There's much to discuss during AirTalk's weekly political roundtable, and our guests Ange-Marie Hancock-Alfaro and Jack Pitney join us with the latest. We also look into new allegations against Facebook regarding misuse of user data; check-in on the fourth Austin bombing to occur in less than a month; and more.
Week in politics: What led to Andrew McCabe’s firing, why the president is lashing out (again) at the Mueller probe, and more
AirTalk’s weekly political roundtable recaps the weekend headlines in politics and looks ahead to what to watch for this week.
Here’s what we’re following:
Andrew McCabe's firing, and his notes on convos with Trump to give Mueller
Continuing fallout from “Rexit”
Potential confirmation issues for Mike Pompeo as Sec. of State and Gina Haspel as CIA director
Trump rages against Russia probe
McMaster saga's latest and who else might be on the outs in the White House
Larry Kudlow in as White House economic adviser
Steel and aluminum tariffs take effect this week
Trump to announce his plan to combat opioid crisis today
PA 18 election follow-up
AT&T/DOJ lawsuit trial begins today
U.S.-N. Korea to meet in Helsinki
Guests:
Ange-Marie Hancock-Alfaro, professor of political science and chair of gender studies at USC; she tweets
Jack Pitney, professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College; he tweets
Digging into Facebook’s data-sharing scandal and potential impact it might have on use
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Facebook is facing criticism in the wake of a report alleging that the tech giant misused user data when it allowed a political data firm to harvest information on millions of users.
This time, the story involves a political data firm called Cambridge Analytica, founded by Steve Bannon and wealthy Republican donor Robert Mercer, and its collection of data from Facebook that it said would allow them to figure out people’s personalities in the hopes of influencing their behavior. Using an outside researcher named Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge paid users a small amount of money to take a quiz and download and app that said it would snag some info from the user’s profile and their friends’ profiles, which Facebook allowed at the time. However, Kogan told Facebook and his app’s users that he was collecting data for academic purposes, not for a political data firm. Facebook executives have jumped to the company’s defense on Twitter,
that its practices did not constitute a data breach. All of this comes at a time where Facebook is already facing criticism of how its platform was used for Russian propaganda and fake news during the 2016 election.
So, how much did Facebook know about how its data was being used? And how exactly were the researchers using that info? Were their terms of use violated? Does this constitute a data breach?
Guests:
Josh Constine, editor-at-large for TechCrunch; he’s been following the story; he tweets
Deepa Seetharaman, tech reporter for the Wall Street Journal who has been following the story; she tweets
DOJ to face off against AT&T in antitrust ‘trial of the century’
The U.S. Department of Justice and AT&T are set to face-off in court on Monday at 10 a.m. EST over the company's $85 billion agreement to buy media giant Time Warner Inc.
The Justice Department is seeking to block the transaction, arguing that the combined companies would force rivals to pay more for “must-have” content from the Turner Networks, including TBS, CNN and TNT, and that the result would be higher prices for consumers. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., will hear the case that may settle one of the biggest antitrust issues of modern times.
The merger trial, dubbed as the trial of the century, could determine whether antitrust enforcers will have real practical authority to challenge so-called vertical mergers involving two complementary companies that operate at different levels of the same industry. Typically, the government challenges unions of direct competitors that sell similar products and services, or horizontal mergers.
The trial may last eight weeks, meanwhile, opening arguments are expected to be put off to Wednesday.
Guests:
Chris Sagers, professor of law at Cleveland State University and an antitrust expert who wrote about how the DOJ could win its case against the AT&T-Time Warner deal
Curt Hessler, lecturer in law at UCLA where he teaches antitrust and information law; he is the former chairman and CEO of 101 Communications, now called 1105 Media, a media services company that publishes technical materials for IT professionals
Austin authorities hunt ‘serial bomber’ after tripwire sets off 4th blast
The fourth explosion in less than three weeks in Austin, Texas, appears to be the work of a serial bomber, officials said Monday.
An explosion Sunday night had “similarities” with the three bombs that detonated in the Texas capital earlier this month, according to police. The devices, authorities warn, appear to be getting more sophisticated. The FBI has sent 350 special agents to Austin as well as extra bomb squads. Authorities have been calling on the person or people behind this month’s string of bombings to let them know the reasons for the attacks.
Meanwhile, they are asking residents of one neighborhood to stay indoors until 2 p.m. local time (12 p.m. PT) Monday.
Guests:
Claire McInerny, reporter who is covering the story from the scene for KUT News, NPR affiliate in Austin; she tweets
Hal Kempfer, retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel and CEO of KIPP knowledge and intelligence program professionals; he worked with the Austin Police Department in developing their threat reference guide
America is facing another opioid crisis: Hospitals experiencing shortages of painkillers
As the opioid crisis grows in prominence both in communities across the U.S. and on the political stage, there’s another opioid issue that’s rising to the forefront: the shortage of strong painkillers in hospitals.
Shortages of opioids and other powerful painkillers, such as injectable Dilaudid, fentanyl and morphine, which are needed for surgeries as well as patients with acute terminal pain, such as in the case of cancer, are becoming a problem in hospitals, including some in California, such as Kaiser Permanente and Dignity Health. This deficit started intensifying last year, caused by obstacles in manufacturing as well as government restrictions which were imposed in efforts to combat the opioid crisis.
Hospitals find themselves triaging and rationing drugs, leaving some lower priority patients with weaker pain meds.
How bad is this shortage and where does it hit hardest? What are the causes? And how are hospitals managing with a limited supply of these painkillers?
Guests:
Pauline Bartolone, reporter covering health policy for California Healthline and Kaiser Health News; her recent story on this is “The Other Opioid Crisis: Hospital Shortages Lead To Patient Pain, Medical Errors”; she tweets
Shalini Shah, M.D., the head of pain medicine at the UC Irvine health system and Chair of the Committee on pain at the California Society of Anesthesiologists, a group of physicians across the state working on managing and responding to the drug shortages
Donald Kaplan, Pharm.D., regional Inpatient pharmacy director for Kaiser Permanente in Southern California