Tag Archives: Donald Trump

by - 0 comments

Shameful: Trump’s Law Firm Deals Could Skirt Public Records Laws

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.

 

by - 0 comments

The Future of Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) Under Trump? Precarious.

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 former President 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. 

by - 0 comments

Like a Bad Penny, Former Portland Businessman Andrew Wiederhorn is Back in the News

Andrew Wiederhorn

Like a bad penny, Andrew Wiederhorn just keeps coming back. 

Wiederhorn, once a high-flying business star in Portland, ended up in federal prison for 14 months after being convicted of paying an illegal gratuity to a co-conspirator and filing a false tax return. 

After prison, Wiederhorn moved to Southern California and became the CEO of a publicly traded company, FAT Brands, Inc, that runs the hamburger chain Fatburger.

In May 2024, he re-emerged in the news when the federal government accused him of taking millions of dollars in bogus loans from companies he controlled — loans which were later forgiven. Over 11 years, the government said, Wiederhorn took bogus loans totaling $47 million for his personal benefit. That income, the government said, should have been reported to the IRS. The government argued he should have paid taxes on the money because it was income. 

Now he may have found a savior. The New York Times reported on Sunday, March 30, that on Friday, March 28, Adam Schleifer, a federal prosecutor working on Weiderhorn’s case, was sitting at his computer in Los Angeles when he received an email from a White House official, Saurabh Sharma, saying that he had been terminated. No reason was cited. 

“Given that the case has drawn headlines recently and that Mr. Wiederhorn has donated to political action committees supporting Mr. Trump, his colleagues suspected that may have played a role in his dismissal,” the New York Times reported. 

UPDATE – New York Times, July 29, 2025

The Justice Department moved Tuesday to end two high-profile criminal cases in Los Angeles whose handling by the Trump administration had been criticized by veteran prosecutors as alarming.

The moves by the leader of U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, came on the same day the administration said it would use a legally untested maneuver to ensure that Mr. Essayli remains in charge of the office beyond his interim appointment, which was set to expire Wednesday.

Mr. Essayli filed court papers asking a judge to dismiss pending criminal charges against Andrew Wiederhorn, the founder of Fatburger, who was fighting accusations of wire fraud and other crimes related to the company. While it is ultimately a judge’s decision whether to dismiss charges, a prosecutor’s request to do so makes it nearly impossible for the case to proceed to trial.

The move to end the Wiederhorn case comes months after White House officials fired the prosecutor in charge of it, Adam Schleifer, whom the right-wing influencer and close Trump ally Laura Loomer had publicly attacked on social media.

Mr. Schleifer’s dismissal unnerved Justice Department veterans, who could not recall any similar instance in which a White House staff member directly dismissed a lower-level career prosecutor. Along with Mr. Schleifer, the White House used the same method to fire a career prosecutor in Memphis.

by - 4 Comments

How Effective Are Oregon’s Members of Congress?

Oregon’s new Democratic Congresswoman is learning quickly how to play the game.

On March 24, 2025, Democratic Rep. Janelle Bynum and two other House members, Reps. Cleo Fields (D-LA) and Sam Liccardo (D-CA), introduced a bill, H.R. 2287. The bill would require the Federal Reserve to study the impact of certain U.S. tariffs on the cost of goods and services in the United States. 

“Every day I hear from my constituents that they’re struggling to afford groceries, rent, healthcare, and other necessities,” Bynum said in a press release. “Lowering costs has always been priority number one for me.”

Liccardo assailed Trump’s controversial tariffs “misguided economic measures” and said the study would allow Congress to advance “common-sense legislation that would provide much-needed relief to hard-working Americans.”

Of course, Bynum’s full-throated plea for a study on an issue of concern to her constituents got media coverage in Oregon – and that was the point. In fact, that was likely the whole point.

When I was a reporter at The Oregonian years ago, after serving on the staff of a House of Representatives subcommittee, I argued against giving a lot of coverage to bills when they were initially proposed by Oregon members of Congress. Far too often, they were just messaging bills, attempts to get publicity on a topic of interest to Oregonians, not serious legislative proposals with a high potential for enactment. 

After all, any member can go to legislative counsel and get a bill drafted. And a lot do. In the 118th Congress (2023-25), 10,564 bills were introduced in the House and 5,649 in the Senate. In contrast, the 118th Congress, which began on January 3, 2023, and ended on January 3, 2025, enacted just 274 public laws. 

What really matters is whether a bill gets a committee or subcommittee hearing and moves through the legislative process or key elements of the bill are incorporated in other legislation that does the same and become law. 

Truly effective lawmakers go beyond press releases.

The Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL), a joint program of the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, does deep dives into the work of every member of Congress and develops Legislative Effectiveness Scores based on a combination of fifteen metrics capturing the bills that each member of Congress sponsors, how far they move through the lawmaking process, and how substantial their policy proposals are.

The Center’s newest report on the Legislative Effectiveness of the 118th Congress (2023-25) was just released. 

Getting a little wonky, the Center provides a comprehensive explanation of its methodology.

For example, a Legislative Effectiveness Score for each member of the U.S. House and Senate captures the proven ability of a legislator to advance his or her agenda items through the legislative process and into law.

In the House, for example, the Center begins by identifying the number of bills that each member of the House of Representatives sponsored and the number of those bills that received any action in committee or action beyond committee on the floor of the House. The Center than categorized all bills as being commemorative, substantive or substantive and significant. A commemorative bill, for example, satisfied any one of several criteria, such as providing for a renaming, commemoration, private relief of an individual, and the like. 

For those bills that received any action beyond committee, the Center identified how many of those bills subsequently passed the House and how many became law. Members also get credit if a substantial portion of the language in their sponsored bills is incorporated into other legislators’ bills that become law. 

None of Oregon’s Representatives made the Center’s top 10 list of lawmakers in the 118thCongress (2023-25). 

Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, however, came in 5th in the Center’s top 10 list of Senate Democratic lawmakers in the118th Congress. Merkley chaired the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, as well as chairing the Chemical Safety, Waste Management, Environmental Justice, and Regulatory Oversight Subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee. He successfully advanced two sponsored bills into law: the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, and the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act.

The Center also highlighted 12 High-Performing Freshmen who scored in the “Exceeds Expectations” category in their first terms in office. Notably, two of them were from Oregon, Republican Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (6th) and Democrat Rep. Val Hoyle (9th). Hoyle was re-elected in November to represent Oregon’s 4th District. Chavez-DeRemer was defeated in her race, but was subsequently appointed Secretary of Labor by President Trump. 

Every member on this High Performing list had at least one of their sponsored bills become law or at least had the language from one of their sponsored bills substantially incorporated into another measure that ultimately became law.

“Given that…research suggests that performance in a legislator’s freshman term is highly correlated with subsequent lawmaking effectiveness, as well as with their overall career trajectory, we might expect to see these Representatives continuing to be effective lawmakers and setting the agendas of the Democratic and Republican parties in the future,” the Center’s report noted. 

So don’t take a slew of bills introduced by a member of Congress as an assurance of their impact. For a real understanding of legislative effectiveness, you have to dig a lot deeper.

by - 2 Comments

The Hegseth Follies: Lies, Insults and Obfuscations

In early March, the Pentagon sent an advisory to all military personnel warning that a “vulnerability” had been identified in the commercial messaging app Signal and warned against using it for classified information., according to the New York Times.

Ignoring that caution, when senior members of President Trump’s administration discussed upcoming military strikes in Yemen on Signal, they unknowingly included the editor in chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg, who disclosed the error and the contents of the communications.

“Rather than admit their mistake, apologize, and make sure not to do it again, administration officials are spinning hard and smearing Goldberg,” the Free Press observed today. “The White House has chosen to deflect attention from the substance of the leak and, instead, viciously attack Goldberg and the Atlantic.”

The most noticeable aspect of the comments by President Trump and his administration is the unusual coarsening of political debate. Heated political rhetoric is at every turn. American politics has never been a like pot luck dinner of neighbors, but neither has it always been today’s dumpster fire of venomous insults , caustic personal attacks, and threatening behavior (online and offline).

To say we are seeing an appalling decline of political eloquence is likely not an original thought and perhaps civility in today’s fractured country is a forlorn hope, but surely we can do better than the remarks below in our political discourse. 

Comments by President Trump

The Atlantic is “a failing Radical Left Magazine”.

“I happen to know the guy  (Goldberg) is a total sleazebag” and “a slimeball reporter”. 

“The Atlantic is a failed magazine, does very, very poorly. Nobody gives a damn about it.”

 “I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business.”

 “He’s (Goldberg) made up a lot of stories and I think he’s basically bad for the country.”

Comments by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt

“The Atlantic has conceded: these were NOT ‘war plans. This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”

“This administration is working hard on behalf of the American public every day, but the mainstream media continues to be focused on a sensationalized story from the failing Atlantic magazine.”

“If this story proves anything, it proves that Democrats and their propagandists in the mainstream media know how to fabricate, orchestrate, and disseminate a misinformation campaign quite well. And there’s arguably no one in the media who loves manufacturing and pushing hoaxes more than Jeffrey Goldberg.”

“We are not going to be lectured about national security and American troops by Democrats and the mainstream media.” 

Comments by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

“So you are talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist (Goldberg) who has made a profession of peddling hoaxes. Time and time again. This is a guy that peddles in garbage.” 

“As I type this, my team and I are traveling the INDOPACOM (the Asia Pacific) region, meeting w/ Commanders (the guys who make REAL ‘war plans’) and talking to troops. We will continue to do our job, while the media does what it does best: peddle hoaxes.” 

Comments by Steven Cheung, White House communications director

“The Atlantic story is nothing more than a section of the NatSec establishment community running the same, tired gameplay from years past.” 

“At every turn anti-Trump forces have tried to weaponize innocuous actions and turn them into faux outrage that Fake News outlets can use to peddle misinformation. Don’t let enemies of America get away with these lies.”

Comment by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz 

Mr. Goldberg is “scum”.

by - 0 comments

Trump is Putting Radio Free Europe Journalists in Harm’s Way

Donald Trump loathes the media. 

Shortly after assuming the presidency in January 2017, he accused the press of being an “enemy of the American people”. He hasn’t held back from continuing his war on the press in succeeding years. 

As an American citizen, and a former journalist at Oregon’s leading newspaper, The Oregonian, I wince every time Trump levels another unseemly attack on the media. 

Now, his decision to withdraw funding from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a move endorsed by his sidekick Elon Musk, who has described the media group as “just radical left crazy people talking to themselves,” is angering me even more because it is putting journalists’ lives in danger.

In a sudden, but not out-of-character, slash-and-burn move, the Trump administration sent out an email to employees at Voice of America (VOA) on March 15, 2025 putting them on paid administrative leave “until otherwise notified” and instructing them not to enter the VOA offices or access its internal systems. Radio Free Asia, also funded by the US, has lost its funding as well.

The moves have left exiled Russian journalists working for RFE/RL “high and dry” and at risk of being stranded overseas without any legal status. “If it can’t find funding soon, the company won’t be able to pay its staff and the consequence would potentially put a very large number of journalists who are exiled from authoritarian regimes at grave risk,” a source told The Guardian.

“Many of RFE/RL’s Russian journalists operate from Prague, Riga and Vilnius, with their work visas often tied to their employment,” the Guardian is reporting. “Terminating the broadcaster’s funding would trigger visa expirations, leaving them without legal status within months. Deportation to Russia for any of them would expose them to criminal prosecution. “

According to the Guardian, RFE/RL journalists are regarded as “foreign agents”, making them the target for arrest should they return to Russia.

RFE/RI is suing the Trump administration in an effort to reverse the cancellation of its funding, but its success is uncertain. 

In the meantime, if any of the RFE/RI’s journalists suffer harm because of Trump’s actions, the blood will be on his hands. 

by - 0 comments

Free Food for Oregon’s Non-Citizens: Another Bad Budget-Busting Idea

With all the budget troubles facing Oregon, the Oregon Center for Public Policy wants it to spend more to feed immigrants in the country illegally. 

The way things are headed in Oregon there soon won’t be any difference between a citizen and someone here illegally except the right to vote. And some even want to change that, based on the 164,781 Multnomah County residents who voted for a 2022 ballot measure that would have allowed people who are not U.S. citizens to vote in county elections. The ballot measure was defeated, but only by a vote of 52.71% to 47.29%.

“Voting exclusion based on non-citizen censorship is arbitrary, it’s unfair and it disproportionately impacts people of color,” ACLU Senior Policy Associate Mariana Garciá Medina said after the 2022 vote. “It silences the voices of community members.” That logic is reflected in the views of today’s supporters of giving free food to immigrants in the country illegally. 

“Right now, some Oregonians face hunger on a daily basis 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“.

The left-leaning think tank, which claims to have a “vision of an equitable Oregon”, apparently doesn’t have a vision of an Oregon that lives within its means. 

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 would provide 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 are, of course, almost all Democrats. Its chief sponsors are Sen. Wlnsvey Campos and Rep. Ricki Ruiz. Regular Sponsors are 18 more Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Mark Owens. 

The bill would create 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 could lead to a trade war that hurts export-heavy Oregon and fears of a national recession are growing.

But what stands out even more in the current debate over the bill? All of its enthusiastic supporters haven’t the faintest idea what it would cost the state. 

But, what the heck. It’s only money.

Addendum

“It’s only money” appears to be the theory behind another bill now before the Oregon legislature that offers benefits to immigrants in the country illegally. On March 15, Pamela Fitzsimmons, writing for Portland Dissent on Substack, reminded Oregonians of a $15 million pilot project Oregon lawmakers approved in 2022 to provide immigrants facing deportation with free state-funded legal representation and of the 2025 bill , HB 2543, requesting another funding round. Fitzsimmons notes HB 2543 would maintain previous funding levels: $10.5 million from the General Fund to the Oregon Department of Administrative Services to be deposited in the Universal Representation Fund, and another $4.5 million from the General Fund to be transferred via the Judicial Department to the Oregon State Bar to provide legal services on immigration matters.

[1] https://shorturl.at/FniRa

by - 0 comments

Trump’s Climate Change Denial Hits Key Federal Agency

Humans to blame for bulk of Arctic sea ice loss, study finds | news.com.au — Australia's leading news site

OK, Mr. Trump, now you’ve gone over the line. You’ve callously attacked a critical federal agency I worked for earlier in my career and that works to protect the Pacific Northwest, where I live.. 

An administration that has demonstrated its resistance to science has taken another ill-advised step, firing 800 probationary employees at the of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In addition, about 500 employees left the agency on Friday after taking a so-called deferred resignation offer, the New York Times reported. 

This follows a Trump administration order to NOAA earlier this month to search for climate change-related keywords in its grant programs. The Commerce Department instructed NOAA and its divisions to review grants for specific terms like “climate” and “greenhouse gas” without clearly saying why, although there were suspicions it was tied to the new administration’s hostility toward climate change research.

It also follows an Associated Press report that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin, appointed by Trump, has privately urged the Trump administration the  to reconsider a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action against climate change. 

According to the Associated Press, in a report to the White House, Zeldin “called for a rewrite of the agency’s finding that determined planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, according to four people who were briefed on the matter but spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the recommendation is not public. The 2009 finding under the Clean Air Act is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources.”

The Trump administration is particularly resistant to climate science because taking the subject seriously would mean reducing the use of fossil fuels, an industry that supported and helped pay for Trump’s return to office and his commitment to American energy dominance.

The probationary employees pushed out at NOAA—who have been in their jobs for a short period and lack the protections afforded to staff members with longer tenure—received a blunt dismissal email on Thursday, according to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), ranking member on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and transportation, which oversees NOAA. The email read in part: “[T]he Agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and/or skills do not fit the Agency’s current needs.”

“The firings jeopardize our ability to forecast and respond to extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires, and floods—putting communities in harm’s way,” Cantwell said. “They also threaten our maritime commerce and endanger 1.7 million jobs that depend on commercial, recreational and tribal fisheries…This action is a direct hit to our economy, because NOAA’s specialized workforce provides products and services that support more than a third of the nation’s GDP.”

“American science, in other words, had performed a remarkable feat: it had given us a timely early warning of the single greatest danger our species has ever faced,” Bill McKibben wrote in the New Yorker. “I listed all the players involved because those agencies—the N.S.F., NOAA, NASA—are precisely the institutions now being told to scrub their Web sites and re-examine their grants for projects that run counter to the Administration’s diktat on climate—and “diversity.”

The attack on NOAA, one of the more visible signs of the Trump administration’s opposition to climate change activism, seems to foolishly reflect a view that blocking research will also halt the reality of long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns.

NOAA’s Climate Change Program’s office manages competitive research programs in which NOAA funds high-priority climate science, assessments, decision support research, outreach, education, and capacity-building activities designed to advance our understanding of Earth’s climate system. It also aims to foster the application of this knowledge in risk management and adaptation efforts. The research is conducted across the United States and globally.

Project 2025, a policy blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation that is reflected in many of the actions taken by the Trump administration, says the agency is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” and calls for it to be dismantled.

During his presidential campaign, Trump firmly disavowed any connection with, or even detailed knowledge of, Project 2025. He has nevertheless filled his new administration with numerous Project 2025 authors and contributors and is pursuing many of the project’s recommendations.

by - 0 comments

The Chickens are Coming Home to Roost for Oregon Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz

republican

Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR)

Conservative Republican Congressman Cliff Bentz won his 2024 race in Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District by a comfortable margin. Now there’s a feeling of betrayal in the air. A good number of his constituents in all or part of 20 counties across northern, eastern, central, and southern Oregon aren’t happy with Bentz, as President Trump  runs roughshod over government programs and people.

Bentz, who sided with Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, won his 2024 congressional race with 63.9% of the vote, a solid victory, but down from 67.5% in his 2022 race. Recent town hall meetings he held in his district show that his support is on shaky ground.

A raucous crowd of about 300 people showed up at a town hall in Pendleton on Feb. 20 where “attendees continued to interrupt Bentz during presentation [sic], muttering throughout his talk, as well as directly calling out what Bentz was saying,” the East Oregonian reported. 

Republican Rep. Cliff Bentz holds a fractious town hall in Pendleton, OR on Feb. 20, 2025. (Credit: The East Oregonian)

Commenting on the firing of thousands of federal employees, Bailey Langley, a former Umatilla National Forest employee, lambasted the White House for being laid off 52 days before the end of her probationary period as a public affairs officer.

“This was a blanket butchering of employees who will one day carry on and sustain the agencies.,” Langley said. “Instead of contributing to our communities in a productive manner, I am now being forced to file for unemployment and other government services. Especially in our rural communities, this is your opportunity as a public servant to stand up for American values, to not follow a king, but serve the people.”

Much of the crowd stood, clapping, whistling and cheering, for more than 20 seconds once she finished, the East Oregonian reported. 

“I am not a federal worker, but I, too, am both concerned for my neighbors (that’s everyone in the country), who are going to suffer because of the arbitrary, wholesale firing of those tasked with carrying out the work of government on behalf of all citizens,” a commenter on the East Oregonian story posted later. “We all deserve better. And those who represent us, but refuse to protect us, deserve our anger.”

The La Grande Observer titled its story on Bentz’s town hall there, “Another Town Hall(s) Goes Off the Rails”.

Residents filled nearly all 435 seats at Eastern Oregon University’s McKenzie Theater La Grande and more people packed themselves into the side aisles and stood right outside the theater doors to listen in.

An irritated Bentz chided the La Grande audience, saying a lot of representatives had refused to even hold town halls, so they should be grateful he decided to show up. To say the least, that condescending attitude also was not well received. 

“A vocal majority of the audience expressed frustration and anger with President Donald Trump’s executive orders, the firing of thousands of federal workers and the actions of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency,” the Observer reported. “[M]embers of the crowd started booing and jeering the congressman. People shouted “Move on,” “We can read” in reference to the slides projected with the information, and told the congressman to get to the Q&A section.”

The lambasting of Bentz at his Oregon town halls reflects growing public concern about the failure of Congressional Republicans to stand up for the constitutional separation of powers in the United States and for the willingness of Congress as a whole to fail to check presidential abuses of power.

“So now, when an autocratic president sends up patently unqualified nominees to be confirmed, asserts the power to ignore laws and appropriations passed by Congress, shuts down agencies created by Congress and fires officials confirmed by Congress, members of the president’s party are so unaccustomed to making independent decisions or taking responsibility for governing and so convinced that they must maintain party unity to win the next election that they go along,” Steven Pearlstein, Director of the Fixing Congress Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, has written on Roll Call. “For the majority of members of Congress who know better, their lack of seriousness of purpose and self-respect is appalling. Their ability to rationalize the irrational, to themselves as well as the public, is stunning.”

Equally worrying are statements made by Trump and Vice President Vance suggesting that they don’t intend to honor court rulings against Trump’s voluminous executive orders. 

Somehow Trump has managed in a little over one month in office to stir up a hornet’s nest of worry among even his presumed supporters. Bentz and other members of Congress also facing contentious meetings with constituents would be well to show some independence if they want to protect their seats.

In the meantime, some Republican leaders are saying the answer to obstreperous constituents is to simply stop holding town halls. As SNL comedian Jonathan Lovitz used to say, “Yeah, that’s the ticket”.

On March 4, Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the chairman of National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), advised members to stop having in-person town halls. Without evidence, Hudson said there town halls were being dominated by hostile Democratic activists and drowning out actual constituent voices. As a less threatening option, he encouraged House Republicans to hold tele-town halls or Facebook Live events that would allow more control and allow moderators to filter questions and comments.

by - 0 comments

Vance Day is Going to Washington: We Deserve Better

Donald Trump seems to have a way of picking the wrong person for the job. 

OPB reported today that Vance Day, a former Marion County Circuit Court Judge, has joined the U.S. Department of Justice.

Vance Day

“I can confirm that I received an appointment to serve as ‘Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States,’” Day told OPB in an email. He began work at the Justice Department on Tuesday, Feb. 18.

The deputy attorney general is the second in command at the Justice Department and oversees an agency that includes the FBI, a sprawling federal prison system and U.S. Attorneys across the country, OPB reported.  

Given Vance’s background, it’s like Jason coming back to life in the Friday the 13th franchise.

In January 2016, the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability, dealing with a 13-count complaint, found Day had violated the Oregon Code of Judicial Conduct on eight of the counts relating to his judicial and public behavior. The Commission unanimously recommended Day’s removal from the bench and filed its recommendation with the Oregon Supreme Court.

The Commission also took issue with efforts by Judge Day to tie the Commission’s actions to his refusal to perform same-sex marriages.

Day argued that he was being persecuted for his Christian beliefs. “Throughout the Commission’s prosecution of Judge Day is an open disdain and hostility towards the religious beliefs of those whose faith honors marriage between one man and one woman,” his attorneys said in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Prior to the hearing in this case,  Day engaged in an organized media campaign designed to create the impression that the only reason for the investigation of his conduct is his position regarding same sex marriage,” said the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability’s Commission’s Jan. 25, 2016 Opinion. “To this end, Judge Day made repeated public assertions that he was being unfairly attacked by this investigation due solely to his religious beliefs concerning same sex marriage. Judge Day made these statements despite the fact that his position on same sex marriage was not discovered by the Commission until after the investigation was well underway. His assertions in this regard were intentionally deceptive to the public.”

On Sept. 3, 2015, the Oregon Government Ethics Commission approved an application to create a legal defense fund for Day, permitted under an Oregon law that allows public officials to create a trust fund to defray the cost of legal bills related to their duties.

Subsequently, Randall J. Adams, a Mt. Angel, OR attorney, established the Vance D. Day Legal Expense Trust Fund with Adams as its trustee. A  Defend Judge Day website also went up saying Day’s defense “will likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars” and soliciting donations.

In the beginning, donations didn’t exactly roll in by the barrel. But on May 1, 2017, Eberle Associates, a Virginia-based professional direct-mail fundraising company, signed on. 

By Sept. 30, 2018, fundraising revenue totaled $2,008,658.54. The whole effort seemed like quite a success story. But fundraising expenses, including $1,290,383 in payments to Eberle and $6,021.38 in payments for other related services, totaled $1,296,404.38.

In other words, Eberle chewed up 64 percent of all fundraising receipts. According to NonProfit Quarterly, “The agencies that set acceptable fundraising percentage limits say that on average an organization’s fundraising expenses throughout the year should not represent more than 35 percent of the donations raised, and most organizations come in significantly below that benchmark.” Some professional fundraisers say the best practice target should be 12-20 cent per dollar raised.

After all the fundraising payments, that left just $712,254.20 for other expenses, principally for lawyers. And there was a slew of lawyers at the trough. The two firms pulling in the most money were Hart Wagner Trial Attorney, Portland, $167,640.96, and Sherlag DeMuniz LLP, Portland, $161,827.63.

All the money, lawyers and investigators sounded pretty impressive. How could Judge Day lose with that kind of firepower?

But he did.

  • Despite Day’s efforts to explain and defend his behavior, the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability unanimously recommended his removal from the bench
  • The Oregon Supreme Court imposed a three-year suspension, without pay, on Day.
  • The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Day, leaving in place the three-year suspension against him imposed by the Oregon Supreme Court.
  • Criminal charges against Day were dropped, but only because  a key witness declined to participate.

Day tried to salvage the whole mess by declaring, “I’m the first person to ever push back against the decades of liberal elites in Oregon government.”

Now Vance is aiming for a resurrection, I guess, with his appointment to the Department of Justice.  

As with many of Trump’s cabinet appointments, the United States deserves better.