The California Coastal Commission (CCC) voted Thursday to reject plans for a desalination plant in Orange County, despite the fact that the state is running out of water in the midst of a drought that has highlighted the need for new water supplies.
As Breitbart News reported last month, CCC staff had already recommended against the plant, citing various environmental concerns, though desalination’s only direct impact is the creation of ultra-salty brine that is returned to the vast Pacific Ocean.
And as Breitbart News noted in 2018, the Poseidon desalination plant in Carlsbad, California, “has provided some 43 billion gallons of water since [2015]. Its daily output can support 400,000 households, and supplies 10% of San Diego’s needs.”
In this case, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) was, perhaps surprisingly, on the side of the desalination project, but the CCC rejected the plan — patly to demonstrate that it was politically independent of the governor’s office, as the Los Angeles Timesreported:
Despite worsening drought and repeated calls from Gov. Gavin Newsom to tap the Pacific Ocean as a source of drinking water, commissioners votedunanimously against the plan Thursday night. The decision, which was recommended by the commission‘s staff, may end the company’s plans for the $1.4-billion plant.
In denying Poseidon a permit, the commission demonstrated its independence from the Newsom administration and also sent the message that high costs, vocal opposition and hazards such as sea-level rise can present major hurdles for large desalination plants on the California coast.
The governor had said California needs the desalination plant to cope with extreme drought, and he recently warned that a vote against the project would be a “big mistake.”
Activists also complained that the project meant “the privatization of water,” since a private company would profit from providing life-sustaining water to the population.
Opponents of desalination have also argued that it promotes climate change, since the technical process of reverse osmosis, through which fresh water is extracted from sea water, requires significant amounts of energy. Ultimately, the vote was unanimous, indicating that the project has no chance of revival.
Meanwhile, the state’s three-year drought continues, with no end in sight. The last drought lasted five years and was one of the worst in the state’s history. California residents are bracing for strict water restrictions to go into effect later this summer.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Netflix has added a content warning ahead of the fourth season of Stranger Things following the horrific shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children dead along with two teachers.
The disclaimer that will appear during Friday’s premiere will say that the show will contain violent content involving children in the first scene, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“We filmed this season of Stranger Things a year ago,” the warning reads. “But given the recent tragic shooting at a school in Texas, viewers may find the opening scene of episode 1 distressing. We are deeply saddened by this unspeakable violence, and our hearts go out to every family mourning a loved one.”
Netflix Puts Warning on ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 After School Shooting https://t.co/xgZkQfvSqL
The description for the premiere episode will also include: “Warning: Contains graphic violence involving children.”
The disclaimer will only be shown in the United States and not globally.
A Netflix spokesperson explained that the opening scene is “very graphic” and warranted the warning.
“We decided to add the card given the proximity of the premiere to this tragedy — and because the opening scene is very graphic,” the spokesperson said.
The move comes after CBS pulled the FBI season finale that featured a student involved in a deadly robbery. Beyond television, other artists have adjusted their schedules in the wake of the shooting. “American Pie” singer Don McLean pulled out of singing at the upcoming NRA convention in Houston.
“In light of the recent events in Texas, I have decided it would be disrespectful and hurtful for me to perform for the NRA at their convention in Houston this week,” McLean said.
“I’m sure all the folks planning to attend this event are shocked and sickened by these events as well. After all, we are all Americans. I share the sorrow for this terrible, cruel loss with the rest of the nation,” he concluded.
Musicians Lee Greenwood and Larry Gatlin are still scheduled to perform at the convention as well as Danielle Peck
CLAIM: During Wednesday’s opening dialogue, Jimmy Kimmel said, “There was an armed guard in Uvalde.”
MOSTLY FALSE: On Wednesday authorities tentatively indicated there was an officer at the school, but on Thursday they said there was not.
Kimmel did not wait for the facts.
Breitbart News noted that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) reported there was no armed school resource officer at the Uvalde school when a gunman entered.
DPS Regional Director Victor Escalon indicated that at 11:28 a.m., after the gunman crashed a pickup truck near the school and began his attack, the gunman climbed a four-foot-high chain link fence around the school and fired at the school as he approached. He also fired at two eyewitnesses at a funeral home nearby. By 11:40 a.m., he had approached the west side of the school. He “was not confronted by anybody” outside the school, armed or otherwise.
Escalon stressed that was no school resource officer on campus, and that the first report came to police at 11:30 a.m.
During his Wednesday night dialogue, Jimmy Kimmel joined the chorus of gun controllers who rejected the role of a good guy with gun based on the false belief that there had been an armed guard at Uvalde.
Kimmel said, “If your solution to children being massacred is armed guards, you haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on.” He then noted that an armed guard was present in Buffalo and mentioned there was an officer in Parkland, although he did not mention the Parkland school officer did not go into the building to confront the gunman.
Then Kimmel said, “There was an armed guard in Uvalde.”
Watch below:
The Texas DPS tells a different story. There was no armed guard at Uvalde.
Kimmel did not wait for the facts.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent for Puck News, found herself in hot water on Wednesday night when she tweeted that 2nd Amendment advocates would suddenly be for banning AR-15 rifles if they were tools used in abortions.
“What if you could perform an abortion with an AR-15? What if the 19 kids killed [in] Uvalde weren’t children, but fetuses?” Ioffe said in her now-deleted tweet.
Twitter users immediately pounced on Ioffe for not only using the horrible tragedy in Texas as a vehicle to plug abortion but also for suggesting that 19 children would suddenly have no inherent value to her if they were killed in the womb – a mad dash of irony that seemed to escape her.
“You’d defend it?” responded National Journalism Center program director Becket Adams. “What even is the purpose of tweets like hers? What good does it serve? Nothing of value has been done on this website in the past 72 hours, and it’s only getting worse.”
“Don’t kill kids at school and don’t kill kids in the womb — in fact don’t kill them anywhere — is my baseline. Is it yours?” tweeted Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy.
“Where have I seen this before? Oh, right, on a pro-life t-shirt,” tweeted National Review Washington correspondent John McCormack.
Though Ioffe deleted the tweet, she issued no apology. As noted by Fox News, her statement echoes her flub from 2021 in which she made an inadvertent pro-life argument while attacking the Texas Heartbeat Act.
“If you are anti-choice and you want to make sure women carry every pregnancy to term, why not make the person who created the pregnancy contribute? Why not have men pay child support to the women they impregnate? Surely, it is not the woman’s responsibility alone?” she tweeted.
Indeed, hardcore leftists and opposers of gun rights have (quite oddly) been citing abortion as some trump card against pro-lifers in the wake of the Texas massacre.
“YOU CAN KILL CHILDREN IN SCHOOL IN TEXAS BUT CAN’T GET AN ABORTION,” tweeted Rob Reiner’s daughter, Romy Reiner, which the director himself retweeted.
YOU CAN KILL CHILDREN IN SCHOOL IN TEXAS BUT CAN’T GET AN ABORTION.