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Noem never hesitates to use our National Guard as her own personal mercenary company for photo ops at the border.

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This issue is reflective of one of the most fundamental problems with the Noem administration. Whether you think she is the second coming or a self-promoting bimbo, the fact of the matter is we deserve to know a lot more of the who, what, when, where, why and how of state government than we get. Our "leader" and her staff are unwilling to conduct routine briefing sessions or Q&A's with the media that would, in turn, inform the South Dakota public. In this case––deployment of SD National Guard to Texas––there are a multitude of unanswered questions. Noem's press secretary only appears in public to twirl her baton or be baptized, so she's a dead end. And Ian Fury, Noem's communications chief, is, essentially, a dead end, too, as he deflects, evades, ignores or impulsively attacks.

In this case, while it is true that we are all "Free" to do our own research on the state's National Guard vis a vis the Emergency Management Assistance Compact [EMAC], I can assure you it leads to a raft of questions that it is our governor's job to answer. Her job is not to provide herself with photo opportunities or FoxNews appearances, which is all that she really seems interested in doing.

So whether you are for her or against her, ask yourself when was the last time she actually provided any substantive explanation or justification, behind spouting her banal generalities about "Freedom." Although she presents a smug, self-satisfied arrogance, I think her refusal to engage in any non-scripted discourse is a sign of intellectual cowardice.

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The SD National Guard cannot do anything without the permission of the President. A good show but effort and time is wasted.

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Nothing like wasting tax payer dollars to protect our severely understaffed Ag and Construction industries from all of those people wanting to work.

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Lol, lol, 😂😂😂😂 Fury is not able to answer anything, unless the governor lets him.

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Noem's desire to send some of our National Guard people to the border should be put in context. First and foremost, its and excellent opportunity to promote herself to keep her name in the national news cycle; it will help keep her in a favorable position with Trump; and she can do it at taxpayer expense, which she will do at every opportunity. Finally, it gives her an opportunity to show that all good "Maga" people involved in this border problem are united. I'm not saying we don't have a border problem, but this can only be permanently fixed by Congress and not just executive decrees. However, this problem has been going on for decades and Congress just wants to ignore fixing it and would rather criticize whatever party is in power for not addressing it. Trump had his opportunity to push for a fix when he was in office and decided a border wall was the way to go with Mexico paying the bill. Today only 52 miles of the wall are built and we're still waiting for that payment. Biden gave the impression that he was going to address it by sending Pamela Harris down there, but she basically came back empty handed and nothing more was said about it. This is a national problem and we need to keep the pressure on our lawmakers to fix it.

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founding

If Governor Abbott wants troups at the border, then he should have the Texas people foot the bill.

Obviously, they wouldn't do that because it is easier to have saw blades in the water and make it the world's most deadly border.

I also **love** how Texas tries to secede from the United States, but needs the rest of the US to defend its border and power the industry which is there. I just apparently don't get it, either you're apart of the US and need the support from the rest or you're independent and have to sink or swim on your own.

Also, Texans waste so much water trying to irrigate fields which are basically deserts. They use so much of the Ogalala Aquifer that they have to drill down even further to get the water. Meanwhile, in SD we have conserved enough that we are actually several feet above the initial recorded depth. Why do they deplete the Aquifer? Because Governor Abbott gives them monetary incentives to drain it

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