Identifying inconsistencies and contradictions in analysis of the United States public when viewed through a traditional Left-Right paradigm, in 2010 Dr. Delia Baldassari and Emir Goldberg of Princeton University’s sociology department combed through twenty years worth of American National Election Studies (ANES) data to conceptualize a new method of understanding the American body politic. Instead of “liberals” and “conservatives”, Baldassari and Goldberg’s research discovered three political worldviews in the U.S.: ideologues, alternatives and agnostics. The first worldview, that of the ideologues, maintained a consistent set of political values that could easily be placed on the Left-Right spectrum. Ideologues, however, accounted for only about one-third of the ANES respondents, demonstrating a possibly fatal flaw in popular understanding of mass politics. The latter two groups - alternatives and agnostics - embraced a basket of positions that seemed schizophrenic in nature. Lacking an outlet or method to understand their feelings in a Left-Right oriented political-media framework, this super-majority internally reframed issues in a way that reconciled with their worldviews. However, if pressed to conform to movement politics - Baldassari and Goldberg noted - the non-Ideologues usually gravitated toward the Republican Party.
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Identifying inconsistencies and contradictions in analysis of the United States public when viewed through a traditional Left-Right paradigm, in 2010 Dr. Delia Baldassari and Emir Goldberg of Princeton University’s sociology department combed through twenty years worth of American National Election Studies (ANES) data to conceptualize a new method of understanding the American body politic.

Instead of “liberals” and “conservatives”, Baldassari and Goldberg’s research discovered three political worldviews in the U.S.: ideologues, alternatives and agnostics. The first worldview, that of the ideologues, maintained a consistent set of political values that could easily be placed on the Left-Right spectrum. Ideologues, however, accounted for only about one-third of the ANES respondents, demonstrating a possibly fatal flaw in popular understanding of mass politics.

The latter two groups - alternatives and agnostics - embraced a basket of positions that seemed schizophrenic in nature. Lacking an outlet or method to understand their feelings in a Left-Right oriented political-media framework, this super-majority internally reframed issues in a way that reconciled with their worldviews. However, if pressed to conform to movement politics - Baldassari and Goldberg noted - the non-Ideologues usually gravitated toward the Republican Party.

Which Obama Cabinet Secretary Did Russian SVR Agent Seduce? Did a Juliet agent in the Anna Chapman spy ring come close to seducing an Obama  cabinet secretary in 2010? That possibility was among startling revelations made by a senior official of the U.S. FBI to the UK’s official state media, the BBC, ABC reports. Frank Figliuzzi, Assistant Director of Counter-Intelligence for the FBI, said the decision to break-up the Russian espionage operation came when it did because, “we were becoming very concerned they were getting close enough to a sitting U.S. cabinet member that we thought we could no longer allow this to continue.”
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Which Obama Cabinet Secretary Did Russian SVR Agent Seduce?

Did a Juliet agent in the Anna Chapman spy ring come close to seducing an Obama  cabinet secretary in 2010? That possibility was among startling revelations made by a senior official of the U.S. FBI to the UK’s official state media, the BBC, ABC reports.

Frank Figliuzzi, Assistant Director of Counter-Intelligence for the FBI, said the decision to break-up the Russian espionage operation came when it did because, “we were becoming very concerned they were getting close enough to a sitting U.S. cabinet member that we thought we could no longer allow this to continue.”

It’s quite astounding that documents as important as these went missing and the FBI says, ‘Well, they’re gone.’ This is a matter of significant public interest.
Federal District Court Judge Clark Waddoups responded on Wednesday to the FBI’s claim that unreleased surveillance video tapes from the Murrah Federal Building taken in the days and hours before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing have vanished. 
Was the elections monitoring report prepared by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the wake of the recent Russian presidential elections actually prepared in advance?  The Swiss alt newsletter Zeit-Fragen reports that right-leaning Austrian MEP Ewald Stadler has accused the OSCE monitoring mission - of which he was a member - of bias and fabrication in questioning the fairness of the Russian presidential election.  “I do not agree with the statements of the OSCE. I suspect that it is the aim of the OSCE to purposefully denounce Russia. If so, then the OSCE has abdicated its objective role. I will certainly not get involved in this mean denunciation of an important country of the international community,” Stadler said in a press conference.  Stadler went on to itemize discrepancies between the OSCE report and what he observed. The MEP from Mäder is an attorney who formerly served as a federal ombudsman on police and judicial questions. 
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Was the elections monitoring report prepared by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in the wake of the recent Russian presidential elections actually prepared in advance? 

The Swiss alt newsletter Zeit-Fragen reports that right-leaning Austrian MEP Ewald Stadler has accused the OSCE monitoring mission - of which he was a member - of bias and fabrication in questioning the fairness of the Russian presidential election. 

“I do not agree with the statements of the OSCE. I suspect that it is the aim of the OSCE to purposefully denounce Russia. If so, then the OSCE has abdicated its objective role. I will certainly not get involved in this mean denunciation of an important country of the international community,” Stadler said in a press conference. 

Stadler went on to itemize discrepancies between the OSCE report and what he observed. The MEP from Mäder is an attorney who formerly served as a federal ombudsman on police and judicial questions. 

Could Mali’s coup be beneficial for economic development in the north African state? It’s too soon to tell the political proclivities of the new junta, however, with the putsch executed with what was apparently minimal violence the government has one ideological direction in which it could move to shore-up investments in the nation. We revisit a post we made in 2011 -  As rumbling of an impending military coup in Greece continues to grow, we visit a 2004 paper by Dr. Catherine Duggan of Harvard Business School in which she asks the question “How do coups affect private investment?” While conventional wisdom indicates a military intervention into civil government tends to depress investments in the country in question, Dr. Duggan finds that - depending on the coup type - a net benefit can often be realized. Duggan’s research indicates a bloodless coup by a right-oriented junta tracks an average 7.7% increase in aggregate private investments as a percent of GDP.
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Could Mali’s coup be beneficial for economic development in the north African state? It’s too soon to tell the political proclivities of the new junta, however, with the putsch executed with what was apparently minimal violence the government has one ideological direction in which it could move to shore-up investments in the nation. We revisit a post we made in 2011 - 

As rumbling of an impending military coup in Greece continues to grow, we visit a 2004 paper by Dr. Catherine Duggan of Harvard Business School in which she asks the question “How do coups affect private investment?” While conventional wisdom indicates a military intervention into civil government tends to depress investments in the country in question, Dr. Duggan finds that - depending on the coup type - a net benefit can often be realized. Duggan’s research indicates a bloodless coup by a right-oriented junta tracks an average 7.7% increase in aggregate private investments as a percent of GDP.

As nations large and small are rocked by rumors of military coups, or actual coups themselves, we revisit a post we made last year highlighting the release of the Uppsala Coup Event Dataset.  Uppsala Coup Event Dataset Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden have recently released the Uppsala Coup Event Dataset. Combining information from more than 400 coups d’etat and overthrow plots covering the time period 1950-2010, the dataset finds that foreign support for the coups and coup attempts experienced by many nations has, historically, been limited, noting that “the typical case … seems to be a coup-like attempt at overthrowing the government, using domestically recruited armed men led by a disenfranchised domestic elite person like a retired officer, an opposition leader, an ex-minister or ex-president. To be successful they may in the end need the tacit consent of parts of the state security apparatus …”  Other findings of the dataset include:  the three most likely regions to experience a coup d’etat were Africa, Asia and the Americas with Europe and the Middle East least likely to experience a coup the overwhelming majority of incumbents targeted in coup plots either survive the coup to remain in power or remain free in the country, though rendered powerless; 15% are exiled, another 15% are imprisoned, and 5% killed the most likely “inside” instigators of a coup were, in this order: the regular armed forces, cabinet members, “special” military units (e.g. presidential escort regiments, Republican Guards, etc.) while regular police, political police and gendarmerie/paramilitary forces were least likely to be involved in coup attempts
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As nations large and small are rocked by rumors of military coups, or actual coups themselves, we revisit a post we made last year highlighting the release of the Uppsala Coup Event Dataset. 

Uppsala Coup Event Dataset

Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden have recently released the Uppsala Coup Event Dataset. Combining information from more than 400 coups d’etat and overthrow plots covering the time period 1950-2010, the dataset finds that foreign support for the coups and coup attempts experienced by many nations has, historically, been limited, noting that “the typical case … seems to be a coup-like attempt at overthrowing the government, using domestically recruited armed men led by a disenfranchised domestic elite person like a retired officer, an opposition leader, an ex-minister or ex-president. To be successful they may in the end need the tacit consent of parts of the state security apparatus …” 

Other findings of the dataset include: 

  • the three most likely regions to experience a coup d’etat were Africa, Asia and the Americas with Europe and the Middle East least likely to experience a coup
  • the overwhelming majority of incumbents targeted in coup plots either survive the coup to remain in power or remain free in the country, though rendered powerless; 15% are exiled, another 15% are imprisoned, and 5% killed
  • the most likely “inside” instigators of a coup were, in this order: the regular armed forces, cabinet members, “special” military units (e.g. presidential escort regiments, Republican Guards, etc.) while regular police, political police and gendarmerie/paramilitary forces were least likely to be involved in coup attempts

Russia Today reports on the falsification and dramatization of war video from Syria, including raw footage of Anderson Cooper’s favorite “Danny the Activist” requesting background gunfire and sound effects before a live shot on CNN’s AC360. 

Is the Nation of Australia Merely the South Pacific Branch of the CIA? Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has accused the ruling government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard of being agents of influence of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency which - he claimed - were working through the Rockefeller Foundation.  Australian officials denounced Palmer’s claims, however, the accusation comes one month after it was revealed the U.S. State Department had been briefed of Gillard’s plans to unseat incumbent Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2010 during a leadership dispute, weeks before then chief-of-government Rudd found himself ignominiously displaced.  While media have dismissed Palmer’s accusation that the Rockefeller Foundation is a front group for U.S. covert action, the billionaire’s assertions are not without some basis in historical fact. In the early 1980s it was revealed that Harvard University Middle East expert Nadav Safran had accepted more than $100,000 from the CIA for the agency’s right-of-review of a book he had written about Saudi Arabia, and that these funds were supplemented by additional monies paid by the RAND Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation, purportedly at the agency’s direction. Safran ultimately resigned from Harvard in disgrace. 
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Is the Nation of Australia Merely the South Pacific Branch of the CIA?

Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has accused the ruling government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard of being agents of influence of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency which - he claimed - were working through the Rockefeller Foundation. 

Australian officials denounced Palmer’s claims, however, the accusation comes one month after it was revealed the U.S. State Department had been briefed of Gillard’s plans to unseat incumbent Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2010 during a leadership dispute, weeks before then chief-of-government Rudd found himself ignominiously displaced. 

While media have dismissed Palmer’s accusation that the Rockefeller Foundation is a front group for U.S. covert action, the billionaire’s assertions are not without some basis in historical fact. In the early 1980s it was revealed that Harvard University Middle East expert Nadav Safran had accepted more than $100,000 from the CIA for the agency’s right-of-review of a book he had written about Saudi Arabia, and that these funds were supplemented by additional monies paid by the RAND Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation, purportedly at the agency’s direction. Safran ultimately resigned from Harvard in disgrace. 

The orders surprised the Cuban intelligence officer. ‘The leadership wants you to stop your CIA work, all your CIA work,’ his boss said. Instead, the officer was told he had a new target: Texas, ‘any little detail … from Texas.’ And about three hours later, shortly after mid-day on Nov. 22, 1963, the shocked intelligence officer had something to report that was much more than a small detail: the assassination in Dallas of President John F. Kennedy. ‘Castro knew,’ the intelligence officer would tell a CIA debriefer years later, after defecting to the United States. ‘They knew Kennedy would be killed.’

Miami Herald

(a new book by CIA analyst Brian Latell purports to offer evidence that Cuba’s Dirección de Inteligencia knew in advance of the Kennedy assassination) 

A map from the recent Mother Jones article “Nuclear Weapons on a Highway Near You” shows the transit routes used by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Secure Transportation for the movement of nuclear warheads. Four years ago Las Vegas TV station KLAS-TV aired one of the most comprehensive stories on the secretive OST ever reported.
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A map from the recent Mother Jones article “Nuclear Weapons on a Highway Near You” shows the transit routes used by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Secure Transportation for the movement of nuclear warheads. Four years ago Las Vegas TV station KLAS-TV aired one of the most comprehensive stories on the secretive OST ever reported.

Due to a variety of crises, the United States has been in an almost continuous State of Emergency since 1941. A declaration of emergency allows the President to exercise any of approximately 500 powers contingently delegated to him by Congress, from the dramatic – such as the seizure of ships in port (50 USC § 191) – to the mundane – such as the waiver of vehicle weight limits on a section of I-95 in Maine (23 USC § 127).
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Due to a variety of crises, the United States has been in an almost continuous State of Emergency since 1941.

A declaration of emergency allows the President to exercise any of approximately 500 powers contingently delegated to him by Congress, from the dramatic – such as the seizure of ships in port (50 USC § 191) – to the mundane – such as the waiver of vehicle weight limits on a section of I-95 in Maine (23 USC § 127).

Report: Vice-President Biden was Osama bin Laden’s Secret Weapon The Washington Post today reported on a high-level Al Qaeda plan to assassinate Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus by downing Air Force One through some undetailed mechanism. The goal, according to the plan, would be to elevate gaffe-prone Joe Biden to the presidency. Osama bin Laden believed the bumbling former bankruptcy lawyer would inadvertently destroy the United States if left in charge. “Biden is totally unprepared for that post [the presidency], which will lead the U.S. into a crisis,” Bin Laden is reported to have written to senior advisor Atiya Abd al-Rahman. 
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Report: Vice-President Biden was Osama bin Laden’s Secret Weapon

The Washington Post today reported on a high-level Al Qaeda plan to assassinate Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus by downing Air Force One through some undetailed mechanism. The goal, according to the plan, would be to elevate gaffe-prone Joe Biden to the presidency. Osama bin Laden believed the bumbling former bankruptcy lawyer would inadvertently destroy the United States if left in charge.

“Biden is totally unprepared for that post [the presidency], which will lead the U.S. into a crisis,” Bin Laden is reported to have written to senior advisor Atiya Abd al-Rahman.