I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking drunk Bolt Upright is the best Bolt Upright.
I know there are plenty of dog lovers here and while I’m a cat person myself I like dogs well enough, so no offense intended. But honestly, the wildest thing for me about the Noem business is AFTER she shot the pup she wasn’t shook, but thought “you know, I never liked this billy goat, either.” Then she dumps both bodies in the same place. She’s like a spree killer, lol.
And doubling down on it, like if Biden had balls he’d have shot his own dog too, is one of the worst reading-of-the-room I’ve ever seen in politics.
I think she's spent so much time trying to craft herself into the perfect lure for Mr Trump* and the M.A.G.A. brats that 0.) she's forgot that there are other kinds of people and 1.) her contempt for that mob even as she tries to please them has blinded her to the notion that even _they_ have limits to the amount and rancidity of RealAmerican™ bullshit they'll gobble down.
*Note: I use this after seeing endless '30s British references to 'Mr Hitler'. I suggest that in the Coming Bad we all refer to him so, leaving-off the period (as one ought anyway when the last letter of an abbreviation matches the original's, because ENGLISH SHOULD BE FRENCH WHEN IT ISN'T LATIN) to let us know we're still here.
Absolutely. Her contempt for her own base and her belief of what behavior would appeal to them is second only to Trump's. But she forgot conservatives like dogs, too. The rightwing philosophy of The Cruelty Is The Point has a pet exception.
In other usage, a late close friend of mine got out of Germany about a year before Pearl Harbor (when, if not easy, it still was possible to get a US visa). She retained her accent and, if she ever brought him up, he was Mistah Hitlah. It was an ironic use of the most minimally polite form of address in German. As in, once mentioning that she received a small amount of reparations, "Thanks to Mistah Hitlah."
Just remembered the Ellen quote for the ages. She went with a friend of hers to a talk by a yoga guru of some sort. The friend was attracted to such things, and Ellen was always open-minded about new experiences. Her verdict afterwards: "It was interesting, and he was very charismatic. But: I don't trust people with charisma. Not since Mistah Hitler."
It is possible that, apart from some sexual desire for her that might not be that much greater than normal, if less well repressed in public because that's who he is (and I can actually understand the affection this creates in people who don't hate the rest of him as they ought), that this man may actually love his daughter. It might be that he has no other way to express it, since who would have taught him about loving and being loved?
Note that just as in the case of someone on the street trying to hurt or kill me for my wallet or for fun, understanding that this is another human being who's been damaged is completely orthogonal to defending myself by any proportionate means necessary.
I'm thinking that we could, with just a little tweaking (and let us all agree to tweaking, if only just a little), inspire fledgling attorneys to found a soon to be white-shoe*-worthy law firm entitled Spree & Killer Solicitors LLP.
*Roy will provide links to an appropriately modest-but assertive stylist purveyor for a modest fee.
In the plethora (I SAY, PLETHORA!) of encomiums to the late, straight Pete McCloskey there is a discussion of his early law firm days whereduring he would defend anybody, for pretty much anything, and any (or no) fee. He was a hoot, a scoundrel and always good for a quote.
He was in large measure a person who believed in equality before the law. He was one of the first republicans to call for impeachment of Nixon for asserting the president is above the law.
Later on he actually founded one of the storied white-shoe* firms on the west coast. And he dragged US law around to the concept of defending environmental policy.
*Dunno if this can even be applied to a west coast firm. I mean, in California, "formal wear" indicates pressed jeans**...
**One of several reasons I am proud to be Californian
The funniest thing would be if she never shot any animals but made the whole saga up in a misguided attempt to appear tough and appeal to MAGA cruelty. Political suicide by puppy, lol.
Like if Trump was actually a quiet man who liked nothing more than an evening at home with a good book, but he made up all these stories about bangin' porn stars to impress the voters.
Oh, so it's like in those teen sex comedies where the "plain" girl takes off her glasses and lets down her hair and she's BEAUTIFUL (actually, that's also the bookstore scene in Big Sleep, now that I think about it.)
Vintage 1992 The Black Dog Martha’s Vineyard Gray T-shirt
$50 is WAAAY too low a price for that shirt...but if you wait til 5 minutes after the show, I know a guy what will disconnect Chafe from that very shirt and make it yours for just a few hundred dollars more...
Great outfits, Roy (those periwinkle suede pumps! Ever since learning that word from a Crayola in second grade I've felt there isn't enough periwinkle in the world) — but take it from an old bat, no woman wears chokers after 40.
Margaret Dumont would swoop in regally with a 36” string of pearls double-looped, look down on Peoni disdainfully, and continue on as though she didn’t exist
Dumont was probably about 40 in those Marx Brothers movies, but she read as if she was an 80 year old dowager. She represents my Senior Citizen Goals for down the road -- I'd be happy to be half so imposing.
Yes, Noem and the whole almost literal DOG BITES MAN story there. I so regret that Mr. Noemi’s unavailable to provide insight on account of being South Dakota’s First Cuck.
As for the appearance by Special Guest Eric “DINO” Adams, suffice to say the real thing is so much worse. Has done pretty much nothing good for the city and is its most corrupt mayor in over ninety years — since Jimmy Walker bugged out. I’m also not sure how familiar he is with Gracie Mansion since he resides in an undisclosed/unconfirmed location. (The local media treat him like they did Trump: with a wholly undeserved pass on scrutiny.)
Sure, the animal killer stories are great fun, but her taking on Kim Jong-Un was the really great story. And not just because it wasn't true! Her spokesman and her publisher both retracted that story . . . and then Noem went on TV and said, akshually that story was true because she really DID stare down Kim.
These people are fucking nuts. Literally nuts. Like, if you saw her on the subway or on a bus, you'd edge away or move to the next car kind of nuts.
Hey, after you've murdered a puppy, staring down Kim is a piece of cake. Is there any creature on two or four legs this woman won't bully or harm? Inquiring minds want to know.
"I mean, I'm not TOTALLY sure I was staring him down, because they all have those squinty little eyes over there in the Orient, but he wasn't snoring so I'm sure he wasn't asleep. So it counts!"
And the Kim story ends with some lame attempt at humor, that she could handle him easily because she had taught toddlers at church. Have those church-goers in South Dakota counted their toddlers lately? Because if any of 'em smelled bad or acted up there might have been a school field trip to the gravel pit.
One of her spokesbots said Kim was "mistakenly added to the list of world leaders she met" like there was just a list at the end of the book and whoops, how did Kim get in there, sorry! Instead of an entire, elaborately-constructed story about the guy. Maybe I'm just gettin' old, but I feel like these people used to be better at lying.
In his book Dance Macabre, Stephen King wrote about how killing a dog was just a cheap dramatic device and anybody that did it was lazy. Then he wrote Cujo
Two books later he wrote pet sematary.
(I don't really care. Early Stephen King was awesome. And his politics are great!)
Anyway, Old Yeller was a fucked up movie. I was upset for weeks. Wonderful World of Color my ass.
I lead a pretty animal-centric life. We currently have three dogs and two horses. I'm due to retire soon. Pretty sure I'm going to immediately start buying goats. Plus there's an old mule someone's planning on giving me. I think two donkeys go with the mule. Anyway-if people were more worth a shit I imagine I'd spend more time with them. Until that changes I'll be out with the horses.
When, many years ago, I lived for a while in rural California, I learned that food involved up close and personal dispatching of chickens, geese and, yes, goats. I knew about it intellectually but it’s of course different to participate and to be with people who have done this since childhood. I think Noem’s psychopathy led her to think that shooting domestic animals because you don’t like them is the same, which it so obviously isn’t that even Republicans recoiled in horror. It’s barely one step above canned hunting, which again “real Americans” find disgusting, as opposed to crouching for hours under a tree, calling a turkey or sitting in a tree watching for deer. My stint in the boonies also showed me that some people do that sort of hunting in order to eat, not for any idea of “sport.” I have no desire to engage in these activities, but I appreciate the difference, unlike, apparently, Noem. Now let’s talk about working dogs and how shooting the ones you don’t like is not part of most bird hunters, mushers or fox hunters treatment of their dogs.
Even on a working farm you differentiate between pets and livestock. Of course Noem calls her place a ranch, not a farm, and that might technically be true, but where she’s located it’s a little like saying you have a ranch in western Minnesota. Maybe true, but not exactly the image it usually conjures up of Montana, Wyoming, or western SD.
I haven’t seen the book, but as Noem relates the event, her kids get off the school bus and her daughter immediately asks “Where’s Cricket?”, and that appears to be the end of the anecdote. But not for me. I want to know what Noem said next. I really want to know.
On that topic, as a five-year-old I was with my dad when he went to the local locker to talk to the owner. I stood there while they chatted and a cow was led into the concrete room. I was completely unprepared for the sudden, deafening gunshot, followed by the cow’s pitiful dying moo as it slumped to the floor and its life flowed down the center drain. (Parents, think before you take your kids with you to do certain errands!)
And yet despite that fairly traumatic event for young me, I didn’t turn into Kristi Noem.
Well, yikes. As a city kid, I remember getting upset at about four years old when I saw a dead pigeon on the sidewalk. But I didn't see him actually get offed. Sounds traumatic. But anyone would need several more layers of dysfunction on top of that to turn into Kristi Noem.
"Have you been making up imaginary friends again? I told you before, if you don't stop with that we're going to have to go visit the nice doctor with the electrodes."
It’s a real term for when rich people go on hunting trips but don’t like a high level of difficulty. The people running the canned hunt literally release raised pheasants (most commonly around here) into the field into which the intrepid hunters are going to spray bullets while boozed up on Rumplemintz. Dick Cheney liked this type of “hunt.”
Well, Toehold isn’t exactly wrong; cows, particularly en mass, in confined areas, are bloody awful: and can kill you (mostly from death from within)…I shoveled more cattle feed, silage, and shit, by hand, or mechanically, than most can visualize. Cows as we have raisedvthem, are pretty vile, and I’m over owning livestock.
I have also told here, as a hillbilly farmer, who inherited guns, I found myself having to shoot two stray dogs, drawn by the dumpster the county thought it cool to put next door, who were dying slowly, horribly on the side of GA Hwy 60 in front of my house. It was awful: and I had to bury the poor curs in the mud of the ditch.
Then there’s the cow that I found, breech birthing a calf in a thicket, on pasture land I’d rented to a guy. I got my hands inside it and tried to pull it, unsuccessfully. The cowboy wasn’t answering my call, and by the time I got back, she was dying of sepsis, and I shot her.
I was sickened , it was a barely freezing wet winter day. I felt like I had to do it: abd felt like shit after. I ended the arrangement with the cow’s owner after that.
I’ve given away all the guns save a .22 rifle, to my brothers, ironically as a peace offering.
I don’t think being able to kill them makes me fit for office.
I tell this tale to say why I own a gun.
I’m not stupid enough to think it’s going to be useful as defense.
And “don’t think being able to kill them”, might be a Freudian slip: I have been really pissed at my brothers when they were to divide the estate in a way that would render me homeless…I’m not going to shoot them, even the Florida MAGA one, tempting as it is.
Pulling calves is not pleasant but sometimes necessary, but it’s only possible if you’ve got the cow someplace close to resources where you can do it. You didn’t have that option and did what you had to do.
Re: cattle being dangerous, never get between a cow and her calf, or around a bull when the cattle are in heat. Or around temperamental breeds like chianina (so dad said, anyway; we had Black Angus). Or to quote Gandalf, “in fact, it’s best if you’re not around cattle at all.”
I beg to differ – almost everything is better on a bicycle. I've run the escaped-bull-marauding-the-roadway gauntlet a couple times, and inadvertently set a herd to stampede by innocently riding past. Neither of those things would have been the least bit interesting in a car...
Oh, and cattle grates. I'm an old hand at crossing cattle grates on a bike. There was even one installed on a descent that I (back when men were men and I aspired to be one) could jump the whole thing at speed...these eastern days cattle grates are few/far/btw, but I cross an occasional deer grate just for the nostalgia...
I used to help run a casual bike hillclimb series in the SF Bay Area (I was Chief Timing Officer, hahaha), and on one of the events, a couple of the slower riders came around a corner, only to see a cow staring at them (this climb had a section where the cows were free to wander, penned in by fences and cattle grates). They stopped and debated for a while on what to do. Before they could make a decision, a faster rider who'd flatted near the bottom but decided to do the ride anyway came around the corner, spotted the cow, and just hammered on by. So the other two got back on and did the same, to no reaction from the cow.
The full power of a mating bull was brought home to me when I watched one mounting an ox at American Breeders Service so they could collect the semen for sale world-wide. The collector wore steel boots. An anal cattle prod was involved, which didn't make the scene any less disturbing, believe me. BTW, they use an ox because a cow can't physically handle the repeated mounting. Psychologically, who can say?
Marlon Perkins: “While Jim is fending off the full power of the mating bull, I’m safe in the chopper having tea. And you too can be safe in the chopper with Mutual of Omaha.”
It sounds like a good candidate for my partner's proposed show: Mutual of Omaha's Just Leave the Fucking Thing Alone. (In this case, the "fucking thing" can be taken literally.)
Among my foundational traumas was watching Mr. Meyers, the ABS guy, in his shoulder length rubber glove and knee length apron, hand delivering, so to speak, his company's product to the cervix of a cow in estrus...
I mean, the key difference is these were necessary acts of mercy, you didn't shoot them because they pissed you off when you were having a bad day. If Noem's dog had been rabid or dying, most people would view what she did differently. But she killed both animals in a pique, and that was very apparent.
This reads like one of Roy's fashion sidebars – "she killed both animals in a fetching tie-dyed dusty rose pique with peach accents, available from Large Marge's Outlet off US 90 just outside of Van Horn, Texas."
I found a link to Kristi Noem’s latest campaign video. Or maybe it’s just The Cramps’ “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns.” It’s hard to figure out what’s real anymore. (Hint: there’s not more than 10% of Noem that’s real.)
Anytime my leg muscles seize up up after a long bike ride and I yell "CRAMPS!" the missus performs the obligatory eyeroll and I secretly let my mind wander in the general direction of Poison Ivy Rorschach...
My coworker’s elderly Republican parents who live in Deadwood used to love Noem, but they’ve completely turned on her now. Of course I still doubt they’d ever vote for a Democrat, but…
Easy to cut her loose now, but I have to wonder how all this would be playing out if Trump had picked her for VP before this story came out. Just imagine the lengths they'd go to, and how many of the suckers would buy it! "She HAD to kill that rabid animal, to SAVE HER CHILDREN!"
Possibly, but animal stories have a powerful way of getting through to people. Think folktales, animal fabliaux, heck even Nathan’s story of the poor man and his lamb to King David in the Bible.
The book isn't scheduled to come out for another month, I think, it's just that reporters got a hold of an advance copy that we know this. Just imagine if they could have kept it under wraps til she was the VP pick! And how would the Prestige Press deal with it? Instead of "Voters horrified" it would be "Democrats say." And suddenly dog-killing would be a partisan issue, like vaccination against deadly diseases.
Why, I hear in Seattle packs of wild dogs roam the ruins of the city (burned down on a weekly basis, of course) and those stupid libruls just LET them.
She'd be Donald J. Trump's personal choice, and we all know Donald J. Trump is NEVER wrong, so she MUST be good! We love dogs, but now let's all tie ourselves in knots justifying why some of them need to be murdered in a gravel pit! Oh, it would have been something to see, damn those reporters for leaking this story early and spoiling all our fun.
Wasn't there a hilarious thing where some right-wing asshole said he needed an AR-15 to defend his family against rampaging wild hogs? But I'll bet you're some silly liberal, who hasn't given a single thought in your empty little head to the threat of wild hogs. Just wait til they come for YOU.
There's those guys too, but this one came with some video, I think, of some hogs intruding on his back yard, "threatening my children." But "bring the kids inside til the hogs leave" is for Beta Cucks.
Highway 1 down the coast was known for its "pig alley" section wherein midnight drivers would ascend to a higher plane via SPIS (Sudden Pig Impact Syndrome).
Marked down? What, is there some weakness in the market for gold diamond-encrusted Rolexes? Demand not meeting supply? We not making enough rich assholes any more?
Oh, I don't think America is going to have to worry about a deficit of rich assholes for the foreseeable future, even if Trump doesn't establish the Rich Asshole Strategic Reserve.
I gotta say I took it as a small sign of progress when I hear Adams talking about "outside agitators." Only in America can a young Black man grow up to be Mayor and steal his lines from Bull Connor.
I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking drunk Bolt Upright is the best Bolt Upright.
I know there are plenty of dog lovers here and while I’m a cat person myself I like dogs well enough, so no offense intended. But honestly, the wildest thing for me about the Noem business is AFTER she shot the pup she wasn’t shook, but thought “you know, I never liked this billy goat, either.” Then she dumps both bodies in the same place. She’s like a spree killer, lol.
And doubling down on it, like if Biden had balls he’d have shot his own dog too, is one of the worst reading-of-the-room I’ve ever seen in politics.
I think she's spent so much time trying to craft herself into the perfect lure for Mr Trump* and the M.A.G.A. brats that 0.) she's forgot that there are other kinds of people and 1.) her contempt for that mob even as she tries to please them has blinded her to the notion that even _they_ have limits to the amount and rancidity of RealAmerican™ bullshit they'll gobble down.
*Note: I use this after seeing endless '30s British references to 'Mr Hitler'. I suggest that in the Coming Bad we all refer to him so, leaving-off the period (as one ought anyway when the last letter of an abbreviation matches the original's, because ENGLISH SHOULD BE FRENCH WHEN IT ISN'T LATIN) to let us know we're still here.
Absolutely. Her contempt for her own base and her belief of what behavior would appeal to them is second only to Trump's. But she forgot conservatives like dogs, too. The rightwing philosophy of The Cruelty Is The Point has a pet exception.
See, I think this is why Mr Trump has no pet, so his cruelty is unmarred by compassion.
So, "Meestair Heetlair", then?
…preferably as in '[…] he dead.'.
(I was thinking more of a refined, arhotic, 'Mihstə Hihtlə', but as Ron Rosenbaum found, there's enough Hitler to go around.)
As the NYT liked to put it "Herr Hitler." https://www.nytimes.com/1939/08/20/archives/herr-hitler-at-home-in-the-clouds-high-up-on-his-favorite-mountain.html
In other usage, a late close friend of mine got out of Germany about a year before Pearl Harbor (when, if not easy, it still was possible to get a US visa). She retained her accent and, if she ever brought him up, he was Mistah Hitlah. It was an ironic use of the most minimally polite form of address in German. As in, once mentioning that she received a small amount of reparations, "Thanks to Mistah Hitlah."
Just remembered the Ellen quote for the ages. She went with a friend of hers to a talk by a yoga guru of some sort. The friend was attracted to such things, and Ellen was always open-minded about new experiences. Her verdict afterwards: "It was interesting, and he was very charismatic. But: I don't trust people with charisma. Not since Mistah Hitler."
Her plastic surgery was done to make her look like an older, dark haired Ivanka
And all a wasted effort. Apparently, Trump will say "You remind me of my daughter" to women who don't even resemble his daughter.
It is possible that, apart from some sexual desire for her that might not be that much greater than normal, if less well repressed in public because that's who he is (and I can actually understand the affection this creates in people who don't hate the rest of him as they ought), that this man may actually love his daughter. It might be that he has no other way to express it, since who would have taught him about loving and being loved?
Note that just as in the case of someone on the street trying to hurt or kill me for my wallet or for fun, understanding that this is another human being who's been damaged is completely orthogonal to defending myself by any proportionate means necessary.
Sure, but apply pitty thickly and often to the Big Dude, as I am of the firm belief he HATES that...
They reminded him in the sense that he wanted to have sex with Stormy
2 marks for the "spree killer, lol".
I'm thinking that we could, with just a little tweaking (and let us all agree to tweaking, if only just a little), inspire fledgling attorneys to found a soon to be white-shoe*-worthy law firm entitled Spree & Killer Solicitors LLP.
*Roy will provide links to an appropriately modest-but assertive stylist purveyor for a modest fee.
They can share an office suite with the civil law practitioners, Dewey Cheatum & Howe.
In the plethora (I SAY, PLETHORA!) of encomiums to the late, straight Pete McCloskey there is a discussion of his early law firm days whereduring he would defend anybody, for pretty much anything, and any (or no) fee. He was a hoot, a scoundrel and always good for a quote.
Fer instance, Pete was at a going-away dinner for a buncha marines headed to one of our many desert excursions and quoted Kipling:
"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!"
It was a cause for consternation...
My friend was there, and confirms this.
I only remember he primaried Nixon. Not sure why "he would defend anybody, for pretty much anything, and any (or no) fee"?
He was in large measure a person who believed in equality before the law. He was one of the first republicans to call for impeachment of Nixon for asserting the president is above the law.
Later on he actually founded one of the storied white-shoe* firms on the west coast. And he dragged US law around to the concept of defending environmental policy.
*Dunno if this can even be applied to a west coast firm. I mean, in California, "formal wear" indicates pressed jeans**...
**One of several reasons I am proud to be Californian
I thought it interesting that she claimed to know so much about farm life but was surprised to learn that goats are nasty.
The funniest thing would be if she never shot any animals but made the whole saga up in a misguided attempt to appear tough and appeal to MAGA cruelty. Political suicide by puppy, lol.
Like if Trump was actually a quiet man who liked nothing more than an evening at home with a good book, but he made up all these stories about bangin' porn stars to impress the voters.
"Melania, have you seen my pipe and slippers?"
"Oh, I just can't wait to see how the Miss Marple mystery turns out!"
I just can't get past "suicide by puppy, lol*"
'cause how would that even work?
*again with the 'lol' – it's an affectation, a quirk AND a dessert topping!
"I shot the puppy!
And I also shot the Billy Goat!"
And the Sherriff! When he came out to see what all the shootin' was about!
Never mind the sheriff; 2 marks for getting his goat!
*rimshot*
Ms. Noem isn't used to reading anything but Good Books, after all.
And Jesus said unto them, "If your puppy offendeth thee, pluck him...er, shoot him."
They're going back through that story about Abraham and Isaac to see if they can find anything useful.
NRA Jesus knows everyone is carrying, so his answer to every question is "shoot it".
Loaves and fishes? Ha, guns n' ammo is more like it.
Loaves, Guns & Money
Blood lust is a world of contrasts
Not really on-topic , but I'd like to take this opportunity to praise Gov. Noem/Gnome for being _perfect_.
Incidentally, a great name for a dog owned by a Straw Leftist would be 'Noem Chompsky'.
She’s always been the Noem-skull to me.
If she should have shot anybody it was her plastic surgeon, 'cause whoever that was hated her.
You should see pictures of her from the beginning of her career vs now, in her Kardashian/Janice from the Muppet Show phase
Or maybe I shouldn't? Yeah, I'm gonna go with "shouldn't."
She was just an earnest-looking suburban Republican with a short (bob?) haircut.
Oh, so it's like in those teen sex comedies where the "plain" girl takes off her glasses and lets down her hair and she's BEAUTIFUL (actually, that's also the bookstore scene in Big Sleep, now that I think about it.)
Why are you deferring to Bob on the question of short hair or no...?
2 marks for Janice.
Even the hair alone! Seeing any of those clips makes you wonder, "How long did it take this *no-nonsense farm woman* to get that look?
Darby Conley sort of did this joke in Get Fuzzy
https://www.gocomics.com/getfuzzy/2002/07/24
Vintage 1992 The Black Dog Martha’s Vineyard Gray T-shirt
$50 is WAAAY too low a price for that shirt...but if you wait til 5 minutes after the show, I know a guy what will disconnect Chafe from that very shirt and make it yours for just a few hundred dollars more...
I haven’t ordered anything from those links Roy provides for his fashion call-out — yet!
I just now looked at the "Hadley Hand-Tailored Silk-Linen Jacket" picture and YOICKS!
And ackshully, that Dior twinset is fetching...unlike Noem's former pooch...
Hey hey mama said the way you move
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove
Do you spend your sleepless nights scrolling through high fashion ads? Cause I do like those outfits.
Great outfits, Roy (those periwinkle suede pumps! Ever since learning that word from a Crayola in second grade I've felt there isn't enough periwinkle in the world) — but take it from an old bat, no woman wears chokers after 40.
I always appreciate your fashion tips for Peoni. I think the outfit needs a necklace though -- what would you suggest?
Can't go wrong with an 18 inch string of pearls. Peggy, I mean Peoni, would without a doubt own several.
Margaret Dumont would swoop in regally with a 36” string of pearls double-looped, look down on Peoni disdainfully, and continue on as though she didn’t exist
Dumont was probably about 40 in those Marx Brothers movies, but she read as if she was an 80 year old dowager. She represents my Senior Citizen Goals for down the road -- I'd be happy to be half so imposing.
Margaret Dumont wouldn’t need the Red Hat Club; girl, she is the Margaret Dumont Club: Population 1.
Yes, Noem and the whole almost literal DOG BITES MAN story there. I so regret that Mr. Noemi’s unavailable to provide insight on account of being South Dakota’s First Cuck.
As for the appearance by Special Guest Eric “DINO” Adams, suffice to say the real thing is so much worse. Has done pretty much nothing good for the city and is its most corrupt mayor in over ninety years — since Jimmy Walker bugged out. I’m also not sure how familiar he is with Gracie Mansion since he resides in an undisclosed/unconfirmed location. (The local media treat him like they did Trump: with a wholly undeserved pass on scrutiny.)
But...but...The High Line!
Maybe… probably a high line or a zillionity, dunno about High Line.
Jesus,Roy..
LLP
See, it works for any occasion!
This is hysterical!
Sure, the animal killer stories are great fun, but her taking on Kim Jong-Un was the really great story. And not just because it wasn't true! Her spokesman and her publisher both retracted that story . . . and then Noem went on TV and said, akshually that story was true because she really DID stare down Kim.
These people are fucking nuts. Literally nuts. Like, if you saw her on the subway or on a bus, you'd edge away or move to the next car kind of nuts.
Hey, after you've murdered a puppy, staring down Kim is a piece of cake. Is there any creature on two or four legs this woman won't bully or harm? Inquiring minds want to know.
Not to mention those poor Sunday School kids who went down to the gravel pit. "Suffer the little children..." OK, got it!
"I mean, I'm not TOTALLY sure I was staring him down, because they all have those squinty little eyes over there in the Orient, but he wasn't snoring so I'm sure he wasn't asleep. So it counts!"
"I can see Kim Jong Un from my house!"
Edited to add that her being confrontational with one of Trumpov's best friends will do her no favors.
And the Kim story ends with some lame attempt at humor, that she could handle him easily because she had taught toddlers at church. Have those church-goers in South Dakota counted their toddlers lately? Because if any of 'em smelled bad or acted up there might have been a school field trip to the gravel pit.
Oof.
"Hey kids! Wouldn't you all want to see where gravel comes from, huh?"
I have no toddlers, but then I also don't go to church
All I will say about this is I read that line as "I can see Kim Jong Un from under my house!", which you gotta admit is a pretty funny line.
Arsenic and Old Face
Time to dig another lock for the canal.
CHARRRRGE!
One of her spokesbots said Kim was "mistakenly added to the list of world leaders she met" like there was just a list at the end of the book and whoops, how did Kim get in there, sorry! Instead of an entire, elaborately-constructed story about the guy. Maybe I'm just gettin' old, but I feel like these people used to be better at lying.
Tempers flare!
I lol'ed at that !
In his book Dance Macabre, Stephen King wrote about how killing a dog was just a cheap dramatic device and anybody that did it was lazy. Then he wrote Cujo
Two books later he wrote pet sematary.
(I don't really care. Early Stephen King was awesome. And his politics are great!)
Anyway, Old Yeller was a fucked up movie. I was upset for weeks. Wonderful World of Color my ass.
I lead a pretty animal-centric life. We currently have three dogs and two horses. I'm due to retire soon. Pretty sure I'm going to immediately start buying goats. Plus there's an old mule someone's planning on giving me. I think two donkeys go with the mule. Anyway-if people were more worth a shit I imagine I'd spend more time with them. Until that changes I'll be out with the horses.
Good column! Funny stuff
I trust that our animals are safe with you.
"I'm going to immediately start buying goats."
Have you informed the missus yet, or are you just waiting for the perfect moment to trigger the Eyeroll of the Decade?
I'm sure it's expected , probably recognized as inevitable.
"expecting goats" is either dead literal, or another delightful euphemism...
"Wonderful World of Color my ass" History! Comedy! Fantasy!
I used to tune in to do
When, many years ago, I lived for a while in rural California, I learned that food involved up close and personal dispatching of chickens, geese and, yes, goats. I knew about it intellectually but it’s of course different to participate and to be with people who have done this since childhood. I think Noem’s psychopathy led her to think that shooting domestic animals because you don’t like them is the same, which it so obviously isn’t that even Republicans recoiled in horror. It’s barely one step above canned hunting, which again “real Americans” find disgusting, as opposed to crouching for hours under a tree, calling a turkey or sitting in a tree watching for deer. My stint in the boonies also showed me that some people do that sort of hunting in order to eat, not for any idea of “sport.” I have no desire to engage in these activities, but I appreciate the difference, unlike, apparently, Noem. Now let’s talk about working dogs and how shooting the ones you don’t like is not part of most bird hunters, mushers or fox hunters treatment of their dogs.
Even on a working farm you differentiate between pets and livestock. Of course Noem calls her place a ranch, not a farm, and that might technically be true, but where she’s located it’s a little like saying you have a ranch in western Minnesota. Maybe true, but not exactly the image it usually conjures up of Montana, Wyoming, or western SD.
I haven’t seen the book, but as Noem relates the event, her kids get off the school bus and her daughter immediately asks “Where’s Cricket?”, and that appears to be the end of the anecdote. But not for me. I want to know what Noem said next. I really want to know.
Related: On a working farm (or ranch) you seldom name animals that aren’t pets.
Who's got time to name all the barn cats?
"Who do you think I am, T.S. Eliot?"
Um... has anyone seen Noem's daughter lately?
Same. "How To Fuck Up A Child In One Easy Step."
I think it's pretty much assumed among conservatives that your daughters will grow up to hate you, move to the city and become lesbian baristas.
"Your mom's coming over."
"RELEASE THE HOUNDS!"
On that topic, as a five-year-old I was with my dad when he went to the local locker to talk to the owner. I stood there while they chatted and a cow was led into the concrete room. I was completely unprepared for the sudden, deafening gunshot, followed by the cow’s pitiful dying moo as it slumped to the floor and its life flowed down the center drain. (Parents, think before you take your kids with you to do certain errands!)
And yet despite that fairly traumatic event for young me, I didn’t turn into Kristi Noem.
Well, yikes. As a city kid, I remember getting upset at about four years old when I saw a dead pigeon on the sidewalk. But I didn't see him actually get offed. Sounds traumatic. But anyone would need several more layers of dysfunction on top of that to turn into Kristi Noem.
"Cricket? Cricket who?"
Because gaslighting her own kids no doubt would be part of her game.
"Have you been making up imaginary friends again? I told you before, if you don't stop with that we're going to have to go visit the nice doctor with the electrodes."
The entire plot of Suddenly, Last Summer just flashed through my brain.
Time for a little lie-down, sounds like...
„Canned hunting“! I am stealing that
It’s a real term for when rich people go on hunting trips but don’t like a high level of difficulty. The people running the canned hunt literally release raised pheasants (most commonly around here) into the field into which the intrepid hunters are going to spray bullets while boozed up on Rumplemintz. Dick Cheney liked this type of “hunt.”
The concept is unpleasant enough without bringing Rumple Minze into it…
Never heard of it, is it for people who can't afford Jägermeister?
Problem is you say its name and it disappears.
And the more times you say the name to the bartender, the longer it and everything else will disappear.
Jägermeister (and its cousin Unterberg) at least have a quasi-medicinal purpose; Rumple Minze doesn’t even have an excuse.
"Jägermeister, with the refreshing taste of nail polish remover and feet!"
I have a colleague who has in laws that do that (well they don't raise the pheasants themselves) on a farm out by Vivian
Vivian from The Young Ones? Still have four stars on his forehead??
I wondered who lived by Vivian. Now I know! (I had family from equally sparse Gann Valley.)
That poor bastard Cheney shot. "I'm sorry my face got in the way of your errant birdshot."
Well, Toehold isn’t exactly wrong; cows, particularly en mass, in confined areas, are bloody awful: and can kill you (mostly from death from within)…I shoveled more cattle feed, silage, and shit, by hand, or mechanically, than most can visualize. Cows as we have raisedvthem, are pretty vile, and I’m over owning livestock.
I have also told here, as a hillbilly farmer, who inherited guns, I found myself having to shoot two stray dogs, drawn by the dumpster the county thought it cool to put next door, who were dying slowly, horribly on the side of GA Hwy 60 in front of my house. It was awful: and I had to bury the poor curs in the mud of the ditch.
Then there’s the cow that I found, breech birthing a calf in a thicket, on pasture land I’d rented to a guy. I got my hands inside it and tried to pull it, unsuccessfully. The cowboy wasn’t answering my call, and by the time I got back, she was dying of sepsis, and I shot her.
I was sickened , it was a barely freezing wet winter day. I felt like I had to do it: abd felt like shit after. I ended the arrangement with the cow’s owner after that.
I’ve given away all the guns save a .22 rifle, to my brothers, ironically as a peace offering.
I don’t think being able to kill them makes me fit for office.
I tell this tale to say why I own a gun.
I’m not stupid enough to think it’s going to be useful as defense.
And “don’t think being able to kill them”, might be a Freudian slip: I have been really pissed at my brothers when they were to divide the estate in a way that would render me homeless…I’m not going to shoot them, even the Florida MAGA one, tempting as it is.
Noted (for legal purposes)
Another ass-covering ploy provided by Roy's long-suffering legal team at Overworked, Underpaid & Side-eye, LLP.
Pulling calves is not pleasant but sometimes necessary, but it’s only possible if you’ve got the cow someplace close to resources where you can do it. You didn’t have that option and did what you had to do.
Re: cattle being dangerous, never get between a cow and her calf, or around a bull when the cattle are in heat. Or around temperamental breeds like chianina (so dad said, anyway; we had Black Angus). Or to quote Gandalf, “in fact, it’s best if you’re not around cattle at all.”
I observe them warily from the safety of my car, on a county highway, going 70.
You might wanna reconsider that pace when you're in cattle country. You hit onea them at 70 and it's "Goodbye Bessie – Hello Mr Peters!"
One of the great family legends involves my grandparents, a large touring car, topping a rise on the National Road, and a t-boned cow.
It’s worse when you’re on a bicycle
I beg to differ – almost everything is better on a bicycle. I've run the escaped-bull-marauding-the-roadway gauntlet a couple times, and inadvertently set a herd to stampede by innocently riding past. Neither of those things would have been the least bit interesting in a car...
Oh, and cattle grates. I'm an old hand at crossing cattle grates on a bike. There was even one installed on a descent that I (back when men were men and I aspired to be one) could jump the whole thing at speed...these eastern days cattle grates are few/far/btw, but I cross an occasional deer grate just for the nostalgia...
I used to help run a casual bike hillclimb series in the SF Bay Area (I was Chief Timing Officer, hahaha), and on one of the events, a couple of the slower riders came around a corner, only to see a cow staring at them (this climb had a section where the cows were free to wander, penned in by fences and cattle grates). They stopped and debated for a while on what to do. Before they could make a decision, a faster rider who'd flatted near the bottom but decided to do the ride anyway came around the corner, spotted the cow, and just hammered on by. So the other two got back on and did the same, to no reaction from the cow.
Cows with Guns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI
Cute song, but what's with the he-him pronouns for a cow?
And the udder? Do boy cows have udders?
One big one. The milk is pretty foul though.
I was waiting for you to do that.
That, my friend, is a pretty cool-headed bet.
The full power of a mating bull was brought home to me when I watched one mounting an ox at American Breeders Service so they could collect the semen for sale world-wide. The collector wore steel boots. An anal cattle prod was involved, which didn't make the scene any less disturbing, believe me. BTW, they use an ox because a cow can't physically handle the repeated mounting. Psychologically, who can say?
Oof. Memories of those ABS catalogs my dad got, and the tanks of liquid nitrogen in the barn containing ampules of… er… that stuff.
"The full power of a mating bull was brought home to me"
Nope. Nope nope nope...
Marlon Perkins: “While Jim is fending off the full power of the mating bull, I’m safe in the chopper having tea. And you too can be safe in the chopper with Mutual of Omaha.”
It sounds like a good candidate for my partner's proposed show: Mutual of Omaha's Just Leave the Fucking Thing Alone. (In this case, the "fucking thing" can be taken literally.)
Among my foundational traumas was watching Mr. Meyers, the ABS guy, in his shoulder length rubber glove and knee length apron, hand delivering, so to speak, his company's product to the cervix of a cow in estrus...
ABS had great billboards like, "The herd shot 'round the world!"
I mean, the key difference is these were necessary acts of mercy, you didn't shoot them because they pissed you off when you were having a bad day. If Noem's dog had been rabid or dying, most people would view what she did differently. But she killed both animals in a pique, and that was very apparent.
"she killed both animals in a pique"
This reads like one of Roy's fashion sidebars – "she killed both animals in a fetching tie-dyed dusty rose pique with peach accents, available from Large Marge's Outlet off US 90 just outside of Van Horn, Texas."
And how he got into my pajamas I'll never know!
Let me take off these wet clothes and slip into a dry martini
Did she leave in a pique? Or did she take her time and leave in a pique and a huff?
"And I'll treat illegal immigrants the same way...."
I found a link to Kristi Noem’s latest campaign video. Or maybe it’s just The Cramps’ “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns.” It’s hard to figure out what’s real anymore. (Hint: there’s not more than 10% of Noem that’s real.)
https://youtu.be/qMy9_-mqTw8?feature=shared&t=65
Upvote for The Cramps.
Anytime my leg muscles seize up up after a long bike ride and I yell "CRAMPS!" the missus performs the obligatory eyeroll and I secretly let my mind wander in the general direction of Poison Ivy Rorschach...
At least she didn't cut your head off and put it in her TV set
Use the eyeballs for knobs in her TV set
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ae6flEFrY
My coworker’s elderly Republican parents who live in Deadwood used to love Noem, but they’ve completely turned on her now. Of course I still doubt they’d ever vote for a Democrat, but…
Easy to cut her loose now, but I have to wonder how all this would be playing out if Trump had picked her for VP before this story came out. Just imagine the lengths they'd go to, and how many of the suckers would buy it! "She HAD to kill that rabid animal, to SAVE HER CHILDREN!"
"Oh, I suppose YOU would just LET your children be eaten by WILD ANIMALS, huh?"
Possibly, but animal stories have a powerful way of getting through to people. Think folktales, animal fabliaux, heck even Nathan’s story of the poor man and his lamb to King David in the Bible.
Please, you underestimate their mental... flexibility.
The book isn't scheduled to come out for another month, I think, it's just that reporters got a hold of an advance copy that we know this. Just imagine if they could have kept it under wraps til she was the VP pick! And how would the Prestige Press deal with it? Instead of "Voters horrified" it would be "Democrats say." And suddenly dog-killing would be a partisan issue, like vaccination against deadly diseases.
"Rabid Democrat Dog Lovers!!"
Why, I hear in Seattle packs of wild dogs roam the ruins of the city (burned down on a weekly basis, of course) and those stupid libruls just LET them.
She'd be Donald J. Trump's personal choice, and we all know Donald J. Trump is NEVER wrong, so she MUST be good! We love dogs, but now let's all tie ourselves in knots justifying why some of them need to be murdered in a gravel pit! Oh, it would have been something to see, damn those reporters for leaking this story early and spoiling all our fun.
Crime rampant in the cities, Antifa burning down everything, the countryside full of wild animals
The conservative mind is just so full of fear
Wasn't there a hilarious thing where some right-wing asshole said he needed an AR-15 to defend his family against rampaging wild hogs? But I'll bet you're some silly liberal, who hasn't given a single thought in your empty little head to the threat of wild hogs. Just wait til they come for YOU.
Probably some dumbass living in a gated suburban neighborhood north of NYC, because that's how these things usually go.
There's those guys too, but this one came with some video, I think, of some hogs intruding on his back yard, "threatening my children." But "bring the kids inside til the hogs leave" is for Beta Cucks.
Highway 1 down the coast was known for its "pig alley" section wherein midnight drivers would ascend to a higher plane via SPIS (Sudden Pig Impact Syndrome).
I believe it was Texas. Feral hogs are problem below the 36th parallel
Was he wearing a pink shirt?
I want to know who's giving you the wardrobe links; I may need to hire them as a personal stylist.
It me! Don't worry, I won't reveal your secret.
“Everybody dance now!”
$23,000 Rolex.
Huh.
Marked down from $33k.
I mean, that's cheating; buying something on discount makes you a defacto prole and you can be run over with an SUV.
Marked down? What, is there some weakness in the market for gold diamond-encrusted Rolexes? Demand not meeting supply? We not making enough rich assholes any more?
Oh, I don't think America is going to have to worry about a deficit of rich assholes for the foreseeable future, even if Trump doesn't establish the Rich Asshole Strategic Reserve.
Finally! A fitting use for an SUV!
(Leave it to Mayor Copbrain to try "pacification measures" on a canned studio audience.)
I gotta say I took it as a small sign of progress when I hear Adams talking about "outside agitators." Only in America can a young Black man grow up to be Mayor and steal his lines from Bull Connor.
The outsides wherein I hang are pretty slow to agitate. Wonder if New Yorkers be losin' their edge...
This is Eric Adams on Morning Joe: First the Outside Agitation, then the Spin Cycle.
Ha!