As I’ve said, I would enjoy listening to Ryan discuss paint drying.
Anyway, there is a lot of wisdom here, but the best thing is that I learned about the Spartan Bipod System. I had never seen this before. It doesn’t look any less expensive than other bipod manufacturers, and may be a bit pricier for the higher end models, but it seems to me to be worth it if it works as advertised.
I said I would watch out for TFBTV discussing the Beretta 1301 with Ernest Langdon, and here it is. He also compares and contrasts it with the more recent Beretta patrol shotgun (A300 OS, different from the A400).
Here is another review of the Beretta A400 Xcel Black Edition shotgun. It’s a looker (and the A400 models have the same OS as the 1301), and I like the Walnut furniture. It has a black anodized receiver.
The Supreme Court rolled back the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate under the Clean Water Act (CWA) in a unanimous decision Thursday.
Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, brought by a couple prevented by the EPA from building a home on their own land near Priest Lake, Idaho because it contained wetlands, considered the scope of the agency’s “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule, which defines what “navigable waters” can be regulated under the CWA. Plaintiffs Chantell and Mike Sackett, who have spent 15 years fighting the agency’s rule in court, allege the EPA has overstepped the authority it was granted when Congress enacted the CWA in 1972—forcing them to stop construction on their land or face fines.
The Supreme Court sided with the Sacketts, determining their land is not covered under the text of the CWA, which gives the EPA authority to regulate “navigable waters.”
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barett, that the EPA’s interpretation “provides little notice to landowners of their obligations under the CWA.” The Court held that the CWA applies to only wetlands that are “as a practical matter indistinguishable from waters of the United States,” maintaining a “continuous surface connection.”
EPA restrictions on wetlands is similar to civil asset forfeiture. It amounts to thievery. It’s wrong and everybody knows it.
The opinion was “unanimous,” but the picture isn’t so rosy as you might suspect.
Though justices were united in their judgement, they maintained disagreements on definitions. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in an opinion concurring in judgement that was joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, thought the majority went too far in its test for which wetlands are included.
“By narrowing the Act’s coverage of wetlands to only adjoining wetlands, the Court’s new test will leave some long-regulated adjacent wetlands no longer covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States,” he wrote.
Kagan similarly said in an opinion joined by Sotomayor and Jackson that the majority has appointed itself as “the national decision-maker on environmental policy” by choosing a test that “prevents the EPA from keeping our country’s waters clean by regulating adjacent wetlands.”
“The eight administrations since 1977 have maintained dramatically different views of how to regulate the environment, including under the Clean Water Act,” she wrote, noting some “promulgated very broad interpretations of adjacent wetlands.”
“Yet all of those eight different administrations have recognized as a matter of law that the Clean Water Act’s coverage of adjacent wetlands means more than adjoining wetlands and also includes wetlands separated from covered waters by man-made dikes or barriers, natural river berms, beach dunes, or the like,” she wrote. “That consistency in interpretation is strong confirmation of the ordinary meaning of adjacent wetlands.”
So the other “justices” sided with the sensible ones, but they want all but the most obvious examples to be decided by the FedGov, with property owned by the same.
Thus, the Leviathan only got his hand slapped rather than smitten into ruin on the rocks like he should have been.
Interestingly, Mark Smith sees this as very important for gun owners. See how this decision applies to the ATF and why lawyers will be citing it in the coming months.
When local bureaucrats in Hennepin County, Minnesota, seized an elderly woman’s home over a small tax debt, sold it, and kept the profit, they likely had no idea they would set in motion a series of events that would cripple the practice known as “home equity theft” across the country.
Yet that’s what happened. The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled that the government violated the Constitution when it took possession of Geraldine Tyler’s condo over an overdue property tax bill, auctioned the home, and pocketed the proceeds in excess of what she actually owed.
Tyler, who is now 94 years old, purchased the Minneapolis-area condo in 1999. But a series of events, including a neighborhood shooting, prompted her to relocate to a retirement community in 2010, at which point it became difficult for her to pay both her new rent and the property taxes on her former home. She accrued a $2,300 tax bill, which turned into an approximately $15,000 bill after the government added on $13,000 in penalties, interest, and fees. Local officials then sold the home for $40,000—and kept the remaining $25,000.
Tyler spent years arguing that such a taking was unconstitutional. But despite the case appearing fairly black and white from the outset, she had no such luck in the lower courts. When her case went before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, its ruling was also unanimous—in favor of the government. “Where state law recognizes no property interest in surplus proceeds from a tax foreclosure-sale conducted after adequate notice to the owner, there is no unconstitutional taking,” wroteJudge Steven Colloton.
The Supreme Court forcefully overturned that decision today. “A taxpayer who loses her $40,000 house to the State to fulfill a $15,000 tax debt has made a far greater contribution to the public fisc than she owed,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the Court. “The taxpayer must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but no more.”
At the heart of the case is the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which stipulates that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use without just compensation.” In explaining the justices’ decision, Roberts traced the spirit of the law back to the Magna Carta, then to English law, and ultimately to the States, buttressed by several Supreme Court precedents which, as Roberts wrote, “have also recognized the principle that a taxpayer is entitled to the surplus in excess of the debt owed.”
Tyler is far from the only victim of this practice. Home equity theft is legal in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, and the District of Columbia, although today’s ruling should hamstring those forfeiture schemes.
Civil asset forfeiture is thievery and therefore sinful. There is no other way to see it, and every individual, whether associated with the government or not, who has participated in or enabled such a scheme, should be ashamed, and will certainly face eternal punishment. It’s an abomination that the Eighth Circuit found in favor of the state, and equally absurd that the Supreme Court took so long to take this head on and smash it to the ground in pieces.
Firearms manufacturer Kalashnikov has unveiled an upgraded AK-12 assault rifle, with modifications based on the weapon’s use in the war on Ukraine.
[ … ]
As part of the upgrade, the rifle’s two-round burst mode was excluded from the latest design, because it didn’t increase the weapon’s efficiency significantly and complicated its layout, according to TASS.
The other changes were aimed at making the rifle easier to operate.
The AK-12 has several mounting platforms that allow the installation of additional gear, such as sights, a front handle, a flashlight, a laser designator, as well as devices for noiseless and flameless fire, according to TASS.
Interesting. They’ve added (I assume) a better flash hider, and made the rifles suppressor-capable. They appear to have added capability for modularization with points of connection for illumination, lasers, etc., perhaps also better capability for optics mounting (although no picture is provided so I can’t be sure).
They’ve also removed the capability for two-round burst. This isn’t surprising. My son never used the 3-round burst capability of the M4 in Iraq. The only time he used full auto capability was with the SAW. Lightweight rifles with full auto capability interfere with the main function of the semi-automatic rifle, i.e., being a battle rifle.
Full auto guns are area suppression weapon systems, and need the heavier barrel to keep from melting, the open-bolt system for cooling, etc. That runs contrary to the concept of the battle rifle and the appurtenant doctrine.
The FBI is investigating the death of a tribal member in Arizona after U.S. Border Patrol agents shot him Thursday, authorities said.
Customs and Border Protection officials said agents from the Ajo Border Patrol Station shot the man around 10 p.m. local time on the Tohono O’odham reservation near Ajo, Arizona.
The shooting is under review by Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility, officials said. The Tohono O’odham Nation police also are investigating.
[ … ]
According to Mattia’s family, Mattia called Border Patrol because there were “multiple illegal immigrants who had trespassed into his yard and he wanted assistance getting them out of his property,” they told Tucson TV station KVOA.
When the agents arrived, the family said, Mattia went outside and was shot, KVOA reported.
Apparently, the Border Patrol is not immune from the same stupidity that seems to affect most law enforcement. Make a call, LEOs show up and shoot the innocent caller.
Move on. Nothing to see here.
“You’re never in more danger than when the police are around” … except maybe when illegals are around.
When my children were young, I told them obedience was doing the right thing at the right time with the right attitude.
This cop is a mommy. She wants the right attitude, whether she was right or not. It was really a ‘he’ but he acts like a she so I called him she. [S]he wants to be mommy and sees everyone as her child who needs to be corrected.
Worst of all, she is perpetuating the mommy department of pre-crime, arresting men over what she thinks they might do in the future.
Honestly, where do they get these people? How come law enforcement attracts awful people like this?
The Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland said it best: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” How do you navigate the millions of acres of public land and walk-in ground just waiting for you to drop the tailgate and unclip your dog’s leash? Rather than wandering, perplexed as a hunter on Rodeo Drive, here’s how to map out your pheasant quest.
It starts with a destination, dictated in large part by how far you’re willing to travel. If you know how to read, you’ve already got an idea of where you want to go. Each region has sweet spots handed down from father to son, shared by multi-generational groups and “discovered” by newbies dazzled by clouds of birds darkening the sky at the end of a cut-cornfield drive. My revelation came at the nub of an ancient shelterbelt in South Dakota. It was being pushed by two friends while I shivered, hopes high and temperature low. Out of the mist rose a mob of what I thought were blackbirds they were so numerous, until a roar of wings and telltale cackles broke the still air.
I missed twice, shook my head, reloaded and dropped a late riser whose technicolor pelage vibrated against the pristine snow even when stilled by my shot. That was a good year, but even a bad year in South Dakota is better than most other places combined.
Other states have their proponents and having explored them all after three decades roaming public land, I understand the allure of each. Northeast Montana, Iowa, Nebraska, and western Kansas are all strong contenders for the bronze and silver medals. Not coincidentally, most of those states have sophisticated public-access initiatives to help hunters chase ringnecks across vast prairies and through shin-tangling thickets. “Walk-in” programs are the golden key that unlocks the door; start your quest there, long before you fill the tank and crate the dog.
Dickinson and Mott, North Dakota are worth your attention. They’re lower-key, smaller towns with fewer amenities than most, but surrounded by public access. Williston’s oil boom has subsided and lodging options are myriad. The rolling hills beckon, if you don’t mind the mix of drilling and development alongside your new favorite cover. Plentywood and other small towns in northeast Montana along the “High Line” are also on my radar. Western Kansas towns including Norton, Goodland, Jetmore and Osborne are podium-contenders, offering a 365-day license bargain and warmer late season weather.
Like the Oscars, I’m saving the best for last, but the supporting cast of South Dakota towns east of the Missouri River offer plenty of opportunity. Watertown, Aberdeen, Brookings, and Redfield welcome hunters and have plenty of public access. South Dakota counties with the highest pheasant harvest numbers include Brown, Beadle, Brule, Lyman, and Spink.
For those of us who don’t have trained bird dogs, we’re left at the mercy of outfitters and their dogs for guided hunts. That can get expensive.
I’ve got the quail hunting covered. If any of you have suggestions for Grouse and Pheasant, drop me a line in the comments.
2 years, 5 months ago
