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.

As the Islamic state (ISIS) retreats from Mosul, Iraq, more locals have spoken out about life under the terrorist group. ISIS captured Iraq's second largest city in the summer of 2014. OB-GYN Dr. Fatima Khaleel spoke with The Sunday Times about the females she treated in Mosul, noting most of them desperately wanted to get pregnant by ISIS fighters to breed caliphate cubs.

Outrage everywhere because House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) had the nerve to tell people they should prioritize their budget. On CNN, he spoke about healthcare with Alisyn Camerota:
"Well, we're getting rid of the individual mandate. We're getting rid of those things that people said that they don't want," Chaffetz replied. "Americans have choices, and they've got to make a choice. So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.

Wikileaks has published almost 9,000 documents from the CIA about the agency's own malware used to hack into anyone's electronics and spy on them. Most concerning? The CIA has malware from Russia, and other countries, so it looks like an attack came from that country:
The CIA's Remote Devices Branch's UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques 'stolen' from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation.

Some schools across the country will close on March 8,  the same day as the Day Without a Woman March, due to concerns they'll be short-staffed. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools in North Carolina will close. Durham Public Schools may close but have not reached a final decision. Chapel Hill-Carrboro Superintendent Jim Causby has decided to make March 8 a teacher workday and students will not have to make up the day:
“The expected absences would make it difficult to teach students on March 8 and to provide essential services including transportation and food service,” the school system said in an emailed statement Thursday.

President Donald Trump has signed a new immigration order, exempting Iraq and those who already hold visas. It still prohibits people from six nations "from entering the U.S. for 90 days." From The Wall Street Journal:
The new order doesn’t ban citizens of Iraq, one of many changes made to an original order in hopes of putting the measures on stronger legal and political footing. The White House says the ban is intended to stop potential national-security threats.

The Supreme Court has chosen to send a Virginia transgender student's bathroom case back to the lower court after President Donald Trump's administration decided to do away with a directive from former President Barack Obama that stated students in schools can use which bathroom they want. The court should have heard the case later this month. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit had decided to allow transgender teen Gavin Grimm to use the bathroom of her choice.

North Korea continues to defy the world. This time, the communist country fired four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan as a way to show the world it will continue its missile program despite sanctions and threats. Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada stated that the missles "landed in waters as close as 300 km (190 miles) to Japan's northwest coast."

Former President Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Chuck Todd on Meet The Press that evidence between President Donald Trump and Russia do not exist:
We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, "our," that's N.S.A., F.B.I. and C.I.A., with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started a trend last year when he decided to kneel for national anthem for social justice. Athletes in other sports decided to follow, with leagues supporting their decisions and not really taking a stance either way. But now the U.S. Soccer Federation has passed a bylaw that states everyone must stand for the national anthem.

Jaws dropped when authorities announced they arrested Juan Thompson for threatening Jewish community centers. Thompson made these threats in his ex-girlfriend's name as an act of revenge, to frame her for the crimes. But this isn't the first time Thompson has made headlines. In fact, Thompson flew into the spotlight for fabricating references when he worked at The Intercept.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal published a report that then-Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) used campaign money to travel to the event where he mingled with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. There's a few problems with this assertion. Sessions used his campaign account to travel to the Republican National Convention...which is a campaign event for all of those politicians.