This year's edition of the Conservative Political Action Conference kicks off today. All three of the remaining credible Republican presidential candidates--Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum--are set to attend. However, the list of people they'll be hobnobbing with may say a whole lot about who they are--and the rest of the Republican base to boot. Specifically, this year's CPAC is sponsored by a group with documented ties to white supremacist groups, and a panel is being hosted by the owner of a known hate site. (h/t to PFAW's Right Wing Watch)
One of the sponsors is Youth for Western Civilization. YWC frequently rails against multiculturalism. That in and of itself wouldn't be a problem--but YWC has also waxed nostalgic for the days of apartheid in South Africa, and key leaders have been seen associating with white supremacists.
Plus, today at 12:30, Peter Brimelow of VDARE.com will be speaking at a seminar on "The Failure of Multiculturalism." VDARE.com is a cesspool of hate; nearly all of its writers are either anti-Semitic or racist.
More on these groups after the jump ...
Recently, YWC began a campaign called "The Afrikaner Genocide Not only is it a pretty egregious attempt to whitewash the legacy of apartheid, but it also claims that white South Africans are the victims of a systematic campaign of genocide. YWC's founder, Kevin DeAnna, was also seen hobnobbing with white supremacists at a 2009 Baltimore conference. Also in 2009, prominent YWC member Marcus Epstein pleaded guilty to simple assault for a 2007 incident in which he berated a black woman with racial slurs and tried to karate-chop her in the head. And last spring, the head of its Liberty University chapter marched through the streets of Cologne with several far-right European groups.
According to the SPLC, Epstein contributes essays to VDARE.com that are laden with racism. PFAW got a sample of some of VDARE.com's other contributors:
- Robert Weissberg, who wrote a book claiming that blacks and Hispanics cause most of the problems in our schools because they have lower IQs than whites. This book was actually cited by Pat Buchanan.
- J. Phillippe Rushton, head of the Pioneer Fund, a eugenicist group that, among other things, claims blacks' brains are smaller because they have bigger breasts and buttocks than whites
- Kevin McDonald, who claims Jews are in cahoots with illegal immigrants to dilute the white majority
VDARE contributors also figured prominently at the same Baltimore conference where YWC's DeAnna also took part.
It's hard to believe that the many VIPs at CPAC--including Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Michele Bachmann and dozens of other Republican lawmakers--don't know about YWC's links to hate groups and VDARE.com's promotion of racism and hate. Says a lot about them, doesn't it?