These killings will have a lasting impact on Nashville, in particular the Christian community here. I urge that believers everywhere continue to uphold the families of the victims and Covenant in prayer.
This is the first time in my life that I have seen martyrdom up close. The assailant killed these children and adults because of their Christian witness and the witness of Covenant. As Tertullian said long ago, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” These children and adults were not mere victims. They were martyrs. They were brave beyond belief and at death were immediately ushered into the presence of the God.
This horrible event deserves a campaign like the ones we often see. A name, a place, a flag, accompanied with the slogan “I stand with …”
Cashion’s role will be to set the vision, strategy, and governance for CalPERS’ sustainability work and be responsible for leading all aspects of the fund’s efforts to develop and implement an economics-based ESG research and data framework to support environmental, social, and governance (ESG) integration into the investment decision-making process.
“CalPERS has been a pioneer in its advocacy of climate solutions and sustainable investing, and our focus on that work has only intensified over the years,” said CalPERS Chief Investment Officer (CIO) Nicole Musicco. “That makes this a critical position to us. Peter’s long record of impact investing across global markets elevated him in our search and makes him a great fit with the fund’s mission. His experience as a hands-on investor in multiple asset classes, standing up complex sustainable investing strategies and leading diverse global teams, makes him the right person to take the reins of CalPERS’ sustainability efforts.”
ESG – Environmental, Social, and Governance Concept Web Banner
Take a closer look at what else is included under the ESG label.
Environmental
Let’s start by focusing on the “E” in ESG, as environmental matters get a lot of attention.
Some examples of environmental reporting factors are climate policies, water use, waste, carbon emissions footprint, and natural resource conservation. All these practices could impact a company’s bottom line, and therefore, CalPERS’ investment earnings.
For instance, governments around the globe have committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Consider if a company’s primary operations produce a significant amount of greenhouse gases. It’s likely they’ll face a drop in revenue or even challenges in meeting their energy demands without switching at least some of their focus to renewable energy.
Social
Let’s define the “S” in ESG: social.
Social is a broad category, but it really comes down to people. Examples of social reporting include information about wage equality, workplace safety and health, human rights, customer satisfaction, and even data protection and privacy.
It’s simple. Negative experiences for employees reduce productivity and increase the chances for workplace litigation, which can impact a company’s bottom line. Data breaches can disrupt operations and hurt customer loyalty, which also can hurt profit potential.
Seems the whole world has gone mad. Hope I don’t loss my retirement.
Thanks for stopping by, God bless America and you.
Say a prayer of relief for the veteran going through a profound crisis, and say a prayer of thanksgiving that this police officer was there to help him at the time he most needed it:
This breaks my heart. You can feel his pain. God Bless this young man and all of our service members. 22/a day… pic.twitter.com/SlbfX4ek1q
A routine traffic stop on Interstate 84 on Sept. 11 turned into a memorable moment between a trooper from the Connecticut State Police and a U.S. Army veteran.
Trooper Kyle Kaelberer pulled over onto the right shoulder near Exit 68 of I-84 to assist a motorist with their hazard lights on.
Kaelberer found a man in distress, who identified himself as an Army veteran. The man said he was on the phone with a counselor from a suicide prevention hotline for military veterans.
HEARTWARMING — While conducting a traffic stop on September 11, 2022, a Connecticut state trooper found an Army veteran in emotional distress and on the phone with the VA suicide hotline. The trooper reassured the veteran and gave him a hug when asked.
American flags have been planted on a grassy area of the Mall with each of them represents a veteran or a service member who died by suicide in 2018. A new independent study said the number of veteran suicides is more than double federal estimates. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The rate of suicides among America’s veterans could be more than double the figure reported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a recently released study.
In a joint study between America’s Warrior Partnership, a nonprofit organization that works to end veteran suicide., the University of Alabama and Duke University, researchers reviewed death figures from 2014 to 2018 for eight s states – Alabama, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, and Oregon – and determined that states had undercounted veteran suicides that were not included in figures released by federal officials.
The states were the only ones that provide reliable data, the AWP report said.
“If we are going to make progress toward preventing former service member suicide, we need better data,” said Jim Lorraine, President and CEO of AWP. “Inaccurate data leads to a misallocation of very valuable resources.”
According to the report, if the eight states represented the national suicide rate, it would account for 44 veteran suicides a day in that four-year period instead of 17.7, a figure released by the VA.
A group recently uncovered that the suicide rate among veterans from 2014 to 2018 was 37% higher than reported by the VA.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
Its report, Operation Deep Dive , used state-provided death data and military records from eight states to evaluate the suicide rate and find trends to try to end veteran suicides altogether.
The group uncovered that the suicide rate among veterans from 2014 to 2018 was 37% higher than reported by the VA and that if the rate from the eight states they investigated was adjusted to represent a national rate, there were be an average of 24 veteran suicides daily, instead of the 2014-2018 average of 18 veteran suicides.
Former service members from the Air Force were the least likely to die from suicide, followed by the Navy , Army , Marines , and lastly, the Coast Guard .
Another one of the group’s findings was that not every current or former service member who died by suicide was identified as a member of the military. Eighteen percent of the time, a service member who takes his or her own life isn’t recognized at the time of death as having served in the military.
I don’t know what to do about it. I know how hard is to ask for help, been there done that.
The U.S. Army is in the throes of a burgeoning readiness crisis with military service leaders anticipating a significant drop-off in their ability to recruit enough Americans to its ranks.
And at least part of the reason is the grinding suicide crisis in the military. Not only do recruits have to worry about their safety on a battlefield; they now must be concerned about ailments that trail them after their service to the nation.
“To compete for talent, the Army must provide a workplace environment free of harmful behaviors, to include sexual assault, sexual harassment, racism, extremism, and the risk factors which lead to death by suicide,” Gen. Joseph Martin, the Army’s vice chief of staff, told a House panel last month.
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth echoed the frank admission. “We need to show that we are doing something about suicide prevention in the Army,” she said.
“Suicide has proven to be an incredibly difficult issue for the military to get its arms around,” said the publication Task & Purpose. “The Army specifically saw its highest rate of suicides in 2021 since 1938, coming in at 36.18 suicide deaths per 100,000 soldiers.”
By comparison, among all U.S. adults, the suicide rate per 100,000 is about 18 deaths. Among veterans, the suicide rate also well surpasses the civilian rate.
Fox Report Anchor Jon Scott, and military veteran Michael Murray II, Founder and President of Liberty–OVE, discussed the awareness of PTSD and veteran suicide on ‘Fox & Friends Weekend.’
Not just for vets, mental illness is a huge problem in America right now no doubt. And a lot of it is happening in blue states and cities. I’m sure you saw this one the other day.
NEW YORK CITY, NY – People across the city are mourning the tragic loss of a New York Fire Department (FDNY) paramedic and 9/11 first responder who was fatally stabbed while working in the line of duty.
FDNY paramedic Lieutenant Alison Russo-Elling, who was 61-years-old, was on duty in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens when she was stabbed multiple times in a completely unprovoked and violent attack.
The fatal incident happened during the afternoon on Thursday, September 29th. Russo-Elling was on shift at EMS Station 49 in Astoria when she was stabbed multiple times in a “barbaric and completely unprovoked” attack near 20th Avenue and Steinway Street.
According to The Post, The 61-year-old “was about six or seven months away from retirement,” Vincent Variale, president of Local 3621, told reporters outside the hospital where Russo-Elling succumbed to her injuries. “She was talking about it.” According to Daily Mail,
A man, 34, with a history of schizophrenia was charged Thursday for the fatal stabbing of longtime EMT worker Allison Russo-Elling, 61
This is reportedly his first arrest. He had an interaction with the police in 2018, when he was accused of issuing threats to Asians.
The incident resulted in his hospitalization, but an arrest was never made.
The last thing you want is a shortage of mental health facilities as the number of patients diagnosed with mental health disorders increases. But, that is exactly what is currently happening.
As mental illness continues to have catastrophic effects on the lives of millions of people across the country, the closure of mental health hospitals only exacerbates and prolongs the problem. Understanding mental health is not only important for you at an individual level, but also for everyone in society as well.
Mental health disorders can be caused by genetics as well as environmental influences. Our fast-paced society puts us at greater risk for mental health complications because human beings today worry and stress more than previous generations.
Making matters even worse, there is a stigma attached to mental health. Having a mental health disorder is seen as something to be ashamed of, and people often avoid getting treatment simply to avoid the bad image.
Numbers Increase as Facilities Decrease
The closure of mental health hospitals over the last decade has increased steadily each year. The trend is driven by a desire to desensitize psychiatric patients that started back in the 1950s and 60s.
The thought was that a number of patients could actually do well in the community, and, as more were released, the facilities were dissolved. The fact that the government would then have more money to use elsewhere encouraged a bias to develop over time.
Now there are not enough beds to house the patients in real need of psychiatric hospital treatment.
“There aren’t empirical studies of this,” says Linda A. Teplin, Owen L. Coon Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
“They’re just too expensive to do, and not feasible. There are findings and government statistics that suggest what is happening,” but due to many complex variables, “nobody can do a direct study on the consequences of cuts for mental health.”
Nevertheless, a few experts were able to share some common scenarios they’ve observed when access to public mental health centers is thwarted:
In 2019, just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 19.86% of adults experienced a mental illness, equivalent to nearly 50 million Americans.
Suicidal ideation continues to increase among adults in the U.S. 4.58% of adults report having serious thoughts of suicide, an increase of 664,000 people from last year’s dataset. The national rate of suicidal ideation among adults has increased every year since 2011-2012. This was a larger increase than seen in last year’s report and is a concerning trend to see going into the COVID-19 pandemic.
A growing percentage of youth in the U.S. live with major depression. 15.08% of youth experienced a major depressive episode in the past year, a 1.24% increase from last year’s dataset. In the bottom-ranked states, up to 19% of youth ages 12-17 experienced major depression.
Over 2.5 million youth in the U.S. have severe depression, and multiracial youth are at greatest risk. 10.6% of youth in the U.S. have severe major depression (depression that severely affects functioning). The rate of severe depression was highest among youth who identified as more than one race, at 14.5% (more than one in every seven multiracial youth).
Over half of adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment, totaling over 27 million adults in the U.S. who are going untreated. In Hawaii, the bottom-ranked state, 67% of adults with a mental illness did not receive treatment. Even in Vermont, the top-ranked state in the U.S., 43% of adults experiencing a mental illness were not receiving treatment.
The percentage of adults with a mental illness who report unmet need for treatment has increased every year since 2011. In 2019, 24.7% of adults with a mental illness report an unmet need for treatment.
Over 60% of youth with major depression do not receive any mental health treatment. Even in states with the greatest access, nearly one in three are going without treatment. In Texas, the bottom-ranked state for this indicator, nearly three-quarters of youth with depression did not receive mental health treatment.
Both adults and youth in the U.S. continue to lack adequate insurance coverage. 11.1% of Americans with a mental illness are uninsured. There was a 0.3% increase from last year’s dataset, the second year in a row that this indicator increased since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 8.1% of children had private insurance that did not cover mental health services, totaling 950,000 youth.
This year’s report includes spotlights on two of MHA’s policy priorities in 2021-2022 – the implementation of 988 as the national three-digit suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline and increasing mental health education and supports in schools, particularly for BIPOC youth.
For the last 60 years state mental health agencies (SMHA) have been building comprehensive community-based systems to care for persons with serious mental illnesses.
SMHA have also refocused the use of state psychiatric hospitals on patients in major crisis, patients whose illnesses were not being adequately addressed in community settings, and increasingly forensic and other involuntary patients.
Since the 1950s, the number of beds in state psychiatric hospitals has declined by over 91 percent.
As a result of this phenomenon, many state psychiatric hospitals that had once served thousands of patients every day are now much smaller and many states that had multiple psychiatric hospitals have consolidated their acute inpatient services by merging facilities. Get publication
Thanks for stopping by, God bless you and God bless America. May He also have mercy on us.
Dr. Birx admits the government lied and that the vaxxine immunity claims was just "hope that the vaccine would work in that way…" pic.twitter.com/l5O73AWXPG
Germany is experiencing a strange decline in births in the first quarter of 2022, totally inconsistent with their experience in recent years.
Strange, right?
Fortunately, the vaccine-crazy German government already has the answer: it says people had so many children already, that they no longer want any.
Strangely enough, the German government did not yet blame global warming. Babies born in Q1 2022, were conceived in Q2 or 2021. Here’s a chart for BELGIUM (not Germany) from Our World in Data. (Sorry, Germany is not in that data set). The arrow show vaccination of 18-24 and 25-49 year olds.
North Dakota — Same Stuff, Different Place Our reader Biswrest pointed out a most unlikely counterpart to Germany — North Dakota. Look what happened there. Per Provisional Data Reports for 2021-2022:
UK: 10% Decline, Taiwan: 23% Decline, and Switzerland.
James Goldston. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“The House’s Jan. 6 committee has turned to a renowned former network news executive to hone a mountain of explosive material into a captivating multimedia presentation for a prime-time hearing Thursday,” Axios reports.
The hearing — the first of a series by the committee (most will be during daytime) — has the makings of a national event:
At least two of the broadcast networks will interrupt evening programming for live coverage anchored by ABC’s David Muir and CBS’ Norah O’Donnell. NBC will announce plans soon.
The other side: Republicans will argue that the 1/6 committee — which consists of seven Democrats plus Republicans Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — is just out to get former President Trump.
The House of Representatives’ January 6 Committee is going into full propaganda mode this Thursday.
As the hearings begin, Glenn explains how the Committee has made sure to make them into a primetime, made-for-TV night to remember, filled with shock, scandal, and suspense.
And in order to guarantee that Americans get the narrative, the Committee has enlisted former ABC News chief James Goldston to produce the special.
Strangely enough, Glenn points out, that’s the same James Goldston who buried the Jeffrey Epstein scandal when it broke. What are the odds..?
The Jan. 6 committee hearing announced the date and time of its second hearing of its June series, and it’s ditching prime time for the second round.
While the first Jan. 6 hearing will be a prime-time spectacle at 8 p.m. on Thursday, the committee announced Monday that the second will be at 10 a.m. next Monday morning during normal committee hours. While the first hearing will be broadcast live by major television networks, it’s unlikely the second will get the same treatment.
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Roberts Thoughts 2 