- The Washington Times - Thursday, April 24, 2014

Sen. Rand Paul distanced himself Thursday from Cliven Bundy’s recent remarks on race, roughly a week after the likely 2016 presidential contender knocked the way the federal government has handled the land dispute with the defiant rancher.

“Cliven Bundy’s remarks on race are offensive and I wholeheartedly disagree with him,” Mr. Paul, Kentucky Republican, said via Twitter.

According to the New York Times, Mr. Bundy said that African-Americans “abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton.”

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” Mr. Bundy said, according to The Times, before talking about a public housing project in North Las Vegas. “In front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” he said, according to The Times. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Mr. Paul had previously vouched for Mr. Bundy by criticizing the government’s handling of the land dispute.

“The federal government shouldn’t violate the law, nor should we have 48 federal agencies carrying weapons and having SWAT teams,” Mr. Paul said on a Kentucky radio station.

• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.

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