I knew when I saw news of Vice President Kamala Harris claiming that Florida's new African-American history standards for public schools taught that "enslaved people benefitted from slavery," I knew instinctively that this was a lie of unusual medacity even for her. Don't take my word for it: read the curriculum guide for yourself, especially page six, where Harris and the rest of the race-obsessed educrat-complex twists one sentence in the most grotesque way imaginable. The real sin of the curriculum guide, from the left's demented point of view, actually can be seen page eight, where the curriculum mentions including the history of slavery before 1619. Ah—there's the rub. The real reason Harris attacks the Florida curriculum is that it dares to correct the distortions and omissions of the 1619 Project, which has become the platform for saying that America was, and is, purely a slavocracy, and that American capitalism practically invented slavery.One of my principal teachers in graduate school (and a past guest on this podcast), William B. Allen, was one of the authors of the new Florida curriculum guide, and he's been in high demand this week refuting the calumnies of our vice president. I managed to catch up with him this morning to note the obvious irony that the party of Calhoun would be reviving Calhounism just now, but trying to deflect it onto the other party. (Because of course the real reason for this attack is that Joe Biden might face Ron DeSantis as a candidate next year, so better start calling him a racist now.)

Are the anticipated coming Trump indictments serious? Defrauding the federal government? Obstructing Congress? Violating the Ku Klux Klan Act? This is indeed John McEnroe territory—"You cannot be serious!" But is it going to work?Let's just say this episode revisits the events of January 6 with considerable disagreement among the panel about how it should be understood, what we still don't know, and how it is afftecting the next election cycle, concerning which, Luretia road-tests her latest outlandish theory. ("We're going to get comments on this one!", she promises.)Then we assay the state of the widening Biden scandals, with Lucretia scorning Steve's "eternal infernal optimism" that sooner or later the media is going to jump on this scandal. Lucretia and John are skeptical. . .Finally, are the dividends of the Harvard affirmation action admissions ruling already growing and spreading to the private sector? Have you noticed the news of the growing number of layoffs and shrinkages of corporate DEI offices? Who says there isn't any good news these days.

John Yoo is away overseas this week, so Steve and Lucretia are joined by Glenn Ellmers, author of the brand new book The Narrow Passage: Plato, Foucault, and the Possibilty of Political Philosophy. Do not be intimidated by the mention of Foucault or anything else in the title, as this crispy-written and very accessible book comes in at a reader-friendly 79 pages (Glenn admits that it began as an essay that grew a little out of control). It sheds a lot of light on our current culture war, which is really a continuation of the ructions in the country from the left that began in the 1960s but fooled us by receding briefly in the shadows for a time when the Cold War ended. More than that, though, the roots of our current contentions trace all the way back to Plato, and from whom we may also find some answers. As as we say, all this in 79 pages!Steve and Lucretia also dilate the Farce of the Week in Washington, the latest lower court rulings that look like promising attacks on the administrative state, and why the Equal Protection Clause was such a mess at the Supreme Court for 150 years, contra Alan Dershowitz's argument that Earl Warren had it right all along. No sale!

You've heard of the Avengers. And the Incredibles. We at the 3WHH consider ourselves The Uncensorables. (Only because Justice League is taken.) In any case, just when you thought it was safe to pass by the courthouse and law library because the Supreme Court term has finished, along comes a bracing district court opinion slapping the Biden Administration hard for its collaborating with social media companies to censor COVID dissenters who turned out to be right about nearly everything. We also work through the aftermath of the Harvard/UNC decision, which is forcing the left to transfer their hated for Citizens United to this case. And what's up with the left's complaint that the 303 Creative case was a phony case? What's phony is the left's argument, which John Yoo (this week's show host) dispatches with ease, while Steve reminds us that the left has been contriving phony cases for decades. Finally, since it was Fourth of July week, we reflect on the holiday this year, Steve gives a foerboding prediction for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration in 2026, and we offer up recommendations for the best books about the Declaration for our slowly developing reading list of essential whisky-wisdom pairings.

It's over. The fat lady has sung. The Supreme Court ended its current term with a big bang, delivering a long-overdue smackdown of affirmative action that with any luck history will say was a turning point for restoring the proper understanding of equality in our Constitution, though the follow up to overcome ther massive resistance of universities and their epigones in HR and DEI departments everywhere will be crucial—and exhausting.But wait! There's more! The Court also smacked down Biden's student loan power grab, and vindicated the principle of free speech the right of conscience in turning back the coercive identitarian demand that a Christian website designer must be compelled to produce offensive products.The 3WHH hosts were actually together in person this week for this episode, and marked the end of the Supreme Court term with a several nice rounds of Makers Mark. Next week we'll be back to our more "diverse" (heh) scope of wine, whisky, and wonkery, and we'll also get back to our slow-rolling "best books" deliberation.

The submersible that is the Biden presidency looks to be under as much increasing pressure as the Trump reboot tour, and maybe both will implode? And when is the Supreme Court going to end the suspense and deliver the rulings on the big cases we've all been waiting for?The Court did deliver a disappointment of sorts in U.S. v. Texas, which rejected the state challenge to the Biden Administration's complete implosion of border enforcement, ruling that while states along the border have indeed suffered injury, they lack standing to sue, and/or the Court lacks a remedy it can supply, so the Biden Administration wins this round. But we break down the convoluted reasoning of the majority opinion (can it really be right that if the executive branch arrested just one person crossing the border instead of zero, states would lose standing to sue, or the Court any remedy whatsoever?), and wonder whether the case is nearly as good for liberals as they think, and whether the next item on the agenda for conservative jurisprudence is to develop a new doctrine of standing, as it did with the "major questions doctrine" promulgated last year.We also look at the latest attacks on Supreme Court justices from the left. Justice Barrett sold her house to—gasp!—a conservative! Can you believe it? And finally we explore the state of abortion one year after Dobbs.

By the end of the week when our three bartenders assembled, the Trump indictment had been pretty well munched and masticated, so there wasn't much left to say about the matter for the moment. But John Yoo has a wild idea to resolve the controversy: President Biden, he says, should pardon Trump right now, and say "Let's put everything before the voters next year on the issues."Of course the last thing Biden wants to do right now is run on the issues, since he's doing such a dreadul job, and in any case there is no chance Trump will agree to any conditions for a pardon (such as admitting guilt or agreeing to drop out of the presidential election altogether). And it is doubtful Biden has either the statesmanship or the cynical wit to see the mischievous possibilities of a pardon.From there the gang tries to read the tea leaves at the Supreme Court, which handed down another puzzling ruling this week regarding Indian adoptions, and finally we continue our "best of" recommended reading list with some nominations for best satirical fiction.

Who needs Steve's peaty, smoky whisky this week when Canada is supplying a surplus for half the nation? (But it ain't Canadian Club they're serving.) After clearing the smoke from our eyes—and our whisky glasses, we get down to business on what is known so far about the Trump indictment (we recorded before the full details of the indictment were released), and wonder if the Dept. of Justice isn't blowing a lot of smoke. And just how did the Supreme Court manage to botch the Voting Rights Act case? Finally, we begin rolling out our listener-requested Essential Reading List, starting with a couple titles for the category of philosophy. Naturally Steve and Lucretia divide on a title to recommend. Next week we'll either do histort or biography, which are also difficult categories, but that's part of the fun.

John Yoo is away traveling this weekend, so the 3WHH reverts to its old form, with Lucretia pummeling Steve like a chiropractor working on a stiff neck for his conventional thinking about the debt ceiling deal. But otherwise we're in a jolly mood this week, as we see signs that a "Revolt of the Normies"—that is sensible middle class Americans—against gender wokery is finally underway. Just ask the sales manager for Bud Light, or shareholders of Target. (We could have alternately called this episode "Pride Month Goeth Before the Fall.")Then, in response to some listener requests, we begin a preliminary excursion into a "Best Books" list, though we want to await John's return for an orderly treatment of this question. For this episode Steve and Lucretia talk about political novels, and why some are enduring, like Orwell's 1984 or Koestler's Darkness at Noon, and why others have been forgotten, like Andre Malraux's Man's Fate, or Wyndham Lewis's Revenge for Love (which Steve is reading right now). As usual Steve and Lucretia come at this subject from different directions, and finally settle together on . . . Shakespeare.

Phil Magness of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) is one of the most productive—and provocative—working scholars today (with emphasis on working, as his output is prodigious).This classic format episode features Steve Hayward and Phil in a one-on-one conversation about three of Phil's major areas of current research, starting with his co-authored article that breaks new ground in the history of Marxism, "The Mainstreaming of Marx: Measuring the Effect of the Russian Revolution on Karl Marx’s Influence," published recently in the Journal of Political Economy, one of the premier journals in economics. The article is causing heads to explode on the left, which means he must have hit a nerve.From there we talk about the history of the intellectual left's favorite epithet today, "neoliberalism," but also about how the term has been embraced with almost the same pejorative meaning by some leading thinkers on the right. Is this a good idea?Finally, as Phil has been one of the pre-eminent critics of the 1619 Project from the moment it first appeared four years ago, we catch up on the latest iterations of that popular leftist propaganda effort.Everyone should follow Phil on Twitter, @PhilWMagness, and you'll see how he lives rent-free every day inside the heads of leftists.