As Texas grapples with the aftermath of the July Fourth flash flood that ravaged Kerr County and claimed more than 100 lives, a Georgia Republican is proclaiming it a hoax.
Georgia GOP candidate Kandiss Taylor took to X the day after the tragedy to fuel a conspiracy theory that’s gaining traction in the far-right fringe. “Fake, fake, fake,” she wrote, saying, “Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding.”
She then followed up her initial post with another zinger:
“FAKE WEATHER. REAL DAMAGE. Hurricane Helene left me powerless for 16 days & caused $57K in damage. This isn’t just ‘climate change.’ It’s cloud seeding, geoengineering, & manipulation,” she conjectured. Both of her posts were quickly slapped with “community notes” on X, with commenters citing insufficient evidence for her claims. However, Taylor continued down the conspiracy path and highlighted a post by The Patriot Voice on X that implied the weather was being manipulated to orchestrate a $175 million “land grab” in the affected area.
“Kerrville, Texas city council just recently approved construction of a $175 Million Natural Gas Power Plant. Out of curiosity, I looked to see if there were any ‘smart city’ or major construction projects slated for Kerrville, Texas in the near future… Lo and behold…” wrote The Patriot Voice.
Taylor ran for governor of Georgia in 2022, campaigning on the slogan “Jesus, Guns and Babies.” She came in third with 3 percent of the vote but refused to concede, claiming the election was rigged. Now she’s “ready to go to D.C. and blow some things up,” she said about her 2026 congressional bid on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast in February.
Her conspiracy theory is certainly blowing up on social media.
“Seek professional help you nutcase,” the anonymous account @JustTheFacts_68 posted to their nearly 26,000 followers.
“This is why stupid tinfoil people need to be afraid to speak. We don’t need to hear from the mentally less capable like yourself,” wrote another critic, echoing the sentiment of many online.
Even Emmy-winning producers are weighing in. Howard Gerwitz (of “Taxi” fame) posted, “God help us if an ignorant, vicious moron like you disgraces our Congress.”
But Taylor has supporters in high places. A fellow outspoken politician from Georgia has jumped on the conspiracy bandwagon, making her own announcement on July 5 after the Texas flooding disaster. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she would introduce legislation to prevent government “weather modification and geoengineering.”
She wrote on X that she has been researching weather modification for months, and her bill would “prohibit the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity. It will be a felony offense.”
“No person, company, entity, or government should ever be allowed to modify our weather by any means possible!!” she exclaimed.
Many point out in the comments of her post, including former MSNBC host and political commentator Keith Olbermann, that the Trump administration recently slashed weather forecasting budgets and cut NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) — perhaps that’s the reason why the sheer severity of the flood was so unexpected. Another quipped, “You lost me at ‘I have been researching.’”
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