A woke black “pastor” from California claimed Democrat gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs isn’t racist, prompting Talonya Adams, the staffer twice vindicated in court for racial discrimination she faced under Hobbs, to rebuke him.
Robinson, a Californian and former Arizonan who claims to be a Christian pastor despite violating Scripture, claimed Hobbs’ actions were mistakes.
“Contrary to popular beliefs, Katie Hobbs isn’t racist. If she was, I would let you know,” tweeted Robinson. “She made mistakes. We all do. AZ, she needs your vote on Nov 8th!”
Contrary to popular beliefs, @katiehobbs isn't racist. If she was, I would let you know. She made mistakes. We all do. AZ, she needs your vote on Nov 8th!
In response, Adams said Robinson’s claim was a lie and quoted a Bible verse condemning liars.
“This is a lie Redeem,” wrote Adams. “Proverbs 12:22: Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.”
This is a lie Redeem.
Proverbs 12:22: Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight. https://t.co/TMHmomzjNi
— Talonya Adams 🇺🇸 (personal acct) (@TalonyaAdams) October 23, 2022
Robinson came to Phoenix earlier this week to do voter outreach on behalf of Democratic candidates.
Black voter outreach in Phoenix! Arizona has some amazing Black faith leaders. Thankful for them letting me come through to inform their churches and drop off material about the upcoming election! #WeWontBlackDown ✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿 pic.twitter.com/kvwi2w5IFF
Over the past decade until last year, Robinson was involved throughout Arizona as a “pastor” at various churches, a political activist, and politician. Robinson served as a “pastor” with All Nations Temple AME Zion Church in Tucson, then Ebenezer Church in Phoenix.
Robinson also served as a field director for the Arizona Democratic Party; a southwest organizing manager for Need to Impeach, a PAC to oppose former President Donald Trump founded and principally funded by Democratic dark money kingpin Tom Steyer; a state deputy political director for Steyer’s 2020 presidential run; a campaign manager for the scandal-ridden, leftist dark money nonprofits Arizona Coalition for Change/Our Voice Our Vote; founder of the Tucson chapter of Black Lives Matter (BLM); the Black Engagement Committee founder and Sergeant At Arms for the Maricopa County Democratic Party.
The “sex-positive” Robinson was also a failed 2018 Democratic candidate for the Arizona Senate. His candidacy took a hit from news coverage of domestic violence charges filed by his ex-girlfriend, with whom he had a child out of wedlock. (He has a total of three daughters, who he says live in Arizona while he lives in California). The court later dismissed the charges against Robinson because the prosecutor’s office wasn’t prepared to proceed.
It appears that Robinson’s latest efforts are a fusion of alleged “Christianity” and political activism: All Souls Movement, a nonprofit he founded and directs. Robinson pays himself to do “paid partnership” social media posts for his nonprofit; earlier this month, he posted a video on Instagram telling people to “not be an a**hole” and claiming that being a Christian doesn’t mean abstaining from sin. Notably, Robinson didn’t cite any Scripture to justify his claims.
“Jesus’ ministry was as simple as it. Literally, His ministry on earth was telling us don’t be an asshole. With the richer getting richer and poor getting poorer, and white supremacy going unchecked, and racism out of control, and homophobia, xenophobia, and transphobia, and sexism just out of control,” said Robinson. “We need to hear daily. Don’t be an asshole. That’s what true holiness is about. It’s not about long dresses and abstaining from certain things. It’s about treating other people right so that the world can be a better place.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs issued unproven claims on Tuesday that Arizona State University (ASU) was required to shutter its campus due to protests and threats of violence incited by her opponent, Kari Lake.
Hobbs accused Lake of inciting death threats and racial slurs against ASU staff, though it appears that the claims originated from one of her campaign staffers. However, no protest occurred and no threats were reported.
.@katiehobbs has spent her career demonizing her political opposition.
She does this while constantly painting herself as a victim.
Today, Katie told Arizona that she was afraid of the protest that would be waiting for her at @ASU.
According to the Yellow Sheet Report, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism Dean Battinto Batts said that they haven’t received any threats. Batts clarified that his directive for online classes were due to students and staff concerned about a “potential” for protestors and fellow journalists outside campus buildings.
“[W]e haven’t received any formal threats at the Cronkite School/Arizona PBS,” stated Batts.
Tonight, I will be appearing on Arizona PBS filmed at ASU. Kari Lake’s temper tantrum last week led to death threats and racial slurs toward their staff. Now, faculty and students are advised not to go on their own campus. I am outraged by her dangerous rhetoric. pic.twitter.com/MDhFfPcH4s
It appears that the claim of threats and protests originated with Hobbs’ campaign. Last Thursday, an unnamed Hobbs staffer told CNN reporter Kyung Lah that their campaign’s security team met with ASU for Tuesday’s Q&A. According to the staffer, an unnamed, female ASU operator reported intercepting death threats and racist slurs.
“A @katiehobbs staffer tells me Hobbs security met w/ ASU re: security for the town hall next week,” stated Lah. “A rash of death threats have come in since @KariLake’s presser last night and the ASU operator picking up those threatening calls has been called racist slurs (she is Black).”
A @katiehobbs staffer tells me Hobbs security met w/ ASU re: security for the town hall next week. A rash of death threats have come in since @KariLake’s presser last night and the ASU operator picking up those threatening calls has been called racist slurs (she is Black) 1/2
State Representative John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) told the “Conservative Circus” that the Cronkite School’s cowardice would cause their namesake, Walter Cronkite, to turn over in his grave. Kavanagh declared that the Cronkite School twice violated one of the cardinal rules of journalism: not becoming the story.
“I would not be surprised if his ghost rises up tonight with a can of spray paint and go to that school and spray paint out his name,” said Kavanagh. “First they became the story when they violated their agreement with Clean Elections and put their thumb on the elections scale in favor of Katie Hobbs, and now this absolutely ridiculous story that journalism students are threatened and afraid to go to demonstrations.”
AZ State Rep. John Kavanagh discusses the shutdown of Arizona State University due to fear of violence around the C https://t.co/nmeTMGtNQ9
After her specially awarded Q&A session with AZPBS, Hobbs went on a Twitter rant lasting nine posts describing her vision for Arizona: increased diversity hires in state government, no limits on abortion, tax cuts for 800,000 families, a teacher salary raise averaging $14,000, border security, and immediate action on the water crisis. Several of her tweets called out Lake, arguing that Lake’s insistence on having a debate was a distraction from her inability to defend her policies.
Kari Lake’s desperate attempts to create a spectacle are a distraction from dangerous positions she can't defend. Today makes clear she has no intention of actually telling voters her plans to govern.
Debate about debates is over. I have real plans to lead Arizona forward #AZGOV
These other claims made by Hobbs also don’t appear to pan out. Lake has consistently agreed to a debate against Hobbs, and engaged in numerous interviews with a wide range of media outlets.
LOL: Katie Hobbs just went on @CNN and said that I refuse to talk to reporters
Lake even invited Hobbs to debate her on Tuesday rather than do back-to-back Q&A sessions. She encouraged AZPBS to restructure their Q&A into a debate for Arizonans’ benefit.
The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission (AZCCEC) gubernatorial debate will take place on Sunday, following its postponement last week. Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake promised to attend, but not Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs. It’s unlikely Hobbs will attend, given her consistent refusal to debate Lake.
Whereas before Hobbs had no Arizona PBS (AZPBS) or AZCCEC opportunities to showcase her platform due to her refusal to debate, Hobbs now has two opportunities: a special interview on Tuesday that caused the AZCCEC to split from AZPBS and the Arizona legislature to threaten to defund AZPBS, and the newly rescheduled Sunday debate.
🚨Breaking 🚨
Thank you to @AZCEC for rescheduling the gubernatorial debate with a new broadcast partner.
Arizona voters deserve this. I’m looking forward to being there. @katiehobbs, given how badly last week went for you, I hope you find the courage to join me. https://t.co/P0FCvP4M8s
Battinto Batts, dean of Arizona State University’s (ASU) Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, defended the AZPBS decision to work around AZCCEC and the Arizona law on candidate debates. ASU owns AZPBS.
“It is our responsibility as a news agency to provide the public with access to the candidates who are running for office so they can learn more and make informed decisions,” said Batts.
ASU President Michael Crow concurred with Batts’ sentiment, saying that while he didn’t direct AZPBS to make a special exception for Hobbs, he did stress the importance of doing so.
“[I] did indicate that we need to continue to fulfill our mission of unbiased and nonpartisan coverage of public figures and talk to important people in the public realm like Lake and Hobbs to have the public learn of their views, even if there is no debate,” stated Crow.
AZPBS also offered Lake a one-on-one interview for Tuesday. However, Lake rejected the offer. She said she would only accept Tuesday’s invitation if it were reformatted to be a debate between her and Hobbs.
Hobbs accused Lake of avoiding difficult questions by refusing the invitation — similar to the accusations Lake leveled against her for months.
And there you have it. If Kari Lake can’t create a spectacle and has to take tough questions about her dangerous record, she won’t participate. https://t.co/A6EasmsZCF
Lake dismissed rumors that she or her supporters were planning to protest Hobbs’ interview at ASU.
Kari Lake supporters are not planning to waste their time today and “protest” at ASU. We are planning a lovely chicken dinner and candidate forum in Chandler tonight to talk about the actual issues facing Arizonans.
Even so, Hobbs accused Lake of stirring up violence against her and ASU.
Tonight, I will be appearing on Arizona PBS filmed at ASU. Kari Lake’s temper tantrum last week led to death threats and racial slurs toward their staff. Now, faculty and students are advised not to go on their own campus. I am outraged by her dangerous rhetoric. pic.twitter.com/MDhFfPcH4s
“The debate debacle continues this morning,” the TV anchor said, laughing. “The never-ending story of Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs choosing not to debate her opponent, Kari Lake.”
That’s what Arizona voters heard last week as they woke up and turned on one of Phoenix’s most popular morning news programs. They’ve been hearing it for months.
Hobbs’ refusal to debate Lake, the Republican nominee, has become the defining story of the gubernatorial race, one that started out as a 20-year precedent-breaking decision and has morphed a larger-than-life narrative about the Democrat’s political judgment and skittishness, with multiple left-leaning media outlets, from MSNBC and The View to the Arizona Republic and the New York Times, all asking the same question: What in the world is she thinking?
Hobbs claims it’s because her opponent is too far to the right. In reality, her national headline-making stage fright has been going on for much longer than the general election.
It began in April when Hobbs declined to participate in a June 30th debate with her Democratic primary opponent Marco López, the former mayor of Nogales and chief of staff at U.S. Customs and Border Protection under President Barack Obama. With one exception, Hobbs was the only statewide candidate in Arizona who declined. López used light political pressure hoping to change her mind — he’d often ask the crowd: “¿Dónde está Katie?” — but, when approached by the local press in May, Hobbs’ campaign claimed that she had (conveniently) scheduled “multiple events in Tucson” on June 30th and couldn’t make the two-hour drive back to Phoenix.
López understood. So, he wrote a letter to the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, the government body that organized the debate, granting it permission to “reschedule the debate to a time and date that fits into the Secretary’s busy schedule” over the next 40-plus days. Hobbs declined to reschedule.
When June 30th arrived, a local reporter reached out to Hobbs for comment on her absence. She must have been pretty busy that day, what with “multiple events in Tucson.” But why were no photographs posted online? Oh, about those events, her campaign responded … um, they were canceled. The candidate had come down with a (convenient) case of COVID.
Three days later, Hobbs was spotted, mask-less, waving a flag at a crowded parade in Flagstaff. A superb immune system, indeed.
It wasn’t long after the general election began that Hobbs announced she would not be debating Lake, either. Instead, the Democrat demanded separate one-on-one TV interviews — but that’s not how the Clean Elections process works. Candidates who bow out are not rewarded for doing so. Hobbs insisted that Lake would create a spectacle if the debate format were not right, so the Commission held a formal meeting to appease her, during which its chairman asked her campaign manager point-blank: “Is there any scenario where Ms. Hobbs will share the stage with Ms. Lake in a debate?”
She dismissed his “hypothetical” question and refused to offer an alternate format, and the Commission ruled that the October 12th debate would go on with or without the Democrat in attendance. (Lake said that her opponent was free to change her mind at any time.)
The morning of October 12th, Hobbs joined MSNBC for a softball segment … a little too soft. Because Hobbs got a little too comfortable and accidentally blabbed to the host, as if in the middle of a private conversation, that “PBS is also giving me the same format that Kari Lake has.”
Oops. That secret arrangement wasn’t supposed to come out until after Lake’s interview that evening.
You see, Arizona PBS is the Commission’s official broadcast partner, a relationship that provides the station with unique access to high-profile debates in exchange for complying with the Commission’s rulings when candidates disagree. It turned out that Arizona PBS had struck a side-deal with the Hobbs campaign to shoot and air the one-on-one interview she’d been begging for, right as voters received their early ballots.
The Commission had no clue that the station violated its agreement — and wouldn’t have until it was too late, had Hobbs not accidentally revealed it on live TV. The Commission was forced to cancel the long-planned debate with hours to spare in order to find a new broadcast partner it could trust. In response, Lake held a press conference condemning Arizona PBS’ “backroom deal” with Hobbs, which a source informed her was made at the behest of Michael Crow, the politically connected and contentious president of Arizona State University. (ASU owns and operates Arizona PBS.)
Approached for comment the next morning, Crow denied directing the backroom deal with Hobbs but acknowledged that “he let his preference be known” to the station (which I am certain Arizona PBS interpreted in the exact way that Crow meant it). The Commission’s executive director described himself as “bewildered” by Crow’s political meddling — casting him as “the most powerful man in Arizona” other than the governor — and decried the appearance that “ASU was playing favorites with the candidates.”
Much like Crow, Mi-Ai Parrish, a managing director at ASU who helps oversee Arizona PBS, also “wouldn’t say who made the call to invite” the Democrat. Hobbs herself is similarly claiming now that “I wasn’t involved in those conversations” with ASU — which, again, is a strange series of denials coming from several people who insist they did the right thing.
A Republican state legislator has already announced plans to file a bill that will strip the state’s ties to Arizona PBS as a result of it circumventing the Clean Elections ruling. And, unfortunately for ASU, it doesn’t appear that Hobbs will be in a position to veto it.
Outside of vomiting on herself on-stage, I cannot fathom a single humiliation Hobbs could have endured in a 30-minute debate that would have been worse than the six-month headache of negative headlines her refusal has caused. Two separate polls released this month reflect that reality, finding that the Republican nominee enjoys a 3-point lead heading into Election Day, with even CNN’s Dana Bash acknowledging Monday that “the fact that [Hobbs] won’t debate has given Kari Lake a very wide opening.”
At the end of the day, Arizonans vote for who shows up — and, so far, Katie Hobbs hasn’t.
Brian Anderson is founder of the Saguaro Group, an Arizona-based political research firm.
Undercover video revealed that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs’ campaign travels with an AR-15 firearm in the car for protection, contradicting Hobbs’ long-held desire to ban assault weapons.
Hobbs’ head consultant, Joseph Wolf, told an undercover Project Veritas reporter that they traveled with an AR-15 because it was “easier to fire than a handgun.” In a separate clip, Wolf stated that Hobbs would do everything in her power to issue an assault weapons ban.
“There’s nothing she could do about it, at least immediately, right? Except advocating for it publicly, which is really more impactful once you’re governor,” said Wolf. “This state is unfortunately crazy in love with their guns.”
Other undercover videos obtained by Project Veritas showed that grassroots activists assisting with Hobbs’ campaign were troubled by her, especially her refusal to debate Republican opponent Kari Lake. Field organizer Jasper Adams with Mission For Arizona, which is a group funded by the Arizona Democratic Party, disclosed that they had “a lot of concerns” about Hobbs’ campaign.
Adams disclosed further that his group wasn’t privy to the reason behind Hobbs’ refusal to debate Lake. He explained that even Hobbs’ communications director, who he described as freshly hired and not prepared, didn’t know why Hobbs wouldn’t debate Lake. The closest thing to an answer Adams received: the Hobbs campaign wouldn’t need a debate because they wouldn’t lose Democratic voters, and only Democratic voters care about a debate.
“They basically said only Democrats care about debates and it’s not going to change anything,” said Adams. “Either it wouldn’t persuade people one way or the other or it wouldn’t help her.”
Hobbs has long supported a ban on assault weapons, which gun control advocates usually mean to include AR-15s.
We must refuse to accept that nothing can be done about gun violence. Renew the assault weapons ban that was allowed to expire for starters. https://t.co/b2eKtdSsLL
While minority leader for the state senate in 2018, Hobbs lamented to Arizona PBSthat the state legislature wasn’t going to ban assault weapons.
“Unfortunately, it’s been business as usual,” said Hobbs. “There seems to be no push to do anything different than we have, and that’s to ignore bills we have put forward that would bring about common sense solutions to end gun violence.”
I literally quoted a list of all the shootings committed w/AR15’s.
Hobbs supports “common-sense gun reform” proposed by groups like Everytown. Their suggested policies include the prohibition of assault weapons, which they classified as high-powered semiautomatic firearms, or AR-15s. (Note: the “AR” in “AR-15” doesn’t stand for “assault rifle,” it stands for “ArmaLite Rifle” after the company that developed it originally in the 1950s).
Today is #WearOrange Day, which honors the more than 40,000 lives lost to gun violence in America every year. We will always remember you, but we will never forget why you’re gone. We need common-sense gun reform now. @Everytownpic.twitter.com/bzCAl3EDXP
Those opposed to gun control advocates disagree with the characterization of AR-15 as an assault weapon. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms industry trade association, argues that assault rifles are fully automatic, like machine guns.
In 1994, Congress included AR-15s in the “Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act,” or the “Federal Assault Weapons Ban.” The ban on AR-15s lasted until 2004. A vast majority of the studies on the effects of the ban concluded that its effects were negligible on gun crime.
President Joe Biden claimed last March that the decade-long Federal Assault Weapons Ban resulted in a reduction in mass killings. However, even FactCheckdisputed his claim.
Hobbs has also historically opposed concealed carry. In June, Hobbs decried the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision to strike down New York’s restriction on concealed carry.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
