¶“It’s a steady drumbeat of potential flashpoints heading into (the) Trump-Xi summit planned for September,” said Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the New America think tank focused on Chinese technology policies.

¶So we’ve banned, partially or completely, Chinese communications and networking gear (Huawei), EV’s, drones (DJI), and now humanoid and quadraped robots. Do these bans reflect legitimate national security concerns or efforts to protect, and perhaps prop-up, second-place companies in these new industries? Or are they merely bargaining chips? We may learn more when Chinese President Xi visits the United States this fall.

¶The plan would see FIFA set up a new entity, called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), that would bundle all the money-making operations associated with the soccer World Cup — including broadcast rights, sponsorship, ticket sales and licensing fees — and sell a significant stake in the new operation to private investors. FIFA is valuing the new commercial venture at around $20 billion.

¶After news of the plan broke on Tuesday, FIFA confirmed it is working with U.S. investment bank JP Morgan to set up the new entity. Thrive Capital, an investment company founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, is leading the search for investors.

¶And there it is.

¶My soccer fandom is nascent at best, so I’ll leave the debate over whether FIFA should seek investment to those more familiar with the sport and its management and governance.

¶But putting the Trump-Kushner fingerprints on the game? Disgusting.

¶The grift knows no bounds.

¶It is the inefficiencies of British and European football clubs’ day-to-day operations that particularly excite American businesspeople, sports finance analysts told CNBC.

¶Clubs are traditionally run with fans in mind, and typically, most are loss-making entities. Revenue maximization has rarely been the priority of British teams.

¶Do you want your team’s owner to chase profitability or championships? That’s a relevant question for the professional sports I’ve followed for years (MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA). Sounds like it’s relevant in soccer, too. My teams tend to worry more about the former than the latter, unfortunately.

¶He said that Americans need to “assume the person with whom you disagree loves this country every bit as much as you do,” adding that he will never convince his more liberal colleague Justice Sonia Sotomayor to become an originalist or a textualist, nor will she convince him to abandon those analytical approaches.

¶“I know she loves this country,” Gorsuch said. “She knows I love this country. We know we’re coming at it from the right place internally. And then we sit down” and talk.

¶I agree. Completely, actually. But this won’t happen, and likely can’t, until we find common American ground on which to stand. Justices Gorsuch and Sotomayor have that in the law and the legal system. The American People need something that provides common ground. Right now, it feels like we’re still searching for it.

¶To get started with Hint, users enter their home address, and the app builds a profile of the home from public data, like property records, weather and soil information, utilities, and more. Users can then upload documents, like inspection reports, home warranties, mortgage documents, contracts, insurance policies, invoices, and more.

¶Then, homeowners upload photos of the home’s major appliances, which allows the app to guide you through any “how to” questions or other maintenance tasks.

¶The iOS app is currently available for free without subscriptions or ads. “We want it to be in the hands of every homeowner in the country,” says Rush.

¶(emphasis added)

¶So, the model for Martha Stewart’s new app seems to be “Give us all your home-related documents and photos of your appliances and we’ll remind you when it’s time to change your furnace filter. For free!”

¶Got it.

¶Remember, “if we don’t pay for the product, dear colleagues—we are the product.” For another early use of “the internet-age dictum” regarding free products, see the essay, “You are the Product”, by the British journalist and novelist John Lanchester in the London Review of Books.