Update: One day after this blog item was published, the Superintendent formally admitted that he is the author of the posts listed below.
Arizona Schools Superintendent John Huppenthal has no problemo shilling for private schools in annoying robocalls to unsuspecting citizens, but if you call him at home to ask about recent reports of his commenting on various websites (including ours) under names such as Falcon 9, Thucydides, and Socrates, you may get a dial tone instead of answers.
See, after waiting all day Monday to get a response from the GOP officeholder through regular channels, I figured I'd try him at home and ask him about being outed as a not-so-secret blogger by Bob Lord, attorney and former Democratic Congressional candidate, who writes for the influential, lefty opinion outlet BlogforArizona.net.
Why, I hadn't talked to my old bud, Hupp, since I saw him at a gun nut rally a while back at the state Capitol. I was certain he'd be happy to hear from me.
Boy, was I mistaken.
"Hey, Steve, how ya doin'?" he asked. Then, immediately, "You're gonna have better luck on your next phone call. I'm gonna let you go."
"Aw, come on," I said. "Why don't you wanna talk to me . . . about you pretending to be somebody else online? I want to make sure you actually are doing that. You know, using sock puppets online."
(Could've sworn he actually chuckled a bit here.)
"Hey, you're going to have better luck on your next call," he repeated.
"So you're not denying it?" I shot back.
"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet," he said before hanging up.
Channel 12's piece on Lord's outing Hupp already had runon the station's six o'clock broadcast before I called him. Considering this and my inquiries earlier in the day, the context of my questions should have been apparent to the superintendent.
I followed up with an e-mail to his personal e-mail address, trying to coax him out of his shell. No reply so far.
Hupp's alleged behavior online seems the product of a confirmed narcissist: referring to himself in the third person, praising himself in sock puppet mode, and supposedly polishing and re-polishing his Wikipedia entry.
Reminds me of disgraced, disbarred ex-county attorney Andy Thomas, who also was accused of editing his bio on Wikipedia to his liking.
Similarly, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne once used a sock puppet to comment on an article of mine relating to his mistress, a fact revealed during an internal investigation of his office.
Thus, Hupp is hardly alone in his sock puppetry. As for the content of his comments, it's generally standard right-wing stuff, though he often veers into serious moon-howler territory, as you'll see below.
There could be a problem with him posting some (though not all) of his comments via the IP address for the Arizona Department of Education, which is evident from the information that Bob Lord has provided me.
Campaigning for himself from an ADE computer, for instance, would be a big no-no.
Otherwise, what matters -- whether said under the guise of a sock puppet or as himself -- is what the fella has to say.
So here are Huppenthal's top ten comments under one of his sock puppet handles, at least from those I've seen.
And believe me, there are so many out there, I think I could read a Russian novel quicker. Which makes you wonder what we pay the guy for, if he has this much free time on his hands.
(Note: The quotes that follow have not been edited for grammar or spelling.)
10) Regarding the mystery of "Caucasian job creation" http://blogforarizona.net/it-is-past-time-to-look-beyond-tax-cuts-as-an-economic-development-strategy/#comment-36253
On April 9, 2014 at 11:19 pm Thucydides said:
But, economics are completely different story. A job taken by an hispanic immigrant doesnt take a job from a caucasian, it creates a job for a caucasian. Caucasian job creation is very positively correlated with immigrant employment, not negatively correlated as conservatives have heard over and over.
9) CPS? We don't need no stinkin' CPS! http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2014/01/why-reinventing-cps-might-not-change-anything.html
On January 15, 2014 at 04:54 AM Thucydides said:
There is no aspect of CPS nationwide which protects children. No correlation between spending on CPS and child safety. No correlation between number of CPS workers and child safety. No correlation between child removal and child safety. The only factors which provide safety for children are employment of parents and good schools on the positive side and welfare enrollment on the negative side.
The myth that children are protected by removal fails to take into account the emotional trauma these children undergo upon removal. The 60,000 kids who are in group homes or who are institutionalized were not placeable and have overwhelmingly faced multilple placements that have socially shredded them. Think of bring thrown in the garbage can multiple times.
Illinois found that the marginal cild removed was three times as likely to be later arrested for crime as compared to the marginal child left in the home. Stunning study - means that these 6,000 kids are now cursed to have come to our attention.
8) So Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler walk into a bar... http://arizona.typepad.com/blog/2013/08/wake-up-progressives.html
On August 07, 2013 at 04:02 AM Thucydides said:
You are what you fear. It was Charles Darwin, hero of the left, who named the Germans the master race, not Adolph Hitler. His theory wasn't natural selection but the domination and differentiation of the "favoured races." Thus was born Eugenics and the moral permission to feed 3 million Jews into the furnaces and 3 million babies into the abortion mills. Darwin specifically gave approval to the eradication of Jews and Africans.
7) Occupy this, you dirty hippies. http://blogforarizona.net/what-the-occupy-wall-street-protestors-are-angry-about-in-charts/
On October 15, 2011 at 10:18 pm Falcon9 wrote:
We know why we are getting these results. Our successful small businessmen/job creators are being taxed to death. At most, they should give up 40 cents on the dollar to expanding government burden. But, Obama demands 63 cents. Meanwhile, Obama is rewarding the lazy pigs with Food Stamps (44 million people), air conditioning, free health care, flat screen TV's (typical of "poor" families).
Why work? Indeed let's tax the rich. Let's get 63 percent of Al Gore's $100 million - send him a tax bill for $63 million. Let's get 63 percent of Warren Buffet's $50 billion - send him a tax bill for $30 billion.
6) Obama was born in Kenya, fools. http://blogforarizona.net/ken-bennetts-lameness-meter-is-at-11/#comment-10655
On June 21, 2012 at 4:32 am Falcon9 wrote:
"bat shit crazy stuff"!!! Its in Obamas book, Obama said he was born in Kenya!!!! If this were a Republican, you would be going nuts demanding those college records
5) I don't care what you say, Phoenix sucks. http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/03/phoenix_survey_most_residents.php
On March 22, 2011, Falcon 9 said:
We pay a high price for that smile. This article is a complete deception. Fewer than 14 percent rate the quality of city services excellent. This is poor, the lowest of any city in Maricopa county.
Our pavement maintenance is turning huge portions of the city into a ghetto with inadequate maintenance resulting in cracking and deterioration and loss of home value. Less of our city has immediate access to libraries because of sparse service.
Phoenix hasn't mastered crime accountability and as a result, proportionately more of our citizens are murdered, assaulted and raped than in Los Angeles and New York.
Now, things are worse than ever. We have incredibly high priced government with average salaries and benefits at $100,000 per, yet services are lower than ever.
Phoenix city government can be officially described as a disease with all this malfunction transfering by envy over to other public entitites.
4) Margaret Sanger wanted to wipe out black folk. http://seeingredaz.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/dems-return-to-prayer-thank-god-for-abortionists/ On September 2, 2013 at 5:22 pm, Thucydides said:
When Darwin wrote his treatise on evolution, it was titled " Survival of the Favored Races." There were two parts to his work, one was to give a foundation to evolution, the other was to explain the dramatic differences between species. As he explained it in his 1859 work, as a species evolves it begins to develop different races. When one of those races develops a superior advantage, it wipes out the genetically inferior race. It was Darwin, not Hitler who named the Germans the master race. It was Darwin who expressed approval of eliminating both Jews and Africans. Hitler worked to eliminate the Jews. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood was given the job of eliminating African Americans. Hitler fed 6 million Jews into the ovens. Sanger has fed 16 million African Americans into the abortion mills.
3) FDR caused the Great Depression and is responsible for the rise of Hitler. http://blogforarizona.net/psycho-talk-gop-attacks-bo/#comment-13616
On December 23, 2011 at 7:35 am, Falcon9 said:
You have to be kidding me. We now know that FDR was almost completely responsible for the great depression. Only in liberal mythology did FDR "save" the nation. His regulatory morass, which replicated the disastrous communist "five year planning" was responsible for 1/3 of the loss of growth, his tax increases were responsible for another 1/3 and the interaction of his horrible policies with monetary policy led to the final 1/3 through the shrinking of the money supply.
Worse yet, Roosevelt's disastrous economic policies drug down the whole world and directly led to the rise of a no-name hack named Adolph Hitler who was going nowhere until Germany's economy went into the tank.
Now, we have to suffer the misery again as the current slime in the white house repeat the Roosevelt playbook. Who are the victims? Young African-Americans, recent college graduates and small business job creators. Unemployed, unemployed and bankrupt.
2) Mexican American Studies program and Hitler? Same thing. http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2011/09/29/jeff-biggers-at-what-point-will-the-civil-rights-division-of-the-us-department-of-justice-be-summoned-for-an-investigation
The Mexican American Studies classes use the exact same technique that Hitler used in his rise to power. Take an historical example of injustice, cast it in racial terms and fan the flames of resentment. This technique is the exact technique of Mexican American studies. Complete with fueling resentment of stolen land. In Hitler's case it was the Sudetanland. In the Mexican American studies case, it is Aztlan.
And the number one alleged comment from a John Huppenthal sock puppet: 1) I'm not racist. Why, some of my best friends are...
http://blogforarizona.net/the-2014-republican-dream-team-is-assembling/
On September 8, 2013 at 4:55 am Thucydides said:
As for Huppenthal hating public education and hispanics, that's not going to wash. Huppenthal grew up in south Tucson, all of his friends were Hispanics. He was the only Caucasian in his social group. Jimmy Ortega, Manny Gonzales, Luis Rodriguez, Charlie Praciado, Marcelino Lucero. Just because he won't support the "we hate Whitey" curriculum of extreme Chicano activists doesn't mean he can't do well among Hispanics.
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