JUDICIAL WATCH WEEKLY UPDATE

 

Rhode Island School District Is Training Teachers in Critical Race Theory   As the Justice Department and FBI targets innocent parents concerned about critical race theory, Judicial Watch just received a 53-page training document from a whistleblower which details how public schools are using teachers to push critical race theory in classrooms. The training course for the Westerly School District in Rhode Island was assembled by the left-leaning Highlander Institute and cites quotes from Bettina Love, from whom the Biden administration distanced itself publicly after her statements equating “whiteness” to oppression. The document reveals the following: The training course for teachers, entitled “Culturally Responsive & Sustaining Pedagogy” is taught by Vera De Jesus and Michaela Comella, partners at the Highlander Institute, which has an about section on their website that describes itself as: Highlander Institute partners with communities to imagine and create more equitable, relevant, and effective schools. Highlander Institute is named after the Highlander Folk School, a social justice leadership training school and cultural center located in New Market, Tennessee known for its role during the Civil Rights Movement. The training course claims that there are “unfortunate truths” about the history of Rhode Island and the United States. The training course notes that there is “systemic inequity” that must be overcome in the school system. The training course asks teachers “How does systemic racism manifest itself in the education experience for students?” The training course links to a video called “Systemic Racism Explained” from Act.TV, a far-left YouTube channel. The course instructs teachers to ask themselves, “How do I challenge systemic inequity as an educator?” The course goals are to “foster and sustain cultural pluralism, ultimately for the purpose of social transformation.” Further, its stated goal is to, “disrupt the impact of educational inequity and empower students to transform their own lives, their communities, and society.” The course highlights “A Framework for Culturally Responsive & Sustaining Pegagogy” which includes: “Awareness” that “we all operate within an inequitable system “Cognitive Development” where teachers “leverage students’ identities and interests …” and “scaffold and develop students’ thinking skills” “Critical Consciousness” where the goal is that students are motivated to “critical action so they can transform their lives, communities, and society.” The course teaches that teachers should focus on collectivism over individualism. In order to promote collectivism, it states that teachers may have to “gather information about students’ identities …” in order to have them reflect. These activities link to a journaling activity where students are prompted to write about the demographics of their neighborhood. What this document shows is that yet another school district, under the rubric of critical race theory, wants to use teachers to abuse their positions to turn children into Marxist agitators. Rather than threatening parents, the Justice Department should be investigating this rampant racism being pushed by lefitst extremists in schools across America.   Judicial Watch Sues for Details on Biden Administration Shut Down of China-COVID Investigation The Biden State Department shut down a national security investigation into China’s role in the COVID pandemic, and the American people deserve to know why. So we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State for records related to an investigation into the origins of COVID by the Bureau of Arms Control and Verification (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:21-cv-02147)). We sued after the State Department failed to respond to a simple May 28, 2021, FOIA request for: All records regarding the investigation into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and/or COVID-19 by the Bureau of Arms Control and Verification. This request includes, but is not limited to, the following: All reports created pursuant to the investigation. All related to the actual or proposed termination of the investigation. All related records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the Department of State. This includes communications with any official, employee, or representative of the World Health Organization, the government of China, and any branch, agency, department, or office of the Federal government. We took action after reports surfaced that the Biden administration shut down an investigation by the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control and Verification ordered by the Trump administration in Fall 2020 to “investigate the origins of COVID-19 and whether the virus stemmed from a leak out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.” On January 15, then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo issued a statement saying: The COVID-19 pandemic was avoidable. Any responsible country would have invited world health investigators to Wuhan within days of an outbreak. China instead refused offers of help – including from the United States – and punished brave Chinese doctors, scientists, and journalists who tried to alert the world to the dangers of the virus. Beijing continues today to withhold vital information that scientists need to protect the world from this deadly virus, and the next one. We’ve been very busy investigating burgeoning cover-up by Fauci and his allies: In July 2021, we uncovered emails and other records from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials in connection with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, revealing significant collaborations and funding that began in 2014. The records reveal that NIAID gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also include an email from the Vice Director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces. Also in July 2021, we uncovered CDC records showing that Facebook coordinated closely with the CDC to control the COVID narrative and “misinformation” and that over $3.5 million in free advertising given to the CDC by social media companies. In June 2021, we revealed that the NIAID under Fauci gave the Wuhan lab $826,000 for bat coronavirus research from 2014 to 2019. Also in June, Judicial Watch announced it filed Freedom of FOIA lawsuits against the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the State Department for information on the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In March 2021, we uncovered emails and other records of Fauci and Dr. H. Clifford Lane from HHS showing that NIH officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” COVID-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020. Additionally, the emails reveal an independent journalist in China pointing out the inconsistent COVID numbers in China to NIAID’s Deputy Director for Clinical Research and Special Projects Cliff Lane. In October 2020, we received from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 300 pages of Fauci’s emails, including his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response to the 2019 novel coronavirus. You can see how essential Judicial Watch’s watchdog work is in uncovering the full truth about the origins of COVID-19. And our work isn’t over by a long shot. Judicial Watch Sues Pentagon for Videos/Photos of Afghans Clinging to or Falling from Aircraft in Kabul  Of course, the Biden administration is running from its Afghanistan disaster, but we intend to hold them to account for the catastrophic surrender. We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Pentagon for videos and photos of Afghans clinging to or falling off U.S. military aircraft at the Kabul airport. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:21-cv-02543)). We sued after the Defense Department failed to respond to a basic FOIA request for: Images, including video, showing Afghans clinging to the sides of a U.S. military aircraft at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan; Images, including video, of persons falling from a U.S. Air Force C-17 military transport aircraft after taking off from the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.   Human remains were found in the wheel well of a C-17 aircraft that had taken off from Kabul. According to the Air Force, “Before the aircrew could offload the cargo, the aircraft was surrounded by hundreds of Afghan civilians who had breached the airport perimeter. Faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation around the aircraft, the C-17 crew decided to depart the airfield as quickly as possible. In addition to videos seen online and in press reports, human remains were discovered in the wheel well of the C-17 after it landed at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. The aircraft is currently impounded to provide time to collect the remains and inspect the aircraft before it is returned to flying status.” Biden’s Afghanistan surrender was an unmitigated disaster that directly killed and placed in harm’s way our troops and U.S. citizens. And no one will ever forget the images of Afghanis falling from and clinging to our military aircraft. Adding to the Afghan scandal, photos and video of this disaster are now being hidden, contrary to the law, from the American people. And I trust you know that this lawsuit will likely be the first of many as we seek accountability on what I consider to be the most humiliating defeat in American history. Jail for Bangladeshi Smuggler Caught Amid Rise in Migrants from Terrorist Nations Biden’s border crisis has been good business for transnational criminals and the human trafficking operations they run. One such criminal has been apprehended and sent to jail, as our Corruption Chronicles blog reports. A Bangladeshi man based in Mexico has been sentenced to 46 months in prison for operating an “international human smuggling conspiracy” during a period in which the U.S. saw a spike in migrants from terrorist nations entering the country through the famously porous southern border. The smuggler, 41-year-old Mohamad Milon Hossain, lived in Tapachula in the southeast Mexican state of Chiapas bordering Guatemala. For years Hossain assisted human smugglers operating out of Bangladesh, South and Central America as well as Mexico to “bring numerous undocumented individuals to the U.S. border in exchange for payment,” according to federal documents. The Bangladeshi smuggler maintained a hotel in Tapachula where illegal immigrants would stay on their way to the U.S., federal authorities say. He then provided the migrants with plane tickets and other tools so they could travel from Tapachula to Monterrey in the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León where a fellow smuggler took over and assisted their illegal crossing into the U.S. “Hossain was a key facilitator and smuggler of Bangladeshi nationals and his actions put our national security at risk,” said Shane Folden, the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent in charge in San Antonio, Texas, where the case was cracked. Folden added that “HSI is committed to working with its domestic and international partners to combat this type of crime throughout the globe.” When Hossain got arrested in late 2019 migrants from terrorist nations were trying to enter the United States through Mexico at record rates. At the time an alarming congressional investigation exposed an astounding 300% increase in Bangladeshi nationals attempting to sneak into the country through Texas alone. The feds apprehended Hossain after arriving on a flight at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. He was charged with smuggling 15 illegal aliens from Bangladesh through the Texas-Mexico border in exchange for payment from March 2017 to August 2018. An accomplice, stationed in Monterrey, where the aliens would stay before the last leg of their trek to the United States, has pleaded guilty for his role in the illicit scheme. The feds say he paid drivers to transport the aliens to the U.S. border and gave them instructions how to cross the Rio Grande River. In the last few years Bangladesh has had a greater presence in the Mexican border region though Syria and Yemen are also well represented. Bangladesh is a South-Asian Islamic country well known as a recruiting ground for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). The smuggling operation run by Hossain is part of a broader crisis involving a growing demographic of illegal aliens from terrorist nations entering the U.S. through the Mexican border. The government classifies them as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) and they are flowing north via Latin America in huge numbers, thanks to established Transitional Criminal Organizations (TCO) that facilitate travel along drug and migrant smuggling routes. Tens of thousands of SIAs—from the Middle East, Asia, and Africa—entered Panama and Colombia in recent years. Nearly all the SIA migrants were headed to the United States and most came from Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Bangladesh, and India. Encounters with the special interest individuals resulted in the seizure of tens of thousands of fraudulent documents—including passports and visas—that facilitated travel from their countries of origin through the Americas, the previously cited congressional probe found. Years ago Judicial Watch, as part of an ongoing investigation into the national security threats created by the porous southern border, uncovered that Mexico is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism. Islamic jihadists are training in southern border towns near American cities and have joined forces with Mexican drug cartels to infiltrate the United States. A few years ago, a high-ranking Homeland Security official confirmed to Judicial Watch that Mexican drug traffickers help Islamic terrorists stationed in Mexico cross into the U.S. to explore targets for future attacks. Among the jihadists that traveled back and forth through the southern border was a Kuwaiti named Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir, an ISIS operative who lives in the Mexican state of Chihuahua not far from El Paso. Another was a Saudi Al Qaeda operative, Adnan G. El Shurkrjumah, wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during his undetected cross-border jaunts.   Until next week …