Political Quotes

“I rise today for a sad occasion, and that is to remember the lives of two Virginians, Alison Parker and Adam Ward, the journalists who were gunned down on live TV in Roanoke, VA, just a couple of weeks ago, as they covered a local news story. There was a third victim in that shooting, Vicki Gardner, the president of the local chamber of commerce at Smith Mountain Lake, who is recovering. She was released from the hospital today, but she still has a long recovery ahead of her. We saw during the summer a set of these tragedies in Roanoke, VA, my wife's hometown, in Charleston, SC, in Lafayette, LA, and in Chattanooga, TN. My friend, the Senator from Tennessee, is on the floor. In Virginia, the shooting in Roanoke, which was carried out on live television, was horrific in itself, but it also was horrific because it brought up a lot of bad memories. The Roanoke community is within about 25 miles from Virginia Tech, where the horrible shooting happened in 2007 that killed 32 people and wounded dozens of others. I spoke on the Senate floor in April on the eighth anniversary of that shooting. I talked, as is my habit to do in April, about the lives of those who lost their lives but also about some who survived and what they are doing today. I am saddened to be here because it is just another example of a horrible shooting in my Commonwealth.…”