Author: Leslie Eastman

Earlier this year, the chilly nation was informed that it was experiencing a "Polar Vortex." Videotapes of many wildfires raging through San Diego county focus on another meteorological event that is now "hot": Firenados.

Helicopters, military aircraft and extra crews, worked the fire, which fire officials said was only 5% contained as it burned 800 acres Thursday morning in San Marcos, home to a California State University campus and a heavily populated area. ...In broad daylight at noon, the fire blackened the skies in one San Marcos neighborhood and sent a “firenado” — a column resembling a tornado with smoke and flames shooting from it — rising and twisting into the air. The blaze forced the university to cancel this week’s commencement and other activities, officials said.

NewStationNation offers a glimpse in its video: Air response has been very effective in battling back the blazes. And, what type of aircraft would you use against a firenado? A jumbo jet of course. The following video shows a DC-10 that has been used to pound the flames with fire retardant.

Never let it be said that Legal Insurrection doesn't have the hottest news. Yesterday, I was having a business lunch in Temecula, north of San Diego by about an hour and just off of I-15. I went with the understanding that the Bernado Fire that had burned the day before was under control. When I stepped out of the restaurant, the sky was filling with smoke from several areas in my view, which were from three of the 9 wildfires that broke out around the county yesterday.

In all, nine fires in the county had burned more than 9,000 acres, Cal Fire Capt. Dave Allen said at a briefing late Wednesday held by fire and law-enforcement officials. That number included the Bernardo fire that began Tuesday near 4S Ranch. It was 50 percent contained Thursday and had burned 1,548 acres, officials said.

Racing to get home, I was stopped along the I-15 by firefighters handling the "Highway Fire". I got an up-close and personal view of the blaze, as well as the very effective and organized response by the firefighters and emergency crews. The worst of the fires was in the coastal community of Carlsbad.

Thousands were asked to evacuate their homes - including in Carlsbad - after the blaze erupted about 10:34 a.m. Wednesday and spread through rapidly heavy brush before jumping into residential areas. Despite a state fire report of 30 homes burned earlier in the day, Carlsbad Fire Chief Michael Davis said he knows of just three homes destroyed and about a dozen damaged, all of them in the same neighborhood. The wind-driven wildfire tossed embers onto roofs and trees, igniting them. Firefighters found themselves evacuating people and battling the blaze at the same time, Nick Schuler of Cal Fire said.

San Diego blogger Tim Daniel of LeftCoastRebel captured video of this blaze, which is now known as the "Poinsettia Fire":

General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former Egyptian army chief who deposed the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi, is likely to win in the upcoming presidential election at the end of this month. His popularity has increased enormously during his successful battle against Egypt's religious extremists who threatened to enact a wide array of "reforms" while they were in power, everything from enacting laws repressing religious freedom to calling for the destruction of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx. Now, he offers an intriguing new plank on his presidential platform by "casting himself as a defender of religion and taking aim at the doctrinal foundations of Islamist groups the state is seeking to crush." From Reuters:

Striking a pious tone that sets him apart from former president Hosni Mubarak, Sisi also appears to be taking on the mantle of a religious reformer. He has blamed outdated "religious discourse" for holding back Egypt. "I see that the religious discourse in the entire Islamic world has cost Islam its humanity," Sisi said in an interview televised on May 5. "This requires us, and for that matter all leaders, to review their positions." With references to God and morality, Sisi may turn out to be the most outwardly pious of any of the military men to have governed Egypt since the republic was founded in 1953.

This video from WoChit General News summarizes his stance:

Conservative dynamo Tammy Bruce recently took a look at the how the federal government is masking the realities of our very questionable economic "recovery,"  disguising  the fact that 20 percent of American families do not have a single person in the household who is employed. That...

As a Tea Party activist, I am accustomed to the fact that our citizen-based groups are targeted. However, given how much time federal employees spend watching adult films during work hours, I would think that protecting the porn business would be a priority. So, imagine my surprise at discovering this legal enterprise  is now the target of the Department of Justice.

Despite being in good financial standing, adult film performers and others in the porn industry have had bank accounts abruptly terminated—and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) may have had something to do with it. Under "Operation Choke Point," the DOJ and its allies are going after legal but subjectively undesirable business ventures by pressuring banks to terminate their bank accounts or refuse their business. The very premise is clearly chilling—the DOJ is coercing private businesses in an attempt to centrally engineer the American marketplace based on it's own politically biased moral judgements. Targeted business categories so far have included payday lenders, ammunition sales, dating services, purveyors of drug paraphernalia, and online gambling sites. "Operation Chokepoint is flooding payments companies that provide processing service to those industries with subpoenas, civil investigative demands, and other burdensome and costly legal demands," wrote Jason Oxman, CEO of the Electronic Transactions Association, at The Hill.

At College Insurrection, we chronicle the disturbing "pornification" of our campuses. But while I despise the business model, it is still a legal business and its participants are not breaking any law. Then how is it that special rules have been put in place that deny an American in good standing the ability to do basic banking?

This past Monday, porn star Teagan Presley arrived home in Las Vegas from yet another whirlwind strip club appearance tour and found a letter from her bank. Chase was closing her account, which was listed under her legal name, as well as the account of her husband. When Presley went to the bank in person to ask why, she was told it’s because she’s considered “high risk.”

The Department of Justice is only one agency that cops an attitude of moral righteousness when stripping citizens of their assets. George Will recently recounted the use of "civil forfeiture" rules by the IRS to strip the accounts of Terry Dehko and his daughter Sandy Thomas, which were related to the running of their Michigan store:

Professor Jacobson just asked if a Toyota can get from California to Texas on single tank of gas? As a Californian, I would like to answer that question. First, you need to know that California Governor Jerry Brown recently said Rick Perry's efforts to recruit businesses to Texas are "barely a fart." So, if the fuel is blended with those farts, the answer is: Hell, yes! Interestingly,Toyota has had a relatively long-term stay in California.

With its worldwide headquarters in Japan, Toyota's U.S. operation has headquartered in Southern California for more than 50 years. Most employees affected by the move, which begins in 2016, work on a sprawling campus in Torrance. "This is the most significant change we've made to our North American operations in the past 50 years, and we're excited for what the future holds," says Jim Lentz, Toyota's U.S. CEO.

My question is not why Toyota is leaving, but why it took them so long to make the move. The economic advantages to both the company and its employees are quite compelling.

While President Obama was doing a "victory lap" over the truly questionable healthcare exchange enrollment numbers, the deaf citizens of California were being directed to a sex hotline by the Covered California website: Auburn resident Jeff Brown was one who went on the Covered California site...

To add to the chaos and unrest around the world, there is recently some disturbing news about the always tense relationship between North and South Korea. North and South Korea have exchanged fire into the sea across the disputed western sea border, South Korea says. North Korea...

I have been very grateful for the media experience gained by being a contributor at Legal Insurrection and the Executive Producer for Canto Talk. Professor Jacobson has been a big inspiration behind a project I have been working on and which is now ready to launch: ...

When I discussed Cover Oregon ads, which were a study in hippie-oriented marketing appropriate in the 1970′s, I thought I had uncovered the worst Obamacare marketing scheme that could have been possibly concocted. I was wrong. Lonely Conservative reviews the new website developed by the Rhode Island...