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A glittering line-up of Hollywood stars is poised to back Hillary Clinton's bid to become US President by raising millions for her campaign. The former Secretary of State and wife of ex-President Bill Clinton is expected to announce her 2016 candidacy today in a video released on social media. And political pundits say plans are already in place to hold fundraising parties as early as next month. Mrs Clinton's most high-profile Hollywood backers include director Steven Spielberg, and actors George Clooney, Barbra Streisand and Tom Hanks. DreamWorks studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg has said: 'Hillary is the best qualified candidate. She...

Poor Barbra Streisand. Just last week the renowned economist (who also describes herself as a “singer,” “actress,” and “activist”) penned an opinion piece titled “Have You Heard the Good News?” about how well the economy is performing under Barack Obama. It was a pep rally of sorts, and all that was missing were the pom-poms. “President Obama’s Administration, with only opposition from the Republicans,” she gushed, “has steadily helped put more than 11 million Americans back to work in the private sector.” Then two days later the dismal jobs report for March was released. Bad timing, for sure. The statistic...

As these aerial photos from The Post prove, Hollywood celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Barbra Streisand and Jennifer Lopez continue to suck up water to keep their gardens fresh and lawns green, while Southern California withers from a devastating drought. Experts predict California reservoirs have less than a year’s worth of drinking water left. An emergency law passed last week forces local cities to conserve water immediately. The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which supplies many of these elite enclaves north of Los Angeles, will have four weeks starting next month to cut water use by a staggering 36 percent. But the mandate is...

Experts estimate there will be less than a year's worth of drinking water in California reservoir's at the end of 2015 Yet the rich and famous of Los Angeles continue to water their lawns with apparently no concern for conservation Photographer John Chapple recently went out in a helicopter to photography the ever-green lawns of Kim Kardashian, Barbara Streisand and Petra Eccelstone among others

Obama dines with Streisand, Springsteen, Kardashian and Hollywood Elite The contrast could not be greater! While President Obama was hobnobbing with Hollywood's liberal elite in southern California, we were in middle America rallying working-class Americans to vote in the midterm elections.  President Obama claims to represent the working class, yet has never had a real job and prefers the company of liberal celebrities like Barabra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Kim Kardashian, and Bruce Springsteen.   The President's hypocrisy could be smelt all the way in Minneapolis, MN where Diana Nagy was joined on stage by patriotic Americans President Obama was...

From a distance, the reservoir appears topped by a flotilla of rubber duckies. On closer inspection, the water’s surface is packed with thousands of free-floating, 13-inch plastic balls, clustered to form an undulating cover. Developed by the Israeli startup Neotop (formerly known as Top-It-Up), the mass of balls serves as a floating cooling tower, reducing surface temperatures, algae and evaporation up to 95 percent. It’s one of many potential water-saving solutions to come out of Israel’s high-tech dream factory. This could make a difference in California. With the state’s reservoirs at historic lows — the two biggest, Shasta Lake and...

The New York Times has an article worth reading discussing EPA’s efforts to influence comments submitted to them by the public regarding the agency’s and Army Corps of Engineers’ proposal to redefine “Waters of the United States (WOTUS).” Notably, Gina McCarthy, administrator of EPA, went before a Senate committee earlier this year touting the fact that almost 90 percent of all comments submitted expressed support for the rule as proposed. It turns out that many of these comments were submitted as a result of an unprecedented outreach initiative, which is being led by a former Obama campaign staffer. Thunderclap (a...

Nearly 1 million Silicon Valley residents will face strict water quotas — and pricey surcharges for going over — under what will soon be the Bay Area’s most far-reaching rationing plan in four years of drought. For most customers, who live in single-family homes and townhomes, the limit will be 70 percent of what the average household used in the same period in 2013, meaning an average 30 percent cutback. The move comes as the state hands down mandatory reductions for California’s 400 biggest water agencies in response to Gov. Jerry Brown’s emergency drought declaration. The rationing plan will not...

“Dam [thumbs up]… Train [thumbs down]… Governor, put our water before your train,” reads a billboard message erected by Fresno City Councilman Steve Brandau, revealed this week in California’s Central Valley. “We don’t have a train shortage, we have a water shortage,” Brandau told Breitbart California. His message comes as California is in serious, extended drought, while Governor Jerry Brown has made it his priority to push forward the troubled high-speed rail project. The “Dam” references the proposed Temperance Flat Dam. In 2014, Californians were sold on passing the Proposition 1 water bond on the premise that funds would be...

An El Niño pattern has been contributing to drought-busting rain in Texas and the southern Plains. California may be next up for much-needed rain during the winter of 2015-16. El Niño, which began during the past winter, occurs when ocean water temperatures climb above normal across the central and eastern Pacific, centered around the equator. According to AccuWeather Meteorologist Ben Noll, along with impacting weather patterns around the globe, an El Niño tends to bring significant rain to the southern part of the United States. "The pattern of El Niño strengthens the southern storm track across the U.S., especially during...

It’s even more dire in unincorporated East Porterville than the last time CBS13 was there. Tulare County buys and trucks in water to refill tanks in people’s front yards. In a sign of increasing desperation, some have resorted to stealing bottled water from their neighbors. A woman CBS13 spoke to says thieves ripped off the water pump she uses to wash her clothes and take showers that was hooked up to her tank. Thankfully the county replaced it. Andrew Lockman with Tulare County Office of Emergency Services says some go to nearby communities that have water and just help themselves.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday | May 12, 2015 A bill backed by Rep. Labrador would send EPA and the Army Corps back to the drawing board WASHINGTON, D.C. – A measure forcing the Obama Administration to withdraw its “waters of the United States” rule cleared the House Tuesday on a bipartisan 261-155 vote. Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Idaho, is an original cosponsor of H.R. 1732, the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act. Labrador has been working since last year on a legislative remedy, which now heads to the Senate. H.R. 1732 would require the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to...

The California almond is getting a bad reputation. At least that’s what the numbers show. According to an April report released by the Pacific Institute, a non-profit research firm based in Oakland, almonds are not the most water intensive crop grown in the Golden State. In fact, almonds tie with pistachios for fourth place in the ranking of California’s water intensive crops and require on average four acre-feet of water per acre. One acre-foot is approximately 326,000 gallons of water. Alfalfa and rice are the top two water users, averaging five acre-feet of water per acre a piece, though alfalfa...

Michael Snyder May 12th, 2015 What are we going to do once all the water is gone? Thanks to the worst drought in more than 1,000 years, the western third of the country is facing the greatest water crisis that the United States has ever seen. Lake Mead is now the lowest that it has ever been since the Hoover Dam was finished in the 1930s, mandatory water restrictions have already been implemented in the state of California, and there are already widespread reports of people stealing water in some of the worst hit areas. But this is just the...

San Jose is the latest big city in the state to ban filling outdoor swimming pools, and business at hot tub stores in the city has gone cold. “From the day the drought was declared, and the city council announced its restrictions on filling of hot tubs, it’s closed our doors,” Hot Spring Spas sales manager Chet Lockwood said. The store is still open, but no one is coming in, and layoffs may not be far behind. “We can’t see how we’re going to be able to survive through this,” Lockwood said. San Jose’s city council sent a serious message...

Hmmmm ... hundreds of thousands of immediate jobs, very little expense ... no environmental impact ... California gets water

n a Mediterranean beach 10 miles south of Tel Aviv, Israel, a vast new industrial facility hums around the clock. It is the world’s largest modern seawater desalination plant, providing 20 percent of the water consumed by the country’s households. Built for the Israeli government by Israel Desalination Enterprises, or IDE Technologies, at a cost of around $500 million, it uses a conventional desalination technology called reverse osmosis (RO). Thanks to a series of engineering and materials advances, however, it produces clean water from the sea cheaply and at a scale never before achieved. Worldwide, some 700 million people don’t...

California just entered its fourth year in drought. Experts say it's the worst the state has seen in 1,200 years. Dwindling reservoirs, shrinking lakes, and dried-up farm fields are everywhere — and the drought shows no sign of stopping. The state's snowpack, which typically provides about a third of the water for its farms and residents, remains at its lowest level in history.

California Gov. Jerry Brown had some sharp words for environmentalist critics of his proposed Sacramento River water tunnels. On Wednesday, Brown told critics of his $15 billion plan to “shut up, because you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” according to the AP. Brown’s office told Sacramento Bee blog Capitol Alert that the governor’s remarks were made in “jest.” But the sharp rebuke highlights the tension surrounding the pricey project, which would send water from the northern part of the state south by using a pair of underground water tunnels to divert water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River...

Whether it’s the “throne” or “loo” or “little girls room,” the sheer number of euphemisms speaks volumes about its taboo nature. Still, taboo or not, the toilet is a player in the drought, accounting for 27 percent of indoor water use, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The efficiency of a toilet helps dictate how much water a family uses – or doesn’t – in any given day. In Orange County, a typical home flushes about 19 gallons a day. That’s why engineers are working on all manner of toilets of the future.