The Shining City Upon a Hill

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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

(CNN)President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he is directing all nursing homes to require their staff be vaccinated against Covid-19 in order to continue receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding.

Biden said he is directing the Department of Health and Human Services to draw up new regulations making employee vaccination a condition for nursing homes to participate in Medicare and Medicaid. The decision on nursing home staff represents a significant escalation in Biden's campaign to get Americans vaccinated and the tools he is willing to use, marking the first time he has threatened to withhold federal funds in order to get people vaccinated.

"Now, if you visit, live or work at a nursing home, you should not be at a high risk of contracting Covid from unvaccinated employees. While I'm mindful that my authority at the federal government is limited, I'm going to continue to look for ways to keep people safe and increase vaccination rates," the President said during a speech at the White House.

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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

His pay grade has nothing to do with it. What is important is his tactical knowledge and understanding. Something that President Biden as 0 of and General Milley has been a been nothing more than a political assignee since before he got his first star.

Apparently you missed the part about taking orders from the Commander and Chief
Did you forget your oath?

[slimslob]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

Afghanistan has some of the world's richest lithium mines necessary for electric car batteries.

No, what Afghanistan contains is some of the richest opium fields in the world, the product of which you must be either smoking, snorting on main lining. As for lithium they don't even make the top ten. Top ten biggest lithium mines in the world based on reserves

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

Interesting.

Nova Scotia, you have our attention

[bsm2]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

Nope

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[Copier Addict]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

What about Trump's "Grab 'em by the Pussy" line that happened 11 years prior to his election? By your words, we should all be saying "who cares about that...it was Eleven years ago", but we all know your buddy CopierAddict is still haunted by those words to this day! LOL.

I'm not haunted by anything. What exactly are you on about now?

[Copier Addict]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

Does that mean that you have no problem with folks that do business with Trump?

Since donny boy is well known for not paying people who do business with him, there aren't likely many left.

[Copier Addict]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

Interesting.

I sure hope the conservatives win, our 1% are becoming financially unstable. They need some really deep tax breaks. Hahaha

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

When Joe Biden loses CNN, you'll know it's over.




Breaking News: Biden has lost CNN

Biden's presidency is under scrutiny as never before over Afghan chaos


Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 2:43 AM ET, Thu August 19, 2021













(CNN)President Joe Biden is struggling against an intensifying examination of his judgment, competence and even his empathy over the chaotic US exit from Afghanistan. And each attempt the administration makes to quell a furor that's tarnishing America's image only provokes more questions about its failures of planning and execution.


A defiant Biden on Wednesday rejected criticism of his leadership, as he battled the most significant self-inflicted drama of a term that he won by promising proficient government and to level with voters.
"I don't think it was a failure," the President said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, referring to a US pullout that sparked scenes of desperate Afghans clinging to, and falling to their deaths from, US evacuation planes.
The President had repeatedly pledged the withdrawal from the country's longest war would be orderly, deliberate and safe and that there were no circumstances that Afghanistan would suddenly fall to the Taliban.


But in the ABC News interview he changed tack, saying there was no way the US could have left without "chaos ensuing" and that such scenes were always baked into the decision to get all troops out this year.


Biden is failing to adequately explain why he so badly failed to predict the swift collapse of the Afghan state. And his credibility has been sullied because his confident downplaying of the risks of the withdrawal has been repeatedly confounded by events. Seven months into his term, Biden no longer gets credit simply for not being Donald Trump.

The President spoke to ABC News after details emerged from a high-level Pentagon briefing that appeared to confirm the US never had sufficient troops left in Afghanistan to facilitate the orderly, deliberate withdrawal Biden had promised. And the deeply awkward session in which Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the nation's top military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, spoke to reporters also left open the grave possibility that the US military would be unable to rescue all American citizens and potential Afghan refugees before it departs for good.
Biden's defensiveness, imprecision and apparent changes of position hardly project confidence or competence during an extraordinarily sensitive crisis on hostile foreign soil. Anytime a commander in chief does not appear in control or is in denial of obvious developments is a moment that threatens to inflict political damage.
A changed presidency
The atmospherics around a White House that was on a roll have shifted in a matter of days.
Just over a week ago, Biden was taking a victory lap for his unlikely feat of passing a bipartisan infrastructure deal in the Senate and also ramming a $3.5 trillion spending framework through the chamber. As the pandemic rebounds, his July Fourth partial declaration of independence over the virus looks like a "Mission Accomplished" moment, even if the reluctance of millions of Americans to get vaccinated has fueled its spread.
He has given Republican foes their clearest opening of a presidency in which he has been a hard political target. It may well be, if the rest of the evacuation goes smoothly, that Americans will buy Biden's argument that the chaos and collapse of Afghanistan proves the US should have left long ago.
But the GOP is seeking to bolster impressions of incompetence by hammering Biden over the pandemic, rising inflation and record southern border crossing attempts to foster a narrative of political decay. In close elections like next year's midterms, unflattering impressions that take hold among voters can be disastrous. Biden's appeal lies in his candor and competence. Both are taking a hit.
The President's image abroad is also taking a beating. His goal of reviving US relations with allies after declaring "America is back" following the Trump administration have been complicated by dismay over the possibility that interpreters and other workers who helped US troops over 20 years could be left behind to face reprisals from the Taliban.
Questions Biden must answer
Despite Biden's efforts to portray the current situation as a simple choice between staying in Afghanistan and fighting a never-ending war, the President is not being held to account for the mistakes of the three previous administrations, whose missteps turned the war into an American failure. The Trump administration especially left Biden with some tough choices in a strategy that left the US with a skeleton garrison and poisoned relations with Kabul by negotiating with the Taliban behind the government's back.
The issue is not even over the President's decision to leave a war that long ago lost public support.
Instead, he is being asked to answer for things that were in his power to influence: the poorly planned evacuation effort, the failure to speed up visa processing for thousands of Afghans and the missed opportunity to get US citizens out earlier.
As that pressure mounts, the President raised the possibility in the ABC News interview that the effort could stretch beyond August 31, his previous deadline.
"We're going to do everything in our power to get all Americans out and our allies out," Biden said.

[Hansen88]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

When Joe Biden loses CNN, you'll know it's over.




Breaking News: Biden has lost CNN

I never heard george snuffelofogous do any interview with out softball questions. It was great to see him hold bidens feet to the fire and keep prodding him to answer the questions,which he stammered around each one.

[Tricky]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

.

The Taliban have managed to eradicate much of the terrorist al Qaeda from their country. It was al Qaeda who attacked the USA on 911 not the Taliban.

I'd like to interrupt this nonsense.

The Taliban are regarded by multiple governments and organizations as terrorists.

The Taliban have been condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, which has resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans.

Taliban - Wikipedia

[BillyCarpenter]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

I saw yesterday's press conference where Pentagon Chief Austin said that the USA didn't have the capability of rescuing Americans trapped in Kabul.


I like that they don't even pretend to be competent. WTF??!!

[SalesServiceGuy]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

I'd like to interrupt this nonsense.

The Taliban are regarded by multiple governments and organizations as terrorists.

The Taliban have been condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, which has resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans.

Taliban - Wikipedia

The Afghan economy has enjoyed an approx $17-18 B year of cash inflows from Western democracies.

That huge flow of money is very quickly stopping and this is going to cause serious problems for the Taliban to govern. Sure they get some money from the illegal Opium trade but no where near enough to run a country with.

The Taliban leadership is made up of educated students who fled to Pakistan and Iran during the Soviet occupation of the 1970s. These students are now in power.

Only time will tell if the Taliban make any changes to the way they operate but for the first time in almost 40 years there will be no foreign occupying force on their soil.

[slimslob]

Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill

I never heard george snuffelofogous do any interview with out softball questions. It was great to see him hold bidens feet to the fire and keep prodding him to answer the questions,which he stammered around each one.

Rush used to call him Steponallofus.