Thread by @RadioFreeTom

So, it's been a long time since I dealt with Guard issues (which I did briefly many years ago), but what I think happened is that Noem is not funding this privately. This is Boob Bait for Bubba. I'll speculate here.
/1

https://twitter.com/Approximation_0/status/1410070048492957696

How this works - I think - is that Noem is just responding to the request from TX. The State of SD says "this deployment will cost X dollars."
Some wealthy jackass says "oh, btw, I would like to contribute X dollars to the State of SD, no strings attached." /2

So Noem says "Well, lucky coincidence, but I woulda done it anyway - but isn't it nice that Rich Jackass is donating exactly that much to the state!"
It's all legally clean - no quid pro quo - but it's still a contrary to the notion of civil political control. /3

This is a guess. I haven't seen the paperwork. But as a public relations stunt, it's clearly set up to make Random GOP Bubba think that a Patriotic Real 'Murican just paid to have troops deployed to keep the Scary Brown People out. It's hideous on multiple levels. /4

This just shows, yet again, how much of our government and way of life runs on norms and trust, and how much people like Noem and the GOP couldn't give a rat's ass about any of that as long as they get to stay in power. /5x