The "Snowmicron" Edition

Rational Security

The Lawfare Institute

Foreignpolicy, Nationalsecurity, News, Government, Politics, Middleeast

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2022

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Quinta and Scott were joined by RatSec 1.0 co-host and Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes! They sat down to discuss the week's national security news, including:

“Merrick’s Briefing.” This week, Attorney General Merrick Garland is expected to give a speech about the Justice Department’s efforts to hold the perpetrators of the January 6 insurrection accountable. What do we expect him to say—and what should he say?
“The Company You Keep.” Former President Trump recently endorsed increasingly authoritarian Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban for re-election. What does this endorsement tell us about Trump—and what may it mean for Orban?
“It’s a New Extradition, Hot and Fresh Out the Kitchen.” The Justice Department recently secured the extradition of Kremlin insider Vladislav Klyushin, who may have information on a range of Russian intelligence activities, including 2016 election interference. What does this move tell us about how Russian and U.S. law enforcement activities intersect with their intelligence capabilities?

For object lessons, Quinta recommended Katie Kitamura's new book, “Intimacies.” Scott urged parents of sick children everywhere to try to turn to the back catalog of the original The Muppet Show, now available streaming online. And Ben gave a double-header endorsement of both Ben Macintyre's classic history of the Kim Philby spy saga, “A Spy Among Friends,” and Lawfare's own forthcoming podcast miniseries on accountability for the January 6 insurrection, entitled The Aftermath.

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!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Guys, we are experiencing our first white, well, not white Christmas, white days here in
0:06.2	Washington, E.C., you know, happy snow macron as we are calling it.
0:12.7	No, I'm sorry.
0:14.2	I got to object to the Washington habit of naming minor snow.
0:20.0	This is not a minor snow farm.
0:22.2	This is not a named, I mean, you know, Hurricane Superstorm Sandy, okay, it gets a name.
0:29.7	But naming a snow storm of like five inches is the ultimate expression of Washington
0:37.9	silliness.
0:38.9	It's more than five inches.
0:40.0	I think it's like eight, uh, eight and eight, I'm sorry, in Toronto, they are laughing
0:48.4	at us in Quebec City, they are laughing at us in Syracuse, New York, they are snickering
0:56.6	at us.
0:57.6	It is terrible that we have to like name storms like this.
1:03.1	As someone from the, uh, not the north, but perhaps the northern mid Atlantic, I will often
1:08.4	defend D.C. from charges of, you know, not being prepared for snow.
1:12.6	We don't get a lot of it.
1:13.6	It's not in the city budget.
1:14.8	Okay.
1:15.8	However, the city's failure to do much of anything, at least in my neighborhood, to clear
1:22.8	the snow off intersections.
1:24.8	And the state of Virginia is apparently total failure to prepare a large stretch of I-95
1:29.8	for the snow is pretty ridiculous.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.