The Fifth Column

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**The Fifth Column**

Your weekly rhetorical assault on the on the news cycle, the people who make it, and occasionally ourselves. Kmele Foster (Freethink), Michael Moynihan (Vice), and Matt Welch (Reason) talk and laugh and drink their way to at least quasi-sanity in a world gone mad, often with the aid of clean and articulate guests. Weekly Members Only subscription edition often comes with listener mail and professional-quality (if inappropriate) singing. Analysis. Commentary. Sedition.

www.wethefifth.com

Latest Episodes:

Members Only #188 - Shine on You Crazy 'Anti-Zionist' Nov 08, 2023

Show notes

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

* Voting for New York judges (and do you have a spare apartment?)

* An unsolicited application

* Liz Warren warns about the surge of….

* Is violent anti-Semitism in the U.S. a real threat?

* Explain the progressive-Islamist alliance please…

* He has become comfortably dumb

* No, it’s not really fishy

* Defining war, war crimes, and civilians

* The government’s stupid war on (pr…

#428 - Poundtowns and Political Pilgrims Nov 02, 2023

Show notes

* Happy birthday Kmele

* The girls of the IDF

* The lads take a wrong turn, end up in “Poundtown”

* In fairness, we didn’t know he did a whole segment on this

* So Mike Pence dropped out?

* That’s some good polling for Bobby Jr.

* When innocents die

* Nat Turner’s bloody rebellion

* Human shields and asymmetry

* Kill ‘em all, says Rep. Brian Mast

* Political pilgrims for Hamas

* Sorry but nothing after 1917, Matt

* And much, much more!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Members Only #187 - A Break from the Grimness w/ Danny Polishchuk Oct 31, 2023

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

Along with fellow comedian Ryan Long, Danny Polishchuk is one half of the very funny Boyscast podcast (a favorite of Fifth Column listeners, we are reliably told). Again alongside Ryan Long, Danny is the woke guy in the “When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything” video.” And there’s lots of great solo stuff over at his YouTube channel.

Danny s…

#427 - Is Cancel Culture Cancellable? (w/ Greg Lukianoff & Rikki Schlott) Oct 27, 2023

Show notes

* On The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All―But There Is a Solution.

* The youngest Fif’ and Maher guest.

* My how times have changed since 9/11.

* The numbers are very, very bad. Bad numbers!

* The sudden (and probably temporary) rediscovery of campus neutrality.

* Yes, some post-Oct. 7 campus ruckus has been Cancel Culture.

* And so, so depressing.

* The (surprising!) view from Gen Z.

* Millennials are the worst.

* Schlott vs. Haidt.

* Shut up, bigot.

* The Left does it more (on campus, anyway).

* We’re past peak-Woke, right? Right?

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Members Only #186 - From the Haganah to Häagen-Dazs Oct 25, 2023

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

* An idiot…He wrote this

* Condolences to a friend

* What is a war crime?

* History wars and war crimes

* The worst congresswoman went to the worst law school

* In defense of Harvard. Sort of.

* Defending Panthers and the exhilaration of murderousanti-Semitism

* Why no air raid shelters?

* Meir Kahane Krunch

* Objecting to a guest. We disagree

* Karine Jean-Pierre will answer what…

#426 - w/ Matt Duss - Notes from the Other Side Oct 20, 2023

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* Hamas and the hospital

* Don’t trust and try to verify

* Did Israel “create” Hamas?

* When there’s no negotiating partner

* America’s role in the Middle East

* Enter Iran…

* Gauging Palestinian public opinion

* A massive media failure

* One-way root causes

* And much more!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Members Only #185 - Radicalized by Radicals Oct 16, 2023

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

* Where are you Ben and/or Jerry?

* The radicalization of KF

* What it means to be “anti-war”

* The radicalization of the universities

* Other fronts in the war

* Israel, its neighbors, and its assassination program (Note: It was not Shamir who was PM during Operation Opera. It was Begin. Moynihan regrets the error)

* Importing anti-Semitism to Europe

* No, you can’t go to H…

#425 - The Nightmare Scenario (w/ Oren Kessler) Oct 13, 2023

Show notes

A few weeks before the Hamas pogrom, Moynihan was reading Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict by the brilliant Israeli-American journalist and historian Oren Kessler. So he called him to talk through the current conflict, its historical antecedents, and how Hamas’s murder spree has effected his family.

* RIP Tomer Shoham

* The nightmare scenario

* “This is good for Hamas”

* The “I don’t support it, but you have to understand…” argument

* The “occupation” is Tel Aviv and Haifa

* Nowhere to go / hostage trading

* On the media coverage

* The Arab Revolt of 1936

* The beginning of Arab nationalism, Jewish terrorism

* Writing while angry

* The Jewish Agency Fund

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Members Only #184 - Zoom Rebroadcast - On the Pogrom in Israel Oct 10, 2023

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com

(Editor’s note: about 20 seconds of Comrade Lake’s mic is missing at the very beginning of this recording. It fixes itself soon thereafter. Sorry about that)

It’s that time of month (…ummmm….time for a rebroadcast of our Second Sunday Zoom call). As you probably already guessed, we managed just one topic of conversation this time around: the unfolding ho…

#424 - w/ Rep. Peter Meijer - McCarthy and His Enemies Oct 06, 2023

Show notes

* Former Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer is back to talk about his insane friends and erstwhile colleagues on the Hill

* Peter’s surprising (to us) view of Rep. Matt Gaetz

* “I try to see the best in people” (Hmmmmm….)

* The gordian knot of polarization

* Peter makes the case for [blank] as Speaker…….

* Oh wait, he’s kinda serious!

* What do any of these people actually believe?

* “Oh, I mean, there's horseshoe theory and then there's horseshoe theory…”

* Does Peter have an announcement to make?? Maybe??

* Well, he didn’t exactly deny it