Don’t call it a comeback.
Among some of the wilder updates on upcoming political appointments being bellowed through the grapevine at Mar-a-Lago is of course that anti-lockdown warrior, supreme nepotist and all-round scourge of cherished family pets, Kristi Noem, has been slated as the incoming secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.
Shunned from the running to appear on the Republican ticket alongside Donald Trump earlier this year after revealing in her memoirs she’d once, in a single day, shot dead both a puppy (RIP Cricket) and a “nasty and mean” goat (RIP… um, ‘Goat’), for a moment there it might have seemed Noem was on the outs from the GOP’s good graces.
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Now, she’s back, and soon-to-be bigger than ever. And if, perchance, you’d forgotten the staggeringly vast array of truly bats--t moments the South Dakota governor has treated us to over the years, never fear–we got you covered.
#5. Yeah, but can I put my gun in it?
An understated perk of gubernatorial living, to be sure, using wildly underpaid prison labor to not only bag yourself a $9,000 hand-carved black walnut wood desk, but also then pushing for a massive discount after you’ve insisted on adding a mad assortment of features like brass embossing, a state map and gun holder to the finished product.
Noem commissioned the desk from Pheasantland Industries, the inmate workshop at South Dakota State Penitentiary, back in April 2021. The revisions to the design and the discount are thought to have imposed a loss to the workshop of around $3,000, with reports that some inmates’ 50¢ work hours were reclassified to “training time” as a result.
As Democratic State Senator Troy Heinhert put it at the time, it’s “troubling that the governor needs a $9,000 desk when quite a few South Dakotans don’t have a $9,000 car.”
#4. Get in loser, we’re going shopping
You could fill a book (well, two autobiographies, to be exact) on Noem’s antics as an anti-lockdown crusader during the COVID-19 crisis, from refusing to impose mask requirements and backing superspreader music and motorcycle events to hitching a jet ride with a splutteringly infected Ted Nugent and claiming “science says we can’t stop the virus from spreading.”
Her finest pandemic blunder, however, arguably came on the day in 2020 when her state set a new record for coronavirus deaths, which she marked with a tweet literally pleading with people to defy all medical advice and go out shopping.
It’s “#SmallBusinessSaturday,” stupid.
#3. Send in the National Guard!
Remember when GOP-led states sent hundreds of National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to defend the nation against an “invasion” of impoverished and vulnerable migrants? Yeah, that happened, with Noem behind it all the way.
In fact, from 2021 through to May of this year, the governor is reported to have spent a total of $2.7 million from South Dakota’s Emergency and Disaster Fund on sending not one, not two, but three deployments to help Texas “secure” the border.
Oh, but dipping into that money to support flood-ravaged areas earlier this summer? Nah, a use of state funds for their mandated purpose would simply not be “necessary”, bearing in mind just how “extremely expensive” (Noem’s words, not ours) National Guard deployments really can be.
#2. FIREWORKS, BABY
Given her historic courtship with the National Rifle Association, it’s no secret Noem likes things that go boom (again, RIP Cricket, RIP Goat).
Little surprise then that she’s repeatedly worked herself up into a flap over the ban on holding Independence Day firework displays over Mount Rushmore. At this point we must point out that Noem once commissioned a replica of the iconic sculpture adding Trump’s face right next to Abraham Lincoln, which she gifted to the once and future president.
But back to the fireworks, which are, in fact, banned due to the considerable risk of sparking wildfires, to mention nothing of longstanding opposition from multiple local Native American Tribes for their “adverse effect on the traditional cultural landscape.”
Which leads us neatly to perhaps her finest accomplishment in public office.
#1. Don’t ask ‘háu’
As of May 2024, Kristi Noem has reportedly been banned from all tribal lands in South Dakota. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that means she’s prohibited from entering literally 20 percent of the state where she currently serves as governor.
Relations with South Dakota’s Native American population have been strained since she took up her gubernatorial post in 2019, but the straw that broke this particular camel’s back would appear to have been her outlandish (and unsubstantiated) claims that local tribe members have been hard at work in partnership with cartels to flood the U.S. with drugs and weapons.
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