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GOP Lawmaker Gets Mountain Of Mockery After Wild New Biden Conspiracy Theory

A Republican lawmaker on Tuesday took the latest right-wing conspiracy theory about President Joe Biden to a fizzy new level by claiming he would be “jacked up” on soda for this week’s debate against Donald Trump.

“Trump’s team should not underestimate Joe Biden and his team’s ability to, y’know, whether they’re gonna jack him up on Mountain Dew or whatever it is,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said on Fox Business. “Look, the State of the Union this year, he had a lot of energy for about an hour. Or an hour and a half.”

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) speculates Biden could be jacked up on “Mountain Dew” to get through the presidential debate Thursday. pic.twitter.com/bvUo4eTx2l

— The Recount (@therecount) June 25, 2024

The Mountain Dew line may have been a reference to the Will Ferrell movie “Talladega Nights.”

However, Trump and his allies ― including multiple Fox News personalities ― have suggested Biden will take something, possibly caffeine, to get “jacked up” for the debate.

Trump has even called for a drug test before the event.

These claims come after Trump supporters have spent years attacking Biden’s cognition, while ignoring growing concerns that Trump’s own brainpower has diminished.

Burlison’s comments fell flat on X as critics took the fizz out of the attack:

It really wasn’t that long ago. I was out of Congress, and I’d go on @MariaBartiromo’s TV show regularly. We’d have normal conversations about policy. She was smart. Serious. And sane. She was the opposite of Hannity. And then Trump happened. Now it feels like a lifetime ago.👇 https://t.co/941RRPvqIt

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) June 25, 2024

So after claiming “Sleepy Joe” Biden has dementia and putting out numerous AI videos, now Fox News and the GOP claims that the Wizard of Oz is in the White House basement cooking up a special “dosage” of something–which could be Mountain Dew–to “jack him up” on Thursday.

— Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) June 26, 2024

loons https://t.co/GDprgljKqT

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) June 25, 2024

Mt Dew is an antidote to Dementia? Wow, who knew?

— Herr Studt #EverGrateful 🇩🇪 #BoilerUp 🇺🇦 #RDP (@Hoosier47906) June 25, 2024

If drinking caffeine made someone a brilliant and skilled orator, I want my Toastmasters membership money back. Clearly the 7 years I was a member I should have just stuck to caffeine instead of practice and supportive people, right? What a goon. https://t.co/O8aXcb2SUd

— Schu (@SquirrelyShoe) June 25, 2024

If Trump was good at debating it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. They know he isn’t and continue to make excuses as to why Trump will not do well. All of this looks bad for Trump, not Biden.

— 🌸 🐾 A to the Z 🐾🌸 (@A_tothe_Z_Amber) June 25, 2024

Yup. Go to any Open Mic Night at a comedy club. You’ll find wannabe comedians lined around the block for their chance to get jacked on Mountain Dew. Only the lucky few get their can of Dew, of course. But they’re hilarious! Ask Seinfield. He’d be nowhere today without the Dew. https://t.co/k4dQKYMQTv

— Rory Flynn (@rorycflynn808) June 25, 2024

It is evident that they do not anticipate the debate to go well for Trump.

— 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐢 (@ChidiNwatu) June 25, 2024

I wonder if doctors have considered “jacking up” end-stage dementia patients on Mountain Dew.
Can you imagine what it would mean to those suffering and their families? A miracle drug! https://t.co/GT1ADnYSFg

— Shannon Ragland (@JuryReporter) June 25, 2024

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Крупномасштабная российская атака на украинские города

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Власти украинских городов сообщили о множестве погибших и пострадавших от массированных российских ракетных атак. В Киеве разрушена детская больница

Российская ракетная атака на столицу Украины – Киев – в понедельник стала одним из самых жестоких нападений за время двухлетнего полномасштабного вторжения Москвы, заявил мэр Киева Виталий Кличко.

«Это одно из самых страшных нападений. Вы можете видеть: это детская больница», — сказал он агентству Reuters, стоя возле сильно поврежденного здания.

Позднее было уточнено, что российская ракета взорвалась в помещении Национальной детской специализированной больницы «Охматдет»

По данным властей Киева, в результате нападения в городе погибли по меньшей мере семь человек.

В результате крупного ракетного удара России по украинскому городу Кривой Рог погибли по меньшей мере 10 человек, 31 горожанин ранен, сообщили местные власти.

По их словам, в городе зафиксировано несколько попаданий, в том числе повреждение административного здания промышленного предприятия.

По меньшей мере три человека погибли в городе Покровске на востоке Украины в результате массированного российского ракетного удара, сообщил губернатор региона.

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(@mikenov) / Twitter

@carlbildt: RT by @mikenov: Also the children’s hospital in Kyiv 🇺🇦 was now heavily damaged during the massive 🇷🇺 missile attack during the night. euromaidanpress.com/2024/07/08/rus…

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@KyivPost: RT by @mikenov: ❗️Ukraine is initiating an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council following today’s attacks by Russia, announced President Volodymyr #Zelensky.

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(@mikenov) / Twitter

@Gerashchenko_en: RT by @mikenov: 17 people dead and 41 injured in Kyiv

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@GolosAmeriki: RT by @mikenov: Крупномасштабная российская атака на украинские города dlvr.it/T9JjR8

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@SvobodaRadio: RT by @mikenov: На месте удара по больнице в Киеве были найдены обломки корпуса задней части ракеты Х-101 с серийным номером.

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Is the risk of nuclear escalation rising between Russia and the West? | Rajan Menon

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Warnings about nuclear escalation in Ukraine are now being issued with increasing frequency and urgency, due to dramatic changes in policy by some of Kyiv’s main western supporters.

Some European countries, including Britain, France and Germany, and the United States, have changed course, giving Ukraine the green light to use their weapons against sites within Russia. The latter two limited their permission to Ukrainian strikes aimed at defending Kharkiv province – although, according one report, Joe Biden may even lift that geographic restriction, as well. These steps are responses to devastating Russian strikes on Ukraine, many from points beyond its reach.

These changes in western policy – plus the French president Emmanuel Macron’s plans to send French troops to train Ukrainian forces on site and even possibly to fight – have heightened anxieties that Russia may undertake nuclear escalation in retaliation. Vladimir Putin has alluded to this possibility since the day he invaded Ukraine, as have other senior Russian officials, most notably Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the security council of Russia, who previously served as prime minister and president, and may hold the record within Russian officialdom for the frequency of nuclear threats.

The problem leaders and pundits face is that the risks of escalation are devilishly hard to pin down. It’s impossible to make predictions about nuclear escalation in the manner of weather forecasters predicting rain or tornadoes. Simply put, there’s no reliable procedure for making assessments nor any solid evidence on which to base them because there has never been a crisis in a world with multiple nuclear powers that spiraled and culminated in the use of nuclear weapons.

Therefore, analysts and commentators trying to determine the risk of Russian escalation put themselves in Putin’s place and try to see the world, and the Ukraine war more narrowly, as they imagine he sees it. Yet they cannot be sure that their attempts to reconstruct Putin’s views – based on the state of the battlefield and the changes occurring within it, including shifts in policy by Ukraine’s western supporters – correspond to his perceptions.

Even if that problem could somehow be overcome, there’s another. Putin’s views aren’t set in stone – no leader’s are – and can shift quickly based on his reassessments of how the war is going and what he needs to do to achieve victory. Outsiders’ conclusions about escalation lack any solid evidentiary foundation beyond what Putin and his associates say on the subject. Yes, analyzing the latest iteration (2020) of Russia’s nuclear doctrine can help, but nothing prevents Russian leaders from going off script. Besides, that document sets conditions, such as a nuclear attack on Russia or a threat to its existence, that aren’t pertinent to the war in Ukraine.

Some experts attribute an increase in Russian nuclear escalation threats to posturing and intimidation attempts, others see it as alarming

There’s also no surefire way to ascertain the value of the statements emanating from Moscow’s inner circle. Are they reliable guides to the Kremlin’s true beliefs and therefore useful in predicting what Putin may actually do? Or are they part of an information war designed to unnerve the west and influence its policies governing what Ukraine may do with Nato-supplied weapons?

Because we can’t know what Putin and his foreign policy and national security crew are discussing behind closed doors, there’s no way to know whether their public pronouncements are warnings to take seriously or scare tactics to ignore. The result? Some experts attribute an increase in Russian nuclear escalation threats to posturing and intimidation attempts, others see it as alarming.

In pondering the escalation problem, it helps to imagine how and where Putin might decide to use nuclear weapons. Surely, he wouldn’t rain them down on the United States or Europe; that would be suicidal. Perhaps he’d attack Ukraine – but he’d have to find a place that’s not teeming with Russians troops, lest they be killed as well, and in large numbers. He might choose western Ukraine, far from the frontlines, but launching a nuclear strike there for demonstrative effect could still kill many people, shock the global community and even provoke Nato retaliation.

Beyond that, Putin’s messaging to the global south and sympathetic westerners about the Ukraine war has painted the west as heedless of legitimate Russian security concerns, especially Kyiv’s aspirations to membership in Nato and its growing military ties with the west. Using nuclear weapons would be a bad way to win friends and influence people.

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More importantly, despite the “no limits friendship” between Beijing and Moscow, President Xi Jinping has made his opposition to the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine clear.

While it’s prudent to worry about escalation and to avoid steps that increase the risk based on the (unachievable) certainty that Moscow’s threats are mere noise, it’s also important to understand that the risks of escalation cut both ways. Putin is not immune from them.

Ultimately, there’s no escaping the fog of war. In such circumstances it’s essential to keep in mind the downsides of being wrong – which, when nuclear weapons are involved, are catastrophic – but without succumbing to paralyzing fear. Alas, that balance, while easy to prescribe, is hard to strike.

  • Rajan Menon is the director of the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities, a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

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(@mikenov) / Twitter

@mikenov: x.com/mikenov/status… DEW attack on Biden?! #NewsAndTimes #NT #TNT #News #Times #World #USA #POTUS #DOJ #FBI #CIA #DIA #ODNI #Israel #Mossad #Netanyahu #Ukraine #NewAbwehr #OSINT #Putin #Russia #GRU #Путин, #Россия #SouthCaucasus #Bloggers newsandtimes.org…

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(@mikenov) / Twitter

@mikenov: The hypothetical (at this point) DEW attack on Biden and the “Debate debacle” of 6.27.24: Was it the Russian “high precision” retaliation for Sevastopol beach attack? Or was it staged this way by Russians, to imply this connection? What will happen next?