Racist Newsletters Return To Haunt Ron Paul

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.


originally posted at:
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/the-racist-newsletters-return-to-haunt-ron-paul.php?ref=fpb

additional related link:
http://reason.com/blog/2008/01/11/old-news-rehashed-for-over-a-d
Writing in the same 1992 edition, Paul expressed the popular idea that government should lower the age at which accused juvenile criminals can be prosecuted as adults.
He added, "We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/angry-white-man?page=0,1 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/12/the-story-behind-ron-pauls-racist-newsletters/250338/#.TvKnInuXFVY
Additional racist tripe from Ron Paul Newsletter:
“Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began,” the looting was a natural byproduct of government indulging the black community with “‘civil rights,’ quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black tv shows, black tv anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda.”

“America’s number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks.”

a section of his Investment Letter, titled “What To Expect for the 1990s,” predicted that “Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities” because “mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white ‘haves.’"

In June 1991, an entry on racial disturbances in Washington, DC’s Adams Morgan neighborhood was titled, “Animals Take Over the D.C. Zoo.” “This is only the first skirmish in the race war of the 1990s,” the newsletter predicted. The newsletter inveighed against liberals who “want to keep white America from taking action against black crime and welfare,” adding, “Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems.” "Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

"We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational."



1995 video of Ron Paul Touting His Newsletter
http://www.democraticunderground.com/100260234#post20

“Anonymous” Reveals Close Ties Between Ron Paul And Neo-Nazis
The group of hackers known as “Anonymous” has shut down several neo-Nazi websites owned by Jamie Kelso, a former John Birch Society member, assistant to David Duke and moderator for the white supremacist website, Stormfront.

“Anonymous” claims to have recovered emails from Kelso that prove that Ron Paul has regularly met with members of Jamie Kelso’s neo-Nazi political party American Third Position and even was on several conference calls with their board of directors. Here is a statement from “Anonymous” from one of the neo-Nazi websites they shut down.

In addition to finding the usual racist rants and interactions with other white power groups, we also found a disturbingly high amount of members who are also involved in campaigning for Ron Paul. According to these messages, Ron Paul has regularly met with many A3P members, even engaging in conference calls with their board of directors. Ron Paul’s racist politics and affiliations are already well known, being viciously anti-immigrant, anti-abortion and against gay marriage — not to mention having authored the racist “Ron Paul Papers” and receiving financial support from other white power groups (pictured with Don Black from stormfront.org). Hard to believe Ron Paul draws some support from the left and the occupation movements, especially now that it is confirmed Ron Paul hangs out with straight up racist hate groups. We put extra effort in ruining the life of A3P webmaster Jamie Kelso. On top of being on the board of directors of A3P, former $cientologist, and high ranking Ron Paul organizer, he also is the account owner of german nazi forums and store nsl-forum.org, rhs-versand.com. Read more: http://newsone.com/nation/casey-gane-mccalla/anonymous-reveals-close-ties-between-ron-paul-and-neo-nazis/

As Republicans Cheer Child Labor, They Should Reflect On My Grand Father's Life

My grandfather, Mike Tanari, taught me many things, fishing with a cane pole and bobber, how to plant a garden, and how to make do. To say he was frugal was an understatement. One snowy day he showed me how to catch rabbits by hand to save the cost of shotgun shells. He took four rabbits that day and never fired a shot. But most all he taught me his life story. It is the most important lesson he ever shared with me.
Born in 1899, he went to work at Ladd’s Whitebreast Coal mine in 1909 at the age of 10 ½. He remembered the day the Cherry Mine burned. After finishing his 12 hour shift he could see the pall of smoke as it darkened the sky 3 miles to the north as he walked home. He said he was tired and all he could think about was the next day’s work.
Although he worked the mines for 36 years he never spoke much of those days. But one day I met a man that knew Grandpa from his work in the Marquette mine which was located on the bottom road between Depue and Spring Valley. I mentioned his name to Grandpa later that week at supper, and for the only time in his life did I see his face flush with anger. The man was the son of the mine boss at Marquette. Grandpa related that one spring day the waters of the Illinois River were nearing the top of the dike built around the shaft of the mine. Grandpa and the rest of the shift workers refused to enter the cage and descend for fear of being trapped and drowned below the surface. The mine boss addressed the milling miners and told them that any man that did not complete his shift would be fired and his name “blacklisted,” so that he could never work in another mine in Northern Illinois again. I asked Grandpa what he did. The anger left his face as he looked down at the dinner table and said in a soft voice, “Mike, mining was the only thing I knew. We all went down. It was the longest day of my life.” He was but 15 years of age when this happened, already a veteran of 5 years in the pit. Sixty years after the fact, he felt still the sting and the shame of that day. We never spoke of it again.
In later years Grandpa was the secretary of the Miner’s Local Labor Union. I still have the ledger books he kept. Every penny accounted for in careful pencil strokes. But those numbers tell little of the story of the men that pooled their resources to better the conditions in which they toiled. They reflect nothing of the sacrifice and loss that enriches our lives’ today. But they are invaluable to me. I would not part with them for any price.
Grandpa has been gone now for almost thirty years and yet there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him. He was not a wistful dreamer that talked of the “good ole days.” He always thought our best days were in front of us and he was careful to remind me that I lived in the best of times. As Labor Day approaches I hope and pray the things he and countless others endured are not forsaken, and never forgotten.

mike kohr 9/2011

Reagan Advisor Bruce Bartlett's Take On Today's Republican Party

"Basically we're still stuck in the situation we were three years ago and we haven't made any progress at all except that our problems are much worse because of political reasons, because we now have a crazy party in charge of one of the Houses of our Congress and they won't allow anything to happen because it's in their vested interest to make things worse," Bartlett explained in his typically exasperated way. "Plus they have a theory that is completely nuts…. I'm very depressed. [...] The most we can hope for is that a complete crazy person like Newt Gingrich gets the Republican nomination, the Republicans lose so badly that they lose control of the House and don't get control of the Senate and then maybe in a year we can finally talk about doing something rational.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/economic-experts-gather-in-dc-to-explain-why-politics-has-doomed-us.php