Firehose #145: Tangled Up in Not-Black

Also: Third Sunday w/ special guest 8:30 p.m. ET

A special message from us Lizard People: We are scheduled to be doing our monthly subscribers-only Zoom call/episode at 8:30 p.m. ET Sunday night, with a special in-studio guest hawking a new book, a la that March madness with Thomas Chatterton Williams. As always, there will be some tech challenges and other surprises, so bring drinks!

First, some news, from Tangle:

We just hired Kmele Foster to the Tangle team.

Today, I am thrilled to announce that we are hiring Kmele Foster to join the Tangle team as an editor-at-large.

For those unfamiliar with Kmele, he is a media entrepreneur, journalist, and content producer; and he’s a person I’ve admired for a long time. Some of you might already know him from his appearances on CNN, Fox News, and Megyn Kelly’s show; his writing in Reason Magazine, or his time as a guest on the Tangle podcast. I first came across Kmele through The Fifth Column podcast, which he co-hosts, and where he is an open-minded, inquisitive, and unpredictable political mind. As an entrepreneur, he has built successful media brands like Freethink/Big Think. As an advocate for free speech and open dialogue, he sits on the board of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

Looking ahead, Kmele will be joining Ari and me on our weekly podcast, helping edit our daily newsletter, contributing regular written pieces as Friday editions, and shaping the future of Tangle as we continue to grow and evolve.

* Tangle’s new E-a-L celebrated the news Tuesday by doing one of those on-your-phone, live Substack deals w/ handsome pirate Josh Szeps (#25, #80, #103, #117, #196, #328, #423, #445, M.O. #231):

Szeps Live ft. Kmele Foster

* One Wednesday, we made our monthly appearance on The Megyn Kelly Show, where we talked about the Jake Tapper/Alex Thompson book, Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again; media culpability thereof, Kyle Dunnigan’s Biden impersonation, Donald Trump’s big Saudi Arabia speech, and the P. Diddy trial. Whole thing:

* As referenced on #505, you can read contrasting Free Press takes on Trump’s Saudi statement from past guests Eli Lake (#52, #65, #141, #174, Special Dispatch #51, #326, #368, #407, Members Only #184, M.O. #244) and Batya Ungar-Sargon (#451, #502).

* It’s been a while, so here’s Kyle Dunnigan doing some RFK Jr.:

* Since we mentioned it both on Megyn’s and in a couple of recent episodes, here is the White House Correspondents Dinner speech last month by Alex Thompson (veteran of Members Only #215 and Episode #468):

* David Wolpe, the Fifth’s very own rabbi, went on The Moynihan Report Tuesday to talk about campus anti-Semitism, Theo Von, Candace Owens, Israel-Gaza, God, paganism, and more:

* Then on Thursday it was time for internet culture writer and doom-scroller Joshua Citarella to talk about “the extremely online politics of Gen Z, the emergence of a right wing counterculture, and what he sees as the overturning of the neoliberal order.”

* What’s the worst thing Trump 2.0 has done in regards to free speech? Foundation for Individual Rights and Express honcho Greg Lukianoff (#216, M.O. #183, #427), writing with Adam Goldstein, argues that it’s the crackdown on law firms:

Long story short: Seven firms involved in cases that the Trump administration didn’t like were targeted by orders and memoranda from President Trump himself in what appears to be retaliation for their involvement in those cases. Those firms face (or faced) having their government contracts reviewed, the actual or potential revocation of security clearances from their attorneys, and their attorneys’ access to federal buildings limited. […]

[T]he sanctions in the orders would hamstring the work of the firms in question. The revocation of security clearances would make it impossible for lawyers to see classified evidence in a case. While for some attorneys that might not be that big of a deal, it’s a pretty big deal when the orders target attorneys because of their involvement in prior cases with classified evidence, like the special counsel investigations.

But worse still is the potential loss of access to federal buildings, which these orders call for. […]

A president attempting to sanction law firms for nothing more than providing representation to opposing parties undermines the rule of law by acting as an implicit threat to law firms: Help the people who disagree with me, and you’re an enemy of the United States.

* Past guests and fervent Trump critics Timothy Snyder (Special Dispatch #2) and Jason Stanley (#210) participated this week in a New York Times Opinion video titled “We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the U.S.” Among the less-than-plussed were Kat Rosenfield (#448) and Ben Dreyfuss (#83, #97, #148, #214, Members Only #129, M.O. #140, #392 & M.O. #180). Writing a pretty good/interesting profile of Snyder this week was Peter Savodnik. Subhed: “Is the Yale historian a prophet, as his supporters say? Or is he stripping the word ‘fascism’ of its meaning?”

* We talked back in M.O. #228 about Donald Trump opening his yap about disgraced and safely dead Major League Baseball hit king Pete Rose. For the dead-tree edition of Reason, I wrote a small piece about it, suggesting that it might be that exceedingly rare case of a president sticking his nose in pro sports and it not being terrible. Then lo and behold! Rose and 15 other (mostly) scumbags were removed this week from MLB’s “permanently ineligible” list, on the frankly Welchian argument that lifetime bans should end after the lifetimes have. This year’s pilgrimage to the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony should be especially spicy!

* Hey look, Nick Gillespie (Special Dispatch #72, #379), like Kmele before him, has interviewed Richard Dawkins:

* Speaking of Gillespie, did you realize he spent part of Covid shacked up with a humanoid robot named Sophia? Read all about from then-GF, now wife Sarah Rose Siskind. Here’s a trailer from a new documentary about said Gillespie-adjacent robot.

* Speaking of Gillespie, there are fresh rumors this week that Bob Dylan’s coming out soon with a second volume of his fantastic Chronicles semi-memoir.

* I realize I’ve been remiss of late in flagging upcoming events. So: Yael Bar tur points us to this May 19 NYC fundraising & testimonial event, 590 days, 58 hostages. May 21 gives a SoHo Forum debate on immigration between yep-he’s-still-talking-about-the-thing Dave Smith and Alex Nowrasteh (#303).

* Comment of the Week I comes from Crabbbbb People:

Convinced that all these people Moynihan has dinner with are his imaginary friends and Matt and Kmele just politely indulge in the delusion.

* Comment of the Week II comes from jot:

As the ornery commenter quoted at the beginning of this episode, I quite enjoyed listening to this interview.

Zweig makes a very compelling and, in my opinion, eminently reasonable case. Picked up his book after listening and I'm looking forward to actually sitting down and reading it.

Walkoff instrumental I heard for the first time this week, in the course of updating my making-Beatles-records-out-of-post-Beatles-output project up through 2005: