SNAP Benefits decreased by from $244 to $64 because of changes in federal rules. My daughter is disabled, she has stage IV metastatic breast cancer. She couldn’t take an Uber to protest because she can only travel by ambulance. How dare the federal government do this to her? Was this what was in the Big Terrible Bill? They made the law, now they need to live on what we live on. Nancy Behrendt Altoona
I saw on the news about the 40% shortage of nurses. I’d like to take this moment to say, hire more CNAs. Give them their own union if they haven’t got one. Train them to have the ability to switch IV meds and fluids. If they hired medical assistants on the floors, they would be able to free up the nurses. Hire them on for a year with a signed contract. You have your RNs who give meds to people, you have LPNs who do the small jobs then have lower-level CNAs. With you having CNAs and medical assistants, it would free up the RNs to be able to focus on the things they went to ...
As I write this letter, I am grieving the loss of civility and appropriate comportment that is affecting America. It seems that there is nothing that Donald Trump feels are off limits for his puerile and vile commentary. Film producer Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered and DJT was quick to post on social media that it was because of his liberal beliefs. What has happened to the consoler in chief? Think of how past presidents took moments like this to console not only those directly affected by tragedy, they also would console a grieving nation. DJT evidently feels it ...
Blair County residents should consider a few things about the feud between the Blair County Commissioners and the Lakemont Partnership. On the one hand, we have the Devorris family, as leaders of the park, who have been one of the biggest philanthropic families in the surrounding area. This is a family who has saved many jobs in the area, and has made Blair County a better place to live by their investments in housing, entertainment and education. Now let’s analyze the county commissioners. One of the first acts after their recent election was the firing of the county solicitor ...
Throughout the budget process in Pennsylvania, the worst difficulty was finding ways to pay for programs and meet fiscal obligations. I have a wild, off-the-wall, crazy solution. Imagine (I hope the reader has a fantastic imagination) if our public servants eliminated corruption in government. We are the sixth most corrupt state (Google it) in the nation, and our state representatives and senators turn their heads and ignore it. Corruption is a dirty word; we haven’t even heard it mentioned in a campaign speech in decades. But think of the money that would be available if ...
As Pennsylvania state Rep. Lou Schmitt concludes his service in Harrisburg to we the people, I believe that he deserves commendation for his wonderful tenure. Act 99 of 2022 protected our police officers by creating new criminal offenses for assaulting law enforcement officers with bodily fluids like saliva, with penalties that increase if the fluids are from someone with a communicable disease. In addition to new laws that protect, he also repealed antiquated laws with Act 96 of 2019. The act repealed an act from 1929 which “authorized municipalities other than townships to ...