A reclusive billionaire, anti-tax crusader and major financial backer of Donald Trump has been named as the anonymous private donor who gave $130m to the government to help pay US troops during the federal shutdown that is now in its fourth week, according to the New York Times.
The donation, which equates to about $100 per service member, appears to be a potential violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from spending funds in advance or in excess of congressional appropriations – and from accepting voluntary services “except in the case of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property”.
Potential penalties for violations include both administrative and criminal sanctions such as suspension or removal from duty, fines and imprisonment.
Ancient Rome shit, Patricians buying the loyalty of the legions. Next they’ll send their Cincinnatus out to crush the plebs when they revolt.
Cincinnatus was actually cool. Rome’s neighbors violated a peace treaty and tried to invade them. They called up Cincinnatus, a retired general, and gave him full dictatorial power. He resolved the situation in two weeks, abdicated all of his powers on day fifteen, and went back to his farm. Then he did it a second time when someone tried to end the republic and make themself a king.
Someone like Crassus would be a more appropriate Roman to reference.
Cincinnatus was an elitist prick, but it appears I confused him with his son, who took more direct and brutal actions against the Plebs:
Cincinnatus was opposed to attempts to raise the legal position of plebeians in Roman society. His son Caeso Quinctius, like his father, was an opponent of the commoners and tried to limit their rights. He often tried to depreciate the role of this stratum in the political life of the country, often against the legal order. In 461 BCE his actions, preventing plebeian tribunes from speaking at the Forum, were accused of breaking the Roman order. Caeso was released on bail and then fled to the Etruscans. He was then sentenced to death, and his father had to sell large tracts of land and concentrate on working on his small farm. Through their hard and arduous work, Cincinnatus and his family managed to feed themselves and survive the time of discomfort.
https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/biographies/lucius-quinctius-cincinnatus/amp/
Sounds like these “troops” are not federal at all, but private mercenaries.
His wikipedia page is something else.
Mellon is a Republican, though in the past was a supporter of and donator to liberal causes.[11] He voted for President Lyndon B. Johnson, George McGovern, and Jimmy Carter, before becoming a Republican under Ronald Reagan’s presidency.[7][11]
He is a supporter of President Donald Trump.[6][11] He is anti-tax and anti-union.[13][2] He has criticized teacher unions and the introduction of women studies, LGBT studies, and African American studies into higher education.[22] He was a listener of Rush Limbaugh before his death.[6]
He faced media attention after comments describing his political views in his 2015 self-published autobiography “panam.captain” came to light.[23][22] Mellon calls social safety net programs “slavery Redux” and refers to those receiving benefits as “slaves of a new master, Uncle Sam.”[6] He also stated Black people became “even more belligerent” following the expansion of social programs in the 1960s and 70s.[23][22] Mellon defended his comments in the book and did not apologize.[11]
Also, according to the Daily Mail (I know, but they give his foundation as credit), this is what he currently looks like. He’s 80, so there’s probably a lot of touching up.
Trump is almost done when the elite are desperate enough to show their face.
Meanwhile I’m pretty sure that Germany has set aside a similar amount of funds to ensure that all of the military personnel in Rammstein Base are paid, and are sending the US government an invoice for the funds they are giving US military so they don’t have a pay gap. Something like €100,000,000 were set aside so that our troops in Germany do not suffer any pay delays.
Interesting, I hadn’t heard about that elsewhere. It looks like it’s not for US military personnel, only the civilian local employees at the base. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2025-10-22/germany-covers-federal-worker-paychecks-19507712.html
State officials said they had urged the German finance ministry to step in and ensure payment of the wages owed to Germans employed at the assorted U.S. military bases within its territory…
The ministry is preparing approximately $50 million in emergency funding to ensure workers are paid on time, German news outlet Tagesschau reported Wednesday.
…A union statement Monday said that the current shutdown, which began Oct. 1, differs from previous ones, when German staffers employed by the U.S. received pay in accordance with German labor law and the NATO Status of Forces Agreement.
“What is new is that the current U.S. administration is apparently unwilling to comply with German laws,” the Ver.di statement said. Rheinland-Pfalz officials said Germany expects to be reimbursed once the U.S. government reopens.
I guess that’s slightly better?
Can you explain the setup here more? Germany is paying for americans on military bases on their own land?
There’s my source, but essentially yes. I suspect that Germany will send the US military an invoice when the government shutdown ends.
Not the Americans, no. The bases employ a lot of German civilians, and Germany is covering (as a loan to the US) the paychecks owed to the German employees.
Yeah but does that buy a flashy dictator parade??? /s
Say what you want but this Trump administration sure knows how to enter new territory on a near daily basis
How many times has it happened before that US armed forces received payment from a private donor?
How many times before has it happened that US armed forces have been deployed within the US to assist with arresting
jewsundesirablesimmigrants?How many times has it happened that a sitting US president would not peacefully transfer power?
How many times before has it happened that an ex US president attempted an insurrection (without being hangend or even receiving jail time?)
How many times…
Where does he live?
Bribes
Anti-tax advocate gives government $130 million to not pay taxes.
These are the smartest people.
His family’s net worth is estimated at $14B. It’s a down-payment on a tax cut that will save him much more.
This’ll make him billions. It was smart
“Smart.”
More money than anyone could ever need in 500,000 lifetimes already, and this is the “smart” move?
How about just shut the fuck up and enjoy the life of a goddamn king
Your upvote ratio on this comment is deeply concerning, and reinforces the point many others are making.
To an american, there’s always an amount of money they will sell their morals and values out for. Most of these up votes are from americans, or westerners who have fallen for american propaganda.
To pretty much everyone else, they would have enough money already. Why waste time pursuing more money when it will literally change nothing in your life.
I think most people understand I’m not happy about it. I wish it weren’t the case but it’s true, it was smart for him. That’s exactly what they always do.
Rich fucks will screw over the general populace to make an extra dollar.
Fucking over the general populace for money is not smart. I dont know how much more simple I can make it. People who think its smart to do that, whether they do it directly themselves or not, are part of the problem. Consider reprioritizing your values and what you consider to be a smart move.
I think you’re misunderstanding their point here. They’re using “smart” in the sense of “an efficient method to achieve a specified goal”, where the goal in this case is “make more money”, and the method is “by whatever means possible”.
No matter how you twist it, what this person did is likely an efficient route for them to reach that goal. So in by the above metric, it is a “smart move”.
Its like you both think if add enough caveats that its actually smart. What I’m saying is, is that the caveats are excuses that allow people to turn an obvious negative into a positive. Not everything can be a positive “if you just look at it the right way”. Thats absurd, and shows that your morals change depending on the goal.
He already has billions more than he could spend in a lifetime. It isn’t smart it’s deranged.
Yep. Billionaires only care about that number (their net worth) going up. It doesn’t help them in any substantive way when the number goes up. But they don’t have anything else to give their lives meaning. Just to have some number go up and to have their number be higher than other people’s numbers.
If they didn’t care about that number, and only cared about their selfish lifestyle, without comparing to others, for example, then with the value of money today, they’d probably stop bothering to hoard money long before they hit a billion dollars. It’s a pathetic excuse for a life to keep accumulating like billionaires do. They don’t care who they hurt as long as that fucking number gets bigger.
Billionaires care about that number because it equates to power and influence. This is a great example of that. The Trump Administration is effectively trying to bribe the military/ICE by keeping them paid during this shutdown while he waits for Democrats to cave when medical insurance premiums skyrocket and SNAP runs out and people start to starve. This leaves the population vulnerable for when Trump inevitably orders a purge of the American people.
The big question in the room is will the military and ICE be willing to take on the entire US population? I already know ICE is willing to shoot their own mothers in the face for a paycheck (or even for free cuz some of them be that sick), but the military has too many people who will simply break rank with Trump cuz they take their oath to the Constitution seriously.
It’s sad that it comes down to the consciences of soldiers as to whether America gets to rebuild Democracy or not, but that’s where we are.
Start making a list of Billionaires, MAGA asshats, and Right Wing Grifters though. Cuz the one thing I can tell you is that Americans are going to want a very different flavor of justice should we reinstitute Democratic Norms in this country, and we shouldn’t forget who to eat first.
I wonder how much in total his taxes would contribute to the military if he just played by the rules and wasn’t an evil twat. Like that’s clearly well beyond what 99% of the US could ever earn in their life, let alone pay into taxes. Further more for every dollar you put into taxes, not all of it goes to the military. Forget still you can be sure this asshat has greased some palms of politicians throughout his life. Between the $130M and the
bribestotes legal campaign donations, what would his effective tax rate have needed to be to get to that number?
Doesn’t most of this money go to the mercenaries? Oh I mean military *
appears to be a potential violation of the Antideficiency Act,
If we’d had this calibur of journalism about a century ago they would have said the Hindenburg appeared to be experiencing a potential flight delay, I swear
Potential penalties for violations include both administrative and criminal sanctions such as suspension or removal from duty, fines and imprisonment
I mean, this is the sound of a journalist screaming internally “SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING”, but the time to start screaming externally was a while ago
SLAPP protection.
Imagine paying $130M and enabling the destruction of democracy simply to avoid ever having to pay your fair share of taxes.
You can throw millions at an army, but you fight tooth and nail to avoid paying for any public services those soldiers might otherwise benefit from. Typical conservative bullshit. Humans are basically cattle to them.
Force them to be born. Completely hands off for 18 years. Ignore any and all obligations to help make sure that have access to affordable education or healthcare. Stack the deck against the ones that actually survive to adulthood, so that the military is the only option most people have. Then, once they’re old enough to fight to help keep you rich, (this time on the streets of their own country), suddenly they’re worthy of your investment.
See this is something I don’t get about billionaires.
You already have enough money to literally buy ANYTHING you want. You might not be able to buy slaves but you can pay people to do shit for you, there’s even people out there who’d be down for a whipping for a few thousand dollars… You’re literally king of the world, without moving a pinkie.
And instead of using all that money, all that wealth to get new experiences, learn new things, discover new places, literally do things no-one has ever done before… what do you ask for?
More money.
It’s not even greed anymore at that point, it’s a psychological issue, akin to hoarding, except your hoarding ruins the entire planet.
Billionaires shouldn’t exist, period.
Yes it’s a disease. Diseases should be… eliminated? Healed? Gullotined?
Healed. The issue is that the only way to heal these people that are literally greedier than dragons is to forcibly make them donate every single dollar over 10-100 million dollars to a “Sovereign Fund for Humanity’s Poor” fund that will distribute their stolen wealth to the poorest of humanity. Said fund would have to be administered by like minded people, but the best would be two fiduciaries, and three data analysts from OxFam currently.
Its a form of psychosis, and is considered a mental illness in most countries. America is literally an example of addiction to money.
They are sick. Literally.
It’s not even greed anymore at that point, it’s a psychological issue, akin to hoarding, except your hoarding ruins the entire planet.
100% this is it. Hoarding usually boils down to OCD and needing to feel a false sense of control.
You never know when you might need to possess all that money you will never be able to spend (even if you do somehow achieve immortality) just like you don’t know when you might need that collection of old newspapers. But when that day comes, you’re convinced you’ll be ready. Then they’ll see. They’ll finally all see. Unless somebody steals or misplaces your “treasures.”
This is literally from a recent article about Thiel and his Antichrist lectures:
Your fucking identity? Bro, you’ll be worm food like the rest of us. That’s why they call it the great equalizer. (And that is also probably exactly why you fear it more than anything else.)
Excellently stated. Thank you for posting that comment.
His wiki bio indicates this guy has given exactly nothing to society. Yet here he is, using his unearned wealth to purchase the military.
He gave Colorado an anti-Venezuela billboard. :P
It’s almost as if billionaire robber baron is a serious mental health crisis, and they’re using all their money to make sure nobody can do anything about it.
Two things to note.
1:> This happens at the same time the Carrier Strike Group of the world’s “most lethal combat platform” is pulled out of the European theater to play drug cop in the Caribbean.
2:> This…
Gotta reduce the apparent military pressure on Vladdy daddy. Can’t have actual military force in range if Putin decides to actually directly strike NATO territory after all.
Goodness! This is really bad.
