Your Three Whisky Happy Hour bartenders wandered to Milan this week where we recorded a rare in-person episode, and since we met in Italy, naturally we taste-tested Austrian single-malt whisky, described on the label as “dark” and “peated.” You’ll have to listen to find out the complete verdict, though one hint is that we don’t think we’ll be rushing to import any Waldvietler whisky any time soon. Source

Some smart aleck wag at the Daily Caller has decided this midterm was the “McRib” election, saying “Democracy is like the McRib: It comes and goes mysteriously every two years or so and it is confusing. And, like politicians, once the McRib is reintroduced with a big ad campaign, you remember months later why you didn’t like it in the first place.” Needless to say, with lingering threats by... Source

With John Yoo in the host chair this week, the 3WHH bartenders enjoy some four-finger pours of mostly American whisky ahead of Tuesday’s midterm election, which Steve and Lucretia think is going to be a wave of tsunami proportions. In addition to reviewing the still-volatile findings of the latest polls, we offer ranges of GOP pickups in the House and Senate (you’ll just have to listen to mark... Source

With the World Series knotted at 2-2, and the mid-term election just days away, it seemed the perfect time to catch up with Henry Olsen, the premier psephologist (trying saying that word fast just once, never mind seven times) of all things data-related when it comes to politics—and also baseball. We disagree about the decision to remove a starting pitcher working on a no-hitter into the 7th... Source

That was an extraordinary five hours at the Supreme Court yesterday—twice as long as the oral arguments were originally scheduled to last—and the longer the argument went on, the worse it seemed to get for the defenders of raced-based admissions for higher education. Maybe that was by design on the part of Chief Justice Roberts, who was sarcastic in his open scorn for what he has previously called... Source

On Monday the Supreme Court takes up the Harvard and University of North Carolina affirmative action cases in what is the Super Bowl of civil rights litigation—arguably the biggest moment for the Court since Brown v. Board of Education. Naturally that is the focus of this episode, though we do briefly review a couple of the key news stories of the week, such as Fetterman’s collapse... Source

Next Monday the Supreme Court takes up the Harvard and University of North Carolina affirmative action admissions cases, but before getting to the constitutional doctrine of the matter, there is a vexing matter that is often overlooked: if we’re going to be giving out racial preferences for admissions (and government contracts, etc), who counts as a member of which minority group? Source

Lucretia and Steve gave John Yoo the day off for this special interstitial (and abbreviated) episode that we’ll just call the *Two* Whisky Happy Hour, in which Lucretia and Steve clear up some confusion from our most recent fast-paced episode, where a few main points got muddled. Several new listeners want us to clear up exactly what we mean by natural right, how natural right (especially its... Source

Last February John Yoo and I hosted Richard Epstein, who needs no introduction for Ricochet members and listeners, for a lecture at Berkeley Law on his most recent book, The Dubious Morality of Modern Administrative Law. Given that we were still under a mask mandate on campus at the time, Richard decided to talk about our COVID misadventures as a prime example of the administrative state run amok. Source

Hoo boy! This week’s fiery episode takes up the argument leftover from last week about whether conservatism—and especially the new “national” variety that is sparking so much energy and enthusiasm right now—should conceive of its mission as Burkean in character, as “restorationist” or revolutionary. We cover a lot of ground, with Lucretia beating up on Steve for his suspicious Burkean sympathies... Source