Power Line

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.