The Beasley Beat:
Cheri Beasley for North Carolina’s Weekly Newsletter
It’s been an exciting week for us here on the campaign trail. Check out what Cheri has been up to below.
Cheri Continues Her Standing Up for North Carolina Tour with Community Conversations and Small Business Visits Across the State
This week, Cheri spoke with voters in North Hampton, Camden, Chowan, Bertie, Perquimans, and Greene Counties during her “Standing Up for North Carolina'' tour. As a part of the tour, Cheri hosted a series of community conversations with voters to hear about their concerns and discuss her commitment to standing up to Washington and big corporations to do what is best for North Carolina.
During her stop in Perquimans County, Cheri visited with local business owners to learn about their experiences running a business in a rural community and discuss how she can better support North Carolina consumers and businesses in the U.S Senate. Cheri also toured Halifax Community College to learn about their work to prepare students for high-demand careers and what she can do to support career and technical education and apprenticeship programs to create good-paying jobs and an economy that works for all of North Carolina.
Cheri Kicks Off Canvassing!
Cheri kicked off canvassing efforts in Winston-Salem by door-knocking with volunteers, engaging with voters, and visiting small businesses. She visited Blend Masters Barbershop, Forsyth Seafood, and the Enterprise Center, to discuss how she can best support small businesses in the U.S. Senate.
With Less Than 100 Days Until The Midterms, Cheri Discusses What’s At Stake In the Election
Cheri joined Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s Politics Nation this week to highlight her commitment to lowering costs, protecting the constitutional rights of Americans, and strengthening the economy.
In the interview, Cheri said, “I know how Washington has failed families here in North Carolina, and I also know that there is a real opportunity for North Carolinians to have a change, to have someone in the Senate who is going to stand up for a strong economy, and to make sure we are bringing good paying jobs to the state, and to make sure we are fighting really hard to lower costs.”
As noted in the segment, North Carolina’s election could have “huge implications” for the U.S. Senate and Beasley’s election would be a “historic victory” in November as the first black woman Senator from North Carolina.
Watch the interview here.
Cheri Launches New Ad Highlighting Her Focus On Holding Politicians And Corporate Special Interests Accountable
In a new ad released this week, Cheri Beasley outlined how she will stand up to both parties to do what’s right for North Carolina, and backed a policy to ban members of Congress from trading stocks in a new statewide television ad.
“64 members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, have broken a law to stop insider stock trading, yet Washington refused to do anything about it,” Cheri says in the ad. “Let’s ban members of Congress from trading stocks all together.”
Watch the ad here.
Show Your Support for Cheri by Buying Team Beasley Merch, Pride Merch, and New "Babies for Beasley" Merch
We now have Pride buttons and t-shirts and “Babies for Beasley” onesies in addition to our classic t-shirts, hats, pins, and totes. You can show the rest of North Carolina that you stand with Cheri by sporting your favorite merch, whether it's a bumper sticker on your car or carrying a tote bag at the farmer’s market!
Shop our campaign store here.
MUST READS:
Check out some must-read articles from this week:
- Spectrum News: These key midterm Senate races could have an impact on the future of abortion rights
- Indy Week: Ad Highlighting Beasley’s Commitment to Supporting Congressional Stock Trading Ban Airs in NC
Help Us Win!
Want to get involved with Team Beasley? Sign up today to volunteer! If you are interested in showing your support for Cheri and writing a Letter to the Editor, fill out this interest form. It is going to take a people-powered movement to win this race and turn North Carolina blue.
With Cheri as the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, this is our best chance to flip a seat and expand our Senate majority in November. But National Republicans are already flooding tens of millions of dollars into this race, so we need to make sure we have what it takes to fight back. Please consider making a contribution today to help us send Cheri to the U.S. Senate! Every donation will absolutely make a difference when the votes are counted.
And don’t forget to follow Cheri and our team on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at CheriBeasleyNC!
Paid For By Cheri Beasley for North Carolina
Cheri Beasley for North Carolina
PO Box 28778
Raleigh, NC 27611
ADDED NOT FROM CANDIDATE: | ||
TED BUDD IS RUNNING FOR SENATE IN NORTH CAROLINA
HIS OPPONENT IS CHERI BEASLEY - MAYBE A BETTER CHOICE
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As Bitcoin Crashes 34 Percent in a Week, U.S. Congressman Ted Budd Pushes Bank Regulator to Approve More Crypto National Bank Charters
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 20, 2021 ~
Congressman Ted Budd of North Carolina
Yesterday, Bitcoin put on a display that should put to rest any lingering doubts that it is a stable currency that could be used to pay for products or services. The current month Bitcoin futures contract at the CME swung between a low of $30,250 to a high of $43,530 – a difference of $13,280 in one trading session. From its intraday high of $58,140 on Wednesday, May 12, to its close one week later on Wednesday, May 19, Bitcoin had lost 34 percent of its value.
As we explained here at Wall Street On Parade on May 12, some of the smartest minds in the investment community think Bitcoin is very bad for America. One of the most iconic investors in America, Warren Buffet, stated in May 2018 that Bitcoin is “probably rat poison squared.” In January of the same year, Buffet told CNBC in an interview that “In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending.”
Also in 2018, Bill Harris, the former CEO of Intuit and PayPal, wrote a detailed critique of Bitcoin for Vox, under the headline: “Bitcoin is the greatest scam in history.”
In July 2019, NYU Professor and economist Nouriel Roubini offered this analysis of Bitcoin and crypto in a Bloomberg News interview: “It is not a means of payment, nobody, not even this blockchain conference, accepts Bitcoin for paying for conference fees cause you can do only five transactions per second with Bitcoin. With the Visa system you can do 25,000 transactions per second…Crypto’s nonsense. It’s a failure. Nobody’s using it for any transactions. It’s trading one sh*tcoin for another sh*tcoin. That’s the entire trading or currency in the space where’s there’s price manipulation, spoofing, wash trading, pump and dumping, frontrunning. It’s just a big criminal scam and nothing else.”
None of that sound logic seems to have found its way to the office of Congressman Ted Budd, who represents North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District.
At a House Financial Services Committee hearing yesterday, called to take testimony from and question banking regulators, Budd sounded like a lobbyist for the crypto industry. The exchange went as follows with the newly appointed acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Michael Hsu:
Budd: “Comptroller Hsu, the OCC has received a number of applications from crypto trust banks, and after conditionally approving three – I believe it’s three, you can correct me on that if it’s a different number – I think they were Anchorage, Protego, and Paxos. So what is the timetable for approving the remaining charters that are out there?”
Hsu: “I don’t know the timetable right now. It’s under review. It’s under discussion. I just got here. This is my tenth day I believe. We’ve got this in the pipeline to look at. We’re not going to drag it out. That I can tell you…”
Budd: “Love to stay in touch with you on that…”
Budd also specifically asked about Figure Technologies and its request for a bank charter. Sounding like one of Figure’s inhouse attorneys, Budd said that since Figure plans to take deposits there should be no issue with the litigation issue over non-depository bank charters. Budd asked Hsu: “Do you know if that application is on course?”
Hsu said Figure was part of the applications that are under review. (You can watch the segment of Budd posturing for the crypto banks at yesterday’s House hearing in the video below.)
In January, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors filed a lawsuit in federal district court to block the OCC from granting a national bank charter to Figure Technologies.
Budd next turned his attention to Randal Quarles, the Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve. Budd wanted to know if the Fed was going to deny the crypto banks that don’t take deposits access to its payment system. Budd asked what the basis for that would be.
Quarles said the issue has been put out for public comment.
Budd’s home district in North Carolina is located more than 500 miles from Wall Street and yet, for some reason, six of the largest Wall Street banks rank within the top 50 donors to his 2019-2020 campaign according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Those banks include: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, $16,250; UBS Americas, $15,000; Wells Fargo, $10,250; Goldman Sachs, $10,000; Morgan Stanley, $10,000; Citigroup, $9,500; and Bank of New York Mellon, $9,000. (The money does not come from the bank itself but from its employees or their family members and/or its Political Action Committee.)
On April 28, Budd announced his candidacy for the 2022 Senate election in North Carolina to replace retiring Senator Richard Burr. That campaign is going to cost big bucks and Budd apparently feels being a proponent of crypto trading and crypto banks is a good position to stake out.
Budd also tends to stick with the hard right within the Republican party. He was among the 147 Republican lawmakers who objected to the certification of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
As U.S. regulators delicately straddle the fence on crypto matters out of fear of upsetting the hard right among Republican lawmakers, China has shown actual guts in dealing with the issue. On Tuesday, the People’s Bank of China released a statement that reiterated that cryptocurrencies can’t be used as a form of payment because they are not real currencies.
