The General US Politics Thread

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt spent nearly $3,000 on "tactical pants" and "tactical polos," according to new disclosures cited Wednesday by The Intercept.

Records obtained by the outlet through the Freedom of Information Act show that Pruitt spent $2,749.62 on the clothing items as part of his security expenditures.

The disclosures showed that Pruitt spent a $288,610 on various security items, bringing the total amount of public money Pruitt has spent on security items to $4.6 million.

The amount marks a $1.1 million increase from the administrator's security costs from last month, according to the outlet.

Amid President Trump’s headaches confirming cabinet secretaries, from neophyte Rex Tillerson to conflict-prone Scott Pruitt to unprepared Betsy De Vos, all of whom squeezed through, Wilbur Ross was a tonic. With his blue power suit and decades of dealmaking, he had the look and the résumé of a commerce secretary. And unlike his boss, Ross promised to divest from almost all his holdings upon entering government, drawing bipartisan praise en route to an easy confirmation. “You have really made a very personal sacrifice,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. “Your service has resulted in your divesting yourself of literally hundreds of millions of dollars.” In November 2017, Ross confirmed in writing to the federal Office of Government Ethics that he had divested everything he promised.

But that was not true. After weeks of investigation, Forbes found:

For most of last year, Ross served as secretary of commerce while maintaining stakes in companies co-owned by the Chinese government, a shipping firm tied to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, a Cypriot bank reportedly caught up in the Robert Mueller investigation and a huge player in an industry Ross is now investigating. It’s hard to imagine a more radioactive portfolio for a cabinet member.

To this day, Ross’ family apparently continues to have an interest in these toxic holdings. Rather than dump them all, the commerce secretary sold some of his interests to Goldman Sachs—and, according to Ross himself, put others in a trust for his family members. He continued to deal with China, Russia and others while evidently knowing that his family’s interests were tied to those countries.

In addition, five days before reports surfaced last fall that Ross was connected to cronies of Vladimir Putin through a shipping firm called Navigator Holdings, the secretary of commerce, who likely knew about the reporting, shorted stock in the Kremlin-linked company, positioning himself to make money on the investment when share prices dropped.

Absurdly, maintaining all those conflicts of interest appears to be entirely legal—a reflection of ethics laws woefully unprepared for governing tycoons like Donald Trump and Wilbur Ross. Ross appears to have broken one law, however: submitting a sworn statement to federal officials in November saying he divested of everything he had promised he would—even though he still held more than $10 million worth of stock in financial firm Invesco, his former employer. He also continued to hold a short position in a bank called Sun Bancorp, a company he had promised to divest. The next month, Ross got rid of interests in both.

What does Ross say about all of this now? Not much. When Forbes asked, a month ago, what became of his holdings, he passed the message to his spokesman, who said he hoped to have an answer the next day. Five days later, he sent a one-sentence statement, promising Ross’ current assets would be reflected on an annual financial disclosure, which he had not yet filed. Given two weeks to respond to a list of detailed questions, the spokesperson declined to answer most of them but underscored that Ross eventually divested of his holdings. The spokesperson also issued a statement about whether Ross had broken the law by lying to federal officials. "The secretary did not lie," he said, adding that Ross filed amended paperwork, which is currently under review by the Office of Government Ethics.

Wilbur Ross is not known for telling the truth. On a Sunday afternoon last fall, just back from a trip to Asia, Ross called Forbes to lie about his personal fortune. Forbes had listed the commerce secretary on its billionaires rankings for years, but his financial disclosure report revealed less than $700 million in assets. When pressed about the discrepancy, Ross calmly cited more than $2 billion in undisclosed assets, saying he had shifted a chunk of his fortune to a trust for his family.

Those billions apparently did not exist, but when six senators demanded an investigation, Ross insisted his statements contained a kernel of truth. “At the time of my conversation with the reporter, I was in the process of creating a trust as a mechanism to divest my assets in order to comply with my ethics agreement.” But Ross’ ethics agreement required him to divest, either by selling his assets or giving them away. Simply parking them in a trust was not enough.

Richard Blumenthal, the same senator who had previously praised the commerce secretary for his divestitures, then asked Ross to describe the structure of the trust. He did not respond. That opacity, combined with the fact that the Office of Government Ethics never publicly released documents showing that Ross complied with his promises to divest, created a cloud of mystery surrounding Ross’ assets. Ethics watchdogs wrote damning reports, journalists speculated on whether the secretary of commerce still owned stakes in conflict-producing entities, and a Fox News commentator demanded that Trump fire Ross.

The whole time, Ross' explanation of what happened with those assets was buried in a document sitting in the Office of Government Ethics. Perhaps because it showed an apparent legal violation by the commerce secretary, ethics officials never signed off on the filing, even though they received it five months ago. And since they did not stamp their approval, it was never released to the public. Until now.

According to the filing, Ross divested most of his holdings on October 25, the last possible day he could get rid of them. He sold his “limited partner interests”—generally cash put in a firm’s funds and later invested into various companies—to an “independent third party.” Forbes confirmed the buyer was funds managed by Goldman Sachs. But he dumped the “general partner interests”—which can also contain investments in various companies and typically give the owner an additional share of future profits in the fund—into a trust in which neither he nor his wife have an interest, according to the filing. Lately, Ross’ old funds have performed so poorly that it is not clear whether those general partner interests will ever kick off serious cash. But if the value of the companies they hold suddenly improves, then the beneficiaries of the trust could reap millions of dollars. If the funds have already paid out some portion of profits, and the investments continue to underperform, the beneficiaries may even be required to pay back some money—a possible reason why the commerce secretary put those interests in a trust. Representatives for Ross did not answer questions about the exact structure of the trust.

The ethics filing does not say who its beneficiaries are, but Ross apparently let that slip in his October phone call to Forbes, the only known occasion that he has ever publicly discussed a trust that he used to comply with his ethics agreement. “I am not the beneficiary,” he said when asked about the trust. “That’s the point. This is set up for children and things like that.” Was anyone outside of Ross’ own family a beneficiary? “No,” he said.

So according to Ross, he complied with his ethics agreement in part by handing assets over to his own family members, which technically counts as a divestiture, but left the Ross family with a handful of interests alongside the same motley actors that Secretary Ross is supposed to be getting tough with.

So shouldn't his approval ratings start plummeting soon considering he's literally locking up children? I feel like they should, any reason why they wouldn't besides still (apparently) doing fine?

Instead of a ride-sharing service, it'll be a child-sharing service!

Who wants to come up with Space Force Recuitment slogans?

How did you hear about the Trump Space Force?

• Read about it in an official presidential "crapper tweet"
• "Cellmate gossip" from Paul Manafort
• From a misspelled protest sign, like all my news
• Heard 4-year-old say what a dumb idea it was
• In between screams of "Lock her up!"
• Anchors on "Fox and Friends" screamed about it while orgasming

Get mocked by Newton from beyond the grave.

The Supreme Court upended the nation's Internet marketplace Thursday, ruling that states can collect sales taxes from most online retailers.

The decision, which overturns an earlier Supreme Court precedent, will boost state revenues at the expense of consumers and sellers who have avoided sales taxes in the past.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the 5-4 decision, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented, saying the decision should be left to Congress, and was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Faced with a South Dakota law that exempted online retailers with less than $100,000 in annual sales or 200 annual transactions in the state, the justices nevertheless opened the door to states that may want to collect sales taxes from smaller sellers. If that becomes a burden on small online businesses, the court said, "Congress may legislate to address these problems if it deems it necessary and fit to do so."

The potential for problems associated with small sellers, Kennedy said, "cannot justify retaining this artificial, anachronistic rule that deprives states of vast revenues from major businesses."

The high court ruled in 1967 and again in 1992 that companies without a physical presence in a state did not have to collect sales taxes. But those rulings applied mostly to mail-order catalog companies. In 1992, Amazon had not yet begun selling books out of Jeff Bezos' garage.

In its challenge, South Dakota noted that "times have changed," with online sales growing at four times the rate of total retail sales. As a result, state and local governments in 45 states lose billions of dollars annually in taxes. (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon do not have sales taxes.)

In response, online sellers Wayfair, Overstock.com and Newegg, said online retailers could face some 12,000 local tax jurisdictions if the Supreme Court sided with the states. They warned of economic chaos — at least until Congress steps in.

In his dissent, Roberts warned that the decision could detract from E-commerce's "significant and vibrant part of our national economy."

"This court should not act on this important question of current economic policy, solely to expiate a mistake it made over 50 years ago," Roberts said.

When the court ruled in 1967 and 1992 that Illinois and North Dakota could not squeeze sales taxes from sellers with no presence in those states, there wasn't nearly as much at stake. Now consumers do nearly 10% of their shopping online, a share that will grow exponentially in the future.

Congress protected those Internet sellers in 1998 legislation that has since been made permanent. Then in 2000, a national commission urged states to simplify their tax systems as a precursor to taxing remote sellers. Twenty-four states eventually did so, but the nation's largest states, with 70% of the U.S. population, did not.

Stymied by the Supreme Court rulings and the Internet Tax Freedom Act, states have done their best to collect taxes on residents' out-of-state purchases. That has created a patchwork of laws. More than 20 states define a seller's physical presence as including any affiliated website. Ten states require out-of-state sellers to notify buyers and inform states of the unpaid sales taxes.

The Supreme Court in 2015 unanimously upheld Colorado's law requiring those notices and reports.

Most of the top 20 online sellers already collect taxes in nearly all states, either because they have added local showrooms or warehouses, or because of state laws. The top 100 retail sellers remit about 90% of the taxes owed.

But many smaller online retailers are women, minorities, veterans and people with disabilities who have taken advantage of the protections granted by the Supreme Court and Congress over the years.

The typical retailer on eBay sells between $10,000 and $500,000 annually, with customers in more than 300 tax jurisdictions. Etsy's sellers are even smaller: Nearly eight in 10 are sole proprietors, nearly nine in 10 are women, and nearly all are based in homes. Average annual sales: $1,710.