Wait…Ron Paul is claiming that the Reagan administration teamed up with gay people to cover up the AIDS epidemic?
What, exactly, was the GLBT community supposed to get out of that nefarious partnership? More AIDS deaths?
You guys are right, the dude is a nutter.
Ah, alright. So what were these newsletters? How did they come to have his name on them? I just find this perplexing. Somebody, perhaps the Unknown Bigot, approached him and said “I’d like to write a newsletter called the Ron Paul Report that will tell people about your views plusabunchofcrazyshit,” and Paul says okay, but doesn’t care enough to read it… apparently it happened, but it’s pretty stupid.
As in all things, there is a relevant xkcd.
Question here - so Ron Paul is claiming that he didn’t write those articles (though the New Republic article says they were written in a newsletter with his name on it, and some of them written in the first person so that anyone reading the newsletter would assume that they are Ron Paul’s views) - has he said who did write them? Or has anyone associated with the newsletter revealed who the true author was?
No, but he and OJ Simpson are hard at work hunting down the culprit. It’s a tough job, sipping scotch and creeping around four-star golf resorts coast-to-coast looking for the bastard, but God bless 'em, someone’s got to do it.
Carlson is 38.
He said last night that he’s 25.
No doubt, Tucker was referring to his mental age.
Probably the Illuminati wrote the newsletters in a plot to smear Ron Paul.
Or maybe it was the CIA. Some of Ron Paul’s fervent supporters have been spreading the story that the CIA is plotting to assassinate Paul because he threatens the Powers That Be, so I doubt they’d balk at forging newsletters. :rolleyes:
It might be helpful to point out that some of us have been employed to write newsletters. Two of the newsletters from my early 90s were published under the name of a businessman and a candidate, both right-wing party faithfuls. One of my newsletters ran parody pieces on Michigan insurance regulations. Nothing terribly thorny, but still overseen. Overseen, overedited, underproduced, but I digress.
That said, all one has to do is look at the Ron Paul Report, the special issue dealing with the Rodney King Riots (PDF!). While it is incendiary, calling people “the blacks” would have been acceptable in 1992. I couldn’t have written those words and neither of the aforementioned bosses would’ve allowed them to go out. But back then ugly racial divisions were the reality of the political climate, and whether you were Limbaugh or Safire you were talking about it.
Can I cite you on that? I mean if I can attach Ron Paul’s considered opinions, (“And popping out of the cake will be a big surprise: an IRS agent with an AK47!”) to those men, I think we could dispense with their opinions forthwith. (Their arguments would be a different matter - we wouldn’t want to implement an ad hominem after all.)
It was my impression that Mr. Ron Paul wasn’t a huge fan of the Federal Reserve. So aligning him with Alan Greenspan is …interesting.
Ok, my lampoon of Lib ended up on the top of the page. Guys, there’s no need for a pile-on: Lib was defending a silly fundraising letter for the Ron Paul Political Report.
What Lib probably wants to say is that all fundraising letters are nutty. How true: but I thought this example was particularly amusing.
For anyone interested in what an African-American leader thinks about all this, here is an interview with Nelson E. Linder, president of the NAACP in Austin, TX.
I realize that most of you will think the interviewer is a crank and that his ads are crazy, but that has nothing to do with what Linder is saying. “I’ve read Ron Paul’s whole philosophy,” he says, “I also understand what he’s saying from a political standpoint and why people are attacking him. If you scare the folks that have the money, they’re going to attack you and they’re going to take it out of context.” Paul advocates weakening the power that his opponents seek. That’s what this smear is all about, and why it was resurrected after 10 years.
And while I’m at it, fuck the Daily Kos for censoring a post similar to mine above and then banning the user for “copyright violation”. If indeed there was more than fair-use text (we’ll never know since it was goddamn deleted), the mod could have replaced it with a link as ours often do.
I’d be willing to take Ron Paul’s admission of error in not exercising sufficient control over his newsletter at face value, if it had not been for him refusing to return a $500 donation from that Stormfront guy. Link.
While I bet that there’s some sort of libertarian free speech principle at play, it indicates to me that he’s not willing to distance himself from racist and neo-Nazi organizations. I consider myself pretty firmly free speech, but no way in hell would I accept money from known racists.
Right. I’m sure that’s representative of what black Americans think of a guy who’s denounced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as violating “property rights”, and also opposes the Voting Rights Act.
Here’s another opinion regarding Paul’s newsletters:
*"Paul is, of course, outraged every time those embarrassing newsletters written in the 1990s with racially front loaded inflammatory quips about and bash of blacks, and now as it turns out gays, keep publicly cropping up. They cropped up again recently on CNN. The Paul-attributed digs and insults call blacks chronic welfare grifters, thugs, lousy parents, say they are inherently racist toward whites, and supposedly admonished whites to get their guns because the animals are coming. Paul vehemently denies that he said any of those things.
But there’s a colossal problem with his denial. The quips appeared in his officially approved newsletters. There is no evidence that he wrote a correction, issued a clarification, or if, as some Paul groupies claim, they were written by someone else, that he publicly disavowed and fired that someone else. Since Paul did none of those things it begs the question whether those views truly represent his feelings or not. He didn’t disown them at the time. He loudly protests them now because he has to. He has revved up a motley group of disaffected, disgruntled, naïve, wet-behind-the-ear teenie boppers, and political malcontents who crave for someone, anyone, to snub their nose at the political establishment. But their mix of blind adulation and desperation translates out into more media and public scrutiny than Paul has ever gotten. And that in turn has meant that his past, or alleged past words, are now wide open for public dissection and accountability. That riles up Paul backers who go nuts over any hint that he is anything less than the second coming of St. Paul and Mother Theresa…
Paul piles even more suspicion on his denial of racial bias when he even more absurdly tries to claim that he is pounded as a racist because more and more blacks cheer him for blasting the drug laws as biased and harmful to blacks. The disparities in drug law enforcement are gaping, and demand reform, but urging that they be totally scrapped is a far different matter.
The drug plague and the crime, violence, and family wreckage that has come with it has torn poor black communities and has caused much pain and suffering among African-Americans. The last thing that the majority of African-Americans want to see is open and unchecked illicit drug selling bizarres operating in their communities. Blacks have been among those that have shouted the loudest for crackdowns on crime and drugs.
Despite what Paul says, there is absolutely no evidence that he has gotten, or will get any traction, with black voters on the drug issue. He is a fringe candidate with white voters, and that includes GOP voters, and he is a complete non-entity with black voters…
So here’s my challenge to Paul to prove that he didn’t say or mean any of the racial jibes in the newsletters. Issue a clear and direct public statement, and that’s not an off the cuff denial in a CNN interview, or on any other broadcast network, that says I fully support all civil rights laws, will work hard against racial and gender profiling, and will push government economic support initiatives to boost minorities and the poor. That’s the challenge for Paul. Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to accept it."*
Jesus. Good thing you didn’t post that at Kos. (Actually, they’d probably leave it intact.)
Actually, it is. Ron Paul Polls Better Among African Americans than Other Republicans. Blacks aren’t as stupid as you seem to think, and do not necessarily misinterpret what he means by opposing such federal nannyism.
I’m trying to imagine the glad cries of joy when the dove lands upon Markos’ desk with another post from Lib, I bet they positively beshit themselves with gratitude…
Liberal, from your link: “One theory that I am suggesting here is that it seems like the less name recognition a Republican candidate has, the better he will poll among African Americans. Bush only had 11% in 2004. Giuliani is polling at 16% then McCain at 20% then Romney at 23.5% and finally Ron Paul at 32%. The contention would be that the less a Republican is known to a black voter, the less they are ‘against’ them.”
Maybe this theory is true or maybe it’s false. But in any event, it seems clear to me that the polls were taken before the widespread furor over the newsletters (and by the way, calling this furor a “smear” seems a misuse of the terminology).
What the hell made you think I posted it? I’m not registered there and have never posted there in my life, smart ass. I just thought deleting it for the obvious purpose of ignoring Linder’s comments was a dickish thing to do.