Power Line

John Yoo hosts this week where there is so much free trade in ideas that you'd need a 1,000% tariff to slow it down. Which the U.S. Court of Intenational Trade attempted to do for about six hours, during which time the 3WHH panel chews up the ruling and spits it out like a bad piece of Icelandic cod. (Which happens to be where Steve, now dubbed as the "International Man of No-Mystery" happens to be at the moment, which is why this episode comes with more than the usual amount of viking jokes and Norse epic poetry.) Anyway, the gang predicts this issue is likely to be another win for Trump when the dust settles.But first the gang also ponders whether Trump is overdoing it with his attack on Harvard. Is it possible to overdo the attack on Harvard? You'll have to give a listen to this ad-free episode to find out.

Lucretia hosts this week's episode, and puts Steve and John through their paces, challenging both to judge Trump's winning streak (John isn't so sure), plus more mixed signals from the Supreme Court, which posted a 2 - 1 record this week. The group also ponders whether and how Congress should now step up on the Biden health cover up scandal, and notice that Congress indeed has explicit constitutional power under the 25th Amendment to pass legislation to make sure that something lilke the Biden coverup never happens again.But then we get to the main event: John Yoo's Top Five Legal Rules that everyone should know. Steve is threatening to next week to give his Top Five reasons why a Certain Statute That Cannot Be Uttered here is the key to everything!And we are happy to report that John survived another turn on "Outnumbered" on Fox News.

One of Lucretia's favorite epithets is "that's the dumbest idea," so we decided to put her on the spot and demand a list of "Lucretia's Top Five Dumbest Ideas" for this episode, but not before a thorough dissection of the issues involved with Thursday's Supreme Court oral argument about the conjunction of birthright citizenship and the plague of nationwide injunctions against executive branch actions by a single judge out in the hinterlands somewhere. You can tell the New York Times is worried, because they ran a major feature on Thursday about how the thesis that birthright citizenship might not have a solid foundation in the 14th Amendment is a "fringe theory." And yet here we are. Listen in for a reference to how this Supreme Court issue resembles the rebel alliance against the Evil Empire in Star Wars.Next week: John Yoo's five axioms of Supreme Court jurisprudence. One of them involves a certains statute that cannot be named on this podcast.

We're up a day early with this special emergency edition of the 3WHH because it isn't every millennium when you get an American Pope. With John Yoo hosting this week we hold ecumenical court on what to think about an American Pope who displays some progressive political sympathies, but is a math major and an Augustinian, which are more promising indications. We offer a few things to watch for as this papacy unfolds.Next up: what to make of Trump's foreign policy, especially in light of the firing of NSA Mike Waltz. John is confused (so what else is new?), and once again Steve and Lucretia have to sort him out about how foreign policy analysis ought to begin, with the first step being, throw out all your academic IR theories! Meanwhile, the title for today's episode arises from a joke in the middle of this topic. (You'll just have to listen to find out what it is, and if you don't like it, blame Richard Samuelson!)Finally, we use the latest disgrace at Columbia to judge whether colleges are starting to shape up or not, and why we want the Trump Administration to keep up the pressure.

Lucretia hosts this week as the Three Musketeers are back together again, taking on Trump at the 100 Day mark, the latest in lawfare, the dismal Canadian election, whose solution John Yoo suggests is straight up imperial conquest—why make Canada the 51st state when we can make it a territory to be exploited like Puerto Rico and Greenland? We're so back that Lucretia even revives some good old fashioned lookism in this episode!We close with a few thoughts on the passing of David Horowitz, whose central lesson has still not penetrated the Vichycons who don't understand the metaphysical meaning of Trump.Exit music this week from our pal Steve Tootle o Cosigner, who is a faithful listener to this show.

Friday was cap and gown day for Steve at Pepperdine's commencement for the School of Public Policy class of 2025, while John Yoo is on the road somewhere at an undisclosed location, so Steve and Lucretia kick around a couple of seemingly unrelated stories about the Amish (the ultimate opt-out community) and the latest Supreme Court argument involving human nature and the right of parents to opt-out from public school nihilism.And then as a chang of pace we offer Steve's recent conversation with energy journalist extraordinaire Robert Bryce (whose Substack is very much worth following). Bryce always has a way of explaining the often eyes-glaze-over numbers of the energy world, but in this interview extending himself into a one-man DOGE, revealing who is the number-one leftist advocacy group fattening at the federal funding trough. 

Another whirlwird week of controversies that exceeded our bandwidth to keep up (or at least to compress into an hour), but John Yoo, this week's host, leads us in revisiting the question of "birthright citizenship" under the 14th Amendment, which the Supreme Court has rather unusually agreed to take up in May—surprisingly late for such and important oral argument. We take note of the growing number of scholars who think the current conventional wisdom is not a slam dunk at all! Apparently at least four Juctices agree.From there we discuss whether Trump's attack on Harvard is correctly calibrated, with Steve, in a rare moment, being more extreme than Lucretia on this issue. The Harvard controversy elides into a discussion of whether conservatives ought to be openly emulating the deep political strategy of Antonio Gramsci, as the Wall Street Journal pondered on Thursday. There is a lot of dissent on this point from "Vichy conservatives" who seem willing to continue losing slowly to the left.Finally, John can't help himself, and baits Steve and Lucretia on whether, on this 250th anniversary of the "shots heard round the world" at Lexington and Concord this week in 1775 really justified revolution against British rule. Lucretia makes quick work of this provocation, and a hush fell over the virtual studio.

John Yoo is back this week, bringing the 3WHH up to full strength again after last week's astonishingly congenial episode, which can mean only one thing—not even high tariffs, which this week's host (Steve) vainly tried to impose on ths discussion—could stop a vigorous free trade in ideas. After our discussion of where the tariff matter stands as of the end of this week, we turn our focus to the week's continuing legal and constitutional developments of the Trump juggernaut, most especially his heretofore neglected instruction to regulatory agencies to review and eliminate any and all rules and regulations that might now be considered unconstitutional in light of several Supreme Court opinions over the last few years that have started to curtail the reach and power of the administrative state. Finally, we try out a slightly new ending for this episode, with topical exit music designed in part to annoy Lucretia. Mission accomplished!

The 3WHH crew is down a glass this week because John Yoo is down with a bug and unable to join us—or was he afraid of subjecting himself to Lucretia, host for this week's episode. With fear, trembling, and trepidation Steve barved the peril with all the aplomb of the Black Knight in Monty Python, and yet by the end of this episode still ahd all four limbs attached! Lucretia's fancy whisky must have mellowed her, as this surprisingly convivial episode found remarkable harmony about the defects of the Democrat-media complex, and why it is just as debilitating to Democrats' fortunes as the state of California is. Also, was Obama overrated, underated, or just lucky?There was some divergence about tariffs, and we bet listeners can guess about how this split played out. And if you can't guess, then there's only one way to end the suspense.

As if to put an exclamation point to the crazy story of the week about the Trump national security team adding a hostile journalist to their Signal group chat about bombing Houthi and the Blowups, Steve accidentally texted the Zoom link to this week's taping to John Eastman (who was otherwise pre-occupied).In any case, after reviewing the completely out of whack signal-to-noise ratio of Signalgate, and the latest machinations in the lawfare against Trump, we take up as our main subject the question of whether the burst of enthusiasm among a few liberal thinkers to build stuff again—like liberalism used to in the New Deal—has much prospect of success. As Steve notes, Ezra Klein has called for "supply-side progressivism," but notes that the newfangled "abundance liberals" don't have a napkin or a curve, and if you don't have a napkin or a curve, it's just sparkling neoliberalism. Needless to say, John is mostly oblivious, and Lucretia is unimpressed. But maybe the movement can start with making their own blue hats, "Make Liberalism Great Again!"  Of course, the acronym this generates sounds like a mumble, but isn't another mumble a perfect fit for Democrats right now?

Trump does more consequential things in a day that most presidents do in a month, so we may need to measure his tenure in office in dog years. It must certainly seem like dog days for the left, which is lying prostrate on the ground much of the time, panting and out of breath, gnawing on a bare bone.After ticking through a number of happy stories this week—the end of DEI at Berkeley; Greenpeace getting nicked for $667 million dollars, Columbia University capitulating to Trump—we get down the the week's new frontiers of lawfare. Is this moment a "constitutional crisis," as the left claims, or is it a long overdue moment of constitutional challenge, with the aim being the restoration of the proper dimensions and functions of our republic?We marhc brisky through four aspects of the issue, including nationwide injunctions, oral orders from the bench, the autopen question for a president (Biden) who was on autopilot for four years, and Trump's retaliation against private law firms that allowed themselves to be adjuncts to the Democratic Party. All this, and a discussion of what we think is the first-ever judicial opinion rendered by video, by Ninth Circuit Judge Lawrence Van Dyke, in a gun case.

The only truly functioning high-speed rail in America today is the Trump Train, and not even the prospect of a 200% tariff on the core commodity of this podcast—single malt scotch whiskies—can dampen the 180-proof spirits of Lucretia, host of this week's episode.But we still manage to get in some disagreements about how to understand what is going on, especially with the Ukraine War endgame. In fact, we got John Yoo to out himself as the OGNC ("original gangsta neo-con") on the question of whether American foreign policy has been overly dominated by Wilsonian internationalism for the last century, or whether it has been more realist. John was responding to my two Substack articles (here and here) on different aspects how idealism and realism play out in the Ukraine matter, disliking both. Lucretia responded with a great harumph.There was much less harumphing and more huzzahing for the humiliation and confusion of the Democrats this week, culminating in the Dem surrender over the budget continuing resolution. About the confusion of federal judges (this is putting the matter charitably) trying to block some of Trump's moves, John sees hope for optimism that these roadblocks will be overcome, while debunking the claim that Trump is causing a "constitutional crisis." (Link coming when his latest article goes live.) Steve merely longs for the good old days of Watergate.

The whole gang is finally back together behind the bar this week, with John Yoo in the host chair skillfully leading our unruly gang in a round-robin three-subject format that we're alternating this year.Steve leads off wondering if Gavin Newsom, and Senate Democrats, are at last having their "Sister Souljah" moment about the transgender millstone around their neck, though Steve points out that Democrats will have great difficulty pulling this off, and lays down two additional markers to judge whether Democrats will really make a serious move to the center. The underlying thesis is that the success of a political realignment is not merely changing your own party and assembling a new majority coalition, as Trump has largely accomplished, but the extent to which it compels the opposition party to change some of its core positions, as Democrats had to do after three landslide losses to Reagan and Bush in the 1980s, and the Labour Party had to do after Thatcher kept crushing them in England at the same time.Lucretia then flags for us James Piereson's New Criterion article out Friday, "Too Many Democrats," and discuss whether faithfulness to the original intent of the Pendleton Act that set up a supposedly "neutral" civil service requires mass firings of Democrats in the bureaucracy, as well as voters waking up to the destructive incompetence of Democrat-run cities. And this leads to John's closing segment, drawing on his Fox News article up this morning, "Supreme Court's USAID move has a surprise benefit for Trump," in which ahe argues the Supreme Court's ruling mid-week on disbursement of AID funds was not the defeat people first thought. And we also debate just how to think about Justice Amy Coney Barrett's concurrence in this decision, about which our gang is divided. 

Why let our frenemies at the Commentary podcast (frenemies since they dissed the sacred McRib recently) have all the fun with their emergency podcasts: after today's errant Supreme Court rulings, it was necessary for the 3WHH bartenders —well two of us at least—to jump to our mics to express our outrage, but also to celebrate briefly Trump's tour de force speech before Congress last night. And not to mention the second installment of our conversation with Richard Epstein, this time on his slim, commendable, and highly readable short book, How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution.So sit back and enjoy your midweek dram of neat single malt with us.

John Yoo is away this week, so the 3WHH has brought in a 180-proof guest in John's place—the great Richard Epstein, who speaks at an average rate of 125 words a minute, with occasional gusts of 200 words per minute. We discuss two of his many extraordinary books, the first being his 1992 title Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws, which is newly salient in the aftermath of recent Supreme Court decisions like the Harvard/UNC case. Is it time to repeal (or substantially amend) the Civil Rights Act of 1964?In part two of our conversation, which we will release midweek, we take up his shorter book How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (only 137 pages, which is Richard writes before breakfast most days). While Lucretia and I concentrate on large philosophical currents that drove the progressive counter-revolution against the American Founding, Richard lays out some of the specific step-by-step erosions of the rule of law that are central to the saga.But as Lucretia and I began our taping mid-day Friday we caught the news that the newest front in the Ukraine-Russia War had suddenly broken out in . . . the Oval Office, so we share a few preliminary thoughts on what it all means.

Our long-running intramural argument on this podcast over the Ukraine War has become just like the Ukraine War itself—lots of casualties on both sides, but very little movement from week to week. But is Trump actually on the cusp of a breakout? There's one thing Trump did this week that is surely causing Putin to wipe the smile off his face, and no one seems to have figured it out. It's all part of Trump's Great Reset. There is more unanimity amongst the 3WHH bartenders about Gaza, and once again Trump's seemingly outrageous or whimsical ideas of making Gaza into Atlantic City doesn't just move the Overton Window in the Middle East—it remodels the whole structure. Forget the two-state solution.Finally, we have a moment of silence for the passing of the inventor of the McRib and chicken nuggets. John Yoo is going into 40 days of mourning.

With Lucretia hosting both the episode and the bar this week (with three different whiskies just for herself), we manage to keep John Yoo from excessive gloating about the Eagles win in the Super Bowl by distracting him with his favorite subject—executive power, about which he seldom thinks there can be excessive use. But maybe we found some limits this time?The intensifying pace of President Trump's exertions of executive power look to be the most serious attempt to contain spending, reorganize the executive branch, and discipline Congress since Nixon in 1973, and we know how that ended. We also give three cheers and host a glass in celebration of Vice President Vance's throwdown at the Munich Security Conference. And it will probably come as no surprise that we even talk about the Constitution, and manage the rare feat of discussing the EOA without mentioning a Certain Statute that we are not allowed to mention in John's presence.

We're only 19 days into Trump's term, but it seems like 19 months have passed already since January 20. When Alexander Hamilton wrote of "energy in the executive," he had no idea that a real estate tycoon would become the greatest example of this understanding of the presidency. This week's episode reviews five of Trump's biggest fights that are interrelated in ways that could rebalance out constitutional order in ways conservatives have hoped beyond hope for decades might be possible. Trump's challenge to birthright citizenship is forcing a long overdue debate on the issue along with a challenge to district judges issuing nationwide injunctions; his freezing of spending revives the issue of presidential power to impound funds Congress has appropriated; and his firing of civil servants and termed appointees to federal boards and commissions will force a reconsideration of the old Humphrey's Executor case that a wide spectrum of scholar believe was wrongly decided.Along the way we get in some pop culture references to Star Trek and The Sporanos; the required defense of the McRib from all comers, and some additional closing observations on the "vibe shift" Trump has set in motion on DEI and related culture war issues.

This wide-ranging, round-robin format episode begins with celebrating the end of "Dry January" (which we, um, didn't much observe), mockery of Bernie Sanders' obsession with "onesies," a brief account of a Steve roadtrip to Villanova University, and a declaration of war against the Commentary podcast. (It's serious: it involves McRibs.) After we clear away this opening frivolity, we get down to serious business. Lucretia is in high dudgeon about the Catholic bishops behaving just the way they did in the 1980s—like lapdogs for the left—which generated reflections on theology, federal grant restrictions, J.D. Vance's dialectical skill, and some reasons for optimism for the future of both the Catholic Church and the world as a whole.John casts his spotlight on what we saw in the contentious confirmation hearings for Kash Patel, RFK, Jr, and Tulsi Gabbard. There was rare agreement and sharp disagreement (our usual mode) about aspects of these appointments. Exit bumper music from our pal, the historian Steve Tootle, who doubles as the singer/songwriter for Cosigner; "No Hour Is Mine" sounds a bit like what professors think after class.

The 3WHH bartenders raise their glasses high for the first 100 hours of Trump II, which bid to replace FDR's famous "Hundred Days" for breathtaking executive action. You'd think that this is Trump's first term, and metaphysically, Steve argues, it is. In just the way we've come to expect of Trump in all things, he may have turned the usual presidential cycle on its head. Even John, champion of executive power, is impressed. And one more miracle: he actually gets rare praise from Lucretia for his Newsweek article concluding than Biden's pardons were much worse than Trump's blanket pardons or all the J6 protesters. From there we get to the main event, a three-part discussion of a single issue—in this case free speech and how to understand the First Amendment correctly. Steve argues back to first principles, in which the freedom of conscience and thus free expression was grounded in reason, that is, free speech was essential to deliberation about right and wrong, and how we should be governed. By nearly imperceptible degrees, in the 20th century the protection of "free expression" was re-grounded in moral skepticism (if not nihilism), which is why nude dancing and F-bombs on t-shirts became "protected speech." This is not progress.From there we move on to wondering if the time has come to revisit the libel standard of New York Times v. Sullivan, which has enabled our mainstream media to behave with increasing recklessness. And we think: Yes! Yes it is.And along the way, some digressions into Animal House, Spongebob Squarepants, and other cultural totems. And we depart briefly from our new proprietary bumper music from Cosigner to use a very topical old tune (from lefties!), "Immigration Man." 

Nothing "jejune" about this edition, except perhaps for the first-ever use of "jejune" in a podcast, but it is the perfect term to describe Joe Biden's "farewell address," which, aside from its jejune content, is a most welcome sound, since he will be gone in about another 48 hours, never to be heard from again one hopes.This week we take up three topics—one from each of the bartenders: Behold, President Biden amended the Constitution on Friday—all by himself! Aside from the obvious absurdity and low comedy of it, what does it tell us about the state of leftist presumption? Special counsel Jack Smith released his magnum opus, which seems more of a parvum opus if not an opusculum (ask your nearest Latin geek), Finally, Biden's farewell address—and presidential farewell addresses in general—was our third topic (summary: it was absolutely Biden's opusculum). Once again we have custom proprietary exit bumper music from our pal Steve Tootle and his indie band Cosigner. 

With this episode the Three Whisky Happy Hour emigrates into its very own identity on Ricochet and Steve's new group Substack, "Political Questions," but not to worry—the old Power Line Show will live on in its old format as an interview show. The 3WHH, meanwhile, is rebooting with some new formats. We'll be doing some show with a single-subject format; on some we'll do a round robin of hot topics and reflections on currtent news items, and we'll even have some guests from time to time, as well as emergency shows when somethingbig happens—or we get a new single malt in whose virtues we just have to share.And having completed our emigration to a new logo and format, it seemed only logical that we'd take up as our primary focus this week the issue of immigration, with an attempt at an orderly procession through the key aspects of the matter: How much is too much? Should we have an immigration pause? What's up with the H1-B visa controversy anyway? How should skills-based immigration be done, and should we move to some kind of point- or auction system to regulate immigration.And finally the big one: what about birthright citizenship? We throw down pretty hard on this issue, and our three bartenders nearly get into a brawl about several of these questions. So don't think alone when you can drink it all in with us!

Since so many of our fellow conservative podcasts are taking the holidays off, we decided to do another special mid-week edition to observe the new year, and gear up for some changes. Last year's end of year show featured some low-probability but plausible predictions for 2024 (inspired by the late Wall Street guru Byron Weins' annual practice, which was often right), and unlike other shows that never track prediction accuracy (like the McLaughlin Group, which had a terrible record once someone checked), we decided to do a scorecard. Steve was 0 for 6; John was 5 for 8 (depending on how you score partial credit); Lucretia didn't make any new year's predictions, but pointed out that ALL of her mid-year predictions came true, especially J.D. Vance for running mate.We offered a few new low-probabilty predictions for 2025, but you'll have to listen to get them. Steve offers one of his as a teaser: some time in 2025 an elite or major university (could be a state flagship) will fire their president and senior administrators, and bring in a team to "clean house," which will mean closing whole departments and programs that teach anti-Semitic ideology, and eliminating faculty positions attached to these poisonous programs.From there we resume our unfinished argment from last week about discrimination and the 14th Amendment, and come to some unsatisfactory conclusions.Now the news: We're taking this weekend off from our usual Saturday show, and won't be back until January 11 or so. We're going to be re-tooling the podcast with some format changes. Stay tuned for details as they become available!

Our final podcast of 2024 looks back on the top story and bottom story of the year, and you won't be surprised to see some symmetries in our answers.But then we move on to the main event—a question from a listener (initials RW) about whether the 14th Amendment, rightly understood, actually permits the federal government to outlaw private discimination. We go several rounds (but not really enough rounds) about aspects of this issue before realizing after we finished that we didn't reach a verdict. Perhaps we'll return to it in our first episode of 2025. The title for this week's episode is taken from Steve's nomination for the slogan of the year, which comes from a Twitter person who responded to the UN demanding that Americans give up meat to fight climate change with the phrase: "they can osculate my fundamental orifice!" You'll just have to listen to the end to get the translation. Announcement: We'll be back on January 1 with another special holiday midweek episode that will introduce some format changes, a review of our predictions from last year (guess who had the best record), and a fresh round of predictions for 2025 that will likely be mostly wrong.

We were going to take up the transcendent matters appropriate for the climax of Advent, but the headlines won't let us! The dam started breaking this week about Joe Biden's unfitness for office, which, as the Wall Street Journal reported, began during the 2020 campaign. Just who has been president for the last four years? And aside from the perfidy of the complacent and compliant (to Democrats) news media, should there be a serious congressional investigation into what is clearly one of the greatest coverups in American history. Biden's senior staff and cabinet should have to answer uncomfortable questions about this, and perhaps face charges for decisions and actions they may not have had legal authority to make.We also review the drama of the last 72 hours over the Continuing Resolution to avoid a "government shutdown," with Steve arguing the outcome was a minor victory for conservatives, but needs to be followed up with more serious steps in the new Congress.From there, we note the important of Fani Willis getting her fanny handed to her, and then take up briefly some listener reaction to our mid-week show, especially Hadley Arkes's long note about what we missed about the Commerce Clause and the nearly forgotten case of Hammer v. Dagenhart. We ran out of time for a complete consideration, so next week!

This special mid-week holiday edition of the 3WHH makes up for the lost ground over the weekend, when schedules prevented the bar from opening at any of the usual meet-up times. Steve, this week's host, and Lucretia grill John Yoo about his latest article, "Globalization's Challenge to American Constitutionalism," published at the sparkling new website of the Civitas Institute, where Steve also appears for the first time today on a separate subject, "The Future of Conservatism in America."While Steve and Lucretia completely agree with John about the insidious threat of "internationalism" to our constitutional soverignty, they detect some tergiversations on John's part that seem to offer—or so they say—too many concessions to progressive jurisprudence. From there discussion turns to the drone epidemic, with Steve offering two complementary theories about what is going on (neither of which involve foreign actors, stealth sky ships, or aliens), and Lucretia offers her drama review for Broadway's newest stage sensation, who happens to wear judicial robes in her regular job. A dilemma indeed. And about that ABC News libel settlement with Trump, more theories to chew over. Today the Wall Street Journal reports that "Disney's legal team was concerned that given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, appealing a negative district court ruling could have jeopardized the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan ruling that protects the media in defamation cases." This was Steve's hypothesis about the settlement.

So your three bartenders weren't able to assembly even virtually this week for our usual format—John is away on a clandestine mission stalking the elusive McRib, while Steve and Lucretia are also laregly indisposed.But fear not! We decided that in lieu of our usual snappy brickbats, we'd share with our insatiable fans the talks we gave a couple weeks back at the University of Florence about the American election. It was great fun and the student questions were great, but we're just offering here our introductory remarks.This a short episode—barely over 20 minutes. But never fear: we plan to be back with our usual format mid week, probably Wednesday or Thursday.

The Three Whisky Happy Hour gang is finally all back in the U.S. after weeks of galavanting overseas, and boy is there a lot to catch up on. Among our topics this week are the signs and wonders that the Age of Trump is fully established; the Biden pardons; the farcical Penny trial; whether World War III is indeed under way, and the attempted coup in Korea, about which our resident Korea expert (and resident Korean!) John Yoo has lots of thoughts.Along the way some fresh new insults are thrown around, with John leveling the ultimate low blow against Steve—calling him a Hegelian! Thems is fightin' words!

Two-thirds of the 3WHH crew were back home in the states for Thanksgiving, while Steve is still galavanting around coastal Italy, defiling the reputation of this podcast by drinking Negronis at happy hour—a tergiversation that this week's host, John Yoo, does not let pass without censure.In any case, by the miracle of Zoom we managed to assemble for a holiday weekend special edition, where Steve and Lucretia push back on the emerging narrative that Trump's election victory was so narrow that it doesn't deserve to be considered a landslide. On surface statistics, perhaps this has some merit, but even if this is conceded it should at least be considered an earthquake. Steve and Lucretia make the case, noting that, among other things, gthe media treated Bill Clinton's 43% of the vote in 1992 as a "mandate" for sweeping change, and that Trump's popular vote total is close to Ronald Reagan's in 1980, which was universally considered a landslide. The equally important question is whether this election portends a genuine political realignment—the elusive beast of political scientists. Some evidence suggests it might be, but realignments always require successive elections to confirm.We also spend some time pondering the prospects for the Musk-Ramaswamy DOGE (Dept. of Government Efficiency) project, and mull over the last few Trump cabinet picks.

This week's special episode comes from Tuscany, where the Three Whisky Happy Hour gang put aside their whisky glasses and took up tasting chinati at Castello de Cacchiano between academic conferences in Milan and Florence. So for this week only, we become the Three Chianti Happy hour, though we had many more than three! We had to record this episode in two installments, as breakfast interrupted our first segment, and then returning only after a long day in the countryside sampling yet more chianti. We aren't taking our mind of what is going on back in the states with the Trump transition, however, and begin with an extended discussion of the proposal to use the recess appointments clause of the Constitution so that Trump can get around Senate opposition or delay for his senior cabinet level appointments. Then we briefly dig a grave for the International Criminal Court following its outrageous arrest warrent for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.And finaly we have a discussion and aide memoire of sorts from our extended panel discussion Friday with Adrian Vermeule about his controversial book Common Good Constitutionalism. (You can find Steve's review of the matter over on the Political Questions Substack.)

This is going to be unlike any previous edition of the Three Whisky Happy Hour, because it was literally recorded during happy hour at the annual meeting of the Federalist Society in Washington, in a corner of the mass reception hall where John Yoo and I invited all comers to swing by to offer a few comments. This completely unstructured (but therefore highly authentic!) conversation included Ilya Shaprio and Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute, the esteemed Roger Pilon, emeritus of the Cato Institute, our old pal Hadley Arkes, prominent appellate attorney Eric Jaffa, and Utah lawyer (and loyal 3WHH listener) Jacob Minas. And it goes pretty much how you might expect a wandering happy hour conversation to go.I had hoped that we'd have John Yoo outnumbered and outgunned on the natural law question, but several of our guests didn't do their part! But we also did some election talk, so there is something for everyone.

The Power Line single-malt whisky bar is still trying to process Donald Trump's decisive victory in the election, and this episode reflecting on the scene offers up a few fresh (we hope) takeaways from the result that we haven't yet seen elsewhere in the media, and then we turn our attention to some key priorities for the second Trump Administation starting in January. In such a target-rich environment, what should Trump aim at first on Day One in January: our ideologically corrupt universities, the Justice Department, ending the war in Ukraine and Gaza? And what should Congress do with the slim GOP majorities? Steve has some ideas for new committees, as well as a budget test.Also, does it seem like Trump is president already (since no one believes Biden is really president any longer)? We notice that several foreign governments are rushing to get on Trump's good side before January, which seems prudent.

For our many regular listeners who were not able to join us last night for our live taping of this special mid-week episode that included Scott Johnson and (very late) John Hinderaker (hence the "Five Whisky Happy Hour"), much of what we talked about has been overtaken by subsequent vote counts and other results. But we did have a number of questions and issues that should still be of interest even after the dust settles today, such as why the polls were wrong again, what's wrong with the exit polls, why the legacy media looks increasingly mediocre as well as biased, why the big winner of this election cycle—and an important harbinger for the future—is Joe Rogan. On the Power Line main site for this episode over-eager listeners will be able to listen to a bonus "overtime" recording where we brought in a number of listeners to comment widely on a number of things, some of them beyond just the election.

In our last episode before the election, the 3WHH bartenders pour a stiff one in honor of the end of recycling, since were back to pure garbage now, though Biden getting in his last chomps of a baby was a special bonus to end the week.We spend most of this episode reflecting on the final week of the campaign, arguing about what kind of vote fraud may or may not take place, and offering our final predictions for both the election result and the aftermath. You think it's over Tuesday! Think again. As the great Bluto Blutarsky asked so poignantly, Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

So it was Hitler week for Democrats, who are still fuming over being cooked by Donald Trump in a McDonald's deep fryer, and covering up their indigestion with an E.coli outbreak. Behind the public polls catching up with the terrible body language of Democrats and the news media lies a growing recognition that Kamala's brat summer has gone splat as election day approaches. The 3WHH team covers this, a few of the Senate races, the underrated scandal of suppressed science about gender bending medicine that appeared in the (checks notes) New York Times! What next—a confession that DEI is a counter-productive waste of time and resources? Oh, wait—that was last week.

The news out over the weekend that Israel's attack plans against Iran have been leaked by our government and/or European governments ought to be a major scandal and cause for a serious criminal investigation, but in fact the real story to be followed may be much worse: is anyone asking whether Iran has penetrated our government—either with spies inside our intelligence agencies, or agents of influence in the State Department or even the White House? This seemed like a good excuse to revisit the groundbreaking research on Soviet penetration and influence on American policy during the Cold War, and whether a similar thing is happening now with regard to Iran. This episode recalls the work of M. Stanton Evans on this topic, which he published in his book Stalin's Secret Agents (with Herb Rommerstein) and explained in an excerpt from a talk he gave about the book 20 years ago. I think listeners will spot the parallel, and agree with the conclusion—time for recriminations!

The Three Whisky gang were together in person live late today, the culmination of an intensive three-day project that we describe at the opening segment of the show. Fortunately John Yoo's office was well-supplied with Maker's Mark and Glenlivet 15, so everything is right with the world. After the opening overture, we get down to business, pondering the "body language" of the body politic as revealed by the grinding presidential campaign that suggests a Trump triumph, and then noting the growing signs of an effective backlash against wokery, starting with the New York Times dumping on DEI. None of us had that on our Bingo card! Listen to the end and you'll hear each of us give our betting market odds on the election. Guess who is the most optimistic and the most cautious!

Lucretia hosts this week's episode, which takes up exactly where we left off last week's episode—with the topic of vote fraud and whether Democrats might (ahem) steal the election from Trump. Without revisiting the weirdness and irregularities of the 2020 result distorted by the Covind-induced election rules changes, we go over in some detail what changes have been made over the last four years, including serious preparations by Republicans and the Trump campaign not be caught flat-footed by any "irregularities" in the vote result.Have Republicans ever been any good at this? Actually the contested election in Florida in 2000 gives some reason for optimism, as John (who was there) and Steve reflect. And Steve reminds us of some old history, such as Jimmy Carter warning back in 2005 that mail-in balloting was a recipt for vote fraud, along the way debunking claims—subsequently bolstered by academic political science—that mail voting doesn't increase turnout overall or by minorites. Still sound advice, and Republicans ought to force Democrats into the uncomfortable position of repudiating Saint Jimmy.We take a couple of digressions, first into John's inaugural experience with the new McDonald's chicken Big Mac (two thumbs up!), and then some explanation of why the public polls and campaign polls are diverging (with all good news for Trump).The episode culminates with a Lucretia soliloquy on how the central principle of voting ought to be meaningful citizenship, not making voting as convenient as a trip to 7-11.

October is not even one week along and we've already had enough "October surprises" to span about five years. First, the epiphany of J.D. Vance, Superstar. If he had been any better we'd need to enlist Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice to score and produce the Broadway musical of Vance the Vanquisher. Come to think of it, that would make a great professional wrestling name. Except Tim Walz wrestled himself to the ground; maybe we should call him the Klucking Knucklehead? From there we offer some observations about the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, and wonder whether the usual incompetence or malevolence explans the appalling spectacle of the government's recovery efforts there. We won't find out from the mainstream media.Then, some things to watch for at the first anniversary of October 7 on Monday, and some portents of Iran's missile attack on Israel this week. Where are we on the World War III countdown clock?Lastly, Jack Smith emerged from his Groundhog Day lair once again to proclaim six more weeks of attempted criminalizing of Trump. Snore or snort—your choice.

The whole gang is finally back stateside and even in the same time zone, but somehow John and Lucretia found themselves being stalked by Kamala Harris on Friday. First  the Veep extraordinaire turned up near Lucretia's border town to talk tough on immigration, and then decamped to the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, right across the street from the University Club, where John happened to be styling at the same time.At least she had a better trip than Ukraine's Zelensky. Or Israel's Simcha Rothman at Berkeley, whose cancelation by an anti-Semitic mob John recounts even as he blames Steve, who managed to miss the excitement.The bartenders also review the appalling case of Penn's punishment of Amy Wax, and connect it to the obvious cheating elite universities are doing with their admissions in the aftermath of the Harvard case. The point: the toxic DEI ideology may be on the defensive right now, but it is not going quietly into the night.Finally, Steve notes some curious and hopeful survey data about the election, along with some tips for what to watch for in the early voting states. Cheers!

Well, a forensic miracle recovered the lost or rogue audio file for this week's episode, which feature just John Yoo and Lucretia because Steve was in some kind of second-hand smoke daze over in Amsterdam. John and Lucretia do their usual spirited tour through the second Trump assassination, the stubbornly close polls (you can just imagine what Lucretia thinks of "low information" voters), Kamala's embarrassing appearance on Oprah, the latest news about just what happened with President Trump's request for national guard troops on January 6, additional reflections on "Operation Grim Beeper," and finally a philosophical excursion into Lucretia's first contribution to our new "Political Questions" Substack. Warning—no prudence, but Machiavelli is involved!

The whole gang is back together this week with a rousing review of the week's highlights, including a post-modern take on the Trump-Harris debate, and the dogs-and-cats-living-togther-before-being-eaten memestorm out of Ohio that is driving the left out of its mind (or what little mind they have left). Trump may not have won the debate on any of the usual scoring metrics, but maybe it isn't simple as that.But the heart of the episode is the serious business of Merrickl Garland's tone-deaf speech (even John thinks so) claiming politics never enters into Justice Department decisions, which wouldn't even convince his own mother.Then on to a brief discussion of Steve's recent article on the revival of the common law, in which the term "prudence" is not mentioned (though he does use the term "Zeitgeist," mostly to annoy Lucretia). John is skeptical, while Lucretia is merely her contrary self (default: Steve is wrong! What's the question?)Note to listeners: We have tried with this episode to take control of of the timing of ad placements (thought not specific content!) so that ads stop appearing randomly or in the middle of sentences. We'll just have to see how it turns out. It's a laborious process.

With Steve stuck on an ice floe somewhere up around the Arctic Circle, John and Lucretia run wild (also long!) with the microphone in his absence, riffing along about ther latest in lawfare—did Judge Marchan blink by postponing his sentencing of Trump? Is a Hunter Biden pardon in the works? And what the hell is Jack Smith up to now? Etc. And are we really going to do Russia Hoax 2.0? Gee—if only there was someone on the episode who could offer an analogy from Russia Hoax 1.0, but the usual supplier was banished.Just imagine how long this episode would have been with some historical analogies, which, let's face it, are the "more cowbell" of the Three Whisky Happy Hour.

After some preliminary discussion of hot dogs and Kamala's stolen fast food valor, this special episode gets down to serious business—a seminar on the topic of political prudence for a thoroughly recalcitrant and skeptical John Yoo. This topic grew out of a long text thread we had following a Power Line post of Steve's passing along a substantive exchange on Twitter between the Babylon Bee's great Seth Barron and Lucretia on the subject of abortion and prudential politics. In what ways do the parallels between slavery and abortion apply today? Trump's equivocations are causing considerable distress among many Pro-Life advocates, who point to Lincoln as a superior example—as is quite right to do. But is that example correctly understood? Lucretia thinks not. But the prudence Lucretia and Steve impute to Lincoln is hard to define in bright line ways, because at the summit it can't be defined by any abstract rules beyond being able to proportion means to ends, which assumes a lot already, since there are always multiple competing ends, each subject to deliberation.But one big thing gets in the way of clear thinking about this difficult matter: utilitarianism. And our resident Bethamite and McRib consumer is dug in on the matter, and we wander into a lot of historical examples for illumination. It gets pretty lively along the way.  We'll let listeners decide if Lucretia and Steve make the case adequately. The poet Randall Jarrell once supposedly said, "If only we could get our hands on this person named 'Society,' we could fix everything." We could easily offer the obvious paraphrase of this for John, and call it a day.

John Yoo hosts this week, and adds to his appalling hypocrisy with his admission that he is teaching a class this summer on the Law of the Sea treaty, even as he continues to embargo any and all discussion of the Clean Air Act! Otherwise the gang in is happy spirits because we're resupplied with good spirits this week, as a fine whisky and wine outlet (Grapes and Grains—they don't even have a website up yet) has at last opened a superb branch nearby Steve's remote location. How fine? Steve has his eye on a 75-year-old single malt that is for sale at the mere price of $89,999. He decided to fill up his gas tank instead (this being California).The big news of Friday was RFK Jr's endorsement of Trump, about which we have some actual reporting to offer listeners, along with our evaluations of the Democratic convention, which was anything but nomos or physis. It was pure nemesis.Lucretia and Steve also smack John around a bit for his USA Today article on how the leftism of law schools threatens the survival of the Constitution was defective because it didn't go far enough!

Lucretia hosts this week, which means 'Swift Boating' has a whole new meaning, as Taylor Swift's whirled tour on behalf of whirled peas has run into Islamic terrorism, but shhhh, you can't say that in Britain right now, so how can they let her concert series go forward? Too obvious a provocation. Of course we have our weekly update on Kamalamamadrama, dissect the meaning of the abrupt firing of Columbia's president (with Steve arguing she is a liar in any case), After reviewing some encourging recent legal initiatives, involving property rights, UCLA's tolerance of anti-Semitism on campus, and the ongoing legal tussle over the southern border, we finally get around to another rousing argument pitting Steve and Lucretia against John Yoo over his stubborn positivism. Is John just punking all of us? That's Steve's hypothesis. In any case, we went into overtime a bit on this one, but the episode offers some excellent improv bumper music at the end that we bet no one knows, for the hearty souls who hear us out. 

John Yoo hosts this week's 500th episode of the Power Line family of podcasts, which turns out to have a common theme: dance steps. Kamalamadingdong (someone's—I won't say who but you can guess—new nickname for the Dem nominee) thinks she can Walz to the White House with a progressive twin, while the Olympics is trying to dance away from its cultural travesties with. . . break dancing?? Boeing is trying to dance around its DEI problems, and the stock market is suddenly doing the two-step around weakening economic signals, and the Biden foreign policy team is slow-waltzing us into a geopolitical dead-end in Ukraine and the Middle East. Meanwhile, Trump is keeping everyone, friend and foe alike, hopping in 6/7 time with his usual improvisations. 

What do Trump's controversial appearance before black journalists, the Olympics controversy over the gender of boxers, and the protean identity of Kamala Harris have in common? Simple—they are all an aspect of what Steve believes is the central political and moral-philosophical issue of our age: human nature. Everyone seems to think Trump blundered by questioning the authenticity of Harris's changing ethnic identity, but Steve and Lucretia—in rare heated agreement—think it was a masterstroke, albeit with Trump's usual heavy-handed and perhaps clumsy way. And we use for our article of the week the usually sound Abigail Shrier's Free Press article, "Republicans, You're Going After Kamala All Wrong," that we think gets the matter exactly backwards.But it when we turn to the controversy over gender identity in the Olympics that we deepen the story. Take in at your leisure the case of Caster Semenya, a genuinely "intersex" South African 800-meter runner born with female genitalia who is not allowed to compete in the Olympics track and field competition because of high male testosterone levels. This is the same extremely rare anomaly as the Algerian boxer at the center of controversy right.  (Also note the holder of the women's 800 meter world record, Jarmila Kratochvílová, set back in 1983—currently the oldest track and field world record.  Kratochvílová is thought to have been heavily doped up, as was common with Eastern European athletes in those days, but it is hard to say.)Steve's theory about how the left's war on human nature also applies to why Harris is such a miserable boss—hardly a rare trait among leftists. John doesn't quite buy the metaphysical explanation, but we're used to this my now.Finally, Steve offers a brief homily about moral education drawn from a short passage from Leo Strauss's classic essay "What Is Political Philosophy" to make a point about what's wrong with the left's narrative about the Israel-Gaza War.

Like an old 80s sitcom, this episode was taped before a live audience of about 90 regular listeners who carried on a vigorous commentary and questions in the Zoom chat, and we had a special guest at the very end—John Hinderaker in the (virtual) flesh! And since we actually recorded during happy hour for a change (and not Saturday morning as has been the case for the last several weeks), we rolled out several whisky choices for the episode.Listeners may know that Lucretia, this week's host, has been partial in the past to Glenmorangie, which the great Kingsley Amis noted "has been called delicate and mild, even faintly sweet." This is not a description anyone would ever use about Lucretia, making this a dubious match. Tonight she had two varieties of Glenfiddich on hand, which Amis called "fruity and well balanced." Maybe she's better matched with Macallan, which Amis says is "powerful yet smooth." That sounds more like it!By popular demand, we took up a news items we didn't get to last week in the crush of shocking news stories, namely Judge Aileen Cannon's ruling that special counsel Jack Smith's appointment as special counsel to torment Trump is unconstitutional. Steve invented a special judicial scale—the Silberman Scale from 1 - 10—for John Yoo to grade the opinion, and he gave it a solid 8, which is pretty darn good. From there—oh my! Lucretia unveiled her handcrafted tin foil cowboy hat, as we kicked around whether the loss of trust in key government institutions (cough, cough—FBI—cough, cough, or cough—Secret Service—cough) is because they are merely incompetent and negligent, or whether their carelessness is deliberate. From there John Hinderaker gave us an update on the FBI investigation of the firebombing of his office building back in January, and finally we all gave our predictions for Kamala Harris's running mate, but not until we rolled out the first of whiat is doubtless to be many weeks of ritual denunciation of Harris. So if you missed the live taping, pour yourself a nice, dry single malt and settle in.

Well that certainly was a week. Seems more like a year now since the news that Judge Cannon declared special DoJ prosecutor Jack Smith's appointment was unconstitutional, but it was only Monday. But we didn't even get into this issue in this episode, even though weekly defense of the Constitution is in our union contract.Is there anything new or original left to be said about the political events of the week, starting with the attempted assassination of President Trump, the nomination of J.D. Vance (allowing Lurcretia to say "I told you so!" yet again—isn't this getting monotonous by this point), and then Trump's near Castroesque-length acceptance speech? Why yes—yes there is. Steve, John, and Lucretia offer several observations we haven't yet heard from the legion of other pundits and analysts, which leads to a surprisingly sharp argument about free trade and potential tariffs under a Trump-Vance administration, which extends to a vigorous discussion of another substantial import of the moment—illegal immigrants.Steve also explains why, if you listened carefully to Trump's speech, you'll see that Reaganism isn't quite dead yet, why it was also a Jedi-mind trick on Biden, and why many of the news stories about Biden's possible withdrawal from the race have a implicit subtext that party leaders really really don't want Kamala Harris either, but can't say so publicly. We end the week with our shopping lists: more popcorn for John and Steve, and more tin foil for Lucretia.

The prolonged agony of Joe Biden is causing rifts in the political universe similar to what a black hole does—a vortex sucking everything into a void beyond which lie quantum unknowns. This episode ponders a number of those unknowns as best we can.First off, we note the sudden media/Democratic Party discovery of "Project 2025," and enumerate a few items we wish would be included, like year-round McRibs at McDonalds, and an end to the designated hitter rule in the National League. Then John provides an on-scene account of this week's National Conservatism conference where he was a speaker, and where he took note for the very first time of the "trad wives" movement, which really represents an implicit final rejection of immanentizing the eschaton. From there we take up some listener requests for "explainers" about the peculiar 12th Amendment (since Trump may choose a running mate from Florida, causing confusion and uncertainty), and then the workings of the 25th Amendment, which we all agree is unlikely to work on President Biden unless he actually lapses into a coma or something. Trump can render this moot, however, if he picks Steve and Lucretia's choices for Veep; John is going for a Florida veepnom.Beneath the surface of all these issues is the knotty problem of KAH-mala. We ponder a few possibilities on this that so far we haven't heard anyone else present.  Exit music this week, once against chosen for topicality: "Rift" from Phish, since some aspects of it sound like they almost could be thinking of Kamala:Last night, in the moments my thoughts were adriftAnd coasting a terrace, approaching a riftThrough which I could spy several glimpses beneathOf the darkness the light from above could not reachI spied wings of reason, herself taking flightAnd upon yonder precipice saw her alightAnd glared back at me one last look of dismayAs if she were the last one she thought I'd betray