Obama and Clinton watch as Chris Stevens' remains are returned to the U.S. (Photo: Getty)

Last week, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) — himself an ardent proponent of several conspiracy theories — said that the investigation on what happened in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya will lead to articles of impeachment being filed against Obama. Inhofe claimed that Benghazi would prove to be the “most egregious” cover-up in history — worse than the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and Iran-Contra.

There is to date zero evidence that President Obama committed any crimes regarding Benghazi. But rather than relegating Inhofe’s statement to the fringe where it belongs, the majority of Sunday shows’ anchors chose to ask their guests to comment on it:

CNN’s RELIABLE SOURCES

HOWARD KURTZ: Well, at the same time, Margaret Carlson, have some conservative outlets hiked this into crusade with talk of impeachment?

CNN’s STATE OF THE UNION

CANDY CROWLEY: That’s pretty big. Do you see something in Benghazi either in the handling before, during, or after with the talking points that were scrubbed that the i-word, the impeachment word should come up?

ABC’S THIS WEEK

MARTHA RADDITZ: Let’s look at what happened because of the e-mails. Tom Pickering said the idea of a cover-up is absurd. Stephen King, Republican from Iowa, said it was bigger than Watergate. And this is what James Inhofe said

Despite the anchors’ best efforts, the guests themselves pushed back, refusing to go along with attempts to goad them into joining Inhofe’s belief in a future impeachment. “You know, they’ve been looking for Watergate for so long that, you know, they went too far on Benghazi,” said Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson to Kurtz. Even ardent believer in a Benghazi cover-up Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) demurred when faced with Inhofe’s comments. “With all due respect, I think this is a serious issue. I will even give the president the benefit of the doubt on some of these things,” McCain told Raddatz.

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A John Birch Society-sponsored sign (Credit: Wikimedia)

The John Birch Society, a nativist organization founded in the 1950s, is famous for opposing the Civil Rights movement and espousing other far-right views, including that President Eisenhower was a communist infiltrator and Nelson Mandela is “a communist terrorist thug.” The John Birch Society’s views are so far right, in fact, that even conservative icon William F. Buckley denounced the group as “idiotic” and “paranoid.”

Their longtime foe, the United Nations, in 1992 passed a series of non-binding recommendations related to developing resources in a way that can be sustained across generations. The phrase that these documents created — sustainable development — has become a code-word for right-wing black helicopter conspiracies.

By targeting these recommendations, the sinister sounding “Agenda 21,” the Birchers have found a way to promote their views under the guise of protecting the American people from the United Nations stealing away their property. Missouri became the latest state to pass just such a law on Wednesday, sending SB265 to Gov. Jay Nixon (D) for his signature. Under the provisions of SB265, the Missouri government is banned from passing any future laws that would fall under the scope of Agenda:

Neither the state of Missouri nor any political subdivision shall adopt or implement policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in, or traceable to Agenda 21, adopted by the United Nations in 1992 at its Conference on Environment and Development or any other international law or ancillary plan of action that contravenes the Constitution of the United States or the Missouri Constitution.

The Missouri draft closely mirrors draft anti-Agenda 21 legislation in Oklahoma that was pulled following a local scandal. ThinkProgress contacted the office of State Sen. Patrick Anderson (R) who sponsored the Oklahoma bill and was told that the language was based almost entirely on a law passed in Alabama. Jerry Bassett, the Director of the Alabama Legislative Reference Service, told ThinkProgress that while he could not tell us who the original drafter of the bill was, the member who brought it forward had the bill completely typed and ready when he did. Bassett also told ThinkProgress the original copy of the bill, still in the LRS’ files, has the words “Tea Party bill” written on it.
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Sooner Tea Party co-founder Al Gerhart

At issue is paranoia-induced anti-U.N. House Bill 1412 and its current status languishing in the Senate’s Energy Committee, much to the chagrin of the Sooner Tea Party. The delay after the Oklahoma House of Representative passed the bill — which spans all of two weeks — prompted Sooner Tea Party co-founder Al Gerhart to send an email to Energy Committee Chair Sen. Cliff Branan to voice his displeasure:

Misspelling one word, Gerhart wrote: “Get that bill heard or I will make sure you regret not doing it. I will make you the laughing stock of the Senate if I don’t hear that this bill will be heard and passed. We will dig into your past, yoru [sic] family, your associates and once we start on you there will be no end to it. This is a promise.”

Due to the reference to his family, Sen. Branan (R-Oklahoma City) passed the email on to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol captain stationed at the Capitol, who then forwarded it to the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation. After the OBI concludes its investigation, it will pass on its findings to the Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater, who will make a decision on whether to prosecute Gerhart for blackmail. In his interview with The Oklahoman, Gerhart defended his actions, accusing of the government of “harassing him” for “making them look bad.”

The Energy Committee will next meet on Thursday, at which point Branan may ultimately decide to have the bill heard like Gerhart wants. Attempts to reach Branan’s office via phone and email did not receive an immediate response, leaving it unclear whether the Republican senator supports the measure or its goals.

So what is this all-important topic of the legislation Branan is supposedly keeping from passing? House Bill 1412 specifically bans the state of Oklahoma and all of its cities and counties from taking part in any action that would advance the cryptic-sounding “Agenda 21.” In reality, Agenda 21 is a series of completely non-binding United Nations recommendations about how to better use natural resources in the course of promoting development. The term created in these recommendations — “sustainable development” — has become a right-wing code-word for black helicopter conspiracies of the U.N. dictating to the U.S. on how it can use its land and revoking private property ownership.

Oklahoma isn’t alone in advancing this type of legislation: Indiana, Georgia, and Arizona have all considered or passed laws banning Agenda 21. Due to the wording of the text, however, the Oklahoma Legislature could be restricting far more than they intend with this bill. Particularly troubling is the final operative clause in the version the House passed:

C. Since the United Nations has accredited or enlisted numerous nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations to assist in the implementation of its policies relative to United Nations Agenda 21/Sustainable Development around the world, the state and all political subdivisions of the state shall not enter into any agreement, expend any sum of money, receive funds contracting services or give financial aid to or from any nongovernmental or intergovernmental organizations accredited or enlisted by the United Nations.

The lack of a definition of “accredited” leaves the term up for interpretation, including a reading that would make bodies such as the International Red Cross — which has a seat at the U.N. as an Observer — unable to receive any funding from the state of Oklahoma. That would go beyond the non-existent impact to the nation’s golf courses that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned about, making this Tea Party-backed bill possibly more dangerous than the supposed threat its meant to counter.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

At the sometimes heated Senate hearings into the causes of the attack last Wednesday, Paul surprised many by using his time to ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton whether the United States was shipping Libyan arms to Turkey. “To Turkey? I will have to take that question for the record. Nobody has ever raised that with me,” Clinton replied at the time.

That answer seems not to have satisfied Paul, who took his concerns to the World Net Daily website in an exclusive interview:

In an interview with WND, the senator said his “suspicion, although I don’t have any proof, is that guns were being smuggled out of Libya, through Turkey and into Syria.”

“And that may be what the CIA annex was doing there,” Paul said, “and the coverup was an attempt to massage and get over this issue without getting into the gun trade.”

Known for being a hub of the “birther” conspiracy against President Barack Obama, among other choice theories, WND is a natural choice to publish Paul’s baseless concerns. WND also was the source of a unverified report late last week that an explosion at an Iranian nuclear plant was being completely covered up. The Obama administration was forced to respond to that claim yesterday, with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney saying, “We have no information to confirm the allegations in the report and we do not believe the report is credible.”

While the New York Times has previously reported that U.S. agents are on the ground in the countries neighboring Syria to help investigate the recipients of arms from Gulf state allies, the charges that Paul are making are different. Instead, the theory Paul is peddling says that the CIA annex in Benghazi was involved in not only rounding up loose arms following the fall of Moamar Qaddafi, but secretly smuggling them to rebel forces in Syria. In the theory, the reason Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack, was in Benghazi on Sept. 11 was to help facilitate the movement of these arms.