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    Harkin BanksGabrielle Bluestone
    7/19/16 8:17am

    The really crazy part is someone, somewhere in the Donald’s speech writing team was so incompetent that he (come on, we know it’s a he) plagiarized from the most recent prominent first lady’s speech.

    Steal from Jackie Kennedy, ok, maybe folks would forget that.

    Steal from Mary Todd Lincoln, probably safer.

    Steal from Pat Nixon, good.

    But what kind of idiot are they hiring that he steals from a speech so recent, from a woman who is STILL so fucking prominent?

    Trump really does hire morons.

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      Flying Squid (I hate me more than you do.)Harkin Banks
      7/19/16 8:21am

      Incompetence or sabotage? Because considering there was Rickrolling in the speech too...

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      BfunkadeliaFlying Squid (I hate me more than you do.)
      7/19/16 8:23am

      Wow. Did not catch that the first time.

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    CryptidGabrielle Bluestone
    7/19/16 8:14am

    I mean, she was speaking in front of 35 million people last night. She knew that. To think that she would be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy.

    Student: “No. Why would I plagiarize when it puts me at risk of failing? That would be totally nuts. Why would I do that?”

    Me: [shrug] “While you’re here, let’s talk about the function of the subjunctive mood.”

    Even lowly adjunct professors can see through this particular line of bullshit, and on some level we must be pretty fucking stupid to have ended up in this gig, right? Manafort is insulting the nation’s collective intelligence slightly more than usual today.

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      AnnieBodyCryptid
      7/19/16 8:23am

      Last semester I had a student plagiarize opinion questions. I couldn’t fathom the why of it. It must have taken so much longer to search the internet and find opinions that fit the prompt than it would have to just BS something on your own. There is literally no wrong answer provided you write a cogent answer that expresses some subjective belief on the topic.

      I rather feel this is the same situation with Melania: expectations weren’t particularly high here. All she needed to do was speak relatively coherently with original words for her allotted time and hit the required key points: Donald is a good man, values, family etc. and it would have been considered a win. Way to snatch defeat from the jaws of a ridiculously easy victory.

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      benjaminalloverCryptid
      7/19/16 8:26am

      I was yelling at my t.v. this morning, “yes, Paul, it IS crazy!”

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    ThePriceofEggsinMaltaGabrielle Bluestone
    7/19/16 8:15am

    Apparently (and this is per Morning Joe, so grain of salt and all that), there’s all sorts of infighting going on within the Trump campaign right now. Apparently Manafort put one of his “most trusted deputies” in charge of Melania and vetted her speech. Manafort’s underlings have now apparently started to throw Melania under the bus, claiming she added the plagiarized bits into the speech.

    And Manafort’s supposed to be the professional one in all of this. It’s amazing.

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      yousayclamato, joeThePriceofEggsinMalta
      7/19/16 8:24am

      It would all be garden-variety incompetence if it hadn’t happened on such a massive stage. It’s the latter point that makes the thought of a Trump presidency most alarming.

      “What? I didn’t push the button! Is Hillary saying I pushed the button? This is her fault for letting me win the election!”

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      JlynnDCThePriceofEggsinMalta
      7/19/16 8:28am
      GIF
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    BfunkadeliaGabrielle Bluestone
    7/19/16 8:13am

    You are right, Mr Manafort. Cribbing a speech in front of 35 million people IS crazy. That’s what we’re saying.

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      jrfunkensteinBfunkadelia
      7/19/16 8:29am

      It’s like truth is Kryptonite to Trumpenfluffers.

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      corey3rdBfunkadelia
      7/19/16 8:40am

      The Carlos Mencia of future first ladies.

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    OMG!PONIES!Gabrielle Bluestone
    7/19/16 8:17am

    “I thought Melania Trump hit it out of the park when she talked about her love of family, the feeling of an immigrant that comes to this country and succeeds. And I thought that the feeling she has towards her husband and her depiction of the real Donald Trump came through loud and clear.”

    Except that she didn’t talk about her love of family or her feelings toward her husband or her depiction of the “real” Donald Trump. They belonged to her “team of writers.”

    It wasn’t even her speech. Speak from the heart? Please. More like read from a teleprompter. She can’t even plagiarize by herself.

    https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases…

    Sure, Donald. You hire only the best plagiarists.

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      IskaralPustOMG!PONIES!
      7/19/16 8:21am

      To be fair, I thought Melania’s heartfelt stories about growing up black in Chicago were very inspiring.

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      jrfunkensteinOMG!PONIES!
      7/19/16 8:27am

      Too funny; just hours before the speech, she was telling Lauer aboard Trump Farce One that ‘she’ had written the speech ‘with as little help as possible.’

      Now that she owns this plagiarizing amateur hour bullshit, the question is, does Trumpenhorror whack her straight away, or wait until dark before unveiling Ivanka Bangher as his next soon to be replaced trophy wife?

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    Hip Brooklyn StereotypeGabrielle Bluestone
    7/19/16 8:22am

    “...These are common words and values...”

    ...That just so happen to appear in the exact same sequence as in a speech by someone else from eight years ago.

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      Ginger Is A ConstructHip Brooklyn Stereotype
      7/19/16 8:51am

      As a professor it is infuriating to see how poorly people understand plagiarism (no wonder it happens so, so, so, so, often. Students are idiots and so is the Trump Camp). It’s not just about repeating words verbatim, it’s also plagiarism if you paraphrase, but do not give attribution, to someone else’s ideas! This is both, and by failing to cite I will be giving Ms. Trump an F on the assignment, and a 0 for her final grade. Do not pass go, do not become First Lady.

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      CNicRouteGinger Is A Construct
      7/19/16 8:58am

      Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I worked in the writing lab at my university for a while and I cannot tell you how many times I had to explain this to my peers. Re-writing a paragraph (sort of) in your own words (sort of) does not make it yours. You still have to site your sources.

      I got to the point where the first thing I did was make people re-write at least one quoted passage so that I could show them how to site it without plagiarizing. (What’s worse is that their professors rarely ever commented on the plagiarized paragraphs when they turned them in.)

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    DrunkyMcStumblesGabrielle Bluestone
    7/19/16 8:16am

    So, Hillary stole a copy of Melania’s speech, went back in time to 2008, and gave it to Michelle? If so, talk about burying the lede.

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      BenedictCumberbatchCan'tSayPenguinDrunkyMcStumbles
      7/19/16 8:22am
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      OMG!PONIES!DrunkyMcStumbles
      7/19/16 8:26am

      I can’t believe that Barack HUSSEIN Obama was stupid enough to trust Crooked Hillary with the Kenyan time travel technology used to plant the phony birth announcement in the Hawaiian newspaper.

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    NoneGabrielle Bluestone
    7/19/16 8:47am

    I made this short comic to describe my feelings about this article. Hope you like it!

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      hntergrenNone
      7/19/16 8:48am

      I’m picking up what you’re putting down (oh man, that works on like, five different levels). Bravo

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      groosepimpleshntergren
      7/19/16 9:31am

      normally I hate nothing more than people who point out their own puns. especially when they’re actually good puns, and not just lame crappy puns. like, of all of the things to brag about, being moderately good at puns is just a pathetic one to choose! but you, my friend, you did not brag, when you pointed out that pun. you simply pointed out your insanely-layered-and-subtle 9x-megaton-megapun, because something that perfect deserves appreciation. CONGRATULATIONS, I don’t know HOW you did it, but you did. you made a pun SO GOOD that it looped right back around to being unironically amazing. and you stirred my soul.

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    Kenhe LoginGabrielle Bluestone
    7/19/16 8:08am

    Blaming it on Hillary, that’s original!

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      Hachi-ko ChukenKenhe Login
      7/19/16 8:29am

      I watched his interview in real time while I was eating breakfast this morning and I could not even believe my eyes. It was so early in the morning, so I thought that maybe I was still half-asleep but no I was awake and this was actually happening.

      And then watching Rep. Sean Douchey Duffy pull a Selena Gomez and plead with Chris Cuomo to focus on the issues that really matter, like jobs and the economy, was absolutely mind-blowing.

      I am just like flabbergasted this morning.

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    gramercypoliceGabrielle Bluestone
    7/19/16 8:41am

    I posted this in an earlier story on this topic, but it bears reposting. Plus, this way I can plagiarize myself posting someone else’s tweet that uses an image from someone else’s movie. It’s like Whackbat. But I do think this is what sticks in the delegates’s throat this morning: “You made us applaud Michelle Obama?”

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