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The fear-mongering surrounding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has officially gone Godwin, people. Because mandating that everyone purchase private health insurance is *exactly* like the German secret police who would round up people deemed unsympathetic to the Nazi government and torture and/or kill them, amirite?

After expressing this breathtaking bit of beyond reprehensible bit of garbage, reporter Paul Heintz of 7Days checked to make sure that the tea party-backed politician had even a semblance of historical knowledge:

“Do you have a sense of what the Gestapo did during World War II?” Heintz asked.

“Yeah,” LePage said. “They killed a lot of people.”

“And the IRS is headed in that direction?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re headed in the direction of killing a lot of people?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m very serious,” LePage said, later adding: “I’m saying the federal government is taking away the freedom of Americans to make choices.”

Okay, I didn't think this needed to be made explicit, Governor, but clearly some people have problems with analogies. The IRS is not going to kill anyone (although I think you ought to expect a very ugly audit in the near future), nor are they taking any freedoms away. You can choose not to purchase health insurance. But the cost to do so is the same "freeloader" penalty that you Republicans cheered when it was introduced by the Heritage Foundation twenty years ago.

To insinuate that there is any kind of apt comparison to be made is an insult not only to critical thinking Americans and IRS agents just trying to do their job, but to the memory of real victims of the actual Gestapo.

LePage's brain apparently caught up with his mouth a little later, and he attempted to walk back his words:

Seeking to douse a fire he started by comparing the IRS to the Gestapo, Maine Gov. Paul LePage issued a formal apology on Friday for his "insensitivity to the word" after a face-to-face meeting with representatives of several Jewish groups that had complained.

LePage hoped his apology in his weekly radio address would bring an end to the weeklong furor that started when he described the Internal Revenue Service as the "new Gestapo" while criticizing President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

LePage said it was "never my intent to insult or to be hurtful to anyone, but rather express what can happen by overreaching government."

"The acts of the Holocaust were nothing short of horrific. Millions of innocent people were murdered, and I apologize for my insensitivity to the word and the offense some took to my comparison of the IRS and the Gestapo," the governor said.

This is starting to look like a pattern. First Mark Kirk, now Jan Brewer. Governor Brewer's effort to stir sympathy for her cause seems to have backfired on her.

Via the Arizona Guardian:

Gov. Jan Brewer said in a recent interview that her father died fighting Nazis in Germany. In fact, the death of Wilford Drinkwine came 10 years after World War II had ended.

During the war, Drinkwine worked as a civilian supervisor for a naval munitions depot in Hawthorne, Nev. He died of lung disease in 1955 in California.

Brewer made the comment to The Arizona Republic while talking about the criticism she has taken since signing SB 1070, the new immigration law that makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

"Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that... and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced," Brewer said in the story, published Tuesday.

How exactly does one stretch work for a munitions depot stateside into "fighting the Nazis"? Evidently by making the claim that the lung disease that killed her father was caused by toxic fumes at the munitions factory.

Her claim that she didn't mean to embellish the story rings hollow to me. The phrase "my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany..." clearly intends to convey the impression that he fell in combat in Germany fighting Nazis. If she had intended to convey otherwise, she would have framed it as the result of the country's war with Nazi Germany. She did not.

Of course, she is now trying to spin as a simple misinterpretation on the part of the reader, which points directly to my overall problem with the faux patriotism candidates put on under the guise of military service. We live in a country where service is voluntary (despite our unenforced draft laws). Serving or not serving is not a benchmark measure of anyone's patriotism.

As far as I'm concerned, military service should not be a marker of a candidate's qualification to run for or hold office. When it starts being pimped as some kind of extra qualifier, or when candidates use their family's service as a qualifier (as Brewer did), it's an insult to every member who is or has served in the military today.

Brewer just keeps proving her ambition and lack of qualification for office. Arizona, you can do better than this.

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Glenn Beck got all worked up yesterday defending Arizonans from the outrageous, slanderous comparisons of their fair new police state to Nazi Germany. Heaven forfend:

Beck: Arizona sure is putting the AZ in Nazi. I really hate to rain on the hate parade, but could we slow down for just a second here and ask: You’re out of your mind? Are you comparing the systematic cold-blooded extermination of millions of Jews, to America making sure people are here legally? The parallels are non-existent.

Of course, Beck blithely neglects to mention that the Nazi laws requiring papers were originally about "making sure people were there legally" too. That's how police states work. The roundups come later.

And in case anyone forgot, there have been a lot of comparisons of liberals generally and the Obama administration to Nazis and Germany. Right there on Fox News, a number of times. By a guy named Glenn Beck.

We provide the examples in the video.

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This morning, on the 15th Anniversary of the Oklahoma City mass murder, I drove from Washington, D.C. across the 14th Street Bridge to get on the George Washington Memorial Parkway and attend an "open carry" gun rally at Fort Hunt, Virginia.

On my way, I passed the Holocaust Museum, where a deluded Neo-Nazi, in a final act of vengeance for having been born, chose to spray bullets into the flesh and bone of a security guard whose only crime was trying to earn a paycheck. Off in the distance, you could almost see the Pentagon, where John Patrick Bedell wreaked havoc after being declared mentally unfit to possess a firearm by the state of California--because he simply bought one with no questions asked at a Nevada gun show. Bedell took advantage of the gun-show loophole to shoot those serving our country at the Pentagon, because of his hatred for it.

Finally, we arrived at Fort Hunt, to see a bevy of mostly middle-aged white men compare the United States of America to Nazi Germany, the Ku Klux Klan and a slave-state (among other niceties) while carrying assault weapons and dressing like they were auditioning for the remake of Red Dawn. A highlighted speaker was Mike Vanderboegh (seen in the video above), an Alabama militia leader who most infamously encouraged his followers to throw bricks through the windows of local Democratic Parties.

In a very different reality, Tom Mauser, whose son was gunned down in the Columbine massacre, and families of those murdered at Virginia Tech, today called on our leaders to lead on an issue where 86% of gun owners (including 69% of NRA members) agree with the rest of us, according to known liberal Frank Luntz: That we MUST close the gun show loophole. We must do more to stop criminals, terrorists and the mentally unfit from getting their hands on weapons that kill.

To protesters at the Fort Hunt rally, the federal government, a health care bill and their personal interpretation of the Constitution are reasons for everyone to be armed and ready to do battle (although, interestingly, during the Bush Administration's assault on the Constitution with the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, turning Gitmo into, well, Gitmo, rendition, etc., we didn't hear much from this crowd). Losing an election is just another justification for political violence.

To the victims of gun violence, who realize we aren't living in some Wyatt Earp fantasy land, perhaps getting guns out of the hands of those who fetishize violence and commit crimes and terrorist acts is just a tad bit more important. This likely includes some of those paranoid souls listening to the speakers at the Fort Hunt rally, perhaps planning to be the next one to shoot someone at the Pentagon or fly an airplane into an IRS building.

Which world do you live in on the 15th anniversary of an American tragedy? And which one do you want to live in?

Disclosure: I consulted for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) on this project

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Sean Hannity hosted not one but two whole segments last night devoted promoting the new book by Jerome Corsi -- godfather of the Swift-Boating of John Kerry -- titled America For Sale, which is basically an extended black-helicopter-style conspiracy tome straight out of the Patriot movement of the 1990s, updated for the new century.

This is a classic case of conservatives mainstreaming extremist ideas. I haven't read all of Corsi's book yet, but it differs very little in ideas and content and overall thesis from the kinds of books you could buy at militia-meeting tables in the '90s.

I haven't yet found whether Corsi decided to include his recent reportage for WorldNetDaily detailing the nefarious Obama conspiracy to round up conservatives and imprison them in concentration camps. Hannity managed to not bring up that point last night.

But yes, that's what Corsi wrote:

Text:

The proposed bill, which has received little mainstream media attention, appears designed to create the type of detention center that those concerned about use of the military in domestic affairs fear could be used as concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany.

Funny, I still have a Militia of Montana book that outlines this very same nefarious plot being concocted by Bill Clinton.

As Steven Thomma explained for McClatchy:

In truth, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., has proposed a bill that would order the Homeland Security Department to prepare national emergency centers — to provide temporary housing and medical facilities in national emergencies such as hurricanes. The bill also would allow the centers to be used to train first responders, and for "other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security."

Of course, Corsi and Hannity aren't the only ostensibly mainstream conservatives peddling this paranoiac fearmongering: So is Michelle Bachmann, among others:

"There is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service," Bachmann told a Minnesota radio station.

"And the real concern is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums."

It's also cropping up quite a bit at Tea Party gatherings. That's where you find outfits like the "Oath Keepers," whose organization is built around resisting citizen roundups.

Why, exactly, does Sean Hannity so avidly promote Jerome Corsi and his conspiracy theories anyway? Look at his record:

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After Alberto Gonzales’ humiliating and painful tenure as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, I was beginning to get my hopes up about Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey.

Right off the bat on Wednesday, he rejected the infamous Bybee memo, and compared U.S. torture policies to Nazi Germany. The rest of the day was nearly as encouraging, with Mukasey vowing to end Justice Department “stonewalling,” and insisting he would resign if Bush tried to do something unconstitutional. No more partisan considerations in employment, Mukasey said. No more “unilateralism,” he promised.

Everyone was impressed, and said so. And then Day Two happened.

Arthur Silber finds Santorum coming apart at the seams.

Likening the times to the late 1930s as Nazi Germany was rising to power, Sen. Rick Santorum said last night that if he loses his re-election bid, it could set the stage for terrorism to become more of a threat than the Nazis ever were....read on

Go read Pat Buchanan's recent column : Was World War II worth it?

If the objective of the West was the destruction of Nazi Germany, it was a "smashing" success. But why destroy Hitler? If to liberate Germans, it was not worth it. After all, the Germans voted Hitler in.

Now read Newsday's :WWII comments blasted

He suggested that because Germans voted Hitler in, they did not need to be liberated, and that Britain and France drew Germany into the wider conflict. He did not mention Jews or the Holocaust - the most outrageous omission for Yaffa Eliach, a Holocaust expert and survivor. "For me it is very important to present the truth, to show the murder," Eliach said. "The idea was to kill Jews." Abraham Foxman, president of the Anti-Defamation League, called Buchanan's comments "immoral" and "bordering on Holocaust denial. "But, you know, he has been there before," Foxman said. "Pat Buchanan in the past has challenged whether or not there were crematoria."

Veterans were also insulted. That is more or less saying they fought for the wrong reasons and the sacrifice was futile," said Veterans of Foreign Wars spokesman Jerry Newberry. "Buchanan apparently hasn't given much thought to what the world would have looked like if Hitler and his henchmen would have succeeded."

On Crossfire today, Robert Novak actually attacked Republican GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE (R), ARKANSAS because he's worried about obesity in children.

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Novak: I haven't exercised in 50 years. I have -- I eat no vegetables and no fruit.

That explains a lot.

Here's the kicker:

NOVAK: In your state of Arkansas, you've gone pretty far in measuring people and weighing them. You know, if I were a liberal Democrat, if I were -- and I'm not. I would -- I would say, that reminds me of Nazi Germany. They use to take measurements like that. But I'm not a liberal Democrat, so I won't -- I won't do that.

Novak sinks to another low in applying the term to try and paint all liberals that way when he is really using it as a conservative to describe Huckabee's concern for the health of children. I don't think we'll hear any complaints from any conservatives over it though.

On Thursday, Georgia Republican Congressman Paul Broun insisted he would not sit with Democrats during next week's State of the Union address when "Barack Obama spews his venom." That's quite a charge, coming as it does from a man who equated health care reform to the "War of Yankee Aggression", compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler and Karl Marx, and warned Democrats would declare martial law.

Broun's latest tirade came in response to a radio talk show caller who requested "you would ask the Republicans in the Senate and House to not take the bait and sit with the Democrats in the State of the Union speech."

"I agree with you wholeheartedly...And sitting together being kissy kissy is just another way to try to silence Republicans and also to show, to keep the American people from seeing how few of them there are in the US House now, and when people stand up to what the Democrats are doing when Barack Obama spews his venom, then if they're scattered throughout the Republicans, it won't be as noticeable if the Republicans sit apart."

As it turns out, it was Broun who began spewing his poison at the President before Barack Obama had taken the oath of office.

Just days after the 2008 election, Politico reported, Broun said "he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist dictatorship."

"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 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."

"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."

By August 2009, the Tea Party and Bircher favorite and self-proclaimed "freedom fighter" added Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to his warnings about a coming declaration of martial law:

He also spoke of a "socialistic elite" - Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.

"They're trying to develop an environment where they can take over," he said. "We've seen that historically."

That September, Broun again decried President Obama's supposed authoritarian streak.

He told a meeting of the Morgan County Republicans on Wednesday night that Obama already has or will have the three things he needs to make himself a dictator: a national police force, gun control and control over the press.

"He has the three things that are necessary to establish an authoritarian government," Broun said. "And so we need to be ever-vigilant, because freedom is precious."

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