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:

375 "You Don't Know What Fascism Is" Sep 30, 2022

Show notes

* Only Fans is for Justice

* Internet Experts

* Not Even Not Fascism

* Right Wing Extremists Everywhere

* Blame The EU

* What You’re Really Afraid Of

* The Beyonce of Journalism

* Call of the Wild

* Lil Baby Offends

* Democratic Illiberalism

* Not That Big Lie

* Don’t Call It a “Ban” (Even If It’s A Ban)

* They Were Watching Baseball

Recorded: 9.28.22Published: 9.29.22

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

374 "Walls Closing In (Again?)" Sep 24, 2022

Show notes

* Toddler Pestilence

* Death Defying Drives

* Naked Pool Slide (are you “The Big Guy”

* Russia, Ukraine, A wildly outdated PBX systems

* Trump’s Devolving Legal Situationship

* This Isn’t Political; Trust Me 🤞🏼

* Russia Hacked the Women’s March?

* Buses, Planes, and “Kidnapping” Stunts

* Maybe Build that Wall Now?

Recorded: 9.22.22Published: 9.23.22

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

373 "Notes on White Privilege" w/ Adam Davidson and Thomas Chatterton Williams Sep 17, 2022

Show notes

Featuring:Thomas Chatterton Williams - Contributing Writer @ The Atlantic, Visiting Professor and Senior Fellow Hannah Arendt Center @ Bard College Adam Davidson - Co-Founder @ Planet Money, Contributing Writer @ The New Yorker*** “It amazes me that any straight, white dudes don't see the privilege we have. It's not subtle.” - Adam Davidson - via Twitter (8/20/22)Not a long tweet. And in the grand scheme of things, hardly an unusual opinion to encounter. Ordinarily, I fire off a reply —maybe there’s some pithy back and forth, but things more or less end up about where they began— until the next (pointless?) social media drama.But maybe we agree to talk instead? Probe a bit further. Perhaps even learn a few things in the process?

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

372 "The Queen is Dead" Sep 09, 2022

Show notes

So I broke into the Palace with a sponge and a rusty spanner

With the Right Honorable Matt Welch ensconced in a posh Beverly Hills hotel, prepping to shock and sicken America with yet another appearance on Real Time, Kmele and Moynihan got on the horn to discuss the death of corgi-loving colonialist Queen Elizabeth II, moronic “anti-colonialist” Twitter, Bannon’s perp strut, Moynihan’s unwitting mentor, phantom racist volleyball fans, and an unarmed man shot in the back who wasn’t unarmed or shot in the back.

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

371 "Triumph of the Shrill, Kmele's Thrill, America is Still Ill" Sep 02, 2022

Show notes

Against a blood-red backdrop, President Biden gives an urgent campaign speech, warning that America is becoming semi-Nazi Germany, Donald Trump is partial Hitler, and our almost democracy is on the precipice of kinda revolution. The lads watch the speech and say lots of really smart things. But before they discuss the end of America, Kmele forces a conversation about Michael Jackson’s Thriller. He has a theory. Moynihan and Welch are…skeptical.

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

370 "Going Commando, Occasionally Reliable Sources" Aug 27, 2022

Show notes

* Zuck Talks w/ Rogan

* Student Loan Forgiveness

* Who Cares if It’s Democratic

* WashPo: “It’s Regressive!”

* The Redbox Test

* Student Debt is immoral

* Moynihan in an elevator w/ Harry Styles

* Oh, my god, they fired Brian (You bastards!)

* The Jim Jones of Journalism

* NBC “News”

* The Many Papers of Donald Trump

* That NPR Voice

* Ben Shapiro Goes to a Conference (Hilarity Ensues)

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

369 w/ Lara Bazelon and Hamish McKenzie (Live in collapsing San Francisco!) Aug 20, 2022

Show notes

A few weeks ago, with Matt Welch bleeding out of his ears and supposedly forbidden from flying, Kmele and Moynihan hopped a plane to a post-apocalyptic hellscape called “San Francisco” to kibizt with their new benevolent overlords at Substack. Unlike the boring prigs at Patreon (whose “Trust and Safety” commissars never even returned our calls), Substack rather generously hosted the Fifth crew for drinks, drinks, some more drinks, and a live show at company HQ.

In Matt’s stead, the lads called up FOTF (Friend of the Fifth - ed.) Lara “Che” Bazelon, a local law professor and communist revolutionary, and Substack co-founder* Hamish McKenzie, a reactionary publisher of fake news. They discuss San Francisco, the state of the media, the future of free speech, and much, much more. Enjoy.*Note: We previously referred to Hamish as CEO of Substack. He is, we are reliably informed, the "chief writing officer," which sounds to us like a fake job. As such, we now have significant doubts he even works at Substack and suspect he's never even been to New Zealand (which he told us “is the country where Kyle Minogue and Yahoo Serious are from”).

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

368 w/ Eli Lake "Mar-a-lago Momentos and Nuclear Codes" Aug 13, 2022

Show notes

Many urgent matters loom large in this dispatch.

How did boxes full of TOP SECRET documents turn up a Trump’s Mar-a-lago compound?!Could be an honest mistake… Few moving labels get mixed up; nuclear secrets turn up in a Florida man’s safe. Maybe a box full of Melania’s bawdiest intimates gets serendipitously misdirected to the National Archives.Could America be so lucky?Could Trump be selling state secrets to the highest bidder?Could the “Deep State” be up to no good?Is there a clearance sale at the Banana Republic?We’ve got margaritas, Sativa, a burning desire to sort this 💩 out — and Eli Lake is a responsible adult whose laptop definitely won’t run out of power mid-podcast.Recorded: Aug 11, 2022Published: NOW

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

367 w/ Rep Peter Meijer "The Almost Exit Interview" Aug 04, 2022

Show notes

It's among the most unusual and noteworthy congressional primary races of 2022. For a surprisingly long stretch, Michigan's third district has been home to a uniquely independent brand of republican congresspersons. But after Peter Meijer (R) narrowly lost his primary race this week, MI-3's respectability streak is no more.

Congressman Meijer's party largely abandoned him. The former President still really hates him. And Democrats spent $435,000 to help boost his MAGA-loving opponent's sparse media profile. Meijer joined us to break down the race, spill a little tea about his soon-to-be-former-colleagues, and share some high/lowlights from his all-too-brief time in office.Recorded: Aug 3, 2022Published: Aug 4, 2022

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

366 w/ John McWhorter and Glenn Loury "Racial Identity, Abolition and Reckonings" Jul 24, 2022

Show notes

w/ John McWhorter and Glenn Loury

- No Moynihan, No Welch
- Progress or Pesmissim
- Campus Culture
- Culture Warriors
- Gaslighting + Reactionaries
- DEI Obstacles
- Overstatement and Bravery
- Dignity + Individualism
- Race as Ethnicity
- All in Bounds
- Pride, Honor, Shame
- “Tolstoy is Mine. Dickens is Mine.”
- Everything is permissible to me
Recorded: 6/14/22
Published: 7/24/22

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

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