66,600 Bibles for $66.60 dollars each to shove down students throats

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Well OK, not quite 66,600 copies, it is actually 55,000. Each copy will also cost way more than $66.60.

Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction pictured above, is once again demonstrating that there are consequences if you elect religious fanatics into positions of responsibility.

The Oklahoman reports that the guy who previously issued a memo not too long ago demanding that every teacher must use the bible in every class, now plans to spend $6 million of taxpayers money to buy bibles for every single classroom…

State schools Superintendent Ryan Walters called Thursday for another $3 million to provide a Bible in every public school classroom.

Walters said during the monthly meeting of the Oklahoma State Board of Education that the funds would be coupled with $3 million from last year for a total of $6 million to provide Bibles for public schools throughout Oklahoma.

He said he wanted to purchase New King James Version editions that were free from commentary, although he noted it would be fine if the books included other key historical documents, such as the U.S. Constitution.

His justification is …

It’s simply to be the text of a historical document and its usage in American history.”

American History and the Bible

A fundamental tenant of the rising tide of Christian Nationalism is the utterly fictitious claim that the bible greatly influenced the founders and that various parts of the Constitution or law was based upon the bible. None of this is in any way true. The architect of much of this mythology is David Barton, a guy with no meaningful academic credentials who has devoted his life to promoting this pseudo-history as fact. Time and time again, his various claims have been very robustly debunked by historians, but he ignores all that and simply continues to peddle his historical fantasy.

A very notable highlight of his is a book titled “The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson“. It was published in 2012 and made the best-sellers list. Reactions …

  • People familiar with actual history, the History News Network website, voted it to be “the least credible history book in print” …. “Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter, the authors of “Getting Jefferson Right,” denounced Mr. Barton’s “distortions,” writing, “As Jefferson did with the Gospels, Barton chooses what he likes about Jefferson and leaves out the rest to create a result more in line with his ideology.”
  • A group of ten conservative Christian professors reviewed the work and gave it a very big thumbs down … “Glenn Moots of Northwood University wrote that Barton in The Jefferson Lies is so eager to portray Jefferson as sympathetic to Christianity that he misses or omits obvious signs that Jefferson stood outside “orthodox, creedal, confessional Christianity.” A second professor, Glenn Sunshine of Central Connecticut State University, said that Barton’s characterization of Jefferson’s religious views is “unsupportable.” A third, Gregg Frazer of The Master’s College, evaluated Barton’s video America’s Godly Heritage and found many of its factual claims dubious“
  • His Christian publisher Thomas Nelson withdrew the book from publication and stopped production once they realised how deeply dubious this work of fiction really was. They explained, politely, that Barton was a liar as follows … “basic truths just were not there.“

Mr Barton’s response to all this was to label it as attacks by “academic elitists” and then went off to find another publisher. Glenn Beck picked it up for him.

So yes, the “academic elitists“, in other words the people who have actually studied history, are are subject matter experts, and they called him out as a liar.

None of this matters to him because this political fantasy has gained traction amongst some such as Ryan Walters who are desperate to latch on to such fiction and so Mr Walters now seeks to abuse his position of responsibility by injecting this fiction into public schools as fact.

Side Note: Bibles in Schools

I have absolutely no problem at all with students having access to a bible. I would in fact expect every school library to have several copies of different versions available along with other notable religious texts such as the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and other similar books. For students that have an interest in signing up, I would be absolutely fine for it to be taught as part of a comparative religious class or even a textual analysis class, or perhaps even a history of the bible class.

I would even encourage students to read it, and make up their own minds about it.

The issue here is that none of the above is what is going on here. Mr Walters is attempting to mandate it for all.

Maths and the RFP

For those of you that are good at maths, you may already have done a quick calculation. Let me now spell it out.

The Oklahoma State Department of Education is requesting a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the purchase of 55,000 bibles. If he is indeed spending $6 million, then that’s $109 per bible.

Wow … that’s a rather high price. I mean seriously sky-high.

Try this.

Go to Amazon and look for “King James bibles”. You can find plenty for $4-5 … search rally really hard and you would struggle to find any selling for over $60-70. You can also download it for free.

So why $109?

Well, because his RFP comes with some very specific constraints …

This bible “MUST” include … ah, so there it is, the tell that reveals all.

There is only one Bible that meets the above criteria – The very very overpriced Trump Bible, that is actually produced in China (yes really).

As noted by the Guardian on Oct 5th …

Former Oklahoma attorney general Drew Edmondson, a Democrat, said the bid “does not pass the smell test” and said a court could void it if the process was found to limit competition.

“All fingers point to the Trump Bible that does contain all these requirements,” Edmondson said.

What we clearly have here is a financial scam designed to funnel taxpayers money directly into Trump’s pocket

Just to validate all this Journalists at Oklahoma Watch reached out to various publishers and asked if that had anything at all that would meet the very narrow criteria … they came back with a very resounding no.

What is also rather telling is that the bid window is open for only two weeks.

Oh But Wait, the goal posts have been moved

Once the cat was out of the bag, Mr Walters quickly switched things around to attempt to craft an illusion of openness and thus stifle all the flack he has been getting.

Last Monday, Oct 7, the RFP was amended …

So the additional mandated documents don’t have to be part of the bible, they can now be separate, but they must also be bound in leather and leather-like material for durability.

In others words, there is still only one book that fits this amendment – the Trump Bible.

The charge that this is a rather blatant attempt at bid rigging stands.

Decisions Decisions

So what is the real game-plan here?

We have several possibilities.

One is that he is indeed taking his Christian Nationalist agenda to the next level and is ramping up his attempt to promote historical fiction as fact within all Okla schools.

The other is that he is entering into a transactional relationship with Trump. It’s a nod to Trump that he will ensure that he will look after him financially in exchange for a cabinet position within the Trump administration if Trump wins.

This need not be a binary choice, it is in all probability both, as in “Hey Trump, look what I’m doing in Okla, I can also do this on a national scale and also look after you financially as I do so“, wink wink.

Am I suggesting that the Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction is this corrupt?

In my opinion, yes, he really is this corrupt.

I’m also not the first to suggest this, it has been rather obvious for some time now.

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