Korean-Americans are beginning to have growing political influence:
This image captured from Facebook shows Young Kim, a Korean-American Republican, who won the U.S. House election in a Southern California district.
Young Kim, a Korean-American Republican, won the U.S. House election in a Southern California district on Friday, U.S. media reported.
The former state lawmaker joined three other politicians of Korean descent elected to the House of Representatives in the Nov. 3 elections.
Kim, 57, was born in South Korea and grew up in Guam. She won 50.6 percent of the vote to beat Democratic incumbent Gil Cisneros by a margin of 1.2 percentage point in the 39th Congressional District anchored in Orange County, reports said. It was a rematch from 2018.
She joined Marilyn Strickland and Michelle Park Steel to become the first Korean-American women to serve Congress in its 230-year history.
Democrat Strickland, former mayor of Tacoma, won the race in Washington’s 10th Congressional District, while Republican Steel claimed the 48th District in Orange County.
Democrat Andy Kim, a Korean-American man, won the race in New Jersey’s 3rd District.
You can read more at the link, but ROK Heads may remember that Young Kim was project to win the election two years ago to have it taken from her with the mail in ballots.
Sorry I could not resist making the title for this post:
The head of the California Air National Guard, Maj. Gen. Clay Garrison, was relieved of command and replaced by Brig. Gen. Gregory Jones two months after a newspaper detailed the fallout from a scandal involving someone urinating in the boots of a service member. A Guard spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Shiroma, on Friday confirmed the shake-up, but he did not have additional details.
The command change follows a Los Angeles Times report on allegations that whistleblowers at the Guard’s Fresno base suffered reprisals for questioning actions or conduct, including an incident in which a female guardsman discovered urine in her boots.
In interviews with the Times, several current and former members of the Guard described a culture of retaliation by high-ranking officers and mistrust in the inspector general system intended to hold them accountable.
You can read much more at the link, but this is just a weird case. First of all I don’t know of anyone that leaves their uniform in a urinal and I have also never heard of anyone ever urinating in someones boots which is extremely unprofessional. Then to top it off the bathroom was considered a “crime scene” according to the LA Times that required two Security Forces investigations and there was even demands for the FBI to investigate. Then there was even an effort to conduct a DNA test of the urine and then senior officers tried to cover up this stupidity by ordering the evidence destroyed.
This whole stupidity reminded me of back in 2003 when my unit was waiting to cross the berm into Iraq from Kuwait. The camp in the middle of the desert we were at had a number of porta-potties. Someone was going around and shitting all over the porta-potties and would leave messages taking responsibility for the mess. The perpetrator went by the name “Shithouse Bandit”.
It became a running joke trying to find out who the Shithouse Bandit was. I guess the porta-potties should have been sealed off as a crime scene, multiple investigations conducted, called the FBI and had DNA tests done to uncover who the Shithouse Bandit was. To this day I continue to wonder who it was crapping all over the porta-potties.
Just another reason why companies should not source products from China:
California firm E.L.F. cosmetics has agreed to pay a nearly $1 million fine for importing fake eyelashes containing materials from UN-sanctioned North Korea, according to the US Treasury Department.
Between 2012 and 2017, the company imported “156 shipments of false eyelash kits from two suppliers located in the People’s Republic of China that contained materials sourced by these suppliers” from North Korea, the Treasury said in a statement.
“E.L.F.’s compliance program and its supplier audits failed to discover that approximately 80 percent of the false eyelash kits supplied by two of E.L.F.’s China-based suppliers contained materials” from North Korea, it added.
This does seem pretty stupid for the Japanese government to oppose this statue since it is sitting in a public park and not right in front of a Japanese embassy or consulate like we have seen in Korea. How would the Japanese public feel if the US launched a lawsuit to take down statues remembering atomic bombing victims?:
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce places a bouquet on a bench next to the bronze comfort woman statue in Glendale, California, in January 2014. / Korea Times file
The U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed Japanese government efforts to remove from California a “comfort women” statue that symbolizes victims of Japan’s sexual slavery during World War II.
The court on Monday decided not to review the case brought by U.S. plaintiffs who were supported by the Japanese government. It ended Japan’s three-year bid to remove the statue. U.S. politicians involved in the case and civil rights groups applauded the decision.
Glendale’s comfort woman statue is the first erected outside Korea.
U.S. Republican Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Japan Times: “By remembering the past, including the women who suffered immensely, we help ensure these atrocities are never committed again. [Korea Times]
Here is a story that is likely to get the blood boiling for many people this morning:
Soldiers from the California Army National Guard have been ordered to return enlistment bonuses they received a decade ago when the Pentagon needed troops for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (California Army National Guard)
Short of troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, the California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or more to reenlist and go to war.
Now the Pentagon is demanding the money back.
Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served multiple combat tours, have been ordered to repay large enlistment bonuses — and slapped with interest charges, wage garnishments and tax liens if they refuse — after audits revealed widespread overpayments by the California Guard at the height of the wars last decade.
Investigations have determined that lack of oversight allowed for widespread fraud and mismanagement by California Guard officials under pressure to meet enlistment targets. [LA Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but basically California National Guard personnel were illegally giving out federal reenlistment bonuses to personnel who did not qualify in order to meet their quotas:
In 2010, after reports surfaced of improper payments, a federal investigation found that thousands of bonuses and student loan payments were given to California Guard soldiers who did not qualify for them, or were approved despite paperwork errors.
Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, the California Guard’s incentive manager, pleaded guilty in 2011 to filing false claims of $15.2 million and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. Three officers also pleaded guilty to fraud and were put on probation after paying restitution.
Instead of forgiving the improper bonuses, the California Guard assigned 42 auditors to comb through paperwork for bonuses and other incentive payments given to 14,000 soldiers, a process that was finally completed last month.
Roughly 9,700 current and retired soldiers have been told by the California Guard to repay some or all of their bonuses and the recoupment effort has recovered more than $22 million so far.
The way I look at it is if the personnel who were given the bonuses did not know they were improperly given then why should they be forced to pay it back when they fulfilled their end of the contract? This looks like something Congress needs to take a hard look at and rectify.
People should be careful who they meet up with through Kakao:
A Korean man in his 20s got arrested for having multiple sexual activities with underage girls that he met through the social network.
Anaheim police department arrested a Korean man Mr. Kim last 29th of March for having sexual relationships and raping teen girls.
According to the Anaheim police, Kim contacted a 13-year-old girl through messaging app on the phone in 2014.
Kim then met the teen girl at a shopping mall in Irvine and took her to his house in La Habra and raped her.
The Anaheim police officers started sting operation and engaged in social network with Mr. Kim, disguised as the girl. Kim, thinking the officers were teenage girl, sent photos of his private body parts and offered her to have sexual activities.
Kim went out to the park in Anaheim not realizing the girl was actually the police officer and was arrested. [Korea Times]
A performance is under way in front of a statue at a park of a public library in Glendale, California, on July 28, 2014, in memory of the victims of Japan’s sex slavery during World War II. The statue of a girl was built last year to mourn the victims. It is a replica of the one set up in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Despite Japan’s strong protest, the city government provided the land for the statue, which is designed to urge Japan to apologize and compensate the victims of the wartime sex slavery. Japan has so far refused to do so, while denying historic facts. Historians estimate that more than 200,000 Asian women, mostly Koreans, were forced to serve as sex slaves for front-line Japanese soldiers in the war. (Yonhap)
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