Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 67

Some startups say they can reverse diabetes. Not all scientists agree

Getty/agrobacter

Diabetes is one of the most common diseases in the United States: nearly 1.5 million cases of diabetes are diagnosed each year in America. Moreover, according to the American Diabetes Association, diabetes ranked seventh among leading causes of death in the U.S. in 2015. Yet in the past few years, there is a growing debate over as to whether or not the chronic disease — specifically, type 2 — can be “reversed” or not.

You might have seen the headlines: both the Guardian and the New York Times published stories that claimed that type 2 could be "reversed"; meanwhile, the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical University has an article stating definitively the opposite. The truth is more complicated, and speaks to the complexities of research and the tendency of the news media to sensationalize small (yet still sound) scientific studies.

First, some background for those who are fortunate enough to not be affected by diabetes: Type 1 diabetes occurs when the pancreas produces little to none insulin. Type 2 diabetes is when one’s body either resists or does not produce enough insulin, insulin being a hormone that manages the glucose level in the body. Type 1 cannot be reversed; there is not much debate around that (although there is a startup purportedly trying to cure it). Yet there are conflicting theories over whether type 2 can be reversed—though it is pretty well-established that it can be managed through diet or exercise.

Considering one in three adults are at risk for the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it should come as no surprise that Silicon Valley sees a chance to capitalize on diabetes treatment. Recently, multiple ventures have popped up in the biotech world, some of which make provocative claims. Case in point: Vitra Health, a San Francisco-based startup that raised $45 million in their last round of financing, aims to reverse diabetes through the mix of a nutritional intervention, nutritional ketosis, and machine-learning. (Nutritional ketosis is the process in which fats and ketone fuel your body—instead of carbohydrates; it is similar to the ketogenic diet known as “keto.”)

According to a study the tech company funded, which was published in the SpringerLink journal and peer-reviewed, a “novel metabolic and continuous remote care model can support adults with [Type 2 diabetes] to safely improve HbA1c, weight, and other biomarkers while reducing diabetes medication use.” In other words, there was some success in using this method to “reverse diabetes” — which, by Vitra's standards, means lowering HbA1c level, the marker to measure glucose concentration,  to below 6.5.

“I think what a lot of conventional diabetes care focuses on is the management of the disease, to continue you to take your medications and hope to slow the consequences,” James McCarter, MD PhD, Head of Research at Vitra Health, told Salon. “We don’t believe that is correct, we believe you can achieve reversal.”

But there is a caveat.

“We don’t mean that it is a cure and you can do whatever you want and be fine,” he added. “We recommend that people stay in nutritional ketosis, maintain dietary changes long-term, and make permanent lifestyle changes.”

Vitra Health is not the only startup trying to reverse the disease. Semma Therapeutics, a startup that aims to cure type-1 diabetes, has raised over $100 million for stem cell therapy research.

Michael German, Professor at the Diabetes Center at the University of California, San Francisco, said achieving true "reversal" of type-2 diabetes is unlikely.

“You can improve your blood sugar, with diet and exercise, but the underlying propensity for type-2 diabetes does not go away,” he said. “As soon as you stop [lifestyle changes], it will come right back.”

Dr. German also warned that a lot of the success in managing diabetes depends on the patient's genetic propensity. He explained that it is easier for someone with an early onset of diabetes to manage the disease without medication, than it is for someone who has had it for years. In both cases, he says a change in diet and adding exercise to one’s lifestyle can always help someone who has the disease.

This is not meant to be a he-said-she-said account. Indeed, German and McCarter are saying basically the same thing about how patients can manage their diabetes, even if they disagree about what "reversal" means, and if it is possible.

In an interview with Healio in 2014, researcher Yann Klimentidis, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Arizona’s Zuckerman College of Public Health, wrote: “The bottom line is that, although this area of research is still in its infancy, prevention and treatment measures for type 2 diabetes could eventually be more precisely tailored to an individual’s genetic profile.”

And perhaps that is what researchers and doctors should be aiming for: the "third way" of individual treatment plans, rather than hype over a diabetes "cure" or "reversal" that doesn't really mean that the disease is gone forever.

 

Discovery of “interstellar rock” near Jupiter prompts calls to probe it for life signs

Getty/dottedhippo

“Are we alone in the universe?” is one of humanity’s most pressing questions. When news surfaced in October 2017 that the first (so we thought) interstellar object, Oumuamua, had zoomed rapidly in and out of our solar system, the unusual properties of the object — along with the fact that nothing like it had been observed by astronomers before — prompted some to speculate that Oumuamua could be more than a mere asteroid from another solar system. After measuring it for radio wave emissions, it appeared to be just a weird rock: Oumuamua was an interstellar asteroid, the first of its kind, but it probably wasn't a spacecraft from E.T.

Now, it turns out Oumuamua may be less unusual than we gave it credit for. According to a new study published on Monday, our solar system may be full of interstellar debris, formed from outside our solar system. Now, astronomers are salivating at the chance to study one of these newfound interstellar captures, dubbed BZ509, to learn more about our galaxy, and even probe it for hints of life.

The groundbreaking report was published in "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters" on Monday. In it, authors Fathi Namouni and Helena Morais explain how BZ509 was first discovered in 2014, when it piqued scientists' curiosity due to its strange orbit. Because everything in the solar system formed from the same rotating nebula, pretty much all moons and planets orbit and rotate in the same direction and in the same plane; things that don't are generally either the result of some catastrophically violent collision — or, just maybe, aren't from here.

Despite being in orbital resonance with Jupiter, BZ509 did not move in the same direction as the gas giant. Yes, BZ509 moved in the opposite direction, yet managed to avoid colliding with Jupiter because of its elliptical nature. Researchers recently discerned that the only way BZ509 could end up in such a bizarre orbit is if it originated from a different solar system.

“[At] the beginning of this investigation, we did not suspect BZ to be of interstellar origin,” Dr. Namouni told the Times. “We developed a new method that allows us to follow the asteroid back in time to see which part of the solar system it came from.”

The new method lead researchers to conclude it was an “extra-solar” immigrant.

Avi Loeb, chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, told Salon via email that BZ509 is an “exciting finding.”

“After the discovery of Oumuamua, we wrote a paper with my postdoc, Manasvi Lingam, that predicted theoretically the existence of a population of extrasolar rocks which were trapped by the Jupiter-Sun system,” he explained. “This object BZ509 may be the first member of our predicted population.”

Loeb is also an advisor at Breakthrough Listen, a global astronomical program searching for evidence of civilizations beyond Earth. The company used the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in December to listen for radio signals being emitted by Oumuamua.

Loeb hinted that BZ509 could be another opportunity to study the conditions in other planetary systems without having to pay them a visit.

“It is much easier to design a mission that will probe a captured asteroid within our solar system than to send a spacecraft to another star in a journey which would take at least a hundred thousand years with existing rocket technology,” he said. "In particular, we can send a spacecraft that will examine BZ509 for signs of life.”

“Such rocks could potentially transfer life between planetary systems in a process called ‘panspermia’” he added. “It is possible that life on Earth originated elsewhere and was delivered by an alien asteroid that crashed on Earth.”

Such an expedition requires a lot of advance planning, so we should not expect to see one any time in the next few years. Still, the possibility that our solar system is full of these interstellar rocks means that humans can explore distant solar systems without ever leaving our own.

 

 

 

Everything you need to know about the Ebola vaccine

AP Photo/Raphael Satter

This article was originally published by Scientific American.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) just got worse. In what the World Health Organization’s top response official is calling a “game changer” event, one case has now been confirmed in Mbandaka — a city of 1.2 million people about 150 kilometers from the rural rainforest area where the other confirmed Ebola cases have been found.

The country has been grappling with 44 reported cases, three of which have been confirmed. Another 20 of these cases have been categorized as probable, and 21 are suspected. At least 23 of these individuals have died, according to the latest WHO figures.

The Geneva-based Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, a public-private partnership that has purchased 300,000 doses of the experimental Ebola vaccine for an emergency stockpile, has already committed funding to deploy thousands of doses during this outbreak. This Merck-produced vaccine has been through clinical trials but is not yet licensed by any health authority. The DRC government, however, approved its deployment under what are known as compassionate-use regulations.

Public health workers are now racing to quarantine potential cases in an attempt to limit the disease’s spread. They are also trying to identify all the people who may have been in direct contact with someone who is infected, so they can start inoculating them with the experimental Merck vaccine as early as this weekend. That shot consists of Ebola surface proteins spliced to a live virus that causes the livestock disease vesicular stomatitis.

Seth Berkley, an infectious disease epidemiologist and the chief executive of Gavi, spoke with Scientific American about the latest developments in the outbreak, and about the vaccine response plans.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows:]

What’s the current situation on the ground in the DRC, now that there is at least one case in an urban location?

You have to remember urban depends on how you define urban — this is not Washington, D.C. This case is definitely more worrying than one in a very remote, isolated location, however. The issue now is that we have seen Ebola in multiple areas, and that certainly increases the risk of transmission and therefore increases our worries. The hope is that by early intervention and engagement, this outbreak can be controlled. Of course, if necessary, the company [Merck] could start making more vaccine.

How many doses of vaccine have arrived so far to the DRC, and how many more can GAVI support?

On the ground now are 4,320 doses and another 5,400 doses are moving towards there. That means within a few days we should have more than 9,000 in the DRC. When we did our advance purchase commitment with Merck they were required to have 300,000 doses available, so there are obviously more doses that we can move forward if necessary.

This experimental vaccine can only be used in the context of a clinical trial. Can you talk a bit about that?

This vaccine — and only this vaccine — has been through efficacy trials in humans and there it showed 100 percent efficacy protecting against Ebola. But the point is that it has gone through all of those procedures and is now being prepared for licensure. In a sense it is an experimental vaccine because it is not yet licensed — but you also need to keep in mind that it is a vaccine that has gone through safety and efficacy testing already. This clinical trial will provide more data on safety and efficacy, and will be done under informed consent using good clinical practices.

What is the makeup of the clinical trial?

This is not a trial to ask the question, “Does the vaccine work or not work?” because we already have information on that. The finalization of the protocol is going on now, as we speak, so I don’t want to go into details until it is finalized. But basically it is going to be a “ring vaccination” approach, which means that once there are known Ebola cases then all of those individuals’ contacts, family members and so on will be vaccinated and will then will be followed up on, on a regular basis. The vaccination efforts will also include health workers. Exactly how far those efforts will extend out will be decided on the ground—like if it will include burial workers, first responders, etcetera.

The vaccine was found to be 100 percent effective in field tests in Guinea in 2016, meaning none of the vaccinated people came down with the disease whereas unvaccinated people did. Is there any reason to think the situation might be different here?

It is the same strain of Ebola — Ebola–Zaire. Of course, it is always possible that there are different factors that can affect people’s uptake of vaccine, so in a sense you always have to watch out for that in a new population. This vaccine was used in a field setting in west Africa, however, so it’s not like this was a vaccine tried in a completely different place and situation.

What are the challenges deploying this vaccine on the ground?

The biggest challenge is the logistical challenge. The original area this was found in the DRC is not easily reachable and now it has been found in a number of places. My understanding is that at least one of the cases was related to a funeral, though I haven’t confirmed that myself. So tracking this is difficult, and it is about shoe leather epidemiology—asking who might have been in contact with cases in a very stressful time.

The vaccine itself must be stored at –70 degrees Celsius or –80 degrees C, so that is an issue in terms of transport. Luckily there are good transport and portable transfer tools to do that. It can be used for a couple of weeks at normal, refrigerated settings on the field—but that’s a challenge, too, [because electricity can be unreliable]. Getting teams together who will ensure there is informed consent is a challenge as well.

The vaccine only works against one of the most common strains of the Ebola virus — the one apparently circulating in the DRC. Is there concern about this strain mutating in a way that would render the vaccine unhelpful, and are there any genome-sequencing efforts ongoing in real time to track the viral changes?

Right now people are trying to figure out what is going on there. I don’t think any real-time genome sequencing is going on right now, and you have to understand this is one of the most isolated places on Earth — which means things have to be delivered by helicopter and boat.

Are you preemptively sending vaccine doses to neighboring countries?

No, at this point it’s not being sent to other locations. Obviously the WHO and the DRC government are putting out warnings for travelers and trying to set up controls over crossing borders. But this is hard to do in such an isolated rainforest area.

Do you expect anyone to refuse the vaccine?

It hasn’t been offered to anyone yet. It will hopefully be offered at the end of this week or the beginning of next week. At that time, we will look closely at the acceptance rate. My guess is that since this disease and its effects are known that it will be welcome. One issue will be how do you make sure it is available to the people it is indicated for [meaning direct contacts of the ill and health workers] — and not the worried well.

Another question going forward will be how do we protect health workers. We may want to keep health workers prophylactically vaccinated, but that’s not on the table yet. Right now it’s a matter of responding to the emergency.

Top Trending
Check out the major news stories of the day

Sexual consent, beyond “no means no”: “13 Reasons Why” season 2 breaks new ground

Netflix/Beth Dubber

Spoiler alert: This article specifically discusses plot details about season 2 of the Netflix drama "13 Reasons Why." If you have not yet watched the new season, stop reading right now.

In a different season and on a different series, “13 Reasons Why” viewers would be primed to view Chloe Rice as the quintessential mean girl. The actress playing her, Anne Winters, plainly was cast for her all-American looks: blonde, doll-faced, the captain of the cheerleading squad.

She’s dating Bryce Walker (Justin Prentice), captain of Liberty High’s football and baseball teams, egged on by his band of loyal toadies who high-five his exploits and fear his wrath. Bryce and Chloe were made for each other, according to every high school film and TV trope sold to us since the 1950s.  

Except for the part about Bryce being a rapist — not only that, but the rapist who assaulted Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford) and is named as one of the titular reasons that drove her to slip into a bathtub and slit her wrists.

Chloe dates him despite this, and despite what she decides is just a rumor that her boyfriend raped another girl she knows, Jessica Davis (Alisha Boe).

Soon enough, the writers of “13 Reasons Why” provide us with a reason that we can’t dislike Chloe — well, besides her overtures of seeming friendly, or at least above it all, when it comes to Jessica: Chloe herself is one of Bryce’s victims. She just can’t acknowledge it, or doesn’t want to.

Concrete evidence of this surfaces late in the season, but the audience is made aware Bryce’s assaults against Chloe long before this. Chillingly, some who witness one such act may think of it as one of those things that can happen on a movie night. That’s why the scene in question stands as one element “13 Reasons Why” got right in a second season full of misfires.

The explosive popularity and controversy surrounding season 1 of “13 Reasons Why” and its storyline, steeped in themes of teen suicide, made Netflix’s renewal a foregone conclusion. The question was how, exactly, showrunners Diana Son and Brian Yorkey could believably and responsibly continue a story that ran through Hannah Baker’s stated 13-part audible suicide note/manifesto in a single pass.

Where business demands it, television writers can find a way to expand upon any close-ended story. If “The Handmaid’s Tale” can continue past the final pages of Margaret Atwood’s literary classic, certainly Jay Asher’s 2007 young adult novel cannot be immune to expansion.

Besides, the theme of the sophomore run is already baked into the season 1 in the form of what happened to Hannah: rape culture and the meaning of consent. The emergence of #MeToo only heightened the topic’s relevance as well, rendering the topic a touch less controversial than the series’ depictions of suicide and suicidal ideation. (Even so, public service messages that include mental health are included at the top of the series premiere as well as at the end of every episode.)

In the time span between the end of season 1 and the second season premiere, consent has become a regular discussion in the public sphere, even taking on a tenor of catharsis at times on social media. #MeToo exploded out of hunger for solidarity among survivors, and through strangers sharing their stories, our understanding of what constitutes consent continues to evolve.

And one of the most crucial revelations to emerge from this dialogue — one that’s ongoing — is how woefully insufficient it is to boil down the definition of consent to “no means no.”

This is where the tragedy of Chloe actually adds something to this conversation we don't often witness in serialized drama, in addition to sharpening the edges of Bryce’s pathology.

“13 Reasons Why” constructs Bryce to be this season's stand in for former Stanford swimmer and convicted rapist Brock Turner, with his Liberty High jock squad styled to remind us of the infamous Steubenville High football team.

In the first season we witness Bryce assaulting Jessica while she’s under the influence and cannot give consent, later showing Bryce forcing himself on Hannah even after she’s pleaded with him to stop. These are textbook examples of acquaintance rape, version of which have appeared in a number of TV series over the years.

Chloe’s story adds another chapter to this catalogue that’s still not adequately addressed in popular culture: the fact that statements of consent don’t always match the truth of desire. We’ve seen this in the cloud of scandal that still surrounds Aziz Ansari and his alleged treatment of a woman he invited back to his apartment at the end of a dinner date. 

The woman, who calls herself Grace, explicitly recalled on babe.net that Ansari pressed her physically and verbally to have sex very quickly after she went up to his place: 

Throughout the course of her short time in the apartment, she says she used verbal and non-verbal cues to indicate how uncomfortable and distressed she was. “Most of my discomfort was expressed in me pulling away and mumbling. I know that my hand stopped moving at some points,” she said. “I stopped moving my lips and turned cold.”

Whether Ansari didn’t notice Grace’s reticence or knowingly ignored it is impossible for her to say. “I know I was physically giving off cues that I wasn’t interested. I don’t think that was noticed at all, or if it was, it was ignored.”

Later, after she indicated she didn’t want to have sex with him, she says Ansari pressured her into performing oral sex on him before she finally left. Ansari released a statement in which he maintains that he and Grace engaged in sexual activity but “by all indications [it] was completely consensual.”

Reading about such an experience is different than seeing an example of how something along the lines of what Grace alleges happened can occur, and occurs more regularly than men and women alike acknowledge.

Lili Loofbourow addresses this in a January 2018 story for The Week, written in the wake of the coverage of the allegations against Ansari. Addressing the question of why Grace did not exit the scene as soon as she felt uncomfortable, Loofbourow writes, “if you really want to think through why someone might have acted as she did, the most important one is this: Women are enculturated to be uncomfortable most of the time. And to ignore their discomfort.”

We often see examples of this ages-old idea, that women mostly see sex as something to endure. But, as she points out, what’s less examined is the fact that part of that endurance involves the acceptance that a woman’s pain or discomfort is often the price of male pleasure, even in the best of circumstances.

And if these new episodes of  “13 Reasons Why” can be said to have any fresh educational value, said merit definitively exists in a telling scene nearly the close of “The Third Polaroid,” the seventh episode. 

By that point in the season Chloe’s loyalty to Bryce has been established, even though his actions are one of the central focus of a civil suit Hannah’s mother brings against Liberty High. He’s visibly affectionate with Chloe, as if campaigning to be crowned prom king and queen.

An earlier sex scene between Chloe and Bryce shows him being aggressive, but in a way that could be interpreted as playful: She attempts to stop his advances but he keeps going, thrusting her against a wall. “You just take whatever you want?” she coos.

“You’re damn right,” he replies, slamming into her forcefully as her mouth hangs open in what looks like a studied depiction of ecstasy, something she’s probably seen a million times on TV. To the viewer this doesn’t look romantic at all; we’ve seen Bryce taking what he wants under grimmer circumstances. Only in this case he has a partner who, while not totally consenting, can play along and be compliant.

“The Third Polaroid” takes on a markedly darker tone: Bryce invites Chloe over to his place to watch a movie —again, that perfectly proper date scenario — but very quickly, he starts pawing at her and she gently rebuffs him.

“Come on lover, give me a little. I had a shitty day,” he says.

She reaches for a sip of soda, as if to change the subject. But he takes it out of her hand and gets on top her. She insists she wants to watch the movie, one he’s chosen, but he disregards her again, admitting he chose it because he’s already seen it — he’d rather pay attention to her.

From that point, body language tells the truth of the situation: He pushes her down on the couch with his body weight, she makes a few weak attempts to push him off. He shoves his hand inside the front of her jeans, and she cries out. “Ow, careful.” “OK,” he responds, unbuttoning them. She looks at him, angrily. He responds with, “Is that better?” 

Even as Bryce kisses Chloe, she’s still pushing him, turning her face away every now and then to look at the TV, as if she’s hoping he’ll take the hint. She tries to turn her body away. She weakly says, “Babe, what about the movie?” He doesn’t listen. He roughly yanks her jeans off, then her underwear. A flicker of fear darts across her face. This is not a girl consenting.

And yet.

“You’re good, yeah?” Bryce says. “You want to, right?” Everything in Chloe’s body language tells us she doesn’t, but she knows what wants to hear. “Right,” she replies softly. The camera locks onto her face as she keeps looking at the TV until she can’t ignore the pain.

Putting on my critic’s hat for a moment, season 2 of “13 Reasons Why” takes a dive in quality from the show’s first which, for all of its flaws, remains a moving tragedy and a potent conversation starter. 

It also had a strategic structural hook in the form of Hannah’s employment of cassettes, creating a bridge between kids and their parents, many of whom grew up in an era when tapes were the primary medium of emotional expression. The tapes are a provocative storytelling tool with a physical purpose, allowing Hannah to posthumously control her story by indicating who gets to listen to them and when. Analog media can be stolen, but not hacked; and the masters cannot be digitally manipulated by amateurs.

Season 2 employs Polaroid pictures as the breadcrumbs propelling along its feeble mystery. Along the way it also leads us through Jessica’s journey as an assault survivor, indubitably the season’s strongest storyline. What happened to Jessica matters, and her efforts to move forward after her violation are halting and heartbreaking. Her story, however, is a framework we’ve seen portrayed before on a number of series.

The same can be said of how Chloe’s second season arc wraps, an all-too-conventional cautionary tale twist more adequate for a health class skit than a 13-episode drama: She reveals at the spring dance that she’s pregnant. (The same is true of the new season’s gun violence storyline, presented with all the subtlety of breaking glass.)

Returning to Loofbourow’s argument, what’s most important is the circumstances of how Chloe’s crisis began and continues. That’s a part of the story of what it feels like to be a woman in this world that many are still trying to understand, and is central to these new episodes of “13 Reasons Why.” And in this regard, Chloe’s small part in the drama’s imperfect plot may serve the new season’s highest purpose.

Salon 5: Catcalling is not sex ed
D. Watkins breaks down the five things boys need to know about consent.

Rachel Maddow: Rosenstein caved to Trump’s demands

This article originally appeared on Raw Story

During her Monday episode, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow connected the dots of the promises made by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, all the way back to the beginning of this series of investigations.

She began by saying that the meeting with Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wrey is the second of President Donald Trump’s actions that he has taken to thwart the Russia investigation. She noted that while he has said and tweeted many things, when looking at what he’s actually done, this marked only the second time he’s tried to block the investigation.

"The Justice Department itself has been swaying a little bit in these prevailing winds," Maddow said. "Not just in the face of the president’s actions but even just his squawking. Even just his making noise to put pressure on the Justice Department and the investigation."

She explained that the first time it was seen was around the firing of former FBI Director James Comey and wondered why Rosenstein would even be needed to help Trump fire Comey. She also noted that the DOJ has been more than willing to hand over the text messages between the FBI agents when conservative media and Republican officials demanded it.

"The Justice Department, of all agencies, is well within its rights to say 'Sorry, that matter is the subject of an ongoing investigation, the public will not have access to any internal documents relevant to that investigation until the investigation is complete,'" Maddow said.

She noted that the DOJ also handed over the Comey memos when those memos are also seen as part of the obstruction investigation. She wondered why too the DOJ handed those over so willingly.

"The Justice Department and the FBI also have shed nearly all of the senior officials who were corroborating witnesses for at the time he wrote up those memos, when he was documenting his interactions with the president because those interactions were very irregular, they were seemingly improper — Comey wrote those memos to document those interactions," she continued. "He confided in other senior law enforcement officials at the time in order to create a record of those interactions with the president in case it someday needed to be used as evidence. The Justice Department and the FBI have since shed or demoted most of those officials who Comey confided in."

She also explained that while they were being shoved out or down, Trump was also leading "a systematic campaign of attacking them one by one, often by name."

There was another incident with the DOJ where they initially pushed back on a demand from pro-Trump officials in Congress to see the FISA warrant used to obtain surveillance on Carter Page. Maddow explained that such information is "never" handed over. "They never even admit to the existence of FISA warrants in public." In this case, however, the DOJ caved again.

"If you’re the subject of a criminal inquiry, imagine how helpful it would be to have access in the middle of that investigation to the prosecutor’s theory of the case when they open their investigation into you, to have their physical written documents about what they were coming after you for," she wondered. "I mean, to have the supporting materials that were shown to a judge in order to justify a surveillance warrant against somebody who was working for you. That would be very’ll helpful if you were the subject of a criminal investigation, to have that kind of window in the middle of an investigation into the prosecutor’s approach and their evidence and their strategy."

She said that the DOJ is incrementally handing these documents over, and they’re probably copied and sent directly to the Trump team. So, already the DOJ has broken with norms that existed for the DOJ in previous administrations from both parties. It’s interesting given that Rosenstein gave a powerful speech less than a month ago about how the DOJ "will not be extorted."

"I mean, step back from there for a second," she paused. "Under normal circumstances it would be astonishing for the president to summon the head of the Justice Department and the head of the FBI to come to the White House to discuss the ongoing case against him. But that is what happened today. It wasn’t like a meeting with the White House counsel. It was the president calling them up there to meet with him. To talk about the investigation into him."

She said that after there it seems to have even gotten worse. Now they’re demanding the FBI source, which is also unheard of. Now Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is demanding all of the evidence this informant turned up along with it.

"The Justice Department has been sliding down this slippery slope for months, handing over the kind of information they never release about ongoing investigations," she said. "But the identity of a confidential source, all Justice Department records about that source? the evidence that source was able to turn up in an investigation that is still ongoing? You’re going to hand that over to people like Congressman Nunes, who is absolutely going to turn that around and hand it to the president whose campaign is being investigated here? That’s insane."

Nunes was part of the Trump transition team and campaign. After today, she noted that the DOJ is simply sliding further down the slope. For those who think that the DOJ isn’t doing that much damage, Maddow urges a closer look.

She read Rosenstein’s statement and explained that on one hand Rosenstein is giving into Trump but on the other he’s confirming in his statement that "the FBI was engaged in a counterintelligence investigation of people who were suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who were interfering in the election at the time. And those people who were the subject of that counterintelligence investigation were on the Trump campaign."

It might be the case that Rosenstein isn’t giving anything away, Maddow claimed. But she asked how we knew if he was doing the right thing.

"Is there something about the way he and the Justice Department are acting that can tell us whether they’re being smart and strategically flexible to protect the [Robert] Mueller investigation, to insulate law enforcement from the worst of what the president and his allies have in mind?" she asked. "Or are they just giving away the store, giving in, caving, and leaving us with a new world."

One thing is certain, according to the host, the DOJ has changed and their "natural order" of doing business has come to an end. She noted at the end of the program that all of the lines that would normally have been drawn by a normal Justice Department have already been crossed by its current occupants.

Top Trending
Check out what's trending in the news right now.

Supreme Court ruling against class action lawsuits is a blow for workers — and #MeToo

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

The Supreme Court on May 21 narrowly ruled that employees who sign arbitration agreements cannot band together to sue their employers for unpaid wages.

As a law professor who directs a clinical legal program that regularly represents low-wage workers, I believe this ruling essentially allows employers to hide workplace injustices while also potentially making it harder for workers – including victims of sexual harassment — to find justice.

Why workers need class actions

Wage theft — which includes wage and hour violations such as paying below minimum wage, misclassifying employees to avoid overtime pay and illegal deductions — is a widespread and underreported problem.

For instance, one 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, found that in the 10 most populous states, 2.4 million workers were paid less than the minimum wage, to the tune of an estimated US$15 billion in lost wages per year nationwide.

In the Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis case, an employee sought to join with co-workers to challenge unlawful wage and hour violations. Individually, an employee’s claim is usually not worth enough money to entice a lawyer to take the case. Collectively, however, employees can spread the costs of litigation.

Moreover, by uniting, workers reduce the employer’s ability to retaliate against them. A 2009 study found that 43 percent of workers who complained to an employer or tried to organize a union faced retaliation, such as being fired or threatened with reduced pay.

In the case before the Supreme Court, the employers said that because their workers had signed arbitration agreements, they had to pursue any claims individually and could not join a class action lawsuit or arbitrate as a group.

A tale of two acts

The case pitted two federal laws against each other. On the one hand, the Federal Arbitration Act, enacted in 1925, requires courts to enforce arbitration agreements. On the other, the National Labor Relations Act, enacted in 1935, protects the right of employees to join together to enforce rights for their “mutual aid or protection.”

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the majority opinion, held that the arbitration act carried the day, reasoning that the labor act’s protections are narrowly limited to organizing unions and collective bargaining.

In my view, his opinion rests on a view of the workplace that few workers would recognize. In Gorsuch’s world, employers and employees have equal bargaining power and mutually agree to arbitrate disputes.

This equal footing may have been true at the white-shoe law firm where Gorsuch once worked. However, in today’s workplace, most employees must either take it or leave it when it comes to the terms of employment. Over 55 percent of non-union, private sector employees are subject to mandatory arbitration — a percentage that has more than doubled since the early 2000s.

Gorsuch also has a very rosy view of arbitration as quick, informal and cheap. Yet if arbitration was so effective at dispensing justice, employees would be lining up to take advantage of this forum. They are not. The Economic Policy Institute found that only 1 in 32,000 employees actually files for arbitration.

And arbitration is not free. To begin with, employees need a lawyer if they want any hope of prevailing – although this is nearly impossible in the absence of a class action option. In addition, arbitrators charge hundreds of dollars an hour, and many agreements require employees to pay part of the costs.

Finally, arbitration proceedings are not swift, rather they look almost exactly like trials. Indeed, they are often presided over by retired judges, who wield more discretion in arbitration than in the courtroom.

Why employers like arbitration

Business groups declared the ruling a huge “win” for employers.

So why do they favor arbitration?

Well, first of all, employers typically prevail, and damage awards are generally smaller than in trials.

Second, unlike court trials, arbitrations are confidential and thus keep the facts of the case from public view. In turn, this means that employers do not have to change their workplace practices even if they lose the arbitration.

Moreover, employers know that employees lack the resources or wherewithal to file for arbitration, especially when they must go it alone. In other words, arbitration agreements do not just reduce the number of court cases an employer has to contend with, they reduce the possibility of liability altogether. Employers also know that government agencies lack the resources, or political will, to enforce wage and hour laws.

What comes next

And what will be the result of this ruling?

In her 30-page dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg summed it up: “The inevitable result of today’s decision will be the underenforcement of federal and state statutes designed to advance the well-being of vulnerable workers.”

In other words, as employers gain impunity from liability, wage violations will increase. Workers will suffer.

It will also be chilling for the #MeToo movement, which has made getting rid of mandatory arbitration agreements paramount. That’s because arbitration shrouds workplace sexual harassment claims in secrecy, thus making it hard for victims to come forward while protecting serial abusers.

For the sake of American workers, I hope Congress intervenes soon to preserve collective actions and the enforcement of workplace rights.

Michele Gilman, Venable Professor of Law, University of Baltimore

Top Trending
Check out what's trending in the news right now.

“This Is America” roundtable: Is Donald Glover a genius?

YouTube/Donald Glover

Childish Gambino — aka actor/director/writer Donald Glover — has kept the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in a row with his single "This Is America." Meanwhile, the imagery and iconography in Glover's video has kept culture critics talking since it dropped on May 5. Danielle Young, a producer, host and writer at The Root, and Damien Scott, editor in chief of Complex magazine, joined me on a recent episode of "Salon Talks" to discuss how and why "This Is America" has captured the country's attention. Here's a sample of our conversation — you can watch the video for the whole round table talk.

D. Watkins: Was it amazing? Was it genius? Was it problematic? Was it a waste of time? 

Danielle Young: It was so many things. The black experience in general is what it was. And that to me is a lot of things. It's multi-layered. I'm really curious, because we're really quick — and not to be like, I'm the woman in the room — but we are really quick to label men as geniuses, right? I’m not saying that to take away from Donald's genius, because I do believe he is that, but when are we going to label some women geniuses? When Solange did a whole album?

Damien Scott: That whole project was genius. Regarding this, I do agree. I think we are too lax about calling certain things and people genius. I think this is an incredible video. I think it's an incredible message. I think the song and video in tandem work extremely well. I don’t know about you guys — I don’t love the song as much as I love the song and the video.

So I don’t want to bestow genius upon it [but] I think it's amazing.

Watch the full conversation on "This Is America"
It's Childish Gambino's big moment.

A lot of times when the media hails somebody a genius, these are people who are only interacting or interacting with a whole lot of other people in media.

I think it's an inclusion problem.

Scott: Donald does this, and he has a lot of the same iconography that Beyoncé and Solange have in their videos. Beyoncé literary drowned a police car. I think that needs to called genius as well.

Young: That needs to be called genius, and also because Beyoncé is not known to speak out. Do you know what I mean? I think a lot of it has to do with culturally, beyond the black culture, a lot of people regard Beyoncé as musically amazing but not smart. We have these parameters that we like to judge people in and Donald fits into this smart category, because of what he's done with this video, he’s artistic, and in "Atlanta" and pretty much everything we see in him right now his whole persona is that of a young boss.

Scott: I think people, if we're talking about that divide, I think people put Solange in the smart category.

Young: Yeah, because she's a little off center.

Scott: Right, they're like she must be smart because she's so quirky.

Whereas you could be smart and extremely pop.

Young:  I think coming back to Donald Glover and what he's done . . . with "This is America" and what Beyoncé has done with Beychella, it's incredible to see art, and especially popular art, encapsulate so much of what we're going through the traumas that we're going through. You see it now in the news headlines, it's like as if [Doing] Something While Black is a trend, and so we're constantly going through these traumas.

What do you think is so different about his video? Why is everyone talking about this? Because Donald Glover has been making music for some time now, but a lot of people haven't really — admittedly, myself — haven’t really been paying attention to it until the success of "Atlanta." 

"Atlanta" is my favorite show. I would rather watch "Atlanta" than eat dinner with my parents.

Scott: I find interesting the way black people now treat Donald Glover and Jordan Peele. Years ago, no one would give them the time of day. Dave Chappelle completely shitted on Jordan Peele and [Keegan Michael] Key, and they were like in his standup he was like, "Those guys stole my show. Who the hell . . ?"

Young: As if he created it. I always respected Dave, but as if you created standup and skits.

Scott: But black people were like, "Yeah f**k those guys." I have friends of mine who were like, man that show, his initial show, they're shucking and jiving, and I was like, it's not "The Chappelle Show" but I don’t think it's that . . . that’s a heavy thing to say.

With Donald Glover, this music he was making was never accepted by . . . I would say the barber shop crew. You would never go to a barber shop and hear people talking about "Camp."

The song would have no relevance because now we don’t just see him as quirky Donald Glover, we see him as Earn who manages Paperboy, getting tired of Paperboy sitting on the couch too much, that he makes his own song.

Scott: I think we see him more as a raconteur who's transcribing the black experience in a real authentic way for us. Black people love him for that, they're like, yes, this is one of the only times in a long time that we've seen our experience really accurately portrayed on TV. Thank you, thank you, thank you, we love you for that, you're a genius.

I'm not saying he gets a pass, but it's like, "What you got next?"

Danielle, you made a really interesting video on The Root that I thought was very funny and very informative. Do you feel like because Donald Glover is [in a relationship] with a white woman, he's not the person to make a song addressing issues that black Americans face?

Young: So let me make it perfectly clear for the headline readers . . . I think people see that and they think, I'm a black woman, so they automatically think that I err on the side of I'm so mad about it that he is with a white girl. That is not the case.

I love Donald Glover. I think he is amazing, but I'm not mad about this white woman being with him and making a family with him. I'm a believer of love is love no matter what it is. But I'm always curious about these super, like black is everything, pro-black men who are powerful and who have platforms and who create art that is inherently black, and they go home to their white woman, and I'm curious about that because I feel like when you are in these relationships, they're a partnership.

When we go home, and we have to deal with these traumas every single day, it's nice to go home to be able to download that or even, because I work at The Root, to be able to go into work and download with people that are like me about what's happening.

I'm not saying that that's not possible when you're with a partner who is outside of the black race, but I am saying that it is something that you kind of have to start at the ground level every time.

I feel like a lot of times when these celebrities, when they say things that really, really engage us and make us excited, we propel them to this level of being revolutionary, and I don’t think that's always true.

Scott: I don’t think that's true at all. I don’t think Donald Glover, just by virtue of what he's done in the past — and I don’t know if everyone read the New Yorker profile on him, I thought it was a little crazy, the things he was saying — I don’t think before the "Atlanta" experience he was looking at himself as this beacon of black hope and follow me and I will show you guys the way, in the way that, say, Kendrick Lamar is actively working to make art that black people can rally around. I don’t think Donald Glover is doing that. I think Donald Glover is just like, this is what I feel right now, this is what I see, this is how I feel. That's it. We're the ones who are like, "Oh my God . . ."

We should know better after the Kanye shit. We should know that this is a bad idea, this is a bad idea. Black people, this is a bad idea.

Young: He's also a human being that's figuring it out as an artist; he is processing it in the same way that we are.

Rudy Giuliani adds another dumb comment to his greatest hits list

Getty/Tasos Katopodis

If nothing else, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's stint on President Donald Trump's legal team has been wildly entertaining.

This is perhaps a cynical way of looking at the situation, but the words being spewed forth by the man once known as "Hizzoner" justify such a perspective. Take the following comments made by Giuliani to the Huffington Post on Monday regarding the prospect of speaking with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigative team:

We can’t let our guy go in and be questioned without knowing this.

He later added:

I don’t care so much about the name as I do about the content. What prompted them to do it? What did they learn from it?

To explain why this comment is so idiotic — and I mean deliberately idiotic, to the point that it's reasonable to speculate that Giuliani may have been outright disingenuous here — I turn to the words of former FBI special agent Josh Campbell during a Monday interview with CNN's Chris Cillizza.

The President casting a human intelligence source as a "spy" is pure politics. Although informants and spies both technically gather information covertly, the word "informant" is generally reserved for someone righteously operating on behalf of law enforcement, whereas "spy" conjures up a more sinister mental picture of someone skulking in the shadows with questionable intentions.

It is interesting that the President's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has frequently used the term "spy" as part of a coordinated campaign to discredit law enforcement officers investigating the campaign. Mr. Giuliani was once the US attorney in Manhattan, who oversaw countless government investigations utilizing confidential informants. I doubt he ever referred to them as "spies."

The notion that Trump would have any right to withhold information about a criminal investigation from the FBI because of something they did that was entirely legitimate is, on its face, absurd. If Giuliani was an amateur lawyer, this claim would make an informed outsider question his ability to perform in his field. Given his background, however, it seems instead like Giuliani is grasping at straws to prevent his high-profile client from saying something that accidentally incriminates himself.

Then again, this isn't the only time that Giuliani has said bizarre things in order to defend his presidential client. Here are some of the most conspicuous other occasions when he has done so, starting with comments he made on Sean Hannity's Fox News show earlier this month:

I was talking about the $130,000 payment, the settlement payment, which is a very regular thing for lawyers to do. The question there was, the only possible violation there would be, was it a campaign finance violation? Which usually would result in a fine, by the way, not this big Stormtroopers coming in and breaking down his apartment and breaking down his office... That was money that was paid by his lawyer, the way I would do, out of his law firm forms or whatever funds, doesn't matter. The president reimbursed that over a period of several months.

Bear in mind, Trump had prior to this point repeatedly insisted that he had not paid for the $130,000 of hush money given to porn star Stormy Daniels for her alleged affair with Trump. After Hannity pointed out that Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen had claimed to have paid Daniels entirely on his own, Giuliani seemed surprised.

He did? Look, I don't know. I haven't investigated that. No reason to dispute that. No reason to dispute his recollection.

Giuliani later made matters worse with a statement that directly contradicted what he had said earlier. It basically boiled down to him claiming that he hadn't been fully informed on the president's case prior to speaking on Hannity's show, which made him look effectively incompetent.

JUST IN: Rudy Giuliani issues statement "intended to clarify the views I expressed over the past few days." https://t.co/pU1nhltf8S pic.twitter.com/Nwx57s0idE

— Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) May 4, 2018

Giuliani also made these comments about Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter, and why it would be downright unchivalrous for the special counsel's office to investigate her.

Ivanka Trump? I think I would get on my charger and go right into – run into their offices with a lance if they go after her... If they do Ivanka, which I doubt they will, the whole country will turn on him. They are going after his daughter? Jared is a fine man, you know that. But men are, you know, disposable. A fine woman like Ivanka, come on!

Aside from the absurd notion that investigators shouldn't ask questions of someone who may have been involved in a criminal act simply because she is a "fine woman," Giuliani's argument ignores that Ivanka doesn't have a squeaky clean past. She came close to being indicted in 2012 after the Manhattan district attorney's office began looking into whether she and her brother Donald Trump Jr. had misled investors about a Trump SoHo condominium project. She has also been under scrutiny for her connections to a Russian businessman, Felix Sater, who is believed to have connections to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as her involvement in a deal regarding Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver, Canada during her father's presidency.

Finally it's worth mentioning comments that Giuliani made before he was one of Trump's lawyers — indeed, before Trump had even been elected president. This was when Giuliani inadvertently blabbed that he may have been aware that the FBI was going to review emails potentially connected to their Hillary Clinton investigation before the rest of the country did. It started with when he told Fox News in October 2016 that there was a "pretty big surprise" coming about Clinton from the Trump campaign, shortly before FBI Director James Comey leaked that a review of Clinton's emails was happening. Later he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that it was "a complete surprise, except to the extent that maybe it wasn't as much of a surprise."

He added:

I got it all from former FBI agents. Tremendous anger within the FBI about the way, number one, Jim Comey's conclusion (to not recommend criminal charges in July) and, number two, the way they believed they were being obstructed by what they regard as a pretty corrupt Obama Justice Department. Cutting off a grand jury investigation, cutting off subpoenas.

Giuliani later claimed that he had been referring to an upcoming ad capaign by Trump's people. Given his track record, though, it may be more likely that he accidentally told the truth.

Top Trending
Check out the top news stories of the day!

Trump’s hypnosis of the Republican Party is complete

AP/Getty/Shutterstock/Salon

Make no mistake about it: President Donald Trump has tested the Republican Party's soul, and the GOP has been found wanting.

The problem isn't that the president is under investigation for serious crimes (other presidents have faced that predicament). It isn't even that Trump is going out of his way to undermine the Justice Department officials whose job it is to hold him accountable (again, other presidents have also been in that situation).

No, the reason our nation faces a serious constitutional crisis is that the Republican Party absolutely refuses to stop the president from undermining the rule of law in order to save his own skin. For a party that drops praise for the United States Constitution in virtually all of their speeches, this failure has exposed them to be craven partisans instead of genuine patriots.

To understand what's happening to the GOP, let's take a look at Trump's most recent actions.

On Monday, the president ordered an inquiry into recent claims that the FBI had sent a so-called "spy" to infiltrate his campaign, according to CNN. While Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein seems to have appeased the president (for now) by having the Justice Department's inspector general look into the matter, the mere fact that the president is using organs of the government to discredit an investigation into alleged misconduct is in itself an extremely troubling precedent.

"Our President is more limited by norms than he is (by the) Constitution or law. It is the traditions of the office that keep the President, I think, in his lane. And one of those norms is the independence of the judiciary," Michael Hayden, a former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency under both Democratic and Republican presidents, told CNN's "The Situation Room."

He added that the president "has stepped so far beyond these norms that... people lose confidence in the independence of the judiciary, which frankly is our only off-ramp from this overhang currently over the entire nation."

Hayden's analysis was echoed by Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post, who wrote on Monday:

Trump’s power play is a gross misuse of his presidential authority and a dangerous departure from long-standing norms. Strongmen such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin use their justice systems to punish enemies and deflect attention from their own crimes. Presidents of the United States do not — or did not, until Sunday’s tweet:

“I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes — and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

Rather than push back and defend the rule of law, Justice tried to mollify the president by at least appearing to give him what he wants. The Republican leadership in Congress has been silent as a mouse. This is how uncrossable lines are crossed.

It is also worth noting that, although Trump claims the FBI used a "spy" on his campaign, the agency actually used an informant — and was completely within its rights to do so.

"The President casting a human intelligence source as a 'spy' is pure politics," former FBI special agent Josh Campbell told CNN's Chris Cillizza on Monday. "Although informants and spies both technically gather information covertly, the word "informant" is generally reserved for someone righteously operating on behalf of law enforcement, whereas 'spy' conjures up a more sinister mental picture of someone skulking in the shadows with questionable intentions."

In other words: The FBI used a legitimate method to acquire information about a presidential campaign that had been potentially compromised by a foreign power, and the president is now trying to discredit the investigation by complaining about it.

Just as he did when he claimed Trump Tower had been wiretapped. And as he did when he cooked up the bogus "unmasking" scandal. And as he did when he argued that the investigation had been entirely based on a dossier that had been partially paid for by the Democratic Party. And as he does when he says that there is a "deep state" conspiracy out to thwart his presidency.

This pattern — of the president saying something, anything at all, to get people to stop investigating alleged crimes involving himself and his cronies — is becoming impossible to ignore.

"There are some examples of this kind of interference and they are quite lamentable episodes of American history," Allan Lichtman, a distinguished professor at American University's Department of History, told Salon. "Certainly nothing any president would want to emulate in any way."

Lichtman then provided two examples of situations comparable to the one involving Trump today.

"During the second term of Ulysses S. Grant, the government was embroiled in a host of scandals sometimes known as The Great Barbecue (because in effect government offices of power were being sold for money)," Lichtman told Salon. "One of the scandals of the Grant Administration was the so-called Whiskey Ring scandal, in which officials were being bribed so that whiskey distillers could avoid paying the federal tax. A special prosecutor was appointed to deal with the Whiskey Ring scandal, which apparently implicated a very close associate of President Grant, Orville Babcock (like the president's chief of staff today), and the president interfered in the investigation ostensibly to protect Mr. Babcock. He fired the special prosecutor. He intervened in the investigation to order them not to give immunity to lower level persons in order to get to the higher-ups. And he even gave a deposition in support of Mr. Babcock, who was ultimately acquitted."

Lichtman then described the most infamous of America's scandal-ridden presidents.

"Much more famous, of course, is Richard Nixon, who had an article of impeachment against him voted by the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives with respect to obstruction of justice," Lichtman told Salon. "It was one of the three articles voted against Nixon that led him to resign his office rather than face certain impeachment by the full House and conviction by the Senate. And it directly implicated Nixon in trying to impede the federal investigation of the Watergate break-in and other matters and involved actions very similar to what we see Donald Trump doing: Making false or misleading statements designed to impede the investigation. Counseling witnesses. Interfering with the conduct of the investigation by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Claiming falsely that the matter had been thoroughly investigated and there was no wrongdoing of any kind."

He added, "And, of course, Bill Clinton had an article of impeachment voted against him on obstruction of justice, which was much less serious than anything that Donald Trump is doing with respect to, I'll call it the scandal of Russian interference, although we know it's much broader than that."

As Lichtman also noted during our interview, however, the scandals involving Trump are much graver than those in which Grant, Nixon and Clinton were swept up for one simple reason — They involve an attempt by a foreign power to influence our democratic process. More importantly, America's intelligence agencies are convinced that that foreign power is going to try to corrupt our elections again, and Trump has made it clear that he doesn't care so long as the investigation into alleged collusion with that power by his campaign doesn't wind up implicating him.

As a result of these things, the fate of America's democracy is itself at stake.

In such a situation, men and women of good will in both parties should unite in protecting our democratic institutions. They should recognize that no one person, no matter how powerful, is anywhere near as important as the structures that allow free government to flourish in our society. For Republicans, anything other than a full denunciation of Trump's tactics, and an effort to protect the law enforcement officials who are responsible for holding him accountable, counts as an abdication of their solemn duties as public servants.

Yet this is where we are today.

The upside of impeachment
In January, American University's Allan Lichtman spoke with Salon's Andrew O'Hehir about the prospects for impeaching President Donald Trump.

Police union is lobbying to expand powers to tase people who don’t pose a threat

Getty/Chalabala

This article originally appeared in In These Times.

The San Francisco Police Officers Association is aggressively pushing a ballot measure that would allow police to use tasers on members of the public even if they aren't violently resisting. If passed, the city’s police officers would be able to electrocute people who pose no physical threat or resist arrest as a result of mental illness.

Last November, San Francisco’s Police Commission approved tasers for the city’s police. This March, it finalized a policy for how those tasers should be used. That policy, which is backed by Police Chief Bill Scott and San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell, requires police to implement de-escalation tactics before using their tasers. However, the San Francisco Police Officers Association, with a membership ofroughly 2,200, believes that these criteria are too narrow. They want the language expanded so that they’re legally able to use their tasers on people who are “actively resisting,” not just “violently resisting.”

The union was able to collect more than 19,000 signatures in support of this change, which means that residents will get to vote on the issue as a ballot measure on June 5. The union and its backers have raised almost a quarter-million dollars to build support for the measure, Proposition H, while its opponents have raised $41,000.

Prop H critics say that the union has been dishonest in its campaigning, framing the measure as if it’s simply a call to arm officers with tasers as opposed to a loosening of the rules that regulate their use. A pro-Prop-H mailer that was obtained by In These Times calls on voters to “keep our streets safe” by voting for the measure. “This June, vote to equip San Francisco police officers with Conducted Energy Devices, commonly known as tasers,” the mailer states. “This commonsense tool has been proven to reduce injury, save lives, and enable officers to effectively do their job: protect and defend all San Franciscans.” It doesn’t mention that the police commission already voted to equip cops with tasers last year.

Another mailer obtained by In These Times claims that the use of tasers has been held up for years as a result of “bureaucracy.” In actuality, it took years for San Francisco police officers to be issued tasers because the community resisted the effort. The measure to arm police with stun guns had to be introduced five times before it finally became a reality. When the San Francisco Police Commission voted in favor of the measure last November, they were met by shouts of “Shame!” from local activists.

Although tasers are frequently identified by police as a necessary alternative to avoid deadly force, a 2017 Reuters investigation found that, since the early 2000s, more than 1,000 people have died after the police stunned them. In 153 of these killings, the use of a stun gun was cited in the autopsy as a cause or contributing factor to the death. Reuters also discovered that nine out of every ten people killed by a taser were unarmed and one of every four suffered from mental illness.

Studies also indicate that the police are more likely to electrocute Black and Latino suspects. In 2016, the Associated Press obtained data on the use of tasers by Connecticut officers from the previous year. It found that tasers were used 60 percent of the time in altercations involving white suspects, 69 percent for Latino suspects and 80 percent for Black suspects.

A.J. Bahnken is a member of the No On Prop H Committee, a group sponsored by the ACLU of Northern California. He told In These Times that he believes the police union is testing a new method of gaining power with the ballot push. “If the police figure out that they can utilize ballot measures and a bunch of money to gain additional power or gain back power that was taken away, then they are definitely going to do it,” said Bahnken.Prop H is also opposed by a number of local organizations, including SEIU Local 1021, United Educators of San Francisco and the San Francisco Tenants Union.

Bahnken noted that Officers for Justice, a San Francisco organization comprised mainly of African-American cops, opposes Prop H because they believe it to be too extreme.

John Crew, a former attorney and a leader of the No on Prop. H Committee, recently told the San Francisco Chronicle, “They’re choosing to spend an enormous amount of money to take away the power of the chief and the Police Commission to regulate how a dangerous weapon is used.”

Top Trending
Check out what's trending in the news right now.