November 17, 2022

"The Senate has trouble keeping up with things that lobbyists prefer the Senate not keep up with."

Said Elizabeth Warren, quoted in "Congress took millions from FTX. Now lawmakers face a crypto reckoning. The stunning collapse of the world’s third-largest exchange has forced politicians to grapple with the costs of legislative inaction" (WaPo).

Since January alone, cryptocurrency exchanges and their advocates have spent more than $14.8 million to influence regulators and lawmakers, according to lobbying data compiled by OpenSecrets. Bankman-Fried and other FTX leaders... also donated more than $70 million in the 2022 election, the analysis showed.

39 comments:

wendybar said...

They need to pay it back.

Floris said...

I'm guessing that the WaPo, unlike many other media outlets, didn't get any cash from SBJ.

Leland said...

Why are those two values separated? Is it because everyone else spent $14.8 million while FTX spent $70 million? Otherwise, why not combine them?

What politicians should be grappling with is taking donations from an enterprise that stole the donation money from millions of people. Are those donations now laundered money because it went to the politician's campaign?

Achilles said...

Warren is full of shit.

Ginsler, the head of the SEC, was working closely with SBF.

The SEC has been flailing at everyone in the Crypto space which is working around their absurd ham handed regulations.

Most Crypto startups have a giant list of countries that you cannot participate in their ISPO's from because of the SEC.

The SEC has gone after all of FTX's competitors.

This is not a problem of not enough regulation. This is a problem of SEC and Government corruption. SBF gave millions to democrats. He is so tightly bound to so many democrats that it is impossible to ignore. His partner gave millions to Republicans.

This is a corruption problem.

We need less government to fix this.

Pianoman said...

FTX is a massive story. The tentacles reach back into the SEC, which might have been compromised. Most of the money SBF sent was to Dems, but there was some of it going to GOPers too. The NYT is in on the scam, along with a lot of left-leaning media properties.

It's like Enron and Madoff had a child.

R C Belaire said...

Perhaps the Democrats who received money from SBF/FTX should give it back to help investors who lost almost everything. Will that happen? Nah.

tim in vermont said...

Maxine Waters blowing a kiss to SBF

https://twitter.com/ElliottFryback/status/1468679048993800195

donald said...

“legislative inaction”. Right. That’s the ticket.

Lurker21 said...

Excuses, excuses ...

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

YOUR Party - Ms. WArren.

madAsHell said...

They want to legislate the Ponzi scheme that creates democrat donations??

Biting-the-hand-that-feeds them.

wendybar said...

How can you take any of these losers seriously?? https://hotair.com/david-strom/2022/11/17/klobuchar-taylor-swift-ticket-sales-snafus-more-important-than-ftx-fraud-n511807

Dave Begley said...

As far as I'm concerned, this FTX debacle (the biggest fraud in US history) is entirely on the Dems.

All the Dems (including Biden) need to agree to pay SFB's donated money to the bankruptcy trustee. NOW.

Liz Warren cooked up that stupid new regulatory board. Where the hell was it? Warren needs to pay a price. But she won't. No Dem will. If Fetterman can win, they all get off.

n.n said...

On one hand, on the other hand, always and forever. But, she's right about influencers.

Heywood Rice said...

Even before its disastrous 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S.Supreme Court had already developed a flawed reading of the First Amendment that struck
down reforms designed to prevent corruption and to ensure that the voices of the powerful did
not drown out “We the People” in the halls of our democratic institutions. Although the
extraordinary threat of unlimited corporate money in elections is a new expansion of the
doctrine that “money is speech”, decisions of the Court since the Watergate era have enabled
the richest one percent of society to buy outsized influence in our government.
- Public Citizen

Cheryl said...

$14.8 million. That's IT? God they are so freaking cheap. They are ruining the world for pennies from these people who laugh at them. We are being ruled by incompetents and thieves. And I say "ruled" intentionally. Gone is the rule of law.

Jim at said...

@heywood

Yeah. Good point. Blame Citizens United. Because none of this shit EVER happened before 2010.

Now do unions.

Christopher B said...

Predictably Woodie chimes in with "If bribes were illegal then nothing would have happened".

Josephbleau said...

The sad thing is that you can buy off the whole Democrat Party for $80MM.

Kathryn51 said...

Apparently SBF's father is a law prof (somewhere in CA) who helped Lizzie W. draft some sort of tax legislation.

His whole family - together with the sanctimonious do-gooder progressives - are so intertwined that we may never know everything. Especially since the NYT isn't about to dig very deeply into how corrupt the Dems are. The WaPo might. . . . . ., oh who am I kidding?

DarkHelmet said...

Warren is a complete fraud and should be ignored by anyone with a brain.

Leland said...

Heywood, is your point suggesting Citizens United PAC lied about being a PAC? That they committed fraud in collecting donations and providing them to political campaigns?
Or are you just invoking Citizens United as what you think is the right shibboleth so people might like you?

Paddy O said...

Bankman-Fried sounds like a Dick Tracy villain, and not someone to trust for dependable investment advice. Like getting financial tips from someone named Johnny Stock-Swindler, the signs against were in the name

Achilles said...

Dave Begley said...

As far as I'm concerned, this FTX debacle (the biggest fraud in US history) is entirely on the Dems.

Of course you want to say that.

You have to ignore reality in order to blame this on Trump somehow. Never-Trumpers are just as deluded and stupid as the democrats.

McConnell took money from FTX too. McConnell voted to send money to Ukraine. McConnell and the rest of the GOPe were right in the middle of this corrupt money laundering. None of this changes until we get rid of the corruption in the Republican party and people like you stop playing stupid tribal politics.

Or you can just GTFO of our party and go join the corrupt uniparty officially and be honest with yourself about what you are supporting.

Mike Smith said...

Other than a single low-level broker, who went to jail after the 2007-08 MBS meltdown? Answer: no one.

Who will go to jail after FTX? 99% chance the answer is "no one" since they were aligned with D's

The reality is that we would be better off abolishing the SEC, etc., rather than people believing the government is actually protecting them. It isn't.

Mr. Rice's comment about "Citizens United" seems rather ironic since this scandal (just like MBS) primarily involves Democrats. Physician heal thyself.

madAsHell said...

She's got this Chicken-Little-sky-is-falling schtick down pat, and it's not appealing.

It makes her sound stupid......but that seems to be all the rage!!

Did you know.......Chicken Little was the younger sister of Two Dogs Fucking.

Achilles said...

Pianoman said...

FTX is a massive story. The tentacles reach back into the SEC, which might have been compromised.

"Might"?

You probably saw what CZ said. SBF and Ginsler were working together to crush FTX's competition.

That is why Binance lanced this boil. He knew there were shenanigans going on.

This is part of a much larger conflict going on. The US Government and the Fed are part of a large faction that is trying to reset the world economy. They are purposely destroying all currencies in the world other than the dollar.

The crypto world is right in the middle of this because it is inevitably the future and the institutional investors are acquiring assets with value during these crashes.

tim in vermont said...

They bought the Senate with stolen money. Outspent Republicans in the swing states by five to one, more or less depending on the state. They had a great “ground game”! It’s Trump’s fault!

MadTownGuy said...

"Legislative action," when improperly thought out, results in bad law.

narciso said...

his father wrote legislation for red squaw, is this not the definition of dark money, rhetorical, so which major renault warren waters, it's really dark comedy,

Sebastian said...

"The Senate has trouble keeping up with things that lobbyists prefer the Senate not keep up with."

That would be Dem senators in the Dem-controlled Senate easily bought off by prog money. That kind of trouble is just what Dems like.

Do any Dem senators know what "crypto" is?

Yancey Ward said...

"Why are those two values separated? Is it because everyone else spent $14.8 million while FTX spent $70 million? Otherwise, why not combine them?"

Because the $70 million from FTX appears to have been given 100% to Democrats. I don't know the breakdown of the $14.8 million by other exchanges, but I imagine, at worst, it is split 50/50, is most likely also heavily invested in Democrats given who controlled Congress and the White House the last 2 years. In any case, those other exchanges haven't yet been accused of stealing their clients' money. Like I wrote earlier today, we are seeing the beginnings of the strategy to protect the Democrats- turn this into old news by January.

n.n said...

decisions of the Court since the Watergate era have enabled
the richest one percent of society to buy outsized influence in our government. - Public Citizen


Notably since Obamacares secured the multi-trillion dollar medical industrial complex and trillion dollar deficits with forward-looking progressive prices in an unparalleled redistributive change scheme exacerbated by Green deals to flatline.

Drago said...

Heywood Rice: "Even before its disastrous 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,..."

The individual right to Freedom of Expression does not become null and void simply because some people want to band together to form a corporation and don't want their speech criminalized.

Not complicated.....for everyone but the far lefties like Heywood who are STILL pissed that some people had the nerve to create a film that criticized their Hivemind Queen Hillary.

Citizens United was a conservative advocacy group dedicated to protecting the rights of citizens to speak out against the powerful, like the horrific Hillary, and little lefty foot soldiers like Heywood continue to attempt to stand logic on its head by saying Hillary's government minions, in this case the democratical controlled FEC, should be able to attack and shut down conservative groups with impunity.

Sorry Heywood, your modern Stasi took a hit with the obviously correct Citizens United decision and lets hope that never changes.

Naturally, it goes without saying the GOPe-ers helped the democraticals along with this given it was the McCain-Feingold Act that set alot of this increased govt censorship in motion.

There's the lesson for you: the New Soviet Democraticals wouldn't attempt half this crap if they didn't have significant chunks of the GOPe giving them the thumbs up and active collaboration to make it happen.

Lurker21 said...

SBF's father worked with Warren and donated to her campaigns. Maybe one can regard Warren as bought off -- and pretty cheaply at that.

I guess the bigger picture is that politicians get money directly from the fat cats and the lobbyists are only there to remind the politicians that they are already bought and paid for.

Mr. Forward said...

The difference between Sam Bankman Fried and Joe Biden is Biden has a printing press.

wendybar said...

"Because the $70 million from FTX appears to have been given 100% to Democrats."

YEP!!! ALL Democrats.



https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/11/disgraced-ftx-founder-donated-six-rinos-voted-impeach-trump/

JAORE said...

Not too long ago Ms. Warren said that lobbyist write the laws. Like she and her fellow Congress critters were helpless scribes.

Now this.

She has a seat in the Senate. She has an important chair. She has a huge media presence. She has a large staff and enormous resources.

Yet she's a leaf in the wind.

If she really thinks that way, if it's really true, what value is she, or any of her ilk?

Mason G said...

"If she really thinks that way, if it's really true, what value is she, or any of her ilk?"

You mean- aside from being able to stock a freezer with fancy ice cream?