The Republican Party put anti-Federal Reserve wingnut libertarian Ron Paul in charge of overseeing the Federal Reserve, and today, for his first hearing as chairman, he called one of his friends as a witness — neo-Confederate slavery apologist Thomas J. DiLorenzo.

Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, one of the most outspoken opponents of the Federal Reserve, is hosting his first subcommittee hearing Wednesday as chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the central bank.

The new chairman of the House Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology Subcommittee has called the hearing to examine the impact of the Fed’s policies on job creation and the unemployment rate.

The roster of witnesses called to testify includes Thomas J. DiLorenzo, professor of economics at Loyola University’s Sellinger School of Business …

At one point, when Paul opened up the hearing to questions from committee members, Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) directly took on DiLorenzo for his membership in the League of the South, an organization that has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “neo-Confederate” hate group advocating for Southern secession.

Clay then rattled off a list of some of DiLorenzo’s articles, including “More Lies about the Civil War,” “In Defense of Sedition,” and “The First Dictator-President,” which examines “how Lincoln’s myth has corrupted America.”

“After reviewing your work and the so-called methods you employ, I still cannot understand you being invited to testify today on the unemployment crisis, but I do know that I have no questions for you,” Clay concluded.

DiLorenzo’s historical revisionism was also featured at last year’s CPAC, sponsored by Ron (and Rand) Paul’s Campaign for Liberty.

This is what the Tea Party has brought to American politics.

_{(Correction: it’s Ron Paul’s subcommittee, not Rand Paul’s. For some reason I have trouble telling them apart.)}