The Fifth Column

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Kash chugs it back with the toothless champions Trump and his locker room talk with the boys State of the Union and the Six Year Itch A uniquely conspiratorial moment in an already conspiratorial nation PizzaGate nostalgia hour Fact checking dies in public A laundry list of made up shit that’s not even close to being...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com * Damon Root’s book Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court * Basic civics, reintroduced * Root’s mood in five words * What becomes of this useless Congress? * Why not 9–0? Root on the three dissenters * The “major questions doctrine” translated * Profiles in inconsistenty * Doesn’t matter! Trump...

-The dork Star Wars cantina of famous biographers -Jefferson’s hypocrisy and the impossibility of paragon standards -Lincoln was not an abolitionist -The Howard Zinnification of American history -Ambiguity as the ideological propagandist’s mortal enemy -The true (New Testament) saint of America -George H.W. Bush’s blunt admission -This president would cut your throat for a vote, then be the first...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -Please say hello to our new Sunset Park neighbor -The American Chávez -The Nobel Prize Grudge -The Dictatorship That Remained -Political Pilgrims and Failed Experiments -Maria the Maid and the, “Gay Marriage Lady” slur -A Masterclass in Macro-Failure -The Media Pioneer -The Illusion of Democracy -Economic Voodoo -The...

For Christmas 2024, I was gifted Robert Sullivan’s delightful My American Revolution : A Modern Expedition Through History’s Forgotten Battlegrounds . I devoured it within 24 hours. It is no exaggeration to say that the book is responsible as anything else for this little Semiquincetennial miniseries you are (hopefully!) enjoying. As you will hear in this episode, Sullivan at the time of publicati...

-John Bolton, Olympic Curling Hawk -Arguing with the 60s Since 1970 -I’m kind of a Libertarian (Minus the Defense Part) -Iraq was actually kind of perfect -Federalist Papers as Foreign Aid (or maybe porn would suffice) -The Arab Spring Brain-Break -Afghanistan is Not Exactly a Nation -Regime Change, Case-by-Case -The Forward Defense of New Jersey -Ukraine and the Gray Zone Trap -The Nuclear Press...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -The Invertebrate Caucus -The New Tax Party -Ruby Ridge and Waco Redux -The Last Man Standing -The Crypto Appearance Problem -Government as a Mob Vig -The Fairness Trap -The Colombia Save, or how Rand prevented a military escalation by sending a quick text message to the President. -Epstein Transparency Collateral -Is...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com A deeply serious and important conversation over some listener-provided Scotch about the Super Bowl halftime show(s), the death of ad copywriting, dunking in the WNBA, pond skating, and the other Moynihan Report. •Oh good, Kmele started drinking early •About that game… •The horrible stereotypes in that halftime show •...

John Avlon stops by only to learn he’s also in the Epstein files, why the Daily Beast should’ve sold dick pills, and why we need to rebuild guardrails on what some call “stolen land” * Where John is surprised to learn he’s in the Epstein files and suddenly remembers he has plans not to be here * The Ceaușescu of Long Beach * Moynihan actually voted for this guy! * Georgia, the FBI, and the Trump 2...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com • Moynihan and Welch are in the Epstein files • A very indiscriminate and humiliating dump • Bannon & Epstein • Black boxes over kids, and the express train to Satanic Panic • Embarrassment is no reason • Moynihan’s Melania Review • Billie Jean is not my brother, but Jimmy Carter is my mother • That’s an awfully small...

What if you’re just … born wrong? (No, I don’t mean the darling little girl to the right.) You may know Bill Schulz through his years toiling as Greg Gutfeld ’s “ repulsive sidekick ” on ye olde Fox News late-nite WTF show Red Eye (on which all of your co-hosts , and several of our guests, got some valuable reps back in the day). You may know Bill through his years on Compound Media doing shows wi...

-The NYC Rolling Hobo Express -An Enthusiastic Armada Full of Speed and Violence -Iranian Death Toll Discourse and Roger Waters Still Sucks -The Donroe Doctrine and the Near Abroad Dodge -Everyone’s Favorite Powder Keg -A Norwegian, A Rat Bag, and a Lunatic -A disgusting thing to say -Noem’s Bellebolent Hypotheticals -Stephen Miller’s Basement Lotions and the Little Rogaine Carpet -Fingerers, Reac...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -A huge TACO Tuesday -Survival of the Spineless -Low-level insurgency infrastructure -Astroturf panic and the suspicious run to Walgreens -The problem with punching Nazis -Walz and Trump finally talk -Fuck you, Ted -The Great American Slur Revival -Short king Bovino and the self-inflicted smoke bomb -Democracy Dies in...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com One topic in the news . One quick podcast on that single topic (rather than just texting each other about how certain media figures are vulgar, stupid, and morally depraved). Welcome back to the Fifth Column One Hitter! In the hours after ICE shot and killed Alex Pretti, we gathered at the studio to sit down with Pete...

•Don Does Davos•I Would Do Anything for Greenland (But I Won’t Do That)•Even MAGA Thought the Norway Text Was Fake News•The Danes’ Historical Resistance to Fascism•A Lament for the Belgian Congo•Cutting a Greenland Cake, and the Epidemic of Stupidity•Who the Fuck Is “We”?•Congress Could Do Something That Isn’t Impeachment•Shame Doesn’t Work•Past the Point of Passivity•Punching a Transtifa Baby•Mac...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Chuck Klosterman’s new book, Football is out now! (See also The Nineties , and Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs ) -The music-doc cinematic universe, featuring Billy Joel and Japanese Jimmy Page -Moynihan missed the Morrissey cover-band boat -How to actually say Klosterman -From pop culture to America’s most popular TV show...

Two hundred and fifty years ago this very day, a gallant-strolling cat named George Washington convened in Cambridge about as high a level Patriot meeting as you could muster: John Adams, two major generals, five brigadier generals, and arguably the most connected man among the Boston rebels, Joseph Warren . There, the commander in chief persuaded his War Council of the “indispensible necessity of...

-Good Movies We’ve Never Seen -Raw Dog Minerals -Moynihan Responds to a Cunty Troll -The Reckoning We Didn’t Have -Renee Good, a Week Removed -These People Have No Constitutional Knowledge -The MST3K of ICE Videos -The Sanctuary City Devaluation -Iranian Violence Spectacle and thoroughly verifying the dead -Weaponized DOJ: Now Featuring Powell and a Reporter Raid -The Walter Cronkite of This Gener...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com -Who Remembers the Armenians? (The Fresno ones) -The One Good Decision Gavin Newsom has made -Who Remembers Amy Cooper? (The Central Park one) -When Facts Become Partisan Coded -Journalism vs. Activism -Matt Welch Is Buffy St. Marie -Broken LA Dreams -The Actual Way to Pronounce Cenk Uygur -ICE’s Shock and Awe Theater...

We’re joined by Josh Barro , contributing opinion writer at The New York Times and host of the Very Serious and Central Air Substack -Feldstein, Leibowitz, Berkowitz, and White Nationalist Moynihan -The Nancy Pelosi Riot, 5 years later -An ICE shooting in Minneapolis -Morally disgusting and electorally advantageous -Marco Rubio’s Spine Transplant -Memory-Holing Anarchy -The Warmth of Collectivism...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com •Belated Christmas gifts from Matt •Who’s got the biggest war boner? •Lysander Spooner, still bringing people together after all these years •Kevin’s had four kids in 19 months. You do the math. •How to tell the kids apart? Tattoo ‘em! • Build, Baby, Build •Romney the virile tribal chieftain •Trump’s faux presidential...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com One topic in the news . One quick podcast on that single topic (rather than just texting each other about how certain media figures are vulgar, stupid, and morally depraved). Welcome back to the Fifth Column One Hitter! This time Matt and Moyn are joined by Human Rights Foundation founder—and Venezuelan dissident, des...

Introducing The Revolutionaries , a new Fifth Column miniseries for the Semiquincentennial Exactly 250 years ago yesterday, George Washington’s Continental Army attempted to drive the redcoats out of Canada, thereby protecting the rebels’ northern flank, by launching a two-pronged assault on Quebec. It was a disaster . There was snow and ice everywhere (who knew that Canada might be cold on New Ye...

-Eggnog: What’s Actually in This Shit? -Massachusetts Pidgin -Kmele’s Kwanzaa Plans -“What We Got Wrong” (Nothing) -Eddington vs. Sinners -Spending Hundreds of Dollars to Get Drunk at Zootopia 2 - Pearl Harbor: Live at Budokan -Moynihan Stroke Watch -The Ryan Lizza Self-Emasculating Saga… Continued -Mediaite’s Biggest Losers List -Batya! Recap (Now in Animation!) -Was Moynihan Wrong About the Epst...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Twas the episode before Christmas, and all through the show, The hosts were debating how the political winds blow. Matt Welch was present, the whole crew was there, With Moynihan and Kmele, live on the air. The guest was John Fugelsang , with a name meaning “Birdsong,” Who’d been banished to Cali to write for so long....