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.

"Vote early, vote often" is one of Chicago's unofficial mottos. One of the most corrupt cities in America is famous for its voter fraud back in the day, but officials now insist that everything is on the down low and technology has helped wipe out voter fraud. Well, investigators at the local CBS station found that "119 dead people have voted a total of 229 times in Chicago in the last decade" after they merged the "Chicago Board of Election voter histories with the death master file from the Social Security Administration."

The Wikileaks dump of John Podesta's emails have led to a treasure trove of information, but one memo caught many eyes because Bill Clinton's old advisor Doug Band wrote out ways the former president used the Clinton Foundation to build is personal wealth. He even referred the foundation as Bill Clinton Inc. Band, who also worked at Teneo Consulting, pushed out the memo after a fight between him and Chelsea Clinton, who said that Band others used her father and the foundation for their own profits.

The more Wikileaks dumps Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's emails the more we lear just how deep the cover-up goes for a supposed no big deal incident. We have also learned that quite a few on her side knew the private email system was a big deal and expressed frustration with those who brushed it aside. The loudest critic has to be Neera Tanden, CEO of Center for American Progress, who has railed against Hillary's private email system. In an email leaked today she said: Tanden Hillary Email

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) told The Washington Post that his committee has "years" of investigation material on Hillary Clinton, even after the presidential election:
“It’s a target-rich environment,” the Republican said in an interview in Salt Lake City’s suburbs. “Even before we get to Day One, we’ve got two years’ worth of material already lined up. She has four years of history at the State Department, and it ain’t good.”

The Pentagon received a lot of heat this week when The Los Angeles Times reported officials demanded California National Guard soldiers repay bonuses the government enticed them with to reenlist and go to war. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced he will suspend this program:
"Today, in keeping with that obligation, I am ordering a series of steps to ensure fair treatment for thousands of California National Guard soldiers who may have received incentive bonuses and tuition assistance improperly as a result of errors and in some cases criminal behavior by members of the California National Guard.”

In August, the GOP and PACs associated with it, started preparing ads that target Hillary in case Donald Trump couldn't make a comeback. Now that it's almost certain we will end up with Hillary, the GOP knows the importance of holding the Senate and the House has only grown stronger. With two weeks left, the candidates have unleashed these ads across the country, mirroring their opponents as too similar to Hillary and promise to keep her in check in the White House.

On Sunday, Leslie reported that the Pentagon has started to collect overpayments officials made to 10,000 National Guard soldiers in California to reenlist for war. Now House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has joined forces with California GOP members to ask the Pentagon to stop these collections:
“These brave Californians were willing to give everything to serve our country, and they earned every penny and benefit given to them," Pelosi said Monday in a brief statement.

In March 2015, President Barack Obama told CBS News that he did not know Hillary Clinton used a private email system when she served as secretary of state and claimed he learned about it from the news just like everybody else. Well, Wikileaks posted an email that proves otherwise: Obama Knew Hillary Email This was in March 2015. He repeated the same thing to 60 minutes in October 2015.

The latest Project Veritas video shows Democrat operatives admitting that Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ordered the Donald Duck campaign to bombard Donald Trump/Mike Pence events:
“In the end, it was the candidate, Hillary Clinton, the future president of the United States, who wanted ducks on the ground,” says [Democracy Partners founder Robert] Creamer in one of several exchanges. “So, by God, we would get ducks on the ground.” It is made clear that high-level DNC operative Creamer realized that this direct coordination between Democracy Partners and the campaign would be damning when he said: “Don’t repeat that to anybody.”

The Chamber of Commerce has endorsed a bill that would stop President Barack Obama's administration's new estate tax rules, which they insist would keep those mean wealthy people from reducing value on their assets. GOP senators proposed legislation to stop these rules because they believe it will harm small and family owned businesses because the owners would not be able to easily transfer the business to future generations. This is what the administration proposed:

While Hillary Clinton overall enjoys overwhelming support from the Hispanic community, the Hispanic millennials have not fully warmed up to her campaign. The majority of these millennials backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during the primary. He has encouraged his supporters to go to Hillary, but many have hesitated. Those who do support her "are doing so grudgingly."

The Wall Street Journal has reported that a PAC associated with Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a strong Hillary Clinton ally, handed over almost $500,000 to the 2015 state Senate campaign for Dr. Jill McCabe, wife of now FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. He later became involved with the FBI's investigation into Hillary's email:
Campaign finance records show Mr. McAuliffe’s political-action committee donated $467,500 to the 2015 state Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, who is married to Andrew McCabe, now the deputy director of the FBI.

There is a possibility that Texas, a state typically owned by Republicans, could turn blue next month since Donald Trump only leads Hillary Clinton by three points. However, Clinton only leads Trump by three points in Florida. From CBS News:
The poll numbers show voters’ frustration about the dialogue in the race – and what may amount to a wasted opportunity for both. Sixty-nine percent feel Donald Trump is talking about things that he, himself cares about, while fewer, 46 percent say he’s talking about issues they care about. Clinton has much the same gap.

Billy goats. Black cats. Bartman. The 2016 Chicago Cubs have eliminated those curses and jinxes when they defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-0 in the National League Championship Series on Saturday night to advance to their first World Series since 1945. https://twitter.com/Cubs/status/790023493668642816 Why is this so important? Why is this such a big deal? As a lifelong diehard crazy Cubs fan, I will tell you. Let me take you on a journey through the tortured past of the Cubs because for the first time in forever, it's not as painful to look at these incidents.