The World and Everything in It - September 6, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The Biden administration has taken another step to advance LGBT rights at the expense of religious liberty. A small Christian college is standing up to fight.

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

Also today on the Monday Moneybeat: a disappointing jobs report—the final one before the end of a federal policy that some economists say creates incentive not to work.

Plus the WORLD History Book. Today, remembering September 11th.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, September 6th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

REICHARD: It’s time now for the news with Kristen Flavin.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, NEWS ANCHOR: Taliban blocks airlift while flights resume in Kabul » A ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs committee claims the Taliban is holding Americans hostage.

During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Congressman Michael McCaul said the Taliban prevented six airplanes filled with American citizens and their Afghan interpreters from leaving the country on Saturday.

MCCAUL: They are not clearing the airplanes to depart. They’ve sat at the airport for the last couple days, these planes, and they’re not allowed to leave. We know the reason why is because the Taliban wants something in exchange. This is really is turning into a hostage situation, where they’re not going to allow American citizens to leave until they get full recognition from the United States of America.

The chartered planes are at an airport in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. An Afghan official confirmed four planes had been grounded. But he claimed the passengers were Afghans, not Americans, and that they did not have passports or visas to leave the country.

The flights were headed for Qatar, but it was not immediately clear who chartered them.

SOUND: [Airplane landing, taxiing]

Meanwhile, a small number of commercial flights have resumed at Kabul’s international airport. All are flying domestic routes.

Taliban leaders continue to insist they will be more tolerant than they were during their last time in power. On Sunday, the education department issued a statement saying women could continue to attend university. But classes must be segregated by sex, or at least divided by a curtain so men and women cannot see each other. Female students are also required to wear a robe and face veil.

Cleanup continues in Louisiana » FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell urged Louisiana residents to be patient as cleanup efforts continue across the state.

CRISWELL: Hurricane Ida, she left a devastating path. Not only was it the fifth most powerful hurricane, but it impacted southern Louisiana as a Category 4 for hours. The road to recovery in that part of Louisiana is going to take a very long time. There’s a lot of devastation.

Hurricane Ida made landfall just over a week ago, destroying more than 22,000 power poles. The head of the region’s power company, Entergy, warned it could take weeks to restore electricity to residents of southern Louisiana.

Many parts of New Orleans also remain without power. But most customers in the city should be reconnected by Wednesday.

Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, said recovery efforts are going well. But he stressed the need for recovery measures to include mitigation for future storms. Cassidy encouraged his fellow Republicans to get behind the $1 trillion infrastructure bill championed by President Biden.

CASSIDY: I say, go down to Lafourche and Terrebonne Parish, the people who will not have electricity back until Sept. 29th, and tell them you’re going to vote against the bill, which hardens our grid, which gives coastal restoration dollars, which has flood mitigation, which will build levees and protect Louisiana and other states from natural disasters. Go to those parishes and tell them whatever cockamamee reason you have to vote no.

The president visited Louisiana on Friday. He will travel Tuesday to New York and New Jersey, which suffered record amounts of rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida.

The death toll from flooding in the Northeast rose to 50 over the weekend. At least four people are still missing.

Terror attack in New Zealand » A terror attack in New Zealand is prompting changes to the country’s immigration process. A 32-year-old native of Sri Lanka stabbed seven people in a grocery store Friday before police shot and killed him.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the man had been fighting deportation for immigration fraud.

ARDERN: At every turn, at every legal avenue that was available was utilised. And when it was no longer possible to legally have this person detained, that is when the police came with that constant monitoring.

The man spent nearly three years in jail before his release in July. Since then, armed police had tracked his every move. But Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said his visit to a grocery store did not seem suspicious.

COSTER: We have had no legal grounds to detain the subject. Monitoring his actions has been entirely dependent on the surveillance teams being able to maintain their cover.

Police arrested him in 2018 after discovering he had knives and videos made by Islamic State militants. He also expressed support online for terror attacks. Officials revoked his refugee status in 2019 but appeals allowed him to stay in the country.

Political coup in Guinea » The government of the West African nation of Guinea has apparently fallen in a coup. Members of the Guinean army say they are now in control.

SOUND: [Sound of gunfire]

Soldiers set up checkpoints and blocked roads leading into the capital, Conakry. Gunfire rang out over the city for hours. The army colonel at the head of the coup later appeared on state television to announce he had dissolved the constitution and the government.

SOUND: [Man speaking French]

But the Defense Ministry claimed forces loyal to the president repelled an attack on the presidential palace. It said the government remained secure.

A video of 83-year-old President Alpha Conde sitting with a soldier circulated widely on social media. It suggested he’d been captured but could not be independently verified.

Conde has ruled the country for more than a decade. He ran for a third term in office last year, claiming term limits did not apply to him. His reelection sparked violent street protests that left dozens dead.

I’m Kristen Flavin. Straight ahead: the fight for religious liberty on campus.

Plus, remembering the events of 9/11.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 6th of September, 2021. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

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

Today, a legal dispute between a small Christian college and the Biden Administration.

Conflicts between Christian organizations and LGBT groups intensified after a Supreme Court decision in 2020.

In Bostock v. Clayton County, a majority of six justices ruled that the word “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 no longer means only biological sex.

In the workplace, “sex” would now also mean sexual orientation and gender identity. Something not many imagined when Congress passed the law in the 1960s.

REICHARD: But a Supreme Court decision about word meanings within Title VII and the workplace would not remain within Title VII and the workplace.

Agencies are now using the decision to justify an across-the-board redefinition of the word “sex” to mean gender self-identification.

In March of this year, LGBT students sued the Department of Education, claiming they’d endured discrimination by 25 Christian colleges.

This, because the Christian colleges named in the lawsuit follow the biblical understanding of male and female and of historical marriage as between a man and a woman.

EICHER: And now another battle for Christian schools.

The day he took office, President Biden signed an executive order called “Protecting and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.”

What that meant in practical terms is that women’s dormitories and restrooms must be opened to biological males claiming gender dysphoria. In other words, men who identify as women.

REICHARD: The spaces must be opened up this way whether the women like it or not. And no matter that it violates the religious beliefs of religious institutions.

Noncompliance means fines up to six figures, along with punitive damages and attorney’s fees.

EICHER: One college is standing up to the Biden administration: The College of the Ozarks, a private, Christian liberal arts school of around 1,500 students in southwest Missouri.

The school was established in 1906. It’s one of 11 non-military, tuition-free colleges in the United States, in which students work in exchange for tuition.

And now Mary, we should disclose that you taught a semester there at College of the Ozarks. 

REICHARD: Right, full disclosure there. I did teach at College of the Ozarks.

Representing the school in this case is Alliance Defending Freedom lawyer Julie Blake. She describes the executive order resulted in a directive from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

BLAKE: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued this really a memorandum, a letter, they called it a directive, published it on their website, just a few weeks after President Biden took office. And the way our government works is that that's not where you're supposed to have major changes or legislation coming from. That's supposed to come from Congress, not from the signature of, you know, acting career employees, you know, buried in a federal agency. And even if they had the authority, which they don't, there are processes they have to follow.

And what else does the directive try to do?

BLAKE: The directive seeks both to compel and censor speech by the college, requiring use of students preferred pronouns as opposed to pronouns based on biological reality, requiring a variety of different kinds of speech and signs and writing changes to policies. The college can't express any of its traditional views, even preferring its policies. And at the same time, lots of other colleges would remain free to say, "Hey, we support the government and we love what the government's trying to make us do." That's discrimination on the basis of content and viewpoint and speech. And that is classically subject to the highest level of scrutiny by judges.

Aside from not following the Administrative Procedure Act, Blake rattled off five other counts in the complaint:

BLAKE: The government lacks any power under the Fair Housing Act to require this. That requiring girls to share private spaces with males is arbitrary and capricious. That the employee who signed this had no power to do so because it was an acting career employee as opposed to somebody appointed by the president and confirmed by Congress. That the First Amendment free speech clause protects the college from having its speech coerced and compelled. That free exercise of religion also protects the College from having to sacrifice its beliefs or face ruinous penalties from the government.

I contacted the Department of Housing and Urban Development for comment, to no avail. So I’ll summarize its position based upon file entries in lower court.

HUD officials say the memo it issued isn’t directed at College of the Ozarks and isn’t specific as to shared spaces, showers, and roommates. Nobody has yet filed a complaint against the school or with HUD, so school officials can’t show irreparable harm or the likelihood they can succeed going forward. So the government’s essential argument is this is at most a prospective problem, but one not in existence right now. Therefore, the school has no standing to sue.

A lower court dismissed the case after the school lost on those grounds: no harm has occurred, so there’s no injury to redress.

But Blake counters “where the threatened injury is real, immediate, and direct,” that confers enough standing to sue. That’s the argument of the school.

BLAKE: No law says that you have to have men in girls’ dorm rooms, in girls’ shower rooms, or even as their roommates. But that's exactly what the Department of Housing and Urban Development's trying to do. 

They claim it's required under federal housing law. We say it's not. They say they can issue it on their own just by putting it on their website. We say there are processes of Congress voting on things, and ongoing through public comment opportunities that they completely ignored.

I’d wondered how is it that the federal government can get involved in the housing policy of colleges, when the Bostock decision redefining “sex” was supposed to stay within the employment context.

BLAKE: This is part of a program across the Biden administration to take every federal civil rights law and infuse it with their new gender identity ideology...later... But the Supreme Court made very clear that it wasn't talking about private spaces or any other laws or any other contexts. And unfortunately, the Biden administration has taken that decision and run with it to impose a one size fits all mandate in every sphere of government that it has control over right now as one of its highest priorities. Which is why it's all the more important for schools like College of the Ozarks to stand for freedom now.

Oftentimes, the hook the government will use to make private organizations fall in line is to say, “you take federal funds? Then you must do what we say.” Blake says that’s not the case here.

BLAKE: None of this depends on accepting federal funds or making a deal with the government or agreeing to be subject to these rules. What the government has said, in it's very broad statement, is if you have housing in America, that you rent or sell to somebody, you have to do what we say. And what we say is that you have to open girls’ dorm rooms to males. And that's simply unprecedented.

She says the interests of one very small group of gender dysphoric individuals is being elevated above the safety of a much larger group— of women.

BLAKE: Essentially, it would seriously compromise the college's mission in its witness and you know, frankly, the safety and privacy interests of many young women who should not be forced to share private spaces with males.

The case is now on appeal in the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, which granted a request to expedite the case. A hearing is scheduled in November.

College of the Ozarks is asking for specific relief:

BLAKE: We are asking the court to order the government to not enforce this directive. And to recognize that the proper interpretation of federal housing law is to respect the rights of private religious educational institutions to speak freely and to have their religiously informed housing policies.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

NICK EICHER, HOST: The State of Maine has a reputation for its delicious seafood: crab, clam, oyster, and of course, lobstah. But last month, locals in Belfast, Maine, took delight in something a little more unexpected that turned up in the bay: a 25-foot rubber duck.

As one tourist put it to News Center Maine about the fowl surprise:

JUDY HERMAN: Who would expect to see a duck in the middle of the water here, yet, it works!

A reporter says its origins remain a mystery:

REPORTER: The duck appeared in the harbor on Saturday, and no one we talked to seems to know why it’s here.

Even the Harbor Master couldn’t offer an egg-splanation. She told the Bangor Daily News that the giant inflatable posed no navigational hazards, so it could stick around.

But those hoping to quack the case of where that giant ducky came from may be disappointed. It vanished from the harbor overnight on August 21, after just a week.

No word on where the duck may turn up next. I suspect that rather than making extensive travel plans, he’ll probably just wing it.

REICHARD: Ugh.

EICHER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

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, good to be with you, as always.

EICHER: Well, here we are in September—Labor Day today—the federal supplemental unemployment benefit ends and with it the disincentive for workers returning to work. Before we talk about that, though, I noted something you wrote last week, the government was due to release its August jobs report, how many net new jobs American employers filled in August, and you made the comment, before the report came out, it “should be good for some embarrassing media hysteria one way or another”—related to what the Federal Reserve may or may not do on its policy of quantitative easing, whether it would taper that down sooner rather than later.

Then I read the following headline in a prestigious financial newspaper—ready?

“Jobs report likely derails case for September Fed taper.”

Is that what you meant by “embarrassing media hysteria”?

BAHNSEN: Yes, it was and it was perfectly scripted.

There was no way the Fed was going to taper in September. It's absolutely absurd that anybody would have thought that was on the table after Chairman Powell's speech last week in Jackson Hole, the idea that he would come out with this big high profile speech that everyone's watching, and talk about December or even into January, and yet really, they were thinking that we're just going to shock everyone and do it in a couple of weeks. The Fed totally set the table for tapering being off about four months, then you did get this disappointing jobs number and they go, ‘Oh, well, I guess now the Fed can’t taper.’

And that's the type of programming I'm accustomed to at a lot of the mainstream financial media. But it's very important, I think, for investors and for more thoughtful observers of the economy to not get lured into the way that they operate—the way that they think. It's very sensationalized, and it builds things up of having economic importance that they don't have, and that can be very distortive in the way we understand the economy.

EICHER: To the substance of that August jobs report, though, it fell short of expectations by something like half a million jobs. Very disappointing.

BAHNSEN: Well, it was, in the sense, for a number of reasons, the internal data in the jobs report had a number of things that were somewhat surprising. I don't like the fact that the labor participation force is not picking up higher. Now it didn't go lower, but the reason the unemployment rate dropped to 5.2%, which is very low, is because they're not getting the recovery in the labor-participation force. And it looks to me as if that number, even now with such a significant job recovery post-pandemic, is going to settle about two percentage points lower than it was pre-pandemic.

And that is just simply not a good thing. And I'm not even really just referring to the economics of it. But this idea of this many people giving up and throwing in the towel. They are primarily, not exclusively, but primarily, these are men who are at an age that is pre-retirement that have decided, ‘Oh, forget it, it's too hard out there. There's just not enough jobs. There's other ways that we can go find ways to skirt by.’ There are things like that that I'm worried about that really speak more to the soul of society.

EICHER: I mentioned a moment ago the expiration of the supplemental federal jobless benefit. There’s a story making the rounds suggesting that maybe that expiration will not have that big an impact on labor-market recovery.

Wall Street Journal headline: “States that cut unemployment benefits saw limited impact on job growth.” It begins, “States that ended enhanced federal unemployment benefits early have so far seen about the same job growth as states that continued offering the pandemic-related extra aid, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis … .” It quoted high up in the story a University of Chicago economist who said, plainly, “If the question is, ‘Is UI the key thing that’s holding back the labor market recovery?’ The answer is no, definitely not, based on the available data.”

That seems completely counterintuitive, but there it is. It’s out there.

BAHNSEN: But it's also just completely untrue. The data is overwhelming, that in those states that had rejected at some point in time—some of them did it earlier than others—the federal supplement of unemployment insurance, that their trajectory of job data changed.

So what the Wall Street Journal piece did that was so illogical, is looking at an aggregated number as opposed to a change in trend.

And so that's what you're referring to, when you talk about the total jobs picture is what places got better and what places got worse after the third COVID relief bill, and then the subsequent activities from different states. And there is no question that where the tide was stemmed, it was in those states that rejected the federal supplement, and particularly the ones that did it earlier. Some of the ones that did it later, you've had very little time for data to sort of seep through.

That's another thing I want to be very clear about regarding September, we're not going to know anything in September. The Federal supplement just ends and so then the time period for someone to say, ‘Okay, I now no longer have this extra check. Now I have to go out and get a job,’ then they get it, then they show up either with or without having a continuing claim. There's a minimum of a month lag. So I think we're looking at November, till we start to see some data.

But it's counterintuitive for a reason. The idea that there is no difference in the incentives for people to find work, where people are being given an extra $1,200 a month to not work, which is the $300 a week from the Feds on top of what their state pays versus where they are is ridiculous.

Now the reason why the data is very different state by state and the magnitude of impact changes state by state is the state level unemployment benefit is different. So some states that pay lower unemployment insurance have a different impact than states that pay higher when combined with the federal, which was uniform. It was a universal amount from federal, but there's differing amounts in different states, in different industries, different job openings, different economic particulars.

So yes, there's going to be a lot of nuance state by state, but the data is overwhelming. And I've read it, probably 50 different sources, that the 25 states in aggregate that rejected the federal supplements had a change in trend relative to the other 25 states.

EICHER: David Bahnsen—financial analyst and adviser. He writes at dividendcafe.com. And that’s your Monday Moneybeat. Thanks David, appreciate it.

BAHNSEN: Thanks, as always, Nick.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything In It: The WORLD History Book.

Now, a change from our typical format as we remember the events of September 11th, 2001—20 years ago this coming Saturday.

Here’s senior correspondent Katie Gaultney with a vivid remembrance of that dark day.

KATIE GAULTNEY, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Primary election day in New York City, with several important races at stake—including the Democratic and Republican primaries for mayor.

BLOOMBERG: Morning, Mike Bloomberg, nice to see you…

But by the time polling stations opened at 6 a.m., hijackers—hellbent on creating terror—had already boarded a flight.

More terrorists waited at airports for their flights, preparing to rain death and destruction over the United States. What follows is an account of many of the tragic—and heroic—events that unfolded two decades ago.

8:14 a.m.—United Airlines Flight 175 takes off from Boston for Los Angeles. Nine crew members, 51 passengers, and five hijackers are on board.

8:19 a.m.—Another Boston to LA flight, American Airlines Flight 11, has already been airborne for 20 minutes. Crew members call in a hijacking in progress.

SOUND: American 11, are you trying to call?/ The cockpit is not answering their phone…

A passenger who likely tried to stop the attack has been stabbed to death. Aboard are 76 passengers, 11 crewmembers, and 5 hijackers.

8:20 a.m.—Just one minute after the distress call from Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77, en route to Los Angeles, takes off from Washington, D.C.

SOUND: American 77, climb and maintain flight level three-five-zero./ Three-three to oh-five, American 77.

Six crew members, 53 passengers, and five hijackers are on board.

8:24 a.m.—A hijacker intending to communicate with passengers mistakenly contacts air traffic control.

SOUND: Is that American 11 trying to call?/ We have some planes. Just stay quiet and we’ll be okay…

Minutes later, air traffic controllers in Boston alert the military.

8:42 a.m.—After a delay, San Francisco-bound United Airlines Flight 93 takes off at Newark, New Jersey. On board are 33 passengers, seven crew, and four hijackers.

8:46 a.m.—Flight 11 crashes into the World Trade Center’s North Tower, between floors 93 and 99.

SOUND: North Tower hit

Minutes later, terrorists hijack Flight 77.

8:50 a.m.—President George W. Bush is visiting a Sarasota, Fla. elementary school when an aide alerts him of the crash. They assume this is a tragic accident.

9 a.m.—Port Authority police order the evacuation of the entire World Trade Center complex. At the same time, a flight attendant aboard Flight 175 reports to ground personnel that a hijacking is underway.

SOUND: United 175 here. We have some problems over here right now. We may have a hijack over here, two of ‘em…

9:03 a.m.—Flight 175 crashes into the World Trade Center’s South Tower, making impact between floors 77 and 85.

SOUND: South Tower hit

9:05 a.m.—President Bush learns that a second plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.

9:28 a.m.—Terrorists hijack Flight 93.

9:30 a.m.—From that elementary school in Florida, President Bush addresses the nation.

BUSH: Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. Terrorism against our nation will not stand.

9:36 a.m.—Vice President Dick Cheney evacuates to a bunker beneath the White House.

9:37 a.m.—Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon. The crash and subsequent blaze kill all 64 on the plane and 125 on the ground.

SOUND: This is Gofer zero-six, it looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir (sirens)...

The crash marks the first significant foreign attack on Washington's government facilities since the British burned the city during the War of 1812.

9:42 a.m.—The FAA grounds all flights.

9:45 a.m.—Officials evacuate the White House and U.S. Capitol.

REPORTER: You can see the two towers, a huge explosion now, raining debris on all of us, we better get out of the way!

9:59 a.m.—After burning for nearly an hour, the South Tower collapses in just 10 seconds. More than 600 people in and around the building perish.

Meanwhile, aboard United Flight 93, passengers have decided to fight back, overpowering the terrorists in the cockpit. Some passengers are able to make calls in-flight to loved ones.

SOUND: Jules, this is Brian. On an airplane that’s been hijacked. If things don’t go well, and it’s not looking good, I absolutely love you…

10:03 a.m.—Flight 93 crashes in a field near Shanksville, Penn. All 44 on board die.

10:15 a.m.—The Pentagon's outer ring collapses. Those who built the Pentagon broke ground on the facility 60 years to the day before the 2001 attacks.

10:28 a.m.—The North Tower collapses after burning for just over 100 minutes.

SOUND: Screams as North Tower collapses

More than 1,600 die in and around the building.

11:02 a.m.—New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani orders the evacuation of Lower Manhattan.

The next few hours bring small glimmers of hope for rescuers: A group of 16 survivors emerged from a North Tower stairwell. First responders find precious few survivors in the rubble.

Then, at 5:20 p.m., 7 World Trade Center collapses—with no casualties—after burning for hours.

SOUND: 7 World Trade Center collapses

At 8:30 p.m., President Bush addresses the nation again, this time from the White House …

BUSH: These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong.

BUSH: None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world. Thank you. Good night. And God bless America.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Paying for prescriptions. Politicians of all stripes have offered to do that for you. Yet our medications remain so expensive. We’ll find out why.

And, Afghanistan. We’ll recommend some reading that helps place the current crisis into better context.

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: Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it! Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.

Go now in grace and peace.

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