Letters of Ron Paul's Past

New Focus on Incendiary Words in Paul’s Newsletters
Jim Rutenberg and Richard A. Oppel Jr.

 December 19, 2011


There has been old articles, written by Ron Paul, that have been recently surfacing the public. Ron Paul is denying these articles containing racism, anti-gay remarks, and anti-Israel which were included in his political newsletter column. In these articles Ron Paul wrote things such as "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks," about the Los Angeles riots in 1992. Another said that people with AIDs should be banned from eating in restaurants because the disease could be spread by saliva. He also bashes Ronald Reagan's choice of making the day honoring MLK a federal holiday by calling it "Hate Whitey Day."

In an interview with CNN, Ron Paul claims he had no idea who wrote the insulting articles and takes responsibility for NOT paying close attention to the media. Ron's reason to his failure to pay close attention to the media was due to him being busy with a medical practice and going around to world delivering speeches. While running for the House in 1996,  Democrats brought portion's of Ron Paul's articles, that called Barbara Jordan, an African-American Texas congresswoman, a “half-educated victimologist,” to the media's attention. Then commented on crime in Washington, D.C., “I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.” Ron Paul says that his statements were taken out of context as an excuse.  His newsletter with 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers was listed by a neo-Nazi group called Heritage Front,  as recommended reading, under the Internet heading “Racialists and Freedom Fighters.” Which Paul claims to have no clue about. During Ron Paul's appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", he tries to joke by saying things like, Michelle Bauchmann hates Muslims and that Rick Santorum speaks about "gay people and Muslims". In an interview with Texas Monthly in 2001, Paul  regrets his actions and for denying of the articles. “They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them,” he said. He continued to say that it did not come directly from him. There is a chance that these old articles will hurt Ron Paul's campaign but one supporter claims that it does not worry him.