We saw this coming: The Tea Party is realizing Kristi Noem isn’t Tea Party enough for them. The Club for Growth has rated all freshman Republican members of Congress for their fealty to “economic freedom.” They find three of the 87 GOP freshmen scoring 100% in their commitment to letting fat cats exploit labor and land without restraint: Rep. Justin Justin (MI – 3), Rep. Tim Huelskamp (KS – 1), and Rep. Raul Labrador, Raul (ID – 1).

Where’s Kristi? Tied for 61st in her class with a meager 60% score. In my Spearfish classroom, 60% is the absolute lowest D-minus.

Dragging down Noem’s Tea Party score are her continued support for energy subsidies, ethanol subsidies, and federally subsidized flood insurance. She also gets dinged for voting for last summer’s debt ceiling deal.

Attentive readers find no surprise in Rep. Noem’s betrayal of the Tea Party. Wingnut Shad Olson ripped Rep. Noem last year for the debt ceiling vote. Talk radio host Mark Levin pegged Rep. Noem as an Establishment phony last summer.

Now whither Ed Randazzo’s hopes that Rep. Noem will join the Tea Party Caucus? With a 60%, she may not have good enough “grades” to get in.

And how does this confound challenger Matt Varilek’s effort to portray Rep. Noem as a die-hard Tea Party politician heck-bent on wrecking the federal government for the sake of anarcho-capitalism? The Club for Growth seems to know its Tea Party, and it knows Kristi Noem is struggling to make the grade.

Update 20:40 MDT: Reporter David Montgomery banged those keys and hit “Publish” on Noem’s poor Tea grade 25 minutes before I did. Darned full-time job! ;-)

Noem spokesman Tom Erickson tells Montgomery that Noem considers such Tea Party advocacy “noise coming from Washington” that she prefers to ignore. Oh my: did a Noem staffer just speak sense?

Prototype Noem-catching device to help her make more committee meetings

Freshman Rep. Kristi Noem was really, really proud to be a second-string replacement pick for the Agriculture Committee seat vacated for her by fellow Tea Party-fave and farm subsidy beneficiary Rep. Steven Fincher. But she hasn’t been doing much on the Ag committee. South Dakota Democratic Party chairman Ben Nesselhuf finds documentation establishing Rep. Noem’s attendance at just four out of twenty Ag committee and subcommittee hearings:

Of six conservation subcommittee meetings, there’s a record of Noem attending only one, Democrats say. A record shows her at a livestock meeting. That came April 26 when she was being profiled by a network news channel. Of nine full committee meetings, there is record of her in two.

Even if she was missed by the video cameras, or only attended parts of meetings — which is common for members of Congress, experts maintain — Noem has appeared in transcripts once, Nesselhuf said [Jonathan Ellis, "Attendance in Congress in Question," that Sioux Falls paper, 2012.05.13].

Why might Kristi be skipping so many Agriculture Committee hearings?

10. Too busy clubbing in California.
9. Grueling travel schedule and non-stop town hall meetings.
8. Still getting lost in Longworth Building.
7. The whole idea of going to Congress was to get away from the farm.
6. Do you know how long it takes to do this hair?
5. Kassidy and Kennedy are “too cool” now to play board games, so Kristi has spent weeks casting stunt doubles for the new “Monopoly” ads.
4. Farm Bill amendments? But “I have to work on this paper! It’s due tomorrow!“
3. Still waiting for chairman to send copy of Ag committee mission statement.
2. Noem needs to keep her head down on ag policy, since her pro-government stance on farm subsidies and crop insurance makes her look really bad with her arch-conservative base.
1. Meeting? What meeting?

Commenters, I welcome your additions to the list.

Permit me the pleasure of citing Cato Institute budget analyst Tad DeHaven on why Congresswoman Kristi Noem is a complete hypocrite.

On Wednesday, the House considered an amendment by Kansas Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo to eliminate funding for the federal Economic Development Administration. Rep. Noem showed her big-government roots by voting to kill the amendment and keep corporate welfare alive:

Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD), for example, voted against the Pompeo amendment. But in a column she penned in April, Noem said “Our debt crisis is a result of Washington spending money it doesn’t have and letting our children and grandchildren pick up the tab.” Noem favors a Balance Budget Amendment and says that “Our government must come together and make the tough decisions to secure our nation’s prosperous future.” Really? Noem says tough decisions need to be made but she can’t even get behind the elimination of the EDA. Talk about chutzpah.

Noem and 85 other Republicans also voted against Rep. Ben Quayle’s (R-AZ) amendment that would have defunded a new corporate welfare program asked for by President Obama in his fiscal 2013 budget proposal. Thanks to the 86 Republicans in the House, instead of terminating programs, taxpayers will get a new one called the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia program [Tad DeHaven, "Republicans Help Save the Economic Development Administration," Cato@Liberty, 2012.05.09].

That’s not some cranky South Dakota liberal talking. That’s a Cato Institute conservative, someone with no dog in South Dakota politics.

Ask a real, thinking conservative, and he’ll tell you that Kristi is no conservative. She’s nothing but a climber, dedicated to power, not principle.

In other news, still no word on when Noem’s family will stop suckling at the government teat of farm subsidies and federal crop insurance.

Update 21:53 MDT: Interesting: Rep. Noem missed the vote to tinker with last year’s budget sequestration deal and avert cuts from the military by slashing billions from Medicaid, federal worker benefits, and food assistance for low-income Americans.

Democratic House candidate Matt Varilek makes a strong case against Rep. Kristi Noem when he points out that she has repeatedly voted to end Medicare as we know it. The South Dakota GOP tries to change the subject, but Noem enablers never address the facts: the Paul Ryan plan that Noem eyes and ayes would smash Medicare into voucherized bits that lots of seniors could not afford.

The Medicare-over-millionaires argument can have legs for Varilek, quite simply because there are a lot more folks counting on Medicare than there are millionaires who can afford to opt out of it. Noem and the Medicare privatizers try to dodge the bullet by saying they won’t change Medicare for folks currently 55 and older. That’s clever politics (old folks vote the most), but it’s shortsighted policy. As technology increases increases, we may need fewer workers. As the chart here shows, the U.S. economy is currently putting just 68.5% of those between the ages of 16 to 54 to work, a low not seen since just after the recessions of the early 1980s. That employment rate dropped and stayed lower after the 2001 recession throughout the Bush Administration; the 2008 recession may have brought another hard reset to an economy that can meet consumer needs with fewer workers.

And if the economy can do without over 30% of workers in their prime, those shed workers are going to be a lot more nervous about a Congresswoman telling them to save up to pay for their own health care when they reach age 65. They will need a guaranteed safety net, not a long old age still at swim in a private market that already is telling them, “We don’t want you.”

Keep beating that Medicare drum, Matt: today’s nervous workers will hear it.

On April 25, Reo. Kristi Noem joined in a unanimous voice vote approving the “Digital Accountability and Transparency Act,” which would make permanent the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s reporting and oversight board.

What? You mean Kristi thinks something about President Obama’s economic stimulus program actually worked? Must be:

But there is one area where the legislation has had a definitive effect, one clear impact that transcends politics and is almost universally acknowledged: The stimulus has done more to promote transparency at almost all levels of government than any piece of legislation in recent memory. Many states launched or enhanced their open government initiatives around the same time as the stimulus, drawing on both the lessons learned and technical know-how they developed as they implemented the heightened federal reporting requirements that came with ARRA. It’s an impact that seems to excite watchdogs and wonks more than the politicians who bicker over the economic impact of the spending [Ryan Holeywell, "Did the Stimulus Do Anything for Transparency?" Governing, February 2012].

States are worried about the costs associated with tightening practices on how they report the use of federal funds. The CBO says DATA Act will cost Uncle Sam $575 million to implement over five years and may save over $5.1 billion.

Rep. Kristi Noem continues the standard GOP sleight-of-mouth. As voters indicate their disapproval of the GOP’s War on Women, South Dakota’s lone Congresswoman tries to tell you that her votes against women’s health care don’t really matter:

Anyone who has turned on the TV, listened to the radio or read the news in the past few weeks has undoubtedly heard about the Republican Party’s supposed War on Women. So many hours have been wasted on this topic that folks actually might think it’s a real issue. It’s not.

The truth is our nation’s political leaders are using women as a means of manipulation to try to win an election. This means real issues are taking a back seat to a political sideshow. Instead of talking about how we are going to get Americans back to work or lower gas prices, talking heads on TV are bickering over whether being a stay-at-home-mom is an occupation [Rep. Kristi Noem, "Focus on Real Issues, Not Sideshows," that Sioux Falls paper, 2012.04.25].

Notice that, in classic Noem fashion, our Congresswoman can’t talk about specifics. She doesn’t address the bad policies that actually constitute the war on women’s rights, like the abortion restrictions that Noem backed here in South Dakota to drive women into second-class citizenship. She doesn’t address her efforts to make birth control harder to get. In this article, Noem never explains why women’s issues don’t matter; she just debates a label.

Let’s take a look at some of the GOP legislation that might be considered part of the War on Women:

• The Georgia House and Senate passed the “Women as Livestock Bill,” an anti-abortion bill that earned its moniker after State Rep. Terry England compared pregnant women, carrying fetuses that had already died, to cows and pigs on his farm, saying that if the animals should have to deliver dead fetuses, so should women.
• A proposed law in Arizona could force women to prove to their employers that they are not using birth control pills for pregnancy prevention — or face termination.
• Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker repealed his state’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act, which permitted victims of workplace discrimination to seek damages in state courts. The bill was enacted in 2009 to address the tremendous gender gap in compensation in Wisconsin.
• The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which would expand the reach of domestic violence programs, faces opposition in the U.S. Senate [Anika Rahman, "Mommy Wars: An Attempt to Disenfranchise Women," Huffington Post, 2012.04.26].

Personal health choices, freedom from employer interference with birth control, equal pay, protection from domestic violence… please tell us, Kristi, why those issues are sideshows.

I’d like to think there’s an upside here. If Noem is declaring abortion a sideshow, maybe that means she’ll tell her boss Speaker Boehner to keep the government out of uteri and finally focus on creating jobs and balancing the budget. But we know that’s not the case. When Kristi thinks she can push her oppression of women for electoral gain, she and the GOP see abortion as a primary issue. But when women start pushing back and when Republicans realize they’re losing on the issues, Kristi starts crying sideshow.

The GOP War on Women is real. If it is a sideshow, it is because it is the bait-and-switch perpetrated by Kristi Noem and the Tea Party class of 2010 who said they wanted to focus on the economy and getting government out of people’s lives but instead of focused on all too literally inserting government into women’s lives in the worst ways possible.

Related: The Senate passed the Violence Against Women Act on a 68-31 vote yesterday, with 15 Republicans setting a losing political fight aside and casting the correct vote. Senator Tim Johnson voted aye; Senator John Thune voted nay.

Also related: Noem’s boss can’t even provide some reasonable student debt relief without turning it into another ploy to take away more women’s health care.

Rep. Kristi Noem voted with the House GOP majority last Tuesday in favor of HR 4089, the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act, also known as the Recreational Shooting Protection Act. The bill purports to protect hunters’ rights to enjoy the chase on federal lands like Bureau of Land Management rangeland and areas of the Black Hills under control of the U.S. Forest Service.

Various sportsmen expressed concern that the bill as introduced would have allowed increased use of motorized vehicles, roadbuilding, and even mineral exploration on federal lands… none of which activities seem to have much to do with our hunting heritage. Even Gordon Howie would agree that ATVs can create a heck of a mess. House Amendment 1005 appears to have clarified that HR 4089 will not open the door to motorized recreation or mineral extraction.

However, another provision of the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act includes a typical short-sighted dig at the Environmental Protection Agency. Rep. Noem and her colleagues want to block the EPA from regulating the use of lead ammunition and sinkers on federal land.

Some hunters and anglers prefer lead because it’s cheaper, and dismiss scientific warnings about its toxicity. But aside from the potential health effects on sportsmen and women themselves, the lead also poses a risk to wildlife — and not just the ones being hunted. An array of studies have shown lead moving through the environment, often when bullet fragments or lost fishing sinkers are ingested by birds such as condors, turkey vultures, loons and bald eagles. One 2006 study found that lead bullet fragments in ground squirrels were poisoning hawks. According to the CBD, lead sickens and kills “more than 75 species of birds and nearly 50 mammals” [Russell McLendon, "U.S. House OKs 'Sportmen's Heritage Act'," Mother Nature Network, 2012.04.21 ].

Apparently in Kristi’s mind, protecting our “heritage” means protecting toxic practices from the past.

I’m fine with hunting, and I’m fine with allowing all citizens to enjoy the land we hold in public trust. But we should keep those lands open in ways that protect their resources, not pollute them. As the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act heads to the Senate, contact Senators Thune and Johnson and encourage them to remove the anti-EPA and anti-wildlife rhetoric from this bill so it can serve the interests of hunters and the environment alike.

DWC wonders why the national press uses Rep. Kristi Noem as the face of the Tea Party. Hmm… that would be a question for Fox News, since that seems to be the only national network that gives her the majority of her exposure outside South Dakota.

Rep. Noem may not be an official member of the Tea Party (she still hasn’t crossed the hall to Rep. Bachmann’s office to get a copy of that all-important caucus mission statement so she can figure out what the Tea Party stands for), but with her fact-impervious hypergeneralizations, she sure sounds like one. On Fox News Tuesday, Rep. Noem challenged us to “Point to one policy that this president has enacted that has actually worked.”

The South Dakota Democratic Party accepts the challenge and lists ten effective policies enacted by President Obama:

• Added 4.1 million private sector jobs and seen 25 straight months of job growth. American Recovery Act.
• Rescued American auto industry, saving more than 1 million jobs and preventing the loss of over $96 billion in personal income as a result. Rescue loans to American Auto Industry.
• Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,”ensuring that no one ever again has to lie about who they are to serve the country they love. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010.
• Signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, making progress in a decades-long battle for women to get equal pay for equal work. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act
• Provided 46 million seniors access to free preventive services like annual wellness visits and health screenings .Affordable Care Act. 
• Closed the Medicare “doughnut hole,” saving the average senior approximately $4,200 over the next 10 years. Affordable Care Act. 
• Extended more benefits to National Guard members who have performed active service and allow education benefits to be transferred to family members. Post 9/11 GI Bill.
• Brought the war in Iraq to a responsible end. For the first time in nine years, there are no American troops fighting in Iraq.
• Doubled funding for Pell grants, making college more affordable for 9 million students a year.
  
• Established new fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks will nearly double fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, saving American families an estimated $1.7 trillion at the pump [SDDP, "Note to Noem: Challenge Accepted," 2012.04.18].

You can add to that summary a much longer list of accomplishments compiled by Dr. Robert P. Watson of Lynn University.

I suppose Rep. Noem can weasel out of her statement by saying that when she says “worked,” she means… well, whatever she wants it to mean. But to suggest that not one policy that the President has enacted has produced its desired effect is an exercise in propaganda worthy of any Tea Party candidate.

A more useful question (and yes, Messrs. Varilek and Barth, please do ask!) would be, “How many policies has Rep. Kristi Noem voted for that have actually worked?” Or better yet, “How many policies has Rep. Kristi Noem voted for that have actually been enacted?”