SOS, Gubernatorial Candidate Katie Hobbs Supports Abortions Up Until Birth

SOS, Gubernatorial Candidate Katie Hobbs Supports Abortions Up Until Birth

By Corinne Murdock |

Arizona Secretary of State and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs offered a more definitive stance on abortion limitations last week. In short — none. Hobbs rejected the notion that the law must determine at what point abortions should be restricted. Rather, Hobbs insisted that such a decision should be left between the mother and doctor.

When pressed by AZFamily Political Editor Dennis Welch on where she drew the line, Hobbs reiterated that the decision wasn’t up to her but to each individual. That could mean up until the point of birth. Hobbs later tweeted that the right to unfettered abortion access was a mark of equality for women in society.

“Women deserve action to abortion care. Abortion is health care,” said Hobbs. “Abortion is a personal decision between a woman and her family and doctor. That’s something that needs to be discussed in the medical exam room, not by politicians.”

Hobbs called the latest law banning abortions after 15 weeks a danger to women. Her arguments reflected her exact sentiments from when Governor Doug Ducey signed the abortion ban into law. Hobbs declared that limiting abortion was depriving women of their constitutional freedom.

“Today marks a giant step backward in the fight for equality for women across Arizona and across the country,” said Hobbs. “With Governor Ducey’s signature, our elected leaders have chosen to turn their backs on the overwhelming majority of Arizonans who support the constitutional right to choose. Make no mistake — stripping away women’s constitutional rights won’t stop women from seeking access to reproductive health care. But the passage of this misogynistic law clarifies the very real and dangerous consequences of electing leaders who are willing to throw away our rights and set us back a generation.”

Abortion up until birth would be consistent with Hobbs’ longstanding views on the subject of abortion. During her time as a state senator, Hobbs said that abortion didn’t equal infanticide and that “abortion” wasn’t a bad word.

According to Hobbs’ cumulative 2021 campaign finance report, she received hundreds from Planned Parenthood of Arizona leaders: $250 from lobbyist Jodi Liggett, $500 from president Bryan Howard, and $75 from their external affairs. Planned Parenthood of Arizona also endorsed Hobbs for her races in the state legislature and for secretary of state.

In a 2012 interview with Planned Parenthood for Arizona, Hobbs claimed that pregnancy was just as dangerous as abortion. She also advocated for the controversial curriculum of comprehensive sex education for K-12 schools.

If elected, Hobbs wouldn’t be the only official to oppose the law. The Democratic candidate for Maricopa County Attorney, Julie Gunnigle, pledged to not enforce Arizona’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks.

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Acclaimed Twitter Account Warning Arizona Parents About Radical Leftists Suspended

Acclaimed Twitter Account Warning Arizona Parents About Radical Leftists Suspended

By Corinne Murdock |

This week, Twitter silenced another prominent conservative voice — this time, one relied on heavily by parents and older generations distant from today’s social media fads. Libs of TikTok, the social media account that offered parents insight on what the world was exposing to their children through educators and pop culture, was suspended for 12 hours on Twitter. The social media giant said that the account’s content violated rules on hateful conduct: promoting violence against, threatening, or harassing other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliatoin, age, disability, or serious disease. 

Effectively, Twitter implemented its “account-level enforcement” of “placing an account in read-only mode.” Twitter noted that it saved these account-level tactics for “particularly egregious” or repeated violations of its rules. 

The account launched in November 2020, reposting videos from the Chinese social media app TikTok in order to display a more comprehensive view of the left’s political ideology. It began to pick up more popularity last summer, jumping from under 100 likes to several hundred to thousands within months. The account owner’s identity remains anonymous, but virtual anonymous interviews revealed that the owner is female. 

According to social media analyses, Libs of Tiktok’s most-used words included, in order: teacher, students, school, parents, and kids. At the time of her suspension, she had close to 612,000 followers. The highest number of retweets achieved on one tweet revealing that a school nurse was suspended over “transphobic comments” reached over 6,000, while the highest number of likes reached over 26,000 on a clip of Fox News host Tucker Carlson praising her work.

News of the account’s suspension came from Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee: a satire news company that was banned from Twitter. The satire site’s ban occurred after it published the story, “The Babylon Bee’s Man Of The Year Is Rachel Levine,” poking fun at the current U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) assistant secretary of health.

As evident, the offending content of both Twitter accounts remain available. However, Twitter stipulated to The Babylon Bee that it must remove the offending tweet before it may access its account. Twitter placed no such stipulation on Libs of TikTok — the suspension functioned as a warning to moderate future content.

AZ Free News has relied on Libs of TikTok and even TikTok itself for our reporting. In October, we discovered that the teacher nominated by Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs for a national youth leadership award was pushing the vast majority of popular left-wing political ideologies in her elementary school classroom. Libs of TikTok helped notify Arizonans and the world of the three female students at Arizona State University (ASU) who harassed two fellow students for being white males with perceived conservative attire in their multicultural center.

Most recently, Libs of Tik Tok revealed an American government class at ASU telling students that state efforts to require voter ID, get rid of permanent early voting lists, restrict early voting, remove mail-in voting, and close primaries were forms of voter suppression.

Although Libs of TikTok was banned from Twitter, versions of the account exist elsewhere: Instagram, Rumble, GETTR, YouTube, and Gab.

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Woke Teacher Becomes Arizona’s First Inductee Into National Teachers Hall of Fame

Woke Teacher Becomes Arizona’s First Inductee Into National Teachers Hall of Fame

By Corinne Murdock |

A Phoenix special education teacher, Kareem Neal, moved up in the world of honors bestowed on educators: this year, he became Arizona’s first teacher inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame. Neal, the 2019 Arizona Teacher of the Year, teaches at Maryvale High School and also works as a restorative justice trainer at Phoenix Union High School District (PXU). 

Neal would qualify as “woke” in the modern political landscape: he supports social justice efforts like anti-racism and LGBTQ+ normalization. In an August 2019 article, Neal argued that teachers must do more than teach — they must support and affirm lifestyles and community. Neal attributed that realization to the moment when he discovered Maryvale High School’s social justice club, Panthertown, having an annual “camp” with activities encouraging students to “break free of the things (race, gender, sexuality, ability, etc.) that prevent[ed] them from connecting with their peers.” Neal serves as the club’s sponsor currently. 

Neal said that experience prompted him to “break out of [his] comfort zone” of only engaging with his special education students and branch out to the other students outside his class.

“To be truly effective, teachers must do more than simply teach students. They have to become a real part of the community,” wrote Neal. “I am positive that I could not teach at a school where all of the teachers just taught lessons and went home. I need for my school and its surrounding area to be my community.”

In the wake of the George Floyd riots, Neal declared that white supremacy could exist among even “nice, white folks” if they don’t commit to anti-racism. Neal also said that teachers shouldn’t be teaching black children if they reject anti-racism.

“We need [white people] to sacrifice the privilege, comforts, and advantages that comes with whiteness to FORCE our systems to distribute power differently. We don’t need your niceties. We need your sacrifice,” said Neal. 

Neal’s remarks fit nicely with President Joe Biden’s campaign, and he was featured in an August 2020 campaign video. Neal criticized former President Donald Trump’s call to reopen schools, casting Trump as reckless and unempathetic while characterizing Biden as caring and knowledgeable. 

When the video aired, Neal bragged about how he forced Biden’s campaign to make the commercial.

For all the social justice beliefs he’s defended, Neal has denied that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is being taught in the classroom. Last August, Neal gathered with other states’ teachers of the year in a seminar discussing how CRT was misrepresented, noting that concepts like social justice and anti-racism were separate from CRT. Arizona State University (ASU) Project Humanities founding director Neal Lester organized the event. 

In an ASU panel last February dedicated to explaining “anti-racist parenting,” Neal revealed that he discusses racism with his students through skits, writing activities, and community-building circles. Neal said that everyone is racist and that America is a racist society.

Amid his frequent bouts of activism, Neal was fined and disciplined in 2018 for engaging in political activity for Invest In Education, a national progressive campaign abbreviated to #InvestInEd, on the taxpayer’s dime, as the Arizona Daily Independent reported. Neal promoted the campaign by displaying one of its signs in his classroom. His district ordered him to pay $225 and placed him on a one-day suspension without pay. 

Earlier that year, Neal also participated in a walk-in to support Red For Education, or #RedforEd, another national progressive campaign to increase teacher funding with walk-outs. Walk-ins consisted of teachers gathering early in front of schools wearing red and holding signs to signal Red for Education support. 

The fine didn’t deter Neal from engaging in political activities again, however. Last April, Neal announced that he was serving as Arizona Department of Education Superintendent Kathy Hoffman’s campaign chairman for reelection. 

In addition to teaching, Neal has undertaken other leadership roles. Neal served as a member of the Arizona Department of Education’s African American Advisory Council, director on the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and vice president of PXU’s Black Alliance. Neal was also entrusted with curriculum development as a PXU Peer Learning Community leader.

The Arizona educators put forth for national recognition tend to share values like Neal’s. As AZ Free News reported, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs nominated an elementary school teacher incorporating social justice and activism in her classroom for the national John Lewis Youth Leadership Award.

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Scottsdale Principal Required Middle School Teachers to Attend Grooming Training

Scottsdale Principal Required Middle School Teachers to Attend Grooming Training

By Corinne Murdock |

Last March, Cocopah Middle School Principal Nick Noonan required teachers to attend a training on supporting and affirming LGBTQ+ ideologies in children. Email records show Noonan paid $500 in school funds for the two-hour training, “Safer Spaces,” conducted by the Phoenix chapter of Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a national organization pushing LGBTQ+ ideologies onto minors and communities. Noonan characterized the training as professional development in an email obtained by AZ Free News.

The middle school’s GLSEN-affiliated club, Gender & Sexualities Alliance (GSA), club sponsor Laynee Langner requested the training. According to emails obtained by AZ Free News, Langner asked for the training out of concern that some teachers weren’t calling students by their preferred names. Langner advocated for Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) to allow students to wear IDs reflecting their preferred name rather than their given name, which they called a “deadname.”

For intervening on behalf of the children in the deadname debacle, GLSEN Phoenix awarded Langner and her club “GSA of the Year” late last year.

The act of grooming indicates preparing something or someone for a specific objective. In recent decades, that term became associated with the grooming of children for sexual purposes, such as pedophiles preparing children for molestation. Grooming usually happens to minors, but it may also occur with adults. Those who groom, nicknamed “groomers,” attempt to build trust, dependency, and other emotional connections with their target in order to manipulate and exploit them. 

Over the last few years, opponents of sexualized K-12 curriculum and activities have identified its proponents as “groomers.”

The Cocopah Middle School “Safer Spaces” training from last March occurred over Zoom, and no recording was made available. However, the GLSEN website offers a 52-page “Safe Space Kit” for educators, which the organization also calls their “Guide to Being an Ally to LGBTQ Students.” 

The guide has educators assess their personal beliefs to “dismantl[e] internalized homophobia and transphobia.” It doesn’t broach the topic of educators whose personal beliefs may conflict directly with LGBTQ+ ideologies, such as Christianity. The guide also teaches that sex is fluid, or “gender identity.”

Additionally, the guide instructs educators make it known they support LGBTQ+ children by posting LGBTQ+ materials like stickers and posters in their classroom or office, wearing LGBTQ+ buttons or wristbands, telling other educators they support LGBTQ+ students, reforming their speech to avoid gendered terms like “he” or “she” and instead use “they,” and rebuking anyone who displays “anti-LGBTQ+” behavior. It further instructs educators to hide the information a student discloses to them about their sexual orientation or gender identity from that student’s parents.

Educators are also told that they should incorporate LGBTQ+ ideologies in their curriculum and activities. Activism is encouraged: a checklist asks educators to review their school for LGBTQ+ inclusivity, such as gender-neutral or private bathrooms, transgender-friendly sports teams, and gender-neutral alternatives to Prom King and Queen.

In the concluding portion of the guide, educators are told to make an action plan of their own: how they can support LGBTQ+ students, educate students and staff on LGBTQ+ issues, advocate for relevant changes at their school, and what further resources or help they need to make their action plan possible.

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.

Arizona Legislature to Delay Proof of Citizenship for Voting Bill

Arizona Legislature to Delay Proof of Citizenship for Voting Bill

By Corinne Murdock |

Enactment of the proof of citizenship requirement for voter registration will be delayed until 2023, following an amendment approved by the Arizona House on Monday. The amendment was tacked on to SB1638, a bill to provide accessible voting options for the blind or visually impaired. Governor Doug Ducey signed the original bill, HB2492, into law two weeks ago. The State Senate now must approve the amendment. Without the amendment, the legislation would go in effect at the end of June — 90 days after Ducey signed the bill. 

Arizona Free Enterprise Club Deputy Director Greg Blackie explained to AZ Free News that the delay was necessary to avoid having the requirement enacted between the primary and general elections, which would allow some individuals to vote in the primary and not the general election several months later. 

Blackie added that the two lawsuits seeking a preliminary injunction of the law were another factor for delaying its enactment. Such lawsuits were expected — promised, even, by the DNC’s Russiagate hoax lawyer Marc Elias.

“It was always going to be tied up in court, and the delayed effective date might actually prevent a preliminary injunction allowing the provisions to protect our voter rolls from ineligible applicants and the required investigation by the attorney general’s office of the federal-only voter list to go into effect after this election, instead of being on hold for a trial and decision that could come much later,” said Blackie. 

The law requires that individuals provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. It also requires election officials to cross-reference applications with government databases to confirm citizenship. The law most heavily impacts federal-only voters, since they don’t have to offer proof of citizenship when voting. According to the bill sponsor, State Representative Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), there were over 11,000 Arizona voters in the 2020 election who didn’t offer proof of citizenship when voting. That number was about 1,700 in 2018. 

The amendment was approved mostly along party lines. State Representative Amish Shah (D-Phoenix) joined House Republicans to pass the amendment. 

The remainder of Democrats voted against the amendment. They held that the amendment was a fix for a “flawed” and “unconstitutional” bill. 

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.