This issue features a Special Technology Report looking in depth at the latest developments in the world of Printing and Labelling solutions.

Also included is a ‘Cover Story’: Gartner explains that by 2026, 30% of enterprises will automate more than half of their network activities, an increase from under 10% in mid-2023.

Modernisation of a warehouse can increase performance and service life. Edward Hutchison, Managing Director of BITO Storage Systems asks: have you considered retrofitting existing pallet racking?

With Halloween coinciding with school half-term and the religious festival of Diwali this year, UK shoppers embraced spooky season, delivering a boost to in-store shopper traffic, the latest data from Sensormaic Solutions, the leading retail traffic consulting and analytics group from Johnson Controls, shows.

Numerous new developments in CONTACT’s Elements platform and innovative digitalisation strategies will take centre stage at this year’s Open World.

Business group Logistics UK has expressed its members’ mixed emotions about the new government’s first Budget. While the industry is reassured by the freeze in fuel duty, the hike in National Insurance contributions from employers and higher business rates, amongst other tax rises, will be a real challenge for a sector that operates on small margins.

New thinking in online fulfilment order picking that combines long established warehouse ‘wave’ picking techniques with state-of-the-art sorting robots is delivering eye-catching improvements in picking rates, says Frazer Watson, Global Vice President of Rainbow Dynamics.

Philip Jarrett, commercial director, Dakota Integrated Solutions.

With the world of data capture becoming ever more fast-paced and advanced with the advent of the latest and greatest mobile computing and printing devices, the capabilities of which continue to supersede their predecessors, it is sometimes easy to overlook one of the most important elements of any supply chain solution: the label.

Lars Pruijn, Innovation Director, and Lorenzo D'Arsie, Computer Vision Product Manager at Prime Vision, examine computer vision technology and the new opportunities it provides in the postal and parcel sectors.

“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails,” Dolly Parton once said. In the face of uncertainty and disruption, all we can do is adapt. This rings especially true for the logistics industry, which has been subject to major disruption over the last five years. Here, Dave Walsha, sales and marketing director at drive system supplier EMS, explores how robotics could streamline internal logistics operations.

The Green Party of the United States rebuffed efforts by Ralph Nader to win its endorsement for president by voting Saturday to make David Cobb its 2004 presidential candidate.

The advertising push behind Michael Moore's new documentary is angering some Republicans, who say it is little more than a commercial campaign devised to help Senator John Kerry.

The Law and Political Economy Project at Yale Law School is hosting the following panel:

The Political Economy of Inequality, Democracy & Oligarchy, on Friday, November 13, 2020 at 5:00 pm eastern time.

This panel discussion will focus upon the erosion of democratic institutions and the rise of oligarchy that has followed in the wake of unprecedented economic inequality. The panel will address elite efforts to entrench themselves politically as well as economically, including the consequences of such efforts in terms of human development. The panel will focus upon the specific context of election 2020 and the uncertainty it is creating. The subversion of democracy and the law governing our democracy naturally holds many costs, and each panelist will address such costs. Each panelist will also seek to articulate some mechanism for a path forward.  Register here

PANELISTS:

Emma Coleman Jordan, Georgetown Law Center

andré douglas pond cummings, Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law

Atiba Ellis, Marquette University Law School

Steven Ramirez, Loyola University of Chicago School of Law

Gerald Torres, Yale Law School

In 2020, pivotal events ushered in a season of antiracism rhetoric in the U.S. The brutal deaths of unarmed black Americans at the hands of police officers and white vigilantes, and the disproportionately harsh impact of COVID-19 in the black American community, launched the nation into a discussion about systemic racism. Unfortunately, it seems likely that the 2020 antiracism discourse was merely seasonal rather than enduring, and unlikely to result in meaningful change. 

Black American’s vulnerability in the face of systemic racism is not limited to death, sickness and injury as a result of COVID-19 or antiblack bias in police departments. Our vulnerability is precipitated by things like lack of access to nonpredatory financial services. This is just one of the contexts that compromise black Americans’ economic survival. Unacknowledged systemic racism destroys the wealth and wellbeing of black individuals, families and communities, sometimes causing working and middle-class black Americans to plummet into poverty. As 2020 comes to a close, an election that threatened democracy in the U.S. and the existential threats of an uncontrolled pandemic, eclipse a system of intentional antiblack racism on the part of the financial institutions that engaged in predatory mortgage lending in the years leading up to and beyond the 2008 recession. It is now well documented that lenders, brokers, and mortgage servicers engaged in conduct that was fraudulent and misleading. The mortgage market charged excessively high rates and fees, engaged in high-pressure sales tactics, imposed unnecessarily harsh prepayment penalties, and distorted loan structures to avoid the application of consumer protection statutes.  But, more than a decade later, many black Americans are still fighting to prevent financial institutions from taking away their homes. 

In a book I coauthored with Dr. Janis Sarra, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, Predatory Lending and the Destruction of the African American Dream (Cambridge University Press, 2020), we describe new iterations of predation that continue to target black consumers years after financial institutions settled litigation that alleged pervasive fraud on their part for steering black Americans into predatory subprime loans. But these renovated predatory practices are obscured by the nation’s focus on COVID-19 and a vitriolic election season. Meanwhile, more black Americans will lose their homes even after investing all or most of their wealth in attempts to keep them. This reality requires the calls for moratoriums on mortgage foreclosures to be answered in the affirmative.

Several years ago, my friend, colleague and mentor, andre cummings, and I created and defined what we call "Corporate Justice."  "At its core, Corporate Justice refers to a responsibility, even a moral obligation, which businesses and corporations have to engage fairly, civilly and responsibly in the world and community that they do business and from which they derive profits. More than that, the concept of Corporate Justice also focuses on the roles that shareholders, policy makers, other stakeholders and the community at large have in fostering a more just and responsible business community."  Our conversation led to the creation of a course, a book, several presentations, and this blog.  In conceptualizing "Corporate Justice," our primary focus was on large corporations and their impact on the world around us.  That perspective influenced much of the work we have completed on the topic as well as the way that we conceptualized its impact.  However, after a recent community event I facilitated here in Miami, Florida, I was presented with a thought provoking question “what does corporate justice mean for small businesses?”  I had never considered this question and realized that I had made a substantial oversight in failing to do so.  Small business are the life line of many communities and they meet the immediate needs of the people in areas in which they operate.  Given that reality, I have begun to critically think about what Corporate Justice at the “micro” level means.  Specifically, do small businesses have the same obligations that we might expect from large corporations?  Over the next few days I plan to think more about this question and welcome your input and insight.  Next week, I will provide you with my initial response.  I look forward to reading about your insights on the issue.  

 

 

All times are Eastern.  

To register and attend by Zoom for free, click here.

 I just published a new law review article with the Seattle University Law Review entitled: Students for Fair Admissions: Affirming Affirmative Action and Shapeshifting Towards Cognitive Diversity? The article can be downloaded here: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sulr/vol47/iss4/7/. Here is the abstract:

The Roberts Court holds a well-earned reputation for overturning Supreme Court precedent regardless of the long-standing nature of the case. The Roberts Court knows how to overrule precedent. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), the Court’s majority opinion never intimates that it overrules Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court’s leading opinion permitting race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Instead, the Roberts Court applied Grutter as authoritative to hold certain affirmative action programs entailing racial preferences violative of the Constitution. These programs did not provide an end point, nor did they require assessment, review, periodic expiration, or revision for greater institutional efficacy, including possible race-neutral alternatives. The programs also failed to break down stereotypes through the introduction of a critical mass to empower diverse voices. The programs thereby resembled prohibited quotas or racial balancing. As such, the programs at issue violated Grutter, which still governs race-based affirmative action in college admissions. More importantly, the Roberts court paved the way for more expansive diversity-based admissions programs by permitting institutions to value individual racial experiences, which authentically further an institution’s mission and interests. After SFFA, the use of race as a factor could well face time limits. Contrastingly, individualized racial experiences may benefit college applicants at institutions that embrace diversity in an authentic way without facing any time limitation. Further, institutions with distinct missions may value diversity in a race-conscious way but without any racial preference. In sum, the Roberts Court guides the use of race in college admissions toward a race-neutral, diversity-based paradigm such that institutions may still unlock the empirically proven benefits of cultural diversity with only de minimus interference from the courts. This approach rests upon a powerful policy basis that leads to superior innovation, macroeconomic outcomes, social cohesion and, therefore, superior national security for the United States. This approach thus could support a powerful interest convergence.

The article shows that Supreme Court did not overrule its prior affirmative action precedents, and in fact paved the way for universities to embrace cultural and cognitive diversity to enrich their educational missions. This is important because the case has been widely misconstrued.

My next article will extend the Court's holding to corporate DEI efforts and demonstrate that such efforts are not only remain lawful but also essential to rational human resources management.

Currently, the nation and perhaps the world struggles with the recent jury verdict against Donald Trump finding him guilty of 34 felony counts. Trump claims that the verdict proves Joe Biden uses the criminal justice system as a political tool intended to defeat his political opponents, in this case him. On the other hand, many take the position that the case demonstrates the triumph of the rule of law because it proves that even the most privileged and powerful of citizens must ultimately reckon with legal accountability. I opt for the conclusion that the case exemplifies a healthy rule of law operating to impose reasonable and predictable accountability and consequences for even the most powerful governing elites in American today for the following six reasons.

First, and foremost, the guilty verdict reflects the unanimous conclusion of 12 jurors, after careful deliberation and judicial instruction, empaneled pursuant to pre-announced New York Law. Donald Trump, like all criminal defendants, held the power to refuse a limited number of jurors without cause and to move to strike jurors for cause. The jurors hailed from Trump's former home state and the headquarters of the Trump Organization—New York. It is noteworthy that not a single juror dissented from the verdict and that they reached the verdict without any judicial cajoling through, for example, an Allen charge. The jury questioned the evidence and the instructions to assure they acted properly. They deliberated about 12 hours after spending five weeks listening to witness testimony and reviewing other evidence including extensive documents. Trump's high-powered legal team exercised their right to cross-examine witnesses, explain away evidence and submit their own exculpatory evidence. Despite these rights, the best legal team money could buy failed to raise any reasonable doubt with even one juror, on even one count, regarding Trump’s guilt.

Second, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg holds a well-earned reputation as a professional prosecutor who gets the job done and gets it done professionally. Recall that Bragg endured severe criticism for declining to prosecute Trump for tax fraud in 2022, prompting two prosecutors to resign. Bragg apparently found the case against Trump too risky to warrant pursuit. Instead, he meticulously built this case which proved bullet-proof. Bragg won his office through an election of local voters and does not work for Joe Biden or even the federal government. The man holds total legal independence from the Biden Administration and proved himself as a non-partisan prosecutor by letting Trump walk on other fraud charges in 2022. The fact that he sought a Grand Jury indictment against Trump on this case suggests that there was probable cause that Trump committed the crimes—a fact that the jury's verdict fully vindicates.

Third, Justice Juan Merchan presided over the entire Trump matter with appropriate judicial restraint. Given Trump’s contemptuous misconduct and constant threats of violence against the judge, his family, his staff and the jury, Merchan certainly held the power to imprison Trump for contempt. He held his fire and allowed the jury to do its job. Despite Fox “News” reports to the contrary, the evidence suggests the Judge ruled on objections and other procedural matters with judicious wisdom. He righteously rejected Trump’s efforts to dismiss the charges, as proven by the unanimous jury verdict on all counts. Again, Merchan, a New York state judge, holds total legal independence from the Biden Administration and, Trump and his team produced zero evidence that Biden even attempted to influence Merchan.

Fourth, Trump himself knew he faced an uphill battle once he decided not to testify and take the stand to declare his innocence. Due to Trump’s decision the jury never heard Trump deny the charges, claim innocence or explain the mountain of evidence against him in the form of witnesses, key documents, or the tape-recording directing Cohen to pay Daniels by check. In fact, there was no defense theory of the case. Trump would not exude credibility as a witness due to his history of fraud, and he would risk a finding of perjury if he claimed innocence under oath or if he simply made-up stories on the stand. In any event, many defendants face challenges testifying on their own behalf, but Trump made that call, not Joe Biden.

Fifth, after reviewing the jury instructions, I saw no error, in that the instructions fairly reflect governing law in New York. While some complain reasonably that the jury was not required to identify the precise crime that transforms misdemeanor falsification of records into a felony, there is Supreme Court authority in support of this. Juries typically do not need to identify with particularity (nor even agree upon a particular predicate crime) a predicate crime to a felony charge; here the crime Trump intended to further with false business records. The US Supreme Court might well make up some means of saving Donald Trump (see Trump v. United States and Trump v. Anderson). Justice Merchan, however, cannot read the minds of the conservative Court majority and it is not his job to predict ways the Supreme Court can throw lifelines to former President Trump. Merchan’s instructions reflect the law today and that is the goal of jury instructions, not to craft new innovations to save Trump.

Sixth, all the cries of conspiracy theory and a rigged justice system from Trump and his minions lack any evidentiary foundation. They produced zero evidence that Joe Biden masterminded this entire prosecution. The claim is facially absurd. Biden did not set up Trumps illicit and adulterous liaisons, Trump did. Biden did not meet with David Pecker to set up a scheme to hide Trump’s prior bad acts in the run-up to election 2016. Trump signed the checks reimbursing Cohen the hush money paid to Trump’s co-adulterers. Trump can only blame Trump for his 34 felony convictions.

In light of the above, I conclude that Donald Trump enjoyed all the due process the US Constitution accords criminal defendants. Of course, with his billions, Trump can afford the very best lawyers which most defendants cannot. As former President, Trump enjoys the right to argue before many justices he appointed which most defendants do not. From a rule of law perspective the case proves that even the richest and most politically powerful must answer for their crimes.

 On March 11, 2024, Donald Trump claimed that cutting Social Security and Medicare could help him cut the national debt tremendously. (See video above). On March 22, 2024, the House GOP announced cuts including a plan to raise the retirement age. This was the second straight year that the House GOP proposed a budget with deep Social Security and Medicare cuts. Trump started promising cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his second term before some audiences as early as January of 2020.  At a Fox News Town Hall in March of 2020, again promised to cut Social Security and Medicare.

All of this talk of cuts forms the prelude to last Thursday's debate which included a question about cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Biden gave a straight-forward answer saying that no cuts are necessary if we raise the Social Security tax to the same level for all. Currently, those making high incomes pay much lower rates than those making low incomes. As President Biden explained at the debate:

Right now, everybody making under $170,000 pays 6 percent of their income, of their paycheck, every single time they get a paycheck, [But] millionaires pay 1 percent – 1 percent. So . . . I would not raise the cost of Social Security for anybody under $400,000. After that, I begin to make the wealthy begin to pay their fair share, by increasing from 1 percent beyond, to be able to guarantee the program for life.

That provides a sensible and efficient means of securing Social Security. And, Biden never varies from that position.

Trump on the other hand, takes different positions with different audiences and covers the full spectrum of options. According to NBC News:

An NBC News examination found that Trump's views have zigzagged over the years — from calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” in 2000 to endorsing then-Rep. Paul Ryan’s plans to restructure Medicare in 2012 to positioning himself as the protector of those programs in 2016 to taking aim at some retirement spending in his White House budgets (which never became law).

Essentially we know Trump is lying because of his radically divergent positions over time. In fact, in 2016 he promised to preserve Social Security and Medicare, and then in his budgets he proposed cuts.

 In recent months, Trump opened the way for Social Security and Medicare cuts and refuses to disclaim the GOP plan to cut those programs as, shown above. Which brings us to the his debate comments in response to a question about entitlement cuts. While Biden gave a simple and clear statement of how he intends to save Social Security and Medicare, Trump attacked Biden's honesty and switched the topic to immigration, Russia, Ukraine, a mysterious laptop, the VA, and luxury hotels. Trump was incoherent. Remarkably, he never addressed his recent comments about Social Security and Medicare cuts, nor the GOP plan to cut Social Security and Medicare. Trump provided no explanation of his prior budget proposals including Social Security and Medicare cuts.  As stated in the Washington Post: "Protecting Social Security . . . was also a major theme of Trump’s 2016 campaign. His avowed stance, however, is at odds with Trump’s own record as president: Each of his White House budget proposals included cuts to Social Security and Medicare programs."

Trump has staked out so many positions on Social Security that no matter what he says he lies. The only thing we know for sure about Trump and entitlements is that despite campaign promises to the contrary he included Social Security and Medicare cuts in each of his annual budget proposals as President. Given the GOP commitment to cutting Social Security and Medicare a vote for any GOP candidate is a vote to slash your Social Security and Medicare benefits by about 30 percent. If Trump gets elected the GOP will have a clear path to gutting Social Security and Medicare as he promised to do in a second term in 2020, and regardless of any lies or gibberish he feeds the voters today. 

 On September 17, 1787, upon exiting the final session of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin told a bystander that the Founders had established “A republic, if you can keep it.” In my youth this statement made little sense because I assumed humans would always want democratic self-governance instead of dictatorship. Humans will always value freedom including self-governance over oppression.

Today, our Constitutional Republic faces grave dangers and unprecedented political challenges that prove Franklin’s point. The Constitution requires constant citizen vigilance to assure that as political winds blow from whatever direction our Constitution endures to assure the freedom and self-governance of successive generations of Americans. Citizens must certainly value the freedom of all over petty partisan advantage.

Today that certainty wavers, and I understand more than ever how dictatorships and autocracies take root and how republics and democracies fail. We now face an epic election on November 5. The presidential candidates run neck and neck. Our Constitutional Republic hangs in the balance. The manifest threats include:

1)    1.   One candidate openly called for the “termination” of the Constitution merely so that he could maintain his grip on power, legally or not.

2)    2.   That candidate previously gathered an angry mob, on January 6, 2021, and told them to “fight like hell” to stop the Constitutional certification of election 2020. That mob subsequently brutalized the Capitol Police and vandalized the Capitol all in an effort to overturn a Constitutional election at his behest. Today, he calls those convicted of criminal misconduct on January 6, “unbelievable patriots”, and he promises to pardon them all.

3)    3.    He openly ridicules and defames the integrity of our Constitutional elections and attacks American elections as “rigged” and “fraudulent” without any evidence. Over 60 courts of law rejected these lies, including rulings by judges he appointed. Today, he leads an effort undermine the certainty of our elections, and use violence and chaos to sow mistrust of democracy in America.

4)     4.   A jury he helped pick, from his native state, found him unanimously guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of 34 felony counts of illegally influencing election 2016 through hush money payments to a porn star to cover up an adulterous affair.

5)      5.  He insults our military heroes willing to die for our Constitution and the hard-won freedoms it secures, calling them “losers” and “suckers” according to, among others, his own handpicked and longest serving Chief of Staff, General John Kelly.

6)     6.   He courts the favor and affection of brutal dictators. He leaked classified intel to one and “fell in love” with another who now menaces virtually our entire nation with nuclear weapons.

7)    7.    He faces criminal charges that he mishandled classified documents, refused to return documents belonging to the United States and obstructed justice.

8)    8. He openly promises to be a dictator on Day One. This promise entails massive Constitutional violations.

9)     9.  He promises “bloody” violence if he should prevail and implement his unconstitutional proposal for “mass deportations” with no due process and massive violations of human rights.

10  10.  Even today, he refuses to commit to the peaceful transition of power. He persistently refuses to ever concede defeat.

No President nor candidate for the White House ever committed any single one of these offenses against the Constitution. Each offense renders a person unfit for the Presidency.

Combined, these offenses make Donald Trump incapable of credibly taking and adhering to his oath of office to defend the Constitution. This inability to take the oath of office usually plays no role in an election. Today it assumes the utmost importance. Trump attacks our Constitution and seeks unbridled power. Donald Trump’s extreme embrace of fascism complete with Big Lies, scapegoating and hatred renders him the most unfit candidate in history. 

 

No President nor nominee in US history so openly and brazenly pursued a fascist dictatorship like Donald Trump does today. In fact, many of Trump's own handpicked senior advisers from his first term as President issue urgent warnings today about Trump's drive to dictatorship. For example:

1)    TRUMP'S LONGEST SERVING CHIEF OF STAFF MARINE GENERAL JOHN KELLY

John Kelly enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1970, and was discharged as a sergeant in 1972. Following college graduation in 1976, he returned to the Marines as an infantry officer. Kelly rose to Brigadier General and served in Iraq for the better part of 2 years. Kelly deployed again to Iraq in 2008 after promotion to Major General. Ultimately, in his last military post, from 2012 to 2016 he served as a four-star general leading the United States Southern Command, the unified combatant command responsible for American military operations in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

President Trump appointed Kelly the Secretary of Homeland Security in 2017. Trump promoted Kelly to Chief of Staff on July 31, 2017. At the time, Trump called Kelly a "great American" who has "done a spectacular job at Homeland Security" and "been a true star of my administration."

The New York Times published an interview with Kelly, on Oct. 22, 2024, available here. According to General Kelly: “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist. . . . He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.” Further, the General said that "a very big surprise for him was that we were — those of us who were former generals and certainly people still on active duty — that the commitment, the loyalty was to the Constitution, without question, without second thought. That was a big surprise to him that the generals were not loyal to the boss, in this case him.” Trump apparently failed middle school history.

2)      TRUMP'S HANDPICKED CHAIR OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF MARK MILLEY

Four star General Mark Milley became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 30, 2019, and served as the nation's highest ranking military officer for four years until September of 2023.  Milley first became a commissioned officer in 1980 after graduating from Princeton University. As chairman, General Milley acted as the principal military advisor to the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.

When Milley took his oath as Chair, Donald Trump said of his appointee: "In his new role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley will serve as my top military advisor. I have absolute confidence that he will fulfill his duty with the same brilliance and fortitude he has shown throughout his long and very distinguished career."

Today the retired General says of Trump: “He is the most dangerous person ever. [N]ow I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country, a fascist to the core.” In his retirement speech Milley stated: "“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or a dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

3)    13 FORMER TRUMP OFFICIALS IN SUPPORT OF THE GENERALS

In the wake of comments from General Kelly (and fully consistent with the comments of General Milley), 13 Trump appointees wrote a letter of support stating:

Donald Trump's disdain for the American military and admiration for dictators like Hitler is rooted in his desire for absolute, unchecked power. This is a man who threw his own Vice President – Mike Pence – at a violent mob in a desperate bid to hold on to power. When Donald Trump says he wants to be a "dictator" on "day one" and deploy the military against American citizens he deems “the enemy from within"--he means it. . . . We did not take the decision to come forward lightly. We are all lifelong Republicans who served our country. However, there are moments in history where it becomes necessary to put country over party. This is one of those moments.

All of these Trump Administration appointees, including many serving in senior positions, worked day-to-day with Trump and witnessed first hand how he governs and how he seeks to accumulate dictatorial powers.

4)     FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JAMES MATTIS

Four star Marine General James Mattis served as Trump's first handpicked Secretary of Defense, from Trump's inauguration through early 2019. Mattis previously served as a Marine officer starting in 1971, and saw combat in Operation Dessert Storm, Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

General Mattis posits that Donald Trump is unfit because he places himself above the Constitution. More specifically, Mattis issued a statement after the J6 insurrection that said:

Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump. His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice. Our Constitution and our Republic will overcome this stain and We the People will come together again in our never-ending effort to form a more perfect Union, while Mr. Trump will deservedly be left a man without a country.

Mattis previously levelled serious objections to Trump's fitness as President due to his misconduct in the summer of 2020, in the wake of protests triggered by the police murder of George Floyd. He stated:

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. 

5)    FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MARK ESPER 

After graduating from West Point, Mark Esper joined the United States Army and served during the 1990-91 Gulf War as an officer with the 101st Airborne Division. Former President Trump appointed him as the Secretary of Defense and he assumed office on July 19, 2019.

When asked about the former Generals assertions that Trump seeks to impose a dictatorship Esper stated: "It's hard to say that he doesn't. . . .he certainly has those inclinations. And I think it's something we should be wary about." Esper suggests voters look up the term "fascism" and determine on their own if Trump fits the bill. He also praised the Generals for raising the issue and gave them high marks for integrity and honesty.

The Esper interview with CNN is available here.

6)   FORMER VICE PRESIDENT PENCE

In an extraordinary development, Vice President Mike Pence refuses to endorse Donald Trump for President in election 2024. Pence stated that Trump should never sit in the Oval Office again because Trump put himself and his hold on power above the Constitution. The video above explains his position best.

CONCLUSION

The 18 patriots quoted above all say in unison that Donald Trump cannot rule our country again because he cannot adhere to the Constitution. Instead he will seek extra-Constitutional power and try to rule as a dictator. Trump himself promises to rule as a dictator on Day 1. These warnings come from life-long conservatives and from Trump's hand picked officials at the most senior levels of the Trump Administration. They saw Trump at work in the Oval Office daily--they know much more than us. They risk their lives and the lives of their family. We must heed these unprecedented warnings and take Trump at his word. The Constitution today demands that we all follow the distinguished leaders above and act courageously to protect our Great Constitutional Republic. History will judge us on this most important issue. We must not elect a dictator who promises to "terminate" the Constitution for power.

The debate rages between the Fraunhofer encoder and the LAME encoder for encoding podcasts. Listen for yourself and see if you can tell the difference.

The post Which is the Best MP3 Encoder for Podcasts? appeared first on Richard Farrar.

A technical analysis of the top 4 podcasts about podcasting looking at the audio production, file formats and embedded meta-data used by each podcast

The post A Quasi-technical Analysis of the Top Podcasts about Podcasting appeared first on Richard Farrar.

AS A wicketkeeper, Hannah Trethewy is often the least praised team member on the cricket pitch.

The Sydney South West Zone Little Athletics Championships showed the best the area has to offer in junior competition over the weekend.

They are the first all boys school to take out the NSW mountain biking title — but now they have set their sights on winning at Nationals.

The travelled far and wide, but it was all worth it for the Lindfield Public School cricket team.

Lane Cove Masters’ swimmer John De Vries romped to four gold medals and a Pan Pacific record on the Gold Coast last month.

JOSHUA Atkinson definitely has his running shoes on and he pretty much only stops to pick up some of the numerous awards he’s bagged this past year.

BETTING agency Sportsbet has predicted Macarthur to be the only western Sydney seat expected to change hands after Saturday’s Federal Election.

Wests Tigers players raised $22,000 to support flood-devastated Picton overnight, after walking more than 80km from the club’s Concord Oval base to the Wollondilly shire town.

Former Elizabeth Macarthur High School student Andrew Loadsman has progressed to the final eight as a contestant on The Voice, and will fight for a place in the top four on Sunday night.

A pair of geese owned by champion breeder Michael Peel have set a new Australian record price at a live auction dubbed the ‘poultry Olympics’.

Malcolm Turnbull’s government has today announced new funding of $600,000 towards a radical “ice bed” pilot program in Sydney’s west.

Australia’s largest Islamic School has been saved for another term after Federal Government officials agreed to hand over more than $5 million in an 11th hour funding move.

THE ICAC is investigating planning decisions taken by the former Canterbury Council after investigators raided Campsie council offices last week.

Graeme Webb was clinically dead for more than 40 minutes. A year on, the Hammondville man who has been dubbed the Miracle Man, relives his story and talks about how life has changed.

Cricketer Ethan Jamieson is only 12, but he is already spoiled for choice — with both St George and Sydney University Green Shield sides chasing him.

NSW police began an investigation after reports emerged of an alleged axe attack and kidnapping in Hornsby last week.

BENNELONG’S nation-leading house price increase showed people were suffering with high rents and the inability to on their own home, according to some election candidates.

JODIE Pearson agrees “petite” is a fair description of her 58kg, 170cm frame. So why would she risk a battering in the brutal sport of American football?

HE jumped off a building on the end of a sling, clambered up a 10m-high zip line in high winds, pounded up and down sand dunes, capsized in a canoe — NRL Rookie David Andjelic loved it.