South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) defended killing a 14-month old puppy, which she wrote about in her forthcoming book: “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm.” Playbook: “But read the story, and it sure sounds more like animal cruelty…” “We’re not sure who

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) admitted to killing her dog in her new book, The Guardian reports. “She includes her story about the ill-fated Cricket, she says, to illustrate her willingness, in politics as well as in South Dakota life, to do anything ‘difficult, messy and ugly’ if it simply

Just published: New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West by David Sanger. “The fast-paced inside story of America’s plunge into a volatile rivalry with the other two great nuclear powers — Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.” New Cold

Michael Grunwald pays tribute to the late Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) and the book he wrote in 1978. “Workdays is my favorite book by a politician, partly because Graham was probably my favorite politician — nerdy, funny, curious, courteous, compassionate, widely respected and magnificently weird. But

Just published: A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: The Deepening Divide Between the Justices and the People by Kevin J. McMahon. “A data-rich examination of the US Supreme Court’s unprecedented detachment from the democratic processes that buttress its legitimacy.” A Supreme Court Unlike Any Other: