Firehose #137: Moynihan’s Weiner

Also: Meet me in St. Louis for a drink Sunday night!

“Oh my God, it is happening,” the angry mick says after a bit o’ punk rock. Thus springeth The Moynihan Report into action, w/ inaugural guest Anthony everlovin’ Weiner. Can’t say we didn’t warn ya!

Sponsored by our good friends over at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the Report (hard “t”), will allegedly come out on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4 p.m. ET, and feature opportunities for you lot to go heckle ol’ Hollywood live.

* Moar Moynihan: Seconds after ejecting from Episode #496, our 2Way hero jumped on one of those live Substack thingies w/ pal Josh Szeps (#25, #80, #103, #117, #196, #328, #423, #445, Members Only #231). Will I be able to embed the video? Let’s see!

Szeps Live ft. Michael Moynihan

* More Weiner: A.W. this week also joined The Gist’s “Not Even Mad” subfeature with Nick Gillespie (Special Dispatch #72, #379) and host Mike Pesca (#343, #418, #467), to debate “whether the national debt is an true crisis, if Chuck Schumer made the best of a bad hand, and whether government can—or should—ever shrink. Plus … Walter Cronkite’s legacy, the absurd NCAA tournament gripes, and the myth of ‘wanting it more.’”

* Tying the room together with most of the above is unofficial Fif’ animatrix Arch Stanton:

* OK! As codified in the Chat, there will be a low-key Fif’ meetup in St. Louis this Sunday evening, at The BBQ & Whiskey Saloon, beginning at around 8 p.m. Or at least, that’s when *I* am likeliest to show up, after stepping on this snek that morning; no reason for people not to show up earlier to get a head start and/or take advantage of the full menu before they transition to (still-delicious) “bar bites” at 8. Just wear appropriate regalia to recognize one another. Other potential attendees include a noted piemaker.

* Speaking of Nancy Rommelmann (#79, S.D. #27, S.D. #30, #198, #203, S.D. #34, S.D. #50, S.D. #64, S.D. #111), she and Smoke ‘Em partner Sarah Hepola (#354) this week had on race-defenestrated New York Times science correspondent Donald McNeil, Jr., on the still-blood-boiling 5th anniversary of the Covid-19 oh-shit month, to talk about “the bizarre kerfuffle that led to his resignation, mean girl dynamics at the paper, being misled by scientists, and what we do and don’t know about Covid-19’s origins.” Other anniversarial commentaries of note include David Zweig, Matt “Marginally Compelling” Shapiro, Michael Brendan Dougherty, and Andrew Sullivan (#139, #200 & #449).

* FIRE pals Angel Eduardo and Greg Lukianoff (#216, M.O. #183, #427) have a chonky essay out on misinformation, truth, trust, fact-checking, free speech, cancel culture, political polarization, academic freedom, and more. I like this bit, which also serves as a kick in my own pants:

It is also incumbent upon all of us as individuals to recognize the part we play in this ongoing tribal conflict and crisis of trust. The freedom to discover the truth for ourselves — which we should all have, and want — is also the responsibility to behave like rational, reasonable adults, and not tribal lunatics. We all must be just as open to dissent, just as allergic to ideological bubbles and echo chambers, and just as intent on discovering the truth no matter how uncomfortable and inconvenient it might be. After all, the institutions we’ve rightly criticized for their bias and blindness are made up of people very much like ourselves. We aren’t free from their flaws. […]

Believable authority and good reputations are very hard to build and very easy to lose. Sadly, our expert class has damaged their credibility in the eyes of the public far more than they seem to actually understand. It’s going to take serious work to get it back, and it won’t happen overnight. As we continue to barrel our way into an uncertain future, we are going to need institutions to create, disseminate, and safeguard knowledge — and an expert class that shows itself to be worthy of our trust.

* Speaking of building institutions, an exciting/intriguing announcement from our Reflector friends Andy Mills and Matt Boll (#457):

[W]hat began as a small project between Matt and me—recorded in my bedroom in small-town Illinois and Matt’s studio in Chicago—is about to evolve into something far bigger and more ambitious.

For the last few months, we’ve been working behind the scenes to transform this experiment into a full-fledged independent outlet.

Soon, we’ll be publishing more podcasts and investigative series, continuing to blend rigorous journalism with artful storytelling. With these new resources, we’ll be able to break more stories, dive into more topics, and speak with a wider range of voices—all while bringing clarity and context to the most consequential issues in the world.

For the time being, we're taking a brief hiatus, but when we return, expect new hosts, fresh shows, and a lot more reporting.

* And speaking of an institution-builder, as mentioned near the top of #496, Reason lost a legend Monday, Mr. Manny Klausner. Please read & click the links on my Twitter thread thereof, and enjoy this 2013 interview I got to do with Manny, Bob Poole, Tibor Machan, and Virginia Postrel:

* My longtime colleague Brian Doherty, who wrote Manny’s obit as well as an epic 2008 oral history of Reason, is THE historian of the libertarian movement, and has a new book out titled Modern Libertarianism: A Brief History of Classical Liberalism in the United States. He spoke about it on this week’s Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie:

* Comment of the Week goes to Brad:

To connect the dots from the discussions, Hoosiers depicts the 1954 Indiana high school basketball championship season, inspired by the story of Milan High School from that same year. Meanwhile, having escaped the Indiana Boys School in 1951 and getting caught up with the law all across the country, still teenaged Charles Manson was chilling in an Ohio penitentiary based on multiple instances of raping boys at knifepoint.

What I’m saying is that when you watch Hoosiers, imagine they're all slightly more civilized versions of Manson. It gives the film an edge. Or, for fun, imagine that Strap -- the preacher's son in the film -- founded a church in Indianapolis in 1955 called The Peoples Temple. No, wait ... that was actually Jim Jones.

Early 1950s Indiana: your source for infamous 20th century mass murderers and inspiring Cinderella stories.

Walkoff music, therefore, no matter how cursed, is my beloved Beach Boys playing a Charles Manson song on The Mike Douglas Show exactly one month before the Tate-LaBianca murders: