With the World Series knotted at 2-2, and the mid-term election just days away, it seemed the perfect time to catch up with Henry Olsen, the premier psephologist (trying saying that word fast just once, never mind seven times) of all things data-related when it comes to politics—and also baseball. We disagree about the decision to remove a starting pitcher working on a no-hitter into the 7th... Source

That was an extraordinary five hours at the Supreme Court yesterday—twice as long as the oral arguments were originally scheduled to last—and the longer the argument went on, the worse it seemed to get for the defenders of raced-based admissions for higher education. Maybe that was by design on the part of Chief Justice Roberts, who was sarcastic in his open scorn for what he has previously called... Source

On Monday the Supreme Court takes up the Harvard and University of North Carolina affirmative action cases in what is the Super Bowl of civil rights litigation—arguably the biggest moment for the Court since Brown v. Board of Education. Naturally that is the focus of this episode, though we do briefly review a couple of the key news stories of the week, such as Fetterman’s collapse... Source

Next Monday the Supreme Court takes up the Harvard and University of North Carolina affirmative action admissions cases, but before getting to the constitutional doctrine of the matter, there is a vexing matter that is often overlooked: if we’re going to be giving out racial preferences for admissions (and government contracts, etc), who counts as a member of which minority group? Source

Lucretia and Steve gave John Yoo the day off for this special interstitial (and abbreviated) episode that we’ll just call the *Two* Whisky Happy Hour, in which Lucretia and Steve clear up some confusion from our most recent fast-paced episode, where a few main points got muddled. Several new listeners want us to clear up exactly what we mean by natural right, how natural right (especially its... Source

Last February John Yoo and I hosted Richard Epstein, who needs no introduction for Ricochet members and listeners, for a lecture at Berkeley Law on his most recent book, The Dubious Morality of Modern Administrative Law. Given that we were still under a mask mandate on campus at the time, Richard decided to talk about our COVID misadventures as a prime example of the administrative state run amok. Source

Hoo boy! This week’s fiery episode takes up the argument leftover from last week about whether conservatism—and especially the new “national” variety that is sparking so much energy and enthusiasm right now—should conceive of its mission as Burkean in character, as “restorationist” or revolutionary. We cover a lot of ground, with Lucretia beating up on Steve for his suspicious Burkean sympathies... Source

With John Yoo in the host chair this week, we get off to a rocky start because a certain friend of ours made a favorable reference to Edmund Burke in a draft article shared with us in advance of publication, and Lucretia immediately went to DefCon1. To be continued next week! Anyway, after introducing our whiskies of the week, we get down to business with ranking the biggest farce of the week... Source

For the left, we have arrived at juris-thermo-geddon. If the Ruskies don’t nuke us, then the Supreme Court is going to nuke the Constitution! The Doomsday Clock at leftist institutions everywhere is striking midnight, yet somehow the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists “official” Doomsday Clock hasn’t budged, because apparently it is just a climate change clock now. Anyway, before taking up the legal... Source

This week offers a hybrid car of an episode—almost literally as it turns out—as John Yoo was traveling midweek when Lucretia and Steve gathered in person with Richard Samuelson to record the first half, reviewing his reflections on the significance of the “Washington Football Team” deciding to name themselves the “ Commanders,” which rather fits the administrative state today, no? From there we go... Source