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:

355 "Ministry of Truth, Competence Inflation" May 01, 2022

Show notes

- Mean Babies w/ Pink Eye

- Tity Boi

- Dangerous Misinformation

- Show Tunes

- Cinco de Mayo

- Live From New York, Again

- Apartheid Daydream

- Combating Misinformation

- The Sims 2

- Anatomy of Tribal Hysteria

- Everyone Starts to Say It

- Its Own Reward

- From Cuba to the Marshall Islands

- Entangling Alliances

Recorded: April 29th, 2022

Published: April 30th, 2022

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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

354 w/ Sarah Hepola "Barack's Misinformation Warfare Unit b/w Teenage Blackout " Apr 24, 2022

Show notes

Ulysses for kidz
Stop complaining. It's a secret.
It's all over, folks. Barack solved misinformation
The Fairness Doctrine was dumb then. It's even dumber now
BTW, they're *all* liars
Defining misinformation (down)
Sarah Hepola, author of the memoir Blackout and this great Atlantic piece
Moynihan v. Hepola on drinking
She started drinking at 7??
Wherein we demand Hepola credit the Fifth Column for saving her life or something
On self-censorship and gaslighting
Kmele's stirring defense of that fantastic beast, Johnny Depp
And so much more

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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

353 "Destroying Democracy, One Tweet At A Time" Apr 16, 2022

Show notes

- A Very Bad Week

- Best, Final

- Like, Literally the Holocaust

- F*ck You Money

- Narrative Malfunction

- Round the Water Cooler

- How America Got Stupid

- Going Solo

- Automotive Analogy

- Expanding Nato, Deploying Nukes

- The Bully Decides

Recorded: April 14th, 2022

Published: April 15th, 2022

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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

352 "Buzz Lightyear's Gay Conversion Adventure Camp" Apr 08, 2022

Show notes

- Take Em' To Church

- Okay, Groomer

- How "Lion King" Made Kmele Trans

- Troll Culture

- Mr. Cooper's Pronouns

- Elon's New Gig

- BLM House Flippin'

- The Purpose Driven Journalist

- Louie CK and The Larger Truth***

- Mr Perfect

- The Truth About Ukraine

- Red Dawn x 1,000

- Obamacare 2022

- Covid Zero

- That Time Welch Got Us Canceled

- Howard Stern's Golden (Shower) Age

Recorded: April 6th, 2022

Published: April 7th, 2022

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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

351 "The Problem with Jon Stewart, Will Smith, OJ Simpson, Sex Parties, and Madison Cawthorn" Apr 02, 2022

Show notes

Slappy White and the Hot Takes
Birthdays Was the Worst Days: Six Years of the Fifth
Hey Twitter World (The Ballad of OJ Simpson)
Jon Stewart’s excruciatingly dumb show on race
A Ben Dreyfuss tweetstorm
America: From James Madison to Madison Cawthorn
Sex party etiquette
A seven hour gap, a laptop that keeps on giving, and an ex-prez who won't go away
On this sacred anniversary, a very, very exciting announcement

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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

350 "Destroying Ukraine, Supreme Confirmation Theater, From Slava to Slavery" Mar 24, 2022

Show notes

On casualties, causation, and delusion
Is there a risk of overcorrection in Ukraine?
Sanctions, free trade, and nukes
The power of historical grievance
Kmele and Matt...disagree on corporations taking sides in wars
Also, the war in Ukraine is not about your dumb culture war issues
The Ketanji Brown Jackson Show
Ma'am, where do you stand on NAMBLA?
Florida's "Lia Ackshully Lost Act"
Slava Ukraini and slavery tips
RIP Madeleine Albright
Cory Booker is a bad actor
Some thoughts on Arianna Huffington's mattress business

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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

349 "Moynihan Taps In From Ukraine" Mar 15, 2022

Show notes

Kmele got a new baby!

Welch is doing -- something.

And a disheveled, bleary-eyed Moynihan checks in from Europe -- where he's been bouncing between checkpoints and bunkers in Ukraine. The dude is earning his WHOLE paycheck this week.

Recorded: March 14th, 2022

Published: March 15th, 2022

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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

348 w/ Matt Taibbi "Richard Perle in New Jersey, Putin in Hell, Ukraine in Crisis" Mar 03, 2022

Show notes

Does the media have this conflict wrong?
The privatization of protest
Europe shutting down shitty, Kremlin-funded media
Wait, did Matt Taibbi just say he was warming to intervention?
Verdict: unclear
No due process for shitty, Kremlin-funded oligarchs
America's overlooked role in the beginnings of Putinism
Could Russia have been democratic?
Mearsheimer and the interminable NATO debate
The narcissism of Twitter war tourism
Taibbi post game
On Biden's SOTU speech
On the forgotten trade wars

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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

347 w/ Jamie Kirchick "Ukraine Crisis, The Enemy of My Enemy, National Conservatism" Feb 23, 2022

Show notes

With Kmele waiting for his son to arrive and moving into his new East Coast digs (or something), Welch and Moynihan again find a temporary replacement. This time the honor is bestowed upon Jamie Kirchick, senior fellow for the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council and author of the forthcoming book Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington. Bullet point topics for this episode seem unnecessary because....lotta Ukraine. With a bonus digression into Jamie's recent piece on Sohrab Ahmari and the right's lurch towards "national conservatism." Enjoy.

Also: another Patreon coming at the end of the week. So go sign up.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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

346 w/ Jeffrey Sachs - "Total Recall, Escape from San Fransisco, Bans for Days" Feb 19, 2022

Show notes

Guest: Jeffery Sachs, Lecturer in Politics @ Acadia University

A Huge School Board Recall in San Francisco (With National Implications)
A Proposed Ban on Talking About *Gay Stuff* w/ School Kids (In Florida, Of Course)
A Contoversial Federal Crackdown on Protesters in Canada (Swastikas! Swastikas! Swastikas!)

Is there more? Maybe 😏

Recorded: Feb 17th 2022

Released: Feb 18th 2022

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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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