MIT License requires 'attribution', e.g. at the very least the original copyright notice and license text (which tbf is the case in aloshdenny's copy because he left the LICENSE.md intact (or just forgot to "clean up").

this is completely and totally incorrect. MIT lets you redistribute, copy, and modify. It does not let you take authorship over the original work, even if just by way of changing git history.

Software licenses aren't enforced by magic but they are social contracts: even if nobody has the resources to go after you for doing it, it is pretty clearly against the permissive licenses' spirit to misrepresent yourself as the author