Weekly Update: Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving Message 11.23.17
A Season for Gratitude
Given the nature of our work at Judicial Watch we witness a lot of what’s wrong with our government and with our country, so I am grateful that we have a time of year designated for gratitude.
Let us focus for now not on the politicians and their schemes but on the greatness of our people, who step forward in times of disaster and war, who give generously of time and money to that which is good, who stand firm for the rule of law in their communities and the nation. There is great strength in our people.
Acknowledging our gratitude to our Creator has been part of America since its beginning. The Pilgrims celebrated the first such day in 1621, almost four centuries ago. The Continental Congress declared the first national Thanksgiving on December 18, 1777. And, in 1789 George Washington declared the last Thursday in November a National Day of Thanksgiving.
However, it was President Abraham Lincoln who, in 1863, made it an official national holiday. It is important to note that at that time the Civil War was tearing our nation asunder.
Today I look out and see forces that would divide us again, not militarily, but just as seriously and with physical force. And every day our staff does battle for you against a rogue IRS that was used to influence an election, a State Department adamantly reluctant to lawfully produce the evidence of its nefarious former secretary, a FBI that can appear more corrupt than the lawbreakers it supposedly pursues, White Houses with pretentions to royalty, and state bureaucracies that openly defy the standards of clean elections.
This week alone we are engaged with the State of Kentucky over its sloppy election procedures, with the FBI over its conflicts of interest regarding Hillary Clinton, and with the State Department over what it knows about the Podesta brothers, political operatives with Clinton and Russian connections.
As we assay these various predicaments we as a nation find ourselves in today, we should recall Lincoln’s terrible time of brother against brother. In the middle of the smoke and carnage of war he called for gratitude.
He spoke of what was good:
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
So let us acknowledge the problems that we at Judicial Watch, with your vital support, are working to solve. But let us also take note of our strong and expanding economy, of daily advances against disease in our laboratories, of the resilience of our communities during disaster, of innovation that gives us safer automobiles and faster computers, of farms that feed the world, of our warriors who vanquish our enemies abroad, of churches that point us heavenward, of our ever lengthening, healthy lifespans in which to enjoy these blessings.
Let us also note that casting a light into the dark corners of Washington, as we do every day, does have an effect. Results can be excruciatingly slow, but at Judicial Watch we never relent.
And so, we can be grateful that we have a Creator who has blessed our nation. There is a divine plan in the fog of political war. An attitude of gratitude is critical lest we despair over all we have before us. We can be hopeful. The coming year will be a good one. All is well. Everything right now is the way it should be. Indeed, we are privileged and obliged to be grateful every day.
So, on behalf of everyone here at Judicial Watch, let me wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!
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