After an exciting start to the school year—one where Ryan Walters called for his own impeachment, released Bible teaching guidelines, and politicized Edmond Public Schools' decision to prohibit a kid from flying a super-sized American flag from his pickup—things have slowed down a tad on the Ryan Walters Train Wreck news beat.
Sure, he's faced a run-of-the-mill court order and was the focus of a satirical prank that generated a few headlines, but right now, it feels like everyone’s simply waiting for his new social studies standards to be leaked.
Well, that is, if there’s a brave Oklahoma educator out there willing to violate their NDA:
🚨 HAPPENING NOW- @okcfox crews asked to leave the ongoing meeting where Oklahoma educators are reviewing @RyanWaltersSupt’s proposed new standards for Social Studies. Those there had to sign an NDA, but one teacher told us it’s a “sh*t show” inside. @tslferguson will have more pic.twitter.com/0p9P6uHSNT
— Wendy Suares📺 (@wsuares) September 10, 2024
Boy, it sure would stink if an Ogle Mole emailed us the new standards.
Also, in other news, Oklahoma educators are being forced to sign NDAs that prevent them from discussing the social studies standards that will be taught in public schools. You don’t have to score in the 99th percentile in social studies on your ITBS tests to know that’s fucking insane.
While we wait to learn what type of Christian indoctrination and whitewashing of history Ryan plans to insert into Oklahoma’s curriculum, our pals at KOKH Fox 25 have stepped up to fill the Ryan Walters news void.
Earlier this week, they filed an investigative report documenting just how much money he’s spent flying around the country to promote his image and brand in the right-wing, anti-public-education circle jerk.
Although there's a bit of redundancy, KOKH picks up where the KFOR's hot air balloon ride from last June left off.
Via open records, they documented that from spring 2023 to spring 2024, Ryan spent $27,262.58 in taxpayer funding on airfare, hotels, car rentals, meals, and more.
Yes, you read that correctly: $27,262.58.
What a waste of money, huh? For that much cash, you could purchase an infinite amount of Gideons International Bibles, which, if Ryan gets his way, will soon become our new history textbooks!
Here are some of the details via KOKH Fox 25:
"Looking at records we obtained through Open Records requests, we calculated at least $27,262.58 in airfare, hotels, car rentals, meals, and more for Walters and his top Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) staff. All of these trips happened over the course of about a year, starting in the spring of 2023. Many of them were to amplify the state superintendent's political message.
'These are folks who want to destroy our society. They want to destroy your family. And they want to destroy America as we know it,' Walters told a crowd at a Moms for Liberty event in Philadelphia in June 2023."
The two-night trip to Pennsylvania for Walters and his chief advisor, Matt Langston, ran Oklahomans $1,459.78.
Yep, that’s right. We spent $1,459.78 for Ryan and Matt to get it on angry-theocratic-man style in the City of Brotherly Love—a famed city nickname that I’m sure Ryan will push to remove from Oklahoma geography textbooks for promoting the gay agenda.
Philadelphia wasn’t the only spot where Ryan and Co. yukked it up with conservative quacks and other deranged nutjobs.
You forked over at least $5,109.94 for a three-day trip to Washington, D.C. last August for Walters and OSDE staffers Dan Isett, Matt Langston, and Jenna Thomas to meet with the leaders of the Heritage Foundation, the architect of the controversial Project 2025.
That’s insulting. Since taxpayers are already paying the people behind Project 2025 thousands of dollars a month to get Ryan on national TV, couldn’t these flacks have funded their own trip to OKC and meet with Ryan in his tan SUV? Why do we have to go see them?!
Ryan wasn’t the only OSDE leader to cash in on state-funded travel. His puppet master, Matt Langston, also logged some frequent flier miles on the state’s dime:
Oklahoma taxpayers paid to fly Langston from Austin, Texas, where the state employee lives, to D.C. and then back to Austin twice within days last September…
Another trip for Walters and Langston took them to NYC in March, costing taxpayers $2,504.37. Then it was off to West Palm Beach, Florida, for another PragerU gala, where Walters posed for photos with the creator of Libs of TikTok. The tab for Oklahomans for that trip came in at $1,428.02.
Geez, at least Ryan—as an Oklahoma resident—can pull a Markwayne Mullin and make the laughably absurd claim that he pays for his own travel expenses in the form of taxes. Matt doesn’t even live here! Not to turn the Austin resident on while he reads this, but that’s a punch to the nuts. I can semi-tolerate our own residents screwing us over and wasting state funds, but a Texan doing it burns hotter than a fresh cup of coffee from Harbor Mountain Coffee Shop!
“Patrick! This is outrageous! Also, didn’t Ryan’s buddy Kevin Stitt sign an executive order banning all non-essential travel?”
The answer to that question is, “Yes,” but Ryan’s found an easy loophole:
"Governor Kevin Stitt reaffirmed an executive order last year banning all non-essential out-of-state travel for employees paid by the state. On all of the travel request forms submitted by Walters, Langston, and Isett, they listed their travel as essential because it was 'critical to the performance of core agency functions.'"
Considering the core agency function of the OSDE is to sow division, fight manufactured culture wars, and promote Ryan Walters on the national stage, maybe that’s a legit excuse.
You can read and watch the entire report here.
Once again, it’s good Ryan Walters's outrage fuel to get us by until his social studies standards are leaked to the media, which I imagine will be any day now.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
