Friends,

I’m sorry to say that several Democratic senators appear willing to support the CLARITY Act—a sweeping pro-crypto bill that will be voted on next week. All they’re demanding is that Republicans agree to a few cosmetic changes such as a slight toughening of ethics rules, a modest expansion of law-enforcement authority, and a tad bit of strengthening of financial regulators.

All worthwhile improvements, but they don’t cure the bill’s fundamental defects.

Let me get right to the point. Congress should not enact legislation that further legitimizes and expands an industry whose promised public benefits are zilch while its costs and risks are increasing by the day.

There’s simply no legitimate use for crypto. Its only practical uses are tax evasion, money laundering, fraud, speculation, and crime.

The crypto lobby is large and well-financed. It has already bought off many members of Congress including, sad to say, a number of Democrats. The Wall Street Journal reports that the parent company of Crypto.com has so far donated $35 million to MAGA Inc. — Trump’s giant PAC to support candidates who embrace Trump’s agenda — and is pushing for legislation freeing crypto from securities regulation.

There’s no lobby on the other side to guard small investors who are losing their shirts on crypto, or to guard the public against the crime, money laundering, and human trafficking that crypto facilitates.

The crypto lobby says blockchain technology and digital assets will foster innovative companies, create new payment systems, strengthen small businesses, generate wealth, and expand opportunities for younger Americans.

Bullsh*t. There’s no evidence of these benefits. Even if crypto did any of these things, crypto’s costs and risks significantly exceed them.

Aren’t Trump’s crypto conflicts of interest evidence enough? Isn’t the Ponzi scheme he created sufficient proof of how many people will get snookered?

The CLARITY Act would narrow the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission over digital assets and give authority over crypto to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

This means investors will be shafted and the public will be left in the dark because of the lack of disclosures, the absence of fiduciary obligations, and the deficiency of investor safeguards. All these would apply under federal securities law, but none of these exist under laws governing futures contracts.

In other words, the CLARITY Act would give crypto even more cover. It would make crypto even more opaque. It would allow even more tax evasion, more money laundering, more fraud, more speculation, more ripoffs, and more crime.

I have no hope for Republican politicians. They’ve already sold their souls to Trump and the crypto lobby. But shame on any Democratic senator or representative who votes for this abomination.

It’s well worth your time to phone your senators and representative and tell them NO to the CLARITY Act. The congressional switchboard is (202) 224-3121. You can call this number to be directly connected to the office of your specific senators or representative.

The vote is next week. Please phone now.

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Friends,

Quietly and without any fanfare, the Trump regime is becoming a shareholder or profit-sharer in an array of corporations thought to be critical to the nation’s security.

For example, in one of the most remarkable turnarounds in corporate history, the U.S. chipmaker Intel’s shares have more than quadrupled in value since March 2025. The stock has surged 464 percent in the past 12 months, with the company hitting a market cap of $608.7 billion.

A year ago, Intel was on life support. Many predicted its death. What happened?Intel’s rebirth is partly due to the AI boom, which requires huge quantities of computer chips known as CPUs, which are Intel’s specialty.

But a far larger factor in Intel’s stunning resurgence has been the Trump regime’s direct interventions — not only into Intel but also into other tech corporations: Apple and the giant super-chip maker Nvidia.

The Trump regime has justified this on grounds of national security. But it’s socialism because the downside risks are broadly shared by the public.

Yet the upside the benefits go to the U.S. government and to top corporate investors and executives.

And it further centralizes power and control over key industries in Trump’s hands.

Call it national socialism.

In August 2025 — in one of the most audacious moves by any administration — the U.S. government converted $9 billion in federal grants to Intel into a 10 percent stake in the company, thereby becoming Intel’s single largest shareholder.

Can you imagine if the Obama administration had converted its bailouts of Wall Street, GM, and Stellantis into equity stakes in the big banks and automakers? Republicans would have been on rooftops hollering: Socialism! Communism!

But the Trump regime did the deal without so much as a Republican peep.

At about the same time, Apple CEO Tim Cook came to Washington, seeking to persuade the Trump regime to abandon its plan to impose tariffs of 100 percent on all semiconductor imports. The tariffs would have dramatically increased the cost of Apple’s iPhone and other products, which relied on imported semiconductors.

Apple eventually won an exemption to the semiconductor tariff, on one condition: Apple would work with Intel — it would commit to buying from Intel certain chips used for iPhones and Macs, use Intel’s manufacturing plants (or fabs) to make some of Apple’s chips, and collaborate with Intel on chip design and production.

Then in January, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, came to Washington seeking the Trump regime’s approval for Nvidia’s sales to China of its H200 chip for artificial intelligence.

Huang was desperate to get access to China’s giant and potentially lucrative market, but the sale would require an exemption to America’s policy of not selling or licensing to the Chinese our advanced AI technology, to minimize any risk to U.S. security.

Huang got what he was after, after agreeing to two conditions. First, the United States government would get 25 percent of all profits from Nvidia’s sales in China. Second, Nvidia would invest $5 billion in Intel and buy its custom data center chips. Huang called the deal a “historic” partnership.

This isn’t capitalism, folks. It’s government becoming the major shareholder of the biggest chip-making in America, then giving a tariff exemption to another key tech corporation on condition it buy the products of and collaborate with the first, and giving a national-security exemption to a third key tech company on condition it also buy the products of the first and give the government a portion of its sales in China.

And who the hell knows what Trump and Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce who spearheaded these deals, grabbed for themselves or their families along the way?

Trump’s national socialism doesn’t stop here. Under Trump, the U.S. government has also become the largest shareholder of MP Materials, which operates the only mine for rare earth minerals in the United States, after sinking $400 million of taxpayer dollars into the corporation.

And when Nippon Steel acquired U.S. Steel in June of 2025, it was announced that Trump would personally control the so-called “golden share” that his regime forced U.S. Steel to accept as part of the deal.

It’s ironic that Trump is berating the Democrats for electing and nominating a group of young people who call themselves democratic socialists when he’s been shifting the United States to national socialism.

Doubly ironic because Trump’s national socialism is making fortunes for a small group of top executives who were already fabulously wealthy, while the democratic socialists in the Democratic Party want to tax the wealthy to provide funds for better schools, better wages, and healthcare for all.

And Trump’s national socialism is concentrating ever more power in Trump’s hands. A whole new range of decisions is being made about the U.S. economy but without any congressional oversight or public knowledge. Which corporations get major infusions of taxpayer dollars in return for partial government ownership? Which get tariff exemptions and under what conditions? Which get exemptions to trade with China and under what conditions?

It’s all up to Trump and his lapdogs in the White House and at the Commerce Department. And it helps explain why corporate America will do whatever Trump asks, say whatever he wants, and obey whatever he demands.

The result is not unlike the world’s last big experiment with national socialism — in the 1930s, in Germany.

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