The World and Everything in It - October 4, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Lawyers receive their education in law schools. The American Bar Association controls which law schools receive accreditation. We’ll talk about why that matters to you.

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

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat. We’ll talk about the moderate and progressive impasse in Washington.

Plus, the WORLD History Book. Today, how cells from a woman who died are still healing people 70 years after her death.

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden acknowledges frustration as $3.5T spending push appears to stall » President Biden acknowledged frustration over the weekend as Democrats strain to rescue a scaled-back version of his $3.5 trillion government-overhaul plan.

BIDEN: Everybody’s frustrated. It’s part of being in government.

Biden heard there on the White House lawn as he departed for a stay at his home in Wilmington, Delaware.

The president went to Capitol Hill on Friday for a private meeting with House Democrats. That was partly to boost the morale of the disjointed party caucus.

Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio Cortez told CBS’ Face the Nation ...

CORTEZ: I believe that the entire party is committed to delivering for this country, and I know that this caucus, the House Democratic Caucus, is entirely focused on delivering for this country.

But it is not entirely united on Biden’s spending plan. A small number of Democrats in both chambers are still balking at that $3.5 trillion price tag. And in the evenly divided Senate, party leaders can’t afford to lose even a single vote.

With that in mind, Biden is reportedly now discussing a scaled down package in the ballpark of $2 trillion.

In the meantime, progressives in the House continue to hold up a vote on a roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill as they push for action on the president’s larger spending plan.

GOP governors set to visit Texas-Mexico border amid crisis » Ten GOP governors will travel to the U.S. border in Texas this week to get a firsthand look at the challenges border officials face.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday to address the ongoing crisis.

Abbott says his state, particularly border communities, are paying a heavy price for a porous border with increases in crime and drug trafficking that put a strain on local resources.

And the mayor of Rio Grande City, Texas, Joel Villareal, said over the weekend ...

VILLAREAL: Our hearts go out to these individuals who are risking their lives to come to the United States of America and pursue the American dream. However, it is just not sustainable.

Government officials say another 60,000 people, many of them Haitain, are headed toward the U.S. border. The Biden administration recently released more than 12,000 Haitain migrants inside the United States with orders to appear later in an immgration court. That after publicly declaring that migrants who show up at the border would be turned away.

Lt. Charles Olivarez with the Texas Dept. of Public safety said public health is one of the concerns state officials have about releasing thousands of people north of the border.

OLIVAREZ: We don’t know what process is taking place. We don’t know what vetting process. We don’t know as far as any COVID procedures, and as well as any other viruses or illnesses that these individuals may have that are being released.

Border agents encountered more than 200,000 migrants at the southern border in the month of August alone.

China flies warplanes south of Taiwan » The Chinese military flew 16 warplanes over waters south of Taiwan on Sunday. That after Beijing sent nearly 40 warplanes into the area on Friday and again on Saturday.

The United States expressed concern about what it called Beijing’s “provocative military action” near the self-governing island China claims as its territory.

State Department spokesman Ned Price warned that China’s military activity near Taiwan risks miscalculation and undermines regional peace and stability.

Price said “We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan,” the statement said.

He added that the United States, Taiwan’s biggest supplier of arms, would continue to help the government maintain its defense.

U.K. extends truck driver visa program amid shortages » The British government has extended an emergency visa program for truck drivers. That as a shortage of drivers has caused major supply chain problems in the U.K. as the Christmas shopping season nears.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters ...

JOHNSON: We are going to see a period in which the global economy, particularly the U.K. economy because of the speed of our recovery, is sucking in demand very fast.

The government said temporary visas for nearly 5,000 foreign truck drivers it hopes to recruit will run into 2022 instead of expiring on Christmas Eve.

The shortage of drivers has caused fuel shortages as deliveries to gas stations are delayed.

The government is also deploying about 200 military personnel beginning today to help to relieve fuel supply shortages.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: liberal influences over legal education.

Plus, a milestone in medical research.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Monday, October 4th, 2021 and we’re glad you’ve come along with us for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

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

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court is back in action. This being the first Monday in October when the high court always begins a new term.

EICHER: It’s the 232nd year of operation for the court.

And as has been our practice—we’ll touch on every single oral argument the justices hear. That way if you follow along, you’ll know a little something about everything!

REICHARD: Right and that’ll start next Monday after I’ve had time to analyze the cases.

The court announced a difference in how it’ll conduct oral arguments. All last term, arguments were by phone, because of Covid. But today through at least December, the court will hear oral arguments in person, in the courtroom, with the justices, lawyers, essential personnel, and the press.

EICHER: Right, but not open to the public. Not yet.

And another change is the argument procedure.

Phone arguments were quite orderly. The Chief Justice called on each associate justice by name with a dedicated time for that justice to ask questions.

REICHARD: And that was great because we got to hear from Justice Clarence Thomas. He once went ten years without talking from the bench! He told C-Span back in 2009 why he didn’t like the open-floor, free-for-all method of justices interrupting the lawyers, taking up a lot of the time.

THOMAS: I think it's an opportunity for the advocate, the lawyers to fill in the blanks, to make their case to point out things, perhaps that they were not covered in the briefs or to emphasize things or to respond to some concerns, that sort of thing. In other words, to flesh out the case a little better. I think it's hard to have a conversation when nobody's listening. When you can't complete sentences or answers. Perhaps that's a southern thing, I don't know.

EICHER: So now it’ll be a hybrid. Not quite a southern thing, not quite a northern thing, maybe we’ll call it a midwestern thing: a little formality and a little free-for-all.

REICHARD: I like it: Each justice will ask questions in order of seniority, with some time for the old style, free-flowing argument after that that we’re all used to.

Alright, on to today’s topic: The American Bar Association and its role in legal education.

A listener alerted me to some problems in the way law schools are run. He sent me a blog post by Mark Pulliam, who practiced law for 30 years. He writes about the ABA’s influence over law schools. Pulliam was a member of the ABA for a while and also wrote for the ABA Journal. His blog is called Misrule of Law: A Chronicle of Legal and Judicial Mischief. He’s also contributing editor for City Journal.

To start, I asked why law school education should even matter to the average person.

PULLIAM: Well, the legal profession is a very important force in our society. The lawyers have influence, both as lawyers, and then oftentimes they gravitate and become legislators. They get appointed to be judges. And if we are training instead of a cross section of competent and ethical lawyers, we're training a cadre of social justice warriors, well, those social justice warriors someday may be legislators, they may be judges, and even lawyers.

Pulliam gave a recent example of how this bias manifested:

PULLIAM: So recently, for instance, we have this group of people arrested for trespassing at the Capitol on January 6. Not a single law firm in America has stepped forward and volunteered to represent any of these people pro bono. Whereas when we had a bunch of terrorists holed up in Guantanamo, the big law firms nationwide, particularly Wall Street firms, were lined up to provide pro bono legal representation. 

So when we have a very influential, very powerful industry, like the legal profession has become, and it's all skewed in one direction, it upsets the political balance in the United States, and is not healthy for our republic.

I asked the ABA to respond to Pulliam’s points. No one agreed to talk to me. One of its media relations people emailed me ABA talking points and the transcript of a meeting.

Neither document countered what Pulliam told me.

The ABA person then referred me to someone at Law School Transparency, who called Pulliam a “political hack” and “unserious.” But the transparency department was unwilling to talk on-air.

So, back to basics. What are law schools supposed to be doing? Again, Pulliam:

PULLIAM: Law schools are supposed to be training people to be competent and ethical lawyers. And that's all that they're supposed to be doing. Just like medical schools train people to be doctors.

Then how is the ABA involved in educating future lawyers?

PULLIAM: The important thing is people attend law schools in order to be able to take a bar examination and practice law. And in virtually all of the 50 states, the state supreme courts in those states, which are in charge of regulating the practice of law, require people to have graduated from a law school accredited by the ABA in order to sit for the bar exam. And conversely, since law school has become very expensive, the US Department of Education only permits federally insured student loans to be used at schools accredited by the ABA. 

So even though there is no legal requirement that all schools be accredited, as a practical matter, the ABA has exclusive control over which schools are accredited, and only graduates of those schools can take the bar and only students at those schools can receive federal student loans.

Pulliam said legal education changed over the last few decades. Used to be, faculty members actually practiced law before teaching law.

PULLIAM: And the curriculum was very much devoted to teaching nuts and bolts with the goal of having graduates be able to pass the bar examination and go directly into practicing law. Since then, for a variety of reasons, law schools have become similar to graduate schools in the humanities. A lot of the curriculum is devoted to theoretical subjects like you'd expect to see in a sociology department. Now the ABA is not primarily responsible for these changes, you know, these changes are a result of a lot of influences, and it's a complicated subject. But what the ABA has done is certainly steered the boat in that direction.

Pulliam said the way the ABA has done that is to change the formula used to accedit schools. In the past, accreditors assessed things like whether the school had sufficient library materials and whether the faculty is competent to educate students.

PULLIAM: Now, social justice and other types of considerations have crept into their mission. And they are no longer concerned with just quality assurance. And now they are requiring that the student body be diverse and inclusive, that now even the faculty has to be diverse and inclusive, that certain types of social justice courses must be taught in order to prepare students to practice presumably in a diverse world. 

But people don't hire lawyers to be diverse. People hire lawyers to solve their problems and to represent them in court. So I think these accreditation standards are really being used to turn law schools into even more of this leftist agenda than they would otherwise have.

The ABA’s media person criticized one of Pulliam’s blog pieces, saying he got it wrong about who has final say over setting standards for law schools.

This person noted that the Department of Education recognizes one part of the ABA as sole accreditor of American law schools that grant the Juris Doctorate degree. It’s called the Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. Pulliam didn’t make that distinction in one of his blogposts.

Pulliam says it’s true and he could have made that delineation more clearly. Still, he says the people on that council are very much insiders.

PULLIAM: So the idea that there's some legal distinction or distinction in terms of viewpoint between this counsel and the section, or the overall point of view of the ABA, I think is illusory, that they have to maintain a certain degree of separateness in order to conform to the requirements of the Department of Education. And they do that basically in name only. That a group of people elected by members of this section that are run by the officers of the section who are nominated by people chosen by this section, for all intents and purposes is just a subset of this section.

If he and others are pointing out these problems, why aren’t things at the ABA changing? Pulliam says nobody much pays attention to what's going on in law schools, except:

PULLIAM: ...except for people who are associated in some way with the practice of law. And the practice of law, like, you know, the media, like big tech, like Hollywood, has sort of become a one dimensional caricature of the left. Even, this is true even in large law firms, and I practiced for 30 years in a large law firm. So the general public doesn't pay attention to this. 

Ultimately, the only people that can do anything about this are state Supreme Courts, because they're the ones that gave the ABA power to regulate law schools in this fashion. And state supreme courts are not known for, you know, trying to keep their finger on the pulse of the electorate. They're sort of in an ivory tower of their own.

So nothing will change unless state Supreme Courts, the Department of Education, or Congress step in to change it.

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

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

EICHER: Exactly one week ago, we were pretty sure—well, I was pretty sure—we’d be able to tie a bow around the political situation on Capitol Hill and make a more complete assessment. David, would you have predicted what we have instead?

BAHNSEN: Oh, I probably wouldn't have predicted that we wouldn't be there. But to the extent that my prediction has been that there is a much greater divide between progressives and moderates in the Democratic Party, and there was sort of this wishful thinking, by the left, that that divide would all of a sudden be ignored to get some, you know, multi trillion dollar legislation passed, I think was really naive. And where exactly it ends up going, you know, the seconds, minutes, even, you know, potentially weeks ahead, is unknown.

But I'm not surprised that Speaker Pelosi broke her promise about putting the infrastructure bill up for a vote. I'm a bit surprised, but not significantly so that the progressives are holding the line and the White House appears to be more concerned with pacifying the progressives than then the moderates. And then I'm certainly not surprised that in the end, I suspect we will get a reconciliation bill. And it's going to be a fraction of what was originally threatened, if you want to use the verb I would use, or promised, if you want to use the verb they would use.

EICHER: So how do you assess where we stand? Are we on the brink of some kind of breakdown, some kind of political breakdown?

BAHNSEN: Well, yeah, I mean, from my vantage point, I'd prefer that none of this reconciliation bill happen at all. Now, a total breakdown, where there's no bill, would really mean the end of the Biden presidency. I mean, that's the stuff that makes for a failed presidency, from the vantage point of his constituents over his base. The idea of having such a massive legislative failure would be really I think, insurmountable. They pretty much have to get something done in the end.

But I agree that it is not something I'm sitting around lamenting that they're not spending trillions of dollars they don't have and not raising taxes to extract from the growth areas of the economy trillions of dollars. But do I think they will end up having a more miniaturized version of both in the end? I do. So you know, there's a lot of commentary here politically, economically, governmentally—elections do have consequences.

And if I could just make one kind of side comment - particularly if they end up not having a reconciliation bill, in its final form, able to be voted on for a long time, which I think is very, very possible. You know, even in these kind of final minutes of things that we're dealing with right now. They're only talking about getting a framework that is good, and that the moderates give enough in a framework that allows progressives to say in good faith, they'll go vote for the infrastructure bill. They're not going to have the final details of the reconciliation bill anytime soon.

And I got to say that this makes that governor's race in Virginia, one of the most significant political races in American history, and I am not prone to melodrama, and sensationalistic comments. But the reason I say it is there's no question that race would become a sort of litmus test for the temperature of the American people around some of the big progressive agenda. And any voter rejection of such would very likely be enough to scare some of the moderates into an entirely different posture.

EICHER: Real fast before we go, let’s take our eyes off Washington and to the markets more generally and say, apart from the tax-and-spend debates, what was the big story we might’ve missed from last week?

BAHNSEN: You know, Nick, going into Friday morning, the market was down over 1,000 points on the week and then ended up just net net being a really kind of another humdrum week.

But the news that Merck had an unbelievably successful stage three clinical trial on its oral, viral therapeutic, antiviral, therapeutic, that reduced hospitalizations and mortalities by 50%. This is the game changer. So you know, there was a lot of optimism last week or in the energy and financials even as the overall market had other sectors down. As interest rates went up a little bit, I think you need interest rates to go higher to reflect some form of growth in the economy.

But then the other comment I would make that is not directly related to the overall market. But I don't know how it couldn't be considered one of the biggest economic stories of the week is the energy issue of natural gas, hitting one point in the week level, what hadn't hit in 10 years, complete and total shortage of natural gas in Europe and much of Asia, and the United States not being in the position that it ought to be to produce enough and export enough to meet this demand. It's a lost opportunity and growth, it's a lost opportunity for jobs. It's a lost opportunity for environmentalism, because these are absolutely cleaner fields being burned and less carbon emitted.

So I think supply and demand is a law of nature. And we are seeing it play out: Demand is on the increase in supply is not there to meet it, and it's pushing prices higher. So I want to keep my eyes on that story closely because I think there are a lot of people in places they can't talk about it in a microphone, admitting right now that our posture of being anti production is a really really big mistake.

EICHER: Alright, in case you missed it, our live program last week in Minnesota, I can’t tell you how many people came up to me and told me how much they appreciate hearing you each week, David. In fact, during the recording, we were taking listener questions and comments, and we included this one, an audience member stood up and said, you know, I hope your contract with David Bahnsen is a long-term contract. I hope he’s locked in for the long run. [laughs]

And I said I’d make sure you hear that!

BAHNSEN: Yes, I mean, I hope you didn't tell them what the contract is paying me for this! But the—

[laughs top secret]

—the good news is that not only is no contract needed, I'm not going anywhere. I really enjoy doing it. And I've said before I have a real heart for this particular listening audience. And so thank you for those encouraging and kind words and I intend to keep doing this for a long time to come, Nick.

EICHER: I know that’s gonna be music to a lot of ears. It is to mine. Appreciate you very much David Bahnsen, financial analyst and adviser. He writes at dividendcafe.com. David, grateful as always.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday October 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. Next up: The WORLD History Book. Today, a farewell to a Silicon Valley icon, the debut of a mainstay musical, and human cells that just won’t quit. Here’s senior correspondent Katie Gaultney.

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: A Maryland woman died 70 years ago of cancer. But her cells lived on. Trillions of them.

Henrietta Lacks had complained for years of a pain in her abdomen that felt like a knot. Doctors dismissed her. Eventually, Lacks—a black woman—received quality medical care from Johns Hopkins University. That was one of the few leading hospitals serving African Americans.

Her doctor found something: a strange tumor he described as looking like “grape jelly.” Johns Hopkins scientist George Gey studied it and noted its unusual characteristics. A video for Ted-Ed explains:

TED-ED: Some of its cells just kept dividing, and dividing, and dividing. When individual cells died, generations of copies took their place, and thrived!

Scientists had tried to achieve those results in the lab before—keeping cell lines alive—but even the best samples always died out after a few days. Gey named the cell line “HeLa,” after its source, Henrietta Lacks.

Sadly, Lacks died of cervical cancer on October 4, 1951, at age 31—just a few months after they biopsied that tumor. But her so-called “immortal cells” continued to play an important role in medical research. Jonas Salk used HeLa cells in the development of the polio vaccine.

A 2010 book and 2017 HBO movie raised HeLa’s public profile. The family never consented to the harvesting of Lacks’ cells. Some family members wanted compensation. Others were concerned for Henrietta’s privacy. Ultimately, her family reached an agreement with the National Institutes of Health to have more control over access to Lacks’ DNA sequencing data. A relative spoke to NBC News:

NBC: You can’t help but be proud of what’s been done. So it’s like okay, something bad happened, but so much good has come from it.

From science to music.

SONG: “Phantom of the Opera,” Original London Cast

It’s been 35 years since Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera haunted the theater scene for the first time. It opened in London’s West End on October 9, 1986.

As the longest-running show in Broadway history, Phantom’s plot is well known: A masked musical genius lurks in the shadows of the Paris Opera House and becomes obsessed with a young soprano.

SONG: “Music of the Night,” Original London Cast

Theater critics are often put off by a torrent of publicity, but they largely hailed Lloyd Webber’s much-anticipated new musical as indisputably entertaining.

[Masquerade]

That original production ran in the West End for nearly 14,000 performances, and over 10,000 performances on Broadway. Worldwide receipts total over $6 billion.

We opened with the death of a medical marvel; and we’ll close with the passing of a tech titan. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died 10 years ago, on October 5, 2011.

But before he was the brains behind Apple and Pixar, he was the adopted son of Northern California couple Paul and Clara Jobs. He didn’t fit in with kids his age, so the classroom was a slog for the young Jobs. But, his schooling connected him with an older classmate, Steve Wozniak, with whom he would later found personal computer company Apple.

Jobs dropped out of college, drawn to the hippie lifestyle. His old friend Woz steered him toward the emerging field of personal computers.

JOBS: We showed it to our friends and they all wanted one. We were busy making these computers for our friends by hand…

They attracted investors, and eventually their garage tinkering turned them into millionaires. When Jobs was just 25, his net worth was $200 million.

Decades of more innovation and money—and boardroom clashes—followed. Jobs rode business highs, like founding cutting-edge animation outlet Pixar, and business lows, like his ouster from Apple. Talking to 60 Minutes, Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson described the entrepreneur’s sometimes prickly persona.

ISAACSON: He could be very, very mean to people at times, and whether it was to a waitress in a restaurant or a guy who stayed up all night coding, he could just really go at them and say, “You’re doing this all wrong, it’s horrible!”

Jobs started a family, and eventually returned in 1996 to Apple, where he would begin the i-era—iTunes, iPhoto, iPod, iPhone...

JOBS: This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone...

For all of his lightning-speed technologies, health woes slowed him down. Speaking at Stanford University’s commencement in 2005, Jobs reflected on his first bout with cancer, and how it reframed his view of life and death.

JOBS: Death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

He died of cancer at age 56 at his Palo Alto home.

SONG: Apple “Think Different” commercial music

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: digital currencies. We’ll tell you why some governments are planning to get into Bitcoin-style crypto.

And, Emily Whitten has the Classic Book of the Month for October.

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: as God’s holy and beloved chosen ones—put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.