We Marched for Truth

Photos of the March for Truth, Sat., June 3, 2017,east Mission Bay. All photos by Frank Gormlie

March for Truth

The following is from my speech at one of the rallies during the San Diego March for Truth held Saturday, June 3rd in east Mission Bay Park.

By Frank Gormlie

I’m a citizen journalist with the OB Rag and the San Diego Free Press. I’ve been involved with publishing the truth, and have been active in grassroots San Diego politics since I was in college.

We’re here today to march and rally for the truth, to stand up for the truth. Somebody has to! Somebody has to stand up for the truth.

And there’s six hundred of us today – how do I know? I stood and counted you as you marched.

We march today for truth, in a world where the President disparages the truth so much, where he calls investigations into collusion between the White House and Russia “fake news”.

Where the president uses twitter to spread lies – do  you remember when he claimed in tweets that Obama wire-taped Trump Tower?

Where the president simply tells outright lies – do you remember his claims that the size of his the crowds at his inaugural were larger than any other inauguration?

Remember when he claimed that he would have won the popular election except for millions of undocumented people voting? Do you remember when he claimed he has no ties to Russia?

Where the President calls the press “the enemy of the people” and invites attacks – violent attacks – against members of the press. Where his PR hacks and cabinet members are shielded from answering questions from reporters.

Where the president believes climate change is a hoax.  He’s using lies to cover up, deny culpability and in his obstruction of justice.

There is a war going on for the soul of the country and for our flailing democracy; Elizabeth Warren has called for “warriors” to resist Trump – and today we’re answering her call.

The truth is our country is in deep, deep trouble; it is so bad that we are in a Constitutional Crisis, where the rule of law is being threatened; where the First Amendment is being attacked; where the separation of powers is undermined, where our rusty mechanisms of democracy have been interfered with by Russian hackers.

Hacked, interfered with, manipulated, what our president calls “fake news”.

Nothing else is as important as this constitutional crisis; and our Congressional leaders need to act like there’s one.

Congress and its investigating committees must speed up their investigations, act in due haste, and act like there’s a Constitutional Crisis; these committees must be given all the staff and resources they need;  and we want an independent commission.

As long as this crisis continues, the very fabric of what’s left of our democracy is being shredded.

We want to get to the bottom of this crisis, to find out what really happened, to find out just to what extent the Russians were involved in manipulating our election, to find out what the Russians have on Donald Trump, to find out if any Americans helped and assisted them, and helped direct their cyber attacks and fake news outlets. To learn why there’s a cover-up.

To find out if treason has been committed.

The truth is our attorney general lied to Congress and lied on his security clearance application.

The truth is the president’s closest advisors met with Russian ambassador and then didn’t disclose the meetings on their security clearance applications.

Trump’s son in law met with the head of a Russian government bank that was sanctioned. He wanted to set up a back-channel between Trumps and Putin using Russian facilities.

Which is it, Jared?  Diplomacy or business? It’s either a felony or treason – your pick, Jared.

There’s Flynn, Sessions, Manaforte, Roger Stone, Page, Jared, Cohn – Trump’s long-time personal lawyer – they’re all part of the investigations now.

The truth is that there are so many connections between members of Trump’s family, his campaign and his White House – and even Trump himself – with the Russians and Putin –  that we can no longer believe there’s nothing there.

The truth is that Trump fired Sally Yates because she knew too much about White House contacts with the Russians.

The truth is that Trump tried to persuade FBI head Jim Comey to lay off the Flynn investigation.

The truth is the president fired Comey because Comey was trying to expand his investigation into the possible collusion between the White House and Putin.

The truth is that Trump tried to get his national security heads to publicly announce that Trump has no connections to Russia.

The truth is that there’s substantial evidence of some kind of cover-up. But a cover-up of what? And what kind of quid pro quid was there?

Business loans from Russian government banks? Jared has a $1 billion bill coming due on Trump Tower. End to US sanctions against Russia? We know right after the inaugural, people in the State Dept were told to begin preparations for lifting the sanctions.

I want to end with what my good friend, Doug Porter, wanted to say. Doug is also with the San Diego Free Press:

If you really want to get rid of Donald Trump, then you need to understand what it takes to do it.

Corporations won’t do it because it wouldn’t be profitable.

The media won’t do it, no matter how big the story, because they are outside the government.

The Supreme Court can’t do it because of the Constitution. The Justice Department won’t do because they can not legally prosecute a sitting president.

The Republicans in Congress won’t do it because they’ve made a deal with the devil.

Which leaves us, the people. The day we make our voices loud enough so all these institutions can no longer conduct business as usual is the day Donald Trump is gone.

Resistance is Persistence.  We are the resistance.

Thank-you.

For more photos go to San Diego Free Press.