Hacker News Reader

Comment by leeroyjenkins11 | Hacker News Reader

Oh, come on.

Mr. Bankman-Fried was the No. 2 overall top donor to Democrats in the election cycle, only behind George Soros, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Mr. Salame was the No. 11 overall donor to Republicans.

And also look at the names of the candidates too, on both sides.

https://www.livemint.com/market/cryptocurrency/sam-bankman-f...

View on HN

As a cliché independent, I can't imagine the media storm if the 2nd top donor to republicans during such an important election got all of that donation money by essentially defrauding millions of customers. I've only seen articles that cast them as "misguided whizz kids" at best and "just trying to do the right thing" at worst. They went for the throat with Elizabeth Holmes, why not now? It's arguably 100x clearer and easier too.

With the amounts involved, SBF would have been the fifth-largest donor on the republican side.

I think that just speaks volumes as to how much "big money" Dems have had on their side recently...

I think the connection between SBF and FTX with the Biden's government is too complicated so they cannot do it normally. Even the democrats biased medias go white-wash for him, direct people by something else.

I was curious so I looked at the funding of many key (and lesser known) races on opensecrets.org, and the difference is stark

Democrats out-raised and out-spent their Republican opponents by a factor of 1.5-3x in the most competitive senate races; sometimes much higher. Examples:

Arizona Senate: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2022&id=AZS1 ($80m to $12m)

Florida Senate: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2022&id=FLS2 ($72m to $46m)

Ohio senate: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2022&id=OHS2 ($47m to $12m)

Pennsylvania senate: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2022&id=PAS1 ($56m to $40m)

Georgia senate: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary?cycle=2022&id=GAS2 ($98m to $58m)

There were several cases of republicans out-raising democrats significantly, where the republican was a well-known incumbent (Gaetz, Boebert, McCarthy). This was also the case for well-known incumbent democrats (Pelosi, Schiff, Schumer). But the balance of money was firmly on the D side for this election cycle. Do we know what races the stolen money ended up in?

Wow. Honestly shocking the difference in money raised/spent.

I bet if you polled the average person, they would guess the exact opposite.

FTX's Salame donated half as much as SBF donated to democrats to republicans, and I believe within a few million of SBF's if you include super PACs.

FTX gave more to Republicans than Dems.

> More consequentially, Emmer was the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm for House Republicans, this year. The NRCC’s associated super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, received $2.75 million from FTX in the 2022 cycle; $2 million from Salame in late September, and $750,000 from the company’s political action committee.

> That money helped House Republicans win the majority in 2022. Though FTX has been portrayed as a Democratic firm, thanks to the high profile of former co-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, the company sprinkled around campaign donations fairly evenly, with a shade over 50 percent going directly to congressional Republicans and a shade under 50 percent to Democrats this cycle.

If SBF embezzled FTX customer funds to make his donations, then I’m not sure why FTX directly donating a smaller sum is significant.

Personally, I see it as a more general example of a broken campaign finance system. It’s independent of party.

Conservatism is the most proximate threat to American democracy. Do not be surprised if the media goes after the right first.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com