On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted profiles of U.S. Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, who clearly has been taking hairstyle tips from Donald Trump on how to rock a comb over. Rounds, a former governor of South Dakota, once tried to outlaw all abortion in his state, and was turned back by the courts for it being a violation of Roe vs. Wade. He also insisted the Keystone Pipeline would create 40,000 new jobs in South Dakota alone, which was a gross exaggeration over four times the amount the company who would have owned the pipeline claimed there would be (It was more like 50, in reality). That’s not his only big lie, though, he actually has argued in favor of repealing Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform on the fallacy that the economy got WORSE after it was passed (the opposite is true).
Sen. Rounds also was investigated for an immigration scandal, where he supposedly abused the EB5-Visa program to offer green cards to foreign investors if they would pony up $500,000 into beef packing plants in South Dakota. The visas were then not given, and the beef packing plant in question went bankrupt… and the money vanished with several of Rounds’ closest aides. After almost a year and a half, someone was finally charged with a crime in the EB5 Scandal. Regrettably, it was not Mike Rounds, but his associate Joop Bollen, who was charged with five felonies.
On March 1st, 2016, Rounds commented on GOP Presidential Nominee Donald Trump, specifically, Trump’s reluctance to disavow the endorsement of David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, which Rounds took time to defend him for. Yeah, you got that right. On top of all the other horrible things about Mike Rounds, he also doesn't object to his party being linked with the Klan that much.
If the EB-5 scandal didn’t already make it plainly clear how comfortable Rounds is corruption, we have to point out that he also went out of his way in April of 2018 to defend former EPA Director Scott Pruitt, who was the subject of over a dozen investigations into corruption, saying that people calling for his resignation were “nitpicking”. From where we’re sitting, those nits were the size of house cats, at least. And not surprisingly, Sen. Rounds has been on board with every other terrible idea Donald Trump has managed to float through the Senate, including approving every member of Trump’s “Cabinet of Horrors”, voting for the attempt the Senate GOP made at the “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act, and he also voted for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, frequently complaining about protestors in the Capitol who had more sense than Rounds, at least enough to know that you shouldn’t put a rapist on the bench, let alone on the highest court in the land, and claiming that the “FBI Investigation” the GOP made into accusations against Kavanaugh was adequate (in spite of the fact that they weren’t even asked to interview Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge, who was in the room when the assault happened.)
Rounds’ seat in the Senate was up in 2020, and even though he blindly voted against witnesses in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, and then voted to acquit an obviously guilty Oval Office occupant, he survived a primary challenger in the form of Scyller Borglum (not a character in Harry Potter), and had a huge financial advantage, with almost $2 million in fundraising saved up even as early as November of 2019. In the general election, he defeated Democrat Dan Ahlers with 68% of the vote. He thus returned to the Senate to do whatever Mitch McConnell tells him until 2026, including voting against the American Rescue Plan Act to deny his constituents Covid-19 relief, voted as part of the filibuster against having a non-partisan commission investigate the January 6th attacks, voting as part of the filibuster against the “For the People Act” to galvanize voting rights, failed to even show up for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and if he was given the chance, said he would have voted against raising the debt ceiling, which would have destroyed both the United States’ economy as well as the global economy.
And, there's all this:
- January 31st, 2020: Mike Rounds votes against witnesses being allowed in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, effectively making it a “trial”.
- February 5th, 2020: Sen. Rounds votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump, in spite of the mountain of evidence showing that he solicited foreign assistance in the 2020 elections.
- February 25th, 2020: Rounds votes for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, an insane piece of anti-choice legislation that would ask abortion providers to try to admit aborted fetuses to a hospital if they were “alive” after the procedure, which is medically impossible given the age that abortions can be performed at.
- February 13th, 2021: Mike Rounds votes to acquit Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, feeling that he deserves no punishment for inciting an attack on the Capitol and jeopardizing the lives of the legislative branch of our government.
- March 6th, 2021: Sen. Rounds votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he can’t be bothered to care if people need financial assistance during a pandemic.
- September 30th, 2021: Rounds votes for an amendment to a government funding bill that would target and eliminate government aid for Afghani refugees that just fled their country after the return of the Taliban.
- December 14th, 2021: Rounds votes against raising the debt ceiling, jeopardizing the United States’ credit rating.
- January 25th, 2022: Mike Rounds touts the Infrastructure Bill, which he voted against.
- February 28th, 2022: Sen. Rounds votes against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have established a right to physicians to perform abortions to save their patients’ lives.
- March 30th, 2022: Rounds votes against putting the extremely qualified nominee, Judge Kentanji Brown-Jackson, onto the Supreme Court.
- July 27th, 2022: Mike Rounds votes against the PACT Act, blocking additional funding towards veterans exposed to “burn pits” while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a vote conducted out of spite that Democrats passed the Act the prior day. Several Republicans are seen shaking hands and fist bumping to celebrate screwing over the vets, while releasing a series of photos of the Senate GOP Caucus filling USO boxes and claiming they “support the military”.
- March 23rd, 2023: Sen. Rounds responds to the mass shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, by flat out saying that Republicans have “gone as far as they’re willing to go” on gun control.
We’re not sure what motivates him, at this point, other than sheer corruption and stupidity. Again, his seat does not come up for re-election until 2026.