Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) emergence as the front-runner in the Iowa GOP primary is bringing new scrutiny on Paul’s newsletters from the 1980s and 1990s. The newsletters, published under his name, included content claiming that African-Americans are trying to give white people HIV, suggested that Washington, DC is “anti-white and proud of it,” provided instructions on how to murder African-Americans, and warned of “malicious gay(s)” who spread HIV.

Yesterday, Paul walked out of an interview after CNN’s Gloria Borger pressed him on his role in publishing the racist content:

PAUL: I never read that stuff. I was probably aware of it ten years after it was written. And it’s been going on twenty years that people have pestered me about this. And CNN does it every single time.

BORGER: Is it legitimate? Is it a legitimate question to ask that something that went out under your name? [crosstalk]

PAUL: And when you get the answer it’s legitimate that you take the answers I give. You know what the answer is? I didn’t write them. I didn’t read them at the time. And I disavow them. That is the answer.

BORGER: It’s legitimate, it’s legitimate. These things are pretty incendiary.

PAUL: Because of people like you.

BORGER: No, come one. Some of the stuff was very incendiary, you know, saying that in 1993 the Israelis were responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center. That kind of stuff.

PAUL: Goodbye.

Watch it:

As reported yesterday on ThinkProgress, the likely author of the racist rants published under Paul’s name is Lew Rockwell, a notorious libertarian activist who led a campaign to align libertarians and bigots in the 1980s and 1990s. But the fact that his newsletter published racist statements over a series of years raises real questions about Paul’s claim that he “never read that stuff.” Thus far, Paul has refused to name the author(s) of the offensive articles.

In a seperate CNN interview yesterday, Paul said:

PAUL: I really don’t know [who the authors were]. Twenty years ago, I had six or eight people helping me with this letter, and I was practicing medicine, to tell you the truth.

VELSHI: Right.

PAUL: And, so, I do not know.

VELSHI: Well, we could find out because you have six or eight people, I guess, one of those six or eight people.

PAUL: Well, possibly, I could.

Paul’s assertion that CNN is to blame for asking him about the racist content of his newsletters is contradicted by his answer to a similar question in 2008, in which he told [VIDEO] CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “I know there’s reason [to ask these questions]. I don’t say you’re unjustified in asking the question.”

With übertenther Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) emerging as the latest frontrunner in the Iowa GOP primary, Ta-Nehisi Coates chronicles many of the most offensive highlights from a series of racist newsletters Paul published in the late 1980s and early 1990s:

• Needlin’: Paul’s December 1989 newsletter claims that roving bands of African-Americans are trying to give white people HIV. According to the newsletter, “at least 39 white women have been stuck with used hypodermic needles-perhaps infected with AIDS-by gangs of black girls between the ages of 12 and 14. . . . Who can doubt that if the situation had been reversed, if white girls had done this to black women, we would have been subjected to months-long nation-wide propaganda campaign on the evils of white America? The double standard strikes again.”
• Fantasies of Anti-White Bias: The same newsletter imagined a fantasy world where anti-white racist dominates DC’s culture. “To be white in Washington, however, is to experience a culture that is anti-white and proud of it. Radio stations urge listeners not to shop in white (or Asian) owned stores. Ministers lead anti-white and anti-Asian boycotts. Professors teach that whites are committing genocide against blacks and invented crack and AIDS as part of The Plan.”
• Instructions on Murdering Black Youth: A 1992 newsletter provided fairly detailed instructions on the best way to shoot and kill an African-American and get away with it. “If you live in a major city, you’ve probably already heard about the newest threat to your life and limb, and your family: carjacking. It is the hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos. . . . An ex-cop I know advises that if you have to use a gun on a youth, you should leave the scene immediately, disposing of the wiped off gun as soon as possible. Such a gun cannot, of course, be registered to you, but one bought privately (through the classifieds, for example). I frankly don’t know what to make of such advice, but even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I’ve urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming.”
• Beware the “Malicious Gay”: African-Americans are not the only target of the newsletters’ ire. Ron Paul’s publications also feature unusually bad medical advice punctuated with anti-gay fantasies. “Those who don’t commit sodomy, who don’t get a blood transfusion, and who don’t swap needles, are virtually assured of not getting AIDS unless they are deliberately infected by a malicious gay, as was Kimberly Bergalis.”

In a partial defense of Paul, David Weigel offers a perfectly plausible explanation of how these bigoted rants against science and reality came to appear under the name of a medical doctor who now argues that the War on Drugs should end because it is inherently racist. As Weigel explains in a piece he co-authored with Julian Sanchez, the likely author of Paul’s racist rants wasn’t Ron Paul, it was a repulsive libertarian activist named Lew Rockwell.

Rockwell, who now runs a far right think tank that publishes articles with titles like “How to Eliminate Social Security and Medicare,” believed in the 1980s and 1990s that libertarians had become a “party of the stoned” that needed to be “de-loused.” His solution, according to Weigel and Sanchez, was to try to expand the libertarian tent to include overt racists who could be attracted to libertarians’ opposition to “State-enforced integration.” It was likely Rockwell, and not the libertarian Congressman Ron Paul, who drafted the racist rants published in Paul’s name.

This explanation for Paul’s behavior hardly excuses it, however. The simplest conclusion that can be drawn when someone publishes a racist rant in their own name is that they truly believe that one race is superior to another. Weigel and Sanchez’ reporting, however, leads to only two possible explanations. Either Paul is so oblivious to what was being done in his name that this obliviousness alone disqualifies him for a job like the presidency — or he knew very well that horrific arguments were being published his name and he lent his name to a cynical racist strategy anyway.

Yesterday, two new polls showed Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) emerging as the latest frontrunner in the Iowa GOP presidential caucus. Should the GOP primary electorate ultimately choose Paul as their nominee, however, it would be the clearest possible sign that they want to remake this country into a much meaner and more cruelly indifferent nation than the one nearly all Americans grew up in. Rep. Paul does not simply want to repeal most of the 20th Century, he believes that nearly everything America does is unconstitutional. ThinkProgress compiled video of just a few of Paul’s many claims that basic laws and essential programs violate the Constitution. A short list includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Reserve, income taxes, and even the dollar bill.

To see the new Iowa GOP frontrunner claim that all of these things violate the Constitution — and to learn which seven cabinet departments he also believes are unconstitutional — watch our video here:

A last night’s GOP presidential debate, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly asked each of the seven candidates to name their favorite Supreme Court Justice. Six of the seven candidates named some combination of Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito — all of whom voted in Citizens United v. FEC that corporations should be able to spend unlimited money to buy and sell American elections. The candidates’ picks were:

• Rep. Michele Bachmann: Scalia is “at the top of the list.” Roberts, Thomas and Alito are “marvelous.”
• Fmr. Speaker Newt Gingrich: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito are “a pretty darn good list.”
• Fmr. Gov. Jon Huntsman: Roberts and Alito “fit the bit very, very nicely.”
• Gov. Rick Perry: “Alito, Roberts or Thomas, pick one.”
• Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney: “Roberts, Thomas, Alito and Scalia.”
• Fmr. Sen. Rick Santorum: “Thomas.”
• Rep. Ron Paul: “All of them are good and all of them are bad.”

Watch it:

Although Paul refused to name a favorite justice, there should be no doubt that he shares his fellow candidates’ support for corporate-owned democracy. In a 2010 interview with radio host Thom Hartmann, Paul said that he agreed with the Citizens United decision’s result because he thought that not allowing corporations to spend unlimited money influencing elections is somehow discriminatory in favor of newspaper companies.

Moreover, Citizens United is one small part of the favoritism Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito have shown to wealthy corporations at the expense of ordinary Americans. As ThinkProgress previously explained, all four of these justices also endorse the following gifts for corporations:

• Judges For Sale: All four voted in Caperton v. Massey to allow a wealthy coal CEO to pay $3 million to elect a sympathetic justice to a state supreme court in order to stack that court with jurists who would overturn a $50 million verdict against his company.
• Corporate-Owned Courts: All four voted to give corporations a nearly unlimited power to force workers and consumers into a privatized, corporate-run arbitration system that overwhelming favors corporations. Under their vision, real courts run by neutral judges are off limits to anyone a clever corporation does business with.
• Dividing And Conquering Ordinary Americans: All four voted in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion to allow corporations to strip their workers and consumers of their ability to bring class action lawsuits. Because of this decision, corporations now have a nearly unlimited power to cheat the people who do business with them — so long as they only do it a few dollars at a time.
• Corporate Immunity To The Law: All four voted to give generic drug makers immunity to key state laws after one of their drugs caused a condition called an horrific neurological condition that causes sometimes crippling, uncontrollable bodily movements in many of the people who took it.

In other words, if the GOP’s preferred justices get their way, there may no longer be any need for corporations to buy elections — because they’ll be largely immune from the law anyway.