Conor right here: The reported $130 million donation to the Pentagon sounds quite a bit like one other privatization stepping stone. The quantity is a drop within the bucket for the Division of Battle, and reportedly quantities to solely about $100 per soldier, however is probably going a trial balloon for different billionaires with huge concepts. The advertising pitch:
They usually attempt so onerous to make wealthy capitalists look evil! That is actually what wealthy capitalists are for in God’s financial system! https://t.co/vDoqeFME1Y
— Garrett (@McGarrett50H) October 24, 2025
Because it as now the plutocrats nonetheless want to purchase members of Congress, the President, and fund suppose tanks pushing their pet initiatives. Think about how a lot simpler it might be to easily pay set costs for shade revolutions, air strikes, invasions, and many others. If that had been the case in some ways it might be making official what already exists:
- The principle perform of the US army is already to unfold freedom for American capital overseas.
- Billionaires apparently already inform Trump whether or not or to not ship troops into “their” cities.
- Now we have Zionist billionaires dictating a lot of US overseas coverage.
- Congress is already principally sidelined from choice making on issues of struggle and intelligence operations.
The “reward” could be blatantly unlawful however with judges who rule in opposition to the administration seeing their homes burn down, who is aware of? The supply of the reward has since been revealed:
🚨 BREAKING:
The nameless donor who gave $130 million to fund U.S. troops through the federal shutdown is reportedly Timothy Mellon — the identical billionaire who gave $53 million to construct Texas’s personal border wall.
He’s funded border enforcement, Trump’s Tremendous PACs, and…
— Amber Speaks Up (@AmberWoods100) October 25, 2025
The grandson of Andrew Mellon. Time is a haunted merry-go-round.
As we yearn for what’s subsequent, my biggest concern is that we’ll be duped into doubling down on corrupt billionaires and monopolists below the guise of a “return to regular.” It is going to be the largest repeat con in historical past. pic.twitter.com/Qe9ratawVu
— Lee Hepner (@LeeHepner) October 25, 2025
By Jessica Corbett, a employees author at Frequent Desires. Initially revealed at Frequent Desires.
Because the Pentagon plans to place a $130 million donation from an nameless “pal” of President Donald Trump towards army salaries, the most important federation of unions within the United States on Friday demanded that federal lawmakers “cease enjoying political video games” and pay all employees affected by the federal government shutdown.
“As the federal government shutdown drags into its fourth week, 1.4 million federal employees and at the very least 1 million federal contractors have missed a paycheck and can quickly miss one other if Congress fails to behave,” the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) famous in a press release.
The federal government shut down at the start of October as a result of Republicans—who’ve majorities in each chambers of Congress—wished to keep up their funding plans, whereas Democrats sought to undo the GOP’s current Medicaid cuts and lengthen expiring Inexpensive Care Act subsidies so hundreds of thousands of Individuals don’t lose their healthcare.
Republicans had been in a position to get their funding proposal by means of the US Home of Representatives, however their slim management of the Senate means they require some Democratic help to move most payments. The AFL-CIO launched a letter that its director of advocacy, Jody Calemine, despatched to all senators on Thursday.
Calemine known as on them to help Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-Md.) True Shutdown Equity Act, which would supply backpay and continued pay to federal employees, contractors, and army personnel through the shutdown, in addition to Sen. Gary Peters’ (D-Mich.) Army and Federal Worker Safety Act, which would supply a right away backpay installment.
“These employees—army, civilian, and personal sector alike—serve the American individuals day in and time out in myriad methods,” Calemine wrote. “Many federal employees, together with the army, have been required to carry out their duties with out pay. Different federal employees and contractors need to work however have been furloughed and locked out from their jobs. Whereas the paychecks have stopped, the payments haven’t. Hire must be paid. Mortgage funds are due. Groceries have to be purchased.”
“Sadly, their monetary ache is getting used as political leverage. The Trump administration has been exacerbating their hardship and nervousness, asserting illegal, everlasting reductions-in-force whereas blaming a brief shutdown and threatening to disclaim federal employees backpay in violation of the Authorities Worker Honest Remedy Act,” Calemine continued. “Staff and their households shouldn’t be used as pawns.”
The letter was despatched earlier than the Senate voted on each payments, which Republicans blocked on Thursday. All Democrats besides Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, each of Georgia, additionally opposed Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) invoice that may have paid members of the army and a few federal employees who usually are not furloughed.
Working households are dealing with a twin disaster: starvation, and their medical health insurance prices doubling, tripling or worse.
Working individuals can’t afford inaction.
Fund the federal government.
Repair the well being care disaster.
Put working individuals first.https://t.co/QFoJAe9ky4 https://t.co/sBMdh8TOpG pic.twitter.com/Dh2FrMQlm1— AFL-CIO ✊ (@AFLCIO) October 24, 2025
Additionally on Thursday, Trump instructed reporters on the White Home that “a pal of mine” who didn’t need public recognition had made a donation towards army salaries, including, “That’s what I name a patriot.”
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, confirmed in a Friday assertion that the US Division of Protection had accepted the donation “below its normal reward acceptance authority.”
“The donation was made on the situation that or not it’s used to offset the price of service members’ salaries and advantages,” he mentioned. “We’re grateful for this donor’s help after Democrats opted to withhold pay from troops.”
In line with the Related Press:
Whereas the $130 million is a hefty sum, it might cowl only a fraction of the billions wanted for army paychecks. Trump mentioned the donation was to cowl any “shortfall.”
What’s unclear, nonetheless, is the laws round such a donation.
“That’s loopy,” mentioned Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group targeted on the federal authorities. “It’s treating the cost of our uniformed companies as if somebody’s selecting up your bar tab.”
CNN reported that critics have raised issues that taking the $130 million might run afoul of the Pentagon’s reward acceptance authority and the Antideficiency Act—and “congressional appropriators on each side of the aisle mentioned Friday that they had been searching for extra info from the administration concerning the specifics of the donation, however had but to obtain any clarification.”
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), the rating member on the chamber’s protection appropriations subcommittee, mentioned in a press release that “utilizing nameless donations to fund our army raises troubling questions of whether or not our personal troops are liable to actually being purchased and paid for by overseas powers.”
Sharing CNN‘s report on social media, the watchdog Residents for Accountability and Ethics in Washington wrote: “This could go with out saying, however the American authorities needs to be funded by the American individuals, not nameless megadonor buddies of the president. This isn’t how issues ought to work in a democracy—this raises all kinds of authorized and moral alarms.”
In the meantime, the Home clerk on Friday learn a message from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) designating October 27-November 2 as a district work interval. Responding on social media, Congressman Jason Crow (D-Colo.) mentioned: “Republicans simply prolonged their trip AGAIN. Trump is heading to Asia. All as the federal government is shutdown. A complete failure of management.”
