This guy is a big Ron Paul supporter

Forbes reports:

Sovereign Extremist Injured in Texas Bomb Explosion

On June 20, 2012, a 33-year old Texan named Anson Chi was arrested and charged with a hideous crime. According to case investigators, Chi had manufactured a bomb in his parents’ home and was attempting to blow up an above-ground natural gas pipeline in the middle of a residential neighborhood in Plano, Texas. The bomb had gone off while Chi was standing over it, and the explosion caused a large, circular indentation in the strong, metal pipes. Natural gas began leaking out, but luckily for nearby homes, did not ignite. Chi, however, was badly injured by the blast.

 Here's the freak's MySpace page, replete with pro-Paul crap.

Maddow on how the Paul crowd is quietly beginning to take over the GOP

Very good analysis of what's happening in the state level Republican infrastructure. The lesson to learn? These guys get knocked down but they get up again, and they're never really gone:

Fox Nation: Culture Boobs

Apparently Fox Nation equates "culture" with "boobs." At least, that's what I'm left to conclude when of its top nine features in the new stories section, three (33%) entice with cleavage photos and are tagged "Culture."

Should I keep blogging about this guy?

Sure, it seemed like a good topic at the time. Ron Paul was making noise and people were asking (again) about his racist, kooky newsletters. So I collected them, and I intend to keep doing so, but luminaries such as the New York Times via Salon seem to think Paul is going to once again slide out of the public spotlight:

Or maybe, and just hear me out here, maybe Ron Paul has always been a niche candidate with a small but incredibly vocal base of support? Maybe the rallies full of thousands of college students represented essentially the entirety of his following and not just the most committed element? Maybe a cantankerous lifelong congressman who combines a steadfast antiwar position with long-discredited crank monetary ideas was never actually remotely likely to come close to winning the Republican nomination? (And his history of embracing racist white populism probably hurt him with “independents,” besides the racist independents.)

Maybe, maybe, most of America actually doesn’t care for Ron Paul or his ideas!

So as of now, I'll be broadening the scope of this site to examine in more granular depth the esoteric sources of many of the weird things we hear right-wing leaders and candidates saying. Stuff like Sarah Palin's ties to people who think they battle demons, for example.

It's sure to be hilariously terrifying. It'll be hilerrifying.

Hey young people! Listen to somebody who actually knows what he's talking about re: the gold standard!

From The Atlantic Wire:

We wondered Tuesday morning why Ben Bernanke was offering a live-streamed lecture series to college students on the history of the Federal Reserve, and now we have at least one answer: He's reaching out to young people -- the young people who conveniently make up a core constituency of notorious Fed-antagonist Ron Paul.

This is great. Youngsters who have been listening to Ron Paul's endless droning about the gold standard on YouTube can now get real information about it, from the Chair of the Federal Reserve rather than from a gynecologist.

What would Gandhi say?

I've debated for some time about whether to do this. But I finally decided to go through with a collection of nutty internet forum quotes from Ron Paul supporters. Is it nut-picking? Of course it is. But I firmly believe that if one were so inclined, one could compile a list a hundred times this length.

So. I promise they're not made up. These are just a few of the many wacky things said online by Ron Paul supporters:

"look the plan is to let bang bang i will kill you if you are different obama, mitt is there to look good oh he has nice hair there is no change there never was going to be thay will & have set fema camps up for you .look if you want change LOOK AT IT ron paul will put the usa & world back too greatness if that is what you wont ,but if you wont evil vote mitt or bang bang LAST CHANCE.good luck." -- nellyyllen1, YouTube


"A question for the Ron Paul voters:

If Mr. Ron Paul was elected President of the United States, would he release the classified files about UFOs?

Would he disclose all information about HAARP and its use as a weapon of mass destruction?

Would he start a serious investigation about 9/11 and disclose the truth about the flase flag attacks?

Or not? Or will him keep the secrets of the Military–industrial complex?" -- IWantTheTruth, GodLikeProductions


(Part of a discussion of whether Ron Paul is a Reptoid) "Anything is possible, but if he is, he is the most cunning reptile ever as he displays none of thier traits.

The best of the rest all display some form of snobbery/stupidity/callous/sexual diviance. They can't avoid it as its part of thier genetic makeup.

Paul never displays any of these traits, he's always %100 honest and correct and he always behaves like a human being.

I'm prepared for anything, but as of now I stand behind him with no doubts." - Crisitunity, davidicke.com


Check back for more!

Why Ron Paul doesn't really matter that much

So why do I talk about him so much? Because this is the Internet, where Ron Paul is a really big deal, not the real world, where he isn't:

Tim Hwang, a researcher of online movements and memes and the managing director of the Web Ecology Project, says that Ron Paul illustrates a fact we often overlook: "The Internet is notcoterminous with the real world." He told me by email, "Like in a rearview mirror communities can be smaller than they appear on the Internet: discussion is often subject to parties who are loudest and can rally the most participants to appear online and participate at that specific moment."
This time around, for Paul, the Internet rally seems to have been sound and fury signifying little.Paul's big hopes for Alaska, Idaho and North Dakota were dashed on Super Tuesday, and he has yet to score a victory in a single contest in this election.

This is actually rather similar to the Tea Party strategy from a few years ago. Remember the Tea Party strategy memo that was leaked? Its advice, according to Talking Points Memo:

The memo ... suggests that tea partiers should "pack the hall... spread out" to make their numbers seem more significant, and to "rock-the-boat early in the Rep's presentation...to yell out and challenge the Rep's statements early.... to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda...stand up and shout and sit right back down."

 Ron Paul's people simply do the internet version of this, on individual websites and as a whole. They like to seek sites where a smaller group of people comment -- it makes them seem like a larger percent of the user base -- and on the Web as a whole, they proliferate with pro-Paul sites. The online presence of the Ron Paul movement may seem impressive -- but it's really just a roaring mouse.

Paul 2012 Has Accepted $6,000 From White Supremacist Groups So Far

As the Huffington Post reports, he'll disavow them but he'll take their money. This is why we shouldn't focus so much attention in political discourse on what candidates and politicians say, and look more closely at what they do.

Ron Paul and Christian Dominionism

Any person or group that would like to be more influential in the lives of others can be drawn to the small-government position. This is a good reason to be suspicious of anyone who, like Grover Norquist, wants to "make government small enough to drag into the bathroom and drown in the bathtub." A government with a monopoly on force is tough to compete against, and a government fully under the control of its people is tough to bend to your agenda.

I think this is one of the reasons Ron Paul is supported by so many fringe groups -- racists, secessionists, money kooks (Google "competing currencies") and people like Phil Kayser. Kayser is the pastor of the Dominion Covenant Church of Nebraska and the "president" of BiblicalBlueprints.org, which says things like:

To many, the future of America seems grim. Corrupt politicians, depraved entertainment providers, and determined homosexual activists are working hard to undermine the social fabric of our nation. Christians are under attack from every direction.
However, God is raising up an undercurrent of dedicated Christians who are challenging the philosophical, intellectual, and political enemies of Christ who have hijacked our culture.

Kayser is a leading voice in the Christian Dominionist movement, which TheocracyWatch defines as:

Essay puts Paul newsletters into context of political history

This is an excellent historical piece written late last year that helps explain the reasoning behind so much of the racism and homophobia in Ron Paul's newsletters. Here's a takeaway:

It was about appealing to the worst instincts of working/middle class conservative whites by creating the only anti-left fusion possible with the demise of socialism: one built on cultural issues. With everyone broadly agreeing that the market had won, how could you hold together a coalition that opposed the left? Oppose them on the culture.

Check it out: How Did We Get Here? Or, Why Do 20 Year Old Newsletters Matter So Damn Much?

Maddow on how Paul plans to game the GOP primary

This is weird -- it seems like an unfair, undemocratic scheme being used to compete against another unfair, undemocratic scheme. I'll let the awesome Rachel take it from here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Awesome report from MSNBC on Paul SuperPAC

In a nutshell, Ron Paul's Super PAC is run by a 9/11 truther/birther/NWO-believer/FEMA camp believer, and the PAC now plans to closely monitor the remaining GOP primaries and caucuses because it believes, since Paul's not running away with this thing, that there must be a conspiracy. Of course, when you're a hammer ...

Law enforcement expert refutes his characterization in Ron Paul Political Report

The conversation on Ron Paul's newsletters is getting a bit crowded, with aforementioned reporting done by the Washington Post citing former RP newsletter staffers saying that Paul was very much involved with the creation of his newsletters and that if he didn't write the "bad stuff," he certainly signed off on it.

While reading the June 1990 PDF of the Ron Paul Political Report, I noticed a passage about "race war." These were ubiquitous in Paul's newsletters both before and after the L.A. riots sparked by the controversial Rodney King beating verdict. But this one was a bit unique in that it cited a source.

On page 2, the newsletter starkly stated:

"Veteran FBI agent William L. Tafoya says we are headed for race war."

So I looked up William Tafoya. As it turns out, he's made a career of looking to the horizon of issues facing law enforcement, often projecting current trends in technology and politics into the future. So I was wondering whether this seemingly well-regarded law enforcement professional had really said the United States was "headed for race war."

Here's the e-mail I sent him:

Ron Paul and Neonazis

Anonymous has exposed some of Ron Paul's alleged Neonazi ties:

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.

Source

Argh! The link wasn't working last time I tried it, but here's a link to the Liberty Lamp post about this hacktivity.

Ron Paul's newsletters -- everything I could find -- Part II

As I wrote before, The New Republic recently released a new treasure trove of Ron Paul newsletters, solicitations and campaign materials -- 25 PDF files, which I put on FileDen along with the original 35-file post to create a one-stop shop for even more Paul-related PDFs.

I'm only linking to 24 of the files, as one is duplicated in the TNR report.

Here we go with the links and commentary ...

Authorship Awkwardness Galore

Three people who worked on the Ron Paul newsletters say Paul was "deeply involved" in their creation, reports The Washington Post.

Silliness

A.K.A., what I'm doing instead of working on my next post.

Sorry

Missed my self-imposed deadline for my take on the new treasure trove of RP newsletters from TNR. I'm shooting for this week. Only the softest of deadlines will be adhered to.

Meanwhile, if you've never seen this before, here's a great post at DailyKos about Hans-Hermann Hoppe -- who flat-out terrifies me -- and what the author calls "anarcho-fascism" (perhaps a contradiction in terms, but it gets at the spirit of Hoppe's property worship).

Great New Newsletter Article at TNR

I've just finished downloading 25 new PDF files of Ron Paul newsletters and related material from a great new article at The New Republic which, as I've said before, is at the vanguard (tasteless pun not intended) of the reporting on this issue.

My first-blush take is that the big news here will be a racist rant which bears a smoking gun in the form of Ron Paul's byline. It's going to be hard to deny authorship of that one.

I'm shooting for another big post, including all the new material, by Sunday, but for now definitely check out TNR's reporting. Here's a little screenshot teaser:

More Ron Paul Authorship Awkwardness

As related in my epic first post, Ron Paul now claims he didn't write the racist, anti-Semitic, conspiracy-mongering passages quoted from newsletters bearing his name in the title during the 80s and 90s.

That was not always the case. Below is the entire text of a 1996 Houston Chronicle article in which Paul is confronted about the newsletters and does not deny writing them.

Years later, the campaign said that to deny authorship during Paul's race against Democrat Charles "Lefty" Morris would have been "confusing." Actually, the failure to deny authorship when the newsletters first became an issue, and then the flip-flop denial along with that excuse, are hardly less confusing!

Ron Paul's newsletters -- everything I could find

It recently struck me that in the ongoing discussion of Ron Paul's newsletters, it's been hard to find many of them to read. Hence, this post.

I trolled the internet and found as many as I could, compiling a whopping 35 PDF files. Most are a few select pages from newsletters published between 1978 and 1996. Some are scans of the masthead showing Paul credited as editor or publisher, while others are related documents such as solicitations to subscribe (for a hefty $200 for 12 monthly editions in 1987, or nearly $380/year in 2010 dollars).

A vast trove was supplied by The New Republic, which has been out front of the newsletter reporting over the past four years. More were found at Mother Jones, and the rest were found one or two at a time from various other websites.

Paul supporters have claimed that the incendiary passages lifted from these newsletters are out of context or at least not the norm. Paul himself denies authoring or overseeing any of it. I would submit that with examples from at least two years' worth of newsletters, the reader will see that these publications were full of hatred and crazy conspiracy theories, and that Paul likely had a larger hand in their authorship than he now claims (in 1996, he sang a different tune).

Without further ado, the links and my own commentary: