Firehose #133: Moynihan’s New Gig

Also: Gloomy McGloomface!

Do you know what happens when you’ve vacation-skipped a week on the weekend missive while the most frenetic administration since FDR 1.0 keeps splooging news all over the damned globe? Your social media stream(s) becomes filled with the word … “firehose.” I GET THE HINT, UNIVERSE. Expect bonus content from me this week, and no more murder motels or days off until the Bob Dylan show in Tulsa….

* The above pic was from our Valentine’s Day presentation at listener/professor Jane Bambauer’s terrific “Demand for Bullshit” conference at the University of Florida. There in Tom Petty’s ancestral homeland a good 15-20 of you enlivened the proceedings with your presence—Disney financineers, Jacksonville flyboys, Euro-history-academics, energetic young libertarian boys, quiet (and also not-quiet) southeastern gals, Reason’s own Zach Weissmueller … what a pleasure, during and after! Woulda stayed out later (even Moynihan!), but all of us had 6 AMish flights that we all almost missed. Will we post our talk at some point? Who knows!

* Oh hey, speak of the devil….

MEGHAN MCCAIN, MICHAEL MOYNIHAN & ALEX CHITTY TO JOIN 2WAY

Interactive Media Platform Adds Top Talent For Fast-Growing Audience

2WAY, the interactive live video platform devoted to unique conversations, breaking news, and unbiased discourse, today announced the addition of two top media figures who will join the platform as their content home. Meghan McCain and Michael Moynihan will bring their talents to the 2WAY lineup beginning in February.

Meghan McCain currently hosts the successful podcast “Citizen McCain.” She is a former cohost of “The View” on ABC, and has worked at Fox News and MSNBC. Michael Moynihan, previously a journalist at The Free Press, is co-host of the “Fifth Column” podcast, and is a veteran reporter and editor with stints at Vice, The Daily Beast, and Reason Magazine.

In addition, Alex Chitty is coming to 2WAY as head of strategy and operations. Alex joins from The Free Press where he was head of audio and video, after more than a decade at Vice Media making shows for HBO, Showtime, Hulu and many more. Alex also worked as a correspondent for international outlets including The Economist.

These three media stars will bring their considerable talents to 2WAY’s innovative media platform. 2WAY has built a strong community and a devoted fanbase as an environment where diverse perspectives are celebrated, honest opinions are freely expressed, and the reporting and analysis are consistently ahead of the curve. 2WAY was founded in 2024, and is led by CEO Arnold Jung and Editor-in-Chief Mark Halperin.

“Adding Meghan, Michael, and Alex is fabulous, but it is just the start,” said Halperin. “Throughout 2025, 2WAY will bring on other exciting content creators and organizational partners to expand our content verticals, our distribution channels, and the reach of 2WAY. Any person or enterprise with an existing following who wants to bring their current superfans closer to them and find new ones is a strong candidate to partner with us.”

The addition of McCain and Moynihan will take 2WAY’s content to the next level after the platform’s breakout debut during the 2024 election season.

* Moar Meghan: The late senator’s daughter was recently on Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em to talk with Sarah Hepola (#354) and Nancy Rommelmann (#79, Special Dispatch #27, S.D. #30, #198, #203, S.D. #34, S.D. #50, S.D. #64, S.D. #111) about her new gig, the post-election vibe shift, and (gulp) this here podcast.

* Moar Moynihan: Eli Lake (#52, #65, #141, #174, S.D. #51, #326, #368, #407, Members Only #184, M.O. #244) on his latest Breaking History episode brings ol’ Hollywood on for a timely/timeless disquisition on “how, exactly, the assassination of John F. Kennedy gave birth to so many wild conspiracy theories.” Here’s a tease/excerpt:

* Speaking of Eli, the last Firehose was published within minutes of The SoHo Forum posting his debate with Scott Horton over whether the U.S. provoked Russia into invading Ukraine. Here ‘tis:

* Numbered omnigraf links pertaining to similar: 1) You know how J.D. Vance was all arguing with Niall Ferguson about Russia, and Ukraine, and Iraq, and sovereignty, and the applications of history? I wrote about all of those things, in ways that bolster both arguments, a decade ago. 2) Re: the indie-country sellouts in 1938 Munich and 1945 Yalta, I wrote about the then-misapplications of the Munich analogy in 2003 and 2013, and then during a three-day stretch 20 years ago (hey, it was the warblogging era!) wrote three posts stemming from lefty-media hyperventilations about George W. Bush declaring (correctly!) in Latvia that Munich and Yalta were “unjust.” Those five links have some relevant tidbittery about NATO expansion & idiotic American discussion thereof. 3) More big-picture gloominess? Sure: From Andrew Sullivan (#139, #200 & #449), Douglas Murray (#390), and Francis Fukuyama. The less-gloomy crew includes Tyler Cowen.

* Continuing the gloom: Past guest Jamie Kirchick (#55, #347, #394) had a piece in The New York Times this past week declaring Vance’s Munich Security Conference speech “the most shocking thing to happen at that annual summit since President Vladimir Putin of Russia condemned the American-led liberal international order there nearly two decades ago,” arguing that the implied support therein for Alliance for German (AfD) augurs “a coming dark age.” The kicker:

Since the onset of the Cold War 80 years ago, American presidents of both parties have understood the necessity of a Germany reliably rooted within the Western alliance. From West Germany’s controversial rearmament in the early 1950s to the deployment of American Pershing missiles on German soil three decades later and the rallying of support for Ukraine today, the possibility of the European Union’s most populous country's adopting a position of strategic neutrality, of “equidistance” between America and Russia, has been a perennial concern. For the United States to put its considerable clout behind a German political party whose leaders minimize Nazi crimes, portray their country as a victim of scheming outsiders and parrot talking points from the Russian Foreign Ministry would be a blunder of historic, and potentially catastrophic, proportions.

* More gloom still! Prior to the unbearably awful Bibas-family corpse-exchange, old pal Josh Szeps (#25, #80, #103, #117, #196, #328, #423, #445, M. O. #231) had on Nova Music Festival survivor Natalie Sanandaji:

* Adorable no-step-on-baby pic cleanse!

* Did I bury the lede on Arch Stanton’s latest Terry Gilliam-style recap? Indeed I did:

* Let’s do some recent Reason podcast/video interviews with past Fifth Column guests. First up, Aaron Sibarium (#456) goes on Just Asking Questions to talk about “President Donald Trump's executive orders relating to DEI programs”:

* Next comes historian Sean McMeekin (S.D. #89, M.O. #235) on The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie to discuss “the history of communism, how its focus on forced equality is inherently violent, and how Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, and others each brought particular flourishes and horrors to its practice”:

* Matt Taibbi (#226, #348) debuted an interesting new recurring feature called “Timelines,” which in each subject area aspires to be “an interactive library where readers can find hard copies of primary source materials at the center of emerging news controversies.” First up is of particular interest to Fif’ listeners: A “Timeline of Foreign Censorship Laws.”

* Anyone need more Dylan talk? Here’s a long Trey Stockard essay from a couple weeks back that reflects on the connections between A Complete Unknown and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, along the way quoting Moynihan, Sarah Hepola, and even me.

* Comment of the Week is from me, saying: I love ChayaLeah Sufrin, her overly tolerant husband Baruch, and the whole ridiculous lotta youse!

Walkoff music, with accompanying unauthorized vid, is an effort to … exorcise the gloom!