167: Combating Russia Congressional Dish

We’re doing it live! In this episode, recorded in front of a live audience at Podfest in Orlando, Florida, learn about the concerning permissions granted to the war departments in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act which are designed to antagonize Russia. Also, a special guest, Ryan DeLisle, joins Jen on her hotel patio to chat and say thank you to the listeners who keep this podcast in existence. Please Support Congressional Dish to contribute using credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoin to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes Book Recommendation by Thomas P.M. Barnett Bills H.R. 2810: 2018 NDAA: for highlights and links to provisions in the 2018 NDAA   Additional Reading Report: , RT.com, February 3, 2018. Report: by Reuters Staff, Reuters, January 29, 2018. Article: by Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg View, January 25, 2018. Report: by Reuters Staff, Reuters, December 22, 2017. Report: by Matthias Gebauer, Christoph Schult, and Klaus Wiegrefe, Spiegel Online, December 8, 2017. Article: by Dan Lamothe, The Washington Post, December 6, 2017. Article: for Ukraine and Europe, Front News, December 1, 2017. Report: by Michael Birnbaum and David Filipov, The Washington Post, September 23, 2017. Video: , CBS News, September 18, 2017. Article: by David Filipov, The Washington Post, September 9, 2017. Article: by Oksana Kobzeva and Alissa de Carbonnel, Reuters, August 3, 2017. Article: by Thomas Gibbons-Neff, The Washington Post, December 6, 2016. Article: by Julian Pecquet, Al-Monitor, December 2, 2016. Report: by U.S. EIA: Today in Energy, The Energy Collective, March 15, 2014. Article: , BBC, February 7, 2014. Report: by Adam Taylor, Business Insider, December 16, 2013. Press Release: , International Monetary Fund, October 31, 2013. Timeline: by Haley Bissegger, The Hill, September 15, 2013. Resources Gazprom: Gazprom: Nord Stream 2: US Pacific Command: Sound Clip Sources Remarks by Secretary of State: , U.S. Department of State, January 17, 2018. Discussion: ; Council on Foreign Affairs; January 23, 2018. Speakers: Richard Haass: President of the Council on Foreign Relations Joe Biden: former Vice President of the United States   00:06:15 Joe Biden: they cannot compete against a unified West. I think that is Putin’s judgment. And so everything he can do to dismantle the post-World War II liberal world order, including NATO and the EU, I think, is viewed as in their immediate self-interest. 00:20:00 Biden: They’re in a situation where they’re an oil-based economy. You have Gazprom going from a market value of something like $350 billion to $50 billion in the last 10 years. What do you do if you are a democratic leader of Russia? What do you do? How do you provide jobs for your people? Where do you go? How do you build that country, unless you engage the West? 00:24:15 Haass: In the piece, the two of you say that there’s no truth that the United States—unlike what Putin seems to believe or say, that the U.S. is seeking regime change in Russia. So the question I have is, should we be? And if not, if we shouldn’t be seeking regime change, what should we be seeking in the way of political change inside Russia? What’s an appropriate agenda for the United States vis-à-vis Russia, internally? Biden: I’ll give you one concrete example. I was—not I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to—convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment