Melania Trump plagiarism/rickroll megathread

[ProudModerate2]

Vox isnt alone in noticing this...

NYT: Melania Trump’s Speech Bears Striking Similarities to Michelle Obama’s 2008 Address
LATimes: Melania Trump's RNC speech is strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech
MSNBC: Melania Trump speech strikingly similar to Michelle Obama 2008
Politico: Melania Trump's prime-time speech was strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's

There is more and it is growing. This is going to be a thing for sure.

Vox, the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, MSNBC and Politico. So the left-wing press is on the attack, likely with marching orders from the DNC. I am shocked I tell you, shocked.

You should check your hat. The tin foil might be cutting off oxygen to your brain.

Tin foil, hardly. The reputation of Vox, the New York Times, the LA Times, MSNBC and Politico as left-wing advocates is pretty well established.

uh, the videos and transcripts of both speeches are publicly available. you can compare them yourself. what are you talking about??

Your red roots are showing, Lief.
I did compare them. I don't consider them to be anything other than your stock political "Americans work hard" fare that you hear in speech after speech.
I challenge you to tell me that anyone other than Melania Trump or Michelle Obama has never uttered similar words before. You can't.

Seriously,
You are totally making yourself look so foolish, with every comment you make (in this thread).
Please STOP .... You are so delusional right now, its beyond planet Earth.
95% of everyone who is commenting in this thread is saying it is OBVIOUS plagiarism.
Red avatars, blue avatars, men, women, black, white, tall, short .... Everybody !
Try and maintain some credibility on Atlas ..... otherwise, everyone will read your comments as nothing but dung from here forward.

[ProudModerate2]

Vox isnt alone in noticing this...

NYT: Melania Trump’s Speech Bears Striking Similarities to Michelle Obama’s 2008 Address
LATimes: Melania Trump's RNC speech is strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech
MSNBC: Melania Trump speech strikingly similar to Michelle Obama 2008
Politico: Melania Trump's prime-time speech was strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's

There is more and it is growing. This is going to be a thing for sure.

Vox, the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, MSNBC and Politico. So the left-wing press is on the attack, likely with marching orders from the DNC. I am shocked I tell you, shocked.

You should check your hat. The tin foil might be cutting off oxygen to your brain.

Tin foil, hardly. The reputation of Vox, the New York Times, the LA Times, MSNBC and Politico as left-wing advocates is pretty well established.

uh, the videos and transcripts of both speeches are publicly available. you can compare them yourself. what are you talking about??

Your red roots are showing, Lief.
I did compare them. I don't consider them to be anything other than your stock political "Americans work hard" fare that you hear in speech after speech.
I challenge you to tell me that anyone other than Melania Trump or Michelle Obama has never uttered similar words before. You can't.

Seriously,
You are totally making yourself look so foolish, with every comment you make (in this thread).
Please STOP .... You are so delusional right now, its beyond planet Earth.
95% of everyone who is commenting in this thread is saying it is OBVIOUS plagiarism.
Red avatars, blue avatars, men, women, black, white, tall, short .... Everybody !
Try and maintain some credibility on Atlas ..... otherwise, everyone will read your comments as nothing but dung from here forward.

So what. Most of Atlas skews left. And I seriously do not care what you think.

Not just me. Everybody !

[ProudModerate2]

This is your standard political speech when it comes to "we worked hard," blah, blah, blah.

How many possible ways can you say: My parents raised me to work hard. Instilled values in me. You are only as good as your word. Treat people nicely. We want our kids to have the same values, yada yada, yada?

I guarantee you many a politician has pretty much used the same concepts over and over and over again. The horse can only be beaten so many ways.

I agree that the themes are similar, but even simple statements can be said in numerous different forms.  For instance, there are 0 Google hits for  "has pretty much used the same concepts," and only 2 for "pretty much used the same concepts."  There are 0 hits for "we want our kids to have the same values" -- your post will be the first time that simple phrase appears on Google.  Now, what do you really think are the chances those phrases would match nearly word-for-word to Michelle Obama's speech?

I am the first person to shout down dumb, cherry-picking conspiracy theories on the left (and there are MILLIONS), but there is almost zero statistical chance that this is a coincidence.  You've got to drop your defensiveness on this and be objective.

I'll continue to beat this horse over and over again. The concepts are similar. They are stated similarly. Why?  Because these concepts are your typical political stock. I guarantee you that the construct and phrases of Michelle Obama's speech and Melania Trump's speech have been used before nearly word-for-word in other stock paragraphs espousing the same thoughts around the country.

Nothing that neither Melania Trump nor Michelle Obama have said in either speech is not something that politicians or their wives have said over and over and over again in elections throughout this country over time.

I just pointed out that it's not the themes, but the phrasing that are the issue.  Some of it is word-for-word, with maybe one word shifted.  I just demonstrated to you how rare it is for even a somewhat complex sentence to be used in two different places on the entire Internet, let alone between two medium-length political speeches.  Come on, dude.

It's like if your post contained the phrase "I just demonstrated to you how rare it is," and I pointed out that that phrase has never been used before on the recorded Internet (Google it!), and you defended it by saying, "but people demonstrate how rare things are all the time -- it's the theme that matters."  No it isn't.  It's the phrasing, and I've demonstrated that to you several times, and you've totally failed to rebut my point.  You're totally embarrassing yourself.

Just to reiterate: the issue is the SUPER LOW statistical probability of such nearly-identical phrasing being used between two speeches randomly, not about themes

And Seriously makes his defense sound like people/Melania are just using similar "phrases" by taking a-little of plagiarism from Michelle here, and then a-little bit of plagiarism from some else from an entirely different speech, there .....
No, that is not the case ..... Melania has taken one single speech from Michelle and copied phrases almost word for word.
Seriously is just being so stubborn. Gessssh.

[ProudModerate2]

So what. Most of Atlas skews left. And I seriously do not care what you think.

Not just me. Everybody !

Do you really think that I care about what other people think?

If you want Atlas members to at least take your comments having some substance .... YES, you should care.
But if you cant admit to something so obvious like 'the sky is blue' or 'the sun is hot,' then your credibility is completely shot.

[ProudModerate2]

Seriously?, you are completely ignoring my statistical argument.  Do you not understand it, or is there some other reason you're avoiding it?

Clearly, he doesn't want to acknowledge what just happened, and it's creating cognitive dissonance. He's right on the borderline of being thrown into my Ljube list.

LOL.
In all fairness to Ljube .... he can sometimes talk serious about issues.
And I have seen him admit to OBVIOUS trump (or Pub) blunders, and the like.
Now Seriously ..... he is a different cat altogether.

[ProudModerate2]

Vox isnt alone in noticing this...

NYT: Melania Trump’s Speech Bears Striking Similarities to Michelle Obama’s 2008 Address
LATimes: Melania Trump's RNC speech is strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech
MSNBC: Melania Trump speech strikingly similar to Michelle Obama 2008
Politico: Melania Trump's prime-time speech was strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's

There is more and it is growing. This is going to be a thing for sure. 

"Melania Trump... Speech... Strikingly similar to Michelle Obama"
All these article titles are strikingly similar to each other.

I would be willing to bet that Seriously, would think otherwise.

[ProudModerate2]

Reading this thread feels like watching someone teach algebra to a racoon.

O-M-G !
You don't know how much a just laughed when I read your comment.
The second time tonight someone from Atlas gave me a good chuckle ... Thanks.

[ProudModerate2]

Vox isnt alone in noticing this...

NYT: Melania Trump’s Speech Bears Striking Similarities to Michelle Obama’s 2008 Address
LATimes: Melania Trump's RNC speech is strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech
MSNBC: Melania Trump speech strikingly similar to Michelle Obama 2008
Politico: Melania Trump's prime-time speech was strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's

There is more and it is growing. This is going to be a thing for sure. 

"Melania Trump... Speech... Strikingly similar to Michelle Obama"
All these article titles are strikingly similar to each other.

I don't think that's a coincidence -- that's the title for the initial breaking Reuters article, and I assume a lot of media outlets do flash re-packages.  "Strikingly similar" is obviously a common phrase (523,000 Google results) and probably the most popular short-hand to imply something is suspiciously similar, but I agree it would be unlikely to be coincidental that the articles share that phrase.  In fact, it's very probably not coincidence, even though it's vastly more likely to be coincidence than the Trump/Obama speech similarities.

Alcon,
I think Committeeman Kingpoleon was just being funny/sarcastic.
8-)

[ProudModerate2]

Well everyone, this will not be official until we give it a #gate name. What do you think?

#SpeechGate?
#CopyGate?

Those are OK, but you have to have "Melania" in there, somewhere.
#MelaniaSpeechGate
#MelaniaCopyGate
etc.

[ProudModerate2]

Vox isnt alone in noticing this...

NYT: Melania Trump’s Speech Bears Striking Similarities to Michelle Obama’s 2008 Address
LATimes: Melania Trump's RNC speech is strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech
MSNBC: Melania Trump speech strikingly similar to Michelle Obama 2008
Politico: Melania Trump's prime-time speech was strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's

There is more and it is growing. This is going to be a thing for sure. 

"Melania Trump... Speech... Strikingly similar to Michelle Obama"
All these article titles are strikingly similar to each other.

I would be willing to bet that Seriously, would think otherwise.

Strikingly similar in their deception, I do agree.
I do recall Michelle Obama saying, "For the first time in my life I am proud of my country" in that 2008 speech. Did Melania Trump say that, too?
Two paragraphs of stock political junk are similar in theme and the press wants to make a big deal about it. A complete joke.

Stop it Seriously.
We are talking about "the sun is hot," and you go way-off-course and ask "do cats bury their own s**t ?"
Go to bed .... Maybe you will have a reality-check first thing in the morning.
Good night everyone .... Over and out.

[ProudModerate2]

Maybe if we put it in black-and-white print, and highlight the obvious plagiarism, the deniers like Seriously will finally "see the light" ......

[ProudModerate2]

A statistical analysis by college plagiarism checker TurnItIn estimates a "less than 1 in 1 trillion" chance of coincidence.
This is exactly what I was saying, Seriously?.
This is basically a non-issue to me, but that's not an excuse to be intellectually dishonest about it.

I think Seriously is now hiding in shame and embarrassment.

[ProudModerate2]

I will now accept my accolades

My guess would be that Trump muddles the issue similar to how Seriously? is, by going on some networks and saying "they both used some common ideas, some common phrases, they both wanted to give an inspirational and uplifting message, and I think that's something you shouldn't tear someone down for."

Wrote the entire script to the Trump campaign response within five minutes of the story breaking and nailed the entire thing, right down to the "tear down" script-flipping language.

True that both trump and Seriously responded similarly.
But they also both failed miserably and look like fools.

[ProudModerate2]

I will now accept my accolades

My guess would be that Trump muddles the issue similar to how Seriously? is, by going on some networks and saying "they both used some common ideas, some common phrases, they both wanted to give an inspirational and uplifting message, and I think that's something you shouldn't tear someone down for."

Wrote the entire script to the Trump campaign response within five minutes of the story breaking and nailed the entire thing, right down to the "tear down" script-flipping language.

True that both trump and Seriously responded similarly.
But they also both failed miserably and look like fools.

Maybe I am a Trump plant... Or maybe I am not. In either event, this nonsense is much ado about nothing that isn't going to change anyone's mind on who they are voting for.

They hell of it doesn't mean "nothing to change anyone's mind."
I'm sure some independents, and individuals associated with academia, who were on the fence, take plagiarism very seriously. This incident will only push these individuals to vote against
the Trump /IS Dense campaign.

[ProudModerate2]

Trump celebrates plagiarized speech but it got the most publicity "in the history of politics"

This cracks me up. It isn't surprising that Trump is totally into the numbers and not the quality of the speech.
Just do whatever you do in a BIG way! Whether what you do is good or not, just make sure it makes a BIG SPLASH. Trump's credo.

Do you think, that it was a awful speech? In my opinion, it was a pretty good, and plagiarism gave it publicity it needed. Plagiarism is bad, but it's Trump we're talking about. Frankly, I wouldn't argue, if we'd be plagiarizing more from Obama

You got it all wrong.
It was the plagiarism that made the speech "pretty good." Without the Michelle Obama quotes, it would have just been mediocre.