The World and Everything in It: October 21, 2024

PREROLL: Hey there! This is WORLD Radio reporter, Emma Perley. I’m going to tell you the story of a socialist minister who helped paved the way for one of Britain's most expensive government programs in just a minute. So, stay tuned.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Legal Docket:

LIU: I think San Francisco actually knows well what it can do to improve its own sewer system. I mean, San Francisco is an outlier here.

One of America’s most liberal cities goes to court to get Washington off its back.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, the Monday Moneybeat economist David Bahnsen is standing by.

And later the WORLD History Book, which also includes a consequential day on a Hollywood set

BALDWIN: I would do anything in my power to undo what was done.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, October 21st. 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: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Presidential politics/Trump » With Election Day now just 15 days away both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are campaigning daily in critical battleground states. But the former president took a short break in Sunday to learn how to make french fries.

MCDONALD'S EMPLOYEE: Lift the handle up to let it drain. Give it like 10 seconds. Once it's done draining ... These are definitely fresh. 

Donald Trump donning a yellow and black apron at a McDonalds franchise in Pennsylvania  after he campaigned about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh.

TRUMP: Hello, everybody. Hello, Pennsylvania. We love Pennsylvania.

The former president stumping in the town of Latrobe.

TRUMP: I'd like to begin by asking a question. Are you better off now than you were four years ago? No!

In an average of recent polls, Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania by about 1 point. But he leads in six of the seven most recent surveys. 

Presidential politics/Harris » Meantime, Harris campaigned over the weekend in another key swing state. 

HARRIS: It is so good to be back in Atlanta. Thank you all.

The vice president has her work cut out for her in Georgia, where Trump leads by about 2 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average. 

But Harris said she will defeat Donald Trump by highlighting what she called two very different visions for America:

HARRIS: This election is about two very different visions for our nation. One, Donald Trump's, who is focused on the past, and ours that is focused on the future.

Momentum remains on the former president's side. He has reclaimed at least a slight lead in every major swing state in the country.

DOJ Virginia lawsuit » The Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, continues pushing back against the Biden administration over an ongoing legal battle.

The Department of Justice is suing his state, accusing it of violating federal election law by eliminating non-citizens from voter rolls shortly before the election. But the governor said Sunday: 

YOUNGKIN:  When someone walks into one of our DMVs and self-identifies as a non-citizen, and then they end up on the voter rolls, either purposely or by accident, that we go through a process individualized, not system, not systematic.

The governor says that last part is key, because the federal law the DOJ accuses the state of violating prohibits systematic efforts to remove voters from registration rolls within 90 days of an election.

Israel targets Hezbollah finances » Israel’s military says it is now taking aim at the financial arm of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terror group. Military spokesman Daniel Hagari stated Sunday that Israeli forces would strike a “large number of targets” in the hours ahead. 

HAGARI :(SPEAKING HEBREW)

He said, “In the coming days we will reveal how Iran finances Hezbollah's terrorist activity by using civil institutions, associations and NGOs as a cover for terrorist activity.”

Israel: Sinwar death reaction » Hagari also spoke out about the death of terrorist Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Israeli soldiers killed him in an operation in Gaza last week. He commented on footage that he said showed Sinwar just before the October 7th terror attack against Israel hiding his family and equipment, including beds, food and water and a television.

HAGARI:  This was a luxury that the people of Gaza did not have. Sinwar always prioritized himself, his money, and Hamas terrorists over the people of Gaza.

Israeli troops killed Sinwar in the southern Gaza city of Rafah last Wednesday.

Migrant caravan » A caravan of about 2,000 migrants has left Mexico’s southern border en route to the U.S. southern border just ahead of Election Day.

Some migrants believe a new Trump administration could make it much more difficult to enter the United States  with, among other things, change to asylum rules.

SOUND: (Cherish song)

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame inductions » The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame welcomed several new members over the weekend.

SOUND: (Cherish song)

Kook & the Gang, heard there, among the inductees.

Others honored included longtime pop superstar Cher, heavy metal’s Ozzy Osbourne, soft rockers Foreigner, and 83-year-old soul icon Dionne Warwick.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: San Francisco and the Environmental Protection Agency disagree over run-off water. 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 21st day of October, 2024. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

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

Today two oral arguments the Supreme Court considered last week.

One’s an immigration matter. The other deals with the power of a federal agency, the first big regulatory case this term. And we’ll start there.

The Environmental Protection Agency—the EPA —sued the city of San Francisco for dumping billions of gallons of sewage into San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

EPA says the city let its sewer infrastructure fall into disrepair, so its wastewater system can’t cope.

EICHER: Bruno Heidrick knows that first hand. He lives in a houseboat along the waterway. He told CBS News in May:

HEIDRICK: It’s foul. It’s just not, you know, if you swim in this water, you’d better take a shower afterwards. You get needles, you get syringes, you name it. I think it’s just beyond help. It’s frustrating.

That’s what the EPA is designed to protect people like Heidrick against. The agency regulates water quality and discharges by way of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. That’s the entity that issues permits outlining conditions for treating and discharging wastewater.

REICHARD: Here’s the backstory. 

After heavy rainfall, San Francisco’s water treatment facilities tend to get overwhelmed. The untreated sewage gets pumped into the creek where Heidrick lives, then flows into the bay and ocean.

EPA set limits on how much dirty water can be handled that way. Then a few years ago, the agency added a tougher new rule: Quoting from it: any discharge must “not cause or contribute to a violation of any applicable water quality standard for receiving waters.”

EICHER: Receiving waters, meaning the creek, bay, and ocean. 

But San Francisco argues that’s just too vague. It’s not fair to hold the city responsible for polluted beaches when that pollution may have come from who-knows-where. It’s arbitrary.

At the Supreme Court, Deputy City Attorney Tara Steeley says permit holders don’t know what they need to do to comply.

STEELEY: And if I could provide an example of that. One of California's water quality standards is no objectionable algae bloom should form in the water body. San Francisco doesn't know how it must control its discharges to prevent that condition from forming in the water body. And we can't know because whether a condition will form in the water body will necessarily depend on what other permit holders or other non-point sources are adding to the water body and the flow of the water itself. What San Francisco can control is our own discharges. We cannot control the receiving water conditions.

REICHARD: But the EPA argues if its language is vague, it’s San Francisco’s own fault. Here’s EPA’s attorney, Assistant Solicitor General Frederick Liu:

LIU: I want to be clear about the sort of information that we’re missing that makes it impossible for us to impose anything other than these generic limitations. It’s not information about the water. It’s information about San Francisco’s own sewer system. We're talking about where do the flows go? What's the conditions of the pipes and the pumping stations? How does the system respond to wet weather events? That's the information that we've been lacking for the past 10 years and that we asked San Francisco to provide as part of the long-term control update. Without that information, we're basically flying blind as to how we're going to tell exactly what San Francisco should do to protect water quality.

EICHER: So, the generic rule at issue here is reasonable, given the city’s lack of cooperation.

Justice Elena Kagan made a point about regulations in general. Here she addresses Steeley for the city.

KAGAN:  There are lots of different kinds of regulations in the world. Some people like some kinds; some people like other kinds. Some regulations are really prescriptive, do this, this, this, and this. And then, you know, some people hate those kinds of regulations. They'd rather have regulations that are less prescriptive, that say here's the goal, you decide how to meet it. That gives a party more flexibility and so forth. So,there's got to be something in this statute that tells you that the agency can't decide to go the less prescriptive, more flexible "you decide how to meet it; this is the goal" route, and I don't see anything in this statute that does that.

STEELEY: So I disagree, that this provides a flexible standard…

REICHARD: Round and round they went, for more than an hour and a half.

Steeley for the city pointed to the monster penalties EPA imposes:

STEELEY: My colleagues here have calculated the numbers for the amount sought in the litigation for the Bayside permit and it comes to $10 billion. That's the statutory penalties for the days at issue.

EICHER: Liu for EPA wasn’t backing down:

LIU: I think San Francisco actually knows well what it can do to improve its own sewer system. I mean, San Francisco is an outlier here.

Court watchers noted the irony: San Francisco is one of the most liberal cities in the country, its leaders vocal about environmental concerns, yet its infrastructure has decayed to the point the city cannot handle basic services. And now it asks the high court to protect it from overreaching regulators.

REICHARD: Lest we think it’s only San Francisco that let its infrastructure go by the wayside, wastewater agencies in Peoria, Illinois, Indianapolis, Louisville, Tacoma … all filed friend of the court briefs in support of San Francisco.

This is a big mess. City Attorney David Chiu claims if San Francisco doesn’t prevail, it’ll have to spend lots of money on capital improvements. And he says in the worst case scenario, that’ll mean people could see their water and sewer bills go more than ten-fold … from around $850 per year to nearly $9,000!

EICHER: Alright, on to the second case today, the immigration dispute.

In this case, an American citizen named Amina Bouarfa is married to a non-citizen and Palestinian who was granted a visa to stay in the U.S.

But a few years later, the Citizenship and Immigration Service determined her husband had previously married just to evade immigration laws—in other words, a “sham marriage.” Based on that, the agency said it made a mistake granting the visa and so rescinded it.

REICHARD:  So Bouarfa, the current wife, appealed the revocation. But she lost at every level on the grounds that the decision to revoke was a discretionary action. Meaning, the agency can choose among different courses of action based on law and other factors. It isn’t strictly bound to a single outcome. In those situations, a court has no power to review.

By law, federal courts can only review mandatory decisions: Ones not left to agency discretion. Congress did not want those to be second-guessed in the courts.

EICHER: The wife’s lawyer argued she ought to get a court review because the “sham marriage” determination was a mandatory decision that revoked the visa. Listen to lawyer Samir Deger-Sen:

DEGER-SEN: The government believes that Congress enacted a sham-marriage bar that was this fundamental restriction that was so important it couldn't even --an application couldn't even get off the ground. The idea that then the very next day, Congress would have thought, actually, it’s optional, the agency has discretion, it can get to do whatever it wants and the thing which triggers the agency’s discretion is the agency made a mistake. Because the agency made a mistake, suddenly, it’s important for the agency to get discretion.

What’s odd is if the visa had been denied initially on grounds of a sham marriage? Both sides agree that the wife could challenge it.

But now we’re a step beyond: visa granted, then revoked.

And generally speaking, the decision to revoke is not mandatory. It’s discretionary, because it can happen when the agency believes there is “good and sufficient cause.” The very essence of discretionary.

Assistant to the Solicitor General Colleen Sinzdak had a delicious way to explain it:

SINZDAK: And so if I can just give kind of my own child hypothetical. If I tell my daughter that she may have dessert after dinner every night, she has discretionary authority to decide whether to have dinner --whether to have dessert. As a practical matter, she is going to eat dessert every single night. (Laughter.) I can assure you of that. But I have given her discretionary authority. And so, if there was a judicial review bar, it would cover.

KAGAN: But --but your daughter would be able to tell you: I have a policy of giving --of having dessert. So I'm asking, do they have a policy of --of always revoking?

REICHARD: Just last term, the court decided another immigration case. It said an American citizen cannot challenge a visa denial for her alien spouse, after the Department of Homeland Security determined he was a member of a gang. 

So I have my doubts that the wife is going to win this one.

The appeals courts have ruled differently so the Supreme Court is going to need to resolve it and bring a national standard.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: 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!

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

EICHER: Well, David, as we near the end of the presidential campaign, seems like we’re getting the closing arguments now. Former President Trump appeared at the Economic Club in Chicago this past week gave an interview to the editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and as he has in rallies and other interviews he stressed his signature economic theme:

TRUMP: To me the most beautiful word in the dictionary is “tariff.” And it’s my favorite word. It needs a public-relations firm to help it, but to me it’s the most beautiful word in the dictionary.

And then two days later, we heard from the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, she appeared before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and inserted this line into her speech:

YELLEN: Calls for walling America off with high tariffs on friends and competitors alike or by treating even our closest allies as transactional partners are deeply misguided. Sweeping, untargeted tariffs would raise prices for American families and make our businesses less competitive.

Okay, so what about that, isn’t she right?

BAHNSEN: Secretary Yellen is not somebody that I look at as an ideologue compatible with my worldview in almost any way. I don't think she's been an effective treasury secretary, and I wasn't overwhelmingly impressed with her as chairwoman of the Federal Reserve. But she’s 100 percent right in what she said here: broad tariffs across the board raise prices on Americans. Now, that isn't even a remotely controversial statement.

The question is whether or not it’s effective, if it accomplishes something. This is where President Trump’s intentions with tariffs are a bit different because he says he doesn't want to do the tariffs; they're a negotiating tactic. And then other times he’ll say they're a beautiful thing, they’re the most beautiful word. And you know, everyone knows he can be kind of hyperbolic in the way he’ll talk about some of it.

So, as a matter of economic policy, there are a few things that have to be said. The broad tariffs are what she specifically criticized. She obviously didn't criticize targeted tariffs, which President Trump did in his term, because the Biden administration didn't get rid of any of those tariffs—they left all of them in place.

My own view is that the word “tariff” means “tax.” In American history, protective tariffs were literally done to say, “We want to protect one section of the country, or we want to protect one actor in the economy versus another.” I would be vehemently against that. I do not think tariffs are an effective way to protect, nor do I think the government should be in the business of picking winners and losers.

Now, some will say, “What if the country we want to impose tariffs on is a bad actor, or they steal our intellectual property?” That, of course, is a different subject. The issue is when people say, “I want fair terms, and these other countries have unfair terms.” That, of course, is easily rectified for those of us who believe in a free market. If I go to the store and they say, “Hey, just so you know, we’re charging you a $120 tax on your banana today,” I go, “Oh yeah, guess what? I'm not going to buy a banana from you today,” and then I take my business elsewhere.

So, we believe in buyers and sellers determining that because companies trade with companies; countries don’t actually trade with countries. It isn't like we are lined up to do an order. When Intel or Walmart or big companies are buying things, it's not the Treasury Department buying from China—it’s a company. If it’s an unfair term, then they shouldn’t do the deal. It’s really quite simple.

So, I don’t think that what she said is wrong, that broad-based tariffs raise prices. If any of us said, “Do higher taxes raise prices?” we’d all say yes. But President Trump's policies are a little more complicated than that because he wants to use tariffs as a negotiating tactic. In that sense, I just don’t really know exactly what he would do in a second term. It’s harder to be critical because he’s kind of put a few different things out there, and I’d rather hold my criticism or support until we see what he actually ends up doing because it’s a little unpredictable right now.

EICHER: Right about now, we’re in the last earnings season of the year, certainly the last earnings season before Election Day, with companies reporting their third-quarter performance: and that gives a different read on the economy. I saw one piece, with all the financial companies reporting first, saying that with JPMorgan Chase earnings came essentially the verdict that the Fed had in fact pulled off a so-called soft landing with its interest-rate policy. You’d agree, wouldn’t you?, the financial sector’s doing really well, pretty positive.

BAHNSEN: Yes, well, especially because we’re so heavily invested in the financial sector. At my firm, we take it as very positive. So far, there were a lot of good results—not just the banks, but what we call asset managers. They are managing money on behalf of pension funds, institutions, and, of course, individuals.

I think it is evidence of the Fed beginning to cut interest rates. There is anticipation of a soft landing—that if indeed the tightening of monetary policy is over, and we didn’t get a recession along the way, that’s what the soft landing thesis is. That would be considered very good for markets. And of course, banks make money doing activity, and with higher interest rates, you get less activity.

Now, the anticipation is that on a forward basis, there’s going to be more activity. And in the meantime, during the period where there was supposed to be suppressed activity, it was pretty darn good. JPMorgan has always been a very well-run institution.

I would add for listeners paying attention from a distance that there was a lot of activity I was heavily involved with, as well as other Christian organizations, when allegations had arisen of JPMorgan debanking. It wasn’t just that they went out of their way to ensure that wouldn’t happen, or where it had happened, it wouldn’t happen again. But since then, they’ve changed policies. They’ve engaged my consultants and are in conversation with them all the time. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has gone on air to talk about how the media needs to make more of an effort to understand conservatives and to be fair to the whole country.

There’s been a real paradigm shift over the last year or so, and I think that’s a positive development. Now, that’s a company with hundreds of thousands of employees. They’re still going to have all kinds of ESG language and other things. They’re by no means where I’d love to see them, but my point is, there's been a lot of positive movement.

I think for those of us who were critical of some things before—and in my case, actually went to litigation—it’s worth pointing out that they’ve been a very cooperative actor in trying to rectify some things.

Look, banks are an important part of the economy, and those that were a year or two ago—remember, we had First Republic and Silicon Valley Bank go under—now we’re in a place where no other regional banks have gone under, and I think that bodes well for where we stand right now.

EICHER: Ok, David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group.

If you aren’t subscribing to David’s regular market writing, you can find out more at DividendCafé.com … it’s free and you can receive it in your inbox. Dividend Cafe-dot com.

Thanks for your analysis this week, David, we’ll see you next time.

Have a great week!

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick, good to be with you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, October 21st. 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, an archbishop spends a lifetime advocating for what he considered social reform, and a shooting three years ago raises questions of safety on movie sets.

EICHER: But first, the invention of one of the most common building materials in our modern world. Here’s WORLD Radio Reporter Emma Perley:

EMMA PERLEY:What is the most widely used material on earth? You might think it’s plastic. Here’s a hint: the sounds you hear are of a construction site, where workers are pouring cement for the foundation of a house.

Second only to water, everyone the world over comes into contact with more concrete than anything else—more than three tons of concrete a year… per person … just by walking on sidewalks and driving on roads. Author J. Winn writes: “We’ve had the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. From the dawn of the twentieth century is the Concrete Age.”

The infrastructure of our modern world is thanks to one man: Joseph Aspdin…who 200 years ago today, patents Portland cement.

Aspdin made his living as a bricklayer in Britain, often using a mixture of clay and limestone in his projects. But that kind of cement was fairly weak; it took a long time to dry and was prone to water damage. So Aspdin cooked up a new and improved recipe … in his own kitchen. Audio here from TimeFrame Tales.

AUDIO: His process of calcining limestone with clay in a kiln at high temperatures, and then grinding the resultant clinker into a fine powder, created a binding material that was unparalleled at the time.

He named his invention Portland cement because it resembled the popular and high quality stones found in Portland, England. Aspdin opened a factory for manufacturing and distribution. His cement became the most widely used building material in the world.

Next, 80 years ago on October 26th, Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple passes away after years of political activism in Britain.

During World War II, Temple made wartime radio broadcasts—both to pray for the nation … and call for social reform. Audio of Temple leading a national prayer here from Reuters.

AUDIO: Oh God our Father, guide our King and all who bear all in the United Nations. Be with our sailors, soldiers, and army, upholding their courage …

As a political socialist and leader of England’s state church, Temple strongly believed that the government should expand on the church’s social reform efforts. He often used his position to influence Parliament members … pushing them toward more socialist policies. Audio here from Temple’s 1942 lecture in London, courtesy of British Pathe.

AUDIO: We are here to affirm the right and the duty of the church to declare its judgment upon social facts and social movements.

Temple’s most popular book was Christianity and the Social Order published in 1942. He argued that biblical ethics required that men should love one another because they are children of God… and social equality was a natural outworking of that love.

However, author and professor Anthony Williams critiques Temple’s Christian Socialism. He writes that the Bible separates believers from unbelievers, and “Christ clearly states that those who oppose Him cannot claim to have God as their Father.”

Williams also accuses Christian Socialists like Temple of reading their own political ideology into Scripture...warning against the danger of replacing the good news of salvation for social justice advocacy.

But Temple’s ideas for reform influenced economist William Beveridge, who advocated for government-led healthcare. And in 1945, Prime Minister Clement Attlee implemented the Welfare State based on Beveridge’s reports. They included the earliest establishment of universal healthcare and subsidized housing…two British institutions that have failed to live up to Temple’s ideals....

Finally, on October 21st, 2021, actor Alec Baldwin accidentally discharges a prop gun on the set of the Western film Rust.

OPERATOR: 911, what’s the location of your emergency?

MAMIE MITCHELL: We need a — we need an ambulance out at Bonanza Creek Ranch right now. We’ve had two people shot on a movie set accidentally.

ABC News interviewed Baldwin in 2021.

BALDWIN: I’m handed a gun and someone declares, they say, ‘This is a cold gun.’ In my years on the sets of film, hot gun meant that there was a charge in there and cold gun meant there was nothing in there.

Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins directs Baldwin where to point the gun while rehearsing the scene. Baldwin ends up pointing it directly at her. He says later that he asked her if she wanted him to cock the gun for the camera…she said yes.

BALDWIN: And I cock the gun, and I go, ‘Can you see that? Can you see that? Can you see that?’ And then I let go of the hammer of the gun and the gun goes off.

Hutchins is fatally shot, and the bullet also wounds director Joel Souza. Baldwin denies pulling the trigger. But a firearms expert later claims that the gun could only be fired if the trigger was pulled. Audio here from AP News as emergency services arrive on the scene.

MEDIC: How’s it going sir? So my understanding, um, is you were in the room when the lady was shot?

BALDWIN: I was the one holding the gun, yeah, what do you need?

Hannah Gutierrez-Reed handled the weapons for the film. She was eventually charged with involuntary manslaughter for her carelessness. Assistant director David Halls was also charged with negligence.

The Hutchins family filed multiple lawsuits against Baldwin, including wrongful death and civil negligence. Both were eventually settled. The incident sparked heated debate over using real guns on movie sets.

An online petition to ban real guns and live ammunition reached more than 100,000 signatures. But the effort has yet to change any laws. Many in the industry have said that the problem is not with guns, but with making sure existing safety laws are enforced.

BALDWIN: And believe me, I would do anything in my power … I would do anything in my power to undo what was done.

Filming resumed in 2023 and Rust will premiere in a Polish international film festival this November.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Perley.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow, it’s been a year since Ohio approved a constitutional amendment enshrining access to abortion. So, what’s happened to the pro-life laws in the meantime? We’ll tell you.

And, we’ll meet a family whose son was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th.

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.

Jeremiah the prophet lived in the final days of the crumbling nation of Judah. He wrote: “Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” —Jeremiah 1:4-1:5.

Go now in grace and peace.

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