As Ron Paul rises in the polls, he is once again fending off questions about those pesky newsletters where racist material appeared under his name. This time around, rather than expressing much in the way of regret, Paul is instead slamming the media for rehashing what he considers an old, irrelevant story.
To recap, back in the 1990s, Ron Paul produced a series of newsletters, all with his name on them, which published a ream of racist and anti-Semitic columns. Among a long list of offensive comments, one notorious column about the LA riots said that, “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.” Another pilloried Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as “Hate Whitey Day.” Paul has always denied writing them and insists he doesn’t know who did. He has expressed regret that the comments were printed.
But asked about the newsletters in an interview with CNN Tuesday morning, Paul expressed little contrition and attacked the media for revisiting the issue. The candidate suggested that the only reason the newsletters were in the spotlight again is the popularity of the rest of his platform:
I think people dig these up when people think that, oh, his economic policies are winning. His foreign policies are winning and his monetary policies are winning. They have to dig these things up…
For two decades, Paul has denied knowing who wrote racist comments. Since Paul had six to eight people working under him on the newsletter, why couldn’t he have found out from them? “Possibly, I could,” Paul admitted Tuesday.
But he doesn’t seem to feel the need. “So, yes, it wasn’t good. I didn’t write them and those aren’t my beliefs. So, I sleep well,” the candidate said.
CNN isn’t the only one resurfacing the issue. James Kirchick, who delved into the newsletter archives — kept by a few universities under files of extreme right-wing political literature — and published on his findings in The New Republic in 2008 has another piece in the conservative Weekly Standard this monrth, writing that Paul still refuses to answer for what he printed. The Weekly Standard piece prompted the New York Times to revisit the issue as well.
Kirchick argues that this is precisely what the media should — but does not — focus on.
This sordid history would not bear repeating but for the fact that the media love to portray Paul as a truth-telling, antiwar Republican standing up to the “hawkish” conservative establishment. Otherwise, the newsletters, and Paul’s continued failure to name their author, would be mentioned in every story about him, and he would be relegated to the fringe where he belongs.
Kirchick has a point. The newsletters appear during every Paul campaign yet they always seem to remain a sideshow.
Pema Levy
Pema Levy is a News Writer at TPM covering the 2012 election. Before coming to TPM, Pema was an assistant editor at The American Prospect where she wrote about politics and the economy.
Levy is Jewish. Enough said. Ron Paul is a double agent. He wants to appear to be on our side and yet he works for the elite. Americans fall for the same ploy every four year. You have no idea how far the elite and Satan will go to deceive you. It's too bad it almost always works and now Israel/Britain/Vatican are getting bold in their attacks on us.
If you are so concerned about being deceived again, and rightfully so - I agree, why don't you get on the WHITE BUGSTER MESSAGE as an internet warrior? gwthompson70
When I wrote my now-defunct blog on politics, "The 'Skeeter Bites Report," four years ago, I published a series of articles within days after CNN and The New Republic magazine first revealed the existence of Paul's raciially-explosive newsletters, that exposed Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign receiving both material and financial support from known white supremacists.
I folded my blog last February after five years, due to burnout. However, there remains an archived copy of my Ron Paul expose at OpEdNews.com, dated January 28, 2008. That article -- which also covered extensively the bitter and racially-tinged 2008 South Carolina Democratic primary contest between then-Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- can be summed up from the following paragraphs:
"While the Democrats worry about a black-white divide opening up among its ranks, the Republicans must by now be wondering if one of their candidates is becoming as poisonous to them as kryptonite is to Superman -- even though he has little chance of winning the GOP nomination.
"Despite mounting adverse publicity over racist articles published in Ron Paul's newsletter, or, perhaps, because of it, a growing number of self-avowed "white nationalists" and other far-right extremists -- some with ties to the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups -- continue to flock to Paul's long-shot campaign."
Four years later, Paul has, to this day, steadfastly refused to disavow his racist supporters and has refused to return their contributions to his 2008 campaign.
You can read the article in its entirety at the following link: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_skeeter__0...
The letter won't go away until HE TAKES THE TIME TO INTERVIEW HIS EMPLOYEES AND GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT. He's lazy. If he doesn't want to interview several people to SOLVE A PROBLEM, why in the hell would we want him as POTUS?
Racist is as Racist does. There is one candidate, Republican or Democrat, that would commit us to ending the drug war, which almost exclusively effects low-income people of color. There is one candidate, Republican or Democrat, that would stop sending people to fight and die for our country. Our soldiers are disproportionately low income and of color. Ron Paul is the only candidate who would seriously improve the status of minorities as president. How Racist is that?
I think his petulance on this issue is regrettable, but he really has been answering the question for 20 years in the same fairly satisfactory way. I think his reluctance to name names and throw an old employee under the bus is actually pretty admirable.
@Patrick Jones writes, in part, "In my own personal experience, only the guilty pull the race card. It is, and has always been, a game changer". Patrick, racists usually counterattack by downplaying what is blatantly obvious and blaming the other side for what has been said. Until you have experienced racism from the side that is being targeted, you don't have any damn experience. Only the guilty would put up with that kind of crap being written under their name and then trying to say he didn't write it. Puh-leeez! Paul has long been known for his affiliation with the kkk and his campaign is stilled backed by the neo-nazis. He's not a racist? Of course he's not and I am the king of Siam.
Wow, Ron Paul finally gets a little bit of attention and the Paulbots come out in force. Crazy night on the boards.
This is a terrible thing. I have been following Ron Paul for many years now. I have never gotten the feeling, from anything he has ever said (and I have seen multitudes of hours of speeches, town hall meetings, lectures, weekly messages, writings, and coverage on this man) that he was a racist. I am not a racist, but I know how to spot them on both sides of the coin. Maybe people don't realize how offensive it is when the race card is played. Just today, I read that Attorney General Holder played the race card over the questioning he was receiving regarding Operation Fast and Furious. I have been following those proceedings as well. There is no racial attacks going on there. In my own personal experience, only the guilty pull the race card. It is, and has always been, a game changer. A blame shifter. I would say in Ron Paul's case, to claim this man as a racist, after he's owned up to the moral responsibility for them being issued under his name, I would recommend to research Dr Paul's stance and review all his archived speeches (available on Google or You Tube) for a true measure of his stance. Again, personally, if I thought, for even a second, that Ron Paul was a racist, there is no way I could, or would, ever support him. It's like the old saying: One, "oh crap," wipes away all those, "atta-boys."
Patrick Jones He opposes the Civil Rights Act. End of story.
LestatdelcPatrick Jones He was all for ending segregation and all laws under the Jim Crowe. So if someone was against Jim Crowe laws, that would make him NOT racist. He was only against the portion of the act with respect to property rights, meaning that the government should allow private business owners to do whatever they want with their business.
Patrick Jones Why doesn't he take the time to interview the 8-10 people who worked for him? He doesn't want to. Talk about blame shifter.
HERESY!
Each society has its own word for HERESY!
Communists called all HERESY! fascism. Fascist Italy called all HERESY Communist.
Today, under the Politically Correct tyranny, HERESY! is called HATE! or “racism.” Nobody wants to try to deal with a point like the one I made, so they start demanding that nobody say it, just like any other tyranny does. They call people who speak HERESY! names.
You Political Correctness fanatics are playing a very old game. When you call people names who disagree with you or scream Hate or racism, a.k.a., HERESY! it says nothing about the point we heretics make.
But it tells us ALL about YOU.
Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White.
Sango Betrix Take your meds.
Anti-White tactic. Works every time. ----> Find a White man and call him a racist.
"In your opinion I am racist. You are just calling me that, because I am White. Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White."
Ron Paul really does carry the white man's burden there.. don't he?
Sango Betrix
Sango Betrix Why doesn't he take the time to interview the 8-10 people who worked for him? He doesn't want to.
Ron Paul and racism - NAACP Nelson Linderhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk9HSMB-YaU
Trey Harwell And?
Did you see where Paul stormed off the CNN set when Borger asked him about the racist newsletters? His entire attitude was "Those damn things just won't go away! Why won't it go away!?"
Richard Nixon felt the same way 38 years ago.
fargo117
Anti-White tactic. Works every time. ----> Find a White man and call him a racist.
"In your opinion I am racist. You are just calling me that, because I am White. Anti-racist is a code word for anti-White."
Sango Betrixfargo117 Guess you didn't read the Newletters he published did you?
Sango Betrixfargo117 I'm a white man. He's a racist.
Sango Betrix Why doesn't he take the time to interview the 8-10 people who worked for him? He doesn't want to.
The letter won't go away until HE TAKES THE TIME TO INTERVIEW HIS EMPLOYEES AND GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT. He's lazy. If he doesn't want to interview several people to SOLVE A PROBLEM, why in the hell would we want him as POTUS?
You are a mind reader, an anti-white mind reader. The first thing you think about is Paul's guilt and his shame for something. You are sick, silly and ridiculous. ANTI-RACISM IS A CODE WORD FOR ANTI-WHITE. Now liberals, especially anti-white liberals (really the same thing) have A LOT to be ashamed of. And its not imaginary. fargo117
Nobody is flooding and forcibly “integrating” every black nations and ONLY black nations with non-blacks and calling native blacks evil racists for opposing their replacement. This is happening in white nations and ONLY in white nations. They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white. Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white. Its genocide.
Peter Happe Thank you Peter Happe. Be sure not to be late to your Klavern meeting.
Peter Happe No, because white people did that already. It was called colonialism, when white people flooded black nations, (as well as S.A. Indian nations), stole their resources and did things to any native blacks who dared oppose them that were far worse than name-calling.
Even today, the few black nations left with resources are being flooded with white corporations and having their resources forcibly privatized through an economic system set up by whites. Those that oppose it are being called communists, socialists, Marxists, etc.
List of things I don't agree with Ron Paul. Abortion, Gay rights, National Parks, Lowering Taxes, EPA, to name a few.
List of things I do agree with Ron Paul. Ending corporatocracy, Ending Imperialism, Ending the war on drugs, THE DEBT.
Everything has to be put into perspective. Of course we all have to compromise, there is no such thing as a perfect candidate. What the partisan hacks on this board refuse to admit is that somebody might hold certain issues to be a bit more important than others. It's much easier to dismiss people as being necessarily evil, and we're all guilty of it.
I've recently come to believe that America has become a "net evil" force in the world. While we have undoubtedly done many noble, humanitarian things in the world, our foreign policy is distinctly imperialist in nature. We've killed too many people and destroyed too many countries. Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Mexico, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Nicaragua, Colombia, Lybia, the list could go on forever. This insane foreign policy that we have does not keep us safe, it makes us extremely hated and despised around the world. The drug war is linked with the foreign policy. Mexico is a fucking warzone more dangerous than Afghanistan by any measurement. Our drug policy is entirely responsible for the creation of the cartels just as the prohibition allowed the mafia to rise.
I have always had a nagging suspicion that once it became unpopular in the south to openly belong to a white supremacist movement, their leaders and thinkers quietly conspired to go at it from another angle; Libertarianism! That's where they hide. Do I think Ron Paul is part of it? No......But I think they are using his platform.
What part of opposing the Civil Right Act Of 1964 on the grounds of personal freedom and individual liberties wouldn't appeal to a racist?.....
my 2 cents.
SvK
I think it's all too easy to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as being necessarily evil, racist, greedy, etc. That is not to say many do not have these qualities, but on this forum it seems to be a knee-jerk reaction.
Is it possible that someone could honestly believe in the principle of libertarianism without being a racist or selfish asshole? I know the usual suspects will line up with the "no" answers but I'm trying to separate the rational from the party-line robots.
JohnPidaras Of course good people can honestly believe in the principles of Liberatrianism. But good doesn't mean wise. Good doesn't mean possessing of any measure of historical perspective or knowledge That's one glaring deficiency I notice in Libertarians. They deny human nature every bit as much as do hardcore socialists.
The problem with Libertarians is not that the are necessarily selfish, racist assholes. The problem is that Libertarianism is the perfect system for selfish racist assholes to operate and to gain ascendancy. If I was a selfish racist asshole, I'd be a libertarian even before I'd be a Gooper. There is no more accommodating political system for selfish racists assholes, than libertarianism, and there is no system that embodies fewer checks on their selfish racist assholism than does libertarianism.
Selfish racists assholes will shoot straight to the top, dominate and overrun any libertarian political and economic system. "Good" libertarians will never see it coming.
JohnPidaras It's especially easy to dismiss people who disagree with you as being racist when they're racists.
What a sleuth, what an anti-white sleuth. A conspiratorialist also. You are funny, silly and ridiculous. And that is being anti-white. SvK
Let me put this in a way that the Paul supporters might understand. As a rational consumer I need to know if a company has in the past made profits by selling poisonous products. If I find out that a company does indeed have a reputation for selling poision, it is my duty as a rational consumer to protect my self-interests by avoiding that company in the future.
WiscoJoe The problem is that, in a diversified free-market system, that's nearly impossible to do. Nobody has the time, personal expertise and resources to investigate the pedigree of every manufacturer of every product they consume. Company and brand names are deeply layered in corporate subsidiaries and shells. A single company commonly sells products under dozens, or hundreds, of brand names. That company can be a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary, ad infinitum. Furthermore, when a company gets a bad enough reputation, it's a simple matter to dissolve or rebrand themselves. In my area, BP gas stations assumed a different name within weeks of the oil spill. Now, those same stations are again BP. Nothing changed, but you can be sure that more than a few people were duped into believing they weren't buying gas from BP.
This is something Libertarians refuse to recognize. We don't live in medevial villages anymore. The recent salmonella egg outbreak is a case in point. The company that produced those eggs sold them under a hundred brand names. It would be impossible to avoid them and, in some cases, a single grocery store might carry 5 different brands, all of which came from that same producer.
What is more harmful to minorities, newsletters written 20 years ago or the war on drugs? Your answer to this question determines whether you are intelligent or a total idiot.
Your answer to that proves you are not intelligent. Racist idiots like Paul do not change their stripes. He would strip minorities in the United States of all the protection of their rights that the Civil Rights laws have given them and return matters to the states. Given the GOTP how long do you think Blacks would be allowed to vote?
Electing Ron Paul would have a minimal impact on the War on Drugs unless he proposes to evade the law as enacted by Congress.
Oh, you think he is going to persuade Congress to do anything differently? Because he's been so 'effective' at that in the past? Bwhhaa, ha, har ,ha.
Talk about naive. RFLMAO
JohnPidaras
AJM3 So we have at least 1 total idiot in AJM3, are there any others? The funniest part is where he claims that Ron Paul would not be able to affect the drug war as president but he would somehow be able to repeal the Civil Rights Act all by himself, something that has overwhelming support in congress and would easily pass with a veto-proof majority.
I think we have sufficient evidence to demonstrate that you are a total idiot.
The GOTP is already trying to hamper the rights of minorities to vote. They are not so much with Ronnie on War on Drugs.
It helps to take a reality check before you make a fool of yourself. Again.
JohnPidaras
AJM3 It also helps to address the issue we're talking about, which is whether newsletters written 20 years ago harm minorities more than the war on drugs. You answer to this question is the newsletters. Thus, because of your unwillingness to submit to reason or logic because it might contradict your anti-Paul narrative (all bad, nothing good whatsoever), you have placed yourself into the "idiot" category.
I don't have that problem. I don't have to defend Ron Pauls abortion views because I don't agree with them. Then again, since my world is not black and white, this is possible. It's quite possible that Ron Paul is not the savior of mankind. He's also not the devil incarnate. In a colorful world, we're forced to look at issues because we don't deal in absolutes.
According to the issues, Ron Paul is not a racist.
My answer is not the news letters. My answer is tha Ron Paul remains a racist and should not be elected. Electing Ron Paul would harm minorities not help them. Ron Paul would fail on The War on Drugs and his other actions would harm them.
You don't elect 'issue.' You elect a person. Ron Paul the person you want elected has a long history of trading in racist trash and making money from it. That alone disqualifies him from the office he seeks.
You don't have to defend Ron Paul's abortion views because you don't hold them? That's like arguing that it is okay to vote for Hitler because you don't share his views on Jews. What you have to defend is voting for someone who is going to take actions you claim to oppose.
JohnPidaras
In that case you have to defend Obamas corporatism and imperialism, correct? Or are you holding double standards again?
Please demonstrate why electing Ron Paul would harm minorities more than help them. And please, no idiotic statements like "he could repeal the Civil Rights Act which has veto-proof majority support but he could not affect the war on drugs."
Please stop by lying by putting into quotes things I never said. What I said was that Ron Paul would strip minorities of the protection of the Civil Rights laws. This does not necessarily mean that he could get that repealed in Congress. There are other measures that he could take that would have the same results. Take Supreme Court Justices for example. Or simple failures to enforce.
Nice distraction on trying to get me to defend Obama when the point at issue here is whether or not Ron Paul is a lying racist. Ron Paul is a lying racist. Your claim is that this doesn't matter because Ron Paul is also against the War on Drugs. On that issue Ron Paul has been a dead failure in Congress.
JohnPidaras
AJM3 wants his cake and wants to eat it too. He points out that Ron Paul has been a "dead failure" on the war on drugs. I wonder why that doesn't apply to the Civil Rights Act though? I see how this works. Good things rubber, bad things glue....
Childish.
This society retains elements of racism which would enable Ron Paul to harm minorities in the guise of supporting freedom.
This society hates drugs in ways which would hamper Ron Paul's effectiveness against the War on Drugs.
Again, checking whats going on in the real world will help you stop making simplistic statements and distorting your opponents' arguments.
Ron Paul has been a dead failure against the War on Drugs. Do you have any facts to support the idea that Ron Paul has not been useless against the War on Drugs?
JohnPidaras
JohnPidaras As president, RP would be in a position to influence civil rights FAR more than the drug war. Unlike drug cases, civil rights cases are most often handled on a federal level. The civil rights division of the DOJ is instrumental and can be gutted, just like Bush gutted anti-trust law enforcement at the federal level. RP won't need to repeal the CRA. He can simply see that enforcement is lax. He could do the same with drug laws, but unless he could somehow dissolve the DEA, his efforts would provide little relief, since the vast majority of drug cases are handled at the state level.
AJM3JohnPidaras
Well, even though racism still exist in America today, I think that if civil rights matters were returned to the states, jim crow would not come back. Also, President ron paul would have alot more say on matter than congressman ron paul. I also do not think Ron paul would be for stripping ANY RIGHTS FROM ANYBODY because of his ideals and convictions. As far as getting things passed congress, I think the only thing he would have trouble with is his foreign policy. but anyway, check this link out... if the head of NAACP can vouch for the guy well then...
Ron Paul and racism - NAACP Nelson Linderhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk9HSMB-YaU
JohnPidaras Specifically what has Ron Paul done to end the War on Drugs? What concrete measures or legislation has Ron Paul gotten passed to stop the war on drugs or deal with racist sentencing measures. At least Obama has actually done something about the gross disparity between sentencing for cocaine and crack-cocaine. What has Ron Paul actually achieved?
Because Ron Paul hasn't actually done anything to change drug laws in this country, we are forced, as rational consumers, to look at what Ron Paul has actually contributed to the discourse on race in this country. Unfortunately Ron Paul has contributed a lot of poison.
Ron Paul made a lot of money by selling viewpoints that he apparently didn't actually believe in. As a rational consumer in the free market of politics, that forces me to consider that Ron Paul is still selling rhetoric and viewpoints that he doesn't actually believe just to advance his own self-interests.
Are you guys serious at this point? Are you even listening to yourselves? Ron Paul is a rogue congressman in the Republican party (the Dennis Kucinich of the Democratic party if you will). Barrack Obama is the President of the United States. Are we seriously comparing what each person has accomplished without taking into consideration the amount of power that each wielded?
Now you're just being silly. How stupid could you be to think that would be a valid comparison? If you just thought about it for a second before posting it, it would make a world of difference.
It's funny how quick you are to adopt Republican talking points whenever they suit your needs. I remember the McCain camp making similar remarks about Obamas inexperience and needing "on the job training." They weren't valid then, but I guess they are now right?
RACISM, RACISM - such a boogie man. It keeps all the "racists" alert and fearful. the racists being white people. So-called hate crimes done by white people. There is an assumption of guilt by whites, so strong it has disabled whites intellectual mechanism so they are disarmed to any attack.. Its defamation. Its white genocide. Really what is happening globally is AFRICA FOR AFRICANS, ASIA FOR ASIANS AND WHITE COUNTRIES FOR EVERYONE. Only white children are being effected by massive immigration from the third world. A world is being created with fewer and fewer white people in it. IS THIS NOT A HATE CRIME AGAINST ALL WHITE PEOPLE? Its really about a genocide being committed against white people. Will anyone speak out on this?
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