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Marjorie Taylor Greene pushes baseless conspiracy theory that ‘they’ can control the weather (www.msnbc.com)

submitted 1 month ago by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/usnews@beehaw.org

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is back to doing what she’s best known for: spreading conspiracy theories.

The Georgia Republican, who infamously boosted a conspiracy theory about Jewish space lasers in 2021, seemingly tried to imply that Hurricane Helene was the product of someone — an ominous but otherwise unidentified “they” — who can control the weather.

Greene wrote on X[itter] late Thursday:

Yes, they can control the weather. It's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done.

[...]

To state it plainly: The idea of weather-inducing technology that’s powerful enough to generate a weaponized hurricane has been debunked by experts. (Is cloud seeding a thing? Yes, but that doesn’t seem to be what’s under discussion here.)

[...]

Together, Greene’s posts certainly give the impression that she thinks Hurricane Helene was the result of some artificial technology to harm Republicans. Which is taking a claim that Donald Trump and others in the GOP have been making — suggesting that federal agencies are deliberately denying aid to Republican residents and giving it to undocumented immigrants instead — and really launching it into the stratosphere, so to speak. For the record, FEMA has denounced and corrected Trump’s claims.

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[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

And jolly old Elon has also something to say about it ...

Pete Buttigieg confronts Elon Musk’s falsehoods about government’s Hurricane Helene relief: ‘Give me a call’

(archived)

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg publicly confronted Elon Musk on Friday, refuting false claims the tech billionaire made about the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene. Musk, who has over 200 million followers on his platform, X (formerly Twitter), accused federal agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, of blocking aid deliveries and obstructing private relief flights to storm-hit areas in North Carolina.

Musk shared a screenshot of a text exchange purportedly with a SpaceX engineer claiming the FAA was “throttling” airspace, preventing helicopters from delivering Starlink internet terminals. Musk labeled the government’s actions as “belligerent government incompetence,” triggering a wave of misinformation on social media.

[...] Buttigieg responded directly to Musk on X, debunking the claims. “No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights,” Buttigieg tweeted. “If you’re encountering a problem, give me a call.”

[Edit typo.]

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 5 points 1 month ago

If there's any original truth to it all, they were probably told to hold the flights in because of all the rescue efforts in the area. Of course, Elon took that personally.