Apr. 2, 2024 ❧ Bird flu spreading, trans panic at Easter, and the MOHELA Papers
Plus gang violence in Haiti, John Fetterman's staff leaves him, and a disturbing fact about cicadas.
Is this a briefing which I see before me, the news toward my hand?
STORIES THAT SHOULD BE BIGGER
THE “PAPERS” MOHELA DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ
If you have student debt in the United States, there’s a decent chance it’s handled through MOHELA—the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, one of the largest student-debt servicers in the country. According to its own investor presentations, the company now manages “8.4 Million Borrower Accounts, or $375.8 Billion of Student Loans” as of January 2024. And as it turns out, executives at MOHELA really don’t want you looking into how they manage, or mismanage, those loans.
Late last month, MOHELA sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Student Borrower Protection Center, a nonprofit group that advocates for student debt relief and the rights of borrowers. It alleges that the Center made “false and misleading claims about MOHELA’s work,” and that MOHELA “suffered serious damage” as a result. But when you dig a little deeper, it becomes clear that “misleading claims” really just means “document analysis,” and “serious damage” means “the mildest degree of public accountability.”
At issue is a lengthy report called “The MOHELA Papers,” which the Center released in collaboration with the American Federation of Teachers on February 28. In its pages, researchers examine “public records, borrower accounts, and thousands of pages of documents” gathered under Missouri’s open records laws. They conclude that MOHELA has systematically mismanaged the loans under its purview, having “miscalculated borrowers’ payment amounts,” “lost borrowers’ payments, refunds, and records” and “misinformed borrowers about their options,” among other improper practices.
The biggest bombshell in the Papers is MOHELA’s “call deflection” scheme, which has only recently come to light. Under this system, the Center claims borrowers who tried to reach a MOHELA representative over the phone were instead “deflected” to the company’s website—parts of which didn’t even work—despite the fact that “many servicing functions can only be performed by a customer service representative.” Since MOHELA is the only processor for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, the Papers allege that this elaborate runaround, together with other forms of mismanagement, “has prevented hundreds of thousands of borrowers from progressing towards relief.”
There’s certainly evidence that MOHELA has seriously messed up people’s loans. In May 2023, a borrower named Okwara received a notice that their entire $93,000 balance had been wiped out through PSLF, only to later be told that it was a mistake and the debt would be reinstated. The same thing happened to another borrower last June, to the tune of $192,000. With the new revelations from the MOHELA Papers, things have finally gotten bad enough for Congress to step in. Shortly after the report’s release, Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Chuck Schumer called for an investigation into MOHELA, and Warren has invited its CEO to testify at a Senate hearing on April 10. That’ll be worth keeping an eye on—but the fact that MOHELA tried to suppress the report in the first place is damning. This whole mess is just more evidence for why student debt needs to be eliminated altogether, and college education made a free public service. At this point, it would be a lot simpler.
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or, “What’s going on with our politicians?”)
❧ Representative Tim Walberg (R-MI) has suggested using nuclear weapons against Palestinians. In a series of horrifying remarks at a recent town hall event, Walberg said that “We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid” for Gaza, adding that “It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick.”
After footage of Walberg’s comments was posted to social media, his office attempted a rather desperate damage-control campaign, saying that the Congressman “clearly uses a metaphor” in the clip. But there’s nothing metaphorical about Israeli nuclear weapons, which have long been the worst-kept secret in international affairs—and which at least one far-right Israeli politicians has suggested using in Gaza, just as Walberg says.
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which the Representative so casually brings up, were among the most terrible war crimes in human history—and for that matter, Israel has already hit Gaza with more than 3 times the explosive force of the Hiroshima bombing. Any idea that nuclear weapons should be used, in Palestine or anywhere else, needs to be swiftly and forcefully condemned. If these comments aren’t grounds for a formal censure in the House of Representatives, what is?
❧ This year, Easter Sunday coincided with the Transgender Day of Visibility, and a lot of the usual suspects are very very very upset. The Day of Visibility takes place each year on March 31 with events around the world celebrating the accomplishments of transgender and nonbinary people and raising awareness of the challenges they still face. Beginning in 2009, it was first conceived by Rachel Crandall-Crocker, a psychotherapist and the executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Transgender Michigan, who wanted there to be a joyful celebration of trans existence. (Up to that point, the only holiday of the sort was the Trans Day of Remembrance, which honors those lost to anti-trans violence.)
This year, the Biden administration issued a short statement acknowledging the Day of Visibility and proclaiming that trans people “deserve, and are entitled to, the same rights and freedoms as every other American including the most fundamental freedom to be their true selves.” While a small gesture, it was still nice given how red states have proposed or passed hundreds of bills restricting their freedoms while Republican lawmakers and pundits have described them as “demonic” and called for their “eradication.”
As you would expect, everyone was completely normal about this, understanding that just because the trans day (which has been on March 31 since its founding) happened to fall on Easter (which moves around every year), that doesn’t mean both can’t be enjoyed. April fools! Everybody went completely insane. Right-wing rabblerouser Ian Miles Cheong bellowed that “Trans activists replaced Easter with the Transgender Day of Visibility…Easter is no more.” Trump (the guy who famously could not name a single Bible verse when asked) called it “blasphemous.” Even the “LGBT conservative” group Log Cabin Republicans called the administration “utterly tone-deaf when it comes to the priorities of average Americans” and even said he should have moved the commemoration “so it didn't directly conflict with the most important holiday in the Christian faith.”
With the way these people are talking, it sounds like Biden grabbed the Easter Bunny and forcibly injected him with hormones on live TV or something. In reality, Easter has not been “replaced” or downgraded in any way. Ol’ Joe, who is an Irish Catholic, remember, also gave an Easter speech and issued a statement commemorating Christians and hosted all the usual egg rolling and Easter Bunny visitation that every president does. But even if he hadn’t, it’s not like the president decides what holidays you are allowed to celebrate! You’re allowed to just celebrate Easter, or the Trans Day of Visibility, or both, or neither!
The “average Americans” that Biden supposedly enraged by acknowledging trans people on Easter are probably too busy celebrating with their families to be angry about any of this. The real weirdos are the ones spending Easter yelling about trans people. And their vitriol shows why days like the Trans Day of Visibility are important in the first place.
SOME PHOTOS OF PAST PRESIDENTS MEETING THE EASTER BUNNY
As Twitter user Ben Crew says, “Every presidential photo of the Easter Bunny looks as if we lost a war with him and are surrendering.”
❧ Senator John Fetterman’s top communications staff just resigned. As the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, Fetterman has lost all three of his most important comms staffers in the space of a month. His communications director, Joe Calvello, has taken a new job with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, while his deputy comms director will be moving to the Working Families Party, and his top aide has taken a job with Senator Bob Casey. In all three cases, the Inquirer says the staffers are leaving for “more progressive political jobs.”
This makes sense, because Fetterman himself recently said he’s “not a progressive,” and is moving rapidly to the right on a variety of issues. Most obviously, he’s become an enthusiastic cheerleader for Israel’s bombing of Gaza, wearing the Israeli flag as a cape and waving it from his roof to taunt protestors against the massacre. That’s both morally depraved and just plain embarrassing. But Fetterman has also endorsed compromising with Republicans on immigration, saying it “isn’t xenophobic” to want a crackdown at the border, and suggested he may vote with the GOP to overturn EPA regulations about car exhaust.
That’s a far cry from the way he described himself on the campaign trail. As a candidate, Fetterman did call himself a “progressive” and constantly touted his supposed left-wing values when he wanted votes and donations. Now that he’s safely in office, it’s suddenly another story. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the people who enthusiastically worked for Candidate Fetterman now want nothing to do with him. Claiming to believe in one thing, and then completely reversing course as soon as it’s convenient, tends to have that effect.
AROUND THE STATES
❧ U.S. dairy cows have bird flu, and humans are starting to catch it too. Over the past few years, we’ve all spent far too much time thinking about viruses—and it looks like we may not be done yet. Right now, there’s an increasingly worrying outbreak of bird flu in American dairy cows, which has spread to at least Texas, Kansas and Michigan with possible cases in New Mexico and Idaho. Even worse, a human patient in Texas has tested positive for the H5N1 flu virus, which they apparently caught from sick cows. It’s only the second time that’s happened in the United States.
If we’re all very lucky, medical and agricultural workers in the states affected may be able to contain this virus before it becomes a more widespread problem. But it’s worth noting that animal rights activists have been warning about the cramped and unsanitary conditions in U.S. farms for years, even explicitly saying that they “could create the next pandemic.” How many close calls with disaster will it take before we take serious action to wind down factory farming, which is not only unspeakably cruel, but a threat to everyone’s safety?
❧ Some of your food is full of lead! Yum! Last month, the FDA announced that certain ground cinnamon products contained elevated levels of the neurotoxic chemical, warning that “prolonged exposure to these products may be unsafe.” The previous November, children’s applesauce pouches containing contaminated cinnamon led to possibly more than 500 cases of lead poisoning. Sheer negligence would be bad enough, but the FDA says it believes the lead was added intentionally out of “economic motivation” to make the food appear more valuable so it could be sold for a higher price, a tale of untrammeled greed that even Upton Sinclair would’ve found shocking.
But lead often ends up in our food in much more mundane, but no less dangerous ways. After decades of progress following the elimination of leaded gasoline and paint, lead usage around the world is back on the rise, with a primary culprit being the production of lead-acid batteries in parts of the world with looser regulations. Food produced in those countries can easily become contaminated: As Dylan Scott writes in Vox: “The entire episode encapsulates the difficult truth about lead: Even though the US has cracked down within its borders, pollution elsewhere persists — and, in some cases, American efforts to reduce its own pollution merely moved the contamination to other parts of the world.”
⚜ LONG READ: Most of us think of our cars as safe, solitary places. But new car models are collecting your data. David Moscrop writes in Jacobin:
Just in case you thought the capitalist surveillance network foisted on us by bandit corporations and complicit governments wasn’t dystopian enough, your car may now be spying on you — and selling the data it collects to insurance companies via LexisNexis.
Last week, the New York Times and others reported that certain General Motors (GM) vehicles were collecting driver data — in some cases unbeknownst to the owner — that insurance companies could, and did, use to adjust (that is, raise) premiums. GM’s Smart Driver program isn’t the only one of its kind. Other automakers have similar services, which may seem innocuous (in-car Wi-Fi, amazing!) but are in fact insidious, since you end up “consenting” to being spied on for automaker profit.
In 2023, the Mozilla Foundation released research in which they said cars were a “privacy nightmare on wheels” and “the official worst category of products for privacy.” Writing in The Conversation, law professor Katharine Kemp detailed the extensive data collection mechanisms in vehicles, including “cameras, microphones, sensors and connected phones and apps.” She underscored the real-time nature of data collection and its potential integration with other sources, such as other internet-connected products…
Corporate consumer data collection isn’t new, nor is the practice of adjusting insurance premiums based on driver behavior. But extending and scaling up the practice with the power of big data and hiding it — intentionally or otherwise — behind what companies must surely know is a human tendency not to dive into arcane terms of service legalese is a bold new step toward a sci-fi surveillance hellscape. It’s of a piece with all the other tech developments over which there is no public oversight. And it’s another sign that we’re entering a more dangerous kind of capitalist dystopia from which we can’t escape without collective pressure and state action.
AROUND THE WORLD
❧ Tens of thousands of Israelis have come out in protest this weekend to demand that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu step down from power. They have been joined by the families of the roughly 130 hostages who have been held by Hamas for nearly six months—they blame Netanyahu for his refusal to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for the safe return of their family members and the halting of a war that has killed nearly 33,000 Palestinians. Others, including soldiers returning from the front lines, express outrage over exemptions that allow ultra-Orthodox men to avoid military service that is compulsory for most other Israelis. As Israel’s Knesset approaches its spring recess without a deal to halt the war, protesters have erected a massive tent city outside the building, with some even threatening to “storm the Knesset.”
This weekend’s demonstrations have been the largest since Israel’s war in Gaza began last October. Since the war began, Netanyahu’s support from the Israeli public has remained low, with just 27 percent saying he has done a good or excellent job since October 7, according to a poll from The Jerusalem Post and his Likud Party is on track to be wrecked in Israel’s upcoming elections. While most Israelis have little sympathy for the Palestinians whose lives have been destroyed by this war, and the Benny Gantz-led National Unity government that may arise in Netanyahu’s wake likely won’t be any less brutal towards Gaza, we can hope that widespread discontent may be enough to force Israel’s leaders to make peace even if it’s purely a cynical calculation to maintain power.
❧ Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, the most notorious gang leader in Haiti, says he’s open to peace talks. Chérizier has become an increasingly well-known figure in recent months, as Haiti’s political situation continues to spiral into chaos and violence. He’s the most important leader of the G9, a coalition of nine street gangs that Human Rights Watch blames for a “surge in violent abuses” including “killings, kidnappings, and sexual violence” in the capital of Port-au-Prince—where the UN estimates that gangs now control 80 percent of the city. Early this March, the G9 staged a huge jailbreak and succeeded in its goal of forcing Prime Minister Ariel Henry—who was never elected and widely seen as corrupt—to resign. Now, Chérizier says he’s willing to call a ceasefire, in exchange for a voice in the future of Haiti’s government:
If the international community comes with a detailed plan where we can sit together and talk, but they do not impose on us what we should decide, I think that the weapons could be lowered[...] We don’t believe in killing people and massacring people, we believe in dialogue, we have weapons in our hand and it’s with the weapons that we must liberate this country.
So far, the preferred strategy of the “international community” has been anything but diplomatic. Until recently, the plan was to send a “security force” spearheaded by 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti—a move many Kenyans oppose, calling it a de facto occupation. More worryingly, a high-ranking U.S. general recently said the United States is “prepared” to put troops in Haiti “if called upon by our State Department.”
Given the long, bloody history of foreign powers—especially the U.S.—destabilizing and propping up dictators on the island, yet another foreign intervention is the last thing Haiti needs. For his part, Chérizier has vowed to fight one if it comes, saying that “we will consider them as invaders, and we do not have to collaborate with any invaders that have come to walk over our independence.” There are really no good options here, but at the moment diplomacy—even if it’s with a violent gang boss—is better than what amounts to an invasion. Hopefully the “international community” will be wise enough to give it a try.
PAST AFFAIRS
In “What the Clintons Did to Haiti,” Current Affairs Editor-in-Chief Nathan J. Robinson explores the history of U.S. politicians’ meddling on the island, and why Haitians have good reason to fear and resist interventions by the so-called “international community”:
One of the first acts in the new “business-centered” Haiti policy involved suppressing Haiti’s minimum wage. A 2009 Haitian law raised the minimum wage to 61 cents an hour, from 24 cents an hour previously. Haitian garment manufacturers, including contractors for Hanes and Levi Strauss, were furious, insisting that they were only willing to agree to a seven-cent increase. The manufacturers approached the U.S. State Department, who brought intense pressure to bear against Haitian President René Préval, working to “aggressively block” the 37-cent increase.
CICADA FACT OF THE WEEK
More than a trillion cicadas are set to burst forth from the ground this spring in the largest brood since the Jefferson presidency. Some of them may be zombies.
According to entomologist John Cooley speaking to the Associated Press, “There’s a deadly sexually transmitted disease, a fungus, that turns cicadas into zombies and causes their private parts to fall off.”
The fungus takes control of male cicadas’ wing movements, causing them to imitate the movements of females. It also causes them to mate like crazy. In some infected cicadas, as much as a third of their body can fall off as a result of the pathogen, but they are still capable of mating, which in turn passes it on to other unsuspecting victims.
Cooley says he’s seen spots in the Midwest where up to 10 percent of the cicada population has been zombified. He says it also affects the birds that eat cicadas, who can end up having hallucinations.
Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. Fact-checking by Justin Ward. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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