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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 September 13, 2016 22 Comments
Few sciences have been as settled as dietary science.... until recently. I chronicled the substantial revisions issued regarding the scientific "consensus" about cholesterol last year. The "War on Cholesterol" has officially ended, though there is evidence that it adversely impacted American health and the nation's egg farmers while reaping absolutely no benefit. Now a new analysis of correspondence during the 1960's between a sugar trade group and researchers at Harvard University indicate there was an apparent collusion that ultimately cast doubt on sugar's role in heart disease and directed all the blame at fat.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 11, 2016 136 Comments
This weekend has been a very challenging one for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Yesterday we covered the impact of her poorly chosen phrase, "basket of deplorables", in social media. Today, she was rushed away from a 9-11 ceremony after what is being termed a "medical episode."
Hillary Clinton had a “medical episode” that required her to leave a 9/11 commemoration ceremony early on Sunday, a law enforcement source who witnessed the event told Fox News. The Democratic presidential nominee appeared to faint on her way into her van and had to be helped by her security, the source said. She was “clearly having some type of medical episode.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 11, 2016 4 Comments
I noted that Senate Democrats protected the sacred cow of Planned Parenthood when they blocked a bill to fight the spread of the Zika virus in this country. That decision now has consequences, as the coffers for the War against Zika are now running low.
Another government agency fighting Zika has run out of cash to do it, as Congress fights over whether and how to come up with more. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has spent all the money it has for work on Zika, says the agency's director, Dr. Anthony Fauci. That includes money for further work on a Zika vaccine.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 10, 2016 26 Comments
California's inane battle against climate change has resulted in even more toxic legislation. Last week, our legislature approved a bill targeting cow flatulence and manure, which lawmakers blame for releasing greenhouse gases.
Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) authored the bill, which passed shortly before the end of the legislative session. Lara agreed to a compromise that will give dairy farms more time to comply with the new regulations. Critics have expressed concerns the new regulations will result in an increase in the price of milk from California cows. Proponents of the bill say methane emissions have a huge influence on the climate. The legislation also calls for efforts that would significantly increase composting in order to eliminate the amount of food waste in landfills. Food waste releases methane when it breaks down.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 08, 2016 56 Comments
President Obama has TOTUS (Telepromter of the United States) and his wife has Michelle Obama's Mirror. After the Commander In Chief Forum hosted by NBC and moderated by Matt Lauer, a new social media star has been born: Hillary's Ear Piece. It became a trending topic on Twitter last night:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 07, 2016 8 Comments
Democrats in the Senate have pushed away funding for the Zika virus as reports from Florida indicate that seven more people have tested positive for the Zika virus, which they have acquired locally (most likely through mosquito bites). And, more troubling, there is a case of non-travel related Zika that has been contracted outside of the two zones that have had all the known locally acquired cases to this date.
...The Florida Department of Health confirmed on Tuesday that six more people contracted the virus in the tourist hot spot of Miami Beach. Over the past month, 40 people have contracted Zika from mosquitoes in Miami Beach and a second South Florida location - the Wynwood art district just north of downtown Miami. Those two areas have become the focus of health officials, mosquito control efforts and travel warnings for pregnant women from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 04, 2016 21 Comments
With less than 140 days left in the Oval Office, President Obama is attempting to ensure his legacy of foreign policy ineptitude continues on after his term ends. It appears as if he has succeeded with the Chinese, as observers indicate he was denied the usual pomp and pageantry reserved for greeting other heads-of-state.
China’s leaders have been accused of delivering a calculated diplomatic snub to Barack Obama after the US president was not provided with a staircase to leave his plane during his chaotic arrival in Hangzhou before the start of the G20. Chinese authorities have rolled out the red carpet for leaders including India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, Brazil’s president, Michel Temer, and the British prime minister, Theresa May, who touched down on Sunday morning.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 04, 2016 10 Comments
There is another disturbing report related to the spread of the Zika virus; however, this one doesn't involve birth defects or neurological problems. Millions of honey bees were killed after areas of South Carolina were sprayed to kill the mosquitoes that transmit the pathogen.
"On Saturday, it was total energy, millions of bees foraging, pollinating, making honey for winter," beekeeper Juanita Stanley said. "Today, it stinks of death. Maggots and other insects are feeding on the honey and the baby bees who are still in the hives. It's heartbreaking." Stanley, co-owner of Flowertown Bee Farm and Supply in Summerville, South Carolina, said she lost 46 beehives -- more than 3 million bees -- in mere minutes after the spraying began Sunday morning. "Those that didn't die immediately were poisoned trying to drag out the dead," Stanley said. "Now, I'm going to have to destroy my hives, the honey, all my equipment. It's all contaminated."
Truly, the images of the bee-keepers assessing the loss of both their bees and their livelihoods are heartbreaking:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 04, 2016 14 Comments
Residents in the West Calumet Complex in East Chicago got quite a shock over a month ago, when Department of Health officials began testing for lead poisoning and arsenic contamination.
...In a letter from the EPA dated July 11, 2016, [Shantel Allen] was informed that some parts of her yard had lead levels up to 66 times above the lead limit and 55 times above the arsenic limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency. But what shocked her even more was that the letter said her "property was tested for lead and arsenic at the end of 2014." Which means the test was somewhere in a lab, on a shelf, on a desk or getting processed for more than a year and a half before she learned of the danger she and her children were in. "I was pregnant while in this complex -- exposed to lead, sleeping on a contaminated bed, laying on a contaminated couch -- nobody said anything. They kept this very well hidden from all of us," Allen said.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 03, 2016 15 Comments
About a week ago, I noted that new Food and Drug Administration regulations were snuffing out e-cigarette firms. Now the FDA is going to save us from our hand soaps:
The Food and Drug Administration has issued a final rule that throws water on claims that antibacterial soaps and washes are more effective than regular soap. The new rule bans antibacterial soaps and body washes containing certain ingredients from being marketed, because the ingredients were not proved to be safe and effective for long-term daily use, the FDA said Friday.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 31, 2016 18 Comments
While I had hoped Dr. Kelli Ward would be the Republican candidate for Arizona's U.S. Senate seat, it looks like Senator John McCain is immune from "anti-incumbent fever" and handily won Tuesday's primary battle.
U.S. Sen. John McCain beat back a primary challenge Tuesday from a Republican tea party activist to win the right to seek a sixth Senate term in November, clearing an important hurdle in a race that was inundated with questions about GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. The 2008 GOP presidential nominee easily defeated former state Sen. Kelli Ward and two other Republicans on the ballot. He faces a tough Democratic challenge in the November general election from U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick. She advanced Tuesday after facing only a write-in opponent in the primary.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 28, 2016 10 Comments
The Terminator is an iconic film that helped propel former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to stardom. The movie is also a basis for discussion about the future of military weaponry, as Air Force General Paul Selva, vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, uses the film as reference in describing autonomous weaponry systems that could be developed in the next decade.
The nation’s second-highest ranking military officer believes that our adversaries may try to build completely autonomous “Terminator”-like systems that can conduct lethal operations on the battlefield. “I don’t think it’s impossible that somebody will try to build a completely autonomous system, and I’m not talking about something like a cruise missile … or a mine that requires a human to target it and release it and it goes and finds its target,” Selva told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. when asked about such capabilities. “I’m talking about a wholly robotic system that decides whether or not, at the point of decision, it’s going to do lethal ops.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 28, 2016 7 Comments
In the last Zika update I filed for Legal Insurrection, I noted 4 Floridians were determined to have been infected with Zika locally (most probably by mosquito bites). Now it anticipated that there will be up to 400 non-travel Zika cases in Florida by mid-September.
Locally transmitted Zika cases in Florida could reach 400 by summer’s end, projections released Tuesday by a team of American biostatisticians suggests. Researchers project the virus will also spread to other Southern states, including Texas, South Carolina and Oklahoma. “It wasn’t clear at first whether mosquito densities were high enough to sustain an outbreak in the U.S.,” Dr. Ira Longini, a biostatistics professor at the University of Florida and a senior researcher at UF’s Emerging Pathogen Institute, said in a news release. That all changed when Zika began being transmitted in Miami, where officials had reported 37 non-travel-related Zika cases as of Monday. On Tuesday, that number rose to 41, consisting of four new cases in South Florida and one in the Tampa, Florida, area.
The rate of spread of Zika through the Sunshine State could be increased by storms projected to hit its shores through hurricane season.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 27, 2016 7 Comments
My last report on California mentioned that Governor Jerry Brown was planning to introduce a ballot measure to extend AB-32, the state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Despite the fact that the bottom has fallen out of the Cap & Trade permit market, the Assembly granted the rules an extension beyond the initial 2020 end date.
The Assembly approved sweeping climate-change legislation Tuesday that extends the state’s targets for reducing greenhouse gases from 2020 to 2030 in a controversial bill that saw White House officials and Gov. Jerry Brown privately urging lawmakers for support. Under SB32, the state would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. The bill would piggyback on AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which calls for California to reduce greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 24, 2016 16 Comments
Legal Insurrection has chronicled the radical social upheaval pursued by Black Lives Matter, which seems to have enriched some of the participants more than accomplished anything worthwhile. However, the lack of BLM response to the Louisiana floods now have some black Americans questioning the movement's true motives. Jerry L. Washington, a former Baton Rouge resident who went to southern Louisiana to lend a hand after the disaster, is angry about failure to respond. He has a few choice words for Black Lives Matter:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on August 24, 2016 19 Comments
A recent report analyzing the regulatory climate under the Obama Administration shows that it is a lush and healthy environment... for bureaucrats.
A recent report by Sam Batkins of the American Action Forum brings the regulatory overreach of the Obama administration into focus. In nearly eight years, the Obama administration has issued 600 major regulations, which, again, are regulations with an annual economic impact of $100 million or more. Unfortunately, even with President Obama's time in office slowly coming to a close, the number of major regulations issued on his watch may exceed 650.
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