Don't Tell Nazi Barbie Kristi Noem About The Law, She Doesn't Care Or Understand

The DHS secretary was the picture of outrageous assholery on Wednesday.

Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Dog Shooter of South Dakota (DSSD), had a rough day testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. Not when the Republicans were questioning her, of course. When a GOP member had the floor, it was to give a tongue bath so slobbery that she would have been justified asking for multiple recesses so she could towel off.

But when the Democrats had the floor, they were persistent and occasionally mean in their badgering. This is about as much as one can do with a propagandistic asshole such as Noem, who comes armed with canned talking points, a morally reprehensible disregard for the law and other people’s humanity, and a sneer that a boot camp drill sergeant would make his mission in life to erase if the secretary had the guts to do more than play dress-up as an armed agent of the state.

Speaking of which, props to Bennie Thompson, the committee’s ranking member, who thanked Noem for finding time “among your many photo ops and costume changes” to testify to the committee. This was a reference to Noem’s propensity for accompanying ICE agents on immigration raids or traveling to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador to stand in front of a wall of scary-looking prisoners, her blowout falling softly around her shoulders and her lips plumped and quivering to the point that they resemble the Goodyear blimp being buffeted by winds over the Rose Bowl.

The cosplaying as an actual law enforcement officer has been a big part of Noem’s tenure, and why not. Donald Trump doesn’t hire Cabinet secretaries so much as he casts them, and he loves to see his little minions on TV in costume and hooting like the most eager students in a Stella Adler workshop.

Then she sits in front of Congress to answer questions, and you realize that while the on-camera stuff might look performative, at heart she’s also a mean, dumb asshole.

Take, for instance, her big confrontation with Rep. Dan Goldman. The congressman, who is an actual trained lawyer, grilled Noem on the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the sheet-metal worker the US whisked off to CECOT despite there being a judge’s order that he not be deported. The government admitted it made a mistake, was ordered 9-0 by the Supreme Court to “facilitate” Garcia’s return to this country so he could receive the due process that everyone in America is supposed to get when detained, and is still sitting with its thumb up its collective ass, doing absolutely nothing about the situation.

Noem would not answer the question, other than to say that “law enforcement” had determined that Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang. (The evidence suggests he is very much not in MS-13.) How that gives law enforcement the right to defy judicial orders is not something she addressed, of course. Goldman kept hammering until Noem suggested his constituents must be angry that he fights harder for a “terrorist” than he does for them.

It was something else with hollering and admonishments from the congressman for her to be quiet:

The problem with congressional hearings is that there is no one to keep the proceedings on track. There is no judge to jump in and force them to answer the fucking questions. Theoretically, the committee chairman could do that, but the chair here was a Republican, so he was probably enjoying the uselessness of the spectacle.

Noem also managed to piss off Rep. Eric Swalwell, to the point where he cursed at her. Which is fine by yr Wonkette! Frankly, we’d like to see more cursing in these hearings. We’d like the whole thing to sound like a scene in the Bada Bing.

Swalwell asked Noem about the infamous photo of Garcia’s tattooed knuckles that Donald Trump loves to wave around. The picture has the letters and numbers MS-13 badly photoshopped on Garcia’s fingers in what looks like Times New Roman. This is the evidence used to justify sending the man to a slave labor prison.

By the way, the line from some conservatives lately is that those letters were photoshopped into the picture to translate the symbols for us laypeople. Oh, okay, someone should tell the president that, because that’s not what he seemed to be telling Terry Moran during a recent interview. Then please break out the key you presumably have buried in a government computer showing that MS-13 members use a tattooed skull to represent the numeral 3. We’d love to see it.

Noem refused to answer the question, over and over and over again. Swalwell told her, “I have a seven-year-old, a six-year-old, and a three-year-old. I have a bullshit detector. I’m just asking you if this is doctored or not doctored.” Swalwell then got so frustrated he had his aide walk over to Noem and wave the photo in front of her face, and she refused to look at it.

Noem — whose name is spelled Gnome in some of the YouTube transcripts, which would be a cheap joke if done on purpose but nonetheless is something we were surprised to realize we hadn’t thought of doing years ago — was truly grotesque. Asked about whether she could find out if Andry Romero, the gay Venezuelan hairdresser who was sent to CECOT despite having an asylum hearing scheduled, is still alive and in good health, if only for his mother’s peace of mind, Noem responded that such a question should be directed to the president of El Salvador.

This is a recurring theme from Noem and other immigration officials, and it is not limited to just this one topic. But this is a prime example of the administration’s apparent belief that it does not bear responsibility for much of the action it is taking.

The administration, in its view, is not responsible for deportees the instant the plane they are on leaves American airspace. Even if the deportees were sent away by mistake. Even though the administration is paying El Salvador to house these prisoners for only a year, which would imply the US still is responsible for them. Even if no less an authority than the Supreme Court rules unanimously — and we know how rarely you can get all nine of those people to agree on anything — and orders them to take responsibility.

It’s grotesque, and Kristi Noem, the hack playing dress-up who comes with her own I’m A Real Ice Agent!^TM outfits and weaponry, is the grotesque face of it. The street parties that break out the day she is banished back to South Dakota will be epic.

[YouTube]

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