Media

An open letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 53 scholars and activists on the occasion of his visit to Hawaii has received no notice in the U.S. media, but the following attention in Japan, China, and Korea:

Tokyo Shimbun ran the full text in its December 28th edition (Page 2).  Also:

Asahi Shimbun

Asahi’s English version

Mainichi Shimbun

Sankei Shimbun

Huffington Post (Japanese version)

Nikkan Gendai

Shimbun Akahata

ＣＣＴＶ News (English)

People’s Daily Japanese version

People’s read more

A new poll from an unlikely source suggests that the U.S. public and the U.S. media have very little in common when it comes to matters of war and peace.

This poll was commissioned by that notorious leftwing hotbed of peaceniks, the Charles Koch Institute, along with the Center for the National Interest (previously the Nixon Center, and before that the humorously named Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom). The poll was conducted by Survey Sampling International.

They polled 1,000 registered voters read more

A new film called Disturbing the Peace tells the story — unknown to most Americans but painfully familiar to others — of Israel and Palestine. Of the many films I’ve seen, this is one of the best. It presents both sides without equating them. It opens itself to a broad audience without boring anybody.

Disturbing the Peace presents personal stories of soldiers and of suicide bombers. You should come away understanding while opposing all of these stories.

In a nod to the power of read more

Watch video here.

Katha Pollit buried a huge scoop in her Hillary Clinton endorsement: “[S]he supports . . . reducing the military budget.” That’s not been reported anywhere else that I can find, including Clinton’s own website. If she secretly wants to reduce military spending, why does she openly want to remove the cap created by the sequester? Given that military spending across numerous departments is over half of federal discretionary spending, a secret plan to reduce it could be a read more

“Russia Wants to Undermine Faith in the U.S. Election. Don’t Fall For It.” Thus reads the cover of Time magazine with a photo of Vladimir Putin on the cover staring at me from shelves as I sit in an airport.  Genuinely curious, I check out Massimo Calabresi‘s article online.

Of course, U.S. elections are almost completely unverifiable and do not even pretend to meet international standards. Jimmy Carter doesn’t even try to monitor them because there’s no read more

I was fortunate enough to view a screening of the new Snowden movie Wednesday evening with some of the whistleblowers who have cameos in it and with its director Oliver Stone. I’m not allowed to review it until Saturday night, but it is a truly great movie and has the potential to be the most widely seen, heard, or read thing of any political decency or truth in the world this year. That’s not, however, why I’m glad I saw it.

I’m glad I watched Snowden because it read more