Leslie Eastman | Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - Part 245
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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.

In my last report on San Diego mayor Bob Filner, I noted that he brought Washington, D.C.’s sense of teamwork and fair play with him. At that time, Filner crashed  a press conference held by City Attorney Jan Goldsmith responding to the mayor’s call for a...

James O'Keefe's book, Breakthrough: Our Guerrilla War to Expose Fraud and Save Democracy, should really come with the following warning for summer readers: CAUTION: Compelling book causes intense concentration; sunburn is possible. As I recover from being toasted by the California sun, I wanted to share the...

Following the unfolding scandal of the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of the Tea Party, I keep the following thought in mind: Neither party in Congress can be relied upon to satisfactorily resolve this issue.  They created the IRS, fund the IRS, and oversee the IRS.  All...

At College Insurrection, I recently covered a West Virginia professor who ranted that his state was a "national laughingstock" while deeming NRA members traitors. The presumption! California is the nation's laughingstock! And to prove my point, here is a story about one of  our most powerful bureaucratic bodies...

I am still chuckling over Glenn Reynolds' lede into a story about California: WHAT IS GOOD IN LIFE? Dems Enraged Over Perry ‘Raids’ on Out of State Businesses. “Texas Governor Rick Perry has angered some Democrats for his high profile visits to blue states, inviting businesses...

As we honor fallen American heroes this Memorial Day, I would like to pause for a moment in respect for a slain British Soldier:
He was a doting dad, a rabid soccer fan and the life of any party. But above all, Lee Rigby was a British soldier. And a day after he was butchered on a London street — allegedly by a pair of Islamic fanatics — his heartbroken family wanted the world to know that.
British law prevented Rigby, trained in the proper and safe use of firearms, from carrying a gun that could have saved his life. And with plethora of Obama Administration scandals being revealed, it is easy to loose sight of how recently American citizens were pushing back on new and strict federal gun control proposals. Fortunately American Shirley Roberts of Kansas City was able to exercise an entirely different form of gun control.
A group of thugs figured it would be easy to overpower one Kansas City woman. After all, her husband had just left to run an errand, leaving her all alone in the home. They couldn’t have been more wrong. The woman, later identified as Shirley Roberts, 52, immediately retrieved her gun after she heard someone jiggle the knob of the front door. She also witnessed two additional men heading to the back door. Looking through the blinds, Roberts saw the men putting on gloves and preparing to force their way into her home. So she trained her firearm on the men and opened fire.

It is well known that the Golden State is experiencing economic troubles. In fact, 10 California cities are poised to declare bankruptcy. Stockton has recently been given the go ahead to lead this fiscal emergency parade:
On Monday a judge ruled that Stockton, Ca. could enter bankruptcy. The city of 291,000 counts among its woes hundreds of millions of dollars in retirement promises it hasn't funded and hasn't been able to afford since a steep economic decline began several years ago. Today, unemployment in the Stockton metro area is a daunting 15.5 percent, which doesn't do much for the local tax base.
Los Angeles residents just elected a new mayor who will be forced to deal with budget shortfalls and the long term consequences of sweetheart pension deals for government employees.
Eric Garcetti will be Los Angeles' next mayor. By 3 a.m. Wednesday, with 100 percent of the votes counted, Garcetti had received 54 percent of the vote, making him L.A.'s first elected Jewish mayor.
Garcetti has his work cut out for him. One LA department is now making plans to distribute free condoms via bus to city residents:
The wheels on the bus go round and round all throughout Los Angeles…passing out free condoms. The County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health announced this week that it will be sending a 40-foot-long bus filled with free condoms throughout the city of angels, encouraging them to “suit up” with condoms to prevent unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. “Suit Up” was the winning theme from the city’s condom wrapper design competition. All condoms distributed by the city’s condom bus will feature the bow-tie logo. LA residents can also check the condom mobile’s website to find a stop nearest them. The health department’s goal is to not just distribute one million condoms, but rather one million and one before the bus’s tour is finished. The health department has also partnered up with local LGBT sports leagues to help spread awareness.
Garcetti and other LA leaders may want to consider an analysis by Michael S. Greve, a professor at George Mason University School of Law. In the Library of Law and Liberty, he wrote on Conservatives, Condoms and Compassion:

At the end of March, wealthy depositors with banks on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus had their accounts "levied" as part of a bailout deal for Cypriot financial institutions by other European Union members. I delved into the news for an update on how the bribe plan worked. Admirably, as Cyprus receives EU-IMF bailout funds!

Cyprus has received the first installment of a 10bn-euro bailout package from international creditors, which was agreed earlier this year.

Cyprus received 2bn euros (£1.6bn; $2.6bn) in loans, said a statement by the European Stability Mechanism. Another 1bn euros will be transferred before 30 June, the ESM said.
It's a veritable bailout bonanza!!!  While the repercussions of the Cypriot bailout are still not clear, it is worthwhile taking a look at the recipient of another bailout deal: Greece.  Three years after their "rescue", the Greek economy is still full of fail.  In Mindful Money, economist Shuan Richards has this analysis:
It is now over three years since the bailout of Greece which if we recall was supposed to provoke “shock and awe”. Ironically it has followed the path of the original shock and awe claims of the attack on Baghdad where initial claims and boasts then became bogged down in an insurgency. In both instances reality proved inconvenient and we now see that Greece is bogged down in an economic decline rather than seeing the fruits of a “rescue” that was supposed to see her growing at 2.8% per annum right now. If that now sounds insane well it was supposed to rise to 3.1% next year on its way to 3.8% in 2015. Or we note it was put this way.
Richards actually has some information on Cyprus as well, and it is none too good:
You might think that something at least would have been learnt from this and yet what is beginning in Cyprus looks even worse.
For the period January-February 2013, the (Retail Sales) Index is provisionally estimated to have a decrease of 8,5% compared to the corresponding period of 2012. Based on the seasonally adjusted data that shows the trend of unemployment, the number of registered unemployed for April 2013 increased to 44.043 persons in comparison to 41.413 in the previous month…….In comparison with April 2012, an increase of 9.803 persons or 27,7% was recorded
Sound familiar?

This post is dedicated to all the Legal Insurrection readers ready to give up on California! As Tea Party groups stage successful rallies at Internal Revenue Service offices nationwide, one California organization is staging a frontal assault on this government behemoth. One of the largest and most...

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has been a focus here over the years because he's Professor Jacobson's home state Senator.  Whitehouse's speech against opponents of Obamacare, in which he invoked Kristallnacht and lynchings, is legendary in the wrong way: History cautions us of the excesses to which these...

As most Legal Insurrection readers are avid news consumers, I bet many wonder why there are so many "low information voters". Perhaps Google is to blame. Take a look at their top news stories when I checked yesterday: Now, compare this to Bing News and its top...

Happy Mother's Day. As part of my personal celebration, I am planning to indulge in one of my pamper pastimes: Sipping some fine California wine. Sadly, eco-activists have targeted the Golden State's vineyards in their latest fear campaign: The study, published recently in the Proceedings of the National...

As a citizen activist, I remember how thrilled we were with the results of the 2010 election, in which the Republicans made enormous gains that were suppose to protect the free market. Fast forward to 2013.  The Senate has just approved the "Marketplace Fairness Act", legislation...

Professor Glenn Reynolds likens Washington, D.C ., to the iconic Panem, capital city of "The Hunger Games". As the nation's wealth becomes concentrated along the Potomac, it becomes easier to make the analogy: America's capital seems bubble-wrapped in its own vibrant economic boom, while great chunks of...