Going to the Dogs — The party of mutt sluts

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

May 5th 2024

http://www.zeppscommentaries.online

The saga of Kristi Noem and her dead puppy keeps staying in the news. It isn’t because gleeful Democrats are hyping the story. It’s because Noem herself won’t back down, and just keeps digging herself into an ever-deeper hole. First she tried implying that she didn’t know the story survived the first draft and shouldn’t have been in the book. The classic Scooby-Doo “If it weren’t for you meddling kids” defense. That blew up when it came out that she did the audiobook herself—including the happy tale of the demise of Cricket. The initial “farmers have to made hard choices” excuse died stillborn when she wrote, “I really hated that dog.”

Now she’s pointing to Biden’s German shepherd, Champion, who reportedly bit a dozen or so Secret Service agents. She’s saying that Biden should have shot the dog. She didn’t say if Biden should have dispatched Champion live from the oval office, or in front of a joint session of Congress (it really could have been an excellent opportunity for Biden to turn to the Republican side and say, “If the Supreme Courts says I have absolute immunity, you lot are next.”). Maybe Biden could have discussed responsible pet ownership while in the backdrop behind him, a couple of vengeful secret service agents stuffed a yelping Champion into a running wood chipper. It would have given Biden true Sarah Palin cred, you know?

But Noem, Republican to her empty core, refuses to back down, still hoping she can turn it into a campaign where she is the innocent victim of “woke” libs. Maybe she could have took a flamethrower to a couple of live kittens just to show she can’t be bullied by lunatic leftist pansies and commies.

But even Donald Trump, yes, Donald Fucking Trump, wondered aloud what was wrong with her. It takes real talent to make him feign being appalled. This is the guy who ripped off a children’s cancer charity, right? His standards are...flexible.

To be sure, his reaction is performance art. He’s probably watching to see if she survives the political storm, and even though she didn’t get invited to Donald’s meat parade of Veep picks for billionaires, she’s probably still on his list. He doesn’t care how vile she is. In fact, he prefers vile. He just wants to know how mindlessly loyal she would be. His last Veep toad was such a disappointment, you know.

His fans, while shrinking, are even more vehement. They adore it when he behaves like a pig. That’ll show those libs! They push for worse and worse behavior from GOP candidates, since viciousness, cruelty, rudeness and pure arrogant stupidity are seen as virtues among those deplorables. After all, those are what Trump expects from his closest minions. Michael Cohen wasn’t his main lawyer for twenty years because Cohen was a nice guy. He was as dirty and nasty as any mafia torpedo. His autobiography could have just as easily been titled “...But Take the Cannoli.”

Meanwhile, Republicans keep vilifying refugees, immigrants, Muslims, African-Americans, and now students. Never mind that America’s Nazi population have all gravitated to the GOP; Republicans are attacking all critics of Netanyahu as being “anti-Semitic” even though most of them value Israel for the demented Bible-based Revelation belief that the state of Israel must exist in order for the Rapture to occur. Jews are just God bait in their eyes. Netanyahu isn’t their friend, but he is chum. Trump praises people who are Nazis as “very fine people” and attacks critics of Israel and in his base, at least, gets away with it.

AIPAC support Trump, of course.

What Trump supporters don't understand is that supporting him doesn't automatically make them safe in his New World Order. History suggests the opposite, in fact. Strongman leaders know their truest believers are gullible, feckless, erratic, easy to manipulate, and unreliable. After all, they already betrayed their country once. So unless Trump supporters can find a way fast to make themselves useful to the new Fuhrer, he's just going to throw them away like used condoms. Read recent history: the early years of Lenin, Hitler, and Mao. They quickly filled the camps with their truest believers, and executed many more. Look up “Night of the Long Knives.”

The corporate execs who back Trump doubtlessly think they can control him once he takes office. But Trump sees them as a useful prop. He isn’t going to reciprocate their loyalty, and once his mass deportations and tariffs create a Great Depression, he’ll blame them bitterly for the chaos and deprivation his policies have caused. If the Supreme Court has anointed him King at that point, expect him to start hanging CEOs publicly.

Oh, yes, and Republican office-holders can feel free to resume shooting puppies in this Brave New World. It’s not like they’ll be good for anything else under Glorious Leader. They will be justice of Champions. And not playing proper Cricket to do so.

FOOTNOTE: After I wrote this but prior to publishing it, I came across this, from Sophia Cai, national politics reporter for Axios:

"Trump says he loves Kristi Noem despite puppy killing controversy, per Mar-a-Lago audio obtained by Axios," she reported Sunday.

“In the audio, Trump at a private luncheon commented on each of the following lawmakers, giving some insight into his thinking,” according to her published report.

The article reveals that Trump’s response to Noem was that the GOP governor is, “Somebody that I love. She’s been with me, a supporter of mine and I’ve been a supporter of hers for a long time.”

See? Told you his outrage was fake.

Doggedly Wrong — Kristi Noem licks the third rail

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

April 28^th, 2024

http://www.zeppscommentaries.online

There’s a time in a child’s life known as “the terrible twos” when a child is constantly overamped, rebellious, and defiant. “No!” becomes their favorite word, and poking out their tongues at anything they are mad about—dinner, the cat, parents—becomes a nearly obsessive behavior. Most kids start to tone it down about the age of five or so. Gentle but firm discipline smooths those rough edges, and what the parents don’t address their peers certainly will. Most boys that age come home at least once with a puffy cheek and scruffed clothes, wailing, “But all I did was stick my tongue out at him!”

As they approach their tweens, many find themselves on the receiving end of that sort of behavior, usually from younger siblings or a face pull from a kid from the safety of a passing auto. If they haven’t outgrown it by age 14 or so, they end up diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder and end up on meds.

However, there is one segment of the population where that sort of behavior in adults is encouraged. That would be the American right. Going back to the days of Rush Limbaugh and hate radio back in the 80s, “owning the libs” made ignorant and disgusting behavior not only acceptable, but praiseworthy. He would pop off with remarks like “When WOMEN got the right to vote is when it all went downhill,” or “Holocaust? Ninety million Indians? Only four million left? They all have casinos – what’s to complain about?” He encouraged destructive things like rigging trucks to emit immense clouds of thick black smoke to annoy the libs, or to be rude and condescending to women (“Ideal women: 36-24-36, five foot seven, flat spot on top of the head, deaf mute. The flat spot on the top of the head is for your drink.”)

He also made a big thing of the fact that he smoked cigars, and encouraged kids to take up cigar smoking because it annoyed the grown ups. He ended up dead from lung cancer, perhaps the most positive lesson he ever offered the public.

That attitude took over the GOP, and its companion movements, the chauvinists and the conspiracy mongers. They exploded on the web, trolling everyone and everything. (They’re amazingly easy to troll BACK, by the way, and you don’t even have to sink to their level. Just respond politely and sincerely, using provable fact and sweet reason. Burning coals on their heads. Call it being passively-aggressively nice, but it works.)

Hillary knew exactly what she was talking about when she deemed these offspring of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy “deplorables.” That they reacted like scalded cats to that only proved her point.

They got into Congress, of course. Some of them are seriously emotionally disturbed, but most of them are just engaging in a kind of little-boy-nasty performance art, sticking out their tongues at the grown-ups. Maggie Armpits and Bo-Bo don’t exist in a vacuum.

That brings us to Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota. She wants very badly to be on the ticket if Trump makes it to the convention (and especially if he doesn’t) and so she wrote a book meant to establish her cred amongst the deplorables. As she put it, she wanted “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.”

Apparently, this included shooting puppies. Or at least, a puppy, a 14-month old wire-hair terrier. She portrayed it as having to put down a dog that was utterly incorrigible, and somewhat vicious and destructive. She portrayed it as being a part of farm life, and of course, that does routinely include putting down sick or elderly animals, and slaughtering same for food. In these days of bird flu, swine flu and so on, it sometimes involves mass culls.

She might have even gotten away with it if she had left it at that, but she went on to say that the dog was a family pet named “Cricket.” (Douglas Adams to the white discourtesy phone, please), and added, “I hated that dog.”

Yes, this annoyed liberals. And pretty much everyone else, down to and including Rush Limbaugh fans.

There is a Netflix documentary series named “Don’t F–k with Cats.” Some guy posted anonymous videos of torturing kittens to death. This lead to a mass campaign online to find and out the culprit. In so doing, they unmasked and stopped a serial killer. True story, and worth watching.

Same goes for dogs. Richard Nixon saved his political career in 1952 by staunchly defending his dog, Checkers. LBJ’s popularity began to erode in earnest when he picked up his beagle by the ears. Mitt Romney’s campaign faltered when it came to light he drove 200 miles in his SUV with his dog in a crate strapped to the top of the vehicle. I believe him when he said the dog wasn’t in danger, but it was still a mean thing to do to the family pet. Mistreating family pets is the true third rail of American politics.

True to form, Noem tried to turn this political catastrophe into a cause celebre with deplorables by ‘owning the libs’ and do a little marketing, posting on Twatter, “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm. Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years. If you want more real, honest, and politically INcorrect stories that’ll have the media gasping, preorder ‘No Going Back.’”

Even deplorables have their limits. Few are trying to defend her.

And she has lost supporters in droves. According to Raw Story, “@colin_fendley said, ‘I have been a farm owner, I have been a K9 Handler, and I have trained thousands of dogs; you can not justify this, my dear. I’m a conservative, and you lost my support.’” Multiply that by millions.

Kristi Noem’s political career is now deader than Cricket, but unlike Cricket, she had it coming.

Americuh — Means exactly what you want it to mean

Americuh

Means exactly what you want it to mean

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 18^th 2021

Kristi Noem, the religious loop that is the more-or-less governor of South Dakota, opposes even allowing children to wear masks at school to prevent spread of COVID. She does, however, want to force them to pray. There isn’t a single documented case of prayer preventing, let alone curing COVID. But Noem figures that this is America, and so she can uphold the rights of the governed by making them perform useless genuflections as they sicken and die. Children in particular, because Jesus was an American.

Right wingers love Americuh. Ask them what they love about America, and if they don’t violently attack you for having the effrontery to even ask the question, will rhapsodize about god and the flag and Ronald Reagan. Some will mention Donald Trump, and at that point you might as well walk away, because nothing sane or non-sickening is going to follow.

There actually was a poll a few years back that asked “What do you love most about America?” Most of the answers seem to have come from people who have seen too many truck ads. “Sunsets” “Good dogs” (Good dogs?) “Fields of grain” “Endless highways.” Some seem to think America is a conglomeration of fast food joints: “hot dogs” “hamburgers” “barbeques.” Others tie their national identity to pro sports. “Football.” “Basketball” “Baseball” “Hockey.” Yeah, that last one is mostly Canadian, but these people see Canada as a suburb of Minnesota where the snow ploughs empty their loads in the winter. Music will provoke distinctly American responses: jazz, rock and roll, heavy metal, but usually not r&b, hip-hop or swing. Great literature gets mentioned: Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, at least before he turned Nazi and worse, African American. The Jury is still out on Superman, who arrived here without a green card, and Wee Hughie and Butcher don’t sound like they’re from around here, do they?

Basically, Americuh is just a symbol. A coalition of vacuous gases, an empty shibboleth upon which any meaning or emotion may be imposed. In other words, just like Jesus, the flag, or cat facial expressions. It just sits there looking pretty to the beholder because it is the projection of what the beholder deems to be pretty.

While this sort of goofy, mawkish type of pseudo-patriotism isn’t limited to the right, the right have used it for a sleight of hand that dates back in its present form to the McCarthy era, and in a darker form to the earliest days of the Republic.

You see, they have a little secret: they love America till the cows come home. (Cows are Americuh, too. Moo!) Love, love, love, just caint git enuff of thet Americuh!

But they hate the United States. It showed up in that poll I mentioned. All the stuff people loved about America, but you had to scroll down a long way, far down into the single digits, before you started seeing things like “Bill of Rights”; “The Constitution”; separation of church and state; voting; freedom of speech; freedom of the press; or rule of law. The stuff that made the United States unique to begin with, the things many other countries since 1789 have emulated. Some of them didn’t even get listed.

If you point this out to a right winger, most will indignantly deny it. In fairness, many will be sincere. Most sane conservatives respect and adhere to the Constitution and understand that it, not religions or corporations or good dogs, is the moral, legal, and foundational underpinning of the United States of America.

But to many right wingers, even though they can’t say so out loud, the Constitution is the enemy of what they stand for (that great nebulosity, Americuh). The Constitution is government. The Constitution is rule of law. The Constitution is civil rights for all. The Constitution recognizes obligations just as it recognizes rights. It is a profoundly liberal document.

It also represents the strong desire of the Founders to keep churches out of the government, and in return, governments out of the churches. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, held his proudest accomplishment the separation of church and state in his Constitution for the State of Virginia. He, along with most of those who wrote the Constitution, understood the horrors of theocracies and theocrats, and resolved to never let it happen here. They didn’t want a country under god or any other imaginary religious symbol. They respected the rights of people to believe, but assigned no right to impose their beliefs on others. The Constitution, in language that exempts it from any amendment, forbids religious tests for any position of public trust.

To the far right and the MAGAts and that crowd, the United States is the enemy of all they hold near and dear. It doesn’t let them subjugate minorities or non-believers and justify their stances by turning the terms oppression and oppressed on their heads, inverting their meaning.

That explains how the people who want to tear down the democracy—the Trumpenproletariat, the Religious Freaks, and the neo-Nazis—can all do what they can to destroy the United States, but wave flags and bibles (Stars and Bars alongside Stars and Stripes, no less!), and simultaneously proclaim they are patriots because they “luv Americuh.” They love a largely mindless symbol and hate the reality.

It allows them to wave flags as they try to destroy the country.

Kristi Noem doesn’t want to “impose” social efforts to protect children (which the constitution strongly stands for) but she does want to impose her trashy little religion. She is the epitome of the far right, the lost Americans who threw away their social and historical background to live in a truck commercial.