Tuesday, November 16th, Governor Noem posted a video on social media to recruit nurses to South Dakota. In the video, she says, “Build your career. Improve your life. Make South Dakota your state of opportunity.” Really, Governor? Do you mean all nurses or just the ones who got the jab? Do you value all nurses or just some?
Governor Noem has consistently told South Dakotans that she is most interested in protecting businesses and that if an employee didn’t agree, they could just get different job. For nurses, that is especially challenging when every major hospital in South Dakota currently mandates their employees to be vaccinated.
The Argus Leader published an article last month that South Dakota was short 1900 nurses. At the beginning of November, Sanford announced that they had granted 3000 religious exemptions. SD hospital CEOs, with cooperation from Governor Noem, clearly have exercised coercion for employees to get the jab, letting them know that they only really appreciated them if they did as they were told. They were willing to submit their employees to extreme stress. Those that have exemptions continue to be devalued and must submit to testing and other restrictions that have no scientific merit.
Why is Governor Noem so tone deaf to these essential workers who are only trying to make informed and free decisions about what is injected in their bodies? Could it be that her closest advisor, Matt McCaulley, is a Sanford lobbyist and additionally has received a hundreds of thousands of dollars for contracts from the State of SD for his services?
Redstone Law Firm, where McCaulley is managing partner, takes in hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in “legal consulting” contracts with the governor’s office. And McCaulley is not the firm’s only Sanford connection: Grace Beck and T. J. Nelson, who bothwork for McCaulley at Redstone, are also registered as active lobbyists for the health-care company, according to the South Dakota secretary of state’s website.
Multiple sources also tell National Review that McCaulley and Noem are closer than they publicly let on. The Sanford lobbyist is “the most consistent and probably the only one that stayed with [Noem] other than her husband, as far as an adviser, throughout her career,” according to a South Dakota state legislator who spoke on condition of anonymity. “So he’s as close as an adviser can be, and I think he’s probably in on every major policy decision that she makes.” McCaulley was on stage at Noem’s victory speech during her first election to the U.S. House of Representatives all the way back in 2010 and was a Noem donor as early as 2009. Kennedy Noem interned for McCaulley at Redstone. And McCaulley employed Venhuizen, who served as Noem’s chief of staff from March 2020 to April 2021, before Venhuizen moved to his role in the governor’s office.
Governor Noem should really be more truthful and consistent in her messaging; “We have an abundance of freedom… if you are not an individual who wants to make their own medical decisions.” “Make South Dakota your State of Opportunity… if you are vaxxed.” But if you want to be really free to make your own medical decisions, maybe you should get a different job in Florida where Governor DeSantis is working hard to protect his citizens and their freedom.
ACTION ALERT! Call and Email Governor Noem’s office and let her know how offensive and completely out of touch her message is and ask her to CALL THE SPECIAL SESSION. South Dakotans expect her to defend ALL citizens against the Biden mandates like many of the other governors around the country.
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