How Jamie ended up writing about Armie Hammer
So what *is* the Hammer story anyway?
How the motivated reasoning media ignores inconvenient inconsistencies
Is there a path back from an utterly destroyed reputation?
How Jamie’s book Secret City informed his reporting
Heroes and homophobia
So is it true what they say about James Webb?
The Lavender Scare and Joe McCarthy
Who was worse, JFK or RFK?
Would anyone care about Larry Craig in 2023?
Why was Moynihan at a political event in Florida?
SMDH at the FUBAR SOTU
A bit about those Twitter hearings…
And so much more!
The Fifth Column
Your weekly rhetorical assault on the on the news cycle, the people who make it, and occasionally ourselves. Kmele Foster (Freethink), Michael Moynihan (Vice), and Matt Welch (Reason) talk and laugh and drink their way to at least quasi-sanity in a world gone mad, often with the aid of clean and articulate guests. Weekly Members Only subscription edition often comes with listener mail and professional-quality (if inappropriate) singing. Analysis. Commentary. Sedition.
Your weekly rhetorical assault on the on the news cycle, the people who make it, and occasionally ourselves. Kmele Foster (Freethink), Michael Moynihan (Vice), and Matt Welch (Reason) talk and laugh and drink their way to at least quasi-sanity in a world gone mad, often with the aid of clean and articulate guests. Weekly Members Only subscription edition often comes with listener mail and professional-quality (if inappropriate) singing. Analysis. Commentary. Sedition.Listen on
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I'd have been a lot more impressed with the State of the Union spectacle if Hunter Biden had shown up dressed as an F22 and followed MTG around menacingly during his dad's speech. Bonus points if he'd carried around an empty laptop bag all night.
This is your calling
I thought it was a little insensitive towards the victims of Armie's cannibalism when right before he left, Jamie said, "Thanks for having me."
He’ll eat those words.
Jamie had me at “Gloria Allred dropped her”.
Sheeeeit, I knew this was a witch hunt when I heard the accuser HIRED Allred...
Martin Luther Queen is officially my drag name
I'd have to go with Ruby Ridge.
Am I the only person who’s never heard of this dude?
Meanwhile, men do talk about experiencing emotional abuse. They just do it anonymously on Quora.
Lol same. Finally at 17 minutes Kmele says why they're talking about this.
I’m relieved to know I’m not the only sub-rock dweller in these parts! 😂
Are you living under a dirty, uncleaned rock? He's one of the great branding successes of the 20th century!
https://www.likelihoodofconfusion.com/nailing-the-arm-and-hammer-trademark/
Kirchik does good work. I also recommend the podcast he does with Mike Pesca and Virginia Heffernan, Not Even Mad. Although, they haven’t posted a new ep since mid-December, so it may be they’ve stopped doing it altogether.
I meant the Armie Hammer guy.
Ah. Sorry.
Probably not. I wouldn’t call him a household name — even if his name sounds like a household item.
I really liked Not Even Mad and hope it comes back in some form. My theory is that Pesca saw a gap to fill since Left, Right and Center became unlistenable since Josh Barro left. Hope it comes back, even with rotating guests
Even you haven’t seen it, Pesca posted a sort-of-farewell ep of NEM, in which he explains what happened.
I can’t figure out why they stopped. It was good. No Fifth, but solid. And Kmele didn’t mention it in the intro so it must have died young.
I adore Jamie, but Virginia is a lot.
And when they discussed NYT editor being fired - I forget which one - I think the Tom Cotton brouhaha - she said it was because of BAD EDITING!
Pesca posted a goodbye ep. He explains what happened. Kirchik is too busy, and Heffernan “wasn’t feeling it.” One gets the impression she wasn’t comfortable being outside of her bubble or having her positions challenged. I can’t say I’m surprised, although I liked the dynamic between the three of them.
That’s a shame. Excellent discussions among the three hosts (and occasional guest hosts). They challenged one another. I also liked Mike Pesca on NEM more than The Gist.
The biggest offense to DeSantis on this podcast is Kmele continuing to pronounce his name like some upper west side WASP.
I love it. Reminds me of Chris Kimball pronouncing “shallot” on public television.
Why do I now have a "Paid" badge? Who paid me? Who did I pay? Now everybody knows that I have enough scratch to support the lads a little bit, but I still join the hoi polloi in steerage.
We are calling it E Pluribus Anus.
Oh, how I love a Community reference in the wild. :')
And I love someone loving a community reference in the wild!
I decided to google the Rage Against the War Machine rally that Matt mentioned, since I live in DC and hadn't heard about it, and the top result is this gem of an article:
"Why The Rage Against the War Machine Rally Is #AntiWarSoWhite"
https://www.blackagendareport.com/why-rage-against-war-machine-rally-antiwarsowhite
#AntiWarSoWhite
Re MM’s comment about teachers ability to indoctrinate students (or not) reminded me of a time when I was in the 8th grade during sex Ed when the gym teacher was trying to tell us what it meant to be gay. OMG so funny and cute looking back how this straight guy was so uncomfortable and awkward about it. 😂. I think he said something to the effect “if you... you... are a guy and you like... the.... uh... company of other...guys? And if you are a girl and like being with other girls? Then you’re... you know.” Which confused the hell out of all of us since we were in the 8th grade when our friends were all the same sex. So like he accidentally made a bunch of students go: “wait so if I’m a girl and all my friends are girls... that means I’m gay? 🤷♀️😂 Poor guy. I bet he would have LOVED to have a don’t say gay bill at the time. 😂
This reminded me of my 4th grade teacher telling us, as a matter of fact, that Africa was the largest continent, and that the Mercator projection was racist. This was early 80s. Ms. Lang was ahead of her time.
Actually, the Mercator projection is homophobic because it forces rhumb lines to be straight.
If you don’t mind my asking: what’s your background? I’m a gay male Millennial who grew up in a Biden +30 congressional district outside one of the bluest cities in one of the bluest states in the country. Maybe I dodged a bullet, but it’s unfathomable that our borderline smugly progressive school system would have incorporated a lesson on homosexuality—unnecessary at best from the sound of it—into the curriculum.
Who is Armie Hammer?
An actor who had an ascendant career, a bunch of affairs and was into some really kinky BDSM shit, including dirty talk around canabalization. A woman he was having a long time affair with came out and claimed he raped her, then a bunch of other women did as well.
Jamie just wrote a piece on it which calls into question some of the accusers and accusations.
You're good at this!
I found the thing!!!!!!
Pre Super Bowl 2nd Sunday sounds fucking great.
Yeah, pencil it in for noon ET.
Was coming here to speak on behalf of all of us and say we have no friends. Second Sunday should stand!
The guys did say one time that they might be interested in starting a cult, and what better way to find the most susceptible true believers than to schedule the Zoom call at the same time as kickoff?
There are few things as joyous as a hearty full-throated belly laugh from Kmele. Cheers, gents!
The official American Astronomical Society journals' policy is that all acronyms need to be spelled out upon their first use, *except* JWST (James Webb Space Telescope).
Is....is this a real fact?
Wow... It is in fact a real fact. https://journals.aas.org/aas-style-guide/
Just bizarre. Is this someone's revenge for the Telescope being named after James Webb over the objections about his tenuous association with the firing of homosexuals?
I’m struck by how often Kmele is “struck.”
Thank you for the bits on the disaster that is the LP.
The new management were supposed to stop the embarrassment.
https://twitter.com/lpnational/status/1623502552431230976?s=46&t=I1IONHqzR_8IPtcFTWZqNQ
Toyota is a US company?
As for the rally -- https://www.lp.org/statement-from-the-libertarian-party-on-anti-war-rally/
And the BBC story on the featured speaker. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-13089135
(Why do none of the AW bobble heads call for the Russians to go home...?)
... https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/pedophile-pulls-out-of-libertarian-anti-war-rally/
The LP statement does repudiate Russias invasion of Ukraine. "We oppose Russia’s invasion and any initiation of force."
And I restate, “Why do none of the AW bobble heads call for the Russians to go home...?”
They don’t.
Why?
It’s over immediately when the Russians go home.
Fighting in self-defense, is completely justified.
Arming victims is also justified. Giving someone who’s been mugged a can of pepper spray...proxy war.
But when you start from the premise that anything bad that’s happened since 1945 is the US’s fault....
(And we just won’t talk about the things that don’t fit that...Czechoslovakia in 48 and 68, Hungary 56, Allende in the early 70s Afghanistan in 80, Grenada, and so on....}
The Libertarian Party doesn’t limit themselves to blaming the US for all bad things that happened to the world after 1945... they blame the US for getting involved in World War 2 as well!
https://lpmisescaucus.com/war/rethinking-the-good-war-laurence-m-vance/
Moynihan under his breath: “he’s Canadian”.
Mmmmmmm hmmmmmm, that’s right…
Airmail’s piece on Steven Glass was great, though very sad.
If you see anyone posting the stupid alternate phrase thing, leave a comment pointing out that bread (scones) will kill birds just as surely as a stone, but through starvation, because they fill up on it but don’t get the calories that they need. Fucking bird torturers. I swear.
I thought Marge’s outfit was meant to evoke the second coming of Cruella Deville, who’s more into Pomeranians this time.
The thing about him having injured his pectoral muscle in January of 2017 - look up his appearance on a Russian show with a host called Ivan Urgant, filmed and aired on April 10th 2017. His dominant hand looks absolutely fine considering he's hammering f-ing nails.
That doesn't mean the rape happened. I'm gonna reiterate that this Effie person has huge credibility issues. But to sit there and say AH tweeted about his injury and giving that as evidence that he wouldn't have even been capable of performing the acts he's accused of isn't serious. Medical records yes, a tweet - no.
Re: Allred dropping Effie as a client: "Despite reports that Angelova was the one who axed her lawyer, a source tells Us: 'Gloria Allred fired Effie once she wouldn’t sign a declaration under perjury of her accusations.'" This is from US Magazine. "A source tells us." Great, we still don't know one way or the other.
I find it interesting that Hammer hasn't disputed the veracity of the leaked DM's. So the latest over at houseofeffie should at the very least raise a few eyebrows. Seriously, go over there and look with a healthy dose of skepticism and using your best judgment. She's not the only fishy one here, cluster batshit personality disorder considered.
We shouldn't be too quick to ruin people's lives over these sorts of allegations, but I do feel like you guys are a liiiittle too quick to believe Armie's side of the story. It's because of his dreamy eyes, just admit it.
I don't actually believe much of anything! Just glad to see more journalism being done.
Jamie's article was definitely an improvement over what's been written on this subject the past couple of years. I do wish he would've researched the pectoral muscle claim a bit more. Also, in the podcast he said there are no DM's with accusations of physical violence, but there are. Maybe fake! But if the exonerating DM's are going to be treated as real, I'd mention the damning ones as well.
Anyway, love you guys, love the podcast, thanks for everything you do 🙌
I thought the discussion of the pectoral injury was rather flimsy, to be honest.
You show a considerable amount of bias against his dreamy eyes here. You seem more then suspicious of a man who seems dead set on not going after this woman, and not necessarily claiming that she's the lone bad person here. His story sounds a lot like your idea of it, just two messed up people, a near literal quote by Armie Hammer himself... if you had done more then browse the interview. More then tweets were given as evidence of his pectoral muscle being injured (more evidence that you only really browsed the interview). Not being willing to sign a document saying that you're not lying on pain of going to jail is a sign that you're lying. It's not a continuation of the mystery, it's an admission that you don't believe that your story is strong enough to withstand scrutiny. And that's why Allred dropped her as a client, because it's only going to hurt her reputation tying herself to someone who is likely lying.
Nothing about the latest at the "houseofeffie" is worth raising an eyebrow at. She's releasing information herself, at her leisure, and in such a manner as to guide the narrative. I'm not about to let some picture easily replicated in a graphic design application get taken seriously until she cooperates with the authorities to prove it. She is not only proving none of this easily editable "proof", but not filtering it through a trusted third party who can confirm its veracity. At this point, short of signing that agreement, and going to court, I'm certain that Armie is right, and they're both just messed up people. She needs help, and you're only egging her on by eating up this story for more years. She refuses to cooperate with the authorities for what is supposed to be a violent crime.
Hmm, kinda looks like you're the one doing the skimming, or maybe my comment was too ambiguous at times.
I was pointing out that tweets are weak evidence of the injury unlike the medical records mentioned and I also feel like that tv appearance from April 2017 is a bit of a miss on Kirchick's part.
The only reason I'm giving those DM's the benefit of the doubt is that Armie Hammer himself is not saying they've been manipulated/fabricated. Up until his interview I was actually pretty sure they were because of how messed up Effie is combined with her refusal to sign an affidavit, HOWEVER, as I mentioned in my earlier comment, the claim about why Alred dropped her is some random unverified quote in US Magazine. If you think those DM's have been edited, don't you find it super odd that Hammer isn't saying anything about that?
I wouldn't say I'm eating up this story at all, I just don't find him or her trustworthy enough to outright believe either. If I seem so biased it's because he's the one currently under scrutiny in this interview.
Well the interview is a scrutiny of both of them. Not just him. Again I wonder if you actually did more then browse the interview. It's not about how the evidence is made up, but about how it's mostly true. What Armie provides is more context to the evidence, and in some cases the whole parts of the "proofs" that Effie only gave us parts of. He's only claiming that the acts were consensual, even planned by her, as he tries to prove using communications that Jamie also confirmed to be the actual record.
Why else would Allred drop a high profile client she sought out, and offered her services to? The quote might be unverified, but the events themselves are not up for debate. She refused to sign the affidavit, and after a time Allred dropped her. It's the only reason that Allred would have to drop her at the time. So you have more then an unverified quote to overcome here.
You weren't pointing out the weakness of the tweets, you were pretending that they were the only evidence that Armie gave that he was injured. You're not a doctor, stop trying to diagnose someone based on a recorded TV interview. You'll need to hire your own professional to make such a claim. And it will still be weak because a TV interview is considered a controlled environment, where they're generally doing everything they can to make the interviewee comfortable, and look good. It's a giant PR stunt that will likely take his injuries into account.
The point isn't that Armie Hammer is definitely telling the truth. The point is that, despite so there being so many reasons to have treated the accusations with skepticism, the entire media fell hook-line-and-sinker for the story and seemed completely comfortable parroting flimsy allegations as "the truth."
I agree that the coverage of this story has largely been a disaster and in that sense Kirchick's piece was refreshing, but I do feel like it was a bit quick to dismiss the accuser's version of events. I also feel like some of the research fell short (notably the thing about the pectoral muscle).
The airmail article was nauseatingly sympathetic -- hammer’s had two years to craft a sob story and Jamie fell for a pretty face. Just like a guy...
If you’re going to implicate Jamie’s sex and sexual orientation, then I’ll argue that his experience as a gay man inoculated him against the “believe women” feminist journalists who shamed their straight male colleagues into accepting a deeply flawed narrative.
That’s called JOURNALISM.
Fwiw while I was implicating Kirchick’s sex (biological male), his sexual orientation was incidental. Haven’t you heard Moynahan joke about pretty faces? As to whether gay men are better able to see through false rape allegations, I’m unable to tell if Richard Bradley, who first questioned Rolling Stones’s A Rape on Campus, is gay or straight and despite your assertion, I can’t see why it should matter, because, JOURNALISM.
This entire Armie Hammer saga is fascinating--not just because it involves a fallen celebrity, beautiful women, lots of sex, and fetishes--but because it exposes so many of the inherent contradictions in the cultural phenomena that led to Hammer's demise.
Re: the discussion about men as victims of domestic violence/abuse. Am I crazy or did this tank Lionel Richie’s career? I seem to recall pictures of him with a black eye that his wife gave him, and then he kind of went away. Am I misremembering this?
https://www.thethings.com/brenda-harvey-richie-lionel-first-wife-cheating-scandal/
If witnesses are to be believed, she also dropkicked him in the stomach.
Damn.
Wait, do you always get your ideas from Smoke 'em...? I will have to compare and let you know who did it better!
The Fifthdom will rehab Armie! ⚔️🛡️
What happened to the bass in the intro? Did someone accidentally swap the polarity on one of the stereo channels? I noticed it was busted on episode #395 too.
The War of Balloons has begun...
I know the band Television wasn’t covered in this dispatch, but for the love of all that’s holy I couldn’t let this go unseen.
My Spotify “Television” station dropped this gem right in after “Venus”. For half the song I thought “Jesus these dudes went for it”. Yea, I am drinking.
I want this played at my wake.
https://youtu.be/TviYdb8ED3Y
The mention of Anita Bryant brought to mind a song David Allen Coe recorded in her honor. It’s called “Fuck Anita Bryant,” if anyone is interested. Perhaps obviously, you likely won’t want to listen to it around anyone who doesn’t have a relatively dark and absurd sense of humor. Make of it what you will.
Tell Moynihan that I nominate Come Out Ye Black and Tans by the Maguire Brothers (the best version) for the next members only outro. Say what you want about the tenets of Sinn Féin, they know how to pick an anthem.
Is the 205 victims ‘deep cut’ a reference to the San Francisco press conference? If so, lovely.
F***ing hero on that RT segment.