While I was gone, Rep. Kristi Noem proved herself a complete failure. Instead of using her newly won mandate from the people of South Dakota to push for a better Farm Bill, Rep. Noem caved to her own fecklessness and voted for the status quo.

She declared that she couldn't move her own House Ag Committee's rotten bill. She failed to forge any sort of compromise with the Senate and its superior version of the Farm Bill. She could only whimper "Aye" to a mere nine-month extension of the existing Farm Bill, the policy crafted by the last Congresswoman South Dakota had who had any ability or desire to get things done in Washington, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.

South Dakota Farm Bureau president Scott VanDarWal says this nine-month extension is "probably the best we could do," but S.D. Farmers Union president Doug Sombke calls Nome's failure to legislate "a complete disappointment to family farmers, ranchers and dairymen of America."

Noem may be able to claim she has thrown farmers a lifeline, but in fact she's stringing them along, dragging out the uncertainty they face from another year of the same old arguments and intransigence from a Republican Congresswoman and GOP House majority who can't do their jobs.