Kristi Noem and the Case of the Missing Constitution

Habeas Schmabeas—Just Deport ’Em All, Right?

Dear Friends in the Resistance (and accidental subscribers from South Dakota),

This week, in our ongoing series “The Collapse of Competence: Live from the Trump Regime,” we bring you Kristi Noem—Governor, dog executioner, and now Secretary of Homeland Security—struggling heroically to define one of the oldest and most sacred legal protections in American law: Habeas Corpus.

Spoiler: She flunked. Badly.

Picture it. A Senate hearing. A simple question from Sen. Maggie Hassan: “Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection that Habeas Corpus provides?”

And Kristi, ever confident, replied with what can only be described as a Mad Libs version of the Constitution:

“Well, Habeas Corpus is a Constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country…”

Yes. According to Kristi Noem, Habeas Corpus—the right to challenge unlawful detention—is actually… the president’s right to deport people.

We’ll give you a moment to collect your jaw from the floor.

This isn’t just a bad answer. This is civics malpractice. It’s like confusing the Bill of Rights with a restaurant menu. (“Freedom of speech? Yes, I’ll take that with a side of authoritarianism and a tall glass of ignorance.”)

But wait—there’s more.

Sen. Andy Kim then asked if she knew which Article of the Constitution the Habeas Clause appears in.

She didn’t.

It’s in Article I. You know, the part about Congress—not the president—having the power to suspend it. A fact that predates Noem’s political career, her memoir, and her dog-shooting days.

She tried to name-drop Lincoln. Classic move. Unfortunately, courts ruled Lincoln was wrong to unilaterally suspend Habeas Corpus. So… not the winner she thought she had there.

But fear not, she backpedaled like a Walmart tricycle in reverse:

“The president hasn’t said he’s going to do it. He’s never communicated that to me. BUT… I do think the Constitution allows them the right to consider it.”

Kristi, sweetie. You can “consider” opening a dog grooming salon at Gitmo too—it doesn’t mean you can do it.

What we are watching, friends, is the constitutional hollowing-out of government, staffed by people whose only qualification is blind loyalty to Trump and a willful ignorance of the very laws they swore to uphold. Noem isn’t a public servant. She’s a crisis cosplayer with a security clearance.

She doesn’t know the Constitution. She doesn’t care about the law. But boy, is she ever ready to sign off on shredding it for the cause.

This is what happens when loyalty trumps knowledge, when ideology replaces intellect, and when power is handed to people who couldn’t pass a high school government quiz with Wikipedia and a prayer.

So here’s your homework:

Learn the Constitution better than Kristi Noem.

(It’s not hard. Start with the part where it says you can’t just throw people in prison because it’s convenient.)

And as always—stay alert, stay loud, and for the love of due process, never let these people rewrite the rules.

With exhausted sarcasm and a copy of Article I,

Julie Bolejack, MBA

P.S. If you can’t define Habeas Corpus, you shouldn’t be allowed to carry a security badge, let alone a gun.