#uspolitics

AP News · 1dRepublican-backed Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate resurfaces unproven fraud concernsBy Scott Bauer

**Joyce Bell** @joycebell@mas.to · 2025-03-19T15:00:37.000Z

Joyce Bell @joycebell@mas.to

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate, Brad Schimel, (backed by Elon Musk’s deep pockets) spreads lies about voter fraud in Wisconsin ahead of the April 1 election.
(h/t @joe ) #wisconsinsupremecourt #bradschimel #wisconsin #uspolitics https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-supreme-court-schimel-crawford-trump-musk-feccfbeec024fcfedb1e0c99075d3e90 @GottaLaff

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel participates in a debate against Susan Crawford, Wednesday, March 12, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

11h *

**Joe Steinbring** @joe@toot.works · 2025-03-19T15:00:37.000Z

Joe Steinbring @joe@toot.works

It is pretty important for us to keep this nut job away from the #Wisconsin Supreme Court.

"Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general, spoke of the possibility of “bags of ballots” and fraud in Milwaukee during an interview Tuesday on conservative talk radio."

https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-supreme-court-schimel-crawford-trump-musk-feccfbeec024fcfedb1e0c99075d3e90

AP News · 1dRepublican-backed Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate resurfaces unproven fraud concernsBy Scott Bauer

#Politics #USPolitics #USPol

**Molly White** @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io · 2025-03-20T14:27:57.000Z

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-79/

Newsletter: The crypto industry frees itself from the last remnants of SEC oversight, and Solana tries to appeal to its target demographic by bashing trans people.

Citation Needed · 12hIssue 79 – Mundus sine CaesaribusThe crypto industry frees itself from the last remnants of SEC oversight, and Solana tries to appeal to its target demographic by bashing trans people

**Molly White** @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io · 11h

trans hate, transphobia

Some who objected to the ad did so in support of trans people, with many highlighting trans devs’ contributions to the space. Others seemed more annoyed that Solana was too blatant in their pandering. And by deleting the ad, Solana has managed to infuriate everyone.

**Molly White** @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io · 11h

Despite Solana's primary claim to fame these days being a memecoin launchpad currently offering “on-chain ballsack” and “Depressed Couch Fart”, the ad depicts a man named “America”, sitting on a therapist’s couch comparing Solana to “multi-planetary travel” and nuclear energy.

Despite the fact that Solana's primary claim to fame these days is a memecoin launchpad currently offering people the opportunity to invest in such compelling meme tokens as “on-chain ballsack” and “Depressed Couch Fart”, the ad depicts a man named “America”, sitting on a therapist’s couch comparing Solana and crypto more broadly to “multi-planetary travel”, nuclear energy, and the historical innovations that led to the American industrial revolution.

pump.fun homepage featuring tokens including Dr Jankui He (JIANKUI), Dog Picasso (Monkey), and FAT NIGGA SEASON (FAT).

**Molly White** @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io · 11h

trans hate, transphobia

After the crypto industry went full MAGA, Solana decided to take a swing at trans people in an ad promoting an upcoming conference. They quickly deleted the ad, apparently surprised by the substantial backlash.

**Molly White** @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io · 11h

Congress has been debating stablecoin bills, and one has advanced to the full Senate thanks to five Democrats who joined all Republicans to vote for it — despite concerns about the power it grants to giant companies and the threat of introducing 2008-esque financial contagion risk.

Congress has been continuing to consider stablecoin legislation. In the House, lawmakers tussled over the Republican-led STABLE Act, with Maxine Waters (D-CA) condemning it in its current iteration because she believes it “tears down the wall that was used to separate banking from commerce” — potentially opening the doors to serious financial contagion. She urged other Representatives to reintroduce components of her own proposed legislation, introduced in the last Congress, that would establish more significant oversight and penalties for violations.2728 In the Senate, lawmakers argued over a bipartisan GENIUS Act, with Democrats arguing it doesn’t go far enough to protect consumers or national security. “Anyone who thinks the US taxpayer won’t be called on directly or indirectly to bail out these guys is kidding themselves,” argued Senator Warren (D-MA), also expressing concerns about financial contagion that she likened to the 2008 financial crisis. Several proposals to amend the bill failed along party lines, and the Senate Banking Committee ultimately voted to send the bill to the full Senate.29 Five Democrats voted with the Republicans to advance the bill, including Ruben Gallego from Arizona, who received $10 million in campaign backing from the crypto industry. The other four were Senators Rochester (DE), Alsobrooks (MD), Kim (NJ), and Warner (VA).30

In both the House and the Senate, Democrats expressed concerns that big tech giants, including Elon Musk and Twitter, would further entrench their monopoly positions and abuse consumers by beginning to issue stablecoins. Republicans mostly dismissed any arguments against the bills as fearmongering, with Cynthia Lummis (WY) downplaying concerns about crypto’s role in the drug trade by saying, “I want to assure everybody that Machiavelli is not going to get raised from the dead to issue stablecoins so we can destroy our planet with drugs.”29

**Molly White** @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io · 11h *

The Trump family has reportedly had conversations about acquiring a stake in Binance — as Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao is reportedly seeking a pardon from the president.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family has been in talks to take a financial stake in Binance US, the US business arm of the Binance crypto exchange.17 Although Binance’s founder Changpeng Zhao was forced to step down as Binance’s CEO as part of a criminal plea relating to his operation of the exchange, he remains a majority owner of the company — and he has reportedly been seeking a pardon from Trump. According to the Journal, the talks began last year when Binance contacted Trump allies in hopes of finding a route back to serving US customers. The Journal noted:

Trump has increasingly blurred the boundaries between the presidency and his business ventures. ... But pursuing a business deal involving a felon seeking a pardon from his administration would be an unprecedented overlap of his business and the government. A stake in Binance.US would also be a striking expansion of the family’s cryptocurrency endeavors as Trump signs a series of executive orders that benefit the industry.
Zhao waved off the reporting, writing rather vaguely that “the WSJ article got the facts wrong”.18 However, it should also be noted that Zhao and Binance routinely deny factual reporting about the company.

11h *

**Molly White** @molly0xfff@hachyderm.io · 11h

Sadly, for now we remain in a very much not billionaire-proof world, so I will now update you on how that’s all been going.

Substantially all remaining enforcement cases from the SEC against cryptocurrency companies (and political megadonors) have been dropped, including the lingering cases against Ripple and Kraken I mentioned last issue.

I mentioned in the last issue that the few SEC cases against the crypto firms-turned-political-megadonors that hadn’t yet been dropped would likely be dropped shortly. As predicted, the CEO of Ripple has just announced that the SEC will drop the remainder of its long-running case against the company, originally filed in 2020.20 While Ripple’s CEO described this as “a resounding victory for Ripple”, he did not draw attention to the fact that the SEC had already won the portion of the case alleging that the company had violated securities laws with its institutional token sales, which landed the company with a $125 million fine in 2023 — though this was well below the $2 billion fine sought by the enforcement agency. The SEC was in the process of appealing a decision that the company’s sales to retail exchanges did not violate securities laws, but this appeal is what will apparently be dropped shortly. Ripple and its executives contributed $48 million to crypto-focused super PACs, $12.6 million to Harris, $5 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, and several million more to various other political committees. They’ve also pledged another $25 million to the crypto super PACs for the midterms.

Similarly, Kraken has stated that the SEC has agreed in principle to dismiss its lawsuit against the exchange. As with the case against Coinbase, the SEC will ask for the case to be dismissed with prejudice. Kraken was particularly explicit that this outcome had nothing to do with the facts at issue in the case, writing: “We appreciate the new leadership both at the White House and the Commission that led to this change.”21 Kraken and its executives contributed $1 million each to Trump, Trump’s inauguration fund, and crypto-focused super PACs.

Cumberland DRW, the crypto trading portion of DRW, has also announced that the SEC case against them will be dropped.22 The agency had alleged that the firm had sold more than $2 billion in unregistered crypto securities, naming popular crypto assets including Solana and Polygon among them. DRW CEO Don Wilson contributed $100,000 to a crypto-focused super PAC.

Finally, NFT company Yuga Labs — best known as the creators of Bored Apes — have said that the SEC has closed an ongoing investigation into the company.23