This week in GOP science: Chemtrails, random parasites and a cataclysmic cosmic wave
Two years ago, Colbert skewered Republicans who dodged questions about climate change by saying, “I’m not a scientist.” The Colbert Report host noted, “Everyone who denies climate change has the same stirring message. ‘We don’t know what the [bleep] we’re talking about.’ ”
With that in mind, we present three vignettes from This Week in GOP Science – Granite State edition.
‘Demand the CIA Stop Killing the Planet’
Cynthia Howard, Sullivan County co-chair of the Trump for President campaign, snapped photos and then alerted Infowars’ Alex Jones and the incoming President that she had spotted “chemtrails” in Claremont. “Need to Demand the CIA Stop Killing the Planet & Causing Illness,” the Tea Party activist tweeted.
Conspiracy theorists have long warned that vapor trails similar to those Howard photographed in Claremont are not routine contrails from high-flying aircraft but are the result of chemical or biological agents being deliberately spread by secret government entities.
In directing her message to Jones, Howard is preaching to the choir. Jones says “chemtrails are real” and has suggested Prince and Merle Haggard died from “Chemtrail flu” after publicly voicing their concerns about the phenomenon.
President-elect Trump did not respond to Howard but, given his fierce feud with the CIA over assessments of Russian election hacking, perhaps he’s open to blaming them for poisoning the environment. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” the Trump transition team noted.
‘The battle over Creationism vs Darwinism’
State Rep. Gary Hopper took to Facebook to renew his attack on evolution. “The battle over Creationism vs Darwinism is the battle between the idea that God Created you for a reason or you are no more than a random parasite living for an instant in an indifferent universe,” he wrote. “Our schools are teaching our children how pointless their lives are.”
Hopper made national headlines five years ago when he and Rep. John Burt introduced legislation that would have effectively required the state’s public schools to teach creationism along with evolution. “Darwin’s theory is basically antiquated,” he told a reporter for the Nashua Telegraph.
This week, the Weare Republican shared a link to a film by Ben Stein that essentially blames Charles Darwin for Nazism – a movie that the director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania called “contemptible.”
In a commentary for NBC News, Dr. Arthur Caplan wrote, “To lay blame for the Holocaust upon Charles Darwin is to engage in a form of Holocaust denial that should forever make Ben Stein the subject of scorn not because of his nudnik concern that evolution somehow undermines morality but because in this contemptible movie he is willing to subvert the key reason why the Holocaust took place — racism — to serve his own ideological end.”
‘Alert Alert!’
This week, former New Hampshire Republican Party chair and gubernatorial candidate Jack Kimball took a break from sharing fake political news (“Obama’s Kids Are Adopted!!! I Found The Real Parents!!!” and “#PizzaGate: 100’s of CHILDREN MISSING IN VIRGINIA“ are just two examples) to share some fake science news.
Kimball posted multiple messages and shared several videos on his Facebook page warning of a cataclysmic cosmic wave that will hit earth the day after Christmas. “Incoming Gamma Rays due to a super nova event, due to hit earth on Dec. 26th,” he wrote. “Alert Alert!”
“Folks, I’m trying as hard as I can to warn you!” Kimball added. “Ignore it at your own peril. Plenty of credible info out there. Check for yourselves!”
The story apparently grew out of reporting on a legitimate scientific study that concluded a flare seen from 3.8 billion light-years away may have been the result of a rare cosmic collision in which a star was ripped apart as it passed by a rapidly spinning black hole.
One of Kimball’s “credible sources,” who claimed the galactic event released “large waves of energy” that will create catastrophic events on earth, related the cosmic wave to bible prophecy.
“We are living in the last days,” the narrator explained. “And so you’re going to begin to see earthquakes in diverse places just like Jesus said. Radiation from these waves are gong to start to create large droughts. It’s going to start frying some of the grass, some of the vegetation, even some of the trees may start to burn up. There is also coming, incoming, brimstone…”