Crypto super PAC Fairshake reports $141 million war chest
The total, which includes liquid assets like crypto, stock, and cash, reflects a surge of donations from digital asset executives and firms, including a fresh $25 million from Coinbase.
Fairshake and its two affiliated PACs — Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress — have raised $109 million since Election Day in 2024 and $52 million during just the first half of this year.
"We are building an aggressive, targeted strategy for next year to ensure that pro-crypto voices are heard in key races across the country," said spokesperson Josh Vlasto.
The announcement lands in the middle of what lawmakers are calling "Crypto Week" on Capitol Hill, as the House begins deliberations on a trio of long-awaited bills that would define how digital assets are regulated.
The legislation includes the dividing of oversight, setting new stablecoin rules, and a bill banning the creation of a central bank digital currency.
The crypto industry is no longer just lobbying for survival, it is shaping the political landscape. Fairshake saw nearly every candidate it backed in 2024 win their race.
"We stuck to our core strategy from Day 1," Fairshake previously told CNBC. "We supported pro-crypto candidates and opposed those who played politics with jobs and innovation, and won."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
26 minutes ago
- Fox News
How Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' ends decades of temporary tax policy games in Washington
Signing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law at a White House ceremony on Independence Day may go down as the signature legislative achievement of President Donald Trump's second term – and not just for the obvious reasons. Yes, the bill includes many provisions that conservatives consider beautiful. It takes welfare benefits from illegal immigrants, implements reasonable work requirements for able-bodied adults without children, phases out many "Green New Deal" subsidies, and prevents a massive $4 trillion tax hike scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1. But some conservatives have criticized the legislation for being, well, big. Why, they ask, should any bill exceed 800 pages? It's a reasonable question. But if they think that bigger bills usually aren't better, they may be pleased to learn that the "big, beautiful bill" will reduce the pressure for large, "must-pass" bills in the future. It does so by locking in most of the tax code permanently. It may seem like common sense that whatever tax changes Congress enacts should apply to all future years, not just a few years. But that's not how things have worked in Washington for a long time. Since the 1990s, both parties in Congress have piled up more and more tax provisions with expiration dates attached. Most such provisions are then continued indefinitely with periodic "tax extenders." The "big, beautiful bill," more than anything else, dealt with a massive $9 trillion confluence of expiring tax provisions ($4 trillion of expiring tax cuts on net). Lawmakers stepped up and brought resolution to a tax code that has long needed it. The biggest resolution to the tax code involved making 2017 tax cuts permanent. Not a temporary extension, a permanent one. Americans no longer have an enormous and perennial potential tax increase looming over their heads. Congress averted higher tax rates across the board, the halving of the child tax credit and standard deduction, expansions of the alternative minimum tax and death tax, and the return of punitive tax treatment for investments in business equipment and machinery, among other things. The "big, beautiful bill" also took huge steps toward resolving the trillion-dollar "Green New Scam." There, though, Congress resolved to end many of the subsidies. The "big, beautiful bill" isn't perfect on permanence. A handful of new tax provisions were set to expire after 2028 or 2029, and some green energy subsidies were given a few years to phase down instead of simply being terminated. But the bill brought resolution to 90% of the unresolved parts of the tax code, so future lawmakers face a much cleaner slate. Congress' typical practice of making tax cuts and subsidies temporary minimizes the appearance of deficits according to government forecasters' scoring, even when there's every reason to believe that Congress will keep extending "temporary" changes indefinitely. And in the world of budgetary politics, appearance matters more than reality. When government forecasters suggest a bill's deficits are small or that it reduces deficits, it can provide cover to lawmakers who support it, even if government estimates have little bearing on reality. Favorable government scores also streamline the budget reconciliation process for significant tax and spending bills. Temporary policies have been key for past lawmakers to unlock good budget scores. Never mind that overreliance on temporary policy is disruptive and economically harmful to everyone except the D.C. lobbyists who thrive when tax policies and government programs are in limbo. Rewarding perennial extensions of temporary policies is like signing a lease to pay rent month-to-month and celebrating all the money you save each month by not paying for a year-long lease. This shell game has long masked America's difficult fiscal position. And now some will criticize Congress for adding to the deficit with the permanent tax extensions of the "big, beautiful bill." But while the bill won't fix the federal overspending that drives America's deficits, it does include about $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and will stop $500 billion more in green tax credits. By rejecting the temptation of temporary policy extensions, the bill will help bring to light future deficits that were already there but that were hidden in plain sight from the naïve budget outlooks of the Congressional Budget Office. Honesty may be the best policy, but, sadly, in the D.C. Swamp, getting back to honest accounting may come with a price.
Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
How Republicans Can Prove They're Serious About the National Debt
The Republican Party's unified control of Congress and the White House is on borrowed time. Facing a $37 trillion national debt, the elected officials the grassroots sent to Washington with a mandate to cut spending are waffling over whether to eliminate $9.4 billion, which is to say 0.00025 percent of the debt. If the GOP cannot deliver on such low-hanging fruit, it will have squandered a rare opportunity and handed a win to big-government liberals. Lawmakers face two options: Pass the Rescissions Act now or abandon your principles and watch as your voters abandon you. Congress adopted rescissions under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act as a reminder that the legislative branch's power of the purse is not simply to empty the purses of hardworking Americans. It allows the president to propose canceling previously appropriated, unobligated funds, subject to congressional approval within 45 days. The current package targets $8.3 billion in foreign aid—think environmentalist initiatives in Africa—and $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS—think taxpayer-funded propaganda. These are programs many Americans recognize as nonessential, yet they persist because of bureaucratic inertia and political timidity. At a time when every man, woman, and child in America is on the hook for $108,000 to pay off the national debt, the rescissions package would be the equivalent of knocking $27 off the price tag. It is a paltry sum, which means it is even more vital to pass without amendment. WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 1: Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) (2nd-L), accompanied by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) (L), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) (2nd-R), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (R), speaks to reporters off the... WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 1: Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) (2nd-L), accompanied by Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) (L), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) (2nd-R), and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (R), speaks to reporters off the Senate floor after the Senate passes President Donald Trump's so-called "One, Big, Beautiful Bill," Act at the U.S. Capitol Building on July 1, 2025 in Washington, DC. MoreThe House vote was razor-thin at 214-212, and the Senate, where a simple majority can pass the package, must act now to avoid expiration. Every defection risks derailing this effort and emboldening liberals to obstruct future reforms. Some Senate Republicans already appear to be wavering. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) must set a clear red line for his colleagues, reminding them that voters deserve the benefit of the doubt over entrenched D.C. insiders. The Rescissions Act isn't about slashing essential services; it's about prioritizing taxpayer dollars over bureaucratic sacred cows. The national debt is an existential threat. The CBO estimates that net interest payments are projected to hit $1 trillion next year, crowding out investments in defense, infrastructure, and tax relief. Every dollar spent on questionable programs—say, for example, the $10 million set aside for "gender programs" in Pakistan that somehow found its way into the domestic COVID relief bill—is a dollar stolen from future generations. The Rescissions Act, though modest at 0.5 percent of discretionary spending, is a critical signal to voters and the market. If Republicans can't rally behind it, they risk surrendering credibility as the party of fiscal sanity. It is time for Congress to reassert its role as the legislature rather than outsource its responsibilities to the executive branch. Elon Musk and DOGE did an admirable job from the White House in flagging $162 billion in improper payments in 2024 alone. Rescissions are the constitutional path to codify these savings, shielding the administration from legal challenges while reasserting Congress' fiscal responsibility. If Republican senators refuse to govern out of concern for their constituents, perhaps they will do so for the sake of their own political survival. Unified government is a rare thing in America—only 15 times since 1900 has one party held the White House, Senate, and House at once. History shows voters punish complacency when lawmakers ignore the mandate that sent them to Washington. In 2018, a $15 billion rescissions package passed the House but died in the Senate, undone by GOP senators prioritizing pet projects. Voters let them have it in the midterms that followed. Democrats clearly have the midterms in mind as they unify behind Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.). Schumer has threatened to shut down the government if the Senate passes these modest cuts. Rather than run scared, Republicans would do well to remember his predecessor, the late Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). In July 2013, Reid threatened the nuclear option if the GOP did not confirm several of President Barack Obama's radical labor nominees; Republicans capitulated. Reid rewarded that display of cowardice by deploying the nuclear option a few months later. Schumer, no doubt, has similar plans. If he senses wavering from a majority that is more committed to the status quo than its own principles, he will have all the more reason to shut down the government and obstruct future budget reforms. Republicans should make liberals justify their own spendthrift ways, rather than playing defense. The Rescissions Act is a test of whether the GOP can follow the mandate that voters gave them in 2024. Pass the package, unapologetically, and make Schumer and company defend the status quo of borrowing 40 cents on the dollar to pay for liberal pet projects. The choice is clear for Senate Republicans as the July 18 deadline approaches: cut now or pay dearly later. Erick Erickson is host of the nationally syndicated Erick Erickson Show and a member of the Americans for Prosperity Advisory Council. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
She looked like a pro-worker Trump cabinet appointee. But now she's gutting the Labor Department
You may have detected a cautious note of relief among worker advocates when Donald Trump named Lori Chavez-DeRemer as his secretary of Labor. During her sole term as a Republican member of Congress from Oregon (2023-25), Chavez-DeRemer was one of only three House Republicans to vote in favor of the so-called PRO Act, which would significantly strengthen collective bargaining rights. The measure passed the House in 2019 and 2021 but has been stifled ever since. Her nomination and subsequent Senate confirmation elicited optimistic noises from the pro-union camp, as I reported in December. 'Her record suggests real support of workers & their right to unionize,' tweeted Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, when Trump nominated Chavez-DeRemer in November. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said she was 'encouraged' by Chavez-DeRemer's confirmation in March, 'given her history of supporting the freedom of workers to organize, join unions and other fundamental values of the labor movement.' The union leaders tempered their optimism with concerns about the anti-labor policies emanating from the Trump White House: Weingarten said she hoped the appointment signaled that 'the Trump administration will actually respect collective bargaining and workers' voices,' and Shuler said the AFL-CIO was 'clear-eyed' that Chavez-DeRemer would be 'joining an administration that's been openly hostile to working people on many fronts in its first two months.' Can you guess which way the ball has bounced? On May 1, the Labor Department ordered its staff to cease enforcing a Biden administration rule that had raised the bar preventing businesses from designating their workers as independent contractors instead of employees, depriving those workers of the legal protections and wage and hour benefits typically due employees. A few days later, Chavez-DeRemer submitted a proposed budget to Congress that would slash her agency's discretionary funding by more than 35%, to $8.6 billion from $13.2 billion, and cut its workforce by nearly 4,000 full-time workers, a reduction of more than 26%. Among the services to be eliminated would be the Job Corps, which assists low-income youth to complete their high school education and provides job training and placement. (A federal judge in New York has blocked the suspension of Job Corps services and set a hearing for Monday.) On July 1 came what could be the biggest blow. Chavez-DeRemer announced a plan to rescind 63 regulations that had been designed to help workers. With language that sounds cribbed from the MAGA playbook, she said her goal is to 'eliminate unnecessary regulations that stifle growth and limit opportunity.' She boasted of launching 'aggressive deregulatory efforts in push to put the American worker first,' and added that 'these historic actions will free Main Street, fuel economic growth and job creation, and give American workers the flexibility they need to build a better future.' I've asked the Labor Department to provide specific rationales for the deregulation actions but haven't received a reply. The effects, however, are clear. 'Two-thirds of these have to do with worker health and safety protections,' says Rebecca Reindel of the AFL-CIO. 'They're being proposed to be either eliminated or severely weakened.' Chavez-DeRemer's actions as Labor secretary resemble less the image she fostered as a member of Congress than the policymaking of Trump's first term. Then, as I wrote at the time, the Department of Labor was 'a black hole for worker rights.' His second Labor secretary, Eugene Scalia (son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia), had made his name professionally as a corporate lawyer fighting pro-worker government initiatives. The standards on the chopping block include those issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a unit of the Labor Department, that were developed after years of effort. OSHA standards, Reindel told me, take an average of seven years — and as long as 20 years — to draft. 'This is an onslaught on people's basic protections at work.' One category of threatened regulations applies to standards for respirators and filters to screen out workplace pollutants including asbestos, arsenic and lead. The department proposes to eliminate requirements that workers exposed to occupational pollutants be medically evaluated to ensure that their respirators fit properly and don't cause health problems on their own. The agency, asserting that such rules are 'unnecessarily prescriptive,' proposes to give employers 'greater flexibility in the respirators they select for exposed workers.' Removing some of these regulations, Reindel says, 'basically would allow employers to make the determination if a respirator is needed for specific chemicals. They'd give employers more flexibility at the expense of workers' health.' One of the more potentially far-reaching proposals would narrow the application of OSHA's 'general duty clause,' which requires employers to maintain safe workplaces even when no specific OSHA regulation applies. In the most notable case, OSHA cited the clause in fining SeaWorld of Florida $12,000 in connection with the 2010 killing of trainer Dawn Brancheau by an orca during a performance. SeaWorld sued to overturn the penalty but lost in a 2-1 decision by the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. The three-judge panel found that even though the dangers of cavorting with wild animals for a public show were understood, SeaWorld should have done more to protect its human performers. (Who represented SeaWorld in that case? Eugene Scalia.) The department is proposing to exempt from the rule 'professional, athletic, or entertainment occupations' that are intrinsically dangerous. In justifying its proposal, the department cites a dissenting opinion in the appellate case by then-Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who is now on the Supreme Court. In his dissent, Kavanaugh maintained that the agency exceeded its Congressional mandate: 'The bureaucracy at the U.S. Department of Labor has not traditionally been thought of as the proper body to decide whether to ban fighting in hockey, to prohibit the punt return in football, to regulate the distance between the mound and home plate in baseball, to separate the lions from the tamers at the circus, or the like,' he wrote. The Department of Labor now maintains that Kavanaugh's analysis, even though it was a minority finding, was right. More than 115,000 athletes, actors and other entertainers could be affected by the change, the agency acknowledges. The department also proposes to rescind a 2024 regulation that guaranteed the right of migrant agricultural workers to host union organizers in company-owned housing. The Biden administration asserted that the regulation was needed to 'protect workers' fundamental rights of association' and observed that the isolation of workers in company-furnished quarters and their 'unique vulnerabilities renders them particularly at risk of ... workplace abuses, labor exploitation, and trafficking.' The department, however, cites several court rulings in red states that have held that the regulation was 'an infringement on the property rights of employers.' Indeed, that was the reasoning of the Supreme Court in overturning a California law providing for similar access on farm property in 2021. 'The access regulation grants labor organizations a right to invade the growers' property,' wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for a 6-3 majority, with the court's three liberal justices dissenting. 'It therefore constitutes a per se physical taking' without compensation. Worker advocates fear that the July 1 announcement is a precursor of more rollbacks to come. 'I think the announcement is just the beginning of their deregulation effort,' says Margaret Poydock, a senior policy analyst at the labor-affiliated Economic Policy Institute. 'These 63 rules they referenced were just two days' worth of posting.' One rulemaking effort that worker advocates are watching closely involves heat-related injuries. A proposed rule was posted in August and is still under consideration, with bipartisan support; public hearings on the rule were completed earlier this month, and final action is expected by the end of September. The Trump administration hasn't taken any steps to quash it, thus far. But it has been fiercely opposed by business interests. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, submitted a 20-page comment arguing that the proposal 'would result in OSHA micromanaging workplaces, imposing unreasonable burdens, and creating confusion as to what employers would be required to do.' The proposal, which would apply to almost all employers, would be triggered whenever employees were exposed to a heat index — a measure taking into account heat and humidity — of 80 degrees or higher for more than 15 minutes in an hour-long period. In those conditions, employers would be required to supply cool drinking water, break areas with cooling and paid rest breaks, among other measures. A heat index of 90 degrees would require mandatory rest breaks of 15 minutes every two hours and other heightened measures. In the absence of a specific federal heat regulation, workplaces are subject to the general duty clause. But that's inadequate, worker advocates say. 'The general duty clause is reactive — it addresses what happens once a worker is already exposed,' Poydock told me. 'It does not prevent workers from becoming sick from heat or having heat stroke or dying from heat.' The Chamber's objection is that the current proposal is a 'one-size-fits-all approach' that fails to account for regional conditions. 'Businesses operating in consistently high-heat regions, such as Arizona, Florida and Texas, where these temperatures are the norm,' would be disproportionately affected. 'People in hotter climates tend to be more acclimatized to heat, including working in temperatures above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and thus have a lower risk of heat injury or illness.' The labor leaders who once saw a glimmer of light in Chavez-DeRemer's appointment have seen their hopes dashed. Until recently, one might have said that the jury was out on whether she would be a good Labor secretary or another MAGA cabinet member. Now, sadly, the jury's verdict is in.
