Major Biden

Kristi Noem has been taking heat for packing heat on her dog. In an excerpt from her upcoming book, the South Dakota governor admitted to shooting her family’s wire-haired pointer, Cricket. After ruining a peasant hunt and killing her neighbor's chickens, Noem took the pooch out back and sent her to a gravely grave. The news has sent shockwaves across the country — all but tanking Noem's hopes of "softening" Trump's image as a female VP pick — but Noem is far from the first politician to be embroiled in a canine scandal. Barack Obama Hot dogs aren’t the only dogs Obama enjoys. Before becoming the proud parent of his pet Bo, Obama admitted to eating dogs in Indonesia with his stepfather Lolo Soetoro.

Cockburn came across this interesting little tidbit while he was stirring his first apéritif of the early afternoon: a Vox preview of Christopher Whipple’s forthcoming book, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House, reports that President Biden is distrustful of his Secret Service team and believes the agency fabricated a story about Biden’s German Shepherd, Major, biting an agent. Major Biden and fellow White House German Shepherd, Champ, were removed to Delaware for a while following the alleged incident. Vox reports how in the book, “Whipple details how Biden was showing a friend around the White House and pointed to the spot where Major allegedly bit a member of Biden’s security team. ‘Look, the Secret Service are never up here.

President Biden must not be feline optimistic about his paltry poll numbers, particularly after his landmark Build Back Better Act died on the Senate floor. But he’s finally delivered on one campaign promise: he’s got a cat. The First Family circulated pictures of Willow, a two-year-old gray and white short-haired tabby cat, on Friday morning. According to Politico, Willow first met Jill Biden “when she jumped on stage and interrupted her remarks during a 2020 campaign stop.” The New York Times reports that "Willow is named after the first lady’s hometown, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania." The cat hails from western Pennsylvania, which could prove useful for the Democrats as they try to claw back some credibility in the run-up to the midterms.

The one-year anniversary of the January 6 riots unfolded in a manner as dramatic as it was predictable. The Pearl Harbor and 9/11 comparisons were uttered before noon — not by some media hack on MSNBC, but by our own vice president. Democrats, led by Speaker Pelosi, stood on the steps of the Capitol adorned with face masks and holding fake candles to hold a prayer vigil. At one particularly bizarre point during the day’s ceremonies, Pelosi introduced playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, who in turn introduced cast members from his hit musical Hamilton to sing a virtual rendition of "Dear Theodosia.” If that last sentence confuses you, don't worry: I’m also not sure exactly what I just wrote.

They say a dog is for life, not just for Christmas. Clearly that’s another old adage Joe Biden no longer remembers, as this week his White House announced the unsanctimonious jettisoning of Major, the president’s German shepherd, in favor of Commander, a younger, friendlier pup. “Welcome to the White House, Commander,” a tweet from the official POTUS account read. The president’s social media flacks then posted a video of the new First Dog playing with Biden. In the clip, Commander sits in order to earn a treat from the president: clearly an upgrade in the behavioral stakes. https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1473057147017744390 Major, you may recall, was a rescue taken in by the Biden family in November 2018.

We don't deserve dogs. The internet has spoken — and the consensus is unanimous. Of course, we have them anyway. At last count the United States was home to 90 million dogs, sometimes multiple dogs per household. We love them like family. Dogs are our best friends and national obsession. Dogs are not just dogs, but dogues, doggos, puppers. Somewhere between the advent of the @Dog_Rates Twitter account (where every dog scores at least 11 points out of a possible 10), the rise of subscription boxes full of gourmet freeze-dried beef spleen and a 1,000 percent increase in the term ‘pet parents’, dogs came to represent the living embodiment of all that is good and pure.