The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Saving Our Gerontocracy

09/02/23 • 70 min

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Never mind saving “our democracy"—who's going to save our gerontocracy! With Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden in a contest for Greatest Brain Freeze Moment, while Dianne Feinstein and John Fetterman look on with envy, we are starting to long for the good old days of the youthful vigor of the Soviet Politburo. Is it time for age limits for high federal office (though Sen. Chuck Grassley, still firing on all cylinders two weeks before his 90th birthday, might want a word with us), or do we just need cognitive tests for office?
Equally alarming is how the Baude-Paulsen argument for disqualiftying Trump for the presidency under the 14th Amendment is gaining traction. Could a county registrar of voters in some deep blue percinct throw the 2024 election into complete chaos? John has a good article on this scene suggesting the answer is a hard No, which we review.
Meanwhile, the whole Georgia case gets curiouser and curiouser, as you'd expect in our current Alice in Wonderland world of "verdict first, trial later" phase of Trump-specific law enforcement. But also some good news: the forces of decency are fighting back against the left's demagogic attack on Clarence Thomas.

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My Address to Incoming Grad Students

This classic format episode of the Power Line podcast features Steve Hayward all by himself, and breaks some news: Steve is returning to Pepperdine University this academic year as the Edward Gaylord Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy. Steve will be filling the large shoes of the late Ted McAllister, who passed away earlier this year, leaving a big hole in the SPP program.
Pepperdine's SPP Dean Pete Peterson asked Steve to offer the faculty address to this year's incoming class of graduate students during orientation last week, and he spoke on the relevant contemporary lessons from Max Weber's famous lecture "Politics as a Vocation," which intersects perfectly with Karl Rove's Wall Street Journal essay over the weekend on how America has sometimes been in much worse shape than today. True, but not exhaustive, and supposing natural cycles of history will take us out of our current funk is likely a mistake, akin to fiddling while Rome burns.
In one sentence, Steve's message to incoming students is that they'll need to step up their game even more than they might have thought. That's what Weber told students in 1919, and his lesson didn't fully take.

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The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Return of the Branch Covidians

We're a day late and a person short this week, as we're missing John Yoo because of schedule conflicts. Over morning coffee instead of evening single malt, this shortened, ad-free epiode finds Lucretia and Steve wondering if the Branch Covidians can really be getting ready to impose a mask mandate on all of us again, and pondering whether the COVID case of the multiply-boosted DOKTOR Jill Biden should make us wonder whether anyone knows anything anymore.
Could this all be a sign of the deepening panic among Democrats over the latest polls showing Donald Trump stronger than ever, and ever increasing doubts about Joe Biden?
And speaking of Democrats, who knew that Democrats have become Carl Schmitt fans, as is seemingly the case with New Mexico Governor Grisham declaring that an "emergency" gives her the power to suspend the 2nd Amendment. This comes on the heels of the latest 5th Circuit Court ruling that the Biden Administration trampled the 1st Amendment with its Covid censorship regime.