Progressive urges Democrat Becca Balint to resign over FTX contribution

By Guy Page

A Progressive/Independent who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate wants Democratic Rep.-elect Becca Balint to resign for benefiting from a pass-through campaign contribution of almost $1 million from a senior official at FTX, the scandal-ridden cryptocurrency firm.

“Who needs another alleged corrupt Democrat right now, when Republicans are taking over the U.S. House of Representatives,” Cris Ericson wrote December 13 in “The Smirking Chimp,” an online news and opinion platform claiming to offer “news and commentary from the vast left-wing conspiracy.”

“They’ll probably just impeach Becca Balint anyway, so why wait? Tell Becca Balint to resign now!,” Ericson wrote. Ericson has run for statewide office as a Progressive Party candidate, but ran as an independent in the November 8, 2022 General Election for U.S. Senator. She finished eighth with 1,105 votes.

Cris Ericson, left, a 2022 candidate for U.S. Senate, says House Republicans will probably impeach Balint over her connection to the FTX scandal.

At issue is a $1.1 million contribution from Nishad Singh, a senior executive at FTX, the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency firm that was a major donor to Democratic campaigns as it sought to influence looming government regulations of cryptocurrency and the rest of the digital economy.

On July 7, Singh donated $1.1 million to the LGBTQ Victory Fund. In its policy blog, FTX praises three current digital currency regulation legislative initiatives: “FTX is enthused about these developments because they indicate the broadening interest from the Congress in providing protections for investors in digital assets as well as regulatory clarity to the industry as whole.”

Large, well-established firms in growing, under-regulated industries often seek regulation as a means of setting favorable ground rules and discouraging potential competitors.

The next largest donor to the Victory fund gave $10,000. The PAC then spent $991,000 on the Balint campaign. Simple arithmetic shows that the LGBTQ Victory Fund was just a pass-through from Singh to Balint’s benefit. In the final month before the August 9 primary, a plethora of mailers and advertising helped a surging Balint pummel Lt. Gov. Molly Gray.

Balint returned a $2900 donation from the founder of FTX but apparently has no plans to make amends for the $991,000 spent on her campaign’s behalf by another PAC.

Balint said in a Sept. 15 candidate forum she had no control over the contribution, and that in fact, she didn’t want it: “I want to really assure vermonters that I had absolutely no knowledge of who is donating money to the Victory Fund which is an LGBTQ organization. I did not want that investment in my campaign. I had no control over it. And the things I did have control over was how I ran my campaign, which was with many, many small dollar donors.”

Yet Balint’s campaign policy goals closely resembled those of the Protect Our Futures PAC established by the founder of FTX.

POF PAC website: “We must establish independent oversight of dual-use research including enforcement mechanisms to ensure safety and security.

Balint website: “Establish independent oversight of labs conducting dual-use research of concern.”

This was simply Balint parroting for profit, Republican nominee Liam Madden claimed in a campaign op-ed. “This policy is something that was inconvenient to support before. It was politically expensive, so Balint hadn’t the courage to breathe a peep about it—until it paid,” he said.

Guy Page is publisher of the Vermont Daily Chronicle. Reprinted with permission.

36 thoughts on “Progressive urges Democrat Becca Balint to resign over FTX contribution

  1. Ms. Balint is holding onto stolen goods. Even if she was too dumb enough to know where those
    dollars came from she certainly knows now. If she keeps those funds, it will tell all of us everything we need to know about her. Keeping those funds is the equivalent of theft from innocent people who trusted FTX and many others. GIVE IT BACK BECCA!! If you do not it will suggest you have not soul.
    Assuming you care about your soul

  2. Does anyone believe that someone who condones infanticide to return campaign contributions that were stolen? If she had any integrity the money would be returned. I’m sure her supporters would make it good for the victims of fraud.

  3. Balint came here for the same reason that Sanders did, to be a big progressive fish in a small pond.
    And because she is not a white dude and she has a more enhanced victimhood/intersectionality portfolio
    with the XX chromosome, the orientation thing and the grandfather dying in the holocaust, she got to skip the whole mayor thing and went almost straight to the VT Senate and on to US Rep. All the money in the world cant MAKE anyone vote a certain way. She still got there because of the dimwitted liberal Vermont voters who eat that victimhood stuff up with a spoon like a pint of Ben and Jerrys. Funny how peer pressure works with weak-willed liberals even in the privacy and anonymity of a voting booth.

    • I would like here to just have to click on ‘like’ ‘dislike’ to express an opinion without writing a reply.

      Can you make that happen TNR?

  4. It didn’t take her long to become a true DC swamp rat did it.. thanks for nothing leftist commie voters for voting in yet another rat who’s main interest will be the lbgbqrst group of misfits and the swamp hierarchy Vermont LAST…or should say lost…

  5. You’d think this would lead into campaign finance reform.
    (But it won’t because they like things just fine as they are)

    We all know that people are buying these politicians.
    This is just what Granny D from NH walked across the nation to inform us about.
    What she predicted way back in the early 90s is just where we are at.. elections and politicians being bought.

    There should be a cap.. each candidate can raise X amount of dollars, period.
    Make it work..

    We can see and understand so much that is wrong and yet we allow it to continue.
    It’s less about ‘getting the government we deserve’, it’s more like ‘we get the government we tolerate’.

  6. I always wondered why Molly Gray suddenly was not in the lead…she seemed to be the front runner. Then I got 3-4 mailings a week from the Balint team, and I immediately said “this is out of state money funding! “ No other small town VT candidate gets that kind of advertising, not to mention the non stop TV ads. I am so not surprised she was “bought”. Come on let’s put Liam in!

    • The Dem/Prog elites decided on Balint, instead of Molly Gray, being the “winner”, got her a $million campaign bribe from out of state, to make it easier, plus some universal ballot harvesting, and ballot box stuffing

      About 35% of all universal mail-out of ballots never get used by voters for voting.
      Many of them are returned to the post office as undeliverable

      Then the post office collects them in bags for delivery to drop boxes.
      Then NGOs pick up the “mail”, and fill in the ballots, and distribute them to wherever needed to tip the balance of close elections

      One way to have more undeliverable ballots is to change, by computer, the zip code of some of the addresses, then change them all back again, before any of it is recorded by standard data bases, as was done in Maricopa County, Arizona, for 30,000 addresses, during the 2022 Election

      The Balint money was stolen from poor people, and, lo and behold, she “won”, and all other Vermonters got sc…d again by the sicko system

      • And the VT Legislators have the audacity to claim, Vermont voters increased their veto-proof majority, because Vermonters “love them so much”, and their I’ll-advised, destructive, California copy-cat policies, which have caused about 250,000 to 300,000 tax-paying, long-term California residents leaving EACH YEAR.

        However, they are more than being replaced by illiterate, unskilled, culturally different folks, walking across open borders, to begin sucking of various government programs for years, as they do in Europe, which has become an economic/social basket case

  7. Nah, Becca Balint isn’t going to resign, she’ll play dumb like other progressive
    DemocRATs and will state she never knew about the money and blame someone
    in her campaign…….

    So a little Vermont candidate gets a $1M donation and doesn’t question it ??, so
    it sounds like she’ll fit right in, DC like people with no morals, especially the Dems.

    Wake up people, this is how it’s done, outside money from special interest, and she’s
    one of many.

  8. I saw a news clip today and the prosecutor on the FTX case requested that all politicians who benefited from a campaign donation from FTX funds should come forward and return the money that was stolen from the innocent victims. I think Ms. Balint would be curious and do her due diligence to determine where 1 million dollars came from. Why would any organization donate that amount of money to a no power, no contender is hobumpkin state Vermont. Now you know why our children are being transed via a political/social contaminant. There is nothing organic about what is occuring in this state or across America.

  9. This is just one of many issues here in VT that are basically ignored, but not totally.

    like this pervert
    https://www.wnd.com/2022/12/ex-cnn-producer-pleads-guilty-astonishing-child-sex-crime/

    or how they arrested the guy who was to testify about the money and crypto and his roll in it all, which was so bad he DID get arrested but before he spilled who what when and where.

    This is just as bad as driving by Middlebury College and seeing not just a discriminating BLM flag, but also an inclusive/ pedo flag, yes pedo. called “minor attracted” lgbt flag,
    That flag they fly is part of a “minor attracted” flag of “inclusion” for pedophiles you know, the pervs who like/are attracted to children. All these people are part of the same pedo /baby killer adrenochrome crowd and now she has been bought and paid for to keep it going. She’s not going anywhere. Nice top know that

  10. Can you imagine the OUTRAGE of the VT Leftists if Trump ever donated $1 million to a conservative congressional candidate? And if that candiate won, they would immediately try to impeach? Or, better yet, put them in jail. Goes to show ya’….VT Liberals, Progressives are nothing but two faced, biased, bliinded, duplictious,…agenda indoctrinators.

    If Democrats did not have their DOUBLE STANDARDS…they would have NO standards at all.

    • But there is another component, where can you read or hear about any pushback other than here or The Vermont Daily Chronicle?

      Here’s a law that would do us well. If you are an online format, you must have commentary, it’s pretty easy…just use discuss for example. Have authenticated commentary so no bots…. Then don’t censor.

      Suddenly VT Digger becomes useful to the citizens, same for VPR, Front Porch Forum, and 7 Days….

      There is way too much “curation” of any discussion. It isolates those who speak up and emboldens those who spread lies and propaganda. We are totally controlled, and we don’t even know it because nobody is allowed to express another opinion. And when they speak up like the principal…..we cancel them.

      It’s the modern form of crucifixion that the romans used so well to keep their slaves and citizens in line.

          • Jay, yes I have. I don’t know VDC.

            And, let’s not forgot folks, it was Democrat AG Bill Sorrell that presented before the US Supreme Court on campaign finance reform.

            It’s amusing (sort of) how much certain types of Repubs damn Dems when there is at least as much to damn about them.

          • Joy, please post, again, the censored comment you previously submitted as a reply to this comment. Just make sure you don’t ‘dox’ anyone, reference pornography, or threaten anyone.

        • Joy’s remark is an example of psychological projection. Those who advocate for media outlets that censor others, find it hard to believe there are those who still believe in free speech.

          Joy, have you been censored here on TNR or VDC?

    • This also goes to show you what Ms. Balint is all about. She’s a Socialist & hoists herself as a champion of “the average folk” against corporate greed, te RICH etc……but ALWAYS follow the money. She’s nothing but a two faced greedy….(adjective left out)….BECAUSE she is so endeared to her $1 million fraud induced windfall, that she refises to let it go….but the collapse of FTX caused BILLIONS $ of losses to untold numbers of “little people” she champions… who foolishly played Crypto markets. I hope someone sues her for accepting this criminally fradulant money..

      In essence, Ms. Balint cares NOTHING for little people, help them, who lost billions…as long as SHE get’s to keep the $1 million THAT CAME DIRECTLY from the defrauded “little people”. Ms. Balint disgusts me…disgusting….what a horrible human being she is, if she is even that. She is the penultimate exampe of a DOUBLE STANDARD!….”Let Them Eat Cake.”

  11. Vermont is all about keeping things local when it comes to growing food, merchants, etc..

    except politics.

    If Vermont were to say only local money from citizens for campaigns, that would be a Vermont first to be proud of. That would be leading the nation in getting rid of corruption.

    Just think what a level playing field that would instantly create!

    No PAC’s
    No Corporations
    No big money influences

    It would foster grassroots and get rid of Astro turf candidates. Want to contribute to candidates, great, you can contribute the current maximum amount for anyone who is running in your district, local or state….

  12. Why did she have no control over it?
    Did she not know the amount and the source?
    Did it not raise red flags, some entity buying political favors down the road?
    Did anybody know?
    Balint is grossly compromised, before she is even sworn in!!
    Yikes, way to go Becca. Make Vermonters proud!

    • Can you hear the deafening quiet from many of those in vt politics?
      Why wouldn’t this be headline news?
      Why wouldn’t every one be clamorinf for change?

      Hint: I think they like the current system. Perhaps enjoy it themselves. And the press operate this way too, so crickets from them….

      Can people start to see how VERMONT is utterly controlled by money from outside our state? Politicians, Lobbyists, nonprofits, the press.

      We think we’re getting a free ride, we are getting the shaft.

  13. VERMONT politicians are for sale , cheap!

    Buy your own senator for only a million dollars!
    Buy your state representatives, in bulk for less than $2,000 each!

    VERMONT is trying to get a lower ethical grade than Washinton d.c.

    And this might be another VERMONT first!

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