September 11, 2026

THE DARK TRUTH ABOUT 9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORIES:

The tiny number of Twin Towers survivors had not even been pulled from the rubble before the first conspiracy theories were advanced. On the day of the attacks, the notorious Alex Jones claimed he was ‘98 per cent’ certain the Bush administration was to blame. In fact, six weeks before 9/11, he devoted several hours of his Infowars show to a history of ‘false flag’ attacks before warning explicitly that President Bush was planning to commit an act of terror.

So far, so Alex Jones. Yet it would be a mistake to think that trutherism was merely the preserve of cranks and crackpots in dark corners of the internet. Perhaps the first mainstream figure to dip his toe into trutherism – or at least trutherism-lite – was literary giant Gore Vidal. In a 7,000-word essay, published in the Observer in 2002, Vidal accused the ‘Bush junta’ of setting out to deceive a ‘simple-minded’ public as a pretext for ‘our long-contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan’. Bin Laden, Vidal claimed, was ‘chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo’ for the war effort.

The truther movement kicked off in earnest in 2004 with the release of a statement from the group, 9/11 Truth. It called for an investigation into 9/11 and alleged that the Bush administration knowingly allowed the attacks to happen. It was signed by nearly 200 prominent figures, including activist lawyer Ralph Nader and Van Jones. Jones would go on to advise the Obama administration.

Regarding Jones, as Mark Steyn said to Hugh Hewitt in 2009:

We’re supposed to be the crazy guys. We’re supposed to be the ones who don’t distance ourselves from the loons. You know, we’re the…Glenn Beck is supposed to be bananas. The birther movement are supposed to be the nuts. And yet, and yet, it is somehow the reality-based community, or whatever these guys call themselves, that has managed to put a 9/11 truther two doors away from President Obama in the Oval Office. And if he really thinks that the federal government pulled off 9/11, then he’s inside the system. Why doesn’t he uncover the truth of it? He’s the green jobs czar. Presumably, in the previous administration, George W. Bush was the steel melting czar. So why doesn’t he just take a look in the filing cabinets, and expose the truth on it?

As with all world-changing events, we want the cause of them to be as dramatic and frightening as the end results. Gavrilo Princip assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand set in motion the horrors of WWI, which effectively begat the 20th century. After JFK was assassinated, it was far easier to believe Oliver Stone’s shadowy cabal did the job, which effectively implicated everyone from the mafia to the joint chiefs, to LBJ. Jackie Kennedy was quoted bitterly complaining that her late husband, unlike Lincoln, “didn’t even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. It had to be some silly little communist. It even robs his death of any meaning.”

And of course, putting the blame for 9/11 on the Bush administration and/or Israel helps to deflect from a very politically sensitive topic: Ted Cruz Drops Brutal Reality Check on Radical Islamism, Triggers All the Right People in the Process.

In contrast, the New York Times “unexpectedly” boldly goes where Norm Macdonald has gone before:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

IT WOULD TAKE A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH:

Posted at 2:03 pm by Stephen Green

MICHIGAN THINKS GRADES ARE THE PROBLEM. Replacing first semester grades with “pass/no credit” is not going to work any better than going test-optional did, and it’s not going to “curb the mental health crisis” among students.

Posted at 1:49 pm by Robert Shibley

YES: Name the Enemy: The 25th Anniversary of 9/11 Still Demands It. “The al Qaeda terrorists did not hijack those planes because of political differences with the U.S. They did it because they despised the civilization those towers represented: democracy, mixed societies, individual liberty, women in public life, Jews and Christians, and secular people living without clerical veto. Al Qaeda’s leaders said so. Their documents said so. Their sermons said so. Pretending otherwise is not nuance. It is amnesia.”

It’s suicidal.

Posted at 1:48 pm by Stephen Green

JAMES LILEKS: The Martyred Towers — The WTC was more controversial than you might think.

It seems cold to ask it now, today, but I’ve a reason. Did we love the World Trade Center for what it was, or what it came to mean?

Paul Goldberger, the architecture critic for the New York Times, had it right: one tower would have been rather banal, but two towers had the appearance of abstract sculpture. In a 2004 lecture he spoke of his initial reaction:

The first phase we could call Resentment: what was this thing, or this pair of things, doing here, so big, so banal, so unthinkably intrusive, all the more insulting because it is taking away the title of tallest building that everyone knows rightfully belongs to the Empire State Building.

He wasn’t alone. A lot of people thought the buildings were too big. In 1967, the Committee for a Reasonable World Trade Center ran this ad, demanding the project be downscaled.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the WTC and the Pan Am (later MetLife) Building were the two most hated buildings by Manhattanites. As Lileks writes, “Goldberger came to accept, grudgingly, the WTC’s role as a landmark, the shifting attributes that varied depending on the light, the wise decisions to place them at angle to each other instead of side by side. But he never ended up admiring them, and in his 2004 remarks noted that its final role was not love, but respect for its martyred status.” Even far-left Salon noted on September 17th, 2001, “They jeered when it went up. They cried when it crashed down.”

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

THE PRECEDENT IS ESTABLISHED, I SUPPOSE:

And from the replies: “It’s going to be tough to ever see a large group of liberal women again without assuming it’s a killer support group.”

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

Posted at 1:32 pm by Stephen Green

ROGER KIMBALL: Lonnie Bunch’s long march through the Smithsonian.

Lonnie G. Bunch III, the first black head of the Smithsonian Institution, is stepping down after a tenure of some seven years. NPR had the news: “In 2019, Bunch was named secretary of the Smithsonian, becoming the first historian and the first African American to hold the position.” The Wall Street Journal also got the memo: “The first Black historian to lead the world’s largest museum and research complex says he’s retiring and will leave by year’s end.” NBC looked behind the headline. “Bunch, the first Black person and first historian to lead the institution, has said he would have retired a year ago but felt he had to stay to defend the institution from the White House attacks, the person said.”

I had something to say about those “attacks” – I prefer the word “criticisms” – in the Speccie as this little thrust and parry was unfolding. A key document is a letter to Bunch whose subject line reads: “Internal Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions and Materials.” Signed by Lindsey Halligan, Special Assistant to the President; Vince Haley, Director of the Domestic Policy Council; and Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the letter announces a “comprehensive internal review” of the Smithsonian, its exhibitions and curatorial procedures.” “This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”

Bunch has denied that he decided to retire because of pressure from the Trump administration. But he did allow that the administration’s spotlight on the Smithsonian’s ideological coloration was “stressful.” After all, he told the New York Times: “When you’re Black in America, you’ve got to figure out how to get through, right?” Would that be different from being white or some other color “in America?”

In any event, few people would deny that Bunch figured out how to “get through” while being black “in America.” For the last several year, he has been pulling down nearly a million dollars per annum, pretty good innings for someone – no matter his quota of melanin – at a tax-exempt, largely publicly funded enterprise.

Hey, it’s tough out there for a black man in America, but at least he wasn’t locked in a room with 11 liberal white shrews.

UPDATE:

Posted at 1:16 pm by Glenn Reynolds

SALENA ZITO: Under a vivid blue sky, a Pennsylvania field whispers the names of the fallen.

Not far from the entrance to the Flight 93 National Memorial, a quiet stretch of hillside rises gently along the Lincoln Highway. If you drive by too quickly, you might miss it entirely. Yet, this plot of Pennsylvania farmland has transformed into a living sanctuary. It honors not only the souls lost in the catastrophic crash 25 years ago today, but every American service member who has fallen in the subsequent global fight against terrorism.

The mornings across the Appalachian ridges often start heavy and overcast, but today the gray yields to a brilliant, piercing blue sky, punctuated only by light clouds riding the mountain crests.

Standing before this memorial, known as Patriot Park, visitors are met by an overwhelming sea of American flags. Thousands of small banners are secured to white sleeves over metal stakes driven deep into the Earth. When a sudden gust crests the ridge, the entire hillside shifts in unison, producing a gentle, rhythmic rustling that mimics the sound of a sudden downpour on a tin roof.

Needless to say, read the whole thing.

Posted at 1:01 pm by Stephen Green

GOOD STORY, WELL TOLD, BY JOHN BOCH: No Badge, No ID: How to Effect a Policy Change Without Raising Your Voice. “This is the lesson, and it’s not complicated. Bullies come in all walks of life. Some wear a uniform. Some of them even have a shield. Others may have a corporate handbook in the classic verbal judo technique known as ‘referring to a higher authority.’ At least one of them wears a thigh rig and a chip on his shoulder.”

Posted at 12:46 pm by Stephen Green

THE ENEMY WITHIN (CONT’D):

The Economist used to be one of — if not the — best English-language news magazines. Now it’s propaganda.

Posted at 12:32 pm by Stephen Green

ROGER SIMON: Quit Whining About AI. Do Something—Yes, You!

Interestingly, when I first broached this subject to ChatGPT, it responded with a series of questions to ask the public about AI. The last one read: “What wisdom from Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, classical philosophy, and other traditions should survive inside it?”

What other traditions? I think we know one that ChatGPT notably omitted and is problematic—the one that caused 9/11. Unfettered, its use of AI could be disastrous or work in tandem with the feared self-interested system. Stopping an Islam-AI alliance or misuse will not be simple since, as we have seen from the failure to learn the lessons of 9/11, much of the public is reluctant to act through, among other explanations, what Gad Saad has labeled “suicidal empathy.” (Imagine what bin Laden would have done with AI.)

Still, we can only soldier on, pushing AI toward the good as much as we are capable. I remain optimistic that we will succeed and might even live happily ever after with our robots.

UPDATE: Apropos of my aside about bin Laden and AI, Anthropic is now reporting extensive use of Claude by actors close to or within the Iranian regime.

“The report covers malicious activity Anthropic said it disrupted between December 2025 and August 2026 across several areas, including cyber operations, influence campaigns and surveillance.

In one set of influence operations, Anthropic said it identified and removed three Iran state-aligned accounts linked to government propaganda institutions. The accounts used Claude to develop campaigns intended to shape opinion inside and outside Iran while disguising state-backed narratives as independent content.”

Iran International has much more evidence of Iranian use of Anthropic that underscores that we MUST teach AI to be good.

Roger also writes, “For the last few days, we have been bombarded with warnings that AI is about to take over the world and destroy the human race. Some, in positions to know, claim we have only ten years.”

Say, where have we heard that phrase before?

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

RADICALISM AMONG HILL STAFFERS: Not sure whether this means more or fewer than expected of the congressional aides working on Capitol Hill view themselves as holding more radical views than their bosses?

Posted at 12:14 pm by Mark Tapscott

GAYLE KING WAS SHOOK WHEN SHE HEARD THE HOLDOUT CLANCY JUROR IS A BLACK GUY:

King: Is the holdout a person of — a black man?

Juror: Yes.

King: A black man is the holdout juror?

Juror: Yes.

King: Well, I have to sit with that for just a second.

Nine white ladies and two beta white men spent a week badgering a black man to get him to change his mind so they could protect a mom who strangled her kids!

Good news, though:

Bari Weiss has a lot more work to do to reform CBS News though:

Tweet concludes, “Clarence Thomas spoke about exactly this mindset during his confirmation hearings 35 years ago, i.e. the idea that a black man is expected to think a certain way, hold certain views, and arrive at certain conclusions. And when he doesn’t, a lot of people simply cannot compute it. 35 years later, here we are again. A black man thinks for himself, reaches his own conclusion, and the reaction is disbelief.”

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

SHANA TOVA:

Posted at 11:55 am by Charlie Martin

THE ENEMY WITHIN:

Posted at 11:28 am by Stephen Green