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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 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.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 24, 2017 10 Comments
Unfortunately, I am not kidding when I say that the UN elected Saudi Arabia to the Women's Rights Commission. It reminds me of when the UN elected Iran to the human rights council. Remember that? Saudi Arabia received its spot when the Economic and Social Council voted on new members for the women's rights commission, which wants to help promote equality for females. The commission's website states that females "suffer violence and discrimination" and remain "under-represented in political and economic decision-making processes." Females around the world also "lack decent access to basic education and face occupational segregation and gender wage gaps." Too many countries still deny females "access to basic education and health care." Gee, what country falls into most of these categories? Saudi Arabia!

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 23, 2017 40 Comments
Officials in North Korea have detained an American citizen this weekend. The communist kingdom now has three Americans behind bars. Reuters reported:
Korean-American Tony Kim had spent a month teaching an accounting course at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), the university's chancellor, Chan-Mo Park, told Reuters on Sunday.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 22, 2017 12 Comments
Last week, authorities charged Dr. Jumana Nagarwala for female genital mutilation on a 7-year-old-girl. Now authorities have arrested and charged the doctor and his wife, the owners of the Burhani Medical Clinic. Officials arrested Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, 53, and his wife Farida Attar, 50. They face charges for "conspiring to perform genital mutilation on minor girls by letting a doctor use their clinic to perform the procedure."

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 21, 2017 2 Comments
The Treasury Department has rejected a request from ExxonMobil to waive Russian sanctions in order for the oil company to drill with PAO Rosneft. The department received sanctions years ago after Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. ExxonMobil, which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson headed, had made plans with Rosneft to drill in the Black Sea and the Arctic Circle for oil and natural gas.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 21, 2017 13 Comments
The House Intelligence Committee has invited some former President Barack Obama's administration officials to testify in a closed hearing over the panel's investigation into possible Russian interference in our presidential election. The committee included former acting Attorney General Sally Yates who President Donald Trump fired when she instructed Department of Justice "lawyers not to make legal arguments defending" Trump's executive order on immigration back in January.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 21, 2017 6 Comments
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to target financial regulations from former President Barack Obama that have caused companies trouble to conduct business. Mnuchin has said that the orders from Trump "are meant to emphasize the administration's economic priorities to the American people." This includes parts of the Dodd-Frank Act and tax regulations handed out in 2016.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 21, 2017 4 Comments
I've chronicled China's opposition to the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), the U.S. missile-defense system in South Korea. The Chinese government has denied retaliating against the system, but one American cybersecurity firm told The Wall Street Journal that it found evidence that Beijing has used hackers to target THAAD. The firm FireEye discovered that "two cyberespionage groups that the firm linked to Beijing’s military and intelligence agencies have launched a variety of attacks against South Korea’s government, military, defense companies and a big conglomerate."

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 21, 2017 14 Comments
Sources have disclosed to the media that federal prosecutors have started to consider pressing changes against Julian Assange and other members of WikiLeaks. The case against the whistleblowing organization spans all the way back to 2010 when it published "diplomatic cables and military documents" to present day when it published the CIA's hacking operations in March. The other day, officials told CBS News that the FBI and CIA have started an investigation into those leaks in March.
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