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Go Home Ron Paul Round-up

THE PLANK JANUARY 16, 2008

Ron Paul Round-up

BY JAMES KIRCHICK

Reason magazine's Dave Weigel and Julian Sanchez have a must-read piece digging into the question of who wrote Ron Paul's newsletters. There's also some very interesting background on the history of libertarianism, and how Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard hoped to turn it into a neo-populist movement based upon racial resentment (thus the amity for Pat Buchanan and David Duke). It appears that the man in charge of the newsletters was indeed Rockwell, whom Paul can't renounce because he's his longtime guru.

An interesting fact that the dynamic duo dug up was this:

The publishing operation was lucrative. A tax document from June 1993—wrapping up the year in which the Political Report had published the "welfare checks" comment on the L.A. riots—reported an annual income of $940,000 for Ron Paul & Associates, listing four employees in Texas (Paul's family and Rockwell) and seven more employees around the country. If Paul didn't know who was writing his newsletters, he knew they were a crucial source of income and a successful tool for building his fundraising base for a political comeback.

So Ron Paul was pulling in nearly $1,000,000 annually from racist, homophobic, paranoid bile -- and he had no idea where the checks were coming from?

--James Kirchick

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6 comments

Does Rockwell also have a "fourth child" who in the early 1990s was in medical school?

- teplukhin2you

January 16, 2008 at 12:21pm

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Uh, James, while you're at it could you give us some figures on how much your former boss Martin Peretz has pulled in over the years with his racist bile. He is the Ron Paul of the American Likudnik movement - yet you appear to have had no qualms about working for him.

- ndmackenzie

January 16, 2008 at 12:30pm

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I know exactly  how he feels. I often trip over bags of money that appear in my house. I actually cut my shin there yesterday after I slipped on a 500 Euro bill in the kitchen. Whoever's droppinig that money around had better own up or I'll sue them for misrepresntation.

- The Ignorant Populist

January 16, 2008 at 12:42pm

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Is Marty Peretz running for President? Jame's point that Ron Paul's excuse (I didn't know) is completely unbelievable given the amount of money being generated by the newsletters.

BSD

- bsdespain

January 16, 2008 at 12:44pm

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Ah, the return of Miss Sweetness and Light. Never thought I'd see a TalkBack subscriber trying to attack the anti-Paulites, but never underestimate the Mack.

- teplukhin2you

January 16, 2008 at 1:21pm

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"Ah, the return of Miss Sweetness and Light. Never thought I'd see a TalkBack subscriber trying to attack the anti-Paulites, but never underestimate the Mack."

Wouldn't be surprised if the Mack were working for the Ron Paul campaign (as, is alleged, a Grand Wizard-type of the KKK).

- caaggies

January 16, 2008 at 3:25pm

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