More specifically, your columns have been featured for several years in the American Free Press -a publication of the nation's leading Holocaust Denier and anti-Semitic agitator, Willis Carto.  His book club even recommends works that glorify the Nazi SS, and glowingly describe the "comforts and amenities" provided for inmates of Auschwitz.

Have your columns appeared in the American Free Press with your knowledge and approval?

As a Presidential candidate, will you now disassociate yourself, clearly and publicly, from the poisonous propaganda promoted in such publications?...

So far, from what I can tell, Medved has gotten no response from Ron Paul or his campaign except for a call, from the Ron Paul campaign via its website, for Ron Paul supporters to shout Medved down.

In short, then, Medved's accusations are true enough to be, at least, not legally actionable and, indeed, Ron Paul - who otherwise is articulate enough - doesn't seem to have anything to say about the matter and prefers to attack the challenger rather than deal  with Medved's challenge and that's especially notable because Medved is generally considered to be fairly far right himself - so, in other words - Ron Paul is, arguably, a truly fringe candidate except.... tons of GOP voters are opting to support him in the primaries.

As Andrew Waldmen goes on to demonstrate in his piece, Ron Paul and his campaign aren't just knowingly receiving campaign funds from white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups ; there's a profusion of ties between Ron Paul, his campaign, and Neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and KKK groups. In fact, Waldmen cites one blogger, Adam Holland, who's also covering Ron Paul's hate group ties and writes:

The Lone Star Times has revealed that the Ron Paul campaign has received at least one contribution from neo-Nazi leader Don Black, who heads an internet-based group called Stormfront. (Read the Lone Star Times piece here)

I've been looking at neo-Nazi support for Ron Paul and found that there's quite a bit. It seems that one of Rep. Paul's top internet organizers in Tennessee is a neo-Nazi leader named Will Williams (aka "White Will"). Williams was the southern coordinator for William Pierce's National Alliance Party, the largest neo-Nazi party in the U.S.

I've actually been meaning to write something about Ron Paul for a while now, but Waldman, Holland, and others have been so thoroughly on top of Ron Paul's hate group ties all I really need to do if honor their work. Waldman's especially - his piece I've mentioned documents just how astonishing dense Paul's ties to groups espousing racial hatred, Nazi ideology, Holocaust denialism, and sometimes violence, really are and I have to wonder at the fact that the mainstream media doesn't see fit to cover this for the scandal it should be.

I actually wrote up a long essay on the Libertarian GOP candidate back when Dennis Kucinich, probably just as a ploy for media attention, suggested the truly bizarre idea of a Kucinich-Ron Paul presidential ticket and - I have to admit - the strong anti-war chops of such a pairing was, solely on that count, very appealing... except for the huge amount of baggage Ron Paul is dragging along. I actually shelved my Kucinich-Ron Paul esay thinking why am I writing this ? Kucinich and Paul are marginal candidates.

Then, the Ron Paul campaign rolled out of Iowa with 10 percent of Iowa's GOP caucus vote, way ahead of Rudy Giuliani's 3.5% take and Ron Paul is currently beating other supposedly "mainstream" GOP candidates - such as Fred Thompson - in the polls of New Hampshire GOP primary voters. So, I suppose Ron Paul isn't as marginal as I thought and that makes me a bit concerned because Ron Paul isn't merely just, along with Mike Huckabee, another GOP presidential candidate with a more or less unabashed Christian Reconstructionist beliefs ; in his willingness to accept campaign contributions from Neo-Nazis, his track record of writing on (ahem) dubious websites, his association with Holocaust denialism, one would think Ron Paul would tend to be shunned but that's, perhaps, an American coastal sensibility.

As another way of looking at things though, consider this proposal - politics that would truly have been considered fringe have, since the early 1960's, become mainstreamed....

[more in a bit]

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