Reining in the Rainmakers
Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Friday! Megan here, and it's my final day flying solo. Thanks for your continued support this week. Davis is expected to be back at the helm on Monday!
State legislators revisit the chemtrail conversation... Metro Board of Ethical Conduct decides to look into a council member accused of a shakedown... LPRs for Murfreesboro but still no LPRs for you, Nashville… And much more!
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💧 Regulating The Rainmakers State legislators vocalized their continued concerns over chemtrails when speaking with the Tennessee Agriculture Department during a Government Operations Evaluation Committee meeting this week. Representative Monty Fritts (R-Kingston) and Senators Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma) and Rusty Crowe (R-Newbern) all chimed in during discussion about the release of chemicals in the skies above Tennessee.
“It should scare everybody to death that we would allow, any state would allow, the monetization of getting rainfall,” Fritts told us when explaining his line of questioning during the meeting. The Representative, who’s running in next year’s gubernatorial race, is supportive of the role the Department of Ag could help play in addressing these issues. “If indeed we are being rained down on by metals and particles that were put into the atmosphere just to modify the weather, change the climate, or whatever these globalists think, then we may be creating great harm—generational and synergistic harm—to our farmers and our families. And I think we've got to stand up.”
You may recall that Senator Steve Southerland (R-Morristown) and Representative Fritts sponsored the bill that banned any release of chemicals into the atmosphere "with the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of the sunlight.” The legislation, which put restrictions on geoengineering initiatives such as cloud seeding and other particle dispersion, set off a media firestorm. While pundits and Tennessee politicians alike pulled out the tin foil hats—chastising the bill for encouraging chemtrail conspiracy theorists, a myth likened to “Yetis or Sasquatch or Bigfoot”—it passed with a healthy majority vote in both the house and the senate.
As opponents laughed off the legislation as a policy based on the stuff of science fiction, the sponsors received some poetic justice during a House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee when Augustus Doricko, an actual cloud seeder who founded the company Rainmaker, testified before the committee in defense of weather modification. Doricko has since been swept up in some controversy related to the floods in Texas this July. He recently appeared on OAN with Matt Gaetz to express his support of expanding cloud seeding regulations “for the sake of trust, and transparency, and preventing rogue or foreign actors from maliciously modifying the weather.”
💵 Metro Still Probing Potential Shakedown Yesterday, the Metro Board of Ethical Conduct voted to move forward with part of the formal ethics complaint filed against Councilmember Joy Kimbrough. The claims against the North Nashville council member allege that she demanded a local business owner to cough up half a million dollars to gain her support for a project proposal in Bordeaux. Ryan Moses, the owner of the Nashville-based liquor distributor, Best Brands, filed the sworn complaint with Metro's Board of Ethical Conduct.
While Moses insists that Kimbrough “knows what she said and did,” the council member has called the accusations "meritless lies."
"Moses believes that he has family connections that make him untouchable,” Kimbrough said in a formal response. “He is a spoiled, entitled, privileged, unhinged, lying crybaby who...is attempting to besmirch my name."
A hearing is set for October 24, and both sides will be allowed to present their case.
👁 LPRs Granted… In The Next Town Over The Murfreesboro City Council voted to purchase 36 new license plate readers and 26 new video cameras during this week’s meeting. Local supporters and officials hope the $517,000 project will help the city crack down on a recent uptick in crime.
Meanwhile, according to Fox17, some Nashville neighborhoods are fed up with waiting on Metro to install LPRs and have taken matters into their own hands. “You saw what we saw a few months ago where Metro Council couldn’t even get out of committee a resolution of support for the concept,” O’Connell said, pointing the finger at the council during a media roundtable last month. “We want to make sure we’re not creating new classes of victims and so I think it's still trying to find that balance, so we’re continuing to have those conversations and we don’t have decisions or a timeline right now.”
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🎸 Foxwarren @ The Blue Room, 7p, $45.50, Info
🎸 Musicians Corner @ Centennial Park, Free, Info
🪕 Wood Box Heroes @ Station Inn, 9p, $20, Info
🎸 Houndmouth @ Ryman Auditorium, 8p, $41+, Info
🎻 New World Symphony: Opening Weekend with David Robertson @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $29+, Info
🪕 The Cowpokes @ Acme Feed & Seed, 12p, Free, Info
🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelley’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
Saturday, 9/20
🎸 Foxwarren @ The Blue Room, 7p, $45.50, Info
🎻 New World Symphony: Opening Weekend with David Robertson @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7:30p, $29+, Info
🪕 Jackson Hollow @ Station Inn, 9p, $25, Info
🎸 Lorde w/ The Japanese House @ The Pinnacle, 7p, $138+, Info
🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelley’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
Sunday, 9/21
🎸 The Marías @ Ascend Amphitheater, 8p, $127+, Info
🎸 TV On The Radio @ Ryman Auditorium, 8p, Info
🎸 Johnny Marr @ Brooklyn Bowl Nashville, 8p, $52.40+, Info
🎻 New World Symphony: Opening Weekend with David Robertson @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 2p, $29+, Info
🪕 Bluegrass Jam @ Station Inn, 7p, Free, Info
+ a night for musicians and singers from all over the world to gather and enjoy making music together
🪕 Sundays Between with Easy Green @ Tennessee Brew Works, 1p, Info
+ a bluegrass celebration of the music of the Grateful Dead
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik and Camelia Brennan.