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Over a period of two weeks we, the American people, were privileged to see something very special, men and women who have given and are giving their lives in service to their country once again take a risk to do what was right on our behalf.

Trump wants to call them part of “the deep state.” In truth, they exemplify the best there is about America.

What we saw was the kind of integrity that actually does make America great, a commitment to doing what is right by telling the truth about what they saw, heard, and experienced about Donald Trump’s abuse of power, whatever the personal cost would be for doing so.

We were privileged to see what it means to put country before party or self interests. In short, we saw men and women who are living examples of what being patriotic really means.

This Thanksgiving we can give thanks that we were privileged to see what we saw last week. Those witnesses should make us proud to be Americans.

Personally, I needed something like that to lift my spirits.

Donald Trump as President and the Republicans who follow him like lapdogs have made me ashamed of what we have become as a nation, ashamed of how little we seem to care about the truth, about being decent, about living by values that sustain a nation.

I realize that Thanksgiving is not uniquely American. Other countries celebrate it as well. But this year it seems to me to be more important to us than usual.

We have a President for whom no one in their right mind can be thankful, a man who is trying to drag the entire country down to the lowest moral level to which human beings can fall.

But, then, we were given a gift, a span of time when we saw Americans who are better than Trump and reminded us that most of us are like them instead of him.

That is why after seeing their witness to truth, justice, and the American way, surely all of us can be more determined than ever to give political support to our elected representatives who have the power to remove this awful man from office.

What we heard from them was a clarion call to put our nation before ourselves or our political loyalties.

It is easy to be cynical about government, even our own, to think everybody in government is bad or on the take or trying to milk taxpayers of everything we’ve got.

But we have now seen a different side of the story, one I found to be truly inspiring.

And so on this Thanksgiving we can be genuinely grateful for the witnesses we saw and heard who in their testimony and strength of character represented the best about what it means to be American.

What a wonderful gift they gave to the country they love and serve.

Happy Thanksgiving!