The Fifth Column - Analysis, Commentary, Sedition

Recorded 8/31/2017 Guest: Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine and Reason.com. Natural Disasters, political photo-ops, and formulaic media coverage. The worst thing about Mitt Romney, the fecklessness of Barack Obama, and the dark innovations of Bill Clinton. SFTW.  

Recorded 8/24/2017 This episode: non-existent Nazis, overblown Antifa, and Portuguese vagina-walls. Jacob Siegel was in Boston and Afghanistan, and now he is in Moynihan's chair. He helps the guys figure out what the hell happened in Boston (and why it's not the same as Charlottesville). PLUS: Is there a "libertarian-to-alt-right pipeline"? Should we take "Internet fascists" seriously? Would going "soft on white supremacists" actually help Trump? AND... sunk costs in Afghanistan, fights on Planet Libertarian, and Matt doesn't want to punch any grannies.  Happy birthday, Hollywood (wherever he is).

The guys take a deep dive into Donald Trump's policy on infrastructure and Nazis. Matt is back, Moynihan is off drugs and high on life, and Kmele once started a Bible study group. BONUS: Kmele interviews BLM activist Deray Mckesson, and the conversation gets *dangerous*.

 Recorded: 8/9/2017 With Us This Week: Radley Balko - Washington Post Columnist, Author "Rise of the Warrior Cop","Dr Death and The Country Dentist" (Coming - Feb 2018) Thaddeus Russell - Host of the Unregistered podcast, Author "A Renegade History of the United States"   (Much Topics. Extra Innings)  - Criminal Justice Reform (Obama's Legacy, Trump's Trajectory, Opioids, Ferguson 3yrs On) - Foreign Policy Miasma (Venezuela, North Korea, Manafort's Home Searched by FBI) - A Diversity Memo, Super Angry About A Show That May Never Get Made   Pro Tip: Don't Send Send Photos of Your Junk to CoWorkers Without Their Consent. May not end well. Sure, it could, theoretically work out fine... but above average odds that it won't.   Moynihan, Fisher, Foster are in the building. (Welch is... in Europe... Claims to have no internet access)

[“And We Back." -Chance the Rapper]   - Moynihan is MIA - Welch is trapped in a room with no AC, 75 dead flies, and a busted shoulder -- and loving every minute of it. - Moscow is beautiful in the summer (if you believe a former RT propagandist) - Kmele... well, yeah - And the brilliant, talented Alyona Minkovski is IN THE BUILDING (@AlyonaMink)   PLUS: - The brief but magical tenure of THE MOOCH.  - The conspicuous absence of President Steve Bannon. - Net neutrality and banning VPN apps in Russia and China. - Numerous other things of urgent importance. - And there may have been a brilliant Affirmative Action *exchange* at the end of this dispatch too, but it’s all a bit of a blur.   [ … The brightest stars have the shortest lives.]

A dense, tangent-filled, and edifying new dispatch (fueled by cash-filled envelopes, adderall, and a bottle of Bushmills -- thanks, Drew.)  Trump tells-all to the Failing New York Times: "I should have never hired Sessions!" Welch talks John McCain TrumpCare spontaneously combusted (surprising no one) Next on the “Trump Legislative Agenda of Failure”: screwing up legal immigration, too! Forensic "Science" is so terrifying LA 92 ("Certified Fresh!)

Recorded: July 12th, 2017 Play-by-Play:  · Eli Lake Is a Superlative, Award-Winning Hebrew  · Fab Five Freddy Is a Foreign Policy Genius  · “I’m a White Male…”  · Lies, Damn Lies, and IT’S TREASON!  · Lacrosse Team Away Games  · Eli Slow Claps  · World in Disarray: Mosul/Afghanistan Edition Eli Lake, columnist @ Bloomberg View, swings by.

A Helpful Guide to This Weeks Dispatch:  · No Mic for Anthony Fisher  · Kmele read 22 books this weekend (including Letters to a Young Contrarian, The Shadow of the Panther)  · Moynihan talks about Hitchens  · Something about the Black Panthers, Lew Rockwell, Marvin Gaye and Berry Gordy  · Russian tourist abuses child  · Moynihan outs an octogenarian former Nazi at a barbecue (sort of) (We're at about the 20 min mark here.) ALSO:  · #CNNBlackmail scandal (False Start)  · President Trump in Poland (Did You Know: POTUS was once on a show called "The Apprentice")  · An Actual #CNNBlackmail conversation  · North Korea  · Jay-Z Isn't a Feminist  · Colin Kaepernick, Fredrick Douglas (What the 4th of July Means to a Slave)  

Recorded: June 29th, 2017 A journalistic-misdeed results in the firing of three prominent CNN staffers and a new front in the conflict between Trump and THE MEDIA. Why lots of the things you read/hear in the news are likely to be incorrect. Press briefings may be completely useless, but then again they may not. And of course, the very real dangers of plastic surgery -- and the entirely legitimate reasons why POTUS may need to tell you “no” when all you want to do is hang out with him. PLUS: The Great Serena Williams Debate Acceptable Reasons for Book Burnings Code Switching Important Show Note: Kmele Foster is “black” (whatever that means).

Recorded: June 21, 2017 The Philando Castile case has reached a controversial conclusion. In July 2016, Castile was shot to death during a traffic stop by Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez. Yanez's acquittal has touched off a new wave of outrage. Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old American student detained in North Korea since last January, was finally allowed to return home last week… in a coma. He would die a few days later. And Moynihan recounts his recent visit to Evergreen State College. 

With high profile congressional inquests into shadowy conspiracies, media panics, and boring White House events turning into embarrassing fodder for late night comedians — the stage was set for an almost banal week in Washington DC — but a brazen attack on Republican congressmen in Alexandria, Virginia, changed all that. While most members of Congress quickly rallied around their colleagues, plenty of citizens and a good number of media types were soon leveraging the tragedy to support their own philosophical convictions. Plus: The necessity of confronting awful people and ideas in public, and a brief glance at Jeff Sessions' congressional testimony.

Episode 060 Recorded June 10th 2017   Corbyn Surprises his labour party rival (and just about everyone else). Comey testifies before Congress, Trump is quite about it until he isn’t. And Bill Maher said ‘Nigga’, or was it ‘Nigger’. Shout out to Dan Spragens for the delicious and effective bottle of "State of Jefferson" rum

[Special Dispatch #2] A rangy and Moynihan-heavy exchange w/ Timothy Snyder, Yale University Professor of History and author of numerous books including (the magisterial) “Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin” (2010) and his latest best-selling “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” (2017) Fascism, Nazis, Stalinists, Trump, The Road to Serfdom, 'the square root of 69 is eight-something', and the Cavaliers are very unlikely to take the series in seven games (the last two items have almost nothing to do with this dispatch, but they're demonstrably true). w/ Kmele Foster (Freethink), Michael Moynihan (Vice News Tonight on HBO) Recorded: June 8th, 2017wethefifth.comtwitter.com/wethefifthfb.com/wethefifth

- Pulling out of the Pairs Climate Deal - Roiling the EU - Surveying the Russian investigation - Lamenting w/ LeBron (and not about that horrific game one) (Recorded 6/1/2017)

"If they're buying off this president, they're really not getting their money's worth." - Michael Moynihan Do terrorists hate us for our freedom? Are the Saudis just "guided by the beauty of our weapons"? Will Welch start drinking before 11 am? The answers may surprise you. All this and more on a new Fifth Column. Plus: Commemorative drug paraphernalia. The Moynihans convert to Judaism (but just for the holidays). And The Fifth Column is *probably* expanding to SiriusXM!