3 Whisky Happy Hour

This week we went round-robin format—or the podcast equivalent of potluck—with each bartender bringing a subject on their mind. John wonders whether the Clinton deposition about Epstein is really sensible, Steve wonders how Gaffen-Gavin Newsom can possible survive this week's "George Romney Moment" (you need to be a certain age, or have read some political history from the 1960s, to get this reference), and Lucretia wonders why universities have allowed themselves to be swallowed whole by useless administrators.

Along the way we do lighting round hot takes on Trump's stupendous State of the Union speech, whether we're going to go to war with Iran perhaps before these pixels are dry on the screen, and, in response to a listener question, clarifying our discussion last week about the Supreme Court's tariff decision, along with some great pop culture trivia that we hadn't planned.

Plus—this episode opens with a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT about the future of this podcast! And some upcoming events.

Was the Supreme Court's tariff case Friday a no-lose case for conservatives, as Steve argues in this fast-paced episode, or a serious setback for President Trump? We were just surprised John Yoo had any voice left at all to break it down for us after being on call throughout the day for Fox News, but he saved his best for us. Hint: The fact that the three liberals on the Court wrote concurring opinions disagreeing with Chief Justice Roberts's reasoning behind the decision suggests some useful mischief at work in the decision. 

The second half of this episode turns briefly to whether the "vibe shift" against wokism is really taking place, with caveats about whether it will survive Trump's presidency, or be reversed by the next Democrat who lies their way into the White House. Not only is the Wokerati engaging in "massive resistance" to steps to end government-sponsored racism and human nature-denying trans-axels, but some Democrats are darkly threatening retribution for people and institutions that are abandoning DEI and other wokist totems right now.

Whether free and fair elections can be saved with the SAVE Act is the first topic of debate this week, along with a celebration of the Trump Administration rolling back the EPA's power to make our energy scarce and expensive. Steve describes this bold step as the "Inchon Landing" in the war against the administrative state. Forget Nixon-to-China cliches: only Trump could take such a bold step that no other conventional Republican would dare take. 

We also spend a good deal of time recalling the passing, ten years ago now, of Justice Antonin Scalia, whose shadow over contemporary jurisprudence continues to lengthen. We think Scalia is displacing Holmes as the most significant jurist of the last century for his enduring influence and for his central role in reviving constituitional originalism, even though he once described himself as a "faint-hearted originalist." There's a paradox at work in Scalia's jurisprudential legacy that requires someone like G.K. Chesterton to understand—and that, kids, ought to be a strong hint as to exactly what it is.

This week all three of your whisky-swilling disputationists found themselves together in Austin, Texas, for a Civitas Institute conference, and we managed to sneak away to record this week's episode in -person. Though you wish earnestly for us to return to Substack or Zoom, since we had some technical challenges with our sound mix (one microphone wouldn't work at all, and we weren't able to fix it much in post-production).

In any case, after noting how John's beloved McRibb is going to rescue Bitcoin from its recent 40% slump, we get down to business, answering a reader/ listener comment asking what, exactly, is "scientific" about "political science"? And for our second topic, we beat up John (so what else is new, you ask) about his forthcoming essay on "The Declaration of Independence as a Constitution," part of our ongoing consideration of the Declaration ahead of the 250th anniversary this summer.  To be continued. . .

Alas, since this is an audio-only episode, there is no video availabe to be posted to YouTube, but we'll resume our livestream format experiments next week.

This may sound like a very esoteric subject for our weekly podcast, but did you know this year is the 100th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case of Euclid v. Ambler Realty? No, really—it is! We're not making this up. Okay, we know what you're thinking: what is Euclid v. Ambler Realty and why should I care, especially a hindred years later?

The Euclid decision, written by one of the most conservative and principled Justices of the Supreme Court (George Sutherland) declared that land use zoning was constitutional and didn't violate the "takings clause" of the 5th Amendment ("No shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation"). I know: stifle your excitement. But don't zone out on us. John and Steve agree (for once) that Sutherland got this one badly wrong, and trust us, we liven it up in our discussion.

Lucretia, hostess for this week's episode, wonders whether there is a "right to protest." Sure the 1st Amendment protects freedom of speech and the right to assemble, but does it actually protect protests—like those we see in Minneapolis right now, where the dividing line between protest and active interference of federal law enforcement is hard to make out (on purpose).

Then, finally, Lucretia gets Steve to reflect on the 20th anniversary of Al Gore's horror film about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore's film was hysterically wrong, but he's still with us somehow.