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Rational Security

The “House of Canards” Edition

Rational Security

The Lawfare Institute

Foreignpolicy, Nationalsecurity, News, Government, Politics, Middleeast

4.82K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2022

⏱️ 63 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by Lawfare managing editor, Jacob Schulz! They talked through some of the week's biggest national security news, including:

  • “The Shawshank Detention.” The Islamic State attempted a violent jail break of thousands of their confederates this week in Syria. And while U.S.-backed Kurdish forces appear to have contained the damage thus far, the outcome remains far from certain. What does this tell us about the state of the U.S. strategy in Syria?
  • “Pure Michigan.” The prosecution of the attempted kidnappers of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has hit a snag, with defense attorneys (and the conservative media) alleging that purported misconduct on the part of the FBI amounts to entrapment. What could a failure here mean for the fight against domestic violent extremism?
  • “Urgent Chinese Secrets, Huh?” The Justice Department has dropped charges in a leading case in the China Initiative, a Trump-era program that targets individuals for improper ties to China but has been criticized for encouraging racial discrimination and chilling legitimate research. Is this the end of the program or something else?

For object lessons, Alan drew our attention to the "Just Enough Family" podcast, which features classic tales of things not working out for rich people. Quinta urged Wordle fans to check out its more challenging Bizarro World counterpart, Absurdle. Scott made a passionate plea for reform in relation to one of our country's most systemic procedural injustices: NFL overtime rules. And Jacob endorsed both the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations soccer competition and the optimistically cosmopolitan sci-fi throwback (to 2016), "Arrival." 

Be sure to visit our show page at www.lawfareblog.com and to follow us on Twitter at @RatlSecurity

And Rational Security listeners can get a committed ad-free feed by becoming a Lawfare material supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare!



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Transcript

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0:00.0

Imagine you, you in a nice comfy seat with your hands behind your head, taking in the views,

0:09.6

instead of taking on the road, maybe even taking a nap. That's the bliss of getting where you

0:15.5

need to go without worrying about driving. Book your train journey via avantiwascoast.co.uk

0:23.0

and we'll take you there. Avantiwascoast, feel good travel.

0:30.1

So Quinta, I hear you have some sad horticultural news to share with us today.

0:37.9

Yes, I killed a plant this weekend. I murdered it. Well, I don't know about murder.

0:43.0

Maybe, maybe it was a pre-meditated plant. Was it pre-meditated?

0:47.0

No, it was not. It was it was depraved heart murder. I have a tropical plant had a tropical plant

0:53.8

in my bathroom just to give some greenery to the space, make it a little more pleasant.

0:58.8

And I left the window open in my bathroom this weekend when in DC there was a low of maybe

1:06.1

like 10 degrees Fahrenheit. And it turns out tropical plants don't like that. So it is dead.

1:13.6

I am attempting to propagate some of the sprigs, but I am a plant killer. I'm sad to say.

1:22.4

At least it went quickly. I have like five or six house plants that have like just like

1:27.3

three leaves on them still. And I'm like, I think it's still alive. I feel guilty throwing it out.

1:32.0

It looks like garbage, but but those three leaves keep giving me hope.

1:36.4

That's why I'm still hanging on to them. The trick is either you're either overwadding it or

1:40.6

you're underwadding it. Or it's too warm or it's too cold. Or you're watering it just right,

1:45.3

but the universe hates you. I like, or you don't know. You committed terrible things in a

1:49.8

previous life. And this is just karma. Or it's root rot. And the only way you can fix this by

1:54.0

doing something that's almost certainly going to kill the plant. I would just pulling it out and

1:58.2

kind of get through itself. It's absurd. Radical root activity. Yes. I will say I have saved a plant

2:03.9

from root rot before. So this is my nearly acquired grain thome has failed me in this instance.

...

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