Who will win the award for The Most Outrageous Hyperbolic Demagoguery on Capitol Hill about the shutdown? I think we’re down to two finalists, although let’s not consider the matter closed until Washington manages to finally produce a budget. Here’s non-voting DC Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton calling a shutdown the “functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians”:

I think that innocent civilians who have actually been bombed would far prefer a government shutdown, but hey, YMMV. Remember that the entitlement programs keep right on cutting checks as mandated by statute during a shutdown, and of course the fact that we’re not rescuing people from rubble a la London during the blitz.

Still, this doesn’t quite reach the lunatic perfection of Louise Slaughter’s rant today in defense of Planned Parenthood. Republicans came to Washington to “kill women,” Slaughter alleges, and they sure look a lot like Nazis for proposing that the IRS check receipts on tax deductions, too:

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said today that the new Republicans elected to the House of Representatives last November came to Congress “to kill women.” She also likened Republican efforts to prohibit federal funding of abortion except in cases of rape, incest or where the life of the mother is endangered to actions taken by Nazis.

“This is probably one of the worst times we’ve seen because the numbers of people elected to Congress. I went through this as co-chair of the arts caucus,” Slaughter said. “In ’94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now they’re here to kill women.” …

Slaughter took aim at H.R. 3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” a bill that would make permanent the Hyde Amendment restrictions on federal funding of abortion except in cases of rape or incest or a threat to the life of the mother, and that would also prohibit people from taking tax deductions for payments made for abortions except in those circumstances.

Although the text of the bill makes no reference to people needing a “receipt” to prove their abortion was for one of the excepted categories if they try to deduct the abortion fee they paid from their federal taxes, Slaughter suggested that under the bill, if enacted, people would need receipts for their abortions in such cirucmstances.

She then equated that perceived need to the sort of requirement that would be imposed by Nazis.

“You are allowed to have an abortion if you have been raped or it’s a matter of incest,” said Slaughter. “However, you have to keep a receipt. Did you know that? It’s sort of like an old German Nazi movie. Show me your papers!”

Isn’t this coming from the same Congresswoman that led the charge to put the IRS in charge of everyone’s health care?  That’s what ObamaCare does — it sets up the IRS to enforce the individual mandate by, er, demanding American citizens present their insurance “papers.”  For that matter, the IRS demand receipts for all deductions, and has for the entirety of its existence.  Is Slaughter arguing that the IRS acted like Nazis before there were Nazis?

It’s a race to the bottom in DC, led by a couple of jackasses.