F3 Missing Children’s Intelligence Agency is proud to have the support of both Florida Governor DeSantis and bipartisan congressional support for our efforts to reduce the number of missing children in the state of Florida. With these key endorsements, we can continue our mission to strengthen community networking, increase public awareness, and improve communications with law enforcement agencies.
For years, our organization has worked tirelessly to promote child safety and prevent child abduction. Through collaboration with other organizations and law enforcement agencies, we have been able to make a significant impact. However, the support of Governor DeSantis and congressional leaders has given us even greater momentum to achieve our goals.
We believe that every child deserves the right to safety and protection, and with the help of these valuable allies, we will continue to make strides in ensuring that children are safe from harm. We invite everyone to join us in our mission to protect our children and help us keep communities safe.
Original Article:
Gov. Ron DeSantis is preparing to accept campaign donations in cryptocurrency.
It’s all expected to start at a cocktail-hour fundraiser next week in Miami, a city 2024 GOP presidential campaign rival Mayor Francis Suarez has tried to turn into the “crypto capital.”
What they’re saying: Organizers declined to share the fundraiser’s precise date and location, but Robert Salvador, CEO of software construction company DigiBuild and one of the event’s hosts, said in an interview that DeSantis is expected to field questions about the economy, artificial intelligence and crypto.
“We’re going to lean into the tech community and get into the Miami-Dade crowd,” said Salvador, who moved his business from Chicago to Miami during the pandemic. “The campaign really understands that tech is driving a lot of the growth in Southern Florida,” he added.
Salvador is co-hosting the fundraiser with Gary Rabine, chairman of paving company Rabine Group and former GOP candidate for Illinois governor; Richard Ring, CEO of F3 Missing Children’s Intelligence Agency; and John Montague, a Florida-based business and securities attorney who specializes in crypto.
Jumping in: Other 2024 presidential candidates are already accepting crypto donations, including Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Suarez (who takes his mayoral salary in Bitcoin).
Candidates’ decision to accept crypto donations involves navigating a complicated web of 2014 federal campaign finance guidance. Plus, the FEC doesn’t allow campaigns to use cryptocurrencies to pay for the costs of running for president. Instead, the operations have to exchange Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital assets for dollars at a later date — similar to how they’re supposed to handle stock gifts. That’ll mean incurring processing fees and paperwork.
Potential changes to crypto rules are ahead, and lobbying on the issue exploded last year, the money-in-politics research organization Open Secrets found. Federal regulators and Congress have considered clamping down in part because of the collapse of crypto broker Voyager Digital and crypto lending company Celsius Network, as well as that of the crypto exchange FTX, whose CEO Sam Bankman-Fried faced federal charges and was a prolific Democratic donor.
DeSantis accepting digital asset donations isn’t just about growing his campaign coffers. It’s a political and a policy statement. The governor last month accused President Joe Biden of waging a “war on Bitcoin” following a crackdown by the independent Securities and Exchange Commission against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Binance.
“The only reason people in Washington don’t like it is because they don’t control it,” DeSantis said of Bitcoin in May during a conversation with Elon Musk, the CEO of X, formerly known as Twitter, when he launched his presidential campaign following technical difficulties.
What the governor has done: DeSantis has promised to allow people to invest in crypto if elected president and opposes establishing a central bank digital currency, which would be a digital form of the U.S. dollar. Though one hasn’t been issued in the U.S., DeSantis signed a bipartisan bill into law in Florida to ban them in what he cast as a preemptive move, warning that the federal government could someday use it to surveil how Americans spend.
Biden hasn’t taken a position on the matter but in March 2022 asked federal agencies to examine its risks and benefits, and to study crypto oversight. Over on Capitol Hill, key committees in the GOP-majority House advanced a crypto regulatory bill over which Democrats were split.
— WHERE’S RON? Gov. DeSantis is doing a bus tour in Iowa today and tomorrow with the super PAC supporting him, Never Back Down.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/florida-playbook/2023/08/25/desantis-00112944
