ThinkerX

yes. Utterly incoherent. As in not being able to communicate verbally,

I might not have been clear. By 'mental collapse,' I meant something along the lines of Aphasia - an inability to speak coherently at all.

Okay... So... NYC can start seizing Trump's property to pay his fine come March 25. As I understand it, a major part of Trump's self-image is tied up with him being a successful billionaire real estate mogul. NYC confiscating his properties is a major blow to that self-image. And Trump has already been displaying increasing indicators of 'cognitive decline.' Add the one to the other... A mental collapse of some sort - something really blatantly obvious even to most of Trump's followers? Or maybe this is where Trump openly - as on national television - calls for the assassination of the relevant judge and DA? (This is Trump, after all.)

At this point, I expect the 2024 general election to be a sort of blurry carbon copy of the 2020 general election, with the same result - Biden wins, the Democrats retain the Senate and take the House.

A minor technicality like that wouldn't even slow Trump down.

By now, the 'true market value' (if there is such an animal) of at least Trump's NYC properties must be known to the relevant courts. I wonder if they have potential buyers lined up - or if there have been any serious inquiries. That said, I agree that Trump is almost certainly on the hook to a (hostile) foreign power for the one bond and will be again should the money for the other miraculously appear in the next few days. Trump loses the relevant appeals and the presidential election...

Could Trump take that kind of hit - I am assuming asset forfeiture -and still remain viable. Or even 'rich?'

If these Russian oil refineries keep getting bombed, then that could cripple Russia's entire economy - and their war effort.

I have to wonder... Will these Russian Rebels be able to take Belgorod? And what will Putin's reaction be should they do so? Also, I wonder if the Russian Rebels are actively recruiting on Russian soil, and if so, how much that will swell their ranks. If this starts to snowball...

More and more, I suspect the polls showing Trump ahead of Biden are manipulated somehow - a suspicion reinforced by Trump putting up altered/fake mainstream media articles on his site.

All those artillery shells going off in relatively small areas - those areas are likely to be 'dead zones' for decades. Maybe longer...

Looks like Ukraine aid might sneak through Congress after all - though it might cost the current speaker his job: House Republicans will pass Ukraine aid after backing down on border demand (msn.com) MTG is coming across as a Russian stooge.

Russia trying to build railways around sanctions: Russia's grand railway plan to get around Western sanctions is about to get even bigger (msn.com) I am reminded of the old Axis powers prior to WWII.

And then there were two... Another Republican congress critter announced his retirement before the 2024 election, dropping the Republican House majority to just two seats. One of my predictions for this year was that the House had a 50-50 shot of changing hands through sheer attrition and Republican incompetence before the election. Colorado Rep. Ken Buck resigning from Congress, narrowing GOP majority (msn.com)

I will refrain from commenting about the cross-border incursions. I will note that Team Biden somehow managed to get a 300 million military aid package for Ukraine approved. Not much, but better than nothing.

I am not so sure of this. From where I am standing, the Republicans stand to lose control of the House and fail to take the Senate regardless of who becomes POTUS. Mostly, this will be because of Republican incumbents doubling down on horrible policies and laws - but a lack of campaign money will also play into it. I figure the D's will flip a number of R seats deemed 'safe' - House and Senate both.

This is where Trump steals all the campaign money he can lay his hands on crippling Republican incumbents across the county, and possibly handing safe seats to Democrats. And his base will cheer.

Taylor Swift will rally the youth vote, and the vast majority of those she sways will vote D. Even my apolitical daughter took a look at 'Project 47,' which she thought was hilariously evil. I have noticed something odd in perusing the comments for articles and social media posts pertaining to Taylor Swift's involvement in politics. The Trump fans, contrary to their usual crude and hostile selves are reluctant in the extreme to attack her directly - almost no name-calling or crude threats, just 'she should stay out of politics.' It is almost like they are afraid of her. As to Biden being too old, that is what Harris is for - something far too many people forget, here and elsewhere.

Again, the idea would be to destroy the infrastructure in a large area around Belgorod. Russia would be unable to stop that. They would use Russian equipment, and maybe the Russian POW militias for this. Destroying several hundred bridges, factories, locomotives, and power plants would put that entire part of Russia in a bind.

And yet a renegade Russian idiot with an army came close to capturing Moscow last summer. That shows just how weak the Russian defenses are. The trick is to exploit that weakness. A perpetual defensive war is a losing proposition for Ukraine. They want victory, then at some point, they need to go on the offense. If not with an actual army, then maybe several thousand drones targeting Russian infrastructure.

I might not have been clear in my last post in this thread. Then again, I was half-asleep, so... First off, Russia has put its economy on a war footing of sorts. Even so, large portions of the underlying infrastructure are creaky at best - everything from shortages of spare parts to difficulty obtaining money to just plain keeping the power on. Despite these problems, Russia is pushing ahead with the invasion. My thought is Ukraine changes this situation. They send a few tens of thousands of troops over the border with exclusively Russian ordinance and equipment. They may or may not capture Belgorod, but they do set up temporary bases in the area. From those bases, they systematically destroy every bridge, locomotive, refinery, munitions depot, power plant, and arms factory throughout the area - in effect putting a significant slice of Russia in dire danger of complete collapse. Maybe even destroy a certain crucial pipeline in the region. Ukraine could make this a short two or three-day operation, or they could dig in - and keep right on destroying vital infrastructure until Russia halts the invasion.

Maybe Ukraine should shuffle some troops around, create a fair-sized unit with the best Russian munitions and equipment, then zip across the border and take Belgorod. Either raid the city or better yet, capture it. Russia squawks, they continue to advance. Unless Russia was to divert resources from their invasion, they couldn't stop Ukraine short of using nukes, as demonstrated by last summer's fiasco.

I suspect that many of the polls showing the popularity of Trump's policies and his lead over Biden are manipulated - 'astroturfed somehow. This suspicion stems from increasing complaints about manipulated articles from legitimate news sources posted by Trump, plus the whole underperformance thing.

Florida and Texas.

Just a suspicion at this point, but I figure the Ds might flip two or three Senate seats this time around - seats that would normally be deemed safely red. Not so much because of the candidate's merits, but because the current republican officeholders are acting like worse jackasses than normal - and because Trump stole all the campaign money.