Archive for 2023

CHRISTOPHER HORNER: ‘Greens’ Win a Victory But Will Likely Lose the War.

The United States Supreme Court this week declined to hear a challenge by oil and gas companies seeking to overturn rulings in two lawsuits, both filed by state and local governments seeking billions of dollars because energy company products supposedly caused, or made worse, devastating “climate change.”

This is being reported as a victory for the environmental lobby, but those reports are misleading for a variety of reasons. Among them is that “climate” wasn’t actually at issue before the Court in this case. This was a jurisdictional question. The oil and gas companies were hoping to remove the matters to federal court given how the purported rationale — global “climate change” —unsubtly suggests this is not well-suited for resolution by, say, a county superior court in Maryland.

Meanwhile, after having stumbled in the federal courts, these litigious, progressively-led government plaintiffs view state courts as their best hope to obtain the demanded riches in disgorged revenues, to pay for politicians’ agendas that legislatures won’t fund through direct taxation.

Always looking for ways around the will of the voters.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: “[P]etitioner’s Second Amendment rights are not dependent on her spouse’s acquisition of an unrestricted concealed carry pistol permit.”

The court’s main point was that, given the decision in Bruen, which came down while the appeal was pending, petitioner had a constitutionally protected right to carry, even without a showing of special need. But the court added:

To the extent that the Attorney General attempts, inexplicably, to justify the determination based upon petitioner’s “fail[ure] to explain why her stated self-defense needs were not already adequately and independently addressed by her husband’s recent acquisition of an unrestricted concealed carry license,” we note that this was not a basis for the denial of this application and “judicial review of an administrative determination is limited to the grounds invoked by” respondent.

More to the point, the statutory framework contains no such required showing and, suffice it to say that petitioner’s Second Amendment rights are not dependent on her spouse’s acquisition of an unrestricted concealed carry pistol permit.

Kind of a sexist argument to make, too.

TAR. FEATHERS. AT BEST.

OPEN THREAD: Ooh, it’s Saturday night, everybody’s havin’ fun. I’m in the blogosphere, tryin’ to get my comments done.

21ST CENTURY WARFARE: Command Posts: Hunter, or Hunted?

For generations, the US military’s senior leadership in the field had no reason to worry about being on the receiving end of enemy fires at their command posts. Even at the company level but especially at higher echelons, we expected that we would be safe and secure in our command posts. Command posts were where one watched, planned, and executed operations – not become player in one.

One of the defining characteristics early in the Russo-Ukrainian War was the high loss rate of Russian General Officers from enemy action. Part of this was due to the top-down traditions in the Russian Army that required direct, forward, and in person direction and guidance – but a significant part of that was the Ukrainian military’s reaching out to eliminate senior leadership where they led the fight – their command posts.

As precision long range conventional fires and the ISR that supports them become more common on even the most primitive battlefield, is it time for the USA and her allies to reconsider their own reliance on large, static, and “noisy” command posts?

Yes.

UPDATE: From the comments: “Current GO ranks are doing damage that costs our enemies nothing. They’d want to leave them alive.” Sadly plausible.

HOW IT STARTED: West Hollywood Redirects Funding from Sheriff’s Department to Other Public Safety Programs.

—KNBC, June 29th, 2022.

How it’s going: Actor James Woods: Watch How W. Hollywood’s ‘Safety Ambassadors’ Handled an Assault in Progress.

—MRC TV, yesterday.

Gooder and harder, California.