The Mitchell Daily Republic has a front-page story on US Congressman Kristi Noem giving a short speech and answering student questions at Chamberlain for about an hour. For a day or two, the story may be found here MDR Noem says Congress Broken
The actual double headline in the snail mail version of the paper was titled: ' I feel there's a lack of respect for the process' and Noem tells of finding her way in Washington.
After reading the story, I don't think it is inappropriate to wonder if Noem could find her own butt in the dark with a flashlight. She can't give a speech and answer questions without being internally inconsistent or irrelevant. But first, she tells us how little gets accomplished in Washington and that her "biggest challenge was figuring out how I was going to get anything done". Later on, it appears she still doesn't know how to get anything done beyond playing partisan games for headlines. Her gettin it done appears to be her nonsense legislation to prevent regulation of farm dust..which nobody has any intentions of regulating. She said in general, Congress appears to be ruled by "chaos" and there is no real discussion and she "thinks we're undisciplined".
After fussing about "chaos", she answers student questions suggesting that the way to fix Congress is to get more turnover in Congress. I think it is fair to suggest to Noem that much of the chaos in Congress is due to the freshman TEA party obstructionists wedded to irrelevant mythology.
Right after discussing her silly farm dust bill which is really a protect the miners from responsibility for poisonous or dangerous dust bill, she indicates that even though it was passed in the House, it likely would not get through the Senate and if it did would be vetoed by President Obama. She then suggests that Congress should be more like the South Dakota legislature where every bill gets a hearing in a transparent process. (We might note that some rebel Republicans in the legislature are not convinced of that). Then she says that "If everybody knew their bill was going to get a hearing, things would change a lot in Washington."...because a lot of bills would never be introduced then. We might wonder about her fairly dust bill and what category of non-existence into which it would fit.
And then in a claim that should bring tears to nearly everybody, she says that she loves to get home to visit her family and South Dakota (OK so far). Then she says that talking to people in the grocery store, at the gas station, and in church, she claims people "struggling with regulations" talk to her and keep her grounded. She says she thus keeps focused on government spending and waste.
Frankly, I have yet to hear anybody in South Dakota discussing any serious problems with regulations in everyday conversation. Noem must live in a very peculiar neighborhood.
Noem then talks about privatizing Social Security but noting that her plan would not apply to anybody already 55 years or older. Whew, that is so reassuring...but also indicates her idea is total nonsense or those of us getting SS would be flocking to change our registrations and sending money by the truckload to Noem for her next campaign.
Then, a Congress person who has probably never voted for a single job creation bill or worked in anyway to prevent job loss says that "the best way to lower the poverty rate is to get everybody a job." Yah, you bettcha. banks and investors are awash in liquidity and aren't loaning money to do anything to increase jobs. What does she think will turn around the lemmings in the bank and broker system. My guess is less regulation of the buccaneer bankers and the bunko brokers.
Noem can't talk for even an hour without putting together nonsense (Noemsense) and inconsistency and contradiction. Is it fair to suggest that she is essentially clueless and capable only of parrotting GOP mythology?
*** Stay tuned, even Noemsense will pass, but perhaps not soon enough--- Doug Wiken.
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