153 - 'Moderate Chic, NYT's Kavanaugh Follies, Our Pal Corn Pop'

- The “moderate chic” party
- RIP Emmet O’Lunney’s
- Brett Kavanaugh *Allegation(s)*
- College campuses in the 1980s was all about apartheid
- Moynihan’s Foggy Memory, and Everyone’s
- John Bolton, Out
- Obama’s Apology Tour and Trump’s Chomsky Impression
- Kmele’s Worried about Iranian escalation
- Joe BIden’s 'Corn Pop' Story: Fact Check=True
- George Packer’s Atlantic Piece on Schools
- Cancelling the SNL guy
- Mark Sanford
- Business Insider's GOP debate
- Some Idiot Wrote This
Recorded: September 16th 2019
Published: September 19th 2019
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 wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe
* The editorial board of the Washington Post
* What what wrong with the cease fire
* On culpability
* Can there *be* a negotiated settlement?
* Is it really “the occupation”?
* That wild 2022 video from Jenin that Moynihan mentioned
* You’re going to be defrocked
* Being handcuffed by “the Nahkba”
* The insane rape conspiracy theories—and why they exist
* Are all these people pro-Hamas?
* Mrs. Gay Goes to Washington
* Choose different words, dummies
* Are you allowed a moral mulligan?
* The Calvin Principals
* And much, much more
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe#433 - The Body of a (German) American
* We ain’t gonna play Sun City
* RIP Shane
* George Santos: genius
* Gavin v. Ron
* Why would you do this, Gavin?
* This awful presidential race
* Hating WFB
* Be friends with and “platform” your political opposites
* RIP Kissinger?
* Dictatorships and double standards
* The forever war with Iran
* An awful, awful hostage video
* On hostages and peace partners
* The future of Gaza
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeMembers Only #191 - Can We Be Trusted? (Ummm...)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* A shooting in the hood
* The Oakland Politburo speaks. The world is appalled.
* The free speech issue vs. the university infection
* Knowing nothing but propaganda
* Gaza Facebook is pretty wild
* Sir Humphrey says: “This is the most insane answer ever”
* What Epstein got right. And you gotta bring Bill Clinton
* A weird story about Hillary’s shushing
* UFO nonsense
* What’s th…
Family beckons. Booze beckons. So we’re going to forgo the bullet points that we’re pretty sure you don’t read anyway and just say…Happy Thanksgiving, from your friends at the Fifth! And while you shamelessly celebrate genocide, listen along while the lads bemoan the racism of the Black Plague; the deadline to file charges against Kmele; the quote-invention of ChatGPT; the hostage deal in Israel; and the extreme awfulness of Holocaust historians Joe Scarborough, Mike Brzezinski, and Claire McCaskill.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeMembers Only #190 - Tantric Drummers for Freedom
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Javier Milei, tantric drummer
* The hideousness of modern Peronism
* A brief digression on Aerosmith
* So how did we all meet?
* Start fighting, Moynihan
* Another digression on Sam Altman’s awfulness (two examples now available at Moynihan’s Instagram)
* When Israel decided against killing the entire leadership of Hamas
* Well, they tried anyway
* Fiction that changed our lives
* I don’t want to read about who I am and where I came from
* Another Fifth drinking game
* And so very much more….
#430 - The TikTok Jihad w/ Mary Katharine Ham
* Live from Oakland
* Sex strikes
* Loving OBL
* Stop deconstructing stuff
* Seeing your friends spinout online…
* They’re not sending anyone anywhere
* Drunk Kathy Hochul and her bad, drunk ideas
* Not drunk Nikki Haley and her bad ideas
* Hate speech isn’t a thing in America
* Israel and propaganda
* MKH on evangelicals, Israel, and the supposed “left behind” vision of Zionism
* TikTok you don’t stop
* And so much more!
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* “She’s reasonable in person” (🤔)
* In praise of…Estonia
* Are any expressly political comedians funny?
* Meetings interrupted by death
* Listener question: On the 1619 Project
* Indonesian guys loves America, nuclear weapons
* Family friends with Carlos the Jackal
* Israel asks: “Kmele, what should we do?”
* Stars and Bucks (Correction: Bethlehem not Ramallah)
* Why not get a…
#429 - The Kevin Hart Resource Curse
* One hell of a night, one brutal morning
* Kevin Hart kills
* Judy Gold and college comedy
* The Washington Post says sorry for being mean to Hamas
* Be brave, get fired?
* There’s been a bunch of recent Islamist attacks in the West, actually
* New York City’s hate crimes leader board
* The pointless Republican debate
* Vivek is the worst (and also was kinda good for three seconds)
* Reaganism without Reagan (and Bannon’s Reagan film)
* Only in New York, kids
* Trust the kids, kids
* Teaching about vs. proselytizing for…
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Voting for New York judges (and do you have a spare apartment?)
* An unsolicited application
* Liz Warren warns about the surge of….
* Is violent anti-Semitism in the U.S. a real threat?
* Explain the progressive-Islamist alliance please…
* He has become comfortably dumb
* No, it’s not really fishy
* Defining war, war crimes, and civilians
* The government’s stupid war on (pr…
#428 - Poundtowns and Political Pilgrims
* Happy birthday Kmele
* The girls of the IDF
* The lads take a wrong turn, end up in “Poundtown”
* In fairness, we didn’t know he did a whole segment on this
* So Mike Pence dropped out?
* That’s some good polling for Bobby Jr.
* When innocents die
* Nat Turner’s bloody rebellion
* Human shields and asymmetry
* Kill ‘em all, says Rep. Brian Mast
* Political pilgrims for Hamas
* Sorry but nothing after 1917, Matt
* And much, much more!
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
Along with fellow comedian Ryan Long, Danny Polishchuk is one half of the very funny Boyscast podcast (a favorite of Fifth Column listeners, we are reliably told). Again alongside Ryan Long, Danny is the woke guy in the “When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything” video.” And there’s lots of great solo stuff over at his YouTube channel.
Danny s…
* On The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All―But There Is a Solution.
* The youngest Fif’ and Maher guest.
* My how times have changed since 9/11.
* The numbers are very, very bad. Bad numbers!
* The sudden (and probably temporary) rediscovery of campus neutrality.
* Yes, some post-Oct. 7 campus ruckus has been Cancel Culture.
* And so, so depressing.
* The (surprising!) view from Gen Z.
* Millennials are the worst.
* Schlott vs. Haidt.
* Shut up, bigot.
* The Left does it more (on campus, anyway).
* We’re past peak-Woke, right? Right?
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeMembers Only #186 - From the Haganah to Häagen-Dazs
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* An idiot…He wrote this
* Condolences to a friend
* What is a war crime?
* History wars and war crimes
* The worst congresswoman went to the worst law school
* In defense of Harvard. Sort of.
* Defending Panthers and the exhilaration of murderous anti-Semitism
* Why no air raid shelters?
* Meir Kahane Krunch
* Objecting to a guest. We disagree
* Karine Jean-Pierre will answer what…
#426 - w/ Matt Duss - Notes from the Other Side
* Hamas and the hospital
* Don’t trust and try to verify
* Did Israel “create” Hamas?
* When there’s no negotiating partner
* America’s role in the Middle East
* Enter Iran…
* Gauging Palestinian public opinion
* A massive media failure
* One-way root causes
* And much more!
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeMembers Only #185 - Radicalized by Radicals
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Where are you Ben and/or Jerry?
* The radicalization of KF
* What it means to be “anti-war”
* The radicalization of the universities
* Other fronts in the war
* Israel, its neighbors, and its assassination program (Note: It was not Shamir who was PM during Operation Opera. It was Begin. Moynihan regrets the error)
* Importing anti-Semitism to Europe
* No, you can’t go to H…
#425 - The Nightmare Scenario (w/ Oren Kessler)
A few weeks before the Hamas pogrom, Moynihan was reading Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict by the brilliant Israeli-American journalist and historian Oren Kessler. So he called him to talk through the current conflict, its historical antecedents, and how Hamas’s murder spree has effected his family.
* RIP Tomer Shoham
* The nightmare scenario
* “This is good for Hamas”
* The “I don’t support it, but you have to understand…” argument
* The “occupation” is Tel Aviv and Haifa
* Nowhere to go / hostage trading
* On the media coverage
* The Arab Revolt of 1936
* The beginning of Arab nationalism, Jewish terrorism
* Writing while angry
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
(Editor’s note: about 20 seconds of Comrade Lake’s mic is missing at the very beginning of this recording. It fixes itself soon thereafter. Sorry about that)
It’s that time of month (…ummmm….time for a rebroadcast of our Second Sunday Zoom call). As you probably already guessed, we managed just one topic of conversation this time around: the unfolding ho…
* Former Michigan Rep. Peter Meijer is back to talk about his insane friends and erstwhile colleagues on the Hill
* Peter’s surprising (to us) view of Rep. Matt Gaetz
* “I try to see the best in people” (Hmmmmm….)
* The gordian knot of polarization
* Peter makes the case for [blank] as Speaker…….
* Oh wait, he’s kinda serious!
* What do any of these people actually believe?
* “Oh, I mean, there's horseshoe theory and then there's horseshoe theory…”
* Does Peter have an announcement to make?? Maybe??
* Well, he didn’t exactly deny it
* Note: giving people free shit usually works (for a bit)
* The HARD LEFT supercut
* Former Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer was setup and no one really cares
* Two progressive activists are murdered and out come the ghouls
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe* Unrelated non-programming note from Moynihan: “As some of you might recall, and as I mentioned in the intro, last year I beseeched listeners to help my amazing daughter Livia (and her gymnastics team) raise money for pediatric cancer. And last year, you guys came through in such a crazy way that one parent asked me if I was “some sort of cult leader.” I said no. I’m only a cult co-host. So thanks in advance! Oh, and the event is tomorrow!” THE LINK
* Back in July, Kmele and Moynihan talked to a room full of students at FIRE’s annual student conference in Philadelphia. Much fun was had by all. And it was recorded. So…here you go.
* A generous Greg Lukianoff intro. And some stuff about Kmele and Moynihan and Jonah Lehrer. For the kids.
* And then…the kids tell tales of campus woe…
* What more description do you need?
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribe#423 w/Josh Szeps - TED, Just Admit It
Our old Aussie-Aussie-Aussie-Oi-Oi-Oi pal Josh Szeps, former host of the morning show Wake Up Ya C***s, was in New York this weekend and stopped by the Fifth’s Chinatown headquarters! So we decided to have a few drinks (Ed. note: Josh has lost approximately 600 pounds and is now sober, while Welch and Moynihan are still the same old lazy alcoholics) and argue about how our pal Coleman Hughes was treated by TED…receive a concise primer on the politics of Australia’s “voice” referendum…get an equally concise lesson in Aussie identity politics… promote his terrific podcast “Uncomfortable Conversations”…and recount a recent conversation that was so uncomfortable that it has been permanently disappeared.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeMembers Only #182 - The Racist Wolf
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Deion’s audacious blackness
* Kevin McHale’s audacious whiteness
* Serious Hasan’s baby is covered in cocaine
* What everyone hates most is a racist, anti-Asian wolf
* Cutting the razor wire because…why not?
* Immigration in Europe is different
* DOWTCHA BOY! The (Irish?) origins of Jamaican Patois
* Is Matt the Harvey Weinstein of the Fifth?
* Guess what? There was more to t…
* The sartorial excellence of the Pennsylvania Senate delegation
* “Pooping on their shoes”
* Kilmeade v. Rosendale (that’s his name)
* Kendi and the disappearing millions
* Want to demonitize one of your enemies? We have an idea!
* A threatening letter from Lady Orwell DBE
* The ACLUization of everything
* Trump on the Meet the Press
* Broadcast needs to “lend democracy a hand?”
* Biden is just getting worse
* Ron slides further…and new New Hampshire numbers
* Defeatism and elitism, mixed
* The “moral clarity” darling of 2023: Christiane Amanpour
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Bob Geldof is the hero of this story
* She isn’t the pantless one
* Catholics, Kmele and your “best religious experience”
* Nick and the Burn
* Jamaican names / Wes Anderson movies
* Revisiting Less Than Zero
* The Hollywood Party v. Walt Disney
* A listener has an Amy Cooper question…
* The Kendi Center kind of shuts down
* NOI in our imagination
* Whitedurans wonder what to do ne…
#421 - Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice
* 36 year-old grandmother vapes, feels up Democrat
* Shanah Tova!
* Russell Brand, who Moynihan wrote about in 2014, is accused of rape
* They are coming after the truth tellers, maaaaaannnnnn
* Revisiting Hunter’s indictment
* Breaking: Biden is confused and sleepy
* Trump v. Kelly
* I’m the president, so it’s legal…
* Ron’s compounding troubles, plummeting poll numbers
* Preemptive skepticism
* Hasan Minaj is an unfunny fraud
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
As Moynihan explains in the intro, this is the Zoom recording from this month’s Second Sunday broadcast. Basically, it’s the difference between a soundboard and audience bootleg. But so it goes. So no bullet points this week—enough time has already been spent on this episode—other than to say that Ben Dreyfuss shows up and we talk about Danny Masterson,…
#420 - Texas Ends New York! Protesters End Climate Change! DOJ Prosecutors End Proud Boys!
* Every city is a nightmare
* Airbnb banned—but hotel rooms are now free!
* Pedro glues his feet to the floor, Moynihan discovers climate change
* It’s the end of New York as we know it (and Mayor Adams feels not so fine)
* None of this is sustainable, btw
* “BIPOC” residents in Chicago are angry
* Nikki rising, Vivek shrinking
* Enrique Tarrio, black white supremacist, gets more time than Mr. American Taliban
* The DOJ understands why an activist guy murdered a non-activist guy
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* RIP to The Big Dick
* Lawyer, capitalist, wiseass, politician … publisher?
* Remember those moderate-Republican big-city mayors from the ‘90s?
* The bottomless treachery of Singapore Gray
* Two hobos get invited to Brentwood
* Don’t. Take. The. Money.
* The master and the LSD margaritas
* Pleading guilty to hating dull newspapers
* The New York Sun opening
* When you refuse to de…
Let’s abandon the usual bullet points and instead provide a few relevant links. The lads sit down with Swedish writer and historian Johan Norberg to discuss his forthcoming book The Capitalist Manifesto; his report on Sweden’s Covid response; his almost-a-book The Mirage of Swedish Socialism: The Economic History of a Welfare State; and that time, twenty years ago, when he first came across Moynihan wandering around Stockholm, clutching a book about filthy commies.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeMembers Only #178 - The Blob
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Elvis Costello’s dad is the best dancer
* Orthodox Shyne
* Jamaicans vs….ummm…non-island people
* Close enough
* The race blob
* The Australia craze / Jacko
* Gross Steven Segal songs
* “The molester Rolf Harris?”
* Revisiting the dumb debate
* Ron, Vivek, et al
* In praise of Gary Becker (and his family)
* OJ Simpson: Slashing government spending
* Moynihan’s baggage has shifted on this…
#418 - The State of Debate (w/ Mike Pesca)
* Best mugshots of all time (Winner: 70s Larry King)
* Who won the dumb debate
* No, the agenda is a hoax
* Nikki…pretty, pretty, pretty good, actually
* “Let’s not look backwards”
* One of the most deranged policy suggestions…
* The debate over Trump prosecutions
* Did Trump sound sane compared to Tucker?
* What happened to Pesca’s podcast “Not Even Mad” podcast?
* It’s really hard to make a podcast where everyone disagrees
* Is the New York Times getting a bit more sensible?
* Blurring the lines between activism and journalism
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeMembers Only #177 - Bang , Bang, Bing, Bong, Dong, Dong (Second Sunday Live Rebroadcast)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* San Francisco again
* Song of the South again
* TikTok NPC insanity
* Colombian Snow White, for the first time
* How Obama broke up with his girlfriends
* Roger Stone on JFK Jr. And a bit on PressTV
* Richy Rich of Richmond
* The AnCap of Argentina
* If the lads of the Fifth could avoid the dumb outrage, would they ?
* Iran, Pakistan, American foreign policy
* Are we more polariz…
* A Moynihan intro on theft and “Jew face”
* Lara Bazelon on rap lyrics as evidence, January 6th prosecutions, RICO, prosecutorial insecurity and overreach
* Artists, characters, and belief
* A Title IX violation is worse than being convicted for robbery
* Greg on Title IX bureaucracy and free speech
* The decline of the American university
* And much, much more
* Stay tuned for volume 2, in which Kmele and Moynihan field questions from college students!
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* RIP Robbie Robertson
* Yeah, so 30 minutes of music talk about The Band, The Doors being bad, listeners getting mad at us, Graham Nash in a book store, Mickey Jones, patriotic Bob, Barry Goldwater, and The Last Waltz. Sorry about that.
* I’m going to suggest that you weren’t denied entry into the exclusive club because you’re Asian
* But being an Asian-American…
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Richard Hananananananania is very sorry
* He has changed. From last week.
* Handjobs against racism
* Lizzo, bananas, petards
* “Everything I do is consequential, baby”
* Chasing Fonzie the racist (Ed note: We can neither confirm nor deny this story)
* The thing that is true but one cannot say…
* Italy is a great but they’ll charge you a toll to cross the room
* Irish and Ital…
#416 - A Sloppy Summer Pod, Recovered
So this one is probably four days old now? But because of the shitty software we use—and the fact that our…ummm….editor is currently on vacation in Italy—it took some serious archeology to salvage the recording. But it sounds fine, it’s a good episode, and Moynihan isn’t at all annoyed about having to upload this from a beach in Forte dei Marmi. The lengths we will go to make you people smarter and happier…So no description. Just listen to the damn thing.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethefifth.substack.com/subscribeThis is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit wethefifth.substack.com
* Matt hasn’t seen Oppenheimer
* Brittany Murphy is dead, probably from myocarditis. Kmele is surprised
* Found that anti-Qaddafi t-shirt
* That stupid interview on Democracy Now
* NHJ is America’s greatest historian
* Was Moynihan crying? (Moynihan responds: This is fake news)
* “But ackshually……..”
* Low key good and not great
* Richard (not Robert) Frank’s brilliant book
* The…