Republicans Appear To Be A Far Better Menace To Pets Than Immigrants

JD Vance, Donald Trump and different Republicans are clinging to a racist and completely debunked lie {that a} group of authorized immigrants in Ohio are abducting, killing and consuming folks’s pets.

There’s zero reality to the declare. And but, there’s a mountain of proof — within the final week, month, yr and half-century — that it’s Republicans who pose the gravest menace to America’s animals.

Most not too long ago, a number of former colleagues of Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Basis and the person behind Venture 2025, instructed The Guardian that Roberts as soon as mentioned he’d killed a neighbor’s canine with a shovel.

Kenneth Hammond, who labored with Roberts within the historical past division at New Mexico State College in 2004, was certainly one of three colleagues who shared the story with the outlet, which revealed its report on Tuesday.

“My recollection of his account was that he was discussing in the hallway with various members of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been barking pretty relentlessly and was, you know, keeping the baby and probably the parents awake and that he kind of lost it and took a shovel and killed the dog,” Hammond mentioned.

One other colleague recalled Roberts sharing the story at a cocktail party he hosted, including that Roberts mentioned he’d thought of killing the canine’s puppies as properly.

Roberts instructed The Guardian the story is “patently untrue.”

If he certainly killed the canine, Roberts would truly be in good firm. Quite a few different Republicans (and their supporters) have harmed or threatened — whether or not straight or not directly — America’s animals in current historical past, some fatally. Together with:

Noem bragged in her autobiography about taking pictures a 14-month-old pet as a result of she discovered it “less than worthless” as a looking canine. (The pet wasn’t superb at serving to her discover different animals to kill, so she killed it? Ironic!)

Noem additionally described how she killed a goat as a result of it was “nasty and mean” by taking pictures it with a shotgun after she “dragged him to a gravel pit.” Her first shot merely wounded the animal, however she’d solely introduced one shell, so she needed to go get one other one from the truck.

Due to RFK Jr.’s failed unbiased presidential bid, we’ve realized he’s minimize a whale’s head off with a chainsaw, allegedly barbecued and eaten a canine (he maintains it was a goat), and deliberate to pores and skin and eat a bear cub however acquired distracted and dumped the carcass in New York Metropolis’s Central Park as an alternative.

Sources instructed CBS New York the cub was discovered with “stab and slash wounds on its body.”

Throughout a marketing campaign cease in 2014, the late senator from Mississippi wistfully recalled “doing all kinds of indecent things to animals” when he was youthful.

“It was fun,” he mentioned. “It was an adventure to be out there in the country and to see what goes on. Picking up pecans … doing all kinds of indecent things to animals.”

Cochran didn’t elaborate, so we are able to solely speculate in regards to the nature of his, um, indecency.

Kincannon killed his mom’s canine in 2018 “because God told him to.”

In accordance with police data obtained by The Related Press, Kincannon emerged from his dad and mom’ dwelling sporting solely his underwear and, whereas “covered in blood and dog hair,” instructed officers that “every 1,000 years there needs to be a sacrifice and blood must be spilt.”

In 1986, Bost shot a neighbor’s beagle to dying whereas it was in a penned enclosure as a result of, based on court docket data, he was offended it bit his daughter after she provoked it by chasing it. Police data present Bost however had no downside letting his personal canine roam across the neighborhood.

Along with defending white supremacists, the nine-time Iowa Republican additionally defended dogfighting.

In 2007, King voted in opposition to a regulation that strengthened penalties for unlawful dogfighting and cockfighting, in addition to made it a felony to move animals throughout state traces for that objective.

He additionally tried to defeat an modification that criminalized “bringing a child to a dogfight or a cockfight.”

Former New York Rep. George Santos as soon as stole $3,000 from a GoFundMe supposed to cowl the price of lifesaving surgical procedure for a U.S. Navy veteran’s dying service canine.

Inhofe, who died in 2024, held annual “old world pigeon shoots,” through which a whole bunch of doves raised in captivity have been tossed within the air and shot by supporters as a part of a fundraiser.

An undercover video at one occasion confirmed that Inhofe and his allies left behind dozens of wounded birds to slowly die in a area.

Inhofe ended the taking pictures occasions in 2017 after years of protest from animal rights teams.

Romney famously tied his canine, Seamus, to the roof of the household automotive throughout a 12-hour cross-country highway journey in 1983. The story dogged Romney throughout his 2008 and 2012 presidential runs.

However don’t evaluate Romney to Noem or RFK Jr.

“I didn’t eat my dog,” he instructed HuffPost earlier this yr, saying he resents the comparability. “I didn’t shoot my dog. I loved my dog and my dog loved me.”

Donald Trump’s namesake loves big-game looking, having frequently traveled overseas to kill animals in overseas international locations.

In 2019, Trump Jr. used U.S. authorities assets to kill an endangered sheep in Mongolia, for which the Mongolian authorities needed to challenge a allow retroactively.

And in 2017, he spent Earth Day taking pictures prairie canine in Montana with the state’s present governor, Republican Greg Gianforte.