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Amazon is preventing its users from writing reviews for South Dakota governor Kristi Noem’s new book due to “unusual reviewing activity” as the Republican faces massive backlash for writing about killing her dog.
When a user tries to write a review for Ms Noem’s book No Going Back, a notice pops up: “Amazon has noticed unusual reviewing activity on this product. Due to this activity, we have limited this product to verified purchase reviews.”
The book, released on Tuesday, also only has one star on Amazon, as of Wednesday morning.
“We want Amazon customers to shop with confidence knowing that the reviews they see are authentic and trustworthy,” an Amazon spokesperson told The Independent in a statement.
“If we notice unusual reviewing activity, we will occasionally limit reviews to verified purchases only.”
The Independent has contacted Ms Noem for comment.
The “unusual reviewing activity” warning came after Ms Noem received considerable flack after excerpts from her book were released about when she killed her 14-month-old wire-haired pointer Cricket two decades ago.
“I hated that dog,” she wrote in her memoir, detailing that Cricket was “untrainable”, “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog”.
“At that moment,” Ms Noem continued, “I realized I had to put her down.” She admitted that “it was not a pleasant job… it had to be done”.
Seemingly everyone, from X users to comedians to Fox News to Hillary Clinton, has slammed her decision to slay her dog.
Regardless of the barrage of scrutiny, the South Dakota governor has repeatedly defended her decision.
In the immediate backlash, she posted on X, defensively: “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm. Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”
In another post, she wrote: “I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book.”
When a Fox News anchor pressed the Republican governor about shooting her dog, Ms Noem in turn accused the host of “not hearing from real Americans that live on farms and ranches” before once again defending the slaying.
“I made a decision as a mom, and I’m a grandma, that the safety of my children and safety of people was what I needed to decide, protecting them from a very dangerous animal,” she said.
Ms Noem’s controversial book has arrived as former president Donald Trump eyes potential running mates. Although Ms Noem has been considered to be on his veep shortlist, she seems to have killed her chances – long before the dog-killing story surfaced.
Six sources told Politico that she had been “cast aside” as Mr Trump’s potential running mate long before the dog scandal came out.
