Ramaswamy 'The Uniter'
Sending Military To Border, Eliminating Federal Agencies Would Bring Us Together?
Also on today’s menu:
Biden Administration Wants Higher Nursing Home Staffing
Trump Holds Fundraiser For Giuliani
Tee It Up Fore The Kids
Thirty-eight-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy brought his presidential campaign, based on his “10 Truths,” to Laconia on September 3, advocating for a new “revolution” to dismantle the Department of Education, the Internal Revenue Service, and other federal departments, and to rescue America from “transgenderism”, “climatism”, and “wokeism”.
A pharmaceutical entrepreneur who is the son of Indian immigrants, Ramaswamy was on an 11-stop tour through the Granite State over the Labor Day weekend. In an interview with the Laconia Daily Sun, Ramaswamy also talked about how he would address the issue of homelessness. “A big part of what’s driving the mental health epidemic in this country is when faith, family, patriotism, hard work, all disappear at the same time,” he said. He believes there is a generation “starved for purpose and meaning” and said he would increase the number mental health institutions with faith-based approaches.
Advancing Donald Trump’s border agenda, Ramaswamy said, “It turns out the wall was not enough. We have to be willing to use our own military resources to seal the invasion across our own southern border.”
He is visiting smaller venues where there is an opportunity for a dialogue. “I want to have authentic conversations where people feel permission to say in public what they otherwise would say in private,” Ramaswamy said.
During one of Ramaswamy’s recent interviews, he said, “Our diversity is not our strength. Our strength is what unites us across our diversity, and I care deeply about reviving that common thread that unites us across those different attributes.”
In a heated interview with MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan on September 6, Ramaswamy was asked to explain why he now says he would pardon the former president after an earlier comment in which he said Trump was a “danger to democracy”. On January 12, 2021, he said, “What Trump did last week was wrong. Downright abhorrent. Plain and simple.” Now he says Trump was the best president of the 21st century, and that he “would have made the same judgments that he has made every step of the way”. When asked repeatedly about his “abhorrent” comment, Ramaswamy said, “I believe that failing to unite this country falls short of what a true leader ought to do. That is why I am in this race, to do things differently than any prior president has done them.”
Biden Administration Wants Higher Nursing Home Staffing
The Biden Administration has proposed new staffing requirements for nursing homes that would require them to provide enough registered nurses and licensed nursing assistants for at least three hours of care per resident per day, and to have a registered nurse on site throughout the day. Currently, the RN requirement is eight hours per day. The recommendations are based on research that has linked higher staffing levels to improved care; some experts and advocates say the proposed rules actually don’t go far enough to ensure adequate staffing.
Brendan Williams, president and chief executive officer of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, said, “I think we're all in favor of having additional staff. The problem is we just can’t find them right now.” The association’s members say they either would have to accept fewer residents or rely more heavily on traveling nurse agencies — a costly option that could force some nursing homes to shut down altogether.
Williams said a better way to address the staffing problems would be to increase funding through state Medicaid programs to allow nursing homes to pay higher wages. State Medicaid programs often underfund nursing homes, leading to lower wages and contributing to labor shortages.
David Grabowski, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School, said the staffing mandate would be more effective if paired with a change in how long-term care is regulated. “There’s been a lot of examples of nursing homes putting dollars into other parts of the organization, and not back into direct resident care, because nursing homes haven’t been accountable in the past,” he said. “So making sure that they’re putting it into direct resident care — but also paying them a higher rate such that they can pay staff the going rate in these markets and attract individuals to work in this sector” would help, he said.
Trump Holds Fundraiser For Giuliani
Former President Donald Trump, a master at getting others to pay his legal bills, held a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser for his longtime political ally and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club on September 7, with Giuliani’s son, Andrew, saying the event was expected to raise more than $1 million.
Giuliani has incurred a number of legal fees, fines, sanctions, and damage awards connected to helping Trump try to overturn the 2020 election and other criminal acts. Along with Trump and 17 others, he was indicted in Georgia for an alleged conspiracy to subvert the will of the voters after Trump’s loss to Biden in 2020.
Andrew Giuliani said Trump plans to hold a second fundraising event for his father at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, although “It won’t be enough to get through this.”
Tee It Up Fore The Kids
The Tapply-Thompson Community Center will hold its 13th annual “Tee It Up ‘Fore’ The Kids” Golf Classic at Den Brae Golf Course in Sanbornton on Saturday, September 9.
Teams of four will compete in the 18-hole tournament, which will begin with a shotgun start at 1 p.m. The competition includes a scramble format.
For more information, see https://ttccrec.org or https://www.facebook.com/TTCC1946.
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