Donald Trump appoints Kristi Noem as US Secretary of Homeland Security

Lock up your dogs because… Kristi Noem is back.

Two people familiar with the ongoing discussions Mar-a-Lago told CNN on Tuesday the South Dakota Governor will serve as Secretary of Homeland Security In Donald TrumpThe upcoming government.

Noem is joined by two other anti-immigrant agitators — former ICE chief Tom Homan and alleged white supremacist Stephen Miller — who serve in senior positions within the department.

It’s something of a return from the cold for the South Dakota rancher and farmer, after admitting she once had it in an autobiography published earlier this year killed a family dog saw her dropped from the Republican shortlist for Trump’s running mate.

To be fair, she’s not the only right-wing figure recently outed for her penchant for animal cruelty. There’s also Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts accused that he had once brought his neighbor’s dog to a similar fate, and that Revelations about new NRA chief Doug Hamlin’s role in the torture killing of a fraternity cat in 1980.

Nor is it the only bizarre claim to emerge from her 2024 memoir No turning backabout a pretty unhinged anti-seatbelt campaign and a passage suggesting that as an F-you in the “Nanny State” she allowed motorcycle gangs to flout COVID-19 laws in South Dakota violated.

Oh, and that’s all before you get to the point apocryphal encounter with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, which we, um… haven’t heard any evidence that actually took place.

Whatever her penchant for autofiction, there is little doubt that Noem’s anti-immigration credentials make her a natural Trump choice for homeland security secretary. She fully supported the Republican president’s “Muslim ban” and sought to stop the Biden administration from housing illegal migrants in South Dakota.

What is more up for debate is her awareness, if any, of the irony of her appointment as a judge about who cannot and cannot enter the country.

This is a governor who, lest we forget, is currently banned from entering tribal lands in her home state after making baseless claims in January that South Dakota’s reservations were facilitating an “invasion” by Mexican drug cartels.

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