Ron Paul Demonstrates He’s a True GOP Trendsetter

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.


For chrissake. Ron Paul’s excuse for writing lots of racist and nutball crap in his newsletters is that he didn’t write the newsletters and doesn’t know who did.1 Now Newt Gingrich has decided this is such a peachy excuse that he’s going to use it too:

The Wall Street Journal reports today on a memo from April 2006 on the website of Gingrich’s Center for Health Transformation. In the memo, filed under the “Newt Notes” column and written in the first person, Gingrich calls RomneyCare the “most exciting development of the past few weeks” and says he “agree[s] strongly” with the “principle” of the individual mandate….These days the mandate, and by extension RomneyCare, are treif2 in GOP orthodoxy. What to do, then, about this memo?

[Gingrich spokesman R.C.] Hammond said the Newt Notes essay wasn’t written by Mr. Gingrich himself.

I would like to announce for the record that I have been paying various local high school students to write most of this blog for the past ten years. I never asked for their names and paid them under the table by giving them answers to SAT questions, so I don’t know who they are. I assume this brings an end to questions about some of the unfortunate posts written here, which I disavow completely. As of now, it’s old news. Move along, please.

1Actually, “doesn’t know” should be rendered in scare quotes. Paul is lying. He knows perfectly well who wrote this stuff.

2adj. Judaism ritually unfit to be eaten; not kosher.

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please do your part and help us reach our $150,000 membership goal by May 31.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate