ARE YOU FOLLOWING THE AL QAEDA SCRIPT

Yesterday President Bush made a speech to the Military Officers Association in Washington D.C. The transcript can be found in the reading assignments.

One part of the speech is especially interesting. Bush was discussing some of the messages that our intelligence forces have found in captured Al Qaeda documents. Here's a portion of Bush's speech where he discusses a letter from Osama bin Laden to Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Secondly, along with this campaign of terror, the enemy has a propaganda strategy. Osama bin Laden laid out this strategy in a letter to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, that coalition forces uncovered in Afghanistan in 2002. In it, bin Laden says that al Qaeda intends to "launch," in his words, "a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government." This media campaign, bin Laden says, will send the American people a number of messages, including "that their government will bring them more losses in finances and casualties." And he goes on to say that "they are being sacrificed to serve the big investors, especially the Jews." Bin Laden says that by delivering these messages, al Qaeda "aims at creating pressure from the American people on the American government to stop their campaign against Afghanistan."

So ... a question. Are you living up to Osama's expectations? If you're a Democrat, or if you're living in a tree house in Crawford, Texas, the answer is probably "yes."

THE LATEST ON WHO PAYS WHAT

Well, it's time to put a stop to the whining about income inequality and those big huge tax breaks the evil rich have received from George Bush. The Treasury Department is about to release the numbers for 2004, and as usual the highest achievers are taking it on the chin.

The Democrats, with no small amount of help from Republicans, are making headway on their goal of shifting the entire federal tax burden in this country onto a minority of income earners. In 2004 the bottom one-half of income earners paid only 3.3% of all federal income taxes. That's down from the Clinton years. In fact, that's the lowest share paid by the bottom half ever.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the majority of American families with incomes less than $40,000 pay no income taxes at all! When you factor in the welfare program known as the Earned Income Tax Credit, many of these families are coming close to getting a completely free ride!

OK ... but what about the evil rich?

In 2004 the top 1% of all income earners earned about 19% of all income. So ... the rich really are benefiting from Bush's tax policies, aren't they? Just 1% earning 19% of all income? Sorry to burst your bubble, but that figure was higher in the Clinton years. During the time Clinton was in office this figure went from 13.8% to nearly 21%. Funny how you didn't read a lot of newspaper stories during the Clinton years about growing income inequality, isn't it? Now, under bush, the share of total income earned by the wicked rich has fallen!

But what about the income taxes! Surely George Bush has all but wiped out income taxes for the nasty rich, hasn't he?

Nope.

In 2004 the top 1% of income earners -- that crowd that earned 19% of all income -- paid 36.9% of all income taxes. The top 5% of income earners paid a whopping 57.1% of all income taxes. That's an increase under Bush. So much for "tax cuts for the rich."

OK .. well how about the super-rich? What about the top one-tenth of one percent of income earners? Lordy, I don't even know how much you have to earn to be in this crowd. From 2002 to 2004, with the hated Bush tax cuts firmly in place, the top 0.1% of income earners saw their share of total income taxes paid go from 15.4% to 17.4%. That's up a full 2% for those of you who went to government schools.

OK ... that's income taxes. But what about capital gains taxes and taxes on dividends? Bush cut those taxes too, didn't he? That's where the rich are making out like bandits, right? Well ... glad you asked. Since Bush's tax cuts the Imperial Federal Government has seen an increase of 79% in capital gains taxes, and 35% for taxes on dividends.

Just remember these figures the next time you see some Democrat whining about income inequality and the need to redistribute income. It looks like we're doing quite a bit of redistribution as it is.

PROSECUTORS GET TOUGH ON STEWART SENTENCING

The AP reports on a brief submitted by prosecutors arguing for a long prison sentence for convicted terrorist enabler Lynne Stewart. They dismiss defense claims that Stewart mistakenly crossed the line from zealous defender to an unwitting accomplice who deserves no jail time for her error:

Stewart's "egregious, flagrant abuse of her profession, abuse that amounted to material support to a terrorist group, deserves to be severely punished," prosecutors wrote in a document submitted Thursday to a judge.

Her lawyers have argued that Stewart should receive no prison time, arguing that a harsh sentence would frighten other lawyers from representing notorious clients and that Stewart's three decades of distinguished work for indigent clients should speak louder than a single serious mistake.

The prosecutors see it differently.

"Stewart did not walk a fine line of zealous advocacy and accidentally fall over it; she marched across it and into a criminal conspiracy," Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew S. Dember wrote. "The government obviously did not prosecute Stewart because she is a zealous advocate, but rather for blatantly and repeatedly violating the law."

Dember wrote that Stewart's "conduct was not isolated to one single event; rather, it showed a pattern of purposeful and willful conduct, in which she played a central role in repeated fraudulent attempts to pass messages to and from Abdel-Rahman."

The prosecution notes that Stewart lied to investigators on at least two occasions. She told them that Sheok Abdel Rahman's prison allowed him to issue press releases as a cover for her own statements on his behalf when she had known it to be forbidden. Stewart also denied knowing a figure of international terrorism when questioned, and then reversed herself when under oath. Both incidents show that Stewart knowingly violated the law on behalf of the spiritual leader of the Islamist cell that attacked the World Trade Center in 1993.

Prosecutors seek a 30-year sentence for Stewart's crimes. At 65, that would be a life sentence, especially since convicts of federal crimes must serve 85% of their sentences before parole eligibility. Given that her crime allowed Rahman's rescission of a cease-fire to get transmitted to his operatives abroad in 2000, which then resulted in terror attacks that cost others' lives, it seems a fitting end for Stewart and her cohorts. Her sentencing hearing comes next month -- twenty months after her conviction. (via The Corner)

THE FUTLITY OF APPLYING REASON TO INSANITY

With the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks fast approaching, the government has busied itself with answering questions raised by conspiracy theorists who fervently believe that the World Trade Center towers had help in their destruction. The State Department and the National Institue of Stantards and Technology both released reports this week proving once again that when big airplanes loaded with jet fuel plow into skyscrapers, it tends to destroy the buildings:

The official narrative of the attacks has been attacked as little more than a cover story by an assortment of radio hosts, academics, amateur filmmakers and others who have spread their arguments on the Internet and cable television in America and abroad. As a motive, they suggest that the Bush administration wanted to use the attacks to justify military action in the Middle East.

Most elaborately, they propose that the collapse of the World Trade Center was actually caused by explosive charges secretly planted in the buildings, rather than by the destructive force of the airliners that thundered into the towers and set them ablaze.

The government reports and officials say the demolition argument is utterly implausible on a number of grounds. Indeed, few proponents of the explosives theory are willing to venture explanations of how daunting logistical problems would be overcome, such as planting thousands of pounds of explosives in busy office towers.

Nevertheless, federal officials say they moved to affirm the conventional history of the day because of the persistence of what they call “alternative theories.” On Wednesday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a seven-page study based on its earlier 10,000-page report on how and why the trade center collapsed. The full report, released a year ago, and the new study, in a question and answer format, are available online at http://wtc.nist.gov.

Perhaps the most disturbing fact in this report comes from recent polling, which shows the American public to be almost as susceptible to conspiracy theories as the Arabs. Scripps Survey Research Center reported that over a third of us believe that the US government either participated in the 9/11 attacks or deliberately allowed them to happen. Sixteen percent said that the towers came down because government agents had secretly planted explosives in them prior to 9/11. That means one in every six adults believe that the government conspired to kill 3,000 Americans -- and potentially as many as 25,000, given the normal occupancy of the towers.

Of course, this falls hard on reality even with a cursory glance. As the NYT points out, it would take many thousands of explosives to bring the towers down by design, especially if one rejects the science behind the heat of jet-fuel fires and its effect on steel girders. When exactly were these explosives planted, and how did they get planted with no one's notice? And if the building was primed for demolition in this manner, how did the explosives keep from detonating at impact, or at least in the heat of the jet-fuel fire? For that matter, why design a demolition from the top down when building demolitions always take place from the ground up?

The State Department report can be found at this link. It debunks a wider range of conspiracy theories, such as the allegation that the Pentagon did not get hit by a plane, 4,000 Jews did not show up for work on 9/11 in New York City, and that al-Qaeda didn't conduct the 9/11 attacks. They have plenty of ammunition from which to work, some of which is so determinative that it reveals countertheories as the products of fevered imaginations. It's hard to explain, for instance, why the black box of American 77 was found in the rubble of the Pentagon, as well as the DNA of passengers and crew, if it didn't crash there. Eyewitnesses saw passengers in the windows of the jet just before its crash, and as the site wryly notes, "Missiles don’t have windows or carry passengers."

And yet over a third of us believe the government took part in the attacks, and half of those believe that the buildings were wired for demolition.

As I wrote a couple of days ago in relation to the nut who thinks Stephen King killed John Lennon, one cannot counter insanity and paranoia with sweet reason. King himself tried to do so with Steve Lightfoot, the paranoid who has pursued him for over twenty years, and his effort got paid off by Lightfoot's insistence that King's kind message constituted a death threat in code. Reason doesn't enter into it. Mental illness does not respond to reason, and this impulse reflects a sickness that all of the scientific studies and review of facts will never cure. It's a belief that all evil begins in America and that everything wrong in the world has its source in Washington DC -- combined with an unhealthy dose of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Don't expect a cure for this insanity any time soon. If anything, these reports act as a vaccine for the unafflicted -- and a warning for those who may be tempted to stare into the abyss.

UPDATE: Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse applauds the government's efforts to respond to the conspiracy nuts, but deplores the need for it:

Not content with letting the moonbats, the freaks, the paranoids, and the ignoramuses who spout 9/11 conspiracy theories get away with their nonsensical idiocies any longer, the government released two separate reports debunking several major claims of the 9/11 fantasists in an effort to keep the record of that horrible day from being hijacked by crazies.

And as a bonus, in the process of answering the reports, two major 9/11 conspiracists have revealed themselves to be laughable, hopelessly moronic nutcases. ...

The fact that it took a dozen people two months to condense the evidence for the tower’s collapse down to 7 pages should make you angry. This waste of time and resources is the direct result of people who should (or actually do) know better but whose ignorance and inability to grasp reality (or who choose to believe otherwise for political purposes) have infected the gullible, the shallow thinkers, and out and out loons who have spread their laughable theories on the internet and elsewhere.

Rick also does what I should have done -- praise New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer for his excellent riposte to the conspiracy theorists.

NEW BRITISH TERROR SWEEP NABS 14 SUSPECTS

British security forces arrested 14 people in a terror sweep they say is unrelated to the foiled sky-terror plot, the BBC reports. The arrests appear to focus on a madrassa in East Sussex:

Armed police have arrested 14 men following anti-terror raids in London, including 12 arrests at a restaurant in the Borough area.

Two people were held elsewhere in the city in what police said was an intelligence-led operation.

Police said the arrests were not connected to the alleged transatlantic jet bomb plot or the 7 July attacks.

An Islamic school near Tunbridge Wells has also been searched as part of the same operation.

The Jameah Islameah property, on Catt's Hill near Crowborough, East Sussex, is an Islamic teaching facility for boys aged between 11 and 16.

The school only had nine students at its last inspection, which seems very noteworthy considering the size of the facility. The school advertises to Islamic centers as a central instruction point for leaders of Muslim communities. Given the size of the facility, either Jameah Islameah has fallen on hard times -- which seems unlikely given the current state of affairs -- or it served as something more than an instructional facility.

In fact, the BBC's sources say that the arrests involved the operation of training camps for terrorists. It's the same kind of training that British investigators suspected the July 7 bombers of undergoing but were never able to establish when or where it happened. While investigators so far have found no connection between the school and the July 7 plotters, they apparently have taken that theory seriously enough to look for similar training centers for would-be terrorists.

The suspects were arrested as they ate at a halal Chinese restaurant, after having dozens of police officers come into the place looking specifically for them. One has to wonder why 12 of the 14 suspects had gathered in one place, and a public place at that, when the school would have provided more security -- if their meeting had a specific purpose. Likewise, if the police assumed that it did, was it a good idea to confront them in a public place, or should they have waited until they had them in more secure surroundings? It doesn't seem like an accident that so many security officers just happened to be available as backup at that Chinese restaurant.

The British have scored a number of recent successes in fighting the Islamists, if this proves to be correct. They appear to have made significant intelligence inroads into the radical Muslim community. It would be enlightening to know their methods.

UPDATE: Allahpundit at Hot Air questions the timing, too.

JOB GROWTH CONTINUES; UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DROPS

The Department of Labor announces the creation of 128,000 jobs in August. Needless to say, Ms. Pelosi had to issue a statement decrying the report. Here’s what Ms. Pelosi said:

“Today’s disappointing jobs report proves President Bush and the Republicans are out of touch with Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck and are struggling to make ends meet. First, we had a so-called ‘recovery’ without jobs; now we have a ‘recovery’ without wage increases. And yet President Bush continues to assert that ‘Things are good for American workers.’
“Just 128,000 jobs were created in August, less than the number needed just to keep pace with the growing labor force. Another 11,000 manufacturing jobs lost. With today’s lackluster jobs report, President Bush still has the worst job creation record of any President since the Great Depression.

Ms. Pelosi must’ve skipped History in school because she seems to have forgotten about the meager job creation during the Carter administration. Here’s what the Labor Department’s website says about the Carter Administration’s record:

The Department played a major role in the President’s economic stimulus program. It received about $8 billion for Public Service Employment and other programs under CETA. Public service jobs increased from 310,000 in 1976 to a peak of 725,000 in 1978. The Department also expanded the Job Corps and other youth training programs. It developed and tested new ways to meet employment related needs of rural workers and Native Americans. It improved on-the-job training for veterans and others through the Hope through Industry Retraining and Employment program. This program provided incentives for companies to hire and train needy persons. A Skill Training Improvement Program provided retraining for displaced workers to prepare them for jobs by giving them skills which were in short supply.

To deal with the enduring social problem of youth unemployment the Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act was made law in 1977. There were four main components. Youth Community Conservation and Improvement Projects and Youth Employment and Training Programs involved neighborhoods, local community organizations and local labor unions in job creation and training. Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects tested a variety of new approaches to youth employment. Modeled on the Depression-era CCC, the Young Adult Conservation Corps provided disadvantaged youths with work on needed conservation projects on public lands and waters.

Another program to stimulate increased employment of the disadvantaged in the private sector was the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit. This allowed employers to claim tax credits for a limited period for hiring workers from selected groups of particularly needy persons. Groups targeted included disadvantaged youths, veterans, ex-offenders, handicapped persons and persons on welfare. The USES administered the Department’s portion of the program.

In 1978 Congress passed and the President signed the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act, better known as the Humphrey-Hawkins Act. Drafted with assistance from the Department, this law did not create any specific programs. Rather, it called for government-wide planning and action to achieve reduced unemployment and, eventually, zero inflation. This Act found strong expression in many aspects of the Department’s employment and training program, including: targeting assistance to reduce long-term unemployment; improving coordination with private business; reducing youth unemployment, and; assisting adult workers dislocated because of foreign competition.

In other words, the Carter Administration’s job growth ‘record’ was artificially enhanced by government programs that ‘created’ jobs with federal spending. Ms. Pelosi seems to have forgotten that the only thing noteworthy about the Carter Administration’s job ‘growth’ was the creation of the term ‘misery index’, the combination of the unemployment rate and inflation rate. The other thing that’s worth noting is that Carter’s administration had to pass the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act to have any job creation. They still couldn’t get the unemployment rate below 6 percent.

The last thing we need is a Democratic House that will raise taxes and spend money like a drunken sailor. If that’s Dermocrats’ idea of a new direction, then we’re far better off staying the course we’re on.