Political Gabfest - Barr-Barr-Barr, Barr-Barr is Gone
Political Gabfest
Slate Podcasts
4.6 • 242 Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2020
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Emily, John and David discuss the massive Russian hack-- with guest Alex Stamos, Bill Barr’s resignation, and Joe Biden’s cabinet.
Here are some notes and references from this week’s show:
Alex Stamos for The Washington Post: “Enough Is Enough. Here’s What We Should Do to Defend Against the Next Russian Cyberattacks.”
John Dickerson for 60 Minutes: “Excited Delirium: The Controversial Syndrome That Can Be Used to Protect Police From Misconduct Charges”
Here are this week’s cocktail chatters:
John: Thomas B. Edsall for The New York Times: “America, We Have a Problem”; The New Yorker Documentary, Episode 30: “The Man Who Invented More Than Eight Hundred Iconic Toys”
Emily: Daniel Nichanian for The Appeal: “Newly Elected Prosecutors Are Challenging The Death Penalty”; Rob Hayes for KABC: “LA County Da George Gascon's Plan To Reduce Sentences Sparks Concern From His Own Prosecutors”; Daniel Nichanian’s Twitter feed, @taniel
David: Azam Ahmed for The New York Times: “She Stalked Her Daughter’s Killers Across Mexico, One by One”
Listener chatter from @greenneck: Eric Simons for Bay News: “With Fewer than 2,000 Butterflies Counted So Far, Western Monarch Takes an Astonishing Step Closer to Extinction”
Slate Plus members get a bonus segment on the Gabfest each week, and access to special bonus episodes throughout the year. Sign up now to listen and support our show.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment David, Emily, and John discuss John’s reporting on “excited delirium,” the dubious medical justification for an increasing number of deaths of young Black men in police custody.
You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest. Tweet us your cocktail chatter using #cocktailchatter. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
The email address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (Email may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank.
Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this late political gab fest for December 17th, 2020, the Bar-Bar-Bar-Barr-Barr-Barr-Barr-Barr-Barr-Barr-Barr-A-Barr-Barr-A-Barr-A-Barr-A-Barr-G |
| 0:18.9 | I'm joined, of course, by Emily Bazelana, the New York Times Magazine |
| 0:23.1 | in Yale University Law School from her home in New Haven, Connecticut. Howdy, Emily. Good morning. |
| 0:28.7 | Hey, David. And from his home in Gotham City, New York City, Manhattan, John Dickerson of CBS is 60 Minutes. Hello, John. Hello, David. Hello, Emily. |
| 0:42.1 | On today's GabFest, the shocking Russian hack, we will talk to security expert Alex Stamos about what |
| 0:48.3 | happened, how bad it is, and whether it can be fixed or remedied, then Attorney General Bill Barr is out. |
| 0:56.0 | Why is he gone? |
| 0:57.3 | What terrible things can happen in the 34, 33 or so days left without him as Attorney General. |
| 1:05.2 | Not that there weren't terrible things happening with him as Attorney General, but whatever. |
| 1:09.2 | Then the battle over Joe Biden's cabinet, everyone is |
| 1:12.9 | unhappy about it, which must mean it's a great cabinet, I guess. Plus, we will have cocktail |
| 1:18.6 | chatter. We are joined for our first segment by Alex Namos, who's the director of the Stanford |
| 1:23.9 | Internet Observatory in a previous life. He was also the chief security officer of Facebook. There are reports this week, Alex, that some clever and highly resourced people |
| 1:33.2 | have broken into basically, well, who knows what, everything. Certainly some of the most secure |
| 1:40.3 | aspects of the American government, maybe corporations, we are only beginning to understand |
| 1:45.5 | what was compromised and what may have been taken. So insofar as you, you're kind of up to |
| 1:51.2 | speed on this. What, what has happened? How are we burgled? And what do we know about what is |
| 1:57.7 | going on right now? Sure. First off, thanks for having me. I'm a big fan of the Gab Fest. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad you guys are covering this. So, like, to tell a little bit of the story, we've got to think about the different groups in Russia, right? So there's three main intelligence agencies in Russia. The GRU is the one that we've often talked about because they were behind the DNC |
| 2:19.4 | hack, the John Bedesta hack, a lot of election issues. They're the military intelligence folks. |
| 2:25.2 | They're like a sledgehammer, right? They are, they will hit you in the face very hard, |
| 2:29.2 | and it is never very subtle. There's the FSB who does internal security, and they're very scary |
| 2:33.4 | people, and they have various hacking groups of different levels of skill. And then there's the FSB who does internal security and they're very scary people and they have |
... |
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