HoosLeft Podcast

Scott Aaron Rogers
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Politics
  • Updated Weekly

Indiana politics, history, and culture from and unapologetically perspective. Host Scott Aaron Rogers interviews candidates, elected officials, activists, and academics in long-form interviews. And every Sunday morning, Scott welcomes a panel of guests from around the state to HoosLeft This Week - where they dissect the week's top news stories from across Indiana and look at US & international news from a Hoosier perspective. www.progressiveindiana.net

  1. HoosLeft This Week - June 28, 2026

    1h ago

    HoosLeft This Week - June 28, 2026

    SUMMARY: On this week’s edition of HoosLeft This Week — broadcast despite a cascade of opening technical difficulties — Scott is joined by writer and Hoosier Lemon Substack creator Sierra Martin and Democratic House District 47 nominee Michael Potter for a two-hour blitz through a double-stuffed week in the news. First, a block of stories framed as “the death of neoliberalism in three acts”: the passing of Alan Greenspan, the collapse of Keir Starmer’s government in the UK, and a progressive sweep in New York Democratic primaries that sent the party establishment into a panic. The show then covers the Iran memorandum of understanding already buckling under renewed hostilities, Trump holding the bipartisan housing bill hostage to his voter suppression agenda, favorable federal court rulings on voting and courthouse arrests, and devastating Supreme Court decisions on Temporary Protected Status and asylum rights. The back half opens with the extreme terrorism sentences handed to Prairieland ICE protest defendants and Trump’s lawfare against ABC News, before turning to a dense Indiana block: the DOJ memo gutting disability integration rights, Indiana’s selective approach to Medicaid fraud, the Holcomb-Raimondo AI retraining nonprofit, the latest installment of the “Mr. Clean” corruption investigation into Mayor Joe Hogsett, school funding referendums in Indianapolis and Carmel, the Indiana Republican platform’s push to eliminate property taxes and close primaries, Braun’s firing of his own IURC chair over a utility rate hike, and a rundown of consequential new Indiana laws taking effect July 1st. It takes a lot of work to put together a show of this scope. Please support HoosLeft and PIN with a free or paid subscription. TABLE OF CONTENTS: 00:00:03 — Intro: Welcome & Guest Introductions 00:03:31 — Death of Neoliberalism, Act 1: Alan Greenspan Dies at 100 00:08:50 — Death of Neoliberalism, Act 2: Starmer Falls, Burnham Rises 00:15:43 — Death of Neoliberalism, Act 3: New York Progressives Rout the Establishment 00:27:37 — Iran MOU: A Ceasefire Already Unraveling 00:34:20 — Trump Holds the Housing Bill Hostage for the SAVE Act 00:43:43 — The War on Voting: Courts Push Back on Trump’s Election Orders 00:44:53 — Supreme Court Drops: TPS Ended for Haitians and Syrians, Asylum Rights Gutted 00:53:08 — Prairieland Sentences and the Weaponization of Domestic Terror Law 01:01:44 — The Reflecting Pool Debacle, ABC, and the Lawfare Playbook 01:07:19 — [Crossroads Commons PSA] 01:08:18 — The Crossroads: DOJ Guts Olmstead, Indiana Targets Small Medicaid Providers While $724M Case Sits Idle 01:16:47 — Holcomb, Raimondo, and the RAISE US AI Retraining Grift 01:21:36 — Mr. Clean, Part 3: Hogsett’s Donor Wish Lists and the Ghost Employment Problem 01:25:55 — IPS and Carmel Clay: The School Funding Referendum Divide 01:32:20 — Indiana GOP Platform: Property Tax Elimination and Closed Primaries 01:41:37 — Braun Fires His Own IURC Chair, Coal Plant Orders Renewed 01:47:07 — New Laws July 1: Camping Ban, SEA 76, Phone Ban, and the National Guard Military Police 01:55:32 — Outro: Guest Plugs, Tuesday Podcast Preview, and Sign-Off IN DEPTH: US/World News Death of Neoliberalism * Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan dies at 100 (AP) * Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman from 1987 to 2006, died Monday at 100 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. His wife, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell, announced his death. * Greenspan was celebrated as “Maestro” for presiding over the longest economic expansion in US history at the time, holding unemployment below 4% and keeping inflation dormant — but his reputation collapsed after the 2008 financial crisis, which investigators tied directly to the deregulation and easy-money policies he championed. * His own postmortem was candid: “I made a mistake in assuming that banks could essentially regulate themselves.” The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission concluded his 30-year push for deregulation “stripped away key safeguards, which could have helped avoid catastrophe.” * A Juilliard dropout who played clarinet and saxophone alongside Stan Getz, Greenspan became an Ayn Rand disciple in the 1950s — Rand stood beside him when he was sworn in as Ford’s chief economic adviser in 1974, a detail that contextualizes his lifelong faith in self-regulating markets. * As recently as January 2026, at 99, Greenspan co-signed a statement with former Fed chairs and Treasury secretaries condemning Trump’s investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell as “an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine” the Fed’s independence. * Alan Greenspan Was a Faithful Servant of the Ruling Class (Jacobin) * Where the AP obit portrays Greenspan as a well-meaning ideologue who made a mistake about self-regulating markets, Jacobin argues he wasn’t a dogmatist at all — he was ideologically flexible whenever flexibility served the wealthy, consistently abandoning principles when they inconvenienced the powerful. * The piece’s sharpest point: Greenspan’s celebrated “miracle economy” of the late 1990s was built on what he privately called the “traumatized worker” thesis — the Fed explicitly understood that low inflation and low unemployment coexisted because Volcker’s recession had so frightened American workers that they stopped demanding raises, and Greenspan’s policy was premised on keeping that fear intact. * Greenspan backed the Bush tax cuts after spending the Clinton years as a deficit hawk — the deficit apparently mattered less under a Republican president redistributing wealth upward. He later expressed regret; at the time, he was happy to lend his credibility to the effort. * The piece’s closing argument: Greenspan’s rehabilitation as an anti-Trump institutionalist is ironic, since his career was dedicated to the same upward concentration of wealth and power that created the conditions for Trump’s rise. “A young Greenspan imagined gold as the ultimate protector of the wealthy; the policies he enacted delivered us a gilded tyrant.” International Elections * Andy Burnham prepares for power as emotional Keir Starmer bows out (Guardian) * Keir Starmer resigned as UK prime minister Monday, less than two years after a historic Labour election victory, conceding he was “no longer the right man” to lead the party into the next general election amid mounting pressure from MPs and the threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. * Andy Burnham — former Greater Manchester mayor, just elected to Parliament that same day in a byelection — is all but certain to become the UK’s next prime minister, potentially as early as July 16-17, after Wes Streeting declined to challenge him and no other Labour MP appears likely to get the 81 nominations needed to force a contest. * Burnham is considering appointing former Labour leader Ed Miliband as chancellor to challenge “Treasury orthodoxy,” while keeping Shabana Mahmood at the Home Office; he’s also in talks with economist Jim O’Neill about becoming chief economic adviser. * Starmer’s resignation speech was notably emotional — voice cracking as he spoke about his wife and children — while insiders describe him as privately furious at Burnham’s ambitions, saying he’ll support his successor “through gritted teeth.” * Nigel Farage was the only opposition leader calling for an immediate general election; Burnham has signaled he won’t call one, and his allies say the next election will be “won or lost in the first 100 days.” * Colombian right-wing candidate De La Espriella wins tight presidential race (Reuters) * Trump-endorsed right-wing candidate Abelardo De La Espriella won Colombia’s presidential runoff by less than one percentage point — 49.66% to Ivan Cepeda’s 48.7% — ending leftist President Gustavo Petro’s four years in office. * De La Espriella, a lawyer with no prior political experience and US, Italian, and Colombian citizenship, has pledged to end peace talks with armed groups, boost oil and gas, cut the state by up to 40%, and crack down on crime — though his thin margin will force compromise with a Congress where Petro’s party holds the most seats. * His background carries baggage: local outlet La Silla Vacia found many of his businesses dissolved or unprofitable, and critics highlight his past legal representation of clients tied to right-wing paramilitaries and money laundering for Maduro’s Venezuela. * The result fits a clear regional pattern — Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Ecuador, and now Colombia have all swung right recently, with Peru’s Keiko Fujimori also poised to win. * Trump openly endorsed De La Espriella, called the race “very important to the future of Colombia and its relationship to the United States,” and is building a broader regional military alliance of right-wing governments called the Shield of the Americas. US Elections * New York * New York primary could forecast future for Democrats. Here’s what you need to know (NPR) * New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed three progressive challengers in competitive House primaries — and all three won, including two who unseated sitting Democrats. * The biggest upset: 32-year-old democratic socialist organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier narrowly defeated five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in NY-13. Brad Lander decisively beat two-term Rep. Dan Goldman in NY-10. Claire Valdez won the open NY-7 seat, defeating the hand-picked successor of retiring Nydia Velasquez. * AIPAC money was a central issue in both upset races — Espaillat and Goldman both received AIPAC support, and the role of pro-Israel lobbying money has become an increasingly explicit litmus test in safe Democratic primaries. * AI companies spent tens of millions in NY-12, where super PAC

    1h 60m
  2. HoosLeft Podcast #131: UK Author Metin Pekin

    4d ago

    HoosLeft Podcast #131: UK Author Metin Pekin

    Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us Metin Pekin: https://www.metinpekin.com/ SUMMARY: In Scott’s first-ever transatlantic interview, he sits down with British author Metin Pekin — serial entrepreneur and author of the award-winning Breaking Democracy’s Chains: Freeing and Fortifying Democracy Against Hidden Capture. Using the Indiana Democratic Convention’s closed-door selection of Beau Bayh over grassroots candidate Blythe Potter as a live illustration, Pekin argues that the problem runs far deeper than any one party or election: parties themselves are the mechanism by which money captures democracy, filter genuine choice before voters ever see a ballot, and whip representatives into accountability upward toward donors rather than outward toward constituents. The conversation covers why more parties don’t solve the problem (the Netherlands and Israel as cautionary tales), how a no-party system would actually work at the state level, why the founding fathers warned against factions and were ignored, the shared foreign policy record of Labour/Tory and Democrat/Republican on Iraq, Libya, and surveillance, and the practical near-term steps — electing independents, introducing a progressive democracy tax on large donations — that could begin to break the party monopoly on representation. Pekin draws on Václav Havel’s Power of the Powerless and the women’s suffrage movement to argue that seemingly immovable systems do fall — when people refuse to consent to old rituals and force a new paradigm. HoosLeft and PIN rely on your support. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. WHAT’S INSIDE: 00:00:22 Introduction: HoosLeft’s First International Guest - Scott introduces Metin Pekin, British author of Breaking Democracy’s Chains, as HoosLeft’s first international guest — recording was done Saturday June 20th due to the five-hour time difference between the UK and eastern US. - Pekin’s bio: BA in political economy from the University of Greenwich, serial entrepreneur, gold award-winning author who noticed a troubling pattern — no matter which party won, inequality deepened, surveillance expanded, whistleblowers were punished, and wars continued. 00:02:02 Support the Show - HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network don’t paywall content or charge candidates — listener support at progressiveindiana.net ($5/month or $50/year) is what sustains the project. - Social handles: @hoosleft.us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads; @HoosLeft on Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube; PIN is @PINIndiana on Bluesky and TikTok, @progressiveindiananetwork everywhere else 00:03:37 The Indiana Hook: Blythe Potter, Beau Bayh, and the Convention - Scott frames the conversation with the Indiana Democratic Convention two weeks prior: he supported Blythe Potter, the grassroots progressive candidate for Secretary of State, against Beau Bayh — legacy political dynasty, backed by private equity, school privatizers, and fossil fuel money. - The establishment argument for Bayh: name recognition, fundraising capacity, and electability in a red state. Bayh won the delegate vote roughly 60-40. - The deeper problem Scott identifies: the choice was made by roughly 2,000 convention delegates — a slice of a slice of a slice of Democratic voters — before any general election voter had a say. Pekin uses this immediately as the entry point into his thesis. 00:06:15 Pekin’s Opening: The Illusion of Choice and the Curated Ballot - When Hoosiers go to vote in November, Blythe Potter won’t be on the ballot — a small percentage of delegates eliminated her. That, Pekin argues, is not democratic. - Every voter in every election faces a curated choice, not a real one — they are endorsing managers of the system rather than exercising genuine democratic power. - Voter apathy, he argues, isn’t apathy at all — it’s a rational response to a system that has removed meaningful choice. Pekin admits he himself stopped voting for a period, calling it wrong in hindsight but understandable. 00:08:10 How Money Captured Both Parties: Reagan, Thatcher, and Tony Blair - In the UK, Labour once genuinely represented the working class and the Conservatives the business class — an imperfect but real class distinction in representation. - That ended with Reagan and Thatcher: neoliberal policies killed domestic industry, trade unions were broken (especially the UK mining unions), and Labour’s primary funding source — union membership — dried up. - Tony Blair responded by rolling out the red carpet for Rupert Murdoch and courting business donors — mirroring the Republican/Democrat convergence in the US. The same structural pressure, the same result on both sides of the Atlantic. 00:11:14 Parties Monopolize Representation — and the Founding Fathers Warned Us - Pekin’s core structural diagnosis: parties have monopolized representation, they filter choice, and they are accountable to donors rather than to people. - Minor tweaks won’t fix this — the problem has been building for decades and arguably was anticipated at the founding. John Adams dreaded nothing so much as the division of the Republic into two great parties; Jefferson said he would not go to heaven with a party; George Washington warned that ambitious, unprincipled men through parties would subvert the will of the people. - Scott notes the irony: Americans revere the founding fathers but only selectively heed their warnings. 00:12:03 Third Parties Aren’t the Answer: The US Two-Party Trap - Scott lays out the structural barriers to third parties in Indiana: the two major parties are codified into the state constitution, the Libertarian Party has maintained ballot access for 20 years (correction: now 32 years) but rarely breaks 5%, and friends of his attempting to form a Socialist Party of Indiana face signature thresholds and geographic verification requirements that are deliberately prohibitive. - Pekin’s central counterintuitive argument: the solution is not more parties. Adding parties doesn’t break the underlying mechanism — it just multiplies the number of capture points. 00:14:44 Mo’ Parties, Mo’ Problems: The Netherlands and Israel - About 45% of American adults identify as independents rather than with either major party — so the impulse toward more parties is understandable. But parties are broad tents that bundle policies no individual voter fully agrees with, containing moderates, extremists, and everything in between. - The Netherlands: up to 20 parties, which sounds like real choice — but coalition negotiations after their last election took seven months, producing a weak government and even weaker opposition scrutiny. - Israel: the multi-party system gave far-right figures like Ben Gvir and Smotrich disproportionate influence over Netanyahu’s government, enabling policies most Israeli people oppose. More parties amplified, rather than diluted, extremism’s power. 00:19:24 How a No-Party System Would Actually Work: Electing the House - Pekin’s proposed system, illustrated at the Indiana state level: elect 100 House representatives as independent candidates, without party labels or party filters. - Candidates qualify by gathering a small threshold of voter signatures — enough to weed out novelty candidates while keeping the bar accessible. A half-percent of district voters is his suggested benchmark. - Each candidate publishes their top policy pledges on a common government website — voters know where each candidate stands on immigration, abortion, redistricting, and so on — and those pledges can even appear on the ballot paper itself. Pekin references Lilliana Mason’s research on how parties have fused political and cultural identities into polarizing mega-identities, arguing this pledge-based system breaks that fusion. 00:23:47 Choosing the Governor Without a Party: The Proposed Mechanism - With 100 independent representatives elected, they convene, choose a temporary speaker, then use a ranked-elimination voting process among governor candidates — each of whom must secure backing from at least 10 representatives to be taken seriously. - Candidates with the fewest votes are progressively eliminated until two finalists remain; those two go to a statewide popular election. The winner becomes governor; the runner-up becomes minority/opposition leader — both independently mandated. - The result: a governor with a broad mandate, independent legislative scrutiny, and no party machine coordinating both. The structure parties currently provide — government and opposition — is preserved without the capture mechanism. 00:26:48 Absolute Power, Gerrymandering, and Negative Partisanship - When one party controls the governor’s office, the House, and the Senate simultaneously — as Republicans do in Indiana — the result is absolute power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely: gerrymandering, entrenchment, rules drawn to maintain grip. - Scott identifies the trap Pekin’s system resolves: under the current system, voters keep sending bad representatives back not because they like them, but because they fear the other side more. Negative partisanship — “I hate the other brand” — is not accidental, it’s deliberate. - In a no-party system, voters can remove a representative who betrays them without any fear of “letting the other side in,” because there is no other side — just other candidates. 00:29:26 Do Republicans and Democrats Actually Differ? The War and Austerity Test - Pekin argues that on the issues that most affect people’s lives, there’s little daylight between the parties: Bush and Blair both went to war in Iraq under false pretenses, both funded by the same military-industrial complex and fossil fuel donors; Yugoslavia was bombed under Clinton; Libya under Obama; surveillance of American citi

    1h 5m
  3. HoosLeft This Week - June 21, 2026

    Jun 21

    HoosLeft This Week - June 21, 2026

    SUMMARY: On this Father’s Day edition of HoosLeft This Week, Scott is joined by Hancock County Democratic Vice Chair Chuck Gill and State Senate District 38 Democratic nominee Kacey Blundell, with a surprise guest appearance from State House District 81 candidate Sharon Wight with Kacey in Terre Haute. The panel opens on UFC fighter Josh Hokit’s transphobic, racist slur against Michelle Obama at Trump’s White House birthday fight night, contrasted with the Obamas’ dignified twin speeches at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. From there the show turns to Trump’s Iran “peace deal” — a thin memorandum of understanding already collapsing under Israeli strikes in Lebanon, Iran’s repeated closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and a $300 billion reparations package that has Republicans suddenly comfortable with the kind of Iran payout they once attacked Obama for proposing — before covering the G7 summit, a narrowly defeated Swiss population-cap referendum, and Indiana’s own affordability crisis: Governor Braun’s gas tax holiday gutting local road funding even as the state sits on a massive surplus, new state price caps on hospital systems, back-to-back utility rate hikes for Duke Energy and AES customers approved by Braun’s own IURC appointees, the data center backlash spreading across Indiana counties, Bernie Sanders’ proposal for public ownership of AI companies, Attorney General Todd Rokita’s water-contaminant lawsuit targeting mifepristone, and a Guardian profile on shadow Pentagon power broker Stephen Feinberg. The back half of the show digs into the leaked membership roster of Peter Thiel’s secretive Dialog society (which includes both major parties and several Indiana-connected figures), the chaotic Indiana Secretary of State race following Max Engling’s convention win over a scandal-plagued Diego Morales, a slate of Tuesday primary and runoff results from Georgia to California, new reporting on Trump White House discussions of suspending habeas corpus, several ICE enforcement and detention stories including an Indiana case, a federal reorganization of special education and civil rights enforcement, Indiana’s declining national education rankings, an update on the state’s historic spring tornado outbreak, and the city of Martinsville’s first-ever Juneteenth celebration. It takes a lot of work to put together a show of this scope. Please support HoosLeft and PIN with a free or paid subscription. TABLE OF CONTENTS: 00:00:33 — Intro: Father’s Day, Welcome & Guest Introductions 00:05:02 — Trump’s UFC Birthday Bash and the Obamas’ Response 00:12:12 — The Iran “Peace Deal”: Memorandum, Reparations, and Israel’s Defiance 00:21:20 — G7 Recap: Allied Unity, Geneva Protests, and the Swiss Population Referendum 00:30:09 — Indiana’s Gas Tax Holiday and the Road Funding Crisis 00:39:13 — Utility Rate Hikes: Duke Energy, AES, and Braun’s IURC Appointees 00:45:03 — Data Centers and Bernie Sanders’ AI Wealth Fund 00:50:42 — Rokita's Mifepristone Water Lawsuit 00:55:43 — The Pentagon: Boat Strikes, Hegseth vs. NATO, and the Feinberg Shadow Government 01:02:46 — Peter Thiel’s “Dialog” Society and the Epstein-Class Roster 01:11:12 — Indiana Secretary of State: Engling Wins, Morales Ousted, Ballard’s Petition Trouble 01:20:08 — Tuesday Elections: Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, DC, and California 01:28:03 — Weaponization: Newsom Investigated, Ohio FBI Raid, and the Habeas Corpus Memos 01:36:34 — ICE: Minnesota Indictments, Judge Dugan’s Conviction, and Salah Sarsour’s Release 01:45:51 — Education: IDEA Reorganization, Indiana’s Waiver, and the State’s F Grade 01:56:07 — Tornado Update and Martinsville’s First Juneteenth 02:02:15 — Outro: Guest Plugs and Sign-Off IN DEPTH: UFC Fighter Insults Michelle Obama * The UFC’s Despicable Night at the White House (Mother Jones) * UFC fighter Josh Hokit capped the White House fight night by shouting a transphobic slur about Michelle Obama during his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan — drawing a mix of cheers and boos from the crowd. * Even Dana White distanced himself, saying he’s “completely against saying nasty and false things about people’s families” — though Hokit built his UFC profile on exactly that kind of rhetoric, including statements about kicking out Mexicans and attacking transgender people. * The moment put a fine point on the evening: a private, for-profit cage fight on the South Lawn, ostensibly celebrating America’s 250th birthday, ending with a racial and transphobic slur against a Black former first lady at the White House. * Barack and Michelle Obama Decry Trumpism in Rousing Presidential Center Speeches (Rolling Stone) * The Obama Presidential Center opened in Chicago Thursday with Clinton, Bush, and Biden in attendance, plus performances from Bruce Springsteen and Christina Aguilera. Both Obamas delivered speeches widely read as veiled critiques of Trump, without naming him. * Obama warned against those who “see government as nothing more than a way to divvy up the spoils and punish enemies, and keep those who are different in their place,” and made the case that American foreign policy succeeds when it leads through democratic example rather than dominance. * Michelle Obama listed her husband’s presidential accomplishments — including a “peace prize” win — a clear jab at Trump’s well-known fixation on the Nobel; the line reportedly sent Hillary Clinton into laughter. * She also warned more directly: “Failing to see the humanity in all people puts us all on a slippery slope, and once that slide starts, there’s no telling where it stops.” Iran War * US-Iran ‘peace deal’ announced; Trump says Strait of Hormuz reopening (Al Jazeera) * Trump announced Sunday that a US-Iran ceasefire deal has been reached, declaring the Strait of Hormuz open for toll-free shipping and lifting the US naval blockade — a signing ceremony is set for Switzerland on Friday, June 19. * Pakistan’s PM Sharif confirmed the deal covers “all fronts, including Lebanon” — though Israel, which is still bombing Beirut and has issued forced displacement orders to 24 Lebanese towns, is not a party to the agreement. * The deal is described as a memorandum of understanding, not a final settlement — nuclear details are to be worked out in the 60 days after signing, and Trump simultaneously warned Iran in a NYT interview that the US could restart military operations or become “the guardian of the Middle East” in exchange for 20% of the region’s revenues. * Vance called it “a new era” and said he plans to attend the signing; UK, France, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia all praised the deal and called for swift implementation. Iran’s deputy FM confirmed the agreement Sunday. * One significant caveat buried in the article: an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs nearly derailed the announcement earlier Sunday, and Lebanese residents remain skeptical — the fighting that Iran most wanted addressed may be the least settled element of the deal. * What to know about the deal to end the Iran war (AP) * The Iran-US memorandum of understanding is, per Vance, “about a page and a half long” and “a very general document” — the full text remains confidential. * The deal essentially returns both sides to the pre-war status quo, with the same core disagreements over Iran’s nuclear stockpile, missile program, and proxy network punted to 60 days of negotiations. * Lebanon is the live wire: Iran says the deal covers all fronts including Lebanon, but a US official confirmed it does NOT require Israeli withdrawal — a contradiction that could blow up the arrangement. * Netanyahu has been visibly sidelined, is losing Republican support, and faces criticism from within his own coalition — with Israeli elections this fall. * Bottom line from analysts: none of Trump’s stated war aims — obliterating Iran’s missiles, severing its proxy ties, preventing a nuclear weapon — were achieved, and Iran’s leadership emerged “seemingly bolder.” * Weapons, money and ships: How is this Iran deal different from others? (BBC) * The signed MoU is far thinner than the 2015 JCPOA: it contains no enrichment caps, no IAEA verification mechanism, and no mention of destroying Iran’s uranium stockpile — despite US officials briefing that destruction was “the minimum standard.” It also says nothing about Iran’s ballistic missiles, which Trump himself cited as a war justification in March. * On sanctions, the US will issue immediate waivers letting Iran export crude oil and access banking and insurance services — with no conditions attached — a notably stronger position than Iran held before the war. The US and regional partners also commit to a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran. * On shipping: the naval blockade ends within 30 days, and Iran promises free passage through Hormuz — but only for 60 days. After that, Iran has already signaled it intends to charge “fees” for use of the strait, and the deal includes no mechanism to stop it. Traffic through Hormuz collapsed from a daily average of 94 ships in 2025 to just 6 during the war. * Bottom line: Iran emerges with sanctions relief, an oil export pathway, $300 billion in reconstruction money on the table, and an unresolved path to charging strait fees — all without firm commitments on its nuclear stockpile or missile program, the two things the war was supposedly fought over. * Even with a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, it could take weeks or months for oil to fully flow (AP) * Even with a deal, analysts say it could take weeks or months for oil to flow normally — mine clearance alone could take six months, ~500 ships are trapped in the Gulf, and captains aren’t rushing passage until they’re sure it’s safe. * Iraq, hardest hit by production s

    2h 7m
  4. HoosLeft Podcast #130: Live w/ guest Joseph Baughman

    Jun 17

    HoosLeft Podcast #130: Live w/ guest Joseph Baughman

    Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us SUMMARY: In this candid — and at times raw — conversation, Scott sits down with Joseph Baughman — Vincennes resident, democratic socialist, Christian, and recently withdrawn Democratic candidate for Indiana Senate District 39 — to examine what happens when a working-class candidate with no institutional support, no donor network, and very little money in the bank tries to run for office in one of Indiana’s most gerrymandered rural Senate districts. Baughman walks through the structural barriers that greet candidates who don’t come from money, the cold shoulder he received from roughly half the county Democratic parties in his six-county district, the advice from a party representative to take lobbyist money and vote however he wanted — an ethical line he couldn’t cross — and why he ultimately stepped aside. The conversation broadens into a wider diagnosis: the Democratic Party’s hollowing-out of its state and local infrastructure since the Obama era, its retreat from rural and religious voters, and how Trumpism filled that vacuum by speaking a language the party abandoned. Baughman closes with a call rooted in his prairie socialist faith: help somebody today. HoosLeft and PIN rely on your support. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. WHAT’S INSIDE: 00:00:21 Introduction: The DLCC, Senate District 39, and Tonight’s Guest - The DLCC announced investment in 11 Indiana state house races to break the GOP supermajority, but no comparable effort exists on the Senate side — where districts are even more gerrymandered. - Republicans spent millions in the Indiana Senate primary alone; Trump-endorsed MAGA candidates ousted seven incumbents who voted against the congressional redistricting gambit, with two others retiring rather than face the primary. - Eric Bassler’s retirement in SD-39 opened the seat; Jeff Ellington — former state rep, Trump-endorsed — won a three-way primary. Joseph Baughman, a democratic socialist from Vincennes, filed to run against him but has since withdrawn, leaving Democrats scrambling before the July 6th deadline. 00:02:29 Support the Show - HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network don’t paywall content or charge candidates — listener support at progressiveindiana.net ($5/month or $50/year) is what sustains the project. - Social handles: @hoosleft.us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads; @HoosLeft on Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube; PIN is @PINIndiana on Bluesky and TikTok. 00:04:09 Guest Introduction: Joseph Baughman - Baughman was born in Sullivan, lived in Linton for a time, and recently moved to Vincennes — embedded in SW Indiana for generations, with children and grandchildren staying in the area. - He describes himself simply as a common man — anybody you’d want to meet. 00:05:14 Why He Ran: Watching the Vulnerable Get Left Behind - Baughman decided to run because of what he was seeing at both the federal and state level: neighbors being displaced, the homeless and those without healthcare being attacked on a daily basis. - He concluded that something had to be done and that something required a top-down approach — and since nobody else was stepping up for the open seat, he decided it had to be him. - He’d been considering a run for a year or two before filing, and when the moment felt right, he committed. 00:07:23 The Campaign Experience: Filing, Barriers, and the Cost of Running - Senate candidates must file in person at the statehouse — for a Vincennes resident, that’s an all-day trip to Indianapolis, requiring time off work that not everyone can afford. - Scott identifies this as one of many ways the system filters out a certain class of candidate — those without the financial cushion to absorb the hidden costs of running. - Scott notes from his own experience running HoosLeft and working full-time that he can’t comprehend how candidates with small children juggle work, family, and a campaign simultaneously — the logistical burden alone is disqualifying for many people who could bring an invaluable perspective to government. 00:09:53 The Self-Selecting Nature of Electoral Politics - A state legislator’s salary is $33,000 a year for a part-time job running roughly January through March or April — not a livable wage on its own, which means candidates need another income source regardless. - The people who run for $33,000/year jobs, Baughman observes, are mostly people who already have institutional money, family money, or other financial backing — the system self-selects for the already-comfortable. - Scott notes the parallel at the congressional level: Jefferson Shreve, approaching billionaire status, can treat a $174,000 congressional salary as an afterthought — the structural incentives push wealth upward through every level of government. 00:13:01 Technical Difficulties Interlude - Brief audio dropout prompts Scott to reconnect — Joe’s cat also makes an cameo appearance. 00:14:11 Fundraising Reality: $687 Against a $30,000-$50,000 Target - Baughman ran his entire campaign on $687. The standard guidance for a Senate candidate to be taken seriously is between $30,000 and $50,000 — a gap he had no realistic path to close. - The Democratic Party provided no financial assistance — a stark contrast, Baughman says, from the party infrastructure he grew up with in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when the state party helped with flyers and basic organizing. - In a six-county district, he describes the party structure as “six separate heads of a beast” — county parties operating independently with no coordinating role from the district chair to onboard or connect new candidates. 00:17:48 If You’re Not Wealthy, You Have to Know Wealthy People - Scott frames the catch: if you can’t self-fund $30,000–$50,000, you tap your extended network — but that only works if your network includes people with money. - Baughman’s network is working people. His neighbors are trying to keep food on the table, not fund campaigns — in a district where 38% of residents are struggling by any income measure, that’s not a personal failure, it’s math. - Campaign contributions aren’t a basic necessity when people are cancelling subscriptions to keep up with utilities and food. 00:19:06 38% of Hoosiers Struggling: The Donor Class and the Utility Company Problem - A United Way of Indiana study released that week found 38% of Hoosier households struggling with basic necessities — a statistic that matches what Baughman sees in his own neighborhood: people knocking on his door offering to mow his entire lawn for $10 to put a little extra food on the table for their kids. - Scott connects the dots: utility companies are among the biggest campaign contributors in Indiana — to Republicans mostly, but Democrats too — and the self-reinforcing cycle of fundraising removes legislators from exactly the constituents they’re supposed to represent. - Scott argues the distance is structural, not incidental: once in Indianapolis, legislators mingle with elites and lobbyists who schmooze them into policies detrimental to the average working Hoosier — and the fundraising system ensures they arrived already removed from the people they’re supposed to represent. 00:22:13 Eat With Them, Take Their Money: The Advice That Broke the Camel’s Back - A party representative told Baughman directly: eat with the lobbyists, take their money, laugh with them, and vote however you want. - Baughman couldn’t reconcile that ethically — and points out the advice applies to citizens too: taking constituent money and voting however you want is the same logic, just with a different donor class. - This was a significant factor in his decision to withdraw — he couldn’t campaign on integrity while being advised to perform it selectively. 00:24:29 The Beau Bayh Parallel: Donor Class Capture at Every Level - Scott raises the Beau Bayh Secretary of State race as the statewide parallel: major contributions from school choice advocates and private equity firms with interests before the office, with the establishment defense being that you need money to win and can dine with donors without being beholden. - Scott argues the data backs it up: the donor class gets their way consistently, and it’s systemic from the statehouse to Congress. Baughman agrees — it’s a systemic issue all the way to the top. - Baughman says he simply couldn’t do it — and wishes someone had warned him about this dynamic before he filed. 00:26:20 Corporate Democrats, Coronations, and the Socialist Label - Baughman argues that corporate Democrats are entrenched within the party, and that the Bayh SOS campaign was effectively a coronation — something that burned him and contributed to his decision to run in the first place. - As an openly declared democratic socialist from day one, Baughman took a double hit: institutional resistance from party structures and personal resistance from lifelong neighbors who couldn’t pull the trigger for a socialist. - Despite that, he’s proud of the votes he received — and notes the party has shown him more outreach since he withdrew than during his entire campaign. 00:28:08 County Party Cold Shoulders and the 50/50 Split - About half the county parties in SD-39’s six-county footprint gave Baughman the cold shoulder; three reached out and made suggestions, including one Sullivan chair who has known him his whole life. - Two county party leaders were genuinely supportive and progressive-minded — people he hopes to call friends. One county was just getting started and couldn’t offer much. One actively shunned him. One never reached out at all. - The district chair, in Baughman’s view, should have played a coordinating role — giving candidates a contact list, making introductions, helping them na

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  5. HoosLeft This Week - June 14, 2026

    Jun 14

    HoosLeft This Week - June 14, 2026

    SUMMARY: On this week’s edition of HoosLeft This Week, Scott Aaron Rogers is joined by Democratic State House District 81 candidate Sharon Wight and political commentator Reece Axel Adams for a two-hour tour through another week that rewrote itself daily. The panel opens on Iran — where a peace deal keeps being announced and immediately contradicted by new airstrikes, with Netanyahu’s government making clear it has no intention of being bound by any US-Iran agreement — before turning to the economy, where inflation hit a three-year high and Trump responded by saying “I love the inflation,” even as 38% of Hoosier households can’t afford basic necessities and Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire on the back of a wildly overvalued SpaceX IPO that will soon land in millions of Americans’ 401(k)s. The show then covers Musk’s role in stoking anti-immigrant riots in Northern Ireland, the administration’s exclusive six-month streak of admitting only white South African refugees, and the House’s $70 billion blank check to ICE — before pivoting to the intersection of politics and sports: a World Cup already disrupted by Trump’s travel ban and a UFC fight staged on the White House South Lawn to celebrate Trump’s 80th birthday. From there, the show addresses Trump pulling Bill Pulte’s DNI nomination in favor of Jay Clayton; Bill Gates’ House Oversight testimony on his Epstein relationship and the Haberman/Swan book detailing Situation Room panic over the files; Indiana’s school funding crisis, the IU Indianapolis lecturer fired for showing a white supremacy pyramid, and the state’s $8-billion-plus data center tax giveaway, with Madison County’s moratorium vote as a rare counter-example; Indiana’s proposed primary closure and the voter registration purge of naturalized citizens; primary results from Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, Maine (Graham Platner’s win), and updates from California (Nithya Raman comes from behind in LA and Becerra to face Hilton). We finish with a look at media consolidation, capitlal punishment, and climate — including the Alabama nitrogen gas death penalty case, Minnesota assassin Vance Boelter’s guilty plea , Indiana’s secret execution policy, another Hoosier tornado outbreak, Lake Mead drying up, and alarming new research on the collapse of an important ocean current. It takes a lot of work to put together a show of this scope. Please support HoosLeft and PIN with a free or paid subscription. TABLE OF CONTENTS: 00:00:33 — Intro: Welcome, Housekeeping & Guest Introductions 00:05:37 — Iran “Deal” Watch: Escalation, Kharg Island Threats, and Charlie Brown’s Football 00:15:50 — Economy: Inflation at a 3-Year High, Hoosier Farm Losses, and Musk’s Trillion-Dollar Bubble 00:28:01 — Musk, Belfast Riots, White Afrikaner Refugees, and the $70 Billion ICE Blank Check 00:39:50 — World Cup, Trump’s UFC Birthday Party, Bread & Circuses 00:46:35 — Bill Pulte Out, Jay Clayton In: The DNI Nomination Shuffle 00:52:22 — Epstein: Bill Gates Testifies, the Haberman/Swan Book, and Lesley Groff 01:01:35 — Indiana Schools: IPS Referendum, IU East Charter School, and the Pyramid of White Supremacy 01:10:10 — Data Centers: Indiana’s $8 Billion Giveaway, DC Blox, Eagle Creek, and Madison County’s Moratorium 01:19:27 — Indiana Elections: Closed Primaries, Voter Registration Purges, and Diego Morales 01:25:38 — Tuesday Primaries: Nevada, North Dakota, South Carolina, Maine, and California Results 01:37:31 — Media: Trump Storms Off Meet the Press, and the Paramount/Warner Bros. Merger 01:44:02 — Capital Punishment: Alabama Nitrogen Gas Ruling, Vance Boelter’s Plea, and Indiana’s Secret Executions 01:50:41 — Climate: Indiana’s 30 Tornadoes, Lake Mead Crisis, and the AMOC Cold Blob 01:57:42 — Outro: Guest Plugs and Sign-Off IN DEPTH: Iran War * Sun: Iran fires missiles at Israel after Beirut attack ‘crossed all red lines’ (Al Jazeera) * Iran launched a ballistic missile barrage at Israel Sunday night, targeting the Ramat David airbase, after Israel struck Beirut’s southern suburbs killing at least two civilians — the IRGC called it “a warning” and threatened broader attacks on “all American-Zionist targets” if strikes continue. * Israel’s military said it intercepted all missiles; Trump immediately called Netanyahu to tell him not to retaliate, saying “each of them had their fun” and warning that a counter-strike would blow up the Iran peace deal he says is nearly done. * A senior US official told Israeli media “we’re not in this” regarding any new escalation — a significant signal that US backing for Israeli military action has limits. * Iran’s top negotiator threatened to halt peace talks entirely and move to “direct confrontation” if ceasefire violations continue — putting the US-Iran deal in serious jeopardy over Israeli actions the US cannot fully control. * Mon: Israel and Iran step back from renewed conflict after Trump calls for halt (Guardian) * Israel and Iran stepped back from full escalation Monday after Trump demanded they stop — but Netanyahu vowed to respond “with force” to any future attack, and Israel struck Iranian petrochemical and air defense sites across multiple cities. * Trump warned Netanyahu: “Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon.” * The Houthis fired missiles at Israel and threatened to block Red Sea shipping — potentially closing both major oil chokepoints simultaneously. * Oil spiked 5% on the exchange before easing; Iran’s demands remain unchanged: Lebanon ceasefire, frozen assets, Hormuz management, delayed nuclear talks. * One analyst’s read on Israel’s escalation: Netanyahu sent Washington a message that no Iran deal flies if it ignores Israeli interests — Israel can always “overturn the table.” * Tue: US and Iran launch airstrikes after Trump blames Tehran for downing Army helicopter (AP) * An Army Apache helicopter went down near the Strait of Hormuz after colliding with an Iranian drone — both crew members were rescued uninjured in what the military says is the first-ever drone boat rescue at sea. * Trump blamed Iran and launched airstrikes on air defense, radar, and ground control sites; Iran retaliated with attacks on Bahrain, Kuwait, and reportedly Jordan, further shredding the April ceasefire. * Whether the collision was intentional or accidental remains under investigation — Iran called it a hazard of operating near their territory and told US forces to “leave our region if you want to be safe.” * This escalation comes one day after Israel and Iran exchanged fire for the first time since the ceasefire, and as peace talks remain deadlocked over Iran’s refusal to surrender its enriched uranium and the US refusal to unfreeze assets pre-deal. * Wed: US launches new strikes on Iran, which fires back at Gulf states (AP) * The US launched a second round of airstrikes on Iran overnight — the third exchange of fire this week — hitting surveillance, communications, and air defense sites across Tehran, Bandar Abbas, and southern Iran; Iran responded with strikes on Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. * Trump revealed a “secret mission” to sneak oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz at night, aided by destruction of Iranian radar — claiming over 100 million barrels have slipped through, though the military gave no confirmation of the figure. * The US also disabled an eighth merchant vessel, the M/T Settebello, firing into its engine room as it attempted to breach the blockade — India says three of its sailors are missing. * Oil hit $93 a barrel, up more than 25% since the war began; Iran’s UN envoy told the Security Council the country “has never negotiated under threats and will never submit to pressure.” * A Qatari delegation arrived in Tehran for mediation talks even as the strikes continued — both sides appear to want a deal but can’t sell the necessary concessions at home. * Thu: Trump calls off latest threats to strike Iran, cites breakthrough in talks to end the war (AP) * Trump announced a “great settlement of the war with Iran” Thursday afternoon — hours after threatening to hit Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT” and seize control of its oil industry — saying a ceasefire extension is nearly finalized “over the next few days.” * Iran’s Foreign Ministry said mediators are active but “nothing has been finalized” and contradictions in the US position have caused turbulence — a notably cool response to Trump’s victory lap. * Trump’s threat to seize Kharg Island, through which 90% of Iranian oil exports pass, lasted only hours before he told Fox News: “I don’t know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest.” * The US disabled its ninth merchant vessel enforcing the blockade — and India confirmed three of its sailors were killed when the US struck the M/T Settebello Tuesday, drawing condemnation from the International Maritime Organization. * Netanyahu’s office said explicitly that Israel is not a party to the emerging US-Iran agreement — a significant signal given that Iranian demands include an end to the Lebanon fighting Israel has no intention of stopping. * Fri: US and Iran have agreed to wording of a deal to end their war, Pakistan’s prime minister says (AP) * Pakistan’s PM Sharif says the US and Iran have agreed to final text of a deal ending the war “on all fronts, including Lebanon” — Iran’s FM Araghchi called it the closest peace has ever been, and Trump shared Araghchi’s post approvingly. * Key terms reportedly include: beginning removal/destruction of Iran’s enriched uranium (nuclear details finalized within 60 days after signing), reopening the Strait of Hormuz, phased sanctions relief, and unfreezing Iranian assets — though Iran wants to keep charging ships tolls to transit the strait, which

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  6. HoosLeft Podcast #129: Live w/ guest Kate-Lynn Holley

    Jun 10

    HoosLeft Podcast #129: Live w/ guest Kate-Lynn Holley

    Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us Kate-Lynn Holley Campaign Site: https://votekateforstate.com SUMMARY: In this wide-ranging conversation, Scott sits down with Kate-Lynn Holley — mom, small business owner, realtor, former professional wrestler, and Democratic candidate for Indiana’s 6th State Senate District — for a portrait of a candidate whose biography is as unconventional as her pitch. A Lake County native who spent time in foster care, graduated into the Great Recession, fought her way from a wrestling ring in a church gym up to WWE Monday Night RAW, and used that paycheck to fund real estate school, Holley brings a working-class authenticity to a district that stretches nearly two hours from suburban Crown Point down through Newton and Benton Counties. The conversation covers her three-part campaign platform — A Roof. A Table. A Future. We look into the housing crisis, amplified in her area by NIPSCO rate hikes and Illinois cash buyers; her case for medical cannabis as economic infrastructure for struggling family farmers; the data center tax abatement giveaway she calls out in plain terms; a mobile-clinic approach to rural healthcare deserts; and a nuanced examination of the role of school vouchers. It ends with Holley’s most direct argument: that Democrats have an authenticity problem, not a policy problem, and that the real fight has always been the top versus the bottom — not left versus right. HoosLeft and PIN rely on your support. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. WHAT’S INSIDE: 00:00:21 Introduction and Support the Show - Scott introduces Kate-Lynn Holley as a mom, small business owner, lifelong NW Indiana resident, and former professional wrestler who used WWE earnings to pay for real estate school. - HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network don’t paywall content — listener support at progressiveindiana.net keeps the project going. - Social handles: @hoosleft.us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads; @HoosLeft on Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube; PIN is @PINIndiana on Bluesky and TikTok — @progressiveindiananetwork everywhere else. 00:03:07 Guest Introduction: Kate-Lynn Holley - Scott describes Holley’s background and notes he missed her speech at the Indiana Democratic Convention the prior Saturday — calls her a bright and charismatic presence on social media. 00:04:22 Who Is Kate-Lynn Holley? Lake County Origins and Foster Care - Holley grew up in densely packed, low-income neighborhoods in Lake County and spent time in foster care, born into a conservative religious family she always felt different from. - Her defining attitude: turn tragedies into triumphs, be scrappy, and never let circumstances define her psyche. - After graduating in 2006 she started college for musical theater, then stepped directly into the Great Recession and minimum wage jobs. 00:06:35 From Steak ‘n Shake to the Ring: How Wrestling Found Her - A high school friend from musical theater came into the Steak ‘n Shake where Holley was working overnight, mentioned a wrestling show, and offhandedly invited her to try out. - She said yes, trained at a church with a wrestling ring, put in her dues, and worked simultaneously at NorthShore Health Centers — a federally funded clinic where she got her first look at how hard healthcare access was for working people in her area. 00:08:24 WWE Raw, Bayley and Sasha Banks, and Paying for Real Estate School - WWE “extra talent” are local wrestlers brought in when needed; Holley had already worked security-guard bump spots when she was asked to job for Bayley and Sasha Banks in a tag team match during the launch of the women’s tag division. - Her strategy with her partner (a stranger): keep it simple, just show you know how to take a bump — it worked, and they got on-screen time, which paid more. - She used that money to enroll in real estate school — another example of taking every opportunity presented, recognizing her privilege in being able to do so. 00:10:33 Musical Theater, Wrestling, and the Intersection of Performance and Politics - Holley’s musical theater background transferred directly: in wrestling a persona is called a gimmick; in theater it’s your character — she already knew how to build one and connect with a crowd. - The physicality of wrestling is like choreography; “selling” a punch came naturally from acting training. She survived, she says, merely out of spite. - When a skeptic early in her campaign said “what does a pro wrestler know about politics,” her response: if you don’t understand how wrestling and politics intersect, you understand neither. 00:12:37 Wrestling, Trump, and How to Actually Captivate a Crowd - Scott recommends The Ringmaster by Josie Reisman and argues that Monday Night Raw is a better model for political speechmaking than Obama’s lofty oratory — the room-reading, the crowd energy, the improvisation. - Holley agrees: she has an unquantifiable “it” — people have always been magnetized to her, strangers ask her for help in stores — and says the ability to read a room’s vibe and pull out what people actually care about is what makes her effective as a candidate. - COVID ended her wrestling career ahead of schedule — she had trips to London, Texas, and Las Vegas booked when the pandemic hit. She had one final match last August because her daughter wanted to see her wrestle. 00:16:14 The Lemon Rice Realtor: How a TikTok Niche Was Born - Trying to generate real estate leads organically on social media, Holley decided to showcase why she loves being a “Region Rat” — the affectionate local term for NW Indiana natives. - She started reviewing lemon rice soup locations on TikTok, not expecting much; the first video got strong reception, she kept going, and some videos reached 26K views despite modest follower counts. - The niche worked because NW Indiana people are passionate about their local restaurants and food culture — it also aligned with her commitment to promoting local and small business. 00:18:38 What Is Lemon Rice Soup? The Greek Steel Town Origin Story - Lemon rice soup is a regional adaptation of avgolemono, the classic Greek egg-lemon soup, brought to NW Indiana by Greek immigrants who came to work the steel mills during the steel boom. - When the mills slowed, those families opened restaurants and avgolemono became the soup of the day — over generations it evolved into the region’s own version, thickened with flour instead of eggs, like Tex-Mex is to Mexican food. - It exists almost exclusively in NW Indiana and is a point of genuine local pride and passionate opinion. 00:20:39 The Lemon Rice Rankings: Crown Point, Merrillville, Highland, and Schererville - Holley has developed a three-category rating system: most chickeny, most lemony, and most balanced. - In Lake County: The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill in Crown Point for most chickeny; Cafe Stelios on Broadway in Merrillville for most balanced; Round the Clock in Highland for most lemony — the Highland location notably different from the Schererville location. - Scott’s personal attachment: Sophia’s House of Pancakes in Highland. Holley’s verdict: great for breakfast, weak soup. 00:22:07 The District: Gerrymandering, South Lake County, and the Rural Stretch - Indiana’s 6th Senate District is, in Holley’s words, “gerrymandered as hell” — South Lake County (Winfield, Crown Point, Cedar Lake, Dyer, Lowell, Leroy) plus West Jasper County (DeMotte, Fair Oaks, Rensselaer, Remington, Egypt), all of Newton County, and all of Benton County. - Driving from the top of the district to the bottom takes nearly two hours and crosses a time zone. - The design intentionally splits communities of interest — Dyer and Benton County have very little in common. 00:23:40 Hidden Gems: Goodland, Beaver Fest, and Firefighter BBQ - Holley recently closed a deal in Goodland, Indiana and discovered it has charming local gems including The Harvest Hangout — a cafe with an attached enclosed sensory play area for kids. - She ran a 5K at the Beaver Fest in Morocco, Indiana (named for historic Beaver Township), and attended a smoked meats festival where local firefighters ran the grill. - Campaign life means constant food — she jokes her waistline may not survive fair season, with elephant ears at the top of her fried dough ranking. 00:25:39 Campaign Slogan: A Roof, A Table, A Future - Scott introduces the three pillars of Holley’s campaign platform — housing, economic security, and education — and frames the conversation around the affordability crisis facing NW Indiana families. 00:26:35 The Housing Crisis: 2006 vs. 2026 and What’s Actually Different - Holley graduated June 6, 2006 — exactly 20 years before Saturday’s Democratic convention — and walked into a housing crisis both times. - The 2008 crisis was caused by fraudulent lending; the current one is driven by debt load (student loans, medical debt), stagnant wages, and utility costs — particularly NIPSCO’s rates, which have in some cases tripled. - Safeguards against predatory lending now exist, but they can’t fix the math when workers can’t qualify for mortgages or afford monthly costs after they’ve closed. 00:28:45 NIPSCO, Illinois Cash Buyers, and How NW Indiana Got Priced Out - NW Indiana’s proximity to Illinois — which has higher taxes — drove a COVID-era wave of Illinois buyers who sold their homes at a profit and threw cash overages at Indiana properties to win bids. - A $500K house with $20K cash over asking comps at $520K; multiply that across an entire summer and prices compounded rapidly. In 2020-2021, NW Indiana housing prices jumped 8% when the historical norm is 2.5%; homes that sold for $350K became worth $700K. - More buyers than inventory, combined with tariff-driven material cost increases, means NAR

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  7. HoosLeft This Week - June 7, 2026

    Jun 7

    HoosLeft This Week - June 7, 2026

    SUMMARY: HOOSLEFT THIS WEEK — June 7, 2026 Show Notes On this week’s edition of HoosLeft This Week, Scott Aaron Rogers is joined by Samantha Douglas (The Black Briefing) and Brandon Clark (Social Society) for a sprawling two-hour tour through a week that felt like a month. The panel opens on the Iran war — a ceasefire in name only, with U.S. and Iranian forces continuing to exchange fire across the region while Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared the conflict “over” and the House passed a war powers resolution — before drilling into the Indiana economic fallout, including Governor Mike Braun’s 30-day gas tax holiday costing the state $140 million a month it claims not to have for childcare. From there the show covers Braun’s Pride-baiting “Nuclear Family Month” proclamation and the Christian nationalist circus at the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth, including his Great Replacement-themed D-Day speech in France; the nomination of wholly unqualified Bill Pulte as DNI; and the Indiana Democratic state convention’s selection of Beau Bayh as Secretary of State nominee — a result the panel dissects at length, with both Douglas and Rogers signaling they may vote for Lincoln Party candidate Greg Ballard in protest. The back half of the show takes on Tuesday’s multi-state primaries and the hit-job rollout against Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner; the Epstein file saga, Pam Bondi’s non-sworn congressional testimony, and Trump’s appointment of Leon Black’s son to run the government’s largest overseas investment firm; the death of the anti-weaponization slush fund and the Stephen Buyer pardon; the privatized horror show of ICE detention at Delaney Hall; Indiana’s childcare crisis and a deep dive on trickle-down economic failure; public health threats from coal subsidies to Ebola to screwworms to Google’s mosquito-sterilization gambit; the data center fight in Shelbyville and Indianapolis; the firing of Scott Pelley from 60 Minutes by Bari Weiss; and the Chicago Bears’ advancing plans to relocate to Hammond, Indiana — a stadium deal Scott, a Bears fan, calls an unconscionable giveaway of public funds. It takes a lot of work to put together a show of this scope. Please support HoosLeft and PIN with a free or paid subscription. TABLE OF CONTENTS: 00:00:34 — Intro: Welcome, Housekeeping & Guest Introductions 00:03:41 — The Iran “Ceasefire”: Fire, Bombings, and the War Powers Resolution 00:12:18 — Nuclear Family Month, Andy Ogles, and Christian Nationalist Bigotry 00:18:19 — Hegseth’s Pentagon: D-Day Speech, DEI Purge, and Press Ban 00:26:22 — Bill Pulte and the Weaponization of National Intelligence 00:32:38 — Indiana Electoral Politics: The Secretary of State Race and the Bayh Convention 00:48:51 — Tuesday’s Primaries: New Jersey, Iowa, New Mexico, Montana, and California 00:55:46 — Maine Senate Preview: The Platner Controversy 01:02:03 — Epstein Update: Bondi Testimony, Blanche, and the Ben Black Appointment 01:08:28 — A Miasma of Corruption: Buyer Pardon, Weaponization Fund, and Diego Morales 01:15:10 — Immigration Enforcement, ICE Detention, and the GEO Group 01:21:21 — Indiana Childcare Crisis and the Economics of Trickle-Down Failure 01:28:36 — Public Health: Coal, Ebola, Screwworms, and Google’s Mosquito Gambit 01:37:56 — Data Centers, Shelbyville, and Organized Labor’s Shortsighted Bet 01:44:13 — CBS, Bari Weiss, Scott Pelley, and the Myth of the Liberal Media 01:50:08 — Bears to Hammond? Public Stadium Subsidies and the Indiana Sweetheart Deal 01:55:05 — Outro: Plugs, Upcoming Shows, and Sign-Off IN DEPTH: Iran War * ‘A shock to all Lebanese’: Israel sends a message as it takes ancient fort (Guardian) * Israel seized Beaufort Castle on Sunday — a thousand-year-old hilltop fortress in south Lebanon — for the first time in 26 years, raising the Israeli flag and the Golani Brigade flag over a site that symbolizes Lebanese resistance and the memory of Israel’s 18-year occupation. * Israeli soldiers used white phosphorus as a smoke screen for the advance, then shared footage of themselves walking the castle’s ramparts set to a Fairuz song — a deliberate psychological message to the Lebanese people. * Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Monday that Israel would resume striking Beirut, sending residents who had just returned home six weeks ago fleeing again — highways choked with cars, WhatsApp chats full of “here we go again.” * The city of Tyre was hammered with airstrikes Sunday, leaving smoking craters where residential buildings stood; civil defense was ordered to evacuate before the bombing began. * “You’re f*****g crazy”: Trump fumes at Netanyahu in call on Lebanon (Axios) * Trump exploded at Netanyahu in an expletive-laden phone call Monday, telling him “You’re f*****g crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” * The blowup was driven by Netanyahu’s Lebanon escalation threatening to torpedo the Iran negotiations — Iran had already warned it would abandon talks over Israel’s actions in Lebanon. * Trump also objected specifically to Israel knocking down entire buildings to take out a single Hezbollah commander and killing large numbers of civilians in the process. * After being “steamrolled” according to US officials, Netanyahu publicly released a statement saying Israel’s position “remains the same” — but Israel quietly dropped its plans to strike Beirut. * One of Trump’s worst calls with Netanyahu since returning to office, per US officials — though the two have had tense calls before while still coordinating closely on Iran. * Monday - US bombs Iranian military sites, then downs missiles Tehran fired at troops in Kuwait (AP) * The US bombed radar and drone sites in Iran over the weekend after Tehran shot down an American MQ-1 drone; Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at US troops in Kuwait, which the US shot down — no Americans hurt. * Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has collapsed to 36 ships in the past week, down from 130+ per day before the war; the closure is now threatening global food supplies, since the Gulf produces 30% of the world’s traded chemical fertilizers. * Trump claimed Monday that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to scale back their fighting — then moments later Israel warned its northern residents to take cover from incoming missile launches from Lebanon. * Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson summed up the state of negotiations bluntly: “We are negotiating in an atmosphere of mistrust.” * Tue: U.S., Iran Trade Heavy Fire in Persian Gulf, Testing Fragile Ceasefire (WSJ) * The US disabled an oil tanker called the Lexi with a Hellfire missile to its engine room as it attempted to breach the blockade and load Iranian crude at Kharg Island — triggering the most intense exchange of fire in months. * Iran responded with drone attacks on civilian mariners in the Persian Gulf, then fired ballistic missiles at US bases in both Kuwait and Bahrain; all were intercepted or fell short, with no American casualties. * Despite the exchanges, CENTCOM maintained the ceasefire is technically still “ongoing” — a designation that’s becoming increasingly difficult to defend with a straight face. * Diplomacy remains completely stalled; the WSJ notes this is among the most intense fighting since the ceasefire began in April, with both sides continuing to skirmish while refraining from a full resumption of war. * Wed: Iran war is over, Rubio says, as strikes continue (France 24) * Rubio told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the war with Iran is “over” — defining victory as destroying Iran’s defense industrial base, missile launchers, drone stockpiles, air force, and navy — even as Iran struck Kuwait’s airport the same day, killing one person and wounding 63. * Rep. Sara Jacobs cut to it: “You can change the name of the operation. It doesn’t change the fact that the Strait’s still closed, and my service members are still in harm’s way.” * On negotiations: Rubio said Iran’s highly enriched uranium is “clearly addressed” in papers exchanged between the two sides — but Iran still hasn’t given “final sign off” and is demanding $12 billion in unfrozen assets before engaging substantively on its nuclear program. * Wed: House passes war powers resolution directing Trump to end hostilities with Iran (NPR) * The House passed a war powers resolution directing Trump to end hostilities with Iran 215-208, with four Republicans joining Democrats — the clearest congressional rebuke yet of the war, more than 90 days in. * The four Republicans: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Fitzpatrick’s reasoning: “We’re past the 60 days. You either follow the law or you change the law. You can’t violate the law.” * The vote is largely symbolic — the Senate hasn’t scheduled a final vote, and Trump would almost certainly veto it even if it passed — but signals his support is eroding even within his own party. * Republican leaders had already tried to run out the clock by sending members home early two weeks ago when it looked like the resolution had the votes — it passed anyway. * In a separate vote, six Republicans joined Democrats to advance Ukraine aid, setting up a final passage vote. * Fri: US strikes Iranian radar sites; Kuwait comes under attack (Al Jazeera) * The latest Iran flare-up escalated to Kuwait and Bahrain simultaneously — air raid sirens activated in both countries, with Kuwait’s military actively intercepting missiles and drones and Bahrain residents urged to seek shelter. * The US struck Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites on Qeshm Island and at Goruk, shot down four Iranian drones near the S

    2 hr
  8. HoosLeft Podcast #128: Live w/ guest Dr. David Sanders

    Jun 3

    HoosLeft Podcast #128: Live w/ guest Dr. David Sanders

    Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us Sanders Campaign Site: https://davidsandersindiana.com/ SUMMARY: In this return visit to the HoosLeft Podcast, Scott welcomes Dr. David Sanders — Purdue University biology professor, 10-year West Lafayette City Councilor, and Democratic candidate for Indiana State Senate District 23 -- to cover two interconnected crises: the ongoing retreat from global public health infrastructure under an anti-science federal administration, and the accelerating threat to Indiana’s water supply posed by the IEDC’s water-hungry economic development agenda. Sanders draws on his decades of Ebola research and bioweapons nonproliferation work to argue for scientific literacy in government, then walks through the successful Stop the Water Steal campaign that beat back the IEDC’s plan to drain Wabash River aquifers for the LEAP Innovation District — and explains why that fight is far from over, with Eagle Creek Reservoir now in the crosshairs, SK Hynix eyeing those same aquifers for its new West Lafayette packaging plant, and the IEDC’s corruption — documented in the IndyStar’s “Three Kings” reporting — making the case for abolishing the agency outright. HoosLeft and PIN rely on your support. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. WHAT’S INSIDE: 00:00:00 Introduction and Support the Show - Scott introduces tonight’s episode as a return visit from one of his earliest guests, framing the conversation around a problem that has only grown since they last spoke. - HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network don’t paywall content or charge candidates — listener support at progressiveindiana.net is what keeps the project going. - Social handles: @hoosleft.us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads; @HoosLeft on Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube; PIN is @PINIndiana on Bluesky and TikTok, @progressiveindiananetwork everywhere else. 00:03:33 Guest Introduction: Dr. David Sanders - Scott welcomes Sanders back as a long-time ally and early guest, flagging that a full candidate policy interview with Derrick Holder is coming later in the campaign season. 00:04:10 Sanders Bio Part 1: Purdue, Ebola Research, and Bioweapons Nonproliferation - Sanders has taught in Purdue’s Department of Biological Sciences for 30 years, specializing in how viruses enter cells; he holds patents on gene therapy vectors and has done significant Ebola research. - He worked with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Biological Weapons Proliferation Prevention Program, including a visit to the formerly secret Soviet bioweapons lab Vector in Siberia — one of only two places on earth that still holds live smallpox virus. - The program’s goal was to keep former Soviet scientists gainfully employed so they wouldn’t sell their expertise to what the State Department called “Third Nations” (Iraq, Iran, North Korea) or terrorist organizations — a Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction outgrowth that Putin eventually killed as he consolidated power. 00:06:09 Sanders Bio Part 2: City Council and Community Work - Sanders has served on West Lafayette City Council for 10 years, working on issues including government surveillance, environmental protection, and making the city welcoming to its large international community. - He’s also worked on quality-of-life issues like trails and bike infrastructure — trying to make West Lafayette a well-rounded community that serves all of its people. 00:08:19 Should We Be Worried About Ebola? Individual Risk and Hospital Preparedness - Sanders’ direct answer: the individual risk of acquiring Ebola in the U.S. is extremely low; the real danger is to hospital workers treating an exposed patient, as seen in Dallas in 2014. - Sanders was researching Ebola before 9/11, when almost no one else in the country was; that expertise led to a 6 a.m. CNN call after the Dallas nurses’ infection. - His position, which differed from the CDC’s at the time: every hospital should be able to recognize an Ebola case, but treatment should happen at specialized regional centers — because proper use of personal protective equipment requires intensive, specialized training. 00:10:43 The CNN Story: How Sanders Pushed the Regional Treatment Center Model - Sanders recounts being put on CNN opposite a physician who initially took the opposite position — every hospital should be able to treat Ebola — only to reverse course on the 7 a.m. segment. - The regional treatment center model was subsequently adopted as U.S. policy, and Sanders credits the willingness of officials to listen to a well-reasoned argument as the reason it worked. - He uses the story as an illustration of what scientific knowledge in a legislator can actually accomplish: not just commentary, but durable policy change. 00:12:48 RFK, Anti-Science Governance, and the Case for Global Public Health Engagement - With RFK Jr. leading HHS, Sanders argues the U.S. has become an anti-science administration at exactly the wrong moment — and that pulling back from international Ebola engagement leaves us less prepared for the next outbreak. - After the 2014 outbreak, Sanders called for building healthcare infrastructure in affected African countries so hospital workers wouldn’t be endangered; that investment never happened at the scale needed. - The larger lesson: public health is a societal, not individual, issue — and with global travel and rising population density, every outbreak should be treated as a training exercise for the next pandemic. 00:15:58 Transition: From Global Health Crisis to Indiana’s Water Crisis - Scott bridges from infectious disease to water: both are public health issues, both are being mismanaged, and both are being made worse by the current political environment. 00:16:43 The LEAP Pipeline Plan: How It Started and Why It Was Wrong - The LEAP Innovation District was sited in Boone County near Lebanon with essentially no local water supply -- IEDC either didn’t know or didn’t care, planning to solve the water problem later. - The proposed solution: a multi-billion dollar pipeline to pump water from Wabash River aquifers in Tippecanoe County, roughly 25 miles, to supply the development’s water-intensive manufacturers including Lilly’s pharmaceutical plant. - Sanders’ scientific objection: those aquifers are near a toxic waste dump; pumping water out would draw toxins into the aquifer system and potentially into the Wabash River itself. 00:18:30 The IEDC’s Mission Creep and the Secrecy Behind the Pipeline - The IEDC was created by Mitch Daniels to replace the Department of Commerce and recruit businesses to Indiana — a reasonable starting point that metastasized into a real estate corporation, tax abatement authority, and tax-collecting entity by 2022. - All of the LEAP planning — land acquisition, pipeline routing, annexation to Lebanon -- was done in complete secrecy, with no public transparency or community notice. - The state legislature enabled all of it; when Sanders first raised the alarm, every advisor told him it was a done deal and a city councilor couldn’t do anything about it. 00:20:01 Stop the Water Steal: How Sanders Organized the Community Response - Sanders rejected the “done deal” framing, spoke out publicly at a meeting, and was immediately flooded with calls and texts from concerned residents — confirming this was not just his concern. - He drafted a resolution opposing the pipeline, found a co-sponsor, passed it unanimously, and it became the template for roughly 18 similar resolutions across Indiana — mostly from Wabash River communities. - The effort was bipartisan from the start, even in counties with all-Republican commissioners: the water issue united people across the political spectrum in a way nothing had in Tippecanoe County for decades. 00:22:25 What Stopped the Pipeline — and What It Proved About Grassroots Power - It wasn’t the legislature that stopped the pipeline — legislation didn’t do it. It was the political pressure and media attention generated by Stop the Water Steal and allied organizations. - The scale of the threatened draw was enormous: semiconductor manufacturing plants can use up to 100 million gallons per day — dwarfing even the water demands of data centers or Lilly. - After Tippecanoe County organized effectively, IEDC pivoted to Eagle Creek Reservoir in Indianapolis — and Sanders has been in contact with Eagle Creek advocates who want to replicate the model. 00:24:04 Home Rule, State Preemption, and the IEDC’s War on Local Communities - Sanders argues that home rule — the right of communities to make their own laws — is a unifying issue across the political spectrum, and that the state legislature’s repeated preemption of local authority (on environmental rules, puppy mills, and more) is the core problem. - The IEDC functions as the mechanism of state imposition: it overrides community objections, hands out tax abatements, and operates with no meaningful accountability to affected residents. - Sanders calls for abolishing the IEDC entirely — not reforming it — citing the IndyStar’s “Three Kings” reporting, which revealed that IEDC figures directed roughly $180 million to corporations they were personally connected to. 00:27:11 The Tax Abatement Contradiction and the Burden on Working People - Scott lays out the contradiction: Indiana recruits companies to pay taxes here, then gives them tax abatements so they don’t — shifting the fiscal burden onto workers and residents rather than the corporations themselves. - The abatements are presented as economic development but function as corporate welfare, often given to companies that were going to come anyway. 00:28:33 Eagle Creek Reservoir: The IEDC’s Next Target and Lessons for Indianapolis - The IEDC, LEAP, Lebanon Utilities, and Citizens E

    1h 6m
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About

Indiana politics, history, and culture from and unapologetically perspective. Host Scott Aaron Rogers interviews candidates, elected officials, activists, and academics in long-form interviews. And every Sunday morning, Scott welcomes a panel of guests from around the state to HoosLeft This Week - where they dissect the week's top news stories from across Indiana and look at US & international news from a Hoosier perspective. www.progressiveindiana.net

Information

  • Creator
    Scott Aaron Rogers
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    211
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Progressive Indiana Network
  • Show Website
    HoosLeft Podcast

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