Guess Who's Coming to Brookings Next Week

You never will guess, so I'll tell you

Benjamin Wittes

Sep 15, 2023

Good Evening.

I fell asleep last night mid-dog-shirt-writing.

I guess I was tired.

What’s more, I forgot to mention in Tuesday’s dog shirt about the Ukrainian embassy’s Independence Day celebration that the embassy reprinted all of the Nikita Titov images I had hung on the fence across the street from the #GatesOfHell and hung them on the fences of Ukraine House for the evening.

So that was cool.

Speaking of which, here’s an update on the originals that remain on Drew’s fence: None has been tampered with to my knowledge since I replaced the stolen ones last week.

Its almost like outing the poster thieves may be deterring someone from encouraging folks to steal them.

Here’s an interesting thing that’s happening next week: I am hosting at Brookings the head of the agency that filed intelligence reports about me back during the Trump administration.

You may recall that back in 2020, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security filed a pair of intelligence reports about me and my Twitter feed. This led to a bit of a hubbub. The head of the office lost his job. It was a whole thing.

Well, DHS I&A is now under new leadership, responsible serious leadership, and it’s also under a fair bit of congressional pressure—in my view for all of the wrong reasons and in a deeply misguided fashion.

So I invited Kenneth Wainstein, the DHS undersecretary for intelligence, to Brookings to speak on the subject: Here’s the event announcement and registration from Brookings:

UPCOMING EVENT
A conversation with DHS Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Kenneth Wainstein on the current threat environment
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT
The Brookings Institution
Falk Auditorium
Twenty-two years since the 9/11 attacks, the threat environment in the United States has greatly evolved, with concerns of domestic violent extremism added to post-9/11 threats from foreign actors. As the domestic threat environment has changed, so has the mission of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
On September 19, join Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution for an event with Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, Kenneth Wainstein. Wainstein will discuss the critical mission of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) at the Department of Homeland Security. He will explain how I&A is evolving to meet the complexities of today’s threat environment while safeguarding Americans’ privacy, civil rights and civil liberties. He will then be joined in discussion by Governance Studies Senior Fellow Benjamin Wittes. Audience Q&A will follow the conversation.
Viewers can submit questions for speakers by emailing events@brookings.edu or via Twitter at @BrookingsGov by using #DHSIntelligence.
Registration is required to attend an event in person and guests at Brookings are required to attest to their state of health before attending. Visitors may not enter the building if they are feeling ill for any reason, have any symptoms commonly associated with COVID-19, or have tested positive for COVID-19 at any time in the preceding 14 days.

A reminder that #DogShirtTV launches on Monday:

It being Thursday, it’s #LawfareLive Trump’s Trials & Tribulations day. Good discussion today with Roger Parloff, Anna Bower, and Saraphin Dhanani:

It being Thursday, it’s also Bulwark Podcast day:

Some new dumb questions from New York Times headline writers:

Well, when a lot of water moves downhill quickly, and you’re in the way...

Nope.

I don’t know. I’m not your doctor. Why are you asking me?

Come to think of it, why are you asking me for information at all? You’re the newspaper. You’re the one who is supposed to be informing me.

I can promise you very few things in life, but one of them is that if you spend the next 24 minutes and seven seconds listening to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sing Bach’s Cantata no. 82, “Ich habe genug,” your life will be deeply enriched by the experience.

Lieberson had, in my humble opinion, the most surpassingly perfect voice ever recorded. She recorded this while dying way too young. And this cantata is one of the most beautiful things Bach ever wrote—which is saying something.

It is #YourMusicOfTheDay:

After Acting #BeastMaster Paul Rosenzweig sent the astonishing images of the wildebeast crossing the other day, I asked him to send more pictures and footage. He did so, and I have assembled it into this short video: two minutes and 26 seconds of a lot of beasts trying to cross a river and a small number of beasts having lunch.

Some amazing images here of the herd, the crossing, and the lioness feasting:

Loading video

That is a #BeastOfTheDay bonus.

But today’s actual #BeastOfTheDay is this hyena, about whom Paul writes: “After a long night hunting this hyena chills out in the heat of the day with a nice soak in the creek. She paid us no mind, asking only that we stop disturbing her wash.”