Donald Trump

[Wolf DeVoon]

8 hours ago, SteveWolfer said:

too much like blaming the victim for the act of the aggressor (where it is that kind of evil)

I guess that's the fundamental question. I'm in favor of aggression, like Dagny shooting the guard, Howard taking Dominique.

[BaalChatzaf]

30 minutes ago, wolfdevoon said:

I guess that's the fundamental question. I'm in favor of aggression, like Dagny shooting the guard, Howard taking Dominique.

aggression should be a last resort.  It is justifiable in connection with self-defense.  In any other situation aggression is questionable.   In sex it is just the thing for wannabe rapists and masochists.   Initiation of force can only be justified to prevent attack.  As it says in the Talmud  -- if he is coming to kill you,  rise up early and kill him first. Tractate sanhedrin 72a

[Peter]

Steve wrote: I can now see that Trump had a winning concept for the primaries that had to do with spitting in the face of political correctness and political cowardice and political inaction and doing it by disparaging both parties. end quote

Interesting. On Fox I saw a replay of Trump saying “Lying Ted Cruz.” I thought, sheesh, that is bad manners. Somebody linked this before (it seems like years ago) but Ted is going to speak at the convention soon. So I decided to google lying Ted and I came across a video entitled “Cruz lies six times in four minutes,” or something like that. And he did.

The “mistruths?”  Trump will establish socialized medicine, and he supports Obamacare. Trump is against second amendment rights. He supports Planned Parenthood. (No they should be unfunded.) He calls for neutrality between the Palestinians and Israel. He would keep the Iranian nuclear deal in place . Trump will compromise with Harry Reid on supreme court appointments.

I am sure you can find some sound bites of Donald Trump seeming to support those positions or other sound bites that are equivocations. But I would have to agree with Trump that those statements are lies. Or at least exaggerations . . . but I equivocate.

My point is that the rhetoric from the primaries should not greatly influence your current support for Trump or Cruz, even if you are still feeling hung over from the political party.  

Who wrote Melania's speech? I do think they used Michelle Obama's speech in 2008 as a template as to what a first lady should say.

Peter

[SteveWolfer]

3 minutes ago, Peter said:

Who wrote Melania's speech?

 

Melania Trump plagiarized a couple of passages in her RNC convention speech last night from the DNC speech of Michelle Obama.  This is going to look bad since Melania said that she wrote the speech herself (but now the Trump campaign is talking about a "team of writers").  Some of the Trump supporters are doing the business of pointing out past instances of plagiarism on the part of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Barack Obama.  Of course, pointing out that someone else did something bad doesn't justify anything, but if you are someone like me, who doesn't like any of these people, it becomes like a buffet of disgusting bits and pieces.

 

Melania pilfered a couple of passages from Michelle, but then in that same 2008 DNC speech Michelle appears to have plagiarized Saul Alinsky. 

 

Barack Obama lifted a theme and the exact words of a speech given by a former governor of Massachusetts.  He must have like that speaker's turn of phrase, because in a later speech he plagiarized yet another of the Governor's speeches.  (Obama can deliver a lively campaign speech, but I watched a YouTube video of that governor, and of Obama - the governor was better.)

 

Hillary stole lines from former senator John Edwards.  Then in 2016 she stole lines from Bernie Sanders - twice. 

 

And Joe Biden was caught stealing lines for a speech he gave, and then researchers found out that he plagiarized a paper in law school.  He said, "Everyone does this."

 

Actually, when I step back this is a small and silly thing.  And, why would someone expect any of these people to not do whatever they think they can get away with?  Why would anyone expect honesty from them?

[Peter]

I’ve watched some of the convention. I think that Stephen Colbert is a piece of shit. He is a dirty totalitarian. Truthiness? BS. I think Trump has some truth-y opinions. Kasich isn’t coming to the convention or the Bush’s. If he had been invited I bet Dubya’s VP would speak for The Donald.

Steve wrote: Actually, when I step back this is a small and silly thing.  And, why would someone expect any of these people to not do whatever they think they can get away with?  Why would anyone expect honesty from them? END QUOTE

That was a pretty good list of people lifting passages from prior works. I save a lot of my stuff and others too and reuse it, so I am constantly doing it . . . but hopefully I don’t plagiarize. It should be big news if Michelle plagiarized a communist.   

It is time to go on offense against the radical Muslims. What does the suddenly pacifistic Ba’al think of that? This was in my inbox. Trump wants more money, "honey."

Peter

Governor Mike Pence is a fighter. And that's why I want him to be my Vice President. I know he will fight by my side as we put the American people first and unleash a platform to Make America Great Again!  . . . . Mike Pence and I are prepared to fight for the American people who have been betrayed by our government for years. Unlike Crooked Hillary, we will never wait 13 hours to answer a call from our men and women in uniform. We will stand up to crony corruption and government waste. We will re-negotiate trade deals that put America First. We will win the fight against ISIS and never give in to demands of political correctness. And we will keep fighting until we Make America Great Again!  . . . . It's Time to Win!
Donald J. Trump

[Peter]

So far the Cleveland PD seems to be doing a good job. I like the idea of the police checking carry-ons, purses and backpacks and arresting their asses for concealed weapons and contraband. I am sure Rolling Thunder won't try to enter the convention with fire arms. Could Der Trump-ster win? Here are ten reasons he could, from The National Review, Online.

Peter

Victor Davis Hanson July 19, 2016 4:00 AM — NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals. . . . . .The media are outdoing their 2008 liberal prejudices. And yet in John Connally delegate fashion, Clinton’s vast expenditures of $100 million plus have so far earned her only a tiny, if any, lead in most recent polls . . . . So why is the supposedly impossible at least now imaginable?

1. Not a Typical Populist When critics are not slurring Trump as Hitler or Mussolini, they write him off, in sloppy fashion, as a dangerous populist — at worst an hysterical, demagogic Huey Long, at best a quirky Ross Perot: in other words, a flash in the pan who capitalizes on occasional but brief surges of Neanderthal isolationism, protectionism, nativism, xenophobia, and collective insecurity among the lower middle classes. That diagnosis is rehashed groupthink. By any definition, Trump is not a classical populist. His traction derives from opposing unchecked and cynical illegal immigration, not diverse and measured legal immigration. And he is rebelling not so much against a flabby, sclerotic status quo as against a radical, even revolutionary regime of elites who are now well beyond accustomed norms. It is hardly radical to oppose the Confederate doctrine of legal nullification in more than 300 sanctuary cities, or a de facto open border with Mexico, or doubling the national debt in eight years, or ruining the nation’s health-care system with the most radical reconstruction in the history of American health-care policy, or systematically running huge trade deficits with an autocratic China that does not adhere to international norms of free trade and predicates expanding political and military power in the South China Sea on its commercial mercantilism. Trump seemed incendiary in the primaries, but as he is juxtaposed to the official Clinton extremist agenda, he will likely be reinterpreted increasingly as more mainstream — a probability enhanced by his selection of Mike Pence as his running-mate.

2. Obama Nihilism Do not underestimate the volatility of Barack Obama’s popularity. As long as Obama keeps silent and out of the limelight, he nears 50 percent in approval ratings. The moment he returns to the fray (and he always does, as a June bug to a patio light), he instinctively reverts to his natural divisive and polarizing self, as evidenced in his disastrous reactions to the Dallas police shootings, and his politically suicidal post-Dallas courting of Al Sharpton (who used to call on supporters to “off” police) and of the architects of Black Lives Matter. It is likely that Obama, to cement a hard progressive legacy in the next four months, will only double down on his gratuitous pandering, and therefore will see his poll numbers return to the low or mid-40s. That may help Trump seem an antidote rather than an obsequious continuance.

3. Two Sorts of Elitists Both Trump and Clinton are elitists in an anti-elitist year. But elitism is not all the same. The popular furor is not directed at the rich per se, but rather at the perception of cultural snobbishness and hypocrisy among those who romanticize the always-distant poor, as they favor the always-proximate rich, and caricature the despised middle class that lacks the taste of the latter and the appeal of the former. Trump’s in-your-face tastes and brashness are vulgar in the pure Roman sense, and his accent and demeanor are not those of the cultural elite, or even of the dignified Mitt Romney–type moneyed bluestockings. In contrast, Hillary, like Obama, talks down to Americans on how they ought to think, speak, and act. Trump seems to like them just as they are. In turn, middle-class hatred of the elite is not aimed at Trump’s garish marble floors or the narcissistic oversized gold letters plastered over the entrances to his buildings, but rather at the rarified self-righteous. Like it or not, Trump can square the ridiculous circle of a raucous billionaire as man of the people far better than Hillary can handle the contradictions of a Wall Street–created crony multimillionaire pandering to the Sanders socialists.

4. Election Formulas It is not assured that Clinton can replicate Obama’s formula of record-high minority-voter turnout and bloc voting. More importantly, in a few key states Trump may win 25 to 28 percent of the Latino vote and perhaps 10 percent of the black vote, while Clinton might not capture even 35 percent of the so-called white vote. A surprisingly high minority of blacks and Hispanics do not feel Trump is a nativist or xenophobe, given that illegal immigration is often perceived as putting a strain on scarce social services, imperiling already poor schools, and driving down both wages and the availability of entry-level jobs. Trump’s El Jefeism plays well when juxtaposed to Clinton’s suburban namby-pamby falsity or her unhinged demonization of coal miners and gun owners. The numbers of minority voters in key states who quietly vote Trump need not be great, but rather only must top by 2 or 3 percentage points the disastrous McCain and Romney levels of 2008 and 2012, given the likely historic percentage of white voters that Trump may win. Media elites are in denial over this possibility. Racial hyphenation and bloc voting, along with prophecies of continual white irrelevance, should by their reckoning have long ago doomed Trump in the general election.

5. Crimes and Misdemeanors Trump struggles with embarrassing misdemeanors, Clinton with high crimes. She may be delighted at not having been indicted, but FBI Director Comey confirmed to the nation that she was an inveterate liar, paranoid, conspiratorial, and incompetent. That she was not charged only made the FBI seem absurd: offering a damning hooved, horned, pitchforked, and forked-tailed portrait of someone mysteriously not a denizen of Hell. Add in the Clinton Foundation syndicate and the fact that lies are lies and often do not fade so easily, and Hillary in the next 15 weeks may average one “liar” and “crooked” disclosure each week — at a rate that even the Trump tax returns and Trump University cannot keep up with.

6. Four Months until the Election The tumultuous news cycle — Dallas, Paris, Turkey, Baton Rouge — creates anxieties and a general sense that the nation and indeed the world are in chaos — and without any guidance from the White House. Such a vague foreboding that something has to give to avert catastrophe may favor Trump abroad and at home — especially if he can muzzle himself in times of enormous gift-giving from the Clinton campaign. Obama is a lame-duck president who is perceived as weak, vacillating, and ambiguous about his own country’s role in the world — a world that includes Russia, ISIS, China, North Korea, and Iran. The odds are even that at least one of the above in the next few months will feel that it has a rare opportunity to readjust the regional status quo, or at least will have a psychological impetus to try something stupid to humiliate Obama and the U.S. as payback for seven years of his empty sanctimoniousness. Either way, Trump could benefit, given that Hillary is a perceived tool of Obama’s therapeutic foreign policy. Tragically, at home, in the next few months ISIS may re-emerge, and racial relations are not likely to ameliorate, as Hillary straddles a politically correct tiger that she can neither dismount nor safely ride. Self-described leftists are cannibals who always end up devouring their own, given the never-enough trajectory of their equality-of-result creed.

7. Extremism Trump seems extremist in speech, but as the campaign wears on, Hillary may confirm that she is more extremist in fact. It may well be that voters would prefer a brash-talking pragmatist to sober and judicious ideologues. Sloppy talk about temporarily limiting immigration from the Middle East is not so injurious as contrived efforts never to utter the phrase “radical Islam.” Clinton, Obama, and Sanders have moved the Democratic party radically to the left; Trump in some areas has pushed the Republican party to the center. The voter terrified of ISIS, record debt, the spiraling cost of his health care, perceived U.S. decline, and the seemingly violent racial Balkanization of the country — but not terrified of gay marriage or tough trade talks with China — may find Clinton, not Trump, the true radical.
8. Polls If the polls are off a bit in this warped election year, they are more likely to err on Hillary’s side. Republicans who will vote for Hillary or no one rather than Trump will do so in part out of perceived moral principles, and thus they will not be so shy in showcasing their not-in-my-name ethos. But those who see themselves more as pragmatists, who will eventually hold their nose and vote for the embarrassing Trump, are more likely, in Brexit style, to keep quiet about it and stay under the polling radar. I think that to be truly ahead on Election Day Hillary will have to top Trump by 1 or 2 points in the polls — even with traditional Democratic massaging of voter rolls.

9. Converts and Apostates The relative closeness of polling in key swing states already suggests that the Reagan Democrats and other Trump converts may either be more numerous than the Never Trump establishment or at least more numerous outside of coastal, and electorally irrelevant, blue states like California and New York — and thus more significant as swing-state adjudicators. In addition, traditional media, in which Never Trump views are most frequently aired, are themselves growing ossified and do not reach voters to the same degree as outlets like the Drudge Report, Breitbart News, and talk radio. In my rural California community, when I meet pro-Trump welders, farmers, and tractor drivers of all races and backgrounds, I try to ask them just one question: Did you vote for Romney? So far 0 percent of that cohort of probably over 100 Central Valley residents said they had turned out for Romney in 2012. Again, the new Trump voters may not be numerous nationwide, but they may be able to swing one or two purple states. Also, it may be more likely that a Never Trumper will weaken and quietly vote Trump in November as he grows aghast at the weekly Clinton circus. The Trump buffooneries may well be more than matched by Clinton’s ideological insanities.
 

10. The Screech-Owl Factor For all his lack of discipline, the media-seasoned Trump is still the better and more robust campaigner. His liabilities — bouts of outer-space incoherence, unfamiliarity with basic issues, sloppiness in diction, a personal cruel streak — are balanced by a TV host’s sense of audience, timing, and cadence. Hillary is the far more disciplined politico, but she is not so much uncharismatic as downright off-putting. Even on those rare occasions when she listens to her new voice-coach handlers and speaks quietly and deliberately, she still comes off not as reassuring, much less engaging, but rather as artificially trying her best not to revert to her natural screech-owl elocution. Heartfelt recklessness can sometimes wear better than packaged sobriety.

 

* * * Finally, it is suicidal to descend into the muck to battle Trump. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz all tried and failed, despite the fact that they had every moral justification in hitting back in like kind. Elizabeth Warren is trying to be an anti-Trump street-fighter; but her incoherent venom suggests that Harvard Law professors should stick to academic jousting in the faculty lounge. Brawlers know the rules of the street far better than establishmentarians. The Senate is not The Apprentice, and politics is not New York real estate. Ask the trash-talking Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg if she came out on top in dueling with Trump — or whether she virtually destroyed a quarter-century’s reputation in minutes and ended up no better than an elderly version of Rosie O’Donnell in a Supreme Court Justice costume. Hillary is stepping up her crude attacks on Trump. But as in the past, such hits are more likely to make the Trump mode suddenly seem normal, and to make Trump a target of those who claim they are more sober and judicious but in extremis prove no more measured than Trump himself. More Donald Trump Donald Trump Will Fail the Heroes Who Endorsed Him Trump’s Weaknesses Are on Full Display in Cleveland A Proposal for Donald Trump: The National Defense We have a long way to go till November 8, and the odds are still with Hillary’s establishment money, influence, power, and media. There will be dozens of Trump meltdowns and gaffes to come and always more slams at “crooked” Hillary. And never count out what narcissists like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — or Vladimir Putin — might do, or Obama’s Chicago-like warping of the electoral process. Nonetheless, for a variety of reasons, an unlikely Donald Trump has become a liberal’s worst nightmare, not so much for what he says or represents, but because he still could win — and win in a way, along with the Congress and the prospect of a new Supreme Court, that we have not witnessed in 80 years. 

[SteveWolfer]

21 minutes ago, Peter said:

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is one of my favorites.  That man can write!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

About Melania's speech, if the speechwriter(s) cribbed a line or two from Nancy Reagan or any other Republican president's wife, OK. Sloppy, but OK. But to crib from Michelle Obama for a Donald Trump campaign?!! 

Dayaamm!

That's just too ripe. It's too stupid. And it's too perfect for Trump's enemies.

And that gets me to thinking about possible behind-the-scene scenarios.

Scenario No. 1. Sleepers inside Trump's campaign. This is not only possible, they all do it. They all infiltrate the campaigns of each other and try to sabotage what they can. This wouldn't have to be Clinton's people, either, although this smells like it could be a David Brock trick. But I can easily see the fingers of the disgruntled crybaby stay-at-homes on this (Bush, Romney, etc.--not them directly, but their dirty tricks folks shooting from the saddle on the way down).  Or Ted Cruz's delegate manipulators. It's not like he's had a "come to Jesus" moment on dirty tricks just because he lost the nomination--Jeff Roe is totally capable of this. 

Scenario No. 2. Trump did this on purpose knowing the media shitstorm it would cause. Maybe even Melania just to show him she could play this game, too. Trump's entire campaign has been to release something the press would consider outrageous (in a Social Justice Warrior kind of way) with plausible deniability built in, watch the press go apeshit and give him plenty of free publicity, thus getting the attention of people who do not normally pay attention, then watch as the media narrative gradually fizzles and he gains more supporters from those who are normally on the outside of it all.

I favor the first, but I can definitely see the second.

Melania is not a dummy, she's wicked smart (she even speaks five languages), so I don't see this as a bimbo mistake.

The media is floating a Keystone Cops image for Trump's campaign staff, but you don't get to where Trump has gotten against the massive cunningness talent of the opponents he has defeated by bumbling all over.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

33 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

About Melania's speech, if the speechwriter(s) cribbed a line or two from Nancy Reagan or any other Republican president's wife, OK. Sloppy, but OK. But to crib from Michelle Obama for a Donald Trump campaign?!! 

Dayaamm!

That's just too ripe. It's too stupid. And it's too perfect for Trump's enemies.

And that gets me to thinking about possible behind-the-scene scenarios.

Scenario No. 1. Sleepers inside Trump's campaign. This is not only possible, they all do it. They all infiltrate the campaigns of each other and try to sabotage what they can. This wouldn't have to be Clinton's people, either, although this smells like it could be a David Brock trick. But I can easily see the fingers of the disgruntled crybaby stay-at-homes on this (Bush, Romney, etc.--not them directly, but their dirty tricks folks shooting from the saddle on the way down).  Or Ted Cruz's delegate manipulators. It's not like he's had a "come to Jesus" moment on dirty tricks just because he lost the nomination--Jeff Roe is totally capable of this. 

Scenario No. 2. Trump did this on purpose knowing the media shitstorm it would cause. Maybe even Melania just to show him she could play this game, too. Trump's entire campaign has been to release something the press would consider outrageous (in a Social Justice Warrior kind of way) with plausible deniability built in, watch the press go apeshit and give him plenty of free publicity, thus getting the attention of people who do not normally pay attention, then watch as the media narrative gradually fizzles and he gains more supporters from those who are normally on the outside of it all.

I favor the first, but I can definitely see the second.

Melania is not a dummy, she's wicked smart (she even speaks five languages), so I don't see this as a bimbo mistake.

The media is floating a Keystone Cops image for Trump's campaign staff, but you don't get to where Trump has gotten against the massive cunningness talent of the opponents he has defeated by bumbling all over.

Michael

The whole thing is crap.  Michelle did not copyright her speech so there is no issue of plagiarism.   Anything uttered or written in public and not copyrighted  is free to use with or without attribution.

[Jonathan]

Sabotage does sound like a realistic option.

My first thought was that Melania's writer might have copied and pasted from a variety of sources, intending to use them as inspiration, but then lost track and neglected to delete the source material from Michelle O. But that just doesn't seem realistic. You're writing for a candidate's wife at a national convention, and you don't catch copied source material on final proof-reading? Ugh!

I could also see Trump wanting this to happen on purpose, with the motive of luring the Dems/leftmedia into attacking Melania, and therefore waging a "war on women," and then Trump using that to reference past Dem wars on women -- Sarah Palin, etc. That seems less realistic to me, though.

J

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just read somewhere that the relevant Michelle Obama speech plagiarized parts of It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton, but I haven't verified that, yet.

I have no doubt this kind of hard-hitting research ( ) will continue in the mainstream for a while, finding where Clinton cribbed (if this happened) and so on, until we get to seven degrees of separation or more. This will be easy to find, too, because the only thing that was "plagiarized" was a few political platitudes that have been used in one form or another over centuries.

The offensive part to me in all of this is not dishonesty or plagiarism. It's the total mediocrity of the platitudes. Jeez. Hasn't anyone among our current politicians heard of colorful metaphors, powerful verbs and rhetorical excellence?

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's something for the anti-Trumpers: Ken Burns hates and fears Trump.

For Trump supporters, though, watch this and listen closely.

Burns is basically saying Trump tells a better story than the elites tell right now and people don't have the brains to see it.

In other words, the people supporting Trump are mooks who follow the story that appeals most to their fear and bigotry, which doesn't even exist. It's been ginned up in their brainless heads by Trump from Trump's mastermind storytelling.

Dayaamm!

Burns outright said the economy is fine, that America is doing better than ever, then implied people are too stupid to see it. They need the "better angels" to guide them, meaning him and other elitists. That normal people don't have the brains to think for themselves. When they try, they put bigots and dictators in power.

And, of course, elitist toady Christiane Amanpour ate it up.

My favorite part was when he said he was in no way comparing Trump to Hitler right before he compared Trump to Hitler.

 

Michael

[Jonathan]

Does Ken Burns identify as a girl? It kind of seems like it.

J

[SteveWolfer]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Michelle did not copyright her speech so there is no issue of plagiarism.

Copyright has nothing to do with plagiarism.  Copyright violations are civil legal issues.  A person can plagiarize a school paper.  Plagiarism is "the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own."  (Internet definition)

 

1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

My first thought was that Melania's writer might have copied and pasted from a variety of sources, intending to use them as inspiration, but then lost track and neglected to delete the source material from Michelle O.

That is my guess.  I think the two paragraphs were copy-paste notes of some sort, that they may have been put in a rough draft with the idea being to keep the concepts but change the language, and maybe there was a change in writers... maybe the person who was putting it together was pulled off for something else, and Melania picked up where he left off, not knowing that those paragraphs were still in there.  Trumps campaign has been successful for its bold abandoning of politics as usual, but it has also been, at times, like amateur night.

 

36 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

The offensive part to me in all of this is not dishonesty or plagiarism. It's the total mediocrity of the platitudes.

I'm offended by the dishonesty (not so much with Melania - I'm guessing she was mostly an innocent bystander... well, except where she said she wrote it herself), and I'm offended with the plagiarism (especially that example of Obama - you should see that video!) and, Michael is right.  We should all be offended at being offered trite platitudes and tired old concepts - Where's the meat?

[SteveWolfer]

28 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Ken Burns hates and fears Trump

When Burns got started with his commencement speech, if he hadn't hung the male pronoun in there, I'd of thought he was talking about Hillary and her lies. 

 

But, hey, why is this commencement content?  If I'd just graduated from Stanford, I'd like to hear something that was inspiring, congratulatory, and gave me some sound advice to frame the next stage of my life.  Not this twit's political rants.

 

And speaking of plagiarism, that little fellow didn't source the oft repeated hyperbole about the Internet causing lies to circle globe three times before the truth gets out of the starting blocks.  But he is right about the constant process of lying becoming a new normal and not being challenged (he's wrong, of course, to lay that at Trumps feet when Hillary has been hip deep in it for more than a quarter of a century).

 

He talks about how incredibly perilous our situation is right now.... No kidding.  Having to choose between Hillary and Trump while the world is on fire and the economy is giant slow-growth bubble and free enterprise is hated and socialism is now seen as not so bad.  Perilous is putting it mildly.

 

It is stunning that he can't hear himself and grasp that what he condemns could be progressivism as much as Trump.  He is clearly unable to think outside of those progressive elitists talking points.

 

I like where he says, "It is just time to say, 'No!'"  He'd be so upset to realize how close he was to quoting Nancy Reagan.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Trump is formally nominated, see here.

          

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Sabotage does sound like a realistic option.

Jonathan,

There's a veiled reference to the Rickroll song in that speech, too. 

That clinched it for me.

It's sabotage. Too many coincidences. 

Whoever did that speech sabotage did it right.

Either that, or our culture is so saturated with clichés that you will be able to do what they are doing to Melania right now with any major political speech...

Michael

[SteveWolfer]

27 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

There's a veiled reference to the Rickroll song in that speech, too. 

I think that is a stretch.   Saying "He won't let you down" is almost expected in trying to convince the electorate that Trump isn't going to... well, let them down.

Here is what Melania said:

         "He will never, ever give up.  And most importantly, he will never, ever let you down."

Here are the lyrics:

        "Never going to give you up.  Never going to let you down."

 

Rita Ora has a song titled, "I'll never let you down." 

so does Kanye West, and there is an awful poet who recites a poem of the same name, and many a bible thumper has told us to put our trust in the Lord, for he will never let you down.

I like Melania.  I think did a great job and is very personable.  I think that the staff let her down.  Someone screwed up and should be hearing the Donald say, "You're Fired!"

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, SteveWolfer said:

Copyright has nothing to do with plagiarism.  Copyright violations are civil legal issues.  A person can plagiarize a school paper.  Plagiarism is "the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own."  (Internet definition)

Without a claim of copyright violation the "plagiarism"  is not actionable.  So all it is, is a complaint that has no legal consequences.  Since Michelle made her speech in public there can be no claim of privacy violation. So the whole thing adds up to a lot of hot air.

Every trite hackneyed cliche we use is an act of plagiarism.  It is all much ado about nothing.  It is not even a drop in the bucket.

[KorbenDallas]

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Jonathan,

There's a veiled reference to the Rickroll song in that speech, too. 

That clinched it for me.

It's sabotage. Too many coincidences. 

Whoever did that speech sabotage did it right.

Either that, or our culture is so saturated with clichés that you will be able to do what they are doing to Melania right now with any major political speech...

Michael

Melania got Rickrolled! 

MSK, why don't you think it could be deliberate?

I don't know which one, but it does seem to be one of the two.

[SteveWolfer]

6 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Without a claim of copyright violation the "plagiarism"  is not actionable

Who said it was?

6 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

So all it is, is a complaint that has no legal consequences.

There are consequences other than legal.

7 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

...the whole thing adds up to a lot of hot air.

I don't know about you, but I want to see character in political leaders.  Those that use what others have written as if it is their own may not have character. 

10 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Every trite hackneyed cliche we use is an act of plagiarism.

Not true.  To become a trite, hackneyed cliché something has to become common usage (like "much ado about nothing," or "drop in the bucket") and then it is no longer an act of plagiarism.    It is different when someone copies whole paragraphs. 

You are right, this is a minor thing, for a number of reasons, but it is interesting.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, SteveWolfer said:

I think that is a stretch.

Steve,

I don't know... If I had snuck in some phrases lifted from Michelle Obama, I, myself, would certainly be tempted to Rickroll the speech. Maybe that's because I'm evil.

 

The subconscious hears:

never... give... up...
never... letchu... down...

That is in the cultural subconscious, so to speak--a subconsciously recognizable pattern by most individuals. And both versions have the key words. (This is a poetry thing...)

At any rate, this prank is starting to backfire.

The talk in the mainstream, except for fervent anti-Trumpers who are whooping it up, is that there is a HUGE difference between Melania saying those words (along with being an American citizen is the greatest privilege on planet earth) and Michelle Obama saying them (along with her previous comment about feeling proud to be an American for the first time as a result of her hubby running for prez). 

People are dissecting this thing from here to Kingdom Come and, just like any joke when you start to explain it, it stopped being funny. Actually, it's not even humiliating since the general consensus is that Melania was not at fault. Instead she was a victim.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

9 minutes ago, KorbenDallas said:

MSK, why don't you think it could be deliberate?

Korben,

I do think it was deliberate. I can't be 100% sure because I didn't observe the dirty deed and nobody has confessed, but I give it about 99%.

Steve is the one who thinks it's a stretch.

Michael

[KorbenDallas]

9 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Korben,

I do think it was deliberate. I can't be 100% sure because I didn't observe the dirty deed and nobody has confessed, but I give it about 99%.

Steve is the one who thinks it's a stretch.

Michael

Ah, okay... I saw sabotage then deliberate and thought it was exclusive, not conjunctive (deliberate sabotage).

When I first saw the news I thought it was deliberate, to dominate the news cycle on day #2 of the "boring" Grand-Ol'-Party's convention..

[SteveWolfer]

18 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

If I had snuck in some phrases lifted from Michelle Obama, I, myself, would certainly be tempted to Rickroll the speech. Maybe that's because I'm evil.

I still don't see the Rickroll thing, despite your poetic allusions.  And I don't think you're evil, just fond of drama in an otherwise too banal world.

I think that politicians engaging in plagiarism is disgusting, but I agree that Melania is an innocent victim in this (whether it was an honest accident, a case of incompetence, or a malicious prank).