I’ve gone through a tough time this last year with political current events under the Republican control of the House of Representatives where they were more obsessed with finding and keeping a Speaker than confronting America’s dilemmas at home and abroad in 2023. The refugees at our borders desperately seeking safety and security while citizens in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California struggle under the weight of thousands of immigrants crossing their southern borders every day; blocking international aid packages for the people of Ukraine and Israel who are waging desperate wars to protect democracies against terrorism; embracing the Big Lie of the 2020 presidential election – the People’s House no longer represents the majority of the people in this country. They do, however, manage to scare me to death.

I’ve had several moments of hope in the past year but no personal giddiness until a jury in New York awarded $148 million to Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman on December 15, 2023 in a decision against former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani for his targeted destruction of their lives through defamation of their characters following their service as election workers in Georgia for the 2020 election. Joy to the world, I thought in keeping with the season, accountability reigns. These courageous Black women have persistently sought justice for the loss of their identities for the past three years, and a jury of their peers rewarded these sacrifices in a tangible manner.

CNN December 20, 2023

        Shaye Moss speaks while her mother Ruby Freeman listens

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But Giuliani refuses to keep his mouth shut about the two women who defeated him. All is still not calm nor particularly bright in the former mayor’s mind.

“On the heels of winning a $148 million defamation judgment Friday against Rudy Giuliani, former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss have again sued the former New York City mayor seeking to “permanent bar” him from making additional defamatory comments about them…

In a 134-page complaint filed Monday, attorneys for the two women wrote that Giuliani “continues to spread the very same lies for which he has already been held liable,” citing comments made last week to ABC News’ Terry Moran outside of court, in which Giuliani insisted that Freeman and Moss were “changing votes.”

The two women asked the court to prevent Giuliani from “making or publishing … further statements repeating any and all false claims that plaintiffs engaged in election fraud, illegal activity, or misconduct of any kind during or related to the 2020 presidential election.”  (ABC News, Lucien Bruggeman, December 18, 2023)

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I congratulate the Barbie financial empire creators, Beyonce and Taylor Swift for their amazing accomplishments and recognitions in 2023 – feminist has returned to favor in a world that needs a woman’s touch. But remember Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, too, for their historic win against a man who picked the wrong battle and lost.

Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, fa la la la. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la. I’m in the mood to deck a few halls.

Published by Sheila Morris

Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother. In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ+ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ+ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality. She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Her writings have been included in various anthologies including Out Loud: the best of Rainbow Radio, Saints and Sinners New Fiction from the 2017 Festival, Mothers and Other Creatures; Cowboys, Cops, Killers, and Ghosts (Texas Folklore Society LXIX). She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep.