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Who Is Trump’s ‘Friend’ Who Is Forking Over $130M To Pay Military Members?

‘The most transparent administration ever,” they said. Yes, we want our military members paid, but this screams of something nefarious. It always does with Donald J. Trump. For some reason, Erik Prince’s name sprang to mind when reading about this. CNN reports: The Trump administration plans to funnel a $130 million donation from an anonymous ally of President Donald Trump toward paying military service members during the government shutdown, the Defense Department confirmed on Friday. “The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of Service members’ salaries and benefits,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to CNN, adding that the money was accepted under the department’s “general gift acceptance authority.” The move marks a striking departure from government procedure for funding the military, which traditionally relies on public funds appropriated by Congress. And it raised immediate questions about the donor’s identity and motivations for cutting the nine-figure check to the government. The $130 million donation is unlikely to make any meaningful impact toward covering salaries of the roughly 1. 3 million active duty military troops, netting out to about $100 per service member. read more.

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When Tomahawks become boomerangs

Zelensky’s latest Washington humiliation is about more than yet another Trump mood swing. Leave it to Mr. Unpredictable, aka Donald Trump, President of the United States, to pack a policy U-turn, a harsh unfriending, and some fuzzy ambiguity into just a few days. As things stand now, Trump has said “no” to American Tomahawk cruise missiles for Kiev – maybe not yet forever, as his vice president J.D. Vance has stressed – but, clearly, for the foreseeable future, whatever that may mean with Trump. In the process, he has also made it clear – painfully clear – that Kiev’s Vladimir Zelensky is back in the doghouse. Seemingly in favor for a while – after donning a suite like a good boy and flattering Trump at every opportunity and without inhibitions – the Ukrainian leader-without-elections is out in the cold again: No welcome at the airport; a Friday-afternoon meeting demonstratively scheduled to get a nuisance visitor out of the way before the weekend; and, we hear, some rough talk,…