September 11, 2026

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.

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

CHINA IS ASSHOE: Anthropic disrupts Russian, Chinese AI campaigns targeting its Claude models.

Anthropic on Thursday said it had disrupted several alleged malicious uses of its Claude models over the past eight months, including a suspected Russia-linked cyber espionage campaign and ​efforts by Chinese AI firms it accused of trying to extract and replicate Claude’s ‌capabilities.

Cybercriminals and state-backed hackers were increasingly using AI not just to assist with tasks but to orchestrate and execute large portions of cyberattacks, Anthropic said in its latest Threat Intelligence report, ​adding that humans were often overseers rather than hands-on operators in the campaigns.

“A ​majority of the operations … were enabled by AI via direct execution ⁠or orchestration. The use of AI went beyond simple questions and responses from ​a chatbot but rather involved the use of multi-agent frameworks executing” tasks, Anthropic said.

Anthropic ​said it had disrupted what it described as attacks from seven China-based labs during that period. Among the labs Anthropic named were tech giant Alibaba, Moonshot, DeepSeek and Xiaomi.

More: “Anthropic said it ‌observed ⁠more than 151 million exchanges it attributed to Alibaba between May and July 2026, peaking at nearly 3 million per day from more than 3,500 accounts it described as fraudulent.”

Posted at 10:42 am by Stephen Green

‘A GENTLE AND GENEROUS SOUL:’ X Pays Tribute to Andrew Wimsatt.

Related:

Tweet concludes, ” A civilized society can only exist if the monsters are put away; if the monsters are not allowed into your midst;if the monsters know that there are astoundingly severe consequences for their monstrosity. Please stop swimming in the infinitely pool of suicidal empathy. The line between a civilized society and barbarity is very thin.”

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll

ANOTHER FEDERAL WELFARE PROGRAM?: Family Research Council President Tony Perkins cautions Trump administration against expanding eligibility for the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF)  that provides cash assistance to working lower income families for child care.

Expanding CCDF eligibility to include married Stay-at-Home-Spouses (SAHS) taking care of children — as in a draft regulatory proposal at the White House — has a solid intention behind it, but, Perkins points out, why expand the number of dependents on tax dollars when the government is $40 Trillion in debt? Better to expand the Child Care Tax Credit.

“Historically, we have addressed these issues through tax credits. If you fall below the threshold of paying taxes, it can be a refundable tax credit. We championed the Child Tax Credit at the FRC. We’ve long been a champion of trying to encourage family formation, parent-child bonding. But government direct payments, government programs, is a step that Republicans have not really taken. That’s been Democratic, that’s been socialistic,” Perkins warned.

Posted at 10:07 am by Mark Tapscott

NOT UNEXPECTED: US Treasury yields surge as $6 billion bond buyback disappoints markets.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose above 4.85%, its highest level in nearly three years, before easing slightly.

The yield on the 30-year bond stood at 5.29%, up from 5.26% a day earlier. It reached 5.33% in August, its highest level since 2007.

Treasury yields influence interest rates across the US economy, meaning sustained increases can make mortgages, business loans and other forms of borrowing more expensive. Higher borrowing costs can also slow economic growth and weigh on share prices.

The rise came after the Treasury Department said it would buy back up to $6 billion of bonds maturing in 10 to 20 years on Thursday. This is three times the size of its previous long-dated buyback operation.

Bessent can play around on the margins — or maybe “rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic” is more apropos — but it’s hard to see rates coming down so long as Congress adds another two trillion dollars to the country’s MasterCard every years.

Posted at 9:40 am by Stephen Green