Friday, October 11, 2024

Solution of Missile Trajectory Differential Equation

 The Problem:

Find the  x- and y-coordinates of the points on the trajectory of a missile launched at an angle of 80 degrees with an initial velocity of 100,000 f/s if the air resistance is 0.01mv. Find the value of x and y after 10 seconds.


Data:    q = 80o,   k = 0.01mv   v = 105 fs-1 and t = 10s

The differential equation can be written:


m(d2x/dt2) =  - k (dx/dt)/ v = - (0.01mv)x’/ v  = - 0.01mx’

Similarly:

my” = -mg – (0.01mv)y’/v  =   -mg – 0.01my’

Yielding the simultaneous pair:

x” + 0.01x’ = 0

y” + 0.01 y’ = -g

We know:

x’o = vo cos (q) = vo cos (80) = (105) cos 80

y’o = vo sin (q) = vo sin (80) = (105) sin 80

General Solution:

x = c1 + c2 (e -0.01t)

y = c3 + c4(e -0.01t)  - 100 gt

x’ = -0.01c2 (e -0.01t)

y’ = -0.01c4(e -0.01t)  - 100 g

At t = 0, x = 0 so:

0 =  c1 + c2 (e -0.01t)

But:

x’o  = vo cos (80) = (105) cos 80 =  -0. 01c2 (e -0.01t)

Then: c2 = - (107) cos 80

So: 0 = c1 + ( - (107) cos 80) or c1 =  (107) cos 80

At t = 0, y = 0:

Then: 0 = c3 + c4 (e -0.01t)

And: y’o  = vo sin (80) = (105) sin 80 = -0.01c4(e -0.01t)  - 100 g

So: c4 = -(107) sin 80 – 10000g

\ c3 = - c4 (e -0.01t) = 107 sin 80 + 10000g


To obtain the x and y-coordinates:

First, the x-coordinate:

x = c1 + c2 (e -0.01t) = 107 cos 80 – (107 cos 80)( e -0.01t)

x = 107 cos 80 [1 - ( e -0.01t)] =  107 (0.17365) [1 - ( e -0.01t)]

or:   x = 1736500 [1 - ( e -0.01t)]

The y-coordinate:

y = c3 + c4 ( e -0.01t)

Or:  y = 107 sin 80 + 10000g – (107 sin 80 + 10000g(e -0.01t))

y = 107 sin 80 + 10000g(1 - e -0.01t) – 100 gt

y = [107 (0.9848) + 320,000](1 - e -0.01t) – 100 gt

y = 1016800(1 - e -0.01t) – 100 gt

After 10 seconds:

x = 1736500 [1 - ( e -0.01t)] = x = 1736500 [1 - ( e -0.01(10))]

x = 165, 200 ft. (» 31. 3 miles)

y = 1016800(1 - e -0.01(10)) – 100(32)(10)

y =  930,580 ft.  » 177 miles)

A Deep Dive Into Neutrino Detection & How It Also Relates To Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry In The Cosmos

Let's cut to the chase: DO neutrinos exist or not?   The inherent problem, based on the results of collective experiments, may be in the question itself.  That is, instead we ought to be asking: Does the neutrino exist as a stable, permanent subatomic particle or identity?  And the answer so far appears to be that it does not. 

To fix ideas, and for reference, two Nobel -winning scientists showed that neutrinos -  which are found in three “flavors,” -  can oscillate from one flavor to another. In other words, they can change identities like a spy on the run, and hence there is no such entity as "the neutrino" - i.e. which is relatively permanent in its properties (namely its flavor).

Logically then, it makes more sense to refer to  "flavor states" than to refer to such and such neutrino. These states are: electron, muon and tau - which are in fact superpositions of mass eigenstates.

Let's review again the basis for these neutrino flavor states. If there are three such states: electron, muon and tau, then there must be three different corresponding neutrino masses which we can call: m1, m2 and m3. Further, the three "flavors" are really different superpositions of the 3 basic neutrino mass states.  Moreover, and to make it more complex, we know that quantum interference between mass states means a neutrino originating in one "flavor" can transmogrify to another over its transit.

Because of the oscillations and quantum interference we need to reckon in a "misalignment" between flavor and the basic neutrino masses. This is done by reference to three independent "mixing angles": Θ 12 , Θ 23  and Θ 13. To a good approximation, oscillation in any one regime is characterized by just one Θ ij and a corresponding mass difference, defined:

 D ij2 = [m j2 - m i2]

As an example, the probability that a muon neutrino of energy E acquires a different flavor after traversing distance L is:

P = sin2 Θ 23  sin2 (
l23)

where 
l23 is the energy -dependent oscillation length, given by:

4ħ E c / (
D m 322)

How well do we know the parameters? Atmospheric neutrino observations yield:

 Θ 23  
» 45 degrees, while D m 322 = 0.0024 eV2.


Meanwhile, solar neutrino data yield 
» 33 degrees for Θ12 and  D m 212 = 0.00008 eV2. (Note: ħ is the Planck constant of action divided by 2 π)  If then:


D m 312  =  [D m 212    +  D m 322 ] = 0.00008 eV2 + 0.0024 eV2

We know, 
D m 312  =  0.00248

which is close to D m 32. An ongoing experiment at Daya Bay, near Hong Kong, set amidst no less than six nuclear reactors, has been a first major step in detecting and understanding the neutrino.

The Daya Bay detectors are arrayed in two clusters near two vertices of a "neutrino detection" triangle. The detector triangle itself is comprised of three separate electron anti-neutrino detectors (about 2 km each from the reactors) and which reside in water baths to unmask any cosmic ray interlopers. Each of the detectors measures the electron anti-neutrino (call it -ve ) flux from the reactors by recording any light flashes due to -ve  collisions within its 20 tons of liquid.


Daya Bay's results have proceeded basically in two related phases:

I. Small deficits of  -ve  were previously recorded at short distances from the reactors, and it was further reported that Θ13,  the last of 3 "mixing angles" that characterize neutrino oscillation is non-zero.

II. Further measurements of Θ13 disclosed it was not only non-zero but large enough for the Daya experimenters to begin investigating neutrinos as factors in the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the cosmos.

This is big deal stuff, because cosmologists have always been perplexed by the apparent preponderance of matter in relation to antimatter in our universe. (I tried to solve this in a high school science fair project by postulating a separate anti-matter cosmos that operated in the context of 'anti-time' or negative time, i.e. with the time vector negentropic as opposed to entropic)

The survival of so little antimatter in our cosmos requires a violation of what is called "CP symmetry invariance". We don't know WHY there is this asymmetry, but it may have something to do with Fitch and Cronin's (1963-64) discovery of a violation of CPT invariance. (C for charge conjugation, P for parity (spatial reflection) and T for time reversal. 

Up until their 1960s' investigations, it was widely accepted by physicists that nature played no favorites where charge conjugation, parity and time reversal were concerned. The discovery of a fundamental violation (Fitch and Cronin found a tiny fraction:  45 out of 22,700 - K2 mesons, spontaneously disintegrate into 2 pions, e.g. π mesons, (instead of the usual 3) changed all this.

It was suggested by them that this CPT invariance violation might also - in some way - account for the apparent asymmetry in the distribution of matter with respect to antimatter. Since then experiments have disclosed T-invariance can be subsumed by CP symmetry invariance. Trouble is, the existence of so little antimatter still violates CP invariance.  (Weak quark interactions exhibit some CP violation but too small to explain cosmological asymmetry between matter and antimatter).

How well do we know the assorted neutrino parameters? Atmospheric neutrino observations yield Θ 23   » 45 degrees, while D m 322  = 0.0024 eV2 . Meanwhile, solar neutrino data yield roughly 33 degrees for  Θ 12 and D m 212 = 0.00008 eV2 . (Note: ħ is the Planck constant of action divided by 2 π)  We have then:

D m 312   =  [D m 212     +   D m 322 ] = 0.00008 eV2  + 0.0024 eV2 

And we already know, D m 312    =  0.00248

This was fine as it went, but a further issue that needed to be resolved was whether the oscillation amplitude, e.g. sin2 (2 Θ 13)  (for the disappearance of reactor antineutrinos associated with the D m 312,  D m 322 approximations) would still be large enough to detect. This was the core experimental quandary facing the Daya Bay collaborators. They were more or less guided (optimistically!) by an earlier independent results that set an upper limit of 0.16 (the Daya Bay -ve detector array was designed to measure a smallest value of 0.01)


Is the "case" closed? Not necessarily! We always must reckon in necessary and sufficient conditions

The fact is that a non-zero Θ 13 is a necessary but not sufficient condition for CP-violation in neutrino interactions. How to proceed? Well, since we know there are 3 non-zero mixing angles then the unitary matrix that describes all the oscillations has an extra degree of freedom.  (Readers who'd like a ‘refresher’ on unitary matrices can check out an earlier blog post:


This additional degree of freedom entails an independent phase factor,

exp (iσ)

which dictates the CP -violation. Standard theory can't predict σ so it must be done via experiment. Enter the 'Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment'  now in the form of DUNE (
Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment). The plan is to direct an intense beam of muon neutrinos from Fermilab at a detector in an underground lab in South Dakota, some hundreds of miles distant. which is close to D m 322

When the neutrinos finally arrive at DUNE, physicists hope they will finally explain how the Big Bang created ever so slightly more matter than its opposite, antimatter — an excess that constitutes everything in the universe today. Oh, and also provide a cross check of the Daya Bay results thus far. (Earlier reported research in Physics Today (May, p. 16, 2017) noted  an effort to track the apparent "disappearance" of electron antineutrinos from nuclear power plants proximate to the Daya Bay. But the measurements had shown a puzzling divergence between those applicable to models for antineutrino production in reactors.)

If all goes well, the results from DUNE (and Daya Bay)  will turn the elusive neutrino into a known quantity, filling a major gap in scientists’ understanding of the universe and, perhaps, return the United States to its former position at the center of particle physics.

On Feb. 1, after more than a decade of planning and construction, the underground caverns were completed with a last blast of dynamite. The hole is there so now all the physicists — and the universe — must do is fill it.

At the end of the experiments might we expect all neutrino results (e.g. from nuclear reactors, solar flux,  atmospheric) can finally be reconciled?   We can't say for certain yet, but at the least neutrino physicists hope that the divergences between the theoretical model predictions and actual data will be significantly reduced. 

See Also:

 Solar Neutrino Breakthrough: Nuclear Fusion In Sun Now Confirmed With Discovery of Solar Neutrinos

And:

Thursday, October 10, 2024

Reinsurance Markets: Expect To Pay More For YOUR Home Ins. Premiums Next Year Based On What Hurricanes In SE Do This Year


                   Air drop of water at Lakeshore, Colorado fire - July this year


  The evidence for widespread climate change havoc  - after two back-to-back major hurricanes  - has now nailed the reality except to hard core pseudo-skeptics and denialists. Such as, alas, remain ensconced in many of the high IQ societies such as Mensa and Intertel. These deniers, most with little or no climate science background, remain determined to blow "hot air" never mind they lack any qualifications to be taken as credible sources.

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found that rising temperatures could add as much as 1.2 percentage points to annual global inflation by 2035. The effects are taking shape already: Drought in Europe is devastating olive harvests. Heavy rains and extreme heat in West Africa are causing cocoa plants to rot. Wildfires, floods and more frequent weather disasters are pushing insurance costs up, too.

As human-created greenhouse gas emissions wreak planetary chaos, researchers forecast even more economic effects, driving temporary price increases — and raising risks for longer-term inflation, especially as spikes become more frequent.

Soaring temperatures will create unbearable conditions for crops and workers. Severe storms and prolonged droughts will batter supply chains and disrupt the flow of trade. Escalating risk and uncertainty will make it more difficult to insure everything from a home to a new business venture.

To fix ideas, a 2023 report by the Colorado Dept. of Insurance, casts an adverse pall over all of us - especially seniors- who live in the state.  According to one insurance specialist quoted in The Denver Post:

"I hate to say it but we will likely  have to adjust to higher premiums over the long term."

Not mentioned enough, is that homeowners must not only pay for their own weather repairs- like hail stones crashing on the roof in our case- but also help pay for the calamities happening to other residents. Such as the Stone Canyon and Lakeshore fires this past year, near Boulder and other areas. It's not fair, but that is the template. I.e. Peter pays for Paul, and himself.  

 In line with this the Post piece goes on to note:  

"The effects of the mounting risks are being felt by a lesser known  link to the chain that connects to homeowners: the reinsurance market. Reinsurers are typically large, global companies that provide insurance to insurance companies to help spread the risk."

In the words of Vince Plymell, spokesman for the Colorado Insurance division:  

 "The international impact of climate change, of increasing climate disasters, and the severity of those disasters, is causing reinsurers to reconsider their risk.  That means they are reducing their exposure or increasing their premiums."

As a direct result, the effects of hurricanes and earthquakes in other parts of the country or the world can eventually show up in a Colorado homeowner's insurance bill.  That somber news according to Jason Lapham, the state's deputy commissioner for property and casualty insurance.  

To top it off, a recent WSJ Financial Analysis report ('Why Insurance Bills Won't Come Down', Sept. 28-29,  p. B 11) notes:

"In general, insurers for houses and businesses also have to consider what is broadly referred to as 'exposure'.  Higher exposure can be driven by much bigger trends such as economic growth, population shifts and increases in the values of what is being insured.  

A major factor in the U.S., particularly for home insurance, has been patterns in population growth. Faster growth has come in parts of the country more susceptible not just to hurricanes, but also to a range of so-called secondary perils such as floods, tornadoes, hail storms and wildfires in the U.S. south and west."

The piece ending with this little tidbit:  

"But even as profitability for reinsurers has jumped, and as interest rates have come down,  providers aren't expected to start giving dramatic concessions, having struggled in the past to keep up with rising loss costs."


So given all this, you can bet your sweet bippy that whatever the billions in damage Hurricane Milton wreaks when it strikes Florida today, we here in Colorado will be forced to pay for a portion of it.  Just as you will, dear readers, wherever you reside. That said, we may not see the increase when our insurance bills come due next month - but we can surely expect to see whatever increase the reinsurance markets have in store next year.  That in addition to repairing any roof damage that comes from local hail storms over the same time period.


See Also:

by Richard Heinberg | May 15, 2024 - 5:53am | permalink

I’ve been watching global trends for a few decades, and have never before seen so many warning lights flash at once. That’s just one reason I’ve concluded that, as of 2024, humanity is at a make-or-break crossroads in its economic, social, and environmental history.

Let’s take a quick look at those warning lights, and see if we can grasp why so many risks are converging at once.

Things Are Deteriorating Fast

Nearly everyone knows that the climate is heating up. But a flurry of alarming recent studies about rapidly warming oceansclimate feedbacks, and tipping points suggest that the rate of warming is suddenly accelerating. Last year was the warmest on record “by far” according to NASA, with the global average temperature leaping above the next-warmest year, 2016, by an unprecedented 0.27 degree F (0.15 degree C). And it’s been revealed that the international community of climate experts, rather than fear-mongering, has actually downplayed the severity of the crisis.

And:


And:
by Maya Boddie | October 10, 2024 - 5:59am | permalink

— from Alternet

Two Florida congressmen — Reps. Greg Steube (R) and Byron Donalds (R) — co-sponsored a bill that "would bar U.S. presidents from declaring a climate emergency," according to Rolling Stone.

Per the report, the legislation refers to "the climate crisis as a 'false emergency.'"

Steube, who "represents Sarasota and Charlotte counties, both south of Tampa," Rolling Stone notes, has voted "against environmental measures, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to set cleaner car and truck standardsand efforts to reduce pollution and climate threats impacting communities on the front line of environmental and health hazards."

Donalds, on the other hand, "voted against $20 billion in disaster relief funds for the Federal Emergency Management Agency in a stopgap spending bill that passed both chambers."

Both of the GOP leaders' districts face evacuation orders as Hurricane Milton approaches the Sunshine State.

» article continues...

And:

by Sulma Arias | October 9, 2024 - 5:47am | permalink

The human cost from Hurricane Helene continues to rise, with over 230 people dead in six states and hundreds still missing within a 500-mile path of destruction. Helene has had a devastating impact on poor, low-income, and rural people in underserved communities, where access to food, water, and emergency services has been cut off.

As the director of a national network of grassroots organizations, our members in groups like Down Home North Carolina and Hometown Action are on the ground in many of these small communities, connecting people with the help they need. It always warms my heart to see neighbors help neighbors in the wake of a natural disaster.

But the truth is, devastating floods and hurricanes like Helene, which destroy the lives of more and more people, are anything but natural. They are the direct result of the warming temperatures and rising sea levels which are caused by our dependence on burning oil and gas. And this dependence, in turn, is caused by the insatiable greed of fossil fuel companies.

» article continues...

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

WSJ Hack Kim Strassel Implodes At Jack Smith's Recent Jan. 6 Case filing - But Bob Woodward's New Book Shows He Is Spot-On

 

                                                 Kim Strassel: No. 1 Traitor Defender
                                                                            

                "I can't thank you enough for helping me torch the Constitution!"


Kim Strassel just can't let it go. It seems every time any serious effort is mounted to hold her antihero Trump legally accountable (for his criminal and traitorous acts), she flips out. Such was the case with her latest screed-worthy column ('Jack Smith's October Surprise', WSJ,  Oct. 4, p. A13). Therein she loses it over special counsel Jack Smith's newly unsealed 165-page filing in his January 6th criminal case against Donald Trump. Easily the most notorious American Traitor since Benedict Arnold. But maybe Strassel, true to her previous yappings  (e.g. 'Durham and the Clinton Dossier', WSJ, Nov. 15, 2021, p. A13): against what she reviles as "lawfare",  insists Smith and the DOJ are guilty of election interference.  She writes: 

"Even if he's the upright legal hero of the left' description, the timing and nature of his actions provide an inescapable appearance of election interference."   

And I say, Bollocks! They provide no such "inescapable appearance" to anyone with more than air between the ears who has been following the case and the deliberate foot-dragging of the Supremes for the 6 months leading up to their roundly condemned decision, e.g.

And as Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe noted therein:

"This president will have now ended up being above the law because he will have managed to have used the procedural gimmicks and gears of the legal system to avoid being held accountable before he could again assume office and make the whole trial go away."

So Smith had no choice, in order to rescue constitutional normality, to file his brief whether Strassel likes the timing or not. Especially as I pointed out in the same post:

 "The reason is that such interference was totally unnecessary given the D.C. Appellate Court had already given an exhaustive ruling.  Especially exposing the insanity of Trump's lawyer John Sauer claiming absolute immunity even for the use of assassination for a political opponent would be justified under certain circumstances."

The inopportune timing, before the election, is totally due to the corrupt 'Supreme 6' dragging their feet for months, putting Smith in that fallback position. It was either act - filing an extensive brief to get around the court's cockeyed codswallop - or let a certified traitor and convicted felon potentially cakewalk into the White House. When this orange pestilence isn't fit to enter a porto-potty for cleaning duties.

Kim, alas, is so blind she can't even see Trump's criminality, squawking:

"Mr. Smith is actively working to undermine a Trump re-election by presenting to the public a bevy of new claims painting the nominee as criminal...."

Uh, newsflash, Kim, he IS a criminal!  She perhaps needs help in jogging her memory about what transpired mere months ago:


But knowing her history of disingenuous pro-Trump apologias disguised as WSJ columns, one can't be too confident. The regular Kim Strassel monitor will easily recall her Nov. 15,  2021, WSJ effort in which she scribbled:

"Special counsel John Durham’s indictments have turned any number of narratives on their heads, including the question of which 2016 presidential campaign was in bed with Russians. It wasn’t Donald Trump’s.”

So once more it appears her mind 'left the reservation' either willingly or randomly, as she also failed to acknowledge the multifold evidence  clearly contained in docs pertaining to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.

The 1917 Espionage Act  was actually used to put former AF officer Reality Winner in a federal prison for leaking many of these docs. One could argue that would hardly have been the case if the documents were merely vanilla 'doc-speak' or bogus. But Winner's Snowden-like release was so damning that the Trump DOJ- under then AG Bill Barr, literally had no choice than to turf her into the slammer for 5+ years and throw away the key.   

Add to all that we've since learned from WaPo star journalist Bob Woodward (in his latest book, 'WAR',  that Traitor Trump secretly sent Covid test kits to Putin while our own country was suffering a test shortage, i.e.

Trump secretly sent covid tests to Putin during 2020 shortage, book says

Worse, Woodward also exposed how the Traitor has contacted Putin no fewer than seven times since he was booted from office. Meanwhile, much of the material applicable in the Russian 2016 interference case also underlay The Mueller Report, i.e.

www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

 Also  in his indictments of 12 Russian (GRU) agents.

[Read the indictment here.]

Mueller felt his hands were tied by a DOJ directive that prevented special counsels and prosecutors going full "Perry Mason" under a nebulous, long standing rule not to press to hard in criminal cases against sitting presidents - even if they were clearly traitors.  So once Barr let loose his watered down "summary" of Mueller's report, e.g.

It was "case closed" and the reactionary Right's media sewage pickers tarred the whole exercise as a "hoax".  They were confident Barr had delivered the 'chops' to reduce the whole sordid episode of the Russian election assistance to one word they'd beat to death like they did "liberal" 40 years earlier.

Naturally then, Strassel and the whole stable of WSJ pro-Trump hacks and trolls  - like Danny Henninger and Holman Jenkins Jr. - could run their fish wrap columns with that narrative.  So all this serves to illuminate Strassel's latest effort as well as her previous ones, and it exposes just as many errors of fact, law, and knowledge of the Constitution.

For example when she brays:

"The justices already rapped him for ignoring a weighty question in his Jan. 6 indictment- ruling that a president is entitled to immunity for exercising "core constitutional powers".

But enlisting Seal Team 6 - or any other outfit - to conduct an assassination of a political opponent, is not exercising core constitutional powers and is clearly not eligible for immunity. This was an issue the D.C. Appellate court had already decided but which Trump's renegade 6 Supremes dismissed.  This is especially significant given the insanity of Trump's lawyer (John Sauer) claiming absolute immunity even for the use of assassination for a political opponent (which he claimed would be justified under certain circumstances.) Given the D.C. ruling the Supremes should have butted out and allowed the trial with Jack Smith (in front of Judge Chutkin)  to go forward - back in MARCH.  That instead Smith was forced to do an end around the court to nail the traitor before the election is not his fault, it is the corrupt Trump Supremes for their unconscionable 6 month delay!  See e.g.

This is B.S.’: Maddow shreds ‘cravenness’ of Supreme Court delaying Trump trial (youtube.com)

The other daft claim of Strassel, i.e. 

"While certain presidential acts have absolute immunity, many others - including conversations with a vice president about his duty to oversee the counting of electoral votes- have presumptive immunity and the burden is on the government to rebut that premise."

Not so!  Not when the 'conversations' amount to an illicit order from the president to refuse to certify an election so that he can illegally remain in power!

The very fact Jack Smith now has smoking gun evidence (as part of his brief) showing Trump's communications with Pence and that he didn't even care ("So what?") when alerted the life of his vice president was threatened as the insurrection unfolded, is also damning. It shows he acted as a private insurrectionist plotter - not as any "president   exercising "presumptive official duties" of his office.  That neither Kim, or the Supremes who came up with this "presumptive immunity" BS - is mind boggling.

What was Trump doing all that time? Sitting back watching the mayhem on his 65- inch HDTV screen. He actually had hoped his MAGA minion mutts would string up Pence for not obeying his orders. Thus, we must now consign this MAGA faction of the court to also being traitors like Trump given they are willing to protect him by granting immunity.  Which means the only final arbiters (and deliverers) of justice will be the voters again - as they were 4 years ago. 

Strassel, ever refusing to be a changeling scribe writes at the end:

"If Kamala Harris does win, half the country will point to this filing as a reason - the latest Justice Department interference in an election."

To which I respond: "Horse shit!"  

If Kamala does win, and I believe she will in a landslide, it will be because more than half the country finally sees this orange traitor for the absolute, derelict scum he is - especially how he's risked thousands of lives in the hurricane zone states with his vile lies about FEMA. 

Let this pig lose 'bigly' and then rot in prison before rotting in Hell. And only a MAGA know-nothing nincompoop (or apologist like Kim Strassel)  would blame such a loss on "election interference".


See Also:

by Maya Boddie | October 9, 2024 - 6:33am | permalink

— from Alternet

After CNN correspondent Jamie Gangel reported Tuesday morning that veteran journalist Bob Woodard's new book includes a revealing exchange between Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin that took place at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the MSNBC contributor later highlighted what she thinks are the two most important words in her reporting.

Gangel — along with CNN's Jeremy Herb and Elizabeth Stuart — noted in their report that Woodward's book, "War", "reveals new details about Donald Trump’s private conversations with Putin – and a secret shipment of Covid-19 testing equipment Trump sent to the Russian president for his personal use during the height of the pandemic."

Speaking with Gangel Tuesday night, CNN host Kaitlan Collins emphasized the part of the reporting "that was so fascinating is that in the height of the pandemic when Americans are struggling to get Covid tests, Trump actually sent some to Putin in Russia."

Gangel replied, "And I think there are two key words here — not only according to Woodward's book did Trump send some to Putin — but it was a secret shipment for Putin's personal use."

» article continues...

And:

by Heather Digby Parton | October 8, 2024 - 6:43am | permalink

— from Salon

I happened to spend some time with a highly intelligent 17-year-old over the weekend who's taking AP Government and is keenly interested in the election. She's following all the polling and the punditry and knows the ins and outs of the battleground map better than most adults I talk to. And she said something that struck me because I hadn't really considered it before. We were talking about the vice-presidential debate and she found it odd that it was so civil. She kept waiting for something to happen. And I realized that there are millions of people for whom Donald Trump's brand of demagogic politics is normal. They are either young like this person and have literally grown up in this era of bad feelings or they are those for whom politics wasn't of interest until Trump came along. That's a lot of people who don't know that it isn't supposed to be this way.

Granted we have had more spirited arguments in televised political debates than the one we witnessed last week between JD Vance and Tim Walz. But we never had the kind of debates like those that Donald Trump has participated in since 2016. It's also true that we never had election campaigns like Donald Trump's presidential campaigns and we certainly never had a presidency like his. You have to wonder, is this going to be the way it is going forward even after he's gone?

» article continues...

And:

by David Badash | October 8, 2024 - 6:31am | permalink

— from Alternet

On the one-year anniversary of the Hamas terror attack on Israel, Donald Trump took a deep dive into antisemitic and Nazi rhetoric.

The ex-president—win or lose—near the end of his final White House run told right-wing political commentator and host Hugh Hewitt that immigrants have “bad genes” which make them more likely to commit murder. It is a charge some say is direct out of Nazi eugenics.

Just hours later Trump unleashed a “vile trifecta” of antisemitism, according to Andrew Miller, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs.

“Israel has to do one thing,” Trump had told Hewitt. “They have to get smart about Trump, because they don’t back me. I did more for Israel than anybody. I did more for the Jewish people than anybody. It’s not reciprocal.”

Those words unleashed great anger and pain.

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And:

by Thom Hartmann | October 8, 2024 - 5:49am | permalink

— from The Hartmann Report

Could the Covid disaster of 2020 — which Trump botched so badly that America has had more Covid deaths than any other nation in the world except Peru (whose president denied Covid was dangerous) — be what’s fueling the Trump MAGA cult? Are we, in other words, as a nation suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and that’s driving a national mental illness crisis that opened the door for Trump’s cult to grow?

— Colorado elections worker Tina Peters, for example, was just sent to prison for nine years for her role in trying to subvert the 2020 election; she’d completely bought into Trump’s lie that Democrats had stolen that election and is paying for it with the rest of her life.

— My barber was telling me this past weekend about how one of his regulars is stocking up on guns, ammunition, and dried food in anticipation of a second Civil War. This guy is now fully in the Trump cult and is thus perfectly willing to kill his neighbors for politics, once somebody declares the war is now underway (as many of these guys expect Trump to do in the next few weeks).

>— All across America, families are being torn apart by the Trump cult, and sometimes the conflicts even lead to violence.

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And:

'He wants Russia to win': Susan Rice blasts 'dangerous' Trump over his ties to Putin (msnbc.com)

And: