Mike & Jay kick off the show with a look at what seems to be the “it’s only a matter of time” Russian invasion of Ukraine. Jay thinks that the Biden administration’s approach has been very good to this point, while Mike attempts to present the non-interventionist, “America First” case for staying out of Russia’s (and possibly China’s) spheres of influence.
Then it’s on to two lawsuits - the first being the Department of Justice’s suit against Missouri’s “Second Amendment Protection Act” and the second Texas’s suit against the CDC for the federal travel hub mask mandate. Mike & Jay agree that Missouri doesn’t get to nullify federal law, and that their law is almost certain to fall. They think Texas may have a stronger case on the mask mandate, but that it’s important to separate what may be good public policy from what’s within the power of a government agency to do absent specific congressional authorization.
Following that, they look at a pretrial motion filed by Special Counsel John Durham in his investigation of the federal government’s investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 elections. They agree that the allegations are serious, but that it’s easy to reach bad conclusions so early in the process.
The show winds up with discussion of “prestige television”, class, and politics followed by an appreciation of the late P. J. O’Rourke, and then some thoughts on ballot harvesting.
Jay’s Recommendation
The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin. Gordon Wood
Mike’s Recommendations
A Mencken Chrestomathy and Notes on Democracy. H. L. Mencken
The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt
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Bryan Caplan Will Not Be Stampeded!
The Sixth Amendment
Israel, Johnson's Foreign Aid, Uri Berliner, the 1st Amendment
The Lie Detectives: In Search of a Playbook for Winning Elections in the Disinformation Age
Guns, Table Saws, America Divided (or maybe not)
AZ Abortion Law, Student Loan Debt, Trump on Trial
The Uses and Abuses of the Modern University
The Fifth Amendment
Israel and Iran, Biden’s Foreign Policy, Florida’s Supreme Court on Abortion Ban, Trump Media & Technology
NBC and Ronna McDaniel, Truth Social IPO. RFK Jr. and 3rd Parties
Joe Lieberman, Abortion Pill Access, Eastman Disbarment
Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy
Texas and Immigration, Presidential Fundraising, Alternative to the Bar Exam
Shutdown Avoided, Apple Lawsuit, OH Senate Primary and Trumpism
Should Puerto Rico Become the 51st State?
The Constitution: Quartering Soldiers and Warrants
Schumer, Liberals Ban Everything, Judge McAfee, Fani Willis, Nathan Wade, Trump’s RNC
Women in Politics
Bias Response Teams and Free Expression, Listener Questions
Super Tuesday, Trump Insurrection Ruling, State of the Union
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