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2022-09-22 at 11:53 PM UTC in Nazi Sympathizer Is Sentenced to 4 Years Over Role in Jan. 6 Attack
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2022-09-22 at 11:53 PM UTC in Josh Hawley mocked for telling his supporters there is only one gender
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2022-09-22 at 11:52 PM UTC in Secret Service knew of neo-Nazi threat on Jan. 6
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2022-09-22 at 11:50 PM UTC in Siding With DOJ, Appeals Court Rules Trump Judge 'Abused' Discretion by Halting Criminal Probe
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2022-09-22 at 11:50 PM UTC in Trump Floats Nutso Claim FBI Agents Were After Hillary’s Emails During Mar-A-Lago Raid
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2022-09-22 at 11:49 PM UTC in Trump-Backed House Candidate Argued Against Women's Right To Vote
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2022-09-22 at 11:49 PM UTC in It's a scary time in America — but know this: Donald Trump is finished
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2022-09-22 at 11:48 PM UTC in Mar-a-Lago special master orders Trump team to back up any claims of FBI ‘planting’ evidence
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2022-09-22 at 11:48 PM UTC in DOJ can continue Trump classified docs investigation without special master
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2022-09-22 at 11:47 PM UTC in Republicans block bill requiring dark money groups to reveal donors
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2022-09-22 at 1:36 AM UTC in Trump Endorsed QAnon Because He's Stuck
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2022-09-21 at 3:13 PM UTC in Mixing Christianity With Nationalism Is a Recipe for Fascism
While reading about Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s latest “owning the libs” stunt of dumping immigrants on Martha’s Vineyard even as his fans hail him as a champion of Christianity, something broke inside me. As an observant Christian, I not only can but do feel I must accept as fellow members of the body of Christ all sorts of people whose specific beliefs, worship practices, and interpretations of their faith leave me bewildered or unhappy. And I’ve tried to be consistent: Even as I’ve chastised religious conservatives for treating themselves as the only “real” Christians, I’ve chastised religious progressives for trying to replace one self-righteous set of claims on the Gospel with another. I even try to understand those whose tenacious belief that 1950s white patriarchal American culture was and remains holy has led them to support neo-pagan warlords like Donald Trump for reactionary efforts to put equality in its many dangerous forms back in a bottle.
What I cannot cope with is allegedly Christian people wallowing in hate. And as Jonathan V. Last pungently points out, unlike Trump, DeSantis professes to be a follower of the Prince of Peace even as he preaches constant cultural warfare:
Let’s put aside the theology of immigration. Let’s pretend, just for a moment, that Jesus would have nothing to say about whether or not the state should seek to discourage undocumented migrants as a high-level matter of government policy.
Those planes were filled with actual human beings. People with dignity. People with hopes and dreams, problems and challenges. People with names and families.
And this Christian man used them as props. He didn’t clothe the naked or feed the hungry. He literally did the opposite: Evicted them — and not because he felt that he had to, because it was a requirement of the law. But because he saw that he could use them as a means to the ends of his personal ambition.
I’m trying — really trying — not to get too hot here. But Christians should look at this act and be revolted. They should be horrified.
Because using vulnerable human beings for your personal gratification is evil. Full stop.
Conservative Christians (not all of them but some of them) dehumanizing their many perceived enemies has become so common that cries of anguish from within the ranks of Evangelical Protestantism itself are become more pointed every day. Here’s a plea from Michael Gerson, a highly influential conservative Evangelical in the conservative-Christian-inflected George W. Bush administration:
Anxious evangelicals have taken to voting for right-wing authoritarians who promise to fight their fights — not only Donald Trump, but increasingly, his many imitators. It has been said that when you choose your community, you choose your character. Strangely, evangelicals have broadly chosen the company of Trump supporters who deny any role for character in politics and define any useful villainy as virtue. In the place of integrity, the Trump movement has elevated a warped kind of authenticity — the authenticity of unenhancemented abuse, imperious ignorance, untamed egotism and reflexive bigotry.
This is inconsistent with Christianity by any orthodox measure. Yet the discontent, prejudices and delusions of religious conservatives helped swell the populist wave that lapped up on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. During that assault, Christian banners mixed with the iconography of white supremacy, in a manner that should have choked Christian participants with rage. But it didn’t.
Many in the rising Christian Nationalist movement (who typically hold that the return of American Greatness as they understand it is essential to the divine plan for the human race and is even a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Christ) have eagerly adopted the rhetoric of “spiritual warfare” for their political battles, literally demonizing political opponents as agents of Satan, as American-studies professor S. Jonathon O’Donnell explained in 2020:
Since the 1980s, growing numbers of evangelicals have given the fight against demons a key role in their spirituality and their politics. Known as “spiritual warfare”, this views demons as central actors in world politics and everyday life. While often seen as fringe, belief in spiritual warfare is common across denominational lines, including among evangelicals close to Donald Trump such as Robert Jeffress and the president’s spiritual advisor, Paula White.
A key idea in spiritual warfare is that demons don’t only attack people, as in depictions of demonic possession, but also take control of places and institutions, such as journalism, academia, and both municipal and federal bureaucracies. By doing so, demons are framed as advancing social projects that spiritual warriors see as opposing God’s plans. These include advances in reproductive and LGBTQ rights and tolerance for non-Christian religions (especially Islam).
People in the grip of these delusions, cherry-picking their way through Holy Scripture without a shred of context to justify their hate, do indeed have a powerful belief system. But it has less to do with Christianity in any recognizable form than with the sanctification of entirely secular cultural passions with the unshakable faith owed only to God given to politicians.
It’s probably about time to conclude once and for all that Christianity and nationalism are essentially incompatible because the latter always swallows the former. It was true in the Spanish Civil War, when priests blessed fascist murderers on the grounds that their “godless” victims would enjoy eternal life if they confessed before being shot. It was true in Nazi Germany, when the Faith Movement of German Christians tried to excise jedi influences from the Bible. It’s true in Russia, where the criminal regime of Vladimir Putin has managed to fuse Stalinism with religious orthodoxy, to the cheers of American Evangelicals who admire Putin’s homophobia and “manly” virtues.
Somehow, nationalists keep subverting the unavoidable truth that Jesus Christ was the great enemy of nations, races, tribes, and even families when they became a stumbling block to acceptance of the radical equality imposed by human sin and its rescue by divine grace.
Today’s Christian Nationalists need to choose, just as German Christians were called to choose in the Barman Declaration that rejected the Nazi appropriation of Christianity by denouncing worship of party, nation, or Volk as idolatrous. You can choose to follow your culture wars into partisan politics or even authoritarianism and insurrectionary violence, like the not-so-spiritual warriors of January 6. But please, please, be honest about your motives and leave your savior and mine out of it. -
2022-09-21 at 2:32 PM UTC in Covid will be a leading cause of death in the U.S. indefinitely, whether or not the pandemic is 'over'
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2022-09-21 at 2:32 PM UTC in Deleted posts for: Truth Details
The answer, as it is to most legal questions, is it matters. First, it matters if there are multiple convictions related to a single incident. When that is the case, Penal Code § 654 prohibits multiple punishment for the same act. The judge can impose punishment for only one of the acts and must otherwise “stay” punishment for the others, meaning it is not imposed. The judge would then impose punishment for the longest term, looking at both the base term and any sentence enhancements.
For example, under Penal Code § 654, for a person with one prior strike conviction, the judge may impose a four-year term for one count, double it to eight years and then add a five-year enhancement for a prior serious felony conviction. Punishment on other convictions from the same incident at the same time would be at one-third of the mid-term punishment for the crime, then added to the underlying 13 years in this case, for example.
Please note that by its terms, however, § 654 does not prohibit multiple punishment for multiple punishment of the same statute. For example, in People v. Correa (2012) 54 Cal.4th 331, 244, defendant, a felon, was found hiding with seven guns and the judge was punished for seven counts of felon-in-possession of a handgun.
When Penal Code § 654 is not an issue, special rules apply with respect to whether a defendant will serve sentences for multiple counts concurrently or consecutively. In general, unless a judge specifies to the contrary, sentences are presumed to run concurrently. Penal Code § 669.
It is good to note that when a judge imposes concurrent sentences and one or more of the crimes is required to be served in state prison and one or more of the crimes is to be served in county jail, the sentence is served in state prison. Penal Code § 669(d); People v. Torres (2013) 213 Cal.App.4th 1151, 1160.
If, however, a judge decides to impose consecutive (i.e. one after the other) sentences, the judge must follow the sentencing rules set out at Penal Code §§ 669 and 1170.1(b). The judge must first select a “principal term” and set out its reasoning on the record for that term. The principal term must be the longest punishment imposed for that conviction, including any additional time for applicable enhancements (Penal Code § 1170.1(a).
Then the judge would order consecutive terms on “subordinate terms,” which are one-third of the middle term for additional offenses, plus one-third of the term for any applicable enhancements. Penal Code § 1170.1(a); People v. Hill (2004) 119 Cal.App.4th 85, 91. The judge must explain on the record why the “subordinate” term is to run consecutively. Cal. Rules of Court, Rule 4.425.
To impose consecutive sentences, the judge must find a minimum of one factor under the applicable statutes or court rules. People v. Forbes (1986) 182 Cal.App.3d 676, 679. The most common reason is that the “crimes involve separate victims or involve the same victim on separate occasions.” Penal Code § 667.6(d). This type of consecutive sentence is most commonly seen in sex crimes involving the same victim such as in a child molestation case.
There are certain crimes for which a court must impose a consecutive sentence. For example, then sentence for any offense committed while defendant is incarcerated is to run consecutively to the existing sentence. Penal Code § 1170.1©. Similarly, a violation of Penal Code § 139(b) (criminal threats against a victim of violence) must serve the full-term consecutive, not at one-third. Other exceptions to the one-third provision under 1170.1(a) include convictions for kidnapping under Penal Code § 207 (as specified in 1170.1(b)). -
2022-09-21 at 2:03 PM UTC in Deleted posts for: Truth Details
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2022-09-21 at 2:03 PM UTC in Covid will be a leading cause of death in the U.S. indefinitely, whether or not the pandemic is 'over'
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2022-09-21 at 2:02 PM UTC in Deleted posts for: Truth Detailshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Derek_Chauvin
Chauvin was found guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter; the first charge could have carried a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison. It was the first conviction of a white officer in Minnesota for the murder of a black person. On June 25, 2021, Chauvin was sentenced by the trial judge to 22+1⁄2 years in prison for second-degree murder, 10 years more than the sentencing guidelines of 12+1⁄2 years.
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2022-09-21 at 2:01 PM UTC in Covid will be a leading cause of death in the U.S. indefinitely, whether or not the pandemic is 'over'
The National Vital Statistics System is the oldest and most successful example of inter-governmental data sharing in Public Health and the shared relationships, standards, and procedures form the mechanism by which NCHS collects and disseminates the Nation’s official vital statistics. These data are provided through contracts between NCHS and vital registration systems operated in the various jurisdictions legally responsible for the registration of vital events – births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and fetal deaths. Vital Statistics data are also available online. In the United States, legal authority for the registration of these events resides individually with the 50 States, 2 cities (Washington, DC, and New York City), and 5 territories (Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). These jurisdictions are responsible for maintaining registries of vital events and for issuing copies of birth, marriage, divorce, and death certificates.
Standard forms [PDF – 1.9 MB] for the collection of the data and model procedures for the uniform registration of the events are developed and recommended for nationwide use through cooperative activities of the jurisdictions and NCHS. The process for implementing the latest revisions of the birth and death certificates and the fetal death report is now underway. The final 2003 revised certificates and accompanying technical information are available. NCHS has procedures [PDF, 164 KB] for collection, coding, editing, and transmitting multiple race and Hispanic original data. NCHS also produces training and instructional material, as well as an automated mortality medical data system for coding and classifying cause-of-death information from death certificates.
CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics is working with State partners represented by the National Association of Public Health Statistics and Information Systems and the Social Security Administration to fundamentally re-engineer the processes through which vital statistics are produced in the U.S., including implementation of the 2003 revised certificates. The primary objective is to improve the timeliness, quality, and sustainability of the decentralized vital statistics system, along with collection of the revised and new content of the 2003 certificates, by adopting technologically sophisticated yet cost-effective model IT systems based on nationally developed standards and models. Information on the re-engineering activities and technical documents are available at the NAPHSIS web site, as well as at the NCHS certificate revision web site.
Additional programs related to the National Vital Statistics System include:
Linked Birth and Infant Death Data Set
National Survey of Family Growth
Matched Multiple Birth Data Set
National Death Index
National Maternal and Infant Health Survey
National Mortality Followback Survey
Through the National Vital Statistics System, data on vital events are now published in electronic form:
Vital Statistics of the United States,
National Vital Statistics Reports (formerly the Monthly Vital Statistics Report)
Other selected reports.
The special report, U.S. Vital Statistics System [PDF – 591 KB], provides an overview and history of the data system. For details, see related pages on specific vital events or related programs. Copies of birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates may be obtained directly from the States. -
2022-09-21 at 2:01 PM UTC in Covid will be a leading cause of death in the U.S. indefinitely, whether or not the pandemic is 'over'
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2022-09-21 at 2:01 PM UTC in Covid will be a leading cause of death in the U.S. indefinitely, whether or not the pandemic is 'over'
The provisional counts for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) deaths are based on a current flow of mortality data in the National Vital Statistics System.
