Having friends and family members who have gone through back surgery, I wasn't pleased to read the September headline on the Dakota News Now article, Noem faces limited physical mobility for next several months due to back surgery.
As with the experience of back surgery faced by those in my circle, South Dakota's governor faced a time of healing:
Gov. Kristi Noem announced that she underwent a successful back surgery that is expected to limit her physical activity and travel for the next several months.
Her treating surgeon, Dr. Mohamad Bydon, said, “Governor Noem developed an acute condition impacting her lumbar spine. She underwent successful surgery and is well on her way to a full recovery. The Governor is in excellent health.”
Bydon works out of Rochester, Minnesota, which is where Noem underwent her procedure.
“Surgery was successful, and I am thankful that I am on the road to making a full recovery,” said Noem. “As part of that recovery, I have to abide by certain limitations on my activity in order to allow my back to heal properly. In the short term, this will include amount of standing I can do and the amount of travel that I can partake in around our great state. I am grateful for the doctors’ and nurses’ steady hands – and God’s grace – as I am now back home in Pierre and on the mend.” . . .
More recent headlines suggest a remarkable recovery. At the Rapid City Journal, Siandhara Bonnet placed Noem at the Aviation Readiness Center on Saturday in South Dakota Army National Guard deploy on new mission. That mission?:
The Journal agreed to release limited information on the deployment due to security concerns and the nature of the mission.
In Noem Evidently Sending Guards to Border to Wage Political War Dakota Free Press noticed Noem shared the Guard members' destination via social media.
But her travel once again extends beyond Rapid City and the rest of the fair state she governs.
On Tuesday, Keloland's Jacob Newton reported in Noem to campaign for election denier in Arizona:
On October 4, 2022, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is expected to be in Scottsdale, AZ, at the offices of Jetset Magazine (a publication which seeks to “define affluence with the best in luxury cars, travel, private jets, yachts, fine dining, fashion, and high-end living) for a campaign event for Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.
The event, Coffee with Kristi & Kari, will be held at 9:00 a.m. Guests must RSVP to the event, which is being hosted by Moms For Kari.
Some in South Dakota may be wondering, who is Kari Lake?
Lake, who won her primary with 46.8% of the vote, is perhaps best known for her advocacy of baseless election fraud conspiracy theories. She has called the 2020 presidential election unfair, and claimed that it was stolen; that Biden “lost the election and shouldn’t be in the White House.” She went on to claim that had she been governor at the time, she would not have certified Biden’s win in Arizona.
A Republican-funded audit of the election in Arizona, which took six-months to complete, found that Biden had in fact won the state, and in fact found that he had won by 360 more votes than had officially been reported.
Lake even claimed fraud in her primary race, stating without evidence that she’d overcome 41,000 fraudulent votes to win the race. No evidence of such fraud has been found, nor has Lake offered any. Lake began making the claims of fraud before the official results were in. “If we don’t win, there’s some cheating going on,” she claimed. This was despite polls in late July showing her trailing her Republican primary challenger, albeit in a vary narrow race. . . .
Did Noem survive the trip to Arizona?
Here's a tweet by Lake:
Was there a separate fundraiser for Noem while in Arizona?
We don't suppose the Guard members are headed to the Mexican-Arizona border. Last June, Reuters reported in Private donor funds South Dakota's National Guard deployment to U.S.-Mexico border that the Guard was on the Texas border. And the donor:
. . . Willis Johnson, a Tennessee-based Republican donor, made the donation to pay for the troops, Johnson told Politico. Reuters was unable to contact Johnson for comment.
Each state has its own laws about funding National Guard troops, National Guard Bureau spokesperson Wayne Hall said, referring questions to Noem's office.
But it's not just saying good-bye to the Guard or supporting other political candidates that's causing Noem to saddle up again.
Dakota News Now's Austin Goss tweeted on Monday:
Will Noem be at the fundraiser in person? At Dakota Free Press, Cory Allen Heidelberger looks at that gig in Palm Beach Car Dealers Host Noem Fundraiser at Glitzy Seaside Mansion October 14:
Part-time Governor, full-time campaigner Kristi Noem’s East Cost itinerary may be back on as well. Austin Goss finds a flyer for an October 14 fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida, for one of Kristi Noem’s federal PACs . . . .
Amanda and Charles Schumacher are big-wheel car dealers in Palm Beach. They will host Noem in their luxurious seaside Vita Serena mansion, which they bought through their revocable trust for $10 million and renovated for another $13.5 million. The poster does not clearly state that Noem herself will attend the event, but at $5,000 a head to get in the gate and $25,000 to be called “host”, attendees may rightly expect more than a Zoom call. . . .
Noem’s October 14 Palm Beach fundraiser takes place just a half-mile up South Ocean Boulevard from Donald Trump’s house at Mar-a-Lago.
What's up with the sacrifice and risk of a relapse? We suspect there might be a clue in Bob Mercer's analysis at Keloland, Noem taps national donors to boost SD re-election run:
A joint fundraising committee that South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem started in 2021 to collect financial contributions from donors during her appearances at the national level has already transferred more than $1.8 million to other political committees she controls, including her re-election campaign.
The governor registered the Noem Victory Fund with the Federal Election Commission on May 17, 2021. Through June 30 of this year, receipts totaled $2,533,667.96, mostly from individual contributions by people living in other states where Noem speaks.
The largest amount of transfers from Noem Victory Fund went to her Kristi For Governor candidate committee at the state level, chaired by former Lieutenant Governor Steve Kirby. According to a KELOLAND News analysis, her re-election account received transfers totaling $1,139,810.86 from Noem Victory Fund.
Noem’s Kristi For Governor account reported $3,038,876.00 of income and $1,912,774.82 of expenses, with an ending balance of $7,762,901.57, for the pre-primary period of January 1 through May 18, 2022. Much of that money has come from individuals outside South Dakota. She defeated Representative Steve Haugaard 91,661 to 28,315 in the June 7 primary.
Her Democrat opponent, state Representative Jamie Smith, reported an income of $137,424.97 and expenses of $27,156.84, with a balance of $110,268.13, for the same period. He didn’t have a primary opponent.
According to Abby Wood, a professor of law, political science, and public policy at the University of Southern California school of law, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 2014 decision struck down aggregate limits on political contributions and opened the way for a joint fundraising committee to legally operate. . . .
Mercer shares more about other committees where Noem's sharing that out-of-state cash. Go read it.
We're also concerned about the company the governor keeps, and we're not the only one, though we're not sure how cash is getting funneled to one campaign advisor.
At SD Standard, former Rapid City Republican state legislator Stanford Adelstein writes in Kristi Noem just can’t quit former Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski no matter what offensive things he keeps doing:
Disgraced and fired former President Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was spotted in Rapid City on Wednesday, Sept. 28, alongside Gov. Kristi Noem. They were in town trying to trick voters into believing she actually cares about them by repealing the sales tax on groceries. Convenient.
We’re not stupid, and we all know she is only bringing this up now to get votes in November. She’s never supported this, and all the spin in the world won’t convince us otherwise. Her poll numbers must be in the tank, and she’s desperate. Good.
Who is Lewandowski? He is filth at the highest level. While he’s smirking next to Noem in Rapid City, another news story was making national headlines about him making a deal with prosecutors over charges of misdemeanor battery from 2021.
Lewandowski is a predator who was charged after he made unwanted sexual advances to a woman in Las Vegas in September 2021. . . .
Yeah, that guy. Perhaps this why we're hearing rumors that internal polling by both Noem and Smith campaigns hint that this race is closer than money can buy.
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Image: Via Dakota Free Press, “The Kari Lake” campaign FB post, 2022.09.29.
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