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Author: Leslie Eastman

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Leslie Eastman

I am an Environmental Health and Safety Professional, as well as a science/technical writer for a variety of news and professional publications. I have been a citizen activist since 2009, and am one of the co-founders of the San Diego-based group, Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 23, 2017 10 Comments
When President Donald Trump and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Sisi met earlier this month, one issue that must have been addressed during their productive discussions was the case of Egyptian-American charity worker Aya Hijazi, who had been jailed in Egypt for three years. According to White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Trump had engaged directly on Hijazi's behalf "and made it clear to the Egyptian government how important it was to him that this American be released and returned." A few weeks later, Hijazi sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office to thank him for the diplomatic efforts.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 22, 2017 29 Comments
April 22 marks the 47th anniversary of Earth Day! The eco-holiday was inaugurated in 1970, and the organizers chose the third week in April because it was conveniently between the booze-filled festivities of Spring Break and the caffeine-fueled horror of final exams. Inspired by the anti-war movement, Earth Day was suppose to be an annual "teach in" about environmental protection. Here are some of the doom-filled climate predictions that long-ago era.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 20, 2017 10 Comments
California's Governor Jerry Brown's touts green energy and the local air pollution control regulators rule-make to excess. Despite all of this business-crushing environmental protection, the Golden State is covered in shame and smog. It turns out six of the ten most polluted American cities are in California!
California's smoggy reputation appears to be deserved: Six of the USA's 10 cities with the worst air pollution are in the Golden State, according to a new report.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 19, 2017 12 Comments
An African-American man went on a shooting spree in Fresno, California, and randomly targeted four white men, killing three, before he was taken into custody.
The 39-year-old suspect, identified as Kori Ali Muhammad, is also suspected in the fatal shooting of a security guard outside a Motel 6 on Blackstone Avenue in central Fresno Thursday. He is facing four counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder, Dyer said. He said Muhammad had expressed dislike of whites in Facebook posts; all of the victims were white. [Fresno Police Chief Jerry] Dyer called it a “random act of violence.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 18, 2017 19 Comments
I have a sad update for those Legal Insurrection fans who were hoping that California's move to secede from the union would be successful. Supporters of the #CalExit ballot measure officially ended their efforts this week.
The drive to make the nation's most populous state its own country, with what would be the world's sixth-largest economy, has drawn extra interest after last year's election of Republican Donald Trump as president.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 16, 2017 2 Comments
It appears that many Americans approve of how President Donald Trump is governing, and they are already backing his 2020 reelection efforts with some hard-earned cash.
President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is off to a quick start, pulling in $13.2 million through a trio of committees in the first three months of the year, while paying an unusually large staff of about 20 employees, according to records filed Friday evening with the Federal Election Commission. Nearly 80 percent of the cash raised by the three committees — Donald J. Trump for President, Trump Victory, and Trump Make America Great Again Committee — came from small donors.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 16, 2017 16 Comments
Shortly after being elected President, Donald Trump expressed that he wanted to find ways to remove the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and put a stop-payment on a $500 million check Obama wrote for the UN Climate fund days before Trump's inauguration. However, close to Trump's 100-day presidential milestone, it is now being reported that a showdown between Trump's advisors and cabinet members is set to occur next week over this inane international agreement.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 15, 2017 25 Comments
(Updates placed at the end of the post.) US military officials are reporting that North Korea attempt to launch a missile along its east coast, but it blew up almost immediately.
...It’s unclear why it failed. The missile was launched from Sinpo, on its east coast. The Yonhap news agency in South Korea first reported the failed launch, citing the South Korean military. “The North attempted to launch an unidentified missile from near the Sinpo region this morning but it is suspected to have failed,” the South’s Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 15, 2017 0 Comments
Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, will become the first non-citizen to light a torch during Israel’s main Independence Day ceremony this year.
Hier, who in January delivered a prayer during the inauguration of President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, is one of three individuals selected for the honor by the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Calcalist financial supplement of the Yediot Acharonot daily reported Friday.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 15, 2017 12 Comments
Shortly after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders, including one that led to a complete halt in the hiring of federal workers with few exceptions. There has been a slight melting in that freeze, as a more tailored approach is implemented.
Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, described the new stay on hiring as a more "surgical" freeze than the first.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 13, 2017 18 Comments
I have previously noted that many of California's legal citizens were extremely unhappy with the Democratic super-majority in Sacramento ramming through unpopular legislation, such as the "Sanctuary State" measure or the new gas tax. Now, the first signs of a substantial political fallout are on the horizon as citizens are organizing a Golden State version of the Resistance.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 12, 2017 23 Comments
Last weekend President Donald Trump and China’s president Xi Jinping met at Mar-a-Lago. The state dinner featured a side of tactical bombing of Syrian airstrips and a bit of Sound of Music diplomacy from the First Daughter. Knowing the room would be tense, she deployed her charming children to serenade the Chinese President and his wife...in Chinese.
Ivanka assumed, or rightly knew, that there is nothing like having the children or grandchildren of a host put on a cute performance to cut down tensions in a room full of VIPs with competing agendas.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 11, 2017 15 Comments
When I wrote about California's senate mulling over a law that would repeal the state income tax for teachers, I predicted a new tax on fuel and electric cars was poised to slide through our legislature and become law. It did!
Faced with a personal appeal by Gov. Jerry Brown, a Senate panel on Monday gave the first approval to a measure that would raise gas taxes and vehicle fees by $52 billion during the next decade for road and bridge repairs. The bill by Brown and legislative leaders was approved in a 5-2, party-line vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee, which sent it to the Senate floor, where it is proposed to come up for a vote on Thursday.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 10, 2017 3 Comments
The Trump administration is exploring the possibility of punching a hole in former President Obama’s 2015 ozone pollution rule.
Justice Department attorneys are asking the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to delay oral arguments scheduled for later this month in a lawsuit challenging the Obama rule, while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reviews the regulation and its position on it. “EPA intends to closely review the 2015 rule, and the prior positions taken by the agency with respect to the 2015 rule may not necessarily reflect its ultimate conclusions after that review is complete,” the attorneys wrote. Under the Obama administration, attorneys were defending the pollution rule against a coalition of business groups and conservative states, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 09, 2017 25 Comments
The year, as we mark the season of Passover, there has been a discovery of the remains of a pyramid in Egypt that was reportedly built around the time of the Exodus:
Ahead of the Passover holiday, an unknown pyramid was discovered in Egypt, dating roughly to the time of Jews’ exodus from bondage. A top antiquities official says an Egyptian excavation team has discovered the remains of a pyramid dating back to the 13th Dynasty, some 3700 years ago.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 09, 2017 4 Comments
As Holy Week begins for Christians around the world, some intriguing information on the faith has been released by the Pew Research Center.
Christians remained the largest religious group in the world in 2015, making up nearly a third (31%) of Earth’s 7.3 billion people, according to a new Pew Research Center demographic analysis. But the report also shows that the number of Christians in what many consider the religion’s heartland, the continent of Europe, is in decline. Christians had the most births and deaths of any religious group in recent years, according to our demographic models. Between 2010 and 2015, an estimated 223 million babies were born to Christian mothers and roughly 107 million Christians died – a natural increase of 116 million.
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