was also 3.7 percent higher year on year.

You said last week the Fed is in a real pickle. Is the Fed still in the same jar? Is this better or worse?

BAHNSEN: Well, it's a totally different situation now. I mean, you have the CPI right now showing 34% of its weighting in shelter, up 7.4%, where all market indicators have it somewhere between up 1% and 4%. There's a little difference between the escalation of new rents, which is probably negative, but maybe up 1%, and then renewals of rents, which are probably up 3-4%. So when you adjust for that, it takes a full one and a half percent off of the CPI, which puts it at the 2.2%, which is the Fed's target.

What is absolutely bizarre is that oil has moved up so dramatically, and gas prices are down. And the reason is that refiner margins have utterly collapsed. So it's really a gift to the CPI data on a headline level, because it's enabling oil prices to have gone higher without impacting the consumers to the same degree at the fuel pump. There's actually plenty of impact for higher oil prices to the consumer in other areas. Oil obviously impacts the economy in a lot of different ways.

But I think that the Fed's pickle right now is not on what they ought to do. There's just no rationale in the world for possibly raising rates higher. It is more to do with the quantitative tightening that I spoke about last week, whereby they are using their balance sheet trying to reduce bonds on the balance sheet. And that is putting upward pressure on the long end of the curve, longer dated bonds, which will at some point become a big issue. And I suspect before that happens, they will have to retreat from that policy.

EICHER: Let me ask: what is the Fed going to need to see to decrease rates? We’ve talked about this in a way not meant to suggest some kind of political conspiracy, that it’s going to be cutting interest rates before the general election next year. But what should we look for as a signal that the Fed governors will act on?

BAHNSEN: Well, remember, 2024 was an election year six months ago, also, and a year ago and 18 months ago, and there's never been a time where even the Fed's own projections, let alone market Fed Funds Futures, didn't predict that rates would start coming down in 2024. Now, that time period at which they begin cutting has been moved further and further out in market indicators and the Fed zone, what they call dotplot. But I don't think that saying what the Fed says they're going to do and what the market says they're going to do is conspiratorial. I think what I'm referring to is the history, that you just simply don't have a Fed raising rates in presidential election years, barely ever. And sometimes you have them not doing so when they said they were going to do so.

Now in 2020, they went down to 0%, but that was in COVID. And I would point out there was a Republican running for reelection then. In 2016, they went and stayed at zero when they said they weren't going to, and that was going to be a new Republican versus a new Democrat after President Obama had been termed out. So there's all sorts of different political things. I don't think it is partisan. I think it is that they don't want to be perceived as having their finger on the scale.

In this case, though, what the rationale for cutting rates is does not have to be "We want to help President Biden," it has to be "We have rates way too high, and now we need to get them lower." And so I believe that it makes a lot more sense. But in the meantime, they probably will not do what I believe they should do as soon as they should. And so yes, I expect rates to come down sooner than the market currently expects it. The whole question that I do not know the answer to is if and what they break before that happens.

EICHER: Geopolitical developments often drive global economies, and I’m thinking about war in Israel. Is that a big story in terms of economic impact?

BAHNSEN: I don't think there's any question the biggest story in the country not only was what the news was dominated by with the utter, horrific terrorist tragedy of Hamas's vicious attack on Israel. I think it’s that the way in which markets responded - the Dow was up 850 points from early Friday to early Saturday. The S&P and NASDAQ were not up as much. But you basically did have bond yields dropped this week. And it's really hard to say, did they drop as sort of a flight to safety? Bond prices were rallying, more people were buying treasuries, which brought yields down because of the Middle East turmoil, or was that due to happen anyways? Because yields had been, you know, up for five weeks in a row. And there really isn't any way to know for sure. But I think that the uncertainty now presented by where things go potentially involving Iran, that's a big story that will linger and add more uncertainty to an already multivariant, uncertain economy.

EICHER: And the UAW strike. We’re now in Week 5. Does that remain a big story?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, I don't think that the strike is a big story right now. I think that they have expanded in some places, they chose not to expand in others. I really think that bond yields are the big story right now. And I think that we saw with oil prices, they spiked up 4 or 5% at the beginning of this tragedy in Israel, and then they came down a few percent on Thursday, and then came back up again Friday. But if they stay between 75 and 90, that's not really a zone where if it goes well below 75, you start wondering, has demand collapsed? And if it starts going well above 90, there's definitely going to be a huge economic impact in this little range that it staying. It may be the sort of sweet spot, but it's unlikely it does. I think it will end up breaking one way or the other. And that becomes another indicator - bond yields and oil prices, my friend.

EICHER: Ok, David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. You can keep up with David at his personal website, Bahnsen.com. His weekly Dividend Cafe is at dividendcafe.com.

Thank you, David!

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, October 16th. 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. On October 7th, Hamas launched a surprise air, land, and sea attack against Israel. The escalating violence is the deadliest chapter in a 75-year history. WORLD’s executive producer Paul Butler has a review of a few milestones in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

EDUCATIONAL FILM: Amid the fabled hills of Judea in Southwest Asia stands Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine, sacred to three of the world's great religions…

PAUL BUTLER: Near the end of World War I, Britain announces its support of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. The US and other Allied nations embrace the so-called “Balfour Declaration” but many other nations do not. Audio here from a 1940s educational film.

EDUCATIONAL FILM: The Arabs are determined to keep Palestine an Arab country and to resist every move by Britain…and death threats are backed up by the League of Arab States and by armed and trained men ready to shatter the peace of the near east by a religious war.

During World War II, Britain greatly limits Jewish immigration to Palestine in return for the cooperation of Egypt and other Arab states. But after the war, tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants who’d lost everything in the holocaust begin arriving from all over Europe…

NEWSREEL: Beyond the blue waters of the Mediterranean lies the low coastline to which millions of Jews from all over the world are turning as their dream of home…yet so great is the tragedy that even here, the wandering Jew can find no rest. For once peaceful Palestine is today a land of terror and bloodshed.

In 1947, Britain announces it’s pulling out of Palestine. As the last British forces leave, Jewish leadership declares the founding of the modern state of Israel.

NEWSREEL: Crowds gathered in the streets and greeted the birth of their state with traditional dances. The call for a holy war against the Jews went out from Cairo. Transfer of power in Palestine will bring bloodshed two states have been born. For the Holy Land, the immediate future would not bring peace…

Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq respond by launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Yemen, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Sudan join in. After a year of fighting the parties agree to a ceasefire. Jordan annexes the West Bank while Egypt occupies the Gaza Strip. Both become hotbeds of resistance.

Eight years later, Egypt shuts down shipping lanes in the Suez Canal. Israel, Britain and France respond militarily:

1956 NEWSREEL: In six days the Israeli army overruns the entire Sinai Peninsula, taking possession of an area twice the size of Israel itself.

Many Western allies decry the operation. The United Nations calls for an immediate ceasefire. Israel eventually pulls out of the Sinai peninsula in 1957. Ten years later, Egypt once again blockades international shipping routes, this time in the Gulf of Aqaba. It is the start of the Six Day War:

1967 NEWSREEL: Today, Israeli armor is facing a group of Arab countries United by defense agreements, and in a far stronger position to sweep Israel into the sea.

But Israel is victorious and once again takes control of the Sinai, as well as the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Then, 50 years ago this month, an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria attacks Israel on Yom Kippur in 1973.

NBC NEWS, 1973. TOM BROKAW: It is an all out war. The surprise attacks came early this morning in the air and on the ground. The Egyptians apparently have taken control of at least a portion of the East Bank of the Suez...

After three weeks of fighting Egypt offers to negotiate a ceasefire with Israel. It is the first step to peace between the two countries.

In 1978 U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s administration convinces Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to meet at Camp David.

ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER MENACHEM BEGIN: Peace now celebrates a great victory for the nations of Egypt and Israel and from all mankind.

The meetings end with a framework for peace—including Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. It also lays the groundwork for Palestinian self government in the West Bank and Gaza. In exchange, Egypt acknowledges Israel's legitimacy as a nation.

But the situation on the ground proves much more complicated. In December, 1987, Palestinians begin the first intifada—or uprising against Israel. Over the next five years, many die in skirmishes on both sides.

In 1993, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization meet at the White House to formally sign a peace treaty. But that soon sours as Palestinians begin a second and more deadly intifada—choosing suicide bombers as the weapon of choice.

In 2005 Israel agrees to withdraw troops from Gaza. Palestinians reject the PLO and elect Hamas to govern them instead. Palestinian militants become more brazen as Hamas foments unrest in Gaza. In 2021, Palestinians attack Israeli police officers on the Temple Mount. The attackers seek refuge in the al-Aqsa mosque.

SOUND: [RAID]

Israeli forces raid the mosque and arrest nearly 400 suspects. Hamas claims Israel desecrated their holy site and responds by firing thousands of rockets into Jerusalem. It starts an 11 day war.

Hamas largely goes back underground but terrorizes Israelis where they can.

NEWSCAST: The military wing of Hamas has claimed responsibility for the shooting attack in Ariel in the West Bank late last week in which a security guard was killed.

According to Middle East adviser and author Dan Senor, a century of conflict hasn’t weakened Israel, but unified it.

DAN SENOR: I always say Israel's a family. It's a family that argues a lot, but like any family, if you poke it from outside, the family quickly comes together.

October 7th’s coordinated attack on Israel, and Hamas’s targeting of women and children was a declaration of war. Senor is confident that in the coming days Israel will move Hamas out of Gaza, but that alone won’t result in a lasting peace.

DAN SENOR: Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not about Israel, it's about the Palestinians and the Palestinians…

Senor is the author of The Genius of Israel coming out next month. He says peace is only possible if the residents of Gaza select different leadership.

DAN SENOR: It's not about territory. It's about the Jewish existence.

But Jewish existence, and opposition to it, is a far older reality than any leadership arrangement in the region the British once called Palestine.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: an update on Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. And, it’s getting harder to trust public libraries that stock offensive material, so what are church libraries doing to provide alternatives?

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 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 records, “when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, ‘Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.’ And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. —Acts chapter 23, verses 6 and 7.

Go now in grace and peace.

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