dead [he/him]
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28·1 day agoReporter: How did you manage to find somebody to pay for our troops during the shutdown?
Trump: He’s a great gentleman. He’s a great patriot. He’s obviously a very substantial man and he contributed $130 million toward the military in order to make up any difference… he doesn’t want publicity. He doesn’t, you know, he’d prefer, I think, that his name not be mentioned. And he’s a big supporter of mine.
Reporter: Is it an American citizen?
Trump: It is. Great American citizen
https://xcancel.com/Acyn/status/1981965865097834861#m (audio)
Donor Who Gave $130 Million to Pay Troops Is Reclusive Heir to Mellon Fortune
Timothy Mellon is a billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump.
Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump, is the anonymous private donor who gave $130 million to the U.S. government to help pay troops during the shutdown, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Trump announced the donation on Thursday night, but he declined to name the person who provided the funds, only calling him a “patriot” and a friend. But the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the donation was private, identified him as Mr. Mellon.
Shortly after departing Washington on Friday, Mr. Trump again declined to identify Mr. Mellon while talking to reporters aboard Air Force One. He only said the individual was “a great American citizen” and a “substantial man.”
“He doesn’t want publicity,” Mr. Trump said as he headed to Malaysia. “He prefer that his name not be mentioned which is pretty unusual in the world I come from, and in the world of politics, you want your name mentioned.”
The White House declined to comment. Multiple attempts to reach Mr. Mellon and representatives for him were unsuccessful.
Mr. Mellon, a wealthy banking heir and railroad magnate, is a longtime backer of Mr. Trump and gave tens of millions of dollars to groups supporting the president’s campaign. Last year, he made a $50 million donation to a super PAC supporting Mr. Trump, which was one of the largest single contributions ever disclosed.
A grandson of former Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, Mr. Mellon was not a prominent Republican donor until Mr. Trump was elected. But in recent years, he has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting Mr. Trump and the Republican Party.
Mr. Mellon, who lives primarily in Wyoming, keeps a low profile despite his prolific political spending. He is also a significant supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also ran for president last year. Mr. Mellon donated millions to Mr. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and has also given money to his anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense.
The Pentagon said it accepted the donation under the “general gift acceptance authority.”
“The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of service members’ salaries and benefits,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a statement.
Still, the donation appears to be a potential violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from spending money in excess of congressional appropriations or from accepting voluntary services.
It remains unclear how far the donation would go toward covering the salaries of the more than 1.3 million troops who make up the active-duty military. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Trump administration’s 2025 budget requests about $600 billion in total military compensation. A $130 million donation would equal about $100 a service member.
Greg Jaffe contributed to this report.
Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
This is the house or compound of Yasser Abu Shabab in Southern Gaza, according to Sky News, 3 weeks ago. Notice how his house hasn’t been attacked, unlike most of Gaza.
Gustavo Petro gave a speech to a large crowd about the OFAC sanctions placed on him. I can’t find an article in English. Radio Nacional de Colombia is Colombia public radio.
Last month Gustavo Petro gave a speech at the UN in New York, calling for Nations to form “powerful army” to stop the genocide in Gaza. "We need a powerful army of the countries that do not accept genocide,” “That is why I invite nations of the world and their peoples more than anything, as an integral part of humanity, to bring together weapons and armies.”
After giving his speech, Petro joined a group of Pro-Palestinian protesters outside of the UN building, including Roger Waters of Pink Floyd.
The US responded by revoking his US diplomatic visa. Petro posted to twitter that it did not bother him.
Treasury is claiming that “cocaine production in Colombia has exploded to record high rates”. I’ve only heard that cocaine quality has been shit in recent years.
My guess is that those attacks were meant to implicate Colombia after Colombia came out in support of Gaza.
2·3 days agoFor me, greens has to have pork fat, a bit of sugar, and apple cider vinegar. savory/salty/sweet/tangy. Not a fan of chili flakes or hot sauce in greens.
That’s Joe Sims. He’s the leader of CPUSA. In September 2024, he made a podcast episode saying the Lenin would vote for Kamala because he thinks it would be easier for labor unions to organize under Kamala than Trump. I’m not even sure why they would engage in such a humiliation ritual, as the podcast episode only garnered around 2000 views in 1 year.
The US conducted antagonistic military drills on the border of DPRK from August 20 to 28, called Ulchi Freedom Shield. So I think the US aggression is still present.
The cooling of rhetoric could be caused by many things. Trump cut funding to Radio Free Asia and National Endowment for Democracy, at one point.
South Korea also has a new president, Lee Jae Myung, who has been less hostile to DPRK, though DPRK said they don’t really like him. The previous President, Yoon Suk Yeol, was a friend of Biden and wanted South Korea to join NATO.
I saw a rumor that Trump wants to meet with Kim on his Asia trip next week.
e/ There’s also been the dozens of Western news stories about supposed North Korean hackers lately, claiming that the hackers steal bitcoins and get illegally hired by American businesses.
Ben Norton is a guest on The Deprogram episode 33 and 115.
It says on Yugonik’s twitter that the China trip is scheduled to be 7 days long. The first photo he posted in Beijing was on October 16. His trip must be almost over now.
DPRK develops its weapons for defensive purposes. The US and South Korea conduct provocative military drills on the border of North Korea, twice annually since the Korean war. If DPRK didn’t have weapons, the US would invade again.
It’s impressive when the DPRK is able to develop new technologies despite aggressive US sanctions.
These video clips come from the speech that he delivered today to Iranian athletes. The speech contains the statements from the tweets.
Khamenei mocks Trump for the No Kings protests.
https://xcancel.com/Khamenei_m/status/1980356798822641715#m
Khamenei says that US is terrorists and talks about Iran’s nuclear industry.
https://xcancel.com/Khamenei_m/status/1980333842725736942#m
Khamenei says that the US is complicit in Israel’s actions in Gaza.
https://xcancel.com/Khamenei_m/status/1980306902782501323#m
Khamenei brags about Iran’s missile capabilities.
https://xcancel.com/Khamenei_m/status/1980269242856460756#m
Khamenei says that Israel is desperate for US support.
https://xcancel.com/Khamenei_m/status/1980251862864433410#m
https://archive.is/d05Cd (fars news)
https://archive.is/vUewS (khamenei website)
I found on Iran news that the statements were originally delivered in a speech to Iranian athletes. It says that Khamenei also mocked Trump for the No Kings protests
He then pointed to the mass demonstrations against the US President, with over 7 million participants in various states and cities across the US, and stated: “If you are so capable, instead of spreading lies, interfering in other countries’ affairs, and taking actions like building military bases in their territories, why don’t you calm these millions of people and bring them back to their homes?”
https://archive.is/d05Cd (fars news)
https://archive.is/vUewS (khamenei website)
Dude is spitting fire. He reportedly posted this all on twitter after rejecting to talk with Trump
Both of those comms were banned over a year ago. If you try to visit /r/meth, it gives you a government warning message and there’s a bunch of rules about what photos you can post. From what I remember, the “methwithoutcommunism” sub was created so that people could post selfies of themself smoking meth. The “withoutcommunism” just meant that the sub had less rules, in the same sense that Americans say that every rule or regulation is “communism”.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a good heist.
I don’t think that the No Kings protests are meant to be a show of force or at least not a successful show of force. The real use of the event is meeting people and joining organizations. The organizations are the resistance against oppression. If you go there and don’t make any connections, then yeah it’s probably a waste of time.
Trump’s biggest complaint about the No Kings protest is that people had matching printed signs. Trump says that matching printed signs are an indication that the protesters are payed protesters.
Who actually has printed signs? Organizations have printed signs, ie PSL, Jewish Voice for Peace, etc. Trump recognizes that organizations are powerful, so he makes up conspiracy theories about them, so that he can prosecute and attack the organizations.
There were Rapid Response organizations at the No Kings protests to recruit new members. Rapid Response organizations are groups which are forming to protect undocumented people from ICE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_response_team_(resistance_movement)
The No Kings protests can be useful if you organize with people at them.
I think it’s more suited for a gossip-type comm. It’s in the same vein as celebrity news. Emiru is the top woman streamer on Twitch right now, rank #48, averages 20,000 live viewers. (Yes, the top 40 streamers are all men currently) Mizkif is rank #68.
Indiatimes is tabloid like Dexerto or TMZ.
They were both colleagues with Asmongold and work for the company that Asmongold helped create, called OTK. I don’t think Emiru agreed with Asmongold politically, she just does cosplay makeup or something. Mizkif was a WoW streamer. This is the third incident in my memory of OTK being tied to sexual assault. In 2022, Mizkif was accused of covering up a sexual assault committed by CrazySlick (not a streamer anymore). In 2024, OTK member Tectone was accused of sexual assault by his girlfriend; Tectone left OTK and is now a far right MAGA streamer. In 2025, Asmongold left OTK because of his far right political streams.
Emiru was also assaulted at Twitchcon last week.