Longtime Democrat leader Rep. Steny Hoyer suffers 'mild' stroke



Longtime Democrat leader Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland is now recovering after suffering a "mild" stroke over the weekend.

On Sunday night, Hoyer, 85, "experienced a mild ischemic stroke and sought medical treatment," according to a statement from his deputy chief of staff, Margaret Mulkerrin.

Hoyer has been a mainstay in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than four decades.

As the New York Post noted, Mulkerrin's statement did not clarify to which hospital Hoyer was taken or how long he remained there. However, Mulkerrin did add that Hoyer "has responded well to treatment," "has no lingering symptoms," and that he "expects to resume his normal schedule next week."

Mulkerrin's statement also extended thanks to the entire "medical team" on behalf of Hoyer and his family.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute reported that the vast majority of strokes — fully 87% — are ischemic, meaning they involve blockages that prevent the brain from receiving normal blood flow, WBAL-TV reported.

Hoyer has been a mainstay in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than four decades. After spending a few years in the Maryland Senate, Hoyer won a special election in 1981 for the seat representing his state's fifth congressional district.

Since then, Hoyer advanced so far in his party's ranks that he eventually became House majority leader from January 2019 until January 2023.

An ardent Democrat partisan, Hoyer was also a key figure in the two impeachments of former President Donald Trump, calling the first impeachment investigation "a duty to the country, to the American people, and to the Constitution of the United States."

To this day, Hoyer remains in Congress and is still an active member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Both legislative chambers are currently on August recess, even though a federal statute requires an August recess only during odd-numbered years.

This stroke is not Hoyer's first medical scare, the Post reported. In 2018, while he was still majority leader, he was hospitalized after developing pneumonia. He also contracted COVID-19 in 2022.

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AstraZeneca vindicates skeptics with admission that its COVID-19 vaccine can cause blood clots



The British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has finally admitted that its COVID-19 vaccine can cause bloodclots.

While there were plenty of indications and fatalities over the years to suggest as much, the company and so-called experts around the world long downplayed the causal link along with critics' concerns.

Clot shot

The Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine was a viral vector vaccine developed in the United Kingdom, which used a transmogrified version of a chimpanzee adenovirus. The shot wasapproved for use in the U.K. in December 2020 and later approved by the World Health Organization. It was not rolled out at the outset in the U.S., although the Biden administration did agree to share up to 60 million doses with other nations.

By January 2022, the vaccine had been injected globally more than 2.5 billion times.

More than 20 countries temporarily took AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine off the market in March 2021 following mounting reports of abnormal bleeding, low blood platelets, blood clots, and sudden deaths among various recipients.

Some agencies had been caught off guard as blood clotting was not an advertised side effect of the vaccine. Reuters indicated that Australia's Federal Office for Safety in Health Care, for instance, was surprised when a 49-year-old nurse died from "severe coagulation disorders" after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine.

USA Today indicated that some of the cases that raised red flags in 2021 involved blood clots in the lungs, the legs, throughout the blood, and in the brain.

German and Nordic researchers concluded that some vaccine recipients were developing a clotting disorder that produced antibodies that activated platelets and led to clots, reported the New York Times. What was then dubbed "vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia" was believed to harm one in 100,000 recipients.

As a point of contrast, for patients under 30, the vaccine would prevent only 0.8 in 100,000 from going to the hospital with COVID, according to the Telegraph.

AstraZeneca repeatedly denied causation, noting in a March 14, 2021, statement that a careful review showed "no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or thrombocytopenia, in any defined age group, gender, batch or in any particular country."

AstraZeneca added that the "available evidence does not confirm that the vaccine is the cause [of the clots]."

Despite an alarming number of apparent victims, various health organizations, including the European Medicines Agency, suggested that "the vaccine's benefits continue to outweigh its risks."

Multiple European countries resumed AstraZeneca vaccinations in late March after the European Medicine Agency claimed it was "safe and effective."

The World Health Organization doubled down in June 2022, claiming AstraZeneca was "safe and effective for individuals aged 18 and above," reported the BBC.

The cry of the so-called experts

The temporary caution exercised by some European nations was criticized by American medical professionals such as Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an infectious disease specialist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, USA Today reported at the time.

"While it's easy to scare people, it's very hard to unscare them," said Offit. "It creates the perception that these vaccines are dangerous."

Offit further suggested that the "only way out of this pandemic is by vaccination, and if we make people reluctant to be vaccinated, we're going to have a hard time getting out of this pandemic."

"Unless there is an unusually high rate of blood clots among people receiving a particular vaccine, I just think it's quite dangerous to draw these kind of conclusions of causality without knowing," Akiko Iwasaki, an epidemiologist at Yale University, said in March 2021.

Daniel Salmon of Johns Hopkins' Institute for Vaccine Safety told the New York Times that vaccines had not been shown to cause blood clots.

Peter Hotez, a cable news vaccine promoter and the founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, claimed, "By unnecessarily suspending the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, the European countries may have created a new problem."

Hotez suggested that the "vaccine ecosystem is fragile, and it doesn't take a lot to get a vaccine voted off the island."

Legal action

Jamie Scott, a father of two, was left with a permanent brain injury after developing a blood clot and bleed on his brain following his AstraZeneca vaccination in April 2021. On three occasions, his wife was told by hospital staff that Scott was going to die. Having so far survived his injury, Scott — certain the vaccine was "defective" — is now seeking to hold AstraZeneca accountable, reported the Telegraph.

Scott sued the company last year. At least 51 other alleged vaccine victims have since followed his lead, launching a group action under section 2 of the British Consumer Protection Act of 1987. Among the plaintiffs are the widower and two young children of Alpa Tailor, a 35-year-old who died after receiving the shot.

A coroner determined in September 2021 that the mother of two had died from blood clots on her brain. She began suffering stroke-like symptoms a week after her first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, reported the Daily Mail.

In the event that AstraZeneca loses in court, it could be forking over around $100 million in compensation. The British government will, however, underwrite the company's legal bills.

The admission

AstraZeneca told Scott's lawyers in March 2023, "We do not accept that [thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome] is caused by the vaccine at a generic level."

However, the Telegraph noted that in a legal document submitted in February to the High Court of Justice in the U.K., the company noted, "It is admitted that the AZ vaccine can, in very rare cases, cause TTS. The causal mechanism is not known."

After confirming victims' suspicions, the company attempted to cast doubt on whether the plaintiffs were themselves victims of such "very rare cases," writing, "TTS can also occur in the absence of the AZ vaccine (or any vaccine). Causation in any individual case will be a matter for expert evidence."

According to the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences, "very rare" side effects are those that occur in less than one in 10,000 cases, reported the Independent.

The company has reportedly also attempted to cover itself, claiming that the product information concerning the AstraZeneca vaccine was updated in April 2021 to note "the possibility that the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is capable, in very rare cases, of being a trigger" for TTS.

Kate Scott, the first plaintiff's wife, told the Telegraph, "The medical world has acknowledged for a long time that VITT was caused by the vaccine. It's only AstraZeneca who have questioned whether Jamie’s condition was caused by the jab."

"It's taken three years for this admission to come. It's progress, but we would like to see more from them and the Government. It's time for things to move more quickly," said the victim's wife. "We need an apology, fair compensation for our family and other families who have been affected. We have the truth on our side, and we are not going to give up."

Sarah Moore, a partner with the law firm representing the group action, said in a statement, "It has taken AstraZeneca a year to formally admit that their vaccine has caused this harm, when this was a fact widely accepted by the clinical community since the end of 2021: In that context, regrettably it seems that AstraZeneca, the Government and their lawyers are more keen to play strategic games and run up legal feels than to engage seriously with the devastating impact that the vaccine has had upon our clients' lives."

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'I'm only 24': Daughter of rapper Snoop Dogg suffers 'severe' stroke

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Cori Broadus, the daughter of rapper Snoop Dogg, was rushed to the hospital this week after suffering a "severe" stroke. She is just 24 years old.

On Thursday, Broadus posted a photo to her Instagram story showing herself lying in a hospital bed. She then revealed to her more than 650,000 followers that she had just suffered a stroke.

"I had a severe stroke this a.m. I started breaking down crying when they told me," she wrote. "Like I'm only 24; what did I do in my past to deserve all of this."

— (@)

Broadus did not share any additional information about the concerning incident, including what type of stroke she suffered or what may have caused the stroke.

The prevalence of strokes in people Broadus' age is not exactly known. Data suggests that approximately 15% of strokes occur in people under age 50, but unfortunately, the data isn't stratified to show the prevalence of strokes in people ages 18-25, for example.

Still, one can assume that strokes are rare in young adults like Broadus because the risk factors for stroke have a compounding effect on the body. This, of course, is why it is alarming that a 24-year-old like Broadus would experience a "severe" stroke.

On the other hand, Broadus has been open about her health complications, mostly from an autoimmune disease known as Lupus. But she told People magazine last year that she had recently made changes to her lifestyle to improve her health.

"I've been good, better than I've ever been," she said. "I stopped taking all of my medication like five months ago. I'm just doing everything natural, all types of herbs, sea moss, teas. I started working out, drinking lots of water. So now I think my body's like, OK, this is the new program and she's getting used to it."

"I've had medication since I was 6 years old, depending on these drugs all my life. So I wanted better for myself," she explained. "I wanted to change because it just became a lot. I'm only 24 years old, taking 10 to 12 pills every single day. So I kind of just went cold turkey."

Fortunately, those changes had paid dividends.

"My body is not achy," Broadus told the magazine. 'When you have lupus, that's one of the number one things. You have achy joints, you have arthritis. And now I'm like, damn, I'm not complaining about my knees, my feet, my hands, my back."

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Fetterman's handlers and allies in the liberal media caught deceptively doctoring quotes to make him sound coherent

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Sen. John Fetterman's sporadic incomprehensibility has been well documented ever since his stroke in May 2022. However, a recent incident has exposed the great lengths to which the Pennsylvania Democrat's team and his allies in the liberal media are willing to go in order to downplay his continued debility.

Fetterman confounded a witness and his colleagues during a Senate hearing Tuesday, spouting another incoherent assemblage of words framed as a question to which no one responded.

What was actually said — the intended substance of which some Republicans agreed with — stands in stark contrast to the misquote manufactured by Fetterman's office, then recirculated by Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein.

Stein tweeted that Fetterman asked Silicon Valley Bank ex-CEO Greg Becker, "Shouldn't you have a working requirement after we bail out your bank? Republicans seem to be more preoccupied with SNAP requirements for hungry people than protecting taxpayers that have to bail out these banks," reported Fox News Digital.

The question was succinct and coherent, only it hadn't passed Fetterman's lips as quoted.

Here is what Fetterman actually said: "The Republicans want to give a work requirement for SNAP. You know, for a uh, uh, uh, a hungry family has to have these, this kind of penalties, or these some kinds of word — working, uh, require — Shouldn’t you have a working requirement, after we sail your bank, billions of your bank? Because you seem we were preoccupied, uh when, then SNAP requirements for works, for hungry people, but not about protecting the tax, the tax papers, you know, that will bail them out of whatever does about a bank to crash it."

\u201cJUST IN: John Fetterman struggles to ask a question at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.\n\nThis is the most painful 90 seconds you will watch all month.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s like if you have I mean like, eh eh and and they also realize is that that that now they have, it\u2019s in they\u2026\u201d
— Collin Rugg (@Collin Rugg) 1684257173

After getting roundly criticized for his hand in what appeared to be politically expedient historical revisionism, Stein tweeted Wednesday, "Yesterday I tweeted this quote, provided to me by the Senator’s office, without checking it against the video. That was my fault. Though it captured his meaning, I deleted the tweet since some of the words in the quote were inaccurate."

While Stein admitted fault, he wasn't alone.

Katherine Fung, writing for Newsweek, similarly cleaned up Fetterman's mess of a question — extra to that conventionally expected of a reporter — quoting him as saying, "Republicans want a work requirement for SNAP, for hungry families.... Shouldn't you have a working requirement after we [bail out] your bank?"

Prem Thakker at the New Republic and Stephen Neukam at The Hill also went the distance to polish up Fetterman's remarks.

Fox News Digital reported that Fetterman's office routinely cures the senator's remarks posted to his congressional website, which bear little resemblance to what he actually said.

For instance, Fetterman's office quoted him as saying during an April 26 Senate hearing, "I'm really excited about Whole-Home Repairs. Here in Pennsylvania, one of my friends, Nikil Saval in the Senate, shepherded it. And he got linked up with the Republicans and they actually created one of the first kinds of a program like this in the nation."

What Fetterman said was much closer to: "I'm really excited by it, because here in Pennsylvania one of my friends really [inaudible] it, Nikil Saval, he was one of the literally — quite literally — as hard left as a politician I'm aware of — you know — certainly in the Senate. Um, he really helped shepherd that. And he got linked up with the Republicans, and he actually created the first kind of a program like this in the nation, you know. And one of my colleague — Mr. Vance — talked about well if there's a leak in the ceiling, what if you don't have the money to fix that? What can happen to that, kinda things?"

While Fetterman's perseverance has been widely commended and there have been bipartisan expressions of hope that his recovery is successful, there remain concerns that he is presently not up the demands of one in his position.

Blaze TV host Chad Prather tweeted, "This man can't even complete a sentence. Fetterman should RESIGN immediately and take some time off and focus on his health."

Conservative pundit Carmine Sabia wrote, "Democrats have no shame. Sens. John Fetterman and Dianne Feinstein need to resign and address their medical issues. This is sad."

"There is no way John Fetterman should be in office," wrote TPUSA journalist Benny Johnson.

Joe Calvello, a spokesman for Fetterman, told Newsweek, "If sickos on the internet want to keep making fun of John for recovering from a health challenge, that's between them and their consciences."

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"Saving Private Ryan" actor Tom Sizemore, 61, dies following stroke

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Tom Sizemore, 61, died Friday after being taken off life support, multiple outlets reported.

"It is with great sadness and sorrow I have to announce that actor Thomas Edward Sizemore ('Tom Sizemore') aged 61 passed away peacefully in his sleep today at St Joseph’s Hospital Burbank," Sizemore's manager Charles Lago told Variety.

"His brother Paul and twin boys Jayden and Jagger, 17, were at his side," the statement also said.

Sizemore suffered a brain aneurysm as the result of a stroke while at his home in Los Angeles on February 18. Paramedics rushed him to the hospital, where he had remained in critical condition in a coma under intensive care, the outlet also reported.

The actor's family were "deciding end of life matters" on February 27, according to CNN, after doctors reportedly told the family Sizemore's condition was hopeless.

"Today, doctors informed his family that there is no further hope and have recommended end of life decision. The family is now deciding end of life matters and a further statement will be issued on Wednesday," Lago told the outlet at the time.

"I am deeply saddened by the loss of my big brother Tom," his brother Paul Sizemore said in a statement acquired by Variety. "He was larger than life. He has influenced my life more than anyone I know. He was talented, loving, giving and could keep you entertained endlessly with his wit and storytelling ability. I am devastated he is gone and will miss him always."

Sizemore, was best known for his roles portraying Mike Horvath in "Saving Private Ryan," Colonel Danny McKnight in "Blackhawk Down," Det. Jack Scagnetti in "Natural Born Killers," Michael Cheritto in "Heat" and many more. Credits in 2023 include a yet-to-air season six episode of the Netflix television series "Cobra Kai" and "Bermuda Island" directed by Adam Werth.

The Detroit native had battled drug addiction since he was 15 years old, and had completed a variety of stints in treatment, as TheBlaze reported earlier.

In addition to his struggles with substance abuse, Sizemore had repeated legal issues ranging from misdemeanors to felony assault. He pleaded no contest to two domestic violence charges in 2017.

He pleaded no contest to assault and battery on his ex-girlfriend Heidi Fleiss in 2003, for which he was sentenced to six months in jail, with his sentence stayed until he underwent drug rehabilitation, the Washington Post reported.

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