Last week a person told me a funny story about a retired priest attending Christmas at the Cathedral (he will remain nameless). Either before or after the show he introduces himself to the lady sitting next to him and says,
“You look familiar. Did you attend one of my parishes as a child?”
(This certain priest served in many parishes throughout South Dakota)
She replies,
“I’m Kristi Noem, your governor.”
I found the story funny considering Noem’s quest to be someone on a National level and the fact most of her administrative staff has to be recruited from out of state. Maybe Noem should give the good father a job since she only hires people that don’t know her.
The state Government Accountability Board dismissed a complaint Tuesday regarding Gov. Kristi Noem’s use of state aircraft, citing no sufficient legal definition of “state business.”
Isn’t law prickly? Judges conveniently throw out a complaint saying a law doesn’t exist. So if that is true, how do thousands of state employees show up to work each day and know what to do if a legal definition of state business doesn’t exist?
Game wardens could argue fishing all day with a state patrol boat is ‘state business’. Or a highway patrol officer could give UBER rides during their down time. Why not? There is NO definition of state business. And do you trust this legislature to fix it? They are still trying to figure out what the definition of ‘elected representative’ means.
In October, Nesiba said the current law allows the attorney general or a state’s attorney discretion to look at “state business” and what it means.
I guess these judges are struggling with defining the state’s legal definition of ‘state business’
Noem has faced scrutiny for a number of her uses of state aircraft, including flights from Custer and back again during the weekend of her daughter’s 2019 wedding at Custer State Park. Noem has also used a state airplane to attend several political functions in other states.
If you do a five second Google search you will find this handy piece of information;
Official state business or “state business” means any activity conducted in conformance to these rules and directed and controlled by a state agency to advance the lawful policies and purposes of the agency.
I don’t have a fancy law degree or a judgeship under my belt, but I am pretty sure flying your nephew to your Daughter’s Jewish Gun Rights CPAC Wedding extravaganza isn’t the definition of ‘state business’. Maybe if the 4th judge decided not to recuse themself the 4 of them could have took turns typing the definition into the Google search engine?
“South Dakota will have no part in the intelligence gathering operations of nations who hate us,” Noem said in a statement. “The Chinese Communist Party uses information that it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people, and they gather data off the devices that access the platform.”
Of course, our mayor is still on his ‘save the kids’ campaign he must be carrying over from the anti-IM 27 campaign;
“This app needs more federal scrutiny to ensure our kids (and national security) are protected,” TenHaken wrote on social media.
Okay, why stop there?
• Why not BAN state government from purchasing any products made in China?
• Why not BAN any 5G antenna equipment from China?
• Why not BAN farmland or any property owned by Chinese investors? Or businesses (Like Smithfields)
This is more huff and puff and smoke blowing from the biggest offenders. Hypocrisy at it’s best. Now let’s go fight homeless cannabis use, the real problem ravaging our state ;(
You are NOT seeing triplets, decorated swimmer Riley Gaines is jetsetting the country with her ads and after helping Rand Paul and Kristi Noem, she is headed to Georgia to help out philanderer Hershel Walker. Instead of just pretending to defend women in sports, maybe she should be defending ALL women!
Thune’s case reminds me of a line in “Please,” a poem by American poet Robert Creeley: “Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.” In kindness, what can we do but wish the depleted pol, peddler of shoddy policies, a peaceful senescence and put him out to pasture, where, blithely oblivious to the impending crises, he can continue feeding upon the common fodder.”
Speaking of old horses (or at least people who may or may not fall off of them on occasion) it seems the snow queen’s justification for sending National Guard troops to the Texas border was just a line of horse puckey;
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem described the U.S. border with Mexico as a “war zone” last year when she sent dozens of state National Guard troops there, saying they’d be on the front lines of stopping drug smugglers and human traffickers.
But records from the Guard show that in their two-month deployment, the South Dakota troops didn’t seize any drugs. On a handful of occasions, they suspected people of scouting for lapses in their patrols, but mission logs don’t contain any confirmed encounters with “transnational criminals.” And a presentation from the deployment noted that Mexican cartels were assessed to be a “moderate threat” but were “unlikely” to target U.S. forces.
But didn’t we already know that? It’s unbelievable to me that Noem can be this corrupt and dishonest and actually be leading in polls. Any sane electorate would have sent her and Thune packing years ago. Unfortunately, this is as good as it gets in SoDak.
l3wis 
