Author: John Hanno

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Bogan High School. Worked in Alaska after the earthquake. Joined U.S. Army at 17. Sergeant, B Battery, 3rd Battalion, 84th Artillery, 7th Army. Member of 12 different unions, including 4 different locals of the I.B.E.W. Worked for fortune 50, 100 and 200 companies as an industrial electrician, electrical/electronic technician.

Climate change is on the ballot in the midterm elections: Here’s what’s at stake.

USA Today

Climate change is on the ballot in the midterm elections: Here’s what’s at stake.

Elizabeth Weise – October 22, 2022

With half of registered voters saying climate change is one of the most important issues in the upcoming midterm elections, could the results on Nov. 8 mean changes for U.S. policy regarding global warming?

A significant shift in the makeup of Congress would mostly involve delays rather than major legislation being rescinded. But time is of the essence as scientists continue to warn that without immediate and deep emission reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will soon be “beyond reach.”

Democrats have set up several major climate change initiatives at the national level that Republicans would like to roll back. To do so, they will need a landslide victory — and even then hitting the undo button will be a challenge.

Five major climate initiatives are at stake as voters decide who controls the House and Senate, along with governor’s races and ballot initiatives across the nation.

Related video: Biden says he’ll use executive powers to fight climate change

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Here’s a look at what the midterms mean for the climate:

‘Undo’ of Inflation Reduction Act still possible

Coming just 85 days after the most consequential piece of climate legislation ever passed in the United States, the outcome of the midterm elections are unlikely to erase key provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act unless Republicans gain a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate.

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: Answering your common questions about the legislation

INFRASTRUCTURE ACT: The massive 2021 infrastructure act aimed to fight climate change. Is it living up to Biden’s pledge?

The sweeping legislation includes record spending on clean energy initiatives. It also has measures to reduce prescription drug prices and to ensure large corporations pay income taxes.

The law was approved by the Senate on Aug. 7 in a party-line vote. To dismantle it would require passage of a new law to either repeal or replace it, a virtually impossible task given current political realities.

To overcome a veto by President Joe Biden, Republicans would have to gain a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, which is seen as unlikely.

The other truth in politics is that once a major bill such as the IRA is passed, the longer it is in effect, the less likely it is to be overturned.

“It’s hard to do big things and it’s hard to undo big things,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president for governmental affairs with the League of Conservation Voters.

‘Shouting distance’: That’s how close the Inflation Reduction Act would get US to its climate goals

Critical water rights decisions hang in the balance amid megadrought

Two governors’ races could affect the 40 million Americans who get their water under the century-old Colorado River compact.

A megadrought that’s lasted for 22 years has pushed the mighty Colorado River well beyond its limits. Scientists estimate about 40% of the drought is attributable to human-caused climate trends.

To deal with the extreme lack of water, the Department of the Interior took an unprecedented step earlier this year, demanding governors of the seven states that get water from the river come up with an emergency plan to drastically reduce use.

Interior was clear: If the governors of Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and California didn’t come up with a proposal, the agency’s Bureau of Reclamation would do it for them.

WATCH: Low water levels on Mississippi River reveal early 20th century shipwreck in Louisiana

VIDEO: Climate change made drought 20 times more likely

There’s been no deal and things are now on hold as all of the states but Utah have governors’ races on November 8.

How things play out in two of those states, Arizona and Nevada, could delay a state-run plan, causing the Department of the Interior to step in.

In both states, Republicans with unorthodox water plans are polling well and could end up calling the shots.

In Arizona, Republican candidate Kari Lake wants to prioritize finding additional water supplies rather than conservation. Her major proposals to deal with the state’s water shortages are building a pipeline to bring water from the Missouri and Mississippi rivers or constructing seawater desalination plants.

But desalinization would raise costs significantly and a pipeline is likely politically unworkable.

Conservation is really the only option, said Eric Kuhn, former general manager of the Colorado River District.

“The water’s just not there,” he said.

In Nevada, Republican candidate and political firebrand Joe Lombardo says California gets too much water under current rules and the entire Colorado River Compact should be renegotiated.

WATCH: Mississippi River’s low water level reveals shipwreck

VIDEO: Millions of Americans still drink unsafe tap water. Here’s why.

That seems unlikely to happen. The Compact was ratified in 1922. To create a new one would require the approval of Congress, state legislatures and governors.

Whatever humans do, in the end Mother Nature calls the shots, said Kuhn, the co-author of “Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River.”

“You can’t deliver more water than you have.”

Plan to make companies disclose climate data not finalized

In the financial world, a historic climate change rule that could significantly change what investors are told about companies’ risk is set to be finalized next year. A shift in the composition of Congress could throw up roadblocks, though might not derail it.

The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed the rule in March. It would require public companies to disclose the risks they face from global warming as well as disclosing their greenhouse gas emissions. The rule doesn’t require companies to change what they’re doing, only to make it known to potential investors.

Already at least 16 Republican state attorneys general have contested the proposed rule and it’s anticipated that multiple lawsuits will be brought against it.

Others believe it will survive opposition.

“This rule was built to survive legal challenges,” said Elizabeth Small, head of policy for CDP, a nonprofit that runs a voluntary climate disclosure system for companies.

Two states propose landmark climate initiatives

While several states and numerous counties and cities have various climate initiatives, two stand out because of the size and economic importance of the states contemplating them.

In California, Proposition 30 would increase by 1.75% the tax on people who make more than $2 million. The resulting money – as much as $5 billion per year by state estimates – would go toward building electric and hydrogen vehicle charging stations and wildfire suppression and prevention programs.

If California were a country, it would have the world’s fifth-largest economy, so what the state does matters. If it passes, the initiative could spur the adoption of zero-carbon vehicles and construction of infrastructure to support them, both electric and hydrogen, not just in California but across the United States.

Across the country in New York state, Proposal 1 would allow the state to issue $4.2 billion in bonds for environmental, natural resources, water infrastructure, and climate change mitigation projects.

The Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act would pay for environmental improvements across the state, including $1.5 billion for climate change mitigation, $1.1 billion to restoration and flood risk reduction, $650 million to conserve open spaces and $650 million for water quality in resiliency infrastructure.

If the historically large measure results in the jobs and cleaner, healthier environment supporters say it will, it could encourage other states to take similar steps.

Agriculture at the center of another, bigger fight ahead

How these climate issues play out could set the stage for an even bigger fight expected to begin in earnest after the midterms.

Every five years since 1933, Congress passes a piece of legislation that touches almost every aspect of America’s agriculture and nutrition policy: the farm bill. Formally known as the Agriculture Improvement Act, in 2018 it cost $428 billion and is an enormous driver of what American grows and eats.

Agriculture accounts for 11% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Conservation and sustainability are expected to be big issues as the details of the next farm bill are hashed out.

“It could be a huge opportunity for advancing climate solutions,” said Sittenfeld. “There’s no overstating the potential for the farm bill as we have very ambitious goals for cutting climate emissions.”

Russian authorities advise civilians to leave Ukraine region

Associated Press

Russian authorities advise civilians to leave Ukraine region

Andrew Meldrum and Joanna Kozlowska – October 22, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine told all residents of the city of Kherson to leave “immediately” Saturday ahead of an expected advance by Ukrainian troops waging a counteroffensive to recapture one of the first urban areas Russia took after invading the country.

In a post on the Telegram messaging service, the pro-Kremlin regional administration strongly urged civilians to use boat crossings over a major river to move deeper into Russian-held territory, citing a tense situation on the front and the threat of shelling and alleged plans for “terror attacks” by Kyiv.

Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the nearly 8-month-long war in Ukraine. The city is the capital of a region of the same name, one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday.

On Friday, Ukrainian forces bombarded Russian positions across the province, targeting pro-Kremlin forces’ resupply routes across the Dnieper River and preparing for a final push to reclaim the city.

The Ukrainian military has reclaimed broad areas in the north of the region since launching a counteroffensive in late August. It reported new successes Saturday, saying that Russian troops were forced to retreat from the villages of Charivne and Chkalove in the Beryslav district.

Russian-installed officials were reported as trying desperately to turn Kherson city — a prime objective for both sides because of its key industries and ports — into a fortress while attempting to relocate tens of thousands of residents.

The Kremlin poured as many as 2,000 draftees into the surrounding region to replenish losses and strengthen front-line units, according to the Ukrainian army’s general staff.

The wide Dnieper River figures as a major factor in the fighting, making it hard for Russia to supply its troops defending the city of Kherson and nearby areas on the west bank after relentless Ukrainian strikes rendered the main crossings unusable.

Taking control of Kherson has allowed Russia to resume fresh water supplies from the Dnieper to Crimea, which were cut by Ukraine after Moscow’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula. A big hydroelectric power plant upstream from Kherson city is a key source of energy for the southern region. Ukraine and Russia accused each other of trying to blow it up to flood the mostly flat region.

Kherson’s Kremlin-backed authorities previously announced plans to evacuate all Russia-appointed officials and as many as 60,000 civilians across the river, in what local leader Vladimir Saldo said would be an “organized, gradual displacement.”

Another Russia-installed official estimated Saturday that around 25,000 people from across the region had made their way over the Dnieper. In a Telegram post, Kirill Stremousov claimed that civilians were relocating willingly.

“People are actively moving because today the priority is life. We do not drag anyone anywhere,” he said, adding that some residents could be waiting for the Ukrainian army to reclaim the city.

Ukrainian and Western officials have expressed concern about potential forced transfers of residents to Russia or Russian-occupied territory.

Ukrainian officials urged Kherson residents to resist attempts to relocate them, with one local official alleging that Moscow wanted to take civilians hostage and use them as human shields.

Elsewhere in the invaded country, hundreds of thousands of people in central and western Ukraine woke up on Saturday to power outages and periodic bursts of gunfire. In its latest war tactic, Russia has intensified strikes on power stations, water supply systems and other key infrastructure across the country.

Ukraine’s air force said in a statement Saturday that Russia had launched “a massive missile attack” targeting “critical infrastructure,” adding that it had downed 18 out of 33 cruise missiles launched from the air and sea.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later said that Russian launched 36 missiles, most of which were shot down.

“Those treacherous blows on critically important facilities are characteristic tactics of terrorists,” Zelenskyy said. “The world can and must stop this terror.”

Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine twice by early afternoon, sending residents scurrying into shelters as Ukrainian air defense tried to shoot down explosive drones and incoming missiles.

“Several rockets” targeting Ukraine’s capital were shot down Saturday morning, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging service.

The president’s office said in its morning update that five suicide drones were downed in the central Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv. Similar reports came from the governors of six western and central provinces, as well as of the southern Odesa region on the Black Sea.

Ukraine’s top diplomat said the day’s attacks proved Ukraine needed new Western-reinforced air defense systems “without a minute of delay.”

“Air defense saves lives,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said on Telegram that almost 1.4 million households lost power as a result of the strikes. He said some 672,000 homes in the western Khmelnytskyi region were affected and another 242,000 suffered outages in the Cherkasy region.

Most of the western city of Khmelnytskyi, which straddles the Bug River and had a pre-war population of 275,000, was left with no electricity, shortly after local media reported several loud explosions.

In a social media post on Saturday, the city council urged local residents to store water “in case it’s also gone within an hour.”

The mayor of Lutsk, a city of 215,000 in far western Ukraine, made a similar appeal, saying that power in the city was partially knocked out after Russian missiles slammed into local energy facilities and damaged one power plant beyond repair.

The central city of Uman, a key pilgrimage center for Hasidic Jews with about 100,000 residents before the war, also was plunged into darkness after a rocket hit a nearby power plant.

Ukraine’s state energy company, Ukrenergo, responded to the strikes by announcing that rolling blackouts would be imposed in Kyiv and 10 Ukrainian regions to stabilize the situation.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, the company accused Russia of attacking “energy facilities within the principal networks of the western regions of Ukraine.” It claimed the scale of destruction was comparable to the fallout earlier this month from Moscow’s first coordinated attack on the Ukrainian energy grid.

Both Ukrenergo and officials in Kyiv have urged Ukrainians to conserve energy. Earlier this week, Zelenskyy called on consumers to curb their power use between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. and to avoid using energy-guzzling appliances such as electric heaters.

Zelenskyy said earlier in the week that 30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed since Russia launched the first wave of targeted infrastructure strikes on Oct. 10.

In a separate development, Russian officials said two people were killed and 12 others were wounded by Ukrainian shelling of the town of Shebekino in the Belgorod region near the border.

Kozlowska reported from London.

Health and Wellness: Knee surgery gone wrong? It’s more common than you think

Portsmouth Herald

Health and Wellness: Knee surgery gone wrong? It’s more common than you think

Carrie Jose – October 22, 2022

Carrie Jose
Carrie Jose

Arthroscopic knee surgery is one of the most common surgeries performed – despite research telling us that it’s not nearly as effective as most people are led to believe. Furthermore, the science tells us that people who do undergo arthroscopic knee surgery are likely to have knee arthritis that advances more rapidly – resulting in a total knee replacement that quite possibly could have been avoided.

Arthroscopic knee surgery is a minimally invasive procedure that’s commonly done to help “clean out” your knee joint if you’ve got degenerative arthritis, or to clip out pieces of a torn meniscus that might be irritating your knee.

Sounds pretty simple and harmless – right?

Well… it is until it isn’t. The big problem is that arthroscopic knee surgery is not necessary for most cases of knee pain. If there is a complication – which there are many even with “minimally invasive” procedures – you could end up being worse off than when you went in. Plus – if you never even needed the surgery to begin with – you just put your knee through unnecessary trauma that you’ve got to now heal from. This further delays you from addressing the root cause of your knee pain.

The truth is that most people can get full relief of their knee pain as well as full restoration of knee function without any type of surgery or procedure. This is true for 70% of all knee pain cases.

An early research study from 2002 by JB Mosely and colleagues, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, revealed that placebo surgery for advanced knee arthritis was just as effective as actual arthroscopic surgery. Since then, numerous studies have proven similar results. This means that even if you have a torn meniscus or degenerative arthritis in your knee – you can still get better naturally and with conservative treatment.

So why then – despite all this research – are surgeons still performing arthroscopic knee surgery more than ever?

In some cases it’s just what the surgeon knows, and they haven’t kept up with the research. Other times, it’s due to poor conservative management of knee pain. If you’ve gotten physical therapy and it wasn’t effective, people are led to believe that the physical therapy “didn’t work”. But more often than not, you just haven’t found the right physical therapist yet – someone who understands how to diagnose knee pain properly and get you the customized approach that is required to avoid surgery.

And then there’s the elephant in the room.

It’s very common for knee pain to be coming from somewhere other than your knee. Knee pain can come from your ankle, hip, or back. One study showed that 40% of the time – knee pain is caused by your back – even when you don’t have any back pain. MRI’s add even more confusion to this. It’s entirely possible to have degenerative changes, a torn meniscus, or advanced arthritis in your knee – and still have your knee pain stemming from a source other than your knee.

Over the course of my 20 year career, I’ve seen many knee surgeries go wrong. Most of the time, it has nothing to do with the procedure itself, but everything to do with an incorrect diagnosis going in. If your knee pain can be resolved conservatively – and you put it through unnecessary trauma (surgery) – there’s a good chance you’re going to have more problems afterwards. If you get knee surgery when your knee problem isn’t even coming from your knee – then you’re definitely going to have problems afterwards.

The moral of this story is to make absolutely certain that 1) your knee problem is really a knee problem and 2) you’ve fully exhausted all (quality) conservative therapy options before going under the knife.

Remember that 70% of all knee pain cases do not need surgery. Science has proven this. Don’t resort to knee surgery unless you’re 100% sure you really need it. Because it can go wrong and when it does – it’s much harder to come back from then if you had avoided it to begin with.

Dr. Carrie Jose, Physical Therapist and Pilates expert, owns CJ Physical Therapy & Pilates in Portsmouth and writes for Seacoast Media Group. To get in touch or sign up for her upcoming Masterclass for Knee Pain Sufferers – visit www.cjphysicaltherapy.com or call 603-605-0402.

Kremlin Says Everyone Must Suffer So Putin Will Win

Daily Beast

Kremlin Says Everyone Must Suffer So Putin Will Win

Allison Quinn – October 22, 2022

Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via Reuters
Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via Reuters

With dozens of newly drafted troops already dead and Russian troops laying the groundwork for a retreat from a key Ukrainian city, the Kremlin has now revealed it is hoping to give its war a second wind by making ordinary Russians feel it as much as possible.

Sergei Kirienko, the first deputy chief of staff of the presidential administration, said as much Saturday in a speech to a national conference of teachers, declaring that the war the Kremlin has until now doggedly insisted is only a “special military operation” must become a “people’s war.”

“Russia has always won any war, if that war became a people’s [war]. We will definitely win this war: both the ‘hot’ one, and the economic one, and the very psychological, information war that is being waged against us. But for that it is necessary that it is precisely a people’s war, so that every person feels his own involvement. So that every person has the opportunity to contribute to our common victory,” Kirienko said.

His comments raised eyebrows on social media, where many noted this appeared to be the first time the presidential administration had dropped its absurd “special operation” euphemism, and others pointed out that millions of Russians had already fled the country in protest.

Even as Kirienko made his comments, authorities in Belgorod on the border with Ukraine revealed they have erected concrete barriers to ostensibly keep the region safe from Ukrainians. And in Moscow, multiple media reports said local authorities had begun preparing bomb shelters in schools and hospitals—perhaps a theatrical move aimed at stoking fears of an attack in the capital.

Meanwhile, just one month after Vladimir Putin summoned tens of thousands of citizens to face death for him on the battlefield, at least 41 newly drafted troops have already been killed, according to a tally by Mediazona and the BBC. Among them were some who, by law, were not even eligible for the draft—including a Raiffeisenbank employee named Timur Izmailov, who was apparently tricked into visiting his local military recruitment office and then died six days after being tossed on to the frontline.

Bizarrely, Kirienko insisted that the “most important battle” for Russia right now is the “battle for the youth”—a strange priority to name given the thousands of youth already killed to prop up Putin’s delusional war against Ukraine.

An unnamed Russian soldier’s phone call to his mother offered perhaps the most succinct reply to Kirienko’s vision of a “people’s war.”

“Fucking scumbags! This fucking government pisses me off so much! They are so dumb, I am in shock,” he told her from the frontline in Ukraine, according to audio released by Ukrainian intelligence.

“This is how it will be: half the country will be jailed and half the country will go to war.”

After his mother tried to reassure him by predicting Russia will soon take land from Poland, her son shot back that it is Russia that should be worried about losing territory now.

“Yes, yes, yes, with this fucking government it’s already been made clear.”

‘We are going to be homeless’: How mobile homeowners are being forced out in metro Phoenix

AZ Central – The Arizona Republic

‘We are going to be homeless’: How mobile homeowners are being forced out in metro Phoenix

Catherine Reagor, Juliette Rihl and Kunle Falayi, – October 22, 2022

Homeowners in mobile home parks across metro Phoenix are getting evicted.

Many own the mobile home but rent the small lot it sets on.

“This is more than just a notice to get out,” said Priscilla Salazar, whose family has lived 11 years in the Weldon Park mobile home community near 16th Street and Osborn Road. “We are going to be homeless.”

Like Valley apartments, some mobile home park owners are raising rents when leases expire and evicting tenants who can’t pay.

In other cases, owners are shutting the parks down so the land can be used for something else, including housing that mobile homeowners can’t afford. Some mobile home park buyers are clearing out tenants and flipping the infill sites for big profits.

Mobile homes have long been one of the most affordable housing options for metro Phoenix residents, but the growing number of parks closing or becoming pricier is putting many residents in a bind. New affordable parks aren’t being built, and many mobile homeowners can’t afford to live elsewhere or move their homes to other communities in the Valley, alarming housing advocates and prompting government officials to seek solutions.

In mid-September, tenants of Weldon Court received a notice that their park would be closing. It had been sold for $5.48 million to an investor from California just days before. Tenants were given six months to move out.

The Weldon Court mobile home park was recently sold, and mobile homeowners in the community were given six months to move out.
The Weldon Court mobile home park was recently sold, and mobile homeowners in the community were given six months to move out.

“This is our little mini Phoenix. This is our community,” said Salazar, whose children have grown up in the park. Many tenants are low-income families or seniors on fixed incomes.

Residents of Weldon Court and two other Valley mobile home parks that are evicting tenants or raising rents recently protested at the Arizona Capitol and Phoenix City Council chambers. The other two parks with residents fighting their landlords are Las Casitas — which is now called Beacon — at 19th Avenue and Buckeye Road, and Periwinkle, at 27th Avenue and Colter Street.

Mobile home park buying spree

Like with affordable Phoenix-area apartments, investors are snatching up mobile home parks in the Valley.

Since the beginning of 2021, at least 30 trailer, manufactured and mobile home parks have sold for almost $260 million, according to an Arizona Republic analysis of real estate records.

The Valley has been a hub for factory-built homes since after World War II. Many GIs returning home headed to the Southwest. Some hitched a travel trailer to their cars and put down roots and wheels in metro Phoenix.

Most of the metro Phoenix mobile home parks to sell during the past five years are prime infill sites.

The mobile home park buying and closure spree comes as Arizona is facing a shortage of 270,000 homes.

“It’s horrible for people who own their mobile home and have been living in a park for decades,” said Pamela Bridge, director of litigation and advocacy at Community Legal Services. “Investors are raising rents and our office is seeing so many more evictions in older parks.”

She said many longtime residents in Phoenix-area mobile home parks have paid off their homes and made improvements on them, but they can’t afford to move them and can’t find other parks where they can rent a space.

“These people have done nothing wrong,” she said. “We need to leave these mobile home park owners in stable situations.”

Jerry Suter, an 83-year-old veteran who has lived at the Periwinkle Mobile Home Park for 28 years, planned to live out the rest of his days there. He called the park’s closing “devastating” and “traumatic.” With an income of $1,290 in Social Security payments each month, he said he can’t afford to live anywhere else.

Grand Canyon University bought the park six years ago, decided to close it and plans to build student housing.

“They’re going to literally have to drag me out of there,” Suter said. “I’m not giving up my trailer.”

Phoenix has about 20,000 mobile homes, which represents about 3.1% of all of the area’s homes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s far more than the number of mobile homes that can be found in cities with similar populations, including Houston, San Diego and Philadelphia.

But the supply of mobile homes and parks is shrinking. About 5% of Phoenix homes were in mobile home parks in 2018.

The rapid disappearance of mobile home parks is due, in part, to transactions like this: In 2018, homebuilder Taylor Morrison bought the former Scottsdale Wheel Inn Ranch RV and Mobile Home Park, where residents were evicted by another owner a few years before. Similar scenarios with investors buying the parks, evicting the tenants and then selling to a developer are happening across metro Phoenix.

The Phoenix city manager’s office recently created a task force to research potential solutions to the mobile home dilemma. The task force will present its findings to the City Council next month.

District 8 Councilmember Carlos Garcia, whose district includes Las Casitas mobile home park, said he wants to find a way to keep people in their homes or, if the evictions move forward, find new places for the residents to live.

“To me, all options are on the table,” Garcia said. “Priority is to make sure these families don’t end up on the streets.”

Finding more time: GCU-owned mobile home park extends deadline before forcing residents to leave

Few choices for mobile homeowners
Sylvia Herrera (left) and Raquel Hernandez meet during an emergency meeting at the Beacon mobile home park (formerly Las Casitas mobile home park) on Sept. 20, 2022, in Phoenix. The residents were asked to sign a four-month lease and are worried about being evicted by the new owner. Hernandez recently bought her mobile home in the park.
Sylvia Herrera (left) and Raquel Hernandez meet during an emergency meeting at the Beacon mobile home park (formerly Las Casitas mobile home park) on Sept. 20, 2022, in Phoenix. The residents were asked to sign a four-month lease and are worried about being evicted by the new owner. Hernandez recently bought her mobile home in the park.

Residents of Beacon mobile home park were given a new lease in late September. Their rent will increase by 88% over the next four years, it said.

Elvia Ramirez, who lives in the park with her children, started looking for somewhere else to move. But the single mother of four, who works as a receptionist and has lived in the park since she was a teenager, hasn’t been able to find something within her budget.

“Even the mobile homes are too expensive now,” said Ramirez, 33. If she doesn’t secure a new home, she said, she and her kids will probably have to move in with family.

The median price of a U.S. mobile home is now $61,400, according to a LendingTree study. That’s up 35% since 2016.

Many mobile homes are several decades old, and some are even trailers, the oldest type of mobile house. Some of the parks in metro Phoenix sold since early last year are more than 70 years old.

Many parks won’t rent to owners of older mobile homes because their houses may not be up to code. Also, some with additions can’t be moved without damaging them.

The typical rent for a mobile home lot in the Phoenix area was about $400 to $500 a month in 2019, according to housing advocates. Now, rents are rising above $1,000 per lot in some Valley parks.

Help available to mobile homeowners

Arizona has a fund to help, but some mobile homeowners don’t hear about it, and others cannot fully benefit from it because of the age of their residences.

For some owners, the fund isn’t enough to help them move, so they take less than $2,000 in state funds to walk away from their mobile home.

Under Arizona law, mobile home park residents who are displaced because of redevelopment are eligible to receive up to $12,500 from the state’s relocation fund.

But many of the mobile homes are so old, they cannot be moved to another park, either because they would fall apart or because they don’t meet current wind-resistance codes.

Residents who have to leave their homes in place because they can’t be moved can get only $1,875 from the fund, which is managed by the Arizona Housing Department.

Many residents and housing advocates said more help is needed.

“Now I have to abandon my home and give it to the university,” Suter said. “What am I gonna buy for $1,875?”

Patricia Dominguez said her family recently spent $4,000 on a new roof for their home — more than double what they will be reimbursed if they abandon it.

“What they’re offering is nothing compared to the love, and the blood, and the sweat and tears that we’ve all put into our unit,” said Dominguez. Her mother and sister, Salazar, live in Weldon Court.

Community organizer Sylvia Herrera, who is working with residents of all three parks to get more time and money before eviction, said the state relocation fund is “deceiving” because many people can’t move their trailers and therefore can’t access the full relocation amount.

“These are not really resources if you can’t qualify,” she said.

Tara Brunetti, assistant deputy director of the Arizona Department of Housing’s Manufactured Housing Division, said park owners must notify the agency if they plan on closing a park and give tenants 180 days’ notice.

“That gives us time to reach out to the residents” and offer them help, she said. “We are definitely seeing more applications for the fund now.”

The fund has more than $7.6 million to help mobile home park residents.

Sylvia Herrera leads an emergency meeting of residents at the Beacon mobile home park (formerly Las Casitas mobile home park) on Sept. 20, 2022, in Phoenix. The residents were asked to sign a four-month lease and are worried about being evicted by the new owner.
Sylvia Herrera leads an emergency meeting of residents at the Beacon mobile home park (formerly Las Casitas mobile home park) on Sept. 20, 2022, in Phoenix. The residents were asked to sign a four-month lease and are worried about being evicted by the new owner.

The state program does offer more money than it did five years ago, but it took a legislative move to get the increase.

Mobile homeowners and their advocates are hoping for a different kind of fix.

Some cities, including Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas, have updated their zoning laws to help prevent mobile home residents from displacement.

A 2018 Austin city ordinance zoned existing mobile home parks as a “mobile home residence district.” That means if the landowner wanted to use the land for a different purpose, they would need City Council approval to change the zoning.

Portland passed a similar ordinance the same year.

In 2018, when a new owner began evicting longtime residents from the Tempe Mobile Home Park near Arizona State University, the city of Tempe stepped in and helped get rent concessions from the landlord. Tempe also set up meetings for the tenants to negotiate with the new owner and get aid from the Arizona Housing Department.

That former mobile home park is now high-end apartments.

“I believe there should be laws or community work in cities and counties that come up with long-term solutions for people in the park. These people are a vital part of our community,” said Bridge, of Community Legal Services. “We want their children to remain in schools and for the parents to be able to get to their jobs nearby.”

Out-of-state buyers

In 2018, investors spent more than $225 million on 40 metro Phoenix mobile-home parks. It was a record year for mobile home park sales in the Valley.

Then, big Wall Street-backed investment firms were behind most of the sales. Now, big and small investors are driving the trend, but almost all are out-of-state buyers.

The biggest Phoenix-area mobile home park sale since the beginning of 2021 was $84.5 million for the Royal Palm park in Phoenix at 19th and Dunlap avenues. Property records show Chicago-based Continental Communities is the new manager.

Bridge said she has come across several cases of new out-of-state mobile home park owners not giving tenants or the state enough move-out notice.

Mobile home evictions are tracked differently than other rental evictions, and the data to tally the total isn’t available in Arizona.

“Because of the housing crisis, there is no affordable housing. Trailer parks are the most affordable housing right now that you can find,” Herrera said. “People are just trying to retain that, trying to hold on to living in mobile home parks.”

Coverage of housing insecurity on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Arizona Community Foundation.

These simple lifestyle strategies can profoundly impact your brain’s health | Opinion

Deleware Online – The News Journal

These simple lifestyle strategies can profoundly impact your brain’s health | Opinion

Christopher Martens and James Ellison – October 22, 2022

Alzheimer’s disease is a top concern among aging adults and a growing societal problem in the United States, where 1 in 10 adults over the age of 45 report difficulties with memory or thinking. Currently, more than 6 million Americans are affected by Alzheimer’s disease and twice as many will be affected by 2050. Fear of dementia has increased public demand for better treatments and has spurred a much-needed increase in federal funding for Alzheimer’s research that will hopefully lead to a cure for this devastating disease.

Last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved Biogen’s controversial new Alzheimer’s medication, aducanumab — marketed as Aduhelm — despite a lack of clear evidence of its safety and benefits. Following much scrutiny and a decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid to severely limit coverage of the treatment, the company declared that medication a commercial failure. Last week, Biogen announced promising results of a second drug, lecanemab, which appears marginally safer and more effective. Whether the FDA will approve lecanemab remains to be seen.

While we continue to learn and discover new information on how to combat and cure this devastating disease, it is time for us all to increase our awareness of the lifestyle choices and changes we can adopt right away to decrease risk and lessen the number of individuals and families who will be impacted by this disease.
While we continue to learn and discover new information on how to combat and cure this devastating disease, it is time for us all to increase our awareness of the lifestyle choices and changes we can adopt right away to decrease risk and lessen the number of individuals and families who will be impacted by this disease.

As the search for a blockbuster drug for Alzheimer’s disease continues, we should focus our attention on the solid evidence that relatively simple strategies for improving brain health are already known to lessen the risk of developing this feared condition. Lifestyle modifications such as quitting smoking, increasing physical activity and treating depression, hearing loss and high blood pressure are highly beneficial for preserving brain health and are very achievable with current treatment approaches. In 2020, an international panel of experts concluded that up to 40% of all dementia cases worldwide could be significantly delayed or even prevented by addressing such modifiable risk factors. Hearing loss, for example, is widespread among older adults and is one of the strongest risk factors for cognitive decline. It can also be easily addressed with hearing aids, which recently became available over the counter. More recently, psychosocial factors such as depression, social isolation and sedentary lifestyle, each more common during and since the COVID-19 pandemic, have been recognized as important risk factors for dementia. These can be treated with psychotherapy, medications, social interactions and physical activity.

Clinical trials of aerobic exercise, nutritional supplementation and cognitive rehabilitation are currently ongoing and may offer low risk, cost-effective strategies for lessening dementia risk in older adults. One positive aspect of this approach is that lifestyle interventions often address multiple risk factors, leading to extra benefits. For example, increasing physical activity through regular exercise not only lowers blood pressure but has been found to help relieve depression and anxiety and improve other risk factors for dementia like type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Research is showing us that many of the factors which increase our risk for Alzheimer’s disease can be treated with great benefit. While we continue to learn and discover new information on how to combat and cure this devastating disease, it is time for us all to increase our awareness of the lifestyle choices and changes we can adopt right away to decrease risk and lessen the number of individuals and families who will be impacted by this disease. Ask your health care providers to suggest which of these lifestyle changes will most greatly benefit you and your loved ones.

Christopher Martens, Ph.D, is an assistant professor of kinesiology and applied physiology at the University of Delaware and Director of the Delaware Center for Cognitive Aging Research, which is focused on conducting clinical trials aimed at addressing the modifiable risk factors of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. James Ellison, M.D., MPH, is the Swank Foundation Endowed Chair in Memory Care and Geriatrics at Christiana Care in Wilmington Delaware and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology.

Hurricane Ian was lethal for elderly, those with chronic health conditions

Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Fla.

Hurricane Ian was lethal for elderly, those with chronic health conditions

Christopher O’Donnell, Tampa Bay Times – October 21, 2022

Douglas R. Clifford/Tampa Bay Times/TNS

Thomas Billings Jr. and his wife, Sarah, decided to ride out Hurricane Ian in the family room of their Naples ranch home, close to Edgewater Beach.

About two hours after the storm’s landfall, Billings was returning from fetching something from a bedroom when he found his wife lying facedown, according to a Naples Police Department report.

As floodwaters seeped into the home, he moved Sarah, 73, to the bedroom. But the 79-year-old man did not have the strength to lift her onto the bed, the report states. The man was only able to escape the rising waters by floating his wife and himself to the back lanai.

He survived but Sarah drowned, a death that the county medical examiner concluded was complicated by a heart attack.

Florida has strict laws requiring nursing homes and assisted living facilities to plan for disasters like hurricanes. But few rules exist to protect an increasing number of elderly people with chronic health conditions who live at home, including some who rely on electric-powered medical equipment like dialysis and oxygen machines.

Hurricane Ian provided a brutal lesson in how vulnerable that population is to the harsh conditions during and after a major storm.

Medical examiners in Florida have so far linked 112 deaths to Hurricane Ian. Almost 60% of those were people age 65 or older. Chronic medical conditions like heart attacks and respiratory illnesses were contributing factors in one-third of reported deaths, records show.

The average age of those who died was 67.

“There is no one who is required to make sure they evacuate or that their home environment will keep them safe,” said Lindsay Peterson, an assistant professor who conducts disaster preparedness research at the University of South Florida’s School of Aging Studies. “They are much more vulnerable, and we see that in these statistics.”

The reports suggest many would still be alive had they evacuated.

Nine people died because power outages meant they could not operate oxygen or dialysis equipment, including a 70-year-old diabetic in Charlotte County who went a week without dialysis.

Delays in 911 responders reaching patients because of the storm were cited as contributing factors in another five deaths. One was a 79-year-old woman in Orange County whose operation for a fractured hip was delayed because the hospital she was taken to had no running water.

Even some who survived the worst of the storm later succumbed to its aftermath.

Four residents suffered heart attacks and died while they were trying to clear up storm debris, reports show. A 58-year-old man with existing heart problems collapsed and died after walking up seven stories of a Naples condo tower where he and his wife were sheltering. The elevator had stopped working after the lobby flooded.

Trends suggest the number of seniors receiving medical treatment at home will continue to rise. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services estimates that home care expenditures will reach $201 billion by 2028, a 73% increase from 2020.

More needs to be done at state, local and federal levels to protect that population as hurricanes increase in intensity, Peterson said. Home health centers and dialysis centers are required to have post-storm operation plans, she said.

Other states, including Ohio, have gone further with laws that require home health visitors to check in with their clients before a disaster and offer assistance and advice.

Those with health conditions can turn to special-needs shelters, which include generators to power medical equipment and are staffed with nurses.

But it’s not always easy to convince people and their caregivers to commit to staying in a shelter, Peterson said. Elderly people with dementia may feel distressed in a busy shelter where there is always light and noise.

“People associate home with their safety, especially older adults,” she said. “How do we convince them this is not safe for you anymore?”

Both Hillsborough and Pinellas counties maintain a registry of those who have special medical needs and might struggle during an emergency like a hurricane.

Pinellas counts 2,643 people on the registry, which includes information on their evacuation zones and whether they have their own transportation. About 4,000 people are on Hillsborough’s registry, with more than 1,600 listed as needing transportation to evacuate.

Both counties operated special shelters during Ian, with roughly 400 people and 110 caregivers staying at three shelters in Pinellas. Hillsborough housed about 400 people and 40 caregivers across five shelters, officials said.

The shelters are intended as a last resort for people without the resources or time to travel to a hotel or stay with friends or relatives, said Ryan Pedigo, director of public health preparedness in Hillsborough. But he acknowledged that some — including those with medical needs — won’t take advantage of the free facilities, and that many people wait until it’s too late to evacuate.

“You can’t wait until eight hours before landfall to make that happen. People need to take the initiative to leave earlier and evacuate,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s complacency or people flat-out don’t want to go to a shelter.”

Joy Weidinger’s husband of 58 years, Douglas Weidinger Sr., was listed among Hurricane Ian’s dead.

The 79-year-old Punta Gorda man, who suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asbestosis, relied on an oxygen concentrator, a device that provides oxygen-rich air.

When power stopped working, he switched to portable oxygen canisters the couple had ordered for the storm.

But his health deteriorated, his wife said, in part because he was so stressed about the hurricane. He died Sept. 29, one day after the storm made landfall.

The medical examiner in Charlotte County cited the interruption of power as a contributing factor in his death.

“We hooked him up to the concentrator, but by the time we did it, it was too late,” she said. “We all have a time to go.”

DOJ Slams Trump Filing Claiming 9 Mar-A-Lago Files Are His ‘Personal’ Property

HuffPost

DOJ Slams Trump Filing Claiming 9 Mar-A-Lago Files Are His ‘Personal’ Property

Mary Papenfuss – October 21, 2022

The Department of Justice has fired back at Donald Trump’s claim that nine White House files seized from his Mar-a-Lago compound by the FBI are his “personal” property.

The files include two documents related to U.S. immigration policy, six requests for clemency to the then-president, and a letter to him from someone in a military academy, according to the DOJ’s letter, filed Thursday in Florida to U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, the special master appointed to review the confiscated documents.

The Justice Department dismissed the notion that any of the materials belong to Trump. It pointed out that the pardon requests, for example, “were received by plaintiff in his capacity as the official with authority to grant reprieves and pardons, not in his personal capacity.”

The DOJ letter cited the Presidential Records Act, which states that all documentary materials created or received by a president, his staff or his office in the course of official activities are government property that should go to the National Archives when a president leaves office.

Trump also claimed that four documents should be withheld from investigators because of executive privilege. They include the two immigration policy documents, which Trump’s team said were “predecisional materials,” and two documents about meetings.

The Justice Department argued that the former president can’t claim the immigration documents are both his personal records and protected by executive privilege. The claims are contradictory and he must argue one or the other, the filing said.

Dearie made a similar point about mixed and confusing claims concerning the documents in a conference call with the parties earlier this week. He pointed out that there’s “certainly an incongruity there” when Trump’s lawyers insist that some documents are protected both by executive privilege and as Trump’s personal records.

Dearie also complained on the call that Trump’s legal team hadn’t offered much substance in either case to support its claims.

The special master was appointed last month by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon at Trump’s request. He is tasked with reviewing about 11,000 pages of documents to determine if any should be shielded by attorney-client or executive privilege. Dearie’s name was submitted by Trump’s legal team.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled earlier this month that the Justice Department can resume reviewing the seized classified records, blocking part of a stay issued earlier by Cannon. The appeals court also prohibited Dearie from vetting the documents marked classified.

How unhealthy is red meat? And how beneficial is it to eat vegetables? A new rating system could help you cut through the health guidelines

The Conversation

How unhealthy is red meat? And how beneficial is it to eat vegetables? A new rating system could help you cut through the health guidelines

Aleksandr Aravkin, Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Jeffrey Stanaway, Assistant Professor of Global Health and Health Metrics Sciences, University of Washington, and Christian Razo, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington – October 21, 2022

The new rating system shows that eating the right amount of vegetables can lower your risk of heart disease by nearly 20%. <a href=
The new rating system shows that eating the right amount of vegetables can lower your risk of heart disease by nearly 20%. Westend61/Getty Images

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

We developed a new method for assessing health risks that our research suggests should make it a lot easier for people to determine which health advice to follow – and which to ignore. The approach, recently published in the journal Nature Medicine, offers a straightforward way for both policymakers and the general public to assess the strength of evidence for a given health risk – like consuming red meat – and the corresponding outcome – ischemic heart disease – using a rating system of one to five stars.

The system we developed is based on several systematic reviews of studies regarding risk factors like smoking and health outcomes such as lung cancer. Well-established relationships between risks and outcomes score between three and five stars, whereas cases in which research evidence is lacking or contradictory garner one to two stars.

In our analysis, only eight of the 180 pairs that we analyzed received the top rating of five stars, indicating very strong evidence of association. The relationship between smoking and lung cancer, as well as the relationship between high systolic blood pressure – the higher of the two numbers in a blood pressure reading – and ischemic heart disease were among those eight five-star pairs.

This rating system enables consumers to easily identify how harmful or protective a behavior may be and how strong the evidence is for each risk-outcome pair. For instance, a consumer seeing a low star rating can use that knowledge to decide whether to shift a health habit or choice.

In addition, we created an online, publicly available visualization tool that displays 50 risk-outcome pairs that we discussed in five recently published papers in Nature Medicine.

While the visualization tool provides a nuanced understanding of risk across the range of blood pressures, the five-star rating signals that the overall evidence is very strong. As a result, this means that clear guidelines can be given on the importance of controlling blood pressure.

Why it matters

Clear messages and evidence-based guidance regarding healthy behaviors are crucial. Yet health guidance is often contradictory and difficult to understand.

Currently, most epidemiological analyses make strong assumptions about relationships between risks and health outcomes, and study results often disagree as to the strength of risk-outcome relationships. It can be confusing for experts and nonexperts alike to parse through conflicting studies of varying strength of results and determine if a lifestyle change is needed.

This is where our method comes in: The star-based rating system can offer decision-makers and consumers alike much-needed context before headline-grabbing health guidance is dispensed and adopted.

For example, the average risk of ischemic heart disease with a blood pressure of 165 mmHG – or millimeters of mercury, the basic unit used for measuring pressure – is 4.5 times the risk of the disease with blood pressure of 100 mmHG; but this is just a single estimate. The relative risk of ischemic heart disease increases by more than four times across the blood pressure range, and there is inherent uncertainty in the estimate based on available data. The rating of five stars incorporates all of this information, and in this case means that relative risk of ischemic heart disease across the entire range of exposures increases by at least 85%.

On the other hand, take the example of red meat consumption. Consuming 100 grams of red meat per day – as opposed to none – results in a very modest (12%) increase in risk for ischemic heart disease. That’s why it scores a rating of just two stars, consistent with only a weak association.

People should be well aware of their levels of exposure to risks classified with three to five stars, such as systolic blood pressure. By monitoring and keeping one’s blood pressure as low as possible, a person can substantially reduce the risk of developing ischemic heart disease.

What’s next

Our hope is that decision-makers will be able to use our star rating system to create informed policy recommendations that will have the greatest benefits for human health. We also hope the public can use the ratings and the visualization tool as a way to more clearly understand the current level of knowledge for different pairs of health risks and outcomes.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Aleksandr Aravkin, University of Washington; Christian Razo, University of Washington, and Jeffrey Stanaway, University of Washington.

Read more:

Jeffrey Stanaway receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Aleksandr Aravkin and Christian Razo do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Republicans plan to torpedo key Biden policies as polls predict midterm victory

The Guardian

Republicans plan to torpedo key Biden policies as polls predict midterm victory

Chris Stein in Washington DC – October 21, 2022

<span>Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters</span>
Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

A standoff over the debt ceiling. Aid to Ukraine on the chopping block. And impeachment proceedings against homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas – or perhaps even president Joe Biden himself.

With polls indicating they have a good shot of winning a majority in the House of Representatives in the 8 November midterms, top Republican lawmakers have in recent weeks offered a preview what they might do with their resurgent power, and made clear they have their sights set on key aspects of the Biden administration’s policies at home and abroad.

Related: Republicans aim to pass national ‘don’t say gay’ law

Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the chamber, this week signaled in an interview with Punchbowl News that if Congress is going to approve an increase in the amount the federal government can borrow – as it’s expected to need to by sometime next year – Republicans are going to want an agreement to cut spending in return.

“You can’t just continue down the path to keep spending and adding to the debt,” said McCarthy, who is likely to be elevated to speaker of the house in a Republican led-chamber. “And if people want to make a debt ceiling [for a longer period of time], just like anything else, there comes a point in time where, okay, we’ll provide you more money, but you got to change your current behavior.”

Asked if he might demand that Social Security and Medicare, the two massive federal retirement and healthcare benefit programs that are nearing insolvency, be reformed as part of debt ceiling negotiations, McCarthy replied that he would not “predetermine” anything.

But the California lawmaker warned that members of his caucus were starting to question the money Washington was sending to Ukraine to help it fend off Russia’s invasion. “Ukraine is important, but at the same time it can’t be the only thing they do and it can’t be a blank check,” he told Punchbowl.

Then there’s the question of if Republicans will choose to exercise the House’s powers of impeachment – as they did against Bill Clinton in 1998, and as Democrats did to Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021.

The prime target appears to be Mayorkas, whom Republicans have pilloried amid an uptick in arrivals of migrants at the United States’ border with Mexico. Yet another target could be Biden himself – as Jim Banks, chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee, which crafts policy for the party, suggested on Thursday.

Political realities may pose an obstacle to McCarthy and his allies’ ability to see their plans through. High inflation and Biden’s low approval ratings have given them momentum to retake the House, but their chances of winning a majority in the Senate are seen as a toss-up. Even if they did win that chamber, they’re unlikely to have the two-thirds majority necessary to convict Biden, Mayorkas, or whomever else they intend to impeach – or even the numbers to overcome Democratic filibusters of any legislation they try to pass.

Matt Grossman, director of Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, questioned the GOP’s willingness to legislate. The party’s plans, as outlined in the Commitment to America McCarthy unveiled last month, appear thin in comparison to similar platforms rolled out in 1994 and 2010, when Republicans again took back Congress’ lower chamber from Democratic majorities.

“There’s a longstanding asymmetry between the parties. Republicans legitimately want government to do less,” he said.

“They’re doing pretty well electorally without necessarily needing a policy agenda, and they’re tied to, kind of, defending the Trump administration or attacking the Biden administration. There’s not much of a felt need for a lot of policy.”

There are also signs of division within the party over how the GOP should use its new majority. In his interview with Punchbowl, McCarthy said he was against “impeachment for political purposes” and focused instead on addressing crime, border security and economic issues, all familiar themes for Republicans running this year.

The split was even more pronounced when it came to Ukraine. On Wednesday, Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence called in a speech at influential conservative group the Heritage Foundation for Republicans to continue to support the country, saying “there can be no room in the conservative movement for apologists to” Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The day after, the foundation’s president Kevin Roberts put out a statement saying: “Heritage will vigorously oppose Washington’s big spenders who attempt to pass another Ukrainian aid package lacking debate, a clear strategy, targeted funding and spending offsets.”

Democrats are assured control of Congress until the end of the year, and have taken note of the apparent erosion of will to support Kyiv. NBC News reports they may push for another big military aid infusion in a year-end spending bill, intended to keep the Ukrainians armed for months to come.

It seems clear that Republicans will eventually coalesce behind a strategy to strong-arm the Biden administration for some purpose, but Grossman predicted the likely result would be similar to the 2013 government shutdown, when then president Barack Obama and the Democrats refused the GOP’s demands to dismantle his signature health care law.

“With McCarthy it just seems like he is a go along,” he said. “He’s going to be a go-along speaker and that’s going to be the case with a pretty fractious caucus.”