3 Whisky Happy Hour

Move over Trump Derangement Syndrome! The left is clearly afflicted now with a full-blown case of Thomas Derangement Syndrome—after Justice Clarence Thomas's speech last week about the Declaration of Independence, which, let's face it, gives leftists the heebie-jeevies with all that talk about how we are "endowed by our Creator" with certain inalienable rights. With the band back together again this week, we dissect the left's hysterical reaction which indicate to us that Thomas hit a raw nerve with "Progressives," who are actually quite regressive.

We also divert briefly to John Yoo's typically idiosyncratic observations on executive power in the Declaration, and then conclude this segment with each offering our favorite quotes from Justice Thomas's speech.

From there we turn to the big news of the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (which Steve suggests should be known more accurately as the Southern Poverty Libel Center, but also wondering why there is no Northern Poverty Law Center, or Midwestern Poverty Law Center. Is there no poverty or racism in those regions?).

For the second week in a row, the 3WHH gang (minus one) were on the road, this time recording live in the corner of a hotel lobby before the annual meeting of the Philadelphia Society. The sound quality of this episode is . . . authentic. Yes, I'll go with that. 

John Yoo couldn't make the meeting, so we have a special guest, our old pal Glenn Ellmers. With John absent, we get our freak on about the Clean Air Act . . . actually we didn't do that. We did worse: We get down in the weeds of metaphysics, radical historicism, the theological-political problem (especially in the context of this week's feud between the President and the Pope), dishing on Laura Field's terrible book Furious Minds, contrasting Justice Sotomayor's jurisprudence of "feels" versus Justice Thomas's jurisprudence of principle—the principle of the Declaration of Independence. 

And finally, we take up the perennial question, what's the matter with kids today. And as such the exit music this week is "Kids," from moe:

Kids will try to run you over
Kids will try to bring you down
Kids will never say they're sorry
Kids back then are older now

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.