Ted Cruz, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Join Forces to Criticize NBA’s China Cowardice | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This informational nugget was sent to me by Ben Shapiro, who represents the Daily Wire, and since this is one of the most topical news events, it should be published on BCN.

The author of this post is Emily Zanotti .


    It's not often a bipartisan coalition forms naturally around an issue, but the NBA's unqualified capitulation to Chinese Communists has managed to bring together perhaps the most mis-matched group of legislators in a decade.

    In this case, that shocking bi-partisan team involves Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Tom Cotton (R-AK), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) - not exactly a group that enjoys a robust friendship.

    In a two-page letter to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, the group excoriates the league's decision to issue an unqualified apology to Chinese officials after Houston Rockets manager, Daryl Morey, sent a single public Tweet expressing support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.

    Over the weekend, both the NBA and Morey groveled at the feet of the Chinese Communists in order to save a business relationship between the league and the global superpower, and followed up its public capitulation with a series of bizarre antics, censoring fans who brought signs, wore tee shirts, or started chants supporting the Hong Kong demonstrators opposing Chinese incursion.

    The group pulled no punches.

    "It is outrageous that the Chinese Communist Party is using its economic power to suppress the speech of American inside the United States. It is also outrageous that the NBA has caved to Chinese government demands for contrition," the group writes.

    "Hundreds of millions of people within China will read your statements as an admission that their government's propaganda is correct; millions of people in Hong Kong will be dispirited," they continue. "That you have more potential fans in China than in Hong Kong is no excuse for being over backwards to express 'sensitivity' only to one side."

    The letter goes on to suggest that the NBA is hypocritical for its stance on Morey's statements, since it has openly encouraged its players to express controversial opinions before - though largely on domestic issues, not foreign ones. Cracking down here, the group says, is an attack on "fundamental American values."

    When the league inked its deals with China, the group argues, they should have anticipated that some day China might be offended by something said by a player or administrator in the league, and pledged to defend their own, even if it meant losing cash in the process. Instead, the NBA has paved the way for the Chinese to use economic means to censor Americans' protected speech.

    The Members of Congress make four demands on the NBA: that the NBA will reiterate its commitment to being "hands off" when it comes to the political beliefs of its players and administrators, that the NBA will cease doing business with the Chinese until the Chinese drop their boycott of NBA activities, that the NBA will re-evaluate its operations in China (including operating its training facility for Chinese players in Xianjiang, just a stone's throw from where China is operating huge concentration camps for ethnic Chinese Muslims), and "clarify" that players and administrators are allowed to speak out on human rights abuses at home and abroad.

    The NBA has yet to respond, probably because its still figuring out what to do about its lost Chinese connection. So far, China has dropped its commitment to host a handful of planned pre-season exhibition NBA games and says it will end NBA broadcasts in-country.

    NBA players like Steph Curry, who refused to speak on the subject during an interview yesterday, also have multi-million dollar sponsorship contracts with corporations like Nike and Reebok, who sell billions of dollars worth of goods inside China and don't want their own economic interests harmed.
Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )




Tulsi Warns She’ll Boycott Debate Over DNC Attempt to ‘Rig’ Primary Again Guest Editorial, Editorials, Op-Ed & Politics John Locke Foundation: Prudent Policy / Impeccable Research - Volume CDLXXI


HbAD0

Latest Op-Ed & Politics

most voters think EU officials not doing a good job on illegal immigration
Be careful what you wish for, you may get it
Come from behind by GOP candidate is a blueprint to 2024
Biden spending and energy policies to blame
Tuberculosis carried by illegal invaders has already infected Texas cattle

HbAD1

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said this week that the only campaign promise President Joe Biden has delivered on as president is the complete dismantling of the U.S. southern border.
Hamas is reeling after losing two of their most cherished leaders on the same day: military commander Saleh al-Arouri, and Harvard President Claudine Gay.
President Joe Biden’s brother told the Internal Revenue Service that Hunter Biden told him he was in business with a “protege of President Xi,” referring to the leader of China, according to notes by an IRS investigator that were divulged during a congressional interview of Jim Biden.
Gov. Roy Cooper seeks a temporary restraining order to block a law changing the composition of the State Board of Elections.
X owner Elon Musk mocked a news segment from ABC News this week that promoted President Joe Biden’s talking points about the Democrat-led Senate’s failed border bill, which critics and many experts have said would make the situation on the border worse.
That’s the question Marguerite Roza of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab sought to answer in a recent webinar on the topic.

HbAD2

The University of Florida has fired all of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) employees and shut down its DEI office.

HbAD3

 
Back to Top