Soldiers Wounded in Iran Accuse Army of Ignoring Injuries

Trump refuses to sign a housing bill until voter ID is passed, while white South Africans are being welcomed to the country with books about anti-white racism

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Trump canceled the signing of a bipartisan housing bill until Congress passes his restrictive voter ID law. The administration is handing white South African refugees welcome bags stuffed with a children’s book about anti-white racism. Wounded soldiers say the Army classified a man riddled with shrapnel, a concussion, and lung damage as “not seriously injured.” And Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has put more than half a million dollars on a credit card without disclosing what any of it bought.

Before we dive in: AlterNet America runs on readers. Not advertisers, not billionaires, and not a broadcast license anyone in Washington can threaten. We answer to the people who fund us, and that’s the only arrangement that lets us write any of this. If you want this work to keep landing in your inbox, please become a paid subscriber today.

Now, let’s dive in.

Trump Won’t Sign Housing Bill Without Voter ID Law

Trump just vetoed his own photo op.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history.” She praised it for cutting red tape and stopping institutional investors from buying up single-family homes. Tomorrow’s signing, she said, was “another promise made, promise kept.”

By Wednesday, Trump had canceled the signing on Truth Social, declaring he won’t put his signature on it until Congress passes the SAVE America Act, the proof-of-citizenship voting bill he’s been demanding for months.

The housing package passed both chambers this week with overwhelming bipartisan support. The problem for Trump’s leverage play: a bill becomes law 10 days after presentation even if the president never signs it. And it passed by well over the two-thirds margin needed to override a veto.

The SAVE Act, meanwhile, is going nowhere. The House passed it in February, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said Republicans don’t have the votes.

So Trump is holding the housing bill hostage, but the hostage is about to free itself.

White South African Refugees Get PragerU Welcome Bags

There’s a new program for people escaping anti-white racism, and it comes with a tote bag and a PragerU pamphlet.

The Trump administration plans to hand newly arriving Afrikaner refugees a welcome gift in the coming weeks. Inside the bag: copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, plus a packet of literature offering a sanitized, Trump-approved version of history.

The packet includes a PragerU story called “Lwazi’s Hard Lesson,” in which a Black South African protects a white rugby teammate from a Black mob. The text describes Nelson Mandela as a man who “sought to end apartheid with acts of sabotage.”

It warns of “reverse discrimination” and a white “brain drain.” It also cites Elon Musk’s claim that a genocide of white people is underway.

As for American history, the bag contains Trump’s 1776 Commission report, which downplays the role of slavery in the nation’s founding and likens progressivism to fascism. A tucked-in letter from HHS official Alex J. Adams welcomes the Afrikaners and explains that America must “only welcome in those who will assimilate.”

White South Africans still have higher employment, lower poverty, and better wages than their Black counterparts. None of that made it into the bag. Trump’s refugee ban remains in place for everyone fleeing war and persecution everywhere else on earth.

Most outlets will cover the photo op. We’re actually looking in the bag. That kind of reporting needs your support. Become a paid subscriber today.

Wounded Soldiers Accuse Army of Downplaying War Injuries

The Pentagon has a definition of “seriously injured” so narrow that you essentially have to be 72 hours from death to qualify, which is one way to keep your casualty numbers down.

In March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that “almost 90%” of the 400 service members injured in the conflict with Iran had only minor wounds and had returned to duty. Now some of those wounded soldiers say that was nonsense.

Chief Warrant Officer Rodney Bearman, 57, was at his work station in Kuwait when an Iranian drone slammed into it on March 1. Medical records reviewed show shrapnel throughout his body, a concussion, hearing and vision loss, and lung damage. The Army classified him as “not seriously injured.”

Sergeant First Class Cory Hicks, 37, took severe shrapnel and underwent multiple emergency surgeries at a Kuwaiti hospital. His wife was told the injury was “minor.” He’s now at Walter Reed with a traumatic brain injury and expects to stay at least six more months.

When the Army called Amy Bearman, it told her her husband was treated and released to duty. Two days later he called her from a hospital bed and said, “I can’t go back.”

The Army insists nothing was downplayed and that families are misconstruing “specific definitions.” The definition is very specific. It specifically excludes everyone.

Ohio Gov. Candidate Put $500k on Campaign Credit Card

Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has spent half a million dollars on a credit card and reported it the way you’d explain a Vegas trip to your spouse — one number, no details.

On the campaign trail for Ohio governor, Ramaswamy has racked up $509,473 in credit card charges without disclosing a single underlying transaction. Since April alone, he put $280,892 on an American Express card and reported only the monthly lump sum.

Ohio law requires campaigns to itemize each transaction and to verify any expense of $25 or more with a receipt or canceled check. The campaign has reported none of it. Records requests filed in April have gone unanswered for eight weeks.

Ramaswamy knows how this is supposed to work. During his 2024 presidential run, his reports itemized everything, down to $1,250 for a junior fife and drum corps in New Hampshire.

The body that once investigated this sort of thing, the independent Ohio Elections Commission, was disbanded last year. Republican lawmakers replaced it with a commission housed inside the office of Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

LaRose, a Republican now running for state auditor, has endorsed Ramaswamy. His office has not responded to questions about whether any investigation exists.

No Billionaire Owns This Newsletter

The business model that kept journalism independent is gone. What replaced it is billionaires, access deals, and quiet understandings about which stories don’t run. The networks are getting phone calls they don’t talk about. The newspapers have new owners who play golf with the people we’re writing about. The FCC is making examples of outlets that don’t play ball.

None of that is happening here, because we don’t have anyone to sell out to. We have readers. If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, we’re glad you’re here. But free doesn’t keep the lights on, and the lights need to stay on.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, this is the moment. Your subscription isn’t a donation. It’s the thing that makes tomorrow’s newsletter possible. Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription today.

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Federal Judge Permanently Blocks Trump’s Proof-of-Citizenship Voting Order. U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper permanently barred the administration on Wednesday from implementing most of Trump’s 2025 executive order, which had required documentary proof of citizenship to register and demanded all mail ballots arrive by Election Day. States that refused would have lost federal funding. Casper noted that only states and Congress can regulate elections, writing that the Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections.” For context on the fraud he claims to be fighting: a Georgia audit found just 20 non-citizens out of 8.2 million residents on the rolls, 0.00024 percent of the voting population.

Vendors Are Told to Start Dismantling “Alligator Alcatraz.” Crews began tearing down the state-run Everglades immigration detention center on Monday, less than a year after Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis showcased it with near-daily fanfare and an “Alligator Alcatraz” sign. State officials told vendors they could begin “demobilizing” the tents, fences, and trailers, days after DHS said all detainees had been transferred out. The facility cost Florida more than $1 million per day to run, including trucking in water and disposing of wastewater, and the federal government has paid only a fraction of the $600 million it promised. Former Republican state senator Jeff Brandes called it “an expensive failure.”

Pritzker Signs Illinois Law Shielding Abortion Patients’ Medical Records. On the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe, Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Reproductive Health Records Privacy Act, blocking outside authorities from accessing patients’ digital records to build criminal cases. The law bars sharing such data across state lines without patient consent, and requires abortion information be segregated and walled off from out-of-state entities. Violations give patients the right to sue, and health information exchanges must comply by July 2027. Illinois is the closest abortion-protected state to the banned South, and Planned Parenthood of Illinois has seen a 48% jump in patients since Dobbs.

Judge Blocks Trump From Seizing Minors’ Gender-Care Medical Records. A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from obtaining sensitive medical records of minors who received gender identity care at New York City hospitals. U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday barring investigators from getting the records, including through a grand jury subpoena served on NYU Langone demanding six years of files identifying every patient. Failla said she “cannot conceive of a crime” requiring disclosures that broad, and accused the DOJ of recasting “discredited civil administrative subpoenas as grand jury subpoenas from a hand-picked, far-away jurisdiction” in Texas to dodge judicial review.