Monthly Archives: May 2025

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Companies With Oregon Operations Eyeing Payoff From Trump’s Immigrant Deportations

Back in January, Portland’s new mayor, Keith Wilson, highlighted Portland’s commitment to its sanctuary city status, supported by Oregon’s sanctuary state laws and the Sanctuary Promise Act of 2021 that limit law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

“We stand together in solidarity with our immigrant families,” he wrote. “Their lives, families, and businesses are part of the fabric of our community and we must support them during these challenging times,” Wilson wrote in a letter to the City Council. “We must come together to live our city’s shared values of freedom from fear and sanctuary from federal overreach in the days ahead, no matter what our city may face.”

Governor Tina Kotek has also publicly and consistently affirmed her commitment to upholding Oregon’s sanctuary state laws. The governor “will not back down from a fight and believes these threats undermine our values and our right to govern ourselves,” a spokesperson for Kotek said, adding that the state “will not be bullied to deport people or perform immigration enforcement.”

A lot of Oregon’s politicians, particularly Democrats, may be on board with this pro-illegal-immigrant stance. But it looks like commerce trumps morality for much of the state’s business community. A long list of companies with operations in Oregon are perfectly happy to go after government contracts aimed at helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with immigrant deportations.

Open Secrets, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that tracks and publishes data on campaign finance and lobbying, has recently reported on for-profit companies in the United States benefiting from President Donald Trump’s plans to increase ICE deportations.

The coming windfall in deportation dollars could be immense. The House of Representatives approved a spending bill in early May that sets aside $175 billion for immigration enforcement – about 22 times ICE’s annual budget.

The bill includes the following provisions:

  • $46.5 billion for border barriers, including 701 miles of border wall, 900 miles of river barriers, 629 miles of secondary barriers, and 141 miles of vehicle and pedestrian barriers
  • $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities
  • $4.1 billion for hiring additional CBP personnel, including 3,000 new Border Patrol agents and 5,000 new Office of Field Operations (OFO) officers at ports of entry
  • $2 billion for retention bonuses and signing incentives for CBP personnel
  • $2.7 billion for border surveillance technology, including surveillance towers and tunnel detection capabilities
  • $500 million for grants to state and local law enforcement to track and monitor threats from unmanned aircraft systems
  • $450 million for Operation Stonegarden to support cooperation between CBP and state and local law enforcement

Open Secrets identified a slew of companies that are poised to benefit from President Trump’s plans to increase deportations. Every single one of them has operations in Oregon. According to Open Secrets, the companies and their contracted work are:

  • Palantir Technologies: In April 2024, ICE awarded software company Palantir Technologies a $29.8 million contract for developing ImmigrationOS, a tool to help ICE with identifying and prioritizing the deportations of individuals who are considered a risk, such as violent criminals; tracking who is self-deporting; and managing cases from the individual’s entry through detention, hearing and deportation. The tool is an extension of systems that Palantir has already delivered as part of its almost $128 million contract signed in 2022.
  • Deployed Resources: This emergency management company has been awarded over $4 billion in government contracts to build and operate border tents since 2016. On April 12,  2024, ProPublica reported that ICE awarded a new contract worth up to $3.8 billion to Deployed Resources to operate a migrant detention camp at Fort Bliss, a United States Army post in New Mexico and Texas. On April 17, ICE submitted a $5 million proposal for Deployed Resources to deliver unarmed guard services for 30 days at an ICE facility in El Paso, Texas. ICE has housed detainees at a tent facility in El Paso operated by Deployed Resources since March. The Trump administration used the Department of Defense to award Deployed Resources an unannounced $140 million contract to run the site for ICE, The facility can house up to 1,000 detainees, and ICE started transferring detainees on March 10.
  • Axon Enterprise: The company (formerly TASER International), which develops technology and weapons for public safety, law enforcement and the military,  was awarded a year-long $5.1 million contract in March to deliver body cams and equipment and a $22,376 contract to deliver tasers that have been used specifically in deportations. Several law enforcement agencies in Oregon use Axon tasers. Rick Smith, the CEO of Axon Enterprise, had a special distinction in 2024. His annual compensation, $165 million, topped CEO compensation charts in 2024 That propelled him past Apple’s Tim Cook, whose 2024 compensation totaled $74.61 million.
  • Parsons Government Services: The company is wrapping up a one-year $4.2 million contract for the transportation and guard services of ICE detainees in Newark, NJ.  It was awarded a contract worth up to $8.9 million for COVID-19 testing supplies in February, as well as an $87,467 contract in March and a $118,758 contract in April with ICE, both to provide “mobile biometric collection devices in support of the biometric identification transnational migration alert program.” 
  • General Dynamics: This weapons company was awarded new $101,034 and $80,050 contracts in March to purchase non-lethal ammunition for training purposes for ICE’s Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs.
  • Sig Sauer Inc.: A firearms company, Sig Sauer was awarded more than $200,000 worth of contracts with ICE for firearms and firearm accessories in the first months of 2025: $57,163 in February, and $19,824, $35,106 and $90,854 contracts in April. 
  • Paragon Professional Services: Awarded a $1.1 million contract on April 1 for transporting people who are detained by ICE in the New York City area and a $458,400 month-long contract to provide transportation of ICE detainees in Baltimore on April 17. ICE has also signed a five-year, $395,534 firm-fixed-price delivery order to Paragon Professional Services LLC, an Alaskan Native Corporation-owned small disadvantaged business. The contract provides transportation and guard services to support ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in the Newark, New Jersey area. This award is part of a larger Indefinite Delivery Contract valued at $315.1 million that Paragon holds with ICE for security and detention services.
  • GlobalX Air is a US 121 domestic flag and supplemental airline flying the Airbus A320 family of aircraft. Our services include domestic and international ACMI and charter flights for passengers and cargo throughout the US, Caribbean, Europe, and Latin America. GlobalX is IOSA certified by IATA and holds TCO’s for Europe and the UK.
  • GEO Group: A private prison company, GEO Group announced in February a 15-year contract with ICE for 1,000 beds at its Delaney Hall Facility in Newark, New Jersey. The company said the contract is expected to add $60 million to its annual revenue in the first year. In March, GEO announced a contract with ICE for a 1,800 bed facility in Baldwin, Michigan. The contract is expected to generate $70 million in annual revenue. The company also announced in March that it altered its contract agreement for the 1,328-bed Karnes ICE Processing Center in Karnes City, Texas, to host “mixed populations” instead of solely single males. That contract is expected to generate $79 million in the first year, including $23 million in incremental revenue. Accusations of abuse and neglect of immigrants waiting for detention hearings have surfaced at Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, one of GEO’s facilities and one of the largest facilities of its kind in the nation, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The paper reported that a special office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security launched a sweeping investigation in 2024 into a litany of allegations at the center, but while the probe was still underway, the federal government gutted the special office in March 2025, raising questions about whether the investigation is still active as well as other inquiries into complaints of dangerous conditions and abuse against immigrants at centers across the country. 
  • CoreCivic: In March, CoreCivic, a private prison company, signed a five-year contract to reopen a 2,400-bed family detention center in Dilley, Texas. Annual revenue once fully operational is expected to be $180 million. In February, the company announced it would increase capacity for up to 784 ICE detainees at its 2,016-bed Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, its 1,072-bed Nevada Southern Detention Center and its 1,600-bed Cimarron Correctional Facility in Oklahoma. In addition, CoreCivic has modified a contract so that ICE may use up to 252 beds at its 2,672-bed Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi.

  • CSI Aviation: This New Mexico-based company is ICE’s current prime air charter contractor.  CSI has signed contracts worth more than $650 million with ICE in the past three years. Included in that total is a no-bid contract awarded to CSI for deportation flights, worth up to $219 million. The contract began on March 1, runs until August and has the possibility to be extended until February 2026.
  • Air Carrier Subcontractors: CSI Aviation subcontracts deportation flights to several companies. Historically the vast majority of the flights were operated by World Atlantic and iAero, but now by Miami-based GlobalX, part of Global Crossing Airlines Group. Tom Cartwright, an immigration activist and watchdog, has noted that “Eastern Air, OMNI, and Kaiser operate flights rarely and Gryphon small jets are only used for long distance flights occasionally to Africa, the Pacific and Europe.” Budget carrier Avelo Airlines, which operates from the Salem-Willamette Valley Airport (SLE), Redmond Municipal Airport (RDM) and the Eugene Airport, recently signed a contract with ICE to fly three planes for deportations from Mesa, Arizona. 

To date, activists and others in Oregon concerned about  President Trump’s immigration policies have generally been silent about the actions of companies with Oregon operations that are facilitating those policies. Some activists around the country, including in Eugene, Oregon, have protested against Avelo Airlines, accusing it of profiting from deportation-related flights.

Demonstrators at Tweed New Haven, CT Airport on May 12, 2025 protesting Avelo Airlines’ decision to operate deportation flights for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Generally, however, opposition to companies assisting ICE has been mild and barely noticed, unlike the raucus protests against American companies supplying U.S. armed forces in Vietnam, such as Dow Chemical, the primary manufacturer of napalm. 

But that relative calm may not last. The Trump administration has dramatically stepped up its pace of deportations, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data. In April, the latest month for which the data is available, ICE deported about 17,200 people and deportation numbers are expected to rise as more detention space is set up, deportation flights increase, and enforcement intensifies.  

Meanwhile, anti-Trump administration protests around the country are ramping up. On the horizon is the so-called “No Kings Day” protest on June 14, the same day as a massive Trump-initiated military parade in Washington, D.C. and  Trump’s 79th birthday.

The more such protests spread and grow, the more likely protest targets will expand as well.  Count on it.

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Not to Worry About Trump’s Greed. It’s Personal.

A multi-million-dollar payoff to President Trump from 220 investors in his cryptocurrency is taking place tonight at the Trump National Golf Club in northern Virginia.

The dinner is being held after an auction of the president’s cryptocurrency, a $TRUMP memecoin, that brought in $147,586,796.41. The event is being promoted as the “most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the world,” according to an email about the event.

The top 25 crypto buyers will get an “ultra-exclusive private VIP reception” and “Special VIP Tour” with the president. Bloomberg looked at the buyers and concluded that 19 of the top 25 were individuals from outside the United States, many likely making the purchases to gain access to the Trump administration. Early on the promotion promised “a Special V.I.P. White House tour” for the top 25 coin holders. That reference to the White House visit was subsequently deleted, but the visit by 25 donors still went ahead on Friday, May 23.

Heather Cox Richardson has reported that  many of the top purchasers “dumped their $TRUMP coins as soon as they made the cut for the dinner.” The coin was launched around January 17, 2025. Its value skyrocketed to an all-time high of $74.27 on January 19, 2025. However, within two days, the price dropped by more than 50% to $31.61. The latest $TRUMP price on May 23 was $13.19.

Incredibly, President Trump has refused to identify the attendees.

“On the president’s dinner tonight, will the White House commit to making the list of the attendees public so people can see who’s paying for that kind of access to the president?” a reporter asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at a White House press briefing on Thursday. 

“…the president is attending it in his personal time, it is not a White House dinner, it is not taking place here at the White House,” Leavitt responded.

“In his personal time”? Give me a break.

The President of the United State is president 24/7/365. He cannot go “off the clock” when he wants to avoid scrutiny. He cannot raise money from secretive donors “on his own time”. 

Leavitt also rejected any suggestion that Trump was acting inappropriately by hosting the dinner or subsequent events. “It’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency,” she said. 

But the fact is a business entity tied to the Trumps sits on a pile of the $TRUMP cryptocurrency and collects fees every time the coins change hands. So far, the coin has generated at least $320 million in fees, which the Trumps share with their business partners. 

In one of the most brazen excuses for Trump’s behavior, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, explained his lack of concern about mounting allegations of corruption inside the White House with, “President Trump does everything out in the open. He’s not trying to hide anything. He’s putting it out there so everybody can evaluate for themselves.” 

Multiple media have challenged characterizations of Trump’s purity. 

“…no modern American president has positioned his family to make so much money while in the White House,” Bloomberg reported yesterday, May 21. “Already, since the early days of his reelection campaign, he’s more than doubled his net worth to about $5.4 billion. In that time, the Trump name has powered more than $10 billion of real estate projects, a multibillion-dollar valuation for his money-losing social-media company, more than $500 million in sales from just one of his crypto ventures and millions of dollars more from stakes in companies that offer financial services, guns and drone parts.” 

Where’s the outrage?

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The “Lawyers of Distinction” Scam: Still Alive and Well

And the beat goes on. 

An outfit deceptively called Lawyers of Distinction ran another ad in The New York Times on Sunday, May 18, congratulating its “newest esteemed members for 2025”, including a lawyer from Oregon.

How the organization continues to recruit members is beyond me since the whole thing is a fraud. It’s obviously hard to crush a cockroach.

Even the Oregon State Bar has refused to chastise Oregon lawyers who have signed up for the outfit. The state Bar says its member lawyers are not engaged in unethical conduct when they assert to clients that their selection as “Lawyers of Distinction” is reliable evidence of their legal skills and achievements.[1] This despite the fact “Lawyers of Distinction” is nothing more than a pay-for-play outfit with only a virtual office. (It’s useful to remember here that this is the same Oregon State Bar that reinstated former Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan’s license to practice law, which requires honesty and moral fitness, after her scandalous behavior as Oregon Secretary of State)

It’s a scam.

Want evidence?

Some lawyers at the Davis Law Group in Seattle nominated Lucy, the office’s 5-pound teacup poodle, and paid the membership fee. Lucy didn’t go to law school, but she passed her state ‘bark exam” the law firm said, had been recognized by the legal community as a ‘top dog’ and was a member of the King County Bark Association.

Lucy, a Lawyer of Distinction

Lucy, recipient of a “Juris Dogtor”, was accepted. Lawyers of Distinction even sent Lucy a plaque naming her one of the top 10 percent of attorneys in the country and congratulated her on Twitter. Suffice it to say, Lucy was thrilled. 

Lawyers of Distinction claims to have a 26 members from Oregon, including its newest, Raun Atkinson, a criminal defense lawyer and  owner of the Atlas Law Group in Bend

Impressed? Don’t be. 

About all that’s required to be named a “Lawyer of Distinction” is to apply yourself or be nominated, fill out some online forms and pay a fee. 

According to the Orlando, FL-based organization’s website, a Charter Membership, for $475 a year, comes with a “Customized 14″ x 11″ genuine rosewood plaque”. A Featured Membership, for $575 a year, brings the plaque and inclusion in a membership roster published in USA Today, The New York Times, The American Lawyer and the National Law Journal.

Then there’sthe Distinguished Membership, for $775 per year (described on the organization’s website as “Most Popular”), which brings the rosewood plaque, the membership roster ads and an 11″tall translucent personalized crystal statue.

Lawyers of Distinction, incorporated in 2014, is like diploma mills, outfits that claim to be higher education institutions, but only provide illegitimate academic degrees and diplomas for a fee.

The Lawyers of Distinction website describes the application review process in a lengthy, complex statement that suggests a rigorous review.[2]

Don’t believe it.

 It’s selling plaques and badges.  It’s paying for meaningless accolades.

According to the Florida Division of Corporations, “Lawyers of Distinction Inc.” is a private for-profit company with a principal address of 4700 Millenia Boulevard, Suite 175, Orlando, FL 32839. 

Robert B. Baker, at the same address, is listed as the President in the company’s 2023 Annual Report. But don’t go to the office address expecting to be ushered into a space with a clean, modern aesthetic that communicates success. The address is only a virtual office. The site offers a “Platinum Plan” for $69 a month and a “Platinum Plan with live receptionist” for $194 a month. 

Robert “Robbie” Brian Baker, a member of the Florida Bar (Bar #992460), is also the founder and owner of Baker Legal Team at 2255 Glades Rd., Ste 330-W, Boca Raton, FL 33431. According to the Baker Legal Team website, he has a degree from Boston University School of Law in 1989 and a B.A. from Ithaca College.  He began his career, the website says, as a prosecutor working as an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County, New York. 

As an aside, the firm’s website has the chutzpah to highlight that it’s a member of Lawyers of Distinction. 

Lawyers of Distinction claims to have over 5000 members. If 5000 lawyers have signed up for the Distinguished category at $775 this year, the organization will rake in $3.9 million. Quite a haul.

Lawyers of Distinction used to try to quell doubts about its legitimacy by including on its website a  section headed, “Is Lawyers of Distinction A Scam? With Over 5000 Members, See What Lawyers Have To Say.” All the section contained was a few member comments and ratings, such as, “Andre L. Pennington – June 20, 2022, I love the opportunities that this honor provides. I highly recommend!” Now the link just takes you to a page that says, “Lawyers of Distinction currently has over 5000 members in the United States. The best way to hear about someone’s actual experience with a company is to receive information from an actual user, not a 3rd party.” 

It’s likely that few attorneys have been duped by Lawyers of Distinction, lured into believing they’ve been selected for a rare honor based on their legal work. They must figure that impressing potential clients is worth the mendacity and deception.

But the widespread use of Lawyers of Distinction by attorneys really just represents the decay of honest professional representation. If the American Bar Association and state bar associations really cared about lawyers’ clients they would be cracking down on such misleading marketing ploys. If the publications that run the outfit’s ads, such as The New York Times, gave a whit about truth in advertising, they’d decline to run its ads, too.

And if an attorney ballyhoos their selection as a Lawyer of Distinction to you, beware. They are living in a world of unearned praise.

[1] On Oct. 9, 2023, I filed a complaint with the OSB asserting that a number of Oregon lawyers are misrepresenting their credentials by asserting that their selection as “Lawyers of Distinction” is evidence of their legal skills and achievements. On Feb. 17, 2024, I filed a second, more detailed complaint and followed up with an email requesting a response.

On May 20, 2024, Linn Davis, Assistant General Counsel and CAO Attorney, sent a response saying he found no reason to pursue any charges of professional misconduct by Oregon lawyers.

“You expressed concerns that Oregon lawyers are improperly using membership in “Lawyers of Distinction” to advertise their services,” he wrote in an email. “Lawyers of Distinction” appears to be a marketing firm that uses some criteria to determine what lawyers are eligible for promotion. Listings on the “Lawyers of Distinction” site include a statement regarding the criteria for promotion and a link to apply for consideration. I lack any sufficient basis for believing the statements there to be false regarding the organization or the significance of membership. I also lack evidence that any particular lawyer in Oregon has utilized this marketing tool in a misleading manner. I conclude that there is no sufficient basis to warrant a referral of your concerns to Disciplinary Counsel. Because I find no sufficient evidence of professional misconduct, I will take no further action on this matter.”

This despite the fact the Oregon Rules of Professional Conduct (as amended effective January 1, 2024) for Oregon attorneys is explicit about how attorneys must communicate about themselves:

Rule 7.1 A lawyer shall not make a false or misleading communication about the lawyer or the lawyer’s services. A communication is false or misleading if it contains a material representation of fact or law, or omits a fact necessary to make a statement considered as a whole not materially misleading. 

Rule 8.4 It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to…engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s fitness to practice law. 

In my view, an Oregon attorney claiming he or she is a exceptional because of membership in “Lawyers of Distinction” is clearly making “a false or misleading communication” and engaging in “professional misconduct” involving “dishonesty” “deceit” and “misrepresentation”.

[2]Lawyers of Distinction Members have been selected based upon a review and vetting process by our Selection Committee utilizing U.S. Provisional Patent # 62/743,254. The platform generates a numerical score of 1 to 5 for each of the 12 enumerated factors which are meant to recognize the applicant’s achievements and peer recognition. All applicants must be licensed to practice law. Members are then subject to a final review for ethical violations within the past ten years before confirmation of Membership. A Lawyers of Distinction Nomination does not guarantee membership and attorneys may not pay a fee to be nominated. Attorneys may nominate to Lawyers of Distinction their peers whom they feel warrant consideration. The determination of whether an attorney qualifies for Membership is based upon the aforementioned proprietary analysis discussed above. Membership is not meant to infer any endorsement of Lawyers of Distinction by any of the 50 United States Bar Associations or The District of Columbia Bar Association. Any references to “excellent,” “excellence,” or “distinguished” are meant to refer to the Lawyers of Distinction organization only and not to any named member individually.

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The Donald Trump Presidential Library. Enough!

“ ’Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away.“

Percy Bysshe Shelley

UPDATE: 10/14/2025: A Florida court has put on hold the transfer of land held by a Miami college for President Trump’s presidential library, ruling that the college failed to provide reasonable public notice for its board vote to donate the land. The injunction Tuesday temporarily froze the transfer of 2.63 acres to commemorate Trump’s time in the White House. The Miami Dade College land is now a parking lot estimated to be worth more than $67 million, according to county appraisers.

UPDATE: 9/24/2025: NBC News reported today that Trump’s presidential library will be housed in Florida on land currently owned by Miami-Dade College, adjacent to the Freedom Tower and located on the city’s downtown waterfront.

Donald Trump, a man with the reading habits of an illiterate and the attention span of a hummingbird, wants to build a presidential library when he leaves office.

He also wants to fly away in a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet gifted to the United States by Qatar. When he leaves office he plans to take it with him to his yet-to-be-built presidential library. A submissive Republican-led Congress may let him get away with this normalization of corruption.

The future Trump Presidential Library?
An AI vision.

Trump is already trying to fill an account to build his library.

In December 2024, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million toward the library to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. Under the settlement agreement, the payment is described as a “charitable contribution.”

In January 2025, Meta Platforms agreed to settle a lawsuit for $25 million after suspending Trump’s Facebook accounts following the  January 6 attack other U.S. Capitol, with $22 million of that going toward the presidential library.

After his last term in office, a top fundraiser on Trump’s campaign said the president had told supporters he wanted to raise $2 billion for his library. Back then, however, there was considerable skepticism about Trump’s political future or the likelihood of him being able to raise enough money for a library. “I thought to myself, what is this alternative fantasy life you’re living?” one prominent fundraiser said. “I have no clue where they think they’ll get this money raised. Anyone who gives to him will be radioactive.”

How times have changed.

The location of a potential Trump Presidential Library is yet to be determined.  The Washington Post reported at the end of Trump’s first term that sources close to Trump said he planned to build a library and museum in Florida. In March 2025, it was reported that members of Trump’s team were looking at possible sites at  Florida Atlantic University  (FAU) in Palm Beach County, where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is located and Florida International University (FIU) near the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort.

Trump’s inaugural committee has also said any money left over from its $250 million haul will go the presidential library, as will millions being paid by individuals to dine and meet with Trump at special events at Mar-a-Lago.

The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund Inc. was incorporated in Florida on December 20, 2024, shortly after the ABC News settlement, and a library website already exists.

As with the The Barack Obama Presidential Center,  the website makes clear that The National Archives will administer the records of the Trump administration (textual, electronic, audiovisual, and artifacts) which will remain at National Archives facilities in the National Capital Region. In other words, there will be no actual presidential library at the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library .

Still to be determined is what Trump’s library will look like, what will be in it or how much it will cost. Obama is still struggling to raise money to compete construction of his presidential center, 3050 days after the end of his presidency. The project has also been beset by controversy, including questions over high “executive compensation” paid to people running the project. The center’s projected cost has also nearly doubled from its original estimate and is now projected at close to $1 billion.  

President Trump, never one to miss an opportunity for an insulting comment, has called the Obama Center “a disaster” and blamed “woke” construction workers” for problems at the site. “I mean look, President Obama — and if he wanted help, I’d give him help because I build on time and on budget,” Trump exclaimed at a White House meeting with  new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meeting in early May. 2025. Trump has apparently forgotten the six bankruptcies from his over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York and the destruction of his shuttered 39-story hotel and casino in Atlantic City, N.J. in 30 seconds with controlled explosions in Feb. 2021 .

Given Trump’s ability to generate controversy out of thin air, expect the path toward a Trump Presidential Library to be similarly erratic, filled with drama and leaving disillusioned supporters in its wake.

Of course all this controversy over a jet-themed presidential library would be moot if the practice of building such ego-satisfying monuments that aren’t even real research libraries any more ended once and for all.

As a matter of fact, presidential libraries filled with reading material are a thing of the past anyway.

The Barack Obama Presidential Center under construction, Oct. 2024

The Barack Obama Presidential Center on a 20-acres site in Chicago, if it’s ever finished, isn’t going to have a presidential library. Artifacts and records from Obama’s two terms in the White House are being digitalized and organized by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and will be stored in existing NARA facilities. The only library planned for the site is a new branch of the Chicago Public Library in a massive a 235-foot-tall fortresslike museum tower.

Obama has appealed to a roster of contributors to build his monument, with some heavy hitters donating $25 million or more. If Trump goes ahead with his library plans, he will likely have to copy Obama and initiate a massive fundraising effort to supplement the funds he has already squeezed out of lawsuits.

Is that really what the country needs, more Trump lawsuits to generate cash, an onslaught of solicitations to potential donors large and small, under-the-table deals with donors while Trump is still in office, more inevitable controversy and, in the end, just another monument to the ephemeral nature of political power?

It’s time to end this scattering of presidential shrines across the American landscape, to put a stop to more money-sucking temples to former presidents. With the digitization of records, there will be no need for a vast collection of paper records reminiscent of the warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Sorry, Donald.

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Justice Department Wants to Deport Harvard Scientist to Russia. Where is the Outrage?

                                                           

Kseniia Petrova (Polina Pugacheva, via Associated Press)

UPDATE

On May 28, the New York Times reported that a federal judge said she would grant bail to Ksenia Petrova   in an immigration case stemming from Ms. Petrova’s failure to declare scientific samples she was carrying into the country. “There does not seem to be either a factual or legal basis for the immigration officer’s actions” in stripping Ms. Petrova of her visa on Feb. 16, Christina Reiss, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Vermont, said in a court hearing. She added that “Ms. Petrova’s life and well-being are in peril if she is deported to Russia,” as the government has said it intends to do.

_________________

 To what levels of uncaring depravity have we sunk?

U.S. Government lawyers told a federal judge today that the Trump administration intends to deport a Harvard scientist back to Russia, a country she fled in 2022, despite her fear that she will be arrested there over her protest of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The New York Times reported the action today. 

Christina Reiss, chief judge of the United States District Court in Vermont, asked the government to clarify whether or not it planned to deport Ms. Kseniia Petrova to Russia.

“You are asking for her removal to Russia?” she asked.

“Yes, your honor,” Jeffrey M. Hartman, an attorney representing the Department of Justice, replied, according to the Times.

That this is taking place in Donald Trump’s America is a travesty.

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. 

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.

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.”

The Trump administration, banking on the support of its most dedicated backers, is running roughshod over human rights right here in America. 

Where is the outrage? 

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Oregon Bill to Give Free Food to Children in the Country Illegally Is a Mistake

Oregon’s Democratic lawmakers just can’t seem to stop finding new ways to spend money.

Oregon is facing a slew budget troubles. Congressional Republicans want to require an increase in state support for some federal programs. A budget reconciliation bill under consideration by Congress would put Oregon at risk of losing more than $1 billion in the 2027-29 biennium because of a provision that penalizes states that provide health insurance to undocumented immigrants. But Oregon Democrats keep coming up with proposals to spend money on dubious programs.

“Right now, some Oregonians face hunger on a daily basis (OCPP) simply because of where they were born,” the Oregon Center for Public Policy says, pleading for residents to “Tell the Oregon Legislature to pass Food for All Oregonians, SB 611“.

As originally introduced, the bill would have provided nutrition assistance to residents of Oregon who are under 26 years of age or 55 years of age or older and who would qualify for federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits but for their immigration status. Rather than just killing the bill, it was subsequently amended to specify that it would apply only to children six and younger. But it’s still a bad bill.

OCCP, which claims to have a “vision of an equitable Oregon”, doesn’t seem to have a vision of an Oregon that lives within its means. Nor, apparently, do a lot of other liberal groups across the state. 

Undocumented immigrants in the United States are generally ineligible for federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. Only U.S. citizens and certain lawfully present non-citizens may receive SNAP benefits, which currently consume $122.1 billion annually, or 53%, of the Department of Agriculture’s budget.

The Food for All Oregonians Program bill initially proposed providing nutrition assistance to residents of Oregon who are under 26 years of age or 55 years of age or older and who would qualify for federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits but for their immigration status.

SB 611’s sponsors were, of course, almost all Democrats. Its chief sponsors were Sen. Wlnsvey Campos and Rep. Ricki Ruiz. Regular Sponsors were 18 more Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Mark Owens. 

The bill proposed creating the Food for All Oregonians Program in the Department of Human Services, require the department to implement the program by January 1, 2027, and mandate that the department conduct statewide outreach, education and engagement to maximize enrollment.  The amount of benefits provided to a household participating in the program would be in the same amount provided to a household of equal size that is eligible for SNAP. 

As expected, the Oregon Food Bank, a hunger relief organization serving Oregon and S.W. Washington, supports the bill. In written testimony submitted to the Senate Committee on Human Services, which noted the bill is supported by a coalition of more than 165 organizations, Oregon Food Bank argued that many people in the state who work in food production, childcare, healthcare institutions, education, transportation and other critical services throughout the state don’t now get feed benefits and that “Immigration status shouldn’t exclude anyone from being able to feed themselves or their family.”

The committee has also received a deluge of supportive testimony from other individuals and organizations.

Some commenters justify their support for the bill by asserting that Washington and California already provide SNAP-equivalent benefits to non-citizens. That is not exactly so.

Washington has a state-funded Food Assistance Program, called FAP, is a state-funded program that provides food assistance to legal immigrants who aren’t eligible for federal Basic Food benefits solely because of their immigration status., but undocumented immigrants are not eligible. [1]

In California, the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP), a state funded program, provides benefits equivalent to SNAP (called CalFresh in CA) to qualified immigrants who are not eligible for CalFresh, but with limitations. Effective October 1, 2025, CFAP will expand to cover persons age 55 or older regardless of their immigration status. 

As for Oregon, SB 611 is being put forward as the state is confronting potential federal funding cuts, everybody and their brother seems to want higher spending on schools, affordable housing, transportation and healthcare, Trump tariffs are also threatening Oregon’s export-heavy  economy and fears of a national recession are growing.

The Legislative Fiscal Office projects the cost of providing benefits for the estimated 3,200 children eligible for Food for All Oregonians under the amended bill over the next four years would total $16 million from the general fund. 

But, what the heck. It’s only money, right?.

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Trump’s Travesties: Are You Ashamed Yet?

In another example of Donald Trump’s pay-to-play presidency, the Trump administration plans to accept a luxurious $400 million Boeing 747-8 plane as a donation from the Qatari royal family that will be upgraded to serve as Air Force One. Hopefully it won’t be  loaded with ultra-sophisticated eavesdropping equipment. The plane will ultimately go to the Trump presidential library, ensuring Trump could continue to use it.. “This isn’t a good idea even if the plane was being donated to the US govt.”, said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). “But Trump GETS TO KEEP THE PLANE???”

“…the issue with Donald Trump is he does not believe in rules and laws and norms,” David Axelrod, a former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, said on CNN. “The issue with Donald Trump is he does not believe in rules and laws and norms. He thinks they’re for suckers. And he thinks if you can get a free plane, as he said today, why wouldn’t you do it? You wouldn’t do it because it’s a bribe.” The Free Press observed, “Just consider the plain matter of our national security. A plane handed to the president by a foreign government? Let alone a government that hosts the leaders of Hamas; cooperates with Iran; fuels popular antisemitism throughout the Arab world through its government mouthpiece, Al Jazeera; and has poured nearly more than $2 billion into American universities since 2021, as these campuses express solidarity with Palestinian terrorism?”

The opulent gold interior of the Qatari plane
echoes the aesthetic of Trump Tower and
Trump’s gold-centered redecoration of the
Oval Office.

President Trump was asked on “Meet the Press” whether every person on U.S. soil was entitled to due process. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I’m not a lawyer.”

On May 27, 2025, Trump pardoned Virginia Sheriff Scott Jenkins. Jenkins had been found guilty of 1 count of conspiracy, 4 counts of honest services fraud and 7 counts of bribery concerning programs receiving fed funds. Prosecutors said he accepted bribes from 8 people, including 2 undercover FBI agents. The men who bribed Jenkins paid for auxiliary deputy sheriff positions so they could avoid traffic tickets and carry concealed firearms without a permit. U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, appointed by Trump, posted the comment “No MAGA left behind” about his decision to recommend a pardon for Jenkins.

Sheriff Scott Jenkins

Trump also announced on May 27 that he would be pardoning TV celebrities, Todd and Julie Chrisley, famous for the reality show, “Chrisley Knows Best”. The Chrisleys were convicted in 2022 of tax evasion and conspiring to defraud banks in the Atlanta area out of more than $30 million in loans by submitting false documents. Prosecutors said the couple walked away from their responsibility for repayment when Todd Chrisley declared bankruptcy and left $20-plus million in unpaid loans. Julie Chrisley was sentenced to seven years in federal prison, and Todd Chrisley got 12 years behind bars. The couple was also ordered to pay $17.8 million in restitution, which will now be forgiven.

Todd and Julie Chrisley

The United States used to be a reliable trade partner with established policies, procedures and tariff rates so businesses could plan ahead. The Washington Post reported on May 15 that since Trump took office, he changed his tariff policies at least 50 times. Some didn’t last a day. “It’s been completely insane,” economist Michael Strain, with the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) think tank, told the Post.

In with the gold, out with the old. President Trump has loaded down the historic Oval Office with gaudy gold decorations everywhere. “Gold has always been the color of absolute power and those who aspire to it,” says Kimberly Chrisman -Campbell. “But in more recent history, its meaning has become more complex: Its association with dictators, celebrities, and artists has also transformed it into a sign of excess, corruption, and cultural domination.”

Trump’s Oval Office/Biden’s Oval Office

On January 10, 2025, Trump released an “ethics agreement” that prohibited the Trump Organization from making deals with foreign governments. The Trump Organization subsequently cut a deal with Qatari Diar, a company established by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund in 2005 to “coordinate the country’s real estate development priorities.” Together with Saudi Arabian company Dar Global, which has close ties to the Saudi government, the Qatari company plans to build a $5.5 billion Trump International Golf Club in Qatar.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student on a valid F-1 student visa ,was arrested on March 25, 2025, by six masked plainclothes agents from the US Department of Homeland Security and transported to a detention facility in Louisiana.

The arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk

The only evidence cited against her was an op-ed she co-authored in the university newspaper a year earlier critical of Tufts response to the war in Gaza. She spent six weeks in detention before being freed after US District Judge William K. Sessions III ordered her immediate release.

On April 8, 2026, Trump said countries were “kissing my ass” to secure trade deals before increased tariffs were levied.

While ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Afghans who came to the United States after our chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, exposing them to possible deportation, the Trump administration is using taxpayer dollars to fly white Afrikaner South Africans to the U.S. on chanter flights. Earlier this month, Trump said on Truth Social that “any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to Citizenship.” Christopher Landau, Deputy Secretary of State, and Troy Edgar, Deputy Homeland Security Secretary, greeted dozens of Afrikaners at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia on Monday, May 12.

The first group of Afrikaner refugees from South Africa arrived on May 12, 2025, at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson).

On May 4, 2025, Trump said he decided to announce he was reopening the Alcatraz prison.  His reasoning? “It represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and order,“ he said. “Our country needs law and order. Alcatraz is uh, I would say the ultimate, right? Alcatraz. Sing Sing and Alcatraz, the movies…. Nobody’s ever escaped from Alcatraz and just represented something, uh, strong having to do with law and order… but it sort of represents something that’s both horrible and beautiful and strong and miserable, weak.

Alcatraz Island today.

Trump launched a $TRUMP meme coin on January 17, 2025, just before he took office. In promoting the meme coin, there coin’s website says “Celebrate Our Win & Have Fun!” The website selling the tokens says the coins “are not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type”. By late April 2025, it had fallen 88% from its high. Just 58 wallets cashed in over $10 million each on the coin, while a staggering 764,000 wallets were sitting on losses as of May 7, 2025, according to a report from Chainalysis. Trump offered an “intimate private dinner” with him for the 220 top holders of the meme coin, along with a private reception and White House tour for the top 25 investors. The promotion bumped up sales and generated an estimated $900,000 in trading fees. “With this meme coin dinner, Trump is giving the highest bidders access to the president while lining his own pockets,” MSNBC reported. Buying the meme coin allows investors to make an end-run around U.S. ethics laws: While noncitizens can’t donate to political campaigns, they can invest in those assets. “It looks very corrupt,” Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) told the New York Times.

Where’s the public outrage? As Kyle Chayka wrote in The New Yorker, “The American public has been inundated with news of the Trump family’s self-enrichment for so long that many of their dealings now barely create a stir.”

The U.S. is stepping up its intelligence-gathering efforts regarding Greenland, drawing America’s spying apparatus into President Trump’s campaign to take over the island, the Wall Street Journal reported on May 6, 2025. Greenland is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO ally, “The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors who seek to undermine the President by politicizing and leaking classified information, said Director of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. “They are breaking the law and undermining our nation’s security and democracy.”

 “As the stock markets crashed on Friday April 4, Donald Trump left Washington,” Anne Applebaum wrote in The Atlantic. “He did not go to New York to consult with Wall Street. He did not go to Dover, Delaware, to receive the bodies of four American servicemen, killed in an accident while serving in Lithuania. Instead, he went to Florida, where he visited his Doral golf resort, which was hosting the Saudi-backed LIV golf tournament, and stayed at his Mar-a-Lago club, where many tournament fans and sponsors were staying, too. His private businesses took precedence over the business of the nation.”

On May 8, 2025, the Trump administration fired the head of the Library of Congress, Carla Hayden, the first Black woman and the first woman to hold the job, with a blunt two- sentence email, “”Carla, On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.”  Confirmed by the Senate to the job in 2016, her 10-year term was set to expire next year. On May 12, Trump named Todd Blanche, the lead defense lawyer in hTrump’s criminal trial in Manhattan last year, to replace Hayden, but encountered resistance when staff members at the Library refused to give two Justice Department officials access to the Library’s headquarters on Capitol Hill, insisting that Congress must have input on Hayden’s replacement.

Carla Hayden

On May 6, 2025, Kari Lake, a senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the government body that oversees Voice of America, said the far-right news coverage of the One America News (OAN) Network will fuel the Voice of America. Since World War II, the Voice of America has provided news coverage and cultural programming to people around the world who don’t have access to a free press. Its weekly audience is about 360 million. OAN is “a conspiracy-boosting outlet with a far fringier voice than right-leaning outlets like Newsmax and Fox News.,” reported CNN.

White House deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, said on May 9, 2025, the White House was considering suspending habeas corpus for illegal immigrants in the United States. “The Constitution is clear, and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in time of invasion.” he said. “So, I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at.”

Stephen Miller

President Trump has nominated Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro, who has a reputation as a strong Trump defender on “The Five” talk show, the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, DC. Pirro is the 23rd Fox employee Trump has appointed so far to his administration this term. Pirro was named in a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for questioning the validity of ballot tabulations on Fox’s broadcasts. Fox settled the case and was forced to acknowledge that statements by Ms. Pirro and others were false. In 2021, Trump pardoned Ms. Pirro’s former husband, Albert J. Pirro Jr., who was convicted of conspiracy and tax evasion charges in 2000.

Jeanine Pirro

House and Senate Republicans under Trump have come up with plans to pass tax cuts and defense and border security spending increases without requiring equal amounts of offsets. They would allow $3 to $7 trillion in new debt—making it one of the largest deficit increases in history. “At this moment—when the national debt is skyrocketing, we spend more on interest than national defense, and trust funds are on the brink of insolvency—if there is one thing that should be clear from a fiscal perspective, it is that we should not be passing new policies that add more to the national debt.,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. By 2027, under a reconciliation bill, debt would exceed the previous record of 106 percent of GDP set just after World War II.

Unfortunately, there is a risk that the bill could get even worse, according to the Committee.. Already, some members are trying to add to the bill’s costs – and the Senate reconciliation instructions allow for twice as much borrowing as the House’s.

In his second term, Donald Trump has been generous in issuing pardons. Early in his term, he issued about 1,500 pardons and commuted the sentences of 14 Jan. 6 criminals, including people convicted of violently assaulting police, then pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists and former Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich. In late March, he pardoned Nikola Corp. founder Trevor Milton for his October 2022 conviction of federal crimes related to defrauding investors with false claims about the success of the electric and hydrogen-powered truck maker. CNBC reported that after his criminal sentencing, Milton had  “made significant political donations to Trump and his allies” including $920,000 to the Trump 47 Committee in October of 2024. The Trump administration also terminated the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, Elizabeth G. Oyer, after she opposed restoring actor Mel Gibson’s rights to carry a gun, her spokesperson and two Justice Department officials familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Shortly after being sworn in, Trump signed an executive order that pardoned roughly 1,500 people who were involved in the January 6 Capitol riot. Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images
By Peter L. Steiner, “Hopeless but not Serious”, Jan. 25, 2025

NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump, “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States, as president?” His reply: “I don’t know.” 

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Oregon Higher Education Endowments Under Threat

For Donald Trump, it’s always about the filthy lucre. 

Rewarding allies and punishing perceived adversaries financially has long been Trump’s raison d’être in business and politics. His life is a story of questionable real estate and tax payment shenanigans, a sham Trump University, hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and misuse of charitable funds at the Trump Foundation. His greed and shameless behavior seem to have no limits. Nor does his assault on higher education.

Now he and his party are after higher education endowments and Oregon’s private institutions, including those with large and small endowments, should be worried.

Reed College has the largest endowment among Oregon’s private higher education institutions.

In 2017, during Trump’s first term, a Republican Congress passed the first excise tax on college endowments. Private colleges and universities now pay an annual 1.4% excise tax on endowment net investment income. The excise tax is levied on schools that have at least 500 tuition-paying students and net assets of at least $500,000 per student. 

Because the $500,000 is not adjusted for inflation, the threshold is being effectively lowered over time. The tax has affected about 50-55 institutions to date. 

In 2023, 56 universities paid about $380 million under the endowment tax, up from about $68 million in 2021 and slightly more than the $200 million annual forecast made by the Joint Committee on Taxation in 2017.

In 2023, when he was still a U.S. Senator, J. D. Vance introduced the College Endowment Accountability Act which proposed increasing the excise tax from 1.4% to 35% for secular, private, nonprofit colleges and universities with at least $10 billion in assets under management.

“University endowments…have grown incredibly large on the backs of subsidies from the taxpayers, and they have made these universities completely independent of any political, financial, or other pressure, and that is why the university system in this country has gone so insane,” Vance asserted. 

Vance’s bill went nowhere, but the issue resurfaced in January 2025 when Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-TX) introduced the Endowment Tax Fairness Act, a bill that would raise the excise tax levied on certain private university endowment profits from 1.4% to 21%. 

The tax would apply to private colleges and universities with 500 or more students with an aggregate fair market value of assets of at least $500,000 per student of the institution, and more than 50% of the student body is located within the United States. 

The Tax Foundation, assuming a 7.5 percent average annual return, estimates Nehis’ bill would raise about $69.8 billion in additional revenue over 10 years.

The House Ways & Means Committee also appears interested in raising the endowment tax rate. Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) pitched the idea during an all-member meeting among House Republicans in January as well. 

In February, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced the Endowment Accountability Act, proposing raising the excise tax rate from 1.4% to 10% of endowment income and lowering the per-student endowment threshold from $500,000 to $200,000, likely pulling in many more colleges.  

“If passed, such a tax would fundamentally alter the relationship between the government and many nonprofit colleges, as well as between those institutions and their donors,” reported Higher Ed Dive. “Moreover — and perhaps more importantly as a practical reality — such a tax could land hard on students, research programs and college operations.

Many institutions with much lower profiles than the Harvards of the world could get taxed if lawmakers broadened the threshold for paying, Jason Delisle, with the Urban Institute, said at an American Council on Education panel. And that’s exactly what higher ed institutions are preparing for. 

“University leaders and endowment chiefs also expect Congress to consider raising the tax on the richest endowments and expanding the number of schools affected,” the Wall Street Journal reported. And there’s talk of spreading the pain around more, hitting up smaller schools with smaller endowments, too. 

Although it may not be maintained in a final bill, under a tax plan unveiled by House Republicans on May 12, 2025, some universities would pay an annual tax of up to 21%. on their annual net investment income in endowments.

According to data from the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the asset management firm Commonfund, colleges spend the largest share of endowment funds on student financial aid (48.1% in FY2024), followed by academic programs and research (17.7% in FY2024).

Mauling endowments with egregious excise taxes would seriously threaten the ability of many schools to maintain these efforts, though that may not be of much concern to Trump and his allies, who have so far displayed little more than contempt for higher education.  

FY2024 endowments at selected private higher education institutions in Oregon[1]

InstitutionEndowment ($ millions)
Reed College814
Lewis and Clark College322
University of Portland315
Willamette University312
Linfield University118
Pacific University57
George Fox University34
Warner Pacific University18

[1]

 Source: 2024 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments (NCSE)