Carl J. Petersen is a parent in Los Angeles who writes here about a politician who is mean enough and dumb enough to kill a 14-month dog. Cricket didn’t obey her orders so she took him to the bottom of a gravel pit and shot him in the head. Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota justly earned national scorn for her act of animal cruelty.
Next to holding a baby at a campaign rally, nothing does more to humanize a political candidate than a video of them frolicking with the family dog. The love of man’s best friend is bipartisan with dog owners “just as likely to come from either side of the political spectrum.” A Pew Research Center survey found that 97% of pet owners consider their pets part of their family.
Like everything else that has changed since Trump descended his golden escalator to announce his first candidacy, a dog’s status on the campaign trail is now threatened. As part of her campaign to become Trump’s running mate, Kristi Noem, the governor of one of the Dakotas, is set to release an autobiography where she brags about killing two of her family’s pets.
As a dog lover, I have made the wrenching decision to help faithful companions cross the rainbow bridge. It is always difficult, but we owe it to our pets to allow ourselves to let go rather than let them suffer. I held each of them as the doctor injected the fatal shot, making sure that they left us knowing the answer to “Who is a good dog?”
Noem provided no such comfort to her dog. According to her account, Cricket was dragged to a gravel pit and shot dead in front of a startled construction crew. Like a serial killer discovering pleasure in taking a life, she then set her sites on one of the family’s goats. The goat did not fare as well as Cricket and did not die with the first shot. Noem had to “run back to her truck for more ammo to finish off the wounded animal….”
According to Trump’s first wife, Ivana (the one he cheated on with his second wife Marla), “Donald was not a dog fan” and was hostile to her poodle, Chappy. Like most Americans, she was perplexed by this hostility; “How can you not love a dog that acts like he’s won the lottery for life just because he sees you walk through the door?”
The Trumps were the first modern First Family not to have any pets when they were in the White House. James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson were the only other Presidents without pets while they were in office. Many people are saying that this is an example of Trump’s narcissism. It is hard to have unconditional love for another creature when you are too busy admiring the greatness of the man in the mirror.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What was she thinking? Is there a constituency that would be impressed with someone who would kill a dog because it was acting like a puppy?
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These people leading the Repugnican Party are nutcases. They have no idea how far out of line from the thinking of ordinary people they are. They are ABNORMAL, literally. And the most abnormal of them all is sitting in a Manhattan courtroom right now, listening to the testimony of the porn star who received money that Trump hid to keep her quiet during his election–an illegal, nonreported campaign contribution.
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The cruelty masquerading as courage to take unpopular stands is the point. Noem is/was auditioning for Veep, and wanted to show that a woman can be just a nasty and cruel as Donald.
It’s disturbing and sickening that anyone considers either Noem or Trump suitable for anything beyond being social media trolls.
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Noem had so many other alternatives than shooting the dog in the head. Give it to a friend or relative, take it to an animal shelter or hire a dog trainer.
From the BBC 12 April 2017 –
Each year in June, the city of Yulin in southern China hosts a dog meat festival, where live dogs and cats are sold specifically for eating and an estimated 10,000 are slaughtered for their meat.
But last year saw big protests against the festival from within China as well as in the West. end quote
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After Traitor Trump won the 2016 election through the Electoral College with the largest popular vote loss in US history for a candidate that won that way, should we thank the Electoral College for his win or curse it?
No other democracy in the world has an Electoral College that lets the popular vote loser with an election.
https://www.history.com/news/presidents-electoral-college-popular-vote
Donald Trump (2016)
“In a surprise victory that defied most pre-election polling, outsider Republican candidate Donald Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton, wife of the former president, Bill Clinton, despite the fact that Hillary Clinton received 2.8 million more votes in the popular vote—the largest such disparity yet.”
In 2000 and 2016, the Republican Party proved they figured out how to win elections through the Electoral College, the only way to win presidential elections for the party that has been underwater for the national popular vote for decades.
In blackjack ( or 21), I’d call that dealing off the bottom of the deck.
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Kristi Noem is desperate for Trump’s approval. She’s had such extensive plastic surgery that she’s now a Kimberly Guilfoyle look alike. Do a web search for before and after and it’s startling just how vacuous a person she is.
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I can’t help but think of Falla, FDR’s dog. The dog was a national symbol.
prior to WW2, the army held important maneuvers in central Tennessee. My first cousin was a little girl, raised in the same house I was. She recalls rows of soldiers marching past, one of whom was mocking FDR:
I hate war
Elanor hates war
My dog, Falla hates war
presidential dogs and cats are an institution. Noem is foolish
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A list of Presidential pets:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_pets
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While the story of the dog and goat are sickening, the fact that she lied about meeting Kim Jong Un is another reminder of mental disability.
Have we become so cauterized by Trump’s lies that we just take this for granted?
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I wouldn’t consider a 14 month old dog to be a puppy. I also wouldn’t consider it to be so untrainable as to have to euthanize it.I have euthanized pets before and have had it done at the vet also. It is certainly not a pleasant experience. How anyone would put the incident in a book and then use it as a political statement is beyond my ken.For me it shows a lack of compassion to handle it the way Noem is handling it. Although, the bright side might be that it kills any chance of her going up higher in the political ranks.
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Yes. She is such a vicious moron that she shot her chances of higher elected office. They say that karma is a bitch, but that’s not so. She’s just fair.
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Vicious moron . . . . that about says it. And every time I see a picture of her, I am reminded of that woman in the movie “Brazil,” . . . poor thing. CBK
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This is another ghastly example of the creatures that are running loose around Trump. It is also an inditement of the very dangerous volatile mindset prevalent within that group.
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Do the people of the state and, in the country, need someone who shows a, TOTAL, disregard for anything living in the government? And, IF, she can act, so cruel toward an, innocent animal, imagine what she is going to do, to any and, everyone who, “disobeyed”, her…she should be, voted, OUT of, office…
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We dog-sit our great-grandpuppy on weekdays, and almost daily I’m on the verge of killing him. One of these days I’m sure I’ll do him in between the long walks, visits with neighborhood kids getting off the school buses, and treats.
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William,
Don’t shoot the dog. Tell your kids or grandkids to hire a walker.
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I apologize for being elliptical. If I kill him, it will be with kindness.
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As a lifelong dog lover, I regard what Kristi Noem did to her 14 month old dog as evil – there is zero justification for killing a young dog like that. What’s curious, though, is why she revealed to the public that she did it. That revelation has severely tarnished her public image, and one poll shows that a huge majority of Republican voters oppose that action.
My theory is that she was trying to project an image of toughness, i.e. a woman with no military or law enforcement background who could make hard decisions without being swayed by weak emotions like most other women. Consider the context of that revelation about the dog. It’s made in a book published in time for the 2024 campaign in which Noem very much wants to be Trump’s pick for VP. So she includes that story to embellish her public persona, not realizing how repulsive most people would find her killing of her dog to be.
There’s a shorter description for her action in publicly revealing this incident: phony. That’s an occupational hazard for politicians who will say and do almost anything to advance their careers. Noem is far from alone in this regard. Joe Biden has a long history of reciting grossly inflated stories about his life, many of them outright false. For many years he claimed that his first wife and young child were killed by a drunk driver, even though the police investigation concluded that Mrs. Biden was the driver at fault and the other driver was not impaired. The innocent driver’s family begged Biden for many years to stop telling that false story. Biden did it because he thought that it would gain him more public sympathy and help his political career. What an appalling way of thinking; everyone already deeply sympathized with Biden for his catastrophic loss. Alas, that’s how most ambitious politicians of all ideologies behave. Noem is just the most recent.
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Noem told her story of killing her dog Cricket to impress one man, Trump. Trump is one of the few Presidents who never had a dog or any other animal. Why would he care that Noem shot the 14-month-old dog in the head? He might find that a plus in her resume.
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Biden’s wife and baby daughter were killed in a tragic accident in 1972. His two young sons were injured. His wife pulled away from a stop sign, and her car was hit by a tractor-trailer that had no stop sign. For years, Biden thought that the truck driver had had too much to drink. In 2008, he said that he fully accepted the view that the driver of the truck was not drunk. His wife drove in front of the truck.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/oct/04/social-media-posts-are-making-claims-about-biden-f/
Question: why are you using a post about immigrants to introduce a snide story about Biden that he repudiated 16 years ago?
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This posting is not about immigrants. What are you talking about?
You wrote this sentence recently: “I will never criticize Biden.” You thus admit to being a blind partisan, which your defense of Biden’s disgusting and often repeated words about a bogus drunk driver killing his first wife and child is a perfect example. Biden knew long before 2008 the truth about that tragedy. He had to be relentlessly criticized by the truck driver’s family before he changed his public statements and admitted that the truck driver was not at fault.
I’m willing to call out the bad behavior of both Kristi Noem and Joe Biden – you aren’t.
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I smell a Trump troll.
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Nancy, I am not a blind partisan. I won’t criticize Biden because he is running against the worst, most corrupt, most immoral, most vile person ever to run for office in the U.S.
Why should I criticize Biden when the alternative is a liar, a philanderer, a racist, and a malignant narcissist?
If Biden were running against a decent and principled man like McCain, I would be ready to find fault with. Iden.
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Amen. Exactly right, Diane. Donald Trump is a vile criminal and predator and Fascist and a traitor to his country. He is a clear and present danger. Anything that would assist him in getting elected is a clear and present threat to the United States.
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>So, Diane’s response is reasonable. Yours is over-the-top and breathtakingly uncivil and poorly argued, Dickson.
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cx: rabid obstruction
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You again demean yourself and justify the description of you as a former scholar. You don’t have enough influence to swing the election either for or against Biden, so don’t worry that being honest about Biden will win the election for Trump. Biden’s first wife died tragically in 1972, but not until 2008 did he admit that his story about a drunk driver killing her was false. Of course, he didn’t come out and confess that he had lied for 36 years. You’re OK with someone of your tribe doing that. Former scholar indeed.
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Social sanction, for good or ill, has dramatic effects on people’s attitudes. So do network effects. So, in a situation like this, where one of the candidates is a major threat to our country, it is perfectly reasonable not to be incendiary about the better man. Let’s wait until after the election. Then we can talk. I was never a big fan of Status Quo Joe, but he has been a much better president than I ever imagined him being, even faced with lunatic, rapid obstructionists in the House and Senate and on the Extreme Court.
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I am not a scholar of the Biden family. I have a Ph.D. in the history of American education. You clearly have studied Joe Biden and plan to vote for the fat playboy with three wives and multiple mistresses who lies every day.
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So, I have been noticing a comment written by different people that follows the same pattern. Almost all such comments are posted by newcomers who are unlikely to comment again.
It goes like this: “I’m no fan of Trump but have you noticed that Biden is a terrible person who did such-and-such and should never be trusted. And because you, the host of the blog, support Biden, you are a former scholar and are totally discredited.”
I have now received the same comment from about a dozen different people. They appear to have a script. They never say anything critical of Trump. The letter is so predictable that I can’t take it seriously. I wonder why they bother.
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Putin’s GRU hard at work.
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In an interview, Barbara Walters asked Trump about the rumors that he had been seeing Marla Maples while still married to his first wife, Ivana, and here’s what he said: that he was very, very rich and that he didn’t have to put up with a woman who had ruined her body having children when he could have anyone he wanted.This is how he spoke of the woman who had borne his children. The man is an utterly disgusting POS, and so is anyone who would vote for him.
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cx: Ivana
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