3 Whisky Happy Hour

Our second livestream on our Political Questions Substack was a lively tour through frivolous lawsuits against the McRib, to wondering what is happening in Iran. Could it really be the end of the line for the mullahocracy? If so we agree the likely deciding factor is Trump. Who also, you may have heard, knocked over Venezuela last weekend. Finally, what to make of events in Minneapolis. Well, a lot, as you might imagine.

We tried an experiment this week—livestreaming the taping of this week's episode on Steve's 'Political Questions" Substack.  We think is was a success even though Steve's camera froze up several times along the way. John Yoo hosts this first episode of the year, which is devoted entirely to understanding and critiquing "post-liberalism," currently one of the hottest new things going on the right today. (John makes reference to one of our live clashes with a leading post-liberal, which Steve wrote up here.)Attacks on the classical liberalism of the American Founding are not new from the left—Marx hated John Locke perhaps above all others except perhaps Adam Smith—and there have always been conservative critics of Lockean liberalism, starting with Edmund Burke back in the 1790, but also like Leo Strauss whose famous short phrase was that materialism Lockeanism would devolve into "a joyless quest for joy." This is an urgent and relevant question as we move toward the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence mid-year, and while we expect the 1619 Project left will be out in force attacking the Declaration for the usual stupid reasons, we'll also have to content with some on the right attacking it for reasons that may have a more plausible basis, but which we think are confused—when they are not wrong.This is merely the first episode of the podcast this year that will be devoted to various aspects and controveries about the founding that will surely erupt over the next six months.  Strap in!

To close out the year the 3WHH barflies recorded a special Boxing Day edition, in which, following the obligatory McDonald's news for John and a breaking story that indicates President Trump really does mean it about defending Western Christendom, we review our predictions for 2025 from a year ago (which, unlike the old McLaughlin Group predictions, turned out to be fairly good in most cases); then discuss what each of think is the most significant story of 2025, and offer predictions for 2026. We couldn't make the Substack livestream work, but we're going to sort that out in the next week before our first show of the new season next weekend, which will be 2026!

Just how are you going to pass the time on Christmas Day after you've got the roast in the oven (at low temp, of course) and you've finished your obligatory annual screening of Die Hard? How about a special Christmas Day edition of the Three Whisky Happy Hour! Lucretia took time out from the kitchen to host this ad-free episode which features a discussion of the law governing religious symbols on public property, and why they are NOT violations of the Estasblishment Clause of the First Amendment (the phrase "separation of church and state" is not even hiding in any of the emanantions an punumbras of the Constitution, so don't even look). Discussion also turned to wondering why liberals are increasingly hostile to religion—especially Christianity—and Steve offers his theory that the decline of patriotism among liberals, which also shows up in opinion survey data, is connected to the decline of religion among liberals, too. (He gave the full analysis of the matter in this Substack post a few months ago. One sentence summary: politics, the substitute diety for the left, isn't going well for them right now, which makes them angry.) And did you know that Christmas itself is now a"far right" plot? That's what Politico thinks. (Yes, we know: "Politico thinks" is an oxymoron.)We manage to get in some good holiday cheer, such as mocking John's total ignorance of "throuples" *the latest thing for the "Modern Love" section of the NY Times) and we manage to get in our obligatory reference to—wait for it!—the Clean Air Act, and Sydney Sweeney. Because it's Christmas!We'll be back sometime over the weekend with a regular episode in which we review the most significqnt events of 2025, and offer predictions for 2026.

It's conspiracy theory week at the 3WHH, as host John Yoo guides us through the mysteries of the shootings at Brown University and MIT, the mystery of why an article about the corruption of the DEI world should suddenly go viral just now, what conspiracy theory could explain why White House chief of staff Susie Wiles would call VP Vance a "conspiracy theorist" (among other things), and last but not least, how Candace Owens stole Lucretia's tin foil hat right out from under her nose! After all this, we expect Santa will be delivering fancy new tin foil hats to us next week.