Air Force Academy Instructional Materials
Include Presentations on Critical Race Theory, White Privilege, and Black
Lives Matter – Attacks American ‘Creation Myth’ of the Declaration of
Independence
You will not believe the Marxist drivel being taught at our Air Force
Academy. I genuinely fear for the future of our military.
We received 478 pages of records
from the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), a component of the United
States Department of Defense, which include instructional materials and
emails that address topics such as Critical Race Theory, “white privilege,” and Black Lives
Matter.
We obtained these records as the result of a November 2022 Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after
the Defense Department failed to respond to a request for Air Force Academy
training material records on Critical Race Theory (Judicial Watch, Inc. v.
U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:22-cv-03510)).
The records include a PowerPoint presentation titled
“Political Psychology, Lessons 32-33: Prejudice and Racism.” On a slide
labeled “Race and Partisanship” is a bullet stating: “Opposition to
interracial dating correlated with white partisanship after Obama’s
election despite being unrelated to party identification in previous
decades.”
That presentation includes a set of tables with the headline “White
Americans’ Support for Democratic Candidates for President as a Function
of Old-Fashioned Racism.” Another slide depicts tables which purport to
show “Correlations between Republican Party Identification and
Old-Fashioned Racism among White Americans.”
A slide titled “Racialization of Public Policy” includes a bullet
stating “They [pollsters] found that the image of a black man greatly
impacted responses among Trump supporters.” The next bullet asserts:
After exposed to the black racial cue, Trump voters:
Were less supportive of housing assistance
programs
Expressed higher levels of anger that some
people receive government assistance
Were more likely to say that individuals who
receive assistance are to blame for their economic situation.
Another slide purports to show a chart depicting “White Identity among
White Americans,” with the subtitle “How Important Is Being White to
Your Identity?”
Additional slides are titled “How White Identity Shapes Politics” and
contain tables purporting to show:
- Effect of White
Identity on Empathy toward People of Color
- Effect of White
Identity on Support for Voter ID Laws
- Effect of White
Identity on Support for Political Violence
A slide titled “Race and Politics” includes an image of President Obama
with the bullet “Because the President is the leader of his respective
party – Obama signified a massive shift in image of the stereotypical
Democrat,” followed by the bullet: “The Democratic party became branded
as the party of Black Americans.”
A “CRT Talking Points” document prepared at
the direction of the Air Force Academy Superintendent includes the question
“Does CRT teach cadets to hate our country?” The scripted “academic
answer” to the question asserts, “much of what is ‘divisive’ [about
CRT] is that it’s hard for people to hear the words ‘white supremacy’
without feeling defensive, even though that is the academically correct way
to talk about most of American history.”
The records include a transcript of
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s June 23, 2021, congressional testimony
in which he tells Rep. Matt Gaetz, “I don’t know what the issue of
critical race theory is and what the relevance here in the department. We
do not teach critical race theory. We don’t embrace critical race theory.
And I think that’s a spurious conversation.”
Two weeks later, on July 7, 2021, Dean of Faculty Brigadier General Linell
Letendre forwards to Superintendent Lieutenant General Richard Clark,
Commander of Cadets Brigadier General Paul Moga, and others whose names are
redacted, a Washington Post opinion
piece written the previous day by USAFA Professor Lynne Chandler
Garcia, titled “Why U.S. military academies should teach critical race
theory.” Letendre adds a note promoting the
piece:
My thanks to Dr. Chandler Garcia for
putting into words what many of us have expressed to each other around the
water coolers about the importance of teaching our cadets how to think.
[Emphasis in original] As future leaders of the profession of arms, we owe
them nothing less.
An August 13, 2021, email
exchange between academy officials details hosting a virtual
discussion with Stephen Brookfield,
author of “Teaching Race: How to Help Students Unmask and Challenge
Racism,” to USAFA faculty members. One official raises concerns
over Brookfield’s discussion topics related to Critical Race Theory.
In a separate email chain, a person
whose name is redacted sends the Brookfield event information to Letendre:
“In case this slipped your notice, I just wanted to make sure you and the
dean were aware that the [redacted] book group initiative has the potential
to further the CRT storm.”
The dean replies, “Thanks for the SA [situational awareness]. No
concerns. We need to keep doing the right things to prepare and develop
faculty.” Forty-three faculty members signed up for Brookfield’s
talk.
Another presentation discusses the teachings of
Brookfield and has the headline “The (White) Elephant in the Room” and
bullets which are partially obscured.
A slide in the series has the title “Team Teaching” and includes the
bullet: “Allows you to … Demonstrate how to engage in difficult
conversations in a way focused on behaviors not personhood, & on learned
white supremacy not essential moral differences or failings.” Another
bullet states “Allows you to … Facilitate racial affinity groups.”
Another slide is titled “The Fatigue of WWW – Witnessing White
Woke-ness.”
An additional slide proposes:
A calculus of understanding amongst Black, Indigenous and People of
Color (BIPOC) who have negotiated the dynamics of structural racism all
their lives & are tired of WITNESSING ‘WOKENESS’ in
White people coming to new racial awareness. [Emphasis in original]
One of the Brookfield slides is titled,
“Hard Truths I’ve Learned as a White Instructor/Leader” and contains
bullets such as “I MUST assume that for students and colleagues of color,
EVERYTHING is seen through the lens of race. For them, NOTHING is ‘race
free’.” And, “I MUST acknowledge my own racist behavior when it’s
pointed out to me – not to try to ‘explain’ it away, not protest my
innocence.” [Emphases in original]
Still another Brookfield slide contains the bullets “I MUST NEVER ask
people of color to teach me about racism – figuring out what whites
should do is MY responsibility” and “I MUST NEVER ‘confess’ my
racism so as to seek ‘absolution’ from BIPOC students & colleagues.”
[Emphases in original]
Among the works written by Brookfield listed in the bibliography is
“Creating an Anti-Racist White Identity.”
A slide from Lesson 28
in Behavioral Science 362 is titled “What is CRT?” and includes:
- Recognize that
race is not biologically reality, but socially constructed and socially
significant
- Helps us
understand the legacy of racism and how embedded within social
institutions
- Sees racism as
systemic
Another slide in the presentation discusses the 1619 Project that argues
that America was not founded in 1776.
A presentation, which has
no specification as to whether it is intended for faculty or the students,
is titled “Free Speech in the Military” and has a slide labeled “The
Commie Cadet,” which includes images of West Point cadet Spencer Rapone
at his West Point graduation ceremony showing the inside of his cap in
which is written “Communism will win,” and one of him wearing a Che
Guevara T-shirt under his uniform.
A presentation, apparently
intended for the cadets, is titled “American Political System & Theory,
Lesson 25-31 Law & Democracy” and a slide containing a list of
information under “Things to Know,” which describes Critical Race
Theory as: “Critical Race Theory studies racism as a social construct”
and “Proponents say learning the history of racism is crucial to
addressing inequities.”
Lesson 14 of a Social Sciences
presentation is titled “What does Race have to do with
Security?” The next slide, titled “Critical Race Theory,” provides
several bullet points of “definitions” of CRT, such as:
A collection of critical stances against the existing legal order from a
race-based point of view, (Brooks 1994)”
The view that the law and legal institutions
are inherently racist and that race itself, instead of being biologically
grounded and natural, is a socially constructed concept that is used by
white people to further their economic and political interests at the
expense of people of color. (Curry 2009).
Another slide discusses the “‘Myth’ of American Peoplehood” with
one bullet claiming: “The U.S. too has a creation myth: The Declaration
of Independence declares that all men have rights endowed by their Creator;
Ideas of social contracts forged in a state of nature.”
In the same Social Sciences presentation is a slide titled: “Lesson 16:
Black Lives Matter – Causes and Context.” A bloc of slides in the
presentation discusses BLM, with one slide alleging: “White privilege
doesn’t mean your life hasn’t been hard. It means that your
skin color isn’t one of the things making it harder.”
[Emphases in original]
Various slides promoting BLM follow, including one depicting a white police
officer holding a sign pointing to a black man, asking, “Is his life
worth less than mine?” and a white woman holding a similar sign pointing
to a black woman.
Numerous slides depict alleged police brutality against blacks, one of
which states “Nearly 90% of documented force used by FPD [Ferguson, MO
Police Department] was used against African Americans.”
The Air Force is fomenting racialism, racial separatism and segregation,
and anti-white hatred among its rising young leadership at the Air Force
Academy. These documents show the Biden Defense Department is teaching
these cadets on how to hate America using repackaged revolutionary Marxist
propaganda.
Alvin Bragg Paid over $900/Hour to Shut Down House Oversight into Trump
Indictment
New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been under fire for his
soft-on-crime approach in New York City, but he has no trouble going after
a former president whose politics he abhors. We’re learning more about
his prosecution.
We received the engagement
letter showing Bragg paid $900 per hour for partners and $500 per
hour for associates to the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm for the purpose
of suing Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) in an effort to shut down the House
Judiciary Committee’s oversight investigation into Bragg’s
unprecedented indictment of former President Donald Trump.
We obtained the agreement as the result of an April 11, 2023, Freedom
of Information Law (FOIL) request followed by
an appeal for records
of agreements between Alvin L. Bragg or the New York County District
Attorney’s Office and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP for work related
to Bragg v. Jordan, Case No. 23-3032 filed in the U.S District
Court for the Southern District of New York on or about April 11, 2023.
The letter welcomes “the Manhattan District Attorney's Office (“the
DA”) as a client of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP … You are retaining us
to provide legal services to the DA in connection with a congressional
investigation, potential litigation, and related matters regarding the DA's
investigation of Donald Trump (the “Matter”).”
Initially redacted in its first production of records, the “professional
fees” section states: “For this matter we have agreed on the following
hourly rates for our attorneys: $900 per hour for partners, and $500 per
hour for associates. These rates will remain the same for the life of the
matter.”
The House Judiciary Committee on March 20 sent a letter to Bragg
demanding records related to the “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial
authority: the indictment of a former President of the United States and
current declared candidate for that office:”
The New York County District Attorney’s Office has been investigating
President Trump since at least 2018, looking for some legal theory on which
to bring charges. The facts surrounding the impending indictment have
“been known for years.” Michael Cohen, President Trump’s disgraced
former lawyer, pleaded guilty over four years ago to charges based on the
same facts at issue in the impending indictment. By July 2019, however,
federal prosecutors determined that no additional people would be charged
alongside Cohen. Now, in the words of one legal scholar, you are attempting
to “shoehorn” the same case with identical facts into a new
prosecution, resurrecting a so-called “zombie” case against President
Trump. Even the Washington Post quoted “legal experts”
as calling your actions “unusual” because “prosecutors have
repeatedly examined the long-established details but decided not to pursue
charges.”
***
In addition to the novel and untested legal theory, your star witness
for this prosecution has a serious credibility problem—a problem that you
have reportedly recognized. This case relies heavily on the testimony of
Michael Cohen, a convicted perjurer with a demonstrable prejudice against
President Trump. Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in 2018. In
2019, when he testified before Democrats on the House Oversight Committee
to aid their fruitless investigation into President Trump, Cohen lied
again—six times. Cohen has been vocal about his deeply personal animus
toward President Trump. Under these circumstances, there is no scenario in
which Cohen could fairly be considered an unbiased and credible
witness.
On April 4 Bragg announced a felony indictment of former
President Donald Trump.
The Judiciary Committee on April 6 issued a subpoena, compelling the
testimony of former New York County Special Assistant District Attorney
Mark Pomerantz, who resigned from office
the previous year because Bragg was reluctant to pursue charges against
Trump.
The committee in March had written Pomerantz a letter stating
that his “efforts to shame Bragg have worked as he is reportedly
resurrecting a so-called ‘zombie’ case against President Trump using a
tenuous and untested legal theory.”
On April 11, Bragg filed a lawsuit against
Jordan to block his alleged “interference” and “obstruction” of the
investigation of former President Donald Trump in New York.
On April 19, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
issued a decision denying Bragg’s
requested temporary restraining order. The House Judiciary Committee
subsequently issued a statement: “Today’s
decision shows that Congress has the ability to conduct oversight and issue
subpoenas to people like Mark Pomerantz, and we look forward to his
deposition before the Judiciary Committee.”
Bragg’s unjustified, malicious prosecution is not only corrupt but it’s
also a waste of taxpayer funds as he tries to thwart a legitimate House
investigation into his attempt to interfere in the 2024 election. Rather
than spending $900 per hour on lawyers to defend his abuse of office and
political jihad against Trump, Bragg should focus on taking dangerous
criminals off the streets of New York.
Who Is David Weiss?
The philosopher Diogenes of ancient
Greece held up a lamp and searched the faces of Athens for an honest man.
We can only wonder what he would find in the Justice Department today. In
Investigative Bulletin, Micah Morrison, our chief investigative
correspondent, examines the man behind
one long-time Washington face.
On June 20, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware announced a
sweetheart plea deal with Hunter Biden, the son of President Biden. Hunter
Biden would plead guilty to two tax charges and enter a diversion program
on a gun possession charge. Diversion programs are usually focused on drug
offenses—Biden has a well-documented history of crack cocaine use—and
generally consist of psychotherapy and class work on building life skills.
There would be no jail time.
Outrage ensued. Judicial Watch President Tom
Fitton called it “a miscarriage of justice whose chief
beneficiary is President Biden.” In Congress, House GOP leaders
sent a
letter to Attorney General Merrick
Garland calling for the appearance of eleven witnesses before the House
Judiciary Committee to address “allegations of politicization and
misconduct with respect to the Department’s investigation of Hunter
Biden.”
The star witness? David Weiss, the U.S.
Attorney for the District of Delaware. “We want to talk to David
Weiss,” said House Judiciary
Chairman Jim Jordan. Weiss ran the five-year probe into Hunter Biden.
Weiss’s defenders are quick to note that the prosecutor was a Trump
appointee, but that’s only part of the story. Weiss has deep roots in
Democrat-dominated Delaware and spent key career years as a top Obama
Administration prosecutor in Wilmington.
Weiss got his ticket punched as an Assistant
U.S. Attorney in Delaware from 1986 to 1989, then moved on to a lucrative
career in the private sector. From 1989 to 1999, Weiss worked at the
Wilmington law firm Duane Morris, becoming a partner in 1993, according to
his Justice Department bio. In 1999, Weiss joined the Siegfried Group, also
based in Wilmington, a financial services firm, serving as chief operating
officer.
In 2007, Weiss returned to the U.S.
Attorney’s Office in Delaware. In 2009, Barack Obama appointed Weiss to
leadership positions at the Delaware office, where he served as both
Acting and Interim U.S Attorney. In 2018, President Trump, following
historic practice, named him U.S. Attorney upon the recommendation of the
two U.S. senators from Delaware, Democrats Tom Carper and Chris
Coons.
House GOP leaders want details of the
control exerted by Main Justice over the Biden case. Garland had repeatedly
promised a “hands-off” approach to the inquiry and noted that Weiss had
been given “full authority” to decide the matter. GOP leaders in their
letter to Garland noted that recent testimony from IRS whistleblowers
involved in the case raised “serious questions about the Department’s
commitment to evenhanded justice and the veracity of assertions” made to
the Judiciary Committee.
Specifically, the letter noted, House GOP
leaders “seek to examine whistleblower claims that the Department’s
investigation of Hunter Biden was purposely slow-walked and subject to
improper and politically motivated interference.” An earlier letter to Weiss
from Jordan also sought “documents and information” related to
retaliation against one of the IRS whistleblowers.
On June 30, House investigators got the
response from Weiss: drop dead.
In a
letter to Chairman Jordan, Weiss noted
that in order to protect law enforcement sources and internal investigative
deliberations—standard boilerplate but this time involving a case that
had been largely closed with the plea deal—“I will not provide specific
information related to the Hunter Biden investigation at this time.”
Weiss also repeated that “I have been granted ultimate authority over
this matter, including where, when and whether to file
charges.”
It’s unlikely that Jordan and other House
leaders will go quietly into the night on the Hunter Biden case. There’s
more to come. Legal minds may quibble over whether Hunter Biden got the
standard deal for a first-time offender on two tax charges and a gun case,
but that misses the point. The big picture here is what Hunter Biden and
other family members, and perhaps even the current president of the United
States, were
up to in Ukraine and China, raking in
tens of millions of dollars in exchange for…what?
David Weiss spent five years investigating
Hunter Biden. What does Weiss know about Biden’s Ukraine and China
dealings? Did Weiss act properly with his “ultimate authority?” Did the
attorney general act properly? Did the White House?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes—who will guard the guardians?
CBP Released Illegal Immigrant on FBI Terrorist Watchlist after
Arrest
Given the Biden administration’s purposeful border crisis, are you at all
surprised that a foreigner on the terrorist watchlist was free in the U.S.
for more than two weeks while the feds sorted out their inept system for
keeping the nation safe? Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.
In the latest national security blow to come out of the southwest border
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended and subsequently
released an illegal immigrant on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s
(FBI) terrorist watchlist. CBP arrested the migrant, whose gender is not
being identified by authorities, and their family in Yuma, Arizona, and
supposedly screened them for national security threats. Based on the
information provided by CBP, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center (TSC)
determined that the migrant was an inconclusive terrorist watchlist match
and the frontline Homeland Security agency released the illegal alien. A
few days later, the suspect and family members checked in at the Palm
Springs International Airport in California for a flight to Tampa, Florida
and during pre-flight screening the TSC obtained additional information
from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that “confirmed the
migrant was a positive Terrorist Watchlist match,” according to a heavily
redacted federal audit. It took
another two weeks for the feds to finally arrest the illegal immigrant,
according to the report.
The document was recently made public with
extensive redactions by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector
General, which concluded that “CBP’s ineffective practices and
processes for resolving inconclusive matches with the Terrorist Watchlist
led to multiple mistakes.” As an example, investigators write that CBP
sent a request to interview the migrant to the wrong electronic mail
address, obtained information requested by the TSC but never shared it, and
released the migrant before fully coordinating with the FBI screening
center. “Once the migrant was identified as a positive match with the
Terrorist Watchlist, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
prioritized arresting the migrant but faced multiple challenges sharing
information within ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations while
planning and conducting the arrest,” the report states. When ICE finally
received the necessary information, it safely apprehended the illegal
alien, the report confirms.
In all, the foreigner on the
terrorist watchlist was free in the U.S. for more than two weeks while the
feds sorted out their inept system for keeping the nation safe. The DHS
watchdog found that CBP missed multiple opportunities to help the TSC
verify the migrant was a “positive Terrorist Watchlist match before
releasing the migrant.” Because such large chunks of the report are
redacted, specifics of how CBP dropped the ball are not available, but it
appears to be a broad problem at the agency that is hardly limited to this
case. That is why the DHS IG conducted the probe to review CBP’s
screening process of a suspected terrorist and the timing of ICE’s
subsequent arrest following the suspected terrorist’s release in the U.S.
“If CBP’s ineffective practices for resolving inconclusive Terrorist
Watchlist matches continue, the component risks releasing individuals into
the United States who potentially threaten national security and public
safety,” the report states. Despite the omitted portions, the document
does a solid job explaining that CBP released the migrant without sharing
information that would have confirmed the terrorist watchlist
match.
The public disclosure of this inconceivable
case comes on the heels of equally distressing information involving
terrorists and the famously porous southern border. Just a few weeks ago,
Judicial Watch reported that a record
number of foreigners who appear on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database
(TSDB) have been caught trying to enter the U.S. through Mexico. In April
alone federal agents caught 16 illegal immigrants who appear on the TSDB
trying to enter the country through the southern border, according to the
latest government figures. The TSDB contains thousands of records that are
updated daily and shared with federal state, local, territorial, and tribal
law enforcement as well as the intelligence community and international
partners to “ensure that individuals with links to terrorism are
appropriately screened,” according to the FBI. The April figure is more
than the total terrorists caught in four previous years—2017, 2018, 2019
and 2020 combined. With about three months till the end of the fiscal year,
Border Patrol agents have already encountered 98 migrants that appear on
the TSDB list.
The new probe exposing how the nation’s
frontline Homeland Security agency handles potential terrorists who cross
into the U.S. through the largely unsecured southern border should concern
all Americans. Incredibly, the DHS, created after 9/11 to prevent another
terrorist attack, seems most concerned with the new report’s title
misleading readers into believing that CBP knowingly released an individual
on the terrorist watchlist. The watchdog stands by its probe, explaining
that the document’s title, “CBP Released a Migrant on a Terrorist
Watchlist,” is accurate and supported in the report findings.
Until next week,
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