Republicans Appear To Be A Far Higher Risk To Pets Than Immigrants

JD Vance, Donald Trump and different Republicans are clinging to a racist and totally debunked lie {that a} group of authorized immigrants in Ohio are abducting, killing and consuming individuals’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 lately, a number of former colleagues of Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Basis and the person behind Mission 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 considered 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 within the hallway with varied members of the school, together with me, {that a} neighbor’s canine had been barking fairly relentlessly and was, you understand, maintaining the infant and doubtless the dad and mom awake and that he type of misplaced it and took a shovel and killed the canine,” 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 unfaithful.”

If he certainly killed the canine, Roberts would really 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 “lower than nugatory” as a searching 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 imply” 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 discovered he’s lower 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 obtained 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 physique.”

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

“It was enjoyable,” he mentioned. “It was an journey to be on the market within the nation and to see what goes on. Choosing up pecans … doing every kind of indecent issues to animals.”

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

Kincannon killed his mom’s canine in 2018 “as a result of God instructed him to.”

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

In 1986, Bost shot a neighbor’s beagle to demise whereas it was in a penned enclosure as a result of, in accordance with court docket data, he was indignant it bit his daughter after she provoked it by chasing it. Police data present Bost nonetheless 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 towards a legislation that strengthened penalties for unlawful dogfighting and cockfighting, in addition to made it a felony to move animals throughout state traces for that goal.

He additionally tried to defeat an modification that criminalized “bringing a baby 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 “outdated world pigeon shoots,” during which lots of 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 discipline.

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 automobile throughout a 12-hour cross-country street 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 canine,” he instructed HuffPost earlier this yr, saying he resents the comparability. “I didn’t shoot my canine. I liked my canine and my canine liked me.”

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

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.