Ryan Walters is naked and everybody's watching
Is there anything Ryan Walters is good at other than being really bad at so many things?
Go deep enough into his bio and it appears he wasn’t an awful history teacher in the McAlester district. Of course, that was before he decided you could teach the Tulsa Race Massacre without having to mention, you know, race.
He really did.
I wrote a column about it and there’s video, too.
The time frame for this, however, is right now, and wouldn’t you know it, stories emerging at the end of the week, stories that again prove Walters has no interest in performing his actual state superintendent’s job; that it is he, himself, who seeks to be the great indoctrinator rather than the public school districts, teachers and administrators he lives to vilify; and if he can throw a bunch of state money into Donald Trump’s coffers as he goes about the indoctrinating, all the better.
Let’s back up.
On Wednesday, attorney general Gentner Drummond read Walters the riot act over Walters’ unwillingness (or inability) to disburse $250,000 earmarked by the legislature to be spent on albuterol inhalers to be used in case of emergency in public schools throughout the state.
“Twice in the last five years, the Legislature has supported access to inhalers in public schools,” Drummond wrote, part of a four-page letter. “As an executive branch agency, the department must ensure that laws are executed and that appropriations are used as legislatively directed.”
Of course, per usual, department spokesman Dan Isett, in an email to The Oklahoman, claimed the agency had been distributing funds for inhalers since Walters took office, though without offering evidence that was indeed the case.
While that was reported out Wednesday afternoon, the paper was back with another story from M. Scott Carter on Thursday, the crux of which being state senator Chuck Hall, who happens to be the senate’s budget chairman, making him a guy you don’t want to cross, has also had enough of Walters’ and the department’s obfuscations and lies.
Hall addressed Isett’s assertion inhaler funds had been distributed the past two years when the legislature had only, surprise, approved the funds last year.
Hall said he’d love to know what’s been spent and where and that, as far as he knows, only the Brendon McCarty Memorial Foundation is in a position to distribute the inhalers and train administrators and teachers on their use and the foundation is “unaware of OSDE distributing any funding for school inhalers.”
Got that?
Sure, Walters might have pulled the old switcheroo, pilfering the inhaler money to spend on attorneys, defending himself in a libel lawsuit brought by Bixby superintendent Rob Miller.
Yet, more likely, the education department, forever reeling from departures of so many unable to work alongside Walters; and the agency perpetually affected by Walters turning it into a political operation rather than one actually supporting education; it’s simply not equipped to carry out legislative policy or make use of appropriations as intended.
Which brings us to a story from Oklahoma Watch put into the world on Thursday and updated Friday, that the education department is not just seeking bids for 55,000 classroom Bibles, but for 55,000 very specific Bibles.
Take a look at the story’s opening graphs, written by Oklahoma Watch’s Jennifer Palmer, Paul Monies and Heather Warlick.
Superintendent Ryan Walters isn’t just talking about buying Bibles for schools.
Bids opened Monday for a contract to supply the state Department of Education with 55,000 Bibles. According to the bid documents, vendors must meet certain specifications: Bibles must be the King James Version; must contain the Old and New Testaments; must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and must be bound in leather or leather-like material.
A salesperson at Mardel Christian & Education searched, and though they carry 2,900 Bibles, none fit the parameters.
But one Bible fits perfectly: Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A. Bible, endorsed by former President Donald Trump and commonly referred to as the Trump Bible. They cost $60 each online, with Trump receiving fees for his endorsement.
So who say that coming?
You know, other than everybody.
Of course the Bible, in any number of forms, is available online for free, thank you very much.
Ditto for the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and The Bill of Rights, not to mention all the amendments beyond the original 10.
The tell is outrageous.
“… and must be bound in leather or leather-like material.”
Really?
Walters is so freaking bad at this.
He may be indicted, or be closer to being indicted, as soon as the coming week, as the grand jury looking into his role in the ClassWallet scandal meets again in a few days.
The attorney general is already pissed off with him for his refusal to carry out the policy of the legislature among many other things: like trying to fund a public Catholic high school; refusing to let members of the legislature into state school board executive sessions, as required by law; attempting to circumvent the separation of church and state entirely by, among other things, pushing a curriculum that requires a Bible in every classroom as a prescribed part of a forced curriculum.
And now it has to be, must be, can only be … a Trump Bible.
Jesus.
It would be one thing to accuse the state’s public education system Walters is supposed to support of wanting to turn out high-minded, social justice focused, diversity valuing and tolerant Democratic voting students, but he’s accused it of trying to do so much than that.
Now here he is attempting to do business with the former president with Oklahoma’s tax dollars, all in an effort to implement policy most of the state’s largest districts have told him they won’t implement, each of them with the attorney general on their side.
It’s not that the emperor has no clothes, but that the ex-emperor’s little minion, awash in self-importance, despite pissing off everybody in the whole state pretty much every day, has no clothes.
Christ, what a dolt.
I wanted to see both South Carolina and Ole Miss on tube today, and man was I deflated! They are both excellent teams and we'll have our hands full three weeks in a row after Texas. Another game I watched was Texas A&M demolish an overmatched Missouri squad. A&M is monstrous on both sides of the ball. The best blocking O-line I've seen and a defensive front that our poor O-line will not be able to match up with. Brother, it's the SEC in all it's finery!
Great article, old friend! Thank you!