Podcasts
January 25, 2023 — Steven Hayward
This classic format episode features a conversation with Dan Lowenstein, professor emeritus at UCLA Law School and, more importantly, the impresario of UCLA’s Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI), which he founded, and one of our favorites at Power Line, Jean Yarbrough of Bowdoin College. Prof. Yarbrough was in town for three days to deliver a fabulous lecture comparing Lincoln and Tocqueville on slavery, and then a small
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January 23, 2023 — Steven Hayward
We’re going to have this week’s Power Line University online class on The Federalist tomorrow (Tuesday) instead of Wednesday for scheduling reasons. Lucretia and I will meet live at 4:30 pm Pacific time, and go through the major question of the separation of powers as explained in Federalist numbers 47 – 51. Use this Zoom link to join us. Although Montesquieu had explained the theory of the separation of powers
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January 21, 2023 — Steven Hayward
This week’s raucous episode, recorded well after conventional happy hour usually ends, ranged from Biden’s dementia to the failed Dobbs leak investigation, to Kevin McCarthy’s (relatively) good week, the post hockey ergo propter hockey fallacy, bidding good riddance to one of the premier COVID cultists, a defense of cat-calling (even when it’s done to our Lucretia), and then . . . a big fat argument about Ukraine. The vigorous disagreements among
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January 20, 2023 — Steven Hayward
This week’s PLU class resumes our leisurely stroll through The Federalist starting with Federalists #33 and #37, and the “partly federal, partly national” character of the Union under the proposed Constitution—a subject that remains as confusing and contentious today as it was then. Lucretia walks us through how the issue began to settle out starting with the landmark 1819 case of McCulloch v. Maryland. We also have a lively discussion of the
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January 14, 2023 — Steven Hayward
John Yoo is away this week, so Hillsdale historian Richard Samuelson joins the Three Whisky Happy Hour for an extended discussion of the passing of Paul Johnson, and especially why he deserves to be considered one of the premier historians of all time. But first we rummage around in Joe’s garage (Joe Biden that is), where the lyrics to Frank Zappa’s tune by that name seem appropriate: This is the
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January 6, 2023 — Steven Hayward
We recorded a day early this week because I have to travel (supposedly—the airlines are not cooperating—again). Only the 3WHH bartenders could possibly draw the connecting thread between the subjects of the passing of Pope Benedict XVI, the drama over the next Speaker of the House, and Thomas Hobbes. But with the help of a little fine whisky, we’re up to the job! Lucretia and I give the Protestant John
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January 4, 2023 — Steven Hayward
The response to COVID is arguably the single greatest public policy mistake in American history, which in turn became a global catastrophe since so many other nations followed the United States with foolish lockdowns, school closures, and other authoritarian measures that were ineffective and heedless of adverse tradeoffs. Dr. Scott Atlas of Stanford’s Hoover Institution has been vilified for his dissent from the party line on COVID, most fully explained
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December 31, 2022 — Steven Hayward
John Yoo serves as lead bartender for this gala new year’s eve edition of the Three Whisky Happy Hour, though he was nearly deposed for arriving late and then taunting us with pics of his Korean new year’s feast (see nearby). To ring out 2022 and look ahead to 2023, we cover some new whisky choices (which in John’s case included some very old port by special exception found in
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December 30, 2022 — Steven Hayward
And yet another bonus holiday episode for everyone to savor before the college football bowl games arrive. . . “Human rights do not exist,” claims an anonymous dissident conservative writer, but when he (at least we’re going to identify the author as a “he”—heh) added some animadversions about our pal Michael Anton, the fight was on! Anton has responded at length to this provocation with a true tour de force
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December 29, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Lucretia and I held the first “classroom” for PLU (Power Line University) yesterday, with 110 people ultimately tuning in live for our first formal session on The Federalist Papers. We had a couple of technical difficulties—for some reason we kept failing to get the Chat window working right—and we had some hiccups admitting some live questions and comments from viewers, but we hope to have these ironed out for our
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December 27, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Who knew that John Yoo is a total science fiction geek?! I’m going to have to go back and scour his law review article footnotes to see if I can detect esoteric references to Sci-Fi classics, with which, it turns out, he has thoroughly familiarity. Ken Green channeling Jayne Cobb. Some time last year I did a podcast on science fiction with my old AEI writing partner Ken Green (who
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December 24, 2022 — Steven Hayward
As you may have heard, Stanford “University” embarrassed itself this week by issuing a list of 160 words or phrases that you shouldn’t use because they are not sufficiently “inclusive” or sensitive, including even “trigger warning,” because, Stanford helpfully explained, “The phrase can cause stress about what’s to follow. Additionally, one can never know what may or may not trigger a particular person.” And although “American” is among the terms Stanford
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December 22, 2022 — Steven Hayward
I get a steady stream of emails from readers and listeners who want to know if any of my or Lucretia’s college courses are webcast or otherwise available online, and unfortunately the answer is No, partly for legal reasons but also for some technical reasons (streaming live classes is not as easy as it might seem, and the recording quality is often poor). But we have for the longest time
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December 21, 2022 — Steven Hayward
What do you do when you wake up and see the news story of how the University of North Carolina is once again violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with a scholarship that specifically excludes white students from eligibility? Your first thought is that you need to call Mark Perry, except he’s already on the job! Perry, professor emeritus of economics and finance at the University of Michigan/Flint, filed
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December 17, 2022 — Steven Hayward
John Yoo is back at last from his latest Italian junket—yes, Lucretia let him back across the border unharmed!—and hosts this week’s episode of the Three Whisky Happy Hour in which we clarify some of the over-hasty arguments from last week’s highly thymotic episode (as many readers noted!) about exactly when and how it is legitimate to contest the Supreme Court over the application of the Constitution. This opening elided
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December 15, 2022 — Steven Hayward
We live in a time of “crisis addicts,” in which the left cannot shake its addiction to what might be called “crisis porn.” Remember Rahm Emanuel proclaiming in 2009, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”? He was merely stating openly what has been obvious for a century now—that governments use a “crisis” to expand its power and reach permanently, never entirely relinquishing new powers and higher spending after
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December 10, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Hoo boy, this week’s Three Whisky Happy Hour very nearly descended into a full-scale bar room brawl, even though we recorded in the morning over coffee instead of single-malts because John Yoo is still over in Rome! (And may not come back after this episode!) After noting a few late breaking news stories, such as Harvey Mansfield’s retirement and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s surprise announcement that she’s becoming an independent, we
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