Rep. Ron Paul announced Tuesday that he won't seek re-election to the Texas U.S. House seat he's presented for nearly 24 years, and instead will concentrate on getting the Republican nomination for president to run against President Obama in 2012.

Paul made the announcement via Twitter, and linked to a local Texas newspaper to share the details.

"I felt it was better that I concentrate on one election," Paul told The Facts, a news service covering Brazoria County, Texas, a portion of which Paul represents. "It's about that time when I should change tactics."

Paul, 75, has run for the presidency three times, and cultivated a substantial following in the 2008 primary race running on the themes of limited government and less federal spending as well as personal liberties and a limited role in international conflicts.

Paul told the newspaper that he thinks his chances in 2012 for the GOP nomination are better than they were in 2008.

"We have a lot more support right now," he reportedly said. "Things are doing well for us."

An obstetrician by profession, Paul served four terms in the U.S. House between 1976-1984, then ran again as part of the 1994 Republican Revolution. His departure leaves the race for the seat wide open.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/12/rep-ron-paul-wont-seek-congressional-seat-in-2012/#ixzz1RuWi5kN8

This makes me VERY happy. The Looney Tune is going to be out of politics for good! He has NO chance at becoming the parties nominee or even President. He just committed career suicide.

If we could get rid of Jindal, McConnel, McCain, Grahm, Pawlenty, Romney and I'm sure a few other republicans along with 90% of democrats the country would be much better off!

I really do not understand why you would call him loony. He is the most rational candidate running.

The press release actually got his platform correct for once, and it is anything but crazy.

You cannot fix something that is huge, complex, and out of whack by making it larger, and that is what the other candidates do not understand.

No explanation for why someone would call Dr Paul loony?

Just throw insults without justification?

Isn't it amusing? Anyone who speaks rationally and has at least half a brain is subject to ridicule and labeled with one derogatory adjective or another. Even one of the smartest people in their own party isn't safe. I guess they'd rather see Sarah Palin looking across the Atlantic at the COUNTRY of Africa instead of across the Bering Strait at Russia.

What would you say is his "looniest" policy position?



He's 75, I'm sure he can retire.

Not!

Really, is that the only thing you have to say? That you disagree, but you are not going to detail why?

It really does not color your opinion in a good light that you cannot articulate why.

I actually like Ron Paul.

You did not articulate any pros to him so you are in the same light as me Welcome to the not good light

He is a racist lunatic! That is as good of a reason as any. I looked him up and researched him.

He is racist and he is a lunatic by definition. Just look up the definition, it fits him well.

The only thing people try to pass off that makes him "good" is he is an MD who delivered babies and all races of babies is suppose to clear up his racism charge...lol
There are no good sorry a$$holes who are doctors and deliver thousands of babies that doesn't stop them from being sorry no good a$$holes.

you are just guessing, you don't know if he is a racist or not... just more liberal propaganda... you don't like him because he is anti gay...

Anti gay is another reason to not like him. I don't guess about racism, it is usually obviously there.

Ron Paul '90s newsletters rant against blacks, gays
January 10, 2008|From Brian Todd CNN

A series of newsletters in the name of GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul contain several racist remarks -- including one that says order was restored to Los Angeles after the 1992 riots when blacks went "to pick up their welfare checks."

CNN recently obtained the newsletters -- written in the 1990s and one from the late 1980s -- after a report was published about their existence in The New Republic.

None of the newsletters CNN found says who wrote them, but each was published under Paul's name between his stints as a U.S. congressman from Texas.
Advertisement
Ads by Google

Free Security WebinarLearn How Cloud & Mobility Trends Threaten Your Business & What To Do www.BarracudaNetworks.com/Webcast
CFA CharterholdersUpholding Integrity In Private Wealth Management: Discover The CFA CFAInstitute.Org

Paul told CNN's "The Situation Room" Thursday that he didn't write any of the offensive articles and has "no idea" who did. Watch Paul's full interview with CNN

"When you bring this question up, you're really saying, 'You're a racist' or 'Are you a racist?' And the answer is, 'No, I'm not a racist,'" he said.

Paul said he had never even read the articles with the racist comments. See the newsletter excerpts for yourself

"I do repudiate everything that is written along those lines," he said, adding he wanted to "make sure everybody knew where I stood on this position because it's obviously wrong."

But that's not good enough, says one political veteran.

"These stories may be very old in Ron Paul's life, but they're very new to the American public and they deserve to be totally ventilated," said David Gergen, a CNN senior political analyst. "I must say I don't think there's an excuse in politics to have something go out under your name and say, 'Oh by the way, I didn't write that.'"

Paul, who is not considered a front-runner, has become an Internet phenomenon in the current race, raising tens of millions of dollars from a devoted online base, many of them young people drawn to his libertarian straight talk. See where the money is coming from

The controversial newsletters include rants against the Israeli lobby, gays, AIDS victims and Martin Luther King Jr. -- described as a "pro-Communist philanderer." One newsletter, from June 1992, right after the LA riots, says "order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks."

Another says, "The criminals who terrorize our cities -- in riots and on every non-riot day -- are not exclusively young black males, but they largely are. As children, they are trained to hate whites, to believe that white oppression is responsible for all black ills, to 'fight the power,' to steal and loot as much money from the white enemy as possible."

http://articles.cnn.com/2008-01-10/politics/paul.newsletters_1_newsletters-blacks-whites?_s=PM:POLITICS



Matt Corley , ThinkProgress at 6:48 AM on January 9, 2008.
comments_imageCOMMENTS:
Ron Paul's Old Newsletters Filled With Deeply Racist, Anti-Semitic and Homophobic Rants
Beginning in 1978, Rep. Ron Paul's (R-TX) name graced newsletters that were released on a seemingly monthly basis: Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report. "The Freedom Report's online archives only go back to 1999," but The New Republic's Jamie Kirchick recently tracked down physical copies of many of the pre-1999 reports.

According to Kirchick, they're peppered with a "decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays." Here are a few examples:

On David Duke: "Our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom."

On Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "[A] comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."

On African-Americans: "I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming."

On Gays: "Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."

In his article, Kirchick writes that "with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself" and that "the vast majority of the editions" that he "saw contain no bylines at all." Paul emphasized this point in his response to the article:

The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts. [...]

Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publically taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.

But as Kirchick -- who has been criticizing Paul for months -- notes, "t is difficult to imagine how Paul could allow material consistently saturated in racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy-mongering to be printed under his name for so long if he did not share these views."

Some of Paul's supporters in the blogosphere give him more of the benefit of the doubt, but still admit that the "truly odious material" released under his name is "really stunning." Andrew Sullivan writes that "it's up to Ron Paul now to clearly explain and disown these ugly, vile, despicable tracts from the past." PDFs of some of the old newsletters can be found here.

UPDATE: A 1992 Ron Paul Political Report said: "I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

UPDATE II via Sara Robinson @ Group News Blog: Ron Paul Supporters Passing the Buck (as Usual)

With The New Republic's release of some of Ron Paul's greatest newsletter hits, we're hearing a chorus of screeching from the Ronbots -- here, there, and everywhere -- about how he didn't know what was going on, and he didn't really mean it, and besides, he was just so busy....

Paul himself made a statement earlier today repeating pretty much the same tropes:

This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade. It's once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the day of the New Hampshire primary.

"When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.

I'm sorry, but no. This simply doesn't wash. I don't doubt for a moment that Paul doesn't sincerely regret the contents of over 15 years of assorted newsletters that went out under his name (he published several different ones) -- and presumably, under his ownership and for his own profit as well.

But even the most abject apology doesn't address the larger question, which is: How do people expect a man who can't exercise basic oversight for a lousy monthly newsletter to take full responsibility for the entirety of the government of the most powerful nation on earth?

Since libertarians are supposed to be all about running the government by the standards of private business, let me clue you in on how this kind of lackadaisical failure-to-pay-attention goes down in the private sector.

If somebody goes into court to get out of a contract because "My lawyer wrote it for me, and I didn't really read it, even though I did sign my name to it," the judge will rightly laugh them right out of the courtroom -- and probably award the plaintiff extra damages just for the stupidity factor.

A corporate manager who claims, "Oh, some underling of mine let that defective product out onto the market -- I wasn't really watching, so I had nothing to do with it" is still going to be out of a job so fast he'll have asphalt marks on the butt of his Brooks Brothers suit.

And if I, as a former writer of national award-winning corporate newsletters, overheard the CEO of one of my Fortune 500 client companies trying to pin something in one of those newsletters on little underpaid me, I (and everyone else) would laugh him off the dais. The fact is: my clients bought and paid for those words. They were "work for hire" -- which means the company's executives read and approved every word; and they owned those words outright, legally, practically, and morally, starting the moment my check cleared.

Paul may not have written those words, or even seen them. But he bought and paid for them -- and no doubt, he was happy to bank the handsome profit they made him. (If he's really sorry, he might demonstrate the fact by donating every cent of those profits to the NAACP.) And thus he owns them as surely as if had written them with his own hand. The only people who could accept this weak-assed excuse-making are the ones who are willing to abandon their better sense just as fast as Paul abandoned accountability for the things he published in papers he owned.

We've already had seven long years under a Texas phony who doesn't believe in any kind of accountability or oversight, and refuses to accept responsibility for his own mistakes. The very last thing this country needs is another big dose of the same Houston swampfog. If Ron Paul didn't know what was happening at his newsletters, it's damning proof that he's an incompetent manager. If he did, it's even more damning proof that he's a racist (and a liar to boot).

Either one disqualifies him for any kind of elective office (except as a representative of racists, which it's now more obvious that he is). And all that Paulbot howling aside, it's time for the rest of us to recognize that, and move on.

(And, speaking as one of the two bloggers who first warned you about this side of Paul way back seven months ago -- and have the flak wounds, including quite a few from people on our own side, to show for it -- here's the heads-up: Next time we tell you someone's a closet racist, spare us all the angst and friendly fire, and consider that we just might know what we're talking about, OK?)

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/73205


That is enough for now.

I am barely ever wrong about racism.

How about Obama leaving the presidency?

you know as well as i do that those letters were never proven... we already discussed those letters on another topic on here.

but it was funny on "bruno" when bruno thought he was ru paul instead of ron paul, and hit on him... that showed his true anti gay sentiments...

Ron Paul Unlikely to Bring Hateful Legacy from U.S. House to White House
Rep. Plans to Leave Congress in Order to Save Our Country
Yahoo! Contributor Network
By K.C. Dermody | Yahoo! Contributor Network – Tue, Jul 12, 2011


COMMENTARY | After spending over 20 years in Congress, GOP Congressman Ron Paul announced that he would not run for re-election to the House. Instead, he will focus on his presidential bid.

"Ron is all in and will work tirelessly to win the Presidency and save this country." says his campaign spokesman, Jesse Benton, reports ABC News.

Paul has had two previously failed bids for the presidency, once as a Libertarian in 1988 and again as a Republican in 2008. His official announcement that he would be in the running in the 2012 election came May 13. The 75-year-old Ron is said to be the Father of the Tea Party movement. His son, Rand Paul, is a Kentucky senator and poster child for the Tea Party.

Elizabeth Day, a volunteer with Paul's campaign says, "When people come to believe in Ron Paul, there is a passion that burns within us," according to the Associated Press. "To me, Ron Paul is the tea party."

Paul believes that this time he has a legitimate chance at the presidency and people are no longer laughing at his policies.

"During the last campaign I knew what was happening. You know, they mocked me for my foreign policy and they laughed at my monetary policy. No more. No more. The people [are] coming over here," Paul said during CNN's "State of the Union" on June 5. "No more. No more. The people [are] coming over here," he added.

So how does Paul plan to save our country and what are his beliefs?

On our current healthcare and Medicare crisis, Paul says, " Why can't we opt out of the whole system and take care of ourselves?"

Paul believes that access to healthcare for the general public is not a right, but at the same time the public is paying for Paul's excellent healthcare through our tax dollars. I find this ultra hypocritical, and frankly it makes me downright angry that he intends to leave not only America's senior citizens but the many uninsured Americans without access to decent healthcare while assuring access to care for himself.

Did you know that America is ranked as one of the lowest countries as far as life expectancy? It is number 50, behind all of western Europe and several lower-income countries as well. The reason for this? Only people with money can afford access to healthcare in the United States. Ron Paul apparently seeks to lower our ranking even further.

Paul is against the minimum wage, and voted against increases to minimum wage. He also voted against extending unemployment benefits. The GOP and Paul once again seem to side with big business and against the people who are the backbone of our country.

Paul seems to have as much compassion for animals as he does for people. He voted against the Horse Slaughter Prevention Act that would bar slaughtering horses for human consumption. He also voted against an act that would consider pets when evacuating people during disasters, and scored a dismal 14 percent on the Humane Society Scorecard for animal protection.

In a self-published newsletter called the Ron Paul Political Report published in 1992, Paul stated, "Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

I think I can safely assume that this racist and bigoted man wants to save our country by taking quite a few steps backwards in progress. I would hope that these views are not supported by many Americans. They are certainly not views that are supported by this writer.

http://news.yahoo.com/ron-paul-unlikely-bring-hateful-legacy-u-house-212200380.html

If someone else is voted into office in 2012, you'll get your wish.

But I am not upset that he is running at all. He will split the conservative vote more and make sure that we will not have a conservative in office in 2013.

Don't hold your breath.

We will not have a conservative in office in 2013.

They are showing their a$$ so much now in congress no one wants them in there anymore.