3.23.26 The Supreme Court weighs what can be signed away, Washington’s scramble to ease oil pressure, and The Godfather’s enduring legacy

Good morning.

Can a plea agreement mandate medication and then try to block the right to appeal?

Only the most paramount government interest overcomes a fundamental right to refuse medical

treatment.

That's a head on legal docket.

Also, today the Monday money beat oil or an economic pain who's bearing the brunt,

economist David Bonson standing by.

Later, the world history book, The Crime Saga, The Changed Hollywood, The Godfather.

Leave it to God.

Take the canolli.

How the gritty American story of family violence and loyalty almost never made it to the big screen.

It's Monday, March 23rd.

This is The World and Everything in it from listener supported world radio.

I'm Mary Reichard.

And I'm Nick Einker.

Good morning.

Up next, Kent Covington with today's news.

President Trump has given Iran until tonight to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or else he

says the U.S. will obliterate Iranian power plants.

Trump issued the ultimatum Saturday saying strikes would begin with Iran's biggest power

plant first.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells NBC's meet the press that despite the threat, the

president has not given up on de-escalating the war.

They're not mutually exclusive.

Sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate.

The Iranian regime responded with threats of its own warning that if the U.S. hits,

its energy facilities Iran would completely seal the Strait and could attack energy infrastructure

across the region.

Means I'm NATO Secretary General Mark Roda says a coalition of 22 countries is preparing

to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.

I'm absolutely convinced that we will get this done together.

Actually, it's already being planned.

Trump has been particularly critical of NATO allies for not stepping in to help safeguard

commercial oil tankers against Iranian attacks.

One-fifth of the world's oil normally moves through the Strait, but Iranian forces

have largely shut it down in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli air strikes.

Iranian missiles over the weekend struck two communities in southern Israel.

The strikes left buildings shattered and dozens injured in dual attacks not far from

Israel's main nuclear research center.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says world leaders need to understand that

the Iranian regime, while weakened, remains a threat to the world.

They fired an intercontinental ballistic missile on the Egor Garcia.

That's 4,000 kilometers.

I've been warning all the time.

They have now the capacity to reach deep into Europe.

They already have fired on the European country, Cyprus.

They are putting everyone in their sights.

But the UK says the missile fired at the joint U.S. and British military base on the

Egor Garcia Island actually fell short.

That base is located in the Indian Ocean nearly 2,500 miles from Iran.

At airports across the United States, travelers are still waiting in grueling hours-long security

lines.

One traveler in Atlanta said he'd heard the news and wasn't surprised.

I've been aligned now for about an hour and 45 minutes.

Probably got an hour or more to go and I've been tracking it for the last several days.

No, I'm going.

I'm on my way to Las Vegas.

So I think I'm pretty well getting close to the end zone over here, so I think we're

good.

Long waits are due to TSA security staffing shortages amid the ongoing shutdown of the

Department of Homeland Security.

For DHS, it is the second shutdown in the matter of months.

Many employees said they'd had enough and quit, while many others are calling out sick

much more often.

And the drop administration is now deploying immigration and customs enforcement agents

to airports to assist short-handed TSA workers, Porter-Zard Tom Homan.

Worker will leave TSA and augment TSA where we are trained in security and be able to

do that.

And that hopefully will move the lines quicker.

TSA agents and many other DHS workers are being asked to work without pay for now.

They will receive back pay when Congress eventually funds the Department, but at the moment

there's no telling when that will happen.

One of those DHS agencies is FEMA, which is now deploying resources in Hawaii amid historic

flooding there.

The state is suffering its worst flooding in more than 20 years.

Heavy rains fell on soil that was already saturated by downpours from a storm a week ago.

Matthew Foster with the National Weather Service.

The good news is the water eventually just goes out to the ocean and it quits as a quick

time between, is we're just small islands, right?

So it quickly goes downstream out to the ocean and and receipts pretty quickly here.

So the type of flooding we get in Hawaii is more of your flash flooding.

But the damage is done.

Governor Josh Green said the cost of that storm damage could top a billion dollars.

Robert Mueller has died.

He was a Vietnam veteran who served as director of the FBI following 9-11, but many will

remember him best as the special counsel in the so-called Russia probe investigating

alleged ties between Donald Trump's 2016 campaign team and Russia.

His final report did not establish any criminal conspiracy.

President Trump had repeatedly criticized Mueller calling his investigation a politically

motivated witch hunt.

And the president reacted to Mueller's death on social media.

He said, quoting here, I'm glad he's dead.

He can no longer hurt innocent people."

Mueller's family said he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease four years ago.

He was 81 years old.

I'm Kent Cuffing-10 and straight ahead.

Should there be a safety valve for unjust sentences, that's ahead on legal docket, plus the

making of the Godfather?

This is The World and Everything in It.

It's The World and Everything in It for this 23rd day of March, 2026.

We're so glad you've joined us today.

Good morning.

I'm Mary Ryker.

And I'm Nick Eichert.

Time now for legal docket, and we begin with one unanimous opinion it came down on Friday.

It's a 9-0 decision in favor of a street preacher from Mississippi.

The court ruled that being convicted under a law one time does not mean you lose the

right to challenge that law in the future.

Here's the background.

Gabriel Olivier had been fined under a city rule requiring protesters and demonstrators

to stay in a designated area near a local amphitheater.

But Olivier said that space was too remote to reach people effectively.

So he went back to the sidewalk in front of the venue and got himself arrested.

The city said a prior Supreme Court president barred him from challenging that ordinance

at all.

But the high court said Olivier is not trying to undo his old conviction.

What he's trying to do is stop future enforcement of the ordinance so that he can return to

the amphitheater and preach without fear of another prosecution.

And during arguments in December, Justice Samuel Alito spelled out the practical problem

in plain English.

It doesn't seem as stretch of the underlying reasoning to say, no, you can't ever do that.

You're forever barred from engaging in what you think is protected first amendment activity

because you were previously convicted under this statute.

So now Olivier may go forward with the federal lawsuit aimed at the one thing he seeks.

The right to return to the amphitheater to preach without the threat of another prosecution.

All right, on now to argument in hunter versus the United States.

This is the first of two cases today.

Months and hunter pleaded guilty and federal court to aiding and abetting wire fraud.

As part of that plea deal, he gave up his right to appeal even before he knew the sentence

he would receive.

Later, after sentencing Hunter objected to one of the conditions of his supervised release

that he take mental health medications as prescribed by a doctor.

Hunter says that violates his constitutional right to refuse unwanted medical treatment.

The trial judge said Hunter could appeal, but the fifth circuit later said that waiver

in his plea deal had already given that right away.

So the question for the justices is simple.

When a defendant signs away his right to appeal does that also block him from challenging

a sentence condition, he says is unconstitutional.

Hunter's lawyer, Lisa Blatt, framed the case around principles of contract law.

All contracts are subject to defenses.

So appeal waivers are also subject to defenses and can be excused in more circumstances

than the two recognize below.

Her point is that, yes, plea agreements are contracts, but contracts have limits, defenses,

and exceptions.

Blatt said the fifth circuit's rule is so rigid, it would leave defendant stuck even with

plainly unlawful sentence conditions.

No appeal for sentences above the statutory maximum, based on race, religion, national

origin, tribal status, or peer vindictiveness.

No appeal for pregnancy bans, castration, or compelled church attendance either.

These scenarios are all real cases.

Then she tied it back to her client's situation.

Only the most paramount government interest overcomes the fundamental right to refuse medical

treatment.

She reiterated that her client was ordered to comply with medical treatment, even though

he had no demonstrated mental health condition tied to his crime.

Mrs. Clarence Thomas questioned her on a key premise.

Ms. Blatt, if you can waive constitutional rights or statutory rights, why can't you

waive these contractually rights that are statutory here?

You absolutely can waive the right to appeal, and there's a appeal agreement.

But the issue here is absent this plea agreement, which is a contract.

The defendant could just walk away.

Blatt's answer?

Yes.

One way of appeal rights, but not in a way that wipes out every contract defense when

the government wants strict enforcement.

She put this bluntly.

That's absurd when everyone from Elon Musk to billionaires to corporations to mom and

pops can assert contract defenses.

The government doesn't even tell you why this contract, unlike any other contract in

the entire universe, can't have a defense.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett acknowledged the appeal of the contract analogy for plea deals,

but she also noted that the lower courts have not been consistent in treating them as ordinary

contracts.

On the other side, though, the government argues that a deal is a deal.

Zoe Jacobi represented the United States, and she argued that waiving appeal just means

the trial court is the final decision-maker, and then she added a colorful hypothetical.

To be clear, an appeal waiver is not an agreement to receive an unlawful sentence.

You couldn't agree to receive trial by 12 Iran tanks.

That would be an unlawful bargain.

Justice Neil Gorsuch was not buying that.

What if the district court itself behaves unlawfully?

That segwayed into a sharp comment from Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

And tell what you're saying, which is if the judge uses impermissible race factors,

impermissible sex factors, religious factors, that can be weighed.

That's saying you're entering a contract that says if your judge is biased, if he doesn't

follow the Constitution, if he makes plain error judgments that are clear and undisputed,

there's no remedy for you.

Lawyer Blatt reinforced that idea with another hypothetical dealing with judges.

It's, I'm going to get this example out if there was a law that was passed that said

all judges must take antidepressants recommended by their physician.

I think you would find it stupidly unconstitutional and offensive.

I think we already have.

The practical question is whether appeal waivers are nearly absolute, or whether courts

must leave room to correct sentence conditions that cross a constitutional line.

All right, on to our last case.

We will hear argument this morning in case 24, 12, 38 Montgomery versus Caribbean transport.

This one arises from a terrible accident.

Sean Montgomery was parked in a tractor trailer on the side of the highway when another tractor

trailer slammed into his vehicle.

He suffered many injuries, including the loss of a leg.

Montgomery sued the driver, the trucking company, and also the freight broker who had arranged

the shipment.

CH Robinson.

Robinson is a freight broker who doesn't own trucks or employee drivers.

It matches shippers with motor carriers.

Montgomery says the broker was negligent in choosing an unsafe carrier.

But the broker says Congress already shielded companies like his from that kind of lawsuit.

He cited a federal deregulation law with the unwieldy name Federal Aviation Administration

Authorization Act.

In plain English, Congress told states, stay out of the trucking business when it comes

to prices, routes, and services.

But Congress also said states may still protect public safety.

So the question is whether this lawsuit is really about highway safety or whether it

is an end run around federal deregulation.

When Congress lawyer is former solicitor General Paul Clement, he argued for state law to

prevail.

And he put it this way, if this lawsuit cannot go forward, then a broker may help put

a dangerous truck on the road and still avoid responsibility.

While Congress favored economic deregulation, the last thing it wanted was safety deregulation.

Thus the question in this case boils down to whether the negligent hiring claim here

is with respect to motor vehicles.

Of course it is.

The whole point of the tort is to keep dangerous motor vehicles off of the road.

But the federal government is on the side of the broker.

It says the safety exception should be read more narrowly.

Here is assistant to the solicitor General Sopan Joshi.

Put it this way.

Suppose there were a rule that applied with respect to coffee, cream, and sugar.

And then an exception that applied only with respect to coffee.

You would naturally think that the exception does not apply with respect to cream and sugar,

even though that phrase and isolation might cause you to adopt the opposite view.

I think that's kind of what's going on here and that's why I think respondents reading

of the statute is the better one.

In other words, the government says this lawsuit is one step too far removed from the truck

itself.

But Clement for the injured man had a counter to that.

But the thing is, if you have one of these like McDonald's torts where the problem is

the piping hot coffee spilled in your lap, I would say that's a tort with respect to coffee.

And for the same reasons, this is a tort with respect to motor vehicles.

The broker's own lawyer pushed that point even harder.

Brokers arrange shipments, he says.

They do not drive trucks.

Congress assigned freight brokers a defined role to arrange for transportation of property

by connecting shippers with motor carriers.

Brokers lack sufficient connection to motor vehicles.

Brokers don't own, operate or control motor vehicles.

And therefore, a broker's connection to the motor vehicles is just too far removed to

fall within the safety exception.

Just as Brett Kavanaugh had a practical concern.

If tort liability extends to them, how are they going to assess and evaluate the safety

of drivers in a particular trucking company?

How are they going to figure out, do they have an alcohol drug issue?

How are they going to figure out English proficiency, which of course is a critical issue at the

current moment?

In the real world of how brokers operate, it's very difficult.

So I think it's going to be pretty easy for them to protect themselves by hiring quality

carriers.

Justice Alito brought a moment of levity in search of a clean legal theory, with Clement

happy to join in.

I came to the argument hoping you were going to give us some brilliant way of reconciling

these two provisions, other than just live with it, but I guess there is no such theory.

If there is, it is escaped me.

At bottom, the justice has to decide how far federal deregulation goes.

Does it protect brokers from negligent hiring suits?

Or does state safety law still reach them when bad choices put dangerous trucks on the road?

We'll know who prevails sometime before the end of June, and that's this week's Legal

Docket.

Additional support comes from the evangelistic film, Heaven, How I Got Here, with Stephen

Baldwin as the thief on the cross.

In 30 languages, open the Bible.org slash heaven.

From the Joshua program at St. Dundston's Academy in Virginia, a gap year shaping young

men through trades farming prayer, ST Dundston's Academy.org.

Coming up next on the world and everything in it, the Monday money beat.

From now to talk business markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor, David

Bonson.

David heads up the wealth management firm, the Bonson Group, and he is here now.

Good morning, David.

Good morning.

Good to be with you.

Well, David, early in the war, we talked about why it came to war and why economic sanctions

just didn't seem to be getting the job done.

I remember what you said.

You made the point that sanctions work best on countries that respond to normal market

pressures.

That doesn't apply to Iran.

It does apply to us.

It does apply to our allies, even the reluctant one.

So is there a risk, David, with Iran now using economic leverage against us in the

state of Hormuz, that the economic pain is landing faster on our side than the military

pain is landing on theirs?

Yeah, I think that there was a combination of things there.

And I think you're already seeing the fact that the way the country is interpreting the

efforts, you know, you always get a certain degree of span and so forth when these types

of things happen.

But in this case, I think most of what the administration has said is true.

There has been a pretty significant amount of military dominance.

And yet, the reason that I think the country seems mostly concerned or skeptical or unsupportive

is related to the economic pain or referring deal.

So when all said and done, there's a lot of data points that we can point to to talk

about success and prevailing and optimism for some of the military objectives.

But the straighter Hormuz is closed and oil is $98.

And that's really the bottom line as far as how our country interprets it and what our

appetite for economic pain maybe is.

Now I do believe that the complexity that you talked about a moment ago and sharing comments

I made a few weeks ago, I do think it's true that Iran is tough when market signals are

tough to work when people don't respond to normal economic incentives.

And a lot of it has to do with their Islamic regime not valuing self preservation.

But there's a limit to some of that too.

If one of the Israeli and U.S. objectives is to try to get an internal uprising within

the country, the theocratic regime of Iran may not value self preservation.

But there certainly are millions of people in Tehran who do.

And yet it's hard to see a path right now to that internal overcoming of the regime.

And so Iran feels that they can outlast us in the straighter Hormuz.

And then you get just a lot of military and tactical things that go into what they're

trying to do and what we're trying to do to combat it that I don't really know how

it plays out.

What I do know is that if someone had said oil would get up into the high 90s and stay

there now for two weeks as opposed to that first week that it was up down and it went

above 100 but came back to 80.

Now we've really, it was actually as volatile as the week is it was in equities, it wasn't

very volatile in oil prices, it's just stayed up there in between 95 and $100.

We're at a point here where this is starting to risk becoming economically very profound

for the United States.

Well David, there are reports from last week that Iran is letting at least some ships

through the strait maybe selectively, maybe not fully confirmed in every single case.

But if that is even partly true, does it suggest the leverage here is not total closure

so much as selective control deciding who gets access and who bears the cost and isn't

it kind of extraordinary after yet another week of uncontested war that Iran is calling

any shots at all?

Yeah, well it would be extraordinary and I'm not sure that it's untrue but I'm not

totally sure how true it is either because there's disputes about what ships have gotten

through and the Japan issue I think is not necessarily totally confirmed so I've read

different reports on it but certainly at the intent is for Iran to message that they

will out things for China, Russia, that also changes things too in terms of leverage and

what the United States is able to count on in terms of cooperation with other counterparties

and so if that is the case then we have to expect that to get a successful outcome in the

strait of Hormuz, the United States is going to have to put significant more resources

there into Hormuz.

Well David, the U.S. is also backing off efforts, namely backing off economic sanctions to

impede some Iranian oil already at sea, the hope there being that promoting greater

supply in the global oil market will ease this upward pressure on oil prices right now.

What does that tell you and isn't it an acknowledgement that market reality is forcing

a change in strategy on our part?

The sanctions that were presumed to be in effect for Iran exporting oil to other countries

and the United States is now saying all bets are off but that's a self-interest objective

with Iran they're obviously not going to respond to sanctions right now when they're

in the middle of a war with us but if you're talking about the other countries receiving

at this point the United States is saying the more oil out there the better we're not

going to impede global oil supply with the between 95 and 100.

So some of the different rules being suspended and policy objectives changing for a day

or a week or a month is to be expected when the entire objective is to maximize supply

so as to try to bring prices down.

The issue is that nothing is really working to bring prices down right now.

Well David before we wrap up today I do want to pivot to something you wrote about

in dividend cafe financial media are talking about the specter of contagion in private credit

the idea that bad loans outside the banking system could spill into something bigger.

In plain English David why do you think that comparison is overstated particularly when

people start invoking the great financial crisis of 2008?

Yeah you know Nick and dividend cafe on Friday I wanted to talk about the concern that

many in the financial media put out there as really a prevailing narrative that we might risk

this sort of contagion issue of various non-banked lenders which has become an over trillion

dollar business since the financial crisis I think it's a very healthy thing

in the economy investors doing a lot of private lending as opposed to all of that risk being embedded

in our commercial banking system and whether or not if some of these loans start to go bad

it will spread throughout the financial system and I think that right now there's not even really

a lot of proof that big amount of loans are going bad you always have a certain degree

of defaults there have been a couple of defaults they've been in the news lately but very very

very low percentage but even if that were to increase well people start talking about any

comparison in 2008 which has come up all the time since 2008 because it's a very sensationalistic

way to frame any story but 2008 was a particularly unique moment in that first of all the loans going

bad were connected to an asset class that everybody had which was housing and the loans going bad were

held in the banking system that everybody needed for not only the safe preservation of their own

deposits but whatever next loan is needed to keep the economy going small business loans more

mortgage loans that though if those banks were impaired then there'd be no lending and then

there'd be no economic activity etc so that was a pretty textbook definition of what we refer to

as a contagion effect in this case I believe that a couple loans may go bad and maybe more loans go bad

but it's very isolated into the non bank lenders the investors insurance companies pensions

but they're diversified it's a small portion of a portfolio and these are risk bearing investors

as opposed to a banking system with depositors that is not supposed to incur losses

and I think that it is being portrayed in a way that is very distorted of truth now we don't

know exactly where things will go I'm referring to where things are now and what the indications

are going forward if the facts change then my perspective would change but I generally encourage

people to resist narratives that are trying to bring back memories of certain events that are not

really analogous all right David Bonson founder managing partner and chief investment officer at the

Bonson group he writes at dividend cafe each week and frequently at world opinions David I hope

you have a great week thanks so much well thanks so much Nick

you

good morning this is the world and everything in it from listener supported world radio

I'm Mary Reichard and I'm Nick Eiker coming next the world history book more than 50 years after

its release March 24th 1972 the godfather remains one of the most influential films ever made

Francis Ford Coppola's movie reshaped Hollywood and redefined the gangster genre worlds max bells

now on the films place in American culture the godfather opened to success at the box office

but it was also a critical favorite earning three academy awards including best picture of 1972

Pauline Kale a legendary critic for the New Yorker magazine said if ever there was a great example

of how the best popular movies come out of a merger of commerce and art the godfather is it

I believe in America America has made my fortune and I raised my daughter in the American fashion

I gave her freedom but I thought her neighborhood desire a family the godfather is a story about

succession Coppola said that it's a movie about a man who must give his kingdom to one of his

three sons the oldest quick tempered sonny the middle son Fredo who is weak and double-minded

or the youngest Michael Michael is cool headed but is also the most adjusted to America

and the least likely to embrace the life of a crime boss he served in military during world war

two he's a patriot he doesn't need the dirty business of organized crime to make his way in the

world but the lot falls to him it's a movie that almost didn't get made because of pressure on

the inside and outside paramount executive Bob Evans and Coppola clashed over casting in budget

because the movie's 1940s setting made its sets and costumes more expensive paramount also

faced opposition from mobster Joseph Colombo who thought the movie might give Italians a bad name

Coppola here in the 2001 commentary so I was in very very deep trouble and I'm not even sure how

I survived to be honest through sheer determination the movie did come together with a budget of roughly

six million it's cast shown with the following stars Diane Keaton Al Pacino James Conne and Robert

Duval cinematographer Gordon Willis shot the godfather with warmth and richness a mark the

photographer left on other movies of the 1970s like Annie Hall and all the presidents men

I learned a lot from Gordon Gordon's concept of structure was you know very disciplined and I learned

that from him and I'll always be grateful and what to say of Nino Rodas lush score the melodies are

as unforgettable as the movie's images his compositions bind the epic together

the godfather's promise is similar to Shakespeare's King Lear and it's based on a pop novel by

Mario Puzzo who co-wrote the screenplay with Coppola it also introduced great lines into our

speech like taking it to the mattresses sleep with the fishes making someone an offer he can't refuse

even though gangster movies had been around a while this was a detailed window into Italian

American life some of which seems cliche now like when Clemensa is making spaghetti sauce

and you fry some garlic Francis Ford Coppola had made a name for himself as the co-writer of

Patton for which he won an Academy Award in 1970 he also was close friends with Steven Spielberg and

George Lucas the so-called movie brats this generation of younger directors brought change to

the movies in the 60s the old producers were stepping away in the popularity of television made

the movie business more fragile by 1972 the shine of the golden age of Hollywood had worn off

and the stories of new Hollywood as it was called took on gritty or subject matter violence

became more realistic and an aimlessness marked American movies something learned from the

French movies of the 50s and 60s but the godfather had a tie to old Hollywood because Marlon

Brando gave an iconic performance as the dawn of the family this shift in the movie business is

reflected in one of the movies most powerful themes but also was appropriate at the time it came

out what was the America that we knew in 1972 and how was it about to change how do you embrace

a new way while also standing fast in time-tested tradition interestingly this was a main theme in

1971's fiddler on the roof too you spent time with your family sure I do good this amount it

doesn't spend time with this family could never be a real man the old dawn has a code and a love for

family but the new generation embodied a Michael is slipped back corporate colder and more violent

he is unforgiving and loveless but it's the changing world that is a timeless theme the leopard

from 1963 inspired this theme in the godfather it's a movie about a patriarch in 1860's Sicily

watching a middle-class revolution replace his old aristocratic world Don Corleone echoes some of

the old world traditions the legacy of the godfather expanded the form of movies it was a sprawling

story with many characters but also deep character development it has the feel of a novel with

generations and marriages and deaths and side characters and subplots perhaps that's why it's

still a part of our culture 54 years later that's this week's world history book I'm Max Bells

tomorrow is showdown over military AI should the Pentagon control it or should the company that

built it and the story of a teenage friendship built around a lie there is a clinical name for it

that and more tomorrow I'm Nick Eiker 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 records the words of Jesus he said therefore what is the kingdom

of god like and to what shall I compare it it is like a grain of mustard seed then a man took

and sowed in his garden and it grew and it became a tree and the birds of the air made nests in

its branches and again he said to what shall I compare the kingdom of god it is like leaven that a

woman took and hid in three measures of flower until it was all leavened versus 18 through 21

of Luke 13 go now in grace and peace