The “Low Down Dirty Shane” Edition

Rational Security

The Lawfare Institute

Foreignpolicy, Nationalsecurity, News, Government, Politics, Middleeast

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2023

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Alan and Scott were joined by co-host emeritus (and Washington Post star reporter) Shane Harris to talk over the week's news! Including:

“Flight of the Valkyries.” Recently leaked U.S. intelligence reports allege that Wagner Group owner Yevgeniy Prighozin—who has privately and publicly feuded with the Russian military leadership in recent weeks and even threatened to pull his mercenary troops from the conflict—has been in contact with Ukrainian intelligence and offered to share Russian troop positions in exchange for concessions around the disputed city of Bakhmut. Is Prighozin trying to find a path to retreat? What do his actions tell us about the conflict?
“Jerkiye Boy.” Twitter owner Elon Musk has come under criticism for the company’s latest bad call: censoring certain content at the request of the Erdogan government in Türkiye, just prior to national elections there. How should Twitter have responded to the demands of Turkish officials? And how has Musk’s erratic leadership affected the company’s approach to such issues?
“BootLichter.” CNN and its CEO Chris Licht are experiencing blowback from the decision to host a town hall with former President Donald Trump before an audience of his supporters, at which he repeated an array of lies about the 2020 election results, the recent judgment finding him liable for sexual battery, and his potential legal exposure for retaining classified documents, among other items. Was CNN in the wrong? How should it handle Trump (and other candidates)?

For object lessons, Alan recommended his annual reading on the Eurovision contest, Anthony Lane's 2010 New Yorker essay, "Only Mr. God Knows Why." Scott passed along some favorites from his reading-heavy vacation, including Arkady Martine's fantastic "A Memory Called Empire." And Shane, in true Shane fashion, gave his wholehearted endorsement to a new spy thriller coming to Showtime this week: "Ghosts of Beirut," about the hunt for terrorist mastermind Imad Mughniyeh.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Picture this, static cars, idling engines, angry horns, now picture you, zooming past
0:12.4	it all, light and breezy, ah, the sweet feeling of whizzing past traffic, book your train
0:21.6	journey via AvantiWestcoast.co.uk, AvantiWestcoast, feel good travel.
0:30.3	Scott, after two years of being our fearless leader, you abandoned us last week, and we were
0:38.9	rudderless? I mean, I thought I did a great job, but still, I resented having to actually
0:43.8	put any work at all, interprepping for rats said, how could you? I don't blame you, I resent you
0:50.4	for it every week, but the great irony is that I was actually manning a rudder as I was leaving
0:58.6	actual rudder on a sailboat in the Caribbean, and it was wonderful. Wow, vacation is great. I'm
1:04.5	not gonna lie, this is the first real vacation I've taken from this podcast, at least in a very
1:08.4	long time. Why did you come back? It's a fair, it gets very, because it's a free host and
1:13.3	realized that it was exactly. It was a rough situation, it was a bad situation, guys.
1:18.6	You know, I like to think I'm bringing a part of the Caribbean back with me, listeners can't see
1:22.0	this, but I have one single dreadlock hanging down my forehead, of course, right now. I've been
1:26.4	describing everything as I read for the last 72 hours, so really, you know, the Caribbean is with us
1:32.3	all around the world. It's not problematic at all. Yeah, at all. No, no, no.
1:44.2	Hello, everyone, and welcome to Rational Security. I am one of your co-hosts, Scott R. Anderson.
1:50.9	I'm glad to be back with you after a week away, and I'm here with one of my other co-hosts,
1:55.8	Alan Rosenstein, the stalwart Never Abandon's Ratsack co-host. That's me. Sure,
2:03.5	sure, buddy. Not in the last three weeks, anyway. Fired of that several times, several times,
2:09.1	quite regularly. That's okay. Yeah, but in the last three weeks, my attendance has been exceptional.
2:15.6	Pretty good three weeks. I'll give you that. We are sadly without our third regular co-host,
2:20.8	Kwinda, who is on the road, bringing her show on the road, so to speak, or I think on vacation,
	...

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