Kamala Harris Plagiarism Scandal

[k1976]

Kamala Harris Plagiarism Scandal​

Jonathan BaileyOctober 15, 2024
5 minutes read

Yesterday, Christopher Rufo published an article accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of plagiarizing her 2009 book Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer. In his article, he cited five passages in the book that bore strong similarities to earlier works.

That day, the New York Times called me and asked me to examine those five publicly available passages. I studied the passages and found that they were indicators of poor writing processes but did not make up a large portion of the work. As such, while I agree that the passages represent plagiarism and are issues that need to be addressed, they are relatively minor as far as plagiarism goes.

At the time, I was unaware of a full dossier with additional allegations, which led some to accuse the New York Times of withholding that information from me. However, the article clearly stated that it was my “initial reaction” to those allegations, not a complete analysis.

Today, I reviewed the complete dossier prepared by Dr. Stefan Weber, whom I have covered before. I also performed a peer review of one of his papers in 2018.
With this new information, while I believe the case is more serious than I commented to the New York Times, the overarching points remain. While there are problems with this work, the pattern points to sloppy writing habits, not a malicious intent to defraud.
Is it problematic? Yes. But it’s also not the wholesale fraud that many have claimed it to be. It sits somewhere between what the two sides want it to be.

 

[k1976]

Analyzing the Full Report​

The 40-page document contains approximately 29 accusations (depending on how you count them). Eighteen of the allegations focus on the book, and another 11 focus on alleged self-plagiarisms that came later.

To that end, I have to dismiss the self-plagiarism allegations out of hand. Politicians repeat themselves, and it’s not surprising to see them reuse words and passages. As I talked about in March, there are times when being original with your word choice can be harmful to your message. This is one of those times.

Furthermore, the report also treats these as less serious, calling them “maybe benign” examples of plagiarism. That makes sense as politicians, in general, have little, if any, expectation of originality.

Much of these allegations came from one interview about the book. While there’s a debate about whether the interview was scripted when it was promoted as live, this is a separate question outside my area of expertise.

Of the remaining 18, the first was discussed in January 2021 and was largely dismissed then. Another deals with self-plagiarism in the book itself. Once again, that is not surprising.

From there, the allegations do get more serious.

The most serious allegation concerns Wikipedia. Harris’ book contained roughly two paragraphs copied from Wikipedia without citation. To be clear, that is plagiarism. It’s compounded by the fact that Wikipedia is typically not seen as a reliable source, and, according to Weber, there was an error in the information.

The section quotes and cites a passage from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance but does not indicate that Wikipedia was used.

Most of the remaining passages are in situations where text was used verbatim but not quoted. The sources were largely cited and, in some cases, were quoted, though not all verbatim text was included.

We’ve seen this problem repeatedly, especially with works from this period. Poor writing techniques and the lack of accessible plagiarism detection tools made this a common problem, especially before the 2010s. While that doesn’t make it acceptable, it makes it more about sloppy writing habits than an intent to defraud.

 

[k1976]

Copy-n- Paste specialist?
<CTRL> C n <CTRL> V specialist..seem like many cama also becum big shot sirs

Meaning of plagiarism in English​

uk

/ˈpleɪ.dʒər.ɪ.zəm/ us

/ˈpleɪ.dʒɚ.ɪ.zəm/

Add to word list
the process or practice of using another person's ideas or work and pretending that it is your own:

She's been accused of plagiarism.
The techniques for detecting plagiarism are becoming increasingly advanced.

 

[Merl Haggard]

Tim Cook had just called Donald Trump to complain that Euro Union is imposing a penalty of $15b on Apple and Trump told him that he's
got to win the White House first and then he'll intervene.

If Tim Cook called Trump for help instead of the sitting President, Biden or VP Kamala, I think Trump is gonna win the election by a landslide.

 

[superpower]

Plagiarism is CECA specialty

 

[k1976]

Leemember....COPy is the ultimate respect?

 

[Loofydralb]

It's in her CECA genes to copy and cheat especially during exams.

 

[k1976]

No worries, Kamala victory will ensure US can continue to export good petrol at wonderful price to EU​

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More U.S. Crude Goes to Europe​

The volume of U.S. oil exports shipped to Europe continues to far exceed the total volume of Brent crude oil produced from the existing crude fields in the North Sea that underpin the Brent futures benchmark. This was one of the major reasons why WTI Midland was included as one of the delivery grades as it bolsters the total volume of crude that could be delivered under the Brent contract.
The latest volume shows that the U.S. exports around 1.8 million barrels per day, while total production for Brent crude oil grades sits at 650,000 barrels per day. This has been an ongoing directional trend since early 2022 and continues to reinforce the pricing role that the U.S. benchmark is playing for European market participants.

The Vortexa data shows that U.S. crude exports to Europe (all) reached around 2.2 million barrels per day in the 12-months to June 2024, this represents an increase of 23% year over year compared to the same period in 2023.

U.S. Crude Oil Trading Volumes Expand in European Hours​

The inclusion of WTI into the Brent benchmark has drawn higher customer interest from outside the U.S. into WTI and this appears to be translating into a greater proportion of WTI futures volumes being traded in European hours.

CME Group data shows that the percentage of total volume in WTI has been rising since the inclusion of WTI Midland into the Dated Brent price. Over 35% of the total daily volumes in WTI crude oil futures traded outside the U.S. core hours in June 2024, an increase from 25% in January 2023. In volume terms, the June 2024 level equates to around 900,000 lots, an increase of 16% from the same period 12 months earlier. This also coincides with the timing of the formal introduction of WTI as a deliverable grade into the Dated Brent basket of crudes.
Risk exposure to U.S. crude prices from regions outside the U.S. is on the rise as grades like WTI Midland continue to play an outsized role on the global stage. As U.S. export cargoes have flowed in higher volumes, non-U.S. refiners and trading firms that may have traditionally relied on Brent to manage risk are much more focused on what is happening in both WTI and along the U.S. Gulf coast. CME Group futures markets for Argus-based WTI Midland and the Argus WTI Houston reflect this change, with open interest — the number of unsettled futures contracts — growing substantially.