Two decades after 9/11 British authorities continue to allow Taliban to launder money in the UK


Henry Bodkin
Sat, September 11, 2021,

Two former US Government officials spoke to The Telegraph as the Taliban cemented its grip on Afghanistan, having swept back into power last month after 20 years of western military presence - SETH MCALLISTER/AFP

UK authorities are still allowing the Taliban to launder its money in the UK 20 years after 9/11 because of their inability to take on the City, a former White House intelligence chief has said.

Robert Greenway, a senior director at the National Security Council, said Britain missed opportunities to prevent the militant group and its associates from using London as a money-laundering hub, and of preventing donations from sympathisers.

He is one of two former US Government officials to speak publicly about the frustration in Washington in recent years over the UK’s failure to act.

Another, Gretchen Peters, who now runs the Center on Illicit Networks and Transnational Organized Crime, revealed she was part of a 2012 US delegation to London to “beg” the Government to take the issue seriously.

They spoke to The Telegraph as the Taliban cemented its grip on Afghanistan, having swept back into power last month after 20 years of western military presence.
British authorities 'ran into obstacles'

Mr Greenway described British counter-terror officials as “committed”, but said: "Activities and actions have been more problematic because when you’re doing business in London, which is a corporation not a city in my experience, it becomes really problematic to take effective law enforcement action.

“My sense is the British authorities were always enthusiastic but they ran into obstacles, just because of the way that the laws and the authorities were configured, in and around London in particular.”

The former special forces officer and intelligence advisor to General David Patreus, now a fellow at the Hudson Institute, pointed to the existence of hawalas, unregulated money networks used widely in the Arab word and south Asia, and the exchange houses which facilitate them.

He said the networks are used by the Taliban’s Pakistani affiliates to infiltrate the group's money - much of it made from drugs - into the legitimate global financial system, ending up in hubs such as London, often via the Gulf.

Hawalas, many of which have brokers or “hawaladars” in the UK, are also used by Taliban sympathisers to wire donations directly from the west.
Networks funding terror common knowledge in intelligence circles

The potential of the networks to fund terror have been common knowledge in intelligence circles for the best part of 20 years and were extensively discussed in the 9/11 Commission Report.

The same report found that al-Qaeda operatives had kept funds in the UK in the years before the devastating attack.

It was also the subject of a 2012 report by the United Nations Security Council.

However, Ms Peters said that hawala networks suspected of being involved in Taliban and other terror funding via the UK were “100 per cent still happening”.

“When I was working for the DoD (Department of Defense) we came over to London and met with the Brits about this,” she said.

“There was really never a comprehensive effort to follow the money around Taliban drug trafficking - I begged for it to happen.”
Taking on more sophisticated terror financing could 'open a can of worms'

The US has had some success against financial networks, such as persuading the UAE Central Bank to revoke the license of the Al Zarooni Exchange for violations of anti-money laundering regulations.

Ms Peters also echoed her former colleague’s concern about the ability of UK authorities to take on more sophisticated terror financing.

“Because the City of London has become such a major centre for money laundering generally, there is a hesitancy on the part of the British to open that can of worms to look too closely,” she said.

In January Graeme Biggar, director general of the National Economic Crime Centre, warned the City that up to half of all dirty money being laundered by Russia is being done so through the UK.

Dr Rakib Ehsan, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London think tank, said: “We know that much of the financial and logistical support the Taliban has received comes from Pakistan, but that the ultimate origin of some of that is in the West.

“That’s something that we as a country haven’t been as urgent as we should have been in terms of clamping down on those transfer activities.

“This is something we have to take very seriously.”

A Taliban fighter stands guard as Afghan women shout slogans during an anti-Pakistan protest rally, near the Pakistan embassy in Kabul - AFP

A government spokesman said: “It is wrong to suggest the Government isn’t taking action to help prevent the funding of terrorism.

“In light of the situation in Afghanistan, we have engaged with businesses in the region about the increased risks criminals seeking to exploit them to launder money or finance terrorism.

“More widely, the UK Government, law enforcement and the financial sector are cracking down on terrorist financing through the Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Task Force, which shares intelligence allowing us to better detect and prevent the movement of terrorist funds.”

#LEGALIZEDRUGS

‘Large waves’ of Afghanistan’s heroin supply to hit Britain’s streets


Charles Hymas
Fri, September 10, 2021,

An Afghan opium farmer stands next to his poppy field in the remote village of Baqwa in Farah - John Moore/Getty Images

Heroin supply on to the streets of Britain from Afghanistan is set to increase after the fall of the country to the Taliban, a senior policing leader has warned.

Donna Jones, the lead for serious and organised crime for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said police chiefs were concerned the loss of UK and US forces’ checks on exports would pave the way for more heroin trafficking into the UK.

Afghanistan accounts for 82 per cent of global opium cultivation, according to the National Crime Agency, with most heroin that reaches the UK trafficked through the western Balkans.


“Having checks over airport borders and shipping containers has given us an element of control,” said Ms Jones, the police and crime commissioner for Hampshire.

“With an unstable government, with the Taliban in those key roles, do we believe that these organised crime issues could be overlooked or even possibly supported by the Taliban in Afghanistan? I’d say probably yes.”

The opium trade is a major source of income for a large proportion of the Afghan population as it is far more profitable than wheat or other crops.

For about a year before the Taliban were overthrown by the US-led coalition 20 years ago, they had declared opium production as un-Islamic and led a successful campaign eradicating almost all production in areas it controlled.

However, in the past 20 years, the drug trade has become a significant source of income for the Taliban insurgency against the US.

“It is highly unlikely the Taliban will prioritise a ban on opium production at a time when they are badly in need of funds. This is the cognitive dissonance that will be going on in the minds of their leadership: ideology versus necessity,” said a police source.

Ms Jones said the initial impact was expected to be limited. “I don’t think the increase is hitting the person on the street yet, but I think it will do over the next six to 12 months and I think it will do in quite large waves,” she said.

“As a commissioner who has responsibility for making sure that we are tackling drug-related harm, I am very concerned about the effect of heroin on the streets of Britain over the next year and beyond.”

The number of drug-related deaths are at their highest on record, at 4,561 in 2020 in England and Wales, with heroin and morphine accounting for more than a third.

The warning over heroin imports coincides with a national alert by Public Health England over a surge in overdoses that have accounted for at least 16 deaths in less than two weeks in southern England.

Three of deaths – linked to heroin adulterated with the synthetic opioid isotonitazene – had been in Hampshire, said Ms Jones. Isotonitazene is said to be 500 times stronger than morphine.

Jason Harwin, deputy chief constable and the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for drugs, said: “Heroin causes significant harm and misery in our communities and police continue to work hard to target those who import and sell it. We are monitoring and reviewing intelligence in relation to heroin being imported from overseas.”

Container shipping making waves on St. Lawrence/Great Lakes system


Chris Brock, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
Sun, September 12, 2021

LONG READ

Sep. 12—On Monday, the container ship Peyton Lynn C, which loaded in Antwerp, Belgium, passed through the locks in Massena and Iroquois, Ontario, on her way upriver on the St. Lawrence heading for the Great Lakes. In her wake, her owners believe, may be a new era in regards to a shipping method for the international waterway.

Industry experts say that about 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide is transported by container ships, with large coastal ports along the Atlantic and Pacific oceans the hubs of that activity. But the container vessel business model has begun to create ripples in the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes.

At the Port of Oswego, executive director William W. Scriber is excited for its potential but extremely frustrated about the delay in its implementation on the Great Lakes and especially at his port, which he says is due to the red tape of U.S. Customs.


"This has been one of my major gripes for years here," Mr. Scriber said. "We're held back from reaching the potential of a container port on the Great Lakes. We're the only port in New York state on Lake Ontario. We would be the perfect, perfect place for the dropping of containers here."

Meanwhile in Montreal, by 2024, with the support of Canada Infrastructure Bank and private partners, the port intends to develop a new state-of-the-art container terminal to handle 1.15 million 20-foot equivalent units per year.

"This project will strengthen our world-class logistics hub in the heart of the St. Lawrence Valley," the port announced in a news release.

In June, the MSC Melissa, the largest container ship to sail the St. Lawrence, arrived in Montreal before heading back to Europe. The dimensions of the vessel (994 feet long and 131 feet wide) are too large for further upriver travel through the Seaway lock system.

In Ohio, at the Port of Cleveland, its operators are excited to see its container shipping operations grow, with the help of ships like the Peyton Lynn C. In 2014, the port invested millions of dollars into a project that allows for the handling of container ships.

"We saw the need for a container service on the Great Lakes," said David S. Gutheil, chief commercial officer for the Port of Cleveland. "There's been a lot of studies over the years. We're handling a few thousand containers a year and we're happy now that Spliethoff is adding another vessel to grow the business."

The Peyton Lynn C. was purchased by H.R. Doornekamp Construction/Shipping Services Ltd., a family owned business based in Odessa, Ontario, about 12 miles from Kingston. It also owns and operates Picton Terminals, located in Prince Edward County in northeast Lake Ontario.

Doornekamp's first vessel, the Peyton Lynn C is being leased by Spliethoff, a worldwide ocean transport company. Peyton Lynn C was built in 2007 and is on her maiden voyage under new owner Doornekamp. She will be sailing a regular schedule between the ports of Antwerp (Belgium), Picton, Ontario, and Cleveland under long-term charter by Spliethoff.

Peyton Lynn C is scheduled to discharge her container cargo in Picton, continue to Cleveland for discharge and loading before heading back to Antwerp. Transit time is 12 days to Picton and 15 days to Cleveland. It's part of Spliethoff's Cleveland Europe Express (CCE) in response to the high demand for tonnage between Europe and the Great Lakes.

"We're going from two calls per month to three calls per month on our container service," Mr. Gutheil said.

Containers, he said, can carry anything from foodstuffs to automobile parts.

"From a container standpoint, typically it's more cost-effective to move goods, depending on how much goods you have in a single container, than it is in break bulk," Mr. Gutheil said. "Moving the cargo in a container certainly makes it much more efficient when the container is discharged off a vessel, picked up by truck and taken to its final destination."

Benjamin Doornekamp, owner of Doornekamp Construction and Picton Terminals, said the Peyton Lynn C was modified for the Seaway and Great Lakes system and will be the only vessel that's designed to solely focus on containers with a regular route on the system. The CEE service has run mainly with Spliethoff-owned versatile multi-purpose "tweendecker" vessels, able to carry a variety of cargo types, but Peyton Lynn C carries containers only.

"There's been a few other one-off tries and odd times when the Port of Montreal was on strike, or the rail was blocked," Mr. Doornekamp said. "I've seen some others that might be trying it, but this seems to be the first that's coming, and repeating, coming directly from Europe."

Michael J. Folsom, founder of the St. Lawrence Seaway Shipwatchers Facebook group and an industry expert, said that the addition of Peyton Lynn C provides new opportunities for trading between Europe, Nova Scotia and the Great Lakes.

"Between cost cutting on shipping by getting containers further inland to a potential need for more port workers to offload cargo, while adding another vessel in the container business, it's a good thing for the industry," Mr. Folsom said.

A few vessels hauling containers were seen in the early days of the Seaway, which opened in 1959.

"Back when containerization came to fruition in the global maritime industry back in the late '60s, early '70s, there were a few scheduled services on the Great Lakes," said Mr. Gutheil. "But as containerization grew and grew, the ships became larger and larger and the ships became too large to get in the St. Lawrence Seaway through the locks. That's when the coastal container business out of the large ports started to grow in stature, size and importance."

Mr. Doornekamp said that the Peyton Lynn C is a diversification of the company's construction, property management and port operations. He said the company is well-situated for the development of container vessel shipping. The company purchased Picton Terminals in 2015. It was built in 1953 for Bethlehem Steel to ship pelletized iron ore to the USA. Since the late 1970s, its infrastructure had been dormant

Mr. Doornekamp said that with his company owning the container ship and the revitalized Picton port, it makes container shipping more economically feasible.

"It just simplifies it," he said. "Whenever you simplify something, it's typically cheaper."

One historical drawback to the container method, he said, has always been the Seaway's annual three-month shutdown. Another, he said, is the lack of ports designed to handle containers.

"Another main blocker is that anybody who has sort of tried to do containers in the past, in most situations, there was a port at each end, stevedores at each end, agents at each end and ship owners," he said. "There was always six to 10 hands in the cookie jar trying to get money out of it and making it very, very expensive."

It's a situation with too many people owning different assets, Mr. Doornekamp said.

"In our case, we're the owner of the ship, we're the owner of the port, we're the owner of the trucks. The only part of the puzzle we don't own is the Port of Halifax."

The Peyton Lynn C is also scheduled to make regular stops at Halifax, the largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.

"They'll be one of the ports of call, but Picton being the main call, and Cleveland for the U.S.," Mr. Doornekamp said.

Doornekamp also owns a second ship, the Vivienne Sheri D, scheduled to come on line soon. She is not yet fitted for the Seaway and won't be traveling the river for at least the next two years. It's assigned route now is Europe to Halifax and Portland, Maine.

Doornekamp is also in the process of purchasing a third and fourth ship, Mr. Doornekamp said.

"With the big shipping companies, their big ships can't fit down the Seaway," he said. "We made some modifications to get the biggest possible ships through the Seaway for economy of scale. It's a positive for customers, because it's one-stop from Europe to say, Ontario or to northern U.S."

Steven J. Lawrence, executive director of the Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority, said port officials have given some thought about the potential that shipping containers could bring.

"But usually, it's not in numbers that work," he said.

The Ogdensburg port does deal with containers related to shipments of windmill parts that come in. Related parts like electrical panels are shipped in the containers.

"We've got the large forklifts to handle them," Mr. Lawrence said. "But at this point, where we're located, there's not a real market to move by containers. There's other options. Ours are just on a project basis."

In Oswego, Mr. Scriber is frustrated that the potential for the increased business that container vessels could bring his port is sailing on by. About seven years ago, the port, a state agency, purchased container movers. The port also has rail service directly to the water and is on the Barge Canal, enticing opportunities for the movement of containers.

"We were going to be one of the major container operators from the St. Lawrence into the Great Lakes," Mr. Scriber said. "We have two operational container movers we purchased in anticipation of the possible use of containers here."

The issue preventing it, he said, is one shared by the Port of Monroe in Michigan: Restrictions placed upon them by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

"I'm not looking for a fight with Customs," Mr. Scriber said. "I'm just simply saying there needs to be a sit down discussion on Customs' regulations as it affects the 'one size fits all' on the Great Lakes."

He said the Port of Oswego is in the same boat with the Port of Monroe in Michigan. On Aug. 21, U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, toured the Port of Monroe with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials, including acting Commissioner Troy Miller, and port leaders to assess operations and discuss resolving ongoing cargo clearance challenges the port faces. Mr. Peters has said the port has been restricted by CBP's Detroit Field Office from accepting international break bulk cargo and prohibited the port from accepting international maritime containers, unless the port invested in significant and costly screening technology and infrastructure upgrades.

The Port of Cleveland and Port of Oswego, Mr. Scriber said, have been held to different CBP screening equipment standards.

"There's no consistency on the Great Lakes," he said. "Cleveland was able to do what they've done because Customs gave them a break and let them have a period to equip themselves for all these standards. In Pennsylvania and New York, there is none. Here, it's like, 'You've got to build and do everything exactly according to our book the way we want it or you're not going to do containers.' It's different districts. Each Customs district has its own interpretation of what they want to do."

For example, Mr. Scriber said one recommendation is building mobile radiation monitors that would scan containers.

"That's just too costly for a port the size of Monroe and Oswego," he said. "We're sort of the same size. We could not do those sort of improvements with the low volume of containers that we would receive. It's frustrating."

Mr. Scriber said that mobile radiation monitors could be deployed by Customs to ports like Oswego.

"They have equipment that I could use for containers," he said. "The government already owns it, yet I can't get access. I have to buy my own."

Two years ago, Mr. Scriber spoke at a meeting of the American Association of Port Authorities.

"I advocated that Customs' regulations stunt growth of jobs and economic growth, both ways, import and export, on the Great Lakes," he said. "They add a huge cost to transportation that does not need to be there. The regulations they have are built on one size fits all, which is asinine. At the Great Lakes, we should have our own set of regulations that are both safe and economical."

The Port of Oswego, the first U.S. port of call and deep-water port on the Great Lakes from the St. Lawrence Seaway, has phase one completed on an intermodal yard — a facility designed for the loading and unloading of containers for movement on the railroad and subsequent movement on the street or highway.

"And we purchased a couple of container movers from the federal government in anticipation of having to do it in the future," Mr. Scriber said. "The only thing not there is the asphalt and the containers. Outside of that, we could be up and running in a month."

There would be less costs for shippers if the containers arrived in Oswego, Mr. Scriber said, because vessel owners wouldn't have to spend money for transport further west.

"We're unique because we're the first American port on the Great Lakes," he said. "This would be a huge advantage beyond Cleveland."

The Port of Cleveland contracted its Cleveland Europe Express service with Spliethoff in 2014.

"That was, and still is, the only container service on the Great Lakes," Mr. Gutheil said. "We charter the ship ourselves. We saw the need for container service on the Great Lakes. There were some shippers that for a long time supported the business. It's small. Compared to coastal ports, we're handling a few thousand containers a year."

The arrival of the Peyton Lynn C to the Port of Cleveland brings a new element to the business.

"This one is a container-only vessel," Mr. Gutheil said. "Whereas the ones we've been involved in since 2014 are multi-purpose vessels. They can handle containers and break bulk cargo."

On Aug. 29, the Marine Exchange of Southern California reported that 44 freight ships were stuck awaiting entry into California's two largest ports, the highest number recorded since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. "The queue is a result of the labor shortage, COVID-19-related disruptions and holiday-buying surges," Business Insider reported.

"I think the Great Lakes needs to be viewed as a kind of a relief valve, so to speak, for a lot of the big coastal ports that are extremely congested, not very efficient right now," Mr. Gutheil said. "The problems moving containers through the big coastal ports now is becoming exacerbated by what's going on in the global supply chain."

In July, Sen. Peters wrote an op-ed in the Great Lakes Seaway Review. It said, in part: "The Great Lakes and the shipping industry they support are an economic engine for our entire region. Demand for e-commerce and other changes to supply chains have increased congestion at already busy sea ports along the east and west coasts. Heartland ports in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway System offer a ready-made relief valve to alleviate some of this congestion."

John M. Peach, executive director of Save the River, a nonprofit designed to protect and preserve the ecological integrity of the Upper St. Lawrence River through advocacy, education, and research, said the idea of the Seaway becoming a container route has been kicked around for decades. Recently, he's noticed photos of container vessels being posted.

"But what's different now is these are ships really loaded with containers," he said. "Occasionally, you'd see one of the standard freighters with a couple of containers on them."

More ships in the system, he said, increase the risk for invasive species.

"It's new traffic coming through the Seaway and I understand that's economically important for the ports," Mr. Peach said. "But we have the same concerns that we've always had of the saltwater ships coming into the system, with ballast water exchange and the transport of invasive species."

The invasives that have left their detrimental mark in the St. Lawrence include zebra and quagga mussels, gobies and sea lampreys. But containers, Mr. Peach said, may bring new threats.

"Containers can bring in species that aren't necessarily aquatic species," he said. "They can bring in species of insects and other animals. They come out when they're unloaded."

He added, "It just raises my awareness of how important it is to continue to push for better ballast water legislation, enforcement and better equipment. Every time I see a new line of shipping come in, I say, 'We've got to raise concern again.'"

Shipping container facts, from PhilSpace:

n They were invented by American businessman Malcom McLean in the 1950s who sought a more efficient way of shipping items than the break-bulk style prevalent at the time.

n At any given time, about 20 million shipping containers are on ships.

n They have two standard sizes: 20 feet (20-foot Equivalent Unit) or 40 feet, which is two TEUs.

n A standard 20-foot container has a volume of 1,170 cubic feet.

n Each is assigned a unique digital unit number.

n About 97% of all shipping containers are made in China.

n They can last for 30 years.

n They can be repurposed, utilized as swimming pools, shops, clinics for disaster relief and instant classrooms. Outside of Mexico City, a small community of businesses housed in shipping containers has sprung up.

n It's estimated that only 2% to 10% of containers are inspected.

n Experts believe that 2,000 to 10,000 are lost annually. Some sink. Those that float remain just below the surface of the water, creating a possible hazard to vessels.

n It is estimated that a 20-foot container will float for up to 57 days, while a 40-foot one will sink after around 171 days.

Source: PhilSpace, Hampshire UK

History curriculum, books were written by and for white people. What about kids of color?
Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY
Sun, September 12, 2021

When LaGarrett King was growing up in Louisiana, his textbooks and teachers taught him about Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King Jr. But he often found himself wondering: Where are the other Black faces and voices and stories?

Why weren't his teachers and books explaining the complexities of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision? The failure of Reconstruction after the Civil War? The lingering effects of enslaving humans, which were obvious all around him?

At home, his African American family often discussed those topics and more, but in his public school, staffed almost entirely by white people, they just didn't come up. No one was talking about the institutional racism, mortgage redlining or civil rights violations that made it harder for Black citizens to vote and reshape society around them.

"Black people have always favored education, but what education they actually get, that's a different story," says King.

Thirty years later, King, who founded and directs the Carter Center for K-12 Black History Education at the University of Missouri, says most of the history majors he's teaching still lack a baseline knowledge of the events and people that shaped Black history in the United States.

Quiz: Test your knowledge of U.S. history

Runaway-slave games, sanitized textbooks: Schools do a terrible job teaching about slavery

"They're really hurt that this history wasn't taught to them in school," King says. "If future citizens are only learning about half of the population, well, that's how we end up in the place we are in. If they knew this history, hopefully they would improve our society because we don't want to repeat it."

King is part of a new generation of Black educators who are demanding more from public school across the country, schools that have for generations largely reflected the priorities of white-dominated boards of education and state legislatures, implemented through curricula and textbooks they controlled.

Now, a shift is underway as more Black and Latino parents push for inclusive and diverse educational materials. An accompanying backlash by conservatives decries the concept of critical race theory, which examines the United States through the lens of people who continue to face systemic racism.

A rally against critical race theory in Leesburg, Va., on June 12, 2021.

Critical race theory, DEI and more: What those terms really mean

Across the country, school boards, statewide boards of education and legislators are more closely examining their textbooks and curricula, traditionally developed by and for white people. Nationally, white kids now make up about 47% of public school students. Hispanic kids make up 27% and Black kids make up 15%.
Textbooks don't just come from Texas anymore

For decades, Texas' statewide standards and millions of public school students meant textbook publishers catered specifically to the Lone Star State's conservative-dominated curriculum-setting process, then sold those same books to districts in smaller states that lacked the purchasing power to demand their own custom modifications.

About a decade ago, the Common Core curriculum standards began bringing new consistency to what kids were learning, although not every state adopted them (and many states later dropped them, at least officially).

And while Common Core focuses only on language and math and lacks any focus on history, the de facto national standards played a key role in loosening the grip Texas once had in determining what kids across the country learned.

Today, on-demand printing and the development of statewide curriculums in states such as Florida and California have freed other states to influence their own textbook purchases. Still, what kids learn remains largely tied to the past.

"There is a sort of circularity to the argument: 'History is written by the winners and people should know history, so they should learn about the winners,'" said David Griffith of the Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning education think tank. "A certain amount of debate and negotiation is inevitable. It is simply a fact that our history is not as diverse as our current reality, and reasonable people are going to disagree about who should or should not be in."

U.S. history is complex: Scholars say this is the right way to teach about slavery, racism.

In Texas, Board of Education Chairman Keven Ellis said he and his colleagues are proud that students are now offered electives in both Mexican American history and African American history. Ellis said educational leaders need to strike a careful balance between teaching kids a historically accurate accounting of the past while leaving space for their own critical thinking.

Texas offers a statewide curriculum that districts can adopt, although they can make their own if it meets certain standards. The process begins with educators and other experts who recommend certain areas of study, and then gets refined via public input.

Politicians have the final say. Gov. Greg Abbot this spring called a special legislative session to discuss, among other topics, a ban on teaching aspects of critical race theory in Texas' public schools. That ban took effect Sept. 1.

The Texas State Capitol is seen on the first day of the 87th Legislature's special session. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called the Legislature into a special session, asking lawmakers to prioritize his agenda items, including banning critical race theory in schools.

"We don't want to create a mindset for our students, where they have a certain agenda that's given to them. We want to make sure they're given facts to evaluate," Ellis said. Still, he said, U.S. history has caused "scars and open wounds," along with so much good.

"We should educate our children about our history of these scars, and in some cases the open wounds that remain," he said.

Confederate Reckoning: The long shadow of racism in the American South
Do kids see themselves in their classes?

For Silvia Nogueron-Liu, the debate over critical race theory is eerily reminiscent of the battles in Arizona during the late 2000s over Tucson's Mexican American studies program. A Republican-dominated legislature outlawed the program on the grounds that it was teaching "racial resentment," prompting administrators to collect textbooks lawmakers considered inappropriate for kids.

The Tucson program had been teaching students in the primarily poor Latino district using texts and historical figures that reflected what they saw in the mirror, said Nogueron-Liu, who was born in Mexico and earned her doctorate in curriculum and instruction at Arizona State University amid the Tucson curriculum debate.

Every child, Nogueron-Liu said, comes to school with an understanding of their own culture – just like King, the professor, did 30 years ago. It's important for them to be able to anchor new information into the context of their personal history.

Seeing themselves in textbooks is the best way to start that process, she said. The tension comes when governments decide what narrative kids should learn, then reinforce those narratives via textbooks and curriculum.

"When we're learning about history in kindergarten and in first grade and we don't see ourselves reflected in what we are learning, how are we making those connections?" said Nogueron-Liu, now a professor of literacy studies at the University of Colorado. "Children can understand injustice. They can understand inequality."
What teachers actually teach

Today, most states have statewide history standards that guide what children learn and teachers teach. Those standards are typically set by state boards of education and then flow down to the school district, school and then classroom level.

"Textbooks certainly play a role in what teachers teach and students learn," said Morgan Scott Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California. "The way the system is supposed to work, the standards are supposed to be the determinant of what's taught."

The reality, however, is teachers play a significant role in deciding what to emphasize or gloss over, Polikoff said. Some conservative states have started banning the teaching of specific words and phrases, and Polikoff said most teachers were already teaching a "whitewashed" version of U.S. history. 

Most states have statewide history standards, but teachers often make their own decisions about what kids learn.

Still, he said, "I strongly suspect that regardless of the materials, on average, teachers tend to teach toward the middle. There are going to be some iconoclast conservative teachers and some outspoken liberal teachers, but teachers in general tend to teach toward the middle."

Surveys of thousands of teachers by the RAND Corp. support that conclusion, said Darleen Opfer, who runs the think tank's education and labor division. About 30% of teachers nationally are using the Engage New York standards developed by the state's education department.

But drill down, Opfer said, and you'll find that half the country's educators also are using the Teachers Pay Teachers website. There, teachers can upload lesson plans they've developed themselves and buy lessons to use in their classrooms.

"Even if you had a textbook written for Texas that was adopted all over the country, teachers weren't using it consistently," Opfer said. "When we ask teachers why they deviated from a textbook or a curriculum, they give lots of reasons for why, and they're essentially trying to differentiate their instruction or they're trying to make it more culturally appropriate.

"Right now, because of the climate, we're seeing teachers err on the side of not covering things that might be controversial."

King, the history professor, says the choices of textbooks and curriculum are inherently political. "Education has always been political," he said. He welcomes the conversation about exactly what gets included in textbooks – and what gets left out.

"We use history to tell our students who we are as a people. We need to reexamine questions like: 'What is the purpose of history?' Is it nostalgia?" he said.

"It's not about patriotism or loving America or hating America. History is simply helping understand humanity."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: History curriculum, critical race theory: Why POC aren't in textbooks

HOUSING FOR ALL! PROPERTY IS THEFT!
Some landlords looking to evict tenants, back rent paid or not


Bob Beckstead, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
Sun, September 12, 2021, 

Sep. 12—CANTON — A member of the St. Lawrence County Fair Housing Task Force says some landlords aren't concerned about back rent owed by tenants during the eviction moratorium. They just want them out of their building.

"They just want the tenants out of their apartments, their single family homes; they just want them out," Gouverneur Code Enforcement Officer Mike McQuade told task force members Thursday. "That's the unfortunate part. They're willing to take that $9,000, $10,000, $12,000 loss just to get these people out of the apartments."

He said he has heard the same sentiment from several landlords.


"They just want these people out of their homes," he said.

John Tenbusch, a planner with the St. Lawrence County Planning Department, wondered if relations between landlords and tenants had always been "toxic."

"Absolutely," Mr. McQuade said.

He said the tenants often "know the system."

"When you can tell these tenants that they don't have to pay, they are going to stop," he said. "Hypothetically, I have a landlord that's owed $18,000 in back rent for over a year-and-a-half. How are that landlord and tenant going to agree? That landlord just wants that individual out of the house, take the loss and leave. That's the difficulty with this moratorium."

At the same time, Mr. McQuade said, "some of these tenants, when you tell them you don't have to pay, you see deliveries. I had one the other day. They set up a pool. They haven't paid rent in six months. That's where I have the difficulty with this agreement thing between the tenants and landlord. They're not going to come together. If this started three months ago, you'd have a good chance. You're talking over a year-and-a-half. That's a tough sell."

Courtnie Toms, deputy director of Massena's Maximizing Independent Living Choices, said in a written report to the task force that one of the problems they face is a refusal by tenants to apply for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program.

"Something we did not expect was the refusal by tenants to apply," she wrote. "We have had many landlords reach out to us to file an application, but their tenants have refused. They have told us they don't want their landlord to be paid due to interpersonal conflict that happened after the tenant stopped paying rent. We have had a couple landlords refuse to apply because they are trying to evict for nuisance reasons. But, that has been rare. We have had many landlords report that they are unable to contact their tenants about the program."

During Thursday's meeting, P.J. Herne, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, provided task force members with an update on the status of evictions in St. Lawrence County. New York's temporary ban on evictions and foreclosures has been extended until the beginning of next year.

The state's eviction moratorium bars eviction of residential and commercial tenants who could not pay rent due to financial hardships caused by the pandemic, through Jan. 15, 2022.

However, a measure approved by state lawmakers amended the Emergency Rental Assistance Program's evictions protections to provide landlords with a path to start eviction proceedings against a tenant who is a nuisance or has inflicted substantial damage to a property, and created a due process mechanism for landlords to challenge a tenant's declaration of financial hardships.

"The old New York eviction moratorium was going to expire around Aug. 31," Mr. Herne said. "We saw an uptick in filings (for the ERAP)."

He said they advise clients to make full use of the ERAP. Maximizing Independent Living Choices and the St. Lawrence County Department of Social Services can assist with preparing applications because of new filing requirements to stamp and upload them.

"For our client base, a lot of our clients do not have the technical capabilities to do that," Mr. Herne said. "They don't have a computer. They don't have a scanner. They can't do those types of things, so we've been trying to make full use of both DSS and MILC and assist clients in doing that."

 

Prehistoric Native American artifacts from 6,000 BC 

were found in a Mississippi alligator's stomach

Morgan Keith

Sat, September 11, 2021,

An alligator is seen on the eighth hole during the second round of the Sanderson Farms Championship at the Country Club of Jackson on October 27, 2017 in Jackson, Mississippi. Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

• The alligator was harvested from Eagle Lake in Mississippi and weighed 750 pounds.

• Geologist James Starnes identified one of the objects found in the stomach as a type of early weapon from approximately 5,000-6,000 BC.

• Scientists believe that there are several reasons alligators eat stones, including as an aid to their digestion.

• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

On September 2, Red Antler Processing owner Shane Smith was examining the stomach contents of a 750-pound Mississippi alligator that had been brought to his wild game processing and hunting store when he came across two prehistoric artifacts, the Clarion Ledger reported.

When Smith began processing the 13-foot, 5-inch alligator from Eagle Lake, he found an arrowhead-like object and a tear-shaped object, which he shared photos of on Facebook.

Post by Red Antler Processing.

James Starnes, director of surface geology and surface mapping for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, examined a photograph of the arrowhead-like object and determined it was an atlatl dart point, a type of early weapon from approximately 5,000-6,000 BC, the Clarion Ledger reported.

Starnes also identified the second object as a plummet, a heavy stone made of hematite, from about 1,700 BC, although archaeologists do not know what their use was for, according to the Clarion Ledger.

"Scientists have long thought that, like birds, gators swallow stones to help them digest their tough-to-process meals, or accidentally ingest them in the chaos of consuming a live, thrashing dinner," Science Magazine reported, adding that the strategy may also help the creatures maximize their time underwater.

Critics Remind Dan Crenshaw That Mandatory Vaccines Have Existed In U.S. For Decades

Mary Papenfuss
Fri, September 10, 2021

(Photo: Tom Williams via Getty Images)

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) ominously warned of a “revolt” after President Joe Biden unveiled new COVID-19 vaccination requirements — and critics on Twitter piled on to remind the lawmaker that mandatory vaccinations have existed in the U.S. for decades.

He also called vaccine requirements “cheap governance” and ordered the Democrats to “leave people the hell alone” in a tweet on Thursday.

The military has long required a number of vaccinations for service members, which Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, should know, many pointed out, and accused Crenshaw of playing dumb to appeal to anti-vaccination extremists.


Gen. George Washington ordered his troops to be inoculated against smallpox way back in 1777 via a precursor to vaccination called variolation.

American children begin getting vaccinations when just weeks old and must be vaccinated against a number of infectious diseases before they’re allowed to attend public schools — even in Texas. Healthline reported last month that school vaccine mandates have existed in the United States since the 1850s.

“Are you going to start a revolt over these, too?” scoffed one Crenshaw critic.

Crenshaw’s only response to his vaccine double standard: “Wow this one really triggered left wing authoritarians on twitter.”

Biden announced Thursday that all federal workers and contractors will need to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in the coming weeks, along with health care workers at providers that receive federal funding through Medicaid and Medicare.

The administration will also require all businesses with 100 or more employees to require testing at least once a week for unvaccinated workers.

Also on HuffPost

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

USSA
Texas Teachers Asked to Snitch on Colleagues Promoting ‘Radical Politics and Weird Theories’

OF COURSE WEIRD THEORIES DO NOT INCLUDE TRUMP IS REAL POTUS

Steven Monacelli
Fri, September 10, 2021,

John Moore/Getty

DALLAS—Some teachers at the Dallas Independent School District woke up to an email this week asking them to rat out any fellow employees for supposedly promoting so-called “critical race theory” and “predatory gender fluidity.” And they’re not happy about it.

Two teachers who received the email on Wednesday shared their reactions with The Daily Beast. Both teachers requested to remain anonymous for fear of being reported on amid an increasingly tense environment for teachers.

“I was incredulous that someone would take the time to write and disperse it,” one middle school teacher told The Daily Beast. “I clicked on the unsubscribe button and input that my reason for unsubscribing was that ‘this is racist, homophobic trash.’”


“When I saw the email I thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” said one elementary school teacher. “I knew this was a view held by a lot of conservatives, that there is some plot by public schools to make white kids feel guilty for history’s atrocities or to make kids ‘scared of being straight,’ but this just comes from sensationalist information. Even the most radical of teachers are not making kids feel responsible for things their ancestors have done.”

The email, which fear-mongered about “radical politics and weird theories,” painted an apocalyptic picture of current classrooms and invited recipients to be heroes in that distorted reality: “The game is rigged against kids, parents and teachers who want to do the right thing. But with your help it doesn’t have to be.”

This effort to turn teachers into informants in a delusional crusade against the teaching of so-called “critical race theory” comes after the Texas legislature passed the new HB3979 law banning the tenets of CRT in schools. Although conservatives have fueled panic over the topic, it is not taught in elementary or middle schools, and many public schools have already been forced to put out statements clarifying that “critical race theory” is a subject taught at the college level.

Nonetheless, the furor over the issue on the right has continued, coming on the heels of and in many ways mirroring controversial efforts by Texas conservatives to collect tips on anyone seeking or providing abortion services.

“It feels like it’s coming from a conservative echo chamber that is not familiar with how public schools operate,” said the middle school teacher. “Our curriculum is packed with literacy, mathematics and test prep. We don’t have time to teach law school level theoretical concepts.”

CRT is an academic movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to critically examine the intersection of race and U.S. law and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice. But in 2020, conservative activists like Christopher Rufo began using the term “critical race theory” publicly to denounce all sorts of anti-racist education efforts. Since then, CRT has become a watchword for fears that children are being “brainwashed” into thinking that all white people are fundamentally racist.

The email circulated this week, leaked to The Daily Beast by a DISD teacher, was sent by Natalie Cato, the president of Save Texas Kids. Save Texas Kids is an advocacy organization founded by “mothers and fathers on (sic) Texas children who refuse to allow the curriculum to bend to the demands of ‘woke’ ‘progressive’ leadership,” according to its website.

“The idea that race theory, or anything about racism needs to be brow-beaten into the vulnerable minds of children is exactly why Save Texas Kids was created,” the website reads.

Far-Right Snitch Network Targets Schools That Talk Race

In the email, Cato said she wanted “kids to learn about the horrors of slavery and the evils of the ‘Jim Crow’ system” but also that “we have made great progress overcoming those injustices through the heroism of the Civil Rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, and that 40 years later we elected our nation’s first black President which Dr. King said would be the ultimate evidence that America was NOT a racist nation.”

Notably, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. never made such a statement. In fact, King spoke passionately about the polite racism of white liberals. “I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress,” King wrote in the Letter from Birmingham Jail.

Cato also wrote that she opposes school boards and school administrators she alleges are “pushing the idea that there is no such thing as biological sex.” Her examples included “boys being told they can shower? with girls if they self identify as a girl” and “girls being told they must compete with boys in sports simply because a boy claims to be a girl.”

These statements echo claims made by conservative lawmakers about transgender student athletes that have made for splashy headlines. But few proponents have been able to cite specific examples.

Cato, who does not reside within the school district, did not respond to requests for comment prior to publication of this article.

In 2017, the district passed a resolution saying Dallas schools would create welcoming and protective spaces, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. This includes modest accommodations, like addressing a student by their preferred pronoun.

Save Texas Kids is one of over 160 groups across the country that have recently emerged to disrupt lessons on race and gender, according to an NBC News analysis of media reports and organizations’ promotional materials. In the Dallas area, several have popped up to stoke outrage and engage in school board elections.

In April, controversial fliers were circulated in the wealthy Park Cities enclave of Dallas by two nonprofit groups seeking to stoke the flames of an already heated school board race.

One of the groups, Park Cities Parents Unite, emerged amid fights over COVID-19 protocols, and the group hasalso taken up the fight against CRT and transgender students. Their flier vilified students engaging in civil rights protests. It is unclear who operates and funds the 501c4 group.

On Aug. 25, Park Cities Parents United shared a “School Board Watchlist” on their Facebook page, an initiative that “finds and exposes school board leadership that supports anti-American, radical, hateful, immoral, and racist teachings in their districts, such as Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, sexual/gender ideology, and more.”

The other group, Metroplex Citizens for a Better Tomorrow, sent out a flier earlier this year lambasting one of the candidates in the school board race as a “New Jersey Liberal” who “Had a BLM Sign in His Yard” and worked as a “Diversity Officer.”

The treasurer of Metroplex Citizens for a Better Tomorrow, hotelier Monty Bennett, issued a statement to the Dallas Morning News at the time: “Everyone knows that the left-wing media’s bully culture is to twist whatever anyone says into making a conservative look bad and a lefty look good,” he wrote. “There’s no point in countering the misrepresentations and distortions you will no doubt write in this article.”

Such efforts have caused school board members to resign in frustration across the country, creating a political power vacuum for the most rabid activists to fill. Now with the rise of state-sanctioned anti-abortion bounty-hunting and snitch-sites in Texas, it isn’t just school board officials that are becoming political targets.

In a statement to Spectrum News, Save Texas Kids said they hope to identify individual teachers so they can confront school and district officials.

Racially profiled while apple picking? Farm calls police on Massachusetts family



Mike Stunson
Fri, September 10, 2021, 2:47 PM·3 min read

A Massachusetts family of four was enjoying a Labor Day trip to a local apple farm, but an alleged racial profiling incident to end their day became a “traumatic experience.”

Six extra apples that fell into a stroller pushed by Rev. Manikka Bowman and Jeff Myers led to police being called at Connors Farm and racial comments directed to the Black family.

A search for more ‘concealed’ fruit

Bowman and Myers brought their two children Monday to Connors Farm in Danvers, where they spent more than $100 for a day of apple picking, they wrote in a news release. The family picked up a few more apples than would fit in their designated bag, leading to an issue as they went to purchase apple cider donuts.

Bowman said a security officer stopped them for having too many apples — six too many. Some of the fruit had fallen to the bottom of the stroller for the couple’s 18-month-old child, but they had intentions of paying for it at the final checkout.

The situation intensified when they were ushered in to a farm store building by security officers and a manager, who searched “for more ‘concealed’ fruit.”

“Of course, there wasn’t any!” the family said. “I asked the person why were we being treated this way? And did they treat other guests this way?”

Police were eventually called when the couple asked to speak with the farm’s owner. The responding officer, according to Bowman and Myers, accused the couple of “playing the race card.”

“Why was this happening? We looked at each other, wondering. What made them suspect us of stealing?” the parents said. “Had our skin color influenced their thinking? Were we presumed guilty because we are an African American family? Why hadn’t they taken a much simpler, customer-friendly route and presumed our innocence with a simple reminder on what to do with any fruit that did not fit in the bag?”

When the manager said the family was trying to steal the fruit, the couple’s 7-year-old daughter burst into tears. Farm workers harassed the couple and created a scene due to the extra apples, which would have cost about $4, the family said.

Bowman, the vice-chair of the Cambridge School Committee, and Myers, a commercial real estate director, were forced to pay for an extra bag, despite the six apples not reaching its capacity.

The aftermath

Connors Farm wrote Thursday in a Facebook post that was later deleted that it has the right “to inspect all backpacks, bags and strollers that exit our orchard,” the Boston Herald reported.

A second post on Thursday remained on the farm’s page Friday, flooded with thousands of comments. Connors Farm said in the post it regrets the incident and has apologized to the family.

“We do our best to train our employees to handle all customer issues with courtesy and respect at all times,” the farm wrote. “We are taking further steps to ensure that staff will undergo diversity, equity and inclusion training. Please know that everybody is welcome on our farm.”

Town officials in Danvers also extended apologies to the family and said “discriminatory behavior has no place” in its community.

Leaders in the town, which has a population of about 27,000, have reached out to the family as well as the business, to which it “expressed its disappointment.” They also said the police officer who questioned the family made a “racially insensitive comment” to the couple.

In a second statement Friday, Bowman and Myers said the farm has apologized to them and have agreed to undergo racial equity workshops.

“We also acknowledge that the Connors Farm statement came after it made social media posts that were not sensitive to the seriousness of the moment,” the family said. “Clearly, Connors Farm has work to do to live into their words, and we hope that the owner’s stated intentions will be a meaningful step forward.”