Mickelson’s remarks about the proposed Saudi-backed golf league that would rival the PGA Tour came in an interview with author Alan Shipnuck, whose book, "Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar," is scheduled for a May release. [snip]

"They’re scary motherf------ to get involved with," Mickelson reportedly said. "We know they killed [Washington Post reporter Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.

"They’ve been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse. As nice a guy as [PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan] comes across as, unless you have leverage, he won’t do what’s right. And the Saudi money has finally given us that leverage. I’m not sure I even want [the Saudi golf league] to succeed, but just the idea of it is allowing us to get things done with the [PGA] Tour."

When the prepared congressional testimony of a senior administration official was circulated inside the White House in recent weeks, it included a passage tying inflation to corporate consolidation and monopoly power.

That language was eventually taken out of the remarks before they were delivered. Members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers had raised objections to the idea that a spike in prices was due to corporate power, according to two people aware of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fears of professional reprisals.

The alteration of the testimony highlights the tensions within the administration over whether the White House should blame corporate consolidation and monopoly power for price hikes. Some officials in the White House National Economic Council believe the administration could more aggressively advance that argument, and Democratic pollsters have told the White House that a populist economic message on corporate greed and prices broadly resonates with voters.

But economists inside the administration, particularly at the CEA, are uncomfortable with the push. “It’s been the war of the ‘track changes’ inside the administration over how much the White House can lean in on the extent to which competition and greed are driving inflation,” said one person briefed on the internal dynamics, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of professional reprisals.

There have been only a few instances of a president’s seeing his party’s position in Congress improve in a midterm election. Yet, remarkably, one such moment did occur during the Great Depression. In the midterm election year of 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt put the blame for hard times on self-serving speculators, greedy bankers, and profiteering CEOs. Said FDR, “The fault lies with Wall Street.”

Instead of letting corporate spin form the narrative of the Great Depression and the New Deal response to it, Roosevelt used his 1934 State of the Union address to speak “of those individuals who have evaded the spirit and purpose of our tax laws, of those high officials of banks or corporations who have grown rich at the expense of their stockholders or the public, of those reckless speculators with their own or other people’s money whose operations have injured the values of the farmers’ crops and the savings of the poor.”

Throughout 1934, FDR never let up when it came to calling out speculators, monopolists, and price gougers. He promised that New Deal Democrats with increased congressional majorities would hold the bad actors to account. Voters approved. In November, they gave Democrats nine more seats in the House and nine more in the Senate, where the party achieved a rare supermajority.

Harry Litman @harrylitman
Had a chance now to read the 112-page opinion saying civil case by Swalwell et al can go forward against Trump. This one is potentially even worse for him than the NY action.
3:24 PM · Feb 19, 2022

(CNN) Civil lawsuits seeking to hold Donald Trump accountable for the January 6, 2021, insurrection can move forward in court, a federal judge said Friday in a ruling outlining how the former President could conceivably be responsible for inciting the attack on the US Capitol.

Trump's statements to his supporters before the riot "is the essence of civil conspiracy," Judge Amit Mehta wrote in a 112-page opinion, because Trump spoke about himself and rallygoers working "towards a common goal" of fighting and walking down Pennsylvania Avenue.

"The President's January 6 Rally Speech can reasonably be viewed as a call for collective action," Mehta said.

Democratic members of the House and police officers who defended the US Capitol on January 6 sued Trump last year, claiming he prompted his supporters to attack. Friday, Mehta wrote that the three lawsuits could move to the evidence-gathering phase and toward a trial -- a major loss in court for Trump. [more]

Ahead of today’s casting of electoral votes in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, supporters of President Trump gathered Saturday at marches and prayer rallies to “stop the steal.” At the main “Jericho March” in Washington, D.C., the crowd heard from speakers such as General Michael Flynn, Christian author Eric Metaxas, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

The event, using the theme “Let the Church ROAR,” protested voting fraud, though allegations have so far proved unfounded in court. Marchers circled the Capitol seven times, organizers said, “to send a very clear message to national and state leaders as they hear patriots and people of faith roar in support of election integrity, transparency, and reform.” [snip]

Other notable happenings included the blowing of the “Trump Shofar,” prayers of deliverance from a self-described exorcist, a pastor who denounced witchcraft and Marxism, and a pastor who told listeners they were soldiers preparing for “the final mission to ending this high treason.” Several speakers solicited donations for the cause. [more]

The Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a noted QAnon-adjacent radical traditionalist Catholic...

It was a packed house at the Depot for Thursday’s GOP meeting. Every seat in the meeting room was filled, leaving supporters to spill out onto the floor and into the hallway. Though there was a bit of business to be handled and several candidates announcing their intention to run in state races, the real stars of the show were gubernatorial candidate Dr. Kandiss Taylor and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Taylor is looking to appeal to 14th district voters with a tenet featured broadly on her website — Jesus, guns, and babies. Also featuring prominently was the idea of integrity in government. “No compromise, not one time,” said Taylor. “No backroom deals, no money.” A Jan. 26 poll by Quinnipiac University Poll shows Taylor trailing Kemp four percent to forty-three.

In its quest to create a global biometric identification system to span both public and private sectors, Clearview has signed paid contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, and Macy’s, according to the document obtained by BuzzFeed News. The company has credentialed users at the FBI, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Interpol, and hundreds of local police departments. In doing so, Clearview has taken a flood-the-zone approach to seeking out new clients, providing access not just to organizations, but to individuals within those organizations — sometimes with little or no oversight or awareness from their own management. [snip]

Clearview’s client list also extends to the American education system, with more than 50 educational institutions across 24 states named in the log. Among them are two high schools. [snip]

More than 200 companies have Clearview accounts, according to the documents, including major stores like Kohl’s and Walmart and banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America. While some of these entities have formal contracts with Clearview, the majority — as with public sector entities — appear to have only used the facial recognition software on free trials. [snip]

For a company that maintains its tools are for law enforcement, Clearview’s client list includes a startling number of private companies in industries like entertainment (Madison Square Garden and Eventbrite), gaming (Las Vegas Sands and Pechanga Resort Casino), sports (the NBA), fitness (Equinox), and even cryptocurrency (Coinbase). [snip]

The company’s client list ... shows that Clearview AI has expanded to at least 26 countries outside the US, engaging national law enforcement agencies, government bodies, and police forces in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, India, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. [more]