Power Line

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.

You might want to think of this totally gonzo episode as the 3WHH-Squared, as it was taped live during happy hour Friday night in a very noisy Washington Hilton Hotel at the annual conference of the Federalist Society, where John and I are present and making a general nuisance of ourselves. Lucretia was supposed to be in Hawaii this week on some kind of junket or super-secret mission, but the government shutdown interposed itself.) As we did last year, we simply invited a handful of legal luminaries to drop by our not-so-quiet corner, with cocktails in hand, to kick around whatever is on our mind. We were delighted to have Judge William Pryor of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals drop by briefly before having to run off to host a dinner for his clerks; Roger Pilon, long-time director of constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, hung around to heckle everyone; Ilan Wurman, one of the rising young stars of the conservative legal academy, fell into our snare as well, and Hadley Arkes, who needs no introduction here. (Would any such gathering be complete without Hadley dropping by? To ask the question is to answer it, of course, as any disquisition on necessary truths from Aristotle to Kant would know.)The highlight of this gaggle was Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University (and one of John's principal mentors at Yale Law way back when, which may explain a few things), to talk about his brand new and highly readable book, Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840-1920. Since we were recording out in the open at the Washington Hilton, this episode is a bit . . . authentic, to so speak. We ask the indulgence of listeners to its many irregularities.

The 3WHH is a man down this week as John was unavailable, so Steve and Lucretia soldiered on without his ritual abuse of their superior taste in political philosophy, prudence, and natural law. And in the best fashion of Helen Andrews, Steve ran the episode even though it was Lucretia's turn on the host rotation calendar. We could have called this episode "Revenge of the Manosphere."Steve and Lucretia consider a few news headlines, and some major stories conspicuously not making headlines* (such as the Houise investigation of the White House conspiracy to cover up Joe Biden's senility), who Bill Kristol supports in the NY City mayor's race (you'll never guess), whether the climate cult is over, and alarm bells about rising anti-Israel sentiment among young conservatives. (We recorded before the Kevin Roberts video went live, however.)And then we arrive at the main topic of the day: Lucretia defending herself against charges of "lookism." Steve enlists an expert witness: the great Taki Theodoracopulos, who wrote way back in 1981 that American women were the ugliest in the world. Seems like the perfect topic for the week when the world discovered the Jennifer Welch, the Democrats' newest It-Girl. (And naturally, the exit music this week is "Ugly Women," by country musician Grant Langston.)* Yes, that sentence is a sly reference to a light bulb joke: How many Straussians does it take to change a light bulb? None: the light is made conspicuous by its absence. (IYKYK, otherwise you don't get Plato.)

Helen Andrews' Compact article on "The Great Feminization" is causing a stir, provoking responses from left, right, and in-between. And I just know that everyone wants to hear David French's take on it, because how can we form a judgment about anything without hearing from the Conscience of the World. (Actually, just go with the normally mild-mannered Charles Murray's take: "I'm still waiting to read something by David French that doesn't irritate me. Even when I agree with the substance, the sanctimony drives me nuts. In this case, I wholly disagree with his take on Helen Andrews.")John Yoo files a dissent of his own that Steve and Lucretia find worthy of certain members of the Supreme Court just now, but keep your eyes out on this one; Steve, naturally, has an analogy on offer.The gang also wonders if some Chinese lab has come up with a new, more potent strain of Trump Derangement Syndrome, because how else can you explain how insane Trump-haters are over . . . a White House ballroom? (You can guess the exit music this week. Yup, it's that 1970s standard, "Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet.)We end with a few sober thoughts about health care, and then it's back to arguing about . . . neckties.

With John Yoo hosting this week's episode in a vain attempt to deflect attacks, we devote most of the episode to foreign policy questions, ranging from Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela, China, and . . . Africa? Yes, Africa. And why does it suddenly seem like Trump can be considered a neocon? And not to worry: Lucretia still gets in her licks on her favorite Supreme Court justice (you all know which one it is) for another exemplary performance (/sarc) in this week's oral argument about the Voting Rights Act case.

The week ended with President Trump issuing a proclamation celebrating Columbus Day, rather than Indigenous People's Day as the identitarians and western-guilt mongers have crammed down on us for the last generation, and it put us in the frame of mind of Leo Strauss, who called Machiavelli "that greater Columbus." Maybe Trump is a Columbus of sorts, sailing precariously into the Blue State oceans to drain swamps, etc. It's worth a shot.But much of the show revolves around discussion of why so many leftists (like Katie Porter and Jay Jones) are such horrible people, whether we are in fact much closer to a civil war that we could have conceived, but also saving time to console John over the ignominious loss of his beloved Phillies, and—being certified dog lovers—honoring the passing of Lily, the beloved pet of one of our faithful listeners whose dog literally ate up one of our books.

We were finally able to schedule a taping with enough lead time to get a special guest we've been wanting to have on for a long time—the great Hadley Arkes, emertus professor of jurisprudence from Amherst College and founder of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding, and co-host of his own very fine podcast, the Natural Law Moment. We've abused Hadley in absentia in some of our podcasts over the last few months, so now he got hsi chance especially to attempt to sort out the very stubborn John Yoo. John was delayed a bit joining us, so since this podcast is partly anchored not only in the truths of natural law, but also libations of a scotch variety, we decided to take advantage of Hadley's advanced expertise in gin martinis. Plus some "origin story" of how he came to political philosophy and in particular natural law as the primary focus of his mature work.  And once John showed up, it was ON! We rounded off this episode with an AI-generated parody of Hadley, which begins as follows:“On the Ontological Status of the Ham Sandwich: A Moral Inquiry into the Lunchtime Crisis”By Gladly Harkness, Edward Whiskers Professor of Ontological JurisprudenceIt is a curious feature of our current jurisprudence that the simple act of consuming a ham sandwich has not yet been subject to rigorous philosophical analysis. . .For the whole thing, you'll need to head over to Steve's "Political Questions" Substack.

Steve reached 2 million lifetime miles on United Airlines this week, which meant party hats and free drinks on his flight to Washington (yet still no invitation to join Global Services), but despite all that he botched the YouTube livestream of this episode, such that the 12 subscribers who tried to tune in live saw only Steve, could neither see nor hear John Yoo (this week's hosts) or Lucretia. So we'll try to get it fixed, hopefully before Steve reaches the 3 million mile mark in a month or two.You can guess the topics: The Comey indictment (two-and-a-half thumbs up), the prospects for the upcoming government shutdown where, for once, Republicans have all the high cards, and then some extended discussion of Steve's article on how to apply Max Weber's famously dense lecture "Politics as a Vocation" to the deteriorating political atmosphere that contributed to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. More to come on that, including how Steve's threat to grind up some Thomas Aquinas to put in John's tea to see if it has any effect on him.Given the lede of this episode and the title, you can easily guess the exit bumper music, though it's a cover rather than the original artist.

We open today's ad-free episode with a whimsical look at the global sensation over the Number One Netflix show, "K-Pop Demon Hunters," and despite his Korean heritage, John Yoo can't explain it either. But near as we can tell, this anime cartoon show is somewhat classic melodrama, where the demons deserve defeat. And though it may seem a frivolous leap, we wonder about the demonic aspects of the larger story about Charlie Kirk's murder, with Steve recalling Max Weber's line—meant especially for young people—that "he who lets himself in for politics, that is, for power and force as means, contracts with diabolical powers..." After reviewing the week's controversies over free speech and the mercy-killing of Jimmy Kimmel's pathetic late night show, we get down to one root of the larger problem—the inability of so-called progressives to brook any dissent from their party line, the lack of any introspection about any possible defects of their worldview, which was the primary object of Charlie Kirk's campus interrogatories. We'll come back to this subject in the coming weeks, because we sense a full-scale, China-syndrome level progressive meltdown is under way.You'll want to listen all the way to the end of this episode, for our extended exit bumper music, from Harrison Tinsley: "Charlie Kirk (Remember Your Name)."

No bumper music, mirth about McDonalds, whisky, Babylon Bee headlines, or AI Haiku today: the assassination of Charlie Kirk is too serious a matter. John, Lucretia, and Steve (who is still over in Iceland hiking) assembled quickly for this special emergency episode, not only giving first reactions to a still developing story, but also connecting it to several recent events that point to a larger picture. Even before today's despicable event, it seemed as though we were reaching in inflection point in American political life, in which the reckless leftist fantasies of 2020 were finally being rejected.

With Steve and John away overseas, Lucretia takes full control of the podcast this week, welcoming back a much more sober special guest, Prof. Vincent Munoz of Notre Dame University, this semester visiting at the University of Texas at Austin. With Sen. Tim Kaine making an utter jackass of himself by implying that the Lockean philosophy of Thomas Jefferson and the American Founders is "what the mullahs in Iran believe," and then our friends Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College and noted evangelical thought leader Doug Wilson getting into a tussle about exactly how Christian principles should be manifest in the American political order, it is obviously high time finally to get into the subject that baffles John Yoo (we know—not that hard to do): the "theological-political problem."Don't be put off by that clunky-sounding phrase. It really is the key to everything, and few people are more versed and sound on the subject than Phil, who has dropped by the podcast a couple times before, and somehow is till willing to come back for more!

In the same week Cracker Barrel retreats on its foolish decision to "rebrand" itself with a proposed logo as boring as a hospital parking lot sign (with new interior decor to match), John Yoo, freshly back from his smuggling trip to Korea, hosts this episode for the first time ever from . . . McDonald's. Did you really need to be told that? Or maybe you are asking: What took so long?Anyway, as he noshed on newly restored cheesy breakfast bagels, we walk through the serial disgraces of politicians and the media following the latest school shooting in Minnesota, along with what to make of Trump's attempted firing of Fed governor Lisa Cook (a lot more to be made of this than you think, and once again the media is not telling you); likewise Trump's flag-burning executive order really needs to be followed up with a constitutional amendment, though don't be surprised if this is yet another issue where the current Supreme Court might well reverse precedent; and finally, what do we make of the John Bolton controversy? Both more and less than you might think.

John Yoo is over in Korea this week, where he says he is "lecturing," but we know he's really just arranging to smuggle back a ton of tariff-free Korean barbecue sauce. So in his absence Steve and Lucretia attempted to hold alive live taping streamed on YouTube (in Steve's case accompanied by Bad Rock rye whisky that "Pizza Bob" supplied directly to him this week), but we missed a technical step in the preparation process and couldn't get it to work. But we have posted the video anyway on our all-new 3WHH Podcast YouTube Channel. And we'll aim to get the livestream option working my next week. In anything case, we did have a small audience join us live on the Zoom webinar, and we fielded a number of listener and reader questions, culminating in a long discussion of good books about the American Founding, to get a jump on the semiquincentennial (250th) anniversary of the Declaration of Independence coming up next July. Steve went with four short books: Edmund Morgan's classic Birth of the Republic, 1763-1789; Martin Diamond's The Founding of the Democratic Republic (hard to find alas); Gordon Wood's The American Revolution: A History (which is both much shorter and better than his famous Creation of the American Republic); and Larry Arnn's The Founders' Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It. Lucretia offered up her oral history of how the founding ought to be understood and more importantly taught to students, before settling on a challenging new book. Edward Erler's Prophetic Statesmanship: Harry Jaffa, Abraham Lincoln, and the Gettysburg Address, which doesn't sound like it's about the American Founding, but actually is. And we had a few other stray books to include, which is likely more than our questioner wanted. In any case, much more to come as we draw near to the 250th July 4 next year.

The Three Musketeers of the 3WHH are back with our typical end-of-week roundup, including what we think of the Trump-Putin summit (which will be over by the time everyone listens to this, so this is an exercise in sheer hubris); how to think about crime in the context of Trump's move to take over Washington DC (where, amazingly, John manages to "out-Lucretia" Lucretia with a radical suggestion for what Trump really ought to do with DC); and speaking of Lucretia (this week's show host, on her best behavior believe it or not!) vants about how much she wants to see some real accountability for hte Russia Hoaxters, about whose perfidy we received additional details this week.We round out with a brief discussion of a variation of the "desert island book" idea, namely, what book would each of us recommend as the best introduction to conservative thought for someone who is seriously curious to read up on the subject. John again surprises by making the most impractical suggestion of all, while Steve and Lucretia go with some old standards (though not without some disagreement). We'll attempt a sequel next week, anf by the way, we encourage listeners to send in questions they'd liek us to take up, and we'll try to do that, too.

This special episode marks the revival of the classic format edition with one-on-one conversations between Steve and a special guest, with the first in the series being author Michael Walsh, discussing his terrific new book, A Rage to Conquer: Twelve Battles That Changed the Course of Western History. One way to get a feel for the candor and bracing character of Michael's book is this passage from the Afterword, reflecting on the ambivalent reaction to the 9/11 attack:"The imperial Romans would have gone full delenda est on Saudi Arabia, razed its cities, destroyed the Kaaba, leveled the mosques, occupied the oil fields, seized its wealth, executed its leaders, and sold the populace into slavery; they knew an existential struggle when they were in one."Our conversation ranges far beyond the four corners of his book, into music, Ireland (Michael's ancentral home and part-time residence today), the suicidal multiculturalism of Europe, and why the Chinese military threat is overrated. Steve has other guests lined up for future classic format episodes, and from time to time John and/or Lucretia will join in. But you're going to have to stock up on more whisky.

This week's episode expands the format to include a guest appearance by environmental scientist Ken Green, whe recently joined the ranks of contributors to Steve's "Political Questions" Substack (sign up for free if you haven't already), where this week he celebrates the demise of the "Endangerment Finding" that derives from the Statute-That-Cannot-Be-Named in John Yoo's presence. But along the way Ken raised an eyebrow for certain enthusiasms of the MAHA movement, which in turn raised the eyebrows of a certain "Lucretia," so we decided to let then havie out a bit.The result of one of our livelier episode ever, where discussion of "junk food" and other aspects of America's nitrition was conducted against the background noise of John Yoo munching on a bag of Cheetos. We also have brief considerations of the proposal for a mid-decade census, and the fuss over Gerrymandering in Texas and elsewhere.

This week the 3WHH lives up to its name, as two of us were half in the bag—maybe more than half in the bag in Steve's case—when we recorded late in the evening because difficult travel schedules, but after Steve and Lucretia had completed consumption of twice the USDA's recommended daily allowance of adult beverages. The always sober-minded John Yoo is the host for this week, and we'll leave it to listeners to tell us whether this episode is bouncier than usual. How could not be since we open with discussion of what is clearly the most important news story of the week: Sidney Sweeney's American Eagle "good jeans" ad campaign that has the left losing its mind. No—seriously, this is more than a mere tempest in a D cup: it's the clearest sign yet that our culture has fully turned the corner away from wokery, while leaving enough space for the left to beclown itself further.Speaking of beclowning, Kamala Harris isn't going to run for governor of California, but is going to punish us anyway with a book, out late next month. We can hardly wait.While this is an ad-free episode, it is not a tariff-free zone, and we ponder the evidence about whether Trump is succeeding with his tariff brinksmanship. Cheers!

We lead this week's show with a few short news announcements, including new menu items from McDonalds to excite John, and the debut of a new podcast competitor: Hadley Arkes and his merry band at the James Wilson Institute have launched "The 'Natural Law Moment' Podcast," surely goaded by our constant mangling of his central arguments. WE hope to have a crossover episode with Hadley at some early opportunity, if we can ever get our difficult schedules sorted out.This round-robin format episode features a vigorous discussion of whether Obama and the Deep Staters (sounds like a bad bar-band, no?) are vulnerable to criminal charges for their obviously bad faith behavior in creating the Russia Hoax back in 2016, whether Obama is immune from prosecution because of the ruling last year of Trump v. US, and whether these actions properly rise to the level of "treason" as is alleged by DNI Tulsi Gabbard. Our second segment reflects on a pair of articles Steve and John wrote for a Civitas Outlook symposium last week on "Statemanship and the American Presidency." John Yoo's entry slobbers over the legacy of Andrew Jackson, whileSteve's entry, "Taming the 21st Century Prince," is a more philosophical exploration of the issue, and, contrary to the careless calumnies and reckless imprecations of John, does not contain a single reference to the Clean Air Act!And our final segment delves into a recent bold law review article by a young lawyer friend of ours, Deion Kathawa, entitled "'We the People' Are the Last Word on the Meaning of Our Constitution." His argument is bracing: Congress, because it is the political organ closest to the people, should have the power to override Supreme Court decisions. While agreeing with Kathawa's premise about the ultimate constitutional sovereignty of the people on account of the first principles of the Declaration of Independence, we're skeptical about his proposed remedy. What do listeners think? (We hope to have Deion on as a guest at some point soon to defend himself.)Finally, some new AI generated 3WHH custom poetry, and more revenge bumper music.

Among the revelations of this week's episode that were entirely predictable when you think about it: "Lucretia" was a child TV star in Mason City, Iowa, on the local non-PBS kid's show "Bart's Clubhouse"; John Yoo confesses he was bad at sports as a schoolkid; and as everyone can guess, in childhood Steve merely aspired to be a walking historical analogy when he grew up. Meanwhile, poor Phil Munoz, last week's drive-by guest, is still in therapy. . .So what's all this about the Epstein Files? Does Richard Epstein still have any unexpressed thoughts at this point. . . Wait. What's that? You mean Jeffrey Epstein's files? Never mind. Anyway, we weigh the evidence and circumstances as to whether Epstein's exploits merit elevation to the status of plausible conspiracy or not. And this week saw the fulfillment of Glenn Garvin's classic 1983 article, "How Do I Hate NPR? Let Me Count the Ways." And Steve offers his favorite recipes for how he'd like to see Big Bird cooked.Other name checks on this episode include Zohran Mamdani, Upton Sinclair, Tony Podesta, Jasmine Crockett, and Craig Masback (bonus points if you know that name). And some exit music in a minor key to bring listeners back donw after this extra-exuberant episode (and also to annoy Lucretia. . .).

Behold the great 3WHH fugitive episode. Although it was posted over the weekend, somehow an Internet gremlin or something disappeared it! But now it's back, in its restored glory. (Well, almost restored. Steve had a problem with his mic that was undetected while we were recording, and we weren't able to improve it much in pist-production. We have to cut out a whole new segment on prog rock!)And what glory there is: Lucretia hosts this week as we welcome a special guest, Prof. Phil Munoz of Notre Dame, though he is on assignment this semester at the University of Texas at Austin. Phil decided to try to outflank even Lucretia with the bold proposition that the Mahmoud v Taylor decision, which empowered parents to have their children opt-out of phonics instruction in the LGBTQ alphabet, was actually a defeat for social conservatives. It's a lively discussion, as we did our bnest to make Phil regret his decision to join the show this week.