Trump Voter Shocked ICE Would Detain His White Wife

Trump is blaming vandals for dead grass where he built his July 4th stage, a convicted election denier will count votes in California, and the FTC agreed to stop enforcing anti-discrimination orders

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

Trump is blaming vandals for a patch of dead grass on the National Mall exactly where he built his Fourth of July stage. A convicted election denier who breached voting equipment is set to become an assistant registrar of voters in California. The FTC has agreed to stop enforcing court orders that barred auto dealers from charging Black and Latino borrowers more. And a three-time Trump voter is looking for sympathy after watching ICE drag away his wife.

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Trump Blames Vandals for the Grass He Killed

The president would like to report a crime that he committed.

Trump took to Truth Social on Sunday to blame vandals for a large patch of dead grass on the National Mall — on the exact spot where he built a massive stage for his Fourth of July celebrations.

“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote. He added that anyone who doubted the Reflecting Pool was vandalized “should go back to Law School!”

Trump also blamed vandals when the Reflecting Pool’s blue sealant began peeling shortly after a $16 million renovation was completed. The administration arrested four people, including former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who said he merely touched a loose piece.

The Department of Justice later dropped the charges, concluding that Trump and his contractors were responsible for the damage. The same contractors also cracked the fountain at the German-American Friendship Garden. The German-American Friendship Garden, much like the German-American friendship, has seen better days.

Convicted Election Denier Tina Peters Is Getting a New Job Counting Votes

Getting convicted of election fraud and then getting hired to run elections isn’t a second chance, it’s a sequel.

Clint Curtis, Registrar of Voters in Shasta County, California and open election denier, said Sunday he has tapped Tina Peters to replace his current assistant in September, just over two months after her release from prison.

Peters previously served as the GOP clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, until she was arrested for her role in a 2021 voting system breach. A jury convicted her in 2024 after prosecutors showed she facilitated unauthorized access to voting equipment and helped compromise sensitive data, all driven by false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

The judge called her a “charlatan” who peddled “snake oil” and sentenced her to nine years. She only served 20 months before Democratic Governor Jared Polis commuted her sentence in May, after months of pressure from Trump.

The new position gives her direct influence over ballot counting in a county that has long tried to buck state law by counting all ballots by hand. It would also position her to succeed Curtis if he leaves early.

The sequel is always worse.

FTC Allows Auto Companies to Discriminate Against Customers of Color

The FTC just set a legal precedent that discrimination is fine as long as nobody writes it down.

The FTC recently let three auto dealers off the hook for court orders requiring them to stop discriminating against Black and Brown borrowers, then told the states it had worked with to win those cases that it wouldn’t help them enforce the orders either. The reasoning is that the defendants didn’t explicitly instruct salespeople to treat borrowers of color differently.

The highly unusual agreements delete two sections from each court order, including one that prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, and national origin, and another requiring the dealers to train employees on fair lending and fire anyone who discriminates.

The FTC had previously accused all three of charging people of color more in discretionary markups and add-on fees than white borrowers. In one case, a financial institution had sent the dealership multiple letters flagging the disparities.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a coplaintiff on one of the cases, called the move “outrageous” and said the FTC essentially “greenlight[ed] discrimination against Arizonans.” Her office says it plans to keep enforcing the order alone.

The administration’s stated rationale, from an executive order titled “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy,” is that disparate-impact liability “undermines our national values.” Our national values officially have been marked up.

Three-Time Trump Voter in Disbelief After ICE Takes His Wife

Brent Jindra voted for Trump three times because of his promises of strict immigration enforcement. Now he thinks he didn’t get what he voted for.

Jindra, a 48-year-old tech salesman and former MAGA supporter, was stunned when ICE agents detained his wife, Galina Bobreneva, after the couple landed at Burbank Airport in California. Bobreneva, who is originally from Russia, “did not jump a wall, she did not swim a river,” Jindra claimed. She “came in Trump’s beautiful, big front door.”

Bobreneva arrived in 2021 on a tourist visa and applied for asylum in 2022. She met Jindra in March 2025 and married him that December. In April, he petitioned to sponsor her for a marriage-based green card. By the time she was detained, she had received confirmation her application was accepted and had been fingerprinted.

She was taken to the Adelanto ICE Processing Facility, where she said she felt “like a piece of meat, not like a human.” She described lights kept on around the clock and women crammed together.

Bobreneva was released July 29 on a $35,000 bond and fitted with an ankle monitor. DHS called her “an illegal alien” who “overstayed her welcome.”

“We are living in fear in my own country,” Jindra said, about the man he voted for.

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