The views expressed in this article are the views of the author.

Since her election to Congress in 2012, Hawaiian Representative Tulsi Gabbard seemingly lives for contention. She has feuded with fellow Democrats over foreign policy issues, where she maintains a staunchly isolationist and non-interventionist view. In a controversial move, she resigned from her position as vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2015 to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders’ bid for President of the United States. During her own presidential campaign, she has protested unequal financial support through PACs and corporate donors and has threatened to boycott several debates.

Gabbard is in the news once more, this time in a feud with former Democratic Presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. On October 18, Gabbard took to Twitter to post a series of aggressive tweets accusing former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton of engaging in “a concerted campaign to destroy [Gabbard’s] reputation.” Where did this come from?

After the 2016 presidential election, congressional investigative committees and FBI investigators looked into allegations of Russian interference with political data, disinformation and voter fraud. While none of the investigations found definitive proof that any U.S. politician’s campaign had direct awareness of Russian involvement, they did find several cases of interference that significantly impacted the 2016 election outcome. These actions included pro-Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders’s messaging, articles sharing completely fabricated information, troll farms and the use of bots throughout social media. 

Recently, however, there have been a couple of reports linking suspicious Russian internet activity to Gabbard’s 2020 presidential campaign. The Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan advocacy group formed in 2017 to combat foreign interference in U.S. elections, released a report noting that Russian propaganda stations mentioned Gabbard surprisingly frequently for a politician polling in the single digits. There have also been reports of questionable activity surrounding her campaign, such as pro-Gabbard hashtags #KamalaHarrisDestroyed and #IAmTulsi being significantly amplified by bot activity. No one — at this point in time — alleges that the Gabbard campaign is working in connection with Russian officials to skew the 2020 election. However, the reports of suspicious activity have definitively established a link between activity on Russian social media and Gabbard’s name. Critics have pointed out that her name remains high-profile despite polling at under two percent.

And Clinton had something to say about it.

On October 17, Hillary Clinton appeared on the political podcast “Campaign HQ with David Plouffe” to discuss impeachment proceedings and the Democratic presidential candidates. When Plouffe brought up the possibility of Russian interference in the 2020 election, Clinton said, “I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s a favorite of the Russians… they have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far…”

We were hardly given 24 hours to digest this before Gabbard took to Twitter, and over a series of tweets, responded, “Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.”

In Gabbard’s defense, Clinton was out of line. Someone of her renown should never make such serious accusations against a presidential candidate, especially a sitting Congresswoman. She did not present any evidence during the podcast (though evidence does exist), but presented these allegations, that Russians were “grooming” Gabbard to be a third-party candidate, as fact. Gabbard had already ruled out a third-party candidacy in late August, and, as CNN’s Erin Burnett noted, Russians backing a certain campaign “is very different than calling that person a ‘Russian asset.’”

In Clinton’s defense, however, she was not necessarily wrong. Gabbard’s campaign, her far-right support, and Russian propaganda connections have raised eyebrows throughout this election cycle and, as stated above, there is empirical proof that some Russian sites seem very excited with the prospect of an official Gabbard bid for president. Furthermore, she did not name a candidate. It was only clear to be Gabbard because of her campaign’s connection to Russian internet activity (which, again, had already been established). 

The following Twitter meltdown was, in any case, unnecessary, and completely unprofessional (but, in this day and age, not necessarily unpresidential). Gabbard has consistently polled at under two percent, a good 28 to 15 points below the top three candidates. The audacity of a such a low-popularity presidential candidate to directly challenge such a prestigious, established member of the Democratic party is almost breathtaking. The argument could be made that “Clinton started it,” but we are not a group of elementary school students pulling each other’s pigtails on the playground. 

Additionally, the language used was very dramatic. Calling Hillary Clinton the “queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of rot” reads like a post on a far-right 4chan board (which, given her support by these channels, is not a great look). Gabbard also referenced the “corporate media and war machine,” which struck me as a bit odd. I am not denying that the Clintons are very powerful, politically and financially, that they have friends in high places, or that they have never engaged in less-than-scrupulous behavior; however, come on. One cannot take to Twitter to accuse a former Secretary of State, former Democratic nominee for president, and high-profile party leader of using the very vague but threatening “war machine” to personally ruin a politician’s reputation. It is not tasteful. 

In all of this, whichever side you support, I believe most of the public sentiment regarding this whole charade can be summed up by political commentator Van Jones’ comments on the situation: “Whoever you blame, you can’t be proud of America when we got food fights breaking out in the White House between the top leadership. You can’t be proud when we can’t have a primary without the former nominee jumping on a podcast, throwing out [accusations], and then [you get] a tweet war… If you’ve got real evidence, come forward with it. But if you’re just going to smear people casually on podcasts, you’re playing right into the Russian’s hands.”

We’re better than this.

As part of our ongoing commitment to security, DoIT's Unix Infrastructure group will be conducting its quarterly system patching on Friday, November 15th between 5:00pm-6:00pm for the RT system.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Joe Kirby ,  Assistant Vice President, Business Systems
Division of Information Technology (DoIT) 
Support Response -   http://www.umbc.edu/doit 
Administration 627
Office - 410-455-3020 
Email - kirby@umbc.edu

UMBC’s Aaron Smith is now thinking “bigger picture” about how his lab’s research can support human health at the molecular level thanks to $1.5 million in new research funding. 

Smith, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, focuses on how biological systems take up and process iron. Last winter he received a significant grant for research on developing new antibiotic targets. Now, he’s earned a prestigious $500,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award and $1 million from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a division of the NIH. The work he and his students are doing is at the molecular level, but it has implications for everything from cardiovascular disease to embryonic development.

Opening the molecular toolbox

Smith’s bioinorganic chemistry lab works to understand how metals function in biological systems, with a particular focus on iron. While it may be strange to think about metals functioning in our bodies, they are critical. “For biological systems to expand the types of chemistry that they can do, they need metal ions,” Smith says. “Metals open up the toolbox for the protein to be able to accomplish so much more.” 

The NSF and NIH funding will allow Smith’s lab to increase understanding of how iron is involved in adding molecules to proteins after they are made. This process is known as post-translational modification. 

“Post-translational modifications are incredibly important,” Smith says. Even the most complex organisms don’t have more than a few tens of thousands of genes that provide instructions for unique proteins, but proteins perform many times that many functions in the body. Post-translational modification “really diversifies the number of functions that proteins can serve,” Smith says. 

Smith’s lab is studying a specific post-translational modification called arginylation. An enzyme known as ATE1 carries out arginylation, by attaching the amino acid arginine to proteins. Then, “the arginine functions as a molecular flag that says, ‘I should be degraded,’” Smith explains. The ability to break down the right proteins, and then use their building blocks to rebuild other cellular materials, is crucial for the healthy functioning of our bodies over time.

“ATE1 is very impactful, but we don’t know a lot about how it does what it does,” Smith says. Even the structure of ATE1 is unknown, as well as the mechanism by which it adds arginine to proteins. Smith says his lab has an idea, “but my guess is it’s going to be much more complex when we figure this out.”

Smith’s research niche: the atomic level

Research on arginylation is increasing rapidly, and Smith believes his lab has a particular role to play. Most labs are looking at arginylation at the cellular level and up, asking questions like how it affects different processes in a cell or even an entire organism. But Smith is taking things to another level by studying the atomic structure of individual ATE1 enzymes and the proteins they interact with. 

“We think that we fit in very nicely in this research space,” Smith says, “We’re filling a niche that remains really uncovered at this point.”

Smith’s group is looking at how ATE1 is regulated, such as how it knows which proteins to add arginine to or how it responds to changes in the cell. They’ve already gotten some promising results related to iron’s role in regulating ATE1. And they’re getting close to revealing the enzyme’s complete molecular structure, which would provide big clues into how it works. The NIH and NSF funding will help answer these questions.

Once the structure and mechanism are in hand, it will be time to explore applications. For example, “Could we think about then making this protein a target for therapeutic development?” Smith asks. “Given how important it is in these various cellular processes, if we understood better the structure and the mechanism, we could think about ways to develop small molecules that could help with diseases associated with arginylation.”

Representation in research

In addition to aiding the progress of his research, Smith is excited that both grants will allow him to expose more students to bioinorganic chemistry. His CAREER Award proposal “has an additional education component that’s about specifically trying to leverage the diversity efforts already going on here at UMBC, and to help increase diversity in bioinorganic chemistry.”

To that end, Smith will introduce all of the first-year chemistry courses at UMBC to bioinorganic chemistry. He’s also developing a new upper-level elective on bioinorganic chemistry. Smith hopes that by taking the course, students may then “consider going into a research career for a field that they didn’t even know existed, that helps tackle some of the most important chemical transformations on the planet.”

“I’m proud to think that my lab reflects the diversity that we see on UMBC’s campus, and I’m happy to continue moving forward with that,” Smith shares. “It’s important to have a lab that reflects this university and the country, to benefit from a broad range of perspectives and to train the researchers of tomorrow.”

This new funding will significantly expand the opportunities available to Smith and his students, and it’s reshaping how they think about the work. Having strong funding “affords you the ability to imagine more,” he says, “to think bigger picture about different avenues you might pursue.” Now, Smith and his students will be dreaming big as they steward this new research funding to better understand arginylation, metal transport, and their roles in human health.

Banner image: Aaron Smith works with his students in the lab. From left to right: graduate students Alexandrea Sestok, Verna Van, and Nathan Max. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.