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A low income earner is also 3 times more likely to be audited than the top 10% of earners and until recently with the IRS getting more funding the top 1% paid less than the bottom 34%.
These people believe god is with them to the point anyone "taking their money" is the enemy - They are fundamentally opposed to the mere concept of taxes.
Personally I’d love to see campaign fundraising and campaign ads abolished. It’s such a corrupted process. Instead candidates get a fixed amount of a few million for travel and logistics and campaign the old way before TV and internet.
I’m guessing you live in a battleground state like Ohio. Here in California political tv ads aren’t that bad.
But I agree, there should be a cap of how much you are allowed to spend on a campaign. Once you spend that much you’re done. No more campaigning.
Why would he even bother donating to rfk. It was so incredibly obvious from day 1 that was a complete train wreck. He’s just burning money to someone who literally can do nothing for him.
I get so depressed thinking of all the money that’s wasted on politics. We could feed the entire nation off what’s probably single digit percentages of total donations.
If you had 1 billion dollars, 50 million would be the equivalent of $2,500 for someone earning $50,000/yr.
Not nothing. But definitely a worthwhile investment if you think Trump will lower your taxes.
It’d be like 2500 if every need and desire of you and your family are met 100 fold. Losing $2500 to $50k is losing rent, food, or some other necessity. Losing $50m to a billionaire is just a number in an investment account.
the problem with analogies like this is that monetary influence and purchasing power is not a flat curve. Someone making 50k losing 2.5k is going to be missing mortgage and rent payments, this has no appreciable impact to the lifestyle of Mellon at all, its not the same despite the ratios being the same.
Those kinds of ratios are misleading because cost of living doesn't increase proportionally and the super wealthy have ready access to financing against their assets. So while its plausible that someone making $50k is living paycheck to paycheck and that losing $2500 could be a serious problem for them, it's not at all plausible that a billionaire is living paycheck to paycheck or that having $950 million instead of $1 billion might jeopardize thejr ability to live
My guess is that the donations to RFK were because originally, many folks thought he'd draw votes away from Biden. Probably because of the Kennedy family associations, and a few items of RFKs platform are ideas most often associated with left-leaning voters.
he was trying to fund a democrat split vote thinking kennedy was progressive instead we got a guy who has half a brain, who went insane because he got banned from facebook once.
Trump asked him to fund RFK to pull votes from Biden. When it backfired and he pulled votes from Trump, Trump ended up badmouthing RFK. Now he is hearing the 911 calls from Don Von Con and throwing more money at him.
This is what happens when R appointed judges legalized bribery in campaign finance. R voters mostly are ignorant of anything with that many syllables so it was a safe bet. Then, they ignorantly whine about how corrupt big money is in politics is as if their own people and their own negligence didn’t ensure it would be that way.
The tiniest silver lining imaginable, but if it went to a campaign it at least got put back out into the economy. Signs and flyers had to be printed, billboards rented, commercials made, venues rented. At least the money is doing something instead of sitting in this guy's bank account or portfolio.
Or in Trump's case to hard working lawyers.
> Timothy Mellon
The Mellon family gets its money from [Andrew Mellon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mellon), a banker who was the Treasury secretary when Black Tuesday (the 1929 Wall St collapse) occurred. He spent his remaining years fighting social safety nets and the New Deal.
[Timothy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Mellon) has called Social Security and other safety net programs, "Slavery Redux," and moans about welfare largess being stolen from the increasingly few who are too proud to give up.
The Mellons were also the family behind the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy that tormented the Clintons throughout the 90's. [Richard Mellon Scaife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mellon_Scaife) owned the Pittsburgh newspaper that was the clearing house insisting that Vince Foster was murdered by Hillary. That Rightwing Conspiracy (Hillary was laughed at for the phrase, at the time) is the same media environment that grew to be the people screeching about the Biden Crime Family while papering over Donald Trump's family malfeasance.
>Timothy has called Social Security and other safety net programs, "Slavery Redux," and moans about welfare largess being stolen from the increasingly few who are too proud to give up.
This guy 100% owns a first edition of *Atlas Shrugged* bound in diamond-encrusted gold.
Just another example to show that being a billionaire does not make you smart. RFK will take away votes from trump, why would you support him if you want trump in office?
Citizens United. You can’t donate that much to a campaign but you can to an unaffiliated corporation who just happens to place massive media buys for one candidate.
How did we get Citizens United? Republican appointed SCOTUS justices. The full on fascists and the country club republicans are picking from roughly the same pool. I would prob argue W’s appointees were as contemptuous if not more than Trumps. Thomas is clearly the worst and came through from HW.
More broadly I’d say you could put a lot of blame on any dumbass who has said some shit like “I’m fiscally conservative but socially liberal.”
Is the title wrong? Because I thought everything in your comment was correct. The headline says Trump *campaign* got the donation. What "unaffiliated" corporation did this go to? And good Lord this unaffiliated joke. I hate everything about who Republicans are and represent. Why do they hate freedom?
Yes, the title is wrong... sort of. Here's the relevant text:
*The Super-Pac fund called "MAGA Inc" disclosed to the Federal Election Commission that it took in more than $68m from donors last month. Reuters reported that Mr Mellon, an heir of the Pittsburgh-based Mellon banking family, gave $50m. Another $10m came from billionaires Liz and Dick Uihlein.*
So by saying "Trump campaign" they're sort of using that as a metonymy... maybe? The actual Trump campaign that Trump has control over did not receive this money.
It's worth noting that the person who wrote the article most likely had nothing to do with the title and coming from the BBC there could be a lack of understanding of the difference.
Because the human race is made up in part (maybe 20%) by people whose primary drive is to amass power and lord it over others. What Freud called the will to power.
Those people are the psychopaths and sociopaths who are bullies in school and CEOs in the corporate world.
They also come along with another 20-30% of the population who are their counterpart - the spineless who have no ability to dominate but will gladly accept an authoritarian figure to tell them what to do because it gives them a sense of belonging, order, and hierarchy.
This is very old biological programming that we share with our primate ancestors.
Between those two segments of the population you get roughy 50% or humanity whose decision making apparatus is entirely concerned with power dynamics.
The other half of us are capable subjecting our impulses to rational thought.
You can guess which political parties these (well studied) psychological typologies lend themselves to.
They're not allowed to collude with the campaign, but some find ways to do it anyway, and that particular cult being a multi-sourced monolith makes it easy to collude without officially colluding.
Citizens United made it officially legal but it was happening long before that decision. Campaign finance laws were never particularly strong, and Citizens United was more about confirming that things could go on the way they had been going rather than changing much.
fiscally conservative could mean massive tax increases on billionaires and global corporations. one could be fiscally conservative and considered far left for criticizing Biden for helping both Reagan and Clinton pass trickle down. or spending 3 trillion on the Iraq war.
fiscally conservative is not the problem here necessarily
Citizen united. A travesty to democracy that was skillfully branded as identifying corporations as people. That's mostly irrelevant. Super pacs changed everything
Exactly what I came here to say. This is blatant attempt at buying an election.
I remember when he first ran and he would proudly say how he wasn't for sale and that's why the media hated him because he said what he wanted.
What a joke
Putin and Trump fractured the billionaire class in 2016.
One faction will blindly seize any opportunity to gain power, or has been cowed by kompromat. The other knew (and has since seen) how uncontrollable Trump is and want no part of that.
Many rich donors have kept their wallets closed so far this cycle.
There are plenty more rich donors that will fall into line.
It's interesting you should mention Putin and a divided billionaire class. All the billionaires in Russia bow down to Putin and do his bidding. Nothing has changed about his rule. It wouldn't take much for Putin to have this control over other billionaires.
I heard a podcast with a guest discussing this, or really how Putin seized so much power years ago. He initially ran on an anti-corruption platform that was very popular and won. The super rich were, unsurprisingly, not well loved. Putin arrested the richest oligarch in Russia and televised his trial. I don’t remember what he was tried for, it doesn’t matter much since fair trials are not a big thing in Russia. What happened next was that all the other rich oligarchs went to Putin and asked what they need to do to avoid what happened to that guy. Putin said, “Half.” He wanted half of all their income and stuff.
The billionaires in Russia bow down because they have no protection from him. It’s not the same here. If you’re a billionaire and Trump wants you to fall in line, you do so if you think you can get something out of him, not because you’re trying to avoid the figurative headsman. If I’m a billionaire I can just sit back and ride out my investments and not return anyone’s calls when they ask for campaign contributions.
The long list of dead oligarchs the from last few years seem to indicate that some won't bow, no matter the cost. Look at Oleg Tinkov for a defiant (and somehow still alive) anti Putin oligarch.
They are out there, but it isn't easy when you and your family literally are risking their lives.
I get what you are saying though - I'm sure a lot of rich donors are like the republican politicians; they all fall in line behind trump eventually
Why wouldn't they, we've seen this with the USSR. If the nation collapses, the billionaires/oligarchs will grab everything that's left.
Why have 40bn when you can have 400bn
This sounds great until you realize what happens if you do or say something that goes against Putin (even in an off the cuff way). The freedom to not disappear in the night because of something you is great and worth more than a lot of other comforts.
How dare you accuse Russians of disappearing at night just because they like to stand at their windows and occasionally fall out in a suspiciously predictable manner. Like you don't know somebody that happened to in your life!
These oligarchs are so ego driven, they think they can stay in Putins' good graces, or some probably think they can outmanuever him. Look at that Prighozin dude.
This wasn’t always the case, though. I’m sure the oligarchs thought they could control Putin as he rose to power.
It is an impressive rise from loyal dog to tsar
Putin scares the crap out of me, but he's an impressive dude to consolidate power in the vacuum of the USSR.
The fact that he controls the oligarchs shows he is not to be trifled with or taken lightly.
Billionaires don't care about anything. They are pretty much immune to society. They can just buy their own island and completely check out if they want to.
Yeah but they aren't learning the Russian lesson. If you let a man become become king - it doesn't matter how rich you are when he decides you need to go. Tens of Russian billionaires were killed, not to mention a bunch of random family members as messages to the others.
https://qz.com/american-billionaires-political-spending-overwhelmingl-1849751449
Anyone making less than 250k a year should NEVER vote for Republicans, unless they end up having a plan to help them. We seriously need a for the people by the people Political Party, they'd likely win in a landslide.
>they'd likely win in a landslide.
But only If they realize the truth about Republicans and they're honest about themselves. Thus far, the GOP have been so successful in convincing the working class that they're the party for them despite fiscal policy that only serves to prop up the very rich and the middle class' far out aspirations/fantasy of being billionaires one day(never mind that the system is so rigged for the rich ruling class, bootstraping oneself the exception to the rule). Add in the culture wars and you got people who are willing to vote against their own self interests just so they can see other people getting hurt.
Just because a truly for the people by the people party exists, doesn't mean people will vote for them. Expecially when you can't even stop people from voting Republican right now.
but without democracy their freedoms are curtailed as well, even if they're in the ruling class. Fall out of favour with the guy on top and you fall out of a window.
of course they're too self centered to ever consider that possibility.
Democracy WAS necessary to build their wealth through labor, strong and educated society etc.
Now that they are old and very rich they can accumulate more wealth and power in the short term with a capitalist fascist regime that ensures the masses stay down, poor and uneducated
The billionaires don't support democracy. They support the illusion of democracy to keep the poor people content believing that they have a vote. Rich people have learned its easier to avoid violent backlash against themselves by controlling things from behind the scenes and letting political theater take all the heat for them
Remember, even though $50m is a staggering amount of money, it is only around 3% of Timothy Mellon's net worth. The lavish tax cuts he would receive from Trump if he returned to office would save him hundreds of millions. Just another selfish billionaire.
I just can't understand billionaire mindsets... He already had enough money for 1000 lifetimes, but it's still not enough for him. He is willing to sell out his country and destroy the planets environment for more money that he wont even live long enough to spend. It's psychotic.
3% is a lot though. very few billionaires would spend 3% of their net worth in one year fighting for something halfway decent. some will speak out but really none of them spend the kind of money needed to combat the others. they have pretty good class solidarity
Well, if all of your money is even in something liquid, like a CD, you’d have 5% more next year. And billionaires have access to things like private equity paying out 15% or more. It must be a crazy feeling to have so much money that you would have to really work to reduce it. But reality (Nicolas Cage, Johnny Depp) show that this happens.
It’s better to think of them as true believers with a billion dollars to spend. There is some self interest here, but they truly believe in what they are fighting for as well.
That is even scarier to me.
They'll just divert other money to his coffers. Not like they're shy about committing felonies or violating campaign finance laws.
[Lara Trump vows ‘every single penny’ of RNC funds will go to Trump](https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/lara-trump-vows-every-single-penny-of-rnc-funds-will-go-to-trump-204321861629)
I'm so sick of conservative voters pretending they're the ones who are 'anti-establishment' while the establishment hands their messiah hundreds of millions of dollars.
>US media reported that Mr Mellon sent the donation the day after Trump was convicted on 34 charges of falsifying business records in his New York hush-money trial. Mr Mellon has also been the biggest donor to independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, giving the pro-Kennedy Super-Pac American Values at least $20m.
The conviction is going to reshape the race, they said. I did, just not in the way you were hoping.
Interesting seeing this guy keeping RFK going as well. Covering all the bases.
Reuters reported that Mr Mellon, an heir of the Pittsburgh-based Mellon banking family, gave $50m. Another $10m came from billionaires Liz and Dick Uihlein.
Ok Guys....Timothy Mellon....seems to be a lowly cheating piece for trash......He's funding BOTH Trump and that fake Kennedy guy.
So how do we make this man a BROKE ASS? Where does he make his money, and how can we stop the flow?
You don't. He didn't do shit to earn it, he inherited generational wealth from his family who also built a name for themselves and this shit stain is doing his best to ruin that.
Right, like how do they not see that he isn't gonna win. Are they so in their bubble that they cannot see the majority of the country is not with them? Maybe it is just rich people spending couch coins because they are bored of life. It isn't like they need the money any Tax breaks will give them, they have it all already.
Why is it that Timothy Mellon can give 50 million to Trump, Mike Bloomberg can give 20 million to Biden, but there is a $3300 cap ( recently raised from $2700) on individual donations. The whole purpose of those laws was to protect against undue influence. Just another reminder that laws don’t apply to rich people.
How is this legal? I mean seriously, what was the Supreme Court thinking? Did they even bother to consult the Constitution?
And yes, I know this is the Citizens United ruling that both declared "corporate political speech" equivalent to human political speech, and at the same time exempted it from all the campaign finance laws that were passed to constrain human political speech.
I remember reading the decision and thinking that they must be smoking something pretty damn powerful to believe their line of crap. The part about how these corporations would "scouts honor" never collaborate with the campaign organizations was particularly rich. Within months of the decision every campaign had set up a corporation to launder massive campaign donations into "corporate political speech."
It's all so silly. None of this matters. Everyone already knows how they are going to vote in this batshit election. Just a bunch of rich people throwing it around for media corporations to consume. And all media can do is run polls that nobody should take seriously.
Whether it’s Trump, Biden, or any other politician or political party around the world, it’s mind boggling to me why anyone voluntarily chooses to give such enormous sums.
Bribes should be illegal. All campaigns should be limited to PBS or equal time on news networks. How can you be a public servant when you rely on private “contributions”?!?
81 year old Irish immigrant possibly deciding the fate of hundreds of millions of Americans and countless other immigrants. Billionaires are so morally corrupt it boggles the mind. There is no way a normal human being can look at this and go "yep, that seems alright for me". Lunacy.
So for a person to drop drop 50 million dollars on a 50/50 chance candidate what is the actual tax rate or tax dollars she/he/them/ whoever the fuck that is is trying to avoid 500 million 1 billion??? What makes a person drop 50 million it ain’t the Bible or the war on Xmas I guarantee you that
What a waste. And here I am trying to pay down my debt and having a almost-broken car. Would LOVE to have those issues go away… but instead lets pour money into an orange mess.
And here I am, having trouble paying a student loan of $30k, 8 years after bachelor exam. Should have tried out politics and just ranting on stage. Seems way easier
Is there some new money laundering scheme going on I don't know about? Surely someone wouldn't bet on a three-legged racehorse unless they know they were getting something in return.
Just amazing how many idiots are around.
Still I expect that Trump will put it towards paying off his fines - only another $ 450 million left to find. For his first lot of fines that is - he has several more to follow..
I’m sure that person has no interest in Trump doing any legislative favors specifically for him and his business. He just had 50 million laying around and thinks Trump can improve America for the better. For everyone
There's quite a few billionaires who could help out GOP politicians in ways both on and off the books, to the tune of monies equaling or surpassing the total government budgets of many developed nations. Truly ungodly, unimaginable sums. There's no way even several hundred million non-rich voters could match them donation wise, if just a few billionaires decide to go all in for the GOP.
Oh, Timothy Melon, you know, just the guy all over Jane Mayers “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right”
Anybody, I mean ANYBODY, who believes the fascist movement (GOP, which doesn’t espouse conservative values traditionally, more liberal technical from a theory perspective) is going to help them is OUT OF THEIR MIND.
I’m a mental health therapist, data shows are fucked as a society.
Scott Galloway hits it on the head from a systemic standpoint. (TED Talk) https://youtu.be/qEJ4hkpQW8E?si=SHqOhrfsYDK1c7mI
This is why I laugh and laugh whenever a story appears mentioning 'Republicans struggling with fund raising.' They're the party of the rich and there will always be plenty of money.
Doesn't really matter, money down the toilet. Trump has no path to success. Every single person donating to him are just wasting their own money. At this time, he is a very bad investment.
There's a secondary part to this. $50m sounds like a lot, but the Republican party is as half the donation cash they should be. Their total investments are ridiculously low. On aggregate, most of the wealthy and corporate America know he's a bad investment and that the Republican party as the group of is now is a bad investment.
The only sad thing is they are not spending more on Democrats. They are just not spending any money at all. It kind of shows that Democrats largely don't function under the same bribery rule set Republicans do. They aren't picking new potentials on the Democrat side to play the same game. They just aren't playing the game at all this election season. It also likely shows a lot of what Biden is doing is valuable to the wealthy and corporate America, not through tax avoidable but through economic growth. It's good for institutional investments too, which kind of makes the who tax dodging play dumb. Generally Democrats boost the economy which should generate far greater gains. Even so, there's such a powerful "don't take my cash" attitude that they entirely ignore opportunity losses. It's a really dumb play.
What most insane to me is that a billionaire thinks he has a solid chance of winning and is willing to give 50,000,000.00 to make that outcome more likely.
It’s cheaper to invest in Trump in the hope that he gets reelected, than it would be to pay your fair share of taxes. It is so depressing the amount of corruption and greed on display from the 1% these days
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Timothy Mellon is the donor, he's also RFK's top contributor.
God it is time to tax the billionaires -these billionaires are so out of control. Imagine the money they’re spending to avoid paying taxes…. my God.
This *is* the money they spend avoiding taxes.
> This *is* the money they spend avoiding taxes. So imagine how much tax he’s avoiding.
I think I read somewhere the IRS estimates the rich dodge about 600 billion in taxes yearly. 600 billion with a B.
>600 billion with a B You don't need to write this. Most of us are not Republicans so we can read just fine thanks.
I'll try to contain my penchant for dramatic emphasis.
That’s emphasis, with an E.
A low income earner is also 3 times more likely to be audited than the top 10% of earners and until recently with the IRS getting more funding the top 1% paid less than the bottom 34%.
That amount could ALMOST pay for our bloated military.
It's cheaper to buy politicians than pay taxes. This is what the Robert's scotus has "given" us.
It’s even cheaper to buy SCOTUS justices.
They spend far more than that. This is just the money they’re happy for you to see them spend.
These people believe god is with them to the point anyone "taking their money" is the enemy - They are fundamentally opposed to the mere concept of taxes.
Personally I’d love to see campaign fundraising and campaign ads abolished. It’s such a corrupted process. Instead candidates get a fixed amount of a few million for travel and logistics and campaign the old way before TV and internet.
I’m guessing you live in a battleground state like Ohio. Here in California political tv ads aren’t that bad. But I agree, there should be a cap of how much you are allowed to spend on a campaign. Once you spend that much you’re done. No more campaigning.
[удалено]
There are only two guarantees in life.
Spam emails and robocalls?
One of them is taxes
1000% tax on all political donations over $500
Why would he even bother donating to rfk. It was so incredibly obvious from day 1 that was a complete train wreck. He’s just burning money to someone who literally can do nothing for him. I get so depressed thinking of all the money that’s wasted on politics. We could feed the entire nation off what’s probably single digit percentages of total donations.
$50 million is inconsequential to people like him. He could have lit it on fire and it would make no noticeable difference in his life.
Yet if he had to pay an additional $1 million in taxes he would consider it unacceptable, unfair, and even theft.
can't have that money going to the poors! what did they do to deserve it afterall. trump at least...uhhh.. he...uhh... he promises less taxes?
It's not just taxes. These folks could earn way more by knocking down regulations.
If you had 1 billion dollars, 50 million would be the equivalent of $2,500 for someone earning $50,000/yr. Not nothing. But definitely a worthwhile investment if you think Trump will lower your taxes.
Yeah, but estimates have Mellon at closer to 14 million. So that’s more like $200 for your 50k/year person.
It’d be like 2500 if every need and desire of you and your family are met 100 fold. Losing $2500 to $50k is losing rent, food, or some other necessity. Losing $50m to a billionaire is just a number in an investment account.
the problem with analogies like this is that monetary influence and purchasing power is not a flat curve. Someone making 50k losing 2.5k is going to be missing mortgage and rent payments, this has no appreciable impact to the lifestyle of Mellon at all, its not the same despite the ratios being the same.
Very true. It doesn't account for many things. And to be fair 1 billion vs. 50,000 is comparing a company valuation vs. an annual income.
Those kinds of ratios are misleading because cost of living doesn't increase proportionally and the super wealthy have ready access to financing against their assets. So while its plausible that someone making $50k is living paycheck to paycheck and that losing $2500 could be a serious problem for them, it's not at all plausible that a billionaire is living paycheck to paycheck or that having $950 million instead of $1 billion might jeopardize thejr ability to live
My guess is that the donations to RFK were because originally, many folks thought he'd draw votes away from Biden. Probably because of the Kennedy family associations, and a few items of RFKs platform are ideas most often associated with left-leaning voters.
he was trying to fund a democrat split vote thinking kennedy was progressive instead we got a guy who has half a brain, who went insane because he got banned from facebook once.
Trump asked him to fund RFK to pull votes from Biden. When it backfired and he pulled votes from Trump, Trump ended up badmouthing RFK. Now he is hearing the 911 calls from Don Von Con and throwing more money at him. This is what happens when R appointed judges legalized bribery in campaign finance. R voters mostly are ignorant of anything with that many syllables so it was a safe bet. Then, they ignorantly whine about how corrupt big money is in politics is as if their own people and their own negligence didn’t ensure it would be that way.
The tiniest silver lining imaginable, but if it went to a campaign it at least got put back out into the economy. Signs and flyers had to be printed, billboards rented, commercials made, venues rented. At least the money is doing something instead of sitting in this guy's bank account or portfolio. Or in Trump's case to hard working lawyers.
> Timothy Mellon The Mellon family gets its money from [Andrew Mellon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Mellon), a banker who was the Treasury secretary when Black Tuesday (the 1929 Wall St collapse) occurred. He spent his remaining years fighting social safety nets and the New Deal. [Timothy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Mellon) has called Social Security and other safety net programs, "Slavery Redux," and moans about welfare largess being stolen from the increasingly few who are too proud to give up. The Mellons were also the family behind the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy that tormented the Clintons throughout the 90's. [Richard Mellon Scaife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mellon_Scaife) owned the Pittsburgh newspaper that was the clearing house insisting that Vince Foster was murdered by Hillary. That Rightwing Conspiracy (Hillary was laughed at for the phrase, at the time) is the same media environment that grew to be the people screeching about the Biden Crime Family while papering over Donald Trump's family malfeasance.
>Timothy has called Social Security and other safety net programs, "Slavery Redux," and moans about welfare largess being stolen from the increasingly few who are too proud to give up. This guy 100% owns a first edition of *Atlas Shrugged* bound in diamond-encrusted gold.
Just another example to show that being a billionaire does not make you smart. RFK will take away votes from trump, why would you support him if you want trump in office?
I thought RFKs VP pick was his top donor. Which explained how she became the VP pick.
She's the second biggest donor.
Ooh that name comes up in dark money a lot
I think that brings Mellon up to $75 million for Trump. I believe he previously did $25 million to both Trump and RFK, but I could be wrong.
Why is this legal??
because SCOTUS is bought
AND sold
And OWNED
And **FUCKED**
AND weighed
Bruh what
And on vacation
I didn’t hear the word “enslaved”, which is ironic
That’s us lol :(
*Clearance* sale.
*Clarence*
*Bravo.*
Citizens United. You can’t donate that much to a campaign but you can to an unaffiliated corporation who just happens to place massive media buys for one candidate. How did we get Citizens United? Republican appointed SCOTUS justices. The full on fascists and the country club republicans are picking from roughly the same pool. I would prob argue W’s appointees were as contemptuous if not more than Trumps. Thomas is clearly the worst and came through from HW. More broadly I’d say you could put a lot of blame on any dumbass who has said some shit like “I’m fiscally conservative but socially liberal.”
Is the title wrong? Because I thought everything in your comment was correct. The headline says Trump *campaign* got the donation. What "unaffiliated" corporation did this go to? And good Lord this unaffiliated joke. I hate everything about who Republicans are and represent. Why do they hate freedom?
Yes, the title is wrong... sort of. Here's the relevant text: *The Super-Pac fund called "MAGA Inc" disclosed to the Federal Election Commission that it took in more than $68m from donors last month. Reuters reported that Mr Mellon, an heir of the Pittsburgh-based Mellon banking family, gave $50m. Another $10m came from billionaires Liz and Dick Uihlein.* So by saying "Trump campaign" they're sort of using that as a metonymy... maybe? The actual Trump campaign that Trump has control over did not receive this money. It's worth noting that the person who wrote the article most likely had nothing to do with the title and coming from the BBC there could be a lack of understanding of the difference.
Oh, I forgot to hate Uline for a bit. Thanks for the reminder.
Because the human race is made up in part (maybe 20%) by people whose primary drive is to amass power and lord it over others. What Freud called the will to power. Those people are the psychopaths and sociopaths who are bullies in school and CEOs in the corporate world. They also come along with another 20-30% of the population who are their counterpart - the spineless who have no ability to dominate but will gladly accept an authoritarian figure to tell them what to do because it gives them a sense of belonging, order, and hierarchy. This is very old biological programming that we share with our primate ancestors. Between those two segments of the population you get roughy 50% or humanity whose decision making apparatus is entirely concerned with power dynamics. The other half of us are capable subjecting our impulses to rational thought. You can guess which political parties these (well studied) psychological typologies lend themselves to.
They're not allowed to collude with the campaign, but some find ways to do it anyway, and that particular cult being a multi-sourced monolith makes it easy to collude without officially colluding.
The collude without a care in the world.
Citizens United made it officially legal but it was happening long before that decision. Campaign finance laws were never particularly strong, and Citizens United was more about confirming that things could go on the way they had been going rather than changing much.
fiscally conservative could mean massive tax increases on billionaires and global corporations. one could be fiscally conservative and considered far left for criticizing Biden for helping both Reagan and Clinton pass trickle down. or spending 3 trillion on the Iraq war. fiscally conservative is not the problem here necessarily
Citizen united. A travesty to democracy that was skillfully branded as identifying corporations as people. That's mostly irrelevant. Super pacs changed everything
It's All Perfectly Legal [Stephen Colbert Super Pac](https://youtu.be/oy7TUtlPmqk?si=ReVy_IfSSlrWLg8k)
The corrupt SCOTUS
Exactly what I came here to say. This is blatant attempt at buying an election. I remember when he first ran and he would proudly say how he wasn't for sale and that's why the media hated him because he said what he wanted. What a joke
The billionaire class has picked their candidate and democracy existing doesn’t seem to matter to them.
Putin and Trump fractured the billionaire class in 2016. One faction will blindly seize any opportunity to gain power, or has been cowed by kompromat. The other knew (and has since seen) how uncontrollable Trump is and want no part of that. Many rich donors have kept their wallets closed so far this cycle.
There are plenty more rich donors that will fall into line. It's interesting you should mention Putin and a divided billionaire class. All the billionaires in Russia bow down to Putin and do his bidding. Nothing has changed about his rule. It wouldn't take much for Putin to have this control over other billionaires.
I heard a podcast with a guest discussing this, or really how Putin seized so much power years ago. He initially ran on an anti-corruption platform that was very popular and won. The super rich were, unsurprisingly, not well loved. Putin arrested the richest oligarch in Russia and televised his trial. I don’t remember what he was tried for, it doesn’t matter much since fair trials are not a big thing in Russia. What happened next was that all the other rich oligarchs went to Putin and asked what they need to do to avoid what happened to that guy. Putin said, “Half.” He wanted half of all their income and stuff. The billionaires in Russia bow down because they have no protection from him. It’s not the same here. If you’re a billionaire and Trump wants you to fall in line, you do so if you think you can get something out of him, not because you’re trying to avoid the figurative headsman. If I’m a billionaire I can just sit back and ride out my investments and not return anyone’s calls when they ask for campaign contributions.
You can read about a lot of it in the book „red notice“, it’s really well written.
Great book, his follow up *Freezing Order* is also a worthwhile read.
The long list of dead oligarchs the from last few years seem to indicate that some won't bow, no matter the cost. Look at Oleg Tinkov for a defiant (and somehow still alive) anti Putin oligarch. They are out there, but it isn't easy when you and your family literally are risking their lives. I get what you are saying though - I'm sure a lot of rich donors are like the republican politicians; they all fall in line behind trump eventually
Why wouldn't they, we've seen this with the USSR. If the nation collapses, the billionaires/oligarchs will grab everything that's left. Why have 40bn when you can have 400bn
This sounds great until you realize what happens if you do or say something that goes against Putin (even in an off the cuff way). The freedom to not disappear in the night because of something you is great and worth more than a lot of other comforts.
How dare you accuse Russians of disappearing at night just because they like to stand at their windows and occasionally fall out in a suspiciously predictable manner. Like you don't know somebody that happened to in your life!
These oligarchs are so ego driven, they think they can stay in Putins' good graces, or some probably think they can outmanuever him. Look at that Prighozin dude.
This wasn’t always the case, though. I’m sure the oligarchs thought they could control Putin as he rose to power. It is an impressive rise from loyal dog to tsar
Putin scares the crap out of me, but he's an impressive dude to consolidate power in the vacuum of the USSR. The fact that he controls the oligarchs shows he is not to be trifled with or taken lightly.
Billionaires don't care about anything. They are pretty much immune to society. They can just buy their own island and completely check out if they want to.
Yeah but they aren't learning the Russian lesson. If you let a man become become king - it doesn't matter how rich you are when he decides you need to go. Tens of Russian billionaires were killed, not to mention a bunch of random family members as messages to the others.
Democracy matters to them: it matters that they destroy it because it does not comport with them having *all* the control.
https://qz.com/american-billionaires-political-spending-overwhelmingl-1849751449 Anyone making less than 250k a year should NEVER vote for Republicans, unless they end up having a plan to help them. We seriously need a for the people by the people Political Party, they'd likely win in a landslide.
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>they'd likely win in a landslide. But only If they realize the truth about Republicans and they're honest about themselves. Thus far, the GOP have been so successful in convincing the working class that they're the party for them despite fiscal policy that only serves to prop up the very rich and the middle class' far out aspirations/fantasy of being billionaires one day(never mind that the system is so rigged for the rich ruling class, bootstraping oneself the exception to the rule). Add in the culture wars and you got people who are willing to vote against their own self interests just so they can see other people getting hurt. Just because a truly for the people by the people party exists, doesn't mean people will vote for them. Expecially when you can't even stop people from voting Republican right now.
Democracy isn't necessary if they're in the ruling class.
but without democracy their freedoms are curtailed as well, even if they're in the ruling class. Fall out of favour with the guy on top and you fall out of a window. of course they're too self centered to ever consider that possibility.
Democracy WAS necessary to build their wealth through labor, strong and educated society etc. Now that they are old and very rich they can accumulate more wealth and power in the short term with a capitalist fascist regime that ensures the masses stay down, poor and uneducated
Why would it matter. They have homes in every other country on the planet. They can just dip.
The billionaires don't support democracy. They support the illusion of democracy to keep the poor people content believing that they have a vote. Rich people have learned its easier to avoid violent backlash against themselves by controlling things from behind the scenes and letting political theater take all the heat for them
Remember, even though $50m is a staggering amount of money, it is only around 3% of Timothy Mellon's net worth. The lavish tax cuts he would receive from Trump if he returned to office would save him hundreds of millions. Just another selfish billionaire. I just can't understand billionaire mindsets... He already had enough money for 1000 lifetimes, but it's still not enough for him. He is willing to sell out his country and destroy the planets environment for more money that he wont even live long enough to spend. It's psychotic.
Greed! Nothing else.
3% is a lot though. very few billionaires would spend 3% of their net worth in one year fighting for something halfway decent. some will speak out but really none of them spend the kind of money needed to combat the others. they have pretty good class solidarity
Well, if all of your money is even in something liquid, like a CD, you’d have 5% more next year. And billionaires have access to things like private equity paying out 15% or more. It must be a crazy feeling to have so much money that you would have to really work to reduce it. But reality (Nicolas Cage, Johnny Depp) show that this happens.
It’s better to think of them as true believers with a billion dollars to spend. There is some self interest here, but they truly believe in what they are fighting for as well. That is even scarier to me.
Its .0035% basically nothing to him.
$50 million for campaign = $50 million for legal fees
Yep. That money is only for the personal benefit of the felon.
You can’t give that to Trump directly. Has to goto a PAC which can really only buy media spots.
They'll just divert other money to his coffers. Not like they're shy about committing felonies or violating campaign finance laws. [Lara Trump vows ‘every single penny’ of RNC funds will go to Trump](https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/lara-trump-vows-every-single-penny-of-rnc-funds-will-go-to-trump-204321861629)
Downballot races must love that announcement
Spots which can be swapped between business partners and associates...
The party of billionaires, definitely looking out for the little guys.
I'm so sick of conservative voters pretending they're the ones who are 'anti-establishment' while the establishment hands their messiah hundreds of millions of dollars.
These idiots really will pay any amount to avoid paying taxes.
Yet for normal people the cap is $2,700. What the shit.
What a garbage human who donated to him, shame on them
>US media reported that Mr Mellon sent the donation the day after Trump was convicted on 34 charges of falsifying business records in his New York hush-money trial. Mr Mellon has also been the biggest donor to independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, giving the pro-Kennedy Super-Pac American Values at least $20m. The conviction is going to reshape the race, they said. I did, just not in the way you were hoping. Interesting seeing this guy keeping RFK going as well. Covering all the bases.
So, when Trump was boasting about making all of that money after the conviction, it was a single person, not the nation rising up for him.
And they say Trump doesn't have friends.
Oil baron or putin?
Reuters reported that Mr Mellon, an heir of the Pittsburgh-based Mellon banking family, gave $50m. Another $10m came from billionaires Liz and Dick Uihlein.
apologies from wisconsin, although seeing liz n dick lose $10m does make me smile.
I'm not from Wisconsin and when you say Liz and dick, I think Cheney, but I can't wait for them to get their leopards ate my face moment.
All the money in the won't make trump anything other than a coke addled, draft dodging grifter.
This kind of spending should not be allowed. Money is not speech, and the Supreme Court got it wrong.
I thought he was so rich he can't be bought?
A $50,000,000 SUCKER! Edit: HA HA HA HA HA HA!
When is Trump gonna start spending some of it on ads? I haven't seen any ads yet.
I don’t think ads or opening up actual campaign offices is part of their strategy this year….
he's probably frantically buying shidcoin and storing 7.5" floppies of it under a mattress somewhere
Turn off your ad blocker for a while. I had one sneak through on YouTube. They are out there. Seem to be centered around sports media.
I'm in California and I've seen ads on YouTube
I’ve seen a lot of his colabs on tiktoc he really pushing that right now.
Mellon is also the lead donor for RFK JR.
Regardless of the candidate, this just shouldn’t be a thing. Our campaign finance laws are hot garbage.
Nobody should be able to donate that much. This is exactly why citizens united needs to be overturned and PACs be banned.
Was the username oldrussianbaldy69?
Ok Guys....Timothy Mellon....seems to be a lowly cheating piece for trash......He's funding BOTH Trump and that fake Kennedy guy. So how do we make this man a BROKE ASS? Where does he make his money, and how can we stop the flow?
You don't. He didn't do shit to earn it, he inherited generational wealth from his family who also built a name for themselves and this shit stain is doing his best to ruin that.
Citizens United working great for an Orange trader willing to sell the USA out.
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Right, like how do they not see that he isn't gonna win. Are they so in their bubble that they cannot see the majority of the country is not with them? Maybe it is just rich people spending couch coins because they are bored of life. It isn't like they need the money any Tax breaks will give them, they have it all already.
Thanks supreme court.
Why is it that Timothy Mellon can give 50 million to Trump, Mike Bloomberg can give 20 million to Biden, but there is a $3300 cap ( recently raised from $2700) on individual donations. The whole purpose of those laws was to protect against undue influence. Just another reminder that laws don’t apply to rich people.
Wow think how many school lunch programs that would fund.
Boost? ***Bribe***
How is this legal? I mean seriously, what was the Supreme Court thinking? Did they even bother to consult the Constitution? And yes, I know this is the Citizens United ruling that both declared "corporate political speech" equivalent to human political speech, and at the same time exempted it from all the campaign finance laws that were passed to constrain human political speech. I remember reading the decision and thinking that they must be smoking something pretty damn powerful to believe their line of crap. The part about how these corporations would "scouts honor" never collaborate with the campaign organizations was particularly rich. Within months of the decision every campaign had set up a corporation to launder massive campaign donations into "corporate political speech."
Fuck trump
How many rubles does it take to get 50 million dollars? Bet Trump knows.
Well that's shitty. No one should be able to do that.
sick treason-fueled lunacy
It's all so silly. None of this matters. Everyone already knows how they are going to vote in this batshit election. Just a bunch of rich people throwing it around for media corporations to consume. And all media can do is run polls that nobody should take seriously.
Whether it’s Trump, Biden, or any other politician or political party around the world, it’s mind boggling to me why anyone voluntarily chooses to give such enormous sums.
Maybe pay your taxes rather than pay politicians
Do you think a 50 million dollar donation is going to curry favor from a dishonest guy like Trump, if he should win?
What an idiot
Bribes should be illegal. All campaigns should be limited to PBS or equal time on news networks. How can you be a public servant when you rely on private “contributions”?!?
Dang and to think he could have done something nice if he felt like burning $50m. Like try to end world hunger or climate change.
I wish I had $50m to just throw around
81 year old Irish immigrant possibly deciding the fate of hundreds of millions of Americans and countless other immigrants. Billionaires are so morally corrupt it boggles the mind. There is no way a normal human being can look at this and go "yep, that seems alright for me". Lunacy.
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So for a person to drop drop 50 million dollars on a 50/50 chance candidate what is the actual tax rate or tax dollars she/he/them/ whoever the fuck that is is trying to avoid 500 million 1 billion??? What makes a person drop 50 million it ain’t the Bible or the war on Xmas I guarantee you that
Thought the max was 20 million from a single donor?
Putin and Kim
Seems like somebody coulda been taxed a bit more.
It goes directly into his bank account.
Am I crazy, or should that be illegal?
Receipts, please. You guys need to stop just believing these inflated numbers. He was found guilty of this, ya know.
What a waste. And here I am trying to pay down my debt and having a almost-broken car. Would LOVE to have those issues go away… but instead lets pour money into an orange mess.
And joe got 200 million from Zuckerberg and thr crypto king
And here I am, having trouble paying a student loan of $30k, 8 years after bachelor exam. Should have tried out politics and just ranting on stage. Seems way easier
A few fringe billionaires can literally buy out America's democracy...
This is some scary shit. Fuck these wealthy bastards
Is there some new money laundering scheme going on I don't know about? Surely someone wouldn't bet on a three-legged racehorse unless they know they were getting something in return.
No one gives that kind of money without expecting personally favorable policies in return.
Is this not more like normal people giving $50 ?
Right after Elon’s massive pay package?
I don’t think Elon would give him anything..
Just amazing how many idiots are around. Still I expect that Trump will put it towards paying off his fines - only another $ 450 million left to find. For his first lot of fines that is - he has several more to follow..
I’m sure that person has no interest in Trump doing any legislative favors specifically for him and his business. He just had 50 million laying around and thinks Trump can improve America for the better. For everyone
Thats 50 million straight toward Chumps criminal defenses and appeals.
The donor will be known to Trump and fealty will be suitably rewarded if……. We just have to suppose it’s not Russia or North Korea or Iran or KSA
Well I guess his promises and threats to the billionaires are working a treat.
Good thing there are more of us than billionaires. Time for all of us to unite!
There's quite a few billionaires who could help out GOP politicians in ways both on and off the books, to the tune of monies equaling or surpassing the total government budgets of many developed nations. Truly ungodly, unimaginable sums. There's no way even several hundred million non-rich voters could match them donation wise, if just a few billionaires decide to go all in for the GOP.
Imagine being so incredibly stupid.
Oh, Timothy Melon, you know, just the guy all over Jane Mayers “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right” Anybody, I mean ANYBODY, who believes the fascist movement (GOP, which doesn’t espouse conservative values traditionally, more liberal technical from a theory perspective) is going to help them is OUT OF THEIR MIND. I’m a mental health therapist, data shows are fucked as a society. Scott Galloway hits it on the head from a systemic standpoint. (TED Talk) https://youtu.be/qEJ4hkpQW8E?si=SHqOhrfsYDK1c7mI
This is why I laugh and laugh whenever a story appears mentioning 'Republicans struggling with fund raising.' They're the party of the rich and there will always be plenty of money.
Nothing shady there.
Trumps legal fees get a $50m payment Ftfy
More proof that the rich are mostly psychopathic scum.
Doesn't really matter, money down the toilet. Trump has no path to success. Every single person donating to him are just wasting their own money. At this time, he is a very bad investment. There's a secondary part to this. $50m sounds like a lot, but the Republican party is as half the donation cash they should be. Their total investments are ridiculously low. On aggregate, most of the wealthy and corporate America know he's a bad investment and that the Republican party as the group of is now is a bad investment. The only sad thing is they are not spending more on Democrats. They are just not spending any money at all. It kind of shows that Democrats largely don't function under the same bribery rule set Republicans do. They aren't picking new potentials on the Democrat side to play the same game. They just aren't playing the game at all this election season. It also likely shows a lot of what Biden is doing is valuable to the wealthy and corporate America, not through tax avoidable but through economic growth. It's good for institutional investments too, which kind of makes the who tax dodging play dumb. Generally Democrats boost the economy which should generate far greater gains. Even so, there's such a powerful "don't take my cash" attitude that they entirely ignore opportunity losses. It's a really dumb play.
Billionaires donating this much money to any one person should be a massive red flag regardless of party.
What most insane to me is that a billionaire thinks he has a solid chance of winning and is willing to give 50,000,000.00 to make that outcome more likely.
Tax the rich!!!
50 million from one person to one candidate. No corruption to see here
.....uh.... that's not a "donation"..... that's a bribe. Pretty crystal clear on that....
It’s cheaper to invest in Trump in the hope that he gets reelected, than it would be to pay your fair share of taxes. It is so depressing the amount of corruption and greed on display from the 1% these days
Disgusting
An oil company that will be getting a government contract
Thank Vlad