The World and Everything in It: October 30, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. I'm Jonathan Walters. I usually listen while I'm running or mowing the lawn. I live in Greensburg, Pennsylvania with my wife and three kids. But today I'm listening in Denver, Colorado where I'm in training as a newly hired pilot at United Airlines. I hope you enjoy today's program.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: Good morning! Did the state of South Carolina cross the line when drawing lines on its voting map?

AUDIO: And what the two of them do is that they show that black Democrats are excluded from District 1 at a far greater percentage than white Democrats are.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket. Also, the Monday Moneybeat. Today, new GDP figures, and a new report on inflation.

And the WORLD History Book. 35 years ago, an unlikely rescue of three ice-bound whales.

AUDIO: Someone put out a plea for help and it got picked up by the press. And now the world is watching.

ROUGH: It’s Monday, October 30th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Jenny Rough.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

ROUGH: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news. 

SOUND: [Gaza war]

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel offensive » The sounds of war continue to echo through the streets of Gaza as Israeli forces pound Hamas targets.

HAGARI: [Speaking Hebrew]

Israeli Defense Force spokesman Daniel Hagari said the IDF surged more troops into the Gaza Strip over the weekend.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “We must defeat Hamas,” calling it an “existential test” for his country.

Israel–UN debate » But some global leaders, including top United Nations officials continue to condemn Israel’s military response.

As the death toll climbs in Gaza UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says we are witnessing a humanitarian crisis.

GUTERRES: More than 2 million people with nowhere safe to go are being denied the essentials for life—food, water, shelter, and medical care—while being subjected to relentless bombardment.

But in Washington, Republican Sen. J.D. Vance told CBS’ Face the Nation that Hamas controls the entire territory.

VANCE: So if you deliver a large amount of humanitarian assistance, who’s it going to go to? The children in Gaza or the Hamas fighters on the frontline?

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan says Israel is taking measures to minimize civilian casualties, but at the same time …

SULLIVAN: It is absolutely true that Hamas is doing everything in its power to put those people in harm's way, to use them as human shields, to hide rocket infrastructure and other forms of terrorist infrastructure among civilian areas.

U.S. officials say it’s impossible to get a credible estimate of casualties in Gaza. But they do believe that number is likely in the thousands.

GOP field » With the next Republican presidential debate just nine days away, the field is thinning out.

Former Vice President Mike Pence over the weekend announced he is pulling the plug on his campaign.

PENCE: I came here to say it's become clear to me: This is not my time.

Pence heard there at an event in Las Vegas.

Donald Trump again will not participate in next week’s debate. Only three other Republicans have qualified to take part. Pence was not among them.

Talk show host Larry Elder also dropped out of the race last week.

Maine shooter » Police in Maine are still working to make some sense out of a senseless act of violence. Investigators digging into last week’s deadly mass shooting say one thing is perfectly clear.

Maine Commissioner of Public Safety Mike Sauschuck:

SAUSCHUCK: At this point we certainly know that there's a strong mental health cloud over this, what happened, the true tragic scenarios at the both of those locations. We know that there's definitely a mental health nexus to that.

Police across Maine were alerted just last month to “veiled threats” by the U.S. Army reservist one of a string of missed red flags that preceded the massacre.

The 40-year-old shooter killed at least 18 people and wounded many more in Lewiston, Maine last Wednesday. Police later found him dead apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

UAW latest » The United Auto Workers union is ramping up pressure on GM to come to terms on a new labor deal by expanding its strike at General Motors plants.

The company is the final holdout among Detroit’s big-3 automakers after both Ford and Stellantis reached tentative deals with the union over the past week to end a weekslong strike.

UAW President Shawn Fain:

FAIN: At Stellantis, we not only secured a record contract, we have begun to turn the tide on the war on the American working class.

Fain credited his union with—quote—“saving the American dream.”

In the talks between the union and GM, retirement benefits are reportedly one of the main sticking points. The company has more retirees than its Detroit rivals.

Pharmacy strike » Meantime, some pharmacy staff at Walgreens and other large chains are planning to walk off the job today over what they call unsafe working conditions. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: It’s not a union strike. Organizers say it’s a grassroots protest which they’re calling “Pharmageddon.”

The walkout could affect hundreds of stores across several chains.

The workers say pharmacy technicians in particular are underpaid and overworked.

A national survey last year by an industry group showed roughly three out of four pharmacy workers felt they didn’t have enough time to safely perform their duties.

Employees have staged other scattered walkouts at various chain locations over the past month.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: A battle over where to draw the lines in South Carolina. 

This is The World and Everything in It.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: It’s Monday October 30th. You’re listening to The World and Everything in It. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Mary Reichard is taking a well-deserved break this week. Good morning, I’m Jenny Rough.

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

I know you and Mary look forward to October for professional reasons. The court is back in session, but it’s just such a pleasant time of year with the fall colors peaking about now where you are in D.C.!

ROUGH: Oh, you know it. It’s beautiful right now in Washington and has been for the last week or so.

Y’know, one of my favorite places, about 70 miles west of the Supreme Court building, the Shenandoah National Park. The leaves are vibrant red, yellow, orange.

Just gorgeous.

And to make a Supreme Court connection, I can report last week I hiked Mount Marshall Loop.

EICHER: As in Justice Marshall, that’s the connection!

ROUGH: Yes, Justice John Marshall. He was a Founding Father and the fourth chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

He was a legal giant. I read him in law school and law students today still study his opinions,  because they were written in the formative age of constitutional history.

EICHER: Marshall served three decades on the high court, 1801 to 1835. And one of his most important decisions was Marbury v. Madison. I know it’s big for lawyers, but it’s just a pivotal piece of U.S. history:

Marbury v. Madison held that an act of Congress conflicted with the Constitution, and so it nullified the act for the first time, an act of Congress found unconstitutional.

The case would later become widely cited as the one that established the doctrine of judicial review.

So I’m sure you meditated on this lofty topic during your hike!

ROUGH: Yes, I’m that much of a nerd. And a nature nerd, too. You can really see why Chief Justice Marshall loved the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains where he lived for a time.

But to this day, if you look at a topographic map, you’ll be able to see the hiking trail that bears his name.

EICHER: Well that transitions nicely into our case for today, not hiking trails, but maps, and voting maps specifically.

Today’s case turns on a battle over a congressional map enacted by the South Carolina legislature.

Every 10 years following the census, congressional maps have to be redrawn to reflect population changes. In South Carolina, the redraw would take place among the same number of congressional seats, seven, but after the 2020 census, it became clear that District 1—largely Republican—was overpopulated. But District 6 next door and largely Democrat was underpopulated.

So the state drew a new map that shifted the boundaries.

ROUGH: But the South Carolina NAACP sued state officials. It argued the new map violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

So this isn’t a Voting Rights Act case like the Alabama one last year. This case involves different facts and different law.

And relevant to this case, the Supreme Court has held the 14th Amendment prohibits racial gerrymandering, using race as a predominant motivating factor to come up with a state’s new districts.

EICHER: But South Carolina claimed it was aiming for a partisan gerrymander. And the state claims a map drawn for partisan reasons is permissible.

South Carolina’s case was heard before a 3-judge panel.

At trial, the person who drew the map testified that he relied strictly on partisan leanings to favor a Republican tilt in District 1. He further testified that although he was aware of racial data and examined it. He didn’t deliberately consider race when drawing the map.

ROUGH: Well, the lower court didn’t believe him. It said the state had to redraw the map. And couldn’t rely on it for the upcoming 2024 elections.

But instead of doing that, the state appealed to the United States Supreme Court. That right to a direct appeal. Skipping over the middle court level and going straight to the high court is allowed here.

And the legal standard is clear error. That means the Supreme Court must respectfully yield to the lower court’s factual findings.

At oral argument, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson outlined the clear error standard this way:

JUSTICE BROWN: The clear error standard is a highly deferential standard that the court may not reverse just because it would have decided the matter differently.

EICHER: The lower court did commit a series of errors, said attorney John Gore. He argued on behalf of South Carolina and said the lower court embraced a racial target theory that was simply wrong. Instead, the legislature pursued a political goal.

GORE: It achieved that goal by moving Republicans into the district and Democrats out of the district. All of the direct evidence confirms that it used political data, not racial data to identify Republicans and Democrats.

ROUGH: Justice Elena Kagan did not see it that way. She pointed to two experts who testified for the NAACP at trial.

JUSTICE KAGAN: And what the two of them do is that they show that black Democrats are excluded from District 1 at a far greater percentage than white Democrats are.  Both experts essentially said, look, we've done these regressions. And we can show you that black Democrats and white Democrats are not being treated the same way.

EICHER: Gore argued that both of those NAACP experts made serious flaws in their reports.

And he pointed out another legal standard: The legislature gets a presumption of good faith here. Yet he said the three-judge district court didn’t give it that. Instead, the court overlooked evidence that proved the state relied on data from the 2020 presidential election.

ROUGH: Justice Neil Gorsuch asked about that election data. Because the map maker only relied on results from one election. Strong enough?

JUSTICE GORSUCH: We've been kind of dancing around the big question, which I think is, to my mind, the district court's finding that your clients had to have looked at race data rather than politics data because the politics data wasn't robust enough.

GORE: Even though 2020 is a presidential election year, it's also a congressional election year, and it was the most recent congressional election that was available to the map-drawer. It's not uncommon for map drawers to use one year's worth of election data and to have it be the most recent year.

Leah Aden argued on behalf of the NAACP:

ADEN: Race cannot predominate in line drawing, even as a means to achieve a partisan goal. Here, the panel properly concluded that race predominated over partisanship in CD1's design based on strong factual findings.

The NAACP doesn’t have to point to a smoking gun here … such as an email explicitly saying, hey, let’s use race, not partisanship, to draw the lines.

But Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged that intent can be hard to discern when all the evidence is circumstantial.

JUSTICE ROBERTS: We've never had a case where there's been no direct evidence, no map, no strangely configured districts. Very large amount of political evidence, whether the district court chose to credit it or not, and instead it all resting on circumstantial evidence. I'm not saying you can't get there. But it does seem that this would be breaking new ground in our voting rights jurisprudence.

EICHER: Justice Samuel Alito noted an alternative map with a Republican advantage was missing from the record. He wanted to know why the NAACP’s experts at trial didn’t present one.

JUSTICE ALITO: Is there any reason why one or more of them could not have drawn up an alternative map that met the legislature's stated partisan goal, but had a different effect on the racial composition?

Aden said it was because South Carolina swapped justifications. First it claimed its map was okay because it relied on traditional redistricting principles. But then changed its reasoning late in the game at trial.

Experts did create computer simulated maps that showed the districts would look differently if race isn't considered. But none of those maps achieved South Carolina’s political goals.

Caroline Flynn, assistant to the solicitor general, argued as a friend of the court. And she said that the map drawing was racially motivated.

But Justice Gorsuch also questioned her about the alternative map.

JUSTICE GORSUCH: How do you prove that they are acting in bad faith without showing that they could achieve their objective some different way? I could have achieved the same partisan objective 15 different ways. And with map drawing technology, and computers, they spit out maps by the 1,000s these days. I would have thought that would have been a relatively modest burden.

ROUGH: But the law doesn’t require the NAACP to submit an alternative map as proof to win. Reliable expert testimony is enough.

This case also involves a second claim of intentional race dilution. But only one question on that at oral argument.

Overall, this case could help determine who controls the house in 2024. A decision is expected by the end of the year. That will give South Carolina time to redraw a map before the election, if necessary.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: All right time now to talk business markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnson. David is head of the wealth management firm, the Bahnson group, and he joins us now from New York. Good morning, David.

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

EICHER: All right, so where did that come from? 4.9% annualized GDP growth in the third quarter of the year? Was that a big surprise?

BAHNSEN: Well, the consensus had been for 4.7. And so it was above the consensus estimate. But what was a surprise to a lot of people is that the consensus estimate was so high. And you have something called the Atlanta Fed GDP Tracker, where they're using certain real time inputs to try to do an estimate of what they believe it will end up being. And it is definitely fallible. It is not always a great predictive indicator, but it had been running quite high all quarter. There's a couple other ones that are less known that we're running a little lower. But again, there was really never any indication that the consumer had been slowing down. And I just don't think that many people who have been assuming a recession is coming have really looked at the data. But this particular number, Nick, had one thing that I think is pretty embedded, which is high amount of consumer activity. And one thing that was probably a bit more to use that word, again, transitory is subject to reversal. And that's the inventories. So a build up of inventories can be a positive input to GDP one quarter, but the depletion of those inventories can be a negative input the next quarter. I wouldn't be surprised that that happens this time.

EICHER: So on the components of it, I did note that the business investment component was really non existent in this GDP report. So it just doesn't have the staying power that one would want from a number as robust as 4.9.

BAHNSEN: Yeah, I think that in 15 years we haven't had four quarters where the business investment number was what I want it to be. Shortly after the corporate tax cuts, and a lot of the deregulation in 2017, so the calendar year of 2018, we were starting to see a pickup in non residential fixed investment, which is what we call business investment. And that is the only year that GDP growth got to 3%— real GDP net of inflation—and so that is definitely what I would call staying power. Yes, when you get greater business investment, because ultimately, even consumer activity. Consumers try and try and try. They do not generally stop consuming merely because they're trying to be more responsible. But at some point, new consumption requires new production.

EICHER: Speaking of the consumer, we did get that better metric, the personal consumption expenditures, which is some indicator of inflation. And that number for September came in at 3.4%. And of course, the goal is 2%. So how do you appraise that figure? Well, I mean, what do you think the signal is?

BAHNSEN: No, because the problem is the shelter number in there is that the 3.4 really goes down to 2% if it was not looking at a lag effect of shelter. They're still looking at rents that were done a year ago, and counting it as inflation now. And that's a methodology problem that admittedly is much worse in the CPI number. PCE has a lower weighting to shelter. But I think that getting to a 2% print may take a little while, but I don't think anybody believes that we're not in the twos. And that's with goods inflation that is zero or negative. And so looking at core that strips out the energy side, which is going way up and way down quite a bit, I think that you more or less see radical disinflation. But yeah, getting to that 2% as long as that shelter lag is still in, there will be an issue. But when we look at year over year data, compared to where things were a year ago, I think you're going to start seeing that shelter number, which is staying at seven to seven and a half right now. It had been saying it was at eight to eight and a half. I think it's going to start showing 4% in a few months. So that will bring the blended rate down quite a bit.

EICHER: Now all of that information is available in those government reports. And what I'm struck by David, I don't really understand why you're the only one who talks about this. I mean, I look at The New York Times I look at The Wall Street Journal. None of their PCE stories has anything about this overweighted or not overweighted but this overstated shelter number.

BAHNSEN: Well, I think you have to divide up into two categories the coverage, Nick. There's economic coverage, which I'd be more used to reading in the research community, in the economic community. It's talked about all the time. I mean, all of the reports that are sort of part of my daily feed of research, which includes very expensive institutional research, but also more common level. But then you're looking at mass media, where my own take on that is that The New York Times and Washington Post are well aware that it is not something people are going to easily digest or understand. And then if they wait a few months, it's going to be baked in. And they'd rather print it as this amazing job of Biden and economics to bring down this inflation, rather than explaining the lag effect now, and then it being anticlimactic later. I guess that might sound a little cynical on my part, but I do think that really large and experienced mainstream news operators are aware of what things they can cover that are going to cause their readers to have their eyes glaze over, and what things are not. And so I provide this nuance about the shelter lag, as far as the input into inflation data, I provide it to our people like world listeners, because I tried to be a little less condescending.

EICHER: Well, David, you mentioned last week that the chaos in the House of Representatives, by which we mean no speaker of the house, and no ability to take action was going to start to weigh on the confidence in the economy. And now they settled on someone does that mean that things are looking up?

BAHNSEN: Well, I'm really surprised at the fact of who they settled on. I think it speaks to the exhaustion that everybody had had with that process. And it really did significant damage to the Republican House. And I am sad to say, I will not be surprised at all, if this incident cost three or four seats next year. I think it did significant reputational damage around just the overall competence and seriousness and ability to do governance. But with that said, I really do think the speaker they landed on is a very heartfelt believer. He's someone I've spoken with at events before. And I'm hopeful that him not having a lot of connections and relationships and experience can help there be a clean slate to try to go in and get some things done and, and not be a total bomb thrower who gets a lot of interviews, but doesn't get a lot of things done. But then also not be a squishy compromiser. I mean there's a happy medium there to being effective, but also being principled and tough. And so it's very possible that we got a good speaker here. But a lot of it just speaks to the reality of electoral logic. When you have a four vote majority, there's things like this that are going to happen. And when you have a 20 vote or 30 vote majority, you have more of a cushion. And so this really comes down to the midterms of 2022. That's what caused this is that the house the red wave did not happen. And it caused the Republican House to be really in a kind of rudderless position.

EICHER: David Bunsen is founder managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bahnson group. You can keep up with David at his personal website. That is bahnsen.com You have to spell it right to get to the right place, B-a-h-n-s-e-n, bahnsen.com. You can find his weekly dividend cafe at dividend cafe.com. David, thanks so much. 

BAHNSEN: Great to be with you, Nick.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: Today is Monday, October 30th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Jenny Rough.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next, the WORLD History Book. This week, an international attempt to rescue three gray whales in Alaska. And fifty years ago, a prison break in Ireland that would become legend.

But first, a radio broadcast causes mass panic. Here’s WORLD Radio intern, Emma Perley.

EMMA PERLEY, INTERN: On October 30th, 1938, families across America tune in to listen to the dramatized version of H.G. Wells’s book, War of the Worlds.

AUDIO: I'm speaking from the roof of the broadcasting building, New York City. The bells you hear are ringing to warn people to evacuate the city as Martians approach.

The fake news bulletins describing a Martian attack, toxic gas, and chilling interviews with apparent survivors sound frighteningly real.

AUDIO: Now they're lifting their metal hands. This is the end now. Smoke comes out, black smoke drifting over the city.

While the drama was planned in advance, producing War of the Worlds is a frantic process. Narrator Orson Welles and his colleagues at the CBS Mercury Radio Theater work through the night to finalize the script in just a few days.

AUDIO: We men as men, we're finished.

Welles makes last minute edits before air-time, adding new elements and directing the crew as they rush around to comply with his demands.

AUDIO: We annihilated the world before your very ears and utterly destroyed the CBS. You will be relieved, I hope to learn that we didn't mean it. And that both institutions are still open for business.

The next morning, front page headlines accuse Welles of inciting mass panic. Listeners nationwide allegedly believe they are about to be thrust into interplanetary war. Here’s Welles in an interview with the press.

AUDIO: I know that almost everybody in radio would do almost anything to avert the kind of thing that has happened. Myself included. Radio is new and we are learning about the effect it has on people.

Over time, it is revealed that newspapers exaggerated the effect War of the Worlds actually had on listeners. The popularity of the broadcast catapults Orson Welles into Hollywood fame. He goes on to direct, produce, and star in the classic Citizen Cane.

Next, 50 years ago on Halloween, three Irish Republican Army prisoners escape from a Dublin prison by helicopter.

SOUND: [Helicopter and intro guitar]

Seamus Twomey, J.B. O’Hagen, and Kevin Mallon are captive in Mountjoy Prison. They were imprisoned for their roles in a bombing campaign. Conflict rages between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The IRA fights to free Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom but is rebuffed by the British military and those loyal to the crown. Audio here from prisoners who witnessed the helicopter heist.

AUDIO: Immediately the alarm was ringing and bouncing around the place. The helicopter just swooped in. And it turned and it came around and it kind of hovered. Just floated in, up the yard. And of course, bedlam broke out.

Armed IRA soldiers land the hijacked helicopter in the small prison yard. Twomey, O’Hagen, and Mallon army crawl to the aircraft in the confusion.

AUDIO: If he touched down, it was for a second or two. The three of them were in, in a flash.

The incident is a huge embarrassment to the Republic of Ireland government. The Wolfe Tones, an Irish rebel band, write a song about the infamous escape that tops the music charts in the Republic of Ireland.

MUSIC: Early one morning as the branchmen they were sleeping / A little helicopter flew across the sky / Down into the yard where some prisoners were walking / “Get ready for inspection” says the warder in the Joy / And its up like a bird and its over the city / “Three men are missing" I heard the warder cry / “Sure it must have been a bird that flew into the prison Or one of these new Ministers” says the warder in the joy ...

The Republic of Ireland government launches a massive manhunt for the fugitives and tightens security at Mountjoy Prison. While Mallon is quickly caught, O’Hagen lives on the run for two years until he is caught in 1975. And Twomey is not found until 1977.

And finally, on October 28th, 1988, the world watches as many attempt to rescue three grey whales stuck in the Alaskan ice.

AUDIO: For 20 days, the whales had survived by bobbing up and down, gasping for air, from a series of holes cut through the arctic ice by eskimos.

On October 7th, a local inuit hunter finds the whale pod trapped in an ice pack in the Beaufort Sea. Using a chainsaw, he attempts to cut holes for the whales to breathe.

SOUND: [Chainsaw, whales breaching]

As word spreads throughout the inuit community, local biologists visit the whales and their calf. Audio here from a wildlife biologist at the site.

AUDIO:  Someone put out a plea for help and it got picked up by the press. And now the world is watching.

Media, scientists, and the inuit community flood the site to help. Soon the rescue effort is dubbed Operation Breakthrough. The two mature whales are named Bonnet and Crossbeak, with a nine month old baby named Bone. The United States requests help from two Soviet Union icebreakers to clear a path. Audio here from Channel 7, WXYZ.

AUDIO: Putting aside their differences, using Russian icebreakers, flying both the American and Soviet flags, they smashed through the ice, rescuing one of nature’s most magnificent creatures, the whales.

Unfortunately, the calf dies on October 21st. But the others are finally freed one week later.

AUDIO: These two giant grey mammals, tasting the open seas, freedom—escaping the chilling grip of an arctic ice ridge and death that held them prisoners for almost three weeks. Tonight, scientists and eskimos alike are happy and thankful.

The plight of the whales inspired the 2012 feature length film, Big Miracle, starring Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski.

AUDIO: You have whales in trouble and you didn't call me? I didn't call you because there's nothing you can do. There's always something you can do.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Israel expands its ground operations in Gaza while the UN General Assembly calls for a ceasefire. We’ll talk with a foreign policy expert about what’s at stake. And, a trip to a bug festival in Virginia. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: And I’m Jenny Rough.

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: “I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.” —Romans chapter 16, verses 17 and 18

Go now in grace and peace.

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