Remember when the eight-time WNBA All-Star, Britney Griner, was arrested in 2022 at a Moscow airport on drug-related charges? She was detained for nearly 10 months, spending much of that time in prison. American public and political outrage was severe and her supporters pressed the White House hard to bring her home.
“I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner said in a handwritten letter to President Biden appealing for her freedom.
Apparently, America learned a lesson from Griner’s imprisonment. But it was the wrong one.
Kseniia Petrova, a 30-year-old Russian-born scientist at Harvard Medical School, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since February. Her detention occurred when she was returning to Boston from a trip to France. Her story was reported by Geoff Bennett, who serves as co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS News Hour.
Returning to Boston’s Logan International Airport from a trip to France, she brought back frog embryo samples for her lab. The PBS News Hour reported on April 24 that ICE said she knowingly broke the law in failing to properly declare the embryos. According to the News Hour, A typical customs violation results in a fine, but Petrova had her visa revoked, was detained and flagged for deportation.
In moves more common in a police state, where people are swiftly moved from place to place to avoid detection, ICE first sent Petrova to a cell at the airport. The next day they transferred her to a jail in Vermont. She spent the next week there. Then ICE flew Petrova to detention in Louisiana. She has now been imprisoned at the Richwood Detention Facility in Louisiana for two months in a one-room facility with 89 other women, wall-to-wall beds and almost no personal privacy. Yes, for two months now.
She has an immigration court hearing scheduled for May 7 in Jena, Louisiana, related to her asylum case.
The News Hour reported that Petrova has been a vocal critic of the Russian government and its actions in Ukraine and fears persecution if deported there. “I am afraid that, if I come to Russia, I will be arrested, because we have in Russia special law,” she said. “If you say something against current war, you will be imprisoned, and you can be imprisoned for 15 years.”
“ICE is required to detain individuals … only if they are a flight risk or a danger to the community. Ms. Petrova is neither,” said her attorney, Gregory Romanovsky. “Her continued detention serves no purpose and wastes limited government resources.”
He has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Vermont, arguing that a declaration issue doesn’t justify detention and the government failed to follow standard protocol.
NPR reported that earlier this week, during a preliminary hearing, a Louisiana immigration judge found the government’s case to be legally insufficient and ruled that the Notice to Appear, the document that initiates deportation proceedings, did not meet legal standards. The judge gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement one week to submit stronger evidence.
The Trump administration, banking on the support of its most dedicated backers, is running roughshod over human rights right here in America.
President Donald Trump has pressured nine of the nation’s largest and most prestigious law firms to capitulate to demands that they provide nearly $1 billion in free, or pro bono, legal work to causes Trump supports.[1]
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said one of the firms, the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP law firm (“Paul, Weiss”) agreed that:
Paul, Weiss will take on a wide range of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints of our society, whether “conservative” or “liberal.”
Paul, Weiss will dedicate the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono legal services over the course of President Trump’s term to support the Administration’s initiatives, including: assisting our Nation’s veterans, fairness in the Justice System, the President’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and other mutually agreed projects.
Paul, Weiss affirms its unwavering commitment to these core ideals and principles, and will not deny representation to clients, including in pro bono matters and in support of non-profits, because of the personal political views of individual lawyers.
Trump said in his Truth Social post that Paul, Weiss also “… acknowledged the wrongdoing of former Paul, Weiss partner, Mark Pomerantz”, who had worked as a prosecutor in Manhattan and had pushed for Mr. Trump to be charged criminally. A copy of the agreement provided to the media by Brad S. Karp, the chairman of Paul, Weiss, did not, however, include any mention of Pomerantz. The New York Times also reported that five people briefed on the matter said Mr. Karp said he did not criticize Mr. Pomerantz with the president, in spite of Mr. Trump’s assertion to the contrary.
In a particularly hypocritical move, Trump added to his Truth Social post, “Our Justice System is betrayed when it is misused to achieve political ends,” despite the fact that Paul, Weiss only agreed to Trump’s terms after he threatened the firm,
Initially, the compliant law firms are said to have agreed to the free legal work assuming it would be for such uncontroversial causes as helping veterans. But Trump, who has a habit of wandering into unexpected territory in his remarks, now appears to have a broader view of what the law firms may be pressured to work on.
“Over the last week, he has suggested that the firms will be drafted into helping him negotiate trade deals,” the New York Times reported on April 16. “He has mused about having them help with his goal of reviving the coal industry. And he has hinted that he sees the promises of nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services that he has extracted from the elite law firms…as a legal war chest to be used as he wishes. White House officials believe that some of the pro bono legal work could even be used toward representing Mr. Trump or his allies if they became ensnared in investigations.”
Whatever issues Trump chooses to rope the law firms into working on, what will the public know?
On one side, even though the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) applies to records created by federal agencies within the executive branch, the White House Office itself is exempt from FOIA. This means the public cannot directly request information from the White House Office[2] under FOIA.
A FOIA memo from the U.S. Department of Justice on White House Records states:
“By its terms, the FOIA applies to “the Executive Office of the President,” 5 U.S.C. § 552(f), but this term does not include either “the President’s immediate personal staff” or any part of the Executive Office of the President “whose sole function is to advise and assist the President.” Meyer v. Bush, 981 F.2d 1288, 1291 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (quoting H.R. Rep. No. 1380, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 14 (1974)); see also, e.g., Soucie v. David, 448 F.2d 1067, 1075 (D.C. Cir. 1971). This means, among other things, that the parts of the Executive Office of the President that are known as the “White House Office” are not subject to the FOIA.”
Records originating with the Office of the Vice President or any of its component offices, are likewise not subject to the FOIA.
Similarly, the records of communications between the law firms and the White House or of work done by the law firms at Trump’s request would not be subject to the FOIA.
So how will the public know what Trump’s White House and the law firms bending the knee to Trump are doing? It won’t. And how will Congress know what Trump’s White House and the law firms are doing? It won’t. And how with the media know what Trump’s White House and the law firms are doing? Unless they are particularly aggressive, they won’t either.
The nearly $1 billion of pro bono work the nine law firms, and potentially more, will be doing for Trump could have a major impact on American life. And it looks like it can all be done in secret.
Shameful.
[1] The nine firms are Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; Latham & Watkins; Milbank; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; A & O Shearman; Kirkland & Ellis; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
Update: May 2, 2025: President Trump signed an Executive Order on May 1, 2025 stating, “I therefore instruct the CPB Board of Directors (CPB Board) and all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.” It’s not clear how this order can be implemented since the president has also asked Congress to approve a recission package for there Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has not been acted upon by Congress.
Update: April 14, 2025: The Trump administration said today it would end funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR. It said it would ask lawmakers to cut more than $9 billion in funding for the Public Broadcasting Service, National Public Radio and foreign aid in the current fiscal year,. The proposal — known as a rescission package — would codify cuts identified by the Department of Government Efficiency an attempt to employ a little-used legislative tactic for reducing spending already approved by Congress.
The White House plans to send the package to Congress on April 28, starting a 45-day period during which the administration can legally withhold the funding. If Congress votes down the plan or does nothing, the administration must release the money back to the intended recipients. The Congressional Institute has written a detailed explanation of how the rescission process works.
________________________
The Trump administration has made no secret of its hostility to public broadcasting.
Even before the Nov. 2024 election, Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s plan to transform the federal government during the next conservative administration, called for the government to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting(CPB). CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation fully funded by the federal government which is the largest single source of funding for public radio and television. CPB was created by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967. (A video on the history of PBS is available at https://shorturl.at/7o1X2.)
CPB funds National Public Radio (NPR), which serves as a national syndicator to a network of more than 1,000 public radio stations in the United States, and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the private, non-profit corporation that distributes programming to public television stations in the United States.
Mike Gonzalez, a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation who authored the section on the CPB in Project 2025’s policy guide, argued that both NPR and PBS have a liberal bias and that the “government should not be compelling the conservative half of the country to pay for the suppression of its own views.” Gonzalez also argued that the federal government cannot afford to spend half a billion dollars “on leftist opinion” each year because it is trillions of dollars in debt.
In an all-caps April 10, 2024 post on Truth Social, his social media platform, candidate Trump wrote:
Donald J. Trump @realDonald Trump NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM! EDITOR SAID THEY HAVE NO REPUBLICANS, AND IS ONLY USED TO “DAMAGE TRUMP'” THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!
Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 as a whole in his 2024 campaign, but he has vigorously pursued many of its proposals since becoming president and has appointed many of its authors to key government posts.
As president, Trump has restated his opposition to funding non-commercial public broadcasting, as has Elon Musk, Trump’s crony. And because CPB has no ongoing federal funding mechanism, annual Congressional appropriations are required. That opens the door for Trump.
Dick Tofel, the formerPresident of ProPublica, wrote on Substack, “ …they will very likely, sometime this year, have the votes they need to smash the current arrangement. That will occur, I think, in significant part because the current regime does not have the political will to materially cut federal spending and thus feels compelled to cut immaterial spending (federal aid to public broadcasting costs Americans about $1.50 per person) in a performative manner that, they hope, fools their base.”
Tofel’s view is that whether Trump wants to force public stations off the air altogether or just eliminate their national news programming, “the distinction will hardly matter” in communities that can’t afford to mount substantial operations of their own. Funding cuts at the national level would, he says, most likely mean the loss of shows such as Morning Edition and All Things Considered, the NPR morning and afternoon shows, PBS’ Frontline and PBS News Hour. In larger, richer (bluer) cities (such as Portland), some parts of local efforts will likely be salvaged, he thinks.
For fiscal year 2025, Congress appropriated $535 million for CPB. This year, Republicans have introduced multiple bills to defund CPB and on March 25, 2025, a day before the heads of PBS and NPR testified before a House subcommittee, trump said he’d be “honored” to see funding for public broadcasting end.
In a January 16, 2025, message, Rachel Smolkin, OPB ‘s president and CEO, raised the alarm about potential cuts in federal support to her station and others around the country, but took care to note that “Federal support represents a relatively small portion of OPB’s operating budget “. In fiscal year 2023, government grants to OPB totaled $4,679,653 or 9.5% of the station’s $49,370,988 in revenue from contributions.[1] In most instances, sponsorships are considered charitable contributions by the underwriters. On OPB’s IRS Form 990, these sponsorships are included in the $49,370,988 reported as contributions and grants. There is also a small amount of sponsorships that meet the definition of advertising, which primarily occur on OPB’s digital platforms. For FY 23, advertising is included in the program service revenue of $1,381,015 and in unrelated business revenue reported on OPB’s IRS Form 990-T.
For FY 23, advertising is included in the program service revenue of $1,381,015 and in unrelated business revenue reported on our IRS Form 990-T. Sponsorships are not otherwise disclosed on the tax filings. Total revenue was $56,821,607.
Notable Sources of Revenue
$
Percent of Total Revenue
Contributions
$49,370,988
86.9%
Program Services
$1,381,015
2.4%
Investment Income
$3,446,034
6.1%
Bond Proceeds
$0
Royalties
$0
Rental Property Income
$415,851
0.7%
Net Fundraising
$0
Sales of Assets
$2,207,719
3.9%
Net Inventory Sales
$0
Could OPB survive without the federal grants? Probably, but the hit would be hard.
The impact of any cut in OPB’s programming would be felt particularly by Oregon and Southern Washington’s more educated and higher income populace (71% of OPB’s TV audience, 82% of OPB’s digital audience and 85% of OPB’s radio audience has attended college). The public broadcast audience also typically falls into higher household income categories and have for years, primarily because households that listen to public media tend to have more formal education.
But that is part of the problem. An increasing number of the rest of the population is tuning out.
NPR‘s weekly broadcast audience has been experiencing audience declines, as have NPR’s podcasts, and sponsorship revenue has dipped. And CPB took a big hit last year when former NPR business editor Uri Berliner posted an essay on the Free Press substack site accusing the organization of adopting a left-wing stance in which “race and identity” were “paramount.”
Earlier this month, the NY Times reported on an NPR document that detailed what would happen if the Treasury stopped cutting checks to CPB. “NPR can weather the funding cut… thanks in part to aggrieved listeners: Executives predict a sudden boom in donations if Congress defunds it, as listeners rush to defend their favorite programs.,” the report said. “But they will likely give more in big-city markets.”
Public television in the United States would likely be in worse shape, the report said, because PBS receives much more of its budget from the federal government.
In a weird sort of way, the collapse of so much of the traditional news media and the rise of one-sided communications might be public broadcasting’s savior.
Some analysts think things have gotten so bad in a fractured media environment that public broadcasting is more critical. A reason for hope, the Los Angeles Times wrote in March 2025, is that “… the American media landscape is in such poor shape that NPR is more necessary than ever. Across the country, print journalism has imploded. Commercial TV and radio news operations are also in decline. Especially in red states, NPR is sometimes the only source of local news. True, people everywhere now get information from cable channels, random websites or social media, but many still want what NPR offers.”
With that in mind, the debate over funding for public broadcasting, and OPB’s future, is a reminder that depending on government money for a service can be a trap. That money is always subject to the political winds. If a free press is dependent on whether a Trump-like personality is in office, more local public support may be vastly preferable.
[1] Figures are from Form 990 which non-profits are required to file annually with the IRS. These CPB grants are included in the Contributions and Grants revenue of $49,370,988 on OPB’s FY 2023 IRS Form 990. CPB grants are not included in government grants on the Form 990 as CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation, not a government agency.
On one side you have a phalanx of Democrats proposing the ludicrous idea of paying strikers unemployment benefits, which would make Oregon the only State in the country to grant unemployment benefits to striking public and private sector workers.
Not to be outdone in making nonsensical proposals, now you have a raft of Republicans, mimicking President Trump, proposing that the state forego taxing tips.
Here’s a tip – exempting tips from state taxes is a bad idea.
In their determination to position themselves as supporters of the working man (and woman), 21 of Oregon’s House Republicans have proposed a bill, HB 3914, to end taxation of tips, which are generally perceived as discretionary payments determined by a customer that employees receive from customers.
As written, the bill would not count “service charges” as tips. A restaurant, for example, recently added an automatic service charge equal to 18% of my bill. Even if that was intended to cover for a “no tipping” policy, it would be part of the server’s wages because it was not discretionary.
The 129-word Oregon bill gets right to the point, “There shall be subtracted from federal taxable income any amount of tips properly reported as wages on the taxpayer’s federal income tax return.” That would automatically subtract tips from taxable income in Oregon, too.
The bill deserves a quick death.
According to the IRS, “All cash and noncash tips received by an employee are income and are subject to Federal income taxes. All cash tips received by an employee in any calendar month are subject to social security and Medicare taxes and must be reported to the employer.” So, tip income is taxable income.
Charges automatically added to a customer’s check by an employer and subsequently distributed to employees are not tips; they are “service charges”. These service charges, which are appearing more often on Oregon restaurant bills, are non-tip wages and are subject to Social Security tax, Medicare tax, and federal income tax withholding.
Many consumers think the expanding pressure on customers to leave tips is already out of hand. A no tax on tips policy would likely expand the use of tipped work even further, potentially leading to consumers being asked to tip on virtually every purchase everywhere.
A New York Times article about tipping generated a lot of comments, many of which lamented the seeming spread of tipping expectations to multiple businesses and regardless of the amount of actual service by an employee. “Collectively, we cringe when the iPad is swiveled into our face at the coffee counter or deli; we know it is extortion rather than appreciation for services rendered,” said one person.
There’s also a sense that some businesses are customizing the tip configuration on screen to exploit customers. Most people tip between 15-20%. If you buy a $2.85 espresso and the screen offers 15%, 20% and 25% tip options, you are likely to hit 15%, generating a tip of 43 cents. If a business wants to jack that up, however, it can give you $1, $2, or $3 options on purchases below $10, instead of a percentage. If you pick $1, you have paid a 35% tip. Devious, but effective.
Despite the massive increase in tipping expectations in recent years at multiple businesses, tax experts say a relatively small share of the workforce depends on tips. Only about 2.5% of American workers are in occupations that depend on tips, according to the IRS. Among those workers, 37% earn less than the federal standard deduction. So, they already don’t have to pay federal income taxes.
Other tipped workers benefit from the earned income tax credit (EITC) and/or child tax credit (CTC) to the extent that they don’t have any federal income tax liability. In addition, because tipped workers would keep more of their income, employers could use this law as a justification for lowering workers’ base pay if it is currently above the minimum wage.
In fact, exempting tips from taxation can actually lead to situations where low-income workers end up effectively losing income through losing eligibility to tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC).
The Budget Lab at Yale, a non-partisan policy research center, estimates that less than 3 percent of families would benefit from a broad-based income tax deduction for tips in 2026, but it would still cost the federal government more than $100 billion over the next decade. Restricting eligibility to workers in the leisure and hospitality industries would reduce the cost by more than 40 percent, but that would still leave a big hit on the deficit unless taxes were raised elsewhere.
Even the liberal Oregon Center for Public Policy opposes the no tax on tips idea.
In October 2024, Daniel Hauser, Deputy Director of the Center, said that ending taxes on tips “makes the tax system less fair” because workers receiving tips would get a tax break, but not low-paid workers in general.
If you have two workers, one a bartender who earns about $10,000 of his $40,000 annual income in tips and the other a warehouseman who makes all of his $40,000 income in wages, it wouldn’t make sense to give the bartender a tax break but leave the warehouse worker hanging out to dry, Hauser argued.
It also “creates openings for people to think about, how can my income be categorized as a tip and get this tax break too?,” Hauser wrote. Third, he said, “if the goal is to help the economic security of low-income workers, it’s not very effective…and there are much better ways for us to try and help low-income families in Oregon.”
ThinkingOregon 