Rand Paul faces another plagiarism claim

Rand Paul faces another plagiarism claim

The accusations of plagiarism continue to pile up for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, with new reports that an op-ed he wrote in September bears passages that closely resemble an opinion piece that had been published a week earlier.

The piece Paul wrote for The Washington Times on mandatory minimums seems to contain three paragraphs that were essentially copied from an op-ed by a senior editor of The Week, as first reported by Buzzfeed.

The instance joins a growing number of Paul’s works, including speeches, his book and congressional testimony that outlets including POLITICO, MSNBC and Buzzfeed have found to contain sections that appeared copied.

www.politico.com...

Just one example (from several) .... a recent OP-ED that Rand Paul "Authored"

Paul wrote in one section of his September piece:

“By design, mandatory-sentencing laws take discretion away from prosecutors and judges so as to impose harsh sentences, regardless of circumstances. Since mandatory sentencing began in the 1970s in response to a growing drug-and-crime epidemic, America’s prison population has quadrupled, to 2.4 million. America now jails a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country, including China and Iran, at the staggering cost of $80 billion a year. Drug offenders in the United States spend more time under the criminal justice system’s formal control than drug offenders anywhere else in the world.

“Most public officials — liberals, conservatives and libertarians — have decided that mandatory-minimum sentencing is unnecessary. At least 20 states, both red and blue, have reformed their mandatory-sentencing laws in some way, and Congress is considering a bipartisan bill that would do the same for federal crimes.”

That compares to editor Dan Stewart’s op-ed in The Week:

“By design, mandatory sentencing laws take discretion away from prosecutors and judges so as to impose harsh sentences, regardless of circumstances. Mandatory sentencing began in the 1970s as a response to a growing drug-and-crime epidemic, and over the decades has put hundreds of thousands of people behind bars for drug possession and sale, and other non-violent crimes. Since mandatory sentencing began, America’s prison population has quadrupled, to 2.4 million. America now jails a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country, including China and Iran, at the staggering cost of $80 billion a year.

“Most public officials — including liberals, conservatives, and libertarians — have decided that it’s not. At least 20 states, both red and blue, have reformed their mandatory sentencing laws in some way, and Congress is considering a bipartisan bill that would do the same for federal crimes.”

www.politico.com...

I find it telling that with the long list of plagiarized Speeches, Articles etc. that Rand Paul likely would have been banned by ATS by now for plagiarizing works as his own without citation.

Opinions?

reply to post by Indigo5


What a pathetic bunch the left is. Every politician who reads from a teleprompter is reading someone else's writing. They all have speech writers, some very talented, and few ideas are really "new".

They can't argue his facts so it's down to this new low.

Message causing fear? Hit the messenger.

Pure slime.

nwtrucker
What a pathetic bunch the left is. Every politician who reads from a teleprompter is reading someone else's writing. They all have speech writers, some very talented, and few ideas are really "new".

Perhaps...but the speech writers are paid to produce. Plagiarism...taking someone else's words as your own without attributing their source...is theft. And you don't have to be a leftie to recognise that.

Just have a little education under your cap.

reply to post by Indigo5


Plagiarism is intellectually lazy.

Intellectually lazy people are tools for active thinkers.
An undecided politician is a huge investment opportunity. This should increase his fundraising.

Indigo5
I find it telling that with the long list of plagiarized Speeches, Articles etc. that Rand Paul likely would have been banned by ATS by now for plagiarizing works as his own without citation.

Opinions?

I would have to agree whole heartedly. By now it should be obvious to most people that Rand Paul has very few, if any, original thoughts and/or ideas and that's why he's the "poster child" for the Tea Party and the Libertarian movement.

On another note, the fact that he and/or his staff would underestimate the ability of the public to discover and expose his blatant plagiarism in today's technological world, makes an even more revealing statement with respect to their own level of ignorance.

IMO, the reason they want to take us back to the "past" is because they don't know how to deal with the "now," much less the future.

It's my guess that we're going to have to drag them there, kicking and screaming all the way.

F&S for the OP!

nwtrucker
reply to post by Indigo5

 

What a pathetic bunch the left is. Every politician who reads from a teleprompter is reading someone else's writing. They all have speech writers, some very talented, and few ideas are really "new".

Hmmm... A strange analogy. Yes, every politician has speech writers. Most work with the speech writers to greater or lessor degrees to craft message and language. I am sure at least some let the speech writers craft most of the message.

But how many literally "Cut and Paste" someone else's article and claim it as their own in a Washington Times OP-Ed???

Your analogy + baiting fails logic and seems unusually desperate.

If Rand Paul was a journalist for the Washington Times, rather than a guest "Op-Ed" writer...he would have been pink-slipped already for the blatant disregard for ethics.

nwtrucker
reply to post by Indigo5

 

What a pathetic bunch the left is. Every politician who reads from a teleprompter is reading someone else's writing. They all have speech writers, some very talented, and few ideas are really "new".

They can't argue his facts so it's down to this new low.

Message causing fear? Hit the messenger.

Pure slime.

There is a huge difference between reciting someone else's work when you are paying them for their words and plagiarizing. This is just another of the plethora of realities that escapes the conservative mind.

nwtrucker
reply to post by Indigo5

 

What a pathetic bunch the left is. Every politician who reads from a teleprompter is reading someone else's writing. They all have speech writers, some very talented, and few ideas are really "new".

They can't argue his facts so it's down to this new low.

Message causing fear? Hit the messenger.

Pure slime.

You know what's truly pathetic? Excusing plagiarism on partisan grounds.

On Tuesday, Paul’s office put out a statement saying while Paul’s ideas are his own, he draws from staff and advisers for pieces of supporting information, “some of which were not clearly sourced or vetted properly,” senior adviser Doug Stafford said.

Yikes. So he has no thoughts of his own and even the ones he "borrows" are from questionable sources?

LeatherNLace

There is a huge difference between reciting someone else's work when you are paying them for their words and plagiarizing. This is just another of the plethora of realities that escapes the conservative mind.

The far right appears to have a cliff in place of slippery slope for ethical conduct.

If few ideas are original then, cutting and pasting others work verbatim and publishing them as your own without citation is perfectly acceptable!

Rand Paul needs to fire whoever is doing his writing for him. Either that, or he is doing the writing himself, he needs to do a better job of stealing other peoples work. Either way, it won't hurt his run for the White House.

Plagiarism - a long history of it from both the right and the left -

Huffington Post - George Bush Book 'Decision Points' Lifted From Advisers' Books
NY Times - Bush Aide Resigns - Admits Plagiarism
Bill Clinton claims Bush Plagiarized His Speech
NY Times - Joe Biden Admits Plagiarism
NY Times - Clintons say Obama Plagiarized
CBS Obama Accused of Plagiarism
Washington Post - Obama 'lifted' Syria Speech from Bush
Side by Side - Obama Copied Another Bush Speech
Washington Times - Plagiarism Scandal Rocks GOP Hopeful
Politics USA - Eric Cantor Plagiarized Obama

More Obama Plagiarism

In his review of the State of the Union speech posted on the U.S. News website, Felzenberg goes so far as to accuse the president and his speechwriters of plagiarizing it.

"President Obama's second State of the Union address contained enough recycled ideas and lines lifted from speeches of others to make historians wince," writes Felzenberg. "Had the president submitted the text of his second State of the Union Address in the form of a college term paper, he would have been sent forthwith to the nearest academic dean."

As the impressively well-read Felzenberg documents, Obama lifted lines or ideas from the speeches of Dwight Eisenhower, Woodrow Wilson, Mario Cuomo, Margaret Thatcher, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy without attribution.

and on and on and on .... they all do it ... and yet they all still get elected.

Indigo5
The far right appears to have a cliff in place of slippery slope for ethical conduct.

The left and the right both do it. Neither follow ethical conduct. They all lie. They all 'engineer outcomes' (to quote Kathleen Sebelius (D) answer to Jon Stewart on if she is a liar'). They all are corrupt .. be it Chris Christie or Barack Obama or any other one of them in DC (or trying to get to DC). This isn't a 'right wing is on a slippery slope for ethical conduct'. It's .. Be it a (D) or an (R) after their name, they ALL are on a slippery slope for ethical conduct.

reply to post by Indigo5


Really? Do you think only the right does this and not the left?

I think your just digging now.

Flatfish

On another note, the fact that he and/or his staff would underestimate the ability of the public to discover and expose his blatant plagiarism in today's technological world, makes an even more revealing statement with respect to their own level of ignorance.

In reality they pander to a political base that is a combination of both those who don't know they are being lied to and those who don't care. I have a hard time figuring out the breakdown of each. In the real world, the ignorant likely dominate, but for the politically aware crowd, like ATS the "don't care" folks likely dominate.

Either way the far right seems to have a much, much greater immunity to "ethics" than the left.

reply to post by Indigo5


He should be beaten, punished, for what he did.

(don't know what the penalty is for plagiarism)

He should apologise, man-up, and admit it.

If we're to hold standards for those elected representatives in office, then they need to be equal and unbiased and non-partisan.

reply to post by Indigo5


So the left are perfect and they tell the truth?

I'm sure you are aware that your beloved Obama has lied on video at least 29 times about obamacare.
The left will lie about there lies.

Indigo5
Either way the far right seems to have a much, much greater immunity to "ethics" than the left.

Partisan blindness.

I can't believe you are trying to say that while we are in the middle of the Obamacare lies; the Benghazi lies (it was a reaction to a youtube video); the Fast and Furious lies; Rosengate; Eric Holder purjuries; Obama administration spying on the AP; IRS targeting conservatives while ignoring left wingers; Solyndra; Obama going into Libya and trying to unilaterally go into Syria .... Comeon ... be real.

As I showed, both the left and the right have people who plagiarize.
President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden .. both left wing .. have plagiarized.

Both the right and the left have severe problems with ethics.
To say otherwise is nothing more than partisan blindness.

beezzer
reply to post by Indigo5

 

He should be beaten, punished, for what he did.

(don't know what the penalty is for plagiarism)

He should apologise, man-up, and admit it.

I would opt for the "man-up" option, but unfortunately he lay the blame at his staff...which opens up another can of worms...aka not my fault because everything I say in speeches and write in newspapers is done by someone else?

Sen. Rand Paul responded Tuesday to fresh accusations of plagiarism in an op-ed he wrote in September, saying material from staff and advisers wasn’t adequately vetted and pledging a new process moving forward.

www.politico.com...

It should also be noted that his first response was to rip into those that found the ongoing plagiarism, he only fell back to the "blame the staff" option after other outlets started finding a long list of plagiarized speeches, articles etc.

with media outlets including POLITICO, MSNBC and Buzzfeed finding instances of copying in his speeches and his book. Paul has been dismissive of the criticisms as political attacks from “hacks and haters.”

www.politico.com...

reply to post by FlyersFan


This is the best post in the whole thread. Thank you for rising above the partisan BS which even the OP seems incapable of doing. I wish I could give you all the stars that were given to the OP, because you deserve them more.

thesaneone
reply to post by Indigo5

 

So the left are perfect and they tell the truth?

Not at all. But seeing it as a false binary choice of either/or as you propose is dishonest as well. The political left has been dishonest in the past, but it is the north star compared to the noon-time sun.

Again...slippery slope vs. cliff.

I can't be honest and say that the political left has the same disregard for truth as the political right.

False equivalence, binary fallacy et al.