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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.

Over the weekend, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned President Donald Trump that "war with Iran is the mother of all wars" and war will happen if the U.S. keeps provoking Iran while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered his speech "Supporting Iranian Voices" in California. Trump was not in the mood to hear threats from an oppressive dictator and promised Rouhani that if he threatens America again, he will "suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before."

The Department of Justice released the FISA documents, 412 pages total (pdf.), related to the surveillance of Carter Page, an advisor to President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The heavily redacted documents show that officials used "the infamous and unverified Steele Dossier" to receive the warrant in 2016 and the renewals.

The New York Times reported today that President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen recorded a conversation with him about payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal about an alleged affair. The Times received this information from "lawyers and others familiar with the recording."

Back on June 24, Professor Jacobson blogged about how Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) encouraged people to harass Republicans and officials within President Donald Trump's administration in public. Now Waters is facing a protest organized by Oath Keepers and she does not approve.

The House Appropriations Committee has introduced a fiscal year 2019 Homeland Security bill that includes $5 billion for a border wall that spans 200 miles and money to hire more ICE and border patrol agents. This could trigger a showdown with the Senate since that chamber only included $1.6 billion for a wall in its bill. President Donald Trump threatened a shut down of the government if he does not get more.

Authorities arrested Orlando Vilchez Lazo, 36, who allegedly posed as a Lyft driver in San Francisco, CA, in order to lure victims. Lazo received four counts of felony of rape. ICE said he is in the country illegally and "plans to deport" him back to "Peru if he's released from custody on the rape case."

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's victory over Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY), the head of the House Democratic Caucus, propelled her into the national spotlight. She seems to think she's the new face of the party, which has led her to attack those within the Democrat Party. House Democrats have grown tired of her schtick and want her to cool it before the already fragile party is completely torn apart.

Oh, Chicago. I love my home city so much, but it keeps giving me reasons to never move back! Now the corrupt city has decided to toy with universal basic income (UBI) because we all know Chicago has a ton of money to throw around. Except it doesn't.

Our economy continues to grow. Excellent jobs reports mean there's a lot more expendable income. Stimulating the economy is best accomplished not through government intervention, but by putting money back into the market, which is exactly what we're seeing. Consumer spending rose by 0.5% in June and the Commerce Department revised May's spending report, upgrading spending increases from 0.8% to 1.3%. Overall, retail sales are up 6.6% from a year ago.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced today that a federal grand jury indicted 12 Russians, all officers with Russia's intelligence agency GRU, for allegedly hacking into the DNC and Hillary's campaign. The most important part of Rosenstein's speech: "There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result."

The Sun dropped an interview with President Donald Trump on Thursday night as he met with Prime Minister Theresa May for a black-tie dinner. In it, he criticized May's Brexit strategy, claimed she did not listen to him, and that a trade deal between the two countries could be in danger. May and Trump held a press conference Friday morning. Trump told May that whatever she wants to do with her Brexit plan is okay with America, but just make it possible for the UK to engage in trade with the United States. Trump also called The Sun interview 'fake news' because they left out portions of his comments, all of which the White House has recorded.

The left and Resistance lost their minds when President Donald Trump had the nerve to say that because of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline "Germany is captive of Russia ". Former Secretary of State John Kerry lashed out at Trump for his "disgraceful" comments. Weird...only two years ago, Kerry expressed concern over this exact same pipeline as he sat with high-level European Union officials! Former Vice President Joe Biden made similar remarks around the same time.