In wake of Trump shooting, calls come for Secret Service protection for RFK Jr.

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The apparent attempted assassination of former President and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump was met with assertions that it underscores the need to extend Secret Service protection to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy, a former Democratic presidential candidate turned third party, has been calling on the Biden Administration’s Department of Homeland Security to grant him protection for sometime, citing threats to his campaign and his family’s history in American politics.

On Sunday, former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown said the apparent attempt on Trump’s life should serve as proof that, in the current political climate, Kennedy is also in danger.

“It’s time for Biden to approve security for Mr. Kennedy immediately,” Brown said via social media.

The former U.S. Senator was joined in his calls by the Catholic Action League, which said that the Kennedy family is at particular risk of political violence.

“Given this incident and the history of the Kennedy family, the Biden Administration must reverse its decision to deny Secret Service protection to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,” they wrote in a Sunday statement.

Kennedy is the son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who died at the hand of an assassin in 1968. His uncle, John F. Kennedy, was killed in Dallas five years earlier while serving as the 35th U.S. President. U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy received death threats for years and received protection more than a year before his participation in the 1980 presidential election.

In an email to supporters sent just days before shots were taken at Trump, the Kennedy campaign called the Biden decision to deny him coverage “appalling.”

“Especially when you know Secret Service protection for Presidential candidates was expanded after the assassination of Bobby’s father, RFK. Every time our application for Secret Service protection has been denied, apologists for the Department of Homeland Security said it was because protection isn’t guaranteed until 120 days before the election,” they wrote.

“That actually isn’t true – many candidates got it a year or more in advance. Anyway, the election is now less than 120 days away. Still no Secret Service,” they continued.

According to Kennedy’s campaign, the Biden Administration has denied his requests for Secret Service coverage at least five times.

The campaign claims it’s President Joe Biden making the ultimate decision about their candidate’s security, and that it’s a “purely political” one.

After Trump rally shooting, conspiracy theories flood the internet, creating dangerous ‘spiral’

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Faith E. Pinho | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally Saturday in Pennsylvania almost immediately gave rise to internet conspiracy theories that experts say will influence how the nation deals with the shocking act of political violence.

The Trump attack marks the first time in decades someone had tried to take a presidential candidate’s life. While previous assassinations — notably the killing of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 — have brought conspiracy theories, the rise of partisan social media allows such claims to spread rapidly and in unexpected ways.

The Trump shooting claims typically came from random social media users — the writers casting aspersions or seeking to affix blame based on their place in the nation’s intensely polarized political landscape.

The conspiracies formed two now familiar camps — one blaming the “deep state” for what happened, the other claiming without evidence that the shooting was not what it seemed.

“Seemed staged,” one social media user wrote.

But even some elected officials joined with false claims. “Joe Biden sent the orders,” Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) wrote on X, the social media platform.

Some claim their own detective work exposed the conspiracy theories.

“What’s always interesting to me about moments like this is that digital sleuths, be they everyday people, be they politically motivated online trolls … we’re all looking in the same place for reliable true and correct information,” said Joan Donovan, a professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University and founder of the Critical Internet Studies Institute. “What’s hard, I think, for the everyday person, is what they’re really looking for is verified information that they can use.”

The current media ecosystem has primed users to feed off rapid, often unverified information, said Michael Spikes, a journalism professor at Northwestern University. And as news outlets shutter across the country, there are fewer sources to vet breaking news events.

As a result, people turn to social media platforms immediately as a news event is breaking. Almost half of all TikTok users say they get their news from the app, according to the Pew Research Center. Occasionally, items that seem unverified at first later become substantiated — such as a video circulating on the Internet message board 4chan that was later confirmed to identify the shooter, Donovan said.

But the purpose of information served up on social media is not always to inform as much as to incite reactions, Spikes said.

“When you have that overload of information, your own reasoning ability sort of shuts down because your brain just goes, this is too much,” he said. “An individual person cannot go through hundreds and hundreds of videos of what has happened, and … make sense out of that. All we can do is react to what we have seen.”

“We’re evolutionarily programmed to search for information when we’re fearful … to basically understand the nature of the threat,” said Erik Nisbet, professor of policy analysis and communication at Northwestern University. “And this is where conspiracy theories like this will take advantage of that sort of emotional reaction.”

By Saturday night, a couple of concerted theories emerged. In one voiced by several prominent conservatives, the belief that Trump is a threat to democracy, often lobbed by the left, effectively placed a target on his back.

“Today is not just some isolated incident,” Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, one of Trump’s shortlisted vice presidential picks, posted on X. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

Other social media users pointed to a statement Biden made earlier in the week, when attempting to assuage the swirl of media attention around his debate performance, saying, “It’s time to put Trump in a bull’s-eye.” Others falsely alleged that security for Trump was cut back.

“Theres an untrue assertion that a member of the former president’s team requested additional security resources & that those were rebuffed. This is absolutely false,” Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the United States Secret Service, wrote on X. “In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.”

Political leaders tried to quell the rising tide of conspiracy theories — even as others among their ranks whipped up the fervor.

“This morning, ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence. We all want a world where respect is paramount, family is first, and love transcends,” former First Lady Melania Trump said in a statement. “We can realize this world again. Each of us must demand to get it back. We must insist that respect fills the cornerstone of our relationships, again.”

Meanwhile, the former president’s son Donald Trump Jr. opted for a more impassioned post on X: “Dems and their friends in the media knew exactly what they were doing with the ‘literally Hitler’ bull—!”

The hot takes on the internet create a ripe breeding ground for increased division and potential violence, Nisbet said.

“We see each other as enemies, not as fellow Americans,” Nisbet said. “If the other side is immoral, not human, is an existential threat to us and to our country, then it is morally OK to take violent action against them.”

One of the main drivers of political violence is perception — how violent each side thinks the other is, Nisbet said.

“[It] becomes this reinforcing spiral,” Nisbet said. “That I think the other side is more violent, I engage in violence, and then the other side thinks I’m violent. And this is really dangerous for our democracy.”

___

Fine, white hairs on your nose? Could indicate cancer, doctor warns

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Avery Newmark | The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (TNS)

A recent social media video highlights an unusual but potentially critical cancer indicator that often goes unnoticed — the sudden growth of fine, white hair on typically hairless areas of the body.

Dr. Scott Walter, a board-certified dermatologist, recently highlighted this issue in a TikTok post. This condition is known as acquired hypertrichosis lanuginosa and affects fewer than 1,000 people in the United States, according to the Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center.

Walter explains in the video that lanugo, defined as fine, nonpigmented, wispy hairs similar to those on newborns, can appear on adults’ ears, cheeks and nose. When this occurs, it may be paraneoplastic — a disorder caused by the body’s response to an internal cancer, often lung, breast, uterus or ovary.

“What’s crazy is that this sign can precede the diagnosis of cancer by two and a half years, meaning this could be the first sign that you have cancer,” Walter said. “Now, again, this is super rare, and I don’t mean to scare you, but I think it’s an interesting way of our skin telling us something’s going on internally.”

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Other symptoms that may accompany HLA include tongue inflammation, altered taste sensation, loss of hair color, chronic diarrhea and weight loss, the Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center reported.

Early detection remains a key factor in successful cancer treatment, according to the World Health Organization, and awareness of lesser-known signs like HLA can play a crucial role in this process.

“So if you see something weird going on with your skin, definitely get it checked out,” Walter said.

©2024 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at ajc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Trump is expected to pick his vice presidential nominee on Monday, first day of the GOP convention

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MILWAUKEE  — Former President Donald Trump said he plans to announce his vice presidential pick on Monday, the first day of the Republican National Convention.

It remains unclear whether the assassination attempt on Trump Saturday at his Pennsylvania rally has changed the former president’s thinking about his potential second-in-command. But he told Fox News Channel host Bret Baier in a call that he planned to make his pick Monday, the anchor said on air.

The roll call vote to nominate that person is expected to take place Monday, according to a person with direct knowledge of the schedule who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The person cautioned that Trump could always change his mind.

Trump is believed to have narrowed his list to three candidates: Ohio Sen. JD Vance, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. All come with different benefits and vulnerabilities.

Vance is perhaps most ideologically aligned with the former president and would energize his base. At age 39, he would add a millennial contrast to the older men at the top of their parties’ tickets. But he has served in the Senate for less than two years.

Burgum would bring business acumen and a steady hand, though Trump has noted his signing of a highly restrictive abortion law could be a drawback.

Rubio is seen in the party as a respected voice on policy, and his background — as the son of Cuban immigrants and a Spanish speaker — could help Trump appeal to Latino voters. He could also help draw more moderate and establishment-minded voters and donors turned off by Trump’s coarse rhetoric. But Rubio’s candidacy is complicated by the fact that he lives in Florida, like Trump, and would likely need to move.

After Saturday’s shooting, Trump’s choice carries considerably more gravity. If a bullet had struck just a little bit to the right, Trump likely would have been killed or seriously injured.

The close call puts in stark relief the significance of a position that is a heartbeat away from the presidency. Trump has repeatedly claimed that choosing someone who was qualified to take over as commander in chief was his top consideration for the role.

“You need somebody that can be good just in case, that horrible just in case,” he said in an interview with “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” in May.

In an interview with Fox News’ Harris Faulkner taped hours before the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally, Trump was asked about how close he was to his VP pick and whether his decision-making would change if President Joe Biden steps aside.

“It’s a very important position especially if something bad should happen,” Trump said. “That’s the most important, if something bad should happen.”

He’s talked about ‘The Apprentice’ — but for VP

Before the shooting, Trump had made clear that he wanted to dramatically reveal his pick at the convention, which he said would make it more “interesting” and “exciting.”

“It’s like a highly sophisticated version of ‘The Apprentice,’” he quipped in a radio interview last week, referring to the show he once hosted that featured him firing contestants on camera.

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Trump and convention organizers had said the RNC’s schedule will go on as planned despite the shooting, with Trump writing on his social media site that he could not “allow a ‘shooter,’ or potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else.”

“In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win,” he wrote.

He held meetings in the days before the shooting with the top contenders. All have submitted material, including bios and photographs, to convention organizers that can be used to prepare content if they’re picked, according to people familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the secretive process.

The private meetings with Vance, Rubio and Burgum were first reported by ABC News.

Nothing was offered during the meetings, one of the people said.

There’s some historical precedent for waiting until the convention

Trump waiting until the convention to choose a running mate is later than usual for recent cycles but is hardly unprecedented.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan negotiated with former President Gerald Ford for hours during the Republican convention in Detroit but settled on his former primary rival George H.W. Bush when those discussions collapsed. Reagan cut it so close that his decision came less than 24 hours before he formally accepted the GOP nomination.

Bush himself waited until the 1988 Republican convention in New Orleans before shocking many attendees — as well as some of the then-vice president’s own top advisers — by picking little-known Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle to be his No. 2, rather than a more established running mate.

Since then, though, the tradition has been to pick a running mate shortly before the candidate’s party’s convention opens.

In 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain, looking for a way to reset his race against Democrat Barack Obama, picked little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin shortly before the Republican convention opened in Minnesota. He got a bump in the polls that didn’t last.

Biden, a Democrat, tapped then-California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate six days before his party opened its convention, which was held mostly virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. And Trump chose Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in the days before the 2016 Republican convention opened in Cleveland.

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Will Weissert contributed to this report from Washington.

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