We suspect that Allen probably would help most anyone (well, probably not an undocumented immigrant) out with a bite to eat if he or she knocked on her front door and asked nicely.
But, Jeez, the quotes from this elected official in this morning's Arizona Republic are cold-blooded enough to make even Governor Jan Brewer seem (almost, not quite) like Mother Teresa.
The piece was about the growing support of Republican state legislators for the governor's recent proposal of saving about $1 billion next year by eliminating healthcare coverage for 280,000 Arizonans. (We wrote about this last month in the aftermath of the Tucson Shootings.) The writer quoted Senator Allen as saying, "This isn't the only time in our history when people had to choose between food and medicine," adding that her parents had to make similar choices. Allen, who sells real estate for a living, noted that, stop the presses, "well people" can do more to keep themselves healthy and avoid the need for government support for medical coverage. Sure, and those who get sick and don't have the money to seek proper medical care? Apparently, tough luck. Everyone knows that times are tough in Arizona, belts are tightening, lots of people are struggling. But we also are reminded of Mahatma Gandhi's famous quote: "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." The state of Arizona basically treats its weakest members like shit, and Sylvia Allen and her mind-set are not in the minority down at the Legislature. The state senator has gotten on our radar screen previously -- she's a "birther" (questioning President Barack Obama's nation of origin), and in 2009, she called for opening up uranium mining in Arizona by assuring "environmentalists" that the Earth is but '>6,000 years old (check it out) and can handle a bit of drilling. We also recall Allen's widely publicized comments that "in the last few years, 80 percent of our law enforcement that have been killed or wounded have been by an illegal," a figure conjured out of whole cloth (the real number of those killed is less than 25 percent, and no statistics were available that we could find on the wounding of officers). We also found this op-ed piece attributed to Senator Allen about the Arizona illegal immigration bill, Senat Bill 1070. In part, she wrote, "The leftist media has distorted what SB 1070 will do. It is not going to set up a Nazi Germany. The ACLU and the leftist courts will [do] everything to protect those who are here illegally, but it as an effort to try and stop illegals from setting up businesses, and employment, and receiving state services and give the ability to local law enforcement when there is probable cause like to traffic stop to determine if they are here legally... "The Socialists who are in power in D.C. are angry because we dare try and do something and that something the Socialists want us to do is just let them come. They want the Transformation to continue." Lord help us here with Allen in a position of power.
