Like most of us, I’ve had a lot to think about today.

It’s a sad day in our nation’s history. The violence and insurgent actions essentially encouraged by our outgoing President are a stain that will never be removed.

The idea of our country was formulated in overwhelming opposition to oppression and our refusal to bow to a King.  What we witnessed earlier today is the antithesis of the very foundation of our democracy.  America was born in valid protest, but what we just witnessed was far, far from that.

Storming our nation’s Capitol and threatening our duly elected leaders to try and prevent them from carrying out their duties on behalf of our nation are the actions of the cowardly, and it is impossible to condemn those actions strongly enough.

Elections have winners, losers, and consequences.  But it is the worst kind of abuse of our democracy to falsely allege fraud in an effort to distort those consequences on behalf of the loser.

Our country will survive and thrive because that is who we have always been.  We will take today’s abuse of power, responsibility and authority by our outgoing President and grow from it.  But we will never forget what happens when we allow ourselves to be led by an individual whose only interest is self-interest.

I would like to thank every member of law enforcement, every legislator, every staff member, every journalist, every public servant and each and every American impacted by today’s horrendous events.

In our constantly changing world we can easily become desensitized by the 24 hour news cycle.  But what we saw today should not happen in America and, no matter your party affiliation or political ideology, it is something we all need to carry with us as we move forward in this time-tested Democratic experiment.