from the lawyer-up dept
The volume of stories about Ryan Walters, State Superintendent of Oklahoma, seems to be increasing. Walters is a Christian Nationalist by name, though the first of those words goes against all of what I learned about Christianity as a Catholic minor and curious adult. While he certainly wants to inject bibles into public schools for reasons outside of actual teaching scenarios, a clear violation of the First Amendment, he’s also interested in injecting his own love of Donald Trump, election conspiracy fantasies, and allegedly a tad bit of pornography into the school system as well. He has also decided to give so-called “woke tests” developed by Prager U, a propaganda factory, to transplant teachers from California and New York seeking a teacher’s license, potentially violating the 14th Amendment as well.
We’ve become quite used to MAGA assbags operating free of consequence and getting away with their nonsense. But in Walters’ case, we’re starting to see some signs that consequences might actually be a thing. For starters, on the whole porn showing up on a screen during a board meeting thing, it appears that Walters recently behaved defiantly in an interview after accusing the board members of lying, while also having the state look into a criminal defense attorney for him.
The Oklahoma State Department of Education may be seeking an attorney to defend State Superintendent Ryan Walters related to further troubles stemming from allegations that a TV in his office depicted nudity during an executive session of the State Board of Education meeting on July 24.
83 pages of emails, provided by the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, reflect conversations between OSDE employees and the AG’s office as OSDE sought approval to hire private counsel.
Now, to be very clear, seeking counsel is not an admission of guilt. But it is an admission that defense is likely needed and that seems a far cry from a situation as simple as a couple of board members merely lying whole cloth about seeing porn on a TV screen at a board meeting. The request for a specific outside counsel was later dropped, but it’s unclear if another lawyer is being sought instead.
Walters had indicated that this is all some coordinated attack against him, because of how awesome he is, I suppose. I think I can guess who he sees himself as in that bible he claims to spend so much time reading. But I would challenge you to go back and read up on the details in the post I wrote on this incident and decide for yourself if the board members sound like they’re just making stuff up.
Besides, you know it’s getting a bit real when the federal MAGAs don’t want anything to do with a state MAGA like Walters. Sec. of Education Linda McMahon was in Oklahoma last week to promote charter schools. Plenty of other state government representatives were in attendance, but Walters was very much absent. And the reporting suggests that was at McMahon’s request.
Gorman, in an article published on August 21, explains, “Walters in particular has been a big advocate for school choice, specifically for giving families more access to religious and conservative schools. But he was nowhere to be found on Tuesday — and that was by design. According to three sources familiar with the matter, McMahon and her team specifically asked Oklahoma officials not to include Walters on the trip, fearing his presence would be a distraction.”
Two things on this. First, if your state’s superintendent of schools can’t attend a visit by the Sec. of Education at a charter school because he’d be a distraction, well, that’s at least an indication that we have a problem in Oklahoma.
Second, it appears this had less to do about distractions and more to do with Walters breaking the ninth commandment.
Gorman notes that Walters, in an August 8 statement, “claimed that the Department of Education had given the state the required waiver to eliminate end-of-year testing in public schools.” And Walters told the far-right outlet Real America’s Voice, “We went to the Trump administration, and they said they were all for it.”
“But the administration hadn’t approved it,” Gorman reports, “and one of the sources cited the incident as a reason McMahon’s team did not want Walters at the event. McMahon had to publicly dispute Walters’ comments at the Oklahoma event.”
Local reporters, on August 19, asked McMahon if she planned to meet with Walters while she was in Oklahoma — to which she responded, “I don’t believe that’s on my schedule today.”
That shoulder is so cold it’s causing frost to develop.
Look, Walters sucks. Sucks at his job, given how poorly his state is ranked in education. Sucks at being a human being, given how he’s handled this whole porn thing and how he’s treated his board members. Sucks at government, as he can’t be bothered with such silly things like the Constitution.
I doubt he’s going anywhere anytime soon. But if these stories keep racking up, it’ll certainly effect his reported gubernatorial bid, if nothing else.
Filed Under: embarassment, linda mcmahon, maga, oklahoma, ryan walters, school choice
