Kristi Nope

[George K]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/26/trump-kristi-noem-shot-dog-and-goat-book

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’s book – No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward – will be published in the US next month. The Guardian obtained a copy.

She includes her story about the ill-fated Cricket, she says, to illustrate her willingness, in politics as well as in South Dakota life, to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” if it simply needs to be done.

By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life”.

Noem describes calling Cricket, then using an electronic collar to attempt to bring her under control. Nothing worked. Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another”.

Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like “a trained assassin”.

When Noem finally grabbed Cricket, she says, the dog “whipped around to bite me”. Then, as the chickens’ owner wept, Noem repeatedly apologised, wrote the shocked family a check “for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime”.

Through it all, Noem says, Cricket was “the picture of pure joy”.

“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable”, “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”.

“At that moment,” Noem says, “I realised I had to put her down.”

Noem, who also represented her state in Congress for eight years, got her gun, then led Cricket to a gravel pit.

“It was not a pleasant job,” she writes, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realised another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

[Horace]

Well hating the animal is a step too far. Everything else might be defensible.

[Aqua Letifer]

@Horace said in Kristi Nope:

Well hating the animal is a step too far. Everything else might be defensible.

I think making killing a dog a good metaphor for being a good politician is a little too on the nose.

[Horace]

@Aqua-Letifer said in Kristi Nope:

@Horace said in Kristi Nope:

Well hating the animal is a step too far. Everything else might be defensible.

I think making killing a dog a good metaphor for being a good politician is a little too on the nose.

Wasn't that the opening scene of House of Cards, where Spacey's character strangles an injured dog in the street?

[Aqua Letifer]

@Horace said in Kristi Nope:

@Aqua-Letifer said in Kristi Nope:

@Horace said in Kristi Nope:

Well hating the animal is a step too far. Everything else might be defensible.

I think making killing a dog a good metaphor for being a good politician is a little too on the nose.

Wasn't that the opening scene of House of Cards, where Spacey's character strangles an injured dog in the street?

Don't remember but sounds right.

[Horace]

Link to video

[George K]

Could be worse, she could have tied it to the roof of her car eaten it.

[Renauda]

@Aqua-Letifer said in Kristi Nope:

@Horace said in Kristi Nope:

Well hating the animal is a step too far. Everything else might be defensible.

I think making killing a dog a good metaphor for being a good politician is a little too on the nose.

On my part I just don’t get what point she is trying to make by telling the story in the first place. All I can say is that she should have kept her dog leashed when visiting someone’s farm, especially a dog known to be excitable, misbehaved and difficult to train. There are professionals out there who can help in such instances.

Frankly, if I were to meet someone and they would tell me that story, I would think that person to be an idiot who had no business owing a dog (or a firearm) in the first place.

[George K]

@Renauda said in Kristi Nope:

I just don’t get what point she is trying to make by telling the story in the first place

"The ability to make tough choices."

There are things you think.
There are things you do.
There are things you talk about.
There are things you publish.

Each of those is a smaller group. She should know that.

[Renauda]

You would at least think she would know that.

[George K]

@Renauda said in Kristi Nope:

You would at least think she would know that.

Exactly. I've never been impressed with her, although JW( P)HT.

WHat's more important for a politician than "making tough choices?"

Knowing what to say, and when to keep your yap shut.

[taiwan_girl]

I saw that story. She just eliminated her chance of being a vice president candidate.

[Doctor Phibes]

@George-K said in Kristi Nope:

@Renauda said in Kristi Nope:

I just don’t get what point she is trying to make by telling the story in the first place

"The ability to make tough choices."

There are things you think.
There are things you do.
There are things you talk about.
There are things you publish.

Each of those is a smaller group. She should know that.

Has anybody considered this could be a secret code to Deep State that she'd be willing to do what needs doing if Trump went too far off message?

[George K]

[jodi]

She put that dog into situations that she knew it wasn’t going to be able to handle and then she killed it when it lived up to her expectations. Stupid Bitch.

[Doctor Phibes]

@jodi said in Kristi Nope:

She put that dog into situations that she knew it wasn’t going to be able to handle and then she killed it when it lived up to her expectations. Stupid Bitch.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Just what we need advising Trump. Luckily, he's a really stable genius.

[Jolly]

Never trust a man that won't kill his own dog.

[Aqua Letifer]

@Renauda said in Kristi Nope:

On my part I just don’t get what point she is trying to make by telling the story in the first place.

I mean, yeah, that's what I find fascinating, too. She actually thought this was not only an example of good character, but so good she'd put it in a book to boast about herself. But, like I said: politician.

I'm with jodi.

[Aqua Letifer]

@Jolly said in Kristi Nope:

Never trust a man that won't kill his own dog.

Or you could, y'know, not be a dipshit dog owner.

[Jolly]

@Aqua-Letifer said in Kristi Nope:

@Jolly said in Kristi Nope:

Never trust a man that won't kill his own dog.

Or you could, y'know, not be a dipshit dog owner.

Just paraphrasing Heinlein....