Category: US Government

Here is anecdote from this week’s US midterm elections:

Young Kim appeared certain to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, becoming the first Korean-American woman to serve in Congress.

With 97 percent of the ballots counted, the 56-year-old Republican garnered 51.4 percent of the vote against 48.6 percent by Democrat Gil Cisneros in California’s 39th district.

If finalized, she will succeed outgoing Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The only other Korean-American to serve in Congress was Jay Kim, a Republican who represented California’s 41st district from 1993 to 1999.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but it should be no surprise that Young Kim is against President Trump’s executive order to end chain migration.

Retired General David Stilwell speaks Korean and has very close ties to US Ambassador Harry Harris because of their prior work together at US Indo-Pacific Command:

U.S. President Donald Trump has nominated Air Force veteran David Stilwell as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, according to the White House on Wednesday.

The position covers diplomacy with the Korean Peninsula, China, and Japan. His predecessor Susan Thornton stepped down in July amid rumors that she was too moderate, whereas Stilwell is thought to be a hardliner.

It can be hard to tell why people come and go in the frantically revolving doors of the Trump administration, but Stilwell’s appointment may reflect the fact that hardliners are increasingly gaining the upper hand. Trump only recently described Defense Secretary James Mattis, who is thought to have been a steadying force, as “sort of a Democrat.”

The White House described Stilwell as “an Air Force veteran with more than 35 years of experience as a pilot, commander, and Korean linguist.”

He retired in 2015 with the rank of brigadier general and is currently the director of the China Strategic Focus Group at the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Headquarters in Hawaii.

He learned Korean in a military language school in California and served as a fighter pilot in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province, from 1993 to 1995. He also speaks Chinese and some Japanese.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Secretary Mattis has been extremely apolitical which in today’s partisan political environment is an extreme rarity:

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said President Donald Trump has reassured him of his full support after the Republican president described his Pentagon chief as “sort of a Democrat” who could leave the administration.

Mattis, speaking to reporters before landing in Vietnam on Tuesday, said he received the reassurance from Trump in a phone call during his nearly 20-hour flight from Washington.

“(Trump) said, ‘I’m 100 percent with you’,” Mattis recounted, playing down Trump’s remarks to CBS’ “60 Minutes,” which aired on Sunday.

Asked whether he was a Democrat, as Trump suggested, Mattis, disclosed that he had not registered as a Democrat or a Republican.

“I have never registered for any political party,” said Mattis, a retired Marine general.

Mattis sought to portray national defense as an issue above partisan politics. He also pointed to a long military career that taught him to act in a “proudly apolitical” manner, in which U.S. servicemembers carry out orders from Republican and Democratic presidents alike.

Mattis said he did not talk to Trump about leaving his job and dismissed speculation he was being pushed out.

“I’m on his team. We have never talked about me leaving. And as you can see right here, we are on our way (to Asia). We just continue doing our job,” Mattis said.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but I hope Secretary Mattis gets to stay at the Pentagon for as long as possible.

Does anyone want to comment on the proposed US Constitutional changes proposed by Emanuel Pastreich in the Korea Times:

The rapid shifts in American politics demand that we revise our aged constitution so that it better reflects the reality of contemporary institutions. If we fail to take such a brave step, we run the serious risk that our politics and practices will grow so completely out of tune with the constitution that it will lose what remains of its tattered legitimacy. Here is a modest proposal for constitutional amendments that can be quickly ratified.   [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but he is right about Amendment 29.

President Trump’s canceling Secretary Pompeo’s trip to Pyongyang is certainly a surprise since is comes only 24 hours after announcing a new envoy for North Korea and affirming the diplomatic mission. This reflects poor coordination on the administration’s North Korea policy.

— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) August 24, 2018

Remember Reality Winner?  Well she is about to be sentenced for leaking Secret information to the media and it is not looking good for her:

A Georgia woman who mailed a secret U.S. report to a news organization faces the “longest sentence” ever behind bars for a federal crime involving leaks to the news media, prosecutors said in a court filing.

Former National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner, 26, is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 23 by U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall in Augusta. She pleaded guilty in June to a single count of transmitting national security information when she worked in Augusta as a translator at an NSA facility.

Winner’s plea deal with prosecutors calls for imprisonment of five years and three months. But the sentencing judge isn’t bound by that agreement. Winner’s crime carries a maximum penalty of 10 years.

The Trump administration has made prosecuting government employees who leak sensitive information to the media a high priority, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions pledged to clamp down on leaks last year.

In a court filing Tuesday, federal prosecutors in Winner’s case said the 63-month sentence they’re recommending is plenty stiff to deter other government workers from leaking sensitive information, even if it could be tougher.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but I have no sympathy for people who leak Secret information to the media.  What makes this even more pathetic for her is that the information she leaked CNN had already reported on back in October 2016.  A federal official told CNN that Russia may have compromised the personal information of Florida, Illinois, and Arizona voters.  Reality Winnner’s leak of the document just confirmed what was already known.

It looks like for the next year USFK can count on maintaining a troop strength of at least 22,000 personnel:

President Donald Trump has objected to a series of provisions in the newly passed 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, including limits on the reduction of troops in South Korea and recognizing Crimea as a Russian province.

The defense legislation, which Trump signed into law Monday, sets new restrictions to keep the administration from decreasing troops in South Korea to less than 22,000. It also prohibits U.S. funds from helping legitimize Russia’s control of Crimea.

Both provisions, among several others in the NDAA, reflect congressional concerns about the president and drew objections from the White House.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like Ambassador Harris is being consistent in the messaging coming from the White House towards Pyongyang that major concessions will not happen until real steps towards denuclearization occur:

New U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Harry Harris said there must be “demonstrable moves” from North Korea toward denuclearization before any declaration of the end of the 1950-53 Korean War is made between the two sides.

Harris, who held a news conference for local media on Thursday at the U.S. ambassador’s residence, is making his views known only a few weeks after arriving in South Korea.

“One of the things that hasn’t happened is the demonstrable moves toward denuclearization before we can entertain something like the end-of-war declaration,” Harris said, according to Yonhap.

“I think for the denuclearization to happen, we need to see the move and I haven’t seen that yet.”  [UPI]

You can read more at the link.

Fairly amazing how Trump has normalized widespread penny-ante corruption in his administration in just 18 months. Rather disturbing how quickly the norms folded when confronted by T’s brazenness. Another sign that there’s an anti-democratic potential in US we didn’t really expect https://t.co/pwxbSac0Nf

— Robert E Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly) July 26, 2018

I can’t help but think that there is more to this story:

A U.S. Army specialist born in South Korea has sued asking for a response to her American citizenship application after the military moved to discharge her.

Yea Ji Sea, a 29-year-old from Gardena, California, who has served four years and is assigned to the duty station at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court.

She came to the country as a child on a visitor visa and held other visas before enlisting in 2013 under a special government program for foreign citizens who want to serve in the U.S. military. Under the program, recruits agreed in their enlistment contracts to apply to naturalize as soon as their honorable service was certified.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but the article states she had a forged document from a defunct language school that caused her first application to be revoked causing her to reapply in 2016.  It is hard and time consuming to get citizenship without the drama of forged documents.