Joe Biden

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) lost the speakership earlier this year when eight Republicans joined with all House Democrats to vacate his chair, and this week he announced he would be leaving Congress entirely at the end of the year.

According to a new report from Politico about McCarthy's home district, his supporters aren't shocked about the sudden resignation, leaving the GOP with an even smaller margin than McCarthy managed through most of 2023.

Threats to elected officials and other government workers have skyrocketed since Donald Trump entered politics, and the Republican 2024 frontrunner's wide-ranging legal problems have sparked new threats.

CNN reviewed more than 540 cases involving individuals charged with making threats against public officials or institutions between January 2013 and November 2023, which researchers at the University of Nebraska found resulted in a nearly 80-percent conviction rate, but many experts believe those cases aren't prosecuted often enough due to First Amendment concerns and a lack of resources at the Department of Justice.

Former President Donald Trump is being driven further and further into insanity by resentment over "public humiliation," psychiatrist Dr. Mark Goulston told Salon's Chauncey DeVega in an interview compilation released on Thursday.

This comes as the former president raises alarm from experts over his increasingly authoritarian-sounding schemes for the U.S., including reshaping the entire federal government in his image and using the DOJ to attack political enemies — to the point he was not even able to deny planning a dictatorship when asked by Fox News' Sean Hannity.

Frederick Frazier, a Trump-endorsed Republican state lawmaker in Texas who also serves as a Dallas Police officer, will not contest charges that he illegally impersonated a public official to have his opponent's yard signs removed, reported the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Wednesday.

Frazier, who will also plead guilty to misdemeanor criminal mischief and represents the city of McKinney, was charged over a 2022 incident in which he allegedly impersonated a town official and told a Walmart store manager to remove campaign signs for his opponent, Paul Chabot, because they were allegedly not in compliance. Chabot filed a complaint with Texas Rangers, who investigated the incident.

Fossil fuel industry-funded Republicans on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee voted Wednesday to advance Rep. Lauren Boebert's bill that would saddle taxpayers with the massive cost of cleaning up oil and gas wells on federal lands.

"Corporations awarded a lease to drill on federal land must post a bond. If the leasing corporation abandons an exploration site, goes bankrupt, or fails to plug a well securely, the posted bond covers the cost of doing so," Public Citizen explained this week in a statement opposing the proposal.

Fake electors in Wisconsin agreed Wednesday that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election — and an expert predicts special counsel Jack Smith is already planning how to use their admission in his federal investigation.

Donald Trump has already been indicted for the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, and Just Security's Ryan Goodman explained the 10 fake electors, as part of their agreement in settling a civil trial, have pledged to aid in the federal probe of the former president.