HoosLeft Podcast

Scott Aaron Rogers
  • 5.0 (8)
  • News Commentary
  • 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. 3d ago

    HoosLeft Podcast #144 - Guest: Jessica Bailey for State Comptroller

    SUMMARY: After a month’s delay caused by the derecho that knocked out power across Northwest Indiana, Scott Aaron Rogers finally sits down with Jessica Bailey — two-term Porter County Clerk and the Democratic Party’s candidate for Indiana State Comptroller. The conversation is a genuine deep dive into one of the least-understood offices on the statewide ballot: what the comptroller actually does (payroll for every state employee, disbursing billions to schools and counties, managing the state’s HoosierSTART deferred compensation plan, sitting on the State Board of Finance), how incumbent Elise Nieshalla has used the office to wade into culture-war investment fights over China divestment and ESG, the real limitations of the state’s transparency portal, and — drawing on her own experience running elections in Porter County — a clear-eyed, reassuring breakdown of just how difficult it actually is to steal an American election. It closes with a demonstration of Porter County’s homegrown mobile voting unit, one of only two in the state. Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us Jessica Bailey: https://baileyforindiana.com/ 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: 00:00:23 Introduction: Take Two - Scott explains the month-long scheduling delay: a derecho tore through Northwest Indiana while heavy rain hit central and eastern Indiana, leaving Jessica’s region without power for up to two weeks and knocking her offline too. - Jessica Bailey: two-term elected Porter County Clerk, now the Democratic nominee for State Comptroller in November. 00:01:22 Support the Show - HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network don’t paywall content — support at progressiveindiana.net ($5/month or $50/year) 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. 00:02:49 Welcome: Jessica Bailey for State Comptroller, and This Summer’s Long Recovery - Jessica describes the scale of ongoing recovery: rebuilding roads and utility poles, replacing lost food and groceries, and home repairs that will take months. FEMA is running workshops in Portage this week, drawing in residents from Lake and LaPorte Counties as well — welcome relief given earlier federal cuts, though Scott notes the story has largely fallen out of the news cycle even as recovery continues. 00:05:20 What the County Clerk’s Office Actually Does - Beyond the visible, “sexy” work of election administration, the clerk’s office handles all court docketing (from marriage licenses to criminal, divorce, estate, and adoption filings), departmental payroll, and managing an influx of over 400 seasonal poll workers per election in Porter County alone. Jessica’s framing: “it’s good when government’s boring” — it means the public is being served quietly and competently. 00:07:20 Why Administration? Fixing a Broken Election Board From the Inside - Jessica ran for clerk specifically to secure an automatic seat on the county election board after a frustrating experience: while running for school board (she served six years on it before her time as clerk), she filed a complaint against another candidate that her irregularly-scheduled election board sat on for nearly two months — too late to matter before voters had already decided. The board technically followed the 48-hour notice law but gave no advance schedule, meaning residents had to physically check the commissioner’s chambers door to know a meeting was happening. - As clerk, she fixed this immediately: fixed monthly meetings at the same location, notifications via social media, an app, and the county calendar, in addition to the legally required posted notice. 00:10:39 Auditor, Comptroller, Same Office: A Confusing Rename - The state constitution still technically calls this office “state auditor,” even though it was renamed comptroller and will appear on this year’s ballot under both names during the transition. Its core functions: paying all state employees, paying vendors, and managing deferred compensation. 00:12:39 State Payroll: Same Job as County Clerk, Much Bigger Scale - Jessica currently manages payroll for 45 staff plus an influx of 400+ seasonal poll workers twice a year — a fraction of the state’s employee count, but she notes the state’s payroll is relatively stable year-round (unlike her own seasonal spikes) and runs through an automated portal, making the underlying process highly scalable to a much larger workforce. 00:14:33 The State Board of Finance and the Three-Minute Meeting Problem - The comptroller also sits on the three-member State Board of Finance (comptroller, auditor, and the governor or their appointee), which approves budget transfers and additional appropriations — functionally similar to a county council, which Jessica says rigorously questions every request. By contrast, she describes watching a full year of Board of Finance meetings on YouTube in about 30 minutes: no real discussion, appointees standing in for the actual officials, and votes taken with essentially no public accountability despite overseeing millions of dollars. 00:17:41 Dispersing Billions to Schools and Counties, and When Money Goes Astray - The legislature sets funding formulas, but the comptroller’s office executes the actual transfers (via ACH, not literal checks) to schools and counties statewide. Jessica describes a real incident at the county level where a misdirected ACH deposit added an unexplained extra million dollars to an account — resolved by contacting the correct recipient office and having the funds withdrawn and redirected, all trackable and auditable by the State Board of Accounts. 00:19:58 Proactive Fixes and Why You Can’t Just Ask to See the System - Keeping an accurate, updated chart of accounts for each entity reduces human error in fund routing. Jessica notes she can’t simply inspect the state comptroller’s current backend systems from outside — that access requires actually holding the office or working within it, partly for legitimate background-check and security reasons. 00:21:00 Is There a Role for AI in the Comptroller’s Office? - Jessica is comfortable with AI for polishing communications and creating graphics, but wants a human double-checking anything related to actual money movement or distributions. She’d welcome the State Board of Accounts piloting AI-assisted auditing incrementally, given the office no longer performs the auditing its former name implied. 00:22:43 HoosierSTART: The State’s Deferred Compensation Plan Explained - Jessica distinguishes three retirement vehicles: deferred compensation (voluntarily delaying pay to a later date), a vested pension based on years of service, and a standard invested 401(k)-style account. HoosierSTART functions essentially as the state’s managed deferred-comp/401(k) equivalent, and the comptroller holds one vote (among several) on its governing board. 00:24:30 Divesting from China: Culture War Meets Investment Policy - Scott lays out his read: the state legislature mandated INPRS (the pension system) divest from China-related holdings, but that mandate never actually applied to the separate deferred compensation program — incumbent Elise Nieshalla voluntarily aligned the two anyway, a discretionary culture-war-flavored move Jessica confirms wasn’t required. 00:25:57 ESG Investing, Who Controls These Decisions, and the Israel Question - Nieshalla also pulled deferred-comp investments from companies engaging in ESG practices — a decision Scott and Jessica agree runs counter to research showing ESG-oriented companies often deliver better returns. Jessica notes changing course would require board-level research and, ultimately, a vote — no single official unilaterally controls these calls, since an outside consultant (hired by the deferred compensation board, not the Board of Finance) executes the actual portfolio decisions. - Scott extends the logic to the state treasurer’s roughly $100 million investment in Israel bonds, given documented war crimes concerns — Jessica’s response: the precedent is already set by the China decision, opening the door to broader conversations about where Hoosier retirement money should and shouldn’t go, evaluated on returns and ethics alike, without singling out any one country. 00:30:10 The Transparency Portal: What’s There, What’s Missing, and Diego Morales’s Real Name - The portal lists state contracts and employee salaries, but recently had contact information stripped from state employee listings — meaning you can find someone’s salary but have no way to actually reach them at their state email. Jessica also flags a basic usability failure: unlike Indiana’s statewide Odyssey court records system, which supports wildcard name searches, the transparency portal offers no fuzzy search — meaning if you don’t know that Secretary of State Diego Morales’s legal first name is actually “Caesar,” you won’t find his entry at all. 00:34:32 Do We Ever See the Losing Bids? Good Old Boys Club Contracting - The portal only shows contracts that were ultimately awarded, not competing bids — meaning there’s no way to verify whether the state actually chose the best value. Jessica calls this a great idea worth pursuing. Scott connects this to Governor Braun’s recent elimination of minority- and women-owned business contracting consideration, arguing that without visibility into losing bids, the public can’t tell whether qualified smaller or diverse firms are being passed over for well-connected companies. 00:37:22 What Jessica Is Most Excited to Fix, and Marketing a Portal Nobody Knows Exists - Jessica’s priorities largely track the gaps already dis

    HoosLeft Podcast #144 - Guest: Jessica Bailey for State Comptroller

  2. Sep 9

    HoosLeft Podcast #143 - LIVE w/ Travis Gearhart for HD4

    SUMMARY: In the second half of a home-and-home podcast swap, Scott hosts Travis Gearhart — Libertarian candidate for Indiana House District 4 in Porter County and co-host of the Disenfranchised podcast — for a genuinely good-faith left-libertarian conversation. The two find real overlap on utility monopolies, corporate subsidies, military spending, and structural reform (an Article V convention, changing the makeup of Congress), while sharply disagreeing on the proper size and role of government itself. Gearhart traces his own political path from young elected Republican to disillusioned libertarian, makes the case for auditing NiSource and ending Indiana’s data center subsidy regime, and pushes back hard on the idea that Indiana Republicans are actually governing like libertarians. The conversation closes with Gearhart’s pitch for splitting your ticket in his three-way state house race. Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us Travis Gearhart: https://www.travisgearhart.com/ 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: Common Ground and Real Disagreement With Libertarians - Scott frames tonight’s guest through his own frustration with libertarians: real agreement on individual freedom, bodily autonomy, church-state separation, skepticism of the carceral state, and non-interventionist foreign policy — sharp disagreement on the role of government, taxes, and business regulation. Both, he notes, are the black sheep of their respective party coalitions. - Tonight’s guest: Travis Gearhart, Libertarian candidate for Indiana House District 4 (southern Porter County), host of the Disenfranchised podcast, and Scott’s recent podcast-swap counterpart. 00:03:00 Welcome: Travis Gearhart and the Disenfranchised Podcast - Travis recounts a rough weekend of parade appearances and campaign tabling that delayed editing his own episode with Scott and left him with a touch of sun poisoning. - The Disenfranchised podcast: available everywhere, with disenfranchisedpodcast.com as the central link hub, also connected to his campaign site travisgearhart.com. 00:04:57 From Young Republican to Libertarian: Travis’s Political Journey - Travis got politically engaged around the Obama-McCain election, initially leaning conservative and pro-death-penalty. He became the youngest elected official (age 25) and first Republican in 15-20 years on the Hebron Town Council, later serving as South County Republican chair and District 1 Young Republican vice chair. - A divorce coinciding with a county council run, a contentious job loss tied to Republican Party connections, and a self-described “don’t tread on me” small-L libertarian streak (despite an admitted neocon phase) pushed him out of politics for 7-8 years. He returned after State Rep. Ed Soliday’s infamous leaked text message to the Portage mayor, Austin Bonta, initially considering an independent run before formally joining the Libertarian Party. 00:08:15 If You’re Skeptical of Government, Why Run for Office? - Scott presses the apparent contradiction: if libertarians believe government is the problem, why seek office within it? Travis calls it a last-ditch effort to steer a system he sees heading toward historically typical imperial decline (citing the roughly 250-year lifespan of empires), while acknowledging even close friends who see voting as pointless. His answer: someone has to try, and the same logic explains why he respects progressives pushing an uphill fight within a Democratic Party he’s skeptical of too. 00:11:36 The Two-Party Cartel and Why Dissenting Voices Get Punished - Both agree the two parties function like a cartel that agrees on nothing except the illegitimacy of any third option. Travis extends this to internal dissent — pointing to how the GOP treated Ron Paul and Thomas Massie, and how Democrats treated Bernie Sanders and the 2024 Biden-to-Harris switch without a primary vote. Scott plugs his June interview with Metin Pekin, author of Breaking Democracy’s Chains, on multi-party alternatives. 00:13:24 Crony Capitalism, Data Center Subsidies, and the Israel Investment Deal - Scott asks Travis to evaluate Indiana’s 20-year Republican supermajority in libertarian terms. Travis firmly rejects the idea that current Republican governance is libertarian — calling it crony capitalism instead, citing a recent Donald Rainwater post about the incoherence of praising free markets while showering data centers with subsidies. He specifically flags Indiana’s investment deal with Israel as an example of the state financially entangling itself in a controversial foreign relationship for no clear libertarian reason, and argues real free-market capitalism requires allowing winners and losers to actually fail. 00:17:46 Where Should the Tax Burden Actually Fall? - Scott connects this to Republican State Rep. J.D. Prescott’s proposal to eliminate property tax entirely in favor of expanded sales taxes on services (oil changes, haircuts) — a shift that pushes the burden onto working people. Scott’s position: if taxes must exist, they should fall on those most able to pay. 00:19:30 Income Tax vs. Property Tax: Travis’s Case for Starting There - Travis, while personally in the “taxation is theory theft” camp, argues that if you’re going to tax at all, income tax should be tackled before property tax, since wage earners can’t move their money around the way wealthy people with liquid assets can to dodge taxation. He’s open to a state sales tax replacing income tax specifically, contingent on the numbers actually working out, and stresses incremental, well-funded reform over sweeping bills that get watered down to nothing by the time they pass. 00:22:51 Taxing Unrealized Gains and Where Progressives and Libertarians Split - Scott argues wealth tied up in stocks and bonds is undertaxed and defends taxing unrealized gains. Travis concedes “we’re already taxing unrealized gains” in some forms, but pivots to a broader philosophical point: government and education aren’t businesses and shouldn’t be operated like one — they should be run as services, though he believes many of those services can be delivered better in a private environment. He acknowledges the two of them won’t agree on the underlying purpose of government or taxation, since that’s the actual dividing line between a libertarian and a progressive. 00:24:46 NiSource, IURC, and Ed Soliday: The Case for a Full Utility Audit - Despite that fundamental disagreement, Travis says there’s still real overlap worth working on — citing sunlight and disclosure laws as one example — before pivoting to his central ask: a full audit of NiSource (NIPSCO’s parent company). He argues utilities behave as legal monopolies that face none of the market discipline true private businesses face — you can’t simply switch providers the way you might choose a different retailer. He connects this to Rep. Ed Soliday’s financial ties to NiSource and influence over the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC), which Travis argues shouldn’t exist in its current form, and contrasts his own consistent position with the Democratic opponent in his race, whom he considers a nice guy but more conservative than Travis on this issue specifically. 00:27:30 Natural Monopolies and Why the Free Market Can’t Fix Utilities - Scott agrees utilities are natural monopolies — competing power grids make no practical sense — and argues they shouldn’t exist as private profit centers at all, since the absence of real competition means no market discipline can ever actually apply. 00:28:25 Is the Trump Administration Secretly Socialist? Privatization in Name Only - Travis argues the Trump administration’s equity stakes in various companies make it, by definition, one of the more “socialistic” administrations in memory — while Republicans still claim the free-market mantle. His diagnosis: what passes for privatization in practice is privatization in name only, with NIPSCO and NiSource raising rates repeatedly (including three requested increases during and after last year’s widely criticized storm response) while executive pay roughly doubled or tripled, none of which resembles genuine market accountability. 00:31:59 The Solar Net Metering Trap: Why ‘Off Grid’ Isn’t Really Allowed - Travis relays a friend’s experience: NIPSCO doesn’t allow full off-grid solar setups, requiring a mandatory energy buyback arrangement that, once installation costs are factored in, left his friend with no actual savings — undercutting the premise that residential solar offers real independence from the utility. Scott adds that utilities typically buy back excess power at a discounted rate and resell it at full price, reinforcing the monopoly dynamic. 00:33:33 Vegetation Maintenance, Flooding, and Where Your Freedom Ends - Scott raises NIPSCO’s underinvestment in vegetation maintenance (unprofitable) and central Indiana flooding tied to overdeveloped wetlands as examples of unregulated property rights harming neighbors and people downstream — invoking “your freedom ends where my nose begins” as the philosophical crux libertarians and progressives frame differently. 00:34:53 The Hobart Data Center and Government Rules That Get Bought Around - Travis cites a proposed Hobart data center sited dangerously close to wetlands as a case where zoning rules exist but get circumvented once enough money and lobbying enter the picture — a dynamic he says isn’t uniquely Republican, Democratic, or even democratic, but common to essentially all governments once exceptions and variances start accumulating. 00:37:03 Buying Special Dispensation and the Libertarian Infighting Problem - Scott summarizes: you can’t buy your

    HoosLeft Podcast #143 - LIVE w/ Travis Gearhart for HD4

  3. Sep 6

    HoosLeft This Week - September 6, 2026

    Central Indiana Immigrant Resources UMeed-Hope: https://indyliberationcenter.org/tag/umeed-hope/ Indy Rapid Response: Phone 855-589-4639 https://www.facebook.com/p/Indy-Rapid-Response-61577923604388/ Midwest Immigration Bond Fund: https://www.mibfc.org/ Indiana Undocumented Youth Alliance: https://www.iuya.org/ Indiana AID: https://www.indianaaid.org/ SUMMARY: On this episode of HoosLeft This Week, Renée Mather and Ben Davis joined Scott as ICE launched a surge of arrests across central Indiana just a day after a statewide weekend of protest against the Miami Correctional Facility detention contract, drawing State Sen. Andrea Hunley’s forceful video response alongside a much weaker one from Mayor Hogsett. The conversation moved through Flock camera abuse cases, Indiana’s deepening ties to Israeli defense and surveillance technology through the Iron Nation initiative, and AIPAC’s growing spending and influence over House Democrats, before turning to Itamar Ben-Gvir’s plan to remove Palestinians from Gaza and the Jeffrey Epstein of it all. The Iran war resumed after a month-long lull as sailors aboard the USS Lincoln finally get reprieve. The back half opened with Pentagon dysfunction following Army Secretary Dan Driscoll's resignation, then covered Trump's dismissal of data-center opponents as Zuckerberg lobbied against AI regulation, a wave of AI models escaping their own guardrails, and a whistleblower's warning that the USPS mail-voting rollout could disenfranchise voters ahead of the midterms, before closing on Indiana's own contested Senate District 23 recount, redistricting fights in Missouri and Maryland, Gary's prolonged blackout and NIPSCO's accountability gap, plus the passing of Gloria Steinem. Guest info: Renee Mather: https://reneemather.carrd.co/, https://linktr.ee/407CommunityAction Ben Davis: https://www.bendavisforindiana.com/ 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 - Welcome and guest introductions 00:03:53 - ICE’s surge into Indiana and local officials’ response 00:14:05 - State Sen. Andrea Hunley’s video response to the ICE surge 00:22:38 - Flock cameras and the surveillance state 00:27:21 - Indiana’s ties to Israeli defense and surveillance tech 00:33:24 - AIPAC’s spending and Democratic defections in Congress 00:40:26 - Ben-Gvir’s plan to remove Palestinians from Gaza 00:45:20 - Palantir, Epstein, Leon Black and Evan Bayh? 00:50:59 - The Iran war resumes after a month-long lull 00:57:36 - The USS Lincoln docks in Thailand and Indiana’s gas tax suspension 01:01:45 - Pentagon dysfunction: Driscoll’s resignation and polygraph tests 01:08:13 - Trump mocks data-center opponents as Zuckerberg lobbies against AI regulation 01:17:26 - AI risks: court hallucinations and rogue AI agents 01:22:43 - A whistleblower’s warning on the USPS mail-voting rollout 01:28:14 - Voter intimidation fears and Indiana’s Senate District 23 recount 01:32:29 - Tuesday’s Massachusetts primaries 01:39:30 - Gary’s blackout, NIPSCO, and who does Eddie Melton work for? 01:49:42 - In Memoriam: Gloria Steinem 01:55:35 - Wrap-up, guest info, and announcements NOTES: ICE/Immigration * Protesters condemn Miami ICE facility at vigils across Indiana (IndyStar) * Indiana Organizing Project, ACLU of Indiana, and Indivisible coordinated a “Weekend of Public Witness” across the state Aug. 29-30, with events in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Muncie, Evansville, LaGrange, Columbus, Vincennes, and Plymouth calling to end ICE detention at Miami Correctional Facility. * At an Irvington candlelight vigil, Indiana Organizing Project’s Stuart Mora read a statement from a released detainee who said he went seven days without immune suppression medication needed after a 2004 kidney transplant. * Volunteers who’ve visited detainees described complaints of undercooked/insufficient food, inadequate soap, and detainees held after being stopped in cars or arrested at green card interviews or workplaces. * Protesters criticized Indiana’s contract to house ICE detainees, theoretically worth up to $213 million to the state. * ICE agents surge into Indianapolis, begin making arrests (FOX59) * ICE conducted a visible surge of arrests across Indiana this week, with viral videos capturing agents chasing a man across Post Road at I-70 on Monday and arresting another man at a gas station near 38th Street and German Church Road on Tuesday. * A witness at the gas station arrest said a woman present believed ICE had followed her white painter’s van from her home — matching a tactic FOX59/CBS4 and IU journalism students previously found ICE officers admitting to using in bodycam footage. * IMPD maintains it isn’t involved in immigration arrests; protesters gathered at Monument Circle Tuesday evening in response to the videos. * DHS defended the operation, saying ICE operates “24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” and cited several Indiana detainees with convictions including kidnapping, rape, and assault as the “worst of the worst.” * Mayor Hogsett said the city received no advance communication about the operations and reaffirmed Indianapolis as a “welcoming community”; Lawrence PD said it assisted ICE only in response to a barricaded, wanted individual and does not conduct immigration sweeps or ask about status during routine stops. * Two Bloomington men in ICE custody after Tuesday arrests (WFIU) * ICE arrested two Venezuelan men, Manuel Alejandro Nadal-Ortiz and César Cepeda Gomez, both delivery drivers with legal work permits and pending asylum claims, outside the Bloomington Walmart Tuesday. * Neither man has a criminal record — Gomez has an asylum hearing scheduled for October, and Ortiz’s family had no contact with him for hours after the arrest, with Ortiz not yet appearing in ICE’s detainee locator system. * Local police say they had no advance notice or involvement — Bloomington PD and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office both said they weren’t contacted by ICE, though a new state law bars them from stopping individual officers who choose to assist federal immigration enforcement. * Reports of ICE surge in Indianapolis prompt congressional inquiry (WFYI) * Rep. André Carson launched a congressional inquiry into reported ICE enforcement increases in Indianapolis, demanding DHS and ICE explain the operations’ scope, legal authority, and probable cause by September 9. * City officials say they’ve received zero communication from ICE about any operations — Mayor Hogsett’s office, City-County Council President Maggie Lewis, IMPD, and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office all said they have no information beyond media reports. * Reactions split sharply along party lines: Sen. Jim Banks warned “we will not let Indianapolis become Minneapolis” and said obstructors should be prosecuted, while Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith voiced support for ICE after last month offering remarks at a so-called “mass deportation rally” — ICE itself declined to confirm details but listed five “worst of the worst” arrestees without specifying dates. * Exodus Refugee Immigration said Latino and Haitian residents are being disproportionately targeted via traffic stops and racial profiling, and is raising funds for a rideshare program so clients can avoid driving. * ‘Hear their cries’: 80+ faith leaders criticize Hogsett, Indy officials on ICE surge response (IndyStar) * More than 80 faith leaders sent a letter criticizing Mayor Hogsett and Indianapolis officials for a weak response to the ICE surge, demanding city resources not be used to help civil immigration enforcement, multilingual “Know Your Rights” materials, and a public hearing. * Hours after the letter, Hogsett posted a stronger statement calling federal officials’ lack of communication “unacceptable,” while reaffirming IMPD “is not participating in federal immigration enforcement nor do they plan to.” * The Marion County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it has an agreement to house ICE detainees for up to 48 hours, with one ICE-hold detainee in custody as of early Sept. 2. * Mayoral candidates state Sen. Andrea Hunley and Councilor Vop Osili issued stronger statements condemning ICE activity and offering resources; Councilor Jesse Brown called for using the city’s Flock camera network to track and warn people about agents’ locations. * Hunley speaks out as ICE enforcement continues across Indianapolis (Black Indy LIVE) * State Sen. Andrea Hunley called ICE agents “terrorizing” and used the word “kidnapped” to describe detentions at everyday locations like gas stations, grocery stores, and work sites — citing accounts relayed to her by a local pastor. * She urged residents to check on neighbors, follow immigrant-led rapid-response groups, donate to trusted organizations, and deliver food to families too afraid to leave home, repeating the phrase “we keep us safe.” * Her stance places her squarely opposite Lt. Gov. Beckwith (who’s praised ICE) and Sen. Banks (who’s said obstructors should be prosecuted) — sharpening the partisan divide on this issue as she campaigns for Indianapolis mayor. * ICE officer charged with lying about shooting turns himself in to feds (AP) * ICE officer Christian Castro turned himself in to federal authorities on charges of lying to investigators about January’s shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis during Minneapolis’s Operation Metro Surge. * Castro is the first federal immigration officer prosecuted by the Trump administration over conduct during that operation; federal prosecutors had earlier dropped charges against Sosa-Celis and another man after video contradicted officers’ account of the encounter. * He also faces separate Minnesota state charges of assault and false reporting; Texas Gov. Greg Abbott initially refused to extradite him, and Castro was re

    HoosLeft This Week - September 6, 2026

  4. Sep 2

    HoosLeft Podcast #142 - Bread & Roses Roundtable

    SUMMARY: Scott convenes a five-person roundtable to unpack democratic socialism — what it means in political science terms and what it means to each of them personally. The panel: Debbie Asberry, co-founder of Hoosiers for Democracy and president of In Good Company Consulting; Bryce Greene, PhD student in informatics at IU, Graduate Workers Coalition organizer, and published writer; Blythe Potter, Army veteran, small business owner, and recent Indiana Democratic Party Secretary of State candidate; and Indianapolis City-County Councilor Jesse Brown, the first openly elected socialist in Indiana in over a century. Starting from a viral chart attempting to define socialism, communism, and capitalism, the conversation ranges across the actual history of “actually existing” communist and socialist projects, why so many popular American policies get branded as dangerous the moment the word socialism attaches to them, Truman’s famous 1952 takedown of the socialism smear, the real content of the national DSA platform, messaging strategy versus running from labels, and the perennial bind of being told simultaneously to stay inside the Democratic tent and to shut up once you’re there. Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us Deborah Asberry: https://www.hoosiers4democracy.org/ Bryce Greene: https://brycegreene.substack.com/ Blythe Potter: https://www.blythepotter.com/ Jesse Brown: https://www.jesseforindy.com/ 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: Tonight’s Topic Is Democratic Socialism - Scott frames the night’s agenda: defining democratic socialism in political science terms and personal terms, overcoming Red Scare branding, the national DSA platform, working within the Democratic Party versus building a standalone party, and how much focus should go to electoral politics versus social activism and community building. 00:01:07 Support the Show - HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network don’t paywall content — support at progressiveindiana.net 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. 00:02:04 Welcome: Debbie Asberry, Bryce Greene, Blythe Potter, and Jesse Brown - Debbie Asberry: co-founder of Hoosiers for Democracy (a Substack newsletter and grassroots activist network) and president of In Good Company Consulting, working in organizational development, leadership development, and systems theory. - Bryce Greene: PhD student in informatics at IU, organizer with the Graduate Workers Coalition, published in Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Salon, Monthly Review Online, and SharePost. - Blythe Potter: U.S. Army veteran, small business owner with an MBA in Conscious Capitalism, recent candidate for the Indiana Democratic Party’s Secretary of State nomination. - Jesse Brown: Indianapolis City-County Councilor and, per Scott’s introduction, the first elected open socialist in Indiana in over a hundred years. 00:04:52 The Democratic Socialism Chart: Setting Up Tonight’s Question - Scott introduces a chart circulating online since this summer’s DSA-backed primary wins in New York, attempting to define socialism, democratic socialism, and capitalism side by side — better than some versions he’s seen, but still imperfect, and a useful jumping-off point for tonight. 00:06:15 Debbie’s 15-Hour Deep Dive Into the Terminology - Debbie explains writing her own explainer article after the New York primary wins (candidates endorsed by Zohran Mamdani) made “Democratic Socialists of America” a suddenly unavoidable term she didn’t fully understand herself. A roughly 15-hour research dive into distinguishing state-owned socialism, social democracy, and socialism left her still finding the definitional lines genuinely blurry. 00:07:37 Jesse Breaks Down the Chart: Private Property vs. Personal Property - Jesse credits the chart as better than most but explains the crucial distinction it gestures at: socialism opposes private property in the sense of capital that generates passive wealth (his example: an Airbnb investor extracting rent), not personal property like a toothbrush or a home you actually live in. He argues democratic socialism and capitalism are fundamentally incompatible as combined systems, though markets themselves can persist; social democracies like Nordic countries achieve a temporary blend but have eroded since the 1970s. 00:10:47 Blythe: How to Be a Business Owner and a Socialist - Scott asks Blythe — a business owner with a Conscious Capitalism MBA — how she squares that with DSA membership. Her answer: belief in democracy, environmental stewardship, and conscious capitalism principles — B Corp certification, ethical supply chains, recycling, and genuine concern for how the business affects employees, family, and community. 00:11:58 Bryce: Why These Charts Are Mostly Incoherent Propaganda - Bryce argues the “limited government intervention” framing of capitalism on these charts is fiction — American capitalism runs on massive state subsidy of banks and the military-industrial complex. He calls the charts a soft propaganda tool that launders democratic socialism through inoffensive, majority-white countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark) while quietly maligning Cuba, Vietnam, the USSR, and China — essentially the Bernie Sanders Overton window. He pivots to defending “actually existing” communist projects (China’s mixed economy, 800 million lifted from poverty) against the U.S. system, where healthcare, the military, and every industry are organized primarily for profit. 00:14:39 Scott: China Isn’t Communist, and Neither Was Bernie’s Platform - Scott, citing prior China-expert guests, argues China’s economy is better described as state capitalism than communism, drawing a parallel to Trump’s own equity stakes in companies like Intel. He notes Bernie Sanders’s actual platform is more accurately social democracy than democratic socialism — a distinction he considers largely academic hairsplitting. 00:17:25 A Cleaner Graphic: Six Simple Tenets of Democratic Socialism - Scott presents a second, more accessible graphic: democracy first, people over profit, economic fairness, worker power, a sustainable future, and justice and equality — and challenges Debbie to find anything objectionable in it. 00:18:03 Debbie: Capitalism With Guardrails and Why This Isn’t Radical - Debbie cites Heather Cox Richardson’s framing — democratic socialism as “capitalism with guardrails” — and argues the six-tenet graphic explains figures from Zohran Mamdani to Bernie and AOC. Her deeper concern: American democracy itself is currently compromised under what she calls competitive authoritarianism, with institutions actively failing, making the underlying economic-fairness conversation harder to have in isolation. She traces her own understanding back to FDR and the New Deal, and the decades-long oligarchic effort to unwind it. 00:21:06 The New Deal, FDR, and the Decades-Long Effort to Undo It - Scott adds historical detail: opponents didn’t just fight the New Deal legislatively — they plotted (unsuccessfully) to assassinate FDR in the 1930s. He argues American democracy was never fully realized to begin with, running on what he calls a 1780s-era operating system into the 2020s. 00:22:13 Jesse: More Democracy in the Economy, and Why Communism Is Aspirational - Responding to Scott’s framing of democratic socialism as “more democracy applied to the economy,” Jesse dismantles the “socialists just want free stuff” talking point, credits Marx’s enduring influence even on capitalist economists, and clarifies communism as Marx’s aspirational stateless, classless endpoint — a future Jesse says he does want, making him comfortable owning the “communist” label even while personally choosing “democratic socialist” as a pacifist uninterested in armed revolution. 00:26:00 The Vote Was Never Universal: Property, Slavery, and Who Got to Decide - Jesse argues America has never actually operated as a functioning democracy for its full population — for most of its history, voting required either unwritten ideological conformity or property ownership, precisely because put to an actual vote, things like slavery or letting a billionaire have a third house before children are fed wouldn’t survive. He contends most people are functionally socialist without knowing the term, having simply forgotten the kindergarten-level ethics of sharing and mutual care that the wealthiest routinely violate. 00:28:39 Blythe on Faith: The WWJD Bracelet and the Devil Label - Scott connects Jesse’s kindergarten-ethics point to Jesus’s teachings about caring for the vulnerable, noting Blythe made the same connection in the chat. Asked directly what democratic socialism means to her, Blythe answers: not what currently exists. She argues the Democratic Party platform is already quietly socialist but undermined by corporate ties, and describes the whiplash of growing up wearing WWJD bracelets only to be branded “the devil” the moment you actually practice those values under a socialist label. 00:29:54 Bryce: Actually Existing Communism and the Soviet Union’s Development - Bryce pushes back on the idea that no communist government has ever existed, invoking the framework of “actually existing communism” — the Cuban, Bolshevik, and Chinese revolutions as genuine communist projects that, by their own account, pass through a socialist developmental stage to build productive capacity and defend against counterrevolution before reaching a communist end state. He credits the Soviet Union with transforming a feudal, peasant economy into a space-faring power within a gen

  5. Aug 30

    HoosLeft This Week - August 2, 2026

    Support Indiana flooding relief efforts: https://www.cicf.org/resource/options-to-support-recent-indiana-natural-disasters/ SUMMARY: On this episode of HoosLeft This Week, Sharon Wight and Reece Axel-Adams joined Scott starting with the secret Jeffries-Kushner meeting and AIPAC’s growing influence over House Democratic leadership, before turning to Trump’s economic pressure campaign against Iran, his personally profitable stock trades timed to the war, and an escalating trade war with Canada that produced the “Lake America” renaming stunt. The conversation moved through Trump’s Venezuela oil deal, mounting fears of a Russian test of NATO amid a Patriot missile shortage, and a string of Pentagon, before a heavy stretch on climate — the Himalayan glacial flood disaster and Indiana’s own long flood recovery, including new scrutiny of NIPSCO and Andy Zay’s $625,000 settlement. The back half covered Trump’s push to deregulate beef processing amid a compounding food-safety crisis, RFK Jr.’s handling of Pennsylvania’s measles deaths and his Samoa cover-up, the Meta child-safety settlement, opioid funds being spent on Flock cameras, and Trump’s escalating war on voting — from the USPS mail-ballot rule to federal monitors showing up at Wyoming polling places. The show closed on Indiana’s Secretary of State race and its ballot-book debate, a run of Tuesday primary results, and remembrances of Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and Peter Cullen. Guest info: Sharon Wight: https://www.electsharonwight.com/ Reece Axel-Adams: https://reecespeace.substack.com/ 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 and guest welcomes (Sharon Wight, Reece Axel-Adams) 00:04:20 - The Jeffries-Kushner meeting and AIPAC’s influence in the House 00:15:56 - Iran sanctions: “Operation Economic Outcast” and the China problem 00:18:41 - Trump’s stock trades and profiting off the Iran war 00:21:12 - The US-Canada trade war and “Lake America” 00:26:10 - Trump’s Venezuela oil deal 00:31:43 - Russia, NATO tensions, and dwindling Patriot missile stocks 00:37:53 - Pentagon purges: Kid Rock, Stars and Stripes, and a fired West Point professor 00:45:37 - The Himalayan glacial flood disaster 00:52:54 - Indiana’s flood recovery and the long road ahead 01:02:06 - NIPSCO scrutiny and Andy Zay’s $625,000 settlement 01:11:20 - Food safety and Trump’s beef deregulation push 01:17:45 - RFK Jr., Pennsylvania’s measles deaths, and the Samoa lie 01:23:30 - The Meta child-safety settlement 01:28:13 - Flock cameras funded by opioid settlement money and Bill Gates on AI limits 01:32:43 - Trump’s war on voting: the USPS rule and the noncitizen-voting report 01:38:23 - Federal election monitors in Wyoming 01:41:20 - Indiana’s Secretary of State race: the ballot book debate 01:49:27 - Tuesday elections: Georgia, Oklahoma, and South Carolina 01:55:04 - In Memoriam: Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and Peter Cullen 01:59:56 - Wrap-up, guest info, and announcements NOTES: It’s a Big Club * Jeffries and Kushner Meet Privately as Midterm Attacks Fly (NYT) * Rep. Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Jared Kushner in recent weeks in New York City to discuss potential common ground amid the midterm campaign. * Topics discussed included housing, immigration, and cost of living; Kushner suggested Jeffries meet with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. * Neither man commented publicly; Jeffries’s statement did not acknowledge the meeting but said Democrats would only deal with the administration if Republicans moved on affordability. * The meeting reflects Trump advisers’ awareness that Democrats could win the House majority, with Jeffries in line to become speaker. * Kushner is not formally part of the administration but remains involved in Iran, Gaza, and Ukraine diplomacy; he and Jeffries previously met last year. * Inside the backlash over the Jeffries-Kushner meeting (Axios) * Jeffries publicly defended the Kushner meeting, saying Kushner “asked for a meeting, and I took it, to discuss the affordability crisis”; he called Kushner a top oversight target given his Saudi dealings. * Progressive groups OurRevolution and Justice Democrats criticized the meeting, tying it to Jeffries’s recent comment that Medicare for All is “not legislation... that I support.” * Anonymous House Democrats and aides questioned why Jeffries met with someone holding no official administration role, and noted he hasn’t given caucus-wide explanation. * A senior House Democrat said Jeffries and Kushner “have a relationship” dating to criminal justice reform work during Trump’s first term. * Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green said the meeting’s significance depends on outcomes, not optics: “it’s less who you meet with than what you do with the meeting.” * ‘Political Malpractice’: Israel Hawk Moskowitz Picked for Key House Mideast Post (Common Dreams) * Rep. Gregory Meeks named Rep. Jared Moskowitz as ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Middle East subcommittee; Moskowitz vowed to “strengthen America’s relationships with Israel and our Gulf allies.” * Critics note Moskowitz voted for a 2023 GOP Israel aid package, opposes conditioning aid on international law compliance, and authored an amendment restricting State Department use of Gaza casualty figures. * Progressive groups (Demand Progress, Just Foreign Policy) called the pick “political malpractice,” citing polling showing roughly 3 in 4 Democratic voters now oppose US aid to Israel, up from 45% three years ago. * Watchdog group Track AIPAC reports Moskowitz has received $833,288 in career AIPAC-linked contributions; Jeffries has received $1,495,709 and Meeks $986,946. * Meeks also placed Debbie Wasserman Schultz (career AIPAC contributions: $1,542,327) on the Oversight and Intelligence Subcommittee and Wesley Bell ($18,126,578) on the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, while pro-Palestine progressive Mark Pocan, who rejects AIPAC funding, was assigned to the Africa Subcommittee. Economic Warfare * Iran Sanctions * Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveils new U.S. economic sanctions to isolate Iran (NPR) * Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled new sanctions on Iran, dubbed “Operation Economic Outcast,” targeting digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping. * The sanctions target brokers, companies, and shadow fleet vessels operating in the UAE, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Switzerland, and Europe that move Iranian oil revenue to the Revolutionary Guard. * Bessent said Trump is calling world leaders directly, asking them to cut ties with Iran before facing secondary sanctions; China buys almost 90% of Iran’s oil, though Bessent declined to name the country directly. * Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei vowed “seismic” retaliation and threatened to block oil tanker traffic through the Persian Gulf if neighboring states cooperate with the new sanctions. * Iran’s rial currency plunged past 2 million to the dollar in anticipation of the sanctions, with inflation near 90% per Iran’s own statistics agency. * Trump’s new economic squeeze on Iran has a big challenge: China (AP) * China buys over 80% of Iran’s oil exports and is Trump’s main obstacle to the new sanctions campaign, as Trump prepares to host Xi Jinping for a summit next month. * Bessent’s sanctions announcement avoided naming China directly; analysts say this was deliberate to avoid disrupting the planned Trump-Xi summit. * China’s foreign ministry said its Iran cooperation is “within the framework of international law” and opposed “illegal unilateral sanctions,” while pledging to “safeguard its own rights and interests.” * The Treasury sanctioned nearly 60 Iran-linked entities Monday, including some China/Hong Kong-based individuals and a China-owned oil tanker, but avoided major Chinese banks tied to the U.S. financial system. * Analysts say Trump is unlikely to take a hard line against China before the Xi summit, given his priority on maintaining the US-China trade truce and personal rapport with Xi. * Trump made over 1,000 stock trades recently and has profited off the Iran war (CNN) * Trump disclosed over 1,000 additional stock trades in June, including energy stocks (Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Valero, Occidental) tied to companies directly affected by the Iran war and rising oil prices. * He also traded defense contractor stocks — Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, RTX — between June 12-24, timed near ongoing Iran negotiations, with some sales occurring the day after purchases. * Trump bought SpaceX stock shortly after its IPO, and traded pharma (Eli Lilly, Merck) and AI stocks (Nvidia). * The White House maintains Trump’s portfolio is independently managed and he has no influence over it; a spokesperson didn’t immediately comment on this disclosure. * This adds to earlier 2025 disclosures showing billions in crypto holdings, royalties, and property investments — far exceeding the investment activity of prior presidents. * Trade War w/ Canada * From ‘Fortress North America’ to All-Out Trade War: How the U.S.-Canada Talks Collapsed (NYT) * Talks collapsed last Friday night after Ontario Premier Doug Ford urged Carney not to accept the deal; Carney pulled negotiators from Washington just after 10:30 p.m. * Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick took a hard line on auto and metals tariffs, refusing to lower tariffs on heavy trucks and pushing to limit reduced rates on aluminum, frustrating US trade office staff. * Canada backed away from reviving the Keystone XL pipeline and pushed to lower a previously agreed auto-tariff floor from 7% to zero in the deal’s final hours. * Sovereignty disputes were central: the US wanted Canada to mirror US tariffs on third countries and repea

    HoosLeft This Week - August 2, 2026

  6. Aug 26

    HoosLeft Podcast #141 - Special: Immigration in Indiana

    Thank you The Steady State, M Hope, and many others for tuning into our live video! Join us for our next live video in the app. SUMMARY: In the second installment of a special roundtable series (following last week's episode on the multi-front war on public education), Scott is joined by Stuart Mora, founder of the Indiana Organizing Project and a former immigration law firm staffer, and Miguel Avila, a Mexican immigrant and organizer who spent nine months in ICE detention at Clay County Jail. The conversation covers this weekend's statewide Weekend of Public Witness at Miami Correctional Facility — Indiana's largest ICE detention site — and the broader machinery around it: the 287(g) agreements turning local jails into federal profit centers, the human toll on families with U.S. citizen children, firsthand accounts of retaliation and dehumanizing conditions from inside Miami Correctional, the private-prison profit motive driving expansion, the purely economic case against mass deportation, and the strategic question of how to talk about what's happening without losing the persuadable middle. It closes with concrete ways to get involved and a roundup of Indiana organizations doing the work. Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us Indiana Organizing Project: https://indianaorganizing.org/ Indiana Aid: https://www.indianaaid.org/ 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: A New Roundtable Series and Tonight’s Immigration Focus - Scott frames tonight as the second in a special roundtable series on topical issues affecting Hoosiers, following last week’s discussion on the multi-front war on public education (available at progressiveindiana.net). Next week: a discussion on democratic socialism. - Tonight’s focus: Indiana’s role as a Midwest hub for ICE arrests, local police being pulled into federal immigration enforcement, deplorable detention conditions, the financial incentives behind it all, and the human toll. 00:01:32 Support the Show - HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network don’t paywall content — support at progressiveindiana.net 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. 00:02:28 Welcome Stuart Mora and the Indiana Organizing Project - Stuart Mora returns to the show. He founded the Indiana Organizing Project on March 1st of this year after several years working at Muñoz Legal, an Indianapolis immigration law firm, supporting detained immigrants and their families. He transitioned to full-time organizing in February, now supporting ICE detainees and families statewide and leading the campaign to end ICE detention at Miami Correctional Facility. 00:04:27 This Weekend’s Public Witness: Scale, Faith, and Reframing ‘Protest’ - Following May 16th’s statewide day of action (29 coordinated actions), this weekend’s Weekend of Public Witness spans Friday through Sunday with 59 confirmed actions across the state, largely faith-led. - Scott and Stuart discuss the biblical mandate (Old and New Testament alike) to welcome the stranger. Stuart explains the deliberate choice of “public witness” over “protest”: living out shared values and faith publicly, inviting disagreement into conversation rather than confrontation, on the premise that most people — including Trump voters — don’t actually understand how complicated and non-binary immigration status really is. Scott notes “protest” carries baggage that “public witness” sidesteps, without softening the substance. 00:09:29 A Neighbor’s Story: A Detained Father, a Pregnant Mother, Traumatized Kids - Stuart shares a story from a family in his own Indianapolis neighborhood: a U.S. citizen mother, three U.S. citizen children (including a newborn), and a legal permanent resident father — general manager of a laundromat, in the country since childhood — detained for over six months with no warning, mid-home-purchase. - Miguel Avila joins mid-story. Stuart continues: a four-year-old talking about suicide, a five-year-old breaking down over “family” discussions at kindergarten, and a newborn amid it all. Stuart connects this to the federal government manufacturing “illegal” status out of people with valid legal standing — TPS revocations, valid asylum seekers, longtime legal permanent residents. - Scott responds bluntly: decades of Republican “pro-family, pro-life” rhetoric exposed as political theater. 00:13:17 Meet Miguel Avila: Nine Months in ICE Detention - Miguel introduces himself: a Mexican immigrant, 22 years in Indiana, incarcerated for nine months in ICE detention. He calls the experience indescribable — tremendous stress, anxiety, mixed feelings — and modern detention centers as “nothing but modern concentration camps.” Even after being bailed, he was held 13 additional days for no stated reason, part of a deliberate effort to morally, spiritually, and physically break detainees down. 00:14:58 I Hesitate to Ask You to Talk About It - Scott checks in with Miguel about re-traumatization before pressing further. Miguel says talking about it, however hard, is part of how he copes and heals — even knowing he may never fully recover. 00:15:33 Inside Clay County Jail and the 287(g) Pipeline - Miguel was held at Clay County Jail in Brazil, Indiana — nine and a half months with no sunlight, no fresh air, only artificial light, losing all track of time. He calls Miami Correctional the worst facility, with Clay close behind. - Scott explains 287(g) agreements: local police and county jails contracting with the federal government to act as ICE agents, marketed as a financial boon for cash-strapped local governments (especially post-Braun property tax cuts) — “the cost of your humanity,” as Scott puts it. 00:18:16 Clark County, Do Something Southern Indiana, and the Roofers Who Didn’t Come Home - Stuart highlights Clark County — one of only 5 of Indiana’s 92 counties housing ICE detainees in county jail via a U.S. Marshal Service contract, about 60 beds — and the local organization Do Something Southern Indiana pushing back at sheriff budget hearings under the banner “not in our name.” - Scott cites a WAVE (Louisville) news report: at least 28 people arrested in a Clark County operation July 8th–9th, including a description of an abandoned van with workers’ lunches and roofing knee-pads still inside — a family that lost a father who simply never came home from a normal workday. 00:22:34 TPS Explained: Haitian Community and the Human Cost of Revocation - Stuart defines Temporary Protected Status: a legal status renewed roughly every two years, requiring no more than one misdemeanor conviction, with no direct pathway to residency or citizenship. 350,000 Haitians nationally had TPS revoked on the premise that Haiti is now safe — which Stuart disputes directly, recounting a priest’s account of gang violence and a deadly church shooting there just years ago. Indiana has a significant Haitian community, including many in healthcare and home care roles. 00:24:58 Desensitization and the Profit Motive Behind Detention - Miguel argues the public has become desensitized to ICE operations rotating through cities, and that the “arresting criminals” framing was never really the point — detention capacity keeps expanding because every filled bed is revenue. He warns the next targets, once immigrants aren’t enough to fill beds, will be homeless people, people needing mental health or Social Security support, and LGBTQ people. He also describes hearing riot-gear testing and low-flying aircraft drowning out a vigil outside Miami Correctional that same day. 00:29:09 Homelessness, RFK Jr., and Delaney Hall’s Billion-Dollar Contract - Scott connects the dots: Indiana criminalized homelessness this year, and RFK Jr.’s HHS is pushing to reinstitutionalize disabled people rather than fund community-based care — both feeding the same private detention infrastructure. - Stuart cites Delaney Hall in New Jersey: a 15-year, $1 billion contract with GEO Group, illustrating the scale of money locked into these systems regardless of whether beds are actually needed. 00:30:00 A Letter From Miami Correctional: Omar’s Account - Stuart reads a letter from a recently released Miami Correctional detainee (Omar), a two-time kidney transplant recipient and stroke survivor: horrific food, medical neglect, a stabbing after security stopped confiscating razors, and a facility that profits from voluntary departure forms and commissary fees. 00:32:15 Are These Concentration Camps? Scott’s Dad, and Miguel’s Answer - Scott recounts his Republican father’s resistance to the term “concentration camp.” Miguel affirms the comparison: modern versions swap tattooed numbers for plastic bracelets, and swap forced labor for making families work themselves to exhaustion just to support detainees financially — psychological torture including sunlight and vitamin D deprivation designed to break even the strongest will. 00:34:02 What Miguel Is Hearing Now: Retaliation and Racial Slurs From Guards - Miguel relays a fresh call from a detainee’s wife: retaliatory solitary confinement after contact with a lawyer or the ACLU, and guards randomly pepper-spraying cells at night simply to justify canister usage reports. - Stuart corroborates: detainees reporting racial slurs from guards so extreme they were inventing new ones, and a guard threatening to pour boiling water on a detainee praying on his knees. 00:36:29 Untrained and Unleashed: How ICE Hiring Has Changed - Scott argues ICE’s massive funding increase has led to rapid, low-bar hiring with inadequate training compared to pre-Trump standards, r

    HoosLeft Podcast #141 - Special: Immigration in Indiana

  7. Aug 23

    HoosLeft This Week - August 23, 2026

    Support Indiana flooding relief efforts: https://www.cicf.org/resource/options-to-support-recent-indiana-natural-disasters/ SUMMARY: On this episode of HoosLeft This Week, Jennifer David and Bryce Greene joined Scott as Indiana worked through recovery from historic flooding — Gary still without power after nearly two weeks, a class-action suit against NIPSCO, and a $5 billion disaster request still awaiting federal approval — before turning to a Middle East where the Iran ceasefire expired with no new talks planned, Israel struck Syria and risked conflict with Turkiye, and the USS Lincoln finally got relief after 250 days at sea, leaving the western Pacific without a US carrier presence just as Trump scaled back military exercises with South Korea. The first half closed on a collapsed US-Canada trade deal, the national debt topping $40 trillion alongside a case for modern monetary theory, and federal approval of a Trump family-linked crypto bank. The back half of the show opened with a deep dive into Tuesday’s primaries — Alaska’s top-four voting system, a Freedom Caucus stumble in Wyoming, Florida’s Byron Donalds and Angie Nixon wins, and Aisha Wahab’s California special election victory — before covering Indiana’s role as a flashpoint in the WNBA’s trans-athlete culture war, Stephen A. Smith’s NABJ rebuke alongside Disney’s lawsuit against Trump’s FCC, DuJuan McCoy’s growing Indianapolis TV holdings, food industry consolidation amid a wave of recalls, and closing on education — IU’s new foster-youth scholarship program, Indiana’s now-universal school voucher program, and a Texas case testing whether the Ten Commandments can be mandated in public classrooms. Guest info: Jennifer David: https://jenniferdavid12.substack.com/ Bryce Greene: https://brycegreene.substack.com/ 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: 00:00:35 - Welcome and guest introduction 00:03:45 - Indiana’s flood recovery: Gary’s outages, the NIPSCO lawsuit, and a stalled disaster declaration 00:18:39 - Iran war: the expired ceasefire and Trump’s “economic D-Day” threats 00:24:57 - Israel strikes Syria; Turkiye calls for Netanyahu’s arrest 00:32:56 - The USS Lincoln’s relief and Trump’s pullback from South Korea 00:42:27 - The collapsed US-Canada trade deal 00:48:38 - The national debt tops $40 trillion, bond market jitters, and Trump’s crypto bank 01:01:33 - Alaska’s primary and the case for top-four ranked-choice voting 01:10:36 - Wyoming, Florida, and California primary results 01:26:39 - Indiana, the WNBA, and the trans athlete culture war 01:36:26 - Stephen A. Smith’s NABJ rebuke and Disney’s lawsuit against Trump’s FCC 01:41:33 - Media consolidation and DuJuan McCoy’s Indianapolis TV empire 01:45:22 - Education: IU’s Fostering the Future program, universal school vouchers, and the Ten Commandments case 01:55:31 - Wrap-up, guest info, and announcements NOTES: Indiana Recovers from Extreme Weather * NWS: Brief tornado touched down in Delaware County Wednesday evening (WTHR) * A brief, unrated tornado touched down near Yorktown in Delaware County on August 19, confirmed by the National Weather Service based on video and photo evidence — no damage was found, and it was on the ground less than a minute. * This brings Indiana’s tornado count for the year to 87. * Indiana governor announces emergency aid, temporary housing grants amid lethal storms and flooding (ICC) * ‘Indiana has opened grants for emergency food, clothing, temporary housing and other basic needs to victims of severe storm and flooding damage, Gov. Mike Braun announced Monday. At least 1,000 residents have been displaced statewide, Indiana Department of Homeland Security Executive Director Jonathan Whitham estimated, with at least seven dead as of Monday.’ * ‘All of Indiana’s public safety agencies are deployed on emergency response missions under the governor’s orders, including the Indiana National Guard, Indiana State Police, Department of Correction, and Department of Natural Resources. Meanwhile, Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel are helping the state’s Department of Homeland Security conduct wind damage assessments in northwest Indiana.’ * ‘A major disaster proclamation recognizes when a natural event has caused destruction beyond what a state and local governments can handle, according to FEMA’s website. The request must include an estimate of the amount and severity of damage, estimates of the assistance required and more.’ * ‘That’s in contrast to the emergency declaration Trump approved Saturday for Indiana, which is intended to supplement state and local response efforts in 53 listed counties. That will help cover some state and local response costs, like for evacuations, shelters, water rescues and more. But federal assistance is capped at $5 million.’ * ‘Major storms have battered Indiana this summer — depleting the state’s relief fund to just $2 million, according to the state Department of Homeland Security.’ * Indiana storm losses could exceed $5B, Braun tells Trump (ICC) * Braun formally requested a major federal disaster declaration covering 54 storm-damaged Indiana counties, seeking expedited FEMA review after storms beginning Aug. 11 killed 8 people and damaged at least 1,700 structures. * The storm produced at least three tornadoes, winds up to 99 mph near Gary, and up to 11.23 inches of rain in 24 hours in some areas — the White River hit record levels in Anderson and Noblesville, surpassing a mark set in 1913. * Power outages peaked at 363,398 homes and businesses, with Lake County hitting 95% outage and two Carroll County towns losing power entirely — more on this in the next story * Early residential damage estimates range from $550 million to over $5 billion across at least 22,164 parcels, though Braun’s letter warns the total will likely climb as more counties report — Marion County alone estimates up to 2,000 damaged structures. * Indiana congressional delegation urges President Donald Trump to approve request for Major Disaster Declaration (FOX59) * Indiana’s full 11-member congressional delegation, including both Democrats, signed a bipartisan letter urging Trump and FEMA to approve Braun’s August 20 Major Disaster Declaration request, citing at least 8 deaths, over 1,000 displaced families, and 1,700+ destroyed or damaged structures. * The letter notes a second, still-pending request tied to a separate June 6-26 tornado outbreak — meaning Braun now has two disaster declaration requests awaiting federal action simultaneously, with the status of the earlier one unclear. * Trump has already approved an Emergency Declaration (a lower tier of federal assistance) for Indiana, but the delegation argues damage has exceeded what state and local governments can handle alone, warning constituents are still confused about what aid is available and when it will arrive. * ‘Communication issues’ hampered Indy’s response to flooding (Mirror Indy) * Rocky Ripple residents refused a late-night evacuation order and instead kept sandbagging the levee, a defiance Town Council President Randy Sanders credits with saving the town: “they told us to walk away from our sandbags, and because we didn’t, we’re here.” * Town Marshal Mike Kiefer had a brief standoff with city officials at the 53rd Street bridge over fears it would be closed and trap residents — DPW says it never actually ordered that gate closed, since flooding never reached the level requiring it. * Nearby Ravenswood residents said city coordination was so lacking that neighbors created their own Facebook page to share evacuation information, with one resident saying “coordination is lacking. It’s us doing it.” * Emergency management expert Marie Hitze criticized the timeline directly, noting flooding upriver in Muncie, Anderson, Noblesville, and Carmel had already occurred, making the danger predictable: “you can plan for a flood like this — that’s the job of emergency management.” She said late-Friday-evening warnings followed by overnight action while residents slept “isn’t adequate.” * City officials have acknowledged the problems — Councilor John Barth wants a formal post-incident review, and Marion County’s emergency management director Jacob Spence confirmed multiple agencies will produce an after-action report; Mayor Hogsett defended the city’s response, saying officials acted on the “best information available.” * ‘Survival mode’: Indiana residents endure a ninth day without power (AP) * About 68,000 NIPSCO customers remain without power nine days after an Aug. 11 storm, mostly in Lake County — full restoration isn’t expected until Tuesday in some areas, including Gary, even after crews restored service to 306,500 others. * Gary’s roughly 4,300-student school district has been closed since Aug. 13 and stays shut through at least Friday; nearby Portage Township Schools pushed its start date to Aug. 25 citing downed trees and safety concerns. * An IU Indianapolis professor warns prolonged outages carry real health risks — carbon monoxide poisoning from generators, medical devices losing charge, and spoiled refrigerated food — while some residents describe repeated power loss even after restoration, like one East Chicago man who lost power twice. * NIPSCO’s parent company says the storm caused “unprecedented and widespread” damage and that neighboring Illinois recovered faster partly due to different terrain and infrastructure, including buried power lines in some areas. * Class-action lawsuit filed against NIPSCO as storm power outages continue in NW Indiana (ABC7 Chicago) * A class-action lawsuit filed against NIPSCO alleges the utility inadequately managed vegetation around power lines and failed to con

    HoosLeft This Week - August 23, 2026

  8. Aug 19

    HoosLeft Podcast #140 - Back-to-School Special

    SUMMARY: In this Back to School special, host Scott Aaron Rogers convenes a five-person panel to dig into the multi-pronged attack on Indiana’s public education system: Mitch Reynolds, a Gary classroom teacher running for Duneland School Board; Dr. Michael Shaffer, a 30-year school administrator now in his 12th year as an associate professor of educational leadership at Ball State, who has trained roughly 2,400 principals; Devon Wellington, an education policy expert running for Indiana House District 29 in Hamilton County; Zachary Parrish, co-founder of the Secular Education Association based in Fort Wayne; and Lindsey Cornett, an Indianapolis Public Schools parent and IPS board candidate currently fighting a ballot challenge over her party affiliation. The conversation covers two forces converging on public education — anti-tax libertarianism and Christian nationalism — and traces their impact through SEA 1’s (2025) property tax cuts and the resulting wave of school referendums, the expansion of vouchers to all Indiana households, the total absence of oversight or due process rights at voucher-accepting private schools, LifeWise Academy’s release-time religious instruction and its money trail, the Ten Commandments case headed to the Supreme Court, and Indianapolis’s loss of democratic control over its own school district through the state-created IPEC board. It closes with each panelist’s account of why they do this work and where to find the candidates’ campaigns. Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us Mitch Reynolds: https://votereynolds.us/ Dr. Michael Shaffer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmichaelbryanshaffer/ Devon Wellington: https://www.votedevon.com/ Zachary Parrish: https://seculareducationassociation.org/ Lindsey Cornett: https://www.lindseycornett.com/ 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: Back to School Special - Scott frames tonight’s episode around the multi-pronged attack on Indiana’s public schools: property tax defunding, vouchers and charter sharing, Christian nationalist influence, the disempowering of school boards, and — time permitting — higher education. - HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network don’t paywall content or charge candidates — support at progressiveindiana.net ($5/month or $50/year) 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. 00:02:40 Meet the Panel: Mitch Reynolds, Dr. Michael Shaffer, Devon Wellington, and Zachary Parrish - Mitch Reynolds returns to the show: Duneland School Board candidate and classroom teacher. - Dr. Michael Shaffer: roughly 30 years as a school administrator, now 12 years into a faculty position at Ball State in educational leadership, having trained about 2,400 principals. - Devon Wellington: education policy expert and House District 29 candidate (Fishers/Noblesville area), previously featured on PIN’s MadVoters Inside the Indiana Statehouse series. - Zachary Parrish: first-time guest, co-founder of the Fort Wayne–based Secular Education Association. Scott notes Lindsey Cornett — IPS board candidate — will join once she’s able. 00:06:18 Scott’s Thesis: Two Worldviews Attacking Public Education - Scott lays out his framing: an anti-state libertarian “taxation is theft” camp that wants every service privatized, and a Christian nationalist camp that believes public schools indoctrinate kids and education should be church-run. He asks Dr. Shaffer whether this reading holds up. - Dr. Shaffer agrees, tracing it back at least to 2002’s No Child Left Behind, authored in part by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a group with significant Indiana legislative membership that is both anti-public-school and anti-teachers-union. 00:08:28 The Segregation Roots of the Anti-Public School Movement - Scott traces the attacks further back to the 1950s backlash against Brown v. Board of Education, when entire Southern school districts chose to shut down rather than integrate — arguing today’s attacks pursue similar ends through subtler, ostensibly race-neutral means. - Zach agrees the two camps (libertarian and Christian nationalist) are more intertwined than commonly understood — separate in stated purpose (one wants privatized profit centers, the other different ends) but consistently willing to work together toward dismantling public education. 00:10:28 Hamilton County and Indiana’s Rankings: 31st in Quality, 38th in Teacher Pay - Scott asks Devon, from affluent Hamilton County, whether attacks on public schools threaten the very asset (strong schools) that makes her county desirable. Devon agrees: school quality is a proxy for how a community invests across the board, and education spending yields a two-to-tenfold return on investment that’s often mischaracterized as a pure expense. - Mitch cites the numbers: Indiana ranks 31st nationally in education quality, 38th in teacher pay, and 37th in per-student spending (~$13,000/student) — bottom-20% territory nationally. 00:13:20 Senate Bill 1’s Property Tax Reform, the 38 Referendums, and the Homestead Exemption Trap - Scott walks through Governor Braun’s signature 2025 property tax reform: modest relief for homeowners, major breaks for large property owners and businesses, and a resulting funding hole for public schools (which rely on local property taxes) — 38 districts are on November ballots seeking referendum money to fill the gap, with an estimated $744 million lost over the next three years and a $336 million gap projected in 2028 alone. Hamilton Southeastern, for example, faces a $45 million gap between 2026 and 2031. Referendums are now also restricted to even-numbered election years going forward. - Devon confirms the mechanism gets worse over time: the homestead exemption grows as home values rise, so schools don’t actually see increased funding as valuations increase. She also flags that any referendum passed after this year must share proceeds with charter and private schools, and that public schools — unlike private organizations — can’t simply pivot their spending to absorb this pressure, creating what she calls a death spiral as families who can leave, do. She adds that public schools carry extensive state and federal accountability requirements that private alternatives don’t — and that private-sector executive pay dwarfs anything public school administrators or teachers make. 00:19:56 Mitch Daniels, Circuit Breakers, and How Duneland Passed Its Referendum - Dr. Shaffer traces the root further back to the Mitch Daniels administration’s circuit breaker tax caps (1%, 2%, 3%), sold as making Indiana “open for business” — a policy he says predictably pushed districts toward the referendum cliff we’re at now, with some referendums succeeding and others (including in his own district) failing outright, forcing cuts to essential services. - Scott invokes the Eric Andre meme — defund the schools, then blame them for failing — and Mitch describes how Duneland’s teachers union, led by co-president Bob DeRuntz, organized a fast, door-knocking campaign that passed their referendum with 62% support on just 18% turnout, with even opponents largely accepting the outcome once it passed. 00:24:10 Is Property Tax the Right Way to Fund Schools? Dr. Shaffer Makes the Case - Scott raises the equity question directly: is tying school funding to local property values inherently regressive, funneling more resources to already-affluent communities? He also flags a proposal from State Rep. J.D. Prescott to eliminate property tax entirely in favor of expanded sales tax — which Scott notes is itself a regressive shift. - Dr. Shaffer argues property tax remains preferable to a flat regressive tax that hits low earners hardest, and traces the current crisis partly to a 2011–2012 fix for high Marion County property taxes that was applied statewide. He argues nobody questions paying for libraries, fire, or police the same way they question school funding, and describes working in a 1924-built school kept in excellent condition through consistent investment versus a nearby district’s building with no air conditioning — arguing the students with the greatest need too often attend the worst-maintained facilities, and that hundreds of billions in national investment are overdue. 00:30:20 A Tax-Weed-for-Schools Compromise - Zach argues the fundamental need is prioritization regardless of funding mechanism. Mitch proposes a specific trade: he’d accept a shift toward sales tax if the state legalized and taxed marijuana (following Michigan’s model) to fund public education, while still insisting the core ask is more funding, higher teacher pay, and stronger union support. - Lindsey Cornett joins at this point and is warmly welcomed in. 00:32:14 Devon on the State Funding Formula and the Death Spiral - Devon explains how the state centralized school funding into a single formula that varies by student, replacing a mostly local model — leaving districts like Noblesville, ranked near the bottom of state funding, dependent on local referendums the state is now restricting. She argues the underlying Republican logic — that government doesn’t work, so it shouldn’t take your money — echoes a much older (if misattributed) sentiment that public schools exist to produce workers rather than thinkers, and that distrust of public education was baked into the institution from the start. 00:35:20 How Vouchers Started as Targeted Aid and Became Universal - Scott traces Indiana’s Choice Scholarship program from its 2011 origin — income-capped, targeted at students in underperforming schools — through this year’s

    HoosLeft Podcast #140 - Back-to-School Special
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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
    234
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Progressive Indiana Network
  • Show Website
    HoosLeft Podcast

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