kristi noem came for kacey musgraves. kacey brought up the dog. we need a minute.

Photo: Bruce Comer Jr, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

via Kacey Musgraves, KOTA-TV and The Independent

Kristi Noem has made a lot of choices in public. Picking a fight with Kacey Musgraves on a Monday morning is now near the top of the list.

It started at Musgraves' show in Dallas on Saturday. James Talarico, the Democrat running for US Senate in Texas, went and posted about it, The Independent reported. On Monday Noem shared a screenshot of his post and wrote: "I'll take @ellalangleymsic over Kacey Musgraves any day. And if I'm choosin' Texas, I'll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico." Choosin' Texas is Ella Langley's hit, as KOTA-TV pointed out, so at least the pun was load-bearing.

About nine hours later, Musgraves quote-tweeted her: "I don't think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it."

the dog in question

For anyone who has blissfully forgotten, Noem wrote in her 2024 memoir that she shot her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, after deeming the puppy "untrainable," per The Independent. She was fired as Homeland Security secretary in March and now serves as special envoy to the Shield of the Americas, the paper reported.

the score so far

By Wednesday the reply had more than 495,000 likes on X. Noem's original had about 11,200. That is roughly 44 to 1, which in Texas is what we call a mandate. Noem had not responded as of Tuesday, The Independent reported. Talarico followed up with another photo of himself and Musgraves.

We have been watching this race since Paxton's campaign slapped a viewer warning on drag queen Alyssa Edwards. It has now officially become a country music feud, which is the most Texas thing that could happen to it.

Rest easy, Cricket.