One of the biggest criticisms of our current Vice President and Democratic nominee for President is that she seems to lack substance. As much as she claims her values haven’t changed, she sure changes her mind an awful lot. She was against fracking, but now she is for it. She was against Trump’s wall, but now she is for it. She was the tie breaking vote to tax tips, but now she is against taxing tips. With all these flip flops, it is reasonable to wonder if she actually believes in anything.
So … this isn’t going to help with that problem:
The investigation was conducted by Dr. Stefan Weber, a famed Austrian "plagiarism hunter" who has taken down politicians in the German-speaking world. We independently confirmed multiple violations, which are comparable in severity to the plagiarism found in former Harvard… pic.twitter.com/P9DTpZS4kV
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
The cut off text reads:
We independently confirmed multiple violations, which are comparable in severity to the plagiarism found in former Harvard president Claudine Gay's doctoral thesis.
We can begin with a passage in which Harris discusses high school graduation rates. Here, she lifted verbatim language from an uncited AP/NBC News report: pic.twitter.com/pZv5mD3m5t
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
In another section of the book, Harris, without proper attribution, reproduced extensive sections from a John Jay College of Criminal Justice press release. She and her co-author passed off the language as their own, copying multiple paragraphs virtually verbatim. Here is the… pic.twitter.com/9FpsxQE8Sz
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
The cut off text reads:
Here is the excerpt, with abbreviations, such as percentages and state names, treated as verbatim substitutions:
In a section about a New York court program, Harris stole long passages directly from Wikipedia—long considered an unreliable source. She not only assumes the online encyclopedia's accuracy, but copies its language nearly verbatim, without citing the source. Here is Harris's… pic.twitter.com/qrwHE8AAgk
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
The cut off text reads:
Here is Harris's language, based on the page as it appeared in December 2008, before she published the book:
Finally, when attempting to write a description of a nonprofit group, Harris simply lifted promotional language from an Urban Institute report, and failed to cite her source: pic.twitter.com/WpcC0SkpT5
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
P.S. If you'd like to support my investigations into DEI, plagiarism, higher education, and the migrant crisis, you can become a paid subscriber here: https://t.co/etKtrVPEmL
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
And special thanks to @buttonslives for the research assistance and the great graphics! 🥂
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
David Harsanyi shares an important insight on this:
Oftentimes plagiarism accusations are weak because the text in question is just a bunch of existing facts, and difficult to rewrite. This is not that. This is blatant plagiarism. https://t.co/944GXuN2WH
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) October 14, 2024
We agree. We are much more concerned about the sections that go beyond copying language presenting statistics. There are only so many ways to present phrases like 'almost half of [N] is…'
Also, plagiarizing … from Wikipedia? Wikipedia is notoriously unreliable. For instance, it once famously said that Condoleezza Rice was a 'concert penis.' That’s not a typo on our part, it was what someone editing Wikipedia thought was funny. We generally eschew it except on really nonpolitical topics, like the history of an arcade game or something like that.
And not for nothing, J.D. Vance is clowning on Harris and it is glorious:
Lmao Kamala didn't even write her own book! https://t.co/gEvyRdUrvG
— JD Vance (@JDVance) October 14, 2024
Cue the corporate media "fact checkers":
— JD Vance (@JDVance) October 14, 2024
"Vance's tweet is missing important context. Kamala Harris only copied some of her book from Wikipedia."
Well, of course, we can see one obvious way they might spin this: A quick search on Amazon reveals that the book is officially written by Kamala Harris and a woman named 'Joan O'C. Hamilton.' (That’s how it is spelled on the book cover and on Amazon.) So, the easy way to be unburdened by what has been apparent plagiarism is to throw Ms. Hamilton under the bus.
Incidentally, we looked up Hamilton’s past works on Amazon and apparently all she does is co-author books. We even found her alleged official website and it gives this biography:
Joan O’C. Hamilton is a California-based writing collaborator and content consultant. She has produced three New York Times best-selling non-fiction books for private clients, and she works with prominent people in business, science & technology, politics, and philanthropy on books, op-ed articles, white papers, annual reports, speeches, and web page content.
An award-winning journalist and former bureau chief for BusinessWeek Magazine in San Francisco, Joan has many years of experience in journalism and investigative reporting; she is very comfortable with political, business, and technical subject matter; and she has worked closely with some of Silicon Valley’s most successful executives, including HP Inc. Chairman Meg Whitman and former Applied Materials Inc. Chief Executive and Chairman James C. Morgan. …
Joan is a graduate of Stanford University. She is a longtime contributing editor at Stanford magazine and the author of many cover stories and in-depth feature articles. In 2011 her article 'You Say Up, I say Yesterday' won a Gold Award as Best Article of the Year from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
Currently, Joan specializes in working with busy, high-impact individuals whose schedules and personal styles demand flexibility, quick-turnaround drafting, and thoroughly researched and fact-checked finished copy. She is happy to offer references upon request. Clients interested in finding a ghostwriting partner and understanding that process might be interested in this 2013 interview with Joan: [link deleted]
So, take that for what you will.
Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that allegations of plagiarism actually caused Joe Biden to drop out of one of his prior runs for the presidency:
Remember back when the media took plagiarism seriously?
— Bill D'Agostino (@Banned_Bill) October 14, 2024
Back in 1988, Biden was shown to have plagiarized multiple other politicians - a scandal so devastating that he was forced to drop out of the race.
You won't hear any of today's journalists talking this way about Kamala. pic.twitter.com/ZLpn1B8xI1
So, maybe Kamala needs to drop out now and come back when she is senile? Just a thought.
***
Update:
The New York Post called Kamala Harris's co-author, who, when confronted with the plagiarism evidence, said: "Oh gosh ... I'm afraid I can't talk to you right now, though, I'm in the middle of something. Let me go try to figure that out."https://t.co/0AKeo880M7
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 14, 2024
Heh.
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