Disqualified

by Errington C. Thompson, MD –

As far as I know, the most famous and ruthless gangster of all time was Al Capone.

In the movie The Untouchables, a disloyal mob lieutenant was beaten to death with a baseball bat by none other than Al Capone. So I feel pretty confident that if I had spit in Al Capone’s Cheerios there would be some serious and harsh consequences, like my death.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner chief, did exactly that to Vladimir Putin. Several months ago, Prigozhin took his army of mercenaries and marched to Moscow. This was a coup attempt. He faced little or no resistance. Then, suddenly, just hours from Moscow, he turned the convoy around and announced that the conflict had been resolved.

What? We all knew how this was going to end. No, he wasn’t beaten to death with a baseball bat, but a plane that he was on mysteriously blew up. To misquote Thanos from The Avengers—his untimely death was inevitable.

Like his long-ago predecessor Josef Stalin, Vladimir Putin is a gangster. He is ruthless. He has proven his willingness to assassinate enemies. Yevgeny Prigozhin knew better than to challenge Vladimir Putin. Personally, I feel sorry for the other passengers on the plane. They were collateral damage.

#4 for #45

Donald J. Trump has been indicted for the fourth time in five months. He has been booked. He has been fingerprinted. His mug shot has been plastered all over the Internet. Once again, following the proceedings, he held a press conference in which he once again declared himself innocent.

Yet somehow, this indictment is different. This is not a federal indictment, but a state indictment from the state of Georgia.

In essence, Donald Trump and 18 co-conspirators have been indicted for their efforts to try to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County (Atlanta area) district attorney, has been investigating this issue for more than a year. She is an experienced prosecutor. This is a complicated case that will take time to wind through the courts. Yet it has the potential to be the most devastating against Donald Trump.

To me, the bigger question is the 14th Amendment. Specifically, section 3 of the 14th Amendment states:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Passed in 1866 after the end of the Civil War, and ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment has not been repealed. It is still active in our Constitution, and therefore, it is a law that we abide by. If we believe that Donald Trump instigated or participated in the insurrection on January 6, then we are obligated to remove him from every presidential ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This isn’t a choice. It’s an obligation. We are a nation of laws. We follow the law. It is really that simple.

The bigger question is how. How do we follow the law? One of the large misconceptions is that Donald Trump needs to be proven to be an insurrectionist in a court of law. This is not true. The Amendment itself does not require conviction in a court, and the House committee proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Donald Trump and others participated in the insurrection on January 6. This is our proof. The 14th Amendment has been satisfied the committee.

Now, I think that any American citizen can petition the courts to remove Donald Trump and other insurrectionists from the ballot. Unfortunately, we must do this one state at a time. For example, a lawyer in Florida has filed a case in the Southern District of Florida that is asking for Donald Trump to be disqualified and removed from the ballot. A voters’ group in Colorado has sued to do the same thing; other states will surely follow.

No matter how this case is decided, I suspect it will go through the courts and finally end up in the Supreme Court. Now, this will test our system! Should the justices who were appointed to the Supreme Court by Donald Trump recuse themselves for conflicts of interest? This is going to get really interesting.

US Women’s Soccer

Unfortunately, the US women’s national soccer team was eliminated from the World Cup. Donald Trump was giddy. He couldn’t hold back his happiness. He lashed out at the women’s team.

Donald Trump’s reaction to our loss to Sweden should be no surprise. The US women’s national soccer team has been a force in women’s soccer, women’s sports, and women’s politics for almost two decades. The US women have dominated women’s soccer since the late 1990s. Title IX forced colleges to upgrade their soccer facilities for women. No other country had anything like this. Title IX meant that US women who played soccer were exposed to real coaching and real competition while in college. This is why the US women’s national team was so good.

They won, and they won a lot. They played a wonderful, exciting brand of soccer. They displayed athleticism. Because they were winning, they had the spotlight. They wanted equal pay, which they got. They fought against injury-inducing Astroturf—and got it removed. They wanted an environment that was free of discrimination and sexual harassment, which I think they got.

They were led by Megan Rapinoe for the last decade. She is thoughtful. She is outspoken. She is a brilliant soccer player. Megan is a once-in-a-generation type of player. She is mesmerizing. After the team won the World Cup in 2019, they refused to visit the White House because of Donald Trump and his policies. As you know, Donald Trump never forgets a slight.

The football clubs in Europe began to notice the US women’s soccer team. These clubs know how to locate and develop soccer talent. They have been doing it for men’s teams for years. They can locate talented boys when they are 10 or 11 years old. The boys are then shunted into competitive teams and leagues. They have the right instruction from the right coaches. Before you know it, by the time they’re 18 or 19, they are superstars.

Now these football clubs have done the same thing for the women. They have been doing it for the last 15 years. And now we are seeing the fruits of their labor. They have caught up to the US.

This has nothing to do with wokeism. It has everything to do with finding talent and developing that talent at an early age. Although we are developing women athletes once they reach college, by that time, we are behind. We need to develop junior leagues, which are truly competitive throughout the country. We need to get better coaching into these junior leagues. Then, we can work on dominating once again.

Over the last 20 years, we have really seen some great soccer from the US women’s team. We’ve seen great players, including Mia Hamm, Michelle Akers, Amy Wambach, Hope Solo, Alex Morgan, Julie Ertz, and Megan Rapinoe.

In particular Megan Rapinoe, with her blue, or pink, or stark white hair, deserves our admiration and gratitude—as do all these women. She went to the University of Portland for college. We should be passing the collection plate to build a statue in her honor. She is the best that we have to offer as a nation.

Maui

By now, everybody knows about the devastating wildfires that swept through a small town in Maui. Lahaina was strategically located, situated between the resorts on the west and other resorts on the east of the island. It was a breath of fresh air. It was a quaint little town that seemed to be stuck in the 1930s. You could walk down the streets and enjoy the sweet breeze off the ocean. There were all these nice little shops (kind of like downtown Asheville).

Now, all of that is gone. A devastating wildfire destroyed the whole town in a matter of minutes. As of Sept. 8, the death toll is 115, and 66 people are still missing. This reminds me so much of Hurricane Katrina. Heartbreaking.

This was climate change. We need to do whatever we can to help the good people of Lahaina. Consider donating to mauifoodbank.org, womenhelpingwomenmaui.com, mauiunitedway.org, and the United Methodist Church of Lahaina, lumcmaui.org.

Focus

With the constant nonsense that comes from the right wing, I think that we lose focus on the things that truly matter. This is what we should be fighting (figuratively) for:

• Clean air and clean water
• Universal healthcare—that must include dental and mental health
• Living wages
• Affordable, safe housing
• Women’s control over their own bodies
• Affordable higher education—state colleges should cost no more than a couple of hundred dollars per semester
• Safe living environment—free from gun violence
• Good public schools where teachers are free to teach, and students are taught how to think critically

This is what we want. This is the holy grail.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed here, as well as assertions of facts, are those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Urban News.