Ordinarily, with a story like this, I’d just shake my head in disgust and move on, but given recent events, I’m inclined to give it a little more attention.
Conspiracy theorist radio host Alex Jones explained to his audience today how the government could have been behind the devastating May 20 tornado in Oklahoma.
On the May 21 edition of The Alex Jones Show, a caller asked Jones whether he was planning to cover how government technology may be behind a recent spate of sinkholes. After laying out how insurance companies use weather modification to avoid having to pay ski resorts for lack of snow, Jones said that “of course there’s weather weapon stuff going on — we had floods in Texas like 15 years ago, killed 30-something people in one night. Turned out it was the Air Force.”
Following a long tangent, Jones returned to the caller’s subject. While he explained that “natural tornadoes” do exist and that he’s not sure if a government “weather weapon” was involved in the Oklahoma disaster, Jones warned nonetheless that the government “can create and steer groups of tornadoes.”
How can tornado truthers know for sure whether the Obama administration was responsible for yesterday’s devastation in Oklahoma? According to Jones, we need to know whether locals saw helicopters and small aircraft “in and around the clouds, spraying and doing things.” He added, “[I]f you saw that, you better bet your bottom dollar they did this.” Jones, ever cautious, went on to say he does not yet know whether yesterday was a natural disaster or not. How reassuring.
Now, I realize that fringe figures are going to share nutty ideas all the time, and it was probably inevitable that some nonsensical allegations about the Oklahoma tornado would pop up. I didn’t realize “weather weapons” would be part of the story, but there’s probably no reason to be surprised.
This caught my eye, however, because of recent developments — we’ve seen Republican officeholders in state legislatures, the U.S. House, and even the U.S. Senate take Alex Jones’ ideas seriously. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) intends to run for president — of the United States — and he’s been a guest on Alex Jones’ show.
In other words, the guy raising the specter of Obama using “weather weapons” to kill Oklahomans is the same guy helping influence several Republican policymakers in 2013.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find that rather alarming.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."