Still MORE Rand Paul Plagiarism – When Will It End?

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is already in hot water and under the microscope for plagiarism accusations made by Buzzfeed and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Now, BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski has revealed yet another instance of Sen. Paul copying another person’s work and passing it off as his own — the beleaguered Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) copied an article written by Dan Stewart for This Week.

In September, Paul wrote an op-ed for The Washington Times. The topic was?mandatory minimums on drug sentencing. He lifted entire sections of Stewart’s work for his piece. But he didn’t stop there — he actually took some of the verbiage from the article and delivered it as testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 16, 2013.

Dan Stewart’s work:

It’s the automatic imposition of a minimum number of years in prison for specific crimes ? usually related to drugs. By design, mandatory sentencing laws take discretion away from prosecutors and judges so as to impose harsh sentences, regardless of circumstances.

Mandatory sentencing began in the 1970s as a response to a growing drug-and-crime epidemic, and over the decades has put hundreds of thousands of people behind bars for drug possession and sale, and other non-violent crimes. Since mandatory sentencing began, America’s prison population has quadrupled, to 2.4 million. America now jails a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country, including China and Iran, at the staggering cost of $80 billion a year.

Is that a good thing?

Most public officials ? including liberals, conservatives, and libertarians ? have decided that it’s not. At least 20 states, both red and blue, have reformed their mandatory sentencing laws in some way, and Congress is considering a bipartisan bill that would do the same for federal crimes.

Here is Rand Paul’s “work” from his op-ed a week later. Buzzfeed bolded the sections that were copied from Stewart’s work (thank you Buzzfeed!):

Mandatory-minimum sentences automatically impose a minimum number of years in prison for specific crimes ? usually related to drugs.?By design, mandatory-sentencing laws take discretion away from prosecutors and judges so as to impose harsh sentences, regardless of circumstances.

Since mandatory sentencing began?in the 1970s in?response to a growing drug-and-crime epidemic, America’s prison population has quadrupled, to 2.4 million. America now jails a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country, including China and Iran, at the staggering cost of $80 billion a year.?Drug offenders in the United States spend more time under the criminal justice system’s formal control than drug offenders anywhere else in the world.

Most public officials ? liberals, conservatives and libertarians ? have decided that mandatory-minimum sentencing is unnecessary. At least 20 states, both red and blue, have reformed their mandatory-sentencing laws in some way, and Congress is considering a bipartisan bill that would do the same for federal crimes.

Perhaps even worse, there was another section copied, too, concerning a man named John Homer. Except for the first sentence, Paul completely copied two paragraphs of the Horner anecdote and put it into his work.

From ?The Week:

When a friend asked John Horner if he could buy some painkillers, the 46-year-old father of three didn’t see a problem. The Osceola County, Fla., resident had been taking prescribed painkillers for years after losing his eye in an accident, and agreed to sell his friend, ?Matt,? four unused bottles. After the pills exchanged hands, Horner discovered that ?Matt? was in fact a police informant, and he was charged with dealing drugs. At the advice of his public defender, Horner pleaded guilty, and was later sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 25 years in jail. He will be 72 by the time he is released, and his three young children will have grown up without him. ?Matt,? who turned out to have a long history of drug offenses, was more fortunate ? he received a reduced sentence of just 18 months after informing on Horner, and is now free.

And as Rachel Maddow said, “Hit it, Senator!” – again, copied portions kindly bolded by Buzzfeed:

John Horner was a 46-year-old father of three when he sold some of his prescription painkillers to a friend. His friend turned out to?be a police informant, and he was charged with dealing drugs. Horner pleaded guilty and was later sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 25 years in prison.

John will be 72 years old by the time he is released, and his three young children will have grown up without him. The informant, who had a long history of drug offenses, was more fortunate ? he received a reduced sentence of just 18 months, and is now free.

The editor-in-chief of The Week, Bill Falk, had an exceptionally gracious response to Sen. Paul:

We’ve always known that the audience of?The Week?consists of smart, busy people who want to feel even smarter, including a lot of people on Capitol Hill.?We’d like to thank Sen. Paul for his endorsement.

Who’s Rand Paul going to challenge to a duel this time?

h/t Buzzfeed?and?Dan Stewart/This Week

I had a successful career actively working with at-risk youth, people struggling with poverty and unemployment, and disadvantaged and oppressed populations. In 2011, I made the decision to pursue my dreams and become a full-time writer. Connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.