A Fox Orlando affiliate decribed Neo-Nazis as “a civil rights group” on a television broadcast and online. The group of Neo-Nazis, known as the National Socialist Movement, has been conducting armed patrols of the streets of Sanford, Florida, the town where Trayvon Marting was shot dead.

The Fox Orlando affiliate, WOFL, aired a shockingly uncritical report of the group’s activities. The Fox reporter introduced the group by saying, “There’s another civil rights group in town.” She also conducts an interview with the group’s leader, Jeff Schoep, without challenging any of his claims about the nature and mission of the group. Watch it (via Little Green Footballs):

An article with a brief summary of the segment first appeared online with the headline: “Civil rights group patrolling Sanford.” (It was subsequently removed without explaination.)

The Southern Poverty Law Center has more details about the group:

[T]he National Socialist Movement (NSM) is one of the largest and most prominent neo-Nazi groups in the United States. The group is notable for its violent anti-Jewish rhetoric, its racist views and its policy allowing members of other racist groups to join NSM while remaining members of other groups. Until 2007, NSM members protested in full Nazi uniforms, now traded in for black “Battle Dress Uniforms.” [...]

The group openly idolizes Adolf Hitler, described in NSM propaganda as, “Our Fuhrer, the beloved Holy Father of our age … a visionary in every respect.” NSM says only heterosexual “pure-blood whites” should be allowed U.S. citizenship and that all nonwhites should be deported, regardless of legal status. As Schoep put it: “The Constitution was written by white men alone. Therefore, it was intended for whites alone.”

The Fox reporter, Jennifer Bisram, includes none of the group’s Nazi ties or incindiary history in her report. She concludes: “They say they are just a civil rights group tyring to protect people in case things get out of hand. They say they intend to follow all the Florida laws while patrolling.”

Another Republican member of Congress has stepped forward as a birther, calling into question President Obama’s birth certificate at a town hall meeting. Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) told a crowd of her constituents that she is no more convinced of President Obama’s birth place as anyone asking the question:

I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. I’m just at the same place you are on that. You read this, you read that. But I don’t understand why he didn’t show that right away. I mean, if someone asked for my birth certificate, I’d get my baby book and hand it out and say ‘Here it is,’ so I don’t know.

The questioner asked Hartzler if she believed the certificate of live birth that President Obama released last year was a forgery, citing Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s comical news conference from last month as evidence of a conspiracy. To her credit, Rep. Hartzler appeared to dismiss Arpaio’s investigation, saying “I have a lot if doubts about all that.”

But in case there was any question of her birther bona fides, Hartzler doubled down on her skepticism at a press availability after the event:

I have doubts that it is really his real birth certificate, and I think a lot of Americans do, but they claim it is, so we are just going to go with that.

Watch Rep. Hartzler’s remarks, courtesy of Raw Story (The video was originally shot by Jerry Schmidt, a writer at Show Me Progress):

Amazingly, Rep. Hartzler is not the first member of congress to don a tin foil hat and call into question President Obama’s citizenship. Last month, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) also embraced birtherism at an event.