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During Congress's summer recess, legislators have been conducting town hall meetings in their home states, mainly to address concerns about health-care reform. The normally staid affairs have turned into a parade of freakshow attractions, as the meetings have been beset by shouting, birth-certificate-and/or-gun-brandishing, Hitler-comparing protesters.

The latest, and greatest, of these confrontations came on Monday, as Massachussetts Rep. Barney Frank (D) totally pwns a Nazi-invoking crank.

After the jump, see Frank smack down the aforementioned wingnut, and other great town hall moments.


While the majority of the town hall dissenters are well-behaved, we didn't think people complaining about potholes would make for very compelling video. Instead, we've cherry-picked some choice wingnuts.

Here's Chris Matthews having at the guy who brought a loaded gun to a presidential town hall in New Hampshire, along with a sign referencing the watering of the tree of liberty with blood.


Then, there was this guy, who showed up to a presidential town hall meeting in Phoenix with what gamers might refer to as a BFG. As it turns out, the incident was a publicity stunt by a conservative radio host. We say it's all fun and games until you're getting tazed in the nuts by the Secret Service.


Remember our kooky pals, the birthers? This totally non-racist (they swear) fringe group brought us the first, and possibly best, town hall video, and with a Republican as their victim. They make villagers with pitchforks seem circumspect.


One of the most infamous town hall tapes is this one, entitled "UNION THUGS VICIOUSLY ATTACK A BLACK PATRIOT." The nebulous scuffle in the clip hardly seems to justify that title, or the wheelchair and bandages the victim sported at a press conference days later. Irony alert: the guy doesn't have health insurance and took up a collection to pay his medical bills.


There are those who say that these disruptions to the town halls are just expressions of free speech. OK, sure, if by free you mean by professional political operatives. When someone introduces herself as "just a mom ... " my alarm bells go off. As opposed to what, a superhero? Mutant alien?