Idiot of the week? Let's start there. "Dr" Naomi Wolf. She got her doctorate and turned her thesis into her book. Would you like to buy that book and see what she wrote about?
YOU CAN'T!
She got all her facts wrong and the publisher pulled the book and pulped it.
Yet Oxford let's her keep the doctorate. Shoddy scholarship doesn't matter to Oxford.
She's a crackpot.
In 2021, Liza Featherstone (NEW REPUBLIC) noted:
With each subsequent decade, Wolf has injected a little more madness into the cesspool of weird that we sometimes call “the discourse.” In 2012, she wrote a silly book all about her vagina and not much else: Vagina: A New Biography. (The less said about it the better.) Her most recent book, Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love, about the relationship between the repression of homosexuality and societal attitudes toward divorce and prostitution, came out in 2019; a central argument was based on a historical error so embarrassing that the publisher was forced to unpublish it. (Wolf misunderstood the term “death recorded” to mean that a convict had been executed, when in fact it means the person was pardoned or their sentence commuted.) Still, to fangirl is pleasurable, and for that reason I preferred not to examine my youthful icons too carefully. Remaining loyal to the Naomi Wolf of the early 1990s, I chose to ignore her present-day existence for years. That is, until her recent turn to anti-vax insanity.
Wolf has tweeted that she overheard an Apple employee (who had attended a “top secret demo”) describing vaccine technology that can enable time travel. She has posited that vaccinated people’s urine and feces should be separated in our sewage system until their contaminating effect on our drinking water has been studied. She fears that while pro-vaccine propaganda has emphasized the danger the unvaccinated pose to the vaccinated, we have overlooked how toxic the vaccinated might be. And as the journalist Eoin Higgins reports, she is headlining an anti-vaccination “Juneteenth” event this month in upstate New York. (Yes, the organizers chose that date to suggest that vaccines are slavery.)
Wolf’s views on vaccines led Twitter to ban her from the platform for peddling misinformation. I don’t think anyone should be banned from Twitter for this reason: What counts as “fake news” can be a matter on which reasonable people may disagree, and I’m sure Twitter’s view of the world doesn’t much resemble mine, either. Still, at least three or four people I love hold ludicrous beliefs about the Covid-19 vaccines, the result entirely of internet conspiracy-mongering. I don’t take the matter lightly. When a public intellectual declines this far, we need to ask: Was she always full of shit?
Also in 2021, WE HUNTED MAMMOTH noted:
When you or I look at the sky on a typical day, we see clouds and maybe contrails; Wolf sees a “geoengineered” nightmare of fake clouds with square edges and discolored rainbows generated by secret weather-manipulating machines funded by Bill Gates and others.
She festoons her tweets with photos that might look to you like unexceptional snapshots of perfectly ordinary clouds but that she sees as PROOF that someone is fiddling with our skies.
Yeah, get right on that, Governor Cuomo.
You too, DiBlasio!
But it’s not just New York city that has the weird clouds. The perpathetic Dr. Wollf wants you to know that the clouds in Gettysburg, PA, are also real pieces of shit.
She’s so obsessed with this cloud stuff that she’s finds herself pondering artificial weather while at the beauty salon: If little lasers can tighten your skin just imagine what big lasers could do in the sky!
Some of her friends seem to be telling her to op-stay ith-way e-they oud-clay ictures-pay.
Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why you had to hide away.
The following tweets, suggesting that there are stationary clouds that don’t move with the wind makes me wonder if perhaps Dr. Wolf is on acid.
One time lefty Naomi Wolf has been deranged for many years and she's moved to the right over a decade's time. She's a loon. She champions the racists and the homophobic Moms For Bigotry (they call themselves Moms For Liberty). She's rooting for nut job Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be president. She's a hate merchant who is nuts.
She's added "Deplatformed 7 times and still right" to her Twitter bio -- she better mean "still right wing." Because she hasn't been right about anything in decades. She's a nut job and she's this week's Idiot of the Week.
He's short and he's got a short fuse. Who could that be but Doo-Doo Ron Ron DeSantis. Gerrard Kaonga (NEWSWEEK) reports:
DeSantis, who is running for president, defended changes to Florida's newly passed school curriculum on how students will be taught Black history and slavery in particular.
The Florida Board of Education's new set of standards on how Black history is taught in public schools has faced criticism from both education and civil rights advocates.
The new standards require instruction for middle school students to include "how slaves developed skills, which in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit," according to a document listing the standards. Critics have argued that this statement suggests there were positives to being enslaved and have called for students to be allowed to learn the full truth of American history and the atrocities of slavery.
The choice was a routine one — Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, haven’t regularly flown commercial for years — but also symbolic to close observers of his struggling presidential campaign. As Mr. DeSantis promises a reset, setting out on Thursday on a bus tour in Iowa to show off a leaner, hungrier operation, several donors and allies remained skeptical about whether the governor could right the ship.
Publicly, the parties are projecting a stoic sunniness about Mr. DeSantis, even as he has sunk dangerously close to third place in some recent polls. They have said they are moving into an “insurgent” phase in which the candidate will be everywhere — on national and local media, and especially in Iowa.
But privately, the situation is starkly different.
Major Republican donors, including the hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin, have remained on the sidelines because they are disappointed in his performance and his campaign, according to two people familiar with their thinking.
DeSantis donors have specifically raised concerns about the campaign’s finances, which appear both troubling and persistently opaque. Some prominent vendors did not show up on the first Federal Election Commission report, raising questions about how much of the spending has been deferred and whether the campaign’s total reported cash on hand for the primary — $9.2 million — was even close to accurate.
The campaign’s concerning financial situation prompted an all-hands review of the budget in recent weeks. This review extended to James Uthmeier, the chief of staff in the governor’s office and a longtime trusted aide. Mr. Uthmeier recently received a personal briefing on the campaign’s finances from an official, Ethan Eilon, with the blessing of campaign manager Generra Peck, and then delivered an assessment to the governor, according to two people briefed on the conversations.
Youngkin’s approval rating just hit an all-time high, according to a recent poll in which 57% of Virginia voters said they approved of their governor’s job performance. The same survey found DeSantis’s popularity had slipped between the start of the year and this summer, with his approval rating dropping four points among Florida Republicans and two points among all voters in the state.
This favorability, along with Youngkin’s record-breaking fundraising efforts, have upped speculation about a 2024 presidential campaign. And some party leaders are increasingly hopeful.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
A widely held view among Iraqis is that the US helped ISIS grow in Iraq and Syria to weaken and divide both countries. The US then sought to maintain influence in Iraq by joining the fight against ISIS once it was initiated by the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) and the Iraqi army, with the strong support of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
ISIS was defeated and lost its territory in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019. However, remnants of the group remain and carry out attacks from time to time in both countries.
US officials cite the ongoing presence of ISIS as a pretext to maintain forces in both Iraq and Syria.
Currently, there are nearly 3,500 US troops and coalition troops in Iraq who train and advise local security forces.
The US coalition forces are stationed at bases shared by the Iraqi military, including the Ain al-Asad base in Anbar, Camp Victory near Baghdad's international airport, and Harir airbase in Erbil, the IKR capital.
Dozens of people protested in front of the Central Bank of Iraq in Baghdad and bank owners called for official action to stem a sharp increase in the dollar exchange rate Wednesday, after the United States blacklisted 14 Iraqi banks.
Over the past two days, the market rate of the dollar jumped from 1,470 dinar per dollar to 1,570 dinar per dollar. The jump came after the US listed 14 private Iraqi banks among banks that are banned from dealing with US dollars due to suspicions of money laundering and funneling funds to Iran.
The currency fell after new action by the US government to curb the flow of dollars to sanctioned Iran. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the US Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York barred 14 Iraqi banks from dollar transactions. Restriction on US dollars limit the currency's supply, thus boosting its value against the dinar.
The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York did not respond to Al-Monitor’s request for comment.
The Central Bank of Iraq issued a statement in response to the news, saying the barred banks can still conduct business in Iraqi dinars. The Central Bank also said that these banks only constitute 8% of foreign transfers, according to a statement.
The dinar’s depreciation led to protests in Baghdad outside the central bank on Wednesday, with people demanding government intervention to prevent the currency from falling further.
And it’s notable that some awfully famous images of rioters attacking an iconic American landmark, desecrating the American flag and spitting on cops — those from Jan. 6 — didn’t make the cut.
Asked if he would play the song even after the controversy, Aldean took refuge in the familiar pose of victimhood. Because he’s being criticized, he thinks he’s being “canceled.” Gushing about his “bada—” fans, he whined that “Cancel culture is a thing ... which means try and ruin your life, ruin everything.” Of course he would perform the song, he declared, because “the people have spoken and you guys spoke very very loudly.” So matters of decency get decided by plebiscite?
Look, Aldean imagines that he is merely standing up for the “feeling of a community that I had growing up.” But if he really was raised with good values, where is the fellow feeling? Where is the sense of community with other Americans who may not be from the same town but are just as worthy of respect and consideration as his high school buddies? If this were really a call to community, he would have included at least one or two images of Americans who weren’t white or rural. Don’t we expect all Americans to honor their neighbors and compatriots? Isn’t that part of what being “raised up right” includes? Don’t rural people reach into their wallets when hurricanes or tornadoes hit cities and vice versa?
Aldean’s defense is fatuous. The music video is belligerent and divisive. In this age of ugly partisanship, the cheapest clicks can be purchased with us-vs.them incitement. It’s unworthy. Don’t try that in a good country.
When conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. isn’t busy spouting racist and antisemitic trash, he can be found campaigning for a clearly doomed 2024 Presidential nomination. And the way he’s doing it…not exactly the most creative approach.
Over the weekend, RFK Jr. spent some quality birthday time with his son Conor, who recently celebrated his 28th birthday. But while Kennedy Jr.’s blatant attempt to cash in on his son’s abs might seem like an obvious move out of the wacko candidate’s playbook, it’s not quite working as intended.
Let’s be clear: Conor is a fine-looking gentleman, and yes, those abs could certainly have launched a thousand ships in a simpler time—in fact it’s rumored that Taylor Swift’s 2012 Red track “Begin Again” was written about the socialite. Still: nobody’s biting, and for good reason.
Basically…it’s giving classless. It’s giving desperate. It’s giving…please just stop.
+ RKF, Jr. during his “Combatting Antisemitism, Championing Israel” event in New York City: “Israel has…Israel is not going to use their nuclear weapon unless they’re attacked and we know that.” In fact, I’m pretty sure we don’t know that.
+ Every nuclear state is a terrorist state, using the threat of its arsenal to bully non-nuclear states into submission. Moreover, Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s nuclear power plant in 1981 was a kind of nuclear strike, given the amount of highly-enriched uranium released by the attack.
+ At nearly the same time RFK, Jr. was “championing Israel,” Tamir Pardo, the former head of Mossad, told an Israeli radio station that the Israeli right is similar to the KKK. Pardo said that many of the Israeli government’s legislative initiatives are tantamount to “antisemitic laws,” and would be labeled as such were they passed in any other country.
+ RFK, Jr. to Greta Van Susteren: “I’m the only one who has called for Biden to retract the $2 billion payment he’s giving to Iran, which you know will be used for genocidal purposes.” How can Dennis Kucinich continue to front for this maniac?
[. . .]
+ Ron DeSantis has now fired one-third of his paid campaign staff. Among the terminated was Nate Hochman, the communications staffer who made and Tweeted out a pro-DeSantis video with Nazi imagery.
+ People generally like their kid’s school, which may be one reason the smoke from DeSantis’s scorched-earth campaign against them is blowing back in his face. According to a recent Gallup poll, 80% of parents said they were somewhat or completely satisfied with their child’s school, which in most cases was public. This approval rating was actually a little higher than in most years before the pandemic.
+ As part of its public school “turnaround” vision plan, the Houston Independent School District–the largest in Texas– is shutting down 28 school libraries and turning them into disciplinary centers.
+ Eleven paragraphs deep into Nicholas Kristof’s interminable NYT column arguing that legacy admissions for the offspring of privileged elites aren’t a problem, we are confronted by this staggering parenthetical admission: “(Conflict alert: I was a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers and my wife, Sheryl WuDunn, is currently a member and previously served on the Princeton and Cornell boards; our three children also attended Harvard.)” I wonder how many people leapt that hurdle and kept reading for any reason other than the laughs, which, otherwise, come so infrequently in his writing.
+ Political punditry is the sub-basement of journalism. For a year or more, the opinion pages were flush with columns promoting DeSantis as the rational alternative to Trump, when really his only political skill is his viciousness. Even Trump could occasionally feign compassion. Now DeSantis is getting whacked by Christian conservatives for assailing Trump’s meagre criminal justice reforms.
+ DeSantis said this week that while he wouldn’t pick RFK Jr as a running mate, he would consider him to be in charge of the FDA or CDC “if he’d be willing to serve.” Maybe DeSantis will tap Ammon Bundy to run the BLM…Looks like he’s going to need the money.
Lastly, let's see what all the attacks from Ron DeSantis, MTG, Lauren Boebert, Jonathan Turley, Matt Taibbi, Moms For Bigotry and so many more are now resulting in. Caroline Radnofsky and Colin Sheeley and Eric Carvin (NBC NEWS) report:
A passerby spotted flames coming from the Community Unitarian Universalist Church early Sunday, Plano Fire-Rescue said in a statement. The fire was around the front door and was extinguished quickly, causing no injuries, it said.
The department is leading the criminal investigation into the fire, with the city's police department working on its own investigation, authorities told NBC News.
The church called the incident "a firebomb attack" in a statement on its Facebook page, saying "an incendiary device with a chemical accelerant was thrown or placed at the front doors of the main church building."
"Church officials have been reviewing building security and working with the Plano Police Department since the intrusion of a hate group in the church building during and after Worship Service on Sunday, June 25. That group has posted video of their activities inside the church on various social media sites."
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