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This special 250th episode of the Power Line podcast offers a twist on our Three Whisky Happy Hour format, as Lucretia and I put aside our Glen Livet in favor of talking with Glenn Ellmers. Glenn is a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, research fellow at Hillsdale College, author of a forthcoming biography of Harry Jaffa entitled The Soul of Politics, and author of several recent articles at The American Mind on the state of the conservative movement today that are raising eyebrows and blood-pressure counts.
The most controversial recent piece is “‘Conservatism’ Is No Longer Enough.” It throws down a basic challenge about whether there is much left to “conserve” in American institutions and culture right now without a serious counter-revolutionary effort. It drew the attention of Tucker Carlson earlier this week: you can see a short preview for the episode here. Our conversation ranges widely over what prudence demands, and whether conservatives ought to support an Article V constitutional convention to discuss formal secession or other changes to restore constitutional government. Conservatives have always feared an Article V effort might lead to a “runaway convention,” but at this point a runaway convention might be the best case scenario.
As whisky drinkers know, the apex of Glen Livet is their “Founders Reserve” bottlings; you might say the apex here is “Glenn Ellmers Preserving Founders.” And then for the last few minutes Lucretia and get back to our whiskies, preview a couple new ones, review the latest Ashli Babbit magic number, and celebrate that Berkeley is finally going to hire a professor of cannabis research after all these years.
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Steve’s comment on all the girls standing at the starting line was the best thing I’ve heard today.
Nuclear Energy is not boring, although you did ask the boring questions.
The future of nuclear energy was researched in the 1960’s at the Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee. The Molten Salt Reactor, which ran for 11 000 hours from 1965 to 1969. The design does away with expensive structured fuel rods, and dissolves the fuel into a molten salt solution. It achieves greater thermal efficiency by running much hotter (1225F/660c) than a boiling water reactor does. Because water is not used to cool the reactor, there is no need for a large containment building or a large pressure vessel to hold the reactor and heat exchangers.
Wikipedia has excellent articles on molten salt reactors (sometimes called Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
I think its the closest thing to a perpetual motion machine that nature will allow.
Delete. Wrong forum.
Best line goes to Lucretia:
Steve H: “Let’s look at the bright side . . .”
Lucretia: No!
Gotta love a lady allergic to the bright side.
Whoa, sick burn of the week!
Any comment on the 2002 Harry Jaffa and Thomas DiLorenzo debate on Lincoln? DiLorenzo sometimes refers to it, and advises people to watch it on YouTube for an interesting contrast on opinions of Lincoln.
When the Supreme Court began to play ducks and drakes with the Constitution, the reluctance of conservative politicians to call a constitutional convention to clean up the mess has sometimes made me wonder if the conservative movement isn’t just a false front.
After Donald Trump, it’s increasingly clear that Bush Republicans are merely Rockefeller Republicans who have learned a few conservative slogans.
Interesting observation. When Steve and Glenn were talking about things being so bad now that a constitutional convention did not present all that much of a risk, I wanted to ask them exactly what they would propose to do about the Supreme Court. A “conservative” justice recently ruled that a law clearly intended to prevent discrimination based on sex, (i.e., the previously thought immutable determination by nature of biological sex) must be understood to include sexual orientation or gender identification, because that was what it was commonly understood to mean at the time the law was passed half a century ago. A supposedly conservative Supreme Court willing to disregard any semblance of logic, to say nothing of fidelity to the law or the Constitution will not be deterred by new provisions passed through a convention.
Point taken.
First, the amendment should explicitly contradict whatever the rogue judge (or philosopher king) had read into the Constitution, so he would have to lie blatantly to circumvent it.
Second, build in consequences. Make rogue behavior an impeachable offense; and make the accused judge attend the trial or be automatically convicted and removed.
It’s worth a shot, given that the alternative is to do nothing.
If you get a hint of green pepper in your beer that means it’s gone bad.