A January 2, 2026 PBS NewsHour interview with Richard Grenell, President Trump’s choice to lead the now renamed Trump-Kennedy Center was a classic lesson in evasiveness.
According to The New Yorker, Kennedy Center staff and others often liken Grenell to Grendel, the “powerful demon, a prowler through the dark” in Beowulf. In his PBS interview, he showed he has another talent.
Richard Grenell
Co-Anchor Amna Nawaz led off with a direct question, asking him to respond to a report that a number of artists had chosen to cancel or pull out of performances at the Center because of the president’s takeover of the Center’s board and the renaming of the Kennedy Center.
“Chocolate milk,” Grenell replied.
Well, not exactly.
That’s how I characterize non-answers.
Grenell might as well have said “chocolate milk” because his response completely ignored the question and immediately veered off into an allegation that NewsHour had consistently failed to cover the Center’s finances.
“At the Trump-Kennedy Center, we have 19 unions. It’s incredibly expensive to go and put on performances,” he whined. “We cannot have unpopular programming that doesn’t pay the bills.”
“How about ticket sales at the Center.,” Nawas asked. ‘Are ticket sales down? Is that confirmed or not?”
Grenell’s response. “I find it to be outrageous that PBS is not reporting on the phenomenon that arts institutions have been having for decades. Since President Trump has arrived at the now Trump-Kennedy Center, we have raised more than $130 million, blowing away all other fund-raising, and that’s corporate donors who are coming back because they trust the programming.”
In other words, “Chocolate milk”.
And so it went, on and on.
Nawas said, “Viewership for the Kennedy Center Honors were down dramatically. Does that — as a steward of this institution, does all of this, the backlash, the headlines about artists pulling out, the fact that so few people paid attention to the Honors, does that worry you?”
Grenell: “If you go to CBS, they will tell you that the CBS Trump-Kennedy Center Honors this year tied for number one in its demographic.” In other words, it did well with a specific segment of the tv audience in that time period, not total viewers.
In other words, “Chocolate milk”.
Politicians have long evaded media questions, but Trump and his minions have raised it to an art form, figuring there’s little or no downside these days to giving a word salad answer or sequeing to a completely unrelated topic.
Donald Trump himself is the role model for his administration in this behavior.
His stream-of-consciousness speaking style, involving long seemingly unscripted statements that veer from topic to topic, is a practiced deceit allowing him to avoid directly answering questions. He has referred to his meandering speaking style as the purposeful “weave”. In his case, however, it could just as well be a rambling sign of muddled thinking and cognitive decline.
Piece by piece, President Donald Trump is dismantling America’s representation and reputation around the world.
With about 80 U.S. ambassador posts worldwide already vacant, the Trump administration has abruptly recalled nearly 30 career ambassadors at U.S. embassies around the world. They’ve been directed to vacate their posts by Jan. 15 or 16, 2026. Most of the affected ambassadors are at diplomatic posts in Africa, but the removals are also impacting posts in Europe,
Africa was hit the hardest, with about a dozen ambassadors or chiefs of mission recalled from Niger, Uganda, Senegal, Somalia, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritius, Nigeria, Gabon, Congo, Burundi, Cameroon, and Rwanda. In the Middle East, heads of mission were recalled from Egypt and Algeria. European chiefs of mission were also recalled from Slovakia, Montenegro, Armenia and North Macedonia.
A senior department official told the Journal the recall was part of a standard process to reassess ambassadors in any administration and that it’s the president’s right to ensure he has envoys in place who advance his foreign-policy agenda.
The damage done by the vacancies is compounded by the questionable quality of some of Trump’s ambassadors who are already confirmed .
For example, Herschel Walker, a former professional football player who ran unsuccessfully as the Republican party’s nominee in the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Georgia, is Trump’s s ambassador to the Bahamas. Then there’s Charles Kushner, a disbarred attorney who in 2005 was convicted of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering, and who happens to be the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Charles Kushner is Trump’s Ambassador to France and Monaco. And there’s Kimberly Guilfoyle, Trump’s Ambassador to Greece. She’s a former Fox News personality and Donald Trump Jr.s ex- fiancée.
The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) , which represents the U.S. foreign service and career diplomats, said the recall represents “a steady erosion of norms, transparency, and professional independence in the Foreign Service.”
“Abrupt, unexplained recalls reflect the same pattern of institutional sabotage and politicization our survey data shows is already harming morale, effectiveness, and U.S. credibility abroad,” AFSA said.
The United States is going to pay a steep price for President Trump’s reckless moves undermining our country’s diplomatic authority.
“Go back to where you came from”, he said to the Somali immigrants in Minnesota, employing an insulting slur unacceptable in polite society.
Last week Trump said on his social media channel, Truth Social, he’d send Somalis “back to where they came from.” Yesterday he said Somalis in the U.S. should “go back to where they came from and fix it.”
A person familiar with Trump’s plans told the Associated Press federal authorities are preparing a targeted immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota that would primarily focus on Somali immigrants living unlawfully in the U.S.
At a cabinet meeting yesterday, Trump said Somalis “contribute nothing.”
“I don’t want them in our country,” a snarling Trump told reporters. “Their country is no good for a reason. Your country stinks and we don’t want them in our country.”
I remember hearing that taunt directed at minorities by racist know-nothings in my youth in the 1950s, but I thought people had long ago been shamed from uttering it.
Trump, however, seems to enjoy denigrating “the other”.
Trump’s own Equal Employment Opportunity Commission cites “Go back to where you came from,” as an example of unlawful workplace conduct, along with the use of “insults, taunting, or ethnic epithets”.
I suppose in some respects nobody should really be surprised by Trump’s insults. That’s his modus operandi. Demean and slander his opponents, particularly those he deems not “real” Americans. And his supporters often embrace his scurrilous attacks.
He even goes after members of Congress with abandon. He has described Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, (D-Minn), who came to the United States from Somalia as a refugee and became a citizen 25 years ago, as “garbage.”
“We could go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” Trump said. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”
And Trump’s recent explicit use of hateful speech is not original or unprecedented. It was a feature, not a bug, of his campaigns for office.
An analysis published by Presidential Studies Quarterly[1] , cited by the National Library of Medicine, concluded that “no other comparable candidate of either major US party has ever approached the level of negativity and vitriol toward racial/ethnic minorities that Trump did.”
A Washington Post column today by George Will is headlined “A sickening moral slum of an administration”.
Indeed.
[1] Çinar I, Stokes S, Uribe A. Presidential rhetoric and populism. Presidential Studies Quarterly. 2020;50(2):240–263. doi: 10.1111/psq.12656. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
Politicians running deceptive political fundraising campaigns can’t count on hiding in the dark.
A case in point.
Earlier this year I started getting bombarded with high-intensity inflammatory emails, such as one urging me to support President Trump’s use of the Insurrection Act and another telling me, “Without mandatory voter ID in ALL 50 states, your vote will be replaced by an illegal alien”. And, of course, every email asked for a contribution.
I noticed none of the emails actually listed a political candidate associated with it, just something called Bill PAC. It turned out BILL PAC is a political action committee associated with William C. (Bill) Eigel, a conservative former state senator from the 23rd District in Missouri’s St. Charles County who’s now seeking the post of St. Charles County Executive. Some more digging revealed he’s running a deceptive national fundraising campaign targeting vulnerable seniors.
Those stories came to the attention of Rudi Keller, Deputy Editor of The Missouri Independent, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization covering state government, politics and policy. It’s an affiliate of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. The Capitol Chronicle in Oregon is part of the network.
Keller took a more exhaustive look at Eigel’s BILL PAC and wrote a story that ran today in the Missouri Independent and The States Newsroom. His in-depth story further exposed the deceptive tactics of Eigel’s BILL PAC:
Former State Sen. Bill Eigel of Weldon Spring, shown in a 2024 photo, is using recurring donations from across the country to finance his bid for St. Charles County executive (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).
Keller exposed how people across the country, overwhelmingly seniors, are being lured into contributing to BILL PAC, unaware that it is supporting a local Missouri Republican, not a national conservative campaign.
A retired man from Reston, VA, a consistent donor to Republican state and federal candidates and committees, made an astonishing 65 separate online donations to BILL PAC, according to reports submitted to the Missouri Ethics Commission in 2025.
Keller tracked down some donors who had unwittingly committed to monthly recurring donations.
A retired woman in Texas has contributed $1,205 in 74 separate donations since December. All are about the same dates each month.
A 92-year-old Korean War veteran from Nebraska named Russell Wood, made 35 donations totaling $1,050 over the last year to Bill Eigel’s campaign for St. Charles County executive. But Wood told Keller he has never heard of Eigel or set foot in St. Charles County and had no idea he had made so many donations to Eigel’s campaign.
People running for public office at the federal, state and local level always run the risk of taking an “ends justifies the means” approach to campaigning, observes Judy Nadler at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
“The conduct of the campaign itself can say a lot about the ethical principles a candidate brings to public life,” she says. That’s something Eigel, Missourians and all voters should ponder.
“We have the best economy maybe in the history of the world,”President Trump insisted during his 60 Minutes interview on Nov. 2. Oregonians and other Americans who depend on food stamp benefits under SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, likely beg to differ.
While President Trump and his entourage were enjoying an over-the-top “Great Gatsby”-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago last week, millions of Americans were worrying about the loss of their SNAP food benefits. The timing could not have been more unseemly.
On. display at Mar-a-Lago. “‘She’s got an indiscreet voice,’ I remarked. ‘It’s full of—’ I hesitated. ‘Her voice is full of money,’ [Gatsby] said suddenly.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
President Trump’s Great Gatsby-Themed Halloween Party at Mar-a-Lago, 2025
One-sixth of Oregon’s population. 0.16, 16%. No matter how you put it, a lot of Oregonians depend on SNAP benefits.
Currently, benefits average just over $6 per person per day. In fiscal year 2024, that translated into about 757,000 of our neighbors, including about 210,000 children and 130,000 adults aged 65 and older.
With the federal government shutdown, Oregon and other states have run out of money to distribute to the more than 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP. The Department of Agriculture has claimed it can’t spend $6 billion sitting in reserves, but two federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to use contingency funds to fund SNAP during the shutdown. The Trump administration responded in court filings that it would use contingency funds to provide partial SNAP benefits in November.
The administration said it would send partial payments this month, but eligible households may receive just half of their usual amounts and the partial payments could take weeks to arrive. (As of mid-day on Nov. 4, however, Trump muddied the waters by posting on Truth Social, “SNAP BENEFITS…will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do.”)
Further complicating matters, on Nov. 5 The New York Times reported that some normal food stamp recipients may receive nothing at all in November because of the way that the White House has chosen to pay partial benefits during the government shutdown.
“The problem stems from the way in which the administration has opted to fund benefits, and the intricate rules it has foisted on states this week to calculate aid amounts for the 42 million people enrolled in SNAP,” the New York Times said. “For nearly 1.2 million households, or almost five million people, the changes may result in benefits of $0 in November, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning group, which analyzed the government’s public filings and shared its findings early with The New York Times.”
On November 6, the situation changed again when a federal judge, John McConnell, ordered the Trump administration to fully fund November’s food-assistance benefits by November 6. Of course, the administration’s lawyers told the court it was appealing the order.
While the legal wrangling persists, it’s appalling that so many Oregonians, the majority children, disabled or seniors, are in such dire straits that the federal government has to step in to help them get enough to eat.
According to an analysis of USDA data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), Oregon ranks third in the percentage of the state’s population that relies on SNAP. Only New Mexico and Louisiana are in front of Oregon.
Meanwhile, in a reflection of the number of Oregonians living on the edge, Oregon food banks report they are being hit with a deluge of SNAP participants desperate for food, even though they got their last benefits as recently as last month. At the same time, food banks are seeing some of the thousands of federal employees who are going without pay during the government shutdown. That’s all consistent with the Federal Reserve’s report on America’s economic well-being in 2024 that found 37% of Americans couldn’t pay for an unexpected $400 expense without turning to a credit card and 60% of adults said that changes in the prices they paid compared with the prior year had made their financial situation worse.
In Oregon, high unemployment is partly to blame.
According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Oregon’s unemployment rate was 5.0% in August 2025, higher than the national rate of 4.3%, and has been climbing steadily for more than two years. The rate has been influenced by increasing layoffs and an overall cooling off of the state’s labor market. Oregon unemployment rate is higher than every state in the Pacific Northwest., including Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Washington. .Too many Oregonians are also working less than they’d prefer, leading to a rising so-called “underemployment rate”.
Oregon’s economy also relies heavily on service, retail, and tourism jobs , many of which are seasonal, that pay lower wages, even with Oregon’s mandated hourly wage levels, resulting in many hard working families falling below the income threshold for SNAP eligibility.
And Oregon’s economy is retreating, diminished from job losses at Intel, PacificSource, Wells Fargo, Nike, OHSU and even Powell’s Books, which has had four rounds of layoffs this year. Despite President Trump’s claim he is leading a resurgence of manufacturing in the US, U.S. manufacturing has contracted for seven straight months—the exact opposite of what Trump and other tariff proponents predicted.
Overall, the number of jobs U.S. employers have announced they would cut in 2025 has reached 1,099,500, up 65% from the first 10 months of 2024, according to Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a Chicago-based outplacement firm.
Aggressive outreach is another reason for high SNAP usage. Some see getting more people on SNAP as a good thing, but that’s questionable when food stamp enrollment has surged from 17.3 million individuals in 2001 to 41.7 million in 2024, and that in the same period enrollment as a percentage of the population has doubled from 6.1 % in 2001 to 12.3 % in 2024.
Oregon’s SNAP error rate in fiscal year 2024 was 14.06%, eighth-highest in the nation. That was down from error rates of 16.7$ in fiscal year 2023 and 22.9% for fiscal year 2022, but there’s still really no excuse for such high error rates.
If anything, then, increasing dependence on food stamps by Oregon’s population reflects a failure of the state’s economy in providing opportunities for its people and holding down taxes. That’s not a good thing.
Five years ago, Reed Hastings, the co-founder and CEO of Netflix, and his wife, Patty Quillin, donated $120 million to two historically Black colleges, Spelman College and Morehouse College, and the United Negro College Fund. “HBCUs have a tremendous record,” Hastings and Quillin said in a news release announcing their gifts.
I wrote about the optimism at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s) at that time, when they seemed to be on a roll with large grants from philanthropists and a commitment to improvement.
Five years later, however, graduation rates remain dreadful, leaving many Black students, particularly Black men, with abandoned dreams, college debt and no degree. And without that degree, the default rate of borrowers is three times as high as it is among those who graduated.
There are 104 HBCUs in the United States, of which 78 are “ranked”, been placed on a specific list by a third-party organization, such as U.S. News & World Report. The average four-year graduation rate for first-time, first-year students at the ranked HBCUs in 2025 was an abysmal 23.2%. The average six-year graduation rate for students at ranked HBCUs in 2025, 32%, was better, but still dreadful.
In contrast, the average four-year graduation rate for US colleges in 2025 was 50.8% and the average six-year rate was 60.1%, almost double the rate at ranked HBCUs.
It should be noted, however, the graduation rate at HBCUs varies widely. According to U.S. News & World Report, the top five HBCUs for graduation rates, based on 2025 data, were:
Rank
Institution Name
State
Four-Year Graduation Rate
1
Spelman College
GA
68%
2
Howard University
DC
60%
3
Xavier University of Louisiana
LA
48%
4
Fort Valley State University
GA
44%
5
Virginia Union University
VA
41%
In contrast, the 4-year graduation rate at LeMoyne-Owen College, a private, historically black Christian college in Memphis, Tennessee is 7% and the 6-year graduation rate is 18%, while the 4-year graduation rate at Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama is 14% and the 6-year rate is 28%. Additionally, the retention rate stands at 60%, which is also below average, ranking in the bottom 15%.
That raises questions about why philanthropist MacKenzie Scott recently pledged $38 million to Alabama State and made pledges to some other HBCUs with abysmal graduation rates, such as the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (4-year graduation rate – 19%; 6-year rate – 37%) and Morgan State University ( 4-year graduation rate – 13%; 6-year rate – 37%).
A report from the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at Rutgers University included the observation that “philanthropists should consult data to make better informed decisions around giving, considering the donations to both high performing institutions to reward growth and lower performing institutions to stimulate growth.” The problem with that approach, however, is it can endorse propping up failing institutions that are failing their students.
They are not doing their students any favors if they end up leaving so many with debt and no degree.
One issue for Black HBCU’s is that some have an almost blanket acceptance rate. That leads to unready students, which inevitably leads to the low graduation rates. For example, LeMoyne-Owen College has a 97% acceptance rate and Alabama State University has a 98% acceptance rate.
Too often, high acceptance rates are accompanied by low scores in college readiness tests.
A key standardized college admissions test that assesses high school students’ academic readiness for college is the ACT test. A student’s Composite score, ranging from 1-36, is the average of a student’s English, math, and reading test scores.
Some American universities look for students with scores in the 30s, others may consider scores in the mid-20s as competitive. According to ACT, the average score is 34 for admitted students at Harvard University and 23 for admitted students at University of Massachusetts Boston.
The average ACT composite score of students admitted to Spelman College is 26; for Howard University, 24. In contrast, the average ACT composite score of students admitted to LeMoyne-Owen College is 16, to Alabama State University, 18. The ACT college readiness benchmarks range from 18 for English to 23 for Science.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr., former president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a Washington D.C.-based, nonprofit organization that represents 47 public HBCUs, has attributed much of the high non-completion rate to the HBCUs accepting a lot of students with low standardized test scores and GPAs, students encountering time-management and behavioral issues, and a lack of financial literacy.
Many Black HBCU students also have to deal with being first generation college attendees, who tend to graduate at much lower rates across the board than continuing-generation students.
The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) has also found that students at HBCUs borrow more than students from non-HBCUs because African American families generally have lower assets and incomes that limit their ability to contribute toward college expenses.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median income of Black households in the United States in 2024 was $56,020, significantly lower than the $92,530 median income figure for non-Hispanic White households. ”With only minor fluctuations, the racial gap in median income has remained virtually unchanged for more than a half-century,” the Bureau noted.
High HBCU drop-out rates compound the problem of paying off college debt as drop-outs earn less.
Too many Black students at HBCUs also come from failing high schools with a below-average teaching environment involving inexperienced and less qualified educators and benefit from easy college admission standards at some of the less-competitive HBCUs.
A recent UNCF report pointed out that poor high school preparation often means Black students are more likely to need remedial college courses than other student groups, and the lack of preparedness hampers their success. “Increasing the number of African Americans receiving college degrees depends in large measure on whether students receive a quality K-12 education that prepares them for college coursework and college success,” the report said.
In the midst of all this, there are some hopeful positives. Some HBCUs have been seeing record enrollment growth and overall HBCU enrollment for the 2024-2025 school year rose by 5.9% compared to Fall 2023, the third year of increases. It’s worth noting, however, that enrollment growth at some HBCUs is occurring as the Associated Press has just reported that new enrollment figures from 20 selective colleges provide mounting evidence of a backslide in Black enrollment. On almost all of the campuses, Black students account for a smaller share of new students this fall than in 2023. At Princeton and some others, the number of new Black students has fallen by nearly half in that span.
In the fall of 2025, North Carolina A&T State University held down the #1 spot as the largest HBCU for the twelfth straight year with 15,275 students, up 6.7% from the previous school year. In the same vein, Spelman College increased its 2024 enrollment by 24% in 2025, Winston-Salem State University had a 4.7% enrollment increase and Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, founded in 1865, saw a 45% increase in new students in the fall of 2025,
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, however, that HBCU enrollment growth is not shared equally across all the nation’s HBCUs. For example, enrollment fell at eight of the 10 HBCUs in North Carolina over the last decade, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and overall enrollment at HBCUs has yet to rebound to its 2010 peak of 327,000. In addition, enrollment growth will need to be accompanied by increases in graduation rates in some cases. For example, the 4-year graduation rate at Shaw University is only 9% and the 6-year graduation rate is just 16%.
As was the case five years ago, if philanthropists and HBCUs really want to help Black college students, they will put money and effort into ensuring they get a K-12 education that prepares them for college and that HBCU students graduate with a good education. HBCUs that fail this test are still doing their students no favors, undercutting the very people they claim to champion.
Last time I wrote about how a local Missouri politician running for a county office is raising millions through deceptive online advertising that relies on highlighting inflammatory national issues.
This time I’m writing about how he and his online marketers are dialing up discord while cynically targeting deceptive fundraising pleas at overly trusting and vulnerable retired seniors, exploiting them in a new form of elder abuse other politicians across the country may be tempted to emulate.
William C. (Bill) Eigel, a conservative former state senator from the 23rd District in Missouri’s St. Charles County, lost in 2024’s Missouri Republican gubernatorial primary. Now he’s running to be St. Charles, Missouri’s County Executive, probably to establish a political perch to mount another gubernatorial race in 2028.
William C. (Bill) Eigel
To support his Charles County campaign, Eigel is soliciting contributions for his Believe in Life and Liberty political action committee, BILL PAC. Why doesn’t the PAC’s name say it’s connected to Eigel?
“Some states require PACs backing single candidates or with specific donors to include the politician or the funders in their name,” the Missouri Independent has explained. “Not Missouri. Instead, PAC names can be a set of initials used for a reason no one can remember, a feel-good name that doesn’t have anything to do with the interest being promoted or even the name of a favorite television character.
Not only is Eigel blurring his association with BILL PAC, but his online nationwide fundraising campaign is reaching out to potential supporters by emphasizing inflammatory national hot-button issues, not St. Charles County concerns. Recent email pleas focus on “mass deportations” and deporting “criminal illegal aliens”, federal payment of $5,000 “DOGE checks” to citizens, and “mandatory voter ID in ALL 50 states”.
A BILL PAC email that came today urged me to sign a petition to deport Ilhan Omar, a controversial Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota. An email I received recently went so far as to urge recipients to support President Trump’s use of the Insurrection Act, an alarming move that would gives him broad powers to authorize uses of the military in the domestic sphere while providing neither a role for Congress nor a basis for serious judicial review. Eigel’s message:
The Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC) requires that political candidates file quarterly reports on their fundraising and spending. The reports filed by Bill PAC in 2025 reveal that about 99% of the contributions Eigel has reported receiving have come from people who live out of state and identify themselves as “Retired”. It’s clear that retirees outside Missouri are Eigel’s primary target.
Seniors are a prime target for all sorts of online scams due to factors like social isolation, a trusting nature and declining cognitive function. Many also live alone, have significant savings and have no one overseeing their spending. (By the way, I’m retired, which is probably why I’ve been getting Eigel’s emails.)
The most recent emails I received from BILL PAC focused on deporting undocumented immigrants and “defunding a United Nations Global Climate tax”, issues that are hardly within the purview of St. Charles’ County Executive.
The deportation email said only:
“122 residents of your neighborhood have signed the GOP petition to deport every illegal alien, but your name is MISSING!
If you “Sign Now” you’ll be asked for a donation of $12.50 to $250 and up. And if you don’t uncheck a yellow box, you’ll be committing to making a recurring monthly donation of your initial pledge Ad infinitum. This is a practice the ACLU says “routinely takes advantage of older donors and first-time donors who are unfamiliar with navigating campaign fundraising platforms”.
Most individual online donations to Eigel detailed in reports submitted to the Missouri Ethics Commission in 2025 have been in small amounts, but they add up over time. Frequently, individuals have been making multiple contributions on the same day, almost as though they have been stuck in a loop, forgetting they’d already given that day:
For example, a retired man from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey made six separate donations ($10, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $4.75) on June 29, 2025. Another retired man from Spokane, WA made seven contributions ($20.24, $35, $10, $10, $10, $9.50, $10) on April 27, 2025.
Many prolific contributors seem almost addicted to online donations. An 86-year-old retired woman from Lititz, PA made online donations to Bill Eigel’s Believe in Life and Liberty political action committee, BILL PAC, 26 times.[1] A retired woman from Dalton, Georgia made donations 28 times[2].
Then there’s a retired man from Reston, VA, a consistent donor to Republican state and federal candidates and committees, who made an astonishing 65 separate online donations to BILL PAC, according to reports submitted to the Missouri Ethics Commission in 2025[3].
Organizations including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Council on Aging and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) repeatedly warn seniors about financial scams targeting them. The warnings, however, usually caution seniors about things such as funeral scams, phony investment schemes, telemarketing/phone scams and impersonation scams.
Clearly, it’s time to warn seniors about political fundraising scams, too.
That’s what it sounds like some Portland voters are saying when they voice support for Measure 26-260 to maintain the city’s parkswith a five-year levy that would increase the rate of taxation from 80 cents to $1.40 per $1,000 of assessed value, a massive 75% increase.
What business would reward a division’s mismanagement and profligacy by giving it more money?
What citizen would tolerate giving more money to a bureaucracy that has consistently failed in its mission while boosting its employment ranks? In 2020, Portland Parks and Recreation had 566 full-time employees. As of January 31, 2025, it had 792 full-time employees, almost a 30%increase. Good grief.
What voters already burdened with absurdly high taxes in an uncertain economy would purposefully burden themselves even more? What voters are unconcerned about the Legislature passing the $4.3 billion gas tax/wage tax bill Governor Kotek is eventually going to sign, particularly when, as numerous economists are observing, folks at the top part of the income and wealth distribution are doing fabulously well, but the other 80% are getting worried.
According to the Tax Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan non-profit research think tank, Portland residents already face some of the highest taxes in the country. “City, county, regional, and state taxes on individual and both net and gross business income combine to create a crushing tax wedge, yielding some of the highest marginal rates on wage income nationwide,” the Tax Foundation says.
What citizen would reward a bureaucracy that, according to a fiscal management audit released on Oct. 15 by the Portland City Auditor’s Office, “…has not taken a systematic approach to finding and implementing cost-saving, revenue-generating or service-reduction strategies.”
Then again, Portland voters have a history of tolerance for, even endorsement of, ineffective government.
In a May 2025 special election, Portland voters, ignoring cautionary arguments, supported Measure 26-259, a $1.83 billion bond to completely rebuild or renovate three high schools, the largest school bond in Oregon history, ignoring projections that there won’t be nearly enough students to fill them. The Oregonian also reported that the new schools would be three of the most expensive high schools ever built in the United States.
The massive spending will also result in space for 15,300 high school students, while Portland State University’s Population Research Center projected in July 2024 that the Portland School District will only have about 10,700 students by 2039.
The last thing Portland needs now is another irresponsible spending measure. Vote NO on Measure 26-260.
William C. (Bill) Eigel, a conservative former state senator from the 23rd District in Missouri’s St. Charles County, may have come in second place in 2024’s Missouri Republican gubernatorial primary. And he may have lost in his push to be chairman of the state Republican Party in 2025. But he hasn’t abandoned his political drive or lost his fundraising bravado.
St. Charles Missouri County Executive candidate, Bill Eigel
In October 2024, he filed paperwork with the Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC) that let him raise money for a possible run for St. Charles County Executive. On February 3, 2025, shortly after he lost his bid to become chair of the Missouri Republican Party, he confirmed that he would run for St. Charles County Executive in 2026. The election will be held on November 3, 2026, following party primaries on August 4, 2026.
According to the Missouri Independent, “no one sees the move as evidence that Eigel is ready to step off the statewide stage. To the contrary, the campaign is seen by Jefferson City denizens as Eigel simply looking for a political perch to mount another primary challenge against Kehoe in 2028.”
To support his Charles County campaign, Eigel is soliciting contributions for his Believe in Life and Liberty political action committee, BILL PAC. Why doesn’t the PAC’s name say it’s connected to Eiger?
“Some states require PACs backing single candidates or with specific donors to include the politician or the funders in their name,” the Missouri Independent has explained. “Not Missouri. Instead, PAC names can be a set of initials used for a reason no one can remember, a feel-good name that doesn’t have anything to do with the interest being promoted or even the name of a favorite television character.
On his Facebook page, Eigel is highlighting that “over 200 patriots showed up to our campaign event” on Sept. 27, suggesting high local enthusiasm for his candidacy. But what stands out when you examine the contributions in BILL PAC’s July 2025 report is how few are from locals. Most, in fact, are coming in from out of state. I haven’t contributed, but Eigel’s email came to me in Oregon.
Eigel faced criticism during his gubernatorial campaign for relying on nationwide out-of-state donors pursued by Targeted Victory, a Virginia consulting firm. This time he’s using a different firm for the same purpose.
In a July 2025 Quarterly Report to MEC, BILL PAC reported total receipts of $209,659.91.
In a list of itemized expenditures over $100, BILL PAC reported fundraising expenses of $93,304.66 paid to Nineonesix, 2311 Wilson Blvd., Suite 200, Arlington, VA 22201. Nineonesix defines itself as a “mobile marketing agency” that serves only Republicans. “We design and execute media plans with a focus on emerging digital platforms, using thumb-stopping mobile creative to drive results,” it says.
BILL PAC’s only other fundraising expense over $100 identified in its that quarter was $2,388.83 to the Old Hickory Golf Club in St. Peters, Missouri.
The July report to the MEC lists by name and address donations to BILL PAC from persons giving more than $100 to BILL PAC.
One interesting anomaly with the contributions to BILL PAC in the July report, some as small as $3 and some as high as $500, is that more than 99% of them came from people who identified themselves as retired. That suggests retired people have been Nineonesix’s primary online target. Seniors are a prime target for online scams due to factors like social isolation a trusting nature and declining cognitive function. Many also live alone and have no one overseeing their spending. (By the way, I’m retired, which is probably why I’ve been getting Eigel’s emails.)
The report also showed many donors made multiple donations over time, resulting in aggregate donations of as much as $2,000, which suggests multiple email appeals driven by repeated responses.
One donor, a retired woman from Abilene, Texas, typically gave $3.50 each time, for an aggregate of $194.16 as of April 27, 2025. Not to be outdone, a retired man from North Prince George, Virginia, gave a total of $83.50 in eleven separate donations ranging from $4 to $23 spread out over the quarter. In another case, a retired man from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey made six separate donations ($10, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $4.75) on just one day, June 29, 2025.
The PAC’s April and January 2025 quarterly reports to the Missouri Ethics Commission are similar in showing heavy reliance on retired out-of-state donors.
The oddest thing about BILL PAC’s appeals is that they don’t mention Bill Eigel’s name or even what office he’s running for. Instead, they rely on highlighting all sorts of hot-button issues and inflammatory stories that have nothing to do with the St. Charles race and are about issues over which a St. Charles County Executive would have no jurisdiction
On Oct.15, I received an email from BILL PAC calling on me to sign a petition calling for mandatory nationwide voter ID and to send money:
Another email I recently received from BILL PAC, labelled a “Voter Identification Survey” asks a series of questions, such as ” Do you believe Democrats are opposed to Voter ID laws because they negatively affect their chances of winning elections?” and “Should illegal immigrants be included in the US Census?” before asking for donations.
Then here’s this message I got from BILL PAC:
Friend, you can’t make this crap up!
A CRIMINAL, illegal alien FUGITIVE became a superintendent of a public school in Iowa.
When law enforcement caught him after he attempted to evade arrest, he was found in possession of a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash, and a hunting knife.
This was the SAME MAN who was the superintendent of a public school. Radical Democrats have put the safety and well-being of our children SECOND to an illegal alien.
How many other invaders are in positions of power in our country? The open-border invasion Biden helped cultivate is damaging our safety, schools, communities, and country.
We MUST ramp up deportations for these illegal criminals ONCE AND FOR ALL.
Click on “We need a strong wave of support…” and you go to a donations page that also allows you to make a single or monthly recurring donation.
At the bottom of the email in small print is the following:
Paid for by BILL PAC
1020 S Benton Avenue St. Charles, MO 63301
That’s all. A recipient would have to be motivated to do some digging to find out the email is from a PAC supporting Bill Eigel’s run for County Executive of St. Charles County in Missouri.
I also got this email message from BILL PAC, along with an appeal for a donation:
Friend, the fate of the $5,000 DOGE checks can go one of two ways:
They can be paid to YOU and the American people.
OR: They can be revoked, and continue to fund liberal pet projects.
And this message from BILL PAC urging me to sign a petition supporting deporting Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, along with an appeal for a donation:
HELP GET THE DOGE AUDIT TO OTHERS So far, 1,076 patriots have completed this audit, so don’t be the first person to refuse to complete it and leave DOGE in the dust!
On his Facebook page, Eigel describes himself as “Christian, Husband, Father, USAF Veteran, Small Business Owner, Former State Senator for St. Charles County, and the conservative candidate for St. Charles County Executive.”
The deceit and inflammatory messaging in his fundraising campaign aimed at vulnerable seniors doesn’t seem very Christian to me.
Sure, I know, it takes money to run for office and if we want to support dignified, well-meaning, thoughtful candidates somebody has to chip in. But as fundraising has gone digital, it has, to use a term technology critic and author Cory Doctorow came up with, undergone “Enshittification”. The whole damn enterprise has just made our daily lives worse and filled the internet with junk.
“Will you stand with President Trump and Senator Rubio in this critical moment?” was a message I got the other day from the Anti-Woke Fund, demanding my attention with the following:
This could be the end of faith, family, and freedom, if we do nothing.
Leaving aside the fact that Marco Rubio is no longer a senator, the message urged me to go on record now to tell every Republican to STAND WITH MARCO RUBIO AND TRUMP TODAY.
I guess all of my contribution will go to Trump and/or Rubio, right?
NOPE!
I clicked through and found this: “Your contribution will benefit Anti-Woke Fund, Trump National Committee, Anti-Woke Caucus JFC, and 1 other.”
Click through further and you’ll find that if you give $25, $23.50 of that will go to the Anti-Woke Fund PAC, $1.25 to the Trump National Committee JFC and 25 cents to Hageman for Wyoming, the fundraising site for Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY). Larger contributions will be apportioned in the same way.
What’s the Anti-Woke Fund PAC?
In 2024, Hageman was chair of the Anti-Woke Caucus, a group within the House of Representatives that says it is dedicated to fighting the growing influence of “woke” ideologies in government, business and society. But the Anti-Woke Fund has no clear connection to the Anti-Woke Caucus or Hageman.
According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Anti-Woke Fund is a political action committee (PAC) that registered on January 3, 2025. Its total receipts as of June 30, 2025 were $471,572.54. Almost all of its contributions were $200 or under.
Its expenditures totaled $364,113.90, all of it going to 27 companies engaged largely in digital fundraising and messaging.
More than 50% of its expenditures went to six firms:
Better Mousetrap Digital: a digital fundraising consulting firm for Republicans – $68,635.22
Launchpad Strategies LLC: A Republican online advertising, digital consulting and fundraising firm – $48,169.64
DonorBureau: Aggregates and analyzes data to create a deep understanding of donors – $26,600.36
O2M Digital LLC: Works to deliver conservative political messaging – $26,010.93
Apex Strategies LLC: Facilitates fundraising, specializing in Political Candidate Fundraising and Non-Profit Event fundraising – $24, 158.80
TMA Direct Inc: Specializes in Data Management, Data Brokerage, Email Marketing, Political Consulting, Fundraising, and Direct Mail – $21,787.95
The rest went to 21 other mostly similar companies.[1]
What politician or interest group benefited from the work of all these companies that were paid by the Anti-Woke Fund from monies contributed by people who responded to the Fund’s email? Who Knows.
Dozens of other political messages are similarly deceiving.
There’s the message from Team Crane.
National Debt or Refund Check
How would you like the tariff revenue spent, Friend?
Along with the usual plea for a contribution, the message says, “Your contribution will benefit Crane for Congress and Trump National Committee JFC.” But you have to dig deeper to find out that if you give $75, for example, $71.25 of that will go to Crane for Congress, a PAC affiliated with Republican Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona. Only $3.75 will go Trump. Larger contributions will be apportioned in the same way.
Crane promoted the conspiracy theory that there were “massive amounts of fraud” in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and called upon the Arizona State Legislature to decertify Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
Republican Rep. Mary Miller from Illinois sent out a message alerting me that former FBI Director James Comey had been indicted:
This will be the FIERCEST battle for TRUTH in America! Comey LIED to the American people in order to PLOT against President Trump.
SIGN YOUR NAME to our petition of MAGA Patriots that are declaring I STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP!
Of course, if you sign your name, you are asked to chip in. “Your contribution,” she says “will benefit Mary Miller for Congress and Trump National Committee JFC” but as with Eli Crane, if you give $25, only $1.25 will go to Trump; $23.75 will go to Mary Miller for Congress. Larger contributions will be apportioned in the same way.
“There’s a sucker born every minute”, the American showman P.T. Barnum is supposed to have said, thinking of how confidence tricksters operate.
Don’t be a sucker.
[1] WINRED TECHNICAL SERVICES LLC: an American fundraising platform for the Republican Party
TAILWINDS POLITICAL, LLC: Helps causes acquire, grow and enhance audiences, specializing in fundraising and political campaigns
NORTH COUNTRY STRATEGIES LLC: N/A
FRONTLINE STRATEGIES LLC: Data-driven fundraising
RED CURVE SOLUTIONS: Offers comprehensive treasury, budgeting and FEC compliance services for political campaigns, party organizations and PACS
A-TEAM DIGITAL LLC: a political digital marketing firm
ROC MEDIA, LLC: Digital media targeting firm.
LP BROKERING LLC: N/A
OLYMPIC MEDIA LLC: digital marketing and advertising firm
P2P MESSAGING: Delivers managed service text messaging solutions to political organizations, non-profits, and government officials.
TWENTY MANOR PROJECTS LLC: a digital advocacy and fundraising company
CONSERVATIVE OUTREACH GROUP, LLC: List acquisition
EDEE INC.: List acquisition
POP ACTA: Creates and uncovers highly targeted and curated audiences to raise funds, acquire donors and expand the reach of political candidates.
GRASSROOTS FOR YOU LLC: Political campaign marketing
MAWCO LLC: Elevates conservative campaigns with fundraising and marketing
NORTH COUNTRY STRATEGIES: Political consulting
GET OUT THE LISTS LLC: Curates updated lists of conservative Republicans, donors, and activists
RIGHT RAIL LIST COMPANY: N/A
BELIEVE MEDIA, LLC: Digital marketing agency
CHAIN BRIDGE BANK, N.A.: Delivers banking and trust services nationwide
ThinkingOregon 