The Fifth Column

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...

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. H...

* 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 p...

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...

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 s...

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 s...

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 publi...

with David French contributing writer @ The Atlantic and senior editor @ The Dispatch . James GD Webb Cleaning Your Room Playing to the Crowd The Great CRT Ban Kurfuffl Reconsidering that Roe decision The Capacity for Pregnancy Corroboration, Prosecution, and Restraint Trump v DeSantis World Level Experts Darker Woods Beyond Anarchapulco This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with...

* Matt breaks an eardrum * Boris breaks British politics ( Ed note : Boris renounced his American citizenship in 2017. We sort of regret the error) * Would Putin free LeBron? * Remember Macy Gray? Well, whoever she is, she’s very sorry * Tim Hardaway, self-proclaimed homophobe * The end of interventionism * Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe is shot * Andrew Schultz goes the way of Louis CK * 2022 Free...

“Tear it down. Start over again. We can make a brand new start.” - Blue Mafic * A Bad Omen * Judicial Superfluity * Beyond Roe * unenumerated, natural, ipse dixit * Carry Concealed * Conservative Excesss, Judicial Restraint * Europe is Always Better * “Sand in every damn gear…” * Antidemocratic AF * Release the Transcripts Recorded: June 25th, 2022Published: June 26th, 2022 This is a public episod...

* You Got a Friend * Restrictive Covenant * #MJInnocent * Beefin with TSA * Blockchain Nostradamus * A Very Bad Thing/The Worst Possible Thing * What Barr Knew * Clear and Present Danger * Google: maps of Capitol tunnels * The Blame Game * Can’t White a Book * Quietest Jazz Solo * Great Replacement Theory (But It’s Fine) * The Al Sharpton This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this wit...

* Kmele is flying * Dude has four parents. Not one isn’t a terrorist * The decline and fall of San Francisco, Part I  * Fiona Dourif’s piece on how California fails the mentally ill * A sexy retweet * Ilya Shapiro quits Georgetown. He stops by to tell us why * Ilya apologized. Should he have? * He mentioned it, we’ll link to it: the paperback edition of Supreme Disorder * Shapiro: Cato abandoned m...

* Imperfect Introduction * Queerest story ever told * The heart-pounding conclusion of Depp v Heard  * Birdwatching for Karens * A firearms "clarification" * The other 99% (and the warmth of simple narratives) * Incitement for “journalists” * Half Junky / Half Wonk * The absurd hilarity of historical injustice * Believe All Jedi * Fixing CNN+ (“Toobin After Dark” Edition) * Star Wars is for racist...

Another mass shooting, more performative outrage (note: and this was recorded right before Beto’s gross little stunt), and never any practical solutions. The lads discuss the massacre in Texas, a “racist” incident at Yankee Stadium, a terrible Marvel movie, and a proposed new female superhero. Oh and as Moynihan explains in his brief preamble, the Rodecaster Pro is a horrible piece of audio hardwa...

In celebration of the Fifth’s triumphant move to Substack, the lads decided to do a live show in New York City, with the two most New York City guys they could find. But that live show in New York City sold out immediately, provoking a flurry of angry and/or heartbroken emails. So how does one skip the queue for the next one? Well, tickets are released to subscribers first . And our subscribers ar...

Another two-parter: the first half with our new favorite lefty Lara Bazelon, professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, journalist, feminist, novelist, controversialist. After Lara leaves, probably to free someone from prison , the lads take the second half of the show to catch up on the stupid and depressing news of the week. - Baaaa-zelon - Broken clock: Lara thinks Betsy DeVos...

We’re unlocking this subscriber-only podcast, recorded back in January, just to give you freeloaders a taste of what lurks behind the paywall. It’s not only those amazing bonus episodes, wherein the morons from The Fifth Column yammering and stammering through the most important issues facing civilization. But occasionally one-on-one interviews with some of the most interesting people on Earth. Li...

- 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 See acast.com/privacy for priv...

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...

- 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to...

- 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, 202...

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 excitin...

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 a...

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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss t...

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 narcissi...