3 Whisky Happy Hour

This may sound like a very esoteric subject for our weekly podcast, but did you know this year is the 100th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case of Euclid v. Ambler Realty? No, really—it is! We're not making this up. Okay, we know what you're thinking: what is Euclid v. Ambler Realty and why should I care, especially a hindred years later?The Euclid decision, written by one of the most conservative and principled Justices of the Supreme Court (George Sutherland) declared that land use zoning was constitutional and didn't violate the "takings clause" of the 5th Amendment ("No shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation"). I know: stifle your excitement. But don't zone out on us. John and Steve agree (for once) that Sutherland got this one badly wrong, and trust us, we liven it up in our discussion.Lucretia, hostess for this week's episode, wonders whether there is a "right to protest." Sure the 1st Amendment protects freedom of speech and the right to assemble, but does it actually protect protests—like those we see in Minneapolis right now, where the dividing line between protest and active interference of federal law enforcement is hard to make out (on purpose).Then, finally, Lucretia gets Steve to reflect on the 20th anniversary of Al Gore's horror film about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore's film was hysterically wrong, but he's still with us somehow.

A lot of interesting legal questions this week for rotating host John Yoo, and we don't even get through all of them (can you believe Lucretia actually passed up the chance to dunk on her "favorite" Justice KBJ for this week's embarrassment at the Court), because we move directly to the question of whether Gov. Spanberger and Virginia are a canary in a coal mine of a Progressive mine-shaft explosion. Holy-moly!And Steve thinks it isn't too soon to begin thinking about what "New Right 5.0" after Trump is going to look like.Exit music today from Cosigner, which we are thinking of making the official bumper music band for the 3WHH, since the lead singer and motive force of the band is a certified conservative and listener to this podcast. Let us know if you approve.

Is it just us, or did this week seem even crazier than usual? We didn't have time to cover all the crazy in the news, and had to settle for trying to select the most stupid crazy thing said this week, though even that was a hard selection to make. But we gave a group award to everyone involved in trying to persuade the Supreme Court that boys should be allowed in girls sports. So much to work with.We considered whether and how the Insurrection Act might work in the case of insurrectiony Minnesota, and then move on to our main event today: is America in fact the "best regime" in the classical, Platonic/Aristotelian meaning of the term (Steve and Lucretia say Yes, while John is confused and cantankerous as usual), and if so does this help explain the left's deep hatred for America?

Our second livestream on our Political Questions Substack was a lively tour through frivolous lawsuits against the McRib, to wondering what is happening in Iran. Could it really be the end of the line for the mullahocracy? If so we agree the likely deciding factor is Trump. Who also, you may have heard, knocked over Venezuela last weekend. Finally, what to make of events in Minneapolis. Well, a lot, as you might imagine.

We tried an experiment this week—livestreaming the taping of this week's episode on Steve's 'Political Questions" Substack.  We think is was a success even though Steve's camera froze up several times along the way. John Yoo hosts this first episode of the year, which is devoted entirely to understanding and critiquing "post-liberalism," currently one of the hottest new things going on the right today. (John makes reference to one of our live clashes with a leading post-liberal, which Steve wrote up here.)Attacks on the classical liberalism of the American Founding are not new from the left—Marx hated John Locke perhaps above all others except perhaps Adam Smith—and there have always been conservative critics of Lockean liberalism, starting with Edmund Burke back in the 1790, but also like Leo Strauss whose famous short phrase was that materialism Lockeanism would devolve into "a joyless quest for joy." This is an urgent and relevant question as we move toward the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence mid-year, and while we expect the 1619 Project left will be out in force attacking the Declaration for the usual stupid reasons, we'll also have to content with some on the right attacking it for reasons that may have a more plausible basis, but which we think are confused—when they are not wrong.This is merely the first episode of the podcast this year that will be devoted to various aspects and controveries about the founding that will surely erupt over the next six months.  Strap in!

To close out the year the 3WHH barflies recorded a special Boxing Day edition, in which, following the obligatory McDonald's news for John and a breaking story that indicates President Trump really does mean it about defending Western Christendom, we review our predictions for 2025 from a year ago (which, unlike the old McLaughlin Group predictions, turned out to be fairly good in most cases); then discuss what each of think is the most significant story of 2025, and offer predictions for 2026. We couldn't make the Substack livestream work, but we're going to sort that out in the next week before our first show of the new season next weekend, which will be 2026!

Just how are you going to pass the time on Christmas Day after you've got the roast in the oven (at low temp, of course) and you've finished your obligatory annual screening of Die Hard? How about a special Christmas Day edition of the Three Whisky Happy Hour! Lucretia took time out from the kitchen to host this ad-free episode which features a discussion of the law governing religious symbols on public property, and why they are NOT violations of the Estasblishment Clause of the First Amendment (the phrase "separation of church and state" is not even hiding in any of the emanantions an punumbras of the Constitution, so don't even look). Discussion also turned to wondering why liberals are increasingly hostile to religion—especially Christianity—and Steve offers his theory that the decline of patriotism among liberals, which also shows up in opinion survey data, is connected to the decline of religion among liberals, too. (He gave the full analysis of the matter in this Substack post a few months ago. One sentence summary: politics, the substitute diety for the left, isn't going well for them right now, which makes them angry.) And did you know that Christmas itself is now a"far right" plot? That's what Politico thinks. (Yes, we know: "Politico thinks" is an oxymoron.)We manage to get in some good holiday cheer, such as mocking John's total ignorance of "throuples" *the latest thing for the "Modern Love" section of the NY Times) and we manage to get in our obligatory reference to—wait for it!—the Clean Air Act, and Sydney Sweeney. Because it's Christmas!We'll be back sometime over the weekend with a regular episode in which we review the most significqnt events of 2025, and offer predictions for 2026.

It's conspiracy theory week at the 3WHH, as host John Yoo guides us through the mysteries of the shootings at Brown University and MIT, the mystery of why an article about the corruption of the DEI world should suddenly go viral just now, what conspiracy theory could explain why White House chief of staff Susie Wiles would call VP Vance a "conspiracy theorist" (among other things), and last but not least, how Candace Owens stole Lucretia's tin foil hat right out from under her nose! After all this, we expect Santa will be delivering fancy new tin foil hats to us next week.

It's the usual brawl at the bar with the three barflies of the Three Whisky Happy Hour, where we take note of Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson sayiing the quiet (progressive) part out loud, likely flattered by the New York Review of Books recently saying of her: "Ketanji Brown Jackson is proving to be the sharpest justice on the Supreme Court." (No, seriously—they really printed that sentence.) But did she really just give away the whole anti-democratic impulse of progressives? It looks like she did.We actually agree that Humphrey's Executor is going to get executed because Slaughter (the party to the case against Trump) ha set it up for the slaughter.Speaking of slaughtering, we get around to celebrating the seasonal apperance of the McRib, but not before reviewing how his bears on John Yoo's favorite constitutional doctrine, the 'unitary executive,' and we take a brief tour to argue over some of the fine points of the Dred Scott case. Because whisky will do that to you.

Lucretia hosts this week's episode with the running theme that there's too much pearl clutching going on among the hand-wringers in Washington and the media. We flop our pearls of wisdom on the Tennessee special election, the J6 bomber arrest, the double-tap bombings on Venezuelan "fishing boats," the Minnesota welfare scandal, and the related immigration control issues it raises. We have some diversions into the latest Trumpian nomenclature, including his rehabilitation of "third world countries" and the "R-word," as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz calls it, and how Sydney Sweeney might react to listening to an episode of the 3WHH (because it is the new Kantian Categorical Imperative that Sydney Sweeney must be kept in the news).Exit music this week is “Clutchin’ Pearls,” by Ross Kleiner and the Thrill. Key lyric that does not apply to our hostess with the mostest: “She’s so mad/I left her clutchin’ pearls!”