Last week, Governor Kristi Noem said she’d reached her “saturation level” for promoting vaccinations and thus didn’t want to say anything else on the topic, lest people start to tune her out. But yesterday she grabbed her phone and tweeted about vaccinations anyway:
This statement is both false—South Dakota mandates vaccines for polio, measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, and meningococcal disease for all schoolchildren—and ironic as an introduction to National Immunization Awareness Month, which Governor Noem herself proclaimed August to be here in South Dakota just a couple weeks ago:
It’s curious that in this proclamation, Noem appears to endorse the CDC and its declaration that vaccines are “among the most significant public health achievements of the 20th century,” only to come back from What-a-Burger a week later and scorn the CDC as unreliable.
It’s more curious that amidst the flood of covid vaccine disinformation that is keeping America from shutting this pandemic down, Noem not only is doing nothing to improve our awareness of covid vaccines but in her proclamation only mentions efforts to stop coronavirus as obstacles to kids getting other shots:
…efforts to reduce transmission of covid-19, such as stay-at-home orders, have led many to miss their doctor’s visits where they would receive their scheduled immunizations….
…9 million childhood vaccination doses may have been missed by the end of 2020 due to the pandemic… [Noem, 2021.07.21].
The CDC leads its National Immunization Awareness Month page with resources for health care providers and for regular citizens and families on vaccines for covid-19, the most clear and present public health risk that immunization can solve. But inexplicably (or maybe just inexcusably), at a prime moment when she could focus attention on the safety, efficacy, and necessity of our pandemic-busting vaccines, Governor Noem twists a proclamation on immunization awareness into a jab against pandemic prevention.
This proclamation, alongside her Tuesday tweet about vaccine mandates, put the lie to her claim that she’s already saturated the marketplace of ideas with vaccine talk. She not only hasn’t used her influence this summer to encourage people to get their covid vaccines; she issues snarky tweets and contorted proclamations that dit-dash to her followers, keep rallying against the vaccines!
What does it take to get Kristi Noem to use her power for good and simply tell everybody to take their shots?
Oh yeah, National Shooting Sports Month, proclamation of which she signed the same day as that bothersome immunization thingy and to which she dedicated her first tweet of August… because, you betcha, Kristi Noem isn’t anywhere near her saturation point of talking about shooting and hunting and guns, guns, guns!
Come on, again, she’s running for VP. All good news, what’s a few hundred deaths compared to that?
Well, she is plenty cynical, that’s for sure. The bodies continue to pile up and her no solution, no response mantra is as cold as a Pierre north wind in January. Does she pull over for funeral processions???
Proclamation? More an apologetic for why stay-at-home mandates (before vaccines were widely available!) were detrimental to people getting vaccinated (even before vaccines were widely available!).
Elucubration, rationalization, defense mechanism, and justification for her nescience, intractability, and inaction all rolled into one. As Cory points out, that’s quite a roundabout detour for what could otherwise be a straightforward message: get vaccinated.
Just what we are dealing with in this individual needs be seriously questioned. She appears–or wishes to appear—, by multiple statements she has made in prefacing her sketchy pontifications over time, to believe that, since elected by the people, she is divinely appointed and that what emanates from her lips must also have the imprimatur of divine authority. We could be dealing with nothing but a very clever nut-case.
Latest from my high school classmate Marty Two Bulls: https://www.facebook.com/martytwobulls/photos/a.480603755316838/4419857448058096/
If last year’s rallies were a bit of a super spreader event, this year’s should be super duper spreader.
Noem’s missive indicates why she needs a good history course, and a refresher on state laws.
One wonders where she comes up with nonsense such as “Once again, we have politicians overstepping their authority in a time of crisis and destroying the liberty that this nation was built on.” As Cory points out, her government mandates all sorts of things, including vaccinations. Then there’s the the “liberty” thing. Our country was built on nice words regarding liberty, but for all but the property owning white elite, liberty was more of a promise than reality. She likes to rub shoulders with the Texas Guard, all of whom are required to get vaccinations. Maybe Gregg Abbott is one of those “overstepping politicians.” Of course, I’m sure the South Dakota Guard also requires vaccinations, so she had better figure out if she’s part of the problem.
Cory, kudos to you. I don’t know how you do it? Like you said last month, Kristi is EXHAUSTING to report about. I have reached my “saturation level” reading about her obnoxious nonsense. I’m Just tired and wore out. . .
Twat was dat, leadership? What a nincompoop, look it up.
The rootin tootin six gun shootin broke-mouth cancer eyed cowgirl seems to have made her mission to embarrass the great state of South Dakota.
I took a PCR test and it said I was missing my legs (they turned it up to 11).
I sent in a 23 and me sample and it said I was a giraffe.
So the only shots Noem likes are shots from a gun. Ya, that’s sicko. And it’s why her kind have killing seasons all year.
I think we need to change the subject to election integrity .. even here in SD.
Maybe she is waiting for the right moment: like during her charity ride in Sturgis?
Just keep screaming “election integrity” even while the Arizona audit has descended into clown show territory and the pillow guy is, once again, revising his claims about Trump being reinstated as President. Ya almost gotta admire the sheer determination to settle on a conclusion in the face of opposing evidence. Almost.
Hey, I just realized—it’s August!!! Trump must be re-instated!!!! NOT.
Another Trumpian delusion bites the dust. When will the cult go back to Jesus, and stop the Trump idol worship.
PT Barnum’s “A sucker is born every minute!”
Well John welfare states like South Dakota would tie right in with integrity.
Where are the misogynist police when you actually need them? Instead of griping at me for something I didn’t say about Noem Nothing, there is a commenter on this thread that needs chiding for his choice of word for ladybits. Ladies….blast away!
Concerned parents in iowa want magats to overturn mask ban mandates in schools. I’d say sue the government for negligence if kids die from not being able to wear masks in schools.