“Utterly Shocking!”: Just Like Dear Old Dad, Rand Paul Has Ties To Neo-Confederates
During his 2008 presidential campaign, then Texas Representative Ron Paul faced wide criticism for his newsletters—published as far back as the 1970s—which, at various points, were racist, homophobic, and anti-semitic. One newsletter from 1992 claimed that nearly all black men in Washington D.C. are “Semi-Criminal or Entirely Criminal”—while another from 1994 claimed that gays were “maliciously” infecting people with AIDS. Paul defended himself by saying that the newsletters were produced by a ghostwriter—with his name attached, and presumably, his consent—and the controversy didn’t do much to diminish his following among a certain set of young libertarians. But for those of us less enamored with Ron Paul, it did underscore one thing: His long-time association with the reactionary far-right of American politics.
Ron Paul has retired from politics, but his son—Kentucky Senator Rand Paul—is in the mix, and is clearly planning a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Ideologically, the younger Paul is indistinguishable from his father. And while he isn’t as close to the far-right as Ron Paul, it’s hard to say that he doesn’t have his own problems with race. In 2009, his campaign spokesperson resigned after racist images were discovered on his MySpace wall, and in 2010, Paul landed in a little hot water during an interview with Rachel Maddow, when he told her that he would have opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act for its impositions on businesses, i.e., they were no longer allowed to discriminate against blacks and other minorities.
Now, as the Washington Free Beacon reports, it also turns out that Rand Paul has his own relationship with the racist backwaters of American politics. I’m not a fan of the publication, but this looks terrible for the Kentucky senator:
A close aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) who co-wrote the senator’s 2011 book spent years working as a pro-secessionist radio pundit and neo-Confederate activist, raising questions about whether Paul will be able to transcend the same fringe-figure associations that dogged his father’s political career.
Paul hired Jack Hunter, 39, to help write his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington during his 2010 Senate run. Hunter joined Paul’s office as his social media director in August 2012.
From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
During public appearances, Hunter often wore a mask on which was printed a Confederate flag.
When considered in light of everything I mentioned earlier, none of this comes as a surprise. We know that Ron Paul has ties to neo-Confederates, and we know that Rand Paul has faced criticism for beliefs that echo their opposition to civil rights laws. Hiring a John Wilkes Booth sympathizer fits the picture of the Pauls as a political family that—regardless of what’s in their hearts—is comfortable working with right-wing racists.
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, July 9, 2013
“The Darker Side”: Ron Paul’s Nutty Think Tank Presents A Problem For His Son
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has established himself as one of the Republican Party’s most influential members, and a legitimate early contender for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2016. But the biggest hurdle to Paul’s ascension as a national leader may be the man whose vast political network enabled his improbable rise in the first place: his father, former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.
The elder Paul attracted legions of diehard supporters with his longshot 2012 bid, cementing his role as the public face of the GOP’s libertarian wing — a mantle that was neatly transferred to his son after the latter’s highly publicized filibuster over the Obama administration’s drone strike policy.
But his campaign also shed light on the darker aspects of Paul’s past, such as his series of racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic newsletters, and his close association with white supremacists and neo-Confederates, among other unsavory characters.
Now Paul’s disturbing connections, which he vehemently denied during the 2012 campaign, are on display for all to see at his new think tank, The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
As James Kirchick reports in The Daily Beast, the institute’s board is stocked with all manner of 9/11 truthers, supporters of authoritarian regimes, anti-Semites, neo-Confederates, and more. Among others, Paul’s associates now include:
—Lew Rockwell, a member of the right-wing fringe whom Paul explicitely disavowed during his presidential campaign, and who recently compared law enforcement after the Boston Marathon bombing to Nazi stormtroopers.
—John Laughland, who denies that the Bosnian genocide ever took place, and maintains that former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was convicted by a “kangaroo court.”
—Eric Margolis, who denies any conclusive proof linking Osama bin Laden to the September 11th attacks, and instead suggests that they may have been “a plot by America’s far right or by Israel or a giant cover-up.”
—Michael Scheuer, a former CIA intelligence officer who has described American Jews as a “fifth column” intent on sabatoging American foreign policy to benefit Israel.
—Walter Block, who believes that the Confederacy should have won the Civil War, and believes that America’s current foreign policy can be blamed on “the monster Lincoln.”
Those five names barely scratch the surface of the unsettling information that Kirchick has uncovered in his must-read article.
Although Ron Paul never had a realistic chance of winning the presidency, he still recognized that he had no choice but to disavow his connection with this rogues’ gallery of lunatics to legitimize his candidacy. But now, while his son has a very serious chance to compete for the Republican nomination in his own right, the senior Paul is drawing these disturbing figures closer than ever.
This presents a very serious problem for Rand Paul, who has presented himself as the man who can reverse the Republican Party’s dismal performance with minority voters, particularly African-Americans. Given his own troubling statements about the Civil Rights Act, the Kentucky senator would have already had trouble convincing voters that “the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights.” With his father openly partnering with neo-Confederates, that mission — along with Paul’s equally critical task of hanging on to the moderate and independent voters who have inflated his poll numbers — may be totally impossible.
Starting with his surprising decision to endorse Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign before his father had ended his own, Rand Paul has taken great pains to present himself as more mainstream than his father, and consequently as a more realistic presidential candidate. But as long as his father persists with his fringe right-wing activity — or unless Rand Paul does the unthinkable, and publicly disavows his father — Rand may never come any closer to the presidency than Ron.
By: Henry Decker, The National Memo, April 26, 2013
“Rewarding Failure”: Reince Priebus Re-elected To Lead The Republican National Committee
Reince Priebus was re-elected chairman of the Republican National Committee on Friday, overcoming divisions and tensions in the party as he pledged to remake and restore the Republican brand before the Congressional elections next year and the 2016 presidential race.
He was elected with near unanimity to serve a second term at the helm of the Republican Party. He allayed concerns from some party officials and activists about the outcome of last year’s elections and sought re-election without serious opposition.
“We can stand by our timeless principles and articulate them in ways that are modern and relevant to our time and relatable to the majority of voters,” Mr. Priebus said in his speech. “And that, I believe, is how we’ll achieve a Republican renewal. That’s how we’ll grow. That’s how we’ll win.”
The election here on Friday during the annual winter meeting of the committee unfolded without the drama and dissent of two years ago when Mr. Priebus was elected after surviving seven contentious rounds of balloting to overtake Michael Steele, the embattled party chairman.
Mr. Priebus, 40, a former chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, delivered a blunt message to the party during his acceptance speech. He said that the Republican Party needed to rebuild across the country and not simply focus on the same battleground states that are at the center of every presidential election.
“There is one clear, overriding lesson from November: We didn’t have enough voters,” Mr. Priebus said. “We have to find more supporters. We have to go places we haven’t been and we have to invite new people to join us.”
In his remarks, Mr. Priebus reported to members of the committee that he had led the party out of the debt that he inherited when he took over two years ago. He said the party still needed to make strides to compete with the Democratic Party.
Mr. Priebus secured the support of the party’s major donors and state officials, even as he appealed to the Libertarian strains of the party that are represented by supporters of Ron Paul. He fought back the possibility of a challenge from Mark Willis, a committee member from Maine, who supported Mr. Paul in last year’s presidential campaign.
Mr. Willis did not receive enough support on Friday to have his name placed into nomination. Party officials who gathered here said Republicans needed to be unified if they were going to successfully rebuild after losing the race for the White House and seats in the House and Senate last year.
In his remarks on Friday, Mr. Priebus said the party needed to improve its technology to compete with Democrats, but also focus on returning to the basics of building a strong get-out-the-vote operation. He did not talk specifically about the divisions inside the party over fiscal and social issues, but he urged Republican officials to be driven by their overarching goal: winning elections.
“Growing the party to be more welcoming and more inclusive does not require abandoning our principles,” Mr. Priebus said. “It means renewing those principles because only they can offer the solutions to the liberal-induced problems of our time.”
By: Jef Zeleny, The New York Times, January 25, 2013
“A Deeply Un-American Principle”: Ron Paul Is “Deeply Wrong” About Secession
Texas Rep. Ron Paul is deeply wrong when he says that secession is a “deeply American principle.”
During the freak-show circus that was the 2012 Republican primary process, Paul attained a kooky uncle sort of charm—he was an oddball among an underwhelming collection of loons and shysters, but he did it all with a bemused grin. That distinguished him from the rest who were busy competing to see who could generate the most foam at the mouth over their apoplectic disdain for President Obama. So Paul’s comments yesterday about secession-chic are a useful reminder that he leaves politics the same way he practiced it—not as a charming gadfly but a crank.
Paul, addressing the spate of secession petitions on the White House’s “We the People” website, wrote on his House site yesterday (h/t Politico):
Secession is a deeply American principle. This country was born through secession. Some felt it was treasonous to secede from England, but those “traitors” became our country’s greatest patriots.
There is nothing treasonous or unpatriotic about wanting a federal government that is more responsive to the people it represents. That is what our Revolutionary War was all about and today our own federal government is vastly overstepping its constitutional bounds with no signs of reform. In fact, the recent election only further entrenched the status quo. If the possibility of secession is completely off the table there is nothing to stop the federal government from continuing to encroach on our liberties and no recourse for those who are sick and tired of it.
He is right that there is nothing treasonous or patriotic about wanting a responsive federal government, but that is why we have elections. Just because an election doesn’t go the way you would like, you don’t get to take your state and go stomping home, even if you try to cloak your dislike for current policy in principled talk about “vast” impingements on “constitutional bounds.” But there’s a distinct difference between wanting to elect a new government and trying to dissolve the country—the latter is, in fact, both treasonous and unpatriotic (although there is admittedly some humor in this variation of the hoary “love it or leave it” uberpatriotism which often animates the right—now it’s “love it the way I say or I’ll leave it”).
Secession is a deeply un-American principle. It is a principle that posed the greatest existential threat to the United States of America and was vanquished by our greatest president. I refer of course to the Civil War (which was not, as some would have it, the “War Between the States” or, ha ha, the “War of Northern Aggression”). The bloodiest war in the nation’s history was fought over the question of secession and the side which tried to destroy the United States lost. That settles it.
In his post, Paul anticipates this line of argument: “Many think the question of secession was settled by our Civil War. On the contrary; the principles of self-governance and voluntary association are at the core of our founding.” This is a mind-numbing non sequitur—the second statement does not contradict the first. What he is doing is dishonoring the hundreds of thousands who died that the nation may live. Just because their fight took place a century-and-a-half ago it should not diminish their sacrifice. This is why we still revere, for example, the Gettysburg Address (delivered 149 years ago yesterday), which gave such eloquent voice to those who gave the “last full measure of devotion.” It’s why we still make movies about Lincoln.
Ron Paul is departing the political stage. The political world has widely noted his retirement, but happily he will not be long remembered.
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, November 20, 2012
“The Holy Paulites”: The Split Within The Christian Right Over Taking Government Money
At the Lunch Buffet post, I mentioned an interesting new piece from Sarah Posner at Salon drawing attention to a faction of evangelical leaders who are closely aligned with the Ron Paul Revolution. They are hardly “libertarians,” as her description makes clear:
These religious Paul supporters are part of a subculture that fuses some of the most extreme elements of the American right: birthers, Birchers, neo-Confederates, contraception-eschewing home-schoolers, neo-Calvinists and gun rights supporters who think (like Paul does) that the National Rifle Association is too liberal. They include disaffected former supporters of Republicans like the Baptist preacher-turned-politician Mike Huckabee and Mormons who won’t vote for Mitt Romney.
They’re attracted to Paul because they think that in the place of the federal government, which they believe should not be “legislating morality,” their ultra-conservative brand of Christianity should play a central role in shaping the laws and morals of their states and communities.
Some of these folk, in fact, are frankly theocratic:
Patricia Wheat, an activist I met at an antiabortion rally in South Carolina, contended that the Constitution “comes out of the Book of Deuteronomy, which sets specific precepts for government.” (Wheat also serves on the South Carolina Sound Money Committee, which promotes an “alternative currency” for the state.) The Bible, she added, “is the only recognized religious book that sets forth jurisdiction and promotes liberty. The Bible says that the family is responsible for education of the children. The Bible says that the church is responsible for the spiritual nurturing in the community and to minister to the widows and the orphans. That’s a legitimate function of the church. Civil government is to defend the people’s liberties so they can live freely, because a free people are by nature of being a free people, a holy people.”
But while they strongly believe they have the right to impose their values on others through the law, they are horrified at the idea of becoming wards of the state via subsidies:
At the core of [South Carolina pastor Tony] Romo’s beliefs — like the other religious Paul supporters I spoke to — is that the federal government is largely unconstitutional. Romo’s church isn’t incorporated under South Carolina law, nor did he apply for tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service. Those acts, he said, would make “the state your Lord” or the “federal government your Lord.” If the government “dictates to the church you can no longer preach against homosexuality, those churches better submit … you [give] them [the government] the right to tell you what to preach.”
The unincorporated church, he maintained, “was the original church in the New Testament and was the original church in America.” When churches began incorporating and seeking tax-exempt status, “all they did was enslave themselves to the federal government.”
These folk provide an interesting contrast to the standard-brand conservative evangelicals who are lining up at the trough for school vouchers and “faith-based organization” dollars, and who accuse the Obama administration of waging a “war on religion” for not giving their affiliated charities and health care institutions federal money along with a blanket exemption from laws and regulations they find offensive.
Perhaps the Holy Paulites will begin firing a few open shots at their brethren who have no trouble with Big Government so long as they are in charge, and who might be accused of polishing Satan’s jeweled crown in pursuit of the almighty (fiat money!) dollar.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, July 5, 2012
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 