I am impressed with Maria Bartiromo. She is always so well prepared, and yet she is always trying to get a scoop!

South Korea has agreed to reduce their steel exports to the US by 30%, and the US has agreed not to impose tariffs on their steel.

What else is coming? "You'll see when the President announces it. It is not my practice to get ahead of the president!"

Trump's team can pull it off!

Sundance is optimistic about Trump being able to negotiate with Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan to convince Kim Jong Un to end his nuclear program.



Read his thoughts here.

"Sticking to the carcass of dead policies"

Pat Buchanan writes at Newsmax,

"The North Korean regime is causing tremendous problems and is something that has to be dealt with, and probably dealt with rapidly."

So President Trump told reporters in the Rose Garden this week.

But how this is to be done "rapidly" is not so easy to see.

North Korea has just returned to us Otto Warmbier, a student sentenced to 15 years hard labor for stealing a propaganda poster. Otto came home comatose, and died within days.

Trump's conundrum: How to keep such a regime from acquiring an ICBM with a nuclear warhead, which Kim Jong Un is determined to do.

Having seen us attack Iraq and Libya, which had no nukes, Kim believes that only nuclear weapons that can hit America can deter America. He appears willing to risk war to achieve his goal.

...The only nation that could impose sufficient hardships on North Korea to imperil the regime is China. But China refuses to impose the Draconian sanctions that might destabilize the regime, and might bring Korean refugees flooding into China. And Beijing has no desire to see Kim fall and Korea united under a regime aligned with the United States.

...What would be an America First Korean policy?

The U.S. would give Seoul notice that we will, by a date certain, be dissolving our mutual security treaty and restoring our full freedom to decide whether or not to fight in a new Korean War. Given the present risk of war, possibly involving nuclear weapons, it is absurd that we should be obligated to fight what Mattis says would be a "catastrophic" war, because of a treaty negotiated six decades ago by Eisenhower and Dulles.

"The commonest error in politics," Lord Salisbury reminded us, "is sticking to the carcass of dead policies."

Read more here.

Trump team meets with South Korea president

Sundance writes at The Conservative Treehouse,

...It is worth noting and emphasizing the Paris Climate treaty specifically exempted China, India, and SEAN (South East Asia Nations) from compliance with standards within the treaty. This was by design of the multinational interests who constructed their economic global control mechanism under the auspices of ‘climate change’. The climate was never the driver of the Paris treaty, it was always about multinational economic control.

Read more here.

"All options are on the table!"

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits South Korea to discuss North Korea's grave threat.

What to do about North Korea?

Tillerson: "We welcome Japan's increased commitment to a relationship that is fair for both of our countries. The United States calls on North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missiles program. We have twenty years of a failed approach to North Korea. The level of spending the State Department has undertaken in recent years is simply not sustainable. As time goes by there will be fewer military engagements that the US is involved in. China has long stated that it also wants North Korea to develop a different approach regarding nuclear and missile programs."

South Korea's president impeached and removed from office

So, the South Korean president has resigned. I tried to find out more about the controversy. But what news sources are reliable? Elise Hu reported at NPR in October,

The old friend of the president's, Choi Soon-sil, also runs two non-profit foundations that prosecutors say boasted of its ties with the president to collect more than $70 million in donations from the country's major conglomerates. Prosecutors opened up an investigation into the foundations in early October, and are seeking Choi, who is accused of siphoning some of those funds for personal use — including to cover equestrian training for her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra. (Choi emerged in Germany over the weekend and denies any wrongdoing.)

Much of the public anger now gripping the nation broke open over Choi's daughter in the first place. Chung, the equestrian, attended the nation's prestigious woman's college, Ewha University. Ewha's president was forced to resign this week as students protested Chung's preferential treatment and shady admission — which seemed to give her extra credit for being a champion dressage competitor. Media began looking closer at the ties between Park and Choi.

And the ties are interesting, indeed. Choi Soon-sil is the daughter of a man the president considered her mentor, Choi Tae-min. He claimed to be a pastor from a tiny pseudo-Christian sect, but a leaked diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy describes him as a 'Rasputin'-like character and his "church" is described by Korean media as more of a "Shamanistic cult." The New York Times explains further:

"Mr. Choi was the founder of an obscure sect called the Church of Eternal Life. He befriended Ms. Park, 40 years his junior, soon after her mother was assassinated in 1974. According to a report by the Korean intelligence agency from the 1970s that was published by a South Korean newsmagazine in 2007, Mr. Choi initially approached Ms. Park by telling her that her mother had appeared in his dreams, asking him to help her.

Mr. Choi was a former police officer who had also been a Buddhist monk and a convert to Roman Catholicism. (He also used seven different names and was married six times by the time he died in 1994 at the age of 82.) He became a mentor to Ms. Park, helping her run a pro-government volunteer group called Movement for a New Mind."

Read more here.

Park Geun-hye was impeached and removed from the presidency yesterday. When I did a Google search, I found that the only news report filed this year on the scandal was this one by CNN.

...The drama surrounds Park's friend and informal adviser, Choi Soon-sil, who is accused of abuse of power and attempted fraud following claims she had access to secret government documents and intervened in state affairs.

Park's relationship with Choi and her father Choi Tae-min has long been controversial in Korea.
The elder Choi first became close with Park following the death of her mother at the hands of a North Korean assassin in 1974, while Park's father, dictator Park Chung-hee, was president.

According to the Korea Times, Choi founded the Eternal Life Church in the 1970s, mixing aspects Christianity, Buddhism and indigenous Korean religion Cheondism, which incorporates elements of shamanism.

Choi named himself a modern day Buddha and called for all people to strive for eternal life.

"The family has had an extraordinary influence over Park Geun-hye for essentially her entire adult life," David Kang, a Korea expert at the University of Southern California, told CNN.

"It's much more than simply, 'oh she knows this person,' it's deeply intertwined, almost like they're Rasputin and Park Geun-hye is just a puppet."

Though she never held an official position, recent revelations showed that Choi was given advance access to presidential speeches and other documents.

Local media and opposition parties have accused Choi of abusing her relationship with the president to force companies to donate millions of dollars to foundations she runs.

Where else have we heard about presidential foundations getting pay-for-play donations?

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Rasputin.

Back to the CNN story:

While much of the outrage has surrounded Choi's alleged influence over Korean politics, the scandal has also shone a light on the prevalence of cults and alternative religious movements in the country.
Korean shamanism, or Muism, is an ethnic Korean religion with similarities to Japanese Shintoism.

According to the Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Muism "focuses on solving the problems of daily life through communication between humans and the spiritual world, with shamans acting as liaisons."

The country is also home to the Unification Church, known as the "Moonies" for founder Sun Myung Moon, famous for mass weddings and allegedly forcing members to disconnect from their families.

While Christianity and Buddhism dominate Korean religious life, some churches incorporate shamanistic practices and many people consult with fortune tellers or shamans.

Choi's movement mixed strands of all three faiths, and claimed the ability to communicate with the dead and produce objects offering magical protection, according to Korean media.

Read more here.

No more milquetoast!

Secretary of Defense James Mattis met with leaders of South Korea, and addressed these comments to the Dictator of North Korea:

North Korea continues to launch missiles, develop its nuclear weapons program, and engage in threatening rhetoric and behavior.
'We stand with our peace-loving Republic of Korea ally to maintain stability on the peninsula and in the region,' he added.

'America's commitments to defending our allies and to upholding our extended deterrence guarantees remain ironclad: Any attack on the United States, or our allies, will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons would be met with a response that would be effective and overwhelming.'

Read more here.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis will visit Japan and South Korea in early February

John Hayward reports at Breitbart,

The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that Secretary of Defense James Mattis will visit Japan and South Korea in early February, on his first overseas trip since confirmation.

“The trip will underscore the commitment of the United States to our enduring alliances with Japan and the Republic of Korea, and further strengthen U.S.-Japan-Republic of Korea security cooperation,” said Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis.

...CNN reports the trip is scheduled to last four days, and will include meetings with Mattis’ opposite numbers in Japan and South Korea. There are currently about 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in the former nation and 28,000 in the latter.

Read more here.

Vietnamese workers riot in Ho Chi Minh City. Businesses flying American flags are not targeted.

Those fancy new sneakers you want, you know, the orange and pink ones with the glow-in-the-dark fluorescent green laces, might take a while to get here from Vietnam. Vietnamese workers are rioting, burning down Taiwanese and South Korean factories. Ironically, those factories flying American flags are not targeted. Even more ironically, it is China the workers are mad at, because China is asserting itself militarily in the seas around Vietnam. Read more here.