Fringe Factor: Michele Bachmann on Obama's 'End Times' Foreign Policy

It’s The End of the World as We Know It and Michele Bachmann Feels Fine

The End Times are here and it’s all President Obama’s fault. Yes, according to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, thanks to the Obama administration’s decision to enlist the help of certain vetted Syrian rebels not affiliated with any terrorist organization in resisting chemical weapons attacks on civilians, U.S. taxpayers are “now paying to give arms to terrorists including al Qaeda.” Bachmann spouted this evidence of the second coming of Christ on Jan Markell’s Christian radio show, “Understanding the Times.” But Bachmann, whose predicted our spiral into the End of Days before, isn’t exactly mad about it. After all, she believes, it was going to happen sooner or later. “Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand,” she said. “When we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this: that these days would be as the days of Noah.”

John McCain: Al Qaeda Supporter

Speaking of American politicians who support terrorists, Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas took Sen. John McCain to task at the Values Voter Summit in Washington on Friday for being a friend to al Qaeda. Gohmert didn’t call McCain by name, but he referred to “some senator from Arizona” who “liked Gaddafi before he wanted to bomb him, a guy who liked Mubarak before he wanted him out, a guy that’s been to Syria and supported al Qaeda and the rebels.” While McCain did visit Syria in May to meet with rebel leaders, he has adamantly discouraged the U.S. from working with any groups with ties to Islamic extremism. McCain wasn’t the only one subject to attacks from Gohmert at the summit. He also claimed President Obama and Harry Reid were using the government shutdown to make “American people suffer like has never been done in a shutdown before.”

National Parks Are Closed Because Obama is a Nazi

Tensions have been high ever since the government shut down, and it was only a matter of time before someone compared the situation to Nazi Germany. Arizona State Rep. Brenda Barton took it upon herself to be that person, calling on “Constitutional Sheriffs” to arrest National Park Service rangers for keeping parks closed and referring to President Obama as “De Führer” (sic)in a heated Facebook post on Monday. Barton has never been one to keep her feelings about the president a secret. When a rodeo clown came under fire this summer for donning an Obama mask before getting chased by a bull at the Missouri State Fair, Barton wrote on her Facebook page, “I hope rodeo clowns this season all wear Obama masks in solidarity with the guy who lost his job because Barry’s hide is so thin!” When questioned by the Arizona Capitol Times about the Hitler comparison, Barton doubled down. “He’s dictating beyond his authority,” she said. “It’s not just the death camps. [Hitler] started in the communities, with national health care and gun control. You better read your history. Germany started with national health care and gun control before any of that other stuff happened. And Hitler was elected by a majority of people.”

Ted Cruz’s Conspiracy Theories Run Wild at the Values Voter Summit

Amid the government shutdown, debt ceiling and health care debates this week was the conservative Values Voter Summit, and Senator Ted Cruz’s speech could fill two week’s worth of Fringe Factor posts in itself. Lucky for us, Think Progress narrowed down the eight most outrageous things Cruz said. Highlights include his hilarious joke that President Obama’s invitation to Senate Republicans to join him at the White House for debt ceiling negotiations was a secret ploy to have him kidnapped and sent to live with Syrian rebels, his claim that “the media wants America to give up and allow this country to keep sliding off the edge of the cliff,” and the accusation that the Obama administration “seems bound and determined to violate every single one of our bill of rights.” Cruz said he didn’t know “that they have yet violated the Third Amendment, but I expect them to start quartering soldiers in peoples’ homes soon.”

Trucker Rally Organizer: Obama and Osama Are the Same Person

Thousands of truck drivers did not, as promised, block traffic on the Beltway causing mayhem and, as a result, somehow ending the government shutdown. But, amid all the fuss leading up to the D.C. trucker rally that wasn’t, the public had the pleasure of getting to know Zeeda Andrews, the lovely conspiracy theorist co-organizing the protest. When Andrews took to Fox News and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze this week to promote the rally, she also revealed that she is of the belief that President Obama and Osama bin Laden are the same person, that the president is a secret Muslim--likely related to his secret identity as Osama bin Laden--that journalist Michael Hastings was murdered by the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security is stocking up on weapons to kill American citizens and the Boston bombings were a carried out by the government. According to her Facebook page, Andrews enjoys 9-11 conspiracy theory movies including one based on the teachings of David Icke, a British conspiracy theorist known for his belief in a secret race of lizard people who run the world.