Senator Mike Rounds leads the Senate in spending taxpayer dollars on travel, says a new report in Axios:
Rounds has always raised eyebrows with his predilection for flying. But here he is spending far more than his neighbor and Majority Leader John Thune, who spent only $70,000 on charter flights compared to Rounds’s $625,000.
The independent who’d like to take Rounds’s job, Brian Bengs, wonders why Rounds doesn’t come talk in front of all the people paying for those frequent flights:
“Mike Rounds apparently thinks ‘fiscal responsibility’ means spending someone else’s money,” said Independent Senate candidate Brian Bengs, a 26-year veteran who advised the Air Force on military ethics. “While South Dakotans are struggling to pay for groceries, gas, health care, and everything else, Mike Rounds is leading the entire United States Senate in taxpayer-funded private jet spending. And he’s not just a little ahead — he’s hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead. At the same time, he’s refusing to talk to his constituents at even a single town hall meeting and hiding from every Senate debate this year.”
Rounds’ office defended the spending by saying, “Anyone who lives in rural South Dakota knows how challenging air travel can be.” But Bengs said that explanation does not justify the scale of Rounds’ spending.
“Yeah, Mike, rural South Dakotans know air travel can be difficult,” Bengs said. “What they also know is that they don’t have $625,000 of taxpayer money available to charter private planes.”
…“Mike Rounds won’t debate me. He won’t hold public town halls. Instead, South Dakotans get stage management and photo ops,” Bengs said. “Now we learn that he’s apparently spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to fly over South Dakota. I guess that’s one way to avoid running into the people who pay your salary” [Brian Bengs for U.S. Senate, campaign press release, 2026.09.28].
Maybe voters need to bring Mike Rounds back down to earth.
Only a million bucks a year! Wait until he starts playing golf with Trump. Just little peccadilloes, the cost of representing South Dakotans.
Maybe? Remember when Nancy Pelosi’s DC/CA flights were Rush Limbaugh’s favorite petard?
Kristi and Mike and John all have the same disease. Red necks!
A prime example by the dumbest of the three. Are Article III courts subservient to Executive powers of prosecution? The recent Separation of Powers “fuck you” from Kristi Noem (and Stephen Miller) using the tactic of surreptitious late night flights whisking hundreds of hapless handcuffed US residents out of courts’ jurisdiction is tantamount to horseback whipping families wading the Rio Grande.
Everyone knew Judge Boasberg’s oral order’s intent. Will Justice Roberts land this oozing mess onto his conservative (Bush v. Gore) lap for Mitch McConnell’s packed 6-3 Supreme Court? Is Trump putting down Kristi “just a like a shot dog” (Mitch’s protege John Thune’s “eloquent” characterization)? ICE ICE Baby.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/09/29/appeals-court-signals-support-contempt-inquiry-deportation-flights/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lawfare-podcast/id498897343?i=1000792249793
FRCrimP 42: The court must request that the contempt be prosecuted by an attorney for the government, unless the interest of justice requires the appointment of another attorney.
Trump says the rule allows Blanch to prosecute himself for contempt!! Will Roberts eventually decide a private attorney is unconstitutional?
Can South Dakota’s one-time congressional trio break every law and norm they encounter in their “public service”?
Mr. Sen. Gov. Rounds is out doing the people’s business more than most, it seems.
Directly related, Mr. Bengs is unethically and perhaps illegally flouting a policial commercial filmed in a South Dakota courtroom.
River
Recall South Dakota’s quisling Earth hating former governor Mike Rounds built a house in a swamp that flooded then received a generous self-reimbursement from insurance coverage underwritten by his own company knowing Lake Sharpe is filling with silt. He’s been blaming the US Army Corps of Engineers for that fraud ever since and is now trying to overcome his lack of effectiveness in the US Senate. But the closest Reich Mike Rounds ever got to military service is acting as commander-in-chief of South Dakota’s National Guard. South Dakota’s short guy junior US Senator is also leading a crusade to block the US Environmental Protection Agency from identifying non-point sources of pollution deposited into watersheds by his GOP donors.
Maybe voters need to bring Mike Rounds back down to earth?
Maybe Sen. Rounds has a new girlfriend that likes to fly on private planes?
She must be a “million-dollar lady”, huh Senator? …
Doing the people’s work more than most? My dear Grudznick, not even you in maximum enabler mode can believe that – unless you believe the people are best served when the Senator is not available to vote on the senate floor.
How ya gonna keep them down on the farm . . . ?