Posted on 04/27/2024 10:09:55 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I have been an admirer of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem ever since she first showed up on my radar after her election in 2019. She has established a solid record as a conservative with ambitious policy goals that have served her state very well and she's an excellent communicator. She's been well up on my list of potential Trump veepstakes picks because she brings a lot to the table. But all of that came crashing down for me yesterday evening when The Guardian published a review of her upcoming book, "No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward." It sounds as if most of the book is a fairly typical political analysis of the dangers of rampant progressivism and the need to restore traditional American values. But it also contains one highly disturbing episode from her life when she killed one of her own dogs, a German wirehaired pointer named Cricket who was only 14 months old. Her description of the incident is rather horrifying and I fear it speaks poorly of her character. (Warning: Potentially disturbing content ahead.)
In 2012, as the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney was pilloried for tying a dog, Seamus, to the roof of the family car for a cross-country trip.
But in 2024 Kristi Noem, a strong contender to be named running mate to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has managed to go one further – by admitting killing a dog of her own.
“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” the South Dakota governor writes in a new book, adding that the dog, a female, had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.
What unfolds over the next few pages shows how that effort went very wrong indeed – and, remarkably, how Cricket was not the only domestic animal Noem chose to kill one day in hunting season.
Noem describes attempting to train Cricket to hunt pheasant and the dog's failure to adapt to typical hunting procedures. Rather than locating game and "pointing" (hence the breed name) at birds so the hunter can take them, Cricket would "go out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life”. It sounds as if Cricket wasn't well-suited to be a hunting dog, but was certainly very happy. Noem even described Cricket as "the picture of pure joy."
Despite all of that, she took the dog out to a gravel pit and shot her with a rifle. She later returned and did the same to a goat. She reports that the uncastrated goat was "nasty and mean." Having worked summer jobs on family farms growing up, I can assure you that uncastrated male goats kept for breeding are aggressive and territorial. It's just their nature.
In a way, I suppose I can understand why Noem would choose to share this story. She's trying to make the point that she is "willing to do anything, difficult, messy, and ugly if it simply needs to be done." That can be true at times in politics to be sure, but as a leader, character also counts for a lot. As I've written here before, my wife and I first met volunteering at an animal shelter. Dogs mean a lot to us and we've had many over the decades we've been together. If you have a dog that you're raising for hunting and it doesn't work out, you can find a new home for the dog, particularly when it is so young and "the picture of pure joy."
Even if you can't manage to find a new home yourself, you could take the dog to a shelter. If all else fails, you might feel you have no other choice, but you should euthanize the dog humanely. We've had to take too many of our dogs to be put to sleep but they were all suffering from extreme old age and/or painful, untreatable diseases. (We probably could have paid off our house five years earlier with all the money we've spent on veterinary bills.) If the Noem family was operating a farm, they obviously knew and had access to a veterinarian. It's a requirement for such an operation. You don't just drag the dog to a gravel pit and shoot it.
In the book, Noem writes, “I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story here.” The Guardian correctly describes that passage as possibly being "the greatest understatement of election year." I agree. I wish I hadn't learned this about her.
To be clear, this doesn't take away from Noem's commendable performance as the Governor of South Dakota. And if Donald Trump does wind up picking her to be his running mate, I won't hold it against him or fail to vote for him. (We vote for presidents, not vice presidents.) But if she were to move forward and run for national office on her own, I would be forced to find a third-party candidate to vote for. As I said above, character is also important in leaders. I could not, in good conscience, vote for Kristi Noem. That's how important this is to me.
Turn against Trump?
I think more that were willing to vote for Trump feel he is the one turning.
Hopefully, believing the polls will provide comfort at this time to support Trump.
BTW, we got the ER bill for the vaccine debacle that no one wants to discuss. That’s OK; it wasn’t around for Trump to use - he used an effective cheaper treatment that would eliminate EUA for any vaccine created. Too bad Trump or his team didn’t say anything about that when it was being pushed on the nation.
Murdered? Looks and temperament can be deceiving. Noem did the right thing shooting the dog. You’re highly sensitive aren’t you?
Once a dog gets the bloodlust there’s not much you can do about it. Same with raiding chicken nests for eggs.
You’re afraid of dogs aren’t you.
My wife’s horse bit me once I should’ve shot The horse right?
I’ve been knocked down by several goats. I should’ve shot them right?
Some people are just afraid of animals and shouldn’t be around them.
Should Trump pick her as his running mate given this news?
I don’t get it. One day we are all in agreement that dangerous dogs like pit bulls must be deleted.
The next day some FReepers turn to snowflakes as they get lied to about another dangerous dog and they go all to pieces in sorrow, grief and anger.
“She doesn’t owe you showing her ER bill. She doesn’t owe you the opportunity to show her scars.
She doesn’t owe you a damn thing.”
Correct.
And I don’t owe her my vote.
She’s done. That may fly on South Dakota, but not in the rest of the country. She lost me when she vetoed that bill that would have kept trannies out of girl’s sports.
I did advertise her for re-homing for a couple of weeks, but in the ad I had to be truthful about the food aggression. There were no takers. At the time I was also between jobs, with finances starting to dwindle, so a trip to the vet was out.
I did what I had to do, but it was something that has haunted me since. I regret having to do it, but I don't regret having done it.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/exit-poll-shows-nearly-70-of-single-women-voted-democrat-in-midterms
Married women voted for Republicans by 14 pts.
Single women voted for Dems by 37 pts.
Soccer moms are not the problem for Republicans, too many women not getting married and not having kids, is a big problem.
Should Trump pick her as his running mate given this news?
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What? And lose the Snowflake vote? No, I guess Trump better listen to you.
And I don’t owe her my vote.
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You’re exactly right. So go ahead and vote for Biden. He likes dangerous dogs the same as you do.
You would not want that dog, food and a toddler in the same area.
He would gain the muslim and those afraid of dogs vote by running her.
Trump agrees with me.
He will never run a dog killer.
Yup. I think this story should be taken in context of her being a farmer/rancher thrown into a difficult situation as a teenager when her father died. Maybe reading her book in which she cites this might shed a different light on her actions.
Dogs killing chickens do not make good pets.
. I had an expensive Chesapeake Bay Retriever once that was one of the smartest duck hunting dogs I ever had. One Sunday my grandmother came over and brought her little Chihuahua. I had gone to the grocery store and when I came back I found my grandmother had been attacked by the chessie and her arms were mangled. The dog had snatched the Chihuahua out of her arms and was running around in the yard slinging it to death in his mouth as she desperately tried to get the dog out of his mouth. Nevertheless I went out to the kennel and attempted to get the dog hoping it was still alive. My chessie looked at me with bloodshot eyes with a vengeance like he didn’t know me. I had no choice but to go get my Colt M1911 .45 and put a bullet between his eyes. He was so friendly to everyone but he snapped when he saw that Chihuahua.
I’ve known quail hunters to buy expensive Pointers and Setters who spent tons of money having them trained and then shoot them dead because they wouldn’t hunt or point. Noem did the right thing as I did and I’ve had dogs all my life. I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot another one again if it called for it. I once had bought a Skeeter bass boat years ago and the neighbors cat down the street would come over and pee in it marking his territory stinking up the carpet. I took a pellet gun and popped him in the temple killing it instantly. Sometimes these things are called for.
She killed it out of hate. And then she wrote about it in her book as if it were a perfectly normal thing to kill animals you hate. That is textbook sociopathic behavior.
Trump’s kids understand. They’re hunters who’ve hunted with dogs in rural areas.
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