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The best way to "teach" others Christianity is to live it, not mandate it through lies, deception and manipulation. The gop / greed over people-republican "christianity" with it's alt-jesus and gospel of selfishness and self-righteousness promoted by ryan walters is the kind of witness that drives people from the Church, not to it. And ryan, watch your prayer video again and reflect on the New Testament lesson on grandstanding public prayer. From the Washington Post....
A lawsuit alleges that state superintendent Ryan Walters added a provision on election questions without notifying some board members before they voted.
An Oklahoma County judge is considering a request to block the standards from being enacted and heard arguments Wednesday in the lawsuit, which was filed against state education officials by a group of teachers and parents. Meanwhile, other parents opposed to the standards’ content are circulating opt-out forms to remove their children from the future lessons.
Under the curriculum, high-schoolers would be asked to analyze debunked theories related to the 2020 vote and election security, such as “security risks” of voting by mail and “batch dumps” of ballots — references to the disproven theory circulated by President Donald Trump that he did not lose that election.
High-schoolers will also be instructed to “identify the source of the COVID-19 pandemic from a Chinese lab,” a theory that Trump has pushed but on which intelligence analysts and scientists remain divided. The standards also mandate teaching about the Bible in history lessons, escalating an ongoing debate over the use of the Bible in public schools in Oklahoma and elsewhere.
Oklahoma’s public schools have been launched into the national news repeatedly by state superintendent Ryan Walters (R), who made a push to put Bibles matching those endorsed by Trump in classrooms, asked school districts to show students a video of himself praying for Trump and backed the effort to create a publicly funded religious charter school in Oklahoma that went to the Supreme Court last week.
Walters has argued that the state’s new standards will remove alleged “liberal indoctrination” from classrooms. Opponents say Walters is the one trying to push false information on their children. (Walters has denied allegations of impropriety in the standards’ passage.)
“People are asking, ‘How do I make sure my kids don’t get taught this?’” said Erica Watkins, who leads We’re Oklahoma Education, a parent group that has circulated the opt-out letters.
As the Trump administration seeks to influence public school curriculums and right-leaning states move to incorporate Christianity into public schools, the Oklahoma standards present a possible test case. The inclusion of lessons rooted in a conspiracy theory has also raised questions among some Oklahoma parents about Walters’s leadership.
The new standards were passed by the state education board in February — but at least three board members said afterward they did not know Walters had added the election-related item to the standards before the 5-1 vote, the Oklahoma Voice reported in April.
“We were unaware that the version we received (almost 400 pages of documents) at 4 p.m. the day before the meeting had changes to what the public reviewed,” Christopher Van Denhende, one of the three board members, told The Washington Post.
Walters did not announce the changes to the publicly reviewed version at the meeting where the board voted, the suit alleges.
On Wednesday, Oklahoma County Judge C. Brent Dishman declined to rule on the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary block of the standards. A permanent ruling is expected within the next two weeks, said Michael J. Hunter, an attorney for the group that brought the lawsuit.
The draft shown to the public only mandated that high-schoolers “examine issues related to the election of 2020,” according to the lawsuit.
The version that was approved says students will “identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results” and will be instructed to analyze information including “the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.”
The board members received a copy at 4 p.m. the day before the morning meeting, and some raised concerns that they hadn’t had enough time to review the standards before Walters urged a vote, according to the lawsuit.
That prompted protest among some parents, who lobbied the legislature to send the standards back to the board — but a Republican-led attempt failed to get enough support in the GOP-controlled legislature, allowing the standards to move forward.
Through a spokesperson via email, Walters said the process was “fully transparent and above board for many months.”
“School board members were never denied access to the process at any point from the moment the standards were written to the moment they were voted on,” he told The Washington Post on Wednesday.
Van Denhende, the board member, said there should be transparency in the state’s development of the standards. He also said he believed the election language was “unnecessary” to include.
“The bigger issue is Oklahoma is 49th in the national for educational outcomes, and we need to be talking about how to improve reading and math scores, not the 2020 election,” Van Denhende said.
Hunter, the attorney for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said they are “confident that we’re going to be able to show the court the calamity which was the board’s review of the rules.”
He told The Post, “The process was completely mishandled and inconsistent with the responsibilities of the superintendent and the board.”
Valery Drazek, 31, an Oklahoma City mother of a 6-year-old who is not involved in the lawsuit, said she found We’re Oklahoma Education’s opt-out forms on social media and has been passing them out to fellow parents.
“I’m trying to raise a kid, and as she gets older, she will be going to these social studies classes. I don’t want her to think the 2020 election was rigged or that covid was man-made, things of that nature,” Drazek told The Post.
“I don’t want there to be a sentiment of distrust in our voting system,” she added. “I would like her to grow up to be an active member of society and know that her voice and her vote matters.”
There is no evidence that widespread corruption tainted the 2020 election results, and judges repeatedly said that Trump and his supporters did not provide evidence to back up their assertions, which included false accusations such as impropriety in Michigan’s ballot counts and illegal voting in Nevada.
In the email to The Post, Walters argued the curriculum on the 2020 election doesn’t “pressure or persuade students to have one opinion or another.”
“These academic standards will be based on facts as students are given graphs, charts and data points of the 2020 election and they can come to their own conclusion on what they believe the outcome was,” he said.
“Any critical thinking individual will look at the 2020 election and would understand there were discrepancies,” Walters added.
Melanie Larson, 42, a substitute teacher in Edmond, Oklahoma, said she feels Walters is “overstepping the will” of teachers and parents. She has opposed efforts to incorporate the Bible into public schools.
She said her two children, who will be in middle and high school in the fall, asked questions about how the state could put “untrue things” in the standards, referring to the item on the 2020 election results.
“I understand, because I feel that way, too,” Larson said. “I had to talk to my kids about how the things you’re learning in class may or may not be true. This is wild.”
Justine McDaniel covers national news. She joined The Washington Post in 2022 after reporting for the Philadelphia Inquirer
Anumita Kaur is a national breaking news reporter for The Washington Post. She was previously a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Guam Pacific Daily News.
Really Gov, you fell for his deception and allowed yourself to be manipulated for his benefit? Duh you! But I must confess you successfully deceived me into believing you were an intelligent and trustworthy woman. Duh me! From the Washington Post.....
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters that he would “take a look at” pardoning the men, saying the trial looked “like somewhat of a railroad job.”
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters that he would “take a look at” pardoning the men, adding, “I did watch the trial. It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job.”
Responding to Trump’s comments, Whitmer told Michigan Public Radio, “I talked to the president about a month ago and he asked me how I’d feel about this, and I said, ‘I think it would be the wrong decision.’
“And he said, ‘Okay, I’ll drop it,’” she added.
“When I talked to him before, we had a thoughtful conversation about it, and he said he’d drop it. So, I’m not sure what to make of this new revelation,” she said in Thursday’s interview.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Whitmer, who pointed out that she was one of the first politicians to condemn the assassination attempt Trump faced at a 2024 rally in Pennsylvania, said she would make her thoughts on the issue known to the White House over the weekend.
Federal and state officials originally charged multiple people in the plot against Whitmer, arresting the men in an October 2020 sting that involved the use of informants and undercover FBI agents. The officers embedded with the men, who were associates of a militia group known as the Wolverine Watchmen.
Among the six men who faced federal charges, two men — Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks — pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors ahead of an initial trial. In that trial, the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on Croft and Fox but acquitted two other alleged co-conspirators, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta. In a second federal trial, Croft and Fox were convicted on two charges of conspiracy — one related to the kidnapping scheme and another to obtain and use a weapon of mass destruction. Croft also was convicted on another explosives charge.
Prosecutors told jurors that Fox compiled a list of tools the group would need to carry out the kidnapping, including handcuffs and a hood to cover Whitmer’s head, and plotted where to place explosives to destroy the bridge near Whitmer’s home. Jurors saw video of Croft making explosives and heard testimony of how he believed God had given him permission to kill.
Jurors in the earlier federal trial seemed to agree, at least in part, with defense lawyers’ arguments that FBI agents entrapped the men in the violent plot, pointing to how one of the undercover federal operatives offered explosives to the men.
In the wake of the case, Whitmer repeatedly blamed Trump for stoking mistrust and anger over coronavirus restrictions and refusing to condemn extremists such as those implicated in the plot. But since Trump has retaken the presidency, she has been one of the rare Democratic politicians who has sought to build a working relationship with him.
Their partnership has yielded some results for Whitmer’s home state, such as a new fighter mission at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. But that effort to work together has also posed challenges for the potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, particularly in scenes with Trump in which she has seemed to be caught off guard.
During a speech at the base to announce the new mission, Trump praised the governor and then invited her to speak at the lectern to deliver remarks she said she was not planning to make.
“I am so, so grateful that this announcement was made today, and I appreciate all the work,” Whitmer said, without specifically praising Trump.
When she went to lobby Trump last month on Selfridge and other state-related issues, she found herself standing in the Oval Office while the president signed executive orders targeting his political opponents. The New York Times later published a photo showing her shielding her face from the camera. (Her office said she was invited into the Oval Office without knowing what Trump was about to do, and clarified that she did not endorse his actions by being there.)
During his second term, Trump has deployed pardons in a wide-reaching campaign to recalibrate a justice system he calls corrupt and says has politically persecuted him and those who support him. Shortly after being sworn in, Trump pardoned virtually all of the defendants convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and commuted the sentences of the remaining 14.
In front of a conservative crowd in 2022, Trump sought to connect the legal plight of the Jan. 6 rioters with the individuals who plotted to kidnap Whitmer, suggesting that the governor was never in danger.
“Just like those who instigated January 6th,” he said at the time, “it was a fake deal.”
Trump presidency
Follow live updates on the Trump administration. We’re tracking President Donald Trump’s progress on campaign promises and legal challenges to his executive orders and actions.
Tariffs and the economy: China and the United States agreed to lower tariffs on goods from each other’s countries for 90 days. Trump’s 10 percent “universal” tariff on all imports is still in place. Here’s what led to the decision to ease tariffs on China.
First 100 days: Trump is facing growing opposition to his ambitious and controversial agenda, with his approval rating in decline, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll. But inside the White House, Trump’s team isn’t dissuaded. Here’s a look at Trump’s first 100 days in 10 charts.
Harvard feud: The Trump administration terminated $450 million in federal funding to Harvard University, the latest round in the battle between the administration and the Ivy League university. Harvard sued the Trump administration after it froze more than $2 billion in federal funding after the school refused to make sweeping changes to its governance, admissions and hiring practices.
Federal workers: The Trump administration continues to work to downsize the federal government, eliminating thousands of jobs at agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, USAID, the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the Education Department, the Defense Department, the National Weather Service, and the National Park Service.
Maegan Vazquez is a politics breaking news reporter. She joined The Washington Post in 2023
Holly Bailey, Perry Stein, Emily Davies and Patrick Svitek contributed to this report.
The delay reflects lingering concerns about legal liabilities stemming from a White House maneuver to transform what was originally a sale between two countries into a “gift.”