The French undead inspire another very much alive Mogwai album.

Data-driven insights can help optimise the performance, maintenance and sustainability of warehouse automation. Dan Migliozzi, Sales & Marketing Director, at independent systems integrator, Invar Group, sets out how to achieve the best results.

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?

Supply Chain and Omnichannel Commerce Solutions provider Manhattan Associates Inc., has reported revenue of $266.7 million for the third quarter ended September 30, 2024. GAAP diluted earnings per share for Q3 2024 was $1.03 compared to $0.79 in Q3 2023. Non-GAAP adjusted diluted earnings per share for Q3 2024 was $1.35 compared to $1.05 in Q3 2023.

Printing and Labelling Technology Report

Manufacturing & Logistics IT Magazine spoke with leading analysts, vendors and associations about current developments within the printing and labelling technology marketplace about recent developments and what to look out for over the next year or two.

Online retailers saw a significant increase in online Halloween sales, bolstered by the event (31 Oct) falling during school half-term as well as coinciding with Diwali, according to data from Wunderkind, the AI-driven performance marketing solution.

Made Smarter, the movement accelerating the digital transformation of SME manufacturers, recently reached a major milestone - backing North West companies to invest £25m in new technologies.

By Georgia Leybourne, Chief Marketing Officer, Linnworks.

Success in ecommerce and retail today hinges on consumer convenience. It is fast becoming a powerful tool in the e-commerce industry, transforming the way businesses engage with their customers and increasing sales through social commerce.

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.

With the holiday season fast approaching, retail payroll teams around the world are bracing for the strain of seasonal hiring.

“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.

Tom Vilsack may not have the name recognition of John Edwards or Richard A. Gephardt, but make no mistake: He wants the job badly.

The lineup is intended to spotlight party moderates while underlining a central theme of the Republican gathering: President Bush's response to the Sept. 11 attacks.

A surprising number of swing voters may be listening to Howard Stern on their way to church.

In barely eight months, Arnold Schwarzenegger has defied the naysayers and found an elixir more potent than Botox for an aging action star: political success.

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 summer of Black Lives Matter protests responding to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks, among others, has led to stunning commitments from major banks and corporations to commit to social justice and promoting practices to recruit, hire and retain underrepresented populations, including black Americans, Latinx and female colleagues.  American Express just announced its pledge to invest $1 Billion to advance racial and gender equity.  JP Morgan Chase in October announced a $30 Billion commitment to advance racial equity.  Similarly, Citi and Bank of America have each pledged $1 Billion to promote economic mobility among communities of color.  Goldman Sachs, famously referred to as a vampire squid during the mortgage crisis in 2008, has announced its "Launch With Goldman Sachs" program "to increase capital and facilitate connections for women, Black, Latinx and other diverse entrepreneurs and investors."  These commitments represent huge infusions of capital into causes that these major corporations have just recently found religion upon.  Numerous corporations have made recent pledges to financially support social justice and economic equality including Google, Disney, Facebook, Amazon,  Cisco, DoorDash, Etsy, Home Depot, Intel, TikTok, Lego, Nike, Proctor & Gamble, Fashion Nova, WeWork, and YouTube, among so many others.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase stated in announcing its $30 billion-over-five-year commitment, that “[s]ystemic racism is a tragic part of America’s history. . . . We can do more and do better to break down systems that have propagated racism and widespread economic inequality, especially for Black and Latinx people. It’s long past time that society addresses racial inequities in a more tangible, meaningful way.”

For those long-time followers of the Corporate Justice Blog, these corporate pronouncements may seem ironic or perhaps will be received with trepidation or doubt.  Profit maximization has for years furiously driven corporate leadership to dizzying examples of fraud, corruption, and malfeasance as recorded on these blog pages for years.  Still, these Billion dollar commitments respond to a summer of true discontent and protest over inequality and the value of black lives, and if these corporations are to be taken seriously, these capital infusions could come as true gamechangers.  Will these corporations truly put their money where their commitments are?  And how do we hold these companies accountable to their commitments to advancing racial equality and economic mobility for those communities previously shut out?  

photo: Jamie Dimon, Wikimedia Commons

hat tip: Jessica Smith, 3L, Arkansas Little Rock Bowen School of Law

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.

On December 1st, 2020, Nasdaq filed a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt additional listing rules requiring enhanced board diversity and disclosure of firm diversity efforts.  The new listing rules require Nasdaq-listed companies to have on their board of directors, at least two diverse directors, including one who self-identifies as female and one who self-identifies as an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+.  If the firm does not meet this listing requirement, it must explain why they do not have at least two diverse directors sitting on their board.  Additionally, the new listing rules require Nasdaq-listed companies to publicly disclose consistent, transparent diversity statistics regarding its board of directors.  Nasdaq defines underrepresented minorities to include Black or African America, Hispanic or Latinx, Asian, Native American or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, two or more races or ethnicities.  Smaller reporting companies and foreign companies have additional flexibility in satisfying these new listing requirements by seating at least two female directors.  These new listing rules require approval from the SEC.

NASDAQ's stated goal for requiring diversity among its listed companies board makeups is to provide the investing public with a "better understanding of the company's current board composition and enhance investor confidence that all listed companies are considering diversity in the context of selecting directors, either by including at least two diverse directors on their boards or explaining their rationale for not meeting that objective." To support this new listing requirement, Nasdaq pointed to over 24 studies that found a link between diverse board and more robust financial performance with better corporate governance.  Under this proposal, Nasdaq-listed companies are required to publicly disclose board-level diversity statistics within one year of the SEC's approval of the rule.

CNN reports that Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman stated, "Nasdaq's purpose is to champion inclusive growth and prosperity to power stronger economies." Non compliance by Nasdaq-listed companies could lead to delisting.  

Nasdaq's move is part of a growing momentum to see that corporate board diversity is taken seriously across the United States.  California has for two years been requiring gender diversity on corporate boards and has recently begun requiring racial and ethnic diversity on California boards as well.  Goldman Sachs has recently announced that it will require any company that it assists in taking public must include at least one diverse board member. 

The Corporate Justice Blog has long advocated for board diversity as a priority for expanding human capital and realizing greater financial benefits for the firms and its shareholders. We argue that a commitment to diversifying the board, both in gender and racial diversity as well as worldview diversity enhances the performance of the corporations that so commit.  See here, here, here and here.

hat tip:  Deepali Lal, 3L, Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law 

photo: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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.  

 

Wikimedia Commons Philadelphia County Prison

In an important move that returns federal government policy to the Obama era, today President Biden signed an executive order calling on the Department of Justice to ends its use of private prisons.  While this executive order does not end federal government reliance on for-profit immigration detention centers, it does require that no future contracts with private prison operators be entered into between the federal government and private prison corporations CoreCivic, GEO Group and others.  Use of the executive order to end private for-profit prison reliance has proven difficult politically as Obama ended their use before the 2016 election, but once Trump entered the White House, he rescinded the policy and made robust use of private prisons for federal prisoners as well as immigration detention.

Eyewitness accounts regarding the events of January 6, 2021 give us the most reliable version of what happened that dark day. Particularly those eyewitnesses from the Republican Party who do not seek partisan advantage. For example:

"What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States."

Republican Senator & former Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney, Jan. 6, 2021. 

"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."

Former Trump Defense Secretary and Marine Corps General James Mattis, Jan. 6, 2021.

"The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like."

GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Jan. 19, 2021

"Today was a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol… We condemn the violence that took place here in the strongest possible terms… To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today, you did not win. Violence never wins. Freedom wins."

Trump Vice-President Mike Pence, January 6, 2021.

"These men and women in the uniform, they got overrun. One officer got killed…they got broken arms. You don’t understand what was transpiring at that moment and that time. . . . People brought ropes. . .[T]hey were well planned for it. They scaled walls. . . . They, they overtook the place.”

"Let me be clear: Last week’s violent attack on the Capitol was undemocratic, un-American and criminal…And make no mistake: Those who are responsible for Wednesday’s chaos will be brought to justice…The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters."

GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Jan. 13, 2021 

"Today, the people's House was attacked, which is an attack on the Republic itself. There is no excuse for it. A women died. And people need to go to jail. And the President should never have spun up certain Americans to believe something that simply cannot be."

GOP Rep. Chip Roy, Jan. 6, 2021.

WOW!  The US Capitol became a combat zone on January 6.

The legal upshot of the above is Trump and his cultists levied war against the US in violation of 18 USC section 2381! They engaged in an insurrection in violation 18 USC section 2383!

These provisions carry severe criminal sanctions and section 2383 prohibits insurrectionists from ever holding federal office again. Trump also disqualified himself from federal office under the Fourteenth Amendment, section 3. As painful as it may be, the Biden Administration has little choice but to fully investigate these potential violations of law immediately. Donald Trump in particular must face swift justice. .

In his unending fantasy and lies of victory, President Donald Trump unleashed a violent coup on our democracy, our constitutional republic and ultimately our freedom in the lawless pursuit of autocracy, dictatorship, and dimwitted megalomania. 

This directly aided and abetted the ongoing efforts of Vladimir Putin to use Russian New Generation Warfare (RNGW) to weaken, undermine, subvert, and diminish the power of the USA to defend itself and its interests and allies across the world. As Lt. General H.R. McMaster explains RNGW aims to weaken the US and other democratic societies through the sustained use of misinformation. They seek to “disrupt, divide and weaken” American democracy. Yet, again the Trumpists continue to toss the nation and its people into bloody pitched battle with each other while doing the bidding of Putin.

Addendum:

"[T]here can be no soft-pedaling what happened and no absolution for those who planned, encouraged and aided the attempt to overthrow our democracy, Love of country demands nothing less. That’s true patriotism.” 

Karl Rove, writing in the Wall Street Journal, Former Republican Political Operative, January, 6, 2022.

"The importance of January 6th as an historic event cannot be overstated. I was honored and proud to join my daughter on the House floor to recognize this anniversary, to commend the heroic actions of law enforcement that day, and to reaffirm our dedication to the Constitution.  I am deeply disappointed at the failure of many members of my party to recognize the grave nature of the January 6 attacks and the ongoing threat to our nation.”

Former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, January 6, 2022. 

January 6th, 2021 was a dark day for Congress and our country. The United States Capitol, the seat of the first branch of our federal government, was stormed by criminals who brutalized police officers and used force to try to stop Congress from doing its job. This disgraceful scene was antithetical to the rule of law. One year later, I am as grateful as ever for the brave men and women of the U.S. Capitol Police who served our institution bravely that day and every day since. I continue to support justice for those who broke the law.

GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, January 6, 2022. 

On the first anniversary of January 6, GOP Senator Ted Cruz and Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray called the violence "a violent terrorist attack on the Capitol" and "domestic terrorism," respectively.

 

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.

Donald Trump's longest serving and hand-picked Chief of Staff, Four Star Marine General John Kelley, recently confirmed that Trump called those serving in the military "suckers" and those making the ultimate sacrifice for our nation and our freedom "losers." These comments now confirmed through numerous sources prove Trump's unfitness for office. Some background:

 Donald Trump promises to sign an Executive Order on day one of his new term abolishing Birthright Citizenship. This will trigger litigation thar promises to land in Trump's Supreme Court for final adjudication, Assuming Trump prevails there, the GOP already introduced a Bill to abolish Birthright Citizenship legislatively. JD Vance co-sponsored that Bill. This amounts to an historically unprecedented assault on virtually every American's Citizenship. 

Amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify that no child is eligible for birthright citizenship if their parents are unlawfully present in the United States, present in the U.S. for diplomatic purposes, or engaged in a hostile operation against the U.S.

Notably, the Act proposed by Vance includes no limitation on this "clarification" of who enjoys citizenship and who does not. The Act includes no limitation on retroactive effect and lacks any express limitation providing for prospective impact only. The Constitution only proscribes retroactive criminal sanctions The intent of the Act is to correct errors in prior interpretations of the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

More broadly, the GOP assault on virtually everyone's citizenship seeks to maximize the power of the next Trump Administration to round-up citizens, as discussed in my prior blog post. As such, this amounts to the greatest power-grab of rights over American citizens in history.

 

Lightworks is a free, Hollywood grade video editor, but while cheap and very powerful it can take a bit of getting used to for the first time user.

The post Getting to Grips with the Lightworks Video Editor appeared first on Richard Farrar.

Using Skype to conduct interviews with guests for your podcast is fairly easy but potential inexperience of your guests can lead to sub-optimal audio quality. The following simple tips can significantly improve the audio quality of such an interview ensuring that you and your guest come across at your very best in the final podcast.

The post Podcast Skype Interview Guidelines for Guests appeared first on Richard Farrar.

Six years ago I began this blog, so I take the opportunity to review my blog’s progress over the past 12 months and to plan its direction for the year ahead.

The post Annual Blog Review: Year 6 appeared first on Richard Farrar.