Of the major sports, the NBA had become my favorite. Note the past tense.
I understand that large corporations want to work with China because China is a gold mine for them. I'm a capitalist, and trying to balance making money and the need to work with bad actors. And I don't expect the owners and players in the NBA to give up that money because China is Imprisoning millions of Uighurs and violently attacking protesters in Hong Kong.
But I expect them to stand up for their own people's right to speak out.
Daryl Morey wasn't trying to change the world- he just supported the Hong Kong protests with his tweet. And China got upset and told the NBA to jump. And the NBA said 'how high?'
To be fair- Adam Silver said China told the NBA to fire Morey, and they haven't. But seeing the NBA bow down to China- after making such a spectacle of using their fame as a soapbox on so many issues- is really unpleasant.
So, instead of giving you NBA predictions- or even caring about the sport- here's a picture to show you who is calling the shots in the NBA:
(Fair warning: This is a political post. I speak for no one but myself. I welcome debate and disagreement)
"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."- Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science.
From everything I've read about President Trump's call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, it's skeevy as hell. President Trump all but tied Ukraine getting some anti-tank weapons to him investigating Hunter Biden, son of the former Vice President.
It reeks of corruption, no matter the circumstances. No matter what Biden did, President Trump crossed a few lines and basically implied he'd leave an ally in trouble if Ukraine didn't help him politically.
Have other Presidents done worse? I believe it. Doesn't matter.
Is it impeachable? Anything is impeachable if Congress will Impeach over it.
But here's my thought- Congress is going for the Impeachment because they think that is the only weapon they have to contain the President.
Investigations don't stop Trump. Congress cannot or will not pass legislation to stop his agenda. They could always threaten to cut the funding- but that shuts down the government.
In the mind of Congress, Impeachment is the only tool they have. And following Maslow's saying, when Impeachment is your only tool, everything you don't like becomes impeachable.
The problem is- this won't end with when Donald Trump leaves the Presidency. Congress has become more and more impotent over the past generations, no matter which party controls the House or Senate. When Congress is in the control of the same Party as the President, they rubber-stamp the President's agenda. When Congress is controlled by the other party, they... don't do anything. They never pass their own agenda, and the President merrily chugs along, running things through the executive branch.
I don't think this is a party problem- it happens when the Democrats or when the Republicans win elections. But if it doesn't change- if Congress doesn't start regaining some of the power and control they've lost over the past century- we're going to see Impeachments every time the House is a different party than the President.
This isn't healthy for the country.
