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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.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 17, 2018 11 Comments
Salesforce billionaire Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne have purchased struggling Time magazine for $190 million. From The Wall Street Journal:
In an interview, Mr. Benioff said, “We’re investing in a company with tremendous impact on the world, one that is also an incredibly strong business. That’s what we’re looking for when we invest as a family.” The Benioffs are optimistic about Time’s large audience and growing video business. “The power of Time is its unique story telling of the people and issues that affect us all and connect us all,” said Mrs. Benioff.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 17, 2018 215 Comments
The drama surrounding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has not gone away. In this post, we will continue to update as new developments emerge during the day. If you come across any interesting news reports, please place them in the comments and we will consider promoting them into the post.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 14, 2018 20 Comments
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort faced a second trial this month on seven counts of foreign lobbying violations and witness tampering. Reports have surfaced this morning that Manafort will plead guilty to two criminal charges. Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed superseding criminal information, which "typically precedes a guilty plea, and a plea hearing for Manafort has been scheduled for 11 a.m. in federal court in Washington, D.C."

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 14, 2018 21 Comments
Once again, if you don't want to be called fake news, DO NOT PUSH OUT FAKE NEWS. The New York Times published an article this morning that curtains in Nikki Haley's apartment cost $52,701. Buried within the article? The Obama administration ordered the curtains in 2016 and Haley had no say in it! But muh narrative.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 13, 2018 69 Comments
The Atlantic wrote an article about teenagers protesting in-class presentations after a tweet went viral that said "stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to." Students said this experience can be traumatic and permanently scar them. As someone with severe anxiety, I understand where they're coming from. I refuse to use the word snowflake in this situation because there is a stigma around anxiety and it's not well understood, but at the same time, learning to speak in front of people is a valuable lesson.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 13, 2018 78 Comments
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has a private letter about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but refuses to share it. She sent it to the FBI for investigation.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 13, 2018 3 Comments
Earlier this month, a Myanmar court sentenced two Reuters journalists to seven years in jail after they exposed the human rights abuses by the Myanmar military on the Rohingya minority. The judge claimed the two men “collected and obtained confidential documents.” Now Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, defended the jailing of the journalists at a World Economic Forum summit.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 13, 2018 17 Comments
The latest Fox News polls show that Republicans have an opportunity to flip two Senate seats while holding onto another. However, Democrats have a chance to take over Arizona Republican Jeff Flake's seat and Missouri Democrat incumbent Claire McCaskill captured a lead from her opponent. Tread with caution, though, because all of them have slim leads in these polls.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 12, 2018 38 Comments
Fox News has obtained new text messages between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page, a former FBI lawyer, that show others within the government leaked information to the media before the Russia probe. From Fox News:
A lengthy exchange dated Dec. 15, 2016 appears to reveal a potential leak operation for “political” purposes. “Oh, remind me to tell you tomorrow about the times doing a story about the rnc hacks,” Page texted Strzok.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 12, 2018 29 Comments
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is a notorious moderate in the upper chamber and one not scared to go against the Republican Party. This is why people have been pushing her to vote against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but some have gone too far. Some people have threatened and wished rape upon her female staff members while others have raised money to defeat her if she doesn't vote against Kavanaugh. Collins claims that is bribery and she may be correct.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 11, 2018 24 Comments
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) announced on Monday that his office received new text messages between former FBI agent Peter Strozk and his mistress Lisa Page that shows "an apparent systemic culture of media leaking by high-ranking officials at FBI and DOJ related to ongoing investigations." New texts released by Meadows on Tuesday cemented his theory. In other words, the two agencies teamed up to release harmful information to the media about President Donald Trump last year right before Special Counsel Robert Mueller began his Russia-Trump probe.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 08, 2018 15 Comments
The hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh dominated the headlines this week, which means you may have forgotten that the government faces a possible shutdown if Congress cannot get legislation to fund the government. Trump threatened during the week to shut down the government if he doesn't get funding for the wall. His tune changed right before a rally in Billings, Montana, when he told Fox News that he doesn't want to do anything to harm the Republicans going into November.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 07, 2018 7 Comments
The economy continues to grow as it added 201,000 jobs in the month of August and unemployment remained steady at 3.9%. Wages went up 2.9% from August in 2017. August 2018 is the 95th straight month that the economy has added jobs. Experts predicted 192,000 jobs and a 3.8% unemployment rate.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 06, 2018 36 Comments
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces the Senate Judiciary Committee for the third day on Thursday. The hearing starts at 9:30AM ET. Wednesday lasted 12 hours, but today should be a little shorter since senators only get 20 minutes to ask questions. Yet I expect many interruptions from protesters.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 05, 2018 32 Comments
Today at 9:30 AM, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will face day 2 of his confirmation hearings with the Senate Judiciary Committee. Maybe today we will actually hear Kavanaugh speak! The Democrats spent almost the first two hours trying to convince Chairman Chuck Grassley to adjourn the hearings over the lack of documents. Then the Senators had their opening statements, which took all day, and protesters interrupted a lot of the proceedings. Today each senator will have 30 minutes to question Kavanaugh.
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