An anti-abortion activist in Iowa with ties to Scott Roeder, the man who murdered abortion provider George Tiller, is under fire for calling for the shooting of the people who reopened Tiller’s abortion clinic. “If someone would shoot the new abortionists, like Scott shot George Tiller ... It will be a blessing to the babies,” Dave Leach says on a YouTube video. The video includes a recorded conversation between Leach and a man Leach identifies as Roeder, who is currently serving life in prison for Tiller’s 2009 assassination.

In an interview with The Des Moines Register, Leach said he would not personally harm any abortion providers.

"I'm 67 years old. I don't know anything about guns," he said. "I think I could accomplish more with words." He denied that his comments were meant to encourage anyone to kill abortion providers. "That's not exactly a call for that to happen," he said. "Any reasonable person looking at that statement would not equate that with a call for action."

USA Today:

In the YouTube video, the man Leach identifies as Roeder laughs as Leach talks about the prospect of someone shooting the new leaders of the Wichita clinic. Then the second man wonders aloud about the clinic director's motives. "To walk in there and reopen a clinic, a murder mill where a man was stopped, it's almost like putting a target on your back -- saying, 'Well, let's see if you can shoot me,'" he says.

Then the man quotes a fellow activist, who predicted that the abortion industry would end if 100 abortionists were shot. "I think eight have been shot, so we've got 92 to go," the man whom Leach identified as Roeder says. "Maybe (the Wichita clinic director) will be number nine. I don't really know. I'm not sure about that. But she's kind of painting a target on her."

Prison officials are investigating whether the man on the recording was indeed Roeder, and, if it was, how he was able to participate in such a phone call.

A spokesman for the Kansas Department of Corrections said inmates may speak on the phone only with people who are on a list approved by prison administrators.

As thousands of people endured the bitter cold temperatures in Washington, D.C., on Friday to join the anti-abortion protest "March for Life," House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) took the opportunity to suck up to the extreme conservatives, who are a small minority in the nation. A recent poll showed that 7 in 10 Americans now oppose Roe v. Wade being overturned.

Addressing the crowd at the National Mall in a video broadcast, Boehner said it's time for anti-abortion activisits to "commit ourselves to doing everything we can to protect the sanctity of life." Step one, he said, is making the Hyde Amendment permanent, which prevents federal dollars from being used to pay for abortions except in cases of rape or incest.

"For the new Congress, that means bringing together a bipartisan pro-life majority and getting to work," Boehner said. "In accordance with the will of the people, we will again work to pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, formally codifying the Hyde Amendment."

Boehner said he will make it a national priority to "help make abortion a relic of the past."

"Let that be one of our most fundamental goals this year," he said.

Why does John Boehner insist upon drawing from the minority of people to determine -- in his mind -- what the will of the people is? And abortion a national priority in 2013, really? Did he sleep through the 2012 election cycle?

Also from the poll I mentioned above:

"McInturff adds that the abortion-related events and rhetoric over the past year – which included controversial remarks on abortion and rape by two Republican Senate candidates, as well as a highly charged debate over contraception – helped shaped these changing poll numbers.

“The dialogue we have had in the last year has contributed … to inform and shift attitudes.”'

However, if Mr. Boehner wants to continue to push the Republican party into irrelevance, that's okay by me. As long as he doesn't waist precious time that should be devoted to real issues that concern the majority of Americans today.

A few days after the 1993 assassination of Dr. David Gunn, a Florida abortion provider, Todd Akin's longtime anti-abortion and militia pal, Tim Dreste, stood in front of the health care clinic of abortion provider Dr. Yogrenda Shah with a sign that read: “Dr. Shah, are you feeling under the Gunn?” (See the video above.) Shortly afterwards, Akin contributed $200 to Dreste's dark horse race for state representative.

A new report has revealed that Missouri Republican Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin was arrested at least eight times in the 1980s at anti-abortion protests, according to newly obtained records.

That is four arrests in addition to four the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported last month based on a review of its archives. The arrests were missed in previous searches because the news stories had listed Akin by his given first name, William.The four additional arrests each occurred at a reproductive health clinic in Ballwin, Missouri in St. Louis County between 1985 and 1987.

The arrests reported by the Post-Dispatch came in the same period, between March 1985 and May 1987, but occurred at other clinics. Three were in St. Louis and one in Granite City, Illinois.

On one of those occasions, police had to physically carry Akin into an elevator when he refused to leave the premises, according to an article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

"Right Wing Watch," a project of People For the American Way, a nonprofit group critical of Akin's ties to radical elements of the pro-life movement, obtained incident reports on the arrests Friday from the St. Louis Country Police Department under Missouri's sunshine law, and provided them to news media.

Akin's views opposing abortion are well-known. In August of this year, he infamously said that women who are victims of "legitimate rape" are physically able to stop themselves from becoming pregnant, a remark that was ridiculed and rejected by medical professionals, women's advocates, and politicians on both sides of the aisle. Akin teamed up with Paul Ryan in 2011 to try to narrow the definition of rape, voted in 1991 for an anti-marital-rape law, called for an end to the school-lunch program and a total ban on the morning-after pill. In 1992, Akin even fought for a narrower definition of child abuse.

Most polls are showing Missouri's incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill with a strong lead over Akin, even though she missed a week worth of campaigning due to the recent passing of her mother, Betty Anne Ward McCaskill, 84.

If you missed Josh Glasstetter's recent post detailing Akin's extremist and militia ties, be sure to read it here.