pelespirit

Trump first announced the secret, legally controversial donation on Thursday amid growing clamor about the potential financial hardship being caused by the ongoing federal shutdown on the 1.3 million active duty military troops.

​​“He doesn’t want publicity,” Trump said on Friday as he headed to Malaysia. “He prefers 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.”

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.

Still, 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.

I saw the large box at costco and I looked it up. The costco video is hilarious as well.

https://www.costco.com/p/-/homedics-premium-steam-sauna/4000383998?

A Virginia couple, Charles and Judith Voorhees, filed an emergency motion in federal court on Thursday, seeking to halt the project, alleging that it violates multiple federal preservation and planning laws.

The Voorhees lawsuit seeking to halt the project argues that Trump bypassed laws meant to protect national landmarks and public transparency.

At stake is whether a sitting president can unilaterally alter one of the country’s most symbolically important buildings, or whether the "People’s House" must remain subject to the same review and accountability standards that govern other federal projects.

Bluesky link to video of woman. Make sure to watch the Wheeling, IL video in the comments:

https://bsky.app/profile/youranoncentral.bsky.social/post/3m3tikewhgk27

A New Yorker dubbed “polka dot dress woman” by the internet has gone viral after footage captured her flipping double birds at a law enforcement Humvee and tussling with agents Tuesday when an ICE sweep triggered protests on Manhattan’s Canal Street.

The raid unfolded late Tuesday when agents began questioning street vendors along the busy stretch of Canal Street. Within minutes, dozens of New Yorkers surrounded the agents, shouting and blocking vehicles as tensions flared.

Video from the scene showed agents shoving protesters to the ground and threatening them with stun guns and pepper spray.

The right side was translated

A new regulation will allow U.S. border authorities to require non-citizens to be photographed at airports, seaports, land crossings and any other point of departure, expanding on an earlier pilot program.

Under the regulation, set to take effect on December 26, U.S. authorities could require the submission of other biometrics, such as fingerprints or DNA, it said. It also allows border authorities to use facial recognition for children under age 14 and elderly people over age 79, groups that are currently exempted.

The tighter border rules reflect a broader effort by U.S. President Donald Trump to crack down on illegal immigration. While the Republican president has surged resources to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, he has also taken steps to reduce the number of people overstaying their visas.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to U.S. Southern Command to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a social media post.

The USS Ford is currently deployed to the Mediterranean Sea along with three destroyers. It would likely take several days for the ships to make the journey to South America.

Deploying an aircraft carrier is a major escalation of military power in a region that has already seen an unusually large U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela.

Millions of college students could face significant new obstacles paying for graduate school after federal loan limits were signed into law this summer as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Starting July 1, 2026, Grad PLUS loans will be eliminated. Those loans previously allowed graduate students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance.

New borrowers will be limited to $200,000 for professional degrees like law and medicine. Students in other graduate programs can borrow up to $100,000.

When Texas chose a company to roll out the state’s $1 billion private school voucher program, it passed over more established vendors in favor of a four-year-old tech startup that said it could do it for almost half the cost.

Now, Odyssey must execute on its promises to meet an aggressive timeline while avoiding missteps that have dogged other program launches.

The New York-based company has rapidly expanded in recent years, launching programs in eight states that subsidize students’ private education costs with taxpayer dollars.

In Texas, the startup is tasked with advertising the program, running the lottery to choose the students who participate and setting up the online marketplace where families can spend their state funds on private school tuition, tutors, computers and other approved items.

The Trump administration on Thursday finalized plans to open the coastal plain of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to potential oil and gas drilling, renewing a long-simmering debate over whether to drill in one of the nation's environmental jewels.

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the decision Thursday that paves the way for future lease sales within the refuge's 1.5 million-acre ( 631,309 hectare) coastal plain, an area that's considered sacred by the Indigenous Gwich'in. The plan fulfills pledges made by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to reopen this portion of the refuge to possible development. Trump's bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, passed during the summer, called for at least four lease sales within the refuge over a 10-year period.

Donald Trump is finishing what the British started. Despite promises that the White House would be unaffected by the addition of a $230 million ballroom, the historic East Wing has in fact been demolished. The images of the site are so jarring that the Treasury Department has reportedly ordered its employees to stop taking photos of it.

If the destruction of the East Wing is a shock, the money that’s paying for it might be even more of a scandal. The White House, eager to assure Americans that their tax dollars have not been diverted for a vanity project, has emphasized that the ballroom is being financed by individuals and major corporations. Instead of going through a process to obtain and disburse federal funds, Trump simply asked the companies his administration is supposed to be regulating to write checks.

The list of donors released by the White House includes the usual deep-pocketed Republicans, such as casino magnate Miriam Adelson and private-equity mogul Stephen Schwarzman, but also a host of companies whose leaders have huge incentives to maintain good relations with an often vindictive head of state. They include telecom giants and the railroad giant Union-Pacific—which needs the Trump administration’s sign-off on a proposed $85 billion merger with Norfolk Southern. (Union-Pacific did not respond to a request for comment.) And then there’s the tech companies—Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.

The Hill lists them: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5569197-major-companies-fund-whitehouse/