Rand Paul's Plagiarism Charges Continue

Most of the responses I've seen from the right on Sen. Rand Paul's numerous plagiarism charges have been either attempts to shrug them off as "nothing," or they have been to attack the messenger. The messenger in this case was Rachel Maddow, and right-wing attacks on her usually amount to plays on her name ("Mad Cow"), and homophobic slurs. They're just so clever.

But plagiarism is not a frivolous, "nothing" charge. And this wasn't one speech, or even a series of them. It's cropping up in Paul's writings in many, many places.

 

Scandal! Rand Paul's Plagiarism Scandal Keeps Growing

When The Rachel Maddow Show broke the story a few days ago, that Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky had been caught plagiarizing from Wikipedia, it seemed minor. Probably a rogue (or simply lazy) speech writer. Then, it turned out it was kind of a regular thing. And now, it seems that it isn't just Wikipedia cribbing going on. Worse, Paul has resorted to attacking the messenger, and playing the victim, rather than owning up to it, or even apparently understanding what plagiarism even means.

If you are a conservative Paul fan, hearing this for the first time, or rolling your eyes that it originates with Rachel Maddow, I get it. You think she's our version of Sean Hannity, and don't believe a word she says. First, I'd tell you that she's quite simply better than that (though you wouldn't believe me). But instead, I'd consider you to do your homework. This was kind of a funny, "scandal-ette" at first. But it's growing. And Paul isn't helping his own cause by playing dumb.
 

Sen. Rand Paul Stil Doesn't Understand What Plagiarism Means

Rand Paul, just one of many Tea Party heroes who have been proven
to be ignoramuses.  Image from source, Raw Story.

No, Senator (and boy does it pain me to call him that), you don't have to footnote speeches. What you can't do is give a speech that is plagiarized from another source, as though it is your own words! Seventh graders understand what the word means, know that it is wrong, and would expect an F-grade for doing it. That you can't a) own up to it, or b) even seem to understand what it means, tells me that you're really not ready for prime time.

[Excerpt]

Rand Paul wants to challenge ‘hacks’ like Maddow to a gunfight over plagiarism charge

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Sunday vowed to be more careful citing sources but insisted that a “dueling” gunfight against “hacks and haters” like MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who uncovered his plagiarism of Wikipedia, would be the ultimate solution if it were legal. During a interview on Sunday, ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked Paul to explain charges that several of his speeches had used the exact language found in Wikipedia. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

Ron Paul Lifts Eugenics Speech from Wikipedia Write-up of Gattaca

Yep, really.
 

Sen. Scott Brown, Plagiarist?

Senator Sexy. Image from Jezebel

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is most famous for his nude picture in Cosmopolitan, and for his winning of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. Since that election, he's become something of a moderate Republican (as much as such a thing exists), and lost a lot of the support he had from diehard tea partiers. Now, he may just my lose some more.

[Excerpt]

Scott Brown in plagiarism flap

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is being accused of plagiarizing from the website of former Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

A part of Brown’s welcome message on the student resources page of the senator’s official website was taken verbatim from the welcome message on Dole’s website, language that was used in the former North Carolina senator’s campaign kickoff in 2002, The Boston Globe first reported. . .

Read more at: Politico
 

George W. Bush, Plagiarist?

Well, we knew he'd have to get help writing this thing. But I'd have thought just a ghost writer would've been good enough. I guess I misunderestimated him.

[Excerpt]

George Bush Book 'Decision Points' Lifted From Advisers' Books



When Crown Publishing inked a deal with George W. Bush for his memoirs, the publisher knew it wasn't getting Faulkner. But the book, at least, promises "gripping, never-before-heard detail" about the former president's key decisions, offering to bring readers "aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America's most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq," and other undisclosed and weighty locations. . .
 
Read more at: Huffington Post
 

Idaho Republican Caught Plagiarising Obama, Others

Lots of politicians make big gaffes on the campaign trail.  Nevada's own Sue Lowden, the chicken lady, knows a bit about that. But few have so many heaping piles of them, and most of them involve plagiarism.  Oops.  I don't think the name "Vaughn Ward" will be remembered for very much beyond "huge mistake" in the world of politics.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

When is Your Blog Not Your Blog?

It has come to my attention that some "bloggers" are posting Greenlee Gazette items--all of them--under their own banners.  While I find it flattering, and I even encourage other bloggers to excerpt any posts I might write on their own blogs, using the entire thing seems a little out-of-bounds to me. And more than a little weird.

At the bottom of this page, I have a disclaimer of attribution. I, like most bloggers, use works from all over the interwebs. And I always try to attribute other people's work, even if it is just a tip.  But I'd never try to pass off another person's work--let alone their entire blog--as my own.  Now, to be fair, the examples I've found have included attribution. But under the banner of "written by" somebody else. As I said, weird.

So if you're reading my blog--particularly this post--under any other banner than Greenlee Gazette, written by James L. Greenlee of Las Vegas. . .well, you're reading a purloined blog!

Greenlee Gazette Plagiarised! Happy Monday!

Well, it's Monday (actually, for me, it is late Sunday night), and I'm at a loss for a post to start the week. I used to be able to depend on Democratic Underground's "Top 10 Conservative Idiots" column, but it has gone bi-weekly. So, what to do, what to do. After a lazy Friday and Saturday, I posted a boatload of things yesterday, so I'm plumb out of ideas.

So, how about this? This weekend, I discovered--quite by accident--that another blog has been copying my blog posts in their entirety for many months. They seem to have stopped late last year. But more peculiar than the plagiarism, is the fact that they date their blog posts all the way back to 1995. Since I've only been blogging since June 2, 2007, this is very odd.

I tried contacting the blogger, but have had no success. I have to wonder, did this person need to establish a blog for a job or for a school project? What would inspire a person to completely copy someone else's blog? Especially considering that many of my posts are personal, and identified as Greenlee Gazette?

Now, I have no problem with people excerpting my work. It's right there at the bottom of my page. But attribution is essential. I'd never intentionally purloin someone else's work without explicit attribution. And if I ever have, I'd want to be notified so that I could immediately give credit where it is due. In any event, the discovery was baffling.

The site is called The Hawley Home. But even more confusing is the fact that the blog address includes my own. You can see it at: http://greenleegazette.endofinternet.org/

Here is a comparison (click to embiggen).

Did John McCain Make Up "Cross in the Dirt" Story?

Image from source, Raw Story

There's something a bit disquieting in the focus on religion in the current Presidential campaign. I don't see anything wrong with a candidate being religious, but I'm uncomfortable about what was essentially a contest to see who was more religious, John McCain or Barack Obama. That's pretty much what happened this weekend, at Saddleback Church with Rev. Rick Warren. More on that later.

There is another religion story, one that seemed like little short of pandering to the religious, by John McCain. In recounting a Christmas story during his captivity in Viet Nam, McCain told what is to some a heartwarming story about religious solidarity with one of his captors. Strangely though, the story is eerily familiar to a story told by a Russian novelist. Interesting. . .

[Excerpt]

Did McCain ad lift 'cross in the dirt' story from Russian novelist?

"It just sounded so fake and so contrived, so I did a little research about it," said DailyKos contributor rickrocket. The research revealed a similar story by recently departed novelist and McCain favorite Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, recounting his experience in a Soviet gulag in The Gulag Archipelago, released in the United States in 1973. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

Cindy McCain Plagiarizes Recipes?

Cindy McCain, and her superior, Diana

I have an explanation for this ordinarily reprehensible behavior that will save everybody a little time. Some people say that Cindy McCain is actually a "Visitor," as seen in the 80s (ahem) docu-dramas, V, and V: the Final Battle. This doesn't make her a bad person, you understand. Remember Willie? He was a good guy. But then Willie did later become Freddy Kruger. . .uh, I digress. Back to my point. As a Visitor, Mrs. McCain has a diet of live rodents, and thus has no recipes of her own to print! Mystery solved.

[Excerpt]

Ooops, Cindy McCain's recipe for recipe plagiarism

Aren't you dying to know the favorite homemade dish of the next possible president?

So to save time, they put all this stuff on the website. But now the McCain campaign has been outted by TMZ.com and the Huffington Post for serial plagiarizing of Cindy McCain's alleged favorite recipes. . .

Read more at: Los Angeles Times

State Department Guilty of Plagiarized Iraq Report?

In another story I didn't see or hear anywhere today, John Aravosis of AmericaBlog has a post up comparing a State Department report on Iraq with pieces of several articles. There are amazing similarities. . .

[Excerpt]

BREAKING: State Department official Iraq update is really compilation of plagiarized major media articles

Kind of pathetic when the official report from the US State Department on what's "really" happening in Iraq is actually just a bunch of plagiarized paragraphs from the major media in the US. To wit, the following analysis an anonymous friend just sent me. I just checked it out and he's right. State outright plagiarized much of the major media in making its "report." And what's really funny, they even stole a number of paragraphs from a New York Times article when, as I recall, the NYT is the newspaper that George Bush refuses to read because it supposedly has such a "liberal bias."

See what he's talking about at: AmericaBlog