Image 01 Image 03

Author: Mary Chastain

Profile photo

Mary Chastain

Mary is the resident libertarian. She covers stories in every vertical, but her favorite thing to do is take on the media. She saw its bias against the right when she was a socialist.

Mary loves the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Blackhawks, tennis, cats, Oxford comma, Diet Coke, and needlework.

Last October, Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured hundreds more when he opened fire on a concert crowd in Las Vegas, a city with cameras everywhere. However, we know almost nothing about this case and it's about to get worse. Clark County Nevada Coroner John Fudenberg has refused to obey a court order and release Paddock's autopsy.

In January, Chelsea Manning announced she filed papers to run for the Senate in Maryland, making her an opponent of Sen. Ben Cardin. It turns out, Manning may not be eligible to run because "she is on a technical form of unpaid active duty." This goes against "Department of Defense regulations that prohibit military personnel from seeking public office."

Can we finally STOP taking Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff seriously? Of all people, Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski finally brought the arrogant man down a peg or two over his comments on US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. From The Washington Examiner:
"I’m gonna go as far as to say that you might be having a fun time, playing a little game dancing around this," Brzezinski said, "but you're slurring a woman. It’s disgraceful"

President Donald Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly said on Fox News Radio that the president will release House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' memo soon. From Fox News:
In a radio exclusive, White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly, joined Brian Kilmeade at the White House to talk about President Trump's first State of the Union address. Kelly discussed President Trump taking the handcuffs off of the military in Afghanistan, working on a bipartisan solution on DACA, why his heart breaks over identity politics in America and President Trump releasing the Nunes memo "pretty quick and the whole world can see it."

The Guardian has reported that the FBI has a second President Donald Trump-Russia dossier that allegedly corroborates some information in the Christopher Steele dossier. One caveat: Cody Shearer, an activist close to failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's camp, authored this one.

The DNC has received another blow as it tries to pick up the pieces after Hillary Clinton failed miserably in November 2016. After less than a year at her post, DNC CEO Jess O'Connell has stepped down. It seems that there's no controversy surrounding her departure, but it just adds more chaos.

The Democrats have another opportunity to take a seat in the House of Representatives since House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) has announced he will retire at the end of his term. He has represented New Jersey's 11th district since 1995.

The West has done everything they could to prevent an all out war with North Korea by slapping the communist kingdom with sanctions after sanctions. Now it appears that sanctions have started to work since the military happy country has cut back on its military exercises mainly due to the sanctions on oil imports.

Now that Larry Nassar has received over 100 years for molesting hundreds of girls, the fallout has begun at Michigan State University and how officials handled the accusations over the years. From Lansing State Journal:
A 2014 sexual assault investigation of Larry Nassar by MSU’s Title IX office concluded that his conduct could open the university to lawsuits and expose patients to “unnecessary trauma based on the possibility of perceived inappropriate sexual misconduct.”

While in Davos, Switzerland, President Donald Trump has threatened to cut Palestinian aid unless they come to the table to discuss peace with Israel. From The Times of Israel:
“That money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace, because I can tell you that Israel does want to make peace, and they’re going to have to want to make peace, too, or we’re going to have nothing to do with it any longer,” he said.

Fox News has reported that the DOJ inspector general has announced that they have located the missing text messages:
Text messages from a critical five-month period between Trump-bashing FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who both served on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, have been located, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has told Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
*This is a breaking story. MORE TO COME.

Text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page came to light last month due to the anti-Trump rhetoric involved. Now the FBI claims that the department "failed to preserve" five months of text messages between them. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) have sent a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to demand answers over the missing text messages between Strzok and Page.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) needs to snap back into reality. Look, the Democrats do not have control of Congress and Donald Trump is our president and it looks like Schumer still isn't ready to accept the fact that he doesn't have power. Even after he failed with the government shutdown he thinks he has negotiating power when he decided to take wall funding off the table. Trump reminded "Cryin' Chuck Schumer" that in order to receive protections for DACA, a bill must have funding for a wall.