John Huppenthal called a press conference to apologize for his outrageous comments on the Intermet, posted anonymously. He said he would not resign as he faces re-election. He broke down and cried.
“”I’m here to renounce those blog comments,” Huppenthal told reporters. “They’re not what is in my mind, they don’t reflect the love that is in my heart.”
A sample of the comments that don’t reflect what is in his mind or heart:
“”No spanish radio stations, no spanish billboards, no spanish tv stations, no spanish newspapers. This is America, speak English,” he wrote, according to the Arizona Republic.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
crocodile tears; he weeps for himself in case he loses his election and his “percs” of being superior to the world
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Crocodile tears is right!
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Just a pansy liar.
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He must have attended the Donald Sterling School of Diplomacy.
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I cannot believe how many people I meet in every state including where I live (NY) who say that, and argue about how THEIR grandparents had to learn English. This is an issue that will not go away! And this man is an idiot.
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I bet a lot of the same people wish they were multilingual.
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Hee hee… a lot of those people are barely ‘lingual’ in English.
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Listen, Huppenthal, you are living in this country. It’s time you learned to speak the language.
Or one of the languages.
Muskogean, Na-Dene, Siouan-Catawban, Wappo, Yana, Zuni–whichever you like. Take your pick.
But if you aren’t willing to put in the minimal effort to do this, you should go back where you and your people came from.
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hee, hee!
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I have never understood this. I have always envied Europeans the close proximity to speakers of many other languages. The RICHES OF THAT!!!!
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We’re getting there. In my neighborhood in Tampa, I would say that for about 70 percent of the speakers, Spanish was the first language. Almost all are fluently bilingual.
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Frankly, if I were someone who voted for Huppenthal, I’d be a little concerned that he’s renouncing his comments at all. They seem to be a regurgitation of the platform he ran on a couple years ago. What’s next, La Raza?
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If you consider that tv/cable can be in many languages, there are stores that sell different country’s foods are all over, you can have your computers and cell phones in different languages, you can purchase newspapers of several countries at the local grocery stores, and there are many communities that band together of like nationalities, religions, etc., today most immigrants don’t need to learn another language as before.
I still find many children who are embarrassed by their parent’s inability to speak English however. I try to encourage them to learn their parents’ native languages.
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I cannot recommend highly enough Edwin Black’s breathtaking book War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race.
The book is a history of a time in the United States when eugenics was ALL THE RAGE among U.S. intellectuals, plutocrats, and government officials. Sanger definitely supported force sterilizations of the “feeble minded” and screening by intellectual ability of immigrants. But her views were nothing compared to those held by many Americans at the time.
The Eugenics Record Office (the ERO) at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, which was funded by E. H. Harriman), the Rockefeller family, and the Carnegie Institution and supported in its work by many U.S. government bureaucrats, actually drew up a report recommending that the bottom 10 percent of the U.S. population, by IQ, be EUTHANIZED to preserve the purity of the U.S. genetic stock.
The ERO also drew up model legislation for mandatory sterilization of the “feeble minded” that was passed in half the states in the country, and the U.S. federal government adopted, under pressure from the ERO and a lot of wealthy plutocrats, what the most racist immigration policies in the Western World-rules that severely limited immigration by non-Nordic types.
The young Adolph Hitler praised U.S. eugenics and immigration policies as a model for Germany and the rest of Europe to follow. American bankers funded Hitler, and American public figures organized Bunds all across the country. Charles Lindbergh was a big Hitler supporter and was a shoe-in for the U.S. presidency. It’s quite likely that the pro-Hitler Lindbergh would have run and would have been president during the run-up to World War II if it had not been for the horrific kidnapping of his child. Phillip Roth wrote a “what if?” novel based on this near-miss called The Plot against America.
Henry Ford created a newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, specifically to publicize his anti-Semitic opinions, published in his paper the breathtakingly racist forgery known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and was awarded a medal, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest civilian honor, by Hitler. Throughout much of World War II, the Nazis received a lot of assistance from U.S. businesses, including IBM, which supplied the Hollerith machines used to keep records of the mass murder of Jews, Roma, leftists, intellectuals, mentally challenged persons, and assorted others.
Read the book. It’s eye opening. Sanger’s views were mild in comparison to those of many of the ruling elite at the time.
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Eugenics is a scourge on US history. Did you know it went until the 1970s? For more on how eugenics affected the Holocaust, check out the online exhibit from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: “Deadly Medicine.”
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It has found a second life in the currently THRIVING industry of pop-sci books on the pseudoscience of “behavioral genetics.”
However, I think we’ve turned a corner. Our young people don’t have the virulent racism of their ancestors, for the most part. And that is a very, very beautiful thing.
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I should have said, “of their ancestors and elders.” One day perhaps we shall grow beyond all this and our children’s children will look back in horror on this scourge.
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It’s still going on. Did you see the story last week about the prison doctor who sterilized inmates against their will? He claimed their babies would be unwanted by society.
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The Plot against America is a fantastic book, only to be outdone by American Pastoral. So sad that Roth is giving up writing…
But they are making American Pastoral into a film! It starts up in Pittsburg soon. So sad, the first thing that I thought of when I saw this was not anything else, in my mind’s eye, but “Oh, they are going to make a movie in a place with lots of ‘reform’.”
*sigh*
http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/movies/2014/06/24/Roth-novel-to-be-filmed-in-Pittsburgh/stories/201406240048
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The American bankers who funded Hitler and the 3rd Reich were Prescott Bush whose progeny are George Herbert Walker Bush and his son Shrub George Bush both of whom were American presidents, and Prescott’s banking partner Averill Harriman. Read Dean Baker’s book on the Bush family…and endless google articles.
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He meant every word he said, with the exception of these latest comments.
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Why Jim Jeffords left the republican Party due to NCLB
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I am a teacher in the state of Arizona (transplanted NYer). The fact that this man was ever elected to office here is mind boggling. We had a fantastic candidate running against him – former teacher, Penny Kotterman. Huppenthal’s agenda has been about dismantling public education from the start. There is no sincerity in his words. None. If he doesn’t resign, there are many of us ready to do the work of a recall.
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I lived in Phoenix recently for 2 years. (I am also a New Yorker) One of these fine days, Voto Latino’s efforts will come to fruition and guys like this clown will be back out on their golf courses.
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replying to Elaine…. or their friends like Brownie from FEMA will invited them to come and groom the Arabian horses???
I’m sorry to be so spiteful here but Arne has done a lot of damage
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He wept tears?
Boo-hoo, Mr. Huppenthal. Now you are the new Jim and Tammy Faye Baker of public education.
Everyone: Start crying with Mr. Huppenthal. We really feel your pain . . . .
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“A sample of the comments that don’t reflect what is in his mind or heart:”
Hahaha that gave me a good laugh.
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These kinds of events can be life-changing for people. It is altogether possible that Mr. Huppenthal sincerely regrets some of his posts. People are works in progress. All of us are.
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Huppenthal does not regret a thing, other than getting caught. He – and many other AZ politicians – have established a pretty good pattern of unethical, sometimes illegal, and always self-serving behavior. His predecessor, Horne, now the current AG, can’t even keep his pants on during his work day. Then there’s the debacle in the Maricopa County Sheriffs office (Arpaio’s millions, anyone?), and Candy Andy, the former Maricope County Attorney who was disbarred after “investigations” into political rivals and is now seeking the GOP nomination for governor. This is nothing new in the disgusting mess of AZ politics, and unfortunately, Huppenthal will probably be re-elected because he has the big money backers. These were nothing more than crocodile tears.
He should be back rewriting his Wikipedia entry in a matter of weeks.
http://blogforarizona.net/sockpuppet-john-huppenthal-also-trolled-wikipedia/
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Please sign the petition asking Huppenthal to resign: http://goo.gl/VHI5TI
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Just signed…and with a comment. Thanks for posting this petition. It is only with vast fight back that educators and their supporters can get rid of these anti education, anti democracy phonies.
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Thanks Ellen!! Together, we can make a difference!
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Reminds me of Kenneth Ray and his apologetic wife…
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Ken…do you mean Ken Lay of Enron fame..as the main perp? He should have spent life in prison but took the easier way out and died of a heart attack.
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Ah, yes. Ken Lay (Not me). Thanks for correction.
I still remember his wife crying like a child when she appeared in the media on behalf of her late husband.
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Let us not forget Huppenthal’s role in shutting down the Tucson school district’s Mexican American studies program.
“As a State Senator, Huppenthal helped pass Arizona’s HB 2281, which banned public school courses that advocate the overthrow of the United States, promote racial resentment, or treat students as members of an ethnic group rather than as individuals. The law targeted Tucson’s Mexican American studies program specifically.”
He considered going after the University of Arizona as well: “…the university program that educated the public school teachers is to blame.
‘I think that’s where this toxic thing starts from, the universities,’ Arizona Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal said in an interview with Fox News Latino. ”
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/03/28/arizona-official-considers-targeting-mexican-american-studies-in-university/
You can hear more of Huppenthal in his own voice here on NPR, including some words he made up:
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/18/145397005/mexican-american-studies-bad-ban-or-bad-class
The classes have been restored this current school year, due to a federal court ruling, but it doesn’t look like smooth sailing:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/07/24/205058168/Tucson-Revives-Mexican-American-Studies-Program
And if you need a good laugh, Jon Stewart provides one with an interview with John Hicks, Tucson school board member:
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/ovmyo9/tucson-s-mexican-american-studies-ban
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