Tag: Moon Jae-in

문재인대통령님 김정숙여사님
사랑합니다💙💙 pic.twitter.com/CAsKxBvnqK

— 임동주🌱onLy MOON😎 (@ceonasin47) April 19, 2019

This may be President Moon’s greatest legacy, appointing left-wing ideologues into the Constitutional Court to ram through North Korea related legislation:

President Moon Jae-in on Friday rammed through the appointments of two Constitutional Court justices whom lawmakers refused to confirm.

Moon formalized the appointments of Lee Mi-sun and Moon Hyung-bae to the bench of the Constitutional Court around 12:40 p.m. on Friday, Senior Presidential Secretary for Public Affairs Yoon Do-han said.

“In order to prevent vacancies in the Constitutional Court, Moon, currently on a state visit to Uzbekistan, used the electronic signature system to approve the appointments,” Yoon said. 

Those appointments brought the number of top officials Moon rammed through without National Assembly conformation hearing reports to 15. Since he took office in May 2017, Moon named 11 minister-level officials and four Constitutional Court judges without getting lawmakers’ blessings, which is legal.

Joong Ang Ilbo

This news of packing the Constitutional court with ideologues friendly to the Moon administration has made his political opposition very unhappy:

The LKP has fiercely protested Moon’s picks. Earlier Friday morning, Rep. Na Kyung-won, floor leader of the LKP, said Moon insisted on the appointments because they “are the final pieces to complete Moon’s puzzle to create a leftist dictatorship.” 

It takes six out of nine Constitutional Court justices to rule a law unconstitutional, and Na said Moon has secured the magic number. 

“The Moon administration will no longer have any reason to struggle in the National Assembly to revise laws,” she said. “It can just file constitutional petitions against laws it does not like and rule them unconstitutional.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

Remember President Moon wants to create a confederation with North Korea. Packing the Constitutional Court with left wing ideologues will allow him to pass any laws needed to make this a reality.

So much for the hotline for the two leaders to contact each other, instead President Moon needs a one-on-one meeting with Kim Jong-un:

President Moon Jae-in could deliver a message from U.S. President Donald Trump to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if a new inter-Korean summit takes place, a presidential official said Sunday.
CNN reported earlier, citing unidentified sources, that Moon has a message from Trump to relay to the North’s leader. Moon met with Trump at the White House earlier this month to discuss ways to get the stalled denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang moving again. 
“If an inter-Korean summit takes place, a related message could be delivered” to the North’s leader, the presidential official told reporters, when asked to comment on the CNN report. The official did not elaborate on the content of the message.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Moon should be careful that he does not come off as looking too desperate for the photo op summit with Kim Jong-un.

President Moon’s friend is released from jail after 77 days despite his involvement in rigging online opinion to influence a Presidential election while a journalist received a 2 year jail sentence for reporting facts and was not released after such a short time:

South Gyeongsang Province Gov. Kim Kyoung-soo was released Wednesday after 77 days of detention over his role in a massive rigging of online opinions.
The Seoul High Court approved Kim’s request for bail but attached a condition under which he should only stay in his residence in Changwon, 400 kilometers south of Seoul.
Kim, known as a confidant of President Moon Jae-in, was sentenced to two years in prison in January for colluding with a power blogger to carry out an illicit cyber operation to sway public opinion in favor of Moon ahead of the 2017 presidential election.
“(I) will prove once and for all that truth will come around no matter how far it is thrown away,” he told reporters. “(I) will reveal the truth through an appeals trial.”
Kim, 51, earlier requested the bail on the grounds that the provincial government suffered a setback in doing its work due to his absence. For the 200 million-won (US$176,025) bail, the court ordered him to pay half of the amount in cash.
Kim received the two-year jail term for collusion with the power blogger, better known by his nickname, Druking, to artificially jack up the number of likes of Internet comments on sensitive political news to benefit the ruling Democratic Party (DP), the then main opposition party, and its presidential candidate Moon ahead of the 2017 elections.
Moon won the snap election in May, replacing former President Park Geun-hye, who was ousted from office in March 2017 over a corruption scandal.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the excuse that the provincial government could not work effectively because he is in jail is one of the lamest excuses I have heard yet. Would any other criminal be let out of prison early because their work place suffered a setback with that person’s absence?

Kim Jong-un promised that he would visit Seoul and Moon Jae-in doesn’t seem to eager to force his hand to make that visit:

 President Moon Jae-in said Monday that he hopes to meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as early as possible, welcoming Kim’s latest message on denuclearization talks.
Moon stressed that the venue and format of his fourth summit with Kim does not matter, as he seeks “concrete and substantive discussions” on ways to produce “fruits” to outdo those of two U.S.-North Korea summit talks.
“Now is the time to make preparations and push for South-North summit talks in earnest,” he said in a meeting with senior presidential aides here.
He added, “As soon as North Korea’s conditions are created, I hope the two Koreas will have another summit without being restrained by the venue and format.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Kim Jong-un I think will not visit Seoul unless he receive a huge payoff. His dad needed $500 million to host a summit in Pyongyang, so I am sure Kim Jong-un’s price to go to Seoul will be much higher.

President Moon’s goal was to get sanctions relief for North Korea and it appears he got President Trump to at least consider some relief in the future:

President Donald Trump’s meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in comes amid uncertainty over whether the leader of North Korea is considering backing out of nuclear negotiations or restarting nuclear and missile tests.
Trump, in his first meeting with Moon since the unsuccessful U.S. summit with Kim in Hanoi, said the U.S. wants to keep economic sanctions in place to pressure Kim to denuclearize. But Trump said he retains good relations with Kim and didn’t rule out a third summit or taking steps to ease food or other shortages in the repressive nation.
“We want sanctions to remain in place,” Trump said Thursday at the White House. “I think that sanctions right now are at a level that’s a fair level.”
Moon, for his part, has called for an easing of sanctions, including those holding back joint economic projects between North and South Korea. But he didn’t speak to the sanctions issue as he and Trump spoke with reporters at the start of their talks.

Trump said he would favor easing those sanctions at the right time but added: “This isn’t the right time.” He said he was open to discussing smaller steps, such as helping to ease North Korea’s humanitarian problems, but that, in general, the U.S. wants sanctions to remain.
“There are various smaller deals that maybe could happen,” Trump said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but if the Kim regime can afford a nuclear weapons and ICBM programs then they can afford to buy food for their people. Any humanitarian crisis in North Korea is regime manufactured and not because of the sanctions.

Honestly, I’d be grateful if they just conducted the summit via Skype or FaceTime and saved all of us time, money, energy, commotion, pollution, and annoying motorcades and sirens all around town. The end result will be exactly the same. https://t.co/mFF9h6BU6X

— 🇰🇷Edward Oh🇺🇸 (@EdwardHBOh) April 9, 2019

Is anyone surprised that President Moon is pushing for sanctions relief on behalf of North Korea before any denuclearization happens?:

Moon Jae-in plans to ask the U.S. to ease sanctions on North Korea when he meets President Donald Trump at the White House this week, say unnamed South Korean officials cited by the Korean Times.
The South Korean president is visiting Washington D.C. for a summit on North Korean nuclear diplomacy, where the two leaders are expected to discuss how to achieve the denuclearization of the north and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
“Moon plans to embrace the risk of personal diplomacy by asking Trump to grant reciprocal measures after Seoul and Washington laid out the necessary groundwork via working-level discussions,” a South Korean official told the Korea Times.

Although it remains to be seen which sanctions Moon might ask the U.S. to revoke first, officials said he is likely to focus on those that impact the country’s citizens.
“It’s likely President Moon may raise the lessening of sanctions that affect the lives of the North Korean people,” an official said, according to the Korea Times.

TIME Magazine

The only reason sanctions are impacting the lives of ordinary North Koreans is because the Kim regime allows them too. They have enough money to fund a nuclear weapons and ICBM program, which means they should have enough money to spend on the welfare of their own people if the regime wanted to.

I am really not surprised at all by this decline, it was actually very predictable considering his economic and North Korea policies had little chance of ever working:

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating has hit the lowest level of his presidency while his disapproval rating reached its highest point, according to a Gallup Korea poll released on Friday.

According to the weekly poll, Moon’s approval rating was 41 percent and 49 percent gave negative responses to Moon’s performance. 

Moon’s approval rating, which skyrocketed in his early months of the presidency, has now dropped to the level of the share of votes he won in the presidential election two years ago. Moon has lost additional supporters, mostly moderates, that he had attracted since he first took office.

Moon started his presidency in May 2017 with an over 80 percent approval rating and maintained strong figures throughout his first year. In May 2018, shortly after Moon’s first summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, his approval rating was 83 percent, according to Gallup Korea.

Joong Ang Ilbo

Keep in mind that President Moon’s approval rating dropped to 41% even though he forcibly took control of most of the major media in South Korea and has been imprisoning opposition journalists.

Pres. Moon (@moonriver365) at 63rd Newspaper Day Ceremony: "Newspapers are a mirror for our society. They are a barometer for the strength of a people and a nation. Thus, there is no difference between the goals of the people and the Government and those of #newspapers.” pic.twitter.com/eBbQa1uPGZ

— The Office of President Moon Jae-in (@TheBlueHouseENG) April 4, 2019