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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 November 28, 2017 21 Comments
The Washington Times has revealed that Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) had his own hush fund to keep one former employee quiet. She claimed that the lawmaker "was frequently drunk and created a hostile working environment." She threatened a lawsuit, but he settled on a $48,395 deal with her to keep her quiet. The female employee left after three months, but the value of the settlement equaled five addition months pay. This may have violated House rules since a lawmaker cannot keep “an employee who does not perform duties for the offices of the employing authority commensurate with the compensation such employee receives.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 27, 2017 29 Comments
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) held a short press conference outside of his office to address the sexual misconduct allegations against him. He apologized profusely and promised to cooperate with the ethics committee. From Politico:
“It’s been clear that there are some women — and one is too many — who feel that I have done something disrespectful and it’s hurt them and for that, I am tremendously sorry,” Franken told reporters outside his Senate office. “I know that I am going to have to be much more conscious when in these circumstances, much more careful, much more sensitive, and that this will not happen again going forward.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 27, 2017 14 Comments
A White House official has said that President Donald Trump will not campaign for Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, who has been accused by numerous women of sexual assault when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 27, 2017 21 Comments
Minnesota Democrat Senator Al Franken. Michigan Democrat Representative John Conyers. Who is next? It could be anyone! A Washington Post report from a few weeks ago showed that the "Office of Compliance has paid more than $17 million for 264 settlements and awards to federal employees for violations of various employment rules" since 1997. This includes sexual harassment. Congress returns to work after the Thanksgiving holiday to immense pressure not only to reveal the causes and people involved in these settlements, but to make the process more transparent.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 27, 2017 6 Comments
It's a big week in the Senate as the lawmakers will vote on the GOP tax plan. They're hoping to pull it through after two miserable Obamacare repeal attempts this year. Needless to say, they're desperate for a victory. But as I've said over and over, the GOP only has a two-seat majority, which means they cannot afford holdouts. Even though they have a tax plan settled, word on the Hill is that they may make changes in order to rein in members of their party that could foil a victory.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 26, 2017 9 Comments
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has decided to step down as ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee as the ethics committee begins an investigation into sexual harassment allegations against him. He said:
After careful consideration and In light of the attention drawn by recent allegations made against me, I have notified the Democratic Leader of my request to step aside as Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee during the investigation of these matters.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 25, 2017 38 Comments
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has started to face harassment online and at his private residence as the agency plans to rollback net neutrality. Net neutrality are rules that force internet providers to treat all information equally. Those that don't like it have placed threats, even naming his children, on Pai.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 24, 2017 6 Comments
Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman sat down with Thomas Friedman of The New York Times and offered up some very choice words for Iran's leader:
Iran’s “supreme leader is the new Hitler of the Middle East,” said M.B.S. “But we learned from Europe that appeasement doesn’t work. We don’t want the new Hitler in Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East.” What matters most, though, is what Saudi Arabia does at home to build its strength and economy.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 24, 2017 13 Comments
Lawyer Melanie Sloan has come forward with inappropriate behavior that Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) used towards her, which included verbal abuse and comments about her appearance. This happened when she worked as a Democratic counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in the 1990s, which Conyers still serves on as ranking member. From The Detroit Free Press:
She said he criticized her for not wearing stockings on at least one occasion. On another, she said he ordered her backstage from a committee field hearing on crime she had organized in New York City to babysit one of his children. Sloan made clear that she did not feel she had ever been sexually harassed, but that she felt “mistreated by this guy.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 24, 2017 8 Comments
Gunmen with explosives killed over 200 people at a Sufi mosque in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. From Fox News:
The extremists launched an attack on the al-Rawdah mosque in the town of Bir al-Abd, some 25 miles from the North Sinai provincial capital of el-Arish, Egypt's state news agency MENA reported. The attack appeared to be the latest by the area's local Islamic State affiliate.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 23, 2017 9 Comments
California billionaire Tom Steyer has caught the eye of many since he decided to fund an advertising campaign worth $20 million that calls for President Donald Trump's impeachment. Considering how much Democrats hate Trump, you would think those within the party would love this campaign. It turns out it has raised worries as some think it will harm the party more and turn away the independents and even some GOP voters they want to bring over to their side.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 22, 2017 18 Comments
Remember during the Virginia governor race the left feigned anger over Republican candidate Ed Gillespie's ads on the problems the violent gang MS-13 poses? Someone show the left the latest report to come out of Virginia's neighbor Maryland. Police said members of MS-13 stabbed a man 100 times, decapitated him, tore out his heart, and buried him in a shallow grave..with his heart on top of him.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 22, 2017 9 Comments
Last February, I blogged about the sexual abuse allegations against former U.S. Olympic Gymnastics and Michigan State University physician Larry Nassar. The allegations came up in September 2016 and by November the number of women grew to 50. The number is now over 140. The number kept growing, with members of the latest U.S. Gymnastics team claiming Nassar abused them. An attorney representing one victim said the case is "Penn State all over again" due to "the same kind of institutional failures, involving multiple victims violated by a trusted staffer." On Wednesday, Nassar pled guilty to numerous charges of sexual abuse. His agreement with the prosecutors contained a prison sentence of 25 to 40 years.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 22, 2017 35 Comments
FINALLY. As I've been covering and tweeting for months, the Myanmar army has been committing atrocities on the Rohingya minority, basically to the point to eliminate the people from the planet. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has finally declared these atrocities as ethnic cleansing, which is exactly what is going on.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 21, 2017 13 Comments
We all thought that Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe would resign on Sunday. After all, the military takeover occurred last week and his party, Zanu-PF, ousted him as party leader. They then said he had 24 hours to resign or face impeachment. Mugabe gave an insufferable speech on Sunday without resigning, which met impeachment. The dictator must have thought everyone was bluffing. To his disappointment, they meant every word and began impeachment proceedings. Mugabe swallowed his pride and finally resigned, ending a 37 year reign. He had been the world's oldest leader at 93-years-old.
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