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Japan’s Parliament Reclassifies Bitcoin and Crypto as Financial Assets Under FIEA

Japan’s parliament passed an amendment on Wednesday that reclassifies cryptocurrency as a “financial asset,” a shift that pulls bitcoin and other digital assets out of the country’s payments regime and into the framework that governs stocks, bonds, and investment trusts, according to a report from public broadcaster NHK [1]. The change strips crypto of its prior status under the Payment Services Act, where regulators treated it as a means of settlement, and folds it into the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA), the same statute that oversees traditional securities [2].

The change takes effect within a year, with a target of fiscal 2027, NHK reported [1]. The move brings digital assets under the same investor-protection standard as stocks and bonds, according to the report [1].

Details of the Regulatory Shift

The amendment strips crypto of its prior status under the Payment Services Act and folds it into FIEA, the statute overseeing traditional securities, according to NHK [1]. As financial instruments, crypto assets now fall under insider-trading rules that bar trading on non-public information about token listings, delistings, or technical incidents [3]. Exchanges face new disclosure obligations: platforms must publish data on each token’s issuer, blockchain design, and volatility profile, mirroring securities-firm reporting demands [1].

Penalties increase under the new law. The maximum prison term for unregistered crypto operators rises from three years to 10, while the top fine increases from 3 million yen to 10 million yen, according to reports [1]. The tougher enforcement “signals a move to treat crypto misconduct with the same severity as securities fraud,” the NHK report stated [1]. Regulators also gain broader market-surveillance authority over the sector, according to Ava Grace of NaturalNews.com [2]. The amendments address a regulatory gap that previously left investors vulnerable to abuses such as trading on advance knowledge, Grace wrote [2].

Implications for Bitcoin ETFs and Tax Treatment

The reclassification opens a path for spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds because FIEA governs the products that funds can hold, removing a structural barrier for Japanese asset managers, according to the NHK report [1]. Industry observers noted that the change could attract institutional capital that was previously blocked by regulatory ambiguity [1].

Lawmakers also approved a plan to cut the top tax rate on crypto gains from 55% to a flat 20% starting in 2028, tied to the 2026 Tax Reform Outline, the report stated [1]. The reduction matches the tax rate on stock gains, officials said [1].

Broader Context and Industry Response

The reforms arrive as Japan accelerates a broader Web3 push, user accounts on Japanese exchanges have grown, and domestic crypto firms are positioning for a wider base of retail investors, according to local media [1]. Regulators are weighing reserve requirements for exchanges that resemble buffers held by securities firms, the reports said [1]. The vote marks a decisive turn toward legitimacy for an industry that has long viewed Japan as an early and cautious mover, according to industry observers [1].

The regulatory approach aligns with Japan’s history of providing a framework that encourages cryptocurrency adoption while protecting consumers, as noted in the book “Cryptocurrency QuickStart Guide” [5]. The same source stated that countries like Japan have implemented frameworks that encourage cryptocurrency development [5]. At the same time, the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies — operating on a peer-to-peer network without a central authority — challenges traditional regulatory mechanisms [4]. Japan’s stance on privacy tokens has been restrictive, as it has banned privacy tokens altogether, according to Shermin Voshmgir in “Token Economy” [6].

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DNC and ActBlue Funnel Millions Through Sketchy Payroll Firm Sued by Workers for Withholding Pay and Punishing Parental Leave

The same Democrat Party that endlessly lectures American businesses about “workers’ rights” is funneling millions of dollars in payroll expenditures through a company accused by former employees of withholding wages and retaliating against workers who took family or medical leave.

Libs of TikTok brought renewed attention to the scandal Thursday, writing:

“The DNC and ActBlue are running all their payments through a sketchy payroll company who were SUED by multiple employees for allegedly withholding pay.”

The payroll vendor is Rippling, a San Francisco-based human-resources and payroll software company operated by People Center, Inc.

According to a Washington Free Beacon investigation citing Federal Election Commission records, the Democratic National Committee and ActBlue processed approximately $23.3 million in payroll expenditures through Rippling during the 2026 election cycle.

The records reportedly show that the DNC and ActBlue began using Rippling during the second quarter of 2025.

But behind the Democrat money machine is a growing stack of disturbing employee allegations.

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AI Is the Apex of Ultra-Processed Life

We are Superman strapped to a carefully machined chunk of Kryptonite we can no longer detach.

I wrote Ultra-Processed Life to describe a peculiarly perverse structure of control that now dominates our entire culture and way of life: what’s presented as marvelously beneficial to both sellers and buyers / leaders and the citizenry is actually only beneficial to the sellers / leaders while it actively degrades and deranges the buyers / citizens.

The essential dynamic of Ultra-Processed Life is to channel us into realms where the choices are limited to whatever benefits the sellers at the expense of the buyers. This artificial, synthetic realm is presented as brimming with authentic choice and agency, when in fact it’s purposefully designed to be a choiceless illusion of choice.

What was once authentic has been hollowed out and been replaced by a simulation of what was once authentic, a simulation that mimics what has been hollowed out to persuade us that what’s presented to us–an artificial, synthetic simulation–is real, because if we believe this artifice the seller reaps immense profits while we suffer the consequences of an artificial, house-of-mirrors realm of anxiety and distraction.

So the sellers present an orange-dyed confection of potato starch that is devoid of any nutritional value as a “veggie snack” replacement for an actual carrot loaded with nutrients and fiber. The sellers of ultra-processed snacks and glop make billions of dollars in profits while the consumers who were conned into believing the unwholesome snack was a “healthy alternative” become ill, mentally and physically.

Then another set of sellers channels those made ill by Ultra-Processed Life into another false-choice realm in which the sellers reap billions in profits not by curing illnesses but by addicting consumers to meds they must take for life.

In the political realm, no matter who we vote for, life gets more expensive, precarious and totalitarian: protections for consumers and citizens are reduced to benefit the few at the expense of the many, and choiceless choices abound–two insurers that offer the same simulations of actual insurance, two big-box stores filled with the same low-quality products, and two service providers offering the same maddening AI-generated endless loops of misery that’s laughably presented as “customer service.”

Privatized totalitarianism expands without limits: our data is harvested and sold (you “opted in” by using the platform), we’re banned or shadow-banned by black-box-algorithmic private monopolies (you violated the shape-shifting “community standards” that have remarkable overlap with whatever the government is presenting as “the correct choice”), and all this is presented–cue the laugh track–as “free market capitalism” and “individual choice” when it’s actually a Kafkaesque facade masking the reality that the entire system is the opposite of what’s being sold: it’s not authentic, it’s fake. It’s not progress, it’s Anti-Progress. It’s not beneficial to us, it’s malefic, and it’s not actual agency-liberty, it’s a profitable simulation that we sense but can’t quite identify because it’s everywhere.

Which brings us to AI, the apex of technological hype and Ultra-Processed Life. Beneath AI’s oh-so-helpful prompts and sickly-sweet affirmations, it erodes our ability to even recognize our own loss of autonomy and independent thinking. The core traits of Ultra-Processed Life–the erosion of authenticity and the substitution of artificial, synthetic simulations that are immensely profitable to those selling the simulations–are the core dynamic of generative AI.

The ultimate totalitarian structure of control isn’t a police state; it’s the helpful servant who does everything for you so you lose touch with the real world of choices and consequences. Most importantly, we lose the ability to discern that all the servant’s choices just so happen to profit the few in control of the helpful servant system at the expense of those delighted by the convenience and ease of the helpful servant doing all the thinking and making all the decisions–not directly, of course, because we might notice that, but by limiting our options to choiceless choices that all yield the same output.

As our mental and physical health spirals into a black hole of addiction, dependencies, anxiety and distraction, we’re powerless to discern the spiral because we turn to our helpful servant for answers. The helpful servant assures us all is well, we’re remarkably intelligent and grounded, and there’s a pat answer for everything.

All of which is false, but it relieves our anxiety to hear these assurances. And so we distract ourselves with dopamine-stimulating media and consumption, buy-buy-buy, as the core mechanism of Ultra-Processed Life is transactional: buyer and seller meet in a faceless, frictionless transaction that triggers some dopamine hit of novelty or illusion of value, selfhood and agency: I’m somebody because I bought something.

Meanwhile, the relationships underpinning a healthy life and society are unraveling. The endless aisles of Ultra-Processed snacks, frozen glop, canned glop and sugar-water beverages are an analogy for the endless aisles of media-slop and the 24/7 “news” which is so ultra-processed that it is now resistant to parody–there’s no way to parody what is already a self-parody.

The term social engineering has a disturbing sound, because it suggests that the “free market” and “individual agency” are perhaps more profitable facades than they are real-world experiences. For this is the destructive heart of Ultra-Processed Life: we sense something’s off about the constant state of hyper-everything anxiety, precarity, uncertainty and dopamine-receptor exhaustion we experience, and we sense the disconnect from what we experience and what we’re told we should be experiencing: the endless bliss of Progress and Prosperity.

This disconnect has a name: the politics of experience. We’re constantly bombarded with contexts, prompts, agendas, narratives and signifiers persuading us that the artificial, the fake, the simulated, the facsimile, the mimicry, is all real, and we’re the ones who are at fault for experiencing something other than what we’re told “everyone else is experiencing.”

But this too is misdirection, because in reality, everyone else is experiencing what we’re experiencing, the disconnect, the anxiety, the solace of distraction and buying something, but they’re trying to believe the artifice because facing the reality of our disconnect from ourselves and the real world is too disturbing, for Ultra-Processed Life has eroded our ability to trust our own experience as superior to what’s presented in the house-of-mirrors Mouse Utopia we inhabit.

It’s also disturbing for another reason: the only way to return to authentic experience, autonomy and agency is to go Cold Turkey and turn it all off. And of course the ability to do so is what Ultra-Processed Life and its most powerful handmaiden, AI, disables: we are Superman strapped to a carefully machined chunk of Kryptonite we can no longer detach.

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Spanish Minister Fuels Blame Toward Israel for Ceuta Crisis After Israeli U.N. Ambassador Criticizes Madrid

Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente fueled online claims blaming Israel for Spain’s migrant crisis in the North African enclave of Ceuta on Friday after Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon criticized Madrid’s handling of the border emergency, escalating an already tense diplomatic dispute between Jerusalem and Spain.

The exchange followed Danon’s criticism of Spain after Madrid declared a state of emergency and deployed military forces to Ceuta following an unprecedented surge of migrants crossing into the Spanish enclave from neighboring Morocco. Puente’s cryptic response helped fuel conspiracy theories circulating on Spanish social media alleging Israel — and in some cases the United States — was behind the crisis.

Danon accused Spain of hypocrisy as Madrid struggled to contain one of Europe’s largest recent illegal migration surges.

“Spain, which never misses an opportunity to lecture Israel, has declared a state of emergency in Ceuta following the crisis over its immigration policy,” Danon wrote on X.

“Maybe before it continues lecturing us, it’s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa,” he added, referring to the Spanish territories of Ceuta and Melilla on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast.

Puente, one of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s most outspoken ministers on social media, reposted Danon’s remarks on X and added only: “Well, things are starting to become quite clear.”

While the minister did not elaborate, Spanish media widely interpreted the post as lending credibility to online claims blaming Israel for the migrant crisis.

Those claims spread rapidly after several Spanish politicians and commentators alleged Israel was seeking to retaliate against Sánchez’s government over its criticism of Jerusalem’s war against Hamas, while others suggested the United States also stood to benefit politically from instability in Spain. No public evidence was presented supporting those allegations.

Among those advancing similar claims were commentator Carolina Alonso, who alleged Israel was attempting to undermine Sánchez’s government through Morocco; Spanish lawmaker Gabriel Rufián, who argued the migration crisis was serving American and Israeli interests; journalist José Vizner, who questioned whether the crisis represented “revenge” against Sánchez; and commentator Rubén Gisbert, who argued Morocco’s posture toward Ceuta and Melilla shifted as Spain adopted increasingly hostile positions toward Israel.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry quickly distanced itself from Danon’s remarks.

Israeli Chargé d’Affaires Dana Erlich wrote on X that Israel was “closely monitoring the situation in Ceuta,” but stressed that “the comment made by Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. on the issue does not represent the position of the State of Israel.”

The diplomatic dispute unfolded as Spain confronted its worst migration crisis in Ceuta since 2021 after Spanish officials said roughly 49,000 migrants crossed into the North African enclave from Morocco in less than 24 hours.

Videos circulating online showed migrants swimming around border barriers, using inner tubes to reach Spanish territory, and forcing their way through land crossings as local authorities struggled to respond.

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FCC Chair Brendan Carr Exposes ‘The View’ by Posting Video Montage of the Hosts Basically Campaigning for the Democrats

For months now, a battle has been raging between Trump’s FCC and ABC News/Disney, the owners of the daytime talk show ‘The View.’

ABC News claims that ‘The View’ is a legitimate news show, a claim that is preposterous at best, while the FCC argues that it’s not a news show.

The argument is important because the decision ultimately governs what the show is and is not allowed to do.

In a way, it’s amazing that this debate is even taking place. The View is easily the most anti-Trump and anti-Republican show on network television.

Anyone who watches the show even once knows this if they possess average intelligence.

Now, Trump’s FCC chief Brendan Carr has posted a video to Twitter/X which shows the hosts of The View basically campaigning for the Democrats.

Breitbart News reports:

Federal Communications chief Brendan Carr posted a montage video to social media of some of ABC daytime talk show The View’s most biased, left-wing chatter and electioneering for Democrats as the agency considers whether the show has broken federal equal time rules.

Carr posted the video on Thursday and wrote that, “Disney is arguing to the FCC that its ABC show The View is a ‘bona fide news program.’”

“Disney claims that its decisions are based on “newsworthiness”—rather than partisan purposes—and thus exempt from political equal time rules,” he added to the video post.

“The FCC will make its decision based on all relevant evidence and precedents,” he concluded on his July 30 X post.

The video shows various members of The View’s panel advocating exclusively for the Democrat Party and denigrating Republicans.

Still, in other comments Carr also said that he does not view the FCC as the “speech police.”

Appearing recently on The Conversation podcast, hosted by POLITICO’s Dasha Burns, Carr said that his job is to apply the laws Congress has passed.

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Massachusetts Senate Passes Bill to Allow Late-Term Abortions, Sends to Governor’s Desk

The Democrat-dominated Massachusetts state Senate passed a late-term abortion bill on Friday and sent it to Gov. Maura Healey’s (D) desk for approval. 

The bill, called “An Act Prioritizing Patient Access to Care” or H.5595, would ultimately allow unborn babies to be aborted throughout pregnancy in the state and would strike down the state’s current 24-week limit, which has exceptions for the life of the mother and a deadly fetal diagnosis. Under the bill, doctors would have the discretion to decide whether or not to perform a late-term abortion, the Washington Post reported. 

“While this legislation prioritizes access, it does not prioritize a woman’s safety,” Myrna Maloney Flynn, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, said in a video encouraging supporters to tell lawmakers to vote against the bill. 

If Healey signs the law, Massachusetts will become one of nearly a dozen places in the U.S. that allows abortions throughout pregnancy. Alaska, Vermont, Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan, Maryland, New Jersey, and Washington, DC, have no gestational limits on abortion, according to Abortion Finder. 

The state House passed the bill last week 119-33. State Rep. Alyson Sullivan-Almeida (R) said after the vote that it was a “very sad day in the commonwealth of Massachusetts.” 

“The precedent that we’re setting is that a mother can get an abortion up until the moment of birth for a healthy, viable baby,” Sullivan-Almeida said.

“This is a significant change to the law to expand what is already an extremely progressive abortion policy in Massachusetts,” state Rep. Joseph McKenna (R) added at the time.

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Justice Carl Thibault upholds Quebec’s Covid curfew despite finding it violated Charter rights

The Quebec Superior Court has dismissed an appeal challenging Quebec’s controversial COVID-19 curfew, ruling that while the unprecedented measure violated several Charter rights, those infringements were justified under the Constitution because of the pandemic.

In a decision released July 29, Justice Carl Thibault upheld a lower court ruling involving Stéphanie Pépin, who was ticketed on January 9, 2021, after police stopped her while she was driving to attend a peaceful protest against Quebec’s newly imposed nighttime curfew.

Quebec was the only province in Canada to impose a province-wide curfew during the pandemic. Residents were barred from leaving their homes between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m., with fines ranging from $1,000 to $6,000 for violations. The curfew remained in force until May 28, 2021, before being reintroduced from December 31, 2021, to January 17, 2022.

According to evidence presented in court, roughly 46,000 pandemic-related tickets were issued in Quebec between September 2020 and October 2021, including approximately 22,500 curfew tickets, representing an estimated $30 million in fines.

Justice Thibault agreed with the trial judge that the curfew infringed Ms. Pépin’s rights to liberty, freedom of expression, and freedom of peaceful assembly under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court also acknowledged that peaceful political demonstrations held during curfew hours were effectively prohibited because they were not exempted under the regulations.

However, the court concluded those infringements were justified under Section 1 of the Charter, finding the curfew was rationally connected to the government’s objective of slowing Covid-19 transmission and protecting the healthcare system. Justice Thibault emphasized that courts should exercise restraint when reviewing emergency public health decisions made during an unprecedented crisis.

During the original 2023 trial, constitutional lawyer Olivier Séguin cross-examined Quebec’s former National Director of Public Health, Dr. Horacio Arruda, and his strategic medical adviser, Dr. Richard Massé. Both acknowledged the curfew was intended not only to reduce virus transmission but also to reinforce compliance with other public health measures and send a strong message to the public.

“The Court again recognized that Quebec’s Covid curfew infringed fundamental Charter freedoms,” Séguin said following the ruling. “The central question was whether those infringements were justified during a public health emergency.”

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which funded the litigation, said its lawyers are reviewing the judgment to determine whether to seek further appellate review.

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There Were Thousands Of Faucis

Imagine if we could read all of their pandemic diaries.

Imagine if we could compare all of their public pronouncements to their private knowledge.

Anthony Fauci is a bad person, and he should face profoundly ugly accountability for his duplicity and cruelty. But also, they all should.

Officials and public health “experts,” generally and worldwide, did all of the same things Fauci did, believing one thing but officially declaring something else. Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl voted to order the closure of all restaurants in the county, declaring that it was too dangerous to even allow people to dine outdoors, then left that very meeting and went to dinner at Il Forno in Santa Monica on the last night they were allowed to be open. Of course, she wasn’t alone in condemning restaurant dining while cheerfully enjoying the very same activity.

Imagine if you could read Gavin Newsom’s pandemic diary, for crying out loud.

In Australia, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews imposed the harshest, longest lockdowns in the world, in a country that relentlessly brutalized people who didn’t wear masks. Andrews ridiculed and demeaned people who didn’t want to wear masks, using his authority to attack the citizens he was supposed to be serving.

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Anthony Fauci’s Private Diary and Emails Show He Knew Lockdowns Failed

ometimes you learn that people are exactly who you think they are.

And that may never apply more accurately and comprehensively than it does with Anthony Fauci.

Fauci was portrayed, starting in early 2020, as an objective, brilliant, virtually infallible God-like figure.

He was the voice of opposition to President Donald Trump, a clear-eyed force of evidence-driven policy, contrasting with the evil Trump who didn’t “listen to the science.”

That’s not an exaggeration; there were Christmas tree ornaments made depicting Fauci as a Pope, there were shrines put up in people’s houses, he was on the cover of various magazines, and he was given a parade of endless, relentlessly glowing media appearances from his fawning, adoring fans. Fans like CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.

For most critics it was clear almost immediately that these portrayals and friendly media appearances depicted the exact opposite of reality.

Fauci was a narcissist. Someone who enjoyed the attention, power, and influence he now unexpectedly wielded. He was unimaginably arrogant, unwilling to listen to new evidence if it contradicted what he wanted to believe, as well as someone who apparently thought himself a virtually infallible, God-like figure.

Well, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) over the weekend released a series of diary entries, emails, and inside information from Fauci himself and it turns out that the critics were more dead on than they could have ever imagined.

There are so many humiliating, embarrassing, discrediting revelations from the emails and diary entries that many are still compiling them. Combing through the list of statements that he made privately, in direct contradiction to his public pronouncements, could be a full time job. For weeks.

But let’s highlight a few, revisit what he said, and explain what it all means.

One of Fauci’s most heinous legacies was the strong push for lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates. Those three policies were and remain significant contributors to many of the negative outcomes resulting from our response to the Covid pandemic.

School closures set back an entire generation of children.

Lockdowns led to governments printing money to allow people to stay home, setting off a spiral of runaway inflation that is still not under control.

And masks permanently damaged millions of people, from schoolchildren forced to wear them, to hospital workers who are now indefinitely required to mask in healthcare settings unnecessarily, or for those who continue to mask out of irrational fear and effective propaganda.

Many of these policies can be traced directly back to Anthony Fauci. And now we have proof of just how inept and incompetent his recommendations were, and how dishonest he was, as it became clear he’d failed.

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Can Dr. Fauci Still Be Held Accountable?

Sen. Rand Paul, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, announced that his panel will hold a vote next week on whether to certify Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after Fauci refused to answer questions at his high‑profile hearing. During Wednesday’s hearing, Fauci, appearing under subpoena, repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self‑incrimination, declining to respond to more than 90 questions about issues including the destruction of federal records and the origins of COVID‑19.

Paul argued that Fauci’s reliance on the Fifth is “unsupported” because former President Joe Biden granted him a broad pardon for potential federal offenses between 2014 and early 2025, and said the committee would move forward with a contempt resolution despite the claimed privilege. At the hearing, Paul pressed Fauci on whether he had destroyed emails or other records during the period covered by the pardon, emphasizing that Fauci would face no federal criminal jeopardy for truthful answers but still refused to respond on counsel’s advice which raised questions.

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