There’s Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, an anti-abortion rights group based in Los Angeles that considers every child born after Jan. 22, 1973 — when abortion became legal — to be a “survivor of the abortion holocaust.” Texas-based Life Dynamics has likened Planned Parenthood clinics to “death camps.” Most controversially, in 2005, Pope John Paul II was criticized for comparing the Holocaust to abortion in his book Memory and Identity, in which he said abortion and the massacre on Jews and other groups during World War II are both the result of governments clashing with divine law.

Pushing the Holocaust metaphor, a youth-led anti-abortion group, Students for Life of America, has created an award for students who educate and speak out against abortion called the “Sophie and Hans Scholl Award,” which refers to a German brother and sister who organized against the Nazi regime in Germany during World War II. Both students were executed. In 2005, their story was dramatized into the film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006.

On Thursday SFLA is honoring a student with that award at the group’s annual spring banquet in Arlington, Va. An SFLA press release for the banquet includes Sophie Scholl’s final words:

“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”

“Today, there are students just like Sophie and Hans across the country that continue to speak out against injustice on their campus,” states the release.

Mary Powers, spokesperson for the Students for Life of America, said the award recipient’s name won’t be released until ceremony but that “she” is a university student, and like Sophie and Hans Scholl, has demonstrated bravery in getting the word out to students about abortion.

The SFLA banquet — timed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was passed March 23, 2010 — is featuring testimony from Dominique Monlezun, national coordinator for Medical Students for Life of America, which recently conducted its first tour, visiting 21 college campuses across the country. The group is most vocal over “conscience” protections for medical professionals with regard to abortion, which the president updated last month, narrowing the regulations put in place by former President George W. Bush.

Also speaking at the SFLA banquet are David Bereit, national coordinator of 40 Days for Life, who leads tours around the country to protest against abortion and Planned Parenthood, and Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who this year has co-sponsored the following anti-abortion rights bills:

• HR 3: No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act
• HR 217: Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act
• HR 358: Protect Life Act
• HR 361: Abortion Non-Discrimination Act of 2011
• HR 374: Life at Conception Act

To see more legislation Harris has sponsored during this session, go here.

From The Minnesota Independent:

According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, Hirschmann has said, “Obama, like Hitler, is ‘a charismatic leader who promises full pocketbooks.’ Obama’s pro-choice stands, she writes, resembles those of Hitler, who ‘brought abortion to a systematic level and declared the killing of unborn babies a national duty.’”

Hirschmann also told the Gazette, “He could pave the way for a future Antichrist. Obama scares me because he has no record and people flock to him. Hitler also had no record, people flocked to him and both wrote a book. Christians laid flat and Hitler came to power, just like with Obama.”

Tickets for the fundraiser are $75 in advance, $100 at the door.

Also of note, CCHC warns that “Genetic testing could be used for purposes found immoral in the Hippocratic medical tradition” on the front page of its Website.

Here’s video of Bachmann encouraging supporters to attend the CCHC dinner:

And here’s a promotional flyer:

A couple of things. First, how far is LaRouche from the mainstream of the Democratic Party? So far outside that the DNC banned LaRouche delegates from taking part in the 2000 convention, after a high protest (22 percent) vote in the Arkansas primary temporarily awarded those delegates. So far outside that 1986 Illinois gubernatorial candidate Adlai Stevenson III temporarily left the Democratic Party after LaRouche candidates won the party’s primaries for other statewide offices; Stevenson started a new “Solidarity Party,” then lost the election anyway. These people aren’t representative of any political movement.

Second, it’s silly to suggest that the only people who’ll compare Democrats to Hitler at health care events are LaRouchies. McCormack and Morrissey need to direct their ire at talk radio and personalities like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, who have frequently compared Democrats to Nazis. In the video below, Beck suggests that Al Gore is trying to create a new Hitlerjugend because he … told young people to get involved in politics!

McCormack and Morrissey have a problem with the media not pointing out that some of the people holding Hitler signs at rallies are fringe activists, not conservatives. McCormack even has a problem with the media reporting that a swastika painted on Rep. David Scott’s (D-Ga.) office might be a legitimate attack, suggesting that it’s “more likely that this act of vandalism was committed by one of Scott’s supporters,” because, well, you know, just because. They’re barking up the wrong tree. Just as there were moronic leftists who compared George W. Bush to Hitler, there will be moronic conservatives who compare Barack Obama to Hitler. Take the complaints to Limbaugh and Beck.

Comparisons to the Nazis are deeply offensive and only serve to diminish and trivialize the extent of the Nazi regime’s crimes against humanity and the murder of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust.I don’t see any comparison here.  It’s off-center, off-issue and completely inappropriate.

The whole statement:

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today called attempts by some opponents of health care reform to bring Nazi imagery into the debate, “outrageous, deeply offensive and inappropriate” and condemned remarks by talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, who compared President Obama’s health care logo to a swastika, and policies championed by the Democratic Party to those of the Nazis.

“Regardless of the political differences and the substantive differences in the debate over health care, the use of Nazi symbolism is outrageous, offensive and inappropriate,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor.  “Americans should be able to disagree on the issues without coloring it with Nazi imagery and comparisons to Hitler.  This is not where the debate should be at all.”

In recent days, street protests against President Obama’s health care plan have gotten ugly, with some protestors appearing in photographs wearing swastika and SS symbols.

That prompted Rush Limbaugh to remark on his radio program that, “They accuse us of being Nazis, and Obama’s got a healthcare logo that’s right out of Adolf Hitler’s playbook.”  He went on to compare certain Democratic Party policies to those of the Nazis.

“Comparisons to the Nazis are deeply offensive and only serve to diminish and trivialize the extent of the Nazi regime’s crimes against humanity and the murder of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust,” said Mr. Foxman.  “I don’t see any comparison here.  It’s off-center, off-issue and completely inappropriate.”

On the day of the protest Hennessy put up another post attacking the White House for setting up an email address to answer questions about “fishy” rumors about health care reform.

Barack Obama wants to turn everyone into a Nazi snitch.

The Nazis used snitches, including children, to turn in enemies of the state.  Barack Obama has unleashed a program inspired by the National Socialists to identify and, presumably, punish citizens who speak out against socialized medicine. [...]

Eric Odom of American Liberty Alliance wants to turn the tables on our Fuhrer.

Yesterday, Republicans pushed back against Democratic attacks on the town hell hecklers by calling them “middle class Americans” who weren’t part of the fringe.

More, from Austin:

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn drew boos from a crowd outside the Texas Capitol this afternoon as he spoke at a “tea party” rally organized by the Texas office of Americans for Prosperity. Cornyn was booed at the start and close of his remarks, which assailed actions in Washington… “You’re the problem,” a crowd member hollered. Another crowd member yelled that Cornyn voted for the initial federal bailout of Wall Street approved by Congress last year, the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

From Dallas, where organizers speculated that turnout might hit 50,000 or more:

The withering heat kept away early crowds, but as many as 35,000 eventually showed for the speeches, music and night-time fireworks, organizers said. … Parker police did not return calls seeking verification of attendance numbers.

I spent Saturday at the bi-annual Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot, right outside of Louisville, Ky. Gun enthusiasts of all stripes were there — from the National Rifle Association and sportsmen to militia members to white supremacists and Obama birthers. Here’s a collection of choice photos from the show (after the jump):

Above you’ll see the view of the main attraction—a range of metal cans, cars, and a refrigerator being shot at by dozens of military grade weapons.

The view from the other side.

Some of the better merchandise from the exhibit tens. This one says “Prepare for Obama’s Citizen Army (ACORN + Nation of Islam)”

T.P.S. (Utz) is a vendor of weapon and survivalist handbooks which also sells The Anarchist Cookbook and “Hit Man,” a guide to assassination.

Minnesota’s Oak Grove Arms was selling these T-shirts.

Selling a scimitar inside the exhibitors’ tent.

The Nazi merchandise table was notably quiet, and seller Mark Stevens told me that business was slow. But classic German designs were fairly popular with attendees. For example:

Also:

And also:

Sadly, I couldn’t open the plastic to read the book.

The Obama Birthers were here, at one table located near the NRA’s booth, getting a mix of receptive conversations and brush-offs. Here’s Carl Swensson of RiseUpAmerica, who has started a Citizen Jury to indict President Obama.

The Birthers had two sets of petitions, one just for members (or retired members) of the military who wanted to join Orly Taitz’s legal actions against Obama. Taitz is the blonde woman with the pink nametag, obscured slightly by Theresa Padget, the woman in the sweatshirt.

Some good deals on ammo.

The high cost of shooting a machine gun. Spending 75 rounds from an AK-47 would run you $120.

The results!

A pre-WWI maxim gun, displayed by Kent and Kathy Lomont of Idaho, affixed with the infamous Sean Delonas cartoon. The Lomonts declined to explain what the cartoon meant.

The sellers of this T-shirt reported that all three boxes of it had sold out by 3 p.m. on Saturday.

The vast majority of T-shirts were, of course, much more innocuous.

–

After the election, it took all of six days — a surprisingly long time, actually — before a Southern GOP Congressman said something crazy about President-elect Barack Obama.

The charge: Obama is a closet totalitarian Marxist and potential Hitler-in-waiting.

From The Associated Press:

“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Rep. Paul Broun [R-Ga.] said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”

Obama’s comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado in which he called for expanding the nation’s foreign service.

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” Obama said in July. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”

You know when a politician prefaces what they’re about to say with “It may sound a bit crazy and off-base,” you’re in for a doozy.

According to The Associated Press, Obama transition spokesman Tommy Vietor said Obama “was referring in the speech to a proposal for a civilian reserve corps that could handle postwar reconstruction efforts such as rebuilding infrastructure — an idea endorsed by the Bush administration.”

Broun continued by suggesting Obama plans to ban gun ownership. He also said that, despite the fact that he was blatantly comparing Obama to Hitler, he’s “not comparing him” to Hitler.

“We can’t be lulled into complacency,” Broun said. “You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I’m not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I’m saying is there is the potential of going down that road.”

Right-wing looney tunes have already exhausted socialism, terrorism, Anti-Christ, and now Hitler. They had better start pacing themselves, or they’re going to run out of hyperbole before Obama even takes office.