JABbering Stooge

Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones has been hospitalized for an aneurysm. Cue the celebratory one-handed typing of the Malkin-bots, Freepers and L-dotters in 3…2…1…

Update (08/20/08, 19:27): MSNBC is now reporting that Rep. Tubbs Jones has succumbed to her illness. I would ask my readers (all two of you) to keep her family in your thoughts tonight.

Read Ian Welsh’s post at Firedoglake about the folly of admitting Georgia to NATO. Thanks to Bush and McRove (and McRove’s bought-and-paid-for Georgia lobbyist Randy Scheunemann), Condi’s alleged Russia expertise has suddenly become relevant again. The Cold War’s back on, baby!

Well, if we’re going to go all retro on foreign policy, then we may as well revive this classic of Cold War-era ridiculousness.

Famous last words. And yet that seems to be what Condi was saying when she refused to rule out giving soon-to-be-former Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf. We all know how well giving a Middle Eastern dictator asylum worked out the last time it was tried…

Only in America is this story possible:

Henry Cejudo’s uniquely American story started with a single mother who taught him what it meant to truly fight. His mother Nelly — an undocumented immigrant — moved him and his siblings several times chasing work and opportunity, scraping by, ensuring her kids got an education. And along the way, the family found a channel for both the tough resilience she modeled and the country they loved through the sport of freestyle wrestling.

And yet, if the likes of Stalkin’ Malkin, Neal Boortz or The Savage Weiner ever got their way, Henry Cejudo would be stripped of his citizenship, and America would be out another gold medal in the Olympics. If nothing else, think of the endorsement deals that American companies would be missing out on if that happened. So wingnuts are willing to harm our economy in order to keep Latinos from achieving the American dream. Lovely.

But that’s not all! The naked racism promoted in Greater Wingnuttia is preventing the NBA from hiring talent from certain parts of the Middle East:

A few NBA teams have reportedly reached out to Iranian basketball prospect Hamed Ehadadi to discuss a possible transfer to the United States. But, current federal law prohibits the teams from negotiating with Ehadadi:

• In the letter, which was sent Friday, NBA legal counsel wrote: “It has come to our attention that representatives of Hamed Ehadadi, an Iranian basketball player, may be contacting NBA teams to discuss the possibility of signing Mr. Ehadadi to an NBA player contract.

  “We have been advised that a federal statue (sic) prohibits a person or organization in the United States from engaging in business dealings with Iranian nationals.”

The NBA is applying to the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control for a license that, “if granted,” would allow teams to negotiate with Ehadadi.

So much for our efforts to make the game we invented a truly global phenomenon. Thanks, wingnut wankers!