Dennis Kucinich is the former Congressman for Ohio’s 10thDistrict, serving until 2012, and former presidential candidate from 2008 (hedidn’t get very far). Famous for being among the progressive members of theHouse and for opposing the Iraq War from the beginning, he is also rememberedfor being a hardcore crackpot, New Age fundie and pseudoscience promoter. Partof his platform as a presidential candidate, for instance, was creating a moratoriumonGMOs.He is currently a Fox News contributor, and was presumably not hired to makeliberals look good.

Back in the 80s Kucinich lived with New Age woo-guruShirley MacLaine,one of the more ridiculous creatures in the New Age circus (fierce competition notwithstanding).During that time heallegedly had an encounter with a UFO and honed his skills at unintentionally channeling aChopra quote generator: “In our soul’s Magnificent, we becomeconscious of the cosmos within us. We hear the music of peace, we hear themusic of cooperation, we hear music of love. In our soul’s forgetting, webecome unconscious of our cosmic birthright, blighted with disharmony,disunity, torn asunder from the stars in a disaster.” If you think thatsounds profound, you are probably stupid. And according to Kucinich “[t]he energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of thestars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: one with the universe, whole andholy. From one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic,elemental; we, the earth, air, water and fire-source of nearly fifteen billionyears of cosmic spiraling.” This is not correct.

In 2001, Kucinich introducedbill HR2977 to ban “extraterrestrial weapons” andexotic “radiation, electromagnetic,psychotronic, sonic, laser, or other energies ... for the purpose ofinformation war, mood management, ormind control of such populations”, including “chemtrails” andHAARP.The mention of “chemtrails” in the bill has later been used as evidence fortheir existence; in reality, it just shows that Kucinich is silly but chemtrailconspiracy theorists tend to struggle withreality.To draft the bill Kucinich apparently relied on the expertise ofAlfred Webre.The billwas, in fact, probably written by Webre and Carol Rosin, and one may wonder how carefully Kucinichread it, but he is still responsible for introducing it, and in 2005, whenintroducing a newer version of the bill (to ban space weapons), he did ask: “what is to happen when the United Statestakes nuclear fire up to the gates of heaven? ‘Such an offense against humanitycould bring the wrath of God upon this nation.’” Since space is close toHeaven, of course.

During his career Kucinich managed to sponsor a grand totalof three pieces of legislation that actually passed: allowing Ukrainian TVaccess to an American program, naming a Cleveland post office, and naming adead man an honorary citizen of the US. As such, Kucinich may possibly be theleast effective legislator of all time.