3 Whisky Happy Hour

Move over Calvin Coolidge: Grover Cleveland has a valid claim to being regarded as the most constitutionally faithful and fiscally frugal president since the Civil War—a case made splendidly in Troy Senik’s new biography that is being published today, A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland. What explains this outlier of a politician, who is so unlike... Sou...

Today is Constitution Day, so naturally conversation at the 3WHH bar turned directly to the question of whether the state-mandated observances of Constitution Day in public colleges and universities are unconstitutional! Naturally there is division on this issue that maps with our ongoing division over the perspicacity of peated whisky. John (left) appears less than convinced here. Source

With John Yoo sitting in the host chair this week, we decided to post this episode a day early partly on account of travel schedules (John and Steve are head for the NatCon conference in Miami), and partly because of the breaking news of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. Also because it turns out that the favorite whisky of King Charles III is reportedly Laphroaig 15, which counts as a point in.....

The setting for Biden’s speech was so bad that it rivals Michael Dukakis’s tank ride for disastrous visuals, but that’s noting compared to the egregious content, which makes Jimmy Carter’s dreadful “malaise” speech seem like Demosthenes by comparison. Speaking of the demos, Biden’s speech can be seen an as especially inartful presumption of anti-republican principles that have been at the center.....

Once again the three-host Three Whisky Happy Hour didn’t get around to any whisky reviews, distracted once again by important breaking fast-food news. But the main first topic of this back-to-school special edition is the role education is playing in this election cycle. On the K-12 level, the same dynamic that propelled Glenn Youngkin to victory in Virginia last year seems to have legs... Source

The heart of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA) is a massive increase in subsidies for “green energy,” which normally summons a gag reflex from most conservatives. But the iconoclasts at the Breakthrough Institute, who are not automatic or uncritical fans of wind and solar power, think the climate parts of the IRA represent a break from historic climate orthodoxy that most people haven’...

John Yoo assumes the rotating host chair for this week’s episode, since Steve was on the road much of the week and didn’t keep up with news that didn’t involve whisky (and mermaids). We review what to make of Liz Cheney’s huge defeat in Wyoming, and Steve gamely attempts to defend the shrewdness of Mitch McConnell from Lucretia’s scorn. Then we turn to the still-unfolding story and fallout from......

Glenn Ellmers has done it again, with a fresh provocation entitled “ America Never Existed.” Say what?!?! Did he drink some 1619 Moonshine or something? Here’s his lede: It is possible (not certain, but possible) that within the next 20 years or so, the United States will no longer exist. . . The end of the American republic would most likely mean the end of self-government all over the globe—the....

With this episode of the Three Whisky Happy Hour, the great John Yoo joins up as a permanent co-host along with Steve and Lucretia, having spent the last several weeks in Triple-A podcast instructional league while Steve was drinking his way across the British Isles. Perfect timing, since John worked in the Justice Department once upon a time, and has insights into its internal political dynamics....

If I stay overseas any longer, it’s pretty clear the usurpation of the 3wHH will morph into the “The McRibb Happy Meal Podcast” if I don’t put a stop to it, so I made sure to disrupt this week’s episode once again from London, this time while finishing off a bottle of Poit Dhubh (potch-goo), as fits the real show. I didn’t stick around for long as it was the dinner hour over here in London... Sour...

I can’t believe I had to crash my own podcast today to blunt the slow-rolling coup that Lucretia and John Yoo started last week in my absence, but by the miracle of the internet I did just that, dropping in for a few minutes between drams of whisky and dishes of haggis. We kick around the Joe Manchin news, whether the White House will invent a new term for economic distress—”recessionyx”... Source

I can’t believe I left the car keys to the podcast sitting on the kitchen counter when I left for overseas, and now Lucretia and John Yoo have snatched them up and usurped the usufructs of the 3WHH. After they finally get clear of their ritualistic but obligatory abuse of me, they get down to important subjects, like Philly cheese steaks and other delectables, President Biden’s latest ailments and...

In this second half of my conversation with Geoff Shepard (part 1 here, if you missed it), we walk through the famous “smoking gun” Oval Office tape of June 23, 1972, which was the final straw that led to Nixon’s resignation in August, 1974. Except we’ve got the facts all wrong about what was actually being discussed. Shepard walks through the matter, and then moves on to his devastating evidence....

The big news story this week was the appearance of the fetching Fawn Hall Cassidy Hutchinson before the Watergate January 6 select committee, which somehow put us in the frame of mind of “Cassidy” by the renowned poetic duo of Weir/Barlow: Lost now on the country miles in his Cadillac I can tell by the way you smile, he is rolling back [to the West Wing] Come wash the nighttime clean Come grow the...

Writing about the Watergate scandal in the 1980s, political scientist John Marini said “The passage of time has not resulted in greater clarity concerning what it is we should have learned from the event, perhaps because we still lack an authoritative account of it.” Having reached the 50th anniversary of the most famous “burglary” in history, we may be coming closer to have a complete... Source

Has there been a more momentous week for the Supreme Court ever? The Court went three-for-three on the key cases this week ( Carson, on school choice; Bruen, on gun rights: and Dobbs, overturning Roe and Casey), not simply on the decision of the specific cases at hand, but the broader reasoning behind the decisions. Indeed this week may come some day to be be seen as the equivalent of the infamous...

When it comes to energy, is the Biden administration simply stupid, or blindly ideological? Yes—we should embrace the power of “and,” because these possibilities are not mutually exclusive. Indeed the Bidenistas appear to be both dumb and ideological. Yesterday I ran into energy expert extraordinaire Robert Bryce—we’re at a murky gathering at an undisclosed location—and we sat down for a hearty......

With Steve and Lucretia still locked in mortal combat over how best to understand equality, equity, prudence and related issues, and divided as bitterly over Edmund Burke as they are over whisky styles (with Steve recklessly wading in with a new piece on the Burke question just this week), this week’s episode brings on a neutral party to serve as a tie-breaker: Jean Yarbrough, the Gary M. Pendy Sr...

The penultimate chapter of my recent biography, M. Stanton Evans: Conservative Wit, Apostle of Freedom, summarizes the enduring literary, philosophical, and historical contributions of his last two books, The Theme Is Freedom, and Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Digging into the audio archives of the Philadelphia Society, I found two talks Stan gave—one in 1994......

A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of the Constitution, and a constant adherence to those of piety, justice, moderation, temperance, industry, and frugality, are absolutely necessary, to preserve the advantages of liberty, and to maintain a free government. —Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 This week’s conversation offers up some new whisky choices while continuing with a... Sou...

When Arizona Governor Doug Ducey appointed the noted libertarian lawyer Clint Bolick to the Arizona Supreme Court in 2016, the left freaked out (so what else is new), calling his appointment “chilling.” The Center for American Progress gasped, “Mr. Bolick has spent the last quarter century working — at times quite successfully — to make the law more friendly to anti-government conservatives. Sourc...

Two favorite guests and friends join us at the bar for this week’s happy hour, to hash out bar fights they started in less reputable watering holes. Jeremy Carl argues in The American Conservative that there needs to be “A Republican Counter-Elite,” while Glenn Ellmers continues to spark controversy with his article a year ago, “Conservatism Is No Longer Enough,” and now, last week... Source

The 20th anniversary is known as the “China anniversary,” and can you still use that if your predominant mode is breaking China? In any case, the Power Line crew assembled for a live (by Zoom) VIP webcast this week that featured a rare appearance by our technical director Joe Malchow, who is usually our behind-the-screen Wizard of Oz figure. Among other things, Joe shared a sacred relic... Source

This week’s review of the news is more wide-ranging than usual, starting with the question of whether the release of Top Gun: Maverick will turn out to be one more small indicator that the backlash against the cultural left is gaining steam. After all, the left hated the original Top Gun in the 1980s, because it was said to be an emblem of Reaganite jingoism, and since the sequel involves... Sourc...

This is the week we learned that there is a reason we’ll miss Jen Psaki at the White House (plus a shout out to the forgotten Dee Dee Myers, who looks pretty good in retrospect); that the Anthony Scaramucci duration-in-office scale remains useful for marking the tenure in office of Nina Jankowitz (who nonetheless lasted longer than CNN+); that the Defense Production Act can apparently solve our......