
Power Line
Steven Hayward, John Yoo, and "Lucretia" bring you a whisky-sodden perspective on the week's big headlines, and occasional deep dives into law and philosophy.Listen to the Three-Whisky Happy hour, along with more than 40 other original podcasts, at Ricochet.com. No paid subscription required.
Latest episodes

Feb 11, 2022 • 46min
From Hollyweird to Hollywoke: ‘Virtue Bombs' with Christian Toto
Hollywood has been liberal to far-left for decades, but in recent years it has become fully Hollywoke. Christian Toto, proprietor of the invaluable Hollywood-in-Toto website, is out with a new book surveying the wreckage of Hollywokeness: Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul. I come to the conclusion that wokeism in Hollywood is arguably worse than wokism on the university campus... Source

Feb 5, 2022 • 1h 1min
The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Back to the Ring on "the FDR Question"
Last week’s episode with Conrad Black defending his pro-FDR thesis generated a lot of reader interest and comments, so Lucretia and I decided to return to the boxing ring to argue out the matter de novo. It will not be a surprise to regular listeners to hear that Lucretia is not persuaded, even by the serious arguments of another of our favorite thinkers after Lord Black, the late scholar John... Source

Feb 3, 2022 • 1h 45min
Is There a "Generation Gap" on the Right? The "Based" Think So
Almost completely ignored by conservative media, there is a growing generation gap emerging within young conservatives that in some ways resembles the “generation gap” of the 1960s which saw the new left “hippie” generation emerge from liberal homes, as Midge Decter explained in her early book Liberal Parents, Radical Children. Now it is happening on the right. I started picking up on this story... Source

Jan 29, 2022 • 1h 13min
The Three Whisky Happy Hour: "The FDR Question," with Conrad Black
As regular listeners will know, Lucretia and I have debated “the FDR question” a lot, amidst a flurry of new reconsiderations among a few thinkers and places on the right who think we should hold FDR in higher esteem. But over and over again in this running argument we keep coming back to Conrad Black’s magisterial biography, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom . While there have been... Source

Jan 27, 2022 • 1h
A Conversation with Charles Murray and Steve Sailer, Pt. 2
After we recorded and posted part 1 of this conversation last week, the news came out that the Supreme Court will hear the Harvard/University of North Carolina affirmative action admissions cases. It has been solidly demonstrated that the universities don’t just use race as a minor, tie-breaking “plus” factor, but indeed put both feet on the scale in favor of blacks and to a lesser degree... Source

Jan 23, 2022 • 1h 7min
A Conversation with Charles Murray and Steve Sailer, Pt. 1
The idea for this episode was born on Twitter. Someone wondered if Charles Murray would be willing to do a podcast with journalist Steve Sailer, who, like Charles, is willing to confront openly the most delicate aspects of race and class in America—and gets the same treatment from liberals everywhere: complete demonization. I offered to host, and Charles and Steve, who have never met, agreed. Source

Jan 22, 2022 • 1h 2min
The Three Whisky Happy Hour, on DMLA Syndrome, and Other Defects of Modernity
This week Lucretia really takes it to Steve for his advanced case of DMLAS (Deficient Meat Loaf Awareness Syndrome—and we’re not talking the baked dish here), which surely must make the next edition of the DSM. But from there we quickly pivot to a recap and demolition of the highlights of this week’s news, starting with Biden’s disastrous press conference, but moving quickly to the heart of the... Source

Jan 15, 2022 • 1h 12min
The Three Whisky Happy Hour, On Biden's Horrible No Good Very Bad Week
Both Steve and Lucretia get through three different whiskys each in this gala episode, recorded with a live audience on Zoom, celebrating the Biden-Harris administration’s worst week in office yet, though as the noted political analyst Homer Simpson might say, “their worst week— so far.” It took Jimmy Carter three years to hit bottom in the summer of 1979, when even The New Republic declared that... Source

Jan 13, 2022 • 35min
Roy Spencer on Climate Change Censorship, and Cool Satellites
Dr. Roy Spencer of NASA and the University of Alabama at Huntsville is one of the nation’s most accomplished climate scientists, having won awards for his work developing the satellite monitoring system that provides some of the best weather and climate trend data available. But because he is modest about what climate science actually knows about the future, he dissents from the extreme apocalypse... Source

Jan 8, 2022 • 58min
The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Why the Jan. 6 Narrative is Like Climate Change
We open this first episode of the 3WHH of 2022 with the existential question: why is Lucretia so mean to Steve? Actually she has a really good reason, but you have to get all the way to the end for the reward—or is it a redemption? (Steve attempts to mellow Lucretia with a Snickers Bar of an op-ed in the middle, with some success.) In any case, we try to offer some original and comparative... Source