Power Line

• The Three Whisky Happy Hour: The No Pearl-Clutching Zone

  Lucretia hosts this week's episode with the running theme that there's too much pearl clutching going on among the hand-wringers in Washington and the media. We flop our pearls of wisdom on the Tennessee special election, the J6 bomber arrest, the double-tap bombings on Venezuelan "fishing boats," the Minnesota welfare scandal, and the related immigration control issues it raises. We have some diversions into the latest Trumpian nomenclature, including his rehabilitation of "third world countries" and the "R-word," as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz calls it, and how Sydney Sweeney might react to listening to an episode of the 3WHH (because it is the new Kantian Categorical Imperative that Sydney Sweeney must be kept in the news).Exit music this week is “Clutchin’ Pearls,” by Ross Kleiner and the Thrill. Key lyric that does not apply to our hostess with the mostest: “She’s so mad/I left her clutchin’ pearls!”

  --------  

  59:54

  --------

  59:54
• The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Why John Adams Would Get Sydney Sweeney

  Now we know what you're thinking: if we have on as a special guest historian Richard Samuelson, one of the pre-eminent experts on John Adams, you'd think we find out what Adams thought about the Clean Air Act, but no! Instead, the show reaches its zenith with Samuelson drawing our attention to some of Adams's handwritten marginalia that demonstrates why Adams would have completely understood the Sweeney Sensation. Richard joined us for our intermittent series between now and next July 4 about the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and he helpfully arbitrated the debate we had last week about the probity of Gordon Wood's treatment of the American creed. (Readers should also not miss Samuelson's article "John Adams Versus Edmund Burke," which helps clarify the extent to which Adams should be thought of (as Russell Kirk did) as "America's first conservative."We also went through a couple of current headlines about the latest frontiers in lawfare, and the aftermath of the shooting of two national guard troops in Washington.For those who like to take in the video, you can find the YouTube right here (and consider subscribing).

  --------  

  1:07:57

  --------

  1:07:57
• The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Special Thanksgiving Day Edition

  Naturally the 3WHH bartenders can't agree on the best way to cook a Thanksgiving turkey as well as the side dishes at the outset of this special Thanksgiving Day edition, but after that we get down to discussing what to make of prosecutions being dropped left and right—literally left and right in the case of the misbegotten Big Fani Willis case against Trump being dismissed in Georgia, and the Trump DoJ case against James Comey and Letitia James being dismissed in federal court. At least we still have trial by jury to be thankful for in America, as we hear Britain may abolish trial by jury for many crimes. Maybe the Labour Party is just trying to get out ahead of what's coming for them.We'll be back over the weekend with a regular episode, just as soon as our tryptohpan-induced comas wear off.

  --------  

  56:44

  --------

  56:44
• The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Bringing the Wood to Wood

  Another week of last minute schedule changes, flight delays, lost iPads, misplaced laptops, and other mishaps delayed the recording of this week's episode, but finally on Saturday night we were able to sit down for an especially fast-paced episode to close out the week that comes with competing Star Trek metaphors, reflectioning and debating briefly about which was the weirdest news story of the week—the latest Epstein file revelations, MTG departing the House, the Mamdani-Trump Oval Office Summit—the greatest clash since Yalta, or the most bizarre meeting of Capitalist and Communist since Franklin Roosevelt dined alone—before we finally settle down to out main topic of the week: the launch of what will be a regular feature here on the 3WHH between now and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next July 4.For this first installment, we ponder the strange case of historian Gordon Wood, considered the pre-eminent historian of the American Founding, who was in the news last week for a speech he delivered in Washington DC for the American Enterprise Institute. Steve was present to hear the speech; John took in the published version, and Lucretia let out a mighty harumph. Wood's main thesis at the beginning of his illustrious career was that the American Founding should be understood as part of the "civic republican" tradition, rather than a Lockean-Jeffersonian natural rights revolution. It made him the left's favorite historian for a time, a point Steve made in a critical article about Wood 20 years ago, "The Liberal Republicanism of Gordon Wood." Naturally—do I really need to say "naturally"? you know what's coming next—John stepped up to defend Wood's civic republican thesis. Lucretia thought she could sit this one out, but ChatGPT provided us with a debate between Lucretia and Wood, with "Wood" getting off some good zingers like "Lucretia, the Founding wasn’t a live-action performance of Natural Right: The Musical,"  and "Of course they were serious—serious about the collapse of deference, the emergence of democratic culture, and all the other things that give Straussians spontaneous nosebleeds." Lucretia responded in kind: "You make it sound like Samuel Adams was out there organizing consciousness-raising workshops. “Hi, I’m Sam, and I’m here to talk about my feelings on monarchy…”The episode is slightly shorter than normal as Steve had to rush off to the final performance of Steve Hackett's North American tour in Portland, Oregon, and the final performance of keyboardist Roger King, and because the philistine and cretinous Lucretia and John attempted to mock the gods of prog rock, the exit music this week is an excerpt from Hackett's most famous guitar lick. IYKYK.

  --------  

  55:26

  --------

  55:26
• The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Getting a Grip on Groypers

  While it was sorely tempting to devote the entire show to celebrating the return of Sydney Sweeney to the public eye last week, we decided to turn our attention to the serious matter of antisemitism on the right, and just what the heck "groypers" (groyperism??) is all about. Rod Dreher passed along estimates that up to 40 percent of young conservatives in Washington are closet Nick Fuentes fans or groyper-adjacent, though this estimate has received strong challenges. We review a few of the counter-arguments that seem to be left unsaid at the moment.Then we turn to a brief recap and critque from Lucretia on our brief segment last week with Akhil Amar about his new book Born Equal. We didn't have time to get very far with the subject, but the amazing thing is that Lucretia and John were together on their end of this episode, and Lucretia didn't hit John once (though she may have spiked his whisky).Oh, and we did have time to talk briefly about Helen Andrews's legs.  You'll just have to listen to find out what this means in this compact, ad-free episode.

  --------  

  43:29

  --------

  43:29

Mais podcasts de Notícias

Podcasts em tendência em Notícias

Sobre Power Line

Power Line: Podcast do grupo