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Covering the January 6th Trials with Roger Parloff Jun 22, 2023

Show notes

Since joining Lawfare in November 2021, Roger Parloff has been a constant presence at the January 6th trials. Now based in Washington, D.C, he had, earlier in his career, served as a staff writer for Fortune and American Lawyer Magazine, and has been published in The New York Times, Yahoo Finance, ProPublica, New York, NewYorker.com, and Air Mail News. As a senior editor at Lawfare, he's focused on January 6 related matters, including covering the more than 1,000 federal criminal cases that have been filed while also keeping up on the pending investigations of higher-ups.

In his conversation with Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare’s editor in chief and this week’s Chatter guest host, Roger talks about giving live play-by-play of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers trials, the Venue Transfer Motions filed by many Jan. 6th defendants, the other journalists and "sedition hunters" who have been crucial in gathering information and reporting on the Jan. 6th cases, and more.

Parloff’s latest essay on Lawfare on this subject is entitled: “Should Nine Oath Keepers Receive Terror-Enhanced Sentences?”

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

Water, Security, and Conflict with Peter Gleick Jun 15, 2023

Show notes

Water, essential to the emergence and endurance of life on Earth, has both spurred technological advances and driven many types of conflict. For the first time in humanity's long history with water, we are starting to suffer the consequences of widespread unsustainable water use, and we soon will face a crucial collective choice about what future generations' interactions with water will look like.

Hydroclimatologist Peter Gleick has studied the issues at the intersection of water, climate change, security, and conflict for decades; he recently wrote The Three Ages of Water to bring together much of his life's work on how water has shaped the course of human history and why acting now is so vital for fostering a sustainable hydrologic future. David Priess hosted him for a conversation covering his early interest in hydrology, the importance of interdisciplinary studies for water issues, early civilizations' relationship with water, ancient epic flood stories, early legal codes' attention to water conflict, the scientific revolution's water impacts, water poverty, the difference between so-called water wars and conflicts involving water, Hollywood's portrayals of water conflicts, NASA's GRACE satellites, the peak water debate, the path to a more sustainable future, and more.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The book The Three Ages of Water by Peter Gleick

The article "Water and Conflict: Fresh Water Resources and International Security," International Security (1993) by Peter Gleick

The article "Environment and Security: The Clear Connections," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2015) by Peter Gleick

The book Bottled and Sold by Peter Gleick

The Water Conflict Chronology project at the Pacific Institute

The Water at the Movies compilation by Peter Gleick

The movie The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The movie Mad Max: Fury Road

The movie Waterworld

The movie Quantum of Solace

The movie V is for Vendetta

The movie Dune (1984)

The book Dune by Frank Herbert

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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

Genealogy and Intelligence Analysis with Lisa Maddox Jun 08, 2023

Show notes

Shane and David have hosted many former intelligence officers, mostly of the American variety, during more than 80 episodes so far on Chatter. But, until this week, you haven't heard us speak with one who has turned her intelligence experience into a career as a professional genealogist. Lisa Maddox of Family History Investigations has carved out that unique path, and her story reveals much about the nature and wider applicability of analytic skills.

David Priess talked to Lisa about her entry into the national security world; the role of intelligence within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS); differences and similarities among NCIS, DIA, and CIA; her work at CIA as an analyst and manager of analysts; the research, analytic, and presentational aspects of intelligence analysis; structured analytic techniques; the coordination process within the Intelligence Community; the discipline of targeting analysis; her decision to start a genealogy business; how the elements of analysis apply to genealogical work; and more.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The TV show NCIS
The TV show Finding Your Roots
The book Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies
The book Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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

Information Ecology with Alicia Wanless Jun 01, 2023

Show notes

Alicia Wanless is one of the pioneers of the idea of information ecology, the notion that we should think about information and disinformation as part of a complex ecosystem, the management of which she analogizes to environmental policy. Wanless has been complaining for several years that the war on “disinformation” skates over important question: What are the collateral effects of anti-disinformation policies? How do interventions against information pollution operate in the real world?

In her conversation with Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare’s editor in chief and this week’s Chatter guest host, Wanless talks about how she became interested in information management, what’s wrong with the discussion of disinformation, what a more environmentalist approach to information spaces might look like, and what a useful research agenda for the nascent field would focus on.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

Wanless’s latest essay on Lawfare: “There’s No Getting Ahead of Disinformation Without Moving Past It.”
The book Network Propaganda

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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

Popular Presidential Communication with Anne Pluta May 28, 2023

Show notes

From the birth of the republic, American presidents have communicated with the public in one form or another. The frequency and exact nature of such efforts have varied quite a bit over time due to variables ranging from the extent of partisanship in the media to each commander in chief's personal preference to travel technology. Political scientist Anne Pluta has explored this history deeply, including extensive analysis of contemporary newspaper accounts back to the late 18th century. And her insights, contained in writings like the book Persuading the Public: The Evolution of Popular Presidential Communication from Washington to Trump, provide plenty of surprises and even challenge some conventional wisdom about the presidency.

David Priess chatted with her about her favorite presidents and her assessment of the best communicators among them; the precedents set by George Washington; Thomas Jefferson's State of the Union delivery method; changes in the communication environment during the Andrew Jackson era; Abraham Lincoln's exceptional presidency; the importance of train travel for presidential contact with the public; Rutherford Hayes's underappreciated importance in presidential communication; Theodore Roosevelt as a speaker; Woodrow Wilson's decision to deliver the State of the Union address in person; the importance for presidential communication of radio, television, and the availability of Air Force One; the relatively brief period of national, "objective" media; the late 20th century shift to splintered media; Donald Trump's social media use; Joe Biden's communication practices; and more.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The play Hamilton
The TV show John Adams
The movie Lincoln
The book Persuading the Public by Anne Pluta
The TV show The West Wing
The TV show Veep
The movie The American President
The movie Air Force One
The movie Independence Day
The TV show Scandal
The book The Devil's Teeth
The book Twelve Days of Terror
The book The Wave

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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

‘Special Military Operations’ Against the Russians with Benjamin Wittes May 18, 2023

Show notes

On April 13, 2022, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes conducted his first “special military operation” at the Russian embassy in Washington, DC. It involved 14 theater stage lights that Wittes and other activists used to project images of the Ukrainian flag onto embassy walls. Since then, Wittes’s special military operations have garnered increased attention and become more complex—technically and diplomatically.

In his conversation with Katherine Pompilio, one of Lawfare’s associate editors and this week’s Chatter guest host, Wittes talks about the genesis of these special military operations, what it’s like conducting international negotiations with Russian diplomats via the U.S. Secret Service, the international law of light protests, how a paper mache washing machine is involved in all of this, his career, his other projects, and more.

Works mentioned in this episode:

Ben’s Substack Dog Shirt Daily

The video Defect and Repent: A Laser Poem

The video "It's Almost Like the Russians Don't Negotiate in Good Faith": A Video Parable.

The video U.S. Ukrainian Activists Presents Umbrella Boy

The podcast #LiveFromUkraine: Katya Savchenko Survived Bucha—and Wrote About It

The Washington Post article “Activists train spotlight of Ukrainian flag on Russian Embassy”

The video of the spotlight cat and mouse game

The work of Robin Bell

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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

Politicians and White House Plumbers with Olivia Nuzzi May 14, 2023

Show notes

Olivia Nuzzi gets Washington in a way many journalists don’t. As the Washington correspondent for New York magazine, she has written perceptive, piercing, and enduring portraits of Donald Trump and the bizarre characters in his orbit. Now she’s turning her reporter’s eye to history, hosting a companion podcast to HBO's “White House Plumbers,” a five-part series that imagines the Watergate scandal through the lives of two notorious Nixon operatives, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy.

Olivia came up as a journalist writing about politics in New Jersey. She began covering Trump at The Daily Beast, where she worked with Shane. They discussed her career, what fascinates her about politics, and the prospects for the 2024 presidential campaign, where Trump appears likely to be the Republican nominee.

They also discussed Hollywood and Washington’s mutual fascination with each other, and why they’d both rather live in L.A. than New York.

Olivia’s work at New York magazine: https://nymag.com/author/olivia-nuzzi/

The White House Plumbers podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/white-house-plumbers-podcast/id1682542231

The White House Plumbers series on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/white-house-plumbers

Olivia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Olivianuzzi?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Garrett Graff’s new book on Watergate, which serves as a history companion to the podcast and was just named a Pulitzer Prize finalist: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Watergate/Garrett-M-Graff/9781982139179

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Ian Enright and Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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

Private Equity and National Security with Brendan Ballou May 04, 2023

Show notes

Private equity firms rank among the largest employers in the United States and invest many billions of dollars in a wide variety of industries. Yet the public understanding of how private equity works and its impact on myriad areas of American life, including national security, remains limited.

Brendan Ballou is trying to change that. A federal prosecutor who works in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, he has written a new book, Plunder: Private Equity's Plan To Pillage America. David Priess spoke at length with him about his previous work in the Justice Department's National Security Division, his current role working antitrust issues, the origins of his interest in private equity, the business model of private equity, its effect on industries from mortgages to nursing homes, private equity's link to the SolarWinds hack, foreign involvement in private equity, the impact of private equity on U.S. competitiveness, and more.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The book Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It by Louis Brandeis

The book Plunder: Private Equity's Plan To Pillage America by Brendan Ballou

The movie This Is Spinal Tap

The book Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free by Jed Rakoff

The movie Alien

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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

Space Diplomacy and Satellite Data with Mariel Borowitz Apr 27, 2023

Show notes

As satellites around the planet proliferate, the tug they feel from international tensions seems to rival the gravitational pull exerted by the Earth itself. On issues from Space Traffic Management to scientific data sharing, the need for global cooperation is high but rarely easy.

Dr. Mariel Borowitz is head of the Program on International Affairs, Science, and Technology at Georgia Tech's Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, where she is an Associate Professor, and author of Open Space: The Global Effort for Open Access to Environmental Satellite Data, which dives deeply into the history of government agencies' and international organizations' tough choices about when and how to share scientific information collected by various orbiting platforms.

David Priess chatted with her about space diplomacy as a domain; auroras and satellites; the Artemis crew; the Space Force; the James Webb Space Telescope; working at NASA headquarters; the changing nature of satellite constellations; Starlink; Space Situational Awareness and Space Traffic Management; countries' choices about making data from satellites freely available; the evolution of LANDSAT; the history of satellite data sharing by entities in the United States, Europe, Russia, China, Japan, and India; the inhibiting effects of Russia's war in Ukraine; commercialization of satellite systems; how to grow space diplomats; and more.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The movie 2001
The movie 2010
The movie The Martian
The TV show The Expanse
The movie Arrival
Queen guitarist Brian May's work on the New Horizons mission
The Chatter podcast episode Satellites, Space Debris, and Hollywood with Aaron Bateman
The movie Gravity

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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

Blackouts in Film and TV with Denis Newiak Apr 20, 2023

Show notes

Widespread power outages have happened before, but authorities usually diagnose the cause and restore electricity within days, if not within hours. And with few exceptions, such blackouts occur without dissolving social bonds and prompting massive violence.

In big screen and television fiction, however, things are different. Thrillers show us the dangerous, life-or-death scenarios that can arise when regular power and all it provides disappear. Science fiction explores diverse causes and implications of blackouts. Horror stories take full advantage of the darkness and the resort to pre-modern technology. All of them say something about us and about modernity.

Denis Newiak has extensively researched and written about the intersection of crises, film and TV, and modern humanity. Most recently, his book Preparing for the Global Blackout: A Disaster Guide from TV and Cinema jumps into how fictional representations of lost electricity show us the contradiction that modern life is both safer and more dangerous than it was before the widespread availability of power. David Priess chatted with him about the field of media theory, their childhood attraction to disaster films, the many causes of fictional blackouts, how characters tend to react when realizing that things will be very different, the importance of radio in blackout fiction, the importance of darkness, what becomes valuable in no-electricity worlds, how comedies handle power outages, and Newiak's hope that government officials and business leaders with emergency management responsibilities are paying attention to what movies and TV reveal about humanity pushed to the edge.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The movie WALL-E
The TV show The Big Bang Theory
The TV show 13 Reasons Why
The TV show Bates Motel
The book Wicked by Gregory Maguire
The movie Solo
The movie Contagion
The TV show The Walking Dead
The TV movie 14 Hours
The movie The Book of Eli
The TV show Grey's Anatomy
The TV show Tribes of Europa
The movie The Purge
The movie How It Ends
The TV show Blackout
The movie Cloverfield
The movie 10 Cloverfield Place
The movie The Cloverfield Paradox
The TV show V (1984-85)
The TV show V (2009-11)
The movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The TV show Superstore
The TV show Community
The TV show The Flight Attendant
The movie Moonraker

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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

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