No one in their right mind would ever appoint Senator Sylvia Allen chair of the Senate Education Committee. But then no one believes that Senate President Andy Biggs is in his right mind. He is an ideological extremist, nothing more.
For Arizona’s “education leaders” who thought that your settlement of the education funding inflation adjustment lawsuit, Cave Creek Unified School District, et al . v. Ducey, was going to be a “first step” to further address education funding in Arizona, this is a clear signal just how badly you misjudged the Tea-Publican Arizona legislature. Prop. 123 in the May special election is all you are going to get (if the voters approve).
Daily Kos summarizes it well. Militia-backing AZ lawmaker who says Earth is 6,000 years old now leads state senate education panel:
Tea party stalwart Sylvia Allen, who first became a state senator in Arizona (and a national embarrassment) in 2008, has been made chairwoman of the Senate committee handling education legislation. The Phoenix New Times calls her a “professional fruitcake.”
Allen is known for a string of bizarre and racist remarks as well as an attachment to conspiracy theories. For example, she believes the Earth is just 6,000 years old, a view held by some fundamentalist Christians but rejected by scientists and many Bible scholars. She also believes “chemtrails” are poisoning us and that “Agenda 21” is a plot to surrender U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations.
Brahm Resnik reports:
Senate President Andy Biggs on Monday named Allen to lead a committee that acts as a gatekeeper for education-related legislation, such as Common Core and spending. Allen succeeds Sen. Kelli Ward, who resigned last week to run full-time in next year’s GOP primary against Sen. John. McCain.
“She understands what Arizona students and parents need in our education system,” Biggs said in a prepared statement. “She is a very experienced legislator and I know she will do a wonderful job.”
Allen got into the senate seven years ago when Jake Flake, former speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and the uncle of U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, was bucked from a horse and broke eight ribs. He died of a heart attack two weeks later. Allen ran for his seat and won, but lost a re-election bid in 2012. But then, in 2014, state Sen. Chester Crandall was found dead after falling or being bucked from a horse. Allen was picked by Republican officers to run unopposed for his seat.
During her senate career, Allen has pushed for uranium mining near the Grand Canyon, backed state funding of a militia run by the neo-Nazi J.T. Ready to guard the Arizona-Mexico border, opposed Medicaid expansion, suggested only half-jokingly that mandatory church attendance be imposed, encouraged an anti-semitic Holocaust denier to testify before the state senate, rejected mandating reduced carbon emissions and denied that humans are causing climate change. In 2011, she supported eliminating health-care coverage of 280,000 Arizonans, saying that people should do more to take care of their health and thus avoid having to see a doctor. “This isn’t the only time in our history when people had to choose between food and medicine,” Allen said.
Arizona Republicans don’t seem the slightest bit distressed by Allen’s crazed flakiness. Indeed, they appear determined to promote it by promoting her. And now she’s in a position to spread it to every schoolchild in the state. At least we now know what the Arizona GOP actually stands for: Goobers on Parade.
Any of Arizona’s “education leaders” who still believe that the Arizona legislature is going to provide public education more funding should resign now.
I’d also like to remind people that Andy Biggs has been in the legislature for 15 yrs. Is education funded better or worse now? Let’s start holding these people accountable for making us last in the nation in every measure that matters.
Nice eliding f the actual message, there Hupp. Sylvia never said diddly-squat about ‘The Sumerians’ or “civilization” being 6,000 years old. “This Earth’s been hear 6,000 years — and I know I’m going on and on and I’ll shut up — it’s been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn’t been done away with.”
http://www.hark.com/clips/fkbpxbnvcs-arizona-state-senator-sylvia-allen-r-says-earth-is-6000-years-old
Her words.
You have no evidence for your attacks at all. There is a ton of evidence that Sylvia is gracious exuding good will towards all. There is also a ton of evidence pinpointing the Sumerians as the civilization containing the elements which can be traced to modern mandkind in a continuous thread of civilization. We only have fragments on previous societies and a lot of that has come out in previous years.
The main beef with Sylvia is that she supports school choice. While liberal democrats believe that the worst classroom in the worst school in the worst scool district in the worst state is entitled to a full room of students.
Usual elitist liberal whining. As Lenin asked in his book what is to be done. Well what is to be done as whining is not doing anything. Lets see some plans. My plan? Register latinos and if you have the guts confront the republican fascist police state. How? Black lives matter and immigrant rights demonstrators had no problem answering the question how. Remember march 24 2006 when immigrant rights demonstrators blocked the east side on 24 street.
Johnny H, you make a statement, provide no factual proof for that statement, then top it off with an insult.
Who are these “many anthropologists”? Where did you get your murder rate numbers?
You question the intelligence of others while providing no evidence of your own.
The entire post is an insult to a gracious and hard working lady. It deserves to be insulted.
“The Sumerians were one of the earliest urban societies to emerge in the world, in Southern Mesopotamia more than 5000 years ago. They developed a writing system whose wedge-shaped strokes would influence the style of scripts in the same geographical area for the next 3000 years.” Top google search result. Also, I was there, sitting with Sylvia on the dais when she made that comment and I knew the context of her comments.
Sylvia Allen may be a hard worker but she is also a vile person and a racist. Her “hard work” will be geared toward the further destruction of Arizona’s education system. It would be terrible if she was the only person in the state legislature with this agenda but modt of the Republicans in the state are acting toward the same end. The article as posted by AZBlueMeanie is not an insult, it is fact. However if you wish to consider it an insult then it is one that has been well-earned.
And you should know better than to think that a single page Google search qualifies as scholarly research. Time to go back to school. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/turkey-worlds-oldest-writing-pictograph-319107
Many anthropologists trace civilization back 6,000 years to the Sumerians. If you are going to sneer at Sylvia, you ought to at least be as intelligent.
Since Sylvias work at getting illegal immigration under control the murder rate of low income Hispanics in Arizona has dropped over 60 percent saving hundreds of lives every year. Only a liberal democrat would claim that’s racist.
The earth is a planet. That is not the same as a civilization.
John H.,
An overwhelming majority of anthropologists have established as scientific fact that homo sapiens — that’s our species, by the way — has existed for at least 200,000 years. See http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-sapiens as a springboard for evidence.
An overwhelming majority of scientists have established as scientific fact that this planet is well over four billion years old, and the universe well over twelve billion.
These are not new facts or observations; they are well-supported findings of fact that have been made widely available — along with all the supporting data — for several decades. If there is any verifiable data that shows an Earth that is only 6,000 years old, it has yet to be presented to the scientific community, and you have had well over 200 years to do so.
We sneer at Sylvia Allen and other YECs not because of their personal ignorance, but because of their cynical manipulation of a credulous public into believing what is obviously false. They have more than earned our contempt.
Actually written records in stone have been found in cities over 9000 years old. Not to mention cave paintings over 35,000 years old. And then there are artifacts including bone and stone tools dating back over a million years.
Arizona schools need to get more funds the old fashioned way, by winning a publishers sweepstakes.
Good one!
Biggs to public education in Arizona. Dropenzie dead!
Awesome.