Ron Hart
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Noem shoots her dog, and herself in foot

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said in her new book that she once shot a dog that kept biting people. The story was met with outrage and is a death blow to her chance of being Donald Trump’s VP. 

If Noem has a history of shooting dogs who are “aggressive, erratic and untrainable,” Secret Service protocols would dictate that she should never be left alone with Donald Trump. 

After shooting the dog, she also said she shot a troublemaking, uncastrated, horny goat. Again, a security risk for being around Trump. 

As we know, once serial killers get a taste for blood there ain’t no turning back. The Noem shooting news came out last week. The good news is that all the college kids at the University of South Dakota who were protesting Israel’s occupation of Palestine quickly packed up their tents and left. 



The dog tale was a political miscalculation, but it was a calculation. She wrote it, sent it through editors and decided to go with it, the thinking being that women in politics or business have to overcome being regarded as soft, sensitive and unable to make hard decisions. Think of Margret Thatcher, “The Iron Lady.” 

Gone are the simpler days of Mitt Romney tying his dog in a cage on the top of the family station wagon and driving off on vacation. Democrats made a big deal of that story to hurt Romney; now they are clutching their pearls about the Kristi Noem story to divert from Biden’s incompetence. 

Please, Dems, spare us the self-righteous indignation. This outrage at a dog being put down comes from the political party that is all for killing a baby at up to nine months in the womb, and from mostly city-slickers who did not grow up in the country or understand how the protein on their kale salad got there. Do they think farmers wait until a cow or chicken dies of natural causes before it becomes your meal? 

I have more sympathy than most for Kristi. Like her, I grew up in the country, on a dirt road (technically a “chirt” road as we put clay in the dirt so it would not be as dusty). My dad, a former Marine, did not like paying any bills, especially outrageous veterinary bills. I once saw him shoot a rabid dog. 

And I have a strong hunch my dad shot another dog of ours named “Ranger,” who suddenly “disappeared” after chewing up Dad’s work boots for the third time.

South Dakota, like other sparsely populated farming states, sees this as something that happens. You can sit on your porch in South Dakota and watch your dog run away for a long time. The state tree in South Dakota is the telephone pole. 

City folk cannot fathom “the fly-over” states. A whole town named Scenic, South Dakota was for sale for $700,000. It had 15 acres, a bar, post office and 18 Dollar General stores. It shouldn’t surprise Democrats that a whole town can be bought; they’ve done it with Washington, D.C. 

Dems have to give North Dakota and South Dakota credit for being the first bi-states. I like them because they were designated as the hardest-drinking states in a recent poll. Getting “clean and sober” there means you just showered and are heading to the liquor store for more booze. South Dakota once got so drunk at a states’ convention that it woke up in bed next to West Virginia. 

Biden let Commander, his German Shepherd, bite Secret Service agents 26 times before exiling him to one of his Delaware mansions. Commander was aggressive, unpredictable and did not sleep much. Also, he was apparently better at finding cocaine in the White House than the Secret Service. 

It’s not like the angry Joe Biden is some dog hero. He’s known for biting the heads off staffers who bring him bad news. Biden’s Secret Service code name should be “Old Yeller.” Perhaps Commander acted as he did because of learned behavior. 

It became an issue between the Biden family and the Secret Service. An agent who spoke off the record was asked if he should be put down. The agent said, “Not at this time; just let him lose at the polls in November.” 

Biden should not worry about South Dakota, home of Mount Rushmore. With his presidency, the likes of him will never see the place. 

Ron Hart is a libertarian op-ed humorist, an award-winning author, and a frequent guest on TV and radio. He can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.



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David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.

Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

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