113 Comments

Help. I'm trapped at my British in laws and they have CNN on. I'm the only Republican(ish) they have ever met.

This verdict could not have come at a worse time

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Have you considered drinking your weight in booze?

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Yes.

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Be glad it wasn't MSNBC

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Update: My mother in law thinks that the CIA assassinated both JFK and rfk....

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The rumors are the MI6 did it...

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She’s probably right then

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Condolences 💐

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Wonderful time to listen to their process. Booze, sure, but dude...the convo has to be interesting.

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Y'all really managed to drop the episode MINUTES before the verdict, I'm actually impressed 😂

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*conspiracy theorizing intensifies*

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Guilty verdict. So now it is up to the news to do endless sound bites of Trump lovers and Trump haters trying to explain exactly what he is guilty of because I doubt any of them can do it.

He was hiding Stormy Daniels from Russia in a box at Mar-A-Lago that was filled with fraudulent votes for Nicole Brown Simpson, right?

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Between the Fifth episodes, the Vice story, and Dissident Dialogues, it's been a good week to be a Moynifan.

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Can we turn monihan face into an emoji? Someone should get on that.

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👨🏼‍💻📝🥃 Done.

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LOL you've seen him right? Any average white guy emoji would work. Now if you put a martini in his hand that might be a better emoji

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I thought he drank tequila sodas? And he's Italian and Irish... I'm unsure if those count as white or not.

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OOH good point!

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Wow - Castro speech length podcast!

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I was going to say this is like one of Chávez’s broadcasts

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May 31Edited

Anyone else hear "Huey Lewis" for the entire time they were talking about Huey Newton and think that there's a much darker story behind "Hip to be Square" than previously thought?

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Yep

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💯

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How high was kmele to describe any podcast other than The Fifth Column as the greatest podcast of the year?

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I would never do that if I was hosting. Neither get high nor lie about the best podcast.

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Absolutely crackerjack timing fellas. Also, I'm only a few minutes in, but I hope to hear more about this apparently Hasidic version of Droopy dog that Matt grew up watching. Also, just finished listening to Moynihan with Bari. Very good stuff.

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Droopy is underrated.

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I know, and you know what?

That makes me mad!

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The episodes that involve other characters desperately trying not to wake Droopy up are some of the funniest things ever created.

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This is a comment on your last members only episode ( I'm behind in my listening). When I was in grad school at the University of Chicago in the 80s, I was at a party of Vincent Katz who was in the college (artist Alex Katz's son) and Allen Ginsburg came in and they disappeared into Vincent's bedroom. I remember at the time, I was kind of shocked. I don't think I would be now!

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Re: Dirtbags Trump Pardoned because they said nice things about him - My favorite, Kwame Kilpatrick. Absolute scumbag but praised Trump and got out of jail

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We demand verdict Hot Takes!!

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You want a hot take? The sun isn't even that cool of a star.

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It's funny how predictable the hagiographies of scumbags can be. My fourth grader (who now has a sixth sense for things he learns in school that he needs to get a second opinion on from dad) came home one day and asked me to tell him about the Black Panthers, who they had learned about in school that day. I said, "Let me guess: your teacher told you about the free breakfasts?". He nodded. I continued, "And I'm going to guess she did not tell you about all the murders?" His eyes went wide. Of course she hadn't mentioned that part.

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Matt and Andy's experience with fundamentalism hit close to home for me, and my own alarm bells started ringing very early on in about the Cult of the Current Thing in very much the same way. I was lucky and only grew up in proximity to Christian-fundamentalist-types as a pastors kid. Usually it would be someone making my dad's life miserable that particular week over some minor (and ultimately irrelevant) theological nitpick. Unlike Matt & Andy, I never walked away from the faith consciously or otherwise, but the experience did force me to work through my own tribal instincts very early on and work through the fact that the people I found most annoying, obnoxious, and unintellectual were often not bad people.

I can't even count how many times the most zealous and unthinking fundies ended up also being the most generous people I have ever known, and I really struggled with that contradiction for a long time growing up. I can confidently say that it's the reason I have never been able to truly "hate" even the most frustrating Trumpistanis, many of whom are decent people who are NOT too stupid to know what is good for them or to be "tricked" because accidentally listened to Joe Rogan that one time. I'd love to believe that I would have turned out the same growing up in a different environment...but I would be lying to myself. There is a good chance I would have never bothered looking past the thorny exterior...especially with all that Irish Rage flowing through my DNA.

The important lesson of the last decade (and all of human history, really) is that "fundamentalism" per say is not a strictly religious phenomenon. It is an impulse buried deep inside all of us, and it becomes particularly intoxicating when married to power and status. There will never be a shortage of people craving an opportunity to judge and bully others into conformity. Left unchecked they will always find their way home to the new cutting edge brand of the same tired thing.

I only hope that when the "New Fundamentalism" passes, people won't let themselves forget that it was here. I found it comforting when I thought it was something that spawned in church basements, but the truth is much more unsettling - that something deep in all of us is primed to embrace some form of it and would be tempted by its pull in the right circumstances. In my own experience, just acknowledging that unsettling reality and sitting with it was the only way to start developing something resembling an immunity. A sense of humor a lot too...which explains a lot once you've heard anyone "woke" try to tell a joke.

It ruins everything it touches...religious, political, or otherwise, and I truly hope Matt and Andy find their refuge from it one day.

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P.S. Sorry for this wall of text...I'll go start my own Substack for my Fifth Column comments...

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Moynihan gets some facts wrong regarding the rafah camp strike.

1. The audio that was released was not Hamas, the were Palestinians that were talking about what they thought might have been in the jeep. It was a conversation, nothing conclusive

2. Although it was technically just outside the designated humanitarian zone, by under 1000 meters, this was a camp set up by the Kuwaitis for refugees . It was in fact called Kuwait peace camp 1. So it's fair to assume that the people who were sheltering there thought it was safe.

This is very different from the strike at the hospital in the beginning of the conflict, not only are the details of the claims different but at this point in the war, these types of mistakes should not be happening and to use the same excuses over and over is getting stale.

I've been a big supporter of Israel, but this is a massive fuck up and should be called out as such. It's easy to get stuck in the trap of defending out of a bias because the other side is so vile..

I see very few pro Israel, voices speaking up on this. This needs to be called out for what it is. You can't argue this one with statistics, or death counts or the rules of war, etc... it's just bad.

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I'm pro Israel and I think

1) we're still waiting for information

2) there is a staggeringly low number of innocent civilians. The vast majority of them have earned what is happening to them and they've earned it good and hard. So the massively reduced sympathy may also explain the general silence.

3) there is not a single death that occurs in Gaza that is not the responsibility of Hamas, including those deaths that Israel causes by accident. Every single one is morally owned by Hamas.

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what an absolutely heartless and inane response.. kudos, Joe for being a homicidal manic..

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The kind of barbarity that Gaza has produced that we saw on 10/7 can only be the result of a cancerous society from top to bottom. I encourage attempts to cure the cancer, but in the end, it cannot metasticize further.

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Heartless is allowing Hamas to brainwash and victimize this population for 20 years and then assaulting the only force that is doing anything to end that menace.

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Why do you think you can conduct a war like it's a picnic in the park? What are your qualifications to make the claim that this is a massive fuck up that should be called as such? And the claim that these types of mistakes should not be happening? Do you know what war is, at all? Or why our own soldiers made these kinds of mistakes regularly? Make an honest study of actual war, and you'll eat that statement fast. There are those who obviously go through great effort to avoid civilian casualties since WW2, and those who do not. Even with rules, it' a messy endeavor. To this day, even in the U.S., munitions factories are located near population centers. Bases, and forts exist just outside valuable cities, and ports to protect them. It's, ideally, where the fighting will happen if there is any, and mistakes, which as a rule of war will happen, will mean death to civilians. And that's supposing that both sides are following the rules of war.

However Hamas hides among it's population, and offers it no protection. Everything happening today was planned a long time ago by the instigating party. Those tunnels are for the exclusive use of combatants. They got a considerable amount of money from us, but refuse to use it to defend their population. So, essentially, you're telling us that, to fight the war Hamas asked for, you're going to call Israel homicidal, or expect them to allow Hamas to continue to abuse the rules of war to be allowed to be the actual homicidal maniacs. A title they'd love to get from you.

Remember what we did to Dresden in a few days? I've not seen anything like that out of Israel, but they're entirely capable of it, and a whole lot more what with all the technological advancements since then. They're showing a considerable amount of restraint, and I'm personally getting sick and tired of just how ignorant many of my fellow Americans, and our allies tend to be about our ability to conduct a war. How could you recognize restraint when you see it? You don't even know our full capability.

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Chris you wrote some words and made some claims, none of which bear any relation to what I wrote. If you want to engage at least respond to the substance, not what you want to hear yourself saying.

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No, I responded to your original comment, mostly after you ad hominem shot at a perfectly reasonable comment. I mean, we both think that your comment is stupid, too. But we managed to tell you why, not just say so. It's not our fault you lack reading comprehension.

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A reasonable comment! Where the poster said that civilians deserve to die, and die hard because they are all collectively guilty? Haha some real psychos on these boards I guess

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Hamas murdered everyone who dies in Palestine on 10/7, even if they die tomorrow or a month from now. And they're happy about it.

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The majority of civilians have earned their death? Even if the majority are women and children?

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Jun 2Edited

1) the average age in Gaza is 18, so saying most are children could be said about literally anything in Gaza. Most of the terrorists who executed 10/7 were children. Etc etc.

2) And as we have seen from the prisoner releases from Israel, there are PLENTY of shitbag women in Gaza as well. I don't know why having a pussy imparts moral superiority. As I said before, the disease I Gaza is top to bottom. It is ubiquitous. It is universal. Any fix of the situation in Gaza has to take that into account.

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I said 'if'? Sounds like your answer is yes?

Can you share your evidence for the claim that most of the terrorists who executed 10/7 were children?

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My claim is based on the average age of residents of Gaza being 18. My point is that the entirely of Gaza are children. Just because a child commits atrocities doesn't mean we allow it.

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That isn't a sound conclusion. The average age of residents being 18 does not necessarily mean that "Most of the terrorists who executed 10/7 were children."

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So by your metrics it sounds like there is no line to be drawn for isreal

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There are Israeli and American hostages in Gaza still. As far as I'm concerned, every occupant of Gaza's life is already forfeit until those hostages are returned and Hamas has unconditionally surrendered.

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Are you essentially saying every Gazan bares the responsibility of the atrocities of October 7th? In your mind there is functionally no such thing as a civilian casualty in Gaza?

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Looking at the Black Panther Wikipedia page, apparently one of its ideologies was "womanism" a variety of black feminism. Putting aside the dubiousness of the Panthers being pro-feminist, the term "womanist" stems from an Alice Walker book published in 1983. Wikipedia also says the Panthers dissolved in 1982. I guess they were so forward thinking they promoted an ideology that hadn't been invented yet.

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Shocking that Wikipedia would get something wrong. But I think when it says that the Black Panthers believed in womanism, they don't mean that they CALLED it womanism - just that their beliefs would now be called womanism.

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