Power Line
799 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 days ago - ★★★★★ - 441 ratingsSteven Hayward brings you the Power Line Blog's perspective on the week's big headlines. Follow Power Line on Twitter (https://twitter.com/powerlineus) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/powerlineblog). Send any suggestions, tips, and fan mail to [email protected].
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Episodes
Burke, Lincoln, and the Politics of Prudence, with Greg Weiner
August 09, 2019 17:08 - 51 minutes - 47 MB“Prudence” is not just something Dana Carvey liked to lampoon back when President George H.W. Bush was in office. Rather, it is the highest and most essential quality of those superb human beings we used to call “statesmen” before political science and history banished both terms in a fit of egalitarian madness that has yet to abate in our leading intellectual circles. One antidote to this... Source
136. From Ukraine to the Border, with Power Line’s Female All-Stars
July 30, 2019 21:56By popular demand from listeners, this special edition of the Power Line Show features both Kelly Jane Torrance of the Washington Examiner and “Lucretia,” Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery. Kelly Jane is just back from serving as an official election watcher over in Ukraine, and lays out a delightful political scene that does Donald […] Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/powerline/from-ukraine-to-the-border-with-power-lines-femal...
From Ukraine to the Border, with Power Line's Female All-Stars
July 30, 2019 21:56 - 53 minutes - 49 MBBy popular demand from listeners, this special edition of the Power Line Show features both Kelly Jane Torrance of the Washington Examiner and “Lucretia,” Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery. Kelly Jane is just back from serving as an official election watcher over in Ukraine, and lays out a delightful political scene that does Donald Trump one better in the TV entertainment division. Plus... Source
Judicial Fortitude, with Peter Wallison
July 26, 2019 16:01 - 47 minutes - 43.8 MBIn recent years an arcane term from political science—the “administrative state”—has become a prominent part of everyday discussion. The administrative state refers to the trend, decades in the making, of transferring lawmaking power away from the legislative branch of government to permanent, unelected bureaucrats and executive agencies. The administrative state undermines a central principle of... Source
135. Judicial Fortitude, with Peter Wallison
July 26, 2019 16:01In recent years an arcane term from political science—the “administrative state”—has become a prominent part of everyday discussion. The administrative state refers to the trend, decades in the making, of transferring lawmaking power away from the legislative branch of government to permanent, unelected bureaucrats and executive agencies. The administrative state undermines a central principle of […] Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/powe...
A Nationalist Revival?
July 19, 2019 19:44 - 56 minutes - 51.7 MBTo paraphrase Karl Marx, a specter is haunting . . . well, just about everybody: the specter of a revival of nationalism. This week Steve Hayward attended the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, which was sponsored by the brand new Edmund Burke Institute. As Christopher DeMuth put it, “who knew that the next big thing would be the nation-state.” Of course if you say you are in favor of... Source
134. A Nationalist Revival?
July 19, 2019 19:44To paraphrase Karl Marx, a specter is haunting . . . well, just about everybody: the specter of a revival of nationalism. This week Steve Hayward attended the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, which was sponsored by the brand new Edmund Burke Institute. As Christopher DeMuth put it, “who knew that the next big thing […] Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/powerline/a-nationalist-revival/. Now become a Ricochet member for only...
Andrew Roberts Unplugged, on Brexit, Churchill, Trump, and Historiography
July 12, 2019 18:09 - 42 minutes - 39.2 MBOne of my teachers in graduate school, the great constitutional historian Leonard Levy, insisted that “a history must serve its readers with explanations that suit the horizons of their curiosity and with writing that entertains and stirs them.” No one exemplifies that vivid style of biography and history better than Andrew Roberts. I caught up with Andrew in San Francisco this week... Source
133. Andrew Roberts Unplugged, on Brexit, Churchill, Trump, and Historiography
July 12, 2019 18:09One of my teachers in graduate school, the great constitutional historian Leonard Levy, insisted that “a history must serve its readers with explanations that suit the horizons of their curiosity and with writing that entertains and stirs them.” No one exemplifies that vivid style of biography and history better than Andrew Roberts. I caught up […] Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/powerline/andrew-roberts-unplugged-on-brexit-churchill-tr...
Five Things to Know About the Declaration This July 4, with "Lucretia"
July 04, 2019 19:07 - 55 minutes - 50.8 MBBy popular demand from listeners, we’re bringing back “Lucretia,” Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery, on this special edition for the July 4 holiday. Many listeners asked us to offer up mini-tutorials on various aspects of the American Founding and political thought in general, so we break down the Declaration of Independence, drawing notice to five key features—including how some of the... Source
132. Five Things to Know About the Declaration This July 4, with “Lucretia”
July 04, 2019 19:07By popular demand from listeners, we’re bringing back “Lucretia,” Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery, on this special edition for the July 4 holiday. Many listeners asked us to offer up mini-tutorials on various aspects of the American Founding and political thought in general, so we break down the Declaration of Independence, drawing notice to […] Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/powerline/five-things-to-know-about-the-declarat...
A Full-Tilt Rant-Fest with "Lucretia"
June 29, 2019 19:19 - 1 hour - 55.9 MBYou could be forgiven for thinking this week’s Democratic debates were straight out of an old Monty Python sketch, which prompted Steve Hayward to ring up Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery, “Lucretia,” for a full-tilt boogie rant-fest about what ought to be the two main “Freeport questions” that could unravel the Democratic Party between now and election day next year. Source
131. A Full-Tilt Rant-Fest with “Lucretia”
June 29, 2019 19:19You could be forgiven for thinking this week’s Democratic debates were straight out of an old Monty Python sketch, which prompted Steve Hayward to ring up Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery, “Lucretia,” for a full-tilt boogie rant-fest about what ought to be the two main “Freeport questions” that could unravel the Democratic Party between […] Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/powerline/a-filt-tilt-rant-fest-with-lucretia/. Now b...
Fables of the Cuyahoga River Fire, with Jonathan Adler
June 21, 2019 13:33 - 1 hour - 59.3 MBThe Cuyahoga River on fire. But not when you think. This Saturday, June 22, marks the 50th anniversary of one of the iconic moments of the modern environmental history—the infamous Cuyahoga River fire in Cleveland. Things were so bad, the legend goes, that rivers were catching fire! But most of what you think you know about that story is incomplete or inaccurate, argues Jonathan H. Adler... Source
130. Fables of the Cuyahoga River Fire, with Jonathan Adler
June 21, 2019 13:33This Saturday, June 22, marks the 50th anniversary of one of the iconic moments of the modern environmental history—the infamous Cuyahoga River fire in Cleveland. Things were so bad, the legend goes, that rivers were catching fire! But most of what you think you know about that story is incomplete or inaccurate, argues Jonathan H. […] Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/powerline/fables-of-the-cuyahoga-river-fire-with-jonathan-adler/. Now ...
"Cocktails From Hell," With Col. Austin Bay
June 15, 2019 16:58 - 1 hour - 68.4 MBThis week’s special guest is Col. Austin Bay, author of a lively new book on foreign affairs and grand strategy, Cocktails From Hell: Five Complex Wars Shaping the 21st Century. Austin Bay has an extraordinary biography, including earning a Bronze Star for his service in the Iraq War. But that is only the beginning. Austin is the author or co-author of more than a dozen books (including a novel or... Source
129. “Cocktails From Hell,” With Col. Austin Bay
June 15, 2019 16:58This week’s special guest is Col. Austin Bay, author of a lively new book on foreign affairs and grand strategy, Cocktails From Hell: Five Complex Wars Shaping the 21st Century. Austin Bay has an extraordinary biography, including earning a Bronze Star for his service in the Iraq War. But that is only the beginning. Austin […] Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/powerline/cocktails-from-hell-with-col-austin-bay/. Now become a Ricochet memb...
The Noor Sentencing Hearing, and, What Kind of Country Are We Anyway!?
June 07, 2019 22:37 - 55 minutes - 50.9 MBThis week’s two-part episode features Power Line’s own Scott Johnson reporting on the verdict today in the Mohammed Noor case—the Minneapolis police officer who was convicted last month for murder in the shooting of Justine Damond. Then we shift focus dramatically, talking with Prof. Joshua Dunn of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and Matthew Peterson, vice president for educational... Source
128. The Noor Sentencing Hearing, and, What Kind of Country Are We Anyway!?
June 07, 2019 22:37This week’s two-part episode features Power Line’s own Scott Johnson reporting on the verdict today in the Mohammed Noor case—the Minneapolis police officer who was convicted last month for murder in the shooting of Justine Damond. Then we shift focus dramatically, talking with Prof. Joshua Dunn of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and […] Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/powerline/the-noor-sentencing-hearing-and-what-kind-o...
Everything You Know About the Enron Story Is Wrong: A Conversation with Rob Bradley
May 31, 2019 17:45 - 56 minutes - 51.8 MBThis week my guest is the person who deserves to be known as the Robert Caro of energy history—Robert L. Bradley Jr. Rob is the founder of the Institute for Energy Research, one of the best go-to sources for information and analysis about energy (and especially debunking the nonsense energy romanticism of the left), but most important for our purposes is the author of several astounding histories... Source
127. Everything You Know About the Enron Story Is Wrong: A Conversation with Rob Bradley
May 31, 2019 17:45This week my guest is the person who deserves to be known as the Robert Caro of energy history—Robert L. Bradley Jr. Rob is the founder of the Institute for Energy Research, one of the best go-to sources for information and analysis about energy (and especially debunking the nonsense energy romanticism of the left), but […] Join the conversation and comment on this podcast episode: https://ricochet.com/podcast/powerline/everything-you-know-about-the-enron-story-is-wrong-a-conversation-with-r...
"Populism" Marches on Overseas: Henry Olsen on Elections in the EU and Australia
May 24, 2019 20:09 - 34 minutes - 32 MBI’ve decided that “populism” is when the wrong person or party wins a democratic election. Certainly the way the media and liberal elites have reacted to the Liberal Party’s upset win in Australia bears this out (keep in mind that the Liberal Party in Australia is the conservative party, but what do you expect from a country in the southern hemisphere). The media horror over Australia has been... Source
The Antidote to Howard Zinn? "Land of Hope" with Wilfred McClay
May 18, 2019 19:00 - 1 hour - 60.1 MBLo and behold, I opened up this morning’s Wall Street Journal to see a weekend interview with this week’s guest, historian Wilfred M. McClay of the University of Oklahoma, about his brand new book Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story. In the course of our conversation, we cover not only what’s wrong (but also partly right) about Howard Zinn, but how Bill got the audacious idea... Source
"Cracks in the Ivory Tower": A Conversation with Phil Magness
May 11, 2019 13:00 - 1 hour - 55.7 MBThis week Steve Hayward talks with economic historian Phillip Magness, co-author (along with Jason Brennan) of a brilliant new book, Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education. This splendidly written and fast-paced book vindicates Stan Evans’s first rule of insufficient paranoia—no matter how bad you think things are, when you look closer, you find out it’s even worse than you... Source
"No Ad Hominem Arguments": A Conversation with Charles Lipson
May 04, 2019 19:27 - 56 minutes - 51.5 MBThis week Steve Hayward talks with Charles Lipson, the Peter Ritzma Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Chicago, about how to talk and argue about matters amidst the increasingly bitter polarization of our time. But along the way we revisit his idiosyncratic intellectual odyssey that brought him from rural Mississippi to the Ivy leagues. In addition to his academic work on... Source
The Noor Trial Verdict
April 30, 2019 23:22 - 16 minutes - 15 MBJustine Damond Scott Johnson has been covering the trial of Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor, who was charged in the fatal 2017 shooting of Justine Damond. This afternoon the jury returned a guilty verdict on the counts of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. This trial has been closely watched because of the suspicion that officer Noor was accredited as a police officer for... Source
An Elephant and Its Trump: Populism, Nationalism and Conservatism
April 27, 2019 19:56 - 1 hour - 59.6 MBI’ll bet you didn’t know you need a federal disaster management plan for your pet rabbit if you use your pet rabbit as part of a magic act for birthday parties. Well, you did, until the U.S. Department of Agriculture got embarrassed by the adverse publicity for this abject stupidity, but it is of a piece with the proposed European Union regulation on the proper length and curvature of bananas... Source
Reckoning With Race: America's Failure
April 21, 2019 18:37 - 1 hour - 69.9 MBGene Dattel is Steven Hayward’s extraordinary guest on this week’s show. Gene is the author of a book that deserves to be much better known—Reckoning With Race: America’s Failure (Encounter Books). This remarkably compact book is brimming with details about and revisions to the standard narratives of race relations in America from the colonial era right down to the present. Gene’s complete command... Source
"An Extended Discourse"—An Origin Story with William B. Allen
April 14, 2019 15:02 - 1 hour - 61.6 MBThis very special edition of the Power Line Show features Steve Hayward and two guest hosts—John and Elizabeth Eastman—in an extended conversation with William B. Allen, a teacher and thinker who defies easy description. All three of us were students of Bill Allen way back in the 1980s, and when chance and/or Providence put us all together again with Bill this week in Boulder, Colorado... Source
How "Progressive" Is Progressivism?
April 07, 2019 18:35 - 54 minutes - 49.9 MBHow “Progressive” is Progressivism? Is there actually a “side of history,” or is that just the lazy formula of presumptive socialists who think they have a monopoly on the truth and don’t need to argue with or persuade anyone? In another of Steve Hayward’s lecture series for the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale, Steve walks through more of the details of Progressivism then and now... Source
Where Joe Biden Meets Bryce Harper: A Henry Olsen Omnibus
March 29, 2019 21:23 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBHave you had enough of the Mueller Report? Done smoldering over Smollett? Jazzed at opening day for MLB? Then have we got the show for you! This episode features a conversation with Henry Olsen about the lessons of the 2018 midterm, how the Democratic presidential field for 2020 is shaping up (with lots of mockery of course), a genteel argument about Henry’s views about why conservatives should... Source
How Much Do We Hate Woodrow Wilson? Let Us Count the Ways!
March 23, 2019 15:30 - 42 minutes - 39.3 MBAsk any knowledgeable conservative to identify their least-favorite president, and more and more the answer these days will come back: Woodrow Wilson! But this was not always so. For a long time FDR held the crown, but in the last generation a number of closer looks have come to recognize that Wilson, and the broader current of Progressive ideology he did so much to champion, is the real turning... Source
The Endless Quest for Social Equality
March 17, 2019 21:22 - 1 hour - 61.3 MBBy popular demand (with some listeners anyway), this episode features another lecture from Steve Hayward’s periodic series for the William F. Buckley Program at Yale, this time on the topic of “The Endless Quest for Social Equality.” This talk ranges widely from the contentions over income inequality that Thomas Piketty’s book ignited into the current bonfire of Bernie Sanders’s socialist vanity... Source
Fred Siegel—An Origin Story, Part 2
March 10, 2019 00:38 - 46 minutes - 42.3 MBIn this second part of our long conversation with Fred Siegel, Steve Hayward walks him through the final decay of New York in the 1980s after four decades of unrelenting liberal governance, how Rudy Giuliani turned it around in the 1990s, and what the prospects are for Mayor de Blasio. (Remember that this interview was originally recorded for video four years ago). From there we have a long... Source
The Row Over Rao, and CPAC Wrap-Up
March 04, 2019 00:56 - 56 minutes - 52.1 MBIn this special double-episode, Steve Hayward takes the occasion of the last-minute hesitation over the nomination of Neomi Rao for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to talk once again with “Lucretia,” Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery, about the issue of “substantive due process” that apparently worried a couple of Republican senators, and then we bring on our own John Hinderaker for a... Source
Fred Siegel—An Origin Story, Part 1
February 22, 2019 22:06 - 42 minutes - 38.9 MBSteve Hayward goes back into the archives for an audio file from a video interview he conducted with Fred Siegel a few years back in which Fred explains how he came to shed the liberalism of his youth. Along the way, he provides a grand tour of some of the leading intellectuals he knew or read in the 1960s and 1970s, how he regarded the Vietnam War, what it was like working as a field rep for... Source
C.S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law
February 15, 2019 18:14 - 32 minutes - 30.1 MBJust in time for the long holiday weekend, an early edition of the Power Line Show, with special guest Justin Buckley Dyer of the University of Missouri. Prof. Dyer is the co-author (with Micah Watson) of a terrific book on C.S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law. Though Lewis was known as a literary critic and Christian apologist, a lot of his work bears on the deepest political and... Source
After the Flight 93 Election
February 10, 2019 23:06 - 44 minutes - 40.6 MBMichael Anton’s controversial 2016 essay “ The Flight 93 Election” was compared to Tom Paine’s Common Sense as a tract that grabbed the public imagination. Michael is back now with a new book, After the Flight 93 Election: The Vote That Saved America and What We Still Have to Lose. Steve Hayward talked with Michael Sunday afternoon, bringing us up to date on the Flight 93 thesis two years into the... Source
Lucretia, Unplugged
February 03, 2019 18:54 - 57 minutes - 52.9 MBReaders have been asking when we’ll have back Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery, “Lucretia,” and your wish is our command. “Lucretia” joins us again with some choice rants about the whole Ralph Northam affair and the Democrat’s “Calhoun moment” on abortion, the invincible ignorance of the new socialists like AOC, and the Wall. But then we turn to the really important subjects: wine... Source
Touring Hot Spots: Venezuela and Iran
January 29, 2019 18:15 - 50 minutes - 46.6 MBVenezuela has been slowly falling apart for more than a decade, but when matters reached a seeming crisis point last week, Steve Hayward decided it was high time to catch up with Mark Falcoff, the longtime Latin American expert now retired from the American Enterprise Institute, to walk us through the scene (including some terrific trivia about the structure of the Venezuelan army). Source
Is "New Originalism" an Oxymoron?
January 24, 2019 19:36 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBConstitutional originalism is the cornerstone of conservative jurisprudence today, but there are several rival versions of originalism, and sometimes you even hear about the “new” originalism, which sounds more like an old Spinal Tap joke. This week Steve Hayward caught up with John Eastman, the Salvatori Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law and senior fellow at the... Source
Equality and Its Discontents
January 17, 2019 21:45 - 49 minutes - 45.1 MBThis episode offers another of Steve Hayward’s lectures for the William F. Buckley Program at Yale, this time on the subject of equality. Borrowing from the taxonomy of the legendary political scientist Aaron Wildavsky, Steve explains why 600 percent of the American people are victims of oppression! Steve also reviews some of the disagreements among prominent conservative thinkers about the... Source
The World According to Chris DeMuth, Pt. 2
January 09, 2019 12:00 - 52 minutes - 48 MBThis second installment of Steve Hayward’s conversation with Chris DeMuth takes up Chris’s “origin story” with his work on regulatory reform starting in the Reagan Administration, and taking the story of neoconservatism through its transformations in the 1990s and 2000s. Our conversation ends with Chris’s observations on the current hot button phenomena of populism, nationalism... Source
The World According to Chris DeMuth, Part 1
January 02, 2019 20:24 - 42 minutes - 39 MBSteve Hayward recently sat down to conduct another “origin story” interview with Christopher DeMuth, who is nowadays a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute, where he writes actively about government regulation and the administrative state. Prior to coming to Hudson, Chris was the long time president of the American Enterprise Institute, and served in senior positions in the Nixon and... Source
A New Year's Eve Reunion for "The Beatles"
December 27, 2018 03:55 - 57 minutes - 52.2 MBGetting Power Line’s own “fab four” (John, Paul , George and Ringo, Scott and Steve) together at once is almost as hard as getting The Beatles back together, even though all of the Power Line Fab Four are still living. But we did better than that: For our special year-end wrap-up and prediction show, we also assembled “Yoko Ono” (Susan Vass, aka “Ammo Grrrll”) and “Brian Epstein” (aka, Joe Malchow... Source
Justice Without Hyphens, or, Is "Post-Modern Conservatism" an Oxymoron?
December 23, 2018 18:38 - 46 minutes - 42.8 MBThis week you’re really in for it, as Steve Hayward presents another of his lectures on conservative thought at Yale for the William F. Buckley Program. Steve decides to tackle the “P-word”—Postmodernism. The term is overused, vague, and, like so many other things, badly corrupted by the left. In fact, the useable parts of it are actually old conservative ideas in some respects—a fresh vindication... Source
Special Doubleheader: Campaign Finance and Yuval Levin
December 16, 2018 18:05 - 51 minutes - 47.3 MBThis special doubleheader edition takes up the question of whether President Trump’s hush money payments to his temporary girlfriends is indeed a campaign finance violation with campaign finance law expert and California Fair Political Practices Commission member Allison R. Hayward (and in case you’re wondering, the answer is Yes). It’s not so clear cut as many in the media are saying... Source
"Historians in Cars": Andrew Roberts on Historical Writing and Churchill
December 05, 2018 21:00 - 1 hour - 61.4 MBThe distinguished British historian and biographer Andrew Roberts has just released Churchill: Walking With Destiny, which the New York Times (along with several other prominent publications) has called “the best one-volume biography of Churchill ever written.” Steve Hayward borrowed a page from Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars” and interviewed Andrew during a car ride (maybe we should start a... Source
Talking Economic Liberty with Chip Mellor
November 30, 2018 21:44 - 45 minutes - 41.9 MBThis week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Timbs v. Indiana, concerning the widespread practice of “civil asset forfeiture,” in which law enforcement will seize your property upon arrest (sometimes even without an arrest and criminal charge) and keep the money or asset for themselves. By coincidence this week Steve Hayward ran into the person who helped to make this case (and... Source
Talking Civil Rights With Gail Heriot
November 21, 2018 17:00 - 49 minutes - 45.4 MBThe U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is out with a new report this week on Police Use of Force, and you know what that means—another sprightly dissent from commission member Gail Heriot. You can read Gail’s take on the report, and how the media misrepresented her views (as usual) here. Gail Heriot is professor of law at the University of San Diego, and has a long track record in the area of civil... Source