It looks like I have my answer about what will happen when Kim Davis reports back to work in the Rowan County clerk’s office:

One of Davis’ deputy clerks, Brian Mason, said he will continue to issue licenses even if Davis instructs him to not do so. “Because of the federal court order,” Mason said when asked why he might buck his boss when she returns to work.

….Mason patiently answered a dozen reporters’ questions Wednesday when the clerk’s office opened for business, displaying the license he and five other deputy clerks have used since they assured Bunning they would comply with his order. Those revised licenses do not include Davis’ name, instead indicating the license is authorized by “the office of the Rowan County Clerk,” where it once indicated “the office of Kim Davis, Rowan County Clerk.”

….“It was an office decision,” Mason said when asked who authorized the change.

Davis will not have to personally issue marriage licenses to any gay couples, and the licenses themselves no longer have her name on them. This is what she asked for in the first place, so she ought to be satisfied. Right?

For some reason, I’ve been a whirlwind of blogging activity over the past week or two. Don’t ask me why. Partly, though, I think it’s because it’s so hard to take anything seriously lately. It’s all Donald Trump and Kim Davis and dumb tax plans and other political theater. So I’ve ended up writing lots of short, not-entirely-serious posts about things that amuse me. That’s pretty much all I can find.

Take my lunch break today. I learned two things. First, I like Round Table pizza and I wish my local store hadn’t closed. Second, Republicans have a shiny new plan for dealing with their inevitable defeat on the Iran deal. Max Fisher explains the latest outbreak of serious governing from today’s Republican Party:

The new hotness among Republicans is that they shouldn’t bother voting to disapprove of the Iran nuclear deal, and instead should vote for a resolution that, according to Politico’s Jake Sherman, “would delay a disapproval vote because they believe Obama has not disclosed some elements of the deal.”

….Republicans, in this new plan, would argue that President Obama didn’t live up to his promise to fully inform Congress about the Iran nuclear deal….The alleged “secret side deal” is an agreement between the International Atomic Energy Agency (the UN nuclear watchdog) and Iran over how the IAEA will conduct certain inspections and verification procedures of Iranian facilities.

The IAEA has such agreements with every country where it works….It is not a “side deal,” nor is its existence secret; the nuclear deal requires the IAEA to monitor Iranian facilities, so naturally the IAEA was going to work out the logistical details of that with Tehran. As nuclear experts Mark Hibbs and Thomas Shea explained recently in the Hill, anyone with the most basic knowledge of the IAEA understands that this is how it works, and that this secrecy ultimately helps the IAEA — and thus the US — against Iran’s nuclear program.

….The controversy is thus by definition impossible to resolve. And that’s precisely the point….The future of Republican opposition to the Iran nuclear deal will thus probably look something like the never-ending political circus over the Benghazi attacks. There will be various conspiracy theories and outrage stories that will live on for years in right-wing media long after they have been debunked. You will hear about “Obama’s secret side deal with the IAEA” from at least one family member at Thanksgiving.

It’s hard to work up the energy to write about this stuff seriously. It just doesn’t deserve it. It’s transparent political theater designed to feed the outrage machine, and it’s apparently getting more attention from Republicans than passing a budget, which they have only a few days to finish up. And even if they do eventually get around to the budget, it promises to be merely another round of political theater as tea partiers vie to force a government shutdown instead.

So what’s a hardworking political blogger to do? Relax and figure that this too shall pass, I suppose. In the meantime, it’s gonna be a long campaign.

I guess everyone knows I’m not an Apple fanboy, but I’ve still got to ask: how long can Apple keep the press corps salivating every time they stage a product announcement? Today’s is being followed with the usual breathless real-time tweeting and front-page liveblogging, but what did Apple actually unveil? A modestly upgraded iPhone. An iPad with a bigger screen. And an Apple TV box with Siri and some new apps.

These are all perfectly serviceable upgrades. They’ll probably be popular. But really, it’s pretty unremarkable stuff. Is it really still worth covering these PR events as if Apple is revolutionizing the world?

POSTSCRIPT: Aside from Apple’s expertise at showmanship, part of the reason for this is probably demographic. A few years ago I attended a meeting of 30 or 40 people from left-leaning media outlets. About 20 of them had laptops out, and of those, 17 were MacBooks. Apple products are insanely popular among a small slice of urbanish/liberalish journalists, and I suspect this leads them to believe that their readers are equally entranced by Apple news. And maybe they are! But I have my doubts.

Donald Trump, immigration warrior, three weeks ago:

Every year, we voluntarily admit another 2 million new immigrants, guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing all-time historic record population of 42 million immigrants….We need to stop giving legal immigrant visas to people bent on causing us harm….Specific policy proposals….Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to crack down on abuses.

Donald Trump, Syrian refugee humanitarian, yesterday:

Do you have people from ISIS in that group? You know, there’s a lot of security risks with it. But, something has to be done. It’s an unbelievable humanitarian problem….I hate the concept of [admitting refugees to the US], but on a humanitarian basis, with what’s happening, you have to….It’s living in hell in Syria, there’s no question about it. They’re living in hell.

This is what makes Trump the perfect Republican: magical thinking doesn’t slow him down a bit. Tax cuts and budget surpluses? Sure. Free trade and higher tariffs? Why not. Tougher rules for refugees and humanitarian relief for Syrian asylum-seekers? You bet.

Obviously this appeals to a lot of people. Policy is for wonks and eggheads. Real Americans don’t worry about that kind of stuff. We want to be free to act like horrible people and to think of ourselves as charitable Good Samaritans. Tap into that, and you’ve got a powerful message. Let the hobgoblins of consistency get in the way, and you’re a loser.

True or false? You make the call:

It’s telling that, in today’s America, more parents would be likely to accept their five-year-old son’s declaration that he identifies as a girl than would accept their 18-year-old’s proclamation that he wants to be an underwater welder, even though the pay for that particular vocation ranges from $54,000 to well over $100,000.

I’m guessing this is false by at least a factor of 10 or 20. Maybe more. But aside from the peculiar culture war grievance-mongering, which pops up out of nowhere (in an essay about the value of vocational training), it highlights the odd propensity of verbal, well-educated types to assume that all of America shares their views. It’s something that happens among both liberals and conservatives. For all their talk of understanding their working-class brethren, an awful lot of them sure don’t seem to.

Anyway, I have no real reason to post this. For some reason it was briefly popular in my Twitter feed last night, so I eventually clicked and read it. Aside from that one sentence, it seems fairly unobjectionable. And for the record, as long as my daughter promised to wait half an hour after eating, I’d have no problem with her being an underwater welder.

Stop me if I’m wrong, but here’s what we know about Hillary Clinton and her emails:

• HRC used a private email server while she was Secretary of State.
• This was allowed by government rules at the time and the FBI is not investigating any wrongdoing by HRC.
• But it was probably not a wise thing to do anyway.
• Some of the emails HRC received contained documents that were not classified at the time but are now considered secret.

So here’s my question: what are we still investigating? What I mean by this is, even in theory what more could we possibly find out? I guess there’s always the remote possibility of testimony from someone or other claiming that in 2009 Hillary discussed nefarious and career-killing reasons for setting up her own server. But really, what are the odds?

So I don’t get it. Every time a new tranche of emails is released or Trey Gowdy leaks something or another, we get more stories about this. But what more can we possibly learn? We can all decide for ourselves how badly we think this affair reflects on Hillary, but there’s not really any possibility of digging up anything more, is there?

Congratulations to HRH Queen Elizabeth II, who becomes the longest reigning British monarch in history today. As of a few minutes ago, she had been queen for 23,226 days and 16 hours (63 years and 215 days), beating the previous record held by Queen Victoria. However, Elizabeth is a mere 89, and her mother lived to 101, so she may yet break the record by quite a bit—and she’ll need every bit of that if she wants to break the all-time European record of Louis XIV, who reigned for 72 years. The longest reign of a British king remains America’s favorite, George III, at a bit over 59 years.

Well, now, I guess I’m confused. Nothing new there, I suppose. Yesterday Jeb Bush outlined his tax reform proposal and promised more details to follow: “On Wednesday I am unveiling the plan that, as president, I will submit to Congress and sign into law.” Today is Wednesday, so I hopped over to his website and found a document that said the same thing: “On Wednesday I am unveiling the plan that, as president, I will submit to Congress and sign into law.” Does that refer to the document currently on the site? Is that the plan? Or is there a real plan to follow?

I dunno. But I’m amused by Jeb’s whatever-it-is. Apparently he’s learned a couple of lessons from the last presidential cycle. First, don’t provide enough information to allow busybodies to actually score your plan. So, for example, highlight your bold plan to reduce the number of tax brackets, but don’t explain what income levels they apply to. Score that, Tax Policy Center!

Second, you should describe your reduced tax rates in loving detail, but then suddenly turn coy when it comes to all those deductions and loopholes you plan to close in order to make up for it. This means that TPC can’t analyze the actual impact of your plan. They can make a case that Bush’s plan is mathematically impossible, but it’s a fairly arcane argument and no one will care.

By the way, that’s about it. As far as individual income taxes go, that’s Bush’s plan. Reduce rates, reduce the number of brackets, and cap deductions in some vague way. It doesn’t seem like enough to supercharge the American economy, does it? But wait! There’s also this:

The plan nearly doubles the standard deduction now taken by roughly two-thirds of all filers. It eliminates the marriage penalty, expands the Earned Income Tax Credit, ends the death tax, retires the Alternative Minimum Tax and ends the employee’s share of the Social Security tax on earnings for workers older than 67.

This implies that the document I’m reading isn’t the plan. The plan is yet to come. And perhaps it will be rich with detail. Alternatively, Team Jeb’s communications team is being a little dodgy with verb tenses here. I can’t tell. Is it a secret plan? I will let you know if something further emanates from Jeb’s headquarters.

I wonder what’s going on with this whole Kim Davis thing? I don’t mean the rallies and the martyrdom and all the political posturing. That’s depressingly predictable. I mean, what’s going on inside the county clerk’s office?

There’s a bunch of deputy clerks there, and a judge told them to issue licenses to same-sex couples. They did. Now Davis is being released from jail and she says she’ll never never never back down. But what about the deputies? Surely they’ve been talking about what they’ll do when the boss returns. And presumably, some or all of them have decided to do what the judge tells them. So what happens when the next gay couple walks through the door and one of the deputies starts filling out a marriage license? Does Davis come shrieking out of her office and tackle the guy? Do the rest of the deputies restrain her? Do they cave in and sit around in a mope? Or what?

We won’t find out until the next gay couple comes in, and I don’t suppose that’s a really common occurrence in Rowan County, Kentucky. But I’m mighty curious to find out what happens.

A new study finds that half of all Americans are either diabetic or pre-diabetic. But there’s supposedly good news lurking there:

After two decades of linear growth, the prevalence of diabetes in the United States has finally started to plateau.

….Herman and Rothberg, who were not involved in the research, said the study suggests the implementation of food, nutrition and physical activity policies and regulations by federal, state and local governments as well as other efforts to curb obesity and diabetes have finally started to pay off.

Color me skeptical. Consider a thought experiment. Suppose we had done nothing about this. No government regulations. No haranguing by doctors. No PR campaigns. Nothing. What would the results be?

At a guess, half the population is naturally prone to eating (more or less) properly and isn’t especially susceptible to diabetes. So if we did nothing at all, I’d wager that about half the population would remain free of diabetes.

This is just a guess, and I doubt there’s any way to prove it one way or another. But it hardly seems like an unreasonable guess. And what it means is that all the regulating and haranguing and advertising has probably accomplished nothing. Maybe it’s time to try something else?