Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for wanderers, thinkers, problem solvers, and clowns.

I'm your host Andrew Heaton, coming at you with a second episode this week.

I thought that the events transpiring in Ukraine warranted

talking to an honest-to-God expert about what the hell is happening over there.

And Michael Weiss, who you will hear from shortly, is very much in the know.

He's in talks with Eastern European Intelligence Operatives.

He's got a book coming out on the Russian military.

He's flying back and forth between here in Ukraine all the time over the last several years and when I talked to him he says Russian names with funny Russian accents which I think

Belize a great sense of familiarity with that content. So we'll talk to Michael here in a moment.

But before we do, I want to give a very big thank you to patrons of the show who stepped

up to the plate on this episode.

Last week I went on Patreon and I put a post on the message board

noting that I would be speaking with Michael Weiss today

and inquired as to if anybody had any questions that they'd like me to pelt at him.

And in short order, I found over 30 excellent, thoughtful questions,

many of which I unabashedly stole and incorporated into this interview.

Damn, I have a smart audience.

And combined with Patreon, I'm realizing I basically have my own personal

think tank, which is a pretty good place to be.

So for those of you who kindly supplied questions

thank you very much. It is a free-flowing conversation with Michael so you may not hear your

questions specifically thrown out there but I think you'll agree that we cover a lot of ground

...