Weekend Reading - IRS Tax Help & School Choice; 'Kavanaugh's Cabal'; 5000 Year Old Meds

A few things I've read in the last couple of days you might find interesting or alarming.


1.  From an LA Times article titled, "Some small business owners could avoid cap on state and local tax deduction after IRS clarifies new rules"

"Small business owners could avoid a new federal limit on state and local tax deductions after the Internal Revenue Service said Wednesday that rules it released last month to prevent efforts in California and other states to circumvent the cap apply only to individuals. 

Businesses will be allowed to claim a full federal tax deduction for contributions to charities or government programs — particularly those offering school choice scholarships — that offer state tax credits, the IRS said."

Betsy DeVos is an example of how Trump has put people in charge of agencies who are ideologically opposed to the missions of the agencies.  I learned about the national right wing organizations pushing for 'parental rights' when I covered the hearings, led by current Alaska gubernatorial candidate Dunleavy.  Dunleavy's mantra was 'parental rights.'  It's code for destroying public schools, money for charter schools, home schooling, and other ways to funnel public education funds into private hands running private schools.  So here we have an attempt by the Trump administration to punish high tax states (because their people care about good government services) by eliminating the federal tax deductions for state and local taxes.  Well, that was part of the tax cut legislation.  But now they're saying, well, that's only for individuals.  Businesses are exempt, especially if they support 'school choice' - a buzzword for charter and other private schools.

Alaskans - better get lots of people voting in November so that Dunleavy comes in second, or better yet, third.



2.  David Brock: I knew Brett Kavanaugh during his years as a Republican operative. Don't let him sit on the Supreme Court.

"Brett and I were part of a close circle of cold, cynical and ambitious hard-right operatives being groomed by GOP elders for much bigger roles in politics, government and media. And it’s those controversial associations that should give members of the Senate and the American public serious pause. 

Call it Kavanaugh's cabal: There was his colleague on the Starr investigation, Alex Azar, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Mark Paoletta is now chief counsel to Vice President Mike Pence; House anti-Clinton gumshoe Barbara Comstock is now a Republican member of Congress. Future Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson were there with Ann Coulter, now a best-selling author, and internet provocateur Matt Drudge."

At one time or another, each of them partied at my Georgetown townhouse amid much booze and a thick air of cigar smoke.

I did look Brock up before posting this. This piece is posted at an NBC link called Think.  He wrote a book called Blinded by the Right and has since become a Democratic 'operative.'
James Fallows is a journalist I've followed for many years and he's usually pretty savvy.  Here's his tweet about Brock's article.

I was a newsmag editor during the period David Brock is describing here:https://t.co/Lv5wNqOd8D

What Brock says about B Kavanaugh’s role on the Ken Starr team rings true to my experience in those days. I think most other DC journalists from that era would say something similar

— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) September 7, 2018

I was suggesting Kavanaugh was a zealot based on watching the hearings this week.  But Brock makes him out as much worse than that.  And the more recent documents the Democrats got from the Archive suggest that he lied to the Senate committee at various confirmation hearings including this one.

3.  From an Andrew Sullivan piece in New York Magazine that doesn't really tell us much more than we already know:

"This emperor has had absolutely no clothes from the very beginning. The only thing in doubt all along has been the Republican Party’s complicity.
And that complicity remains. If anything, it is intensifying. As Jim Fallows constantly points out, any single Republican senator — Sasse, Corker, Collins, Graham, Paul, Murkowski — could check this president by voting against him, on any number of issues . . "

I had tried to call Murkowski's office earlier, but the message machines was full.  This reminded me to send her an email asking her to vote no on Kavanaugh's confirmation.  You can too, here.


And for something totally different:

4.  From Science: 5000-year-old ‘Iceman’ may have benefited from a sophisticated health care system

Ötzi, the 5300-year-old “Iceman” discovered frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991, was a medical mess. His teeth were rotting, he had a bad stomach bug, and his knees were beginning to degenerate—not to mention the arrow in his back that probably killed him. Now, a new study concludes that the herbs and tattoos he seems to have used to treat his ailments may have been common around this time, suggesting a sophisticated culture of health care at this point in human history.