January 14, 2008 | 1:31 pm

Christians shouldn’t worry about the economy

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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I usually write a short article for each issue of Christianity Today, and last week I began contributing to the CT Liveblog, a coop blog for editors and reporters, with “Christian mission at the porn convention.” You probably also saw it here, as co-posting will be the M.O. when I blog for CT.

Today on the Liveblog, Stan Guthrie has a piece attributing the roller-coaster round of early primaries to economic uncertainty. And while I can’t say I agree with his political priorities or that I remember stagflation, he makes a strong point encouraging Christians not to worry about what tomorrow brings:

Every generation worries about the economy (remember the “stagflation” of the seventies?), and while no one knows the future with precision, I would guess that we have less to fear than most generations—even if recession comes. There are many other issues we also must consider, such as the war on terror, peace in the Middle East, abortion, the environment, and other priority issues.

Beyond all that, as Christians, we should look at the coming election through the lens of faith, not fear. We are to trust God to provide, not the promises of politicians. As a certain nonpolitical leader once said:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Thus, whatever the economy brings, we are to be busy doing his work—including helping those who really are struggling—trusting him to provide our needs each day.

January 14, 2008 | 9:13 am

The Onion for Christians

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

There is the Unitarian Church known as The Onion, where Ken Kesey and his Band of Merry Pranksters held their first acid test in L.A. And, of course, there is The Onion newspaper, which publishes story with headlines like this: “Dairy Company Introduces Lots-Of-Pulp Milk.”

But there is also The Onion for Christians, better known LarkNews.com, via Christianity Today.

What keeps fans coming back for each month’s fresh material is a wit so sharp that, as with The Onion, people sometimes mistake its satirical stories for real news. In February 2003, for example, Kilpatrick made up an item that Zondervan would publish a gay-friendly version of its New International Version of the Bible. Like many gay advocates within churches, the theoretical gNIV assumed that Jonathan and David were lovers. Enough people sent in horrified e-mails that Zondervan issued a statement calling the report “a sick joke.”

Meanwhile, homeschooling bloggers fell for “Harvard forcing homeschoolers to ‘Fit In,’” which played off of stereotypes that such students need more social skills. And Christian radio stations were duped by “Wal-Mart rejects ‘racy’ worship cd”: “The latest Vineyard Music worship cd, ‘Intimacy, vol. 2,’ has raced to the top of the Christian sales charts, but Wal-Mart is refusing to stock the album without slapping on a parental warning sticker. The groundbreaking—some say risqué—album includes edgy worship songs such as ‘My Lover, My God.’”

Today’s top stories include “Warren to buy Saints, build Purpose-Driven Field,” “Blessing the iPod: Churches sanctify music devices” and “Holy Spirit neglects to show up at revival.”

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January 13, 2008 | 5:05 pm

Rev. Fuhrer a foe of injustice

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

A long-time voice for social justice in East Germany and its unified successor, the Rev. Christian Fuhrer is turning 65 and about to begin mandatory retirement. The New York Times made him the Saturday Profile.

CHRISTIAN FÜHRER was born in Leipzig in 1943, during World War II. Aside from how fitting his given name, Christian, is for a minister, his last name, Führer, simply means leader. Yet, for many — especially non-German speakers — the word is all but inseparable from Hitler. In addition to meaning leader, however, it also means guide, appropriate for a spiritual counselor.

A sickly child, he was fascinated by the way Jesus cared for the abject and the outsiders, and from a young age he knew he wanted to follow his father into the ministry. It was not a monastic life, however, but one of involvement that he sought. Pastor Führer cited Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the prominent German Protestant theologian who was part of a plot to overthrow Hitler, and was eventually executed in a concentration camp, as among his greatest influences.

“The church must always be political,” he said, “but there is a difference between political and party-political.”

If only American religious leaders and politicians agreed.

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January 11, 2008 | 10:13 am

Round 2 for McCain and S. Carolina evangelicals

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

God-o-Meter looks at John McCain‘s second chance in South Carolina, the site of his presidential-would-be collapse eight years ago.

This all seems so eight years ago. A folksy Southern evangelical wins Iowa only to be stopped in his tracks by maverick John McCain. But will what happens next in the Republican presidential race be a replay of 2000? Will the Christian Right stop McCain cold in South Carolina? God-o-Meter doubts it.  Let’s examine the evidence:

1. As opposed to denouncing the Christian Right as “agents of intolerance,” as he did in 2000, McCain is enthusiastically reaching out the movement. ...

2. McCain has launched a “truth squad” in South Carolina to smack down potentially ruinous attacks as they surface. Rumors spread by George W. Bush supporters about McCain in South Carolina—including that he had fathered an illegitimate child—hit him especially hard among “values voters.”   3. McCain got just as many evangelical votes in New Hampshire as Mike Huckabee. ... Does this mean John McCain will have an easy time in the Palmetto State? No. But for McCain, what happens next won’t be a replay of 2000.

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January 10, 2008 | 5:26 pm

Inside Scientology’s Celebrity Centre

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

My friends’ apartment resides in the bluish glow of Scientology’s LA offices, south and east of its Celebrity Centre in the former Château Elysee. I’m actually always surprised by how little foot traffic I see coming in and out of the main buildings, but clearly the religion based on the writings of sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard has quite the following. The New Yorker checks in on its draw from the entertainment industry.

From the outset, the conversion of celebrities was important to Scientology. An internal newsletter produced by the Hubbard Communications Office, probably in the mid-fifties, asserts, “There are many to whom America and the world listens. On the backs of these are carried most of the enthusiasms on which the society runs.” It goes on, “It is obvious what would happen to America if we helped its leaders to help others. Project Celebrity is part of that program. It is obvious what would happen to Scientology if prime communicators benefitting from it would mention it now and then.” The piece concludes with a list of the day’s stars—Orson Welles, Howard Hughes, Walt Disney, and Greta Garbo among them—referring to them as “game” and “quarry” for Scientologists to “hunt.” Though Scientology is not known to have had success with this early group, the movement now counts Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, and many other celebrities as members.

Celebrity Centre is used for Scientology courses and for “auditing,” a mainstay of the religion, in which a person undergoes a guided talk-therapy session, usually while holding a device known as an E-Meter, which is supposed to measure one’s spiritual state. The goal is to eliminate “mental image pictures” associated with traumatic events; when a person is “Clear”—freed of all such associations—he can advance to the mystical and esoteric levels of Scientology. The path to becoming an “Operating Thetan,” or pure spiritual being (“thetan” being Hubbard’s word for the soul), is laid out in a table called “The Bridge to Total Freedom: Scientology Classification Gradation and Awareness Chart of Levels and Certificates.” Scientology is a technological religion and claims to have developed “exact, precise methods to increase man’s spiritual awareness and capability.” Completion of the Bridge takes years, and each stage requires a cash investment. An initial twelve-and-a-half-hour auditing session costs between six and seven hundred dollars, Greg LaClaire, a vice-president of Celebrity Centre, says. (Aspiring Scientologists can mitigate the expense by choosing to be audited by a fellow initiate rather than by a staff member.) In the Holiday 2007 Dianetics and Scientology catalogue, a deluxe Planetary Dissemination Edition E-Meter—billed as a “tool for Golden Age of Tech certainty,” to assist in “faster progress up The Bridge”—was offered, in “Diamond Blue,” for five thousand five hundred dollars.

On Celebrity Centre’s upper floors, there are thirty-nine hotel rooms to accommodate visiting Scientologists. An undated leaflet advertising “a safe environment for Celebrities and Scientologists” contains a plug from Travolta: “Good rest, good food, good service but most of all I felt very safe in this space”; Celebrity, a magazine produced by Celebrity Centre, which features a Scientology celebrity on the cover of every issue, urges readers to stay at the hotel for five to six weeks “to complete your Basics books & lectures courses faster!” In the basement, there’s a drug detox facility. The castle also fosters a feeling of community. “Hollywood’s not a very easy industry to bust into,” Hilary Royce, a former dancer who went to Sarah Lawrence and is now the director of community affairs for the Church of Scientology International, told me. “Any artist at Celebrity Centre would tell you it’s a safe place to study scripts, to network. It’s really a hub.”

The promise of connectedness attracts many Hollywood hopefuls. Celebrity Centre offers a range of Success in the Industry Seminars—Breaking Into Commercials, How to Get Cast in the Pilot Season, Hollywood Acting Class—which it promotes with flyers posted at auditions around town. A former actor I spoke with told me that when he first got to Hollywood, a decade ago, he went to Celebrity Centre for what “seemed like a legitimate industry workshop,” only to find that “it was more or less an opportunity for them to solicit people.”

“I stood in the foyer and watched this massive indoctrination presentation, where Marissa Ribisi, Juliette Lewis, and a casting director came out talking about how great it is to be in Scientology,” he said. “This celebrity panel was confirming that the people in the audience could in fact realize their dreams if they took courses and got ‘Clear.’ Then I was followed by auditors, who tried to get me to go into another room and get audited. It was a pervasive, invasive type of sales pitch. I started to get really pissed, and then they started to say that my stress was causing discomfort in my life.”

The rest of Dana Goodyear’s piece offers a rhythmic history of the Celebrity Centre more than the Church of Scientology, not reminiscent of this staple from Rolling Stone.

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January 10, 2008 | 2:40 pm

Hey Karl Rove: What happened to two Jews, three opinions?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Yesterday, I added to my story list the fact that many Jewish Angelenos are upset with American Jewish University for inviting Karl Rove to speak at its vaunted Public Lecture Series. Then today I opened The Jewish Journal and saw that Rob Eshman had dedicated his column to that exact topic, and I realized how much better a story like this reads when it has the voice of someone who is allowed to inject their opinion.

Something has happened in the Jewish community, all across the political and religious spectrum, and it isn’t good.

Somehow too many people in the Jewish community have become stuck in a very dangerous place: their comfort zone.

They are loathe to confront and really hear ideas that differ from their own, and they cleave to the company of voices that echo their preconceived ideas and long-formed opinions.

A few people have picked up on this.

“There was a time,” Haaretz’s Gideon Levy said in an interview with The Nation, “when you’d ask two Israelis a question, and you’d get three different opinions. Now you only get one.”

In The Jerusalem Post, columnist Larry Derfner noted the problem in Israel, where public opinion fell into “lockstep” behind the war in Lebanon, the invasion of Iraq and the criticism of the National Intelligence Estimate report on Iran. How different, Derfner writes, from the Israel of old, where robust public debate was the norm.

“This is a society that’s been brainwashed by consent,” he wrote. “And when all hands are raised together, it not only enhances certainty, it offers the added comfort of unity.”

J.J. Goldberg, The Forward’s brilliant executive editor, wrote that the national Jewish debate is similarly afflicted. In fighting nouveau anti-Semitism, he wrote, “It doesn’t help when Jews ignore or deny Israel’s genuine shortcomings. It doesn’t help when they overreact to criticism—hostile, benign or just clumsy—and intimidate their critics into resentful silence, reinforcing their enemies’ worst stereotypes.”

The response to Goldberg’s essay? One organization head accused him of blaming the Jews for their own victimization.

And here at home things aren’t any better.

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January 10, 2008 | 9:34 am

In defense of Jewish journalism

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

About a year before I joined The Jewish Journal, on the paper’s 20th anniversary, Tom Teicholz wrote this column in honor of Yiddish reportage. I just stumbled across it, and it’s worth a read, especially in light of that article I linked to earlier this week.

People who seem to actually like what I write are always telling me they wish it were published somewhere else. Somewhere better—i.e., more prestigious, with a larger circulation or certainly a less parochial one ... somewhere less, in a word, Jewish. “It’s really good,” I’m told as if that would disqualify my work for publication in a Jewish publication.

I won’t say that I haven’t, on occasion, shared these thoughts about other Jewish papers or Jewish journalism or even about my own ambitions for my writing. But when I do—and particularly on the occasion of The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles’ 20th anniversary—I call to mind the longer view and recall the great history, tradition and noble cause of Jewish journalism.

I’m not sure who qualifies as the first Jewish journalists. It may have been the biblical Caleb and Joshua, who reported on the land of Canaan and brought back the headline: “Flowing With Milk and Honey; Land of Plenty.”

Or perhaps it was Josephus (37 C.E.-100 C.E.) who chronicled “The Jewish Wars,” his firsthand account of the Roman conquest of what is today Israel.

Jewish tradition is marked by rendering the oral tradition in print and recording the stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs, the accounts of the prophets, the tales of Kings David and Solomon and the tales of the rabbis. One can argue that the Jewish embrace of the responsibility to bear witness and pass along the stories from generation to generation is the cornerstone for a calling in journalism.

Regardless of the cause or the inspiration, by the late 19th century, Jewish journalism was flourishing, as were Jews who were journalists—some of whom would forever shape the course of journalism and the course of world events.

To give but one notable example: In 1894, among those covering the Paris trial of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus was Theodor Herzl, an Austro-Hungarian journalist. Witnessing the French crowds screaming “Death to the Jews!” profoundly impacted him. Two years later in 1896, Herzl wrote “The Jewish State,” the rallying cry for Zionism and the establishment of a Jewish homeland. Although he didn’t work for a Jewish publication, Herzl entered history when his reporting focused on Jewish matters. Herzl did not live to see the creation of the State of Israel, a mere 52 years later, but in recognition of his role in the founding of the state, and as per his wishes, he is buried there today.

In the United States, America’s first Jewish newspaper, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate, was published in 1843 by Philadelphia’s Isaac Leeser. More than a decade later in 1854, Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati, leader of the Reform movement, founded The Israelite, a weekly that proclaimed itself “devoted to the Religion, History and Literature of the Israelites.”

Wise, himself an immigrant from Bohemia, was one of the most important Jewish figures of the post-Civil War era. The Israelite (later The American Israelite) was devoted to helping its readers become, as Wise once wrote, “Americans through and through.” However, Wise’s greatest contribution to American Journalism may not be The Israelite but rather his daughter, Iphigene “Effie” Wise, who married German Jewish immigrant Adolph Ochs in 1884.

In 1896, Ochs purchased The New York Times and set about making it the national newspaper of record. His descendants continue to steer The Times to this day.

Around the same time, the Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer, who had worked as a journalist for a German-language newspaper, acquired the St. Louis Post, later merging it with the St. Louis Dispatch. Pulitzer continued to acquire newspapers and became famous for sensationalist stories—or “yellow journalism.” In spite of that—or maybe because of it—he endowed the Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism at Columbia University.

English was only one of several possible languages for Jewish journalism in the United States. There was also a prevalence of German and Russian. The beginning of the 20th century saw a flood of Jewish immigration to the United States, bringing in a vast and engaged audience for Jewish papers in many languages, most notably Yiddish.

For many of its readers, there was a special quality to the Yiddish press that is missing from today’s Jewish journalism. Eddie Portnoy, a historian of Yiddish popular culture, said it this way: “The Yiddish press was a private conversation.”

It was by Jews for Jews, without concern about what the non-Jewish population might think.

Like FUBU for Jews.

Which brings me back to my original point: Don’t Jewish newspapers deserve a little more respect?

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January 9, 2008 | 6:16 pm

Rudy on Rudy: ‘Somebody who can do the impossible’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Though he is not especially funny, Rudy Giuliani likes to begin with a joke. “Did you know that I’m running for President of the United States?”

That’s how Elizabeth Kolbert begins a profile of the former New York mayor’s presidential campaign, which, she writes is more of the same.

“This is where we really need a leader,” he told her. “We need somebody who can do the impossible. Now, I say that because I did this a lot in New York.”

Depending on whether you count his abortive race for the U.S. Senate in 2000, this is either Giuliani’s fourth or his fifth political campaign. In the earlier races, his goal was to persuade New Yorkers to vote for a Republican; this time around, it’s to persuade Republicans to vote for a New Yorker. Gone are the “Godfather” imitations, the snapping at the press, and the praise for immigration (“the single most important reason for American greatness”). The candidate who stopped by the Letizios’, and before that had coffee at Suzie’s Diner, in Hudson, and before that went on a holiday stroll in Nashua, where he waited in line to buy a Christmas ornament of a moose, is a less ethnic, less impatient, and more conservative candidate than voters in Brooklyn and the Bronx ever knew. This Giuliani invokes Ronald Reagan, smiles—or tries to—at children, and pledges to “secure our borders and identify every non-citizen in the nation.”

And yet the logic of his new campaign is—mutatis mutandis—the same as that of the old. Once again, Giuliani is in the awkward situation of wanting to represent a group of people whose views he does not actually represent. Once again, appeals based on “values” or personal history are closed to him. (Fourteen years ago—before he had appeared in drag, or ditched his second wife on TV, or met his third wife at a cigar bar—a “vulnerability study” commissioned by his staff noted that Giuliani’s “personal life raises questions about a ‘weirdness factor.’ ”) And so, once again, Giuliani is left to campaign on the basis of a single, strongly held idea: a great-leader theory of history, in which the great leader happens to be himself.

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January 9, 2008 | 5:50 pm

Messianic rabbi: Olmert should be ‘hanged from the gallows’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Whoa:

In a major blow to a decade-long campaign to play down divisions within the Chabad-Lubavitch ultra-Orthodox movement, the sect’s Israeli leadership appears ready to publicly distance itself from a significant messianic strand within the movement.

The unexpected development has been forced on the Chabad leadership by a spreading tide of anger toward the movement this week, after a rabbi from the messianic strand declared that, were Israel properly run, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would be “hanged from the gallows.”

Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe, a Chabad educator and author, launched into a tirade about Israel’s negotiations with Palestinians at the conference of a right-wing organization he runs, S.O.S. Israel.

“The terrible traitor, Ehud Olmert, who gives these Nazis weapons, who gives money, who frees their murderous terrorists, this man, like Ariel Sharon, collaborates with the Nazis,” Wolpe said on Wednesday, January 2, in remarks that were shown on Israeli television news.

A Chabad spokesman in Israel, Moni Ender, lashed out at Wolpe for his comments.

“This is not Lubavitch. Rabbi Wolpe is talking by himself. We have nothing to do with him. He makes dirt for Chabad,” Ender said.

Wolpe is the most popular leader of the messianic strand of Chabad, which holds that the 1994 death of the Lubavitcher rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson did not challenge the belief held in parts of the sect that he was the messiah. Wolpe was the first rabbi to go public with this position in 1994. A conflict has festered since then between followers of this belief and others, who present themselves as the mainstream and who reject such overt messianic claims.

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January 9, 2008 | 3:46 pm

Forced circumcision in Kenya

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

LIMURU, KENYA — When men with machetes and axes chased Paul Otieno from his home here, they wanted more than his belongings. They wanted to cut off his foreskin.

“They were shouting, ‘If we don’t kill you, we’ll cut your private parts,’ ” Otieno, a 25-year-old mechanic, said of the attack Sunday. “They were just shouting, ‘Kill! Chop them all!’ “

In Kenya, circumcision is a rite of passage for male members of most tribes. The Luos, however, do not practice it. In the recent tribal violence triggered by a disputed Dec. 27 election, circumcision checks have been conducted by roaming gangs of killers hunting for Luos. And the threat of forced circumcision has been used to terrify Luo men.

The number of such assaults so far appears small. The hospital here in Limuru, 30 miles northwest of Nairobi, confirmed that two cases of forced circumcision were treated after Sunday’s violence, which saw members of the larger Kikuyu tribe evict hundreds of Luos from their homes. One case involved an adult, the other a 4-month-old.

But rumors of men being circumcised by gangs from rival tribes have cast a shadow of fear over Luos, who feel their manhood and cultural practices are under threat.

First off, circumcision doesn’t remove your manhood, just your foreskin. (Though I know this was of great concern on an episode of “South Park.”) But does this story from the LA Times remind anyone else of this story from 1 Samuel? To me, David’s act of slaying Goliath pales in comparison to his ability to collect for God the foreskins of 200 Philistines. I can only wonder why this was necessary.

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January 9, 2008 | 12:06 pm

Christian mission at the porn convention

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

On this Wednesday last year, Brent Hopkins and I drove his Civic (not my Civic) out I-15 to Las Vegas for the annual AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. I am fairly certain that will be the only time I spend 20 hours over two days at a porn convention. My excuse was that I was writing a big story about adult-industry Christian ministries for the LA Daily News’ then-upcoming porn series.

I focused on the guys and gals of XXXChurch.com, “the #1 Christian porn site,” who are the most prominent of the anti-adult-industry ministries. Another character in this milieu is a former stripper named Heather Veitch, (pictured on left) who runs JC’s Girls. I spoke with her last year at her booth, a black backdrop with furry pink accents, that was for some reason located in the gay porn section. She’s back in Vegas this week with Hooker for Jesus Annie Lobert, and an LA Times blog gives them some play.

One Vegas topless bar allows Veitch to come at night to buy lap dances and use the time to talk to the dancers about Jesus. I have been invited along for a future trip and am very curious to see how that works out. Veitch says she has received almost no hostility from the people she is trying to reach in Vegas, even those not at all interested in her message.

On the other hand, selling her fellow Christians on her project has been difficult. Veitch has found that some churches are not interested in populating congregations with strippers she has invited to services. And then it always comes back to her look. Veitch says, “The Christian community can be very judgmental. But we think our look lets girls in the industry identify with us.”

For the upcoming 40,000-strong Adult Entertainment Expo, Veitch and Lobert will be working the convention floor, handing out cards and delivering their message to whoever will listen.

There is no question that patrons and performers at the porn convention are open to Veitch and XXXChurch and the handful of other ministries. But after watching these interactions, I wasn’t sure how effective they were. A lot of people listened, few people turned down the “Jesus Loves Porn Stars” Bibles handed out by XXXChurch, but they seemed to think it was more kitsch than Gospel.

Craig Gross, who runs XXXChurch, told me that people ask him all the time whether he feels like he is making a difference. And at one point he wasn’t so sure. In his book “The Dirty Little Secret,” he writes about a guy who he thought he had helped free from the bondage of porn—only to find the guy later fly off the deep end.

Some Christians are cynical of Gross and his colleagues, claiming they’re a bunch of perverts who want an excuse to cavort with unnaturally endowed women. In a documentary, “Missionary Positions,” one of the guys from XXXChurch (I can’t remember who) gets smacked by a more fire-and-brimstone preacher who thinks Gross is doing the work of the devil.

I don’t buy this. Certainly there are people who want out of the adult business. People like Keri Humble. And knowing that, these ministries just want to be there. Even if there is there.

(Hat Tip: My old editor, A-Ron)

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January 9, 2008 | 9:43 am

Ron Paul: Maybe ‘93 WTC attack was Mossad

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

No one ever claimed Ron Paul was mainstream. But, sheesh, look what The New Republic found in his old newsletters:

Martin Luther King Jr. earned special ire from Paul’s newsletters, which attacked the civil rights leader frequently, often to justify opposition to the federal holiday named after him. (“What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!” one newsletter complained in 1990. “We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.”) In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the “X-Rated Martin Luther King” as a “world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours,” “seduced underage girls and boys,” and “made a pass at” fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis” were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as “a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration.”

While bashing King, the newsletters had kind words for the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. ...

The rhetoric when it came to Jews was little better. The newsletters display an obsession with Israel; no other country is mentioned more often in the editions I saw, or with more vitriol. A 1987 issue of Paul’s Investment Letter called Israel “an aggressive, national socialist state,” and a 1990 newsletter discussed the “tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise.” Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said, “Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little.”

Paul’s campaign response: “I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.”

(Hat tip: Campaign Confidential)

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