So, Noem Was Just Following Orders?
The finger-pointing continues
Via Axios, Scoop: Blame game erupts over Trump team’s false claim Alex Pretti sought “massacre”.
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done at the direction of the president and Stephen,” Noem told a person who relayed her remarks to Axios.
It is, of course, hardly shocking that a woman who burnished her resume by telling tales of killing animals would start pointing fingers when the heat got turned up.
She was always a bad pick. As I noted before her confirmation.
Noem has a resume (state legislative, US House of Representatives, Governor of SD) that is enough to suggest a cabinet position (not unlike Doug Burgum to the Interior). However, not only do I think that the DHS Secretary needs a stronger resume than Noem’s, but I find that her own assertions in her book that her willingness to put down a puppy shows she is a person of action (there was also the goat story, via the link). I think anyone who thinks that cruelty is a sign of leadership is unqualified for more power, especially in a position like DHS. I think she will enable the kinds of cruelty towards immigrants being advocated by people like Homan, Miller, and Trump.
She has decidedly enabled, and indeed directly participated in, cruelty against immigrants and has been a powerful tool (now of her own admission!) of people like Homan, Miller, and Trump.
For example, what kind of person poses for the photo above? Note it is an official DHS photo.
And who dresses like that (look at the watch) to visit a prison? Noem clearly has some deep psychological issues about appearance and personal worth. It would be worthy of some amount of pity if she weren’t using public office to try and feed whatever dark needs she has–especially an office that has the power to inflict so much pain on other humans.
Miller, meanwhile, in undeterred in his propaganda mission. Here’s his most recent (as of this writing) Tweet:
Goodness knows that people blowing whistles, honking horns, and saying mean things about you certainly fall into the category of “vicious attacks.”
Looks like Noem and Miller both fear they may be thrown under the bus. One of course hopes for both, and injuries. But if it’s only one, please let it be Miller.
It’s minor, I know, but what really gripes my ass is that she took over Quarters 1 on Joint Base Anacostia Bolling to live rent free. Quarters 1 is the traditional Coast Guard Commandant’s quarters.
You know, I’ve known multiple people who put down dogs by taking them out in a field with a gun (perhaps a gravel pit). The dog was old and had cancer or something. They felt it was better than taking them to a vet to be put down. The vet was going to give them poison, and would cost a lot of money. And it wouldn’t make them feel better about it, either.
So, by itself, I never really had an issue with it. I think she used it politically to convince ND voters that she was tough, despite being a woman. Which is a thing a woman candidate needs to do, somehow, in the world we live in.
All this other stuff, though. Yikes.
@Jay L. Gischer:
But since her dog wasn’t terminally ill, or anything close to it, the Old Yeller treatment wasn’t called for. The dog was just coming out of puppyhood and probably could’ve used a little training. I don’t know what it says about her that she thought South Dakota voters or anyone else would see virtue in that story, except that she’s f**king weird.
@Jay L. Gischer: Cricket was a puppy that she just decided was untrainable; more importantly she included this in her book as an example of being decisive or whatever, without much thought to how (as they say) it would play in Peoria. She also shot the goat because it annoyed her. There are other ways to depict toughness.
It reminds me of Mitt Romney’s story about the dog he strapped to the roof of his car who was so terrified he sh!t himself (the dog, not Romney) and so the family pulled over and hosed down the vehicle.
Indifference to animals is a certain type of psychopathy.
The felon can’t tell cosplay toughness from the real thing and he revels in watching others bully his enemies, till the opinion turns against him, then he goes all Sgt Schultz and looks for someone to toss under the bus. Bovino was the first and when the polls don’t turn in his favor, Noem will be next.
It’s almost impressive how Miller can pack so much utter bullshit into one little tweet. I mean, literally nothing in it is even remotely true.
@gVOR10:
Re: Noem and Miller – Let Them Fight!
@Eusebio:
Well, despite being overshadowed by the Disney film, the book has the main character nonchalantly describe having to castrate a pig (no, really!), so he should be quite popular in the Republican Midwest, who I assume will forgive him for his woke execution of the dog.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/01/28/congress/tillis-spicy-trump-retort-00752736
Alas, for the Trump and Miller, Noem’s “dark needs” were a feature not a bug.
A) Trump’s base wants this dirty work done and done cruelly, B) Trump’s enablers want this dirty work done, but done quietly & out of the public eye. C) Trump’s swing voters didn’t want to believe this work would be dirty, even though there were many credible voices saying it would have to be.
Group B has to be made to defend this dirty work, publicly and incessantly, so Group C can shift from accepting they were conned (something that is hard for people to admit to themselves) to believing they were betrayed (something much easier for people to admit). Group A can DIAF.
@Jen: Wow. I didn’t know anybody that did that. Not and told anybody about it.
I mean, that’s Elvira Gulch territory.
“That little dog is a menace to society and ought to be destroyed!”
I think this checks off another box for the fascism claims. “I was just following orders when I did those bad things”. Note that the fascists are willing to give the awful orders while their followers are willing to follow them.
Steve
@Jay L. Gischer:
Around the time the dog story first surfaced in 2024, I went to the YouTube clip for the Miss Gulch scene from Wizard of Oz, and one of the comments went, “I didn’t know Kristi Noem acted in films.” But the more common cultural reference I was hearing at the time was to Cruella Deville.
@Jen:
When that story first surfaced, I remember one of the Fox News hosts brought up Obama admitting to having eaten dog meat as a child in Indonesia (it was mentioned in his 1995 memoir Dreams from my Father), and the host argued that the Obama story was worse because there the dogs in question were dead.
@Kylopod: So, we should take a poll: Which is worse? Eating a hamburger, or strapping a cow to the roof of your car and driving cross country?
Have you ever seen photos of white people at a lynching?
@Kylopod: Ah, yes. I remember that too. The Obama story had the bonus of casting him as an “other”/not-American-enough. IIRC, Mike Huckabee used the “growing up abroad” as further evidence that Obama wasn’t a “real” American, something I was particularly annoyed about as I grew up overseas (including a number of years in Southeast Asia, FWIW, I probably had dog too at some point, albeit unknowingly).
@Jay L. Gischer: That made me LOL, ha!
On this whole farce with Noem…she has to be questioning her choices at this point. I’ve worked with enough politicians to feel pretty confident in thinking she had presidential ambitions, and hoped that she could parlay this position into the Republican nomination, and be the first woman president. That appears to be crumbling faster than a three-day-old scone.
@Jen:
ETTD.
Off topic, but The New Yorker had a good article about Rubio a week or two ago. A onetime close associate said Rubio had never had a principle or a mentor he hadn’t betrayed. Great fit for the Republican Party.
@Jen:
That’s what made the dog-eating story so perfect. It gave them another excuse to mention his years spent in Indonesia without having to state outright that it was a cause for suspicion. And it referenced a practice that has long helped make Asia seem especially alien and uncivilized in the minds of Americans (despite its being far less common or widespread than most Americans imagine).
Intellectually, of course, it’s hard to make a convincing argument why eating dogs is morally any worse than eating cows, pigs, or chickens, but our cultural biases on the subject are so deep-rooted that intellectual consistency is basically irrelevant. To Westerners, dogs are the most lovable and relatable animals around, whereas farm animals are all dumb and so destined to be eaten that, like the cow in Restaurant at the End of the Universe, they might as well be eagerly serving themselves to humans. This is why Trump’s comments about Haitians’ dietary habits so struck a chord. To paraphrase something else Douglas Adams wrote, the only thing that travels faster than light is right-wing hysteria.
@Jay L. Gischer:
As others have noted, Noem’s dog wasn’t elderly or sick – she just didn’t like it’s attitude. But aside from that, shooting a dog is pretty cold, and could easily go painfully wrong for the dog. And any time you fire a gun, there’s a chance of a mishap.
By contrast I’ve attended a few pet euthanizations and they are about as anti-traumatic as you can get under the circumstances and they pretty much are foolproof. The “poison” is phenytoin/pentobarbital or something similar which causes almost instant brain death and breathing stops in seconds. And the pet usually sedated first and almost asleep. The last thing the animal knows is that it’s being petted.
It looks like being psychologically damaged is the sine qua non job qualification for the Trump 2.0 administration. Like the boss, Miller, Noem, JD, et.al., are trying to fulfill some deep inner need to make themselves feel superior to what the voice inside their head insists they truly happen to be, i.e., not so special. Miller is an internet troll masquerading as a statesman, and Noem seems to be in the same intellectual category as Alina Habba, who, when asked if she had to choose between being pretty or smart, didn’t hesitate to say she would choose pretty, stating,”you can fake being smart.”
Given that Kristi had no qualms about killing a puppy, I am somewhat surprised that she went full Nuremburg here. Maybe I shouldn’t be though, she does seem like she’d be right at home in the House of Borgia.
@al Ameda:
I suppose killing a puppy is not a felony that can land Klaus Barbie in prison.