August 27, 2022

Uh-oh. These Graphics Are Embarrassing

Reuters is reporting:

Three years before retiring from the U.S. Army in 2017, Donald Trump-backed Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano posed in Confederate uniform for a faculty photo at the Army War College, according to a copy of the photo obtained by Reuters. 

Here's the photo:


CNN is reporting:

Doug Mastriano, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Pennsylvania, posed in a Confederate military uniform in a 2013-14 faculty photo at the Army War College, a picture obtained by obtained by Reuters shows.

Faculty at the school, where Mastriano worked at the time, were given the choice to dress as historical figures, people familiar with the photo told Reuters. While a few others appear dressed up, Mastriano is the only one in the photo dressed in a Confederate uniform, which many associate with hate and the legacy of slavery in the South.

And this is CNN's photo:

CNN adds:

The flag of the Confederacy, its symbols and the statues commemorating Confederate leaders have long divided the country. Critics say the symbols represent the war to uphold slavery, while supporters call them signs of Southern pride and heritage. The symbols have been used by White supremacists, and in recent years the Department of Defense has taken steps to ban Confederate symbols.
Signs of Southern pride and heritage?

Confederate heritage-fetishist Doug Mastriano was born and raised in New Jersey. He was educated in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and the US Army. He topped that off with a PhD from a university in Canada.

Southern pride and heritage, Senator? 

Jenna Ellis, Doug's senior legal advisor tweeted in defense:

Jenna, about that PhD. It's a WWI topic - on Sgt Alvin C. York. He earned the PhD in 2013. The picture of Doug in a Confederate uniform (see above) was taken in 2014. Why didn't Doug dress as Sgt York?

Anyway, Jenna  you do know he's in some hot water for that, right?

Take a look:

For more than a decade, other researchers have questioned Mastriano’s claim to have conclusively proved exactly where York was when his lethal marksmanship played out in October 1918. They argue his research is plagued with errors and that a walking trail to the battle location he helped build actually takes visitors to the wrong spot.

In the past two months, University of Oklahoma history graduate student James Gregory has filed complaints with Mastriano’s publisher and with the Canadian university.

“Many of his citations are completely false and do not support his claims whatsoever,” Gregory said in a Jan. 25 email to the University Press of Kentucky, identifying footnotes with no apparent relation to their corresponding book passages.

“Any work done using Mastriano is built upon poor, false research,” Gregory wrote.

So much so that this happened:

The academic press that published a Pennsylvania state senator’s book about World War I hero Sgt. Alvin York has asked him to review a list of factual errors and sourcing issues in the book and the press’ director said Tuesday it plans to publish a corrected version early next year.
But let's remember what the Confederacy was fighting for - as found in The Confederate Constitution.

Article I, Section 9 clause 4:

No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

Article IV section 2, clause 1: 

The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

Yea, these optics are bad, Doug. Real real bad.


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