Authored by Tom Gantert via The Epoch Times,
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) took a procedural step Saturday to bring the CLARITY Act to the Senate floor, setting up a vote on whether to consider the bill when lawmakers return from their August recess.
The CLARITY Act would establish a federal regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and other digital assets, spelling out how the industry would be regulated and which federal agencies would have authority over different types of assets.
The legislation would divide oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, creating a distinction between digital assets that are considered securities and those treated as commodities. Supporters say the change would replace what they describe as the SEC’s previous “regulation-by-enforcement” approach with clearer rules for the industry.
The bill would also require certain digital asset offerings and sales to provide investors with specific public disclosures. It would create a new exemption from SEC registration, called “Regulation Crypto,” allowing qualifying digital asset projects to raise money from the public while complying with specific disclosure and regulatory requirements.
Other provisions are intended to prevent companies from structuring projects to evade securities laws and would restrict insiders from reselling assets in ways that could facilitate pump-and-dump schemes or market manipulation. The legislation would also provide legal certainty for digital assets that U.S. courts have already determined are not securities.
Senate Banking Digital Assets Subcommittee Chair Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said in late July that she supported the legislation.
“This is another step in my years-long journey to ensure the U.S. leads the way on digital assets,” Lummis said in a press release.
“The U.S. has always been at the forefront of financial innovation, and the coming weeks are likely the last real chance we will have for years to get this right.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is among the lawmakers opposing the bill.
“Our job is not to advance a pro-industry crypto bill that will put American consumers, investors, our national security and our financial system at risk,” Warren said in a statement in May.
Warren said Congress should be working on kitchen-table issues, such as capping interest rates on credit cards and preventing big banks from charging overdraft fees.
“But, instead of that, we’re spending our time working on a bill written by the crypto industry for the crypto industry. Nothing made it into this bill that wasn’t approved by the crypto industry,” Warren said.
President Donald Trump supports the bill and has urged the Senate to pass it in honor of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has supported various pro-crypto efforts on Capitol Hill.
Trump said in July that China and other countries aim to “take complete and total control of the major financial ‘happening'” and artificial intelligence.
Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 15:10Tracy Rosenthal, co-founder of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, has emerged as an influential far-left star in the Democratic Socialists of America's tenant-organizing 'squatting' movement, promoting rent strikes and aggressive pressure campaigns to bankrupt landlords.
While the article focuses largely on New York City, Rosenthal’s influence extends far beyond it. She has built an entire career around this work, speaking at conferences and appearing as a media expert. The clips I used of her actually come from a talk she gave to Asheville DSA. pic.twitter.com/2LGiDzVYNG
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) August 3, 2026In this clip posted on X by Stu Smith, investigative analyst at the Manhattan Institute, Rosenthal stated that tenants pay rent "at the barrel of a gun." She explained how "Living on rent strike - right - getting to experience having your housing without having to pay for it is one of those liberatory visions of home."
🚨 Meet the “Abolish Rent” Ideologue Teaching DSA Tenant Organizers How to Wage War on Landlords
Tracy Rosenthal co-founded the Los Angeles Tenants Union, helps politically educate DSA tenant organizers, and is currently on rent strike in New York City.
In this supercut,… pic.twitter.com/0fw5wi30rt
The problem with Rosenthal's revolutionary crusade to collapse capitalism is that she treats rent strikes, and the broader effort to destroy the nation from within, almost as a game, even though the financial fallout affects actual working-class tenants, property owners, lenders, and working-poor communities.
Her view that this is all a game is even more striking given New York Post reporting that she was raised in a super-wealthy household in a multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartment and is the daughter of four-time Grammy-winning studio owner Steven Rosenthal.
Rosenthal showing off her White privilege at the Grammys with her rich father and stepmother.
In other words, the very privilege created by the capitalist system she seeks to destroy has insulated her from terrible life decisions. She appears to be little more than a lonely cat woman and an unhinged white liberal "Karen" who hates the West, probably because she went to some liberal arts school and was handed an unproductive, woke degree that many companies today see merely as a liability.
She is also likely representative of many DSA members who, as they watch capitalism progress this summer. Spacex's IPO mints thousands of new millionaires, including working-class welders, and they see their jealousy boil over as they confront the reality that their decision to pursue far-left activism has led them down a sad and angry path, one full of hate and, as the far-left is known for, violence.
Rosenthal's 2024 book "Abolish Rent" has been a top read on the DSA's own website.
But hey, she is one of DSA’s recommended authors on “housing justice,” not a manipulative activist weaponizing laws and protections meant to help vulnerable tenants. pic.twitter.com/0uWgbxNYTR
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) July 17, 2026Rosenthal, who posted "death to America" the night Mamdani clinched the Democratic primary last year and now serves as a visiting scholar at the woke CUNY, has already put some of these rent strikes into practice.
Meet another of Mamdani's housing experts...
Mamdani housing event features a lady in a mask ranting about her landlord, declaring "eviction = violence" pic.twitter.com/el709Zzf88
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 16, 2026It's time to recognize that Rosenthal, like much of the DSA activist class, is arguably a byproduct of an education system hijacked by the radical left that has purposely oversupplied the country with worthless woke degrees.
The result is a growing revolutionary cohort increasingly detached from economic realities that have one mission, and it's not affordability, climate, anti-data centers, Palestine, or any of the lefty causes; it's to destroy the nation from within - we're merely citing DSA leaders in their own words ...
Hawley's SolutionIf policymakers actually want to dismantle the cancer killing the education system and producing this far-left activist class, perhaps forcing schools to have an economic interest in student outcomes will result in less wokes? Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced a bill in 2022 - the Make the Universities Pay Act, that would allow federal student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy after a certain period, but pair that relief with a clawback requiring universities that pushed these worthless and toxic degrees to absorb at least half of every covered loan that is ultimately discharged.
Such a mechanism would fundamentally change the economics of higher education overnight. Schools - with their massively inflated tuition - who produce graduates that are unable to generate enough income to repay their debts, would suddenly bear a direct financial cost for those outcomes. This would impose accountability, forcing schools to prioritize productive and demanding degrees instead of worthless woke degrees.
In other words, it's time to impose accountability on schools that push worthless degrees. Such a move could be the ultimate death blow to many universities with weak balance sheets, high debt loads, and small endowments.
Lawmakers should read more about how to break the cycle of bad ideas via U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.): New Legislation to Hold Universities Accountable for Rising Tuition Costs and Student Debt.
Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 14:35A decade-long drug empire that prosecutors say pumped cocaine and fentanyl through Mobile has ended with its alleged mastermind headed to federal prison for the rest of his life, according to WSFA.
McGee, 42, received life sentences after being convicted of running a large-scale narcotics operation involving drugs, firearms and minors. U.S. District Judge Terry Moorer also imposed another life term stemming from fraud against the IRS and Small Business Administration, along with a $10 million fine.
The government portrayed McGee as far more than a street-level dealer. Prosecutors said his organization moved enormous quantities of cocaine over the years, including drugs obtained through suppliers connected to Mexican cartels. Evidence presented at trial convinced Moorer that the operation exceeded 450 kilograms of cocaine, an important threshold under federal sentencing guidelines.
Money was apparently pouring in as well. McGee reportedly acknowledged making roughly $120,000 in monthly profit, while financial investigators uncovered millions of dollars that could not be explained by his reported legitimate income. During one period, accountants found approximately $4.4 million in additional earnings beyond the $436,000 he officially reported.
Investigators were able to document much of the operation through an extensive surveillance campaign. Cameras secretly recorded activity around a house connected to McGee's family, while another court-authorized camera was installed inside his Cadillac Escalade. The resulting footage became a major component of the government's case.
But the money and drug quantities were overshadowed at sentencing by allegations that children were pulled into the operation.
The report writes that during a law enforcement raid on a Mobile stash house, agents encountered a 3-year-old boy carrying a backpack containing drugs. Prosecutors said McGee had learned authorities were approaching and efforts were made to get evidence out of the house before they arrived.
When officers confronted the frightened child, prosecutors said he responded with four words: “I’m not a bad boy.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney George May called what happened “just a horrifying scene.”
The government also presented evidence involving an 8-year-old boy. Prosecutors said a recorded conversation showed McGee discussing having the child throw a backpack containing drugs over a fence ahead of police arrival.
McGee disputed that accusation.
“I never instructed a child,” he told the court. The January verdict found McGee guilty of operating a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to distribute cocaine and fentanyl, multiple firearms offenses and involving people under 18 in drug activity.
Prosecutors also argued that this was hardly McGee's first trip through the federal criminal justice system. Investigators believe he resumed trafficking not long after leaving federal prison following an earlier drug conviction. At Friday's hearing, McGee challenged a number of the government's assertions but did not present character witnesses or make a substantial plea for a lighter punishment.
Judge Moorer indicated that the severity of the sentence went well beyond a mechanical calculation under federal guidelines. Even if life imprisonment had not been recommended, he suggested he would have arrived at the same result. “If every federal judge, including myself, was arbitrarily limited to imposing a life sentence in only three cases, I would impose it in your case,” Moorer said.
The punishment also extended deep into McGee's family. His wife, Echandza Dianca Maxie, was sentenced to life for participating in the drug and firearms conspiracy. His sister-in-law, Edeszann Dailene Maxie, received 13 years and three months for her involvement in the fraud operation.
Outside the courthouse, U.S. Attorney Sean Costello said the combination of narcotics, weapons, violence and financial crimes justified the government's request for life imprisonment. He characterized McGee as the head of a Mobile crime family and said South Alabama's streets were now “much, much safer.”
McGee's next fight will be in the appellate courts, where his lawyers are expected to challenge both his convictions and sentence.
Tyler Durden Sun, 08/09/2026 - 14:35