First, thank the giver and ask what are the ramifications and put the gift on hold until you finish your time in office. Is the gift to the President personal or to the U.S.? If it is to the country?
Government officials are subject to rules and regulations regarding the acceptance of gifts during their tenure.
Rules on Gifts in the Federal Government
Government ethical rules restrict giving and accepting gifts among employees and from outside interests. Policies on exchanges of gifts among employees—as well as on acceptance of gifts or hospitality from other sources—are set by government-wide rules found in the Code of Federal Regulations at 5 CFR 2635 201–205 and 301–304. Employees with questions regarding whether the giving or acceptance of a gift, gratuity or anything else of value should contact their supervisors and designated agency ethics officials. Also see information from the Office of Government Ethics at www.oge.gov.
MSNBC painted a portrait of Republican party disarray on Wednesday morning by compiling a super-cut of high-profile GOP senators pouring cold water on Donald Trump’s desire to claim a $400 million jet being gifted to him from the leaders of Qatar.
While the president has repeatedly declared, “Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE from a country that wants to reward us for a job well done,” that is not universally endorsed by his caucus.
That led to sharing clips that included Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), stating, “This is a hypothetical and I’m sure that if and when there is –– it’s no longer a hypothetical –– I can assure you there will be plenty of scrutiny of whatever that arrangement might look like.”
Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju, “Are you concerned with the national security implications of that jet being given as a gift to the president?” the GOP leader replied, “Well again, like I said, there will be plenty of scrutiny.”
With Senators Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rock Scott (R-FL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also shown dumping on the deal, far-right Josh Hawley (R-MO), told reporters, “I think we should have a big, beautiful plane built in the United States of America. The president’s been very good on make America, buy America. We probably ought to pass a law that requires the federal government to buy everything from within the United States of America.”
****
If it is personal – be sure there are no strings attached.
Don’t forgot the rules for different religions – like they can cancel any contract with an infidel AT ANY TIME and change their mind.
Donald Trump has tapped Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency.
The advisory group is aimed at reducing federal spending and cutting waste.
Several notable tech figures have already been linked to DOGE.
Donald Trump has picked Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE — and they appear to be tapping into their network of Silicon Valley contacts to make it happen.
The department is set to be an advisory group outside the Trump administration that will seek out ways to cut costs and curb federal spending.
Although Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget to make it more efficient, under current law, Congress must approve most budget changes, which limits DOGE’s power.
Musk has already reportedly been consulting Silicon Valley leaders about the advisory group. These are the tech figures that have already been linked to DOGE.See more
In one corner is the bespectacled tortoise, Bill Gates. In the other, the chainsaw-wielding hare, Elon Musk. Each has a very different idea about what it means to give back.
Gates plans to ramp up his foundation’s charitable giving to causes like public health and education over the next two decades, whereas Musk has used the White House DOGE office to nearly halt the flow of US foreign aid spending in a blink and dismantle the US Agency for International Development, which he has called a “criminal organization.
To be sure, these billionaires have very different mandates — Musk to cut government spending, and Gates to eradicate preventable diseases and spend down his vast fortune. But as Gates opens up his wallet even more, he’s also squaring off with Musk. Gates is using a prolonged road map compared with Musk’s move-fast-and-break-things tech ethos that had him vowing to cut $2 trillion in government spending by employing methods from a startup playbook.
“Tech innovation works when a new widget disrupts the market for the old one,” Michael Morris, a professor at the Columbia Business School, tells me in an email. “Development programs work best when there is continuity, steadiness, predictability, assurance.” He says Gates’ approach shows “maturity in thinking through the problem.” That’s a shift from when Gates was considered a sometimes combative and arrogant leader at Microsoft, even if he was heralded as a brilliant innovator. The Gates Foundation has been criticized, too, for lacking transparency and for some of its spending priorities. “These days Gates looks like a sage compared to Musk and compared to the administratMorris says.
Gates last week announced plans to unwind the Gates Foundation in the next 20 years, bringing the philanthropic effort to a close sooner than expected. But instead of cutting spending, he’s increasing it: The foundation plans to distribute $9 billion in 2026, and Gates hopes the foundation will double the $100 billion it has given away since its founding in 2000 and donate another $200 billion to public health and education causes by December 31, 2045.
Meanwhile, in a matter of days DOGE pulled the rug out from under the USAID earlier this year. Funding was first disrupted, leading to confusion and chaos, and now more than 80% of USAID’s tens of billions of dollars in contractual commitments have been cut. Organizations across the world that depended on money from the US have been scrambling to try to carry out their missions, which include providing emergency food to malnourished kids and medication for HIV prevention and treatment.
These days Gates looks like a sage compared to Musk.Michael Morris, a professor at Columbia Business School
President Donald Trump set Musk loose to curtail the federal government’s spending and waste via DOGE. In a move that many constitutional scholars say went beyond the administration’s authority by circumventing Congress, the administration focused on slashing costs now, regardless of the long-term impact on the world’s most vulnerable people. Gates’ plan is different: It shortens the initial foundation’s closure timeline with the intent of solving problems more quickly and rendering itself obsolete
Part of the stark contrast between Musk and Gates stems from their different approaches to “efficiency.” With DOGE, Musk has embodied the chainsaw approach that tech startups worship — focusing on being lean and doing more with less under a founder-mode-style leader. That doesn’t necessarily translate well in government: Management experts previously told me they viewed DOGE’s rollout as “clumsy,” “wrongheaded,” and full of “political recklessness.”
The Gates Foundation’s idea of efficiency is to provide humanitarian aid by using the data-driven mentality of the tech industry alongside expertise from organizations that work directly with people in need. When it comes to giving back, Fatema Sumar, an adjunct lecturer in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, says Gates’ effort “is a replicable model of data-driven, country-aligned long-term philanthropy that others could follow, and so far, few do.”
It’s no coincidence that the influx of funding comes as governments pull back, and Gates paired his announcement with jabs at Musk. “He’s the one who cut the USAID budget,” Gates told The New York Times, saying Musk had put it “in the wood chipper.” When the interviewer noted that Musk had attached himself to the Giving Pledge, a concept initiated by Gates and Warren Buffett 15 years ago to encourage wealthy people to donate the majority of their assets to charity, Gates said: “The Giving Pledge — an unusual aspect of it that you can wait until you die and still fulfill it. So who knows? He could go on to be a great philanthropist. In the meantime, the world’s richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world’s poorest children.”
The two have been feuding over philanthropy for years. Walter Isaacson wrote in his biography of Musk that Gates visited Musk in 2022 and tried to convince him to give away more of his money. Musk told Gates that most philanthropy was “bullshit,” and that Gates could do more for the climate if he invested in Tesla stock, which Gates had shorted. Musk later told Isaacson that Gates was “categorically insane.”
Over the past 25 years, money from the Gates Foundation has helped reduce the spread of preventable diseases, including HIV and tuberculosis, worldwide. The foundation estimates it has saved 82 million lives. DOGE’s vision is one in which the problems of other countries don’t fall on the shoulders of the US. Researchers from Boston University estimated that tens of thousands of people may have already died from tuberculosis or AIDS since USAID funding was disrupted. Gates’ fortune allows him to fill gaps left behind by the US government. “Much like Harvard’s endowment empowers them to fight back on the attack on universities, Gates’ endowment enables him to step in and provide some needed services that USAID had been providing,” Morris says.
More money now rather than later is a more ambitious approach. Gates described to the Times how AI tools will bolster the foundation’s goals to improve healthcare, education, and agriculture. “Given that I have these resources, what can we achieve? It makes a big difference to take the money and spend it now versus later,” he said.
A century ago, the world’s richest men gave birth to modern philanthropy by setting up charitable foundations that still exist, including the Rockefeller Foundation and two dozen organizations that bear Andrew Carnegie’s name. Today’s tech billionaires, the modern equivalent of the industrialist titans, have the opportunity to make an even bigger impact, thanks to rapid advances in medicine and technology — but few have. Gates himself has said that his foundation can’t assume the philanthropic responsibilities of governments alone.
“Gates, like Carnegie and Rockefeller a century ago, defines an era,” Sumar says. “But today’s tech giants haven’t matched yet his global ambition, and the world can’t afford more people on the sidelines right now.”
****
As we all know, our government was certainly in a position to have a “house cleaning” (DOGE) after all of the corruption that appeared and I hope Mr. Gates makes sure that his money goes to the intended people in HIS Charitable organizations. The U.S. donated to the world for many years, I wonder how much money actually trickled down to the people that really needed it since DOGE found so much corruption?
Donald Trump’s DOGE just announced a shocking pivot that should have leftists worried sick about 2028
May 11, 2025
Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency has made waves across Washington.
The Beltway thought the threat was fading away, but it just roared back to life .
And Donald Trump’s DOGE just announced a shocking pivot that should have leftists worried sick about 2028.
DOGE brings the heat on election integrity
For years, Democrats have insisted that illegal voting by non-citizens is so rare it’s practically non-existent.
They’ve laughed off concerns about election integrity and blocked commonsense measures to verify citizenship at the polls.
But President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is putting those claims to the test — and the results are sending shockwaves through the political establishment.
DOGE has turned its powerful data analysis capabilities toward identifying non-citizens who illegally cast ballots in American elections, and they’re already finding disturbing cases.
“The DOGE team has referred 57 cases of illegal aliens voting in the 2024 general election” to the Justice Department, according to DOGE adviser Katie Miller in a recent social media post.
Federal prosecutors taking action
The Justice Department is now bringing charges based on DOGE’s findings.
In Florida, Ukrainian mother and daughter Svitlana and Yelyzaveta Demydenko — both legal permanent residents but not citizens — have been charged after they registered online last summer and cast early ballots.
When questioned, the daughter justified her illegal vote by saying she “wanted to make a difference,” while the mother claimed she voted “to support the country.”
Also in Florida, Jamaican national Jacqueline Dianne Wallace was charged with making a false claim of citizenship to vote. She entered the U.S. on a six-month visitor’s visa in 2010 but never left, making her presence illegal.
In New York, an Iraqi man named Akeel Abdul Jamiel was charged with voting illegally in Saratoga County during the 2020 election.
Perhaps most shocking was the case in Maryland, where authorities charged a Colombian man who had been deported three times in the 1970s and 1980s. After sneaking back into the country, he assumed a fraudulent identity using a bogus Puerto Rican birth certificate and voted in both the 2020 and 2024 elections.
Breaking down information silos
What makes DOGE’s approach revolutionary is how it’s breaking down the information silos that previously prevented agencies from connecting the dots.
Christian Adams, who used to work in the Justice Department’s voting rights section and now runs the Public Interest Legal Foundation, praised the administration’s efforts.
“Fourteen years ago, when I talked about people getting on the voter rolls as non-citizens, it was a laugh line. In 2025, people who say it doesn’t happen — that’s the laugh line,” Adams said. “Everybody knows it’s happening; it’s only a question of how bad and what are we going to do about it.”
The Trump Administration has put DOGE’s data-crunching capabilities to work and ordered the Department of Homeland Security to make its databases available to those investigating voter identities.
“Data is being mined, developed. That never in the past had been attempted,” Adams explained.
Democrats downplay concerns
Predictably, Democrats and left-wing groups are already trying to minimize these findings.
Omar Noureldin, senior vice president at Common Cause, expressed concern about DOGE accessing “sensitive information” and claimed the prosecutions were just a messaging ploy to support the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of citizenship for those registering to vote in national elections.
“I don’t think five cases is evidence of a systemswide problem,” Noureldin told The Washington Times.
But the DOGE team has made it clear — they’re just getting started. The 57 cases referred to the Justice Department came from examining just a small sample of states.
With President Trump’s commitment to election integrity and DOGE’s powerful data analysis capabilities, there’s likely more to come as they expand their investigation.
Democrats’ worst nightmare
For years, the Left has fought against voter ID laws, proof of citizenship requirements, and other election integrity measures by claiming that voter fraud is virtually non-existent.
DOGE’s findings are systematically dismantling that narrative, case by case.
And with Trump’s team just beginning this work, the question becomes how many more illegal voters will be uncovered in the months ahead.
****
Didn’t the Democrats say the last election was honest?
What media people don’t seem to understand! All of us are gunning for the country to meet in the middle where the two parties come together. Rather than the left (Joe/Mika) used President Trump when they lost their listening base and now they are bashing him so their ratings increase.
We are all one country in good times and bad. Mika and Joe should set an example and try to work the left’s opinion to help pull the wagon instead of bashing a problem which the President is trying to fix which was caused by the left. It takes time to put all of the wheels back on the buggy which was caused by the left. DOGE proved how corrupt the left was – so why do these two keep trying to attach their star to it?
They used the President in their time of need and now – look at them.
And – as AI would respond:
So we are left with a see-saw.
Spencer appeals alternately to the” instability of the homogeneous “and the impossibility of complete equilibration to keep up the cosmic see-saw, but he can do so only by confining himself to a part of the universe.
Morning Joe‘s ratings for April (up to 04/25/25) have seen an average of 749,000 total viewers and 65,000 demo viewers. This is up +7% among total viewers and +10% in the demo compared to March.
This increase in viewers comes after Morning Joefaced backlash in November following Trump’s election victory. Many viewers hit out at hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski following their meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, which they reasoned was done because it was “time to do something different.”
“Joe and I realized it’s time to do something different and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him,” Brzezinski said at the time. “For those asking why we would go speak to the president-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, why wouldn’t we? Five years of political warfare has deeply divided Washington and the country.”
****
Now back to their bashing:
President Donald Trump is lashing out at Morning Joe—again.
On Thursday morning, the president, whose history with the show includes a decade of breakups and makeups, accused host Joe Scarborough of a “Major Campaign Violation” for critiquing his approach to placing tariffs on Chinese goods.
The post came just minutes after the MSNBC show ran a segment discussing the president’s recent comment that he’s considering cutting tariffs on Chinese goods to 80 percent from the current rate of 145 percent.
Scarborough said he believes Trump’s handling of the tariffs is “all showbiz,” advising viewers not to panic about changing tariff rates because “It’s all symbolism. It’s all getting where he wants to get, a month from now, two months from now, or six months from now.”
“I just don’t think the details right now matter,” said Scarborough of Trump’s fluctuating rates. “This is the start of a symbolic process.”
Scarborough’s guests, NBC business analyst Stephanie Ruhle and New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, gave similar assessments. Sorkin said that he wouldn’t be surprised to see the American and Chinese governments acting “like everything is fine and they love each other,” when in reality, a trade deal will likely take months or even years to iron out.Related video: ‘Retreat’: Trump stares into ‘abyss’ as trade war ‘morass’ forces embarrassing concession (MSNBC)
Ruhle then said the president was “backed into a corner” and “looking for an exit” because his tariffs “aren’t working.” Both guests agreed with Scarborough’s theory that the tariffs on China may face significant changes in the coming weeks as the president attempts to recover from his drastic initial approach.
Just 19 minutes after the Morning Joe segment, Trump took to Truth Social for a typo-riddled rant in which he claimed MSNBC, which he called “the worst there is on Television misrepresentation,” was conducting a “Major Campaign Violation” in its coverage of him.
He also took aim at Ruhle, who he said “was never known as a “High IQ” person.”
“I just watched an exhausted, highly neurotic Stephanie Ruhle spew LIES about Tariffs, as do many others, in order not to give me the Victory that they all see coming,” he posted on Truth Social. “Few people know Stephanie Ruhle, but I do, and she doesn’t have what it takes. Our Deal with the United Kingdom yesterday was AMAZING for both Countries and, in addition to everything else, British Airways just ordered $10 Billion Dollars worth of new Boeing planes.”
Trump also accused the network of being “nothing less than an arm of the Democrat National Committee,” and said, “their untruths are incredible, real losers.”
Of course, MSNBC is not a branch of the Democratic National Committee, the opinions of its hosts are not statements on behalf of the DNC or a particular campaign, and comments like Scarborough’s are protected under the First Amendment. But none of those tidbits stopped Trump from calling for the network’s head. “Their ratings are down the tubes,” wrote the president, “but that pressure on them doesn’t give them the right to lie and cheat!”
kommonsentsjane 