Too many news stories to cover in depth

1.  Two bosses at CFPB:  Elizabeth Warren worked diligently to set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that oversees how banks, credit card companies, etc. treat their customers, the millions of American consumers.   Richard Cordray, the good-guy who has been the first and only director, has just resigned.  According to the law that created the Bureau, he names a deputy director who becomes Acting Director when he leaves.  But the Trump Administration, using another law that gives him the right to appoint acting directors of agencies when there is a vacancy, assigned Mick Mulvaney, its Budget Director, to be Acting Director.  Mulvaney is on record as saying the agency should be abolished.   So for the past few days, the CFPB has had two people claiming to be in charge -- and they have diametrically opposing views of the agency.   It's now in the hands of a federal court to sort out the two conflicting laws of succession.

Late Note:   A federal judge has decided in favor of Trump's argument and denied the request to block Mulvaney's taking control.   As I understand it, the case can still go forward, and the trial decision might be different (if Mulvaney doesn't completely dismantle the agency beforehand).  I think this was just a ruling on what happens prior to a trial.   We like to think judges are impartial;  but I will note that this judge is a brand new Trump appointee, having only become a federal judge in September.

2.  The "Trump" name is being removed from two hotels -- the Trump Soho in New York and another high rise hotel in Panama.   Both hotels are said to have ties to money laundering and organized crime among their investors.   Trump does not own the Panama Hotel but only leases his name and manages it through the Trump management team.   The owners of the Panama Hotel, in addition to removing the name, have also dismissed the Trump management team.  Not sure what the Trump objective is here, but it couldn't hurt to get rid of any financial crime and mob connections before facing Bob Mueller's financial crimes investigative team.

3.  This is long-term one of the biggest stories of the Trump Administration:   what Rex Tillerson is doing to destroy the State Department as we knew it.  Before he even was confirmed, a whole tier of top career diplomatic positions were simply eliminated.   That has continued on down the line.  Over the holiday weekend, another whole raft of senior career diplomats found their positions eliminated.   Decades of expertise, with deep and specialized knowledge of a region's history, culture, politics are simply being thrown out the window as so much trash.  It will take decades to rebuild such professional knowledge and experience.   We have no experts left at any level of seniority for certain parts of the world.    As important as the Korean peninsula is right now, with Kim and Trump taunting each other with threats, we have not had an ambassador in South Korea for nearly a year.   Not even anyone nominated.   Tillerson came in with a plan to make the sprawling department more streamlined and efficient.   That might work for Exxon, but you need depth and breath of knowledge and experience in world affairs to be effective on the world stage.  It all seems part of Trump's retreat from the world into an autocratic regime-in-the-making.   The person Tillerson hired to remake the department abruptly resigned Tuesday, after only three months in the job.   She and Tillerson reportedly had very different views about the need for keeping those experts with decades of experience and knowledge.  The Guardian reported that two former senior diplomats warned that Tillerson's "dismissive attitude toward our diplomats and diplomacy" threaten to dismantle the US foreign service, "just when we need it most."

4.  The Senate tax bill passed out of the Budget Committee today on a party line vote of 12 to 11.   It now heads for a floor vote, probably next week.  It's passage is still uncertain, although some of the wavering Republican senators have now said their concerns have been addressed.   Interestingly, a new Republican waverer has emerged:   Sen. Jim Langford of Oklahoma is concerned about the increase to the debt and says (quite correctly) that growth will not make up for the revenue decline from tax cuts.  Paul Krugman calls it "the biggest tax scam in history . . . .  The only big winners would be the wealthy -- especially those who mainly collect income from their assets rather than working for a living -- plus tax lawyers and accountants. . . .  [It would be a] huge redistribution of income from lower- and middle-income families to corporations and business owners."

5.  North Korea launched another ICBM missile today that, according to Defense Secretary Mattis, rose higher than any of their previous ones before falling into the sea off Japan.   A late report, not now confirmed [by a nuclear arms expert, who estimated its range as over 8,000 miles], estimated that they are now probably capable of reaching Washington, D.C.   [However, the expert said it may not yet be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that far, since it weights around 1,000 pounds and would reduce the range capability.]

Donald Trump better rethink his disdain for diplomatic negotiations.  If he tries to bully his way out of this, we will face a nuclear war.   A pragmatic alternative may be to accept North Korea into the group of nuclear armed states and work for its  agreements to the limits and inspections that others do.

Ralph