Like most Americans who went to bed early the night before, I woke up sickened and saddened in 2025 by the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve.
I love that city, its character, its culture, and even the role it inadvertently played in helping OKC become a “Big League City,” so my heartfelt condolences go out to all the victims and their friends and families.
As the news unfolded over the next day or so, and more details emerged about the American-born and -bred lunatic who orchestrated the attack, I couldn’t help but reflect on how terrifying it is that it takes only one twisted, psychotic individual in this country of 325 million to fall victim to religious extremism and use it as justification to inflict so much hurt and pain.
Ryan Walters—a man who peddles his own Evangelical brand of religious intolerance, indoctrination, and extremism—had a slightly different take.
Never one to let a tragedy go to waste, the Oklahoma State School Superintendent rushed out to his SUV to record a video.
Instead of offering even an obligatory nod to the victims, he blamed the attack on open borders, teachers’ unions, and public schools, and issued a dire, somewhat-comical-if-it-was-satire warning that we cannot allow the radical left to “turn our public schools into terrorist training camps.”
Check out this insanity:
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsThis is an uncomfortable truth, we cannot allow our schools to be terrorist training camps. pic.twitter.com/BmRXZKlRDE
— Superintendent Ryan Walters (@RyanWaltersSupt) January 2, 2025
Yep, that’s right!
Even though the attack was carried out by a man born and raised in the heart of America—someone who earned a good salary, loved his country enough to serve in the Army, and then, as a disturbed 40-something, lost his mind and succumbed to violent fundamentalist lure of ISIS propaganda—it’s those pesky teachers and public schools we should blame.
That makes all the sense in the world, right?
Well, I guess it does if you’re a right-wing fearmonger trying to sabotage public schools from the inside and turn them into propaganda mills to indoctrinate students with your brand of religious zealotry and revisionist patriotic history.
In a way, I guess that’s where the irony – and projection – in all this lies.
There does appear to be a concentrated movement by a select group of evangelical psychos to turn public schools into conservative Christian Taliban training camps. Unfortunately, Oklahoma voters elected one of that movement’s leaders to be state superintendent of public education!
Ryan’s video got some coverage in The Oklahoman. They reached out to the so-called “terrorist trainers” at the Oklahoma Education Association (OEA) for their thoughts. Unsurprisingly, the OEA took the high road—a mysterious thoroughfare that Ryan Walters doesn’t seem to know exists.
“Our compassion is with those who lost their lives and the loved ones from whom they were stolen,” the OEA said in a statement. “Using this tragedy as yet another political stunt to attack American public school educators is shameful.”
Shameful? For a group of supposed “terrorists,” the OEA sure seems calm and reserved. If I were their communications person, I would have called Ryan a miscreant and infidel.
Jacob Rosecrants—the Norman State Rep. who enjoys trolling Ryan almost as much as we do—also chimed in with this post:
I both agree and disagree with Jacob.
I think sane people should absolutely watch the video to fully understand how legitimately psychotic and pathetic Ryan is. That being said, I also think people should share his fun little mockup.
Anyway, 2025 is only six days old, and Ryan’s already off to an impressively moronic start. It’ll be interesting (or horrifying) to see what other stupid, low, and attention-seeking things he says this year as he desperately trolls for relevance.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
