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In California, the water wars are continuing to boil.

Leftie greenies recently hailed the return of … five … salmon, swimming upstream to the San Joaquin river to spawn. Paradise restored! In water-starved California, that was quite an achievement, given that each salmon required 50,000 gallons of water to get the job done, coming at a price tag of $890 million at the low end and $2 billion at the high. And that water came out of the hides of California’s farmers, who got very little of the water they were promised, and paid for, as a result. That’s some use of resources to get those five salmon to swim upstream.

Wayne Western, Jr., at The Sun, writes how this clown show spend-fest came to be:

In 1988, then-Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) developed the first version of the Central Valley Improvement Act (CVPIA). That same year, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit claiming that Friant Dam violated environmental laws.

In 1992, Congress pushes through the CVPIA. This action single-handedly shifted water and money from Valley farmers by driving money to environmental organizations and sending water to the ocean.

In 2006, a Settlement is reached and by 2009, the Democrat-led Congress and President Obama enact the Settlement.

Cost estimates of this effort range from $890 million to $2 billion to restore 153 miles of the river from Friant Dam to the confluence of the Merced River.

Between 250,000 and 360,000 acre-feet of water are specifically dedicated to fish habitat on the San Joaquin. Based on this week’s news, it appears to be working.

Taking the conservative cost estimate, each of the five fish caught cost taxpayers and water users $178,000,000.

And each of those fish needed 50,000 acre-feet of water per year.

I won’t even stress the cost of pumping, aquifer consequences, fallowed land, and – lest we forget – lost jobs. Many politicians aren’t either.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif), who represents some of the agricultural districts that got stiffed on the water, tweeted this:

 

Green Leftists take over California. Congratulations America you just spent $178 Million per fish and flushed millions of gallons of precious water out to the Pacific Ocean.  https://t.co/WUWKltEIU8

— Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) April 27, 2019

 

$178 million per fish and that’s on the low end, not the $2 billion end.

It certainly is in line with California’s bullet train boondoggle, which saw Californians shelling out $82 million per rail mile before the entire money-eating nightmare was scrapped por ahora. But the amount spent per salmon more than double the amount spent per rail mile figure.

Salmon fishing is a rich man’s sport, well beloved of the Northern California Pacific Heights set. If they wanted salmon streams, by golly, they would get salmon streams, and cost was no object, so they did. Balancing interests was never a part of this equation. Never mind the farmers stiffed on their water or the agricultural ruin that has followed, they wanted that riffraff gone anyway, the better to make the Central Valley their rich-people recreational ground.

The history of the ill-begotten project had its roots in the machinations of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, as Western notes in his piece here:

Yet a stonewall from the United States Senate blocked the flow of water to our communities. The Senate’s only offering, courtesy of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, produced zero acre-feet of water for the San Joaquin Valley.

Environmental groups have been ruthlessly effective in working to diminish Valley agriculture and, by extension, the people of the region.

Those efforts extend to the State of California, with groundwater legislation that will deliver a double dose of consequences in January 2020.

In light of that, the Public Policy Institute of California has publicly said that at least 500,000 acres must be retired from growing food and fiber.

 By a creepy coincidence, Feinstein’s water-policy man, T.J. Cox, managed to ballot-harvest his way into a congressional seat in Central Valley’s worst-hit water district, the lower western San Joaquin valley, taking the slot from the GOP’s David Valadao by less than 1,000 votes after the Republican showed a commanding 5,000-vote lead on election night. Cox, who was born in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek, hasn’t condemned the boondoggle of course, and his congressional website doesn’t offer anything in the way of water to farmers (he says he’s hired a staffer connected to Feinstein who will work on it, which doesn’t sound promising, given Feinstein’s record). As for the water-starved farmers. he’s introduced for them a bill to offer easier bankruptcy proceedings, the better to get them out of there.

As for the salmon, whose interests he does represent, $178 million per fish doesn’t seem to bother him a bit.

In California, the water wars are continuing to boil.

Leftie greenies recently hailed the return of … five … salmon, swimming upstream to the San Joaquin river to spawn. Paradise restored! In water-starved California, that was quite an achievement, given that each salmon required 50,000 gallons of water to get the job done, coming at a price tag of $890 million at the low end and $2 billion at the high. And that water came out of the hides of California’s farmers, who got very little of the water they were promised, and paid for, as a result. That’s some use of resources to get those five salmon to swim upstream.

Wayne Western, Jr., at The Sun, writes how this clown show spend-fest came to be:

In 1988, then-Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) developed the first version of the Central Valley Improvement Act (CVPIA). That same year, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit claiming that Friant Dam violated environmental laws.

In 1992, Congress pushes through the CVPIA. This action single-handedly shifted water and money from Valley farmers by driving money to environmental organizations and sending water to the ocean.

In 2006, a Settlement is reached and by 2009, the Democrat-led Congress and President Obama enact the Settlement.

Cost estimates of this effort range from $890 million to $2 billion to restore 153 miles of the river from Friant Dam to the confluence of the Merced River.

Between 250,000 and 360,000 acre-feet of water are specifically dedicated to fish habitat on the San Joaquin. Based on this week’s news, it appears to be working.

Taking the conservative cost estimate, each of the five fish caught cost taxpayers and water users $178,000,000.

And each of those fish needed 50,000 acre-feet of water per year.

I won’t even stress the cost of pumping, aquifer consequences, fallowed land, and – lest we forget – lost jobs. Many politicians aren’t either.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif), who represents some of the agricultural districts that got stiffed on the water, tweeted this:

 

Green Leftists take over California. Congratulations America you just spent $178 Million per fish and flushed millions of gallons of precious water out to the Pacific Ocean.  https://t.co/WUWKltEIU8

— Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) April 27, 2019

 

$178 million per fish and that’s on the low end, not the $2 billion end.

It certainly is in line with California’s bullet train boondoggle, which saw Californians shelling out $82 million per rail mile before the entire money-eating nightmare was scrapped por ahora. But the amount spent per salmon more than double the amount spent per rail mile figure.

Salmon fishing is a rich man’s sport, well beloved of the Northern California Pacific Heights set. If they wanted salmon streams, by golly, they would get salmon streams, and cost was no object, so they did. Balancing interests was never a part of this equation. Never mind the farmers stiffed on their water or the agricultural ruin that has followed, they wanted that riffraff gone anyway, the better to make the Central Valley their rich-people recreational ground.

The history of the ill-begotten project had its roots in the machinations of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, as Western notes in his piece here:

Yet a stonewall from the United States Senate blocked the flow of water to our communities. The Senate’s only offering, courtesy of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, produced zero acre-feet of water for the San Joaquin Valley.

Environmental groups have been ruthlessly effective in working to diminish Valley agriculture and, by extension, the people of the region.

Those efforts extend to the State of California, with groundwater legislation that will deliver a double dose of consequences in January 2020.

In light of that, the Public Policy Institute of California has publicly said that at least 500,000 acres must be retired from growing food and fiber.

 By a creepy coincidence, Feinstein’s water-policy man, T.J. Cox, managed to ballot-harvest his way into a congressional seat in Central Valley’s worst-hit water district, the lower western San Joaquin valley, taking the slot from the GOP’s David Valadao by less than 1,000 votes after the Republican showed a commanding 5,000-vote lead on election night. Cox, who was born in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek, hasn’t condemned the boondoggle of course, and his congressional website doesn’t offer anything in the way of water to farmers (he says he’s hired a staffer connected to Feinstein who will work on it, which doesn’t sound promising, given Feinstein’s record). As for the water-starved farmers. he’s introduced for them a bill to offer easier bankruptcy proceedings, the better to get them out of there.

As for the salmon, whose interests he does represent, $178 million per fish doesn’t seem to bother him a bit.

President Donald Trump has been repeatedly hounded by the left for saying — perhaps a bit bluntly — that many of the immigrants who enter the country illegally are not the best and brightest just looking for a better life. But over and over, he has been proved to be correct.

That was once again shown to be the case in Tennessee this month. A child is now dead after police say an illegal alien murdered him with his bare hands in a fit of rage.

“Memphis police arrested a man after they said he punched a baby so hard it stopped breathing,” WHBQ-TV in Memphis reported. “According to police, the victim’s mother called 911 on April 12 when her four-month-old child was found unresponsive.”

Although the infant was rushed to a hospital, he was dead by the time he arrived. The child’s mother and her boyfriend, identified as Jose Avila-Agurcia, at first insisted that they had no idea why the boy had stopped breathing. But after suspicion fell on Avila-Agurcia, officers learned the disturbing details.

“Police said investigators met with the mother who said her boyfriend confessed he punched the child in the head multiple times when he learned the child was not his,” WHBQ reported.

TRENDING:

That situation is shocking and tragic, but it might have been avoided if the nation’s immigration laws were better enforced. It turns out that the boyfriend, who has been charged with first-degree murder, had been deported from the United States not just once but five times.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Bryan D. Cox said Avila-Agurcia is an alias for Carlos Zuniga-Aviles, a Honduran national who has been deported five times. The agency has filed an immigration detainer pending resolution of the charge,” The Associated Press reported.

How well that detainer will work is a very open question, considering he already has been kicked out of the country nearly half a dozen times. At a time when liberals and even some on the right seem to shrug off the border problem, it seems almost anyone can waltz into the country no matter his background.

While much of the focus on the porous border has centered on Mexico, the countries in Central America — including the accused murderer’s nation of Honduras — are increasingly in the spotlight.

Honduras has been the source of thousands of migrants who banded together to form caravans, which then pushed through Guatemala and into Mexico, sometimes clashing with border police and other times being essentially waved through.

Attempts by Mexican officials to identify and track who is in the groups have largely failed, and residents of border states in northern Mexico have begun pushing back against the waves of migrants pouring into their country.

Meanwhile, Democrats have flatly refused to call the situation a “crisis,” and have opposed Trump’s efforts to increase the barriers and security measures in the area.

This latest case is hardly an isolated incident. We have covered numerous instances of illegal aliens coming to the United States not to live peacefully but to commit crimes that often include rape and murder.

RELATED: It Took Kamala Harris Less Than 24 Hours To Sell Out Long-Time Supporters on Contentious Prisoner Voting Initiative

To be sure, coming across the border does not make somebody a violent criminal, but there is no denying that violent people are using the porous border to their advantage. If even a small percentage of unvetted illegal immigrants are dangerous, there’s a problem.

It’s akin to leaving your front door unlocked in a bad neighborhood. The number of good people does not magically offset the risk of an offender walking in and helping himself to your stuff, or doing far worse to your family.

That is the point that the left ignores: An unsecured frontier has consequences, and in far too many cases, it is American citizens who are impacted by the bad apples.

“Americans are dreamers too,” the president pointed out during a recent statement on border security.

Sadly, a young boy in Tennessee will never have a chance to grow up, dream or achieve — and opponents of immigration enforcement should think long and hard about that sobering fact.

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On Thursday, popular Twitter user and writer known by the alias “Kantbot” found his Medium account suspended in the wake of publishing a piece that went viral regarding school shootings and mental health interventions primarily in public schools.

“My medium account has been suspended because of this article,” Kantbot posted to Twitter.

Despite a somewhat provocative headline — “Guns Don’t Kill People, School Psychologists Do” — the piece gives a nuanced look at the culture of school psychology and mental health interventions in relation to school shootings. Notably, the post veers from talking points supporting gun control measures or, conversely, armed guards at schools — the two competing narratives consistently debated after such attacks.

According to a vague email from the tech platform, the writer’s account was suspended for “hateful text, images, or other content in (his) username, profile, or bio.”

The writer’s bio on Medium featured a photo of a philosopher-esque “Pepe the Frog” and a quote from Friedrich Schiller’s “On the Aesthetic Education of Man.”

Kantbot finds the timing suspect. The writer noted that he’s been publishing posts on Medium for two years using the same bio and photo without ever encountering an issue.

“It seems strange that after I posted a popular story to all of a sudden be cracked down on without any warning,” he told The Daily Wire, adding that he “wasn’t given a chance to remove” his avatar, if that indeed was the issue.

“I have posted only thoughtful, in depth pieces on [Medium] and have had no issues with the platform for 2 years,” Kantbot highlighted via Twitter. “After challenging the school shooting narrative my account was banned within 24 hours. Can Medium explain this?”

Kantbot reached out to Medium on Friday for further clarification, but was again left without answers.

“Why isn’t there any transparency with these decisions on these platforms?” the writer asked. “The TOS (Terms of Service) is always vague, they enforce things when they feel like it. They use their policies as a smoke screen.”

“It’s not just an issue of freedom of speech but consumer rights,” argued Kantbot. “These platforms advocate for free speech, they claim to be open, but their decision making on who is and isn’t using their service correctly is completely opaque.”

“Don’t the people who patronize these platforms and give them their power have a right to know their biases?” he continued. “Why do we allow them to make fraudulent claims about how they stand for open news and communication and freedom of speech that are consistently contradicted by their own draconian decision making process.”

Similar questions surrounding censorship have been asked time and again of other big tech platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook. Last month, for example, the Twitter account for pro-life film “Unplanned” was suspended without explanation. After swift backlash, the account was restored.

But what happens to creatives and politicos without the support to flag clearly biased censorship? That answer seems clear.

The Satanic Temple (TST) announced Friday that the IRS has recognized it as a “church” with tax-exempt status.

“We are pleased to announce that for the very [first] time in history, a satanic organization has been recognized by the United States federal government as being a church,” the group posted on Instagram.

“This acknowledgment will help make sure The Satanic Temple has the same access to public spaces as other religious organizations, affirm our standing in court when battling religious discrimination, and enable us to apply for faith-based government grants,” the organization continued.

According to a report by the Associated Press, TST, based in Salem, Massachusetts, received a letter that used a code that categorizes the group as a “church or a convention or association of churches.”

“The group is now listed in an IRS database for tax-exempt organizations,” reported AP.

As LifeSiteNews observed, despite the designation as a “church,” TST is non-religious and states on its FAQ page that it does not worship Satan:

[N]or do we believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural. The Satanic Temple believes that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. Satanists should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in all things. Our beliefs must be malleable to the best current scientific understandings of the material world — never the reverse.

Regarding the question of how TST is a “religion,” the group states:

The idea that religion belongs to supernaturalists is ignorant, backward, and offensive. The metaphorical Satanic construct is no more arbitrary to us than are the deeply held beliefs that we actively advocate. Are we supposed to believe that those who pledge submission to an ethereal supernatural deity hold to their values more deeply than we? Are we supposed to concede that only the superstitious are rightful recipients of religious exemption and privilege? Satanism provides all that a religion should without a compulsory attachment to untenable items of faith-based belief. It provides a narrative structure by which we contextualize our lives and works. It also provides a body of symbolism and religious practice — a sense of identity, culture, community, and shared values.

According to Rolling Stone, TST had previously rejected the idea of pursuing tax-exempt status.

TST president Lucien Greaves, however, reportedly reversed this position in 2017 after President Trump signed a “religious freedom” executive order.

“As ‘the religious’ are increasingly gaining ground as a privileged class, we must ensure that this privilege is available to all, and that superstition doesn’t gain exclusive rights over non-theistic religions or non-belief,” Greaves reportedly wrote in the group’s newsletter.

Greaves added that the group should move to ensure that “atheistic and secular non-profits, advancing a distinct religious opinion and/or opinion upon religion, are themselves rightful beneficiaries of religious tax exemption as well.”

According to the Catholic News Agency (CNA), “IRS regulations draw a clear distinction between “churches” and other religious organizations”:

A church must have certain characteristics, according to IRS requirements, including: a recognized creed and form of worship; distinct ecclesiastical government; formal code of doctrine; ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed courses of study; established places of worship and regular religious services.

“The apparent recognition of the IRS comes after members of the Satanic Temple have had to defend themselves against accusations that their ‘church’ is essentially a political stunt,” CNA stated.

The United States Chamber of Commerce is vowing to continue fighting President Trump’s shaping of the Republican Party into a pro-U.S. worker party of blue collar working and middle class Americans.

In an interview with the Washington Post, numerous Chamber of Commerce officials said the organization’s corporate lobbying efforts would soon attempt to court more elected Democrats to support their economic libertarian agenda of more free trade and increased legal immigration.

“The GOP’s drift toward protectionism, nativism, and isolationism since Donald Trump took over the party in 2016 is also at odds with the Chamber’s longtime support for expanding free trade, growing legal immigration and investing in infrastructure,” the Post story details.

Specifically, Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donahue said the U.S. needed more legal immigration so that corporations and business secure a never-ending flow of cheaper labor, claiming the country is “out of people.”

And they’re still looking to work with Trump even on areas where they’re not really in agreement, such as immigration. The Chamber advocates for protecting the “dreamers” from deportation and expanding rates of legal immigration. “The fundamental issue is that the United States of America is out of people,” said Donohue. “We have the lowest unemployment we’ve had in 65 years. We have brought more people back into the workforce and still have the lowest unemployment.” [Emphasis added]

Despite Donahue’s claims, at least 12 million Americans who want full-time jobs remain on the sidelines of the workforce. This includes 6.2 million Americans who are unemployed that want a job, 4.5 million Americans who are underemployed working part-time jobs, and 1.4 million Americans who continue to be entirely out of the workforce though they want full-time employment.

More than 12 million Americans remain unemployed, underemployed, or out of the labor force but wanting a job. Tight labor market still has some slack. https://t.co/gpDbIUcGjE

— John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) April 16, 2019

While millions remain on the sidelines of the workforce, the Chamber of Commerce has routinely advocated for increasing legal immigration levels as a boon to corporations while depressing job prospects and wages for America’s working and middle class. Already, about 1.5 million illegal and legal immigrants are admitted to the country every year, to the detriment of U.S. wages.

The Chamber of Commerce’s push to increase legal immigration levels is vastly out of step with Republican voters and American voters as a whole. Last year, nearly two-out-three U.S. voters said they supported reducing legal immigration, while most recently about 43 percent of Republican voters said immigration hurts the country.

Extensive research by economists like George Borjas and analyst Steven Camarota has found that the country’s current mass legal immigration system — wherein 1.2 million mostly low-skilled workers are admitted annually — burdens U.S. taxpayers and America’s working and middle class while redistributing about $500 billion in wealth every year to major employers and newly arrived immigrants.

Borjas has previously called the country’s legal immigration system the “largest anti-poverty program” in the world at the expense of blue-collar Americans and middle-class taxpayers.

Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, has found that every one-percent increase in the immigrant composition of American workers’ occupations reduces their weekly wages by about 0.5 percent. This means the average native-born American worker today has his weekly wages reduced by perhaps 8.5 percent because of current legal immigration levels.

In a state like Florida, where immigrants make up about 25.4 percent of the labor force, American workers have their weekly wages reduced by about 12.5 percent. In California, where immigrants make up 34 percent of the labor force, American workers’ weekly wages are reduced by potentially 17 percent.

Likewise, every one-percent increase in the immigrant composition of low-skilled U.S. occupations reduces wages by about 0.8 percent. Should 15 percent of low-skilled jobs be held by foreign-born workers, it would reduce the wages of native-born American workers by perhaps 12 percent.

Though corporate interests and the open borders lobby have sought to sway Trump from his “America First” illegal and legal immigration agenda, senior advisor Jared Kushner recently said the president’s top priority in terms of the White House’s reform efforts is protecting Americans’ wages.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

The U.S. economy grew at a 3.2 percent annual rate in the first three months of 2019 —  beating Wall Street’s expectations of 2.5 percent growth —  according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The advance in the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic health, marks an acceleration from a 2.2 percent gain in the previous October-December period. Disposable personal income saw a boost of 3 percent. while overall prices grew by 0.8 percent. In the first quarter, inventory rebuilding added 0.7 percentage point to growth, while a falling trade deficit boosted growth by a full percentage point. Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity, slowed to growth at a rate of just 1.2 percent in the first quarter. In particular, spending on durable goods fell at a rate of 5.3 percent, the biggest decline in a decade, led by a sharp drop in light truck sales.

The gain surpassed the 3 percent bar set by President Donald Trump as evidence his economic program is working.

It was the strongest first-quarter growth rate since 2015. In recent years, GDP has been exceptionally weak in the first quarter. There had been fears growth could dip below 1 percent this year due to a variety of adverse factors such as the December stock market nosedive, rising weakness in key economies overseas, the U.S. trade war with China and a 35-day partial government shutdown that ended in January. However, the economy shrugged off those concerns, helped by an announcement in early January from the Federal Reserve that after raising rates four times last year, it was declaring a pause on further rate hikes. That spurred a stock market rebound by easing concerns that the central bank might overdo its credit tightening and send the country into a recession.

 “The upside beat was helped by net trade (exports jumped while imports contracted sharply) and inventories which combined contributed almost 170 bps of the rise,” 

Bleakley Advisory Group CIO Peter Boockvar

said

in a statement to CNBC.

 The AP contributed to this report.