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Author: Mary Chastain

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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.

Chicago authorities have charged four people for beating David Wilcox and hijacking his car after a car accident. People around him just watched and did nothing to help him. Instead they screamed anti-Trump sentiments:
On a video posted online, Wilcox, 50, was pummeled by several individuals, while onlookers shouted “You Voted Trump!” The altercation started when his car was rear-ended at Kedzie and Roosevelt in the North Lawndale neighborhood on Wednesday.

Del. Sam Rasoul, the only Muslim in Virginia's General Assembly, has lashed out at his party over its treatment of Republicans and the tone of fear during the presidential election:
“I feel as though the [leadership] right now is not committed to the radical changes we need to connect with the values of working class America,” said Rasoul, 35, the lone Muslim in the General Assembly. “We were sent a mandate on Election Day that we have to completely rethink the way we do business.” --- “Sure, we need to be super-strong in condemning acts of real hatred and bigotry and racism, but when people believe that all of Trump voters are racist, they really are not empathizing with the wants and needs of a lot of folks, and we are missing out,” he said.

2016 has been a crazy year for governments with the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union and Donald Trump winning the presidency here in the states. Now Italy is moving towards uncertainty as polls show Italians do not want Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's referendum. Renzi promised to step down if his referendum fails. These referendums will "reduce the role of the Senate and transfer powers to central government from the regions." The Wall Street Journal reports a rejection could tumble bank shares and weaken the euro.

Designer Sophie Theallet has announced on Twitter she will not design and dress Melania Trump with her brand: Theallet has designed and dressed First Lady Michelle Obama during the past eight years, which she called "a highlight and an honor." Obama's "values, actions, and grace have always resonated deeply within" the designer. She added:
As one who celebrates and strives for diversity, individual freedom, and respect for all lifestyles. I will not participate in dressing or associating in any way with the next First Lady. The rhetoric of racism, sexism, and xenophobia unleashed by her husband's presidential campaign are incompatible with the shared values we live by. I encourage my fellow designers to do the same.

After a deadly school shooting in October that killed a six-year-old student, South Carolina Rep. Joshua Putnam (R) introduced a new bill that would allow teachers to carry a gun to protect children:
“It would incorporate mostly live shooter scenarios. So then teachers are familiar with how to approach that gunman on campus, how to interact with getting children away from... danger situations and how to confront that until law enforcement arrives,” said Putnam.

House Republicans have chosen to go with a short-term spending bill to fund the government through March 31 instead of a full year bill:
Appropriations Chairman Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Kentucky, said in a statement that his committee would immediately start working on “a Continuing Resolution (CR) at the current rate of funding to extend the operations of our government through March 31, 2017.”

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) said the House Republicans hope to change the tax code without raising the deficits:
“We designed our blueprint to break even within the budget, considering that economic growth,” Rep. Kevin Brady (R., Texas), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council. If there are some deficits, he said he would accept them if the result was stronger growth.
They started working on a plan earlier this year and will make a tax overhaul a priority in 2017.

No one has called the North Carolina governor's race between incumbent Governor Pat McCrory (R) and his challenger Roy Cooper (D) since only 5,000 votes separate the two. To make matters worse, there are now allegations of voter fraud on absentee ballots:
A protest has been filed in Bladen County alleging that a handful of people may have improperly submitted hundreds of absentee ballots, while also getting paid for get-out-the-vote efforts by a community group funded by the N.C. Democratic Party. According to the protest filed by McCrae Dowless, who won election as soil and water district supervisor, the handwriting on a number of ballots and the signatures of some mail-in absentee witnesses were similar. He said the questioned ballots seem to have been cast in favor of a straight ticket of candidates and also to vote for a man named Franklin Graham, who ran a write-in campaign for soil and water district supervisor.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence has taken control of President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, which included letting go of all the lobbyists:
Trump had been under fire for having a transition team filled with lobbyists and other insiders, given his campaign pledge to “drain the swamp.” There had been roughly a dozen registered lobbyists working in and around the transition team, reports have said. Those lobbyists included Rob Collins of S-3 Group, Mike Catanzaro at CGCN Group, Martin Whitmer of Whitmer & Worrall, J. Steven Hart at Williams & Jensen and tobacco company Altria’s Cindy Hayden, among others.

A new Media Research Center (MRC) and YouGov poll shows that the majority of voters recognized media bias during the presidential election, but chose to reject it: https://twitter.com/BrentBozell/status/798600042831454209

Defeat after defeat on Tuesday has left the Democrat Party in shambles. So much so they cannot decide on a leader. Rep. Nancy Pelosi has led the House Democrats since 2002 while Sen. Chuck Schumer will replace Harry Reid as Senate Minority Leader. But now the Democrats have delayed a vote on leadership in the House, possibly a sign that Pelosi's time has ended. In the Senate, anti-Trump protesters in DC have begun protesting Senator Shumer's new role.

It is never ever a Clinton's fault when they fail. Never. Of course Hillary has pointed the finger at FBI Director James Comey while others blame outside forces. The only person who has actually pointed the finger at the Democrats and Hillary? President Barack Obama. Hillary told major donors that Comey's letter to Congress a week before the election cost her the presidency:
“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to a donor who relayed the remarks. But, she added, “our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum.”

President-elect Donald Trump's ex-wife Ivana wants him to make her US ambassador to the Czech Republic: “I will suggest that I be ambassador for the Czech Republic,” Ivana told The Post on Friday. “[That] is where I’m from and my language and everybody knows me. I’m quite...