Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suddenly stopped speaking during a weekly Republican leadership news conference Wednesday afternoon, appearing to freeze, and then went silent and was walked away.

  • Defaced@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This was a really odd scene, dude just stares right off into space and comes back to say he’s fine. That was a classic seizure if I ever saw one.

    • ImplyingImplications
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      1 year ago

      Yup my grandpa has seizures like this too. Maybe 81 year olds shouldn’t occupy powerful leadership positions?

      • Dojan@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        What! You’re saying the system of oligarchic gerontocracy we’ve had for all of modern history, that is literally burning our planet, should be changed?

        Blasphemy!

        • TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Congress, the President, and judges need a mandatory retirement age. We have them for pilots and air traffic controllers. I would set it at 65.

          • Dojan@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I would like this in Sweden too. Our idiots are comparatively youthful, but they’re still old enough to be completely disconnected from reality and make decisions with awful repercussions they’ll never live to see.

        • zephyrvs@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I know the Right likes to throw around Biden Bot’s text to speech timeouts, motor control issues, ghost handshakes and the gibberish world salad he likes to produce but I like to think there’s a parallel dimension where this is frontpage news world wide, no matter where you politically stand.

          But we’re in this dimension, unfortunately. 🌚

          • Dojan@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m not even American. I hate most of the American politics and politicians. It’s infectious, like a disease once it crops up in the US it spreads to Europe sooner or later.

            With Trumps campaigning and subsequent victory, the alt right nazis here in Sweden grew and made it into parliament.

            There hasn’t been much of an abortion debate here. It’s been given that people should be able to short, but there has been some discussion about cutoff points. Then Roe v Wade was overturned and boom! Abortion was suddenly a topic.

            Last election, a major political talking point was allowing for the creation of areas where police can stop anyone they deem suspect and search/interrogate them. Literally stop and frisk!

            We’re also fighting a war on drugs. We have some of the most draconian policies for it.

            We live in a society, and I’m sick to death of it. I want out!

    • aseriesoftubes@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      It’s even stranger to me that nobody reacted or did a damn thing for a good 10 seconds. Then they took him backstage and prepped him for questions, rather than taking him to THE FUCKING HOSPITAL LIKE NORMAL HUMANS WOULD.

      • floofloof
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        1 year ago

        Then they took him backstage and prepped him for questions, rather than taking him to THE FUCKING HOSPITAL LIKE NORMAL HUMANS WOULD.

        These are Republicans though. Simple human care and compassion is not their strong point.

    • floofloof
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      1 year ago

      My first thought was that it may have been a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack). My mother had one; she was utterly confused for a while but then fine afterwards, except that she lost her memory of several hours preceding the attack. It is similar to a stroke but it is over quickly and doesn’t leave much damage. But, as that Wikipedia page notes:

      The occurrence of a TIA is a risk factor for having a major stroke, and many people with TIA have a major stroke within 48 hours of the TIA.

    • Scooter411@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      My wife has a seizure condition, she’s much younger than Mitchell. There have been plenty of times where she just kind of trails off and in the middle of a sentence and then kind of stares off slack-jawed. McConnell already looks pretty slack-jawed so I would say a seizure diagnosis makes sense. I will also say fuck his people - I dislike the old turtle, but they obviously have no idea how to react, react slowly, and then don’t follow through and let him just stand there. He could have easily collapsed and died right there.