Connect with us

Commentary

Christmas Gifts from Our Democracy

For lovers of democracy (and if you are reading this surely that means you), the news has blessed us with some noteworthy early Christmas/Happy Holidays/seasonal gifting. First, if you didn’t feel a little warm glow when the news first broke, you have to understand that we are all Lady Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

Published

on

Thank you for taking the time for these words. Happy Holidays to everyone connected to the Post, most especially its dear readers.
Thank you for taking the time for these words. Happy Holidays to everyone connected to the Post, most especially its dear readers.

Commentary

By Emil Guillermo

For lovers of democracy (and if you are reading this surely that means you), the news has blessed us with some noteworthy early Christmas/Happy Holidays/seasonal gifting.

First, if you didn’t feel a little warm glow when the news first broke, you have to understand that we are all Lady Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

You know them. They are the Georgia election workers, the ones who Trump’s lawyer and now disgraced leaky hair colorist Rudy Giuliani said were passing a USB drive to each other — proof, somehow, of some digital malfeasance to help steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump.

In fact, there was no such attempt to steal anything from anybody. The USB drive was a piece of ginger candy.

The whole thing was a lie told by Giuliani to perpetuate the “Big Lie,” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.

Earlier a federal district judge in Washington, D.C. ruled that Giuliani’s lies defamed Freeman and Moss, whose lives were turned upside down.

They couldn’t go out in public for fear they’d be retaliated against by Trump’s MAGA zealots. Freeman couldn’t run her businesses. Moss began doubting democracy.

And then last week the jury ordered Giuliani to pay Freeman and Moss $148 million in damages. That breaks down to $75 million in punitive damages. Add $16.2 million in compensatory damages to Freeman, and $16.9 million to Moss, as well as $20 million to each of them for emotional suffering, and you have the price for justice in a defamation case.

That’s what lies on top of lies will cost in America if you’re Rudy Giuliani defending Donald Trump.

Giuliani didn’t take the witness stand in his own defense. But he did talk to the media at every juncture saying just wait, he’d provide evidence backing him up. “Stay tuned,” he said.

But he never did. When you’re a liar, you lose in a court of law. The only place for you is the court of public opinion, which is why Giuliani kept lying in impromptu sidewalk press conferences. For all those lies, Freeman and Moss slapped Giuliani with a second defamation suit on Monday.

It’s Giuliani as a combination lying and human ATM. Still, collecting money from him will be tougher than you think. Even Freeman and Moss admit while the $148 million award is good, no amount of money will undo the damage they incurred from lies told by Giuliani and Trump himself. (Trump actually named Freeman specifically on a recorded call. That’s another suit waiting to happen).

For now, a federal court has verified and awarded damages on Giuliani’s lies. Score one for justice and truth.

Hooray?

GOP PREFERENCE FOR CRIMINALS

As I’ve said, Trumpers tend to discount the court of law and prefer the court of public opinion where lies outweigh facts.

And then even when the facts are outrageously damning, e.g. the criminality in Trump as per being indicted four times with 91 felony counts, Republicans simply don’t care.

They see a bad guy and still support him for president because he is their bad guy.

Seventy percent of Republicans believe if Trump wins the GOP primary and is convicted, he should still be the nominee, according to a New York Times/Sienna College poll.

To Republicans, more important than justice is a sense of restored power. It’s the real fear we should have in our democracy right now. Some people prefer justice not for all, but for some. And that likely doesn’t include you or me.

COLORADO COURT RULING

And that brings us to the other gift in the news, the Colorado State Supreme Court has ruled Trump is ineligible for the ballot in that state based on the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.

Colorado’s highest court ruled 4-3 that Trump be removed from the state’s primary ballot, saying that on Jan. 6, 2021 Trump “incited and encouraged the use of violence and lawless action to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.”

Legal experts say the court’s ruling is “unassailable.” But that’s not going to stop Trump from playing victim and using it to show his followers that the establishment is out to get him.

Expect the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case, and all that might bring. Would Justice Clarence Thomas be forced to recuse himself because his wife was texting on Jan. 6 encouraging insurrection?

How rich would that be if the vote was 4-4 and Thomas was the tiebreaker?

Add all this to Trump’s diabolical devil’s journey through our democracy: Four criminal indictments, plus civil cases involving sexual abuse, business abuses — and now this.

It’s the ugly beauty of our democracy. The truth is all out there. Just don’t forget to vote or the bad guys will win.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I was walking through Oakland recently and went past my old office on College Avenue. All the other businesses had changed, but Thelma still had her art gallery. Down the block, at a new café, I saw an old Filipino American activist I’ve known since the 80s when he was protesting U.S.-backed dictators. Finally, I made it to a PEN Oakland event at the Rockridge Library, when a young woman of Kenyan descent came up to me and said, “I read your columns in the Post.”

That’s a reminder that I am writing for all of you. Thank you for taking the time for these words. Happy Holidays to everyone connected to the Post, most especially its dear readers.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a secret talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

Published

on

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Continue Reading

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of April 17 – 23, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 17 – 23, 2024

Published

on

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Continue Reading

Commentary

Opinion: Surviving the Earthquake, an Eclipse and “Emil Amok.”

Last Friday, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook New York City, reported as the “biggest earthquake with an epicenter in the NYC area since 1884” when a 5.2 quake hit. A bit bigger. The last quake similar to Friday’s was a 4.9 in 1783.Alexander Hamilton felt it — 241 years ago. That’s why New Yorkers were freaking out on Friday. They were in the room where it happens.

Published

on

In New York City, the eclipse was about 90 percent visible. Good enough for me. Though a full solar eclipse is a celestial rarity, blockages of any sort aren’t generally celebrated. My one-man play is about growing up with the eclipsed history of American Filipinos and how I struggle to unblock all that.
In New York City, the eclipse was about 90 percent visible. Good enough for me. Though a full solar eclipse is a celestial rarity, blockages of any sort aren’t generally celebrated. My one-man play is about growing up with the eclipsed history of American Filipinos and how I struggle to unblock all that.

By Emil Guillermo

I’m a Northern Californian in New York City for the next few weeks, doing my one-man show, “Emil Amok, Lost NPR Host, Wiley Filipino, Vegan Transdad.”

I must like performing in the wake of Mother Nature.

Last Friday, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake shook New York City, reported as the “biggest earthquake with an epicenter in the NYC area since 1884” when a 5.2 quake hit. A bit bigger. The last quake similar to Friday’s was a 4.9 in 1783.

Alexander Hamilton felt it — 241 years ago.

That’s why New Yorkers were freaking out on Friday. They were in the room where it happens.

And it just doesn’t happen that often.

Beyonce singing country music happens more frequently.

When I felt New York shake last week, it reminded me of a time in a San Francisco TV newsroom when editors fretted about a lack of news an hour before showtime.

Then the office carpeting moved for a good ten seconds, and the news gods gave us our lead story.

On Friday when it happened in NYC, I noticed the lines in the carpeting in my room wiggling. But I thought it was from a raucous hotel worker vacuuming nearby.

I didn’t even think earthquake. In New York?

I just went about my business as if nothing had happened. After living near fault lines all my life, I was taking things for granted.

Considering the age of structures in New York, I should have been even more concerned about falling objects inside (shelves, stuff on walls) and outside buildings (signs, scaffolding), fire hazards from possible gas leaks, and then I should have looked for others on my floor and in the hotel lobby to confirm or aid or tell stories.

Of course, as a Californian who has lived through and covered quakes in the 4 to 6 magnitude range, I tried to calm down any traumatized New Yorker I encountered by taking full responsibility for bringing in the quake from the Bay Area.

I reassured them things would be all right, and then let them know that 4.8s are nothing.

And then I invited them to my consoling post-Earthquake performance of “Emil Amok, Lost NPR Host…”

It was the night of the eclipse.

ECLIPSING THE ECLIPSE

In New York City, the eclipse was about 90 percent visible. Good enough for me.  Though a full solar eclipse is a celestial rarity, blockages of any sort aren’t generally celebrated. My one-man play is about growing up with the eclipsed history of American Filipinos and how I struggle to unblock all that.

For example, did you know the first Filipinos actually arrived to what is now California in 1587? That’s 33 years before the Pilgrims arrived in America on the other coast, but few know the Filipino history which has been totally eclipsed.

I was in Battery Park sitting on a bench and there was a sense of community as people all came to look up. A young woman sitting next to me had a filter for a cell phone camera.  We began talking and she let me use it. That filter enabled me to take a picture of the main event with my iPhone.

For helping me see, I invited her and her boyfriend to come see my show.

Coincidentally, she was from Plymouth, Massachusetts, near the rock that says the year the Pilgrims landed in 1620.

In my show she learned the truth. The Pilgrims were second.

History unblocked. But it took a solar eclipse.

Next one in 2044? We have a lot more unblocking to do.

If you’re in New York come see my show, Sat. April 13th, 5:20 pm Eastern; Fri. April 19, 8:10 pm Eastern; and Sun. April 21st 5:20 pm Eastern.

You can also livestream the show. Get tickets at www.amok.com/tickets

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He does a mini-talk show on YouTube.com/@emilamok1.  He wishes all his readers a Happy Easter!

Continue Reading

Subscribe to receive news and updates from the Oakland Post

* indicates required

CHECK OUT THE LATEST ISSUE OF THE OAKLAND POST

ADVERTISEMENT

WORK FROM HOME

Home-based business with potential monthly income of $10K+ per month. A proven training system and website provided to maximize business effectiveness. Perfect job to earn side and primary income. Contact Lynne for more details: Lynne4npusa@gmail.com 800-334-0540

Facebook

Trending

Copyright ©2021 Post News Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.