The “All Blow’d Up” Edition

Rational Security

The Lawfare Institute

News, Foreignpolicy, Nationalsecurity, Politics, Government, Middleeast

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2023

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott talked over some of the various natsec stories blowing up headlines, including:

“The Truth is Up There…And We Shot It Down.” Last week’s controversy over a Chinese spy balloon has blown up, as the United States and Canada have shot down a number of similar unidentified flying objects over their airspace in the past few days. But why is the Biden administration being so close-lipped about what these things are? Is there reason for concern?
“Now I Know How Joan of Arc Felt.” Special Counsel Jack Smith appears to be turning up the heat on associates of former President Trump: former Vice President Pence is reportedly invoking both executive privilege and the Speech and Debate Clause to avoid testifying before a grand jury, while Smith is pushing to overcome another witness’s claim of attorney-client privilege on the basis of the crime-fraud exception. What should we make of these moves? What do they tell us about where the investigation is headed?
“Oh Nikki, You’re On Time, First in Line, It Blows My Mind.” Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is the first Republican to officially step up and compete against former President Trump for the Republican nomination for president. Why declare now? And what does her candidacy mean for the race?

For object lessons, Alan dipped back into his high school literature reading list and endorsed John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden.” Quinta recommended the Rolling Stone piece we’ve all been waiting for: a profile of influential right-wing sh*tposter @Catturd2. And Scott urged listeners to check out the band Television’s 1977 classic “Marquee Moon” in honor of its frontman Tom Verlaine, who passed away a few weeks ago.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Can I just say, it is the most rat-seq thing that all three of us have stress-related
0:05.8	job-hane?
0:06.8	So, I will say, I went to the dentist in, like, 2018, maybe I should, like, peak Trump
0:14.1	crazy.
0:15.4	And they were like, wow, like, you've really been grinding your teeth, do you have a stressful
0:20.1	job?
0:21.1	Like, what's so stressful about screaming into the wind for four straight years?
0:25.5	I mean, no, granted.
0:27.2	This is a Washington D.C. dentist that's, like, right down the street from the White House.
0:31.4	So I imagine they probably see a lot of that, but still.
0:34.7	I will say, I developed TMJ really bad when I was in Baghdad, understandably, slightly
0:40.1	stressful job and situation.
0:41.5	It was so bad I couldn't sleep at night, like, I couldn't lie on one side of my face,
0:45.6	because I was so swollen.
0:46.6	And so, I went on this desperate wild goose chase all over Baghdad trying to find a self-creating
0:52.3	microwaveable mouth guard, which, for some reason, is really hard to find in Baghdad, at least
0:56.1	at that moment, could not find one.
0:58.5	And finally, I had our medic on, like, the embassy was kind of like, have you considered
1:02.4	meditation?
1:03.7	And I, like, rolled my eyes visibly, and was like, what are you telling me?
1:07.5	And then she gave me this meditation exercises, and it actually totally helped.
1:10.4	And I, like, all of a sudden, could get to sleep, and, like, my stress relieved, and my
	...

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