I trust every reader here is politically aware enough to know that a political assassination occurred last month in Minnesota when State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot to death at their home. Many of you may have missed the detail that when the gunman entered the Hortman's home he also shot their golden retriever, Gilbert.
This was not a hunting dog. Melissa Hortman was training this dog for Helping Paws, a nonprofit that provides service dogs to people with disabilities, including veterans and first responders with PTSD. Gilbert did not graduate from the program, so the Hortmans decided to keep him as a house dog. There are no living witnesses to the assassination, so it is not known whether the dog came to the front door out of curiosity or to protect his humans, but it doesn't matter. Governor Walz decided to include Gilbert in the memorial at the state capital.
There is no record of any other nonhuman ever lying in state, and Melissa Hortman, a former state House speaker still leading the chamber’s Democrats, is the first woman. The state previously granted the honor to 19 men, including a vice president, a U.S. secretary of state, U.S. senators, governors and a Civil War veteran, according to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library.
If any readers consider a dog lying in state to be trivial, please read my post five years ago entitled Remembering Sugar Rae. And if you still don't understand, please find a different blog to follow.
Dogs are wonderful creatures.
ReplyDeleteTrivial no. Heart-rending yes.
ReplyDeleteQuote from the Minnesota Star Tribune: "Gilbert, the 4-year-old golden retriever trained by Rep. Melissa Hortman to be a service dog, was too friendly for a working dog's life."
Thanks for posting this. I'm so glad you told me about Gilbert.
ReplyDeleteOnly a monster would not understand this. It is absolutely heartbreaking. Gilbert was a very good boy.
ReplyDeleteA favorite quote: "Dogs die. But dogs live too ... right up until they die.They live brave, beautiful lives. They protect their families. And love us. And make our lives a little brighter. And they don't waste time being afraid of tomorrow." - Dan Gemeinhart
Totally deserved. The dog was assassinated as well.
ReplyDeleteAlso, (and this is not personal to OP), why is this "just" a political assassination, but not a terrorist attack? This is clearly an attack not just to murder a political opponent, but to change the power in the House of Delegates in MN. Goal achieved. I do not know how this is not terrorism. The only reason why it's not is because somehow right wing terrorism does not exist in the US [see Jan 6th pardons].
Go Gilbert. May the rainbow fields in the sky be filled with treats, scratches and zoomies.
To expand on your thought that the purpose was to change the power in the state, I have been wondering these past couple days whether the fact of this assassination may have influenced Republican legislators at the national level to fall in line and vote in favor of that disastrous big bill that passed by a razor-thin margin despite it being against all that the deficit-hawk representatives and senators claimed to believe in.
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