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:

197 w/ Glenn Greenwald, Thomas Chatterton Williams "Hypocrisy, Controversy, Cancellations" Jul 27, 2020

Show notes

Glenn Greenwald,

Co-Founder @ The Intercept

Author, "No Place to Hide"

Thomas Chatterton Williams

Contributing Writer @ New York Times Mag

Author, "Self Portrait in Black and White"

After a little internet drama related to the Harper's Open Letter, Kmele got together w/ Thomas and Glenn to discuss.

Why we needed "A Letter on Justice and Debate"
Why Glenn isn't a Signatory
What is Cancel Culture
Do we really need to talk about this RIGHT NOW
Evangelism or Excommunication
Hypocrisy and Healthier Conversations

Recorded July 24, 2020

Published July 27, 2020

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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

UNLOCKED - Patreon Dispatch #29 🎁 - The Williamsburg Tapes - This Podcast is Lava Jul 18, 2020

Show notes

We haven't unlocked a Patreon episode since way back in February. But we (Moynihan) were feeling generous, so here's a paywalled bonus episode from July 13, liberated for all of you cheapskates. You're welcome.

If you want a new subscriber-only episode every week (plus slurring live Zoom calls, lost episodes, mail bag episodes, a community of like-minded psychos, etc), subscribe here!

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For only the second time since the Bat Flu, the lads are back in the same room...and back at the Stupid Table™ in Williamsburg. The energy! The booze! The crosstalk! Kmele singing! Yay! It's an hour and half bull session covering the most important debates in America. Zum beispiel:

- Moynihan's new CNBC show "Stock Monstah Dood!"

- Getting psyched about--and possibly auditioning for--a show Kmele loves but has never seen

- Kmele is Mr. 2X. Moynihan is Mr. Angry Irishman Driver

- Understanding the core of the anti-racist project

- Matt's formative moment as an 18-year-old journalist

- The privileged people who hate really privileged people

- Yes, the lads talk about the endless LETTER WARS

- Kmele rants about a Jo Jorgensen tweet

- What does it mean to be anti-racist?

- If they win, we will all will end up living in a joyless world

- Back to Bay Ridge (and coming upon a pro-NYPD protest)

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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

196 w/ Josh Szeps "Covid, Cancellation, and Melanated Peoples" Jul 16, 2020

Show notes

w/ Josh Szeps (né Zepps), ABC Australia and host of the Uncomfortable Conversations podcast.

Josh-o's back and the dingo has his baby! Australia's most listened-to radio host joins the Fifth from his COVID-free compound in Sydney to talk nonsense about:

Paul Hogan (obviously)
How the Aussies handled the COVID
That story about our friend who resigned from the Times
"Cancel culture," right and left
"Good Morning ya' ****s!"
Armageddon the shit out of that rock
Are we becoming a totalitarian hell hole? (Probably not)
Viacom race theorist Nick Cannon on masked singers, Mariah Carey, and the Rothschilds.
Matt knew a Nazi

Recorded July 15, 2020

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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

195 w/ Yascha Mounk "Woke Fragility" Jul 10, 2020

Show notes

Two-plus hours with our favorite German, Herr Yascha Mounk, contributing editor at The Atlantic and founder of Persuasion, a publication dedicated to promoting and defending the "values of a free society."

The lads discuss that Harper's letter on cancel culture, signed by Kmele and Yasha (and Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, JK Rowling, et al); the attempt to cancel people who signed a statement opposing canceling people; how everyone's still a fascist; the painful absurdity of Robin Diangelo; a Matt and Kmele fight about Trump's Mt. Rushmore speech; the dangers of the populist right; El Chino; and so very much more.

Recorded July 8, 2020

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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

194 w/ Wesley Lowery "Moral Clarity, Objectivity, and ALL THE SMOKE" Jul 06, 2020

Show notes

w/ Wesley Lowery Correspondent @ CBS - "60 Minutes in 6"

Lowery Wrote A Thing:

"A Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists" (NYT) - June 23, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opinion/objectivity-black-journalists-coronavirus.html

Welch Raised Some Objections:

"Journalists Abandoning 'Objectivity' for 'Moral Clarity' Really Just Want To Call People Immoral" (Reason) - June 24, 2020

https://reason.com/2020/06/24/journalists-abandoning-objectivity-for-moral-clarity-really-just-want-to-call-people-immoral/

Some Twitter Drama Ensues.

The Parties Agree to Settle Things Directly.

...And now, here you are. All caught up, ready for the fireworks (literally + figuratively).

Recorded: July 2, 2020

Published: July 6, 2020

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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

193 w/ Jacob Siegel "Why We Need the NYT, The New Truth" Jul 01, 2020

Show notes

w/ Jacob Siegel, Senior Writer @ Tablet

"The New Truth" (June 22nd 2020)

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/new-truth-rationalism-religion

"Journalists Abandoning 'Objectivity' for 'Moral Clarity' Really Just Want To Call People Immoral" (6/24/2020)

https://reason.com/2020/06/24/journalists-abandoning-objectivity-for-moral-clarity-really-just-want-to-call-people-immoral/

- The Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez of Journalism

- The Great Fireworks Conspiracy (continued)

- The NYT Slack

- All The Smoke

- The New Truth

- Rhetorically Invincible

- White Fragility, The Message of the Cross

- Moral Clarity

- World Heritage Sites

- The Wages of Sin

- Ethical Journalism

Recorded: June 25, 2020

Published: July 1, 2020

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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

192 w/ Jane Coaston "One Night In Tulsa, A Fool Proof Plan" Jun 25, 2020

Show notes

w/ Jane Coaston, Senior Politics Reporter @ Vox

Some Sports Stuff
TickTock Swiftboats
Tulsa
Trumps Party
What Comes Next
Immigration + Visas
The Coaston Plan
More Black Lives Matter Talk
But What About....
Unbundling the Police
Liking the Neighborhood Cops

Recorded: June 23, 2020

Published: June 25, 2020

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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

191 w/ David French "American Racism, SCOUTS Stuff, Qualified Immunity" Jun 17, 2020

Show notes

w/ David French, Senior Editor @ The Dispatch and Columnist @ Time

Help With Your Down Payment?
A Busy Day For SCOTUS
2A, Qualified Immunity (Part I), Expanding Civil Rights
Thought Crimes
On Racism (and Anti Racism)
The Worst Dinner Party
The Censorship Impulse
Gone With the Wind, Song of the South
The Lost Cause... Myth?
What Northerners Really Want
Still in Love w/ Daisy Duke
Anti-racism Must Be Anti-race
Walk Humbly, Seek Justice, See the Humanity in Your Ops
Qualified Immunity (Part II) -- Why Qualified Immunity Matters

Recorded: June 15, 2020

Published: June 16, 2020

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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

190 w/ Olivia Nuzzi " Insiders Guide to 2020, Defunding the Fuzz" Jun 12, 2020

Show notes

w/ Olivia Nuzzi, Washington Correspondent @ New York Magazine

An Unprecedented Movement
Defunding the Police... Or Just Abolishing Them
Canceling Most Things, Razing The Rest
Moral Clarity in the News Room
Trump on the Campaign Trail, Biden's Strengths
Why Trump and Rudy Can't Stop Talking to Nuzzi

Recorded: June 10, 2020

Published: June 12, 2020

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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

189 "A Pandemic, A Civil War, A Great Awokining " Jun 06, 2020

Show notes

A Brief History of Right Now
Punk Police
It Might Actually Be Legal
Black on Black on Black
Bending the Knee
NYT Civil War
Essentialism in Practice
Law & Order
Passover
MLK on Riots

Recorded:6/4/2020

Published: 6/6/2020

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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