AZ Right Wing Watch has an excellent free Substack I strongly recommend, and today they are bringing receipts on AZSPI Tom Horne’s ongoing extremely problematic hiring for his attack on our children’s minds.
“Tom Horne’s Reign Begins (Again)
Unfortunately for Arizona students, racist old bigot Tom Horne is back as State Superintendent, replacing Kathy Hoffman. Horne previously served as Superintendent from 2003 – 2011 and dedicated his career to fighting “critical race theory” before “CRT” fear-mongering was a common right-wing grievance. For years, Horne fought to ban Tucson Unified School District’s “ethnic studies” classes, specifically Mexican-American studies. His campaign was filled with anti-“CRT” and anti-LGBTQ+ messaging. Horne has even expressed interest in banning bilingual education, a critical resource for Arizona’s bilingual students.
His first actions highlight what is sure to be a long four years. According to Republican Briefs, Horne has already removed several resources from the Department of Education website, including information on social-emotional learning, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Also removed is the LGBTQ+ mental health resource Q Chat (short for Queer Chat) which was targeted by an anti-LGBTQ+ bigot and propagandist Chaya Raichik/Libs of TikTok.
Horne’s first batch of hires is just as concerning. As first reported by 12 News’ Brahm Resnik, new Department of Education worker, Mila Makal, was exposed for sharing far-right and misogynistic content online:
The 12 News segment highlights Makal horny posting on main and notes some right-wing content, including anti-Biden content and a Candace Owens meme. However, some of his most egregious content was missed.
Makal’s social media was packed with typical right-wing complaints – vaccines, Joe Biden, Hunter’s laptop, the usual. Littered throughout also included far more explicit content. Makal’s “Like” page features several “Kekistan” pages, including “Troll army Kekistan Division,” “The People’s Republic of Kekistan,” “Sacellum Kekellum,” “Pepes of Kekistan,” and “Kekistan News.” Kekistan is a 4chan-created fictional country that displays a mock German Nazi war flag with “KEK” in the place of the traditional swastika. His “Like” page also features several pro-Confederacy pages.
In response to an article on anti-LGBTQ concentration camps in Chechnya, Makal wrote: “Pink triangles getting squared.”
Other far-right content includes Makal fanboying over French fascist Marine Le Pen. One comic he shared features a Viking-dressed woman kicking a pig-faced Muslim man out of Britain. Stamped in the sky of the Islamophobic image includes a Othala rune. In another post, he quotes from Revolt Against the Modern World author and Italian fascist Julius Evola.
Also in his “Likes” includes a page called “Goy-ish Memes for the Enlightened.” The cover photo reads “race, tradition, family,” in the fraktur font and features a swastika variant in the corner. The page’s content includes explicitly pro-nazi, pro-Hitler memes.
uhhhh yikes? Makal is just one more example of Horne’s white nationalist affiliations. During his campaign, Horne also hired and defended white supremacist and child molester David Stringer. Mikal will be serving as the “director of character” for the Department of Education.”
Apparently, Arizona voters have signed us up for 4 years of hateful racism and homophobia at the Department of Education because they just couldn’t handle the fantasy of Arizona schools teaching Critical Race Theory (which they already weren’t).
Seriously, scum like Makal should not be on the public payroll at all, let alone responsible for children’s ‘character’. A small fault in the above Substack post is there was no live link to Makal’s Like Page, which I remedy here. Also, I noticed this Makal guy claims on his FB Page that he’s still working on his GED? WTF? I also noted that Makal’s page indicates his appreciation of the German neo-Nazi party, AfD, as well as a constellation of mysognyist, racist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic tropes and groups. This guy is a creep.
Let Horne know that you object.
Possibly a place in Horne’s creepy education administration for our favorite Thuckwad? Seems he’d fit right in.