NV senators help sink big crypto bill

Crypto bill goes poof. Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen joined the rest of their Democratic Senate colleagues, along with a handful of Republicans, yesterday in voting against advancing a cryptocurrency bill the industry really, really wanted, aka the Clarity Act.

The industry believed that if enacted into law, the legislation would make it look like cryptocurrency possessed something it is not widely identified with — intrinsic value and purpose. The product would be legitimized, its “use cases” stamped for approval by none other than the United States government. That, so the industry’s thinking goes, would allow crypto to creep into all sort of corners of the U.S. financial system, including, oh, your moderate-risk plain-vanilla indexed retirement fund. Whether you like it or not.

Or as the folks at AFSCME put it after yesterday’s vote: “This is a major victory for retirees and all working people who want to retire with dignity. The so-called CLARITY Act would have allowed Wall Street to gamble with workers’ pensions and 401(k)s by making it easier to invest their retirement savings in cryptocurrency. Working people do not want to see their hard-earned money put into an unregulated, unpredictable crypto casino.”

Though loyally pro-casino as a rule, Cortez Masto voted against the measure in May when it advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee.

But at that same hearing she indicated she really, really wanted to vote for the bill eventually.

“It’s clear we need to pass market structure legislation, and I’ve worked for months with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to negotiate a bill that provides clear rules of the road for a growing industry,” Cortez Masto said at that committee hearing. 

“I’m committed to finding solutions that allow us to take on bad actors – the criminals not the everyday coders – while giving the millions of U.S. crypto users the certainty they need,” she said.

But for most Senate Democrats, the more pressing issue was not your everyday run of the mill crypto criminal, but the one in the White House. And Trump made it clear to Senate Republicans that if they passed a bill that cracked down on or - gasp! - outlawed the rampant crypto corruption of the sort serially perpetrated by Trump and his friends and family, Trump would banish them to the cornfield or whatever.

In other words, the cryptocurrency industry’s top legislative priority was torpedoed by the extremely pro-crypto president’s creepy cryptocurrency deals.

The cryptocurrency industry is really, really bummed this morning. They know that there’s no way the next Congress is going to pass legislation designed to prop up and perpetuate the worth of a product that at best just annoys/bores average people, and at worst poses yet another dire threat to society in the form of a government-blessed Ponzi scheme.

Cryptocurrency political action committees raised more campaign money than any other industry in 2024 (this year they’re merely second, behind AI). People, well, senators in tight races, anyway, are waiting to see how much money crypto spends punishing those who dared vote against them yesterday. That said, the crypto political arm looks a little limp right now. 

Fortunately for Cortez Masto and Rosen, whatever the crypto bros decide to do campaign-wise over the next few weeks, neither Nevada senator is on a ballot this year.

IN NEVADA CURRENT

Much ado about nothing. Far and away the largest fraud having to do with elections in Nevada and the nation comes in the form of the perpetual false allegations that there is a meaningful (or even detectable) amount of fraud going on. But by blending Trump’s war on democracy (which sadly has fared better than his war on Iran) with the timeless, and timelessly exploited, fear of The Other, the crusade for voter ID laws has been wildly successful everywhere. That says a hell of a lot more about the electorate than it does about “election integrity.” In any case, here we are. April Corbin Girnus reports: Voter ID ballot question returns to Nevadans for final approval

Guilty pleasure. Admittedly, I love it when our stories about people running for judge feature whackadoodles or whatever, because those stories can be a hoot. But I love it more when I read one of our stories about a race for a judge seat and it’s not readily obvious which candidate would be best because both appear to be legit, as is the case here.  Dana Gentry reports: Political newcomers vie for Family Court bench

Via the D.C. bureau:

Iran war cost tops $40B and billions more monthly, budget analysis finds. And that doesn’t even include the cost of damage to bases and other military infrastructure, or weapons replenishing. Quite the omnishambles.

FBI’s Patel discusses bestiality policy, dodges election interference questions at Senate hearing. Cabinetry of charlatans.

Good Luck