Power Line

John Marini was one of the first conservative thinkers in 2016 to recognize that Donald Trump posed an existential threat to the administrative state, in a series of articles that are included in a recent collection we highly recommend, Unmasking the Administrative State: The Crisis of American Politics in the Twenty-First Century. In this second half of our conversation (take in the first part... Source

Our ninth and final seminar of our series on The Federalist concludes our discussion of judicial review, with a detour to the famous case of Marbury v. Madison in 1803 that supposedly settled the matter, though Lucretia draws some fine and original distinctions between what John Marshall did in Marbury and what the Supreme Court did afterwards. From there we consider Hamilton’s argument in... Source

You mean I can get these in triplicate now!?! This week the Three Whisky Happy Hour tackles not only the “major questions” doctrine at the Supreme Court, but the major question about McDonald’s new (but unadvertised) triple-cheeseburger, whether the Democrats’ decision to hold their first primary of 2024 in South Carolina is a major or minor question, who is the All-Time Worst/ Source

The “administrative state” is an obscure and ungainly phrase, but in recent years the term has burst out into general use, though it is often conflated with another term currently popular—the “deep state.” They are not the same thing, though they do overlap, and “deep state” does enjoy the advantage of being shorter and pithier. What is “the administrative state”? It is a mistake to confuse it... Source

The spectacle of Georgia’s grand jury forepermix is enough to induce a grand mal seizure, but we move on quickly from that spectacle to the specter of the Supreme Court pondering the Heisenberg Uncertainty Point of the Constitution: is the vice president, as first in line of succession, part of the executive branch, or, as president of the Senate, part of the legislative branch? The answer is Yes. Source

Settle down class, time for our next lesson. This week we take up how The Federalist explains Article III, the judiciary, and especially the nowadays familiar power of judicial review, which is nowhere specified in the text of the Constitution, and was in fact an issue of controversy and confusion at the time of the founding. So we start our investigation with Federalist #78... Source

John showing off his gourmet dinner. Getting together at the bar was a bit tricky this week since we’re all scattered to the wind and John Yoo thought it essential that he swing through a McDonald’s takeout window for the double-cheeseburger special with large fries, so he was late joining us. We were halfway through learning about the newest acronym in higher education—AANAPISI—when he finally... Source

Can it really be possible that this is the 400th episode of this ramshackle podcast? With such a milestone, it seemed a good occasion to get the Fantastic Four who work the site every day together at once (never simple to do), and we decided to do a dry run with a special Zoom webinar for our VIP subscribers. Savor this rare occasion, as Steve, Scott Johnson, Joe Malchow and John Hinderaker... Source

Session 7 of our PLU short course on The Federalist met on Saturday this week, and took up Hamilton’s defense of the presidency from the anti-Federalist critics starting with Federalist 70, the paper where he discusses the famous phrase “energy in the executive.” Included in the usual inventory of Hamiltonian paeans to the executive is a look at his often overlooked views on the proper... Source

Lucretia hosts this week’s episode, though this does not let Steve and John off the hook for their Stockholm Syndrome symptoms in any way. The run-up to America’s most holy secular observance—the Super Bowl—found Steve having his own Bill & Ted-style excellent adventure with Gov. Ron DeSantis, Lucretia pondering Sy Hersh’s latest purported scoop on who blew up the Nordstream 2 pipeline... Source

John Yoo assumes the host chair for this week’s episode, and despite declaring this week to be a Ukraine-Free Zone, Lucretia still manages to get in a sequel to some of last week’s discussion threads. But the main event for the first third of this episode is reviewing the dreadful events in Memphis last week, though John has to go a stretch to reach the Dylanesque heights of “Memphis Blues Again”... Source

This week’s Power Line University seminar on The Federalist completes our discussion of the separation of powers in Federalists 47 – 51, and then takes an extended detour into the Progressive Era attack on the separation of powers and other basic principles embedded in The Federalist—and by extension, in the Constitution. There are few things more fun than beating up Woodrow Wilson... Source

Many of The Federalist Papers bear the title, “The Same Subject Continued,” and with a lot of news about the Ukrainian situation coming out this week, we decided to continue last week’s vigorous argument over Ukraine with some of the new facts, such as how much of our own munitions inventory is being drawn down to supply Ukraine (see chart below), the decision to send Abrams tanks... Source

We continue our leisurely stroll through The Federalist with an extended look at Federalist numbers 47 through 51, which explain the key concept of the separation of powers—a phrase that is nowhere found in the text of the Constitution, but which is clearly implied by the design and structure of the text. But Madison and Hamilton leave nothing to chance, citing “the celebrated Montesquieu” as a... Source

This classic format episode features a conversation with Dan Lowenstein, professor emeritus at UCLA Law School and, more importantly, the impresario of UCLA’s Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions ( CLAFI), which he founded, along with one of our favorites at Power Line, Jean Yarbrough of Bowdoin College. Prof. Yarbrough was in town for three days to deliver a fabulous lecture... Source

This week’s raucous episode, recorded well after conventional happy hour ends, ranged from Biden’s dementia to the failed Dobbs leak investigation, to Kevin McCarthy’s (relatively) good week, the post hockey ergo propter hockey fallacy, bidding good riddance to one of the premier COVID cultists, a defense of cat-calling (even when it’s done to our Lucretia), and then . . . a big fat argument about... Source

This week’s class resumes our leisurely stroll through The Federalist starting with Federalists #33 and #37, and the “partly federal, partly national” character of the Union under the proposed Constitution—a subject that remains as confusing and contentious today as it was then. Lucretia walks us through how the issue began to settle out starting with the landmark 1819 case of McCulloch v. Source

John Yoo is away this week, so Hillsdale historian Richard Samuelson joins the Three Whisky Happy Hour for an extended discussion of the passing of Paul Johnson, and especially why he deserves to be considered one of the premier historians of all time. But first we rummage around in Joe’s garage (Joe Biden that is), where the lyrics to Frank Zappa’s tune by that name seem appropriate: This is the... Source

Yesterday’s third class session of Power Line University went through Federalist 11 through 23, drawing out in particular some of Hamilton’s reflections on taxation that remain relevant to some of our tax debates today (especially Lizzie Warren’s proposed wealth tax), and also Hamilton’s very spirited attack on European politics (and colonialism!) that none of today’s ridiculous “de-colonizers”... Source

Only the 3WHH bartenders could possibly draw the connecting thread between the subjects of the passing of Pope Benedict XVI, the drama over the next Speaker of the House, and Thomas Hobbes. But with the help of a little fine whisky, we’re up to the job! Steve and Lucretia give the Protestant John Yoo a tutorial (the first of two this episode) on why Benedict may have been the most serious... Source