Uh-oh.
We've written a bit about St Sen (and now GOP cand. for PA Gov) Doug Mastriano and his, shall we say, less than perfect history work.
Now look. One of his dissertation advisors at the University of New Brunswick is calling out Doug's history dissertation:
One of the most controversial politicians in the United States is causing a stir far north of the campaign trail: at a Canadian university that once granted him a doctorate.
Students at the University of New Brunswick are pushing their university for details about its role in granting Doug Mastriano the crowning academic achievement on his CV in 2013.
A UNB associate professor listed on Doug Mastriano's doctoral dissertation describes it as atrocious academic work and says he can't understand why the paper includes his name.
"This dissertation has bothered me for nine years," Jeffrey Brown told CBC News in an interview.
"[Mastriano] was awarded a PhD on very shaky grounds."
Some of the issues at hand:
Mastriano's campaign used his doctorate in fending off a recent political controversy. When a photo surfaced showing Mastriano wearing a Confederate uniform at a 2014 educational event, an adviser dismissed it as a smear job against a historian, pointing to his academic credentials.
Brown was on the examining board for Mastriano's dissertation.
Mastriano's work was dishonest, sloppy, tinged with religious zealotry, and indifferent to facts that contradicted his claims, said Brown, a scholar of U.S. history at UNB and a U.S.-Canada dual citizen.
He expressed alarm when the university granted the PhD and has provided CBC News with emails he sent colleagues at the time. [Emphasis added.]
How long before Brown releases those emails?
How familiar is Brown's description of Mastriano's work? I mean c.mon: dishonest, sloppy, tinged with religious zealotry and indifferent to facts? Describes Mastriano to a T.
Then there's this:
In Oklahoma, a teacher and history PhD candidate wrote last year to the UNB warning that Mastriano's work was rife with academic fraud.
James Gregory, who first encountered Mastriano's work in his published book, says he's since found over 150 problems with the thesis.
It's rampant with fake footnotes, he says, meaning the paper often makes a claim, cites a footnote to back it up, then, when you actually go check the source mentioned in the footnote, it says something else.
He showed CBC News some examples.
For instance, Mastriano's paper says a journalist first took an interest in York's story because of its religious aspect; a footnote then cites a telegram the journalist, Canadian George Pattullo, sent on Jan. 30, 1919. But Gregory tracked down the telegram and there's nothing about religion, just Pattullo's travel plans and a request for battlefield data.
"His dissertation is just filled with these issues," Gregory said. "He's making it up."
"It's academic fraud."
Fraud, 'fraid so.
Remember, St Sen Mastriano wrote this about his plan for a "full forensic investigation" in to the Pennsylvania vote in the 2020 election:
A full forensic investigation is critically necessary for our Commonwealth for the sake of transparency and accountability. There is nothing to fear if there is nothing to hide.
That being said, did you know that a few weeks ago the CBC published an article about how it was, until recently, nearly impossible to even find Mastriano's dissertation - or any record of it?
A state senator, author and retired army colonel, Mastriano obtained a PhD in history from UNB in 2013, toward the end of his military career.
Numerous attempts to access the dissertation that Mastriano wrote in order to earn the doctorate have, however, been repelled for the last two years.
"The choice to embargo a thesis is at the discretion of the author, not the institution," UNB's Heather Campbell wrote in May, while rejecting a CBC request to access Mastriano's dissertation.
In the end the University reversed course and released the dissertation.
What was Doug Mastriano hiding? Why did he fear its release?
So many questions.
Oh and if Doug Mastriano has his way, a 15yr old incest victim would be forced to give birth to her rapist's baby and any woman diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy would be denied the abortion procedure that could save her life. In an ectopic pregnancy, the fetus never survives.
Doug Mastriano is not pro-life. He is forced-birth. And the cruelty of his position is utterly stunning.
The academic fraud in Canada is just dishonest.
