In a huge admission, former South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, the GOP nominee in this year's Senate race, acknowledged Tuesday that he did in fact know that a top former cabinet official, Richard Benda, was going to work for investors running a meatpacking concern called Northern Beef, right around the same time that Rounds signed off on a special $600,000 state loan package to the company that Benda had urged. That money went directly into Benda's pockets, as he paid himself $225,000 a year to oversee the now-failed plant.

Meanwhile, Alaska Republicans are in a world of hurt now that people know they knowingly looked the other way as the Alaska National Guard engaged in a series of abuses, all terrible, but none as disturbing and disgusting as their (married) recruiters' aggressive efforts to get inside the pants of high school students. This has rocked the state so deeply that the Anchorage and Mat-Su school districts have banned military recruiters from their campuses despite the state's strong military tradition.

The Republican governor is already under fire for ignoring the deep abuses. You know Republicans and their "boys will be boys" attitude toward sexual assaults. It's a reason for his electoral woes this late in the cycle. But now Alaska news organizations are asking the obvious question—what did the attorney general-turned-Senate candidate know? Either he joined his fellow Republican governor in shrugging off the accusations, or he was clueless about what was happening despite repeated reports and warnings. Either way, the stench of this sordid scandal has now jumped into a Senate race wehre Democrats, if polling is to be believed, only slightly trail.

These are two important races. Republicans fail to pick them up, they'll fail to take the Senate. You can give to incumbent Alaska Democratic Sen. Mark Begich here, and to South Dakota prairie populist Rick Weiland here.



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