And you thought Glenn Beck was bad? Check out this dude, who’s got the ear of some Republicans in Congress:

A syndicated radio host, filmmaker, and all-around countercultural icon based in Austin, Texas, Jones has long been one of the country’s most significant purveyors of paranoia. His 2007 documentary Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement, in which the megaphone scene takes place, purports to reveal a eugenics-obsessed global elite bent on eliminating most of the earth’s population and enslaving the rest. Members of a Satanic international network, Jones explains in an ominous voiceover, have been “steering planetary affairs for hundreds of years. Now, in the final stage, they prepare for open world government.”

[snip]

But it’s really only since Barack Obama’s election, when Jones turned the full force of his apocalyptic imagination toward the new president, that his ideas have found purchase in the conservative mainstream. Several Republican officeholders, from state representatives to congressmen, have appeared on his program to trade wild theories about Obama.

“Stay in school, kids” is the latest postscript to the Communist Manifesto, if you are to believe the GOP uproar to the president’s address to the nation’s students yesterday. But in tonight’s address to the nation on health care, the fringe right made another appearance in the form of not just Joe “You Lie!” Wilson, but in many outbursts from various Republican congressmen:

Throughout the speech, Republican members of Congress repeatedly held up stacks of papers that appeared to represent ideas they had for the bill.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) held signs that read “What Bill?” and “What Plan?”

When Obama told the chamber that the “death panel” lie was, in fact, a lie, a Republican member said loudly enough to be heard in the press gallery, “Read the bill” — a common refrain at August’s angry town hall meetings.

When Obama told the chamber that he had “no interest in putting insurance companies out of business,” a Republican member responded with a loud, “Ha!”

Say what you will about members of Code Pink who interrupted speeches by President Bush over the years, but never did we see Democratic members of Congress pollute the discourse like this. Even I, an admitted cynic, did not expect to see this.