Say what you want about Wall Street, Big Oil and Big Pharma but two of the most powerful lobbies on the Hill: auto dealers and community banks. There are a bunch in every district, their owners are wealthy, and they sponsor the little league teams.

Appointing a *securities* lawyer to a vital national *security* role was probably the first mistake.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

With the caveat that there are still *a lot* of truly excellent career staff policy experts working on the Hill, this is spot on. Also - the deference to lobbyists by staff isn't just lack of expertise or due to lavish trips or gifts, it's the lure of landing an extremely high-paying lobbying gig.

Me, trying to fit in with the guys by talking about the 'big game between the Sixers and the Packers' last night.

FWIW - Ben Delo's firm BitMex was prosecuted for violations of anti-money laundering laws meant to prevent sanctions evasion. Providing a platform to countries like Russia for evading sanctions and speculating on crypto are two very different ways of making money...

It's like they're only competitive bidding for dad's unavailable love.

STOP ME BEFORE I KILL AGAIN!

Consumers never touch the stablecoin - it's purely the backend settlement service. Your card swipes like normal but you're actually making a stablecoin transaction, totally unbeknownst to you. The transaction looks the same to the consumer but without any of the protections we've all come to expect.

Probably because he has correctly identified that people already HATE crypto such that it might be a good motivator. Also I should note I don't have any inside information on the campaign or anything so these really are just my opinions.

Not sure in exactly what form yet, but yes. Very preliminary. Extremely fair point. However, if the algorithm has concluded there's a colorable case it's in violation of the law and isn't doing anything about it, that's problematic in and of itself.

Speaking broadly from my political experience and not to Sherrod specifically - political fundraising emails are not a representation of reality. They do have tons of money to throw around, absolutely no argument there. Makes me all the happier for when he crushes the election anyway.