KRISTI NOEM'S SCANDALOUS LIFE

 

     The murder of Cricket and other animals at the hands of Kristi Noem is far from an aberration in a career of selfless public service and well-informed, gracious actions. Rather, it is the continuation of a long pattern of incompetence at best and downright corruption and cruelty at worst. She is probably the worst governor in the United States not just because of her policy views and her lack of any real achievements in office, but because of some of the most high-profile ethical violations of any governor in the history of the United States.

     In 2019 and again in 2020, Kristi Noem proposed spending $400,000 to build a fence around the governor's mansion for "safety reasons," a proposal that passed in 2020 after being retracted in 2019. It would later go on to be uncovered that she spent $68,000 on imported rugs from India, a sauna, and chandeliers for the building.

     This isn't the only way Kristi Noem wasted taxpayer money in her first year in office. She spent $450,000 hiring an out-of-state firm to create an anti-drug campaign titled "Meth. We're On It." For obvious reasons, the campaign was widely mocked, but Noem defended the project.

     In 2020, after her daughter, Kassidy Peters, was denied a real estate appraisal license, Noem demanded the resignation of Sherry Bren, the long-serving director of the certification program. After trying unsuccessfully to save her job, Bren filed an age discrimination complaint that resulted in Bren agreeing to step down from her job in exchange for $200,000. Noem, following a familiar pattern, accused the media of targeting her over this clear ethical misconduct because she is a conservative and trying to destroy her "kids," namely, her 26-year-old adult daughter.

     In March 2024, she was hit with a federal lawsuit after she promoted a dentist at Smile Texas who she said helped her when she lost all of her front teeth in a biking accident. What Noem failed to disclose was that she allegedly had a financial relationship with the company, evidently being paid to promote their services as if she were some kind of social media influencer.

     In 2022, Noem proposed a government-paid RV park in Custer Park, which would have led the government to compete with private businesses and disturbed the natural beauty of the park. In a matter of weeks, the bill was defeated in committee by an overwhelming bipartisan vote.

     Kristi Noem's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic cost countless South Dakotans their lives. She refused to implement mask mandates or stay-at-home orders, used pandemic relief funds to encourage as many people as possible to visit her state, encouraged large gatherings, questioned the reliability of public health experts, spread a lie that led to over 1,300 workers at a Sioux Falls plant being infected with COVID, was the only governor in the nation to refuse increased unemployment benefits for those who lost their jobs during the pandemic, signed a bill limiting civil liability for coronavirus exposure, held a series of large events at Mount Rushmore and Sturgis, and banned the state government from mandating employees be vaccinated, resulting in South Dakota being one of the states hit hardest by the pandemic.

     Noem also fought against the 2020 ballot initiative that legalized recreational marijuana use in South Dakota, resulting in the ballot measure being struck down. She continues to speak out against a similar measure that will be on the 2024 ballot.

     After the 2020 election, Noem repeated the claim that the election was stolen and not "free and fair," refusing to acknowledge that President Biden was legitimately elected and calling newly-elected Georgia Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock "communists" in an op-ed published the day after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

     In 2021, Kristi Noem sent the brave men and women of the South Dakota National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border for a political stunt paid for by a billionaire from Tennessee. The Center for Public Integrity filed a lawsuit against this obvious corruption, and, in 2022, Congress passed bipartisan legislation banning National Guard troops from being sent across state borders on missions funded by private donors.

     In September 2021, American Greatness, a CONSERVATIVE media outlet, reported that Kristi Noem was having an affair with Trump 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, accusations that Noem attempted to refute with her go-to, that she was a victim of media slander because she was a conservative woman. However, in 2023, New York Post and Daily Mail, two more conservative-leaning sites, published similar allegations, leaving Kristi Noem's refutation in serious doubt.

     In 2022, Noem tried to "put prayer back in school" with a bill that was defeated in committee by a supermajority bipartisan vote. She did not consult any public or private schools about the bill, and admitted as much during hearings on the legislation.

     It's not just schools Noem has disrespected in such a manner. She has done even worse to South Dakota's indigenous residents. After accusing Native Americans of profiting from Cartel-linked fentanyl on their reservations, Noem was banned from four reservations comprising a sizeable chunk of the land in the state she is supposed to lead. However, her disrespect for Native Americans dates back to well before this. In 2021, Noem tried to have an Independence Day fireworks display at Mount Rushmore, a practice that had been barred for 12 years due to opposition by Native Americans concerned with the risk of wildfires. She spent more taxpayer money fighting the federal government's denial of her application, hiring a private firm in D.C. only to lose in court.

     Perhaps the only real policy achievement that Kristi Noem has had during her tenure in the governor's mansion is signing permitless carry into law, putting guns into the hands of people with as great a moral character as Noem herself. Her love for guns is so deep it borders on psychotic. She has reportedly offered to LEAVE her job as governor to become the president of the NRA after Wayne LaPierre left in the midst of a corruption verdict in New York, something Noem, like all of her other scandals, has denied. What we know is true is that, in 2022, Noem proposed using taxpayer funds for, you guessed it, a gun range, which the South Dakota legislature rejected. At a 2023 NRA forum in Indiana, Noem said that her TWO-YEAR-OLD granddaughter had a shotgun, a rifle, and a "little pony named Sparkles."

     An administration with this track record might help explain why she has gone through FIVE chiefs of staff in just five years. In spite of all of this, and in spite of the widespread bipartisan condemnation and shock at her admission to murdering Cricket and a family goat, she still thinks she has a shot at becoming Donald Trump's vice-presidential nominee. Rather than run in the 2024 primary, she immediately aimed for the number two spot, meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and running ads during the primary under the guise of promoting South Dakota that really served only to try to boost her national profile.

     Something is seriously wrong with Kristi Noem. Her defeats far outnumber her victories, her scandals far outnumber her achievements, and she has repeatedly made it evident that she sees her job as only a tool to further her own interests, to sell books in which she thinks she'll be applauded for killing a puppy and a goat in a fit of rage. People like her are what is wrong with politics.