Oh Dear God, Tennessee Just Passed a Bill Banning Chemtrails, Which Are Not Real

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(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done and where lights flicker in the opposite loft and in this room, the heat pipes just cough.

We begin in Tennessee, which really is coming up hard on the rail in the race to be the wingnuttiest of wingnut states. From the BBC:

The bill forbids "intentional injection, release, or dispersion" of chemicals into the air. It doesn't explicitly mention chemtrails, which conspiracy theorists believe are poisons spread by planes. Instead it broadly prohibits "affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of the sunlight".

Oh, dear Lord.

Several witnesses who testified before the Tennessee legislature cited debunked conspiracy theories or speculated about secret government geoengineering programmes, according to Scott Banbury, conservation director of the state's branch of the Sierra Club, an environmental organisation. Their claims were troubling, he said.

"As a serious environmental organisation, if what was in the bill was actually going on we would be calling for a stop to it," he said. "It's not happening."

In recent decades speculation about chemtrails has risen as the number of airline flights—and thus the number of contrails—has surged. In the debate over the Tennessee bill, lawmakers and witnesses cited a range of both reliable and debunked facts about geoengineering and weather modification, and at least one witness said she believed the White House was engaged in climate experiments but could not provide definitive proof. I linked to the Beeb's account of this foolishness because it's written with some fairly deft British drollery concerning the eccentricity over here in the colonies.

Although several lawmakers mentioned chemtrails while the bill was being discussed, during Monday's session Mr Fritts focused on cloud seeding. "Everything that goes up must come down, and those chemicals that we knowingly and willingly inject into the atmosphere simply to control the weather or the climate are affecting our health," he said. In a joking response, John Ray Clemmons, a Democrat from Nashville, introduced an amendment that would protect fictional beasts."This amendment would make sure that we are protecting yetis, or Sasquatch or Bigfoot, from whatever this conspiracy is that we're passing in this legislation," he said during debate.

Let's move on to Florida, where failed presidential candidate Governor Ronald DeSantis apparently is going to order all kindergarten classes to remove all the red crayons from their boxes. From the Orlando Sentinel (with thanks to Diane Ravitch for the catch):

State lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the measure (SB 1264) during the 2024 legislative session that ended last month. Under the bill, lessons on the history of communism will be added to required instruction in public schools starting in the 2026-27 school year. The lessons would have to be “age appropriate and developmentally appropriate” and incorporate various topics related to communism, its history in the United States, including tactics used by communists. "Atrocities committed in foreign countries under the guidance of communism,” also would be required as part of the lessons.

Florida schoolchildren must be protected from fictionalized gay penguins, but it is important that they learn about the engineered starvation in the Ukraine in the 1920s and '30s. "Mommy, I made a General Walker out of clay!" And, just for the record, those of us in Catholic school in the early 1960s got plenty of information about the evils of Godless Communism, and too many of us went home as baby McCarthys. Which I guess is the whole point here. And speaking of flashbacks to those halcyon days.

DeSantis signed the bill on the 63rd anniversary of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and was joined at the bill-signing event by people who fought in the invasion in an attempt to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime. Rafael Montalvo, president of Brigade 2506 Veterans Association, was among the people who addressed the event at the Hialeah Gardens Museum. The museum features a building funded through the Florida Department of State to honor “the noble efforts of the 2506 Assault Brigade during the Bay of Pigs Invasion.” “The most important fight against communism is the one that’s done in the schoolrooms,” Montalvo said. “That’s where the battle is happening right now. And this is going to be a tool [giving] us the victory in that area.”