Molly WhiteI wonder if Coinbase routinely calls up newsrooms to try to blackball people who criticize them, or if I'm just special
This is what they're mad about:
https://www.citationneeded.news/coinbase-campaign-finance-violation/
Coinbase appears to have violated campaign finance laws with a $25 million super PAC donation
Actively involved in contract negotiations with a federal government agency, Coinbase was likely prohibited from making its $25 million contribution to the Fairshake cryptocurrency-focused super PAC in May 2024.
gz@molly0xfff
UnfairShakedown is a better name
UnfairShakedown is a better name
Glyph@molly0xfff reading this it occurs to me that there is a second loophole but perhaps I am just being a doomer here — it seems extremely likely to me that the Trump administration just shuts down the FEC completely or at least blows up every complaint against republican donors somehow. But I don’t know the mechanics here. Are there safeguards in place that could stop that from happening?
@glyph unfortunately it might not even take that — the FEC is fairly toothless and partisan
@molly0xfff well, that sucks, but I really appreciate you taking the time to answer!
⚯ Michel de Cryptadamus ⚯@glyph @molly0xfff the FEC, like most¹ of the american governmental institutions designed to restrain the rich, stopped functioning years ago and didn't have much teeth to begin with. we live in a world where the time it takes to complete the judicial process of charging a wealthy person with some kind of violation is rapidly approaching the life span of a human being.
¹ soon to be "all"
damnthefilibuster@molly0xfff @glyph never understood why that is the case. In both the biggest democracies of the world- India and the US, the election commissions are pretty much rubber stamps for all kinds of terrible behaviors by parties and donors.
Gilbert Pilz@damnthefilibuster @molly0xfff @glyph "never understood why that is the case" Flip the argument around and ask yourself what it would take for that *not* to be the case? What would a system need to look like in order to have a strong election commission?
overstrike@gpilz @damnthefilibuster @molly0xfff @glyph well, the US had a stronger one when both parties thought it was in their best interest to win elections fair and square — (Gen Z might not believe it, but there was nontrivial bipartisan support at one point for reducing the influence of money in US elections — look up McCain-Feingold).
@overstrike @damnthefilibuster @molly0xfff @glyph Not to put too fine a point on it, but it seems to me that any system that depends on a commitment by political parties to play fair is pretty fragile. All it takes is one party to renege on the implicit contract and the others would follow suit in their own self-interest.
@gpilz @damnthefilibuster @molly0xfff @glyph the US system doesn't expect or even require fair play -- it expects the parties and the voters to remain tethered to reality. It breaks down when grifters manufacture their own reality and there's insufficient pushback.
LAUREN
Viss
Bobulous 
@Viss @molly0xfff Okay, I'm not a football fan, so someone's going to have to explain to me why there appears to be some dude blowing dry ice into a player's ass crack.
scottley@bobulous @Viss @molly0xfff thank you all for sending me down this path...
Now I know something i didn't yesterday.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/06/what-s-that-magic-world-cup-spray.html
@bobulous @molly0xfff im also not a sportsball guy, but ive had butthurt.gif for years, and its fun to get to deploy it :D
Ricky Mondello@molly0xfff ¿Por qué no los dos?
Feoh@molly0xfff So very glad I smelled something fishy and deleted my Coinbase account years ago.
NosirrahSec 🏴☠️ guillotine enthusiast@feoh @molly0xfff A friend's sister in law had a lot of money stolen off of Coinbase, but they did absolutely nothing to protect her money. It was just gross.
"Oh, a new transfer request from some rando location? We'll just approve it. We won't even request additional verification. You have never moved 5 digits worth of assets before? Also fine. Approved."
@NosirrahSec @molly0xfff Not even a little bit surprised.
When they started incentivizing their CrapCoin du jour by giving away freebies, I knew something was up.
Darren du Nord@molly0xfff In the USA, there are only laws for people like me.
StarkRG@molly0xfff How dare you tell people what a publically traded company that's strongly influencing politics is doing! What an invasion of privacy! /s
Humble Fan of Atty. Woowell I think it has nothing to do with the fact that you ARE special....
Sashin@molly0xfff Congratulations!
@molly0xfff why would they bother doing this. Our “justice” system is a corrupt joke now and is about to get way way worse. Nothing will happen to them at all.
Justin Pot@molly0xfff loved your reaction. You should consider making "don't listen to molly" stickers
You're special!
Rachel has moved...!@molly0xfff They'd attack any honest reporter putting the spotlight on their racket, but I think you are a special adversary in their eyes, in part because you're so good at factual reporting, following the winding evasive paths of lengthy, complex bureaucratic dramas, straightforwardly noting the key developments of legal and corporate strategies that the rich hoped their masses of poor prey (the "public") would never feel qualified to judge as such, AND you're so pretty.
There are probably many more ways that you're a special nuisance to them, but these are the three I can name right off the bat. Maybe I'm superficial but an honest, smart, and focused journalist is already a triple threat to the depraved financiers--so an honest, smart, focused, AND pretty journalist is... a quadruple threat 😈