3 Whisky Happy Hour

This week the 3WHH podcast "went mobile people!", venturing to the University of Tulsa's College of Law for a live-taping before an enthusiastic audience of law students, faculty, and some loyal listeners. We departed slightly from our usual format, and focused on a single subject: the Declaration of Independence at 250. 

John Yoo decided to be more obstreperous than usual with his utilitarian-positivist-pragmatism, but it made for a highly entertaining episode. We had a wonderful time visiting Tulsa.

Don't miss the YouTube version of the episode, which includes the "pre-game" introduction (not included in this audio episode) wherein Steve performed (an allegedy cheesy) magic trick illustrating the breakdown of the separation of powers.

And needless to say, exit music is "Ten Miles to Tulsa." We can't wait to go back.

Notre Dame's Tocqueville professor of political science, Vincent Phillip Munoz (Phil to his freinds and colleagues), joins this special episode which finds all three of your regular bartenders in the same room for once while on the road in Austin, Texas. Phil is one of the leading scholars of religious liberty in the U.S., and after a progress report on the Iran War (we're still winning), and a prolonged look at the Supreme Court oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara, the birthright citizenship case heard this week, we pick Phil's brain about the status of school prayer, and whether a restoration of organized prayer in public schools has a prayer of happening, taking as our cue Gerry Bradley's recent and provocative First Things article, "How To Bring Back School Prayer."

From there we briefly (but alas because we were out of sufficient time) but inadequately treat Phil's terrifically concise CRB essay "Ancient and Modern: How Straussians Interpret the Founding," mostly to annoy John Yoo—and we succeeded!

Be afraid, be very afraid, as this livestreamed edition of the 3WHH featured special effects for the first time. Steve has a new toy—a soundboard that comes with the classic sound effects. These turn out to be quite useful when pondering where the Iran War stands, why the deal to end the DHS shutdown was so confusing and ulimately collapsed, what the "pursuit of happiness" means in the Declaration of Independence (one clue: happiness is contending with John's never-ending intransigence about all things metaphysical), why the closing of the 'Liberal Patriot' Substack is an ominous sign for the old-fashioned reform liberal tradition.

Also, we give away the secret of the Straussian cheeseburger, which, to pararphrase Professor Strauss, makes the Big Arch look like an idiot childburger.

This week we raise the Jolly Roger against an imitator podcast that is intruding on the 3WHH's exclusive right of commentary on all things McDonald's, but then we move on to our own balance sheet about the Iran War (verdict—we're winning big, and Trump is killing it), and the saga of the SAVE Act in the Senate, where opinion divides more sharply among the three of us. 

Here we land the blame squarely on GOP Senate leader John Thune, and did you know that "thune" is a slang French expression for for money, though it is often used with a modifier to indicate the lack thereof, like "sans thune." Seems fitting for a GOp Senate that can't figure out how to fight.

The exit music this week is an obscure callback. . . I doubt one person in 1,000 will get it.

To paraphrase—awkwardly—that 70s-era lyric, "International Law! What Is It Good For? Absolutely. Nothing! Good God!" 

Lucretia host's this week's episode, which combines her skepticism of international law, especially as it relates to our current military operations against Iran, along with her impatience with our willful refusal to take radical Islam seriously, now that Islam-inspired violence in the U.S. is now a daily occurence. 

The first topic was inspired by John Yoo's latest article on the subject; the latter subject inspired by the news headlines, needless to say.

Oh, we also make the case briefly for invading Iceland. It has to do with hamburgers. 

Also there are dogs.