“We’ve got Aryan Nations graffitti in Baghdad. . . that’s a problem.” That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.
Over the last several days, TPMmuckraker.com 
has been reporting on the evolving allegations of plagiarism in the work of Ann Coulter. The allegations come from several different sources, including the New York Post. And a number of readers have written in to ask to see the actual alleged instances of plagiarism to evaluate the charges for themselves.
The TPMmuckraker staff spent a day working on this. And we’ve now compiled a comprehensive list of all the allegations we’re aware of, with Coulter’s text listed along with the alleged original and the party that first identified the similar passages.
To me personally, some of the examples/accusations seem strained — simply similar statements of the same basic facts. And sometimes there are only so many ways to describe one set of facts. In other cases the similarities of the wording strike me as hard to see as a coincidence. Especially when there seem to be multiple instances of similarities in the same column coming from the same source.
In any case, we’re not making judgments one way or another. But if you’re interested in this story. Here’s the evidence. Make your own judgment.
I’m curious to hear more about this alleged plot to bomb the Holland Tunnel in New York. Unlike the ridiculousness down in Florida, this seems like it may have been a serious effort, albeit in the very early stages, and some solid inter-agency work rolling it up. Like I said, curious to hear more.
Ken Mehlman …
From MSNBC, June 30th, 2006 …
The [Justice Department IG] report also contained evidence of Abramoff’s strong ties to the Bush White House. One White House political official, Leonard Rodriguez, told Fine’s investigators he kept Abramoff aware of information relevant to Guam “at the behest of Ken Mehlman, the White House Political Director,” the report said. There was no explanation of why Mehlman would have wanted the information shared with Abramoff.
Ken Mehlman, quoted in Vanity Fair, May 2006: “Abramoff is someone who we don’t know a lot about. We know what we read in the paper”
Okay, I think the folks at Bluejersey.com may be in the hunt in the Straight Answer from Tom Kean, Jr. on phasing out Social Security contest.
As we noted back on Tuesday, Tom Kean, Jr. (R) is running for the Senate in New Jersey. And even though President Bush and the Social Security chair in the House 
both say they’ll go for Social Security phase-out again next year if they hold the Congress, Kean refuses to say whether he favors preserving Social Security in its present form or phasing it out and replacing it with private accounts.
Go to his events, call his campaign, whatever, he’s keeping mum.
But this guy at bluejersey.com has dug up some info.
Turns out that back in 2000, Kean tried to run for a seat in Congress. And back then he was in favor partially phasing out Social Security and replacing the phased out part with private accounts.
Reported the Westfield Leader on May 25th, 2000 …
Mr. Kean supports investing 2 percent of the Social Security Trust Fund in the Stock Market, in the form of personal retirement accounts that would be controlled by individuals rather than the government.
This is a little garbled. But what the reporter is referring to is taking about 18% of the money that goes to Social Security and putting it into private accounts. (2 percent refers to 2 percentage points out of the total of 12.4% of payroll that goes to Social Security.) That’s the Bush plan from 2000.
In other words, back in 2000 Kean was in favor of what President Bush tried to do last year and says he’ll try to do again next year. In 2000, Kean was for it. Now he refuses to say whether he’s for it or not.
The contest prizes await whoever can get him to say whether he’s still for it or whether he’s changed his mind.
It can’t be that hard. He can’t stay silent forever, can he?
Ahhh, a sight to behold. Video of Joe Biden explaining his recent remarks. He was praising Indian-Americans for overcoming their historic exclusion from small retail shop ownership.
Well, turns out the Holland Tunnel wasn’t the target after all, according to the NYT. But what does that matter?
Representative Peter T. King, the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said today that even though the Holland Tunnel was not the target this time, the tunnel has been a target of terrorists before, including a plot against the Hudson River tunnels and other New York landmarks uncovered after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
By that logic, we’d better keep a close eye on, say, Pearl Harbor.
Think it’s time to compare the number of announced terrorism cases in pre-election 2004, post-election 2005, and, now, pre-election 2006?
They always say everything is bigger in Texas, but this is too much even for the Lone Star State.
Reckoning that two U.S. senators and 32 congressmen were insufficient representation in Washington (not to mention that fella in the White House), Texas created an independent state agency to advance the state’s interest in Washington, the only state with such an arrangement.
But that wasn’t enough, not for Texas.
Even though the Office of State-Federal Relations has its own staff and an office in Washington, it decided to hire outside lobbyists to represent the agency, signing Drew Maloney, Tom Delay’s former chief of staff, and Todd Boulanger, a former member of Team Abramoff, to contracts together worth more $1 million. Some of that money made it back into GOP campaign coffers, but that’s a whole other story.
The next step would be for Maloney and Boulanger to hire their own lobbyists–because, really, with things like they are in Washington these days, how can the good people of Texas compete for federal dollars without their elected representatives’ agency’s lobbyists’ lobbyists?
Showing some of the common sense Texas prides itself on, a state advisory commission has now recommended that the Office of State-Federal Relations be abolished. Republicans in the Texas Legislature oppose the idea.