The Arizona School Boards Association (ASBA) wasn’t strict with their mask mandate at a legal conference last week, despite their ongoing lawsuit against the state over its school mask mandate ban. Several days after the conference, ASBA pushed for the right of schools to mandate masks in the ongoing court case, Arizona School Boards Association, et al. v. State of Arizona.
The pictures posted by ASBA show both posed and candid pictures of attendees maskless. ASBA Executive Director Sheila Harrison-Williams and Assistant Director Chris Thomas both took off their masks to smile for a picture, huddling in with fellow colleagues and conference attendees. ASBA spokesperson Heidi Vega explained to AZ Free News that they asked attendees to remove their masks to pose for a photo op.
Vega clarified that the conference did have a mask mandate in place, but admitted it was loosely enforced. Vega noted that anytime conference organizers were in front of a microphone, they reminded attendees to mask up.
“We can’t mandate every person. We would remind them to wear a mask,” stated Vega. “They are all different districts of different people on all different sides with different beliefs across the state.”
In ASBA’s lawsuit, they’ve argued that the health and safety necessitates local governments to impose mandates where they see fit. Governor Doug Ducey signed the mask mandate ban into law several months ago.
“ASBA believes the question of whether to require masks should be left to school boards who know their communities best,” asserted ASBA. “School boards are elected officials that are elected by their constituents and should be able to decide local control issues for those communities they represent.”
ASBA’s lax masking requirements for themselves while advocating for school mask mandates is similar to another recent controversy with Arizona’s education leadership. As AZ Free News reported last month, Arizona Superintendent Kathy Hoffman was maskless and not social distancing at a baby shower. Like ASBA, Hoffman has expressed her disapproval of Ducey’s mask mandate ban.
“We know masks work and, with rising cases, they’re a vital part of our effort to reduce everyone’s COVID-19 risks,” wrote Hoffman. “I encourage teachers, administrators, and families to listen to the CDC and take individual action to keep themselves and each other safe by wearing a mask during in-person school. Students, teachers, and parents are ready to get back to in-person learning, but it takes all of us.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
The fiery Aug. 15 explosion of a Kinder Morgan natural gas pipeline which killed two members of Coolidge family and severely burned another ejected a 46-foot section of the pipeline and left a massive crater, according to a preliminary report issued Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The rupture of the 30-inch diameter transmission pipeline, known as Line 2000, occurred around 5:30 a.m., sending the ejected pipeline nearly 130 feet away into a field. The subsequent fireball destroyed the home of Luiz and Rosalita Alvarez and was visible for miles, including Casa Grande.
Emergency responders found Luiz and the couple’s 14-year-old daughter Valeria deceased in the house. Rosalita was found nearby with multiple injuries.
According to the report, it took Kinder Morgan personnel one hour to locate and manually shut off the pipeline’s nearest downstream valve. The fire, however, was not extinguished until shortly after 8 a.m. when the nearest upstream valve was finally isolated, the report states.
The investigation to date found that Line 2000 was installed in 1985 to transport crude oil. It was converted for the transmission of natural gas around 2005 when operated by El Paso Natural Gas. Houston-based Kinder Morgan acquired the line in 2012.
The continuing investigation will focus on metallurgical analysis and testing of the ruptured pipeline as well as adjacent sections of pipe which were not damaged. In addition, investigators will look into causal factors and pipeline safety.
Assisting NTSB in this matter are Kinder Morgan, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the Arizona Corporation Commission, the Pinal County Fire Investigation Taskforce, and the Coolidge Police Department.
The NTSB is an independent federal agency responsible for determining the probable cause for pipeline incidents, as well as civil aviation, railroad, highway, and marine accidents. NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson has said a final report about the incident could take 12 to 24 months to complete.
Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Chucri resigned after admitting in a leaked audio recording that Maricopa County election officials privately shared their constituents’ concerns over the 2020 election. Specifically, Chucri said he and the other election officials doubted the validity of their hand-count audit, as well as the security of Dominion Voting Machines.
According to Chucri, other board members reportedly knew the county audit wasn’t sufficient, but didn’t want to conduct a full-scale audit because they feared they’d actually lost their races. Instead, the county went ahead with an audit of only two percent of the vote. This totaled around 47,000 ballots out of nearly 2.1 million. With that, the board claimed that the sampling was sufficient to prove election integrity.
In another recording, Chucri questioned whether Dominion’s software had serious security issues. He said it was a “screw up” for Arizona to use Dominion after Texas rejected them due to critical security concerns.
According to Chucri, County Recorder Stephen Richer agreed with those concerns. However, Richer has asserted publicly that he’s never doubted the validity of Dominion’s election equipment.
Richer fired shots at Dominion doubters as recently as Tuesday afternoon. He remarked on a topic trending on Twitter at the time, “Dominion.”
“The world is learning it was all a lie done at the expense of a few private, job-producing, for-profit companies (something I thought we celebrated) and individuals who did nothing wrong,” wrote Richer. “Fortunately, @dominionvoting is going to bankrupt some liars as a result.”
After the audio recordings were leaked that depicted Richer as privately sharing county concerns over the Dominion software, he deleted the tweet.
In a letter explaining his resignation, Chucri chalked his remarks up to “turbulent times” and emphasized that they weren’t indicative of any wrongdoing or cover-up by the county regarding the 2020 election. His resignation will be effective November 5.
Unfortunately, the political landscape changed for the worse this year. The environment is wrought with toxicity – and all civility and decorum no longer seem to have a place. The fixation with the 2020 election results and aftermath have gotten out of control. In recent days it has come to light that I was secretly recorded in conversations regarding differences with some of my colleagues about an audit of the 2020 election. The comments I made were during a very turbulent time. My colleagues have every right to be both angry and disappointed with me. I should not have made such statements and offer my colleagues heartfelt apologies.
I do not want to perpetuate the very problem I ran to eliminate several years ago. While I have had my differences with my colleagues, I have known them to be good, honorable and ethical men. The picture some individuals are trying to paint about a cover-up, scam and other nonsense about my colleagues and myself is simply false. There was no cover-up, the election was not stolen. Biden won.
The leaked audio came from a March conversation between Chucri and We the People AZ Alliance, an activist election integrity group. Gateway Pundit obtained the audio recording. In it, Chucri admitted that those too concerned for their races to speak out against the audit were fellow supervisors Jack Sellers and Clint Hickman.
“[Hickman] wanted to have a conversation about an audit,” explained Chucri. “He just didn’t have the guts to do that at the end of last year, after I’d been asking for something.”
The woman asked if Hickman had his feelings hurt. Chucri said yes. He said it’s “just politics,” and agreed with the woman that Hickman needed to “suck it up.” Chucri said he regretted believing other supervisors when they claimed they were only capable of auditing two percent of the votes.
“This is a blood sport. [He said] I’m not going to kiss your a**, I’m not going to suck up for your vote – I want to earn your vote,” said Chucri. “Whereas those guys want to suck up and kiss up for your vote, and my biggest mistake […] was that I should’ve never believed what I was being told about ‘We couldn’t do more than two percent of an audit before we certified the election.’”
The election results for Chucri’s fellow board members support his remarks.
Sellers barely won his election – he received .08 percent more of the vote than his Democratic opponent, Deedra Abboud.
Chucri won comfortably, earning nearly 19 percent more of the vote than his opponent, Democrat Jevin Hodges. As did Hickman – he won by over 16 percent.
Although Supervisor Bill Gates’ win wasn’t as close as either Sellers’, his opponent only lost by less than two percent of the vote.
Chucri went on to say that he should’ve listened to Congressman Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) about that matter. Chucri admitted the county knew that they could’ve audited any percentage of the vote they desired.
“My biggest mistake was listening to that. I should’ve listened to Andy Biggs and I think even Brnovich said you could do 30 percent, you could do 60 percent,” said Chucri. “They went and screwed up there because I didn’t know about it until it was too late.”
Neither Hickman or Sellers responded to inquiries from AZ Free News by press time.
Maricopa County asserted in May that their audits were extensive enough to be considered accurate. They included a thread of 23 tweets with evidence that the Senate audit wasn’t being conducted with the protocols or professionalism of a true audit. Cyber Ninjas is the company contracted by the Senate to conduct the audit.
“Our elections were run w/ integrity, the results certified by the county & state were accurate, & the 2 independent audits conducted by the County are the true final word on the subject,” stated the county. “We know auditing. The Senate Cyber Ninja audit is not a real audit. #azsenateaudit[.]”
The 2020 elections were run w/ integrity, the results certified by the county & state were accurate, & the 2 independent audits conducted by the County are the true final word on the subject. We know auditing. The Senate Cyber Ninja audit is not a real audit. #azsenateaudit
A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) whistleblower leaked statements from fellow HHS professionals admitting their concerns over the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine and current protocols for treatment of infected patients. The whistleblower, Jodi O’Malley, is an HHS nurse at the Phoenix Indian Medical Center who reached out to the nonprofit journalist enterprise, Project Veritas.
O’Malley told Project Veritas in a sit-down interview that she felt compelled to come forward because more patients were coming in with adverse vaccine reactions, yet the government wasn’t reporting them. One of the biggest incentives for O’Malley to speak out was when her coworker passed away after experiencing complications with the vaccine.
One of the officials on video, HHS emergency room doctor Maria Gonzales, expressed frustration with the government’s transparency over the COVID-19 vaccine causing significant numbers of myocarditis cases.
“The government doesn’t want to show that the darn vaccine is full of s***,” said Gonzales.
Gonzales also claimed that the government was hiding the reports of adverse side effects from the vaccine. Gonzales made these remarks in response to O’Malley describing to her a case of a patient experiencing shortness of breath after receiving his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, which was later diagnosed as congestive heart failure. The patient’s elevated BNP, D-Dimer, ALT, liver enzymes, PT-INR levels all were indicative of this diagnosis, according to O’Malley and Gonzales in the video.
“All this is bulls***. Now, [the patient] probably [has] myocarditis due to the vaccine. But now, [the government is] not going to blame the vaccine,” responded Gonzales. “[Government officials] are not reporting [adverse COVID vaccine side effects] because they want to shove it under the mat.”
In the sit-down interview with Project Veritas, O’Malley claimed that the patient’s adverse reaction was never reported.
In another clip, Gonzales asserted that health care providers aren’t doing antibody testing on those who’ve been infected.
Another HHS official, a nurse named Deanna Paris, revealed in a separate clip that current protocol for treating COVID-19 patients isn’t adequate. She expressed concern that it was causing people to suffer and possibly die.
“It’s a shame [the government is] not treating people [with COVID] like they’re supposed to, like they should. I think they want people to die,” remarked Paris.
Another clip submitted by O’Malley depicted her conversation with a pharmacist who explained that they weren’t allowed to have ivermectin at their facility. Remdesivir is the only FDA-approved treatment for COVID-19. The FDA doesn’t approve the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19; they say it hasn’t proven to be safe or effective.
Paris also told O’Malley that she’d seen “a lot” of patients who’d experienced adverse reactions following vaccination. Health care professionals are required by the FDA to submit reports to the HHS Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) concerning emergency use authorization (EUA) vaccines. Yet, Paris said officials haven’t been submitting those reports because they take too long to create.
“Nobody [is writing up these reports] because it takes over a half an hour to write the damn thing,” stated Paris.
To Project Veritas, O’Malley explained that the method for documenting the safety and efficacy of the vaccine inherently relies on individuals to contribute information to the system.
“What the responsibility of everyone is, is to gather that data and report it,” explained O’Malley. “If we are not gathering that data and reporting it, then how are we going to say that this is safe and approved for use?”
O’Malley stated further that the vaccine hasn’t been effective in preventing COVID-19. Rather, she reported seeing “dozens” of patients with adverse vaccine reactions.
One of the youngest patients O’Malley recounted was only 15 and experiencing blood clots. According to O’Malley, the other health care professionals couldn’t understand why the patient was having that issue. However, O’Malley believed the child’s condition was due to the vaccine. The young patient had just received their first dose several weeks earlier, and was otherwise perfectly healthy.
Project Veritas asked if O’Malley feared retaliation from the government or her employers. O’Malley said yes, but she’s not entirely afraid because of her faith in God.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m afraid because my faith lies in God and not man. This is evil at the highest level. You have the FDA, you have the CDC, that are both supposed to be protecting us,” said O’Malley. “At the end of the day, it’s about your health, and you can never get that back, and about your freedom, and about living in a peaceful society, and I’m like, ‘no.’ No. This is the hill that I will die on.”
Watch the entire whistleblower video from Project Veritas here.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Longtime Republican state lawmaker Frank Pratt died Tuesday after a long illness. He was 79.
“Frank Pratt did it all – public servant, business owner, rancher, farmer and family man,” said Gov. Doug Ducey, who ordered flags at all state buildings lowered to half-half on Wednesday to honor the Florence native. “He was one of the good guys, and we’re lucky he called Arizona home.”
Pratt, who lived in Casa Grande, was first elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in November 2008 to serve the citizens of what was then Legislative District 23. After district boundaries were redrawn, Pratt went on to win a House seat in November 2012 of what is now Legislative District 8 across parts of Gila and Pinal counties.
In 2016, Pratt handily beat his Democratic Party opponent to serve LD8 as state senator. Then last November, he won election to return to the House.
Pratt earned extra admiration from his fellow Republican caucus members earlier this year for the dedication he showed during the legislative session, participating daily in House business despite his illness.
“The honor, integrity, and high ethic by which he conducted himself in his service is incomparable,” House Speaker Rusty Bowers said Tuesday in announcing Pratt’s passing. “He loved what he did and wouldn’t let anything stop him from doing it. He never quit.”
Pratt chaired a variety of committees at the Legislature, including the House Judiciary, Senate Transportation and Technology, and the House Energy, Environment and Natural Resources. He was named Legislator of the Year by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce in 2010, and he enjoyed the support of groups like the National Rifle Association and Fraternal Order of Police over the years.
Among those issuing condolences is the Home Builders Association, which called Pratt “a true statesman who looked out for the interests of Pinal County and above all this great state.” The Greater Phoenix Chamber also weighed in, noting Pratt’s “demeanor, leadership and friendship will be sorely missed at the Capitol.”
A statement from the Arizona Lodging & Tourism Association recalled Rep. Pratt’s love for his community and all of Arizona. “We are incredibly grateful for his service and leadership,” the group tweeted. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Janice and his family.”
Sen. T.J. Shope, who served LD8 with Pratt, tweeted that everyone is better off because of his friend’s hard work on behalf of Arizonans.
“Whether it was on his ranch or farm, his successful business, or in the Legislature, he conducted himself with the type of honor & dignity we should all aspire to,” Shope said.
Pratt’s term runs through the end of 2023. In the coming days, the Arizona GOP chairperson will provide formal notice of the vacancy to all elected Republican precinct committeemen (PC) of the Pinal County portion of LD8 where Pratt lived.
Those PCs will have 21 days to nominate three Republican electors who meet the statutory requirements for the seat and who reside in the LD8 area of Pinal County. The Pinal County Board of Supervisors will appoint one of those nominees to fill the remainder of Pratt’s term.
