REMINDER.....POLITICO Massachusetts Playbook: 5 things to know about Warren’s challenger

WARREN BUFFETT CALLED CRYPTO 'RAT POISON SQUARED'
JOHN DEATON DOESN'T EVEN VOTE REGULARLY, NEVER HELD 
PUBLIC OFFICE, JUST ANOTHER MASS GOP BRAGGART 

SCRUTINIZE EVERY CANDIDATE AS WELL AS THEIR FUNDING 
SOURCES!

JOHN DEATON IS JUST AN ATTACK DOG WITH NO ROOTS IN 
MASSACHUSETTS



FROM FEBRUARY 2024:

SEX, DRUGS AND CRYPTO — John Deaton is launching his campaign against Elizabeth Warren, giving the state’s senior senator some more prominent — but still long-shot — competition in her bid for a third term. A website and a Facebook page for Deaton’s campaign went live over the long weekend. But unless you’re really into crypto, you’ve likely never heard of the digital-assets advocate and attorney who moved to Massachusetts last month to take on Democrat Warren, Congress’ loudest crypto critic. We’ve already covered the basics : He’s a dad to three daughters, a testicular cancer survivor and a former Marine who opened a law firm in Rhode Island representing asbestos victims. He’s renting a house in Swansea that is now his primary and full-time residence, and is selling his Barrington, Rhode Island, home for $2.5 million, according to real-estate listings and Jim Conroy, a political adviser to former Gov. Charlie Baker who is consulting for Deaton. He also plans to loan his campaign $500,000 to start. Deaton's 314-page memoir, “Food Stamp Warrior,” says a lot more. We read it over the long weekend. Here’s what we learned:

John Deaton | Jim Conroy/Courtesy photo

A VIOLENT UPBRINGING — Violence pervaded Deaton’s childhood in a rough Detroit enclave. He writes that he was raped, had a gun pressed into his mouth on the first day of high school and sold pot in exchange for food stamps for his family. He also may have shot someone — and to this day, he writes, he doesn’t know if he did. In Deaton’s telling, his close friend was killed in a drug-related drive-by shooting. As he was dying, Deaton, then 17, took his friend’s gun and opened fire: “I kept squeezing the trigger, as bullets shot through the car and blasted the back window into shards. I saw a person in the back slump down, and I’m still not sure if it’s because I hit him or if he ducked.” Deaton writes that years later, “I couldn’t stop asking myself: Did he kill my friend, did he get hit with a bullet, did he live or die? ” ‘COKE-FUELED SEX BENDER’ — Deaton writes that after his divorce he “went on a coke-fueled sex bender.” Using sites like “Plenty of Fish” and “Sugar Daddy” to find partners, Deaton says he would search for “women in their mid-twenties, decades younger than me.” He met his current partner, Kristiana, when he hired her as an assistant at his law firm. “Within a couple of years of Kristi working for me,” they struck up a romance. They’ve been together for almost nine years and share a 5-year-old daughter. OVERCOMING ADDICTION — Deaton says he “periodically battled dependency on pain pills” after being prescribed opioids following a back surgery. CRYPTO CURIOUS — Part of what helped pull Deaton out of a self-described “mid-life crisis” was discovering crypto — and the online community of digital-asset enthusiasts that comes with it. Deaton, who has invested in Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP, gained notoriety in the crypto world when he battled the SEC’s efforts to classify XRP as a security as part of a lawsuit against Ripple Labs. Here’s how Deaton sees crypto: “It's a story, one much like my own: it is a story of survival and evolution, not just for the few but for the many.” TRUMP'S 'ANTITHESIS' — Though Deaton is running as a Republican, whether he’ll embrace his party’s standard bearer (and likely 2024 presidential nominee) is unclear. In his book, Deaton references former President Donald Trump — but only to draw contrast with himself. “I’ve always believed that money should never define someone. If anything, I’m the antithesis of Donald Trump,” Deaton writes. “You’ll never catch me being flashy or anything like that.” GOOD TUESDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS . As Deaton readied his launch, Warren released a report from her Senate office this morning that says she’s helped secure $50 billion in federal funding for Massachusetts since taking office in 2013.