Asshole of the Month: Kristi Noem
After the monster flood that killed at least 135 people in the Texas Hill Country in July, survivors who had lost everything but their lives struggled to find food, shelter and medical care. Yet two-thirds of their calls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster assistance line went unanswered because Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem had failed to renew call center contracts. Why was FEMA out to lunch? Because in June, as part of his Department of Government Efficiency quest to dismantle most of the federal government, Trump announced, “We want to wean off of FEMA,” in part because it was “very, very expensive.” To help the Big Boss in this mission, Kristi Noem instituted a policy requiring her personal approval for any contracts and grants over $100,000. It took a full five days after the Texas disaster for her to finally approve the renewed call center contract. She even dawdled for 72 hours after the massive flooding began before authorizing FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue teams to assist in the search for survivors and bodies.
The Houston Chronicle blasted her: “Heck of a job, Secretary Noem.” The snide remark brought back memories of another bungled Republican response to a natural disaster. Back in 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, with over 1,800 fatalities, largely because FEMA was AWOL under the direction of President George W. Bush appointee Michael Brown, who had zero experience with disaster management. But Bush praised him anyway: “Heck of a job, Brownie!” The Chronicle’s editorial about the Texas flood horrors didn’t mince words: “Leaving disaster victims on hold isn’t governmental efficiency. It’s heartless.”
Which perfectly describes this macho MAGA cowgirl from South Dakota: heartless. How else can you characterize a woman who dragged her 14-month-old pet dog, Cricket, to a gravel pit on her farm and shot it to death because the puppy was deemed untrainable and had killed a neighbor’s chickens? Then, later that same day, this off-kilter gun lover dragged a goat to the gravel pit and tied it to a stake, but only wounded it at first because the goat jumped as she fired. So she had to hike across a pasture to her pickup truck to reload before returning to finish the job. The goat had a “wretched smell” and had chased her children, she said. Noem actually brags about these killings in her memoir No Going Back as indicative of her leadership qualities—that she’s a “doer” and not an “avoider.” If only she had been doing her job as DHS and FEMA supervisor instead of avoiding her responsibilities during the Texas flood emergency…
