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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The U.S. Constitution: Article III, Section 3 and Article IV, Section 1
NATO, Sotomayor, Thomas, Inflation
The Constitution: Article III Sections 1 and 2
White House Social Media Influence, NAACP vs Legacy Admissions, China and Russia
Voting Security, Russia, Listener Questions
Supreme Court End of Term Extravaganza!
Garrett Neiman on Rich White Men
Article II, Sections 3 and 4
Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal, Alito Revelations, Boebert’s Articles of impeachment, Florida Housing Ban
Free Expression in America
Voting Rights, Worker or Contractor, Pride Month, Unabomber, Presidential Field
Bryan Caplan on Voters as Mad Scientists
The Constitution: Article II, Section 2
Trump’s Federal Indictment, Voting Rights Act Upheld, Republican House Revolt, Mike Pence
Jonathan Ward on The Decisive Decade in the US / China Relationship
Partisanship, Civil Conflict, and Civil War
Debt Limit Deal, No Recession (Yet), Paxton Impeachment, SCOTUS Recusal
Kevin Munger on Generation Gap Politics
Listener Questions: Right to Secede, Education, Biden's Record, Taxes
DeSantis, Twitter Spaces, Tim Scott, No Debt Ceiling Increase, Sackett v EPA, Ukraine
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