From The Final Call Newspaper

‘Trauma in the highest form’ The suffering, the culture of abuse and still harrowing plight of women in prison

By Anisah Muhammad, Contributing Writer
- January 25, 2022





Daily life at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, Michigan, includes overcrowding, mold, improper airflow due to a clogged ventilation system, broken hot water tanks, water shortages, and mistreatment, harassment and degradation, according to activists and advocates.

Michigan’s only prison for women is just one out of countless prisons in the United States where Black women suffer rape and abuse whilst living in what activists describe as “inhumane conditions,” they added.

“What is happening is there are women who are being abused sexually, emotionally, mentally, spiritually,” said Shawanna Vaughn, founder and director of the Harlem-based nonprofit Silent Cry, Inc., to The Final Call.

The women at the correctional facility have been crying out for help. In May 2021, they started telling their stories to prisonradio.org, a media platform amplifying the voices of incarcerated people. When the cry reached Ms. Vaughn and Trische Duckworth, the two women immediately went to work.

 

Protesters demand accountability for treatment of women at detention center in Michigan. Photo: Haroon Rajaee

“The women asked for a rally. The women asked for help. And so I told the women I would do what I could,” Ms. Vaughn said.

They held an initial rally on Jan. 2. A second one took place on Jan. 16, during the MLK Day weekend, “And oh my God, that rally. When I tell you that God showed up and showed out,” Ms. Duckworth described to The Final Call. “That’s all I can really say to describe it. I mean, it was sadness, but it was a moment of triumph and victory, meaning that everybody came together with one mind on one accord.”

“They literally had cars all along the side of the road as far as you could see. Because of the rape. They’re beating up sisters. Sisters have died in that prison,” said Lionel Muhammad, the Nation of Islam’s Central Regional Prison Reform Student Minister and the assistant to the Nation’s Student National Prison Reform Minister Abdullah Muhammad.

Ms. Vaughn and Ms. Duckworth put out a call for the brothers of the Nation to attend the rally, and the brothers responded.

 

Protesters carry signs as they walk to detention center during demonstration in Michigan. Photo: Haroon Rajaee

“We wanted them to know that we love them. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan loves them. And that’s why we showed up in the numbers that we showed up, to let the world know, we’re not going to let you do this to our women that are in prison,” Lionel Muhammad said.

The issues at Huron Valley

Between 1980 and 2019, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 700 percent, according to a Nov. 2020 fact sheet on incarcerated women and girls by The Sentencing Project. It states that the rate of growth for imprisoned women has been twice as high as that of men since 1980. In 2019, Black women were imprisoned at over 1.7 times the rate of White women. The Huron Valley facility holds more than 2,000 incarcerated women.

Five law firms filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against the facility in Nov. 2019, citing overcrowding, poor ventilation, and leaky roofs contributing to chronic mold. Because of the mold, incarcerated women have said they have developed rashes, respiratory infections and other health problems. A little over $21 million in total is needed for maintenance and repairs at the prison, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections’ (MDOC) fiscal year 2023 five-year assessment plan summary.

Protester holds sign outside women’s detention center in Michigan. Photo: Haroon Rajaee

The women have also been outspoken about the prison’s culture of sexual abuse. In 2009, the state of Michigan doled out $100 million to settle lawsuits claiming male corrections officers were sexually abusing and harassing incarcerated women. Between July 2018 and June 2019, 146 women said they were sexually harassed, and 12 claimed they were sexually assaulted, according to the MDOC.

Two of the facility’s former employees stated they witnessed a culture of “rape punishment” and that guards were distributing drugs to incarcerated women. They said they were fired after trying to report the abuse.

Civil rights attorney Dionne Webster-Cox attended the rally and announced she would be taking the cases of the two former employees. She also said she is trying to find lawyers to take on the cases of the incarcerated women.

On top of mold and sexual abuse, the Covid-19 pandemic presents yet another issue plaguing the incarcerated women. As of Jan. 19, 2022, there were 276 active positive Covid-19 cases, according to the MDOC. Since March 2020, 1,076 women have tested positive, and four have died.

More than 200 people showed up at the rally that was held. “Because the conditions inside the only women’s prison in the state of Michigan are inhumane. They have bacteria infections. … They’re OD’ing off of fentanyl and opioids in a prison that is locked down with no visits,” Ms. Vaughn said. “They don’t even get mail. All the mail is photocopied. So how are they getting drugs and OD’ing if the guards are not giving them the drugs? Huron Valley is a humanitarian crisis situation.”

Freedom for some of the women held at detention center is needed say protesters. Photo: Haroon Rajaee

Lionel Muhammad said not only is sexual abuse common for incarcerated women, but it’s also not publicized. Karen Garrison, a media personality known as Mommie Activist, told The Final Call sexual abuse in prison has been going on for a long time.

She got involved in criminal justice advocacy after her twin sons Lawrence and Lamont Garrison were unjustly imprisoned due to harsh crack cocaine laws.

She described pictures she received from incarcerated women, showing bruises from prison guards. But, she said, because of Covid-19 prison restrictions, a lot of what’s happening is kept inside.

She explained that in many places both federally and on the state level, the abuses aren’t being documented, and some of it never gets to the prison warden.

But even when it does, “Of course they’re going to believe the authorities there before they believe the prisoner,” she said.

More abuse cases in New Jersey and Florida

On Dec. 15, New Jersey’s acting attorney general Andrew J. Buck announced charges against five defendants in an investigation at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, the state’s only prison facility for state-sentenced women prisoners. In total, 15 defendants have been charged in what the office says is an ongoing investigation.

An April 2020 report by the Justice Department found that there was “reasonable cause” to believe that conditions at the facility “violate the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution due to the sexual abuse of prisoners by the facility’s staff.”

The report states that “from October 2016 to November 2019, five Edna Mahan correction officers and one civilian employee were convicted or pled guilty to charges related to sexual abuse of more than 10 women under their watch.”

One sentencing judge called the culture at the facility “pervasive;” another court concluded that an officer “sexually assaulted a vulnerable population.”

Last year in July, the Federal Bureau of Prisons reached a monetary settlement with 14 women. The women reported that they were sexually abused and assaulted by guards while being held at the Federal Correctional Complex Coleman in Florida.

Some women who are sexually abused are also impregnated, such as Anquanette Woodall, a Black woman who was raped by a Florida prison guard, Travis Hinson, at the Gadsden Correctional Facility, a private facility for women. The officer was arrested and charged with rape.

 

In 1984, 17-year-old Machelle Pearson was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole. While behind the bars of the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, she was raped and impregnated by a guard.

Like interviewees said, these incidents are not new. On Dec. 31, 1904, a 28-year-old Black woman was convicted of “assault to murder” and sentenced to three years. She was transported from a state prison to a privately operated plantation. There, “she labored from ‘sun to rain, rain or shine’ in the fields, under the watchful eye of temperamental guards and observed as the men unleashed their reign of terror and violence on the other female inmates—when she wasn’t a recipient of it herself,” according to a research article titled “‘Under the Sting of the Lash’: Gendered Violence, Terror, and Resistance in the South’s Convict Camps” by history professor Talitha L. LeFlouria.

She describes how Black women were “subjected to fiendish acts of physical cruelty, often of a sexualized nature, and raped with impunity.”

Incarceration’s impact on Black families

More than 60 percent of women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18, according to The Sentencing Project. Federal data states that at least five million children nationwide have a parent in jail or prison, with Black children being disproportionately affected.

Though Ms. Pearson was later able to reconnect with her son, she described the pain she felt behind bars to the Detroit Metro Times. “Mentally and physically and spiritually, it will break you,” she said. “It’s traumatic. The bond is totally broken. It really hurt me. I didn’t understand. That was my first child. It was like being traumatized all over again.”

Ms. Garrison recounted being away from her children as she served 18 months. She was able to do a few home visits, where she was allowed a few days with her family. One of her children broke down crying, and she described that maybe they were fearful she would not come back.

Ms. Vaughn’s birth certificate says prison. She knows firsthand what having an incarcerated mother does to the family. She herself is formerly incarcerated, and two out of her three siblings have been to prison.

“Incarcerated parents breed incarcerated children, and it takes a toll on the entire family. What happens when your mother is not there to raise you? What happens when your grandmother is not there to raise you?” she questioned. “It’s hard to parent behind prison bars. It’s traumatizing. It’s trauma in the highest form.”

She said without a woman to teach a little girl how to grow up and be a woman, that changes how little girls view the world. “When you incarcerate women, you incarcerate a nation. When you incarcerate a woman, you incarcerate communities. You incarcerate something that gives life. You’re decimating communities,” she said.

Solving the problems

Ms. Vaughn and Ms. Duckworth both named Ryan Correctional Facility, which was renamed the Detroit Reentry Center, as a facility women could be put in as a Covid-19 safety measure. Ms. Vaughn is also advocating sending home women who have less than a year to their sentence left and commuting the sentences of aging women.

“These are the short-term solutions that can be done right now. Long-term solutions are legislation,” she said.

Ms. Duckworth explained that part of the rally was to focus on state Senate Bill No. 487, which would create an oversight advisory committee for the Women’s Huron Valley prison. The bill is currently in the judiciary committee. Though, she said, “the first thing that really needs to be done is all these carceral systems need to be ended.”

Ms. Duckworth is the founder and executive director of Survivors Speak. She and Ms. Vaughn commended the brothers of the Nation for leading the front line of the rally and for speaking on the program.

“The more hands we get on deck, the more people we get pushing back, the more that we will see change. And if we don’t see change, then we’re going to start going against these legislators that are not doing what they’re supposed to do, because that’s where it starts. We need laws put in place that protect detained citizens,” Ms. Duckworth said.

Lionel Muhammad quoted words delivered by Minister Farrakhan to men at the Million Man March in Oct. 1995.

“The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said to adopt an inmate,” he said.

He said he asked the Minister why he told march goers to adopt an inmate. According to Lionel Muhammad, the Minister responded, “That’s a whole ‘nother world that we’re disconnected from.”

“If everybody adopts an inmate and we do it in a unified manner, then we’re connected to that world and we change the reality of this world,” he quoted the Minister.

A “Valentine’s Weekend Action at Women’s Huron Valley Prison” is scheduled for Feb. 12 at 12 p.m. EDT.

From The Final Call Newspaper

Weather disasters cost U.S. billions each year as divine punishment continues

By Shawntell Muhammad, Contributing Writer
- January 18, 2022





Extreme weather events have increased and are increasing.

The new year has already seen inclement weather slam parts of the U.S. including parts of the South and Northeast at Final Call presstime. The powerful Winter Storm Izzy dumped as much as 10 inches of snow in some areas of western North Carolina as the system moved across the southeastern U.S. and brought strong winds, thunderstorms and snow to New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. A foot or more of snow fell in parts of these states leaving tens of thousands of customers in the region without power, reported Associated Press.

Sleet and rain were the main threats for much of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island and the massive storm brought similar conditions to the Southeast, the outlet reported. Severe thunderstorms in Florida spurred a tornado with 118 mph winds, destroying 30 mobile homes and majorly damaging 51 more. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for parts of Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa and Illinois, where forecasters were expecting up to 10 inches of fresh snow.

2022 is picking up where the previous year left off. Weather events in 2021 were very costly for the country; wildfires, hurricanes, a deadly heat wave in the West and central parts of the United States, three separate tornado outbreaks in the South, and unusually cold temperatures in Texas that left millions of people without electricity, were among 20 weather and climate disasters in the United States, that cost $1 billion or more each, totaling $145 billion and killing 688 people across the country.


Hurricane Ida, which started as a weak hurricane and quickly became a Category 4 storm over warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, was the most expensive disaster of 2021. It tore through parts of Louisiana and the Northeast, leaving an estimated $75 billion in damages.

Since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) started tracking billion-dollar extreme weather events in 1980, there have been 298 events that met their threshold, exceeding a total of $1.975 trillion in damages and costs.

According to the NOAA, the last five years have cost the United States $742 billion in 86 separate billion-dollar weather disasters, an average of 17 per year, a new record.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report, stating in part: “The past five years of hurricanes alone amassed a total cost of $401.8 billion. With more frequent, stronger, slow-moving storms coupled with the co-effects of sea level rise and other impacts of climate change, these numbers are expected to continue to increase significantly.”

The report also noted that in addition to June 2021 being the hottest June on record in the United States, that month saw the Pacific Northwest experience a record shattering heat wave that brought temperatures into 100-degree Fahrenheit at that time of year. “That prolonged heat dome resulted in nearly 200 deaths, more than 1 billion sea creatures getting cooked alive in their seashells, and drier vegetation with the potential to contribute to increased wildfire danger,” the report continued.

“Furthermore, heat waves disproportionately affect vulnerable populations such as people experiencing homelessness, farm workers and laborers, the elderly, and people without access to air conditioning,” the report added.

Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad is Southwest Student Regional Minister of the Nation of Islam and an urban planner based in Houston. “Not only is there physical destruction from these natural disasters, there’s the human impact of lost wages, lost property, and there’s also the impact of insurance industry paying out claims,” he told The Final Call.

“There’s also the strain of the infrastructure. The total cost of these events are always going to be five to 10 times greater than the amount that is being stated by the government or the experts, because they really don’t know the long term damages of these disasters,” he explained.

Distribution of post-disaster resources and funds is another area of concern and again shows the disparities and inequities on what communities get and the help they need.

“What I have seen and experienced during Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, and Hurricane Harvey, there’s $2 billion that is tied up in the state of Texas that has not been distributed to those who have been impacted by Hurricane Harvey, and that hurricane occurred in 2017,” said the student minister.


“There’s a fight between the state government and the general land office and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner (D). They came up with an inequitable distribution of those funds. They gave more funds to more affluent and White (areas), and areas that are predominantly Black received no money.”

As these severe weather conditions continue impacting and striking America, the divine reasons as to what is happening and why continue manifesting and is backed by scripture and the warnings of Allah’s (God’s) anointed and divine servants.

“This is God’s sanction on America. Watch the weather. Every year the weather has gotten worse and worse and worse,” the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam stated on Twitter. Like his teacher the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad prophesied before him, there is a reason why America is experiencing these extreme weather phenomena.

The coming of Allah in search for the Black lost members of their nation today is to make Himself (Allah God) known, so He can conquer our captors by using weapons against which they have no power, Elijah Muhammad explains in his seminal book, “The Fall of America.”

Allah (God) will bring attacks of divine judgement of their world without the use of contrived weapons, stated the Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam.

“The weapons of war used by God in the past history of the destruction of the enemies of God—such as Noah’s people, Lot’s people, and Moses’ people—are an example of what He will use today. The weapons are the forces of nature against which we have no defense,” he wrote in the chapter titled, “The Deceivers and the Deceived.”

“America is under such divine attack now, in storms as rain, hail and earthquakes—(the latter is yet to take place). A terrific drought is on its way, too, against America. The Book must be fulfilled. The Bible and Holy Qur’an both refer to all that I have said,” added Mr. Muhammad.

Productivity losses due to heat currently costs the U.S. an estimated $100 billion a year, as stated in a report put together by the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. The impact is felt on numerous levels. On high heat days, the report show people are more likely to feel tired or sick at work, partly as a result of nighttime temperatures remaining too high to get a good night’s sleep. When people are tired, they take more breaks, work more slowly, make more mistakes and have a higher risk of getting injured.

Heat’s impact on work is not distributed equally among the U.S. population. Black and Latino workers tend to live in parts of the country that are more exposed to the heat, and they face working conditions with less protection from heat; in 2020 they lost around 1.3 percent of their productivity due to heat, compared to a 1.1 percent loss for non-Latino White workers.

Rudolph Muhammad, member of the Care Unit 911 (an organization that teaches disaster preparedness), emphasized to The Final Call how crucial being prepared is for when these disasters strike. “When it comes to disaster preparedness, the first thing is to know what region you are in and recent, past history of what the weather should be like any time of year. If you have a vehicle, make sure your vehicle is up to par; winterize your vehicle, top off all fluids, tires are rotated, to go bags; that has seasonal weather attire, medication, up to date first aid kit, water, nourishment, flashlights,” he stated.

“Once a year, everyone should have a complete physical including blood work, everyone should take a CPR and choking class. Situational awareness is being aware of your surroundings at all times—it’s crucial. Be ready to adapt to changing environments. The most important aspect of disaster preparedness is making sure you have a spiritual relationship with your God intact.

Making sure that you’re taking time out for your prayers or meditation so that you can deal with stress and not letting it overwhelm you. Proper rest, eating properly (one meal a day), exercise (get out and walk), be mindful of what you’re taking in mentally are all essential,” added Rudolph Muhammad.

Min. Farrakhan has also cautioned America is reaping what it has sown. Allah (God) is using the forces of nature to humble America, he stated.

“You can call it El Nino. El Nino my foot. That is God’s judgment coming on America as it was written. God has said you have to reap now what you’ve sown. You’ve destroyed cities and towns in Europe and Africa, in the Middle East. Things that you didn’t want, America destroyed. Now, look at your cities. They’re under water; your farmland being destroyed; fire burning the lands of California and the West; tornadoes, hurricanes,” the Minister warned in a previous message. This is just the beginning, he warned.

Final Call staff contributed to this report. Shawntell Muhammad can be contacted at: organicallybalanced@gmail.com. Associated Press contributed to this report.

From The Final Call Newspaper

A Nation in Peril: One year since the insurrection, America continues its downward spiral
By Askia Muhammad, Senior Editor
- January 5, 2022

FILE - In this Jan. 6, 2021 file photo, violent rioters try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington. The horror of Jan. 6 has been reduced from a stunning assault on American democracy to another political fight. Rather than unite behind a bipartisan investigation like the one that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Republicans are betting they can regain at least partial control of Congress if they put the issue behind them as quickly as possible without antagonizing former President Donald Trump or his supporters. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)


WASHINGTON—America vs. America. It is the undoing of a great superpower, and it’s occurring at the dawn of 2022, right before our eyes.

In the early days of 2021, on Jan. 6, a violent, armed mob of mostly White Americans intent on overturning the majority 2020 presidential election result, did what no foreign power could ever do: they stormed the U.S. Capitol, the seat of the United States government, some waving secessionist Confederate battle flags.

The mob attacked and beat Capitol Police officers and called for the hanging of Mike Pence, the U.S. vice president at the time, who was presiding over the Electoral College certification of the defeat of President Donald J. Trump’s reelection bid. Five people, four of them Capitol Police officers, died as a result of the melee.

Now, after interviewing hundreds of witnesses, issuing more than 50 subpoenas, and reviewing more than 35,000 pages of documents, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol is revealing some of its findings. At the same time, some critics warn that Jan. 6 may have been just a dress rehearsal for another attempted coup to come, a fascist takeover that would guarantee outright White supremacy in this country, even as Whites become a minority population.

The investigation appears to be drawing closer to Mr. Trump and his allies. While they appear to be trying to stop the committee from getting the information it wants.

Rioters loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a po- lice barrier Jan. 6 at the Capitol in Washington. U.S. Capitol Police officers who were attacked and beaten during the Capitol riot filed a lawsuit Aug. 26, against former President Donald Trump, his al- lies and members of far-right extremist groups, accusing them of intentionally sending insurrectionists to disrupt the congressional certification of the election in January. AP Photo/John Minchillo

Numerous videos of the incident reveal there was some military-style communication among the attacking throng. But even more para-military intrigue was revealed recently.

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reported that the committee is interested in the phone calls Mr. Trump made late on the night of Jan. 5, before the insurrection, to two so-called “war rooms” at the Willard Hotel, just one block from the White House complex. One war room contained lawyers and the other non-lawyers.

Mr. Lowell reported that on at least one of the calls Mr. Trump made in the hours before January 6, he tried to press his allies into a scheme to replace Mr. Biden’s certified Electoral College electors with uncertified electors pledged to him.

With former White House advisor Steve Bannon, and presidential lawyer Rudolph Giuliani presiding over the “war rooms,” they even assigned a code name—“Green Bay Sweep”—to the operation, according to writer Heather Cox Richardson.

A Harvard-educated member of the insurrection team, who says he devised the scheme, said the strategy was perfect. They would exert maximum pressure on Vice President Pence to block the certification of the Electoral College votes from swing states, by drawing out the proceedings on national television for as long as 24 hours.

Rioters confront U.S. Capitol Police officers outside the Capitol in Washington. The House panel investigation of the riot at the U.S. Capitol issued sweeping document requests on Aug. 27, to social media companies, expanding the committee’s investiga- tion as it seeks to examine the events leading to January’s insur- rection. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

“It was a perfect plan,” Peter Navarro, then-President Donald Trump’s trade advisor, told the Daily Beast. “We had over 100 congressmen committed to it.”

Mr. Navarro’s recently published memoir details how he stayed in close contact with Mr. Bannon as they put the Green Bay Sweep in motion with help from members of Congress loyal to the cause. While their plans may have been well thought out, they were far from being perfectly executed.

But the notion that Jan. 6, 2020 may have been a “dress rehearsal” for the uprising which eventually installs a dictatorship in this country is not so far-fetched.

In fact, three retired Army generals—former Major Gen. Paul Eaton, former Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, and former Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson—wrote in the Washington Post recently that they were “increasingly concerned” about the 2024 election and the “potential for lethal chaos inside our military” if certain military units don’t agree with the election outcome.

“Lethal chaos” would justify urgent, dictatorial measures, the suspension of Constitutional guarantees, the suspension of various legal protection, after of course the “fascists”—as more and more analysts have begun to describe the right-wing forces—take firm control of the levers of power.

The ongoing conflict and strife being witnessed in America is further evidence of a country falling apart as taught by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. What he revealed decades ago is coming to pass. “America, in trying to hold her place as the greatest power among the nations of the earth, is one of the most troubled countries on earth today,” Mr. Muhammad wrote in his book, “The Fall of America.”

His top student and National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, told the world in early 2020 that what was being witnessed was the “unraveling of a great nation.”

“When you unravel something, you undo twisted, knitted, or woven threads; you investigate and solve or explain something complicated or puzzling. The condition of America is puzzling. The world is looking at a country going to hell,” Min. Farrakhan stated during his Saviours’ Day message February 23, 2020, in Detroit.

A Capitol Police officer warned that the Jan. 6 attackers were in fact aided and abetted by members of Congress. Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who was injured in the Jan. 6 attack, told Congress last July that he believed he was going to be killed by angry Trump supporters during the riot, and he told NPR in December that he and his colleagues are worried it will happen again—and again.

“A lot of the officers have in mind the possibility of this being a recurring annual or every four-year thing, which is why officers like myself are being outspoken about it, because we don’t want to go through this again,” Officer Gonell told NPR.

“It’s mind-boggling to hear some of the things that are coming from some of these elected officials. But at the end of the day, our job is to make them safe and make their work environment safer, regardless of our opinion or political affiliation,” he said.

Mr. Trump, and the Jan. 6 insurrection; the 2017 Unite the Right, rally in Charlottesville, Va.; and Kyle Rittenhouse, are all linked to burgeoning White supremacy in this country. And White people are not bashful about it any longer. And conversely, at their core, claims of “voter fraud” are “anti-Black,” pure and simple.

President Joe Biden may have even caught on. In a recent speech at Washington’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Mr. Biden described the January 6 insurrection as being about “White supremacy.”

“The violent, deadly insurrection on the Capitol nine months ago, it was about White supremacy, in my opinion,” Mr. Biden said of the riot, during a speech acknowledging the 10-year anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. “The through-line is that hate never goes away,” the president said.

Mr. Trump, however, is resorting to every means at his disposal to prevent the facts of what happened that day from being revealed, thus shielding him from accountability for his actions. His latest legal maneuver was a Supreme Court filing, amending an appeal before the court. It cites a Washington Post article which he asserts, proves that Congressional Democrats are on a “political witch hunt” to bring him down.

According to Courthouse News, Mr. Trump is asking the justices to review the article, which he claims proves that the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) admits that the committee wants information to determine if they will make a criminal referral to the Justice Department. In his new filing, Mr. Trump claims these statements prove the committee is “acting outside its authority.”

Mr. Trump’s claims have been repeatedly rejected in courts, since the election, even by judges he appointed to the bench. At the same time, GOP Congressional leaders, many of whom are being revealed as being complicit in the plot, insist nothing untoward happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Citizens were merely expressing their free speech rights, they claim. They condemn the presidential election, even though they were themselves chosen for office on those same ballots.

Freshman Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) feels otherwise. She sent out a tweet Dec. 27 urging her fellow House members to pass a proposed bill that would investigate and ultimately expel members of Congress involved in the January 6 attack.

Rep. Bush stated that House of Representatives should “commemorate the 1-year-anniversary of January 6th by passing my House Resolution 25 to investigate and expel the members of Congress who helped incite the violent insurrection at our Capitol.”

“Whereas despite losing the popular vote by more than 7,000,000 votes,” the resolution reads, “Donald J. Trump, together with Republican Members of Congress, have commenced a near daily assault on the legitimacy of the 2020 election.”

This includes “the decision … to join efforts to invalidate votes in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin suppressing the votes of millions of people,” as well as “refusing to concede the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election and raising baseless allegations of fraud in States in which Black, Brown, and Indigenous people have been instrumental to the election outcome,” according to the bill. “This is sedition,” she said.

Her bill references Section Three of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This clause states that “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…who…shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”

A conservative Republican Congress member openly expressed her anti-Black feelings, defaming Kwanzaa as “fake religion.” And a prominent mainstream Christian clergy have defamed Black social causes as “pseudo-religions.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) referred to Kwanzaa as a “fake religion” on Twitter Dec. 26. The message came on the first day of the weeklong holiday celebrated by millions of Black people. Rep. Greene made the remark in response to a Twitter post by the College Republican National Committee (CRNC), a group of conservative college students. “Stop. It’s a fake religion created by a psychopath,” Rep. Greene tweeted back to the group’s message. “You aren’t bringing in new voters, you are turning them away. People are tired of pandering and BS.”

Meanwhile, Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, spoke out against “new social justice movements” such as Black Lives Matter during a speech in late December, decrying them as “pseudo-religions” that ultimately serve as “dangerous substitutes for true religion.”

Archbishop Gomez, heads the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He delivered the remarks in a video message sent to a meeting of the Congress of Catholics and Public Life in Madrid. He argued that the United States, like Europe, has been subject to “aggressive secularization,” insisting that “there has been a deliberate effort in Europe and America to erase the Christian roots of society and to suppress any remaining Christian influences.”

Unspoken, but taken for granted is that “Christian influences,” mean White supremacy.