Well, I have returned from my ‘mini-vacation’ well-rested, both mentally and physically, recharged and ready to get back into the saddle.  But … I cannot seem to find my saddle!  After an hour of perusing the ‘Trump news’, I concluded there is much going on, and yet nothing has really changed.  Every story I read leaves me shaking my head and thinking, “okay, but what’s new?”  So ….. after some consideration, and this one idiot that keeps flitting across my radar, making me want to swat him like a mosquito, I have decided to do an Idiot of the Week today!  Those are always fun, though they often make me growl and grumble, but such is the way of a curmudgeon.

Remember Pizzagate?    Well, though there are many who were guilty of propagating the myth that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in the backrooms of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C., the man who dreamed up the faux news story was one Mike Cernovich.  I had never heard the name until recently, but apparently this man has been working his way toward the Idiot of the Week award for quite some time now.

Cernovich allegedly obtained a law degree from  the University of Illinois, Pepperdine University School of Law, though I have my doubts.  Why is it that so many of my idiots have law degrees (think Michele Bachmann) … I always thought earning a J.D. was a pretty tough thing, but these days I wonder.  Anyway, in 2012, Cernovich started a website he calls Danger & Play, which began benignly enough, focused mainly on self-improvement.  And then, in 2016, along came Trump, and Cernovich found his niche.

Described as a member of the alt-right (haters of all things not lily-white, male & Christian), he switched his focus to pro-Donald Trump and anti-Hillary Clinton commentary. That, in itself, would not have been extraordinary, nor would it have landed him squarely on my radar.  What does bring him into the limelight, however, is his made-up, blatantly false stories … stories that were seen by many who then spread the lies and hate until … well, Pizzagate where a man with a gun, believing the lie, shot up a pizza place where people were dining and it is nothing short of a miracle that nobody was killed.  Personally, I think this in itself should have earned Cernovich a jail sentence, but let us look back a bit …

• He started the (false) rumour that Hillary Clinton suffered from seizures and Parkinson’s Disease, a rumour that was embraced by Trump, his campaign, and became a #1 trending topic on Twitter.

• Cernovich advocates IQ-testing for all immigrants and ending federal funding of universities.

A few words from the man himself::

• “To beat a person, you lower his or her social status. Logic is pointless,”

• “What are Trump’s policies? I don’t particularly care.”

• “If Trump offends you, it’s because you live in a cucked world where no one speaks their minds.”

• “I haven’t washed my hair in years, and it’s luxurious. Shampoo is another hoax spread by the media.”

• “Have you guys ever tried ‘raping’ a girl without using force? Try it. It’s basically impossible. Date rape does not exist.”

• Of the baby girl he and his wife are expecting, he says, “I’ll be nice to her, as long as she’s not a basic bitch”.

• “Yes, I’m banned from TV. I was too effective a Trump supporter …”

He has many other utterances that further highlight his idiocy, but they are extremely lewd and highly offensive, thus I refuse to give them a voice on this blog.

None of this, however, is what put him onto my radar.  What did is the fact that Donald Trump, Jr., the killer of wild animals, claims that Cernovich should win a Pulitzer Prize for his “journalism”.  And equally disturbing, Trump mouthpiece and herself a former recipient of the Idiot of the Week award, Kellyanne Conway, agrees!  Even Mike Flynn, short-time NSA Director, has praised Cernovich.  The story that led to all this high praise is as follows:

On Sunday, In what is largely considered a continuation of Trump’s fanatically paranoid claims that President Obama ‘wiretapped’ his phones, Cernovich claimed that former National Security Adviser Susan Rice “unmasked” the identities of Americans connected with President Trump’s campaign and transition who were mentioned in foreign surveillance intelligence reports.  Just as with the wiretapping claim, Pizzagate, and rumours of Hillary’s health, the right took the ball and ran with it. Senator Rand Paul called it “a smoking gun”, while Senator Tom Cotton referred to Rice as “Typhoid Mary”.

According to both The Washington Post and the New York Times, there is, first off, zero evidence that such an “unmasking” ever occurred, and secondly, even if it did, as President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, she could very well have had legitimate reasons to ask to unmask individuals in these intelligence reports.  There is no smoking gun, plain and simple, but this, like the false wiretapping claim, is a useful (for Trump) distraction from the ongoing and expanding investigations and discoveries regarding Trump’s shady connections to the Russian government.

For there to be a suggestion that somebody like Cernovich should be awarded a Pulitzer Prize is a slap in the face to genuine journalists such as Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof, and many others who have earned the prize in years past for excellence in journalism.  If Cernovich should be considered for an Pulitzer, it should be in the category of ‘fiction’, but even at that … his writing just is not that good.

Cernovich has actually written and published three books:

• Gorilla Mindset: How to Control Your Thoughts and Emotions and Live Life on Your Terms (2015)
• MAGA Mindset: Making YOU and America Great Again (2016)
• Danger & Play: Essays on Masculinity (2015)

Perhaps what most qualifies Cernovich for the award is the fact that he takes himself so seriously, appears to actually believe that he is a hero of some sort, and sees himself as “committed to bringing you the best news and journalism, and my “beat” primarily focused on exposing the fake news media,” as per his Facebook page.

No surprise, right?

One final note:  Cernovich has emphasized the importance of simplicity in social media commentary, noting that when he made his posts “too complex”, none of it got “through to people”. Could it be because of the mental caliber of the people he is trying to reach?

And so, Mr. Mike Cernovich, I hereby name you this week’s recipient of Filosofa’s Idiot of the Week award!!!  No thanks are necessary, and you have certainly earned it with your lies, deceit, arrogance, and all your alt-right phobias!