The Weekly Sam: The Whole-Language Fraud by Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Back in 1955, Rudolf Flesch wrote Why Johnny Can’t Read, which has become a
classic in educational literature. In that book American parents found out for the first
time why their children were having such a difficult time learning to read. Most of the
parents had been taught to read by way of the centuries-old alphabetic phonics
method, and they assumed that the schools were still using the same methods. Thus it
came as somewhat of a shock when they found out that their children were being
taught to read by a new and very different method.
Flesch explained that in the early 1930s, the professors of education changed the
way reading was taught in American schools. They threw out the alphabetic phonics
method, which is the proper way to teach anyone to read an alphabetic writing system,
and they put in a new whole-word, look-say, or sight method that taught children to
read English as if it were Chinese, an ideographic writing system. Flesch explained
that when you impose an ideographic teaching method on an alphabetic writing
system, you get reading disability.
Actually, Flesch was not the first to make this observation. The first man to do so
was Dr. Samuel T. Orton, a neuropathologist who had studied cases of reading
disability in Iowa in the late 1920s. He came to the conclusion that the cause of the
childlren’s problems was the new sight method of teaching reading, and he wrote an
article on the subject which appeared in the Feburary 1929 issue of the Journal of
Educational Psychology, entitled “The ‘Sight Reading ‘ Method of Teaching Reading as
a Source of Reading Disability.” Dr. Orton wrote:
“I wish to emphasize at the beginning that the strictures which I have to offer here do
not apply to the use of the sight method of teaching reading as a whole but only to its
effects on a restricted group of children for whom, as I think we can show, this
technique is not only not adapted but often proves an actual obstacle to reading
progress, and moreover I believe that this group is one of considerable size and
because here faulty teaching methods may not only prevent the acquisition of
academic education by children of average capacity but may also give rise to far
reaching damage to their emotional life.”
Unfortunately. Dr. Orton’s warning fell on deaf ears, and the professors of education
launched their new textbooks on the education market, the most famous of which were
the Dick and Jane basal readers. It didn’t take long for the reading problems to begin
showing up. Parents began to hear of a new reading disorder called dyslexia, which
many children were coming down with. In April of 1944, Life magazine ran a major
article on the subject, reporting :
“Millions of children in the U.S. suffer from dyslexia which is the medical term for
reading difficulties, It is responsible for about 70% of the school failures in 6- to 12
year-age group, and handicaps about 15% of all grade-school children. Dyslexia may
stem from a variety of physical ailments or combination of them — glandular imbalance,
heart disease, eye or ear trouble — or from a deep-seated psychological disturbance
that ‘blocks’ a child’s ability to learn. It has little or nothing to do with intelligence and
is usually curable. ”
The article went on to describe the case of a little girl with an I. Q . of 118 who was
being examined at the Dyslexia Institute of Northwestern University. After her tests, the
doctors concluded that the little girl needed “thyroid treatments, removal of tonsils and
adenoids, exercises to strengthen her eye muscles.” The article concluded:
“Other patients may need dental work, nose, throat or ear treatment, or a thorough
airing out of troublesome home situations that throw a sensitive child off the track of
normality. In the experience of the institute these range from alcoholic fathers to
ambitious mothers who try to force their children too fast in school”
Strange as it seems, no one at Life seemed to know that Dr. Orton existed or that in
1929 he had identified the cause of dyslexia: the ideographic way of teaching reading.
In fact, Dr. Orton had popularized the term dyslexia.
I n any case, by 1954 it was clear to a lot of intelligent people what was causing the
reading problem. Collier’s magazine of Nov. 26, 1954 explained it all in an article
entitled “Why Don’t They Teach My Crlild to Read?” by Howard Whitman.
He wrote:
The man next to me in the airport bus entering Pasco, Washington , said “My six-year-old reads words
at school and can ‘t read the same words when I point them out at home in the newspaper. In school today
the children aren’t taught to read — they’re taught to memorize.”
A man in the seat ahead chimed in, “Everything is pictures. My youngest is in the sixth grade. He’ll still
come across a word like pasture and he remembers a picture in his early reader and calls it meadow ”
Neither passenger knew I was making a national study of modern education; they volunteered their
remarks, sharing something they were concerned — and troubled — about. Like them, thousands of other
American parents with first-grade children who are not catching on to reading as taught by the modernists,
and those with upper-grade children handicapped by lack of a solid reading foundation, are concerned
and troubled.
But most of all they are puzzled. Why is reading taught this way? A thousand times one hears the
question, “Why don ‘t they teach my child to read?” How can schools tolerate a method which turns out
many children of eight, nine and older who stare helplessly at a word (not on their memory list) and cannot
make a stab at reading it? What has happened to the method of teaching reading sound by sound ,
syllable by syllable, so that a child can at least make a reasonable attempt at reading any word?
Two basic teaching methods are in conflict here. One is the phonetic approach (known as phonics), the
old-fashioned way in the view of modern educators. They are likely to call it the “spit and spatter” or “grunt
and groan” method, satirizing the way youngsters try to sound out letters and syllables.
The other method, which the modernists have put into vogue, is the word-memory plan — also known as
“sight reading,” “total word configuration” or “word recognition.” It has the more friendly nickname of “look
and say,” since the youngster is supposed simply to look at a word and say it right out. He memorizes the
“shape” of the word, the configuration, and identifies it with pictures in his workbook Often he is taught to
recognize phrases or whole sentences in his picture book, or on flash (poster) cards, before he can
independently sound out and pronounce such simple words as cat or ball.
The fundamental difference in approach in the two methods reaches deep into philosophy and
scientific theory. Thinkers have wrangled for centuriesover which comes first, the whole or its parts (an
argument perhaps as endless as that over the priority of the “chicken or the egg”). The phonics
advocates say the parts come first; the word-memory people say we start with the whole and the parts fall
into place in due course.
The article explained it all quite clearly. The cause of the reading problems children
were having was the teaching method. And what happened to that method after so
much criticism and parental concern? Did the educators change anything? Did they
admit that they had been wrong? On the contrary. They stuck to their guns and
insisted that their new way of teaching was the better way. And if parents didn’t like it
they could lump it. In fact, in 1956, the professors of reading organized the
International Reading Association, which has become the most powerful professional
lobby for the advocacy of the look-say method. In the main, its presidents have been
the authors of the leading reading textbooks used in the schools.
Does that indicate some sort of conflict of interest between professors of reading
who train their students to teach by their methods, who train the directors of reading
who then recommend the books to the school boards, who receive royalties from the
publishers who sell the books to the school districts? These same professors also
control the professional publications that show a distinct bias and hostility toward
phonics. If that isn’t a conflict of interest, then what is?
There is also the issue of deception. Have the educators been deceiving the
parents all these years? They never asked the parents whether or not they wanted
their children to be taught to read English as if it were Chinese. Have they deliberately
foisted on the American people a defective teaching method which has caused
enormous harm to millions of children, many of whom are now adults? Are they not
responsible for our nation’s precipitous decline in literacy?
In the early ’60s, Dr. Jeanne Chall obtained a grant from the Carnegie Corporation
to do an in-depth study of the two reading instruction methods to find out which method
was the more effective. The study was finally published in 1967 under the title,
Learning to Read: The Great Debate. Dr. Chall’s conclusion was that a phonics
approach, that is, decoding, was the more effective teaching method for beginning
reading.
You would have thought that Dr. Chall had settled the issue and that phonics had
won the great debate. But no such thing happened. True, for a time more phonics
was included in whole-word basal reading programs, but the basic ideographic
approach remained unchanged. The professors of reading remained totally
committed to their methodology. In fact, they invented a new term to describe it,
“psycholinguistics. ”
Indeed, it was Professor Kenneth Goodman who formulated the new definition of
reading which he articulated in the May 1967 Journal of the Reading Specialist as
follows :
“Reading is a selective process. It involves partial use of available language cues
selected from perceptual input on the basis of the reader’s expectation. As this partial
information is processed, tentative decisions are made to be confirmed, rejected or
refined as reading progresses.
“More simply stated, reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game.”
That said it all. Moreover, it indicated that the professor made no distinction
between an alphabetic writing system and an ideographic one. And that was the key
to the deception. Some years later Goodman told a reporter from The New York
Times (July 9, 1975) that it was perfectly all right if a child read “pony” for “horse”
because the child had gotten the meaning.
A professor of reading who does not understand the difference between an
alphabetic writing system and an ideographic one is like a mechanic who doesn’t
understand the difference between a horse-and-buggy and an automobile. The
alphabet did for the ancient world what the computer is doing for the modern world. It
made learning to read easy and speeded up the reading process enormously. It was a
far more accurate and precise form of writing. It permitted a tremendous growth in
vocabulary, thereby expanding the use of language and the ability to think. It
enhanced the exchange of information and knowledge. It helped produce better
speech because now language was visible in the form of symbols representing
speech sounds. And because it permitted man to do so much more with so much less,
It is probably the single most significant invention of man.
To require children to give up all of the advantages of alphabetic writing in favor of
an ideographic theory of reading makes no sense at all. What have we gained by it?
Nothing. What have we lost by it? The literacy of a nation. It is time for the American
people to decide that enough is enough. The experiment has gone on far too long.
The great debate should have been settled a long time ago.
But now, in the ’90s, we are in a new phase of the debate — open warfare. This is
what we were told by Education Week of March 21, 1990 in an article entitled, “From a
‘Great Debate’ to a Full-Scale War: Dispute Over Teaching Reading Heats Up.” The
article states :
In 1967, one of the most prominent researchers in reading instruction, Jeanne S. Chall, analyzed the
controversy that was then raging in the field in an influential book called The Great Oebate.
Today, nearly a quarter of a century later, the Harvard University scholar says the “debate” not only
persists, but has, in fact, escalated to a full-scale war.
The battle lines are drawn between advocates of phonics, who stress the importance of teaching the
relationships betlween letters and sounds, and those of whole-language methodology, who believe
children should be taught reading by reading whole texts.
And so fierce have their arguments become that two recent attempts to find a common ground — a
federally funded study and a proposal for the 1992 national assessment — have not only failed to quell the
debate, but may have exacerbated it.
“It’s always been, in reading, that there was restraint with all our fighting,” Ms. Chail says. “Now it’s as if all
restraints are gone.”
And so, we are now in an educational war, dealing with the very same issues
described by Collier’s magazine in 1954 and Rudolf Flesch in 1955. In all this time,
alphabetic phonics has remained alphabetic phonics, but look-say has evolved into
psycholinguistics, which has further evolved into whole language. Quite an interesting
metamorphosis. What exactly is whole language?
Whole language is an even more extreme form of look-say. It not only does not
recognize any distinction between an alphabetic writing system and an ideographic
one, it doesn’t even recognize that alphabetic writing is a representation of speech. In
a recently published book, Whole Language: What’s the Difference?, the authors write:
“Oral language, written language, sign language — each of these is a system of
linguistic convention for creating meanings. That means none is ‘the basis’ for the
other; none is a secondary representation of the other.”
Those statements not only indicate a lack of understanding of what alphabetic
writing is, but a lack of understanding of its benefits.
Whole language is the latest educational fraud being perpetrated on the American
people. In fact, the whole language fraud is nothing less than the usurpation of
primary education by a group of radical, politicized educators whose goal is not the
improvement of reading but the inculcation of children with collectivist, left-wing ideas.
The Blumenfeld Archives
This article is from the Blumenfeld Archives. To sign up for free access to the archives: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
The State of The American Populace Movement with Excerpts from, “A History of the American People” by Dr. Maria Perez
The State of The American Populace Movement
Excerpts from, A History of the American People by Paul Johnson
We are experiencing a populist revolution and a reformation of morals. One that the common man is galvanizing, not by what you would assume, such as churchgoers or people of faith. Why do so many people who never hearken into a church door see what is at stake in our nation and our standing up for righteousness? Could it be possible that God’s common grace is being seen today in the people of America?
America is great because the people are great. America is exceptional because the people are exceptional.
Are we entering a Golden Age of a reawakening to the Gospel Truths, similar to the founding of our nation?
I believe we’re living through a dispensation of the concept of God’s common grace. Common grace, as an expression of the goodness of God, is every favor, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God; this includes the delay of wrath, the mitigation of our sin-natures, natural events that lead to prosperity, and all gifts that human use and enjoy naturally. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/goodness-god-common-grace/
This essay is an overview of those foundational years and the people who shaped that history, written by, Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People. The Conservative Book Club described it as “a single, sweeping volume, so awesome in scope, so rich in fascinating detail, and so pulsing with shared dramatic intensity that it instantly takes its place in the finest one-volume history of our nation ever written.”
In the first section, A City on a Hill: Colonial America, 1580 to 1750, Johnson asserts, “The creation of the United States of America is the greatest of all human adventures. No other national story holds such tremendous lessons, for the American people themselves and the rest of mankind.”
The first to settle were the Portuguese. The Portuguese, a predominantly seagoing people, were the first to begin the new enterprise early in the 15th century. They were adventurers who were excited about their discoveries of the Americas. These early settlers believed they were beginning civilization afresh: the first boy and girl born in Maderia were christened Adam and Eve.
The landing of the first settlers on the Mayflower in New Plymouth on December 11, 1620, proved to be the single most crucial formative event in early American history. This event would ultimately significantly shape the direction of the American Republic.
The Mayflower men and women were unique. They came to America not primarily for gain or livelihood but to create. God’s Kingdom on earth. They were zealots, the idealists, the utopians, the Saints. And the best of them were, perhaps one should say, the most extreme of them, fanatical, uncompromising, overweening in their self-righteousness. They were also immensely energetic, persistent, and courageous. They were going to America to pursue religious freedom as a Christian body. In a sense, they were not individuals but a community.
They drew up a social compact, creating a civil body politic to provide equal laws founded upon church teachings and to distinguish between the colony’s religious and secular governance. This contract was based upon the original biblical covenant between God and the Israelites.
They saw themselves as exceptions to the European betrayal of Christian principles and were conducting an exercise in exceptionalism.
This essay will look predominantly at three relevant contributions to America. These include the prominence of the Bible to the founding settlers, the significance of liberty, and the importance of education to these founding Pilgrims.
The Importance of the Bible
Another lesson and much nostalgia are found in the blessings resulting from faith in and obedience to God and Scripture.
These early colonial Americans believed that knowledge of God came directly to them through studying the Holy Scripture.
They read the Bibles for themselves daily. Virtually every humble cabin in the Massachusetts colony had its own Bible. Adults read it alone, silently. It was also read aloud among families and in church during Sunday morning service, which lasted from 8:00 to 12. (More Bibles were read in the afternoon.) Many families had a regular course of Bible reading, which meant they covered the entire text of the Old Testament each year. Every striking episode was familiar to them, and its meaning and significance were earnestly discussed; many they knew by heart. The language and literature of the Bible in its various translations, but particularly in the magnificent new King James Version, passed into the common tongue in script on Sunday. The minister took his congregation through key passages and carefully attended sermons, which rarely lasted less than an hour. But authority lay in the Bible, not the minister, and in the last resort, every man and woman decided in the light of which Almighty God gave them what the Bible meant.
The Value of Liberty
To them, liberty and religion were inseparable, and they came to America to pursue both. They associated liberty with godliness because it was unattainable without freedom of conscience.
John Winthrop gave what he termed a little speech on July 3, 1645, on the whole question of the authority of magistrates and the people’s liberty. A statement of view that many found powerful so that the words were copied and recopied.
He stated, “That liberty is that only which is good, just and honest, is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority. It is of the same kind of liberty whereof Christ hath made us free. If you stand for your natural, corrupt liberties, and will do what is good in your own eyes, you will not endure the least weight of authority, but if you will be satisfied to enjoy such civil and lawful liberties, such as Christ allows you, then you will quietly and cheerfully submit under that authority which is set over you for your good. The Colonist brought with them from England a strong sense of need to live under the rule of law, not of powerful individuals.”
Liberty fostered productivity and wealth.
Johnson states that “exactly 300 years after John Winthrop’s fleet anchored” (1630), America which is only 6% of the world’s population and land area, yet, it produces 70% of its oil, nearly 50% of its copper, 38% of its lead, 42% each of its zinc and coal, 46% of its iron, 54% of its cotton, and 62% of its corn—all with only minimal government regulation.”
An Educated Populace
A college for training Ministers of Religion was founded on the Charles River at Newtown in 1636, according to the will of Reverend John Harvard. He came to the colonies in 1635 and left 400 books for this purpose. It was an index of how the colony achieved its primary objective. As one of the Harvard founders puts it plainly, “After God had carried us save to New England, and we had built our houses, provided necessities for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship and settled the civil government, one of the following things we longed for, and looked after, was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity.
The Puritans were successful settlers. They could read the often excellent printed pamphlets advising colonists because they were skilled. Most were artisans or tradesmen, some were experienced farmers, and there was a definite sprinkling of merchants with capital. They came as families under leaders, often as entire congregations under the administrators. The unit plantation was several square miles, with an English-style village in the middle, where all had houses with lands outside it. These were first class colonists, law abiding, churchgoing, hardworking, democratic, anxious to acquire education and to take advantage of self-government.
Are we living in another spiritual Great Awakening, much like the one that occurred in first half of the 18th century in America, which proved to be a vast significance both in religion and in politics? It was indeed one of the key events in American history. It was started by preachers moving among the rural vastness, close to the frontier, among humble people, some of whom rarely had a chance to enjoy a sermon, many of whom had little contact with structured religion at all. It was simple, but it was not simplistic. These preachers of the great revival, Great Awakening were anxious not just to deliver a message, but to get their hearers to learn it themselves by studying the Bible; and to do that, they needed to read. So, an important element of the early Great Awakening was the provision of some kind of basic education in the frontier districts and among rural communities, which as yet had no regular schools.
The Great Awakening was applicable for persons of all creeds and backgrounds and ethnic origins, native born Americans and the new arrivals from Europe, united by the desire to do good, lead useful and godly lives, and help others to do the same in the new and splendid country Divine Providence had given them.
Recently, the bible has become one of the best-selling books on the market. The Wall Street Journal has penned it “a golden age of Bible publishing.” We see that, just as during the 18th-century Great Awakening, a new population of Americans are undertaking this reformation and revival to recapture America’s heart and soul. You just might not find them in a church just yet.
Who was the real Saint Nicholas?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Towns and Cities Across Canada Declare December Christian Heritage Month
Thanks to Google Alert, we recently discovered about story of dozens of towns, and cities in Canada that have declared December Christian Heritage Month. Hal Shurtleff, director of Camp Constitution, host of The Camp Constitution Report and the plaintiff in the precedent setting 9-0 Supreme Court decision Shurtleff v Boston http://www.lc.org interviews the Toronto couple Jay and Molly Banerjei that have been the force behind the movement: https://christianheritagemonth.ca/
Jay and Molly, originally from India, tell Hal about their concern that Christianity will be a persecuted religion in their adopted country, and how they were led by the Holy Spirit to take a stand for Christ. They share with Hal how they founded the widely successful Toronto Christian Music Festival and the difficulties they had in obtaining permits for this well attended annual event https://christianmusicfestival.org/about-us/
(A link to an audio version of the interview: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2024-12-08T05_06_10-08_00 )
A
The Christian Heritage Month Proclamation:
Whereas Canada was founded on the words of Psalm 72:8, “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea,” acknowledging our nation’s spiritual foundation; and
Whereas the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms recognizes the supremacy of God, affirming the importance of faith in shaping our values; and
Whereas Christianity, the largest and most ethnically diverse religion in Canada, has deeply influenced the principles of compassion, justice, and service that define our nation; and
Whereas Christians, representing diverse backgrounds from all continents, have contributed significantly to Canada’s spiritual and cultural heritage; and
Whereas December is dedicated to celebrating Christmas, a holiday that embodies love, unity, and generosity;
Now, therefore, let December be proclaimed as Christian Heritage Month, honoring the enduring legacy of Christianity and its impact on the growth and values of Canada.“
Samples of Christian Heritage Month proclamations.
And, their flag or banner:
We encourage readers to forward this far and wide especially to members of the media, and then pray that we in the United States will be able to organize a concerted effort like Molly and Jay have.
Pearl Harbor Attacked “DECEMBER 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(Reposted with permission)
The Pilgrims Were Not Socialists-The American Minute
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The above article was reposted with permission from the American Minute.
Appeals Court Allows Louisiana To Post Ten Commandments
In June 2024, Louisiana enacted House Bill 71 which requires all K-12 public schools and state-funded universities to display at least an 11-inch by 14-inch poster of the Ten Commandments. The displays must have a four-paragraph “context statement” describing the history of the Ten Commandments and how they “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”
However, a multifaith group of nine families, consisting of Jewish, Christian, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious parents represented by the ACLU, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, have challenged the law alleging the state is endorsing a specific religion.
Louisiana officials defended the Ten Commandments law as constitutionally valid by arguing that it has a historical and educational purpose. They cite the Decalogue’s “historical role” in developing American law and education, which displayed alongside other historical documents, would be permissible under the First Amendment. Since HB 71 also required public school classrooms to display the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, and the Northwest Ordinance, the state’s legal team argued that the law’s intent is not to endorse a religion but to teach where America’s longstanding moral values in civic life originate.
Louisiana has considerable grounds for its appeal. Recent Supreme Court precedents show that displaying the Ten Commandments is not necessarily a religious endorsement. In American Legion v. American Humanists Association, the High Court wrote that the Ten Commandments “have historical significance as one of the foundations of our legal system” and represents a “common cultural heritage.” Then, in 2022, the cases of Shurtleff v. City of Boston and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District rejected and overruled the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman. The High Court replaced the “Lemon Test” by returning to a traditional First Amendment standard where courts must interpret the Establishment Clause by “reference to historical practices and understandings.”
Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The Ten Commandments is a universally recognized symbol of law and has indelibly shaped the Western Legal Tradition and American government. There are more than 50 displays of the Ten Commandments inside and outside the United States Supreme Court. The Ten Commandments are ubiquitous and their central role in law and government pre-date the U.S. Constitution. With this injunction narrowed to only five school districts, the Ten Commandments will be displayed in nearly all Louisiana public schools.”
Liberty Counsel provides broadcast quality TV interviews via Hi-Def Skype and LTN at no cost.
(The above is a news release from Liberty Counsel http://www.lc.org
TAKE ACTION
Democrats lost by overly orchestrating anti-Trump efforts
Democrats lost by overly orchestrating anti-Trump efforts
Nancy Pelosi got blamed for top-down “orchestration,” but the Cabal was broader than that
Ken Reid
The primary reasons voters elected Donald Trump over Kamala Harris and chose a Republican Congress were Joe Biden and the Democrats’ miserable handling of the economy, immigration and foreign policy – and their embrace of far-left “woke” polices, like sex-change operations for prisoners and other “transgender rights.”
However, the Democrat “strategy” of hitting Trump with multiple indictments, tagging him and his supporters as “existential threats to democracy,” and scaring women over abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision may also have backfired, because these efforts were really designed to deflect attention from the harmful impacts of Biden’s bad policies and actions.
Topping it off, when he was pushed off the ticket for Vice President Kamala Harris in July, many voters may have smelled a rat. In essence, all of this was masterminded by a few political chieftains, notably former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and probably the Obamas, Clintons and their “strategists.”
Indeed, on MSNBC November 9, former Harris spokesperson and one-time Bernie Sanders operative Symone Sanders-Townsend (no relation to the senator), mouthed off against Pelosi, saying she “orchestrated the very public demise of the president. And thank God for Joe Biden, that he came out and, yes, endorsed his VP. Pelosi is known for being “calculated,” she went on to say, but “where is her calculator now?”
The key words here are “orchestration” and “calculating.” One could say “None dare call it conspiracy,” or resurrect then-First Lady Hillary Clinton’s 1998 phrase “vast right-wing conspiracy” that “has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”
Ms. Clinton was denounced for calling it a “conspiracy.” In reality, a group of conservative activists and publications did continue an “opposition research” campaign against President Bill Clinton from the day he was elected in 1992, to persuade Congress and courts to investigate him, impeach him and undermine his presidency.
It didn’t really work. Like Donald Trump, Bill Clinton was impeached, but he resurrected himself, while Hillary went on to become a US Senator from New York and Secretary of State – and came close to defeating Trump for president in 2016.
The vast-left wing orchestration against Trump, however, was much more intricate, extensive and orchestrated than what conservatives used to tarnish Clinton. For example:
* Advancing the phony “Russiagate” scandal, at the highest levels of government
* Supporting and glorifying the “mostly peaceful” “Resistance” against the Trump presidency
* Instigating the 2019 House impeachment
* Demanding school and business lockdowns during the Covid pandemic, to hurt the economy and President Trump
* Supporting and capitalizing on the George Floyd riots
* Perpetuating “January 6” investigations, hearings, indictments and media coverage
* Promoting fear and hysteria following the Dobbs decision and various state limitations on abortion
* Pushing challengers out of the 2020 primaries to anoint Joe Biden (South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn’s “masterstroke”)
* Preventing a competitive 2024 primary against Biden
* Holding a Biden-Trump debate after primaries had ended, to see how President Biden would perform – and then forcing him off the ticket because he bombed
* Coronating Kamala Harris after Biden was ousted
Many are convinced that all these schemes were orchestrated by the Cabal of Pelosi, Schumer, the Obamas, the Clintons, and their strategists. Perhaps they wanted Biden to be the 2020 nominee, instead of independent-minded people like Senators Amy Klobuchar or Elizabeth Warren, or outsiders like Pete Buttigieg or Michael Bloomberg, because they knew they could manipulate Biden more easily.
However, Joe Biden was never a leader in the US Senate; he was a follower. He does little thinking for himself, but makes decisions based on the advice of bureaucrats, political aides and special interests. He largely approved all the big-spending legislation and regulatory initiatives the Democrats and his Obama-holdover aides wanted when they regained control of Congress after 2020. And he opened the nation’s borders to salve the bleeding hearts of his policy wonks.
“Joe Biden is nothing more than a Trojan horse for the radical socialists,” former Vice President Mike Pence warned in 2020. In the end, that radicalism doomed the Democrats in 2024.
In anointing Biden “The Nominee” during the 2020 primaries, octogenarians Clyburn and Pelosi looked over Biden’s eroding cognitive abilities. When he inevitably became a liability to the Democratic cause, they orchestrated his departure from the ticket for the younger Harris. They also engaged in incessant “lawfare,” Trump indictments and January-6 investigations.
Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested the Democrats should have focused “on one or two” charges against Trump, not four, and the indictments “will backfire on the Left.” But The Cabal apparently wanted to extend the Trump-tarnishing so that there would be no trial before the GOP nominating process, thereby giving Republicans little opportunity to nominate someone else.
Prolonging the 1/6 congressional investigation into the 2022 elections was an effort to tarnish not just Trump, but his supporters. Biden’s unforgivable September 2022 speech in Philadelphia, when he attacked “MAGA Republicans” for being disloyal to America, was part and parcel of this effort
The media covered up the Cabal’s intrigues. Anyone who watches CNN or MSNBC has seen how Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin, Pelosi, Clyburn and other leading Democrats are treated with kid gloves. The media hated Trump for calling them “fake news” and colluded with the Democrats nearly every step of the way.
It’s unlikely that Symone Sanders-Townsend will come clean on all of this, though our nation would benefit greatly from the disinfecting sunshine she could provide. Regardless, it seems highly unlikely that the Democrats can change their stripes, because their base and big donors have gone Loony-Left.
The Cabal probably thought throwing all those indictments and civil penalties at Trump would make him crack and cop a plea with the prosecutors. But Trump had the money and backbone to slug it out. He also had excellent lawyers, who mucked up the lawfare wheels. Essentially, he ran the clock out on the Democrats.
There’s a lesson here about being “overzealous” in politics. Jerome Lawrence coauthored the 1955 play (and 1960 film) “Inherit the Wind,” which examined extremism in “the Scopes monkey trial,” as a metaphor for the McCarthy investigations. Lawrence wrote: “Is it possible to be overzealous, to destroy that which you hope to save – so that nothing is left but emptiness?”
With Trump wining a near landslide despite the criminal cases – and taking the Congress – it seems all the Democrat orchestrations left them nothing but emptiness.
Ken Reid has been a journalist covering Congress and the federal health agencies since 1986. He served in local elected office in Loudoun County, VA (2006 to 2017), has been involved in Trump campaigns in Virginia since 2016, and has written for the Federalist and American Thinker.
The Weekly Sam: HOME SCHOOLING AND THE EDUCATIONAL CRISIS by Samuel L. Blumenfeld
(This article was originally published in the late 1980s. Today, the homeschool movement is flourishing-Ed)
Home schooling is now the fastest growing educational phenomenon in the United States. For example, in April of this year, Massachusetts had its first home-school convention and more than 600 registries showed up, many with babes in arms preparing for the future. These are young Christian families who have decided that their children will never see the inside of a public school. No one knows exactly how many children are being educated at home. Estimates vary from 200,000 to a million. What we do know is that there are now home-school associations in every state and more home-school conventions, conferences, seminars, workshops and book fairs than anyone family can attend. Why is the home-education movement attracting so many new young families? Much of it has to do with the renewal of the Christian family and the desire to adhere to Biblical principles in child rearing.
The growing knowledge among Christians that the public schools are aggressively proselytizing Christian children into humanism via such programs as values clarification, sensitivity training, globalism, multiculturalism, evolution, sex education and death education is perhaps the most compelling reason why parents are turning to home schooling as the preferred alternative ~. Also, many families are disappointed in the lukewarm religious content of many Christian schools that seem to adopt too much from the public schools in curriculum and general ‘practice. What the parents want is a strong, radical shift in orientation toward the Bible. They seek its moral and spiritual security in a world inundated by pornography, drugs, violence, abortion. political corruption and pagan depravity. The home school is being recognized as perhaps the only sure safe haven for children growing up in an increasingly dangerous society.
Meanwhile, the education establishment has become quite concerned with the growth of the home-education movement, which is contributing to the exodus from the public school. In fact, at its 1988 convention, the National Education Association virtually declared war on home education with its Resolution C-34:
“The National Education Association believes that home-school programs cannot provide the child with a comprehensive education experience. The Association believes that, if parental preference home-school study occurs, students enrolled must meet all state requirements. Instruction should be by persons who are licensed by the appropriate state education licensure agency, and a curriculum approved by the state department of education should be used. The Association further believes that such home-school programs should be limited to the children of the immediate family, with all expenses being borne by the parents.”
While the NEA deprecates the home school as an educational institution, the home schoolers are proving that their children are indeed getting a “comprehensive education experience” far superior to the academic junk-food that public schoolers are fed for twelve years and result in declining test scores and increased functional illiteracy.
All of this has led to an education reform movement which is costing the taxpayers additional billions without any visible improvement to date. In addition, wherever home schoolers have been tested, they’ve done better than their public-school counterparts. For example, in Tennessee, where about 900 home schoolers were registered with the state in 1989 — even though it is estimated that about 4,000 Tennessee children are being taught at home — home schoolers did quite \well. The Chattanooga News-Free Press of Dec. 11, 1989, reported:
“State tests show that second graders are about equal to their classroom-educated counterparts. But by the fifth grade, home schoolers have passed their classroom peers in reading, and by the seventh grade home schoolers excel in both math and language, scores show.”
In 1987, the performance of homeschoolers in Tennessee was equally impressive. Of the 561 homeschoolers tested, 213 outscored 245,000 of their public-school counterparts. Fifty-nine homeschool second graders were among the nation’s top 16 percent in reading ability and in the top 10 percentile in math. In the eighth grade, 30 home-schoolers scored 89 percent in reading and 79 percent in math. The 61,518 public school students scored 82 percent in reading and 72 percent in math. (Chattanooga Times, 8/13/87)
The reason why home schoolers do so well is because one-on-one tutoring is far superior to the classroom situation where children who need help get lost in the crowd. In tutoring you get immediate feedback, immediate correction, and thus the child is less likely to develop bad academic habits. Also, home-schooling parents are more apt to teach their children to read by intensive phonics than by the discredited, inefficient look-say or whole-word method. This makes an enormous difference when the goal is academic excellence. Another reason why home schoolers excel is because home educators are highly motivated, dedicated parents, committed to providing their children with the best education possible.
They want their children to become the best that America has to offer. The home-educated youngster represents the finest expression of the American Christian character; moral in behavior, peer independent, self-confident, respectful of elders, self-disciplined, inventive, freedom loving, patriotic, enterprising, God fearing. These are the youngsters who will become the leaders of tomorrow. It is symptomatic of our corrupt, paganized society that it is the finest Christian families, who have accepted their responsibility to educate and rear their children in a Godly manner, who are being , harassed and prosecuted by educational bureaucrats and state attorneys in Iowa, Michigan and elsewhere, determined to impose an atheistic sovereignty over God’s children. There will be many trials and tribulations in the days ahead, but in Christ, victory is ultimately assured.
The Blumenfeld Archives http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
The Weekly Sam: Educational Freedom in Early America By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Many Americans falsely believe that there have always been government schools in our
country. Some believe that compulsory public education was written into our
Constitution. But nothing could be less true. The American colonies had total educational
freedom. Dames’ Schools provided primary education, and private academies provided
moral, literary, and commercial education. There were also, in New England,
town-supported Common Schools. These schools were run by local authorities, paid for
by local citizens, and provided the kind of basic education that parents approved of.
Church elders made sure that these schools provided a good moral education.
The idea of a centralized education system, owned and operated by the state and paid for
by all taxpayers, came from Prussia. In 1843 the “Father of Public-School Education”
Horace Mann visited Prussia, a state within what is now Germany run according to
militarist and centralist principles. Mann was impressed by the Prussians’ central control
of curriculum and teacher training. He was also impressed with the idea of compulsory
school attendance and the role of the truant officer.
Americans were quite satisfied with educational freedom and did not agitate for a
government system supported by taxes. They did not clamor for compulsory education
run by centralized government. But, as usual, the liberals and progressives were able to
use persuasive propaganda in favor of public schools and rally educators to their cause.
In the 1820s, the free market in education was clearly phasing out the community-run
common schools. The private academies were more efficiently organized, provided better
instruction, pupil supervision, and social atmosphere. They were less crowded and
offered a more practical curriculum. But by the 1850s, thanks to political propaganda,
liberal pressure on state legislators, tax-supported public schools were beginning to
phase out the private academies.
Let’s take a look at one of these academies. In 1846 a school entrepreneur by the name of
James Arlington Bennet was able to create the Arlington Academy for boys at New
Utrecht on Long Island, seven miles from New York City. It was housed in an elegant
and spacious building on 100 acres of land. According to the academy’s circular, its
English curriculum included “All the usual elementary branches, with Rhetoric,
Elocution, and English Composition. To this Department are added a splendid pair of
Globes, with Compasses, and Maps of the world, designed for the illustration of
Geographical, Historical, and Astronomical subjects.”
The Academy also taught Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, and Italian. Its Mathematical
Department taught Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry, Differential Calculus, Land
Surveying, Navigation, and Lunar Observations. It had a Commercial Department, a
Civil Architecture Department, a Chemical and Philosophical Department, a Military
Department, and courses in Ethics and Moral Philosophy, Oratory, Agriculture and
Horticulture. The academy also provided instruction in Morals and Religion.
(Dummer Academy)
Many small towns had their own private academies. Dummer Academy was founded at
Byfield, Massachusetts, in 1763. Phillips, at Andover, Massachusetts, in 1778. Phillips at
Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1781. Leicester, at Leicester, Massachusetts, in 1783. Derby,
at Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1784. Each of these schools was founded by the
generosity of some wealthy person.
However, even in poorer towns, the local citizens were able to create excellent private
academies. Such was the case in Atkinson, New Hampshire, where in 1787 Atkinson
Academy was founded by prominent citizens of the town. It educated both boys and girls.
Students from other towns were boarded among local families. A history of the academy
describes what a typical day at school was like:
As the pupils entered the schoolroom each morning, the boys bowed and the girls
curtsied to the master. Awkward country youths found this an ordeal; some of the boys
and girls lost their balance and fell to the floor, greatly to the amusement of their
schoolmates… There followed Bible reading and prayer… Then came the classes. Slates
were probably in use for most of the written work and the problems in arithmetic…
Classes in English grammar parsed, perhaps from the complicated sentences in “Paradise
Lost.”
Virtually every academy had a debating society. At Atkinson Academy, the subjects
debated were of the abstract character so loved by schools of early days: honor versus
shame, courage versus fortitude, genius versus application, city life versus country life. In
1815 the question of the justice of Negro slavery was debated for the first time.
Obviously, the private academies suited the American temperament and desire for
freedom far more than the government schools, which went on to subvert that love of
freedom. Hopefully, the homeschool movement will revive that love of educational
freedom in more and more Americans.
The Blumenfeld Archives https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/