The Fifth Column

•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 run

•Venezuela and the subtle differences be…

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, despite the Norwegian name—Thor Halvorss…

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 Year’s Eve?), Major General Richard Montgomery was shot and killed, second in command Benedict Arnold (yeah, that one) was injured, 30-50 more Americans died, around 400 were taken prisoner; just a total fiasco. The Hudson River, valley, and related north-south waterworks all the way up to Montreal would, instead of staying firmly in Yankee control, prove to be a heavily contested corridor until literally the last day of the Revolutionary War.

All of which to say is, EVERY day is a Semiquincentennial day in the year of our Lord 2026, and I am absolutely here for learning and sharing weird & wonderful things about our 250th.

To that end, I’m delighted to introduce a new miniseries-within-the-pod, called The Revolutionaries, in which I’ll be yakking with historians, podcasters, and other oddballs to tell us some crazy, misunderstood, and lesser-known stories about our awesome if not exactly crystal-pure revolutionary past. The idea is not only to learn new (and fun!) history, but also pick away a bit at the historiography – why some important characters and stories get forgotten; and how even the hagiographic celebrations of various Founders flatten the far more captivating and complicating detail.

What better historian to kick us off than none other than Charles C. Mann, author of the groundbreaking books 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, and 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created? Mann walks us through a fascinating revolutionary precursor: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, in which early Americans, through coordinated violence, shook off the misrule of European imperialists.

Special shout-out to Arch Stanton for the fab animated intro, and Fleetwood Hack auteur Eli Lake for the theme song. Enjoy!

* Woulda been awkward if Charles had played for the Redskins

* How science changes history

* Man vs. the Amazon

* Massive urbanism under the canopy

* The myth of pristine wilderness

* “we’re like beavers”

* Sometimes called “the first American Revolution”

* “huge impact in the history of the United States as a whole, because it’s the reason we have California”

* “Pueblo” = catch-all; they spoke different languages

* “Jeffersonian, independent villages…very democratic”

* “to become a member of the council, they sit you in a chair in the center of the village, and everybody makes fun of you and pelts you with garbage”

* Chaco Canyon abandonment = No Kings

* “very leery of centralized authority, so much so that the Spaniards find them hard to deal with, because they don’t have like a governor or a king, and they’re constantly complaining.”

* Spaniards didn’t even call themselves Spaniards, BTW

* Silver and gold, because small cargo-holds

* “Spain becomes fantastically wealthy. They spend it all on wars and Dutch bankers”

* Whoops, no silver and gold in New Mexico

* Juan de Oñate = Juan de jerk

* “The Franciscans are obliged to convert people by enslaving them to build churches so that they can be converted in the churches….And weirdly, the Pueblo don’t like it.”

* Spaniards: much bigger New World bastards than the English

* “they got off on the wrong foot”? Too soon, Charles

* Don’t mess with Po’pay

* The knotted-rope code

* A simultaneous revolt against 32 missions!

* 2 days, 400 dead Spaniards

* How Po’pay was NOT like Washington

* 12 years a non-Spaniard

* Autonomy even after the Reconquista

* Thank the Pueblo that Spain never found gold and silver in Cali & Nevada

* Cool history happens when tribes produce archaeologists

* The West is the best

* American ethnic cleansing

* The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World, by Charles C. Mann

* Revolution Song: A Story of American Freedom, by Russell Shorto

* Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water, by Marc Reisner

* Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West, by Donald Worster

Intro sequence by the one and only Arch Stanton!

Outro music (audio podcast only) by the great Eli Lake!

-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 Epstein Files?

-Far-Right Post-Pinochet Pragmatist

-Why Aren’t We Drinking Whiskey?

-Donald Takes It to 11

-The 2020 Madness Hangover

-Halle Berry vs. Gavin Newsom (Real, or Kmele Fanfiction?)

-Nixon Recaps All in the Family

-Thomas Massie, Thinking Man’s MTG

-Trump’s Most Surprising Second-Term Win

-Putin Does Coercive Dictatorship Really Well

-Happy New Year, You Degenerates

Prefer to watch & chat live with other members of the Fifthdom? This episode premieres over on our YouTube channel at 12PM EST.

The Fifth Column (A Podcast) is a reader-viewer supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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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. With a book about “Hate” and the “Flock-Fleecing Fr…

We’re joined by Tina Nguyen, Senior Reporter at The Verge, covering “Big Tech vs. Big Government death matches.”

⁃ All I want for Christmas is Wendy Williams-branded booze

⁃ Someone is a bit cracked out…

⁃ Big tech versus big government

⁃ (David) Sacks of cash

⁃ Susie goes wilding

⁃ The swamp is a viper pit

⁃ Hate the media. Need the media

⁃ A non-denial denial of a non-denial denial

⁃ MAGA’s son and heir

⁃ He has a thrill running up his leg

⁃ The Bezos bust

⁃ Trump crashes through the normie barrier

⁃ Seth Rogan and the Orwell abomination

⁃ The body snatchers are back!

⁃ That said….this will be the greatest documentary since Hoop Dreams

Prefer to watch & chat live with other members of the Fifthdom? This episode premieres over on our YouTube channel at 12PM EST.

Follow The Fifth Column

YouTube: @wethefifthInstagram: @we.the.fifthX: @wethefifthTikTok: @wethefifthFacebook: @thefifthcolumn

* RIP Rob Reiner

* Sorry about the horrific murders but…Go Bills!?

* It was a great American who created Spinal Tap

* Reaction from conservative pundits vs. conservative politicians

* Trump’s derangement syndrome

* And he doubles down…

* The Islamist attack in Australia

* Assimilation and integration: Europe vs. America

* We’re just better at it

* They’re going to speak English and…

Dan Abrams is the CEO and Founder of Abrams Media Chief Legal Analyst for ABC News, host of On Patrol: Live on Reelz, host of SiriusXM radio’s “The Dan Abrams Show,” host and executive producer of “Court Cam” on A&E Network.

He is also the author of numerous New York Times bestselling books about forgotten trials in history and is also the founder of Mediaite.

* In defense of legacy media. Sort of.

* Hating journalists while feeding journalists

* From “terror TV” to ❤️Qatar❤️

* Just Jared

* The King of Korruption

* The legacy of lawfare

* Alvin Bragg: Trump’s best friend

* Prosecuting Hitler, Chavez, and Trump

* The Inspectors General Massacre

* Kash’s lady jacket

* Post-Kavanaugh radicalization

* Rogan optimism

* Did Dan help destroy American civility??

* Is Alan Keyes making sense?

* From gossip cops to actual cops...

* Does Dan produce “cop-aganda”??

* No, but Dan likes cops

Prefer to watch & chat live with other members of the Fifthdom? This episode premieres over on our YouTube channel at 10am EST.

The Fifth Column (A Podcast) is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Follow The Fifth Column

YouTube: @wethefifthInstagram: @we.the.fifthX: @wethefifthTikTok: @wethefifthFacebook: @thefifthcolumn

Michael Moynihan sits down with entrepreneur, actor, and bon vivant Kevin O’Leary to talk about politics, money, and being an asshole.

* The economics of...hockey? (He’s Canadian. It makes sense)

* Mr Wonderful vs. Idiot King

* Pierre misses the open net

* Swiss watches and Swiss gold

* Sell the damn chips to China!

* The importance of the Hill staffer

* Kevin just made thi…

It’s been a bit since it was just Michael, Kmele, and Matt at the table so we’ve decided to unlock this Members Only episode and invite everyone in. For (literally) hundreds more Members Only episodes, become a paying subscriber.

•Heliocentric anime

•50 Cent, documentarian

•Boycott Black Murder

•Glenn Beck is doing it for the kids

•John Stossel walks into a bodega

•And now, a few words from the father of our country

•American Revolution hot takes

•That New York Times border crisis story

•Kamala Harris was not the border czar

•NIMBY

•When Kmele gets homeless

•Rosemont Illinois will not forget Tara Reid

•LSD margaritas

•The Pentagon press corps

•Exploding boats

•Geographically constrained neoconservatism

•Matthew Yglesias is right

•Previewing Moynihan’s 1-on-1 with Kevin O’Leary

•Holding out hope

Prefer to watch & chat live with other members of the Fifthdom? This episode premieres over on our YouTube channel at 10am EST.

This episode is unlocked, but paying subscribers get them ALL.

Follow The Fifth Column

YouTube: @wethefifthInstagram: @we.the.fifthX: @wethefifthTikTok: @wethefifthFacebook: @thefifthcolumn