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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 April 17, 2017 5 Comments
On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared victory after a referendum vote gave him even more power with a slim 51% victory. But he has already received backlash from opposition groups and international monitors who found problems with the election. Erdogan even warned people not to fight the referendum outcome because "it's too late now."

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 16, 2017 15 Comments
Turkish citizens went to the booths today to vote on a constitutional reform that would grant President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more powers. The polls have closed and Erdogan has claimed victory with 51.3% yes votes. But the opposition parties have contested these results that allow the government to "abolish the post of prime minister and entrench one-man rule." This makes Erdogan "the country's most dominant leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic."

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 15, 2017 5 Comments
Earlier this month, Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that at least 100 gay men disappeared in Chechnya due to "their non-traditional sexual orientation, or suspicion of such." Chechnya and Russia immediately denied these claims, but outlets have started to reach out to those who had been detained, thus giving support to the report. From The Guardian:
At least once a day, Adam’s captors attached metal clamps to his fingers and toes. One of the men then cranked a handle on a machine to which the clamps were linked with wires, and sent powerful electric shocks through his body. If he managed not to scream, others would join in, beating him with wooden sticks or metal rods.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 14, 2017 43 Comments
President Donald Trump has decided not to release White House visitor records, breaking from former President Barack Obama. The Wall Street Journal reported:
Under President Donald Trump’s policy, formally announced on Friday, the U.S. Secret Service will maintain visitor logs only for certain executive branch offices, including the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Those logs won’t be regularly released, but rather will be subject to requests under federal open records laws.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 14, 2017 25 Comments
Yesterday, the military dropped a MOAB bomb on an ISIS tunnel in Afghanistan. The left freaked out over possible civilian death and injuries. (Weird, I remember their silence when Obama dropped 26,000 bombs last year alone) But Afghan officials said that the bomb did not kill any civilians. From ABC News:
Thirty-six ISIS militants were killed but no civilians died when the U.S. military dropped the "mother of all bombs" on a cave complex in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, according to the Afghan Ministry of Defense.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 14, 2017 28 Comments
A mob of ten students beat Pakistani student Mashal Khan to death on the Abdul Wali Kahn University campus and injured another identified as Abdullah. They accused him of "sharing blasphemous content on social media." Reuters reported:
A group of about 10 students shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the attack on fellow student Mashal Khan, who was stripped naked and beaten with planks until his skull caved in as other students looked on, video obtained by Reuters showed.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 14, 2017 12 Comments
After the healthcare reform failed before it even reached the floor, President Donald Trump wanted to move onto tax reform. But he recently told The Wall Street Journal that he wants to return to healthcare:
Three weeks later, he said he is determined to resurrect the health-care bill even if it means delaying the tax overhaul, telling The Wall Street Journal in an interview: “I want to get health care done…I think I will get it done.” The tax overhaul, he said, would have to wait.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 13, 2017 18 Comments
The U.S. military has dropped a Massive Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB) for the first time in history on an ISIS tunnel in Afghanistan. The military needs to use an Air Force C-130 cargo plane to drop the bomb. Fox News reported:
President Trump told media Thursday afternoon that "this was another successful mission" and he gave the military total authorization.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 13, 2017 13 Comments
President Donald Trump signed the H.J. Res. 43 bill that allows states to deny funds to clinics like Planned Parenthood that provide abortions. The Senate passed the bill last month when Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 13, 2017 18 Comments
So awful. The Associated Press has uncovered an internal UN investigation into a child sex ring in Haiti by UN peacekeepers. According to the AP report, one individual from Pakistan received jail time while a court in Uruguay convicted four of “private violence." Peacekeepers from places like Sri Lanka and Uruguay came to the island in the recent decades and should have provided help and security to the abandoned children. While the peacekeepers had food, the report stated they made the children pay for it....with sex.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 12, 2017 9 Comments
FINALLY. After seven long years, authorities have arrested the man suspected of pulling the trigger and murdering Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. The gun he used belonged to Operation Fast and Furious, the gun running scheme set up under then-Attorney General Eric Holder. Fox News reported:
The suspect, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, was apprehended by a joint U.S.-Mexico law enforcement task force that included the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals and the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC).

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 12, 2017 13 Comments
The general inspector for the VA found that veterans at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C., face "imminent danger" due to the horrific conditions. USA Today reported:
The VA inspector general found that in recent weeks the operating room at the hospital ran out of vascular patches to seal blood vessels and ultrasound probes used to map blood flow.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 12, 2017 19 Comments
The best part of President Donald Trump's presidency? The way it makes the media go crazy. This time the media has gone insane because Secretary of State Rex Tillerson dropped his press pool for an unscheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on his trip to Moscow. Can you blame him, though? After all, the media treat members of this administration fairly and without any bias. *cough*Jeff Sessions*cough*

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 12, 2017 24 Comments
And the mainstream media wonders why Americans hate them so much. The media went into a tizzy over a speech Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave to border patrol agents on Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal published an article with these two paragraphs:
In remarks Tuesday to Border Patrol agents at the US-Mexico Border in Nogales, Ariz., Mr. Sessions spoke in stark terms about the threat he said illegal immigration posed. “We mean international criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens,” Mr. Sessions said, according to the text of his prepared remarks. “It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.”
That's NOT what he said.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 12, 2017 14 Comments
The United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) has found slave markets along migrant routes in Africa from the Sahara to Libya, which is where the majority of the migrants will take another dangerous journey to Europe. The staff found out that "hundreds of young African men are being traded in public in what they described as slave markets." From The Independent:
“The situation is dire,” Mohammed Abdiker, IOM’s Director of Operation and Emergencies, warned.
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