Missouri State Rep Mocks Common Core Opponents, Appropriates $8 for Aluminum for Tin Foil Hats

On Wednesday, the chairman of the Missouri state House Appropriations Committee on Education inserted a provision into the budget for K-12 education that included $8 for aluminum for tin foil hats for the purpose of mocking lawmakers opposed to the Common Core standards by characterizing them as paranoid.

According to Missourinet.com, Representative Mike Lair (R-Chillicothe) inserted the provision of $8 “for two rolls of high-density aluminum to create headgear designed to deflect drone and/or black helicopter mind reading and control technology.”

Lair, noting legislation that had been filed that would limit the sharing of data and prevent the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) from mandating curriculum or textbooks, told his committee, “When you deal with conspiracy theorists, you do logic first. If you can’t deal with folks with logic, I always felt you use humor.”

Lair’s “humor,” however, may have backfired on him, as a photo Wednesday night on Twitter showed his House chamber desk, along with his chair, laptop, voting box, and microphone stand covered in tin foil.

Anyone care to guess who’s desk this is? #CommonCore #moleg #molegafterdark pic.twitter.com/wouDssIFuF

— Professor Messer (@abemesser) February 20, 2014

The appropriation bill that contains the $8 for tin foil goes to the full Missouri House Budget Committee for consideration.

Ryan Johnson of the Missouri Alliance for Freedom posted an article about Lair’s tin foil hat mockery from The Missouri Torch on Lair’s Facebook page, and commented, “I don’t even think this would happen in student government association at a university, but it happened in your Missouri State House of Representatives. These kinds of games are beneath Rep. Mike Lair’s office. Inappropriate and insulating [sic].”

On Thursday, the state House Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education heard a bill sponsored by Rep. Kurt Bahr (R-St. Charles) that would bar the State Board of Education from adopting, and DESE from implementing, the Common Core State Standards. The proposed legislation would void all actions taken to adopt the Common Core after its effective date, August 28, and would make any statewide education standard subject to the approval of the General Assembly.

Photo Credit: Twitter/MOMOMSNOCOMMONCORE