The Oregon Commentator staff will be at Rennie’s Landing tomorrow to keep track of the Super Tuesday proceedings (or at least that’s our excuse). We should be arriving en masse after our staff meeting, sometime around six or seven p.m.

Any predictions? I’m calling all the states for Jesus, who will appear tomorrow in a cloud of glory and announce his candidacy/thousand-year reign. Except for New York. New York will go to McCain.

UPDATE: I just remembered tomorrow is Fat Tuesday as well, so we’ll be celebrating Super Fat Tuesday - the best combination of debauchery and politics since Grover Cleveland’s infamous “oval office ho’s and CEO’s” inauguration bash!

In an interview Monday, January 14th with the Reno Gazette-Journal editorial board, Presidential candidate Barack Obama compared the type of presidency he hopes to have with that of former President Ronald Reagan. Many have taken these remarks out of context, including his opponent Hillary Clinton during the Debates on this past Monday. This was one of the main topics for the first 20 minutes of the smackdown. Here are both the pull quote and a link to the entire video.

“I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what is different is the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like with all the excesses of the 60’s and the 70’s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

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Last night’s Democratic CNN Debate started off more like a WWF Smackdown than a presidential debate. Now that 5 primary events have passed (both caucuses and elections) and the media has had many a field day, the Democratic presidential candidates are going negative and aren’t looking back. It was not quite clear who was dominating whom with issues like ‘who is really running, you or your husband?’ and ‘how much do you love the republicans?’ being addressed. I had completely forgotten that John Edwards was even there until about 20 minutes into the debate when he finally spoke saying,

What I want to say first is, are there three people in this debate, not two? And I also want to know — I also want to know on behalf of voters here in South Carolina, this kind of squabbling, how many children is this going to get health care? How many people are going to get an education from this? How many kids are going to be able to go to college because of this?

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The New Republic has all of Libertarianism abuzz over this story which reveals the racist, homophobic and generally crappy material in The Ron Paul Newsletter, The Ron Paul Survival Report, The Ron Paul Freedom Report, The Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Investment Letter and other publications linked to maverick Republican Presidential candidate. The New Republic has these selections available in .pdf format, so if you are a Ron Paul supporter you might just want to stop now and go take a look.

Paul has released a statement based on this hasty interview with Reason Magazine, in which he dismisses the newsletters as “Ancient History,”  and claims that much of the material was written by others. His campaign has since released this statement, which concludes “For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.”

Needless to say, the “Ron Paul Revolution” is over… or at the very least the name is going to have to change. I, for one, appreciate Paul’s proving to the Republicans that “Liberty matters” over the course of this election, but he wasn’t exactly poised to take the party over, either. In fact, this story will probably be spun mostly by Republicans in order to tar Libertarians with the “wacko” brush, and push them back from the political mainstream. Either way, the newsletters have nothing to do with the ideals of libertarianism, shouldn’t prevent people from embracing elements of Paul’s message even if they can no longer support the man.

The results are in, and Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee have clinched first place in the Iowa Caucus. Both Obama and Huckabee are riding high thanks to some campaign trail assistance from helpful deities - Oprah and Jebus, respectively. No, seriously; check out these entrance poll numbers:

60 percent of voters said they consider themselves evangelical Christians. Huckabee is a Baptist minister. Far more than any other characteristic – 45 percent – Republicans said they are looking for a candidate who “shares my values.” Of those respondents, 44 percent said they were supporting Huckabee.

If by “shares my values” they mean “is a total douche,” then yeah, Huckabee’s the candidate of choice. (And here’s some more doucheness for good measure). Also, according to the entrance poll, Democratic women favored Obama over Clinton 35 percent to 30 percent - obviously the Oprah Effect in action. 

In other news, Hillary Clinton came in third place for the Democrats, meaning the apocalypse might not be as nigh as previously feared.

* Headline by Jake “keepin’ it classy” Speicher.

Well, I guess if you read the headline you get the gist of the story. Evel Knievel, daredevil motorcycle rider and man, is dead at 69. In retrospect, I can’t imagine how we forgot to include him in the man bracket for last issue.

Here’s the video of Knievel’s infamous Caesar’s Palace jump, and here’s a list of his injuries (35 broken bones - a world record). I was trying to find a great quote of his that I read a long time ago, but to no avail. I remember it was something like, “If I could have done it all over again, I would have screwed a lot more women and maybe hit a few of those jumps faster.”

The FBI just reported that hate crimes across the country rose 8% in 2006. However, if you read the AP story, it becomes obvious that some of the rise is due to statistical tomfoolery. The number is affected by the amount of participating police agencies, which fluctuates from year to year, leading to a (surprise!) fluctuation in the amount of reported hate crimes. But since we’re having such a good time playing with statistics, I thought I’d throw out a few of my own. (more…)

The National Action Network, led by Reverend Al Sharpton, is leading a march on the U.S. Justice Department in Washington today. This is in response to Jena-6 as well as to “hate crimes and noose hangings on the rise across the country”.

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Today is Veterans Day, originally known as Armistice Day, marking the cessation of hostilities of World War I. It evolved into a holiday to commemorate the duty and sacrifice that all veterans have given in their service. It carries an importance with me, as I see it as the appreciation of those that served and came before me and those whose footsteps I will be following. In response to my recognition and celebration of Veterans Day, I received this eloquently drafted message on my Facebook wall from an ‘Asian-American’:

“dogg you forgettin where you came from

lookit you

tryin soo hard to be white”

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As an update to the item that CJ Posted below, over at H&R Radley Balko weighs in on the Jena Reality Check article. I haven’t been following the case, other than to note that it is definitely bad to beat a guy that severely, but I think this seems relevant.

In light of all the recent hullabaloo on campus about the Jena Six, I found this CSM article, titled “Media myths about the Jena 6″, very interesting. It lays out 12 of the most commonly misreported “facts” about the case.

The author lives in Jena and has reported on the situation from the beginning, which presumably gives him some credence. Of course, you could also argue that this gives him an inherent bias, such as when he claims “Jena is a wonderful place to live for both whites and blacks.” Sure, it might not be as racist as the media have portrayed it, but I’m still not planning my vacation getaway to Jena, Louisiana.

In any case, I think the Jena Six debacle will probably go down in future years as a textbook example of how the media latch on to and distort stories. Race violence is top priority news these days, right behind “missing white woman” and “Britney Spears is crazy.”

Here’s the ODE write-up of the recent rally in support of the Jena Six. See how many of the “media myths” you can spot before it turns into a Diego Hernandez and Ty Schwoeffermann quote-athon. Also, OC Publisher Guy Simmons had a run in with some crazy Jena Six supporters a while back (with wacky results). Finally, props to Hit & Run for the find.

Reason Hit & Run has posted a great news clip from Texas showing floor votes in the Texas legislature.  In the era of hanging chads, dead men voting, and lost absentee ballots, it seems that politicians in Texas just don’t seem to understand what “one person, one vote” means.  It’s worth a watch.

That is, John Frohnmayer - brother of UO President Dave Frohny. Frohnmayer, who was appointed as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts by President George H.W. Bush in 1989, only to be fired soon after for funding “obscene” art, will run in the 2008 election for U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith’s seat. But get this, he is running as an independant.

“We who have been Republicans should be weeping about the state of the Republican party,” he said. “Because the Republicans have always stood for fiscal responsibility and we have a president who has taken a $3 trillion surplus and turned it into an $8 trillion defecit in seven years.

Frohnmayer, who left the Republican Party in 2005, is a former student of the UO Law School. He currently lives in Corvallis where he is an affiliate professor of liberal arts at Oregon State, “where he teaches First Amendment issues and ethics in the history department.”

“The order of the day ought to be that partisanship ends when a person is elected, and for every minute the person is in office after that, the person ought to be doing the public’s business.”

6 years ago, today, the lenses with which we look at the world were tainted. 6 years ago, a normal morning for the United States of America, came crashing down in flames and smoke as the hijacked passenger airliners were flown into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon Building in Washington, D.C.
It unified our nation, and we vowed to never let it happen again. The world rallied around us in our time of need. In our time of most pain, we were also the strongest and most resolved people.
But it cast our nation into a shadow of fear. Partisan politics have torn our country apart since. We have lost legitimacy in the eyes of much of the world. We are mired in two wars halfway across the globe, and our beloved troops, our Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors, those that volunteered on behalf of this great nation, are dying everyday. The American people increasingly are questioning the justification and purpose of this war.
And so, on this September 11th, this 6 year mark, I ask you to remember it. Remember that day, honor that day, the people that died. Don’t ever forget, like I almost did, that September 11th was a day that showed the resilience and resolve of the American people. Remember how we got to where we are today as a nation. And think of how we can regain our reputation with the rest of the world.
Most importantly, remember what it means to be an American. I won’t say what I think it is, because to each person, being an American means something different.
No matter what, I was, am, and always will be proud to be an American.

In twp separate but related incidents, public schools banned the game Tag and suspended a 13-year old kid that drew a gun that looked more like a trapezoid with smiley faces.

Wow. The series of school shootings that happened a few years ago shouldn’t be ignored, and I think schools did a few things right when it came to responding to threats of violence. But this is taking it way too far. The drawing didn’t even LOOK like a gun. What’s more is that preventing students from drawing weapons will not take away their fascination in them. What kid didn’t play soldier or pretend to shoot people with their finger guns?

On the other hand, I agree with the suspension of the kid. If he is that deluded to think that a gun looks like that and has smiley faces on it, he should learn a lesson.

The justification that the Colorado school uses for banning Tag is absolutely ridiculous. “[Tag ] causes a lot of conflict on the playground”. Conflict is an inherent aspect of life! Every conflict I have been through has made me a stronger person. If these kids don’t know how to deal with conflict young, what are they going to do in Middle and High School, college, and in the real world? What the hell is happening to our country? Our country is turning into a country full of sissies. These schools banning Tag are deluding our nation’s youth into thinking that life is fair, that there are no winners or losers, and that everyone can live in harmony without scraped knees. Bullshit.