Today is Saturday, December 16, 2023.   Yesterday a Washington, D.C., jury delivered long-delayed justice in its decision to award $148 million to two harassed and terrorized Georgia election workers from “America’s Mayor,” Rudy Giuliani.   A big sigh of relief could be heard throughout the land as this decision exonerates the two women whose lives were upended by Chump’s consigliere and his many baseless lies.  I had hoped that the jury would award the maximum to the two women, Ruby Freeman, and her daughter, Shaye Moss, and they did exactly that.  This eye-popping decision against the now-disgraced former prosecutor was covered in today’s edition of the Daily News by Dave Goldiner entitled “Here’s your tab, Rudy:  $148 million verdict for defaming 2 Atlanta election workers.”

These damages were awarded to the two women as a result of “Ghouliani'”s false claims that they rigged votes in the 2020 presidential elections.  In essence, the jury awarded nearly $17 million to Moss and $16.1 million to Freeman in compensatory damages, plus $20 million to each woman for inflicting emotional distress.  The decision also ordered Giuliani to pay an additional $75 million in punitive damages for a grand total of $148 million.  That’s a lot of cabbage, wouldn’t you say? 

As expected, the bum vowed he would appeal the bankrupt-inducing verdict and derided the entire procedure.   ”The absurdity of the number merely underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding,” Ghouliani said after the verdict.  Then he made this empty avowal: ”It will be reversed so quickly it will make your head spin.”  Yeah, sure, Mr. Mayor, like you know what will happen afterward. 

After the verdict, Freeman said no amount would right the wrong that was committed by Giuliani.  She did acknowledge this, “Today’s a good day.  A jury stood witness to what Rudy Giuliani did to me and my daughter and held him accountable. For that, I’m grateful.”

Her daughter, Shaye Moss, dedicated the verdict to other civil servants who work tirelessly and fairly for the public.  She said, “Our greatest wish is that no one experiences what we went through.”

The verdict marks the latest milestone in the long downward personal, financial, and legal spiral for the man who was once revered for his role as ‘America’s Mayor’ after the September 11 terror attacks.”  (In my own opinion, I never really liked Giuliani as New York’s mayor, anyway.)  

The resolution of this case “illustrated for many Americans the real-life impact on ordinary people of Trump’s alleged effort to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Biden by concocting a string of conspiracy theories and brazen lies.” It is my supreme hope that the huge monetary award given to these two women whose lives were drastically altered by these pernicious lies would serve as a deterrent to those thinking of doing the same ugly thing in the near future.  

Let’s not forget that Giuliani still faces a criminal trial of the same conduct in the Georgia State RICO election conspiracy case against his Orange Boss and more than a dozen coconspirators, ensuring he will continue to grapple with the impact of his shameless lies he hurled at Freeman and Moss.  He can also face a prison term at the tender age of 80 by the time his trial might be heard.  He could even die in prison, oh dear!

Some of the lies thrown at the mother and daughter pair were that they were drug dealers, suggesting that they should face prosecution and searches of their domiciles.  Chump’s MAGA nuts eventually flooded the women with a torrent of racist and violent threats, in which both women were forced to flee their homes and go into hiding to avoid abuse.  

As the two women delivered tearful and poignant testimony to the jury, the defendant, Giuliani, double downed on his denials – the son of a bitch.  Ranting outside the courtroom, Giuliani had the temerity to say he didn’t regret a thing and that he told the truth about the women.  Is this man suffering from an “alternate reality” syndrome?  For his disgusting comments, the judge, District Judge Beryl Howell, warned him that his outburst could lead to a new defamation claim. 

I feel the country owes a debt of gratitude to these two terrorized women who went up against a powerful foe in the truth-challenged former mayor of New York – and won!   They paved the way for other ordinary civil servants to do the same thing.  They showed what they were really were made of by not shriveling up and going away. 

As for whether or not Giuliani will be able to shell out such a monumental payout is another matter.  He appears quite cash poor already.  This is what his lawyers constantly are indicating.  He’s had to put up his $6 million New York apartment up for sale. And he has other outstanding bills.   So I don’t know what happens in this situation; we also have the Alex Jones’ verdict in which that ghastly individual was  judged to owe a huge amount in damages to the parents of those murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.   In that case, courts in Texas and Connecticut awarded the victims’ relatives in lawsuits against Jones a whopping $1.5 billion.   This is another person whose assets should be totally liquidated by a court verdict against him, but so far, I haven’t heard if he’s paid out anything to the victims. 

Anyway, the focus now is on Giuliani, not Jones.  This is a good first step in holding Trump and others accountable for their baseless 2020 claims of election fraud that made persons suffer like Ruby Freeman and her daughter.

Have a good Sunday.  Oye!  Another bad weather system is forecasted tomorrow. I hope we don’t have the same kind of rain we had last Sunday.   Who knows? I might even consider baking something which I haven’t done in a long time, if I’m held captive at home. 

Today I attended a comic book show at the New Yorker, on Eighth Avenue and 34th Street.  I succeeded in selling a handful of books to the first dealer I approached on the dealer floor for $60.  I was surprised he took all of them – after he noted, initially, that they were “crap.”  But he bought the whole stack of comic books without much bother.  I was quite elated.  But then I proceeded to buy more books along the way.    I didn’t buy, though, some very expensive books; some were listed for hundreds of dollars.   What infuriated me was that I recognized some of those books as ones I had when I first began buying them as a hobby.  In my teens, I had a collection of about 700 books or so, but were forced to sell them for a penny or so or give them away by my mother who didn’t want me to bring them with me to our new apartment in Co-op City, in the northeast section of the Bronx.   When Superman was supposed to meet his death at the hands of Doomsday in 1992, I began collecting them again.  So I’ve been collecting comic books for 31 years now.   For those who think collecting comic books is not lucrative, a copy of Superman # 1 was sold for the sum of $5.3 million in January 2022, according to Wikipedia.  

Anyway, have a good Sunday despite the inclement forecast.

Stay safe and be well. 

This is the only photo I took of the comic book convention.  This is in the lobby of the New Yorker hotel.  Some people were in costume, but I failed to take pictures of them for some reason.