Unmasking Russia! The Billionaires Behind the ThroneAnd the danger of a billionaire’s $130 million donation to pay U.S. troops
So this week, we crossed another dangerous line as the United States slipped further into a system where power is concentrated in wealth and loyalty networks, information is controlled from the top, and the boundary between private patronage and public governance continues to dissolve. Trump’s government shutdown, now entering its fourth week, has frozen pay for hundreds of thousands of federal employees and forced many—among them active-duty service members—to wait in food lines for hours as the government remains paralyzed. Into that vacuum, Washington Post reported that the Pentagon quietly accepted a $130 million donation to cover troop salaries during the shutdown—a payment that Trump publicly celebrated and claimed came from a “patriot and friend.” That “friend,” it has since been revealed, is Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and one of Trump’s largest political backers, who funneled the money to the U.S. government to keep one day of the military payroll afloat during Trump’s shutdown—an extraordinary act that blurs the line between private influence and public authority and signals just how easily personal wealth can now step in to perform the functions of the state. What Trump hailed as generosity is, in reality, a profound rupture in the constitutional order, and a moment when the funding of America’s armed forces no longer flows from the consent of the people but from the private wealth of a political ally. Congress’s authority over America’s purse strings, a cornerstone of democratic oversight, has been effectively usurped by the favor of a private benefactor. When the armed forces begin to depend on the wealth of individuals rather than the will of the people, the balance of power shifts irreversibly. The military ceases to serve the nation as a whole and starts to serve the man who commands both its loyalty and its funding. And there is no coincidence that Trump has prioritized paying the military and ICE, his personal enforcement arm, the core of the domestic force he is building to quash dissent and ensure obedience. At the same time, Pete Hegseth has moved to further seal the Pentagon off from independent scrutiny. A new directive now requires senior defense officials, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, service secretaries, and combatant commanders, to obtain clearance from the central legislative affairs office before speaking with Congress. Even routine exchanges must now be preapproved by political appointees loyal to the regime, ending the candid, case-by-case communication that once formed the backbone of civilian oversight. The Pentagon insists the change is meant to improve “accuracy and transparency,” but in practice, it has turned the Department of Defense into a controlled communication pipeline. The armed forces, once accountable to the public through their elected representatives, are now subordinate to a chain of command defined by political loyalty, and not the law. Simultaneously, Hegseth has dismantled the Pentagon press corps and rebuilt it in his image. Under new rules, legacy outlets—including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Associated Press, and even Fox News—were expelled from the building after refusing to sign restrictive media agreements requiring prior approval of all information for release. In their place came a roster of far-right extremist outlets and propagandists: Turning Point USA, RedState, Human Events, Lindell TV, The Gateway Pundit, and The National Pulse, to name a few. Reporters who refused to comply turned in their badges and left the building on October 15. Those who remained did so by agreeing to the new conditions of control, trading independence for access. The Pentagon now operates in a media environment where only preapproved voices tell the public what it is allowed to know, and the most powerful military in the world speaks through the filter of its most partisan defenders. The transformation is strikingly familiar: in Russia, the Kremlin followed the same pattern over two decades ago, driving out independent journalists, replacing them with loyal propagandists, and using the press as an extension of the state. There, the line between reporting and obedience disappeared entirely, resulting in censorship, and the construction of an alternate reality in which the regime’s propaganda is what people hear. All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of Trump and Hegseth’s escalating military campaign in the Caribbean. U.S. forces have launched air and sea strikes on what they claim are “narco-terrorist” vessels, offering no evidence to substantiate the attacks, while preparing for potential land operations and regime change in Venezuela. The strikes, already responsible for more than forty deaths, have been conducted without congressional authorization or a formal declaration of war—yet another deliberate bypassing of constitutional oversight. Members of Congress from both parties have requested briefings and documentation from the Pentagon, only to be met with silence, as the regime treats questions of war as a matter of executive privilege. Trump insists the goal is to disrupt drug trafficking, yet the chosen targets and the scale of the military buildup tell a different story. Pete Hegseth has ordered the deployment of the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, along with its accompanying warships and attack planes, to waters off Latin America, marking the largest U.S. naval presence in the region in decades. The regime’s rhetoric, cloaked in the language of narcotics enforcement, reveals a far broader ambition—one aimed at projecting American power, reshaping regional influence, and potentially laying the groundwork to seize control of Venezuela’s vital oil assets under the familiar banner of counterterrorism. Trump is taking America down a path toward war with Venezuela, yet the American people have not been briefed on what the objective is, how long the operations will last, what the cost will be, or what risks this escalation poses to U.S. forces. Meanwhile, back in Washington, Trump has turned the seat of American democracy into a personal monument. Billionaires within his inner circle are allegedly financing, to the tune of $300 million, the construction of a new ballroom while demolition crews tear down the East Wing of the White House, a century-old space now reduced to rubble to make room for his vanity project. The act is steeped in symbolism, a literal dismantling of a historic wing of government to build a monument to personal power, as Trump does the same to America’s reputation, stability, global standing, and the economy. At the same time, he has demanded that the Justice Department pay him $230 million in damages for what he claims were unlawful investigations into his past crimes. The decision, if approved, would come from senior officials he personally appointed, lawyers whose loyalty is tied to him rather than to the Constitution. Together, these actions reflect a governing philosophy that treats the state as a private enterprise where justice, architecture, and national defense all serve one purpose—the consolidation of his own power. This convergence of private financing, censorship, and unchecked militarism is very familiar and mirrors the path Russia followed after Vladimir Putin came to power. In the early 2000s, the Kremlin drew on its leading oligarchs—including Roman Abramovich, Gennady Timchenko, and Oleg Deripaska—to finance projects that advanced state interests, from rebuilding Russia’s military and state institutions to funding pro-government media and strategic industries. These arrangements were presented as patriotic partnerships designed to restore order and efficiency after the chaos of the 1990s, but in practice they fused private wealth with state power until no clear line remained between business and government. Independent media outlets were absorbed or shuttered, parliament was reduced to a rubber stamp, and the armed forces became a central instrument of regime preservation rather than public defense. Each measure was justified as administrative reform or modernization, yet together they erased the institutional checks that once, briefly, separated the state from the Kremlin. That is the direction America is now moving, one decision after another, each signed decree layered upon the next, each crisis Trump carefully manufactures to justify his expansion of power. A private donor now pays the soldiers, a political gatekeeper decides what the military can tell Congress, a reengineered press corps repeats only what it is permitted to know, and a war begins without public debate or authorization. Each act, taken in isolation, can perhaps be defended as pragmatic or necessary, yet together they reveal a pattern that is impossible to ignore, the rapid transformation of America’s once-democratic system into a state held together not by law or consent but by loyalty, fear, and control. Russia followed this same path over two decades ago, and its history stands as a warning to those who still believe institutions can save themselves. Once power detaches from accountability, it does not return on its own, and once money replaces the law and propaganda replaces truth, the state no longer belongs to its citizens. |
Saturday, October 25, 2025
The Billionaires Behind the Throne
Sunday, August 25, 2024
Weekend Edition: Blinken's 'Empty Words' on Genocide
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As RFK Jr. Backs Trump, Here's the Secretive Billionaire Plutocrat Funding Them Both
MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION BASED ON FACTS & A CANDIDATE'S PERFORMANCE AND FACTS!
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Friday, June 21, 2024
Billionaire Grandson of Gilded Age Plutocrat Gives Trump Super PAC $50 Million
Billionaire businessman Timothy Mellon, the grandson of Gilded Age plutocrat Andrew Mellon, made a $50 million donation to a pro-Donald Trump super PAC last month, a day after the former president was convicted by a New York jury on 34 felony counts.
Mellon had previously donated $25 million to super PACs backing both Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate. The New York Times noted late Thursday that Mellon, a reclusive GOP megadonor who has described safety net programs as "slavery redux," is "now the first donor to give $100 million in disclosed federal contributions in this year's election."
"The grandson of Andrew Mellon peering out from behind a shrubbery to drop $50 million on an effort to defeat the strongest anti-monopolist element in government in decades is poetic," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote in response to Mellon's donation, alluding in part to the Lina Khan-led Federal Trade Commission's bold efforts to fight corporate consolidation.
Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote in his book on monopoly power and American politics that Andrew Mellon used his corporate empire and appointment as U.S. treasury secretary "to fuse government and business to make the world safe for monopolists."
"Unlike other tycoons, he did not specialize in one area. At one point, five Fortune 500 companies owed their lineage directly to Mellon: Alcoa, Gulf Oil, Mellon Bank, Carborundum, and Koppers. He controlled a network of ninety-nine banks. He had interests in coal, steel, chemicals, oil, sleeping cars, railroads, building construction, utilities, magnesium, and airplanes," Stoller wrote. "Mellon even commandeered the use of an entire element of earth—aluminum—through his control of the monopoly aluminum producer Alcoa."
Timothy Mellon's donation to the Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC was the largest single campaign contribution this election cycle and accounted for most of the roughly $70 million that the pro-Trump outfit raised last month.
The Times reported that "within days of the contribution," the super PAC "said in a memo that it would begin reserving $100 million in advertising through Labor Day."
Mellon is one of at least a dozen billionaires supporting Trump's bid for another four years in the White House. The former president has solicited donations from fossil fuel executives and hedge fund investors, promising to deliver regulatory rollbacks and more tax cuts if he defeats President Joe Biden in November.
Trump has also actively courted casino billionaire Miriam Adelson—his biggest 2020 donor and a fervent supporter of Israel—with apparent success: Politico reported last month that Adelson is "planning to play a major role in funding Preserve America, a pro-Trump super PAC founded during the former president's 2020 reelection campaign."
"How much Adelson will donate to the super PAC is not clear, though the person familiar with her plans said the group was expecting to spend more than it did four years ago when Adelson and her late husband, Sheldon, donated $90 million to Preserve America," the outlet noted. "Their funds accounted for about 85% of what the organization raised in total."
Biden's campaign, meanwhile, has received roughly $20 million in donations from billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Washington Post reported Thursday that "the transfer of funds includes a $19 million check to FF PAC, an independent pro-Biden group also known as Future Forward, and a max-out donation of $929,600 to the Biden Victory Fund, an amalgamation of Biden campaign and Democratic Party committees."
News Alert: Billionaire Grandson of Gilded Age Plutocrat Gives Trump Super PAC $50 Million
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Trump's Friday Meltdown: Begging Iran, Ditching Ukraine, and Blaming Everybody But Himself – 7/31/26
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