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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 December 29, 2016 3 Comments
As Kemberlee Kaye so eloquently demonstrated in her post, This Christmas, few relationships are as defining as one between a mother a child. Apparently the loss of her child yesterday was more than legendary actress Debbie Reynolds could bear. She passed away of a stroke, less than 48 hours after her daughter Carrie Fisher died from a heart attack.
Debbie Reynolds -- who rose to stardom in "Singin' in the Rain" and quickly became a staple among Hollywood royalty -- died Wednesday as a result of a stroke, TMZ has learned ... just one day after her daughter Carrie Fisher passed away ... this according to her son Todd.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 27, 2016 7 Comments
I have a sad update to the post on Rogue One that published yesterday. Carrie Fisher, our American Princess of Science Fiction, passed away this morning after suffering a heart attack on Friday.
Carrie Fisher, who rose to fame as Princess Leia in the "Star Wars" films and later endured drug addiction before going on to tell her story as a best-selling author, died on Tuesday aged 60, her family said. ...The daughter of actor Debbie Reynolds and the late singer Eddie Fisher had been returning from England where she was shooting the third season of the British sitcom "Catastrophe."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 27, 2016 14 Comments
While progressives decry fossil fuel use as the source of our climate change woes, Mother Nature may be presenting us a more serious, immediate and real threat. Most Americans are familiar with our supervolcano in Yellowstone. However, there is one in Italy that shows signs of potential activity.
A massive supervolcano under the city of Naples, Italy, is showing signs of life again, prompting concern among some scientists. The Campi Flegrei, Italian for "burning fields," that make up the vocano's crater, or caldera, have been full of boiling mud, steam, and even smaller volcanoes for centuries. The people of ancient Rome believed the area to be the home of the Roman god of fire and volcanoes, Vulcan. Today, the fields are a popular tourist destination. But the caldera has been showing signs of an explosive awakening since 2012, and a new study indicates that a destructive eruption of the volcano could be coming soon.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 27, 2016 13 Comments
California's notorious progressive pixie, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, is exiting Congress with the dignity we have come to expect from this Golden State representative. Apparently oblivious to the constant press attention, fake and otherwise, that President Donald Trump has been accorded since taking his ride down the escalator at Trump Tower in the summer of 2015, Boxer demands that the mainstream media hold him accountable once he enters the Oval Office.
Going forward, I intend to remain very involved in the issues we face, and like all your readers, I will rely on the work you do every single day. As we march into uncharted territory with a new president-elect who has never held elected office — and who at times has threatened the media — the role of the free press is more important than ever.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 26, 2016 28 Comments
We joined millions of other Americans this Christmas season by heading to the movie theaters. Our target: Rogue One, A Star Wars Story! This is the official spoiler alert, so if you haven't seen the film and want to retain the suspense, please read no further than this. I don't give away much, but I don't want to ruin anyone's cinematic fun, either.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 25, 2016 29 Comments
There has been much bellyaching by liberal white women that 53% of us voted for Donald Trump in November presidential election. After learning of this statistic, Sa'iyda Shabazz writes a challenge letter to her white friends in The Mary Sue:
So, you voted for Trump. You don’t have to admit it, I know you did. Granted, I think the fact that some of you won’t admit it is telling. Some of you have said that you have stayed silent because you didn’t want to get dragged for voting for him.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 25, 2016 1 Comment
I want to wish Legal Insurrection readers a very Merry Christmas (as well as Happy Chanukah, which begins December 24). My family decided to begin this holiday season with a trip to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley. Given how closely my family followed this year's election, it seemed a grand way to conclude a crazy political year.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 23, 2016 20 Comments
Kemberlee recently noted that President-elect Trump tweeted costs for plans to build a new Air Force One were “out of control” and that the order should be cancelled. File Trump's tweet under "Opening Negotiations".
The head of Boeing is saying he promised President-elect Donald Trump that the manufacturer would complete the Air Force One project for less than the $4 billion the president-elect had claimed it would cost.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 23, 2016 28 Comments
The most valuable lesson to be had in 2016 may be that tying your firm's products to politics is a bad business model. The latest person to learn this lesson is a Maine propane distributor who recently refused to sell gas to Trump voters.
If you call Turner LP Gas in Skowhegan, you get a message from owner Michael Turner: “If you voted for Donald Trump for president, I will no longer be delivering your gas,” it says. “Please find someone else.” Reached on Friday night, Turner said he recorded the message on Election Day. After media learned of it earlier that day, he said he had 50 voicemails. Most of them were from angry Trump supporters, but he said one of four were supportive.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 22, 2016 25 Comments
I recently blogged that the Yes, Californa secession campaign is being run by a 30-year-old American who lives and works in a city on the edge of Siberia. Now, even before all the required signatures for the ballot measure have been collected, the chief secessionist says that a California embassy has opened in Moscow, Russia.
California gained an embassy in Russia last weekend, at least in the eyes of those who have promised to seek a statewide vote on secession, nicknamed "Calexit," in 2018.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 21, 2016 6 Comments
Trump's election has certainly heated the imaginations of climate change alarmists. The Washington Post published an editorial that now places the blame for global warming on the Electoral College, as the elections of George W. Bush and Donald Trump through our constitutional process has made anthropogenic climate change nearly impossible to stop. Todd Cort, the co-director of the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, takes us on a fascinating theoretical journey that clearly passes Reason and Sanity Junction:
...In 2000, George W. Bush was elected U.S. president despite losing the popular vote to Al Gore. In 2008, the Bush administration released a document on his legacy claiming sweeping protections for the environment while in office. Yet there was little progress on climate change because the administration resisted it. Under the Bush administration, the U.S. exited the Kyoto agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, declined to regulate carbon dioxide emissions for coal fired power plants under the U.S. Clean Air Act, and worked to limit the authority of regulatory agencies to prevent climate change impacts. In contrast, Al Gore went on to fame and a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to raise awareness of climate change.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 18, 2016 18 Comments
If California's general election votes were ignored, President-Elect Donald Trump would have won the popular vote as well as the Electoral College count. Perhaps inspired by the "different direction" taken by its citizens, California Governor Jerry Brown feels inspired to conclude his political career by taking the role of President, an office for which he campaigned several times during his lengthy career? This would align with development of the the California secession movement.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 14, 2016 7 Comments
There are significant updates to the lawsuits against the EPA related to the Gold King Mine spill that released millions of gallons of wastewater into the Animas River. The first development is that the Navajo Nation has filed a claim seeking more than $160 million from the federal government for damages.
Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch said in the release that the spill transformed the river from a "life-giver and protector" to a "threat" to the Navajo people, crops and animals.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 14, 2016 28 Comments
The recent report issued about the relationship between fracking and drinking water is a classic example of how the elite media generates fake news, in the effort to virtue signal and get readers. In June of last year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a report indicating that fracking isn’t causing widespread damage to the nation’s drinking water.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—after a four-year study that is the U.S. government’s most comprehensive examination of the issue to date—concluded that hydraulic fracturing, as being carried out by industry and regulated by states, isn’t having “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 11, 2016 18 Comments
California Tea Party activists have long battled the bureaucrats and politicians over policies related to water. One of the most well-known of the myriad of issues is the diversion of water from farms in the Central Valley (a major source of this nation's fruits and nuts....outside of San Francisco, that is). One goal of this reallocation of a prime agricultural resource is the protection of a bait fish known as the Delta Smelt. Last week, the House of Representatives easily passed a major water bill that includes emergency aid for Flint, Mich., and boosts U.S. ports, dams and waterways. This bill, known as the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), was initially co-authored by the notorious Senator Barbara Boxer, who infamously derided a Brigadier General for referring to her as "ma'am".
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