Power Line

Way back in 1960, Leo Strauss wrote in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences that "Natural law, which was for many centuries the basis of the predominant Western political thought, is rejected in our time by almost all students of society who are not Roman Catholics." In the decades since then, however, natural law has enjoyed a revival of sorts, and is implicated today in the rise of constitutional originalism at the Supreme Court. But it is also a confusing subject, because many so-called "new natural law" theories seem to concede too much to modern philosophy, as if the great tradition of natural law begins with Bentham. To be sure, the classical authors such as Aristotle, Cicero, and Aquinas were not simple thinkers on the subject, but their work tends not bog down with specialized jargon or abstruse theory. One person stands out for rescuing the older tradition of natural law: Hadley Arkes, author of Mere Natural Law: Originalism and the Anchoring Truths of the Constitution. In this conversation, Steve Hayward draws out the basics of the argument from Prof. Arkes, and extends the line of reasoning to today's controversies about free speech and "cancel culture," which are more confused than ever with the sudden eruption of anti-Semitism on college campuses.

With John Yoo away this week on a junket to South America, Steve and Lucretia reverted to old times and scheduled a live taping where we fielded questions and comments in a webinar format.We talked about the reasons to be bullish about the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, along with discussion of the strategic challenges facing Israel and the United States, and more—always more—on the rot in our universities.In between these three main topics we took up listener questions about social contract theory, whether the U.S. could realistically find itself in a real civil war some time soon, and whether the general challenges of political leadership in a time of deep polarization can be overcome.A real crowd-pleaser, we hope.

The only thing more predictable than a sunrise in the east is a Hamas claim that Israel bombed a Gaza hospital and that the Western media would report it as dictated because the story was just too good to check, though we always thought the mainstream media employed—or so they told us in 2004—"layer and layers of fact-checkers." Once again, we see whose side our media is on. And it's not ours—or Israel's.Topic 2: Time to "decolonize" all the academic departments that won't shut up about "colonialism." Full stop.And has anyone in DC figured out yet that the move by renegade Republicans to oust Speaker McCarthy and leave the Speaker's chair empty was a clever plot to get Democrats to vote for a de facto government shutdown, and stymie aid to Ukraine? Who are the dumb guys now?And what to make of the plea deals of Sydney Powell and Kenneth Cheesebro in the Georgia prosecutions of the supposed Trump RICO conspiracy? We speculate that both Powell and Cheesebro might reprise the great star turn of Frankie Pentangelo in Godfather II.

Never mind Hamas in Gaza: what do we do with Hamas ideology on American college campuses? On top of the pusillanmous responses of college presidents we can clearly see the emerging theme of moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas, out of which the next step is certain: any attempts to curtail Hamas ideology on campus will be called "cancel culture," and will be said to prove the hypocrisy of everyone who has been attacking cancel culture over the last few years. And thus nothing will change. At the least, Jews should boycott Harvard, and perhaps the entire Ivy League. Steve suggests a more robust alternative way of thinking about the problem, but John and Lucretia are not convinced.Topic two is the domestic political scene. Who needs a Speaker of the House anyway? But more curious is the case of RFK Jr., who has now decided to run as an independent nex year. Is there a chance he could actually win, say, for instance, if Biden tumbles down the stairs of Air Force One in early October, and can't be replaced on the ballot—never mind the prospect that he might draw more votes from Trump than from Biden. The point is, black swan events are becoming so much more common than maybe it is time to bring back white swan events.We do live up to our name at the open, however, with some whisky recommendations from the GoodSpirit whisky bar in Budapest.

Lucretia, freshly back in the U.S. from her adventures with Steve in Budapest, is in the host chair for this week's episode, and she's not in a good mood. And it's not jet lag. Looking out at the concurrent disasters at home and abroad at the moment—high inflation, an undefended southern border, and now war in Israel—she poses a straightforward question: Would any of this be happening if Trump was still president? And more acute to a certified dog-lover: While Trump has many personal flaws, would he kick a dog? The evidence accumulates that Joe Biden is not just a terrible president, but a terrible human being.From there we take up the inner desires of Kamp Kommandant Hillary Klinton, the good news (for John) of the return of the McRibb, and the demise of Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Which somehow leads to a discussion of President James K. Polk, whom John thinks is an executive to be highly esteemed, drawing immediate 50-cal fire from Lucretia. And we also marvel afresh at the feral genius of Trump's method of contesting the kangaroo court fraud trial under way in New York.But it isn't all bad news. We celebrate the fact that apparently women, too, think a lot about the Roman Empire, though Lucretia prefers to think of the Roman Republic instead, since she founded it.

Settle in with your best chilled Hungarian dessert wine and Philly cheese steak for this cosmopolitan issue, which finds John Yoo—host for this week's episode—tired out from looting in his home town of Philadelphia, while Lucretia and Steve are together in Budapest carrying on with more conspiracies against the international rules-based order. John gives us on-scene reports from ground-zero of the "recreational shopping" going on in Philadelphia, plus an update on his three days of testimony in the incredible John Eastman disbarrment trial going on in California. We also cover the aftermath of our event with Heather Mac Donald at Berkeley Law, which made it all the way to Jesse Watter's show on Fox News, and has gained something like 3 million views online. But that's nothing compared to our beat down on the implosion of Ibram X. Kendi (Sen. John Kennedy's favorite "butthole professor"), which was not only predictable, but was predicted! By Glenn Loury, among others, whose profanity-laced rant about Kendi to John McWhorter we excerpt here for its news value, but also underscore the main point that the academic exaltation of an intellectual fraud like Kendi is another indication of the corruption and deep politicization of our universities today.Government shutdown? GOP debate? The rest of the Supreme Court docket for the new term beginning Monday. Yes—we cover all that too. Better get a second bottle of Hungarian wine.

This circuitious episode, hosted by Steve in Budapest with John Yoo in Dallas and Lucretia in her undisclosed desert location, starts off with the entirely predictable news that David Brooks drinks his whisky on the rocks (insert shudders and horror here), and quickly moves on to the news that hasn't broken yet, so we'll fix it: Gavin Newson is running for president. We know—he hasn't offically announced, but he's behaving like a candidate more and more every day. And why has no one noticed that Newsom would also solve the Democrats' Kamala problem? (See the Constitution, Article II, Section 1, especially the passage that reads, "The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves." That rules out Kamala as Newsom's running mate, which is okay because Newsom and Harris hate each other.We also devote too much time to the sartorial severity that is the Fetterman Senate Dress code, and you'll just need to listen to hear who Lucretia calls "Senator Stripper Boots."From there Steve gives a central European "sit rep" on attitudes there about the Ukraine War, American policy about the war, and general political matters, all gleaned from Steve's conversations with highly placed (and very smart) Hungarian sources.We've been wanting to talk about a legal issue that's been our mind for a while, and we finally get to it in this episode in depth: qualified immunity. We don't quite reach a firm conlusion about how the doctrine should be reformed, but you'll feel smarter for our dissection of it.Finally, a few quick notes on the Kendi implosion, missing jet fighters, and other fun matters. But not to worry—we're still drinking our whisky neat, even if David Brooks kills his with four ice cubes. In an airport.

Lucretia hosts this week, as the fearsome threesome give a brief summary of a recent law school seminar on natural law and the Constitution we presented last week at Berkeley Law before a group of somewhat skeptical students, and then moving on to assaying the Biden impeachment inquiry and Hunter Biden's smoking gun charge, asking why all the White House spokespeople seem to have come from Nerd Central (we mean you, Ian Sams!), and explaining the fundamental asymmetry of the Administrative State in Democratic and Republican presidencies.And isn't it nice that Virginia Democrats have offered us a whole new definition of a "working family"? Who knew that Only Fans might become a new source for campaign contributions. Also: once again the question—are Biden and Harris both on the Democrats' chopping block for next year?Get this: the latest rationale for federal government censorship of the internet is protecting "cognitive infrastructure," which sounds beyond the perverse imagination even of Orwell. And you know how well things go when the government gets interested in infrastructure! But I now have an excuse for the next time I forget something: "My memory hit a pothole in my cognitive infrastructure!"Finally, we close out with some actual news, namely, John Yoo sharing some perspective on his expert witness testimony in the ongoing disbarment proceeding against John Eastman this week.

We're a day late and a person short this week, as we're missing John Yoo because of schedule conflicts. Over morning coffee instead of evening single malt, this shortened, ad-free epiode finds Lucretia and Steve wondering if the Branch Covidians can really be getting ready to impose a mask mandate on all of us again, and pondering whether the COVID case of the multiply-boosted DOKTOR Jill Biden should make us wonder whether anyone knows anything anymore.Could this all be a sign of the deepening panic among Democrats over the latest polls showing Donald Trump stronger than ever, and ever increasing doubts about Joe Biden? And speaking of Democrats, who knew that Democrats have become Carl Schmitt fans, as is seemingly the case with New Mexico Governor Grisham declaring that an "emergency" gives her the power to suspend the 2nd Amendment. This comes on the heels of the latest 5th Circuit Court ruling that the Biden Administration trampled the 1st Amendment with its Covid censorship regime.

Never mind saving “our democracy"—who's going to save our gerontocracy! With Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden in a contest for Greatest Brain Freeze Moment, while Dianne Feinstein and John Fetterman look on with envy, we are starting to long for the good old days of the youthful vigor of the Soviet Politburo. Is it time for age limits for high federal office (though Sen. Chuck Grassley, still firing on all cylinders two weeks before his 90th birthday, might want a word with us), or do we just need cognitive tests for office?Equally alarming is how the Baude-Paulsen argument for disqualiftying Trump for the presidency under the 14th Amendment is gaining traction. Could a county registrar of voters in some deep blue percinct throw the 2024 election into complete chaos? John has a good article on this scene suggesting the answer is a hard No, which we review. Meanwhile, the whole Georgia case gets curiouser and curiouser, as you'd expect in our current Alice in Wonderland world of "verdict first, trial later" phase of Trump-specific law enforcement. But also some good news: the forces of decency are fighting back against the left's demagogic attack on Clarence Thomas.