Power Line

The “fog of war” is even foggier in the age of 24/7 news and social media, so it is impossible to know what the hell is happening on the ground in the Ukraine, let alone in Moscow. High time, then, to check in with Col. Austin Bay, author of Cocktails From Hell and other books, Creators Syndicate columnist, and contributor to StrategyPage. I was delighted to discover that we’re both fans of... Source

Lucretia added to her intrepid legend by venturing into the asylum at Berkeley this week to record this episode in person with Georgetown Law Professor Randy Barnett about his new book (co-authored with Evan Bernick), The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment: Its Letter and Spirit. To remind listeners, Barnett argued the Gonzalez v. Raich case that challenged the unlimited reach of the... Source

This week we’re joined once again by the historian, political theorist, and borscht-belt comedian Richard Samuelson to break the 3WHH deadlock on “the FDR Question.” But fear not weary listeners, we dispose of that question in short order, and move on to other things. (“Team Lucretia” will be pleased with his tie-breaking verdict.) Among our other topics include the San Francisco school board... Source

Even without the Canadian truckers providing the St. Crispin’s Day rally point against the Branch COVIDians, you have the feeling that this was the week the edifice started to crumble, when our betters started to contemplate the fate of Nicolae Ceaușescu when they look in the mirror. The science changed, you say? I think that must mean opinion polling science. Steve and Lucretia also have a polite... Source

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

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

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

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

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

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