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The New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs tip off tonight in Las Vegas in one of the biggest sportwashing events of the year: the Emirates NBA Cup.
The United Arab Emirates would much rather have the eyes of the world focused on the global premier basketball league, rather than on Sudan, where it backs the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group that is accused of committing genocide.
The Emirates NBA Cup is an annual in-season tournament with all 30 teams that is pitched as a way to maintain fan interest in the early portion of the never-ending NBA season.
Each tournament game is played on custom courts emblazoned with the home team’s name and a depiction of the Emirates NBA Cup trophy. That’s great exposure for the UAE.
More than 12M Sudanese have been displaced by war and at least 150K people have been killed. Disease threatens 25M Sudanese.
In October, the RSF took over the city of El Fasher and launched a massacre of civilians.Reviewing satellite imagery, Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab found that the RSF “engaged in widespread and systematic mass killing in El-Fasher, North Darfur upon gaining total control of the city and surrounding area on 26 October 2025.”
It noted the RSF “engaged in a systematic multi-week campaign to destroy evidence of its mass killings through burial, burning, and removal of human remains on a mass scale.”
Speak Out on Sudan human rights group has been circulating a petition calling for making the Dec. 16 game the last Emirates NBA Cup
“By elevating the UAE brand as a symbol of excellence and victory, the NBA is polishing and protecting the UAE’s global image,” says the petition from SOS. “The NBA is letting itself be used as a pawn to distract people from what the UAE is doing in the world.”
Millionaire players on the Knicks and Spurs are in line for cash prizes of $530K or $212K, depending on which team wins the title. Quarterfinalists got $50K.
Some would call it blood money. Whatever it is called, the Emirates’ tie stains the name of the NBA. Has NBA commissioner Adam Silver no shame? Pull the plug.
How low can he possibly sink? Donald Trump’s Truth Social post that the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, was triggered by Trump Derangement Syndrome is sick and disgusting.
Bari Weiss’ “Free Press” ran an excellent editorial that noted there is no evidence that the killing was Trump-related, and that it is obscene for the president to try to make it into one.
Though Americans expect Trump to be petulant and self-centered, he still finds ways to shock us on occasion. “His statement on Reiner is exceptionally beneath the office he holds,” said the editorial.
During this age of political violence, the US could use more programming like “All in the Family.”
In that 1970s gem, Reiner played liberal foil to his conservative father-in-law, Archie Bunker. The point of the show was to show that the family members loved each other despite their political differences.
“Their disagreements became heated and Archie let the insults fly—'Meathead,' he called his son-in-law when they argued politics,” noted the editorial. “Still, the show recognized and respected their basic decency as Americans, and as human beings,” said the editorial.
Amen to that.
Costly hoax… Trump may believe climate change is a hoax but new research from the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management finds that global warming has reduced US income by about 12 percent.
The study takes a big-picture approach to climate change. Most research studies on climate change's impact look at local areas, and find a less than one percent loss of income.
The AU report links the various regions of the country. “The reason the effects get so much larger is that climate change operates through the whole economy,” said Derek Lemoine economics professor and lead author of the study.
He said places are linked through trade so temperatures in California or Iowa can influence income in Arizona. Those cross-state connections turn local weather changes into nationwide economic impacts.
Lemoine says his data gives a clearer picture on impacts on the the economy now, which is a shift from debates on what will happen 50 to 100 years in the future.
His study might also change the minds of some climate change skeptics.
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