Power Line

As Monty Python used to say, “And now for something completely different.” I decided to do a one-off episode about my favorite topic with which to annoy anyone of taste and refinement—a reflection on prog rock, which Jody Bottum once aptly described as “rock and roll gone to college.” It turns out that 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of some of the classic albums from the golden age of Prog Rock... Source

Back in the sixties Ronald Reagan liked to quip, “A liberal’s idea of being tough on crime is giving longer suspended sentences.” Today’s liberals don’t even bother with lenient sentences; instead, in our current “defund the police, empty the prisons” mania, they don’t even bother charging many crimes or applying significant bail, as we saw in Wisconsin a few days ago. This week Steve and Lucretia... Source

This week’s review of the news begins with the two huge stories that broke Friday—the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse (which is causing grief counselors for leftists to work overtime again), and the House passage of Biden’s so-called “Build Back Better” spendathon. The latter story may seem like a Biden/Democrat triumph, but in fact a closer look shows that this may come to be seen as the week when... Source

Steve actually turned up for this week’s show with three different whiskys in hand (Finlaggan, Lagavulin 8, and Bunnahabhain 12—in other words, Islay All the Way!), along with a sampling of the worst-reviewed whiskys ever, though these reviews pale in comparison to the reviews this episode’s panel gives to Democrats just now. Historian Richard Samuelson joined Steve and Lucretia for this week’s... Source

This week’s edition of the Three Whisky VERY Happy Hour revels in schadenfreude over the spectacle of the left freaking out over the election results on Tuesday. As political philosophers we try to go beyond the usual political punditry to get at the heart of the matter, explaining why the left’s dime-store Hegelian historicism (“the side of history”) that informs their moral smugness makes it... Source

The title of this week’s episode—”Let’s go Bruno”—requires some explanation, though you’d be right in assuming that “Bruno” fills the same place as “Brandon” in the more familiar slogan of the moment. In this case it refers to the famous and celebrated child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. Lucretia was struck by Ann Bauer’s searing article in The Tablet, “I Have Been Through This Before... Source

Unfortunately we weren’t able to fix up the usual online recording session for this week’s Three Whisky Happy Hour, and attempted to assemble in person ahead of the Claremont Institute’s annual dinner at Huntington Beach, this year with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (who was terrific, by the way). But we were outside, with not enough time to get organized—and without any whisky!—and the result was... Source

What do baseball and politics have in common? I have no idea, but Henry Olsen does. Actually, the kinds of data measurements we use in baseball can be applied to politics as well, and few do it better than Henry. So in this “classic format” episode, we talk about why President Biden is just biding his time in office, having squandered his election by mis-reading the public mood, and how this may... Source

Lucretia, looking typically unconvinced by one of Steve’s arguments. This week’s episode, recorded with a live audience on Zoom, was off the hook a little more than usual, as Lucretia was in a grumpy mood (despite Steve changing up his whisky selection in a futile attempt at appeasement), and audience questions and comments came flying in fast and furious. Yet somehow we managed to cover a lot of... Source

This week’s episode is sans-guests and sans-metaphysics, as Lucretia and Steve kick around the news of the week, which is a mix of the usual ominous portents from Washington, along with some evidence that Democrats are in free-fall with the public. First up is a look at the egregious Department of Justice letter identifying parents protesting at local school board meetings as a threat to the... Source