Free Republic

John McCain's campaign is denying a suggestion made yesterday that the candidate's lengthy response yesterday to the crisis in Georgia was lifted in part from Wikipedia. "We did not copy Wikipedia in Sen. McCain’s remarks," said spokesman Brian Rogers. Three portions of the GOP nominee's statement yesterday were seized upon by an editor for the online encyclopedia and sent to blogger Taegan Goddard with the claim that the words seemed to match the Wiki entry for Georgia.

This publication marks the 150th anniversary of the joint presentation of Darwin and Wallace of their thinking about evolution by natural selection to the Linnean Society. The book is a blockbuster because it claims that "Darwin perpetuated one of the greatest crimes in the history of science". It concludes that Darwin plagiarised Alfred Russel Wallace, deceived the world about the maturity of his own ideas before 1858, and, to satisfy his personal need for glory, failed to give credit to scholars who influenced his thinking...

Victim of Noose Incident, Columbia U. Professor Is Fired Amid Plagiarism Charges by Jamal Watson NEW YORK Last October, hundreds of students, faculty and community activists rallied on Columbia University’s campus to protest the hanging of a noose on the office door of a popular African-American professor. Now this same professor, Dr. Madonna G. Constantine, has been fired from her teaching post amid charges that she repeatedly plagiarized the work of two former students and a colleague. Constantine, 45, a tenured professor who has taught psychology and education at Columbia’s Teachers College for the past decade and is an expert...

The Columbia University professor who gained widespread attention last fall after a noose was found hanging on her office door was fired on Monday after months of wrangling over charges that she plagiarized the work of two former students and a former colleague. Madonna G. Constantine, a professor of psychology and education with a focus on racial issues at Columbia’s Teachers College, was sanctioned in February, after an 18-month investigation into the plagiarism charge, but allowed to stay in her job and to appeal the ruling that she had violated the university’s academic standards. But over the last five months,...

BIDEN RISING IN VEEPSTAKES June 14, 2008 -- BEFORE multimillionaire Democratic power broker James A. Johnson quit as Sen. Barack Obama's chief vice presidential screener, the name that came to the fore in his internal discussions was 65-year-old, six-term Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, made a good impression in his losing bid for the presidential nomination this year. The downside on him is that he talks too much. But he provides expertise and experience in national security that Obama lacks and, as a Catholic, adds cultural diversity to the ticket. A footnote: Presidential...

Ward Churchill is baaaaack! by: Deborah Lambert, June 05, 2008 Although Ward Churchill was finally fired by the University of Colorado, Boulder for plagiarism and dishonest scholarship rather than his 9-11 remarks, you'd never know it from his website at www.wardchurchill.net, aka the “Ward Churchill Solidarity Network,” dedicated to “Defending Academic Freedom and Political Dissent.” The site includes a petition to reinstate Ward Churchill, and a statement of support from Noam Chomsky....

LAST THURSDAY, A controversy erupted in the blogosphere. Like most controversies that start in the blogosphere and die there as opposed to gaining a second and more meaningful life in the mainstream media, the entire affair was a tempest in a virtual teapot. But this incident was a particularly pregnant one, as it revealed the difficulties the left will have in developing a coherent attack against John McCain. It also highlighted Barack Obama's most significant weakness in a match against Senator McCain.

Tin Goeglein has resigned his position at the White House after a blogger caught him plagiarizing the work of others in his occasional newspaper column that ran in a local Fort Wayne, Indiana newspaper. Goeglein acted as a liaison to the social and religious conservatives in the Republican Party and assisted in the formulation of policy to act in those interests, the New York Times reports, but he has done that so quietly that most people have probably never heard his name, until now (via Memeorandum): A longtime aide to President Bush who wrote occasional guest columns for his hometown...

Served As Bush's Middleman With Conservatives, Christian Groups WASHINGTON (AP) ― A White House official who served as President Bush's middleman with conservatives and Christian groups handed in his resignation Friday after admitting to plagiarism. Twenty columns he wrote for an Indiana newspaper were determined to have material copied from other sources without attribution. Timothy Goeglein, who has worked for Bush since 2001, acknowledged that he lifted material from a Dartmouth College publication and presented it as his own work in a column about education for The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Ind. The White House said Goeglein has apologized...

WASHINGTON - The White House says it is disappointed in a presidential aide who has been accused of plagiarism and that his behavior is unacceptable. The charges were leveled against Timothy Goeglein about a column he wrote for The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Parts of his column were nearly identical to an essay that appeared in a Dartmouth College publication. Goeglein has said his actions were wrong and that there are no excuses for what he did. White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore says his behavior is "not acceptable" and tha that White House is disappointed in his actions. She...

Obama's even plagiarizes the second baseman for the 1974 Philadelphia Phillies http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=19341550&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=580169&rfi=6

(CBS/AP) A Columbia University professor whose colleagues found a noose hanging from her office doorway has plagiarized the work of others, the school says. Madonna G. Constantine denies the finding and says the accusation is racially motivated. The university's Teachers College announced Wednesday it had imposed "serious sanctions" against Constantine following a lengthy investigation it said uncovered "numerous instances in which she used others' work without attribution in papers she published in academic journals over the past five years." Constantine's lawyer, Paul J. Giacomo Jr., said his client could prove her innocence and called the school's investigation "extremely underhanded from the...

'NOOSE' PROF A PLAGIARISTM STOLE STUDENTS' WORK AT COLUMBIA February 21, 2008 -- The black Columbia University professor who last fall found a hangman's noose pinned to her office door plagiarized the work of another faculty member and two students, according to a school investigation released yesterday. The plagiarism probe was already under way last year when a 4-foot twine noose was discovered on the door of psychology and education professor Madonna Constantine's office, officials at the university's Teachers College said.

A professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who was propelled into the national spotlight when a noose was found on her office door last fall has been found to have plagiarized the work of a former colleague and two former students, the college has announced. The college, in statements to the faculty and the news media, said an 18-month investigation into charges against the professor, Madonna G. Constantine, had determined there were “numerous instances in which she used others’ work without attribution in papers she published in academic journals over the past five years.” ... Dr. Constantine, in an e-mail...

Allegations that Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) engaged in a gay sex act with a cocaine dealer in the back seat of a limousine in 1999, got a rise out of former president Bill Clinton. According to a recent home-made, “You Tube” video, an admitted drug dealer named Larry Sinclair claims that after selling cocaine to then state senator Obama, his “gaydar” led him to “make a pass” at Obama, which the senator accepted. Sinclair performed oral sex on Obama while the senator smoked the crack he had just bought. Sinclair said the two of them got together at a hotel...

Jerry Seinfeld was credited with creating a TV show about nothing. Likewise, Barack Obama really is running the campaign about nothing. Not a bad strategy, really. And one that’s clearly working. It’s a real challenge to fire a gun a hit a mass of hot air without looking like an idiot. And that’s the challenge that both Hillary Clinton and John McCain now face.

(AP) Hillary Rodham Clinton says reporters, not her campaign, uncovered evidence of Democratic rival Barack Obama sharing speech lines with Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. She made the claim Tuesday despite the fact her campaign posted video clips on YouTube illustrating similarities in the speeches and has suggested in several instances that the shared lines amount to plagiarism. THE SPIN: "It's not us making this charge, it's the media," Clinton told Honolulu television station KITV Tuesday. "The media is finally examining my opponent which I think is important. We're trying to pick a president, someone for the toughest job in the world."

This is getting serious! He got caught again and it's even worse this time. VIDEO included.

Yes, it's Lent, but I couldn't resist finding out the DUmmies' take on the Obama plagiarism flap. They must be disgusted with Barry's lack of integrity and originality, right? Wrong! Instead, they're mad at Mrs. Clinton for calling Barry on it! Witness this THREAD, "OK. Hillary is starting to piss me off." Even so, there are a bunch of Hillary supporters who weigh in, too, which makes for an entertaining read. So let's sit back and watch the Hillary and Obama factions go after each other, in Bolshevik Red, while the commentary of your humble guest correspondent, Charles Henrickson,...

Notable Americans Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King, Jr. are suing Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama and Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick for plagiarism and other legal intrusions, according to court documents released Monday. Jefferson and King filed complaints in absentia with the 11th District Court of Appeals late Saturday night. The suits were filed separately, but privately council for both parties expressed shock that such famous Americana was so blatantly stolen, without attribution. In a speech to supporters Saturday night in Wisconsin, Obama allegedly used portions of a speech made by Dr. King and writings attributed to Mr. Jefferson. “Don’t...

(CNN) — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s campaigns each accused the other of plagiarizing portions of their campaign speeches Monday, with the Clinton campaign accusing Obama of borrowing from a close supporter — and the Illinois senator’s campaign accusing his rival of lifting from Obama himself. On a conference call with reporters, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said it was clear Obama had “lifted rhetoric” from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Portions of Patrick’s speeches during his gubernatorial run resemble some of Obama’s addresses this year. “If you’re going to be talking about the value of words, the words ought to be...

Howard Wolfson, the Clinton campaign's communications director, today accused Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) of committing “plagiarism” in a speech in Milwaukee on Saturday night. Wolfson made the explosive charge in an interview with Politico after suggesting as much in a conference call with reporters. On the call, Wolfson said: “Sen. Obama is running on the strength of his rhetoric and the strength of his promises and, as we have seen in the last couple of days, he’s breaking his promises and his rhetoric isn’t his own.” "When an author plagiarizes from another author there is damage done to two different...

The New York Times makes a big deal about some similarities between elements in Barack Obama's speech and similar constructs in speeches given earlier by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in 2006. While the wording appears too close for coincidence, one has to wonder how much anyone could vary the constructs in similar themes: Senator Barack Obama adapted one of his signature arguments — that his oratory amounts to more than inspiring words — from speeches given by Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts during his 2006 campaign. At a Democratic Party dinner Saturday in Wisconsin, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, responded to...

Obama says borrowed lines not a big deal By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer 15 minutes ago Sen. Barack Obama said Monday that he probably should have given his friend — the governor of Massachusetts — credit for using his lines over the weekend. Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Hillary Rodham Clinton accused Obama of plagiarizing Gov. Deval Patrick. Wolfson said that raises questions about the premise of Obama's candidacy — his rhetorical skills. Obama, D-Ill., says that's going too far. He says he really doesn't think it's a big deal to use Patrick's words because they share ideas all...

Senator Barack Obama adapted one of his signature arguments — that his oratory amounts to more than inspiring words — from speeches given by Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts during his 2006 campaign.

The charismatic, brilliant, inspiring black politician came to the stage to address the latest attack from his white female opponent. "Her dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is all I have to offer is words," he said. "Just words. "'We holds these truths to be self-evident,'" he continued as the crowd began to cheer and applaud, "'that all men are created equal' -- just words. Just words." The applause increased. "'We have nothing to fear but fear itself,'" the pol said. "Just words. 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you...

Barack Obama's speech in Wisconsin this past Saturday sounds awfully similary to a speech given by Deval Patrick in October 2006. Video of both is here.

Deval Patrick’s 2006 “Just Words” speech (October 15, 2006): Barack Obama’s “Words Matter” speech (February 16, 2008):

(SNIP) "Obama's plan today is the most shameless piece of potential plagiarism that I have ever seen," McCain economic advisor Kevin Hassett said. The Clinton campaign helpfully e-mailed his comments to reporters. "He basically took Clinton's words and Clinton's policies and called them his own," Hassett said. "If I were a professor I'd give him an F and try to get him kicked out of school for something this terrible ... I remember Mrs. Clinton saying shared prosperity and I remember the bill that she introduced in August for infrastructure. The fact is these are things Obama has taken as...

Was The Book of Mormon given to Joseph Smith by an angel or created from a work of fiction? Who was Solomon Spalding and did he have a connection with Joseph Smith? This book critically examines key historical documents, personal testimonies, and records of 19th-century Mormon history concluding that The Book of Mormon is an "adaptation of an obscure historical novel" written by Revolutionary War veteran Solomon Spalding during the War of 1812. In twelve chapters, the authors lay out the evidence for the assertion that Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, and Joseph Smith Jr. adapted and embellished the Spalding manuscript...

Since about 2000, a young man by the name of Fang Shimin, better known by his net-name Fang Zhouzi, has been fighting a lonely crusade exposing the many frauds in China's scientific and academic communities. His efforts has gained as many enemies as friends. This blog follows his crusade. Professor Stephen Stearns of Yale has spent this Fall at Peking University teaching two undergraduate courses on evolution. The school, also affectionately known as Beida, is one of the most prestigious universities in China. Today, a letter by him is circulating the school's BBS and a few other web sites in...

Columbia, Mo. (AP) -- A distinguished University of Missouri-Columbia journalism professor will no longer write a weekly newspaper column after admitting to plagiarizing material from a student reporter. John Merrill, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, also wrote a Sunday column for the Columbia Missourian, a community newspaper affiliated with the school. But a Nov. 4 column by Merrill about the university's women's and gender studies program used three quotes and other phrases taken directly from an Oct. 5 story in The Maneater, an independent student newspaper. Missourian Executive Editor Tom Warhover disclosed the plagiarism...

Senate Republicans have suffered a lot of embarrassment over the antics of Sen. Larry Craig, a pro-family politician who played footsy with another man in a bathroom. But the Democrats have their own embarrassments, and one of them is presidential candidate Senator Joseph Biden, their leading foreign policy "expert." Double Talker His logic was on display on NBC's Meet the Press program, where the long-time Delaware senator, who now chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked by host Tim Russert about changing his position on setting a deadline for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. Two years ago...

University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill was fired by the Board of Regents in July. But that didn't stop Churchill from still teaching at CU this week. According to the Boulder Daily Camera, a group of student supporters rented out a classroom at CU's Eaton Humanities Building and invited Churchill to teach. The topic? "ReVisioning American History: Colonization, Genocide and Formation of the U.S. Settler State." And it appears this isn't a one-time-only event.

Fired University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill will return to the Boulder campus next week to begin teaching an unsanctioned course that's being organized by his student supporters. University officials have distanced themselves from the planned lecture series — slated to begin Tuesday night — and say that Churchill remains terminated. The students organizing Churchill's teachings say the series is intended for those who "missed out" on his years as an American Indian studies professor and as head of the ethnic studies department at CU. Churchill's supporters can hold the classes on campus because the university allows student groups to...

Local Congresswoman Jean Schmidt is being accused of plagiarism. In her weekly column, Schmidt gives tips on how to help students stay safe on the bus. But, according to the Enquirer, those tip are lifted, word for word, from a 2005 column written by an Ohio State Highway Patrol Colonel. A Schmidt spokesman says her actions were okay because they were safety instructions. This isn't the first time Schmidt's integrity has come into question. Last year she was accused of plagiarizing a column on Medicare and she has also received a reprimand from the State Elections Commission for claiming a...

Was it plagiarism or mearly repackaging Kudlow's original work without proper attribution? We report, you decide. Larry Kudlow column from 8/30/2007, 'The Big Easy's Billion Dollar Boondoggle': "Perhaps all this money should've been directly deposited in the bank accounts of the 300,000 people living in New Orleans. All divvied up, that $127 billion would come to $425,000 per person! After thanking Uncle Sam for their sudden windfall, residents could head to Southern California and buy homes that are now on sale thanks to the sub-prime mortgage crisis and bid up the sagging house prices in the state." Link: http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/LawrenceKudlow/2007/08/30/the_big_easys_billion_dollar_boondoggle Richmond...

IT'S said that a "picture is worth a thousand words." For more than 25 years, conservative writers have been telling anyone who would listen that our higher education system was broken - that indoctrination was trumping education and our kids were throwing away their tuition dollars propping up vicious relics of the '60s and supporting universities that were increasingly repressive. These words, coming from such luminaries as Allan Bloom, Dinesh D'Souza, Alan Charles Kors and David Horowitz, persuaded much of the conservative chattering class that something was wrong. But mainstream Americans seemed unconcerned, with their own (often fond) college memories...

He will go down in history as the guy who called the victims of September 11 “little Eichmanns”—a reference to the notorious Nazi bureaucrat who helped ship hundreds of thousands of Jews to concentration camps. Ward Churchill’s comment, included in a long-forgotten essay dug up by an enterprising journalism student, stirred a national debate about the power of unpopular words—and the proper consequences for those who use them. But the saga of the tenured University of Colorado ethnic studies professor grew more complicated in 2006, after allegations surfaced that Churchill had plagiarized, falsified or misrepresented some of his other scholarly...

Par Ridder, the publisher at the center of a legal fight between Minnesota's metro dailies, acknowledged in court testimony Monday that he took confidential computer files and a folder of noncompete agreements - including his own - when he left the St. Paul Pioneer Press for the Star Tribune. In videotaped testimony, Ridder admitted copying documents from his Pioneer Press computer and transferring them to his new computer at the Star Tribune, then sharing some of the documents with key Star Tribune executives. "I had profit numbers, revenue numbers, expense numbers," and sensitive information on advertisers and personnel, he said....

In a seemingly desperate attempt to jumpstart his dead-in-the-water presidential bid, Senator and plagiarist Joe Biden has adopted the Reid Doctrine™ of pre-emptive surrender. Speaking at a luncheon meeting of reporters, Biden said, “It’s time Democrats tell the truth about Iraq war: The ’surge’ is a loser,” said the Senate foreign relations chairman. A loosely federated Iraq is only US hope.” Perhaps it is those 19% approval ratings Harry Reid has received that tempted Biden to “borrow” the Majority Leader’s mantra.

[from "Weathermen" terrorist Bill Ayers]: Ward Churchill is under a sustained, orchestrated, and determined attack because of his political beliefs and statements and activities, and nothing more. No one doubts his productivity or his accomplishments. But the attack on Churchill is neither isolated nor innocent— the high school history teacher on the west side of Chicago gets the message, and so does the English literature teacher in Detroit and the math teacher in an Oakland middle school: be careful what you say; stay close to the official story; stick to the authorized text. If someone of Ward Churchill’s stature and...

I only hope, dear readers, that you aren't as sick of reading about Katie Couric, the beleaguered anchor of the "CBS Evening News," as I am of writing about her. But the taint of plagiarism sweeping through CBS News was, quite possibly, the low point of Couric's seven-month tenure. That's saying a lot. Yes, here's yet one more column about the shooting star of the television-news business. I can take it if you can. Earlier this month, CBS put a video commentary on the Internet in which Couric lamented that children take less interest in using libraries than they used...

For $15 million a year, wouldn't you think Katie Couric could find the time in her day to reflect on her own feelings in her Couric & Co. blog on the cbsnews.com Web site — and not on those of a Wall Street Journal reporter named Jeffrey Zaslow? "I still remember when I got my first library card," the April 4 Katie Couric's Notebook video blog on cbsnews.com began. Much of what followed apparently wasn't written by Ms. Couric, but instead by a Web producer who had read Mr. Zaslow's essay about the declining use of libraries in the Internet...

NEW YORK — A CBS News producer was fired and the network apologized after a Katie Couric video essay on libraries was found to be plagiarized from the Wall Street Journal. The essay was removed from the CBS Web site and an editor's note was posted saying the item should have credited Jeffrey Zaslow of the Journal, the network said Tuesday. The essays are carried regularly on Couric & Co., the anchor's blog on the CBS News Web site. Couric and producers meet once a week to decide on topics and the producers write them for Couric to read on...

University of Colorado-Boulder Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson ... the university is also in the process of overhauling its faculty termination procedures following the controversial firing of CU ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill. Churchill was fired for scholarly misconduct, but is still being paid pending a full review of his actions. A faculty committee reviewing Churchill’s conduct is expected to make a recommendation to Brown in about two weeks, Peterson said. Then, Brown will make a recommendation to the school’s Board of Regents. “I don’t think he’ll have to deliberate a terribly long time” over what he’ll recommend to the board,...

After a humiliating plagiarism scandal that rocked the New York Times [NYT], Jayson Blair is quietly resurrecting his journalism career by writing about the very subject he says brought him down: Bipolar disorder. Blair, 30, has been lending his expertise to 3-year-old bp (bipolar) magazine. He wrote a first-person piece about bipolar disorder and the role it played in his downfall that bp magazine ran last year.

A plagiarism charge was leveled this week by a former close associate of Carter's, who has resigned from the Carter Center in protest over the ex-president's new book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. It is the second high-profile plagiarism case involving Jewish affairs this year. Prof. Kenneth Stein's resignation from the Atlanta-based Carter Center ends his 23 year-association with the institute, including ten years as its executive director. Stein also co-authored Carter's previous book about the Middle East, 'The Blood of Abraham: Insights in the Middle East.' Prof. Stein, who teaches Mideast history at Emory University, where the Carter Center is...

Ann Coulter has long been what is known as a “divisive figure” in American politics and among the chattering classes. Most liberals loathe her with a passion; and make attacks in starkly personal terms usually reserved for George McChimpy BushitlerTM. Shortly after the release of Ann Coulter’s book Godless, she became even less popular. But here, the attack from the left was on a different front, and one which had not been used as an attack upon the right before. Ann Coulter was—get this: a plagiarist. Yes! Ann Coulter had not come up with her own material, we were told....

MINNEAPOLIS — The Star Tribune said it is reviewing a year's worth of work by one of its editorial-page writers after finding two of his editorials contained similarities to the work of another writer. Editorial-page editor Susan Albright said the writer, Steve Berg, would not write during the review. She cited two editorials, one from Nov. 10 and one from March 27 that contained phrases from or similarities to commentaries in the New Yorker by Hendrik Hertzberg. "We want you to know that we are taking this matter very seriously," Albright wrote in a note to readers published Thursday. "We...