In the current issue of the magazine I have a detailed look at the 2017 Republican tax cut and what it accomplished compared to all the promises Republicans made at the time. The nickel answer is: nothing. It literally fulfilled none of their promises. Not one.

But it did succeed at one thing they only whispered at:

You see? Republicans do know how to construct a tax cut that does what they want it to. The thing is, you have to know what it is they really want. In 2017 they really didn’t care about putting money in the pockets of ordinary people or spurring economic growth. They just wanted to boost corporate profits and give rich people a tax cut. That was it. And they did it.

Click here for the whole story. And then pass it along to your conservative friends. Maybe someday they’ll finally get the message that Republicans really don’t care about them unless they’re CEOs or millionaires.

*As long as you know what they were trying to succeed at.

Canada geese are mean. And really territorial. For example:

How hard can it be to tell people what to do in the middle of a pandemic? The basic advice is so simple:

If you want to do more, go for it. But these three things probably accomplish about 90 percent of what you can do to protect yourself and others.

In addition, there’s stuff the government can do: more testing, better contact tracing, lockdowns of dangerous gatherings, and so forth. But in terms of personal behavior, these three items are your best friends.

Conservative writer David French provides some insight into why the right is going increasingly hysterical over Twitter’s modest efforts to rein in racist and violent speech:

When you hear increasing right-wing (I refuse to say “conservative”) calls for government oversight of social media speech policies, it’s vitally important to understand some of the career/economic context. Many of the people most alarmed made a gamble. They invested enormous time, energy, and effort into a platform they didn’t create, don’t control, and use for free. They’ve built impressive followings here, sometimes through edge-lord behavior, skating at the outer margins of Twitter’s policies.

As progressive speech values shift (after all, this is a site created by progressives and run by progressives) some of that on-the-line tweeting is going to cross newly-created lines, thus jeopardizing all that effort and risking extinguishing their primary public presence. That’s why the debate often takes on a slightly-crazed tone. It’s not merely an abstract debate over constitutional principles and corporate values. Lots of folks went all-in on creating an edgy presence on arguably the most progressive social media site. They don’t want to start over on Facebook. They don’t want to flee to Gab. Nor do they want to start from scratch on TikTok (“Chuck Todd won’t know I destroyed him!”) or Snapchat or YouTube or Reddit. And they’re certainly not content to “only” write on the platforms they own.

So here we are, in the grips of an incredibly self-interested effort to pull more and more of the government into social media regulation, even to the point of potentially overriding long-cherished First Amendment freedoms. It’s important to understand one reason why.

This was, naturally, a Twitter thread, which I consolidated into ordinary, boring text. I thought you all might be interested.

From the LA Times:

The Trump administration, eager to claim victory over the coronavirus, has been considering scaling back the national emergency declared earlier this year to control the pandemic, according to healthcare industry officials who have spoken with the administration.

….Several industry officials interviewed by The Times said they’d received indications over the last week from the Trump administration that lifting emergency declarations was being considered. “It was very much under discussion,” said one industry official, who asked not to be identified to avoid jeopardizing relationships with the administration.

Sure, that makes sense. If we test less, we’ll look better. If we lift the emergency declaration, it means everything is OK. As long as people die without anyone making a big fuss about it on TV—which is Donald Trump’s only gauge of reality—then America is great again.

The White House, naturally, denies they’re planning to do this, but I assume we all know what a White House denial is worth these days.

Here’s the coronavirus death toll through June 23. Mexico looks really bad. Here in the United States, we recorded over 800 deaths, which is somewhat higher than our average of the past couple of weeks. Given that COVID-19 cases started rising about two weeks ago, next week could be a bad one if those start turning into deaths with a 3-week lag.

The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here. The Public Health Agency of Sweden is here.

My M-protein level stayed steady this month, which is basically good news. As long as it stays consistently below 0.5, things are fine and my multiple myeloma is under control.

Here’s proof that everything looks better with a beautiful background. This is my loyal Mazda 3, which ferried me around Arizona and then back home in January.

Why did I choose blue when I bought it? Well, my first car was a yellow VW Beetle. Then a white Mazda RX-7. Then a black Honda Prelude. Then a red Porsche 911. So I figured blue was one of the few new colors left.

This is insane. I don’t really have anything further to say about it.

As we debate the defunding/reimagining/reforming of our police forces, it’s worth taking a look at what the world looks like today compared to the way it still seems to look to many police officers. Here are the trends in arrest rates among young offenders since the crime peak of 1992:

Among the highest crime age groups of 15-17 and 18-20, arrest rates are down by about two-thirds. Two-thirds! I wonder how many people have truly internalized this? Cops still seem to think of themselves as a thin blue line protecting a society under siege from threatening hordes of criminals. But this isn’t true. Young people today are simply not as dangerous as they used to be, thanks to a childhood mostly free of lead poisoning.

This is a permanent change and it’s true of everybody: men and women; Black, white, and Latino; urban and rural. We just flatly don’t live in a society that’s anywhere near as dangerous as it used to be. When will policing change to recognize this?