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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 May 01, 2017 5 Comments
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue has announced his department wants to make a few changes to the school lunch programs that former First Lady Michelle Obama pushed through. The Wall Street Journal reported:
Schools, which receive federal funding for meal programs, won’t have to meet certain guidelines for whole grain, sodium and milk. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the decision comes after years of feedback from schools and food-service experts, who have faced challenges meeting meal regulations; and from students, some of whom have complained that the meals aren’t appetizing.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 01, 2017 19 Comments
On early Monday morning, the U.S. Appeals Court decided not to rehear a challenge to its decision to uphold the net neutrality rules, known as Title II, from former President Barack Obama. Its decision comes right after FCC Chairman Ajit Pai made it known he will continue with his plan to roll back these net neutrality rules. Obama's rules do not allow broadband users to slow or block "rivals' content." Netflix and Apple enjoy Obama's rules, but AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast cannot stand them because those companies want "to slow or even block the transmission of disfavored content."

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 28, 2017 40 Comments
Democrats in some blue states do not like that President Donald Trump's tax plan includes eliminating the ability to deduct state and local taxes. Just a thought...maybe the states should not tax their citizens so much? Instead, they complain about the burden placed on the citizens from the federal government. From The Wall Street Journal:
At the center of the fight is New York, home of Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohn and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer, who says killing or scaling back the break would be “devastating for middle-class families in New York and elsewhere.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 28, 2017 19 Comments
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has faced scandal after scandal, some of which caused veterans to die while waiting for care. There was even a dentist putting veterans at risk for HIV. But the VA has also punished those who blow the whistle on VA wrong doings. President Trump took a step in the right direction to fix these problems when he signed an executive order that creates the "Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection" at the VA.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 27, 2017 24 Comments
The Washington Post and ABC ran a poll that asked people about the information that comes from President Donald Trump and the media. Unfortunately for the media, the poll shows how little trust the public has in the media. From WaPo:
The media says President Trump makes claims that aren’t true. Trump says the media produces fake news. And in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, at least half of Americans say both Trump and the media “regularly” disseminate false information. Nobody looks good in this survey.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 27, 2017 12 Comments
President Trump has signed an executive order to give Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos permission to start the process of moving education back to the local level. The New York Times reported:
The order requires Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s education secretary, to review, modify and possibly repeal any regulations and guidelines that are not consistent with federal law.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 26, 2017 18 Comments
Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn spoke to the press at the White House today about President Donald Trump's tax reform plan. Trump wants to slash the corporate tax rate to 15%, which I covered yesterday. But he also wants to place income taxes for us regular Americans into three brackets. From The Wall Street Journal:
“Clearly we have a unique opportunity to do something major here,” Mr. Cohn told a small group of reporters in the White House on Wednesday morning. “It’s our intention to create a huge tax cut and equally as important, a huge simplification of the tax system in America.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 26, 2017 27 Comments
Online shopping has led to many American retailers to file for bankruptcy at a fast pace, which could possibly set records for 2017. Fourteen chains alone have filed in the first three months of this year. Turns out no retailer is safe when it comes to shopping online. S&P found that "discount shoe-sellers, outdoor goods shops, and consumer electronics retailers have all found themselves headed for reorganization." Bloomberg reported:
Meanwhile, America’s retailers are closing stores faster than ever as they try to eliminate a glut of space and shift more business to the web. S&P blamed retailer financial struggles on their inability to adapt to rising pressure from e-commerce.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 25, 2017 13 Comments
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and top Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) have announced that the committee could not find evidence that President Donald Trump's former National Security adviser Michael Flymm reported payments for his foreign work. Chaffetz and Cummings reviewed classified military documents, which showed them that "Flynn did not ask permission or inform the government about payments he got for appearances before Russian organizations and for lobbying that helped Turkey's government.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 25, 2017 20 Comments
President Donald Trump will host the entire U.S. Senate on Wednesday for a briefing on the situation with North Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis will join the senators along with Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. It will take place at 3PM ET. Press Secretary Sean Spicer told the media that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called for the meeting. The Senate usually holds these meetings at a secure location on Capitol Hill, but Trump offered to host the meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 25, 2017 17 Comments
President Donald Trump has offered us a little hint into the tax reform plan he wants to unveil on Wednesday. He has demanded aides to draft a plan that cuts the corporate tax rate to 15%. It would help him keep one of his campaign promises. On the trail, he vowed to bring the tax rate to 15% from 35%. Yet, it could cause a fight on Capital Hill. Republicans want to cut taxes, but they cannot agree on how much.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 24, 2017 17 Comments
The Iranian Nuclear Deal included many pieces, but one of the least reported items of the deal has been the prisoner swap. Iran agreed to release four Americans while we handed over seven prisoners and dropped charges and investigations against 14 others. Professor Jacobson profiled these prisoners after the exchange occurred. But a Politico investigation has revealed the anger and frustration within former President Barack Obama's administration over the release of these men:
“They didn’t just dismiss a bunch of innocent business guys,” said one former federal law enforcement supervisor centrally involved in the hunt for Iranian arms traffickers and nuclear smugglers. “And then they didn’t give a full story of it.”
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