Power Line

This “mission to Moscow” is not to be confused with the infamous Joseph Davies 1941 book, Mission to Moscow, which Steve calls a “novel” at the opening of this episode, because its pro-Stalinist viewpoint was fiction indeed. Our use of “mission to Moscow” serves a dual-use purpose today: while it isn’t clear whether there was Russian involvement in the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline... Source

This week we decided to play “clean up on Supreme Court aisle [footnote] four,” and explain further why we think 1938’s Carolene Products decision was actually the most significant of the New Deal era decisions that distorted the Constitution and our subsequent politics. Many of the perversions of modern civil rights politics actually descend from this case that was about adulterated milk... Source

Hoo boy, is this episode off the hook! First, “Lucretia” staged a coup, usurping Steve’s host role, and punishing him for his bad puns, but we finally get to the main event, which is a long conversation with the great Charles Lipson about his recent article, “ Packing the Court, Then and Now.” We take a while to get to the subject, however, in favor of a long prologue about high school whisky... Source

This special 250th episode of the Power Line podcast offers a twist on our Three Whisky Happy Hour format, as Lucretia and I put aside our Glen Livet in favor of talking with Glenn Ellmers. Glenn is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, research fellow at Hillsdale College, author of a forthcoming biography of Harry Jaffa entitled The Soul of Politics, and author of several recent articles... Source

Good grief! “Lucretia” and I take a week off, and everything goes to hell. Minneapolis starts rioting again, and Democrats in Washington start their own riot over court-packing. Meanwhile, the officer who mistook her service revolver for a taser and shot Daunte Wright was publicly identified within 48 hours (Kim Potter), lost her job, and now faces criminal charges, while we have passed Day 100... Source

Winston Churchill wrote that “No two cities have counted more with mankind than Athens and Jerusalem. Their messages in religion, philosophy, and art have been the main guiding lights of modern faith and culture.” For Easter and Passover Steve and Lucretia decided to take up the Jerusalem side of this theme with the help of a forgotten figure who was a major influence on the young Churchill—the... Source

Last night we had one of our special live Zoom events for Power Line VIP subscribers, but a gremlin seems to have prevented many VIPs from getting timely notice of the link to the event. So we decided to post up the audio of the event for VIPs who didn’t get a link or who were unable to join us for whatever reason–and for any curious listeners who want to hear what they’re missing! Source

So we’re a day late getting this episode ready because we went on location, and recorded live in a real bar, located in an undisclosed location in the Free State of Texas. Here as we do show prep I’m having a glass of Oban 14, and Lucretia is having some Glenlivet, and for our recording segment I switched to one of her favorites, MacCallan 18, which, I had to admit, I liked a fair bit... Source

In honor of “President” Biden’s attempt to imitate Chevy Chase imitating Gerald Ford on the steps of Air Farce One, this week’s episode launches with some appropriate custom bumper music (the headline should give you a clue), and then “Lucretia” and I resume arguing whether our format should put metaphysics ahead of malts—in other words, business before pleasure—or whether whisky malts are... Source

So for this episode “Lucretia” and I were going to discuss, and ask for audience input on, whether we should change the name of our format to “Cocktails Against Communism,” but owing to some technical glitches that we seamlessly fixed over an extra glass of single malt so that you won’t even be able to guess where the patches are, we completely forgot! Maybe next week. In the meantime... Source

This episode rolls out our new motto for the 3WHH format—”The podcast dedicated to meta-malts and metaphysics!” “Lucretia” isn’t so sure, but we’ll roll with that until we change to a sports-talk format, which will happen on the 4th of Never. Anyway, after reviewing a surprisingly busy week in important whisky news, we introduce three new short regular segments: the Magic Numbers... Source

This week has something for everybody, as our three segments (we actually stick to format this week!) range from Mr. Potato Head (now Zir Potatx Head apparently) to Winston Churchill, with a detour to throw some rotten tomatoes at Smith College, and then on to a sequel of sorts to last week’s seminar, in which we point out how today’s leftist racism is the direct descendant of the “scientific... Source

This week we shake up the format a bit, and skip over our gratuitous whisky reviews and commentary on the top news stories of the week, and head straight in to the classroom for our long-postponed seminar on constitutional originalism, rightly understood. We do this by focusing in on four “mystery passages” about constitutional interpretation from prominent jurists, and ponder what are some... Source

Well, we had planned to continue our tutorial on the natural law basis for genuine constitutional originalism, but we two professors reverted to form and didn’t prepare! And we’ve got standards, so we’re not going to fake it. Instead, we got distracted by the news of the week, including France—France!—deploring the wokeness of American university culture and calling it a threat to French culture. Source

Another week, another dismal article in The New Republic (a former magazine) to beat up. We promise not to make a habit of this, lest TNR get an anti-stalking injunction, but this week’s TNR howler, “Originalism Is Dead; Long Live Catholic Natural Law,” is so stupid that we had to smack it around as another stepping stone to our ongoing conversation about constitutional originalism. Key question... Source

What episode offers you “spice that ramps up the palate, carried forward by the full body, hearty proof, and mouth-coating texture”? This edition of the Three Whisky Happy Hour, if the latest reviews of our choices in the Whisky Advocate are any indication. Alas, we remain unable to resolve our “peat-versus-sweet” single malt debate. In any case, we know the magazine is just a shill for Big Whisky... Source

Almost exactly a year ago I had Spencer Case on the show from Wuhan, China, where he had a front row seat to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Spencer is now back in Wuhan, finishing up a post-doc fellowship at Wuhan University, where he is working on two books and a pile of academic articles. Spencer has also started his own podcast, Micro-Digressions, and it is worth a listen if you have... Source

By popular demand from listeners, “Lucretia” takes over hosting duties this week and gives Steve another thrashing about election fraud issues. But along the way we review the extremely ominous first 72 hours of the the Harris-Biden Administration, and conclude that the Harris-Biden presidency is going to be several notches to the left of the Obama Administration. On the never-ending question of... Source

Settle in with your favorite single malt for this extra-long episode that offers a deep dive into the election results with Henry Olsen, the Trump-sympathetic analyst who concludes that Democrat voter fraud did not determine the outcome of the election. He fields a lot of fastballs and curveballs from me and “Lucretia” about why so many Americans can harbor reasonable doubts that the election was... Source

I was caught up short yesterday when I spotted, on the generally very pro-Trump American Greatness website, William B. Allen’s article entitled “Let Us Impeach Him.” It pays to read past the headline of this article, because the argument is not what you think: it’s not a “get-him-out-office-as-fast-as-we-can” manifesto. Rather, Prof. Allen argues that we should take our time and impeach Trump... Source