In memory of Melissa and Mark Hortman and their dog Gilbert

This is the video and text of my speech honoring the memory of Melissa and Mark Hortman, and their dog Gilbert, who were brutally murdered in a politically motivated act of domestic terrorism:

Melissa Hortman, Mark Hortman, and their Dog Gilbert. Murdered in a political assassination by a home grown domestic terrorist.

Tomorrow Melissa and Mark Hortman and their dog will lie dead in state in the Rotunda of the Minnesota Capital for visitation

Who was 61st speaker of the Minnesota House Melissa Hortman

* She served on the Brooklyn Park Citizen Long Range Improvement Committee

* She helped get funding for the Zanewood Recreation Center that provides art and recreation programming and Intervention and Prevention services to the kids who need it.

* She fought for decades for free lunch for hungry kids and a carbon free future

* Who was Melissa Hortman? She was one of us, doing the same things we do on the County Board and now she is dead. Murdered in a political assassination whose true impact still doesn't seem to have registered—reduced to nothing more than a blip in an unrelenting stream of chaos.

Let’s talk about their doofy golden lab Gilbert. He tried to be a dedicated service dog with Helping Paws, an organization that trains and places service dogs with veterans, first responders, and people with physical disabilities.

But poor Gilbert. He flunked out. Why? Because he was too damn Minnesota nice. He was a Hortman.

Gilbert was shot multiple times and so badly injured, mangled and disfigured that the adult children had to put him to sleep. Melissa Hortman’s children Sophie and Colin still tell us to honor their parents legacy by doing “something, whether big or small, to make our community just a little better for someone else.”

Those poor children with hearts bigger than the world deserves who probably spent more time away from their mom than they wanted to because she was in a meeting working for a better world.

The reason they probably responded that way is because they learned it from their mom.

Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman shot 8 and 9 times in front of their daughter. She likely saved their lives by slamming the door, calling 911, identifying her father Senator John Hoffman, while her parents bled out in front of her.

That call, that action. Who knows how many lives it saved, maybe even those of our friends here in Wisconsin who were on that assassin’s list, some of whom have shared this same floor with us. Their daughter who acted so quickly, decisively, under so much distress. Her name: Hope.

To compound their grief was the callous indifference shown by some nationally elected leaders. These traitors to human emotion and basic decency hold some of the highest positions in our country.

They laughed when it happened. Thought it was some kind of a joke. Could not understand his complete lack of humanity when it was slowly and carefully explained to him by his colleague. Who was not shunned and still sits in those seats in the senate reserved for the best of us who want to make the best for all of us.

To the narcissistic feckless leaders who couldn’t bother to pick up the phone because well that would be a “Waste of time”

who couldn’t offer a kind of word of grief or empathy

who couldn’t offer the full force and cooperation of all available federal resources

Who couldn’t offer protection against copy cat murders.

Who couldn’t offer a splinter of basic shared human emotion.

Who didn’t even have the basic decency in light of offering nothing to just keep their mouth shut.

Sometimes there is not a time for inspiration and hope but for grief. To sit there in silence at the barbarism of humanity. A few solemn quiet moments to realize that the world we all worked so hard for in so much peril.

And instead of moving anything forward, we are working to salvage what little we have left. And what little we have left might be so broken that it is beyond repair.

And to just sit there with the realization that those responsible, who are really responsible, will face no consequences.

I am not here to offer inspiration or hope. Because for me to do so would so wildly betray the pain I feel in my heart.

Instead I will look to those who are offering me hope.

* The muslim immigrant on the cusp of becoming the mayor of the greatest city in the world

* The transgender kids who wake up every morning to live another day of their lives in a world where so many people forget that they are just kids who just want our love and support.

* To the groups of people throwing themselves in front of moving vehicles to protect their neighbors from masked goons who are smashing their car windows trying to take away their rights that this country was founded on.

They are the ones who make me want to continue to pledge my allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. My country — no matter what they do to try to destroy it, with every bone in my body, I say no.

I invite you to sit in silence and meditation for our country and the victims of this horrific terrorism or to stand up and recite the pledge. Both are equally powerful expressions of your patriotism.