John Yoo is away this week, so the 3WHH has brought in a 180-proof guest in John's place—the great Richard Epstein, who speaks at an average rate of 125 words a minute, with occasional gusts of 200 words per minute. We discuss two of his many extraordinary books, the first being his 1992 title Forbidden Grounds: The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws, which is newly salient in the aftermath of recent Supreme Court decisions like the Harvard/UNC case. Is it time to repeal (or substantially amend) the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

In part two of our conversation, which we will release midweek, we take up his shorter book How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (only 137 pages, which is Richard writes before breakfast most days). While Lucretia and I concentrate on large philosophical currents that drove the progressive counter-revolution against the American Founding, Richard lays out some of the specific step-by-step erosions of the rule of law that are central to the saga.

But as Lucretia and I began our taping mid-day Friday we caught the news that the newest front in the Ukraine-Russia War had suddenly broken out in . . . the Oval Office, so we share a few preliminary thoughts on what it all means.