A Personal Statement from Monae L. Johnson, South Dakota Secretary of State:  Why I Am Supporting Terrence Davis A personal statement on judgment, competen

Before entering politics, Republican Senator Roger Marshall, an obstetrician-gynecologist, routinely sued his patients for medical debts, charging exorbitant interest. _The New York Times_ reports that Marshall, who is facing reelection in Kansas in November, sued over 700 patients for failure to pay medical bills, with 81 of them getting arrested as a result. In some cases, Marshall had bank accounts garnished, and regularly charged patients 18 percent interest annually. Marshall reportedly took legal action over debts as little as $101. Half of his lawsuits were filed under his name, while the rest were filed under his practice, Heartland Regional OBGYN, which he owned by himself from 1998 to 2012 before splitting ownership with another doctor from 2013 to 2019. Marshall stopped practicing medicine in 2016 after he was elected to Congress, but continued trying to collect some of the debts after that between 2017 and 2021. Many of the patients he sued were new mothers in Barton County, Kansas, a rural area where many lived in poverty and didn’t have health insurance or had policies that didn’t fully cover their medical bills. One woman was sued when her baby was nine months old over a $129 bill from a postpartum visit, and eventually had her wages garnished. “I was recently divorced, trying to do everything on my own,” Kellie Clutts told the _Times_. “I told them I could make partial payments, but it seemed like no matter what I said, they wanted the full amount at once.” A spokeswoman for Marshall said that he spent decades treating patients regardless of income level, adding, “Judges issue warrants when people repeatedly miss court dates, not doctors.” The _Times,_ however, cited court documents showing that Marshall regularly sought arrest warrants for unpaid bills. In 2007, Joe Vasquez and his wife were arrested in front of their grandchildren over an unpaid $4,561 bill for an emergency hysterectomy three years before. The _Times_ interviewed eight people who were sued by Marshall between 2003 and 2015, and many of them were living paycheck to paycheck. Two of them were being sued over bills for late miscarriages requiring surgery. Despite his medical background, Marshall fought for the Affordable Care Act to be repealed, claiming in 2017 that “there is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.” He’s also tried to downplay the impact of higher fuel prices on struggling Americans, saying that paying more for gas is a good thing. Marshall should perhaps change his tone, because the latest polls in his reelection fight have him either neck-and-neck or behind his Democratic challenger, Adam Hamilton, a pastor. Voters in Kansas might decide they want a senator with some compassion instead of a doctor shaking down his patients for cash.

Jim Comey's selective and vindictive prosecution claim is part of an effort to find new legal tools to combat Trump's weaponization of DOJ.

An arbitrator ordered the newspaper to reinstate Karen Attiah, who was fired after posting about “white men who espouse hatred and violence” following Charlie Kirk’s killing.

Asked whether he thought the Los Angeles mayoral election was rigged, House Speaker Mike Johnson did what he does best: steer away from facts and embrace nebulous speculation. “I’m not saying it’s rigged, I’m saying it stinks to high heaven, and everybody knows that,” Johnson said to a gaggle of reporters Monday evening. “Let’s remove the appearance of impropriety—what a concept. Let’s have votes on an election the day of the election.” CNN correspondent Manu Raju asked Johnson what evidence there was to support his vague complaints. Unsurprisingly, the Louisiana politician couldn’t provide a whiff of it. “Look, some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream it’s impossible to prove,” Johnson said. “But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.” > RAJU: But what evidence is there to prove the California election is rigged? > > MIKE JOHNSON: Look, some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream it's impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively that something is wrong here. pic.twitter.com/gJIYChtG0X > > — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 8, 2026 The incumbent mayor of Los Angeles, Democrat Karen Bass, advanced to the general election with 34.3 percent of the vote on Monday. A progressive Democrat, Nithya Raman, beat Republican Spencer Pratt for second place, with 28.5 to 25.8 percent. Raman will now take on Bass in the general election, in a leftist vs. moderate clash similar to last year’s New York City mayoral race. The battle between Raman and Pratt is what Johnson was moaning about. Pratt, a former reality TV personality, led early on Monday before Raman took the lead as more mail-in ballots were processed. Pratt offered some typically Trumpian fearmongering by alleging that the homeless were illegally voting for Raman. The president himself also claimed, again without evidence, that the vote was “crooked.” Even longtime Republican legislators like House Majority Leader Steve Scalise are baselessly insinuating voter fraud. It is strange that Republicans are unable to accept that they lost a mayoral race in one of the bluest cities in the country. Then again, this is the party whose leader attempted to stage a coup after losing a presidential election, who kicked off a mid-decade gerrymandering war in order to consolidate power, and whose disciples have literally tampered with voting machines in order to hijack elections. With the GOP desperate to cling to power, and lacking the morality to accept defeat, the midterms should be a ball.