Weekly Wrap Dec. 4-8
Wreckin' Ball Ryan can't stop, won't stop
It looks like 2023 is going out with a bang, not a whimper…
In Texas, it took a judge’s ruling to allow a woman with a life-threatening fetal anomaly to receive the health care she needed and end the pregnancy. The state’s ambiguous abortion laws necessitated the court’s intervention— i.e., those death panels the GOP was screaming about in the lead-up to the passage of the ACA—and of course, Texas AG Ken Paxton is threatening to prosecute any doctor who provides the court-sanctioned medical procedure. And in a late-night ruling, the Texas Supreme Court issued a stay on the lower court’s ruling, meaning the mother cannot receive urgently needed medical care quite yet.
Small government for me, but not for thee…
That border crisis that all these Republicans are harping about must not really be a thing if law enforcement has time to investigate and prosecute healthcare providers practicing medicine in the best interest of their patient in a state that actually has an international border. According to Gov. Kevin Stitt, “every state becomes a border state.” More like, every state becomes a police state.
Pay attention to what’s happening with the Oklahoma State Department of Education. I suspect there’s a bit of misdirection going on: remember last week, the vendor contracted to administer the school voucher gambit applications had to punt a few days. Applications finally opened this week, and Gov. Stitt’s office reported 30,000 families signed up in under 90 minutes.
May this potentially max out the $150 million appropriated for the vouchers? Maybe. What I find compelling is we don’t know who signed up for these vouchers, and we may never find out. There are over 32,000 students in private schools in Oklahoma. Is this 30,000 number the governor cites existing private school students, new applications, or a mix?
There simply aren’t enough seats in the 150 voucher-approved private schools to admit 30,000 new students. And considering Gov. Stitt slipped up and said his family would be applying for the vouchers, before his wife reminded him they actually wouldn’t be…
Now, the same week the voucher money grab formally kicks off, Wreckin’ Ball Ryan Walters’ vampire squid advisor Matt Langston mocked Oklahoma House Education Committee Chairman Mark McBride in writing, directing media attention away from the voucher rollout and onto Langston’s uncouth behavior.
What else happened this week with the OSDE? Walters announced Oklahoma public schools would not be using the American Library Association’s literacy standards AND he called for replacing the new Tulsa Public Schools’ superintendent in a national search.
I could be wrong, but it’s mighty suspicious that Langston peers up from underneath his cavernous rock to throw barbs at Chairman McBride while his boss pulls some serious shenanigans simultaneously as the voucher gambit unfurls.
Don’t miss tomorrow’s Brews and Views, 11 am to noon, at BIG Brew Co. in Norman. We have Nick Singer and OU Economics Prof. Cynthia Rogers on tap to discuss the potentially taxpayer-subsidized arena proposals in both OKC and Norman.
Catch up on the latest Observercast episodes, and the Observer’s latest from Gary Edmondson, Sharon Martin, Cal Hobson, and more.
Hope to see you in the morning at BIG!