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.

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 Energy were secretly negotiating a water deal for Eagle Creek before any Indianapolis residents knew about it — the same pattern of secrecy used in Tippecanoe County.

- Scott notes that 21 of 25 Indianapolis City-County Councilors signed a letter opposing the plan — a strong bipartisan rebuke that echoes the Tippecanoe resolution campaign.

- Sanders’ intelligence: at least one semiconductor company that had been eyeing the LEAP District has already walked away because the water supply issue remains unresolved.

00:30:19 Advice to Eagle Creek Organizers: See the IEDC as the Common Enemy

- Don’t let anyone convince you it’s a done deal. Stop the Water Steal didn’t guarantee a win — they just refused to accept defeat — and they succeeded.

- Organize broadly: write to all legislators and all candidates, not just your own representatives, and unite with groups across the state facing similar IEDC-driven disruptions.

- The key insight: data centers, carbon sequestration pipelines, water diversions, and semiconductor plants are all the same fight — the IEDC is the common thread, and that’s where pressure must be directed.

00:32:33 Whack-a-Mole: How the IEDC Targets Black Neighborhoods and Rural Communities

- Scott observes that IEDC projects consistently land in predominantly Black Indianapolis neighborhoods and rural communities — the least organized, most vulnerable areas — because that’s what happens when you play defense project-by-project.

- Sanders adds that both groups are being treated with contempt by the Republican supermajority: rural areas that vote Republican aren’t getting broadband, healthcare, or economic investment — just corporate playgrounds.

- The urban-rural divide that defines so much of American politics is actually a potential bridge here: both communities are being exploited by the same actors.

00:35:05 Devil’s Advocate: Governor Braun’s Water Reassurances and Sanders’ Rebuttal

- Scott presents Braun’s argument: the water is treated and returned, so the concern is overblown.

- Sanders’ response: wastewater treatment was built for microbiological threats, not the chemical challenges posed by modern manufacturing — PFAS, microplastics, and the proprietary chemicals used in semiconductor processes that we don’t even have full disclosure on.

- Data centers technically could recycle their water in closed systems, but there’s no requirement that they do, and many don’t.

00:37:21 Water Treatment, PFAS, and the Unknown Chemicals of Semiconductor Manufacturing

- The IEDC assured Tippecanoe County residents that transferring water from one watershed to another was fine — but there is no ecologist or scientist who would endorse cross-watershed diversion as safe practice.

- The semiconductor industry uses proprietary chemical processes that aren’t publicly disclosed; treating that return water is genuinely complex and unresolved science.

- Sanders’ broader objection isn’t alarmism — it’s that the lack of transparency from both corporations and government agencies makes informed evaluation impossible.

00:39:19 Arrogant Planning, the Great Lakes Gaffe, and the Return of the Bald Eagle

- The head of the IEDC during the pipeline fight told critics that as long as there’s water in the Great Lakes, there’s no problem — apparently unaware that the Great Lakes are not connected to the Wabash River watershed.

- Sanders contrasts that ignorance with a hopeful environmental story: bald eagles have returned to perch over the Wabash River near West Lafayette, something he hadn’t seen in his 30 years there — evidence that the river’s recovery from DDT and industrial contamination is real.

- The DDT lesson: corporations assured the public those chemicals were safe too, and it took community organizing and public scientific pressure to change course — the same dynamic playing out now.

00:41:52 Why the Legislature Needs a Scientist: Sanders Makes the Case

- Sanders argues that most issues facing society today — agriculture, genetic engineering, infectious disease, child mortality, healthcare infrastructure — have a scientific or technological basis that legislators need to understand firsthand, even if the solutions are political.

- He doesn’t claim the legislature needs to be all scientists; he argues it needs at least one person who can evaluate what government agencies and corporations are actually generating in terms of data.

- One of Stop the Water Steal’s underappreciated assets was its network of scientific experts — contacts Sanders still maintains and can deploy in the legislature.

00:44:10 Move Fast and Break Things: Corporate Hubris and the DDT Lesson

- Scott names the underlying attitude: Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” ethos applied to industrial development, with investors demanding returns now and consequences to be dealt with later — by someone else.

- The DDT contamination of the Wabash took decades to partially remediate; the corporations responsible were long gone.

- The parallel to current IEDC-driven development is direct: no long-term environmental planning, no accountability, no clawback provisions.

00:45:38 SK Hynix in West Lafayette: The Packaging Plant, the Rezoning Fight, and PRF’s Role

- SK Hynix’s West Lafayette facility is a chip packaging plant — less water-intensive than full semiconductor fabrication, but still using more water than all residential customers in West Lafayette combined; it’s eyeing the same Wabash aquifers.

- The city council rezoning fight lasted past 1 a.m., with overwhelming community opposition — and when asked what chemicals would be used, SK Hynix’s representatives said only “copper and alcohol,” an answer Sanders calls completely inadequate.

- The facility was sited in a residential neighborhood rather than the abundant open land in Tippecanoe County because the Purdue Research Foundation — which owned that specific land — wanted the financial proceeds; the Area Plan Commission had already voted against the rezoning, making the council’s approval an unprecedented override.

00:49:37 The Three Kings: IEDC Corruption, Chad Pittman, and the PRF Revolving Door

- The IndyStar’s “Three Kings” investigation documented that IEDC insiders directed approximately $180 million to corporations they were personally connected to — including one king writing a funding request letter from his own outside organization to himself at the IEDC.

- Chad Pittman, named as one of the Three Kings, is now the head of the Purdue Research Foundation — connecting the IEDC corruption story directly to the SK Hynix siting decision.

- Sanders calls it a revolving door of public money serving private interests, and says the fact that PRF continues to be run by someone implicated in that reporting is indefensible.

00:52:47 The Military-Industrial Angle: CHIPS Act, Crane, and PRF’s Defense Contractor Focus

- Scott notes the CHIPS and Science Act’s national security rationale — reshoring semiconductor manufacturing away from China and Taiwan — and flags Purdue’s position within that ecosystem alongside the Applied Research Institute and the Crane Naval Warfare Center.

- Sanders confirms: PRF has recruited almost exclusively military contractors — Rolls-Royce and Saab, which both exited the consumer vehicle business long ago and now primarily make aircraft engines and military equipment.

- Sanders isn’t opposed to national defense, but argues that a university conducting all its industrial recruitment in secret and focusing almost entirely on military contractors represents a lack of balance and a betrayal of the public-good mission.

00:54:51 Rolls-Royce, Saab, Tax Abatements, and Corporate Welfare Without Clawbacks

- Rolls-Royce was involved in the largest corporate bribery scandal in UK history, with U.S. involvement as well — not exactly a vetted partner for a public university.

- These corporations received tax abatements at levels out of proportion to the rest of the country, despite the fact that they were going to come to Purdue anyway — meaning the abatements were pure corporate welfare.

- The lack of clawback provisions is the tell: without them, corporations can pull up stakes before their tax abatement periods expire, as has happened repeatedly. Sanders points to Foxconn in Wisconsin as the cautionary tale, and argues that investing in existing Indiana businesses and entrepreneurs would produce better economic returns.

00:59:22 How to Support Dr. David Sanders and Follow-Up Campaign Notes

- The Republican primary for this seat saw $3 million spent on negative ads that Sanders says contained outright falsehoods about both candidates — meaning whoever emerges will have enormous resources.

- Follow the money: Sanders says donors supporting his opponents include corporations promoting carbon sequestration in Indiana; he’s running on small-dollar, citizen fundraising only.

Thanks again to Dr. Sanders for joining us. You can find out more about his campaign for State Senate at his campaign website https://davidsandersindiana.com. You can donate using his ActBlue page here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/david-sanders-for-indiana-1 and follow him on social media at the following:

https://www.facebook.com/SandersforIndianaSenate

https://www.instagram.com/davidfordistrict23/

https://x.com/davidsandersrep

https://bsky.app/profile/davidsanderssci.bsky.social

On this week’s episode, host Scott Aaron Rogers is joined by Democratic Secretary of State candidate Blythe Potter and Hancock County Democratic Party vice chair Chuck Gill for a wide-ranging conversation covering a month’s worth of compounding crises. The panel works through the whiplash of the Iran ceasefire negotiations — from the prospect of a 60-day memorandum of understanding to Trump’s weekend backpedaling — alongside Israel’s expanding military operations in Lebanon and Gaza, a Russian drone strike on Romanian soil that tested NATO’s resolve, and the mounting economic fallout of the Iran war, including 3.8% inflation, diesel topping six dollars a gallon, and an AI-inflated stock market Andrew Ross Sorkin says is headed for a crash. From there the show turns to Pope Leo XIV’s landmark encyclical *Magnifica Humanitas* and its call to subject artificial intelligence to human and moral limits, before pivoting to Indiana Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith’s declaration that Islam is a “demonic death cult” and the disgust it produced even within his own party. The back half of the show covers the hunger strike and protests at Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark, the Trump DOJ’s subpoenas of Reddit and X users who criticized ICE, the administration’s $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund for January 6th defendants, the gutting of *60 Minutes* under CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, Ken Paxton’s Republican Senate primary win in Texas and what it means for Democrat James Talarico’s chances in November, and a raft of Indiana stories: the Martindale-Brightwood clergy demanding Mayor Hogsett halt the MetroBlox data center project, the LEAP District water conflict of interest, the Cummins AI theft verdict, Diego Morales’s implosion ahead of the Republican SOS convention, the naming of Jessica Bailey and Coumba Kebe as Democratic candidates for comptroller and treasurer, the Gary gun lawsuit dying after 27 years, and criminal charges against the New Chicago police chief.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00:00:34 Intro

00:04:12 Iran: Deal or No Deal?

00:13:28 Lebanon, Gaza, and the Greater Israel Project

00:21:01 Ukraine, Romania, and the NATO Question

00:27:39 Economic Fallout: Inflation, Energy, and the AI Bubble

00:34:07 Indiana Under Pressure: Property Taxes, Marijuana, and Republican Half-Measures

00:39:04 Pope Leo XIV and *Magnifica Humanitas*

00:46:15 Micah Beckwith’s Anti-Muslim Remarks

00:52:43 Immigration: Delaney Hall, Sanctuary Cities, and Administrative Ethnic Cleansing

01:06:38 Crossroads Commons of Salem — Sponsor

01:07:38 DOJ Weaponization: Carroll, Reddit Subpoenas, and the J6 Slush Fund

01:23:32 Surveillance, Data Centers, and Anti-Tech “Extremism”

01:34:03 Indiana Data Centers: NIPSCO, LEAP District, and the Eagle Creek Conflict

01:38:03 60 Minutes, Bari Weiss, and the Consolidation of Media

01:41:09 Texas: Ken Paxton Wins, James Talarico’s Path

01:47:53 Indiana Politics: Morales Implodes, Convention Slates Set

01:53:04 Northwest Indiana: Gary Gun Lawsuit, New Chicago Police Corruption

01:58:08 Outro

IN DEPTH:

War on Multiple Fronts

• This Week in Iran

  • Monday

    • Trump says ‘mandatory’ for Muslim nations involved in Iran deal to join Abraham Accords (Times of Israel)

      • Trump is demanding six Muslim-majority nations — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan — sign the Abraham Accords as a condition of any Iran nuclear deal.

      • Saudi Arabia’s response: normalization with Israel only happens with an “irreversible pathway” to Palestinian statehood — a flat no for now.

      • When Trump pitched the idea to those leaders on a call, the response was dead silence. Trump literally asked if they were still on the line.

      • Israeli officials are alarmed by the emerging deal, warning it doesn’t address Iran’s nukes, missiles, or proxies — just a 60-day ceasefire extension that gives Tehran time to recover.

      • Trump is floating the idea of Iran itself eventually joining the Abraham Accords — a nation sworn to Israel’s destruction.

    • US military launches strikes on southern Iran amid talks in Qatar (Al Jazeera)

      • The US launched “self-defense” strikes on southern Iran — missile launch sites and boats attempting to lay mines — even as Iranian negotiators were sitting down in Doha for peace talks.

      • Several IRGC personnel were killed; Iranian sources say the IRGC had targeted a vessel at sea before the US struck.

      • A ceasefire has technically been in place since April 8, but skirmishes have continued throughout — Trump has previously declined to call them ceasefire violations.

      • Iran’s top negotiators, including Foreign Minister Araghchi, were in Qatar for talks Trump called “proceeding nicely” — the strikes may derail them.

      • Iran’s foreign ministry says progress has been made but no deal is imminent, and notably says nuclear program discussions are not even on the table yet — just ending the war.

  • Tuesday

    • Iran accuses U.S. of violating ceasefire and threatens retaliation after new strikes (NBC)

      • Iran formally accused the US of a “clear ceasefire violation” and threatened retaliation, while the IRGC claimed to have shot down an MQ-9 drone and driven off an F-35.

      • US officials say the strikes were a direct response to 24 hours of Iranian missile, drone, and small boat activity near the Strait of Hormuz — including surface-to-air missile launches while US aircraft were in the area.

      • Despite the flareup, Secretary of State Rubio told reporters in India a deal could be done in “a couple of days” — down to “disagreements over a word, a sentence.”

      • The framework on the table: a memorandum of understanding ending the war and reopening Hormuz, followed by 60 days to negotiate a full peace deal — with unfreezing Iranian assets in Qatar as a key Iranian demand.

  • Wednesday

    • US military conducts another strike against Iran after Trump says Iran is ‘negotiating on fumes’ (AP)

      • US forces shot down four Iranian attack drones near Hormuz on Wednesday and struck a ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth.

      • Trump called Iran “negotiating on fumes” while insisting the midterms won’t rush him — “I don’t care about the midterms” — though the political pressure is clearly there.

    • U.S. military accuses Iran of ceasefire violation after Kuwait comes under missile attack (PBS)

      • Iran fired missiles at Kuwait — home to US Army Central’s forward HQ — in retaliation for the Wednesday drone strikes, with the US calling it an “egregious ceasefire violation.”

      • Kuwait’s air defenses intercepted the incoming missiles and drones; Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry condemned Iran for “blatant aggression.”

      • Both sides keep accusing each other of ceasefire violations and trading strikes all week — but neither has returned to full-scale war and negotiations continue.

    • Trump threatens to ‘blow up’ Oman amid talks over strait of Hormuz (Guardian)

      • Trump threatened to “blow up” Oman — a US ally and key war mediator — if it doesn’t “behave,” in a casual aside at his Cabinet meeting.

      • The threat came after reports that Iran is pushing Oman to jointly charge tolls on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has blockaded since late February.

      • Trump was unequivocal: no one controls the strait — “Nobody’s going to control it. We’re going to watch over it.”

  • Thursday

    • Scoop: U.S. and Iran reach deal but need Trump’s final approval, officials say (Axios)

      • US and Iranian negotiators have agreed on terms for a 60-day MOU to extend the ceasefire and launch nuclear talks — but Trump hasn’t signed off yet, and Iran hasn’t formally confirmed acceptance.

      • Key terms: unrestricted Strait of Hormuz shipping, Iran removes all mines within 30 days, US lifts its naval blockade proportionally, some sanctions waivers allowing Iran to sell oil, and an Iranian commitment not to pursue a nuclear weapon.

      • The thorniest issues — how to dispose of Iran’s highly enriched uranium and what enrichment Iran can keep — are punted to negotiations during the 60-day window, along with sanctions relief and frozen assets.

      • The MOU also states the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon would end — a provision that has already caused “at least one tense discussion” between Trump and Netanyahu.

  • Friday

    • Guess What Jared Kushner Tried to Include in Iran Peace Deal? (TNR)

      • Iran demanded reparations for war destruction, putting the price tag at $300 billion — and Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, both real estate investors, apparently pitched promoting real estate projects and an investment fund for Tehran as part of any peace deal.

      • The optics are brutal: Kushner is already under investigation for cashing in on foreign investment funds, and the right spent years screaming about Obama unfreezing $1.7 billion for Iran — Trump’s guys are now floating a check nearly 200 times that size.

  • Deal or no Deal?

    • Iran official says Trump is stalling talks with ‘excessive demands’ as wait for breakthrough continues (NBC)

      • Trump held a Situation Room meeting Friday to make a “final determination” on the deal — and walked out saying nothing.

      • A senior Arab mediator told NBC the deal was actually closed in Doha three days ago: “now everyone is playing a game of chicken and egg.”

      • Iran is calling US demands “excessive” and accusing Trump of “betraying diplomacy for the third time.”

      • Iran’s foreign ministry reiterated Friday that nuclear issues aren’t even being discussed yet — just ending the war.

    • Trump tightens terms on Iran war deal, US media say (Al Jazeera)

      • Trump sent the Iran deal framework back with toughened terms — particularly around nuclear material — and US officials say it could take up to a week for Iran to respond, with one official saying, “They’re literally in caves, and they’re not using email.”

      • Iran’s chief negotiator Ghalibaf was blunt on Sunday: “There is no trust in the enemy’s words and promises. Our only criterion is to achieve tangible results before we fulfill our commitments.”

      • Meanwhile, Iran’s military reasserted control over the Strait of Hormuz, warning foreign vessels they would be targeted if they didn’t comply with Iranian regulations — hardly the posture of a side ready to sign.

    • Republican lawmakers warn of ‘disastrous mistake’ as Trump nears deal with Iran (Guardian)

      • Republican hawks — Wicker, Graham, Cruz, Cotton, and Pompeo — are openly panning the emerging deal, with Cruz warning that an Iran still enriching uranium, receiving billions, and controlling Hormuz would be a “disastrous mistake.”

      • Lindsey Graham asked the quiet part loud: if Iran can still terrorize the strait and threaten Gulf oil infrastructure after all this, “it makes one wonder why the war started to begin with.”

      • Pompeo called the terms “not remotely America First” and compared them directly to Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal — the one Trump spent years trashing.

      • Trump tried to walk back his own “largely negotiated” claim after the blowback, insisting nobody had seen the deal and it “isn’t even fully negotiated yet” — then told critics not to listen to “losers.”

      • Graham then did a full 180 within hours, calling Trump’s Abraham Accords pitch “brilliant” — a reminder of how fast MAGA spines straighten when the boss pushes back.

    • Ro Khanna Urges Fellow Democrats to Stop Trying to Out Hawk Trump on Iran War (Common Dreams)

      • Rep. Ro Khanna is calling out fellow Democrats for attacking Trump from the right on Iran, accusing colleagues of essentially telling Trump to “go blow up more things” rather than supporting a negotiated end to a war that has killed over 3,400 Iranians.

      • Sens. Booker and Murphy and Rep. Wasserman Schultz have all condemned the emerging deal for being too soft — echoing Republican hawk talking points about unfreezing Iranian assets and leaving the nuclear program unresolved.

      • Worth noting: Booker has taken over $800,000 from pro-Israel groups including AIPAC; Wasserman Schultz over $1.4 million.

      • A March Pew poll found nearly 90% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said Trump was wrong to go to war with Iran — making the hawk caucus badly out of step with its own base.

      • Khanna’s counter-argument: Democrats should be the anti-war party, support the negotiation, and stop goading Trump into more conflict — a position historian Stephen Wertheim called what “the vast majority of Democrats believe, but too few of their leaders say.”

• The Israeli Angle

  • Monday

    • Israel pounds Lebanon with fresh air strikes, vows to ‘crush’ Hezbollah (France 24)

      • Netanyahu ordered a major escalation in Lebanon, vowing to “crush” Hezbollah despite the April ceasefire — Israeli strikes hit southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and suburbs of Beirut.

      • Far-right Finance Minister Smotrich called for 10 Beirut buildings to fall for every drone strike; Ben Gvir demanded “intensive warfare” and pushing north beyond the Litani River.

      • Lebanon and Israel are still at the negotiating table in Washington, but Hezbollah leader Qassem refuses direct talks and won’t disarm — Rubio accused him of trying to “plunge Lebanon back into chaos.”

  • Tuesday

    • Israeli Strikes in Southern Lebanon Kill at Least 31 People (Democracy Now)

      • Israeli strikes killed at least 31 people and wounded 40 in southern Lebanon on Tuesday alone — over 120 airstrikes in a single day, one of the heaviest bombardments in weeks.

      • Israeli troops have begun operating beyond the “Yellow Line,” pushing deeper into Lebanese territory despite the April ceasefire.

      • Over a million Lebanese have been displaced since March 2; more than 3,100 have been killed in Israeli attacks.

  • Thursday

    • Netanyahu says he told IDF to seize 70% of Gaza, well beyond terms of truce (Times of Israel)

      • Netanyahu ordered the IDF to seize 70% of Gaza — already beyond the 53% permitted under the October ceasefire — and when an audience member shouted that Israel should take “100%,” Netanyahu replied: “First 70%. We’ll start with that.”

      • Israeli-backed militias are functioning as shock troops along the yellow line, forcing Palestinian civilians out at gunpoint — and are now being equipped with heavy military drones, likely supplied by Israel.

      • Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed the endgame: “voluntary migration” — what human rights groups call ethnic cleansing by making Gaza uninhabitable.

      • One analyst’s assessment: ceasefire negotiations with Hamas are effectively over, and the US fallback plan is to let Israel “deal with” anyone remaining in the Hamas zone “as they want.”

  • Friday

    • Netanyahu confirms troops crossed Litani, as Pentagon hosts Israeli-Lebanon security talks (Times of Israel)

      • Netanyahu confirmed Israeli troops crossed the Litani River — long considered the benchmark for pushing Hezbollah north — while also striking Beirut and the Bekaa Valley simultaneously.

      • Since the April 16 Lebanon “ceasefire,” 55 children have been killed and 212 wounded; UNICEF called last week’s toll of 15 dead children “staggering.”

      • WHO reports 608 deaths and 1,774 injuries in Lebanon from April 17 to May 22 alone, with 16 hospitals and 13 primary healthcare centers damaged and three hospitals closed entirely.

      • Israeli strikes have hit or come dangerously close to multiple UNESCO World Heritage sites, including the ruins of Tyre and Beaufort Castle — Lebanon’s culture minister says they constitute potential violations of the 1954 Hague Convention.

• Russia-Ukraine

  • Russia uses hypersonic Oreshnik missile in mass attack on Kyiv (AP)

    • Russia hit Kyiv with a mass attack Sunday — 600 drones and 90 missiles — killing at least 2 and wounding 83, damaging residential buildings, schools, and areas near government offices.

    • For only the third time in the war, Russia deployed the Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile, striking the city of Bila Tserkva in the Kyiv region — a weapon capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

    • Russia framed it as retaliation for a Ukrainian drone strike on a college dormitory in Russian-occupied Luhansk that killed 21 people.

    • Ukraine’s air defenses intercepted 549 of 600 drones and 55 of 90 missiles — a strong performance, but the sheer volume of the attack overwhelmed full coverage.

  • Russia warns foreign nationals to leave Kyiv after large attack (The Hill)

    • Russia followed up the Kyiv attack by warning all foreign nationals — including diplomatic personnel — to leave the city immediately, threatening further strikes on “decision-making centres and command posts.”

    • Zelenskyy said the US has made no progress on expanding anti-ballistic missile production, and Ukraine is now trying to accelerate development of its own capabilities in Europe.

    • Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov held a call Monday covering both Ukraine and Iran — no details on substance.

  • Russian drone targeting Ukraine hits apartment building in Romania, injuring 2, officials say (AP)

    • A Russian Geran-2 drone targeting Ukraine went astray and struck an apartment building in Galați, Romania Friday — a NATO member — injuring two people and sparking a fire.

    • Romania expelled the Russian consul and closed the consulate in response; Romanian President Dan confirmed the drone’s trajectory through Ukraine into Romanian airspace.

    • Putin, asked about it in Kazakhstan, claimed no one can determine the drone’s origin — Romanian officials identified it as Russian with full trajectory data.

    • NATO expressed “absolute solidarity” but took no formal action; the EU is drafting a 21st sanctions package against Moscow.

  • Putin adviser warns EU after drone hits Romania: ‘The peaceful sleep is over’ (The Hill)

    • Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council and former Russian president, responded to the Romania drone strike with a direct threat to EU citizens: “Your authorities have unilaterally entered into a war with Russia. The peaceful sleep is over. But you know who to ask why.”

    • Earlier in the week, Medvedev had mocked the EU’s decision to keep diplomats in Kyiv despite Russia’s evacuation warnings: “Apparently they’ve got diplomats to spare and need to trim the headcount.”

    • NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called Russia’s behavior “reckless” and reaffirmed the alliance’s commitment to defend every inch of allied territory — but again, no formal action beyond condemnation.

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Economic Fallout

• US munitions depleted by Iran war will take years to restore (CSIS)

  • The Iran war burned through US munitions at a staggering rate — over 1,000 Tomahawks, 1,100+ JASSMs, and up to 1,430 Patriot interceptors — creating a multi-year window of vulnerability, particularly for a potential Western Pacific conflict with China.

  • Tomahawks won’t be back to prewar levels until late 2030; THAAD and Patriot until mid-2029 — and that’s assuming production ramps up as planned.

  • The problem isn’t money — it’s time. Complex missile systems take years to build, and no amount of emergency funding fixes a 34-month production lead time.

  • Allied orders from Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and others are now competing with US restocking needs, already creating “bilateral friction” that will persist for years.

• US inflation rose at fastest pace in three years in April as Iran war hikes up prices (Guardian)

  • US inflation hit 3.8% in April — fastest pace in three years — driven by energy prices from the Iran war; gasoline is up more than 50% since the war started in late February.

  • Real household income fell for the third straight month, consumer spending growth is slowing, and the personal savings rate dropped to 2.6% — lowest since June 2022 — as Americans drain savings to cover costs.

  • The Fed is now eyeing rate hikes, not cuts — the opposite of what Trump has been demanding, and a direct collision course with his newly installed Fed chair Kevin Warsh.

  • GDP growth for Q1 was revised down to 1.6%; economists expect consumers to pull back further as tax refund cushions run out and war uncertainty persists.

• Why a peace deal with Iran won’t save the economy from energy-market chaos this summer (Business Insider)

  • Even if a peace deal is signed tomorrow, energy experts say oil markets won’t normalize for at least three months minimum — shippers and insurers need to regain confidence the Strait is safe before reconfiguring traffic.

  • The US is drawing on reserves, not experiencing true shortages yet — but one analyst estimates US buffer crude stores run out around July 4, at which point actual fuel shortages begin.

  • Jet fuel goes first: Goldman Sachs warns European commercial jet fuel inventories could fall below critical levels by June, with flight cancellations likely through the summer travel season.

  • Diesel is already at $6+ per gallon nationally, working its way into the cost of virtually every consumer product; one firm predicts oil could surpass its 2008 peak of $150 a barrel.

• CNBC Host Tells ’60 Minutes’ Top CEOs Are ‘Very Scared’ to Criticize Donald Trump (Yahoo Finance)

  • CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin told 60 Minutes that most American CEOs are “very scared” to criticize Trump — worried about regulatory retaliation, blocked mergers, and agency interference.

  • Sorkin, who was promoting a book about the 1929 crash, was blunt: “We will have a crash. I just can’t tell you when, and I can’t tell you how deep.”

• Indiana Angle

  • Braun pitches more property tax relief for older Hoosiers (Axios)

    • Gov. Braun signed HEA 1210, giving totally disabled veterans a 100% property tax deduction on their primary residence, returning an estimated $46.2 million annually to veterans statewide.

    • Braun signaled this is just the start, floating additional relief for Hoosiers over 65 and homeowners who’ve paid off their mortgages — “Once you paid your mortgage off, why should you then have a fixed cost?”

    • Worth watching: last year’s property tax reform is already projected to cost cities, towns, and school districts up to $1.8 billion over three years, with cuts to services and staffing already underway.

  • Rokita wants to block federal marijuana shift (ICC)

    • Indiana AG Todd Rokita joined Nebraska and Louisiana in a federal lawsuit to block the DEA’s move to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, calling the rulemaking “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.”

    • Indiana is one of only 10 states with no medical or recreational marijuana — but the political winds may be shifting: GOP state Sen. Mike Bohacek is drafting 2027 medical marijuana legislation, and Gov. Braun has signaled openness to broader discussions.

    • Rokita is fighting his own governor’s direction on this one.

Religion

• Trump lashes out at Pope Leo again over Iran (Independent)

  • Donald Trump criticized Pope Leo XIV regarding Iran’s nuclear program, asserting that the country must be nuclear-free.

  • Trump reshared a social media post from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who had attended a prayer with Pope Leo at the Vatican.

  • In his comment, Trump suggested someone should inform the Pope that the Chicago Mayor is “useless” and that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons.

  • This marks another instance of disagreement between Trump and Pope Leo concerning Iran, following Trump’s earlier accusation that the pontiff was “endangering Catholics” by supporting Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

  • Pope Leo responded by emphasizing the Church’s mission to preach peace and its long-standing, clear opposition to all nuclear weapons.

• Pope Leo’s ‘Magnifica humanitas’: AI must serve humanity not concentrate power (Vatican News)

  • Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, on the 135th anniversary of Rerum novarum — framing AI as the defining social justice challenge of our time.

  • Core argument: AI is not inherently evil, but “technology is never neutral” — it takes on the character of those who build, fund, and control it, and must not be concentrated in the hands of a few.

  • The Pope called for AI to be “disarmed” — stripped of military, economic, and cognitive dominance — and warned that “there is no algorithm that can make war morally acceptable.”

  • On migration: how a society treats migrants is a “litmus test” for whether its sense of justice is driven by fear or fraternity — a direct implicit rebuke of current US and European policy.

  • On work: AI must not force workers to adapt to machines — machines must serve workers, not the reverse — and technology-driven unemployment in the name of profit is unacceptable.

  • On war: the “just war” theory must be overcome entirely in favor of dialogue and diplomacy, and any leader using armed conflict to distract from domestic problems is engaging in “irresponsible Realpolitik.”

• Pope Leo XIV makes historic apology for Vatican’s role in legitimizing slavery (AP)

  • Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology in the encyclical for the Vatican’s direct role in legitimizing slavery — not just Christians’ participation, but specific 15th-century papal bulls that gave European sovereigns explicit authority to conquer, subjugate, and enslave “infidels.”

  • This is a first: previous popes apologized for Christian involvement in the slave trade generally, but no pope had ever acknowledged the institutional Vatican role or apologized for it specifically.

  • Leo’s own family history makes this personal — genealogical research by Henry Louis Gates Jr. found 17 of Leo’s American ancestors were Black, and his family tree includes both enslaved people and slaveholders.

  • Leo framed the apology as inseparable from the encyclical’s AI theme: the Church must condemn digital-age trafficking and exploitation now, “if we want to avoid the need to ask for pardon again in the future.”

• Idolatry:

  • Treasury Department prepares $250 bill with Trump’s face on it (NPR)

    • The Treasury Department is preparing a $250 bill featuring Trump’s face, contingent on Congress changing a law that currently prohibits living presidents from appearing on currency — which hasn’t happened since 1866.

    • Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent held up a draft mockup at the White House briefing room, insisting they’d “stick to the law” — while making clear they’re ready to print the moment Congress acts.

    • It’s part of a broader self-branding blitz: Trump’s signature on all new currency, his face on commemorative passports and coins, his name on the Kennedy Center and the US Institute of Peace, and a banner over the Justice Department.

• Religion in Indiana

  • Lt. Gov. Beckwith: “I hate Islam.” (WFYI)

  • National Muslim group condemns Micah Beckwith after he calls Islam ‘demonic’ (IndyStar)

    • Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith declared “I hate Islam, it’s a demonic death cult” on a Christian streaming show, adding that people need “permission to hate again”

    • His FlashPoint appearance was on televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s network, where he argued some hatred is “necessary” because “God hates certain things in the Bible” — and claimed jihadists are working with Marxists to tear down society, without elaborating.

    • CAIR warned Beckwith is using his office to legitimize violence against Muslims, noting the comments came on the heels of a recent attack on a San Diego mosque; CAIR recorded a record number of anti-Muslim bias complaints in 2025.

    • Even Republican state Sen. Spencer Deery pushed back, saying rhetoric like this from Indiana’s second-highest official “makes the first impossible” when it comes to religious freedom.

    • Beckwith’s office declined to apologize, framing it as a defense of “one nation under God” — this is the same Lt. Gov. who last year called the three-fifths compromise a “great move.”

    • Beckwith’s “apology” on the close of Eid: “I hope you all become Christian.” With a heart emoji.

Immigration

• ICE agents pepper-spray protesters, N.J. senator in clash outside Delaney Hall in Newark (NJ.com)

  • ICE agents pepper-sprayed protesters — and US Sen. Andy Kim — outside Delaney Hall detention center in Newark on Memorial Day, as demonstrators protested inhumane conditions during a detainee hunger strike.

  • Kim, who had physically positioned himself between protesters and agents, described detainees telling him about a pregnant woman denied OB-GYN care, a woman who miscarried with no medical support, and an 18-year-old high school senior separated from her mother.

  • DHS called it a “political stunt,” denied any hunger strike or poor conditions, and blamed Kim for getting pepper-sprayed — while ICE described the US senator and protesters as “rioters.”

  • Members of Congress have explicit legal authority to conduct oversight visits of detention facilities; Kim said he had to personally call DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin just to get inside.

• ‘We are not criminals’: protests erupt as hunger strike rocks New Jersey ICE jail (Guardian)

  • Between 300 and 400 detainees are participating in the strike, demanding edible food — detainees reported finding worms in their meals — plus working ventilation, medical care, and movement on their immigration cases.

  • The facility has a grim track record: a Haitian man died there in December, detainees pushed down a wall and four escaped last June, and Newark’s mayor was arrested outside it last May.

  • A released detainee told the Guardian: “If they freed us, we wouldn’t generate profit for this business.”

  • At least seven journalists were pepper-sprayed by ICE agents during Tuesday night’s clashes; one protester was tased in the back while fleeing, went rigid, and was carried into the facility.

  • Delaney Hall is run by GEO Group, one of the largest private prison companies in the US, on a 15-year ICE contract. Detainees performing cooking, cleaning, and laundry work are paid as little as $1 an hour.

• Newark mayor orders curfew around Delaney Hall as protesters, police clash (The Hill)

  • Newark Mayor Ras Baraka imposed a nightly curfew in a half-mile radius around Delaney Hall after protesters lit tires on fire, threw projectiles, and used barriers as weapons against Newark and New Jersey State Police.

  • Gov. Sherrill and DHS Secretary Mullin found rare common ground — Sherrill deployed state police to maintain order, and DHS celebrated the crackdown on social media with all-caps triumphalism: “WE WON’T BACK DOWN.”

  • The situation has significantly escalated from where it started — what began as a hunger strike over inhumane conditions has now resulted by Sunday in a government-imposed curfew, street closures, and DHS celebrating “securing” the area around a detention facility on American soil.

• Elizabeth Warren Has Some Questions for the Private Prison Executive Running ICE (Mother Jones)

  • Trump’s new acting ICE director, David Venturella, appointed May 12, spent more than a decade as a GEO Group executive — the same private prison company running Delaney Hall — where he made at least $6 million and negotiated major federal contracts.

  • GEO Group is having its best year ever: $520 million in new annual revenues from ICE contracts in 2025, “the largest amount of new business” in company history — and Venturella now sits on the other side of the table negotiating those contracts.

  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren is demanding Venturella recuse himself from all matters that could benefit GEO Group and make his ethics disclosures public, writing: “Americans should not have to wonder whether ICE enforcement priorities are being driven by the financial interests of politically connected detention contractors.”

• ‘Dire’ conditions at ICE facility severely violate human rights, lawsuit claims (Guardian)

  • The ACLU, ACLU of Texas, and Human Rights Watch filed the first lawsuit against Camp East Montana — the largest immigration detention facility in the US, a sprawling desert tent camp on Fort Bliss — alleging beatings by guards, sexual harassment during pat-downs, solitary confinement, rotten food, measles and tuberculosis outbreaks, and three deaths in less than a year.

  • Only 20% of those detained have any criminal background — the lawsuit argues the cruelty is “by design,” meant to terrorize immigrants into abandoning their legal claims.

  • A Cameroonian plaintiff who said he had survived torture in Africa stated: “I never thought I would experience such severely violent treatment by guards here in the United States of America.”

  • ICE has simultaneously gutted the watchdog agencies meant to monitor detention conditions and is blocking members of Congress from conducting legally authorized oversight visits.

• Trump’s DoJ sues four states for denying ICE agents undercover license plates (Guardian)

  • The Trump DOJ sued Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington state for refusing to issue undercover license plates to ICE agents, arguing the states discriminate against federal law enforcement.

  • Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s response was blunt: “We are not going to use state resources to help ICE operate in secret, and without accountability.”

• Trump team is ‘drawing up’ plans to stop international flights to some Democratic cities (Independent)

  • DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatened to halt processing of international flights into sanctuary cities — including Newark, Boston, Chicago, LA, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco — as retaliation for local non-cooperation with ICE.

  • The timing is particularly reckless: tens of millions of tourists are expected to flood into the US next month for the FIFA World Cup, with games at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey — one of the targeted cities.

  • The US Travel Association warned the move would have “devastating consequences” for the travel industry and communities dependent on international visitors.

• New USCIS Memo May Force Most Green Card Applicants to Apply from Abroad, Causing Chaos and Confusion (American Immigration Council)

  • A new USCIS memo quietly reframes green card applications filed inside the US as “extraordinary discretionary relief” — effectively forcing hundreds of thousands of legal applicants to leave the country and apply from abroad.

  • The catch: leaving the US triggers multi-year re-entry bars for many applicants, meaning complying with the new policy could permanently destroy their cases and separate them from their US citizen family members.

  • Some applicants — including abuse survivors on Special Immigrant Juvenile Status — have no consular processing option at all; others are nationals of 75 countries where the State Department has indefinitely paused immigrant visa processing.

  • USCIS has issued conflicting guidance and hasn’t clarified whether the new standard applies to already-pending applications — attorneys are already reporting clients being asked to demonstrate “extraordinary circumstances” mid-process.

  • Bottom line: this isn’t about undocumented immigrants — in FY2023, over 600,000 people adjusted status from inside the US legally. This memo puts all of them at risk.

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Weaponization

• Actual Weaponization

  • Trump DOJ Seeks Names of Social Media Users Critical of ICE (Mediaite)

    • Trump DOJ, via US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, subpoenaed Reddit and X for the names, addresses, and bank information of users who posted criticism of ICE — part of a criminal investigation, though neither user was told what crime they’re suspected of.

    • The users only found out about the probe from the social media companies, not the DOJ; their attorneys call it “a bad faith attempt to unmask” dissenters rather than a legitimate criminal investigation.

    • The DOJ’s pattern: start with an administrative summons, then escalate to a grand jury subpoena — both signed by the same prosecutor, both directing records delivered to an ICE office.

    • Reddit is fighting back; X did not respond to comment requests.

  • Tracking retaliatory use of arrests, prosecutions, and investigations by the Trump administration (Protect Democracy)

    • The tracker documents 22 cases of alleged retaliatory DOJ investigations, arrests, or prosecutions since January 2025, targeting figures including James Comey, John Bolton, Adam Schiff, NY AG Letitia James, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Sen. Mark Kelly, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and others — often preceded by direct public threats from Trump himself.

    • Several cases have already collapsed: the grand jury refused to indict the former military lawmakers, Jeanine Pirro dropped the Powell investigation, charges against Kat Abughazaleh were fully dismissed, and the Letitia James indictment was thrown out for unlawful appointment of the prosecutor.

    • Comey was indicted a second time — this time for allegedly threatening the president via a social media post featuring seashells arranged in the pattern “8647.” His lead prosecutor has since stepped down.

  • Justice Department launches a criminal investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll (CNN)

    • The DOJ launched a criminal perjury investigation into E. Jean Carroll, 82 — the woman who won $88 million in judgments against Trump for sexual abuse and defamation — focused on a 2022 deposition statement that she received no outside funding for her lawsuit, before it emerged that billionaire Reid Hoffman had covered some legal fees.

    • The probe was referred to federal prosecutors in Chicago — notably not New York where the deposition occurred — apparently because Hoffman has a nonprofit based there.

    • Acting AG Todd Blanche had to recuse himself because he was one of Trump’s personal attorneys on the Carroll appeals.

    • One day after CNN published the story, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois said his office had “never opened” such an investigation — sources then reaffirmed it to CNN anyway, suggesting internal DOJ confusion or deliberate misdirection.

    • Carroll’s jury awards — $5 million for sexual abuse, $83 million for defamation — are both under appeal, with the Supreme Court having deferred its decision on whether to take up the case twelve times.

  • Federal inquiry into E Jean Carroll part of investigation into Reid Hoffman non-profit (Guardian)

    • The real target appears to be Reid Hoffman’s nonprofit, American Future Republic, with the investigation involving potential money-laundering conspiracy and obstruction — Carroll herself is reportedly not the subject.

    • This fits a clear pattern: the DOJ filed similar money-laundering conspiracy charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center in April — charges legal experts called flimsy — and has also pushed prosecutors to crack down on a George Soros-backed nonprofit. The DOJ is systematically targeting major Democratic donors’ organizations.

  • Trump says judge who ruled against him on Kennedy Center ‘should be brought up on charges’ (Independent)

    • A federal judge blocked Trump’s Kennedy Center renaming and renovation plans, ruling that only Congress — not Trump’s hand-picked board — can change the name of the Kennedy Center.

    • Trump responded with a 700-word Truth Social screed demanding the judge be “IMPEACHED,” accusing him of ruling against Trump because “his wife probably told him to do so,” and threatening that the Kennedy Center “will soon be closed, probably never to open again.”

    • Worth noting who’s on that “distinguished board” that unanimously voted to add Trump’s name: White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scovino, JD Vance’s wife, Howard Lutnick’s wife, and Trump himself.

    • More than a dozen major acts have already canceled Kennedy Center performances since the renaming.

• What They Call ‘Weaponization’

  • Capitol rioters clamor for payouts from Trump’s new ‘anti-weaponization’ fund despite backlash (AP)

    • Trump created a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund — originally tied to an IRS lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns — and January 6 rioters who pleaded guilty under oath to storming the Capitol are now lining up to claim taxpayer money from it.

    • Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related crimes; over 1,200 were convicted before Trump issued mass pardons, including members of far-right extremist groups who plotted to violently keep Trump in power.

    • Acting AG Todd Blanche refused to rule out payments to violent J6 defendants, punting all decisions to five commissioners — none of whom have been named yet — while a federal judge has already frozen the fund and at least three lawsuits are challenging it.

    • One pardoned J6 attorney is already charging fellow rioters a 10% cut to file claims on their behalf — even though no application process exists. A Michigan fake elector declared “I want vengeance and I want retribution.” A Texas man sentenced to seven years for storming the Capitol with a metal tomahawk called it “payback.”

    • One rioter who rejected both the pardon and the payout said it best: “We weren’t innocently persecuted just because of who we are. We were persecuted for committing criminal behavior in the Capitol of the United States.”

  • Judge pauses Trump administration’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund (Politico)

    • A federal judge has frozen the anti-weaponization fund, blocking any payments until at least a June 12 hearing — ruling urgently because she feared cash could start flowing before the legal challenge played out.

    • Even Senate Republicans are furious: Sen. Ted Cruz said colleagues were yelling at Acting AG Blanche in a closed-door meeting, calling the fund “foolish” and politically toxic ahead of the midterms.

    • The DOJ responded by accusing the judge of acting on “policy preferences” rather than law — the same playbook Trump uses every time a court rules against him.

  • Judge reopens Trump’s IRS suit to examine $1.8bn settlement with justice department (Guardian)

    • Different judge — this is Miami Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama appointee, who reopened Trump’s original IRS lawsuit. The freeze we just covered was from Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia. Two separate courts, two separate legal challenges.

    • A bipartisan group of 35 former federal judges urged Judge Williams to reopen Trump’s IRS case, arguing the settlement “is a product of collusion and is itself a fraud on the court.”

    • The core allegation: Trump used his own lawsuit against his own government to obtain unlawful private benefits — including a provision permanently shielding the Trump family from future IRS audits, signed only by Acting AG Blanche.

    • Williams could ultimately compel DOJ officials, including Blanche, to testify about how the settlement was reached and who it actually benefits.

    • Bonus irony: former Trump attorney Michael Cohen says he’ll apply for the anti-weaponization fund, arguing he suffered “identical” persecution to those who inspired it.

Media/Tech

• US Law Enforcement Warns of ‘Anti-Tech Extremism’ as AI Hatred Grows (Wired)

  • DHS, the FBI, and 80 fusion centers are now surveilling a new domestic threat category: “anti-tech violent extremism” — a term that doesn’t exist in any public DHS or FBI threat guide and is broad enough to sweep in peaceful data center protesters and AI skeptics.

  • Trump’s National Security Presidential Memo 7 instructs DOJ to target anyone holding “anti-American,” “anti-Christian,” and “anti-capitalism” beliefs — the surveillance apparatus is being explicitly directed by White House ideology.

  • Fusion centers are monitoring Tesla Takedown protests, town hall meetings where residents oppose local data centers, and a progressive nonprofit video about data center impacts — none involving any violence.

  • A private intelligence contractor flagged a More Perfect Union video about data center harms to residents as a potential threat — the video contained no advocacy for violence whatsoever.

  • The expert whose work is circulating in fusion centers warns: “Anti-technology violence is unacceptable, but it should not be used as an excuse to securitize AI and silence those critical of its current trajectory.”

• New Intel Bureau Eyes AI Data Center Critics (Ken Klippenstein)

  • Congress now has its own intelligence agency — the Capitol Police Intelligence Services Bureau, created after January 6 — and it’s producing threat reports about data center critics and distributing them to fusion centers nationwide, despite admitting in the same report that “the US Capitol Police is not investigating any data center-motivated threats to Members of Congress.”

  • The trigger for the report appears to be a shooting at the home of an Indianapolis city councilman who supported a local data center project — a real incident, but one without an arrest or confirmed motive.

  • A Gallup poll this month found seven in ten Americans oppose local data center construction — making “anti-tech extremism” a surveillance category that potentially covers the majority of the US public.

• Shake Up at ‘60 Minutes’ as CBS News Ousts Executive Producer Tanya Simon, Correspondents Cecilia Vega, Sharyn Alfonsi; Taps Nick Bilton to Run Newsmagazine (Variety)

  • CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss ousted 60 Minutes’ two senior executive producers and two veteran correspondents, replacing them with Nick Bilton — a former NYT tech columnist with no TV production experience — as only the fifth leader in the show’s nearly 60-season history.

  • The shake-up follows Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Trump to end a lawsuit over the Kamala Harris interview — a deal made while seeking regulatory approval for its Skydance sale, which drove out two senior CBS executives who said they could no longer resist corporate pressure to placate the White House.

  • Weiss previously held a completed 60 Minutes segment about migrants sent to El Salvador — after it had already been publicly promoted — demanding additional Trump administration comment in what staffers saw as an attempt to soften a story unfavorable to the administration.

  • Under Weiss, both CBS Mornings and the revamped CBS Evening News have lost viewers; staffers fear a 60 Minutes overhaul will alienate the loyal Sunday audience that generates over $200 million in annual ad revenue.

• Indiana Tech

  • ‘It’s going to be an eyesore’ | Clergy take stand against Metrobloks data center, call on Mayor Hogsett to stop project (WTHR)

    • Clergy from Martindale-Brightwood — a historically Black neighborhood on Indianapolis’s near northeast side — are demanding Mayor Hogsett stop the Metrobloks data center project, a 70-foot-tall, 150,000-square-foot facility at 25th and Sherman.

    • Their concerns: rising utility costs for residents and churches, noise, and the sheer size of the structure in their neighborhood — plus public incentive dollars going to a project the community never wanted.

    • Hogsett has repeatedly refused to meet with the clergy, passing them off to lower-level city staff; the city is now hiding behind pending litigation as its reason for silence.

    • Opponents have filed a civil complaint for judicial review of the zoning approval process — the project has cleared all legislative hurdles but the legal fight isn’t over.

  • Cummins to pay $23M to California AI company for misappropriating trade secrets (WFYI)

    • A Delaware jury ordered Columbus, Indiana-based Cummins Inc. to pay $23 million to California AI firm C3 AI after finding Cummins secretly hired a team in India to replicate C3’s proprietary fuel-efficiency AI application.

    • Cummins was caught when a staffer was accidentally copied on an internal email revealing the plan — and when confronted, was forced to admit it.

    • C3 had originally sought between $500 million and $1 billion; Cummins says it “disagrees with the outcome” but respects the process.

  • Data centers need a lot of energy. Some turn to fossil fuels for power (IndyStar)

    • Indiana is in the middle of a hyperscale data center gold rush — Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are building massive facilities across the state, with single data centers requiring as much electricity as the entire city of Indianapolis.

    • The energy answer so far is largely fossil fuels: NIPSCO is building two new natural gas plants totaling 2,600 megawatts and just cut a deal to purchase power from the Merom coal plant in Sullivan County — a facility that was supposed to retire in 2023.

    • Utility plans are often buried in regulatory filings or kept secret entirely: in Lebanon, Meta is building a $10 billion, 1,000 megawatt facility already under construction, and the local cooperative has provided virtually no information about how it will be powered.

    • One exception: AES Indiana is partially powering a Google facility with solar and battery storage, and Meta’s Duke Energy data center in Jeffersonville runs on carbon-free power.

  • City may delay Eagle Creek reservoir negotiations to study LEAP impact (IndyStar)

    • Indianapolis is likely to extend its water use agreement with Citizens Energy Group by one year rather than renegotiate now, giving the city time to study how the LEAP district’s water demands may impact Eagle Creek Reservoir.

    • The concern: Citizens plans to transport up to 25 million gallons of water a day to Lebanon’s LEAP district, and treated wastewater from LEAP would be discharged back into the reservoir — with the current contract containing no limits on pollutant levels from that discharge.

    • Environmental advocates are worried about impacts on Eagle Creek Park’s migrating bird habitat, which depends on the reservoir’s mudflats — and a $108,000 study has been commissioned to examine the full consequences before any long-term contract is signed.

  • Indianapolis hired hydrologist with LEAP district ties (Mirror Indy)

    • Indianapolis hired hydrologist Jack Wittman to study Eagle Creek Reservoir’s water capacity for the new Citizens Energy contract — but Wittman previously worked for the firm that conducted the 2023 study concluding there was enough water to establish the LEAP district in the first place.

    • The Board of Public Works approved the $108,000 contract on a narrow 4-3 vote over conflict-of-interest objections from residents and board members.

    • DPW’s defense: it’s hard to find a water expert in Indiana who hasn’t worked with Citizens Energy or the LEAP district — which is either a reasonable explanation or a damning indictment of how incestuous Indiana’s water policy world is, depending on your perspective.

    • Residents won’t get a chance to comment on Wittman’s findings before the city uses them to negotiate a new 50-year contract.

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Elections

• Texas Run-offs

  • Ken Paxton defeats John Cornyn for U.S. Senate GOP nomination (Texas Tribune)

    • Ken Paxton — indicted for felony securities fraud and impeached by his own party for corruption — just defeated four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas GOP primary runoff, becoming the first challenger to unseat a sitting Texas senator from his own party since 1970.

    • Trump’s last-minute endorsement sealed it; Cornyn outspent Paxton nearly nine to one and still lost — a stark demonstration that MAGA loyalty now outweighs money, incumbency, and institutional support.

    • Cook Political Report immediately shifted Texas from “likely” to “lean” Republican — Democrats’ preferred opponent is now the nominee, and Talarico has significantly outraised Paxton.

    • Cornyn’s two cardinal sins in Trump’s eyes: casting doubt on Trump’s electability in 2023 and voting for a bipartisan gun safety bill after Uvalde.

    • The GOP establishment’s own attacks on Paxton — tens of millions spent calling his behavior “repulsive and disgusting” — now become opposition research for Talarico’s general election campaign.

  • Menefee ousts Al Green

    • Procrypto super PAC lauds Green’s loss (The Hill)

      • Pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake spent $6.5 million to oust Rep. Al Green in the Texas Democratic primary runoff — and succeeded, with Green losing to Rep. Christian Menefee by a 70-30 margin.

      • Green had voted against both major crypto bills this session, including the GENIUS Act stablecoin bill Trump signed into law; Fairshake called him “the first Democratic incumbent this cycle to lose his seat” due to “anti-crypto hostility.”

      • Fairshake initially pledged $1.5 million and ended up spending more than four times that — a preview of how aggressively the crypto industry intends to shape Congress.

    • AIPAC Celebrates ‘Anti-Israel’ Al Green Losing Primary (Newsweek)

      • AIPAC also celebrated Green’s defeat, posting congratulations to Menefee while describing Green as “one of the most outspoken anti-Israel voices in Congress” — a post seen over 400,000 times on X.

      • Green had opposed certain military aid measures to Israel and supported Palestinian statehood efforts, making him a target for both the crypto and pro-Israel lobbying industries simultaneously.

      • Bottom line: a 20-year incumbent was taken out by a combination of Republican redistricting, $6.5 million in crypto PAC money, and AIPAC opposition — a case study in how outside money and foreign policy litmus tests are reshaping Democratic primaries.

• Federal judges block Alabama’s use of 2023 congressional map (AL Reflector)

  • A federal three-judge panel blocked Alabama from using its 2023 congressional map, ruling it was deliberately drawn to dilute Black voters — even after the Supreme Court’s recent Callais decision weakened the Voting Rights Act.

  • The judges called out Alabama’s own contradiction: the state argued partisan intent in 2026, but the record contained zero evidence of partisan motive and lawmakers were explicitly warned the map would dilute Black votes before passing it anyway.

  • Alabama immediately appealed to the Supreme Court; Gov. Ivey, AG Marshall, and the Secretary of State all vowed to fight — while the House Speaker called the judges “activists handing Democrats victories in the courtroom.”

  • Ballots already cast in four congressional districts will be voided under Alabama law, adding chaos to an election cycle the state itself scrambled by calling a special primary for August.

• Effort to redraw SC voting lines fails amid record start to early voting (SC Daily Gazette)

  • South Carolina Republicans killed their own Trump-backed redistricting bill after record early voting turnout made it politically untenable — 26,000 people voted by noon on the first day, more than the entire first day of 2024 early voting.

  • The map, drawn by the National Republican Redistricting Trust in Washington and handed to the legislature with just 7 minutes and 40 seconds of testimony, would have redrawn Rep. Jim Clyburn out of the district he’s represented since 1992.

  • A conservative Republican senator delivered the killing blow: “Neither my conscience nor my common sense will allow me to stop an election underway. The deadline is past. Voting has begun.”

  • Senate Majority Leader Massey — who opposed the effort throughout — warned his colleagues plainly: “People will vote when they’re angry, and I think what we’re seeing today is that we’ve made some people mad.”

• Indiana Elections

  • Morales lashes back over loss of Indiana secretary of state race support (ICC)

    • Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales is in freefall ahead of the June 20 Republican state convention — Sen. Jim Banks and AG Todd Rokita pulled their endorsements, State Treasurer Daniel Elliott called for his resignation, and his campaign spokesman quit.

    • The trigger: a late entry into the race by Max Engling, a Banks Senate staffer, the day before the filing deadline — widely seen as a party establishment move to push Morales out.

    • Morales is blaming his troubles on supporting Trump’s Indiana redistricting push — conveniently ignoring that Banks and Rokita were among the loudest supporters of that same push. Morales called Elliott a “close ally” of Senate President Pro Tem Rod Bray.

    • The underlying controversy involves Morales hiring a chief of staff who had been registered to vote as a noncitizen years before joining his office — she never voted, the registration was canceled in 2013, and she has since left.

  • Indiana Dems announce treasurer, comptroller candidates (ICC)

    • Indiana Democrats will nominate Porter County Clerk Jessica Bailey for comptroller and Noblesville consultant Coumba Kebe for treasurer at their June 6 convention in Indianapolis — both running unopposed.

    • Bailey is a two-term clerk with national election administration awards; Kebe is a first-generation American and healthcare advocate who just lost a primary bid for HD-29.

    • Both frame their candidacies around the same theme: after years of one-party Republican control, Hoosiers deserve independent financial oversight.

    • The Secretary of State race remains contested on the Democratic side between Beau Bayh and Blythe Potter.

  • Chair of Indiana’s Libertarian Party to lead national party (WFYI)

    • Indianapolis’s Evan McMahon, who has chaired Indiana’s Libertarian Party since 2021, was elected national chair of the Libertarian Party at a convention in Grand Rapids last weekend — a notable rise for Indiana’s third party, which has maintained automatic ballot access in the state since 1994.

NWI

• Gary’s 27-year lawsuit against gun industry dies with Indiana Supreme Court decision (IPM)

  • The Indiana Supreme Court voted 4-1 to let die Gary’s 27-year lawsuit against gun manufacturers — effectively ending the case after Republican legislators passed five separate laws over 25 years specifically designed to kill it.

  • The 2024 law that finished it off stripped cities of the right to sue gun makers, handing that authority exclusively to AG Todd Rokita — who used it to seek the lawsuit’s dismissal and then celebrated the result.

  • Brady President Kris Brown put it plainly: “The gun industry defendants got the legislators whose campaigns they fund to pass five separate laws over 25 years to end legitimate lawsuits like Gary’s.”

• Details revealed after New Chicago police chief arrested, charged with multiple felonies (NBC5)

  • New Chicago Police Chief Earl Mayo faces eight felony charges after allegedly stealing a gun seized as evidence in a criminal case, altering its tracing information, and selling it to a pawn shop in Hobart — then asking a fellow officer to buy it back and retrieve suppressed firearms from his home.

  • A second person, Tanika Roshawn Borders of Merrillville, faces charges for allegedly trying to buy back the gun from the pawn shop and attempting to destroy vials of veterinary-grade anabolic steroids belonging to Mayo.

  • New Chicago — a town of about 1,900 — has placed Mayo on administrative leave, with Lake County police taking over policing duties.

  • Mayo’s father, Indiana State Police Major Jerry Williams, is currently running for Lake County Sheriff.

    ---

HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us

Blythe Potter Campaign Site: https://www.blythepotter.com/

SUMMARY:

Scott sits down with Blythe Potter, the progressive grassroots candidate running for Indiana Secretary of State at the 2026 Democratic State Convention. With the June 6th convention less than two weeks away, Potter makes the case for why her background — as a rural small business owner, Army veteran, Johnson County precinct chair, and Democratic Party organizer — uniquely qualifies her for an office she says has been badly neglected. The conversation covers the full sweep of her platform: modernizing the state’s outdated business registration and campaign finance systems, creating a comprehensive voter ballot guide, reaching disenfranchised and non-voting Hoosiers, and building the kind of authentic grassroots infrastructure that top-down, big-money Democratic campaigns have failed to create. Potter also addresses the criticisms that have dogged her campaign — the “influencer” label, questions about her political history, her upside-down flag protest photo, and the online behavior of her supporters — while making a pointed argument that she is the more electable candidate in a crowded general election field, not despite running differently, but because of it.

WHAT’S INSIDE:

0:00 — Intro and Support Ask

- Scott frames the Secretary of State race: Beau Bayh (name recognition, donor network tied to right-wing money) vs. Blythe Potter (grassroots, progressive, all-92-county campaign).

3:45 — Check-In: How’s the Campaign Feeling Heading Into the Convention?

- Potter says she’s ready — describes the past year-plus as a long haul and says she’s excited for June 6th.

- Scott opens with a provocation: Indiana’s credential-heavy political class (Rokita, Pence, Spartz, Donnelly, Young, Banks — all attorneys) has consistently failed the state; maybe it’s time to try something different.

- Potter: an MBA in conscious capitalism is directly applicable to this office — it’s about serving stakeholders, not just shareholders.

- She argues lived experience in Indiana communities is an undervalued and uncredentialed form of expertise.

6:40 — The Business Side of the Secretary of State’s Office

- Scott notes the office’s dual mandate: voting administration and business services.

- Potter confirms the INBiz and campaign finance systems are nearly 30 years old; they’re not mobile-friendly and create real barriers for young entrepreneurs.

- She calls out the contradiction of Indiana’s “business-friendly” reputation: the state consistently delivers for large corporations (TIF districts, abatements, PPP windfalls) while leaving small business owners behind.

- As a Bargersville small business owner, she’s been an end user of these broken systems — she had to go to SCORE, SBA, and ISBDC resources that INBiz buries.

11:28 — Are You a Serious Candidate? Do You Have a Plan?

- Scott raises the “influencer, no plan” criticism circulating online.

- Potter answers by cataloguing her commitment: hired a babysitter to be here, missing her daughter’s recital for the convention, invested her own money.

- She’s run for municipal office twice, won her 2024 Johnson County town council primary as a Democrat in a red county with no elected Democrats.

- She’s a two-time elected precinct chair, state delegate in ‘24 and ‘26, and a national delegate — the only candidate in this race who can say that.

- She distinguishes between when she became active in party politics (2023) vs. how long she’s held progressive values; debunks the “only been a Democrat for three years” rumor as originating from an estranged ex-sister-in-law.

16:36 — Rural Communities and the Non-Voter Problem

- Potter has worked with the Indiana Rural Summit and studied rural organizing models from Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Montana.

- She describes the condescension rural communities face from the political class

- Scott raises the VAN problem: canvassing tools only target known past voters, creating a self-reinforcing loop that never reaches the disaffected.

- Potter’s largest untapped voter bloc: non-voters. Her campaign has a ground game ready for them starting June 7th.

- She talks about the real economic barriers to voting: can’t get off work, can’t afford childcare, standing in line at 5 a.m. isn’t an option. She’s lived these realities.

21:24 — The Ballot Book: Potter’s Signature Policy Proposal

- Scott credits Potter as an early proponent of the voter ballot guide concept — other states have these, Indiana doesn’t.

- The ballot book would be comprehensive: when and where to vote, how to register, what every office does, county party social media handles, and space for candidates to submit brief statements.

- Both digital and physical versions, funded through HAVA grants or other mechanisms — Potter rejects the “no money for that” excuse from officials who’ve funded trips to Hungary and luxury SUVs.

- She wants the Secretary of State to be a democracy cheerleader — visible, proactive, drawing people into the process — not just an administrator.

- Indiana’s metrics are bad across the board; the state desperately needs someone to advocate for it.

26:33 — The Copycats: Ballard and the Republican Field

- Scott notes that Greg Ballard’s new Lincoln Party has essentially adopted Potter’s platform without attribution.

- Potter says that’s “pretty rich” — to watch a veteran politician arrive without a platform and lift hers — while acknowledging other states already do this.

- Scott maps the crowded Republican field: Morales (staying in despite GOP revolt), Jim Banks staffer Max Engling (Banks/Rokita-endorsed), Dave Shelton (Knox County moderate), Jamie Reitenour (perennial Christian nationalist candidate); plus a Libertarian and potentially a Socialist on the ballot — setting up what could be a five-way race.

- Potter’s response: every Republican in this race is complicit in getting Indiana here — including Ballard, who was a Republican himself until a few weeks ago.

- She’ll take any of them: “I know my platform is better.”

32:25 — The Upside-Down Flag Photo

- Scott raises the criticism: Potter has been photographed at No Kings protests in military uniform, holding an inverted flag — Republicans will use this to paint her as a radical.

- Potter says it was intentional. She went to a war she didn’t want to fight, and some Democratic representatives (ahem, Evan Bayh)voted to send her.

- The inverted flag is a recognized signal of national distress. She wanted people — especially other veterans — to see it and reckon with how bad things actually are.

- She describes herself as an introvert who overcame that to run statewide, because she believes the stakes are that serious.

- Scott draws the contrast: Democrats who won’t stand for anything vs. a candidate who takes visible stands and accepts the consequences.

34:45 — Electability, Values, and the “Electable” Trap

- Scott’s argument: Indiana Democrats have been psyching themselves out for 20 years — voting for who they think can win rather than who reflects their values — and losing anyway.

- Potter cites Glenda Ritz and Ballard’s outfunded Indianapolis mayoral win as evidence grassroots campaigns can compete.

- She tried the “moderate centrist kumbaya” approach in smaller municipal races — it didn’t work. Authenticity does.

- She argues the party needs to campaign differently: talk to people, listen, pivot when necessary, and build sustainable infrastructure that down-ballot candidates can replicate.

36:59 — The Halloween Photos and “Former Republican” Attacks

- Potter’s ex-sister-in-law has been spreading the “only a Democrat for three years” story; the Halloween photos in question are five years old — and include a Ruth Bader Ginsburg costume and a COVID mask.

- She grew up Republican in a rural red community — that’s just what you were — and it took coming home from Iraq in 2006, getting divorced, losing her insurance, and moving back in with her mom to become the lightbulb moment.

- Realizing she was the kind of person her former self dismissed as “living off the government” shifted her worldview.

- She welcomes the critique: knowing both sides makes her more electable and gives her credibility with voters who’ve never considered a Democrat.

42:43 — Donors, Labels, and the Internal Democratic Divide

- Scott: calling yourself a Democrat while taking money from Republican mega-donors and working for Republican mega-donors renders the label meaningless.

- Potter: stating publicly available factual information isn’t a campaign attack — it’s accountability, and the expectation that we don’t do that is exactly what’s not working.

- She defends her largest donor, Kathleen: a Hoosier who managed a Chuck E. Cheese, pulled a Republican ballot in 2024 because there were no down-ballot Democrats in her rural primary — not a MAGA donor.

- Potter’s total from her largest donor is still less than her opponent’s largest single donor.

- She calls on supporters to tone down the online heat: she wants to win on her merits — trustworthy, good plan, showing up — not because someone else is bad.

46:15 — Money, Kamala, and Why This Could Go National

- Scott: Kamala Harris spent $1.5 billion and lost because she didn’t stand for something that inspired people. Couch-sitters, not Republicans, are the real opposition.

- Potter: she was a Kamala delegate and hated her refusal to call Gaza a genocide — and that kind of moral ambiguity costs you the youth vote.

- She argues a genuine grassroots win in Indiana could have national resonance and unlock national fundraising. Post-convention, the money will come.

- Her team has already financially supported the Indiana House and Senate Caucus, county parties, and down-ballot candidates — with very little money.

48:14 — Online Passion, Party Resistance, and What’s Been Most Rewarding

- Scott asks about supporters’ sometimes-pointed online behavior — Potter threads the needle: she fought for free speech in the Army, and people are scared and angry. That’s real. But she’s asked people to dial it back.

- On frustrations: she expected systemic barriers (women in politics always face them), but she didn’t expect her own party’s organizational resistance — leadership diverting visibility and support, not all 92 county parties letting her in the door.

- She’s lost friends over this race.

- The most gratifying part: this all started as a party-building project — visit every county party, spotlight them on social media, give people a list of all 92 county parties and Young Dems handles. The campaign grew organically out of that.

55:53 — Closing Message to Delegates

- Potter: if you haven’t heard from her, that’s not intentional — as of this evening, she will have called or left voicemails for every delegate she has a number for.

- She’s in this for the long haul regardless of the outcome — she needs a state her daughter and stepdaughters can grow old in.

- She has a paid team, a strategy, and a different kind of campaign — one that honors where voters actually are, not where consultants think they should be.

- Outro: HoosLeft This Week returns Sunday with Potter as a panelist, joined by Hancock County Democratic Party Vice Chair Chuck Gill — an Army vet and a Navy vet.

Scott is joined by singer-songwriter and Porter County Recorder candidate Leslie Nuss Bamesberger and Bloomington activist and graduate student Bryce Greene for a packed two-hour episode covering a week that had almost everything. The national segment moves through the white supremacist attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego, the sputtering Iran war and its chaotic Israel dimension, the Trump administration’s escalating pressure on Cuba, a week of staggering domestic corruption, the Ebola outbreak in the Congo, and the week’s primary results across six states — including Thomas Massie’s AIPAC-funded ouster in Kentucky and Chris Rabb’s progressive triumph in Philadelphia. The panel also digs into the DNC’s botched autopsy release, the stolen election theory circulating around Elon Musk and Starlink, and the Epstein files — including Sarah Kellen’s House testimony and new reporting on the Zorro Ranch communications infrastructure. The final 35 minutes turns to Indiana: Republican implosion in the Secretary of State’s race, Todd Rokita’s latest shenanigans, Indiana’s mixed education numbers, and a growing backlash against data center development in Indianapolis.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00:00:00 Welcome and introduction

00:02:00 Social media and support plug; guest introductions

00:04:02 San Diego mosque attack — white supremacy, incel ideology, and congressional rhetoric

00:11:53 War in Iran — aircraft losses, War Powers votes, Trump’s “peace deal”

00:16:39 Israel angle — Ahmadinejad regime-change plot, Netanyahu tensions, Ben-Gvir flotilla video, sexual abuse allegations

00:23:57 Cuba — Raúl Castro indictment, carrier group, Starlink aid offer, invasion fears

00:31:41 Trump corruption — insider trading disclosures, the $1.776B Anti-Weaponization slush fund, Senate Republican revolt

00:39:20 Ebola outbreak — Bundibugyo virus, Congo response gaps, USAID cuts, RFK Jr. and MAHA kooks

00:45:34 Tuesday primaries — Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky (Massie defeat), AIPAC money

00:55:51 Idaho, Texas, Oregon, Pennsylvania — Rabb’s progressive upset, Shapiro’s national positioning

01:01:26 DNC autopsy — Gaza omission, Martin’s failures, and Dan Pfeiffer call for his ouster

01:09:17 Ashley St. Clair and the 2024 stolen election theory — Musk texts, Tripp Lite, Starlink DTC satellites, North Carolina precinct data

01:17:22 Epstein — Sarah Kellen testimony, Frédéric Fekkai, Philip Levine, Patrick Demarchelier; on Zorro Ranch infrastructure

01:25:28 PSA — Crossroads Commons, Salem, Indiana

01:26:04 Indiana elections — DLCC investment, Two GOP recounts, Banks and Rokita abandon Morales

01:32:56 Rokita roundup — price gouging investigation; “86” First Amendment case; transgender birth record interventions; “Don’t Say Gay” expansion push

01:40:01 Indiana education — reading recovery rankings; charter school study and ’s critique; IPS board vacancies

01:47:30 Carmel and Fishers ranked top places to live — and what the rankings ignore

01:50:41 Braun’s National Guard military police force — Rep. Matt Pierce’s warning

01:53:27 Data centers — Indianapolis moratorium resolution; DC Blox east side proposal; community opposition

01:58:51 Closing remarks, guest info, upcoming PIN programming

IN DEPTH:

San Diego Mosque Shooting

• What to know about a deadly attack by teen gunmen on a San Diego mosque (AP)

• San Diego mosque shooters met online and left writings expressing hate, FBI says (AP)

  • Two white supremacist teens attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three men before dying by suicide

  • The suspects — aged 17 and 18 — met online, called themselves “Sons of Tarrant,” a reference to the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooter who killed 51

  • Writings included calls to “exterminate” Muslims, Nazi symbols, and broad hatred toward Jews, LGBTQ+, Black people, and both political parties

  • 30+ guns, ammunition, and a crossbow recovered from two residences; investigators still probing whether broader plans existed

  • Security guard Amin Abdullah shot back and triggered lockdown before being killed — likely saved 140 children steps away

  • Other victims Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad drew the gunmen away from the building before being killed in the parking lot

  • Imam noted the mosque was accustomed to hate mail and drive-by harassment — but nothing like this

• San Diego mosque attack follows surge in public anti-Islam rhetoric (WaPo)

  • Attack follows a documented surge in public anti-Islam rhetoric from elected officials

  • Rep. Andrew Ogles (TN): “Muslims don’t belong in American society” — posted on X in March

  • Rep. Randy Fine (FL): compared Muslims unfavorably to dogs — February

  • Sen. Tommy Tuberville (AL): “radical Muslims” are coming to “destroy the West” — January, on the Senate floor

  • Muslim leaders said the attack “did not occur in a vacuum” — directly linking congressional rhetoric to the shooting

  • The day before the attack, Trump headlined a White House-backed Christian nationalist prayer festival on the National Mall

  • String of recent attacks on houses of worship: Detroit synagogue (truck ram + fire), Michigan LDS church (4 killed), Minneapolis Catholic church (2 children killed)

  • Jewish Federations lobbying Congress for $1 billion in security funding for faith institutions nationwide

• Male Supremacism and Misogyny Was Central to the San Diego Mosque Shooting. Why Did So Much Coverage Miss It? (Ms)

  • Mainstream coverage largely missed the central role of male supremacism and misogyny in the shooters’ manifestos

  • Both cite the 2014 Santa Barbara sorority attack, the 1989 Montreal Polytechnique massacre, and the 2011 Norway youth camp attack as inspirations

  • One manifesto coins the term “MisanthropistCEL” and glorifies mass killers as “incel saints”; one shooter self-identified as a misogynist and had been active in incel online communities since 2022

  • Manifesto progression: starts with antisemitism → moves to misogyny (”after the Jew, the most evil creature is the woman”) → then Islamophobia, anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric

  • Shooters also identified as accelerationists — seeking to hasten societal collapse through violence

  • Pattern mirrors 2011 Norway massacre coverage, which similarly underreported the antifeminist ideology driving the attack

  • Analysts warn: misogyny isn’t a side note — it’s structurally intertwined with white supremacist and other extremist violence

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War in the Middle East

• Monday: Trump says he’s postponing ‘scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow’ at Middle East leaders’ request (CNBC)

  • Trump announced via Truth Social he was calling off a “scheduled attack on Iran” set for Tuesday, May 19

  • Leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE personally asked him to hold off, saying a deal was close

  • Military still on standby — Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine ordered to be ready for “full, large scale assault on a moment’s notice”

  • Trump’s stated red line: no nuclear weapons for Iran

  • The U.S. and Iran remain in a military and economic stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz, with dueling blockades choking global oil shipping

  • A ceasefire technically remains in effect but has been repeatedly violated — Trump called it “on life support” last week

  • Notable: Hegseth was in Kentucky attending a campaign rally against Rep. Thomas Massie while all this was unfolding

• Tuesday: US Senate votes to advance resolution to curb Trump’s Iran war powers (Guardian)

  • Senate voted 50-47 to advance a war powers resolution requiring Trump to get congressional authorization to continue the Iran war

  • First time the chamber has advanced the bill — eighth attempt since the conflict began in February

  • Four Republicans broke ranks: Bill Cassidy (fresh off a Trump-endorsed primary loss), Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, and Susan Collins

  • Cassidy’s statement: Congress has been “left in the dark” on Operation Epic Fury — no authorization can be justified without clarity

  • John Fetterman was the sole Democrat to vote against it

  • Still just the first step — Trump would almost certainly veto even if it passes both chambers

  • Democrats framing it as a pressure campaign: “Republicans are starting to crack” — Schumer

• Thursday: GOP leaders abruptly cancel House vote on Iran war powers, shielding Trump from rebuke (CNN)

  • House GOP leaders abruptly canceled a scheduled war powers resolution vote Thursday when it became clear they were about to lose due to absences

  • Resolution introduced by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) would have required Trump to end the Iran conflict without congressional authorization

  • Democratic leaders: House Republicans are “a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Trump administration”

  • Meeks: “They knew it was going to pass, and as a result they cheated” — vote now pushed to early June after Memorial Day recess

  • Trump meanwhile claims the Iran war is “very popular” — a CNN poll shows 77% of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say his policies have increased their cost of living

• Friday: Congressional report tallies 42 US aircraft lost or damaged in Operation Epic Fury (Military Times)

  • Congressional Research Service tallied 42 U.S. aircraft lost or damaged in Operation Epic Fury — the most complete public accounting yet, since the Pentagon hasn’t done its own

  • Six crew members killed when a KC-135 tanker went down over western Iraq March 12 — the only confirmed U.S. fatalities on the list

  • Drones took the hardest hit: 25 of 42 losses were unmanned aircraft, mostly MQ-9 Reapers (each of which cost over $30M)

  • Cost of the war has climbed to $29 billion — up from $25 billion just two weeks earlier — and doesn’t include base repair costs

  • Notable gaps: the report likely undercounts helicopter losses, and omits several Army special operations aircraft deliberately destroyed on the ground inside Iran

• Saturday: Trump says peace deal with Iran is imminent (Politico)

  • Trump announced Saturday a peace deal is “largely negotiated” — would include reopening the Strait of Hormuz; details still being finalized

  • Key terms remain unresolved: no confirmation the deal includes limits on Iran’s nuclear program, missiles, or proxy activity

  • Trump also confirmed a call with Netanyahu that “went very well” — notable given their reported tensions all week

  • Hard-line GOP pushback immediate: Graham, Wicker, and conservative media figures warned a deal that lets Iran survive would undo everything Operation Epic Fury accomplished

• Israel Front

  • The Trump Administration’s Iran Plan Is Even Crazier Than We Thought (TNR)

    • NYT reported that the U.S. and Israel attempted to install Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — Holocaust denier, called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” — as Iran’s post-war leader

    • Plan: an airstrike was meant to kill Ahmadinejad’s guards and “free” him; he was injured instead and “became disillusioned with the regime change plan”

    • Ahmadinejad had met with Israeli representatives in Guatemala and Hungary between 2023 and 2025

    • Operation was primarily Mossad-driven; U.S. signed off shortly before execution — and apparently saw him as analogous to how they handled Maduro in Venezuela

    • Bottom line: the U.S. and Israel went to war with no clear idea what government they’d accept in Tehran — and their best answer was a guy who spent years calling for their destruction

  • Wednesday: Trump says Netanyahu will ‘do whatever I want’ on Iran after pair said to hold tense call (Times of Israel)

    • Trump claimed Netanyahu “will do whatever I want” — one day after a reportedly tense call where the two disagreed on Iran diplomacy

    • Netanyahu wanted continued military pressure to destroy Iran’s infrastructure; Trump was pursuing a Qatar/Pakistan-brokered framework for a ceasefire and 30-day negotiation window

    • IRGC warned that if strikes resume, the conflict “will spread far beyond the region” — and claimed Iran hasn’t yet deployed its full capabilities

    • Pakistan’s interior minister made a second trip to Tehran in one week as mediator; China’s Xi called resumed hostilities “inadvisable”

  • Wednesday: Outrage over Israel’s Ben-Gvir flotilla abuse video (Al Jazeera)

    • Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a video of himself taunting zip-tied flotilla activists on their knees in “stress positions” as Israel’s national anthem played

    • 430+ activists from 46 countries were seized in international waters when Israel intercepted the latest Gaza-bound aid flotilla

    • Global backlash: Italy, France, Netherlands, and Canada summoned Israeli ambassadors; even Netanyahu and U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee rebuked Ben-Gvir

    • Ben-Gvir is a convicted racist with ties to the outlawed Kach terrorist organization — and he controls Israel’s Border Police

  • Freed Gaza Flotilla Activists Report Sexual Abuse, Rape in Israeli Custody (Haaretz)

    • Released flotilla activists report beatings, tasing, sleep deprivation, and at least 15 documented cases of sexual abuse — including allegations of rape and forcible penetration with a firearm

    • Abuse allegedly concentrated on one Israeli naval vessel converted into a makeshift prison with shipping containers and barbed wire; activists held without water, blankets, or basic conditions for two days

    • Israel’s prison service flatly denied all allegations; Reuters could not independently verify them

    • Rome prosecutors opened investigations into kidnapping, torture, and sexual assault; Germany and France reported activists returned with injuries requiring medical attention

Cuba

• US charges Raúl Castro with murder as Trump escalates pressure on Cuba (Reuters)

  • U.S. charged 94-year-old Raúl Castro with murder over the 1996 shootdown of two Cuban exile planes over international waters — four counts of murder, conspiracy, and aircraft destruction

  • No extradition expected; acting AG Blanche suggested Castro would face charges “by his own will or by another way”

  • Follows the January capture of Venezuelan President Maduro — part of a broader Trump/Rubio push for regime change across Latin America

  • Rubio simultaneously offered Cuba $100 million in aid while the U.S. maintains a de facto fuel blockade causing power outages across the island — Cuban foreign minister called it cynical

• Cubans outraged at US charges against Raúl Castro as fears of military strikes grow (Guardian)

  • Cubans across the political spectrum are outraged — even those who’d lost faith in their own government are showing up to protest the indictment

  • Military strike fears are real on the ground: Havana residents are nervously asking who their neighbors are, knowing proximity to government officials makes them a target

  • The buildup has been weeks in the making: surveillance flights, an aircraft carrier group entering the Caribbean, CIA director landing in Havana, and intelligence reports (of disputed credibility) claiming Cuba possesses drones

  • Context the indictment omits: Brothers to the Rescue had been deliberately provoking Cuba for years — buzzing Havana, dropping leaflets — and Fidel Castro had repeatedly warned Washington to rein them in before the shootdown

  • Rubio’s $100M aid offer widely seen as sophisticated regime-change bait — targeting Cuban resentment of military elites who have generators while civilians endure 22-hour blackouts

  • A Canadian nickel mining company with major Cuban holdings is reportedly in talks to hand control to a former Trump adviser — a preview, one European businessman said, of “the barefaced corruption that would accompany any US control over Cuba”

• Cuba Girds for Invasion as Trump Launches Raúl Castro Indictment Amid Punishing Blockade (Drop Site)

  • The “intelligence” that Cuba had 300 Iranian drones was leaked to Axios — buried in the article was that any attack plans were purely defensive, contingent on a U.S. strike first

  • Cuba’s military is badly degraded — fewer than two dozen serviceable aircraft, outdated navy — but its asymmetric “People’s War” doctrine assigns wartime roles to every able-bodied adult

  • The $100M aid offer is largely contingent on accepting Starlink devices — the same destabilization tool used ahead of the Iran war

  • Cuba’s infant mortality rate has nearly doubled since 2018; surgeries postponed for 100,000 patients including 12,000 children — researchers attribute it directly to U.S. sanctions

  • Previous U.S. aid shipments via the Catholic Church — meant for Hurricane Melissa victims — still haven’t been fully delivered

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Corruption

• The smoking guns in Trump’s new financial disclosure (Popular Information)

  • Last week, Trump filed a 113-page document cataloging his stock purchases in 2026.

  • Missed required 45-day disclosure deadlines on many trades; fined $200

  • Trump bought up to $215K in Thermo Fisher stock in the weeks before — then he toured their facility and publicly praised them

  • Bought up to $5M in Apple stock before he lauded Tim Cook in a Kentucky speech; up to $7.2M in Apple total during March alone

  • Bought Micron stock, then called it “one of the hottest companies” on Fox News the next day

  • Told a Georgia crowd to “go out and buy a Dell computer” nine days after buying at least $1M in Dell stock

  • Multiple trades marked “UNSOLICITED” — undermining the White House claim that an independent advisor controls everything

• US government agrees to drop tax claims against Trump in broadening of IRS lawsuit settlement (AP)

  • U.S. permanently dropped all existing tax claims against Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization as part of the IRS lawsuit settlement

  • Addendum signed by acting AG Blanche declares the government “forever barred and precluded” from examining Trump, his family, and affiliates — DOJ claims it only covers existing audits, not future ones

  • A former IRS commissioner said he’d never seen the government agree in advance to permanently forgo examination of previously filed returns for a specific person

• Trump Just Gave Himself a $1.8 Billion Slush Fund to Reward His Friends (Mother Jones)

  • Trump dropped his $10B IRS lawsuit in exchange for a settlement that created the $1.776B “Anti-Weaponization Fund” — paid for by taxpayers

  • Fund is controlled by a five-member commission appointed by the AG; Trump can remove any member — effectively no independent oversight

  • Quarterly reports go only to the AG, not Congress or the public — who gets paid and how much may never be fully disclosed

  • House Democrats called it a “collusive lawsuit” settled collusively to produce a slush fund — noting no sitting president has ever sued the government he leads for taxpayer money

• Leaked IRS Memo Proves How Blatant Trump’s Slush Fund Theft Really Is (TNR)

  • IRS’s own lawyers wanted to fight Trump’s lawsuit — their memo noted it was filed two years past the legal deadline, and that the leaker was a Booz Allen contractor, not an IRS employee

  • DOJ, run by Trump’s former personal lawyer Todd Blanche, ignored the memo and settled anyway

  • At a Senate hearing, Blanche couldn’t commit to barring Jan. 6 rioters from the fund — including one pardoned Jan. 6er who was subsequently convicted of child molestation and allegedly tried to bribe his victims with anticipated fund payouts

  • Blanche also couldn’t name the commissioners, couldn’t say who would choose them, and claimed Trump had no influence over the process — senators weren’t buying it

• ‘Incredibly hostile’ GOP senators hammer Todd Blanche in closed-door meeting: report (Raw Story)

  • Blanche’s closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans on the fund lasted nearly two hours and was described as a “s---show”

  • Sen. Thom Tillis called it “stupid on stilts” and “tyranny”

  • Per CNN’s Raju: “all” GOP senators voiced opposition — “hardly any came to its defense”

  • Republicans also warned the fund could derail their priority immigration/reconciliation bill

• Controversy over Trump ballroom and $1.8B ‘slush fund’ sends Senate running from the Hill in GOP revolt (Independent)

  • Senate Republicans fled DC without voting on ICE funding — the slush fund demand was the primary holdup

  • Mitch McConnell: “The nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong”

  • Leadership didn’t have 51 votes; even Tuberville called it a “curveball”

  • Trump’s $1 billion ballroom security ask — stripped from the bill by the Senate parliamentarian — added to the dysfunction

  • House canceled its own Friday votes minutes after the Senate punted

• Fascists use corrupt, clientelist relationships to consolidate power, enforce ideological conformity, and control the economy

  • State-sanctioned monopolies: think of Trump’s relationships with the business elite

  • Party-state fusion: see DOGE and the large-scale purging of non-MAGA government employees

  • Quid Pro Quo Privilege: members of the public and lower-tier civil servants receive tangible benefits for loyalty. We are here.

  • Co-opting the culture: think of MAGA aligned media, UFC, Indycar; Kennedy Center takeover

Ebola Outbreak

• What to know about the Bundibugyo virus, a species of Ebola causing an outbreak in Congo (AP)

• Residents burn an Ebola treatment center in Congo as anger grows over the outbreak (AP)

  • Bundibugyo virus — a rare Ebola strain with no vaccine or treatment — has killed 160+ suspected dead, 671 suspected cases in Congo; WHO says real numbers are almost certainly higher

  • Outbreak likely began months ago but spread undetected because health authorities were testing for the wrong Ebola strain

  • Now spread across three provinces and into Uganda — covering a 500km range

  • Mortality rate estimated at 30%+; healthcare workers and family caregivers are highest risk

  • Public health response falls back to basics: contact tracing, isolation, protective equipment, safe burial practices

  • Locals burned an Ebola treatment center after being blocked from retrieving a friend’s body for burial — safe burial protocols clash directly with local funeral customs

  • Response severely hampered: weak health infrastructure further degraded by international aid cuts, 920,000 internally-displaced people in the epicenter, with active ISIS-linked militant attacks in the same area

  • No vaccine or treatment available; earliest candidate is 6-9 months out

  • U.S. restricting travelers from Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan; Americans must route through Dulles for screening

• This Ebola outbreak raises questions about when it all began — and the U.S. response (NPR)

  • CDC only learned of the outbreak on May 14 — one day before it was officially announced — after hundreds of cases had already accumulated; a former CDC official called that “weird”

  • U.S. humanitarian funding in Congo dropped ~80% under Trump — from $900M+ to $179M — gutting the informal disease surveillance networks that aid workers provided in conflict zones

  • USAID’s Congo mission was shuttered entirely last year, eliminating on-the-ground disease intel capacity

  • U.S. withdrawal from WHO has shrunk WHO’s international emergency division — compounding the detection gap

  • At least one American aid worker infected; six more high-risk exposures — being transferred to Germany for treatment

  • State Department denied aid cuts affected the response; CDC’s incident manager deflected when asked directly whether funding cuts caused the delay

• Meanwhile, these are the kind of people leading US public health agencies:

  • Feds Blame Ebola as They Refuse to Bring Back Wrongly Deported Woman (TNR)

    • DHS deported Colombian immigrant Adriana Zapata, 55, to Congo — a country she has no ties to — a 2024 court order barred her return to Colombia due to documented torture by an abusive ex-partner with police connections

    • She has serious untreated medical conditions including severe vascular disease; Congolese officials said at the time of deportation they couldn’t care for her

    • A federal judge ordered her return; DHS responded by claiming they couldn’t find her — despite her address appearing in prior court filings and being shared in court the day before

    • When that failed, DHS cited the Ebola outbreak as justification for ignoring the court order — even though she’s in Kinshasa, which has no cases, and was deported before the outbreak was announced

  • RFK Jr fires leaders of group that sets guidelines for preventive healthcare (Guardian)

    • RFK Jr. fired the two chairs of the US Preventive Services Task Force — the panel that determines what preventive care insurance must cover for free, including mammograms and colonoscopies

    • No reason given in the termination letters; Kennedy told Congress last month he was reforming the “lackadaisical” panel

    • HHS had already largely sidelined the taskforce over the past year — postponing meetings and leaving cervical cancer screening updates and maternal depression guidelines in limbo

    • Health advocates fear Kennedy will replace expert members with political appointees, as he did with the vaccine advisory committee

  • MAHA’s latest conspiracy? Blaming Bill Gates for spike in tick bites (Independent)

    • Tick-related ER visits have hit their highest level in nearly a decade — the real cause is warmer winters, habitat changes, and reduced wildlife diversity

    • MAHA Moms Coalition is promoting a debunked conspiracy that Bill Gates bred and released ticks carrying alpha-gal syndrome to drive consumers toward plant-based meat — a theory fact-checked and disproven in 2023

    • A separate conspiracy blames Pfizer for planting ticks to create demand for their Lyme disease vaccine — which was actually announced before the tick surge and targets a bacterial protein, not mRNA

    • RFK Jr. himself previously said he “probably” promoted the Plum Island bioweapons origin theory for Lyme disease

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Tuesday Primaries

• Big wins, surprises and signals from Georgia’s primary night (AJC)

  • J6er Chuck Hand wins SD15 primary

    • Sentenced to 20 days in jail and 6 months probation for illegally demonstrating at Capitol

    • Ran for US House in ‘24

  • Another Trump enemy falls as Brad Raffensperger loses Georgia primary (Politico)

    • Brad Raffensperger — who defended Georgia’s 2020 results against Trump’s pressure — finished 3rd in the GOP gubernatorial primary

    • MAGA billionaire Rick Jackson ($65M self-funded) and Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones ($28M) advanced to a runoff with 32.5% and 38.4% respectively

    • Both are courting the same MAGA base — runoff will test Trump’s endorsement power against Jackson’s cash

    • Georgia AG Chris Carr, another anti-overturn Republican, also failed to advance — old-school Georgia GOP is effectively finished

  • Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms wins Democratic nomination for Georgia governor (GA Recorder)

    • Keisha Lance Bottoms won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination outright — no runoff needed

    • No Black person, no woman, and no former Atlanta mayor has ever been elected Georgia governor; Democrats haven’t won the office since 1998

    • She’ll face either Jones or Jackson in the general, with Republicans having already outspent Democrats by roughly $100 million to almost nothing

  • Bethel, Warren hang on to Georgia Supreme Court seats (GA Recorder)

    • Two Republican-appointed Georgia Supreme Court justices survived Democratic-backed challengers — Sarah Warren won comfortably; Charlie Bethel barely held on with 51.1%

    • Challengers Fmr. State Sen. Jen Jordan and personal injury attorney Miracle Rankin were backed by Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights groups; incumbents had Kemp and evangelical organizations behind them

    • Bethel’s near-loss signals real vulnerability on the court despite the nonpartisan ballot

  • Mike Collins and Derek Dooley head to runoff in Georgia Senate GOP race (Politico)

    • Trump-endorsed Congressman Collins led with 40.5%

    • Kemp-endorsed former football coach Dooley finished 2nd with 30%

    • Sets up a proxy fight between Trump and Gov. Kemp; Trump’s endorsement in the runoff could be decisive

    • Meanwhile Ossoff sits on $31 million and counting, watching Republicans burn through resources fighting each other

• Alabama

  • Tuberville, Jones advance to November face off for Alabama governor (Montgomery Advertiser)

    • Tuberville wins the GOP primary easily, setting up a November rematch against former Democratic Sen. Doug Jones — who lost to Tuberville by 20 points in 2020

    • Kay Ivey is term-limited out, making this the first open governor’s race in years — and Tuberville enters as a heavy favorite in deep-red Alabama

    • Jones won the Democratic nomination with 73%; his platform centers on Medicaid expansion, early voting, a state lottery, and IVF protections

  • Steve Marshall concedes in U.S. Senate race; Barry Moore, Jared Hudson go to GOP runoff (AL Reflector)

    • Trump-endorsed Rep. Barry Moore led with 40% but fell short of 50%; former Navy SEAL Jared Hudson edged out AG Steve Marshall for second — Moore and Hudson head to a June 16 runoff

    • Marshall conceded Wednesday after finishing ~5,000 votes behind Hudson despite raising $1.4 million

    • Moore had Trump’s endorsement and Club for Growth backing; Hudson ran strong in Jefferson and Tuscaloosa counties

  • Alabama’s ‘ghost’ congressional primary: What you need to know about the special election (AL.com)

    • Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais reinstated Alabama’s previously invalidated maps, gutting VRA Section 2 protections across the South

    • Alabama voided its May 19 congressional primaries in four districts (AL-1, AL-2, AL-6, AL-7) before results were even released — first time since the 1800s; special elections set for August 11 with no runoff, plurality wins

    • All other May 19 races — governor, U.S. Senate, statewide offices — count normally; congressional runoffs go June 17

    • The new maps convert AL-2 from a majority-Black Democratic seat (currently held by Rep. Shomari Figures) to a majority-white Republican-leaning district

• Kentucky

  • Trump picks off Massie in Kentucky (Politico)

    • Trump ousted seven-term Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s 4th District — defeated by Trump-endorsed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein in what became the most expensive intraparty House primary on record ($33M+ in ad spending)

    • Massie’s sins: voted against Trump’s tax-and-spending package, supported Iran war powers limits, and helped lead the bipartisan push to release the Epstein files

    • AIPAC-linked super PACs spent $9M+ against Massie; a Trump operative PAC spent nearly $7M more — outside money proved decisive

    • Defeat silences Trump’s loudest remaining Republican congressional critic and sends a clear warning to any remaining dissenters

  • Trump-backed Andy Barr wins GOP nomination for Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat in Kentucky (NBC)

    • Trump-endorsed Rep. Andy Barr won the GOP nomination for Mitch McConnell’s retiring Senate seat, defeating former state AG Daniel Cameron

    • Trump cleared the field by endorsing Barr and convincing businessman Nate Morris — who had Vance’s backing and strong MAGA ties — to drop out in exchange for an ambassadorship

    • Barr is a heavy favorite in November; Kentucky hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1992

    • Democratic nominee is Charles Booker, a two-time Senate candidate

• Idaho

  • Nine Idaho Republican lawmakers lose primary election, including some who pushed for budget cuts (Idaho Capital Sun)

    • Nine Republican incumbent legislators lost their primaries in Idaho — five of them members of the “Gang of Eight,” a conservative bloc that pushed steep spending cuts during a session marked by a budget shortfall

    • The budget committee vice chair also lost his seat — voters appear to be punishing the austerity caucus

    • Gov. Brad Little survived an eight-way primary; incumbent congressional Republicans all held on

    • Idaho Democrats fielded candidates in all 35 legislative districts and all statewide and federal races — double their 2022 numbers and up significantly from 2024

• Next Week: Texas

  • Trump’s endorsement of Ken Paxton over John Cornyn roils Texas Senate race (The Hill)

    • Trump endorsed scandal-plagued AG Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the May 26 Texas GOP runoff — catching Senate leadership off guard and putting the seat in play

    • Cornyn has a massive money advantage ($20M vs. $5M in runoff spending) but Trump’s endorsement may be decisive; polls show Paxton tied with Democrat James Talarico vs. Cornyn’s slim lead

    • Murkowski warned the Senate majority is now in “jeopardy”; a Republican strategist told The Hill Trump’s leverage over Senate leadership “is now pretty much gone”

• Oregon

  • Oregon voters decisive as they reject gas tax, renominate Drazan (OPB)

    • Christine Drazan won the GOP gubernatorial nomination, setting up a rematch against Democratic incumbent Gov. Tina Kotek — who beat her by 4 points in 2022

    • Oregon voters rejected a gas tax measure 80-20 — the Iran war has driven Oregon gas prices up 35% in the past year, making any new fuel taxes a non-starter

    • Drazan is notably avoiding any public mention of Trump; Kotek is making him the centerpiece of her general election argument

• Pennsylvania

  • Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Shapiro wins his primary, as do his endorsed candidates (PBS)

    • Shapiro ran uncontested, went 3-for-3 with his endorsed candidates in three key swing congressional districts — targeting seats held by Reps. Scott Perry, Brian Fitzpatrick, and Ryan Mackenzie

    • Shapiro is framing his reelection around flipping the state legislature Democratic for the first time in 30+ years — promising to fund mass transit, build housing, and codify abortion rights if he gets a Democratic majority

    • He’s positioning himself as a national accountability figure against Trump, with 2028 White House talk already swirling around him

  • Progressive Rabb wins 3rd District race with boosts from ‘the squad’ and local grassroots activism (WHYY)

    • State Rep. Chris Rabb upset early favorite Sharif Street in Philadelphia’s 3rd Congressional District, winning ~45% to Street’s under 30% — backed by AOC, the Squad, Philly DSA, and the Working Families Party

    • Rabb was the only candidate calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and the only one willing to use the word “genocide” — a key differentiator in the race

    • Street’s concession framed it as a wake-up call: “There was a movement called ‘Reclaim’ — they wanted to reclaim their party”

    • The win is a direct rebuke of the Democratic establishment — 3rd-place Ala Stanford was hand-picked by incumbent Dwight Evans to succeed him, and Street had the most institutional support

  • Primary results spell the end for four PA House incumbents (City & State PA)

    • Four Pennsylvania House incumbents lost their primaries — three Democrats, one Republican

    • Most notable: Greg Vitali, a 33-year Democratic incumbent and environmental policy veteran, lost 62-38 to Haverford Township Commissioner Judy Trombetta

    • Republican Bud Cook lost by double digits to a pro-DOGE challenger; freshman Democratic Rep. Ana Tiburcio, just months into her first term, lost 56-44 to an Allentown city councilmember

DNC Autopsy

• Facing intense internal pressure, DNC releases postelection autopsy that criticizes Kamala Harris (AP)

  • DNC released a 192-page 2024 autopsy — concluding Harris “wrote off rural America,” failed to hit Trump with sufficient negative firepower, and that Democrats’ messaging is too focused on reason and winning arguments “even in cycles when the electorate is defined by rage”

  • Report notably omits Biden’s decision to seek reelection, the rushed Harris substitution, and the Gaza divide — AOC called the Gaza omission “notable” and declined to back Martin’s leadership when asked directly

  • Martin sat on the report for months, released it with annotations calling its own findings “incomplete and unsubstantiated,” and then disowned it: “I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards”

  • The report’s primary author -– Paul Rivera, a friend of Martin’s — was quietly fired the same day it was released

  • Democratic operatives furious — not just at the findings, but at the timing: the party spent a day relitigating 2024 instead of hammering Trump on Iran, prices, and the ballroom slush fund

  • Dan Pfeiffer: “It’s hard to imagine anyone handling anything worse. He is not the right person to lead the DNC at this time”

• Why the DNC autopsy report matters (Amanda Litman)

  • Litman’s bottom line: the report is garbage — Rivera never gathered all relevant data, didn’t record interviews, couldn’t be fact-checked, and omitted Biden’s age, Gaza, Tim Walz, TikTok, and YouTube entirely

  • Martin’s real failure wasn’t the bad report — it was getting a bad report back and not fixing it, not holding the author accountable, and then spending five months gaslighting people who asked about it

  • The DNC currently has negative $3 million cash on hand — Martin is failing at the most basic function of the job before the autopsy scandal even started

  • Litman’s core argument: the rules governing how the 2028 primary gets run are being written right now — and after this, no one will trust Martin to oversee that process fairly

  • “We should not settle for mediocre men enabling other mediocre men to fail to the top” — Martin needs to go

Stolen Election?

• Ex-MAGA influencer shares election conspiracy theory involving Elon Musk (Raw Story)

  • Caveat: Ashley St. Clair is a motivated source — she’s had a bitter public falling out with Musk, alleges he cut her child support for “disobedience” and spent fewer than four hours with their child in its first year

  • She claims Musk told her personally that he knew Trump won hours before the AP called the race at 5:34 a.m. on November 6

  • She alleges Musk possessed “real-time data” on elections through secretive satellite technology

  • She says Musk shared internal America PAC data with her that raised questions about how he obtained election information not available through standard door-knocking operations

• The Gap in How America Detects Election Fraud I Found in the Epstein Files (Downwind of Truth)

  • What’s documented: Musk texted a confidant on October 5, 2024 about unleashing “the anomaly in the matrix” through “lasers from space” that was “not something on the chessboard” — the NYT verified those texts; St. Clair says he told her the same thing in person

  • What’s documented: Epstein’s recovered files show him recruiting NSA-trained mathematicians specializing in wavelet analysis — the exact mathematical technique whose output is literally called “an anomaly in a matrix” — while simultaneously advising on the satellite project that became Starlink and maintaining direct contact with Musk

  • What’s documented: Tripp Lite — whose battery backup units are physically connected to vote tabulation servers across the country — was transferred to Eaton Corporation through Leonard Leo’s dark money network; Eaton then partnered with Peter Thiel’s Palantir; Starlink’s Direct-to-Cell satellites were emergency-authorized in swing states six days before the election and 265 new DTC-capable satellites were activated October 30

  • What’s alleged but unproven: that this infrastructure was used to push unaudited firmware updates through battery backup devices into vote counting servers, shifting presidential totals without touching down-ballot races

  • What the data shows — but doesn’t prove: precinct-level analysis in North Carolina found Trump outperformed other Republicans by 5.5% while Harris underperformed other Democrats by 1.8%, with the gap larger in Election Day counts than early votes — exactly the pattern the theory would predict, though researchers like Mebane caution most anomalies may be ticket-splitters

  • What Justice says would prove or disprove it: a paper ballot hand count, an independent wavelet analysis of precinct data, forensic examination of battery backup firmware, and Starlink’s DTC connection logs from the election window — none of which has been done

Epstein

• Former Epstein assistant Sarah Kellen testified before the House committee. Here’s what we know (PBS)

  • Epstein’s former personal assistant Sarah Kellen testified in a closed-door House Oversight deposition — describing herself as a survivor, not an accomplice: “I was a literal indentured slave. I had zero power or authority”

  • Kellen says the federal government branded her a criminal in the 2007 non-prosecution agreement without ever once contacting her — she didn’t know her name was in the document until it became public two years later

  • Committee chair Comer said members of both parties were split on whether to view Kellen as survivor or accomplice — but noted DOJ treated her as an aid to prosecution, not a co-conspirator

  • She reportedly named three previously unnamed men who had sexually abused her during the testimony.

• Here is who Epstein’s longtime assistant accused of sexual abuse (CNN)

  • Frédéric Fekkai: celebrity hairstylist with a long documented relationship with Epstein — used his apartments, asked him for business help, was described by Maxwell as “friendly, very friendly” with Epstein; Kellen alleges he assaulted her in a Hawaii hotel room in the early 2000s before she even met Epstein; his rep flatly denies it

  • Philip Levine: former Miami Beach mayor and failed 2018 gubernatorial candidate; Epstein files show years of contact with both Epstein and Maxwell — Levine wrote Epstein after his release from jail saying “you are a great guy”; Maxwell says Levine introduced her to Bill Clinton and called them “very good friends”; Kellen alleges he assaulted her at an Epstein/Maxwell rental in St. Tropez; Levine previously said he only met Epstein “a few times” and regrets it

  • Patrick Demarchelier: French fashion photographer, died 2022; Kellen testified he introduced her to Epstein — characterizing him as a scout for Victoria’s Secret models; she alleges he exposed himself to her; no direct connection to Epstein appears in the DOJ files, and he cannot respond to the allegations

  • None of the three have been charged; Comer called Kellen’s testimony “by far the most substantive and productive interview” the committee has conducted

• Jeffrey Epstein Was CIA. The Communications Network at Zorro Ranch Proves It. (The Pugilist)

  • What’s documented:

    • Epstein rejected cheap gigabit fiber for Zorro Ranch and instead chose a 27-mile encrypted military-grade microwave link to Sandia Crest — dismissing bandwidth twice because, Valdes-Rodriguez argues, he wasn’t moving large files, he was transmitting something specific and covert

    • The contractor who built it — Future Technologies Venture — specializes in “mission-critical connectivity” for government and military environments, and now holds a $151B Missile Defense Agency contract under the Golden Dome initiative

    • The system connected to a satellite earth station with direct-to-orbit uplink capability, authorized under an active FCC license — creating an untraceable data path from Zorro Ranch to anywhere on Earth

    • Donald Barr — father of AG William Barr, who oversaw Epstein’s custody and death — served in the OSS and hired the teenage, degree-less Epstein to teach math at Dalton School in 1973

    • Henry Singleton, OSS veteran and defense contractor who built missile guidance systems, owned the neighboring ranch and was Epstein’s first-choice relay point; his son appears in Epstein’s black book

    • The FCC licenses for Epstein’s encrypted microwave network are still active under new ownership — Donald and Mary Catherine Huffines, who secretly met with Russian officials in 2018 to help deliver a Trump letter to Putin and negotiate the release of Russian spy Maria Butina; Huffines is currently running for Texas comptroller with Trump’s endorsement

  • What she concludes but hasn’t proven:

    • Epstein was a multigenerational CIA asset, identified and cultivated by Barr Sr. possibly as young as age ten

    • The network running through Epstein had simultaneous American, Israeli, and Russian intelligence components — and protected itself across administrations through the children of its founders

    • The full Epstein files have never been released precisely because they would expose this network, not merely the abuse

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Indiana Elections

• Dems Get a Boost

  • National Democratic group aims to help break GOP’s Indiana House supermajority (IndyStar)

    • The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee — the national party arm dedicated to flipping state legislative chambers — is targeting 11 Indiana House races, including five in central Indiana, marking the first time national Democrats have invested at this level in the statehouse

    • Democrats need to flip just four seats to break the Republican supermajority, which would give them the ability to deny quorum on controversial bills

    • Most competitive races: HD-25 (R-Cash vs. D-Stoner — separated by 60 votes in 2024), HD-62 (R-Hall defended by just 2 points), HD-71 (D-Dant Chesser defended by 3 points)

    • Hamilton County seats HD-24 (R-Hunter Smith vs. D-Rachael Bleicher) and HD-39 (R-Danny Lopez vs. D-Lindsay Gramlich) are among the targets — reflecting continued Democratic hopes in Indianapolis suburbs going purple

    • Democrats are playing both offense and defense — some targets are seats they already hold by razor-thin margins, others are pickup opportunities in districts that trended close last cycle

• Republican Recounts

  • Trump-backed candidate seeks recount in Indiana Senate race with 3-vote margin (ICC)

    • Trump-backed Paula Copenhaver — a staffer to Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith — has filed for a recount after losing to Sen. Spencer Deery by just three votes in the SD-23 Republican primary

    • Copenhaver claims 14 Democrats or self-identified progressives crossed over to vote in the open Republican primary for Deery, who was targeted by Trump for voting against the congressional redistricting plan

    • Deery’s response: “Our state and country are ill-served anytime a candidate refuses to accept the will of the voters” — a notable line coming from a Republican

    • Recount could drag into July given the six-county district; Copenhaver’s attorneys want to depose the 14 identified voters, arguing they waived ballot secrecy by publicly disclosing their votes on social media

  • Challenger seeks recount of 15-vote loss to Republican Sen. Liz Brown (ICC)

    • Sen. Liz Brown’s challenger Darren Vogt — a Jim Banks staffer also backed by AG Todd Rokita — filed for a recount after losing SD-15 by just 15 votes; technical glitches in Allen County left preliminary tallies incomplete until the day after the primary

    • Brown, who is Trump-endorsed and voted FOR the redistricting bill, turned it around on her opponents: “Is Jim Banks funding this, or is Rokita trying one final tactic to rid the Senate of its most independent conservative voice?”

• GOP Secretary of State’s Race

  • GOP secretary of state race scrambled as US Sen. Banks’ staffer enters (ICC)

    • Jim Banks’ senior staffer Max Engling entered the Republican secretary of state race just one month before the June 20 convention — despite Banks having endorsed incumbent Diego Morales just two months earlier

    • David Shelton — Knox County Clerk and year-long candidate who has criticized Morales’ conduct in office — called Engling “just another amateur wanting a job he has no qualifications for” and said Banks is clearly abandoning Morales: “They’re cutting bait on Diego”

    • Engling previously ran for Indiana’s 5th Congressional District in 2024, finishing third with under 10% — before that he was an aide to Kevin McCarthy

  • Morales refuses to drop out after Banks, Rokita withdraw support in GOP secretary of state race (ICC)

    • Banks and Rokita jointly withdrew their endorsements of Morales and backed Engling — Banks citing a specific scandal: a former Morales staffer, allegedly a non-citizen, was registered to vote using a temporary driver’s license

    • Rokita personally called Morales and asked him to drop out; Morales refused — “The decision belongs in the hands and only the hands of Republican convention delegates”

    • Morales has faced a string of controversies: a taxpayer-funded vehicle, unexplained international travel, and no-bid contracts for donors

    • Most of Indiana’s Republican congressional delegation lined up behind Engling; Shelton — who has been running for a year — called it “political scrambling and backroom pressure campaigns”

  • Braun says he’s neutral in turbulent GOP Indiana secretary of state race (ICC)

    • State Treasurer Daniel Elliott became the latest Republican to break with Morales — calling on him to resign as secretary of state entirely, not just drop out of the race

    • Braun stayed neutral, noting he never endorsed Morales to begin with — pointedly adding “whenever you try to intervene and say this or that, I don’t like that”

    • Full November field shaping up: Republican convention (June 20) features Morales, Engling, Shelton, and Reitenour; Democratic convention (June 6) is Beau Bayh vs. Army veteran Blythe Potter; former GOP Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard running as Lincoln Party; Libertarian Lauri Shillings also on the ballot

Rokita Fuckery

• 30 major fuel retailers under investigation for price gouging in Indiana (ICC)

  • Rokita’s office is formally investigating 30 major fuel retailers for price gouging following Gov. Braun’s April energy emergency, which suspended both the 7% gasoline sales tax and the 36-cents-a-gallon excise tax through June 7

  • 170+ consumer complaints received; investigators are comparing retail prices to wholesale costs seven days before and after the April 8 executive order

  • AG’s office built a public dashboard tracking prices at 4,600 Indiana gas stations — INFuelWatch.com — so consumers can check prices and file complaints directly

• SHADES OF COMEY CASE: ACLU says Indiana man did not threaten state officials by posting ‘86’ on social media (Indiana Citizen)

  • Rokita’s office sent an investigator to a Monroe County man’s home to warn him he could be indicted — for posting “86” on the Facebook pages of Rokita, Lt. Gov. Beckwith, and Sen. Banks

  • The ACLU filed suit, arguing “86” is standard slang for “remove” or “get rid of” — not a threat — and that the door-step visit by a badge-carrying investigator is textbook First Amendment intimidation

  • The visit was recorded by a door camera; the investigator explicitly invoked the indictment (by Trump’s DOJ) of former FBI Director James Comey: “If Comey was indicted, we could easily indict you over this today”

  • Rokita’s response: called the ACLU “anti-American,” “deranged,” and running a “communist” mission — and vowed to drain their bank account in court

• Indiana is trying to undo court-approved birth record changes for transgender people (WFYI)

  • Rokita’s office has been intervening in closed, sometimes sealed court cases — cases the state was never a party to — to reverse judge-approved gender marker changes on birth certificates for transgender Hoosiers

  • At least nine cases confirmed; in one instance Rokita intervened a full year after the judge ruled; his office won’t say how many interventions it has pursued or how many it has reversed

  • Indianapolis resident Rhye Carroll had her case sealed and closed in October 2025, updated all her documents, and booked an overseas trip — then learned in April that Rokita had reopened her case and is seeking to reverse the order

  • The legal hook: Braun’s March 2025 executive order directing state agencies to enforce a “biological binary” — which prompted the health department to stop processing gender marker changes entirely and forward all requests to Rokita’s office instead

• Rokita wants ‘teeth’ for Indiana ban on human sexuality content (ICC)

  • After the ACLU dropped its challenge to Indiana’s “Don’t Say Gay” law — which bans human sexuality instruction for preschool through third grade — Rokita declared victory and immediately called for expanding the ban to every grade

  • Rokita now says he doesn’t trust the Department of Education to enforce the law and wants lawmakers to give it more “teeth” — his benchmark for comparison: the 14 teachers who lost licenses this year after criminal convictions

  • ACLU: “Vague censorship laws chill speech and leave educators questioning how to serve their students” — the organization dropped the suit after losing at the Seventh Circuit but says its concerns remain

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Education

• Indiana’s reading recovery ranks sixth in national report (ICC)

  • Indiana ranked 6th in reading recovery — but the average Hoosier student is still 0.31 grade equivalents behind 2019 levels; the 6th place ranking just means we’re losing less badly than most states

  • Math is worse: Indiana ranked 29th, still half a grade level below 2019, with researchers citing constantly shifting state standards, eroding teacher licensing requirements, and mass mid-year teacher departures

  • The “learning recession” started nationally in 2013 — seven years before the pandemic; Across the US, eighth graders are now at their lowest scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress since 1990

  • Harvard researcher: “The pandemic was the mudslide that followed seven years of erosion”

• Indiana charters edged traditional public schools in academic gains after COVID, study says (Chalkbeat)

  • A Brown University study found Indiana charter school students posted greater academic gains post-COVID than traditional public school peers — with the gap growing each year from 2021-22 through 2023-24

  • Gains were most pronounced for Black and Hispanic students and the lowest-performing and economically disadvantaged — groups that charter advocates will tout heavily

  • Key caveat: the study is still undergoing peer review, researchers haven’t yet determined why charters outperformed, and the analysis excluded rural students almost entirely due to the lack of charters there

  • Important questions about methodology and context (Wildstyle Paschall)

    • The innovation charter schools are NOT performing better, the study doesn’t seem to mention it

    • Even Chalkbeat doesn’t calculate White students data because of data suppression

    • Many schools changed grade levels and charter schools opened and closed making direct comparisons complicated

    • Award winning Indy charter schools have been caught TARGETING students using incredibly high discipline to push out special needs children

    • BOTH IPS, innovation charters and independent charters as a whole are NOT meeting the state average and the “success” gap between any of them is SMALL

• Allissa Impink gave up her IPS board seat so voters could fill it. Majority of spots now on November ballot (WFYI)

  • IPS board member Allissa Impink resigned effective June 15 — timing it deliberately before the June 18 filing deadline so voters, not the board, choose her replacement through 2028

  • Combined with three expiring seats and another vacancy, five of seven IPS board seats will be on the November ballot — the first under Indiana’s new partisan school board election law

  • The stakes couldn’t be higher: IPS faces a $40 million cash deficit, an expiring operating referendum, and a state-created body (IPEC) that has already stripped the elected board of control over buildings, transportation, and property tax levying

Quality of Life

• Carmel, Fishers named top 2 places to live in country by U.S. News & World Report (WTHR)

  • U.S. News & World Report ranked Carmel #1 and Fishers #2 on its 2026-27 “Best Places to Live in the U.S.” list — with Noblesville at #18 and Greenwood at #26

  • The rankings evaluate value, desirability, job market, and quality of life across 850+ cities

  • Worth noting: these are among the wealthiest, whitest, most politically homogeneous suburbs in the state — the rankings measure amenities, not equity

  • So yeah, top places to live…

    • Unless you’re a trans person who wants to live their life openly

    • Unless you’re a woman who needs access to abortion care

    • Unless you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want to live in a…

Militarized Police State

• National Guard says first members of new military police force ready for deployment (WRTV)

  • Braun signed a law creating a designated military police response force within the Indiana National Guard — the governor alone can deploy it anytime he believes civilian agencies are “overwhelmed,” with no requirement that local officials request it

  • The first 40 National Guard MPs have completed a supplemental Indiana law enforcement training course — but critics note it’s a workshop, not the full academy curriculum required of civilian officers

  • Rep. Matt Pierce’s warning: this opens the door for a governor who doesn’t like a particular mayor or local officials to deploy military police into urban communities without their consent — a dynamic already playing out at the federal level under Trump in D.C.

  • Braun and the bill’s author say coordination with local law enforcement would happen “as a matter of course” — but that coordination is not legally required

Data Centers

• Here’s how Indy plans to regulate data centers (Mirror Indy)

  • Indianapolis City-County Council on May 4 unanimously passed a resolution calling for a pause on new data center approvals until the city can adopt new zoning regulations — but it’s purely symbolic, the Metropolitan Development Commission doesn’t have to comply, and a Republican councilor called it “political theater”

  • Proposed zoning regulations are expected to be discussed over the coming months and would cap noise at 65 decibels and require developers to submit water management, electrical capacity, and noise mitigation plans — but critics say it doesn’t touch health and environmental concerns

  • Two data centers already approved this year: a $500M complex in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood and an 18-football-field-sized facility in Decatur Township; about a dozen Indiana counties have issued moratoriums, with Marshall County going further with a permanent ban

• Residents push back on a $2 billion data center proposal on Indy’s east side (WFYI)

  • Georgia-based DC Blox wants to build a $2 billion, three-building data center campus on Indy’s east side — a former Ford factory brownfield — using up to 78 megawatts of electricity (about as much as a city the size of Muncie or Anderson) and 56 backup generators

  • Dozens of residents showed up with “Block DC Blox” signs, raising concerns about noise, water use, power grid strain, and the health risks of digging up contaminated soil on a brownfield site

  • Critical procedural detail: because DC Blox filed for a variance rather than a rezoning, the City-County Council has no veto — opponents must convince the Metropolitan Development Commission directly at the June 11 hearing or the project moves forward

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HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us

Indiana Organizing Project: https://indianaorganizing.org/

SUMMARY:

Scott sits down with Stuart Mora — immigrants’ rights advocate, veteran UNITE HERE organizer, and former immigration law firm staffer — to discuss the Indiana Organizing Project’s campaign to end ICE detention at Miami Correctional Facility near Kokomo, where approximately 600 detainees are being held in conditions Mora describes as approaching the definition of a concentration camp. Fresh off a 27-event statewide day of action, Mora walks through the human toll on Hoosier families — parents detained for traffic stops, U.S. citizen children left behind, irreversible trauma — alongside the financial toll on Indiana taxpayers, with the state $16 million into a facility upgrade and the federal government four months behind on payments. Scott and Mora examine how Indiana’s 287(g) agreement and Senate Enrolled Act 76 have made local law enforcement a de facto arm of ICE, why the detention bed count is actually falling in response to organized resistance, and what the Indiana Organizing Project’s mutual aid network is doing in the meantime to support affected families. Mora closes with a call to action for the movement’s August 29–30 statewide weekend of action, with a goal of more than 50 events.

WHAT’S INSIDE:

00:00:23 — Introduction & Context: The Statewide Day of Action

• Scott sets the scene: Hoosiers at nearly 30 events across Indiana protested ICE’s use of Miami Correctional Facility to house detainees.

• At least 31 people have died in ICE custody since Trump’s second term began, including two at Miami.

• Scott introduces Stuart Mora of the Indiana Organizing Project as one of the key organizers of Saturday’s day of action.

• Scott makes his fundraising ask and rattles off social media handles for HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network before welcoming Mora.

00:04:10 — The Campaign: From February Launch to 27 Actions

• The campaign launched February 22nd with a 500-person rally at the governor’s mansion in the snow.

• Congressman André Carson conducted a congressional oversight visit to Miami Correctional on April 9th and joined the call to end ICE detention there.

• Saturday’s day of action drew 27 events across Indiana, including in small towns like Fowler and Pearson — a deliberate choice to build a statewide, not just Indianapolis- or Bloomington-based, campaign.

• The movement is building to a statewide weekend of action on August 29–30, with a goal of more than 50 events.

00:06:39 — The Bottleneck: Detention Beds as the Choke Point

• Mora spent five years at Muñoz Legal in Indianapolis working with detained immigrants, giving him firsthand knowledge of the ICE system before the current administration.

• ICE itself told immigration lawyers that detention space is the bottleneck in their operations: “We are being told to arrest X number of people. We don’t know where to put them.”

• When Trump took office in January 2025, ICE had 41,000 detention beds; that peaked at 73,000 in January 2026 and has since fallen — partly due to pushback, including Marion County removing 128 detention beds from ICE access.

• Mora’s core argument: every detention bed represents a family in crisis, and the people being detained in Indiana are largely not violent criminals but people pulled over for traffic stops.

00:09:16 — “Worst First” Was a Lie: Real Families Torn Apart

• Governor Braun promised “the worst first,” but the reality is families with no criminal history being separated.

• Mora describes visiting a family in southern Indiana: dad detained for three months after a speeding stop, four U.S. citizen children at home, mom sobbing for two hours saying “my kids don’t deserve any of this.”

• Scott notes that 70% of ICE detainees nationally have no criminal record whatsoever; the remainder are largely nonviolent offenders.

• Scott and Mora agree the harm ripples outward — to neighbors, to schoolmates, to entire communities — regardless of immigration status.

00:11:40 — Reaching Across the Divide: Making the Case to Trump Voters

• Mora deliberately rejects the framing of this as a partisan issue; he has organized extensively in rural, conservative Indiana.

• His core pitch to Trump-voting Hoosiers: they believe in family, and when they hear specific stories, they want to help — because Hoosiers are family-oriented.

• Three families the Indiana Organizing Project is currently supporting all have U.S. citizen wives, with pending marriage petitions — people going through the legal process — nonetheless detained or facing deportation.

• A six-year-old’s comment — telling his four-year-old brother to buckle up “or they’ll come get mommy too” — illustrates the irreversible psychological trauma being inflicted on U.S. citizen children.

00:15:45 — The Long-Term Damage: Trauma, Healthcare Costs, and the Economic Lie

• Mora, the son of a pediatrician, emphasizes that the trauma done to children can’t be reversed — it stays with them their whole lives.

• Scott connects this to downstream costs on an already underfunded mental health system.

• Indiana spent $16 million upgrading Miami Correctional to house ICE detainees, expecting premium payments from the federal government — but the feds are four months behind on payments, and the state has lost money.

• Mora draws a parallel to Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” which is being closed — he suspects the real reason is also unpaid federal bills.

00:18:11 — Trump Stiffs His Contractors (Again) and the Concentration Camp Question

• Scott jokes that Trump’s history of stiffing contractors is well-established, and Mora agrees the financial reality will move the political middle.

• Mora says he uses the phrase “concentration camp” with great care, but Miami Correctional is “very, very close” to meeting the exact definition: people held illegally, with the Northern District of Indiana’s habeas petition backlog now exceeding three months.

• Detainees report no medical care, no responsiveness — prescription medications withheld, Tylenol arriving weeks late — and two deaths in three months.

• A guard-corroborated detail: during one of the deaths, detainees trying to alert guards were dismissed as joking.

00:23:33 — Inside Miami: Conditions, Staffing, and What Detainees Say

• People bounced between facilities universally call Miami Correctional the worst — not one dissenting voice among detainees, who have comparative experience.

• The facility is 34% short of the staff needed to house the detainees it’s currently holding — confirmed by staff themselves.

• Detainees report: two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, laundry broken for two months, living in filth, constant lockdowns, lawyers and family nearly impossible to reach.

• Scott offers a darkly hopeful observation: the staffing shortage at least suggests Hoosiers aren’t lining up to do this work to their neighbors.

00:25:36 — Senate Enrolled Act 76: Indiana Mandates Cooperation with ICE

• Indiana passed Senate Enrolled Act 76 this spring, mandating that all state governmental entities — schools, hospitals, jails, universities — cooperate with ICE by law, effective July 1.

• Indiana is the opposite end of the spectrum from Minnesota, where local authorities resisted federal enforcement; Indiana’s state police already have a 287(g) agreement and function essentially as ICE agents.

• Mora details a state police encounter in Indianapolis: two men changing a tire were both put into ICE detention after a routine welfare stop.

• The federal government has also made it harder to renew work permits, which causes people to lose driver’s licenses, which then triggers the arrests that feed the detention pipeline.

00:30:08 — The Spectrum of Law Enforcement Response

• Mora says not every officer is arresting every person without a license — driving without a license is the lowest-level misdemeanor, and a summons or infraction is an option.

• He cannot document a formal policy, but says there is clearly a “spectrum” of how officers are handling these encounters.

• Scott pivots to Senate Enrolled Act 76’s July 1 effective date — schools especially are facing real confusion about what they’re required to do and where they can draw lines.

• Community leaders working with schools and hospitals report concern but also genuine uncertainty about how the law will play out in practice.

00:33:20 — How Detention Policy Changed: Bonds, Habeas, and the DUI Example

• In prior administrations, ICE exercised discretion: a traffic stop wouldn’t warrant pickup, and even a DUI could result in a bond negotiated and paid the same day.

• The current administration eliminated ICE officers’ ability to negotiate bonds and stripped immigration judges of bond-setting authority — the only exit now is a federal habeas petition.

• Mora asks: what are we accomplishing by caging a DUI defendant for months, destroying their family financially, traumatizing their children?

• The plan to turn warehouses into detention centers — including a potential 8,500-person facility in Indianapolis — has largely stalled due to community pushback and logistical failures (the Social Circle, Georgia example: a town of 5,000 can’t handle a facility that size).

00:37:05 — The Pushback Is Working: From 73,000 to 60,000 Detainees

• National ICE detainee count fell from 73,000 in January 2026 to 60,000 by April 4th — evidence the resistance is having an effect.

• Mora frames the campaign goals in two steps: first, prevent the expansion of Miami from 600 to 1,000 detainees; second, begin rolling numbers back incrementally.

• Indiana is being used as a detention hub for detainees from other states — particularly New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

• He also raises a broader civil liberties warning: detention infrastructure built for immigrants will eventually be used for political opponents, and Trump has said as much on the record.

00:40:27 — The Mutual Aid Network: Community in Action

• Indiana Organizing Project has built a network of several hundred volunteers who mobilize immediately when a family comes into contact with them.

• First message to every family: “You’re not alone. You have a community of people here who care about you.”

• Support includes food, diapers, toiletries, rent and utility assistance, and a growing pro bono legal program staffed by volunteer attorneys, retired lawyers, and paralegals.

• The mom with four U.S. citizen children, approached about sharing her story publicly while still crying, said: “If I can do anything to prevent other families from having to suffer what we’ve suffered, I want to do it.”

00:44:42 — Stuart’s Story: Notre Dame, UNITE HERE, and the Road to Organizing

• Mora traveled Mexico for seven months at age 20, informally interviewing people — a formative experience in listening and building connection.

• A one-credit Notre Dame seminar taught by Jay Caponigro, including four days meeting organizers in Chicago, convinced Mora this was a real career path.

• He was recruited by UNITE HERE (food service, hotel, and casino workers’ union) after college, spent 13 years with them including serving as Indiana chapter president, and “salted” a hotel in Indianapolis to build the union.

• The pandemic devastated the hospitality industry and triggered a serious mental health crisis for Mora; he moved to immigration law and then back to organizing, where he now says he has never felt greater moral clarity about any campaign.

00:49:59 — Maintaining Hope for the Long Haul

• Mora has won long campaigns before — the experience helps him resist the American impulse for instant gratification.

• He finds sustenance in watching people become leaders who never saw themselves as such — first-time action leaders from Saturday’s events already talking about what they’ve learned and who they’ll teach next.

• Community is the antidote to the isolation and paralysis that the current political moment produces — and that Mora believes predates even the pandemic.

• Joy, art, music, and hope are not accessories to organizing, they are essential to it; channeling anger into something constructive is the only sustainable path forward.

00:54:52 — Call to Action & Outro

• Three ways to get involved: join the public campaign team (goal: 50+ actions August 29–30), join the mutual aid network, or donate to the family assistance program.

• Contact: stuart@indianaorganizing.org.

• Scott thanks Mora and plugs upcoming PIN programming: HoosLeft This Week Sunday at 10:30 a.m. with Leslie Nuss and Bryce Green; Hold ‘Em Accountable Friday with Derrick Holder on convention process; Brianna the Recovered Republican hosting a Blythe Potter town hall Friday evening (delegates especially encouraged to submit questions).

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SUMMARY:

On this week’s HoosLeft This Week, Scott is joined by Indianapolis attorney and community advocate Karla Lopez Owens and Reece Axel-Adams — who opens the show with a personal announcement about withdrawing from his Statehouse District 53 race to focus on his health — for a wide-ranging two hours that moves from Trump’s embarrassing performance in Beijing and the economic fallout of the ongoing Iran war, through a corruption double-header featuring the Trump IRS slush fund and Sean Duffy’s corporate-sponsored road trip, to the continuing demolition of federal public health infrastructure under RFK Jr. The second half turns squarely to Indiana: Karla breaks down the statewide ICE detention protests and the federal government’s failure to pay its tab at Miami Correctional Facility, before Scott and Reece work through the Indiana Supreme Court’s abortion ban ruling, the Braun administration’s Medicaid overhaul, the OPHS audit scandal in Indianapolis, Indiana’s stubborn holdout status on medical marijuana, the razor-thin Deery recount situation and Diego Morales’s conflict-of-interest problem, property tax cuts gutting school budgets and teacher pay, the new bell-to-bell cell phone ban, the Marion County youth curfew, and a pair of environmental stories — the Martindale-Brightwood and Madison County data center fights — capped off with the Mirror Indy headline of the year about Speedway’s water treatment problem.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00:00:00 Introduction & Support HoosLeft / PIN

00:02:41 Guest Introductions: Karla Lopez Owens & Reece Axel-Adams

00:05:50 Reece Announces Withdrawal from HD-53 Race

00:10:10 Trump in China: Economic Pain & the Corporate Delegation

00:18:06 China Summit Fallout: Taiwan, the Thucydides Trap & Matt Stoller’s Efficiency Moat

00:30:52 Iran War Update: Strait of Hormuz Stalemate, UAE’s Secret Role & Dueling Blockades

00:38:50 Corruption: Trump’s $1.7B IRS Slush Fund

00:40:03 Corruption: Sean Duffy’s Corporate-Sponsored Road Trip

00:45:51 Corruption: Kash Patel’s Congressional Hearing & the AUDIT Test Standoff

00:54:02 Elections: Tina Peters Sentence Commuted / Jared Polis’s Political Suicide

00:55:29 Elections: SCOTUS Hands Republicans Two Redistricting Wins in Five Days (Alabama & Virginia)

00:57:13 Elections: Louisiana — Cassidy Loses, Primary Chaos

00:57:51 Elections: West Virginia & Nebraska Primaries

01:00:17 Discussion: Indiana Democrats, Independent Candidates & the June 6 Convention

01:10:08 Public Health: FDA Commissioner Makary Out, Kyle Diamantas In, Agency in Freefall

01:12:03 Public Health: SCOTUS Preserves Mifepristone Telehealth Access (for Now)

01:18:19 Indiana Immigration: Statewide Day of Action & the Miami Correctional Payment Gap

01:27:20 Karla Lopez Owens Signs Off

01:28:00 Community Spotlight: Washington Community Action Project / Crossroads Commons (Salem)

01:29:07 Indiana Public Health: State Supreme Court Upholds Abortion Ban

01:29:52 Indiana Public Health: Braun’s Medicaid Overhaul

01:30:16 Indiana Public Health: OPHS Audit Scandal (Indianapolis)

01:31:17 Indiana Public Health: Medical Marijuana — Bohacek’s Bill & Reece’s Case for Recreational

01:37:21 Indiana Elections: Deery-Copenhaver Recount & Diego Morales Conflict of Interest

01:46:04 Indiana Elections: Open Primaries Discussion (Abdul-Hakim Shabazz Column)

01:47:20 Indiana Education: Property Tax Cuts Gutting School Budgets & Teacher Pay

01:50:38 Indiana Education: Bell-to-Bell Cell Phone Ban

01:56:42 Indiana Education/Public Safety: Marion County Youth Curfew

01:59:03 Indiana Environment: Data Centers — Martindale-Brightwood Legal Challenge & Madison County Moratorium Push

02:03:39 Indiana Environment: Speedway’s Urine Problem (IDEM vs. the Indianapolis 500)

02:07:05 Outro, Upcoming PIN Programming & Sign-Off

In Depth

Trump in China: The Thucydides Trap & The Efficiency Moat

• ‘I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,’ says Trump amid Iran talks (Guardian)

  • Trump, asked if American financial pain is motivating Iran peace talks: “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody.”

  • US inflation hit 3.8% in April — fastest pace since 2023 — driven by energy costs since the US/Israel attack on Iran in late February

  • Gas averaging $4.50/gallon (4-year high); food up ~4%; airline fares up 20%+

  • His own officials can’t get their story straight on when relief comes — Wright, Hassett, and Rubio have all given contradictory timelines

  • Rubio’s take: Americans should feel “very fortunate” because other countries have it worse

• Billionaires, Wall Street CEOs join Trump China trip. What it signals. (Palm Beach Post)

  • Trump arrived in Beijing Wednesday with a delegation of corporate elites — Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jensen Huang, and CEOs from Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Cargill, and more — greeted by 300 schoolchildren waving flags, singing songs, and jumping up and down in excitement.

  • Eric Trump also on the trip — the Trump Organization has a seat at the table

  • Brennan Center (March 2026): Trump has pocketed an estimated $3B from business ventures since January 2025; much of it from foreign governments seeking favor

  • Treasury’s Bessent, not Rubio, led summit planning — economics over diplomacy, by design

  • What’s likely getting ignored: Taiwan, China’s nuclear buildup, AI security, North Korea, China backing Russia in Ukraine

• Takeaways from Trump’s trip to China: Taiwan, a new framework for relationship and flattery for Xi (AP)

  • Xi opened by warning that mishandling Taiwan could lead to open conflict; Trump said nothing publicly about Taiwan the entire trip — then on Air Force One home, suggested he might reconsider the approved $11B arms sale to Taipei after “hearing Xi out”

  • Trump couldn’t recall Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s name; on military intervention if China attacks Taiwan: “The last thing we need right now is a war that’s 9,500 miles away”

  • Trump left Beijing without a single concrete trade deal announced — possible Boeing order of 200 planes, possible soybean/beef purchases, possible “Board of Trade”

  • China’s framing of the summit — “constructive, strategic, stable relationship” — went unchallenged by Trump and will now anchor Beijing’s messaging for the rest of his term

• Trump Surrenders To China In The Most Embarrassing Diplomatic Display In US History. (Dean Blundell)

  • Trump described the CEOs of Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, and Boeing as coming “to pay respects to you, China” — on the official broadcast, in the Great Hall of the People

  • Xi: “Currently, a transformation not seen in a century is accelerating across the globe, and the international situation is fluid and turbulent. The world has come to a new crossroads.”

    • “Can China and the United States overcome the Thucydides Trap and create a new paradigm of major country relations?”

    • “Cooperation benefits both sides, while confrontation harms both.”

    • “We should be partners, not rivals, achieve success for one another, prosper together and forge a correct way for major countries of the new era to get along with each other.”

  • Trump: ““It’s an honor to be with you. It’s an honor to be your friend.”

    • “You’re a great leader. Sometimes people don’t like me saying it, but I say it anyway, because it’s true.”

    • “The relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before.”

    • “I was particularly impressed by those children. They were happy. They were beautiful. Those children were amazing.”

• Trump blames Biden for US ‘declining’ after Xi comments on ‘Thucydides Trap’ (The Hill)

  • Xi referenced the “Thucydides Trap” — the theory that a rising power displacing an established one leads to war — and Trump’s response was to post on Truth Social that Xi was talking about Biden, not him

  • Trump: “When President Xi very elegantly referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation, he was referring to the tremendous damage we suffered during the four years of Sleepy Joe Biden”

• The Efficiency Moat: Why China Is Beating the U.S. on AI… And Everything Else (BIG)

  • China’s consumption rate is ~40% of GDP vs. 55-65% for most countries — the difference goes to state-directed investment in domestic industry, the equivalent of $7 trillion/year in manufacturing subsidies; no one can compete with that

  • Result: China is monopolizing global industrial production across EVs, drones, batteries, solar, pharmaceuticals, machine tooling — and is now targeting AI

  • The US compute advantage in AI is real (3 years ahead in chips) but increasingly irrelevant — Chinese labs are extracting 4-7x more intelligence per unit of compute, and their models run at a fraction of the cost (DeepSeek vs. Claude Opus: 11x cheaper on input, 28x cheaper on output)

  • Why China is winning on AI efficiency: a thousand competing labs publishing open-source research vs. five closed US hyperscalers that profit from inefficiency — they sell tokens, not performance

  • Why the US fell behind everywhere else: China is running the same competition and IP policies the US used from the 1930s through the 1970s; we abandoned them in the 1980s in favor of financialization and monopoly

  • The CEOs on Trump’s plane have no incentive to fix this — Wall Street profits from Chinese manufacturing suppressing US labor costs while boosting stock valuations

  • Stoller’s bottom line: the status quo works great for American oligarchs and Chinese leadership alike; it’s everyone else who’s getting wrecked

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Iran War

• Live Updates (CBS)

  • Help from China?

    • Trump says Xi told him China would not give Iran military equipment: “That’s a big statement”

      • ‘According to Mr. Trump, Xi told him that he’s “not going to give [Iran] military equipment. That’s a big statement. He said that today. That’s a big statement. He said that strongly.”’

    • Trump says he and China’s Xi “feel very similar on Iran”

      • ‘Mr. Trump noted that both countries want the Strait of Hormuz — a key chokepoint that 20% of the world’s oil usually travels through — to be reopened -- and both want to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.’

  • UAE Actively Involved

    • Araghchi accuses UAE of being “active partner” in US-Israeli war against Iran (MEMo)

      • Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi, speaking at the BRICS summit in India, accused the UAE of being an “active partner” in the US-Israeli war against Iran — may have “acted directly” against the country

      • Araghchi pointed to an alleged secret meeting between Netanyahu and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed — which Abu Dhabi denied

      • Relations between Iran and the UAE have cratered since the war began February 28; ceasefire announced April 8 hasn’t stopped the accusations

    • The U.A.E. Has Been Secretly Carrying Out Attacks on Iran (WSJ)

      • WSJ confirmed the UAE has been secretly conducting military strikes on Iran — including an April hit on an oil refinery on Lavan Island that knocked it offline for months

      • Iran responded to that strike with over 2,800 missiles and drones targeting the UAE — more than any other country, including Israel

      • The UAE never wanted this war, but Iranian strikes on its airports, tourism, and property market forced a strategic shift — it now sees Iran as an existential threat to its economic model

      • The US quietly welcomed UAE participation; after US/Israel destroyed Iran’s air defenses, the risk of flying combat missions over Iran dropped sharply

      • Evidence of UAE involvement has been hiding in plain sight — open-source researchers spotted French Mirage fighters and Chinese Wing Loong drones (both UAE assets) photographed over Iran since mid-March

    • UAE tried to coordinate with Saudi Arabia, Qatar to strike Iran during recent war (Jerusalem Post)

      • UAE’s MBZ tried to convince Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf states to coordinate military strikes against Iran — neighbors said it wasn’t their war, frustrating Abu Dhabi

      • Trump administration backed UAE’s push and tried to pressure Saudi Arabia and Qatar to join — they refused

      • Saudi Arabia then struck Iran on its own in March without coordinating with the UAE, then pivoted to helping Pakistan mediate

      • Qatar considered striking Iran after Iran hit Ras Laffan — the world’s largest LNG plant — but chose de-escalation instead

      • The snub helps explain UAE’s subsequent moves: withdrawal from OPEC/OPEC+ in late April and deepening ties with Israel

  • Israel-Lebanon

    • Lebanon-Israel talks produce new ceasefire, hope future meetings will “advance lasting peace”

      • Lebanon-Israel talks produced a 45-day ceasefire extension; military talks at the Pentagon May 29, political track June 2-3

      • The existing ceasefire has been ceasefire in name only — both sides conducting daily small-scale attacks; Israel killed an alleged Hezbollah leader in Beirut on May 7, killing at least a dozen

      • Hezbollah wasn’t at the table — and they’re the ones doing the attacking

    • Israel launches new strikes on Lebanon after ceasefire extension

      • Less than 24 hours after agreeing to a 45-day ceasefire extension, Israel launched airstrikes on at least five villages in southern Lebanon — Hezbollah has been attacking throughout regardless, and opposes the negotiations entirely

  • Dueling Blockades

    • 78 ships have been turned back by U.S. blockade, Central Command says

      • ‘The ongoing U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has now turned back 78 ships either exiting or entering Iranian ports, the U.S. Central Command said on Saturday.’

      • ‘The blockade has been one of the main snags in the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over a lasting ceasefire. President Trump has said the blockade will remain in place as a condition for further talks, while Iran says the blockade itself is a violation of the ceasefire’

    • Iran has prepared plan to “manage traffic” in strait, official says

      • ‘The head of the Iranian parliament’s national security commission said Saturday that Iran has prepared a plan to “manage traffic” along a designated route in the Strait of Hormuz.’

      • ‘”In this process, only commercial vessels and parties cooperating with Iran will benefit,” Ebrahim Azizi said on social media. He said that “necessary fees” will be collected.’

      • ‘The route will remain closed “to the operators of the so‑called ‘freedom project,’” Azizi wrote, appearing to refer to the United States’ operation in the Strait of Hormuz, which has been termed “Project Freedom.”’

Corruption

• Trump’s $10 Billion Shakedown of IRS Takes Unnervingly Corrupt Turn (TNR)

  • Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns; his own DOJ — which he controls — is now negotiating a “settlement” with him using taxpayer money

  • The proposed settlement creates a $1.7 billion fund drawn from the Treasury’s Judgment Fund, overseen by a commission Trump can fire at will, with no required transparency on who gets paid

  • Potential recipients include January 6 insurrectionists and “entities associated with President Trump himself”

  • Rep. Jamie Raskin: the 14th Amendment prohibits using federal money to compensate people who participated in insurrection — this may do exactly that

  • Raskin’s bottom line: “Congress never would have passed a $1.7 billion slush fund for his friends — this is completely outside of our constitutional framework”

• Following the Money on Sean Duffy’s Road Trip (American Prospect)

  • Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy filmed a five-part family road trip TV series while overseeing a department dealing with an air traffic controller shortage and multiple deadly airline crashes

  • The trip was funded by a 501(c)(4) nonprofit also called The Great American Roadtrip — no donor disclosure required — sponsored by Boeing, Toyota, Shell, United Airlines, Google, Royal Caribbean, and others, each paying between $100K and $1 million; larger donors got VIP access to Duffy and his team

  • Since taking over DOT, Duffy has stalled airline consumer protection rules, issued zero fines to airlines in 2025 (first time since records began in 1996), and forgiven outstanding penalties — all staunchly opposed by the same industry sponsoring his vacation

  • Boeing — the top sponsor at up to $1 million — has since seen the FAA lift its 737 MAX production cap and had its ability to self-certify aircraft restored, despite a safety record that includes crashes killing over 300 people

  • CREW filed an ethics complaint; no congressional hearings scheduled

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Patel Grilled by Congress

• Previously: Under Kash Patel, “FBI” Means Foolish, Belligerent, and Incompetent (TNR)

  • Patel uses the FBI’s government Gulfstream for personal travel — repeated trips to watch his singer girlfriend Alexis Wilkins perform and socialize with friends

  • SWAT teams have been deployed to Wilkins’s events under the guise of security; in one instance, agents were reportedly forced to drive one of Wilkins’s friends home after a night of partying in Nashville

  • The FBI’s public corruption squad has been disbanded; an investigation into immigration czar Tom Homan — reportedly caught on tape accepting bribes — was shut down

  • Patel appears to be stalling the release of Epstein files to limit political damage to Trump

  • FBI director invites fresh scrutiny over travels with appearance at US men’s hockey team celebration (NPR)

• Kash Patel lashes out as lawmakers question ‘excessive drinking’ (WaPo)

  • Patel appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday ostensibly to defend the FBI’s $12.53 billion budget request — it quickly became something else entirely

  • Sen. Van Hollen opened by citing Atlantic reporting that Patel’s excessive drinking has impaired his ability to lead the bureau; Patel called it “a total farce,” then accused Van Hollen of “slinging margaritas” with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador and running up a $7,000 bar tab — Van Hollen: “You don’t know what you’re talking about”

  • While that exchange was still happening, Patel’s official FBI account on X was live-posting Van Hollen’s campaign finance records as opposition research — from a government account

  • Sen. Patty Murray referenced a viral video of Patel drinking beer in the US Olympic hockey team’s locker room after their gold medal win in Italy: “If you really want to pop bottles in a locker room, stick to podcasting”

  • Patel denied the FBI is investigating journalists or ordering polygraph tests to identify leakers to the press — both claims have been reported

• Van Hollen posts alcohol use test results after challenging Patel to take survey (The Hill)

  • ‘Democrats have called on Patel to take the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) in the wake of reporting from The Atlantic claiming the director was drinking excessively and at times was difficult to reach.’

  • Van Hollen called Patel’s bluff the next day — publicly posted his own AUDIT alcohol screening results after Patel agreed at the hearing to take the test “side by side”

  • Van Hollen’s results: drinks two to three times a week, answered “never” to all problem-drinking questions; Patel has not responded

  • Van Hollen on the $7,000 bar tab Patel used as a gotcha: “You got me, I catered a holiday reception for my staff with campaign — not taxpayer — dollars! Now let’s see your receipts. #ReleaseTheTab”

Elections

• Re-litigating 2020

  • Colorado governor cuts Tina Peters’ prison sentence in half, will release her on parole June 1 (Colorado Sun)

    • Peters was the Mesa County Clerk who orchestrated a 2021 breach of her county’s election system — arranged for a conspiracy theorist to use a staffer’s credentials to access a sensitive software update, photos leaked online, county had to scrap all its voting equipment; convicted on multiple felony counts in 2024, sentenced to nine years

    • Colorado Gov. Polis cut her sentence in half Friday, ordering her released on parole June 1 — drawing condemnation from Democrats, the Republican prosecutor who tried her, and county clerks statewide

    • Polis’s rationale: the appeals court already found her sentence was partly based on her speech, not just her conduct; he called it “unduly harsh” for a first-time nonviolent offender — but no pardon: “She’s a convicted felon. She deserves to be a convicted felon.”

    • The decision likely ends Polis’s future in Democratic politics — all 66 Colorado Democratic legislators signed a letter urging him not to do it; Trump immediately posted “FREE TINA!”

    • Context: Trump has been retaliating against Colorado over Peters’ conviction — yanking disaster aid, canceling $109M in transportation grants, dismantling NCAR, relocating Space Command to Alabama

• VRA Fallout

  • What Is the Purcell Principle? Supreme Court Called Out Over Alabama Order (Newsweek)

    • SCOTUS cleared Alabama to use a map a lower court twice blocked as intentional racial discrimination — less than a week before primary voting was set to begin

    • The move invoked the Purcell principle debate: Purcell says courts shouldn’t create election chaos close to voting day — critics note SCOTUS itself created the chaos here, not the lower courts

    • NBC’s Lawrence Hurley: “The aim of the Purcell principle is to avoid ‘judicially created confusion.’ To the extent there is confusion now, it has been created by the Supreme Court itself”

    • The backstory: SCOTUS ruled against Alabama’s maps in 2023, Alabama defied the ruling with a new map that a lower court found was still intentional discrimination — then SCOTUS stepped in to bail them out anyway

    • Bottom line: a court that spent years telling Alabama its maps were illegally diluting Black voting strength just handed Alabama those same maps back, days before an election, with no explanation

  • Supreme Court rejects bid to revive Democrats’ Virginia redistricting plan (Politico)

    • SCOTUS rejected Virginia Democrats’ emergency appeal Friday, letting stand a state Supreme Court ruling that nullified a voter-approved redistricting referendum — no dissents noted, no explanation given

    • The Virginia Supreme Court had thrown out the referendum 4-3, ruling it was passed after early voting had already begun, violating the state constitution — federal courts rarely override state courts on state constitutional questions, making this always a longshot

    • The practical result: Virginia’s elections go forward under the existing map — 6 Democrats, 5 Republicans — killing Democrats’ bid to eliminate all but one GOP seat

    • Gov. Spanberger: SCOTUS chose to “nullify an election and the votes of more than three million Virginians”

    • Taken together with the Alabama ruling earlier this week, SCOTUS has now handed Republicans two redistricting wins in five days heading into the midterms — with zero explanation in either case

• Louisiana

  • Sen. Cassidy says changes to Louisiana’s May 16 election have caused confusion, disenfranchisement (WWNO)

    • Louisiana’s primary was thrown into chaos by Gov. Landry’s last-minute suspension of congressional races — ballots didn’t match sample ballots, some voters got the suspended congressional race, others didn’t, and 40,000+ absentee ballots for that race won’t be counted

    • Sen. Bill Cassidy, facing a Trump-loyal primary electorate that never forgave his impeachment vote, made the extraordinary move of urging Democrats to re-register as No Party so they could vote for him in the closed Republican primary — LSU’s Robert Mann: “You don’t call somebody like me if you’re not really worried you’re going to miss the runoff”

    • Projected turnout around 20-25%, down from ~50% in the last contested Senate race; multiple voters reported believing the election had been canceled entirely

    • Mann’s summary: “The legislature and Gov. Landry have created a system that is almost designed in a lab to discourage people from participating in the electoral process”

  • Cassidy loses reelection bid (NBC)

    • Sen. Bill Cassidy is out — the Louisiana Republican who voted to convict Trump after January 6 lost his primary tonight, with Trump-endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming advancing to a June 27 runoff

    • Cassidy wasn’t just targeted for the impeachment vote — as chair of the Senate HELP Committee, he was vocally critical of RFK Jr. and wavered on his confirmation; Trump also blamed him personally when surgeon general nominee Casey Means stalled in committee, calling him “a very disloyal person”

    • Trump on Cassidy’s loss: “His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!”

    • The result cements Trump’s grip on the GOP — Cassidy is now another impeachment voter who won’t be returning to Congress; Letlow goes into the runoff as the heavy favorite with Trump’s full backing

    • Worth noting: Cassidy’s desperate pre-election strategy of recruiting Democrats and independents to cross over and vote for him in the closed primary clearly didn’t move the needle

• West Virginia

  • West Virginia election results: Who won primaries for US Senate, House? (USA Today)

    • Sen. Shelley Moore Capito won her primary 66.5%, House incumbents Rep. Carol Miller and Rep. Riley Moore held their nominations easily — no surprises

    • The real story is procedural: first statewide election under both a new strict photo ID law and a newly closed Republican primary simultaneously — political scientists flagging it as a test case for how dual access restrictions affect turnout

• Nebraska

  • Scott Petersen wins GOP primary race for Nebraska secretary of state against incumbent Bob Evnen (Nebraska Examiner)

    • Nebraska’s biggest primary upset: Scott Petersen knocked off incumbent Secretary of State Bob Evnen 55-45, running on election conspiracy theory platforms — hand counts, restricting mail voting, questioning whether ballot machines can be hacked

    • Petersen consolidates the election denier vote that split against Evnen in 2022; Rep. Don Bacon called him “President of the TinFoil Hat Club”

    • Elsewhere: Gov. Jim Pillen and Democrat Lynne Walz advanced easily in the gubernatorial primary; AG, Treasurer, and Auditor races were largely uncontested

  • Denise Powell wins Democratic primary for Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district (NPR)

    • Political organizer Denise Powell defeated State Sen. John Cavanaugh by ~2 points in the Democratic primary for Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District — the Omaha-area “blue dot” that voted for Biden and Harris and is now an open seat with Republican Don Bacon retiring

    • Powell faces Trump-endorsed Republican Brinker Harding in November; with the House majority on the line, over $5.6 million in outside money flooded the primary

    • Cavanaugh’s loss avoided a Democratic nightmare: had he won and vacated his state senate seat, the Republican governor would have appointed his replacement, potentially giving the GOP enough leverage to change how Nebraska awards its Electoral College votes

  • Cindy Burbank — who plans to drop out of general election — defeats alleged GOP ‘plant’ in bizarre Nebraska Democratic Senate primary (NY Post)

    • Nebraska’s Democratic Senate primary was a deliberate placeholder operation: pharmacy technician Cindy Burbank won 90-9% over pastor William Forbes — then immediately plans to drop out to clear the way for independent Dan Osborn, the union leader and Navy veteran the Nebraska Democratic Party actually wants facing Sen. Pete Ricketts

    • Both candidates accused the other of being a GOP plant; Forbes has ties to the conservative Leadership Institute and previously voted for Trump; Osborn is not a registered Democrat but leads Ricketts by 5 points in a Democratic-aligned poll while both actual Democrats lose to Ricketts by double digits

    • Ricketts’s read: “The Democrat brand is so damaged in the Midwest that they know they can’t win statewide by running a Democrat”

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Public Health

• Nationally

  • FDA Chief Pushed Out in Latest Sign of Public Health Chaos Under RFK Jr. (Democracy Now)

    • FDA Commissioner Dr. Martin Makary resigned after 13 months — pushed out for trying to block fruit-flavored vapes (angering Trump) and failing to restrict mifepristone access fast enough (angering anti-abortion groups); Trump on his way out: “He was having some difficulty”

    • Replacing him in an acting capacity: Kyle Diamantas, a Florida attorney, former Abbott Laboratories rep, and personal friend of Donald Trump Jr. — no medical background whatsoever

    • The US now has no confirmed FDA commissioner, no confirmed CDC director, and no Senate-approved surgeon general — all while RFK Jr. runs HHS

    • Harvard professor of medicine Dr. Aaron Kesselheim: “Nobody was happy with what he did” — Makary tried to please everyone and satisfied no one; the acting replacement is unlikely to inspire more confidence

    • Public Citizen’s Health Research Group Director Dr. Robert Steinbrook on the broader damage: “When you pick [health agencies] apart for particular theories and the idiosyncrasies of the HHS secretary, you destroy things which take years, if not decades, to rebuild”

  • FDA shakeup continues with departure of top drug regulator, just days after agency chief resigns (NBC)

    • Days after Makary’s resignation, the head of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research — the division that regulates all prescription and OTC drugs — also walked out; Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg was the fifth person to hold that post under Trump 2.0

    • Høeg’s brief tenure included challenging already-approved RSV treatments, pushing back on a fast-tracked diabetes drug, and co-writing the scientific justification for gutting the childhood vaccine schedule — arguing, against nearly a century of evidence, that aluminum in vaccines is a concern

    • The FDA now has an acting commissioner with no medical background and an acting drug division head replacing someone who was herself already acting — with HHS saying it’s “actively searching” for permanent leadership

  • A “Scheme” Against Dobbs: SCOTUS Dissent Hints at Next Phase of Abortion Rights Fight (Intercept)

    • SCOTUS ruled Thursday that telehealth access to mifepristone can continue while the underlying case plays out in lower courts — blocking a 5th Circuit ruling that would have required in-person dispensing, a critical blow to abortion access especially in ban states

    • Thomas and Alito dissented, with Thomas arguing the 1873 Comstock Act — an unenforced anti-obscenity law — prohibits mailing abortion medication; Alito called telehealth abortion a “scheme” to get around Dobbs, lamenting that abortions have actually increased since the ruling

    • The new acting FDA commissioner, Kyle Diamantas, was reportedly on the phone with anti-abortion advocates within hours of his appointment, promising mifepristone review would be a “top priority” and that he is “pro-life”

    • Advocates warn the administration may be slow-walking action on mifepristone until after the midterms to avoid electoral backlash — then move; roughly two-thirds of all US abortions are now medication abortions

• In Indiana

  • Indiana abortion ban law stands as state Supreme Court rejects challenge (ICC)

    • Indiana’s Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the state’s near-total abortion ban 4-1 — no oral arguments, no explanation, one page

    • The challenge argued the ban’s health exceptions were too narrow to comply with the state constitution’s life and liberty protections; the court let stand a lower court ruling that the “reasonable medical judgment” standard is constitutional

    • The lone dissenter, Justice Goff, noted the exceptions don’t cover psychological conditions — including cases where a woman shows signs she intends to hurt herself

    • The numbers tell the story: reported abortions in Indiana dropped 99% from 9,529 in 2022 to 126 in 2025

    • A separate challenge arguing the ban violates Indiana’s religious freedom law is still alive — oral arguments scheduled September 10

  • Indiana unveils Medicaid overhaul aimed at pressuring hospitals to lower prices (ICC)

    • Indiana unveiled a first-in-the-nation Medicaid overhaul that ties reimbursement increases to hospitals’ commercial pricing — lower commercial rates get bigger Medicaid bumps, higher-priced systems get smaller ones; the goal is to use Medicaid as leverage to drive down commercial prices

    • Indiana’s commercial hospital prices are among the highest in the country; Medicaid costs are growing at 9.5% annually — FSSA Secretary Roob: “You’re cannibalizing teacher pay, higher ed — all the stuff the general fund pays for”

    • Rural and critical access hospitals are insulated from the pricing pressure and get the largest reimbursement increases — up to 158% of current fee schedules — plus an additional $177 million in rural support

    • One flag worth noting on air: this is a Braun administration initiative, and the framing is genuinely populist — but the mechanism still flows through a Medicaid system that the federal government is simultaneously trying to gut

    • Make that all make sense:

      • Medicare rates are the baseline — the federal government sets what it pays for any given procedure, and everyone in the industry treats that number as the reference point. So when they say a hospital charges “252% of Medicare rates” commercially, they mean if Medicare pays $1,000 for a procedure, that hospital charges private insurers $2,520.

      • Medicaid reimbursements are separate and almost always lower than Medicare — often much lower. Indiana is now using those Medicaid reimbursements as a carrot/stick: hospitals that keep their commercial prices lower get bigger Medicaid payment increases, hospitals that gouge commercially get smaller ones.

      • The 155% figure isn’t 155% of Medicare rates — it’s 155% of the hospital’s current Medicaid fee schedule. So if a hospital currently gets $500 from Medicaid for that same procedure, they’d now get $775. That’s still way below the $2,520 they charge commercially, but the gap between Medicaid reimbursement and actual cost of care is a chronic industry complaint — hospitals have always argued Medicaid underpays and they make it up on commercial patients.

      • The theory here is: if we reward you more through Medicaid for keeping commercial prices down, you have less incentive to gouge commercial payers. Whether that pressure is strong enough to actually move commercial prices is the real question — and the article doesn’t answer it.

  • Indianapolis Office of Public Health and Safety under the microscope following internal audit (Mirror Indy)

    • The Indianapolis Office of Public Health and Safety is under state audit after an internal review found contracts went to individuals and organizations with ties to OPHS employees — potential conflicts of interest referred to the State Board of Accounts in March

    • The internal audit also found poor oversight, unclear policies, high turnover, and loose grant reporting across a review period covering 2020-2025 — hundreds of millions in federal pandemic funds flowed through the agency with minimal documentation

    • Democrat Councilor Dan Boots: “Where did it all go?” — Republican councilors want to pause future OPHS funding; OPHS Director Merkley says corrective measures are in place and the city is in compliance with federal requirements

    • Former OPHS employee Shonna Majors: “There were no SOPs in place when I was there, and I begged leadership to put those into place because I knew something like this could happen”

  • Will Indiana legalize medical marijuana? One lawmaker is writing a plan after federal moves (WFYI)

    • Indiana Sen. Mike Bohacek (R) is drafting a medical marijuana bill ahead of the 2027 session, citing federal reclassification of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III

    • Gov. Mike Braun has signaled willingness to consider legislation — a notable shift for a state with some of the most stringent marijuana laws in the country

    • Indiana is the last holdout in the region — every surrounding state has legalized cannabis in some form — and Hoosiers are already spending $1.2 to $2.6 billion annually on cannabis products, mostly out of state

    • Advocates have seen roughly 15 bills die in the legislature over 10 years; the most common excuse was “wait for federal rescheduling” — Jeff Staker of Hoosier Veterans for Medical Cannabis: “Now they can’t kick the can down the road because the road doesn’t exist anymore”

  Immigration / DOC

  • Statewide Day of Action

    • Indiana Protests Call for Changes to Immigration System (WIBC)

    • Statewide protests target ICE detention at Miami Correctional Facility (WANE)

    • Protesters in Mishawaka demonstrate against ICE, Indiana’s involvement (WVPE)

      • 28 protests took place across Indiana Saturday as part of the Indiana Statewide Day of Action, targeting ICE detention at Miami Correctional Facility and broader immigration enforcement under Trump and Gov. Braun — Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Mishawaka and dozens of other cities participated

      • Organizers cite that 70% of those arrested by ICE have no criminal history; a current Miami Correctional officer reportedly told organizers the facility lacks adequate staffing to manage both state inmates and ICE detainees

      • Key demand beyond ending detention: funded immigration courts — organizer Elizabeth Marvin: “A large chunk of them are going through it the right way and are being detained as they leave their court hearings”

      • Sandra Garza of Fuerza Unida: “The original concept was to get people back to their home countries in a humane way. We have now lost that humanity.”

  • Feds owe Indiana millions for immigration detention at state prison (ICC)

    • Indiana has spent $12.5 million housing ICE detainees at Miami Correctional since the contract began in October — but has received less than $5.1 million back from the federal government, a gap of over $7 million

    • The contract pays Indiana $291.24 per bed per day — about four times the normal $75 daily per-inmate cost — for up to 1,000 detainees at a time, but the feds are four months behind on payments

    • The state prepaid nearly $15.8 million in upfront infrastructure costs to prepare the facility Trump officials dubbed the “Speedway Slammer” — Indiana is now waiting on reimbursement for that too

    • Monthly reporting on the contract exists only because Democrats successfully amended SB76 to require it — and even then, the March and April reports were “mistakenly left off” the Budget Committee agenda

    • Karla wrote all about SB76 in March (KLO on Substack)

  • Previously: Indiana Sheriff Sues Over Law Requiring Immigrant Detention (Bloomberg)

    • Monroe County Sheriff Ruben Marté sued the state in April to block Indiana Senate Enrolled Act 76 — the same immigration enforcement law requiring the Miami Correctional ICE contract reporting — arguing it would force his deputies to hold people on ICE detainer requests without a judicial warrant or probable cause, violating the Fourth Amendment

    • Marté currently refuses to honor ICE detainers without a judicial warrant and is already in a separate lawsuit over that policy; SEA 76 would make his current practice illegal starting July 1

    • The core constitutional problem: ICE detainer requests don’t require evidence of probable cause or review by a magistrate — they simply ask local authorities to hold someone up to 48 hours past when they should have been released, which Marté argues constitutes an unlawful new seizure

  Indiana Elections

  • Indiana’s Senate District 23 race could come down to a single vote (WFYI)

    • Incumbent state Sen. Spencer Deery (R-West Lafayette) leads Trump-backed challenger Paula Copenhaver by three votes in Senate District 23 — the race came down to provisional ballots counted county by county this week

    • Deery drew a primary challenge after refusing to support Trump’s mid-decade redistricting push; of the eight Senate Republicans primaried this cycle, only Deery and one other survived their Trump-backed challengers

    • No automatic recount in Indiana — one would have to be requested by a candidate or party chair; a related headline suggests Deery ultimately held on by three votes

    • Possible recounts of tight state Senate races could extend into July (ICC)

      • Final tallies confirm Deery leads Copenhaver 6,337 to 6,334 — three votes; Sen. Liz Brown of Fort Wayne also survived her Trump-backed challenger Darren Vogt, but by only 14 votes

      • Recount filing window is open — Copenhaver has until Tuesday noon, any Republican county chair in the district until May 22; neither Copenhaver nor Vogt has responded to press inquiries

      • If a recount is sought in the six-county Deery-Copenhaver race, expect it to run into July — the 2024 House recounts weren’t finalized until August

  • SOS Morales asked to step aside if recount occurs, criticized for D.C. trip (Indiana Citizen)

    • State Rep. Ed DeLaney (D-Indianapolis) is calling on Secretary of State Diego Morales to recuse himself from any Deery-Copenhaver recount — Morales chairs the Recount Commission, is affiliated with Turning Point USA (which endorsed Copenhaver), and publicly backed the redistricting plan Deery voted against

    • Morales’s office: he has “no intention of stepping away from the Constitutional and statutory duties of his office”

    • DeLaney’s call for recusal came a day after Morales drew criticism from voting-rights advocates over his trip to Washington, DC, where he met with “federal officials and national leaders to discuss continued efforts to strengthen Indiana elections.” Morales’ office also highlighted the “continued collaboration with state and federal partners to ensure Hoosiers can have confidence in the electoral process.”

    • Common Cause Indiana’s Julia Vaughn noted Morales handed Indiana’s voter rolls to USCIS and DOJ — “I’d suggest that, instead of chasing photo ops, Secretary Morales commit himself to not sharing sensitive Hoosier data with the federal government”

    • Morales Says He Will Chair Any Recount, Rejecting Calls to Step Aside (IndyPolitics)

      • Morales didn’t just reject the recusal call — he’s also in political trouble of his own making; seeking renomination at the state Republican convention, he failed to qualify as a delegate in his own home district in Marion County, finishing 12th out of 18 candidates with 3.55% of the vote

      • Also: the Marion County Election Board voted unanimously in March to refer Morales to the State Inspector General over a campaign video allegedly shot at the county election center, and banned him from non-public areas of the facility

  • Open primaries for Indiana, an old idea worth dusting off (Statehouse File)

    • Abdul-Hakim Shabazz, editor of IndyPolitics.org, is proposing Indiana adopt open primaries — all registered voters on one ballot regardless of party, top two advance to November; if any candidate clears 60%, they win outright with no runoff

    • His core argument: closed primaries hand meaningful decisions to 8-12% of the most ideologically committed voters; in most Indiana districts the primary IS the general election, leaving 88% of voters as spectators by design

    • The 60% threshold is the twist — it spares taxpayers a pointless November contest in lopsided districts, which in Indiana is most of them

    • His honest assessment of the proposal’s chances: zero — no citizen initiative process in Indiana means it would have to pass through the same legislature full of people who got there under the current system: “Asking them to change those rules is like asking the house to vote on whether the casino should keep its license”

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  For the Kids

  • Property tax cuts hurting Indiana public schools (WFIE)

    • Indiana’s Senate Enrolled Act 1 property tax cuts are projected to cost public schools statewide over $700 million across three years

    • East Gibson School Corporation expects to lose $400K — already leaving custodial positions unfilled, considering raiding the education budget, and not replacing two of four retirees; Superintendent Galvin: “It’s not if you’re gonna have a referendum, it’s when”

    • Larger districts are hit harder — EVSC alone projects losses of over $10 million; statewide, 30-45 school corporations are eyeing November referendums to ask voters to raise taxes to offset the cuts

      • Previously: ICPE predicts up to 100 districts will consider referendums (WTHR)

        • The Indiana Coalition for Public Education puts the number of districts considering November referendums at up to 100 — nearly double earlier estimates — after surveying schools statewide; 99% of respondents said the property tax cuts are already hurting them

  • Education group: Inflation still outpacing Indiana teacher pay (PNS)

    • The property tax cuts driving the school funding crisis also directly undercut any path to teacher raises — SEA 1 will cost Indiana school districts $744 million by 2028, and collective bargaining rights that could help teachers advocate for themselves remain off the table in Indiana

    • Indiana teachers earn roughly 77 cents for every dollar earned by similarly educated professionals — average starting salary $45,000, experienced teachers $59,000, both below the estimated living wage for a single adult in Indiana

    • NEA President Becky Pringle: educators earn less today in real terms than they did 10 years ago; Indianapolis Public Schools, Noblesville, Rush County, and Hamilton Southeastern have all announced staffing reductions for next year

  • Indiana schools face stricter cellphone rules under new ‘bell-to-bell’ law starting July 1 (ICC)

    • Indiana’s new “bell-to-bell” cellphone ban takes effect July 1 — no personal wireless devices during the school day, including smart watches and gaming devices; exceptions for emergencies, medical needs, and IEP/504 accommodations

    • The law shifts enforcement from teachers to administrators — guidance from the Indiana Department of Education on implementation has not yet been published, with six weeks to go

    • Schools can opt for locking pouch systems like Yondr at $15-30 per unit, but aren’t required to purchase them

    • Braun and lawmakers signaled this may just be the start — conversations are already underway about school-issued Chromebooks and tablets and their effects on developing brains; Braun: “There’s always next year”

  • Indiana House forms committee to study NIL for high school athletes (21 Alive)

    • The Indiana House formed a summer study committee on NIL for high school athletes — several states have already implemented high school NIL, and the IHSAA is already set to allow athletes to be paid for their personal brand starting next year

    • The committee’s primary concern is guardrails — specifically preventing school transfers driven by money; it will include parents, coaches, athletic directors and superintendents

    • Rep. Alex Burton (D-Evansville) helped establish the committee: “This puts Indiana in a position to really lead in this space — prioritizing high school diplomas, college readiness, and making sure our athletes are not transferring schools for athletic purposes”

  • IMPD chief issues video message as youth curfew takes effect (FOX59)

    • Marion County’s summer youth curfew is now in effect — 17-year-olds must be home by 1 a.m. weekends and 11 p.m. weekdays; 15-16 year olds by 11 p.m. weekends and 9 p.m. weekdays; 14 and under by 9 p.m. seven days a week

    • IMPD Chief Tanya Terry sent a video message directly to Marion County students on the last day of school urging families to stay engaged; IMPD reports that while overall violent crime is down, the number of teenagers involved in shootings or homicides is up

    • Rev. Malachi Walker of Young Men Inc., a 33-year-old youth empowerment program serving boys 8-17, summed up the stakes simply: “We’re living in a time in our city where we need to do something, and we need to do something fast and drastic”

  Environment

  • New data center proposed in Madison County; public hearing scheduled for June 9 to consider a 6 month moratorium (Herald Bulletin)

    • Madison County’s Plan Commission voted to start the petition process for a six-month moratorium on data centers in unincorporated areas of the county — public hearing June 9, commissioners could act June 16

    • The trigger: residents say Vantage is proposing a 650-acre data center near a juvenile detention center; more than 50 people showed up to oppose it — notably, no application has even been filed yet

    • The Madison County Economic Development Corp. has already come out against the moratorium — the familiar tension between economic development interests and community pushback is already in play

  • Martindale-Brightwood residents take data center fight to court, citing environmental racism (WFYI)

    • Martindale-Brightwood residents and the Hoosier Environmental Council have filed a legal challenge to block a Metrobloks data center approved for a 14-acre site on North Sherman Ave. — asking Marion County Superior Court to invalidate the rezoning and halt construction

    • The site has a documented history of industrial pollution; residents argue the project threatens groundwater and continues a “legacy of environmental racism” — the Protect Martindale-Brightwood coalition: “We will not allow our neighborhood to be treated as a sacrifice zone”

    • This is part of a broader Indianapolis pattern — Decatur Township residents filed a similar suit to block a $4 billion Sabey Corp. data center on the southwest side; Indianapolis proposed its first data center zoning rules but critics say they don’t go far enough

    • The underlying driver: Indiana passed data center tax abatements in 2019, making the state a magnet for these developments — cheap land, tax breaks, and communities with less political power to push back

  • IDEM to Speedway: Urine trouble (Mirror Indy)

    • The town of Speedway’s population explodes from 14,000 to 350,000 on race day — and all that beer they drink eventually ends up at the Speedway Wastewater Treatment Plant, which has violated its state discharge permit in seven of the last ten years, primarily due to ammonia from urine

    • The plant can handle the volume — it’s the chemistry that’s the problem; the plant is only 1.3 miles from IMS, meaning it receives urine at maximum concentration before it has any chance to dilute

    • IDEM cited Speedway for permit violations from 2022-2025 and the town signed a settlement — the fix is a $14 million plant upgrade starting in June, paid for by an $8/month sewer fee increase for residents over the next 20 years

      ---

HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us

The Black Briefing: https://www.youtube.com/@theblackbriefing

SUMMARY:

Scott sits down with Samantha Douglas — community organizer, president of the Far East Side Community Council, communications and programs director for IDAAC State, MADVoters board member, two-time elected precinct committee person, and co-host of the Black Briefing podcast — for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of Indianapolis Democratic politics one week out from Indiana’s May 5 primary. They dig into why a heavily Democratic Marion County consistently fails to deliver the turnout needed to drive statewide outcomes, and trace the structural reasons through a series of concrete primary results: Karla Lopez Owens’s narrow loss in the clerk’s race, the Kelvis Williams sheriff’s race mailer controversy, the SD-29 and SD-31 dynamics, and André Carson’s closer-than-usual congressional primary. The conversation then zooms out to cover Trump’s targeted purge of Indiana Senate Republicans who blocked redistricting, the Supreme Court VRA ruling, and the Kamala Harris 2024 postmortem — with Douglas arguing plainly that the failure belongs to party leadership, not to progressive voters who withheld their support. The episode closes with Douglas making a passionate case for precinct-level grassroots organizing as the only real path forward, and looking ahead to the 2027 Indianapolis mayoral race and Senator Andrea Hunley’s campaign as the next big test of whether Marion County Democrats can channel their latent power.

WHAT’S INSIDE:

00:00:00 — Introduction & Support the Show

- Scott sets up the episode one week after the May 5 Indiana primary

- Mixed results: progressives won IN-4 and IN-9 congressional races; establishment won its share

- Marion County framed as the critical variable in Indiana statewide politics

00:03:00 — Guest Introduction: Samantha Douglas

- Samantha Douglas introduced: Far East Side Community Council president, IDAAC State communications and programs director, two-time elected PC, MADVoters board member, Black Briefing co-host

- Scott previews the topics ahead

00:04:00 — The Marion County Democratic Machine: Complacency & Competition

- Marion County is 70%+ Democrat in many districts — but low turnout, not low registration, is the problem

- Lack of Republican competition breeds Democratic complacency; turnout suffers as a result

- Marion County and Lake County together have the population to control statewide seats — but can’t yet deliver

- Douglas: “We’re building something different”

00:06:00 — Money vs. People Power in Indianapolis

- Scott’s theory: in safe Democratic supermajority cities, money captures the party machine rather than pushing it left

- Douglas: supermajority status collapses party-loyalty as a meaningful distinction — voters have to be picky about which Democrat

- Examples where people power beat money: Jesse Brown’s city council win over an establishment incumbent in District 13; Andy Nielsen over union-backed David Ray

- The Hogsett-vs.-Shreve mayoral race as a case study — Shreve spent millions, but Hogsett still won

- Big picture: Marion County’s ~850-900K residents exceed an average congressional district; the power is there, unused

00:11:00 — The Clerk’s Race: Karla Lopez Owens vs. Kate Sweeney Bell

- Karla Lopez Owens, progressive challenger; Kate Sweeney Bell, incumbent clerk and former county party chair

- Douglas: Sweeney Bell’s office has a history of using procedural rules to block new, young — often Black — candidates from qualifying

- Karla represented not just a progressive but a structural reform of the clerk’s office itself

- Karla lost by ~2,200 votes; deceased third-place candidate Bob Kern pulled ~4,500 votes

- Douglas: Sweeney Bell’s office was obligated — morally if not legally — to post notices at polling locations that a candidate on the ballot had died; the failure to do so is emblematic of the system protecting itself

00:15:00 — “Well, Technically”: The Democrats’ Procedural Excuse Problem

- Scott draws the parallel to national Democrats hiding behind parliamentary rules and Supreme Court deference

- Douglas uses the analogy: Trump is finding out how many slaps he can get in before the courts catch up

- The rules allow for waivers for young Democratic candidates with thin primary voting history — the establishment simply won’t use them

- Douglas: intentionally creating barriers is not a technical oversight, it’s a choice

00:19:00 — The Sheriff’s Race and the Fake Slate Mailer

- Kelvis Williams won the Democratic primary for Marion County Sheriff

- One to two weeks before the primary, Williams sent a mailer implying an official party endorsement “team” — listing Sweeney Bell, Ryan Mears, Myla Eldridge, and other unopposed incumbents

- Douglas: was leaning toward Williams until she saw the mailer — presenting unopposed candidates as a “team” felt like a shadow endorsement piece

- The back of the mailer paired Williams with Sweeney Bell — that was the final straw

- Background on the sheriff’s race stakes: deaths in custody at the new criminal justice campus; inadequate staffing during violent offender transport

- Brief tangent on why elected sheriffs are structurally odd — Douglas’s counterpoint: at least they’re accountable to voters, unlike appointees

00:24:00 — Kerry Forestal, SD-31, and the “A Job, a Better Job, a Career” Theory

- Current Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal won the SD-31 Democratic primary (term-limited out of sheriff)

- Controversy: Forestal cooperated with ICE, then put out a flyer claiming he stood up to ICE — Douglas calls it a lie

- Douglas: personally disappointed Forestal won, but argues SD-31 needs to flip blue even if that means supporting him now

- Strategic framework: a Democrat → a better Democrat → the Democrat you want

- Redistricting context: Republicans are coming back for another attempt; every blue Senate seat matters as a firewall

- Five of seven targeted Trump-backed challengers won their Senate primaries (one race still pending recount — margin: 3 votes)

00:28:00 — SD-29: The Kristina Moorehead Primary & the Split-Vote Problem

- JD Ford vacating SD-29 to run for IN-5 congressional seat

- Three-way Democratic primary: Kristina Moorehead won with ~51%; Demetris Hicks and Pastor David Green split the remaining vote

- Moorehead claimed on a PIN Network interview (with Derek Holder) that she hadn’t voted Republican since high school; Douglas checked the record — Moorehead voted Republican in 2023

- District shape matters: SD-29 is a funky L-shape — more population-dense in the Marion County strip than the northern section; vote split hurt both Hicks and Green

- Douglas: still needs that seat to stay blue, especially for redistricting — the fight that stopped the remap happened in the Senate, not the House

00:32:00 — André Carson and the IN-7 Congressional Primary

- Carson won re-election comfortably, but faced his most competitive primary in years

- Volunteers harassed at polling places; Douglas stayed largely neutral publicly

- Douglas’s position: she supported Carson — personally, he has mentored young Black leaders including her since before she was “proven” — but thought the criticism of him was fair and hopes he felt the pressure

- “That seat is not his birthright” — Scott

- On the “vote Black no matter what” question: Douglas says she’s not that, but she is “Black first” before Democrat; there are lines (e.g., a state senator with sexual harassment allegations she calls “Nasty G”)

- Double-layer of social pressure on Black Democratic women challenging incumbents: the party norm of “don’t challenge a Democrat,” plus the community norm of “don’t challenge a Black Democrat”

- Conclusion: in districts where you can be picky, be picky

00:40:00 — The Republican State Senate Purge & Redistricting Round Two

- Trump and allies poured money into eight targeted state Senate races; six incumbents lost (one race going to recount — margin: 3 votes)

- Reason for targeting: those senators voted to kill the congressional redistricting scheme last session

- The scheme: redraw Indiana’s 9 congressional districts to eliminate André Carson’s IN-7 and Frank Mrvan’s IN-1; divide Marion County along 38th Street — precision surgical racial cracking

- Recent Supreme Court ruling gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965; Scott: “Gee, thanks, John Roberts”

- Pattern echoed in Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee

- Douglas’s argument: the real reason the redistricting failed wasn’t Republican altruism — it was math: the gerrymander could very well have backfired.

00:46:00 — The “Dummymander” and National Democratic Momentum

- Scott explains the “dummymander” concept: Republicans pack Democrats, but assume static turnout; if turnout shifts, they’ve created competitive districts they didn’t intend to create

- National context: Democrats running ~13 points ahead of 2024 on generic ballot; flipping 20-25% Republican seats in special elections in NJ and Virginia

- Douglas: Republicans here have been banking on Democratic non-turnout for years — that’s a fragile foundation

- Douglas: the MAGA senators who come in may not care about the math and may just go ahead with redistricting — and then “we’re up to bat”

- Lee Atwater legacy: Douglas traces the modern party-based gerrymandering argument to Atwater’s famous strategy of proxy oppression — if 80%+ of Black voters are Democrats, party-based redistricting IS race-based redistricting

- Scott reads the Atwater quote (without using the slur); Douglas: “the system has worked so well they can do the same job with different language”

00:53:00 — The Kamala Harris 2024 Postmortem: Who Bears Blame?

- Scott raises the argument from some Democrats that progressive abstention gave Trump a second term

- Both Scott and Douglas voted for Harris; Scott frames this as a warning to the party, not a defense of abstention

- Douglas’s analogy: blaming progressive non-voters is like beating up “the other person” when your spouse cheated — your spouse made the commitment to you

- Douglas’s core argument: the party knew Harris would struggle with progressive voters and ran her anyway, hoping to ride “first Black woman, first South Asian woman” momentum — that’s a lazy strategy

- Harris’s authenticity problem: the “if you break into my house you will be shot” moment felt scripted and strange — not genuine

- Counterexample: Zohran Mamdani (NYC Mayor) — genuine, connects with voters, can do the job well — that’s the combination Democrats need

- The failure belongs to the party and the campaign, not the voters at the ballot box

00:59:00 — Clinton, Obama, and 30 Years of the Wrong Lesson

- Democrats have been running Clinton ‘92’s playbook — but Clinton “backed into” a three-way race win during a recession; the lesson was always fragile

- Scott: Indiana Democrats are still “Clinton-era” in their triangulation — we’ve “triangulated ourselves into fascism by not standing for anything.”

- Douglas: nobody looks at Obama 2008 and says “that’s the model” — which turned Indiana blue — because it required unapologetic grassroots progressive organizing

- Obama ran as a progressive; the failure was not governing that way, not going big

- Douglas: if we had stuck with the Obama organizing model since 2008, Marion County and the state would look unrecognizable today

01:03:00 — The Beau Bayh / Blythe Potter Dilemma & Fixing the Pipeline

- Douglas: the conundrum at the ballot box is a symptom, not the root cause — the root cause is internal party culture producing bad candidates

- She’s wrestling with the Beau Bayh / Blythe Potter secretary of state question: is it worth giving establishment Democrats a statewide win for the sake of having a Democrat in that seat at all?

- Scott’s diagnosis: Democrats vote for who they think can win rather than who they actually want — and after 30 years, the “electability” candidate still hasn’t peeled off Republican voters

- Coming full circle: the Joe Hogsett dynamic — when candidates are funded by questionable donors, a win for them isn’t necessarily a win for the people

01:07:00 — Grassroots Is the Only Way: The PC Model and Andrea Hunley

- Douglas: the solution isn’t at the ballot box, it’s in the party infrastructure — better leadership, better accountability, better standards, and organizing

- The PC model: Marion County went from ~260 PC candidates in 2022 to 440 in this cycle — a 64% increase

- Personal example: when Douglas ran for PC in 2022, her father voted for the first time in 40 years — nobody else could have turned him out

- Each PC can turn out people in their precinct that no campaign can — if all 600+ Marion County precincts have an active, competing PC, turnout goes up structurally

- The 2027 Indianapolis mayoral race and Andrea Hunley’s campaign as the next concrete test: Marion County is “raw” and Hunley feels like a “balm”; losing that race to low turnout after everything would be devastating

- Getting Hogsett out isn’t just about replacing one person — it removes a key pillar of the problematic establishment apparatus

- Closing: organize, or give up; Douglas’s answer is organize

01:12:00 — Where to Find Samantha Douglas & the Black Briefing

- Black Briefing Podcast: YouTube at @theBlackBriefing; also available on most podcast platforms

- Co-host: Wildstyle Paschall; produced with husband Jared Douglas behind the camera

- Recent guests: Andrea Hunley, Tamara Winfrey Harris (Women’s Foundation of Indiana)

- Social: Facebook (Samantha Douglas); Instagram (@lhl_sam); podcast Facebook page (@theBlackBriefing)

- HoosLeft This Week plug: upcoming Sunday guests — HD-53 candidate Reece Axel Adams and Karla Lopez Owens

Good morning and welcome to HoosLeft This Week — Scott Aaron Rogers is joined by Amy Courtney, executive director of Mad Voters, and Patrick Munsey, publisher of the independent Kokomo Lantern, for a packed two-hour edition recorded the Sunday after Indiana’s May 5th primary. The first hour covers the national and international landscape: a deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius, the unsealing of a purported Epstein suicide note, the Pentagon’s UFO file dump, the ongoing Iran War and the collapse and partial revival of Project Freedom, Trump’s wholesale remaking of Washington in his own image — from the East Wing ballroom to the proposed triumphal arch — alongside a sharp look at the Obama Presidential Center and the shadow corruption of presidential libraries, the White House’s new counterterrorism memo targeting transgender people and anti-fascists, Kash Patel’s bourbon stash and the FBI’s retaliatory leak probe, Trump’s pardoning of corrupt officials while gutting the Public Integrity Section, and the sweeping fallout from the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act — including redistricting chaos in Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, and Virginia, and a New York Times analysis showing Republicans could soon win the House while losing the national popular vote by four points. The second hour turns to Indiana: deep dives into Trump’s successful purge of six Indiana Republican state senators who opposed redistricting, the competitive Democratic congressional and state legislative primaries, local races including the Marion County clerk’s race and its ghost-vote controversy, and a closing look at the record number of school funding referendums expected this fall, Braun’s gas tax suspension, the data center battles in Indianapolis and Hobart, and Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith’s declaration that execution is a “blessing.”

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00:00:34 — Intro & Welcome

00:02:41 — Guest Introductions: Amy Courtney (Mad Voters) & Patrick Munsey (Kokomo Lantern)

00:04:25 — Quick Hits: Hantavirus Outbreak / Epstein Suicide Note / UFO Files

00:09:57 — Iran War

00:23:26 — Monuments to Two Presidents

00:37:08 — Government Weaponization

00:53:11 — VRA Fallout

01:05:12 — MI/OH Elections

01:06:35 — [BREAK]

01:07:53 — Indiana Republican Primary

01:21:18 — Indiana Democratic Primary

01:35:01 — Indiana Local Races

01:45:12 — Other Indiana News: School Referendums

01:47:40 — Other Indiana News: Gas Tax Suspension

01:52:33 — Other Indiana News: Data Centers

01:58:41 — And Finally This Week: Micah Beckwith

01:59:44 — Outro & Where to Find Us

Quick Hits

• What to Know About the Hantavirus Outbreak on an Atlantic Cruise Ship (NYT)

  • Three passengers have died; five others showed symptoms — the Andes strain of hantavirus, primarily found in South America, is confirmed.

  • A Dutch couple died after likely contracting the virus in Argentina before boarding; a German passenger died aboard May 2.

  • The Andes strain is the only hantavirus known to spread person-to-person — WHO says human-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out.

  • The ship’s doctor is among those evacuated for treatment.

  • Six US states are monitoring returning American passengers; none are currently symptomatic.

  • The case fatality rate for hantavirus in the Americas runs as high as 50%.

  • The ship is anchored off the Canary Islands; passengers will be evacuated by boat with full protective protocols — no port contact with the general population.

  • Experts wonder ‘Where is the CDC?’ as a hantavirus outbreak unfolds on a cruise ship

• Judge unseals purported Epstein suicide note as Congress grills Lutnick (NPR)

  • A one-page note purportedly written by Epstein before his first suspected suicide attempt was unsealed Wednesday at the New York Times’ request.

  • The note reads in part: “It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye. Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!! NO FUN — NOT WORTH IT!!”

  • The note was found by cellmate Nicholas Tartaglione — a former cop convicted of quadruple homicide — who says he saved Epstein’s life that night by performing CPR.

  • Neither Tartaglione’s lawyers nor DOJ have formally authenticated the note; DOJ said it was “the first time” they were seeing it.

  • Three additional sealed documents related to the note are pending release after a one-week redaction review.

  • Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — Epstein’s former Manhattan neighbor — testified before the House Oversight Committee Wednesday; records show he maintained contact with Epstein long after claiming to have cut ties.

  • Fired AG Pam Bondi, ousted partly over her handling of the Epstein files, is scheduled to testify to the same committee later this month.

• UFO files spanning decades are released by Defense Department (NPR)

  • The Pentagon released 160+ declassified UAP records Friday, citing Trump’s call for transparency; more files will follow on a rolling basis at war.gov/info.

  • Files span from a 1948 Top Secret Air Force report of unidentified objects over Europe — whose Swedish intelligence counterparts said the technology “cannot be credited to any presently known culture on earth” — to a 2023 sighting of a metallic ovaloid object that vanished after five to ten seconds.

  • Buzz Aldrin is cited reporting three unexplained phenomena during the Apollo 11 mission.

  • Trump posted on Truth Social: “the people can decide for themselves, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ Have Fun and Enjoy!”

Iran War

• Iran war live: UAE intercepts missiles, drone sparks fire at oil site (Al Jazeera)

  • Project Freedom launched: US Navy begins escorting commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

  • Iran warns the US to stay out; UAE and Oman intercept Iranian missiles, drones, and cruise missiles.

  • Iranian state media claims its navy hit a US frigate; CENTCOM denies it.

  • Trump dismisses a poll showing 32% public support for the war as fake.

• Majority of US military sites in Middle East damaged by Iran (CNN)

  • At least 16 US military sites — the majority of American positions in the region — were damaged in Iranian strikes.

  • Several sites were rendered effectively unusable; Iran used a secretly acquired Chinese satellite for precision targeting.

  • The Pentagon’s stated $25B war cost excludes repair

  • expenses; real estimates run $40–50B.

  • A congressional aide called radar systems the most significant losses: “our most expensive and most limited resources in the region.”

  • Iran hit more US military targets than reported, satellite imagery shows (WaPo)

    • Satellite imagery verified by the Post shows damage to at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at US military sites.

    • The scope significantly exceeds CNN’s earlier count of 16 damaged installations.

• Trump’s U-turn on Project Freedom came after Saudi backlash (NBC News)

  • Saudi Arabia barred the US from using Prince Sultan Airbase and Saudi airspace to support Project Freedom.

  • Trump’s call with MBS failed to resolve the standoff, forcing a pause within ~36 hours of launch.

  • Trump publicly framed the pause as diplomatic progress; the NYT reported there was no evidence of an emerging deal.

  • Kuwait also cut off airspace access, leaving the US without the defensive umbrella needed to protect ships.

• Has the US accepted Iran’s demand to settle Hormuz first, nuclear later? (Al Jazeera)

  • Rubio declared Operation Epic Fury “concluded,” signaling the US had shifted to a defensive posture.

  • The US appears to have dropped its demand to resolve Iran’s nuclear program before ending the war.

  • Reuters and Axios reported the US and Iran were close to a one-page MOU to formally end hostilities.

  • Iranian FM Araghchi met Chinese FM Wang Yi in Beijing, deepening diplomatic coordination.

• Israel strikes Beirut for the first time since ceasefire (CFR)

  • Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs on May 6 — the first strike on the city since the April 16 Lebanon ceasefire.

  • The IDF said it killed Ahmed Balout, a Radwan Force commander; the strike was coordinated with the US in advance.

  • The attack underscored how Lebanon remains a live obstacle to any broader regional peace deal.

  • A draft US-Iran agreement reportedly includes a Lebanon ceasefire component, per Israel’s Channel 12.

• US insists ceasefire is holding despite fresh attacks (Time)

  • Iran attacked three US destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz with missiles, drones, and small boats.

  • CENTCOM retaliated with strikes on Iranian missile sites, C2 nodes, and ISR infrastructure at Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island.

  • Iran struck back, and the UAE reported missile and drone attacks for the second time that week.

  • Saudi Arabia and Kuwait restored US base and airspace access, clearing a path for Project Freedom’s restart.

• Israeli airstrikes kill 5 in southern Lebanon as Hezbollah rockets hit open areas (PBS)

  • Israel struck southern Lebanese villages after issuing evacuation warnings, killing at least five people.

  • Hezbollah fired rockets toward northern Israel in response; the IDF intercepted one while the rest fell in open areas.

  • Israel claims to have killed 85+ Hezbollah militants and struck 180 sites in the past week, without providing evidence.

  • Lebanese President Aoun called on visiting EU officials to pressure Israel to honor the ceasefire; the EU commissioner said both sides were taking Lebanon “hostage.”

• US strikes two Iranian oil tankers trying to skirt blockade (CNBC)

  • CENTCOM disabled two Iranian-flagged tankers in the Gulf of Oman, firing precision munitions into their smokestacks.

  • The UAE reported Iranian missile and drone attacks for the third time this week.

  • Rubio, speaking from Rome, said he expected Iran’s formal response to the US peace proposal later Friday.

  • The State Department announced a second round of Israel-Lebanon peace talks for May 14–15, ahead of the ceasefire’s May 17 expiration.

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Monuments to Two Presidents

• $200 million? $400 million? $1 billion? Breaking down the White House ballroom project’s varying price tags. (Yahoo! News)

  • Trump originally promised the 90,000 sq. ft. East Wing ballroom would cost $200M and be fully privately funded.

  • The construction estimate has since grown to $400M; Senate Republicans quietly tucked $1B in taxpayer money for “security upgrades” into an ICE funding bill.

  • The bill restricts funds to security elements only, but experts say it’s nearly impossible to separate security from general construction in practice.

  • The underground complex beneath the ballroom — including a bunker, military installations, and medical facility — is driving much of the security cost rationale.

  • Some Senate Republicans privately view the $1B line item as a political liability, especially while Iran war costs are hammering household budgets.

• Previously: What We Know About the ‘Massive’ Military Complex Being Built Beneath the White House (Time)

  • Trump admitted on Air Force One that the ballroom is essentially a roof over a new underground military complex.

  • It replaces the WWII-era Presidential Emergency Operations Center with something far larger and more capable.

  • Features include a hospital, biodefense systems, bomb shelters, drone-proofing, and secure telecommunications.

  • The details only surfaced because the administration’s own court filings described the project to fight a preservation lawsuit.

  • A judge halted aboveground construction pending Congressional approval but allowed underground work to continue.

• Sacred ground, stolen views: The case against Trump’s memorial arch (The Hill)

  • Trump’s proposed 250-foot gold-gilded triumphal arch would be erected on the Virginia side of the Potomac, opposite the Lincoln Memorial.

  • When asked who it honors, Trump said “Me.”

  • The arch would block Arlington House’s panoramic view — the same view JFK admired months before he was buried there.

  • Nearly 1,000 public comments opposed it; none supported it. Americans oppose it 51%-21%.

  • Trump’s appointee-stacked Commission of Fine Arts approved it anyway; lawsuits are pending.

  • The piece grounds the stakes in history: Arlington Cemetery itself was created by a Union general as an act of revenge against Lee — its soldiers deserve solemn dignity, not a presidential vanity monument.

• The many ways Trump wants to change D.C., from buildings to statues to parks (NPR)

  • NPR catalogues every physical change Trump is making to Washington — ballroom, triumphal arch, reflecting pool, Kennedy Center, sculpture garden, statues, golf courses, and more.

  • The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is being coated “American flag blue” by Interior Department crews.

  • Trump killed the nonprofit managing D.C.’s three public golf courses; ballroom construction dirt is now blocking views of the Washington Monument from a century-old public course.

  • A sculpture garden of “historically significant Americans” — proposed at Mount Rushmore during the 2020 racial justice protests — is targeted to open July 4, 2026.

  • Some changes are cosmetic and reversible; others, like the arch and ballroom, could reshape the capital for generations.

  • Most projects face legal challenges, but Trump’s appointee-stacked commissions keep approving them anyway.

• The Obama Shrine — Brought to You by Wall Street (The Lever)

  • The $850M Obama Presidential Center opens in June, funded by tech giants, Wall Street firms, telecom companies, and a health insurer.

  • ‘Its sponsor list is context for a presidency that promised hope and change and then used a massive electoral mandate to deliver more of the same. Indeed, the list is a who’s who of the winners of the Obama era: tech moguls, financial giants, telecom behemoths, a health insurance giant, and other bold-faced names of the oligarchy.’

  • The center is built in Chicago’s South Side despite community protests that it would accelerate gentrification.

  • Obama used a Colbert interview inside the center to criticize Trump’s corruption — which the piece calls accurate but self-serving given his own post-presidential enrichment.

  • The broader argument: presidential libraries are a shadow corruption system, rewarding corporate-friendly governance with post-presidential wealth and monuments.

  • Punchline: Americans fleeced by Obama-era oligarchs can buy an “empathy” baseball cap at the gift shop for $35.

Government Weaponization

• “Counterterrorism” Now Officially Means Targeting Trans People (Mother Jones)

  • The White House released a new counterterrorism strategy Wednesday, authored by Sebastian Gorka, that lists “Violent Left-Wing Extremists” as a threat equal to jihadists and narcoterrorists.

  • The document explicitly targets groups it describes as “anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist” for “neutralization.”

  • It makes no mention of far-right violence — despite decades of data showing right-wing extremism as the dominant domestic terrorism threat.

  • The document blames transgender people for the murder of Charlie Kirk by name.

  • Rep. Bennie Thompson called it “a document full of fake achievements” with “zero strategic objectives, lines of effort, or agency assignments.”

  • The strategy explicitly calls for mapping groups’ “ties to international organizations like Antifa” — treating a decentralized protest tendency as a foreign-linked terrorist network.

  • The counterterrorism framework previously used to surveil Muslim and Arab American communities post-9/11 is now being applied wholesale to trans people and left-wing protesters.

• FBI Launches Probe Into Reporter Who Covered Kash Patel’s Drinking (TNR)

  • The FBI opened a criminal leak investigation targeting Atlantic reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick, who reported on Patel’s excessive drinking and unexplained absences.

  • Unusually, the probe does not involve classified leaks — it targets leaks to a journalist about Patel’s conduct.

  • The Atlantic called it “an outrageous, illegal, and dangerous attack on the free press.”

• Kash Patel’s Personalized Bourbon Stash (Atlantic)

  • Patel travels with personally engraved Woodford Reserve bottles bearing “Ka$h Patel FBI Director,” an FBI shield, and his signature — and hands them out to staff and civilians.

  • He used DOJ aircraft to transport cases of the bourbon, including to the Olympics in Milan.

  • At a Quantico training seminar, a bottle went missing and Patel threatened to polygraph and prosecute his own staff over it.

  • Agents told attorneys they’re afraid to refuse the bottles — one said declining enthusiastically could get you “polygraphed for loyalty.”

  • A former agent called the bottles “demoralizing,” noting they signal one standard for the director and another for everyone else.

  • In July, Patel gave 3D-printed replica revolvers to New Zealand cabinet members — which had to be destroyed because they were illegal under local law.

  • A former FBI supervisory analyst summed it up: “Handing out bottles of liquor at the premier law-enforcement agency — it makes me frightened for the country.”

• What’s behind Trump’s pardons of people convicted of public corruption? (NPR)

  • Trump has pardoned at least 15 former elected officials convicted or charged with corruption since taking office.

  • The DOJ’s Public Integrity Section — which prosecutes public corruption and election crimes — has shrunk from 35–40 attorneys to just two.

  • Open cases in that unit dropped from roughly 200 to about 20.

  • Pardons have gone mostly to Republicans but also to Democrats Trump was courting, like Henry Cuellar, and allies like Rod Blagojevich.

  • One pardon went to a Las Vegas councilwoman convicted of pocketing $70K in donations meant for memorials to slain police officers — spent on cosmetic surgery and her daughter’s wedding.

  • Experts say rural and small-state communities get hit hardest — the Public Integrity Section handled cases local US attorneys lack resources to pursue.

  • Bottom line from NPR’s reporting: the administration is signaling that public corruption simply isn’t worth enforcing — and experts warn that eats away at government until officials serve themselves first.

• Inside the Justice Department’s shakeup of the John Brennan investigation (CNN)

  • The lead prosecutor on the Brennan case told DOJ brass in Washington the evidence was too weak to charge him — and was removed from the case days later.

  • Acting AG Blanche replaced her with Joe diGenova, a Trump loyalist who briefly represented Trump in one of the very probes he’s now investigating.

  • DiGenova is basing himself in Fort Pierce, Florida — home to Judge Aileen Cannon, who killed the Mar-a-Lago documents case against Trump.

  • The investigation has been essentially reset, with 150+ subpoenas issued and prosecutors now targeting a sweeping conspiracy case far beyond the original Brennan lying-to-Congress charges.

  • The US attorney running the office, Reding Quiñones, was not a top pick for the job — former colleagues describe poor performance reviews and a work ethic that “didn’t stand out.”

  • More than 100 vacancies now exist in the Miami US Attorney’s Office after experienced career prosecutors fled or were purged.

  • The pattern is clear: prosecutors who say a case is weak get removed; prosecutors willing to build the case Trump wants get put in charge.

• Judge lets DOJ keep Fulton County ballots despite ‘misleading’ FBI affidavit claims (Democracy Docket)

  • Judge Boulee denied Fulton County’s request to get its 600+ boxes of 2020 ballots back — but savaged the FBI’s affidavit in the process.

  • He found the affidavit “misleading” and “troubling,” omitting innocent explanations for the irregularities investigators cited.

  • One example: the FBI flagged a delayed recount report as suspicious without disclosing it was caused by a scanner programming error.

  • Boulee noted some alleged discrepancies “occur in virtually every election” — and that prior state investigations found no fraud.

  • The county still lost because the legal standard to force return of seized materials is extraordinarily high — not met even by a misleading affidavit.

  • DOJ keeps the ballots and the investigation continues — but now with a federal judge on record calling their underlying case into question.

  • Boulee closed by citing the Mar-a-Lago special master ruling: the same legal standards apply “without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.”

• DNI Gabbard spurs probe into evidence Congress, Trump were misled on election security, memos show (Just the News)

  • [Just the News is John Solomon’s outlet — a known MAGA propaganda operation. The story relies heavily on unclassified memos from Gabbard’s own office, whistleblower claims that haven’t been independently verified, and John Ratcliffe — who is now Trump’s CIA director and has a long history of politicizing intelligence assessments. This is essentially the intelligence community’s MAGA faction using friendly media to launder its own narrative.]

  • What they’re claiming:

    • Gabbard’s office has referred claims to the IC Inspector General alleging the CIA suppressed evidence of Chinese election interference in 2020.

    • A CIA officer was allegedly asked to alter evidence of China meddling to avoid helping Trump.

    • China may have accessed voter registration databases in 12–18 states in 2020.

    • Intelligence officials withheld China-related findings from Trump’s daily briefings and Congress.

    • A Venezuelan election infrastructure vulnerability was also allegedly suppressed.

• FBI searches office of Virginia lawmaker who helped lead redistricting push (NBC)

  • The FBI raided the office of Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas on May 6 — weeks after she led the state’s Democratic redistricting push.

  • Agents also searched a cannabis dispensary she co-owns, as part of a corruption and bribery probe.

  • Key caveat: the investigation was opened during the Biden administration, not initiated by Patel’s FBI.

  • Virginia’s House Speaker publicly questioned the timing, citing Patel’s leadership and the redistricting context.

  • Fox News was on scene before other outlets, raising questions about whether they were tipped in advance.

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VRA Fallout

• Recall: Supreme Court Guts Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais (SCOTUSBlog)

  • The 6-3 ruling along partisan lines requires proof of intentional racism to challenge a discriminatory map — making racial gerrymandering cases nearly impossible to win.

  • The decision effectively eliminates Section 2 of the VRA as a meaningful protection against minority vote dilution.

  • Critics note the timing was deliberate — issued with just enough time for Southern states to redraw maps before November.

• Southern state Republicans look to capitalize on Supreme Court ruling weakening Voting Rights Act (AP)

  • Louisiana suspended its House primaries entirely to redraw maps — already-cast ballots thrown out.

  • Eric Holder’s NDRC estimates 12–19 House seats in majority-minority districts across the South are now at risk.

  • The ruling also applies to state legislative, county, and municipal maps — school boards, city councils, judgeships all affected downstream.

• DeSantis, plaintiffs agree new map breaks FL Constitution. Does it apply anyway? (Florida Phoenix)

  • DeSantis is arguing that Florida’s Fair Districts Amendments — passed by 63% of voters in 2010 — are entirely invalid in light of the Supreme Court’s VRA ruling.

  • His legal theory: because the racial prong of Fair Districts might be voided by Callais, the whole amendment falls — including the ban on partisan gerrymandering.

  • Elections attorneys on both sides call that a stretch — the partisan gerrymandering ban is independent of the racial provisions and doesn’t require them to function.

  • Two Republican state senators — including the map’s own Senate sponsor — publicly said the map violates Fair Districts and the legal theory is unproven.

  • The map passed the GOP-dominated Senate on a razor-thin 21-17 vote.

  • Three lawsuits were filed within two days of DeSantis signing it, targeting all three Fair Districts prongs: partisan, racial, and compactness.

  • Bottom line: DeSantis is asking courts to throw out a citizen-passed constitutional amendment on a legal theory no court has yet endorsed — while his own party’s senators say it’s unconstitutional.

• All hell breaks loose as Tennessee lawmakers bust up Memphis (Tennessee Lookout)

  • Tennessee’s Republican supermajority passed new congressional maps in a three-day special session, eliminating the state’s only majority-Black district in Memphis.

  • The White House provided guidance, boundary data, and population figures — lawmakers claimed they drew the map themselves.

  • Republican Sen. John Stevens claimed he didn’t know Memphis city limits or that it was a majority-minority city.

  • Sen. Charlane Oliver stood on her desk holding a “No Jim Crow 2.0” banner; the Senate chief clerk ripped it from her hands.

  • Shelby County Senator Brent Taylor, who helped draw the map, immediately announced his candidacy for the newly created 9th District seat.

  • The state elections coordinator warned counties would have to reprogram voting systems three months before the August 6 primary.

  • It’s the same map the state AG successfully defended in 2022 — he now has to argue against it.

• Tennessee Passes Redistricting Map, Arrests Protesters in Final Day of Special Session Marked by Burning Flag, Walkouts (Nashville Banner)

  • Justin Jones handed House Majority Leader Lamberth a printed Confederate flag, called Republicans the “white sheet caucus,” then burned it in the Capitol hallway.

  • Jones later blew an air horn as House Democrats walked off the floor en masse.

  • Justin Pearson called the maps “a new three-fifths compromise” on the House floor.

  • Troopers arrested Pearson’s brother in the gallery; Pearson confronted them on camera.

  • Pearson is a candidate in the 9th District being eliminated — and is now a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit to block the maps.

  • One Republican rep walked in draped in a Trump flag; the sergeant-at-arms confiscated it at the door.

• Alabama lawmakers pass plan for new U.S. House primary, if courts allow different districts (LA Times)

  • Alabama passed legislation authorizing new congressional primaries — but only if federal courts allow the state to ditch its court-ordered map.

  • The target is the majority-Black 2nd District, which a federal court required Alabama to create and which elected Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures in 2024.

  • Alabama is asking federal judges to lift the court order in light of the Callais ruling; the legislation is contingent on that succeeding.

  • The state’s own Republican Senate majority leader pumped the brakes — warning the new map could make four districts competitive and cost the GOP seats.

  • Alabama’s primary is June 9 — the tightest timeline of any state attempting redistricting.

  • Outside the statehouse, a civil rights advocate told reporters: “I was out there in 1965 marching for the right to vote, and now we are back here in 2026 doing the same thing.”

• Virginia Supreme Court Strikes Down Voter-Approved Redistricting Maps (NPR)

  • In a 4-3 decision today, the Virginia Supreme Court voided the results of the April 21 special election in which voters approved new congressional maps by 52-48%.

  • The majority found Democrats violated procedural rules by initiating the amendment process while early voting had already begun in the 2025 House of Delegates elections.

  • The maps would have shifted Virginia’s congressional delegation from 6-5 Democratic to 10-1 Democratic — flipping four seats.

  • $5.2 million in public funds spent on the special election; outside groups raised nearly $100 million to fight over it.

  • Virginia Democrats immediately filed an emergency appeal to the US Supreme Court.

  • The dissent, written by Chief Justice Cleo Powell — the first Black woman to lead the Virginia Supreme Court — argued the majority’s logic creates “an infinite voting loop.”

• Republicans Are Building an Advantage in Redistricting. How Much? (NYT)

  • Two weeks ago redistricting was a stalemate; today Republicans are on track to add 12+ Trump-voting districts, giving them a significant structural House advantage.

  • Under current maps, Republicans could lose the national popular vote by 2.5 points and still win the House — if Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina redistrict, that grows to 4 points.

  • The median congressional district would sit 5.5 points more Republican than Trump’s 2024 national margin — meaning Democrats would need to win Trump districts just to take the House.

  • Democrats still lead the generic congressional ballot by 6 points and remain favored — but a “wave” election is no longer guaranteed even with a strong national environment.

MI/OH Elections

• Greene wins state Senate election in Mid-Michigan, Democrats keep majority (Michigan Public)

  • Democrat Chedrick Greene — marine veteran, retired fire captain, union member — defeated Republican Jason Tunney by roughly 20 points in the 35th Senate District special election.

  • The win preserves Democrats’ slim majority in the Michigan Senate; a Tunney win would have deadlocked the chamber 19-19.

  • The seat had been vacant since January 2025 when Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet took her congressional seat.

  • The district voted for Trump in 2024 and Elissa Slotkin for Senate — making the 20-point Democratic margin a notable result.

  • Tunney dismissed it as a low-turnout special and vowed to run again in November for the full term.

  • The race is considered a bellwether for Michigan’s midterm environment.

• Ohio 2026 Primary Election Recap (Vorys)

  • Vivek Ramaswamy won the Republican gubernatorial nomination and will face Democrat Amy Acton, former Ohio Health Director, in November.

  • Sherrod Brown won the Democratic Senate primary and will face Republican Sen. Jon Husted in what’s expected to be one of the nation’s marquee Senate races.

  • Derek Merrin won a crowded GOP primary in OH-9, setting up a rematch with Rep. Marcy Kaptur, whom he narrowly lost to in 2024.

  • Frank LaRose is moving from Secretary of State to run for Auditor; Republican Robert Sprague and Democrat Allison Russo will compete to replace him.

  • The lone Democrat on the Ohio Supreme Court, Justice Jennifer Brunner, faces Republican Colleen O’Donnell in November.

  • Most state legislative incumbents survived primary challenges, though several lawmakers attempting to switch chambers lost.

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Indiana Primary Election Recap

• Republicans

  • Trump-backed candidates romp to wins in Indiana Senate races (ICC)

    • ‘Six Republican challengers endorsed by Trump defeated incumbents, with another Trump-backed candidate (Jeff Ellington) winning an open seat primary. Only one of the eight senators opposed by pro-redistricting groups — Greg Goode of Terre Haute — was a certain winner.’

    • ‘Defeated were Travis Holdman of Markle (SD19), Jim Buck of Kokomo (SD21), Linda Rogers of Granger (SD11), Dan Dernulc of Highland (SD1), Rick Niemeyer of Lowell (SD6) and Greg Walker of Columbus (SD41). All those winning challengers received at least 56% of the vote, according to preliminary tallies compiled by The Associated Press.’

    • ‘The results could jeopardize Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray’s hold on the top Senate leadership position he’s held since 2018. Trump and his pro-redistricting allies sought pledges from primary challengers that they would seek to oust Bray as Senate president pro tem.’

    • ‘A torrent of broadcast ad spending [...] reached $13.5 million for the primary campaigns — a nearly 5,000% jump from the roughly $250,000 spent in 2024 on state Senate races, the ad-tracking service AdImpact posted Tuesday.

    • ‘Sen. Spencer Deery of West Lafayette (SD23) was ahead of challenger Paula Copenhaver by just three votes.’

    • Amy comments: A very small percentage of registered voters have outsized influence because of low voter turnout. I don’t have the exact figures per district, but if you divide the total statewide registered voters by 50 senate districts, each one has roughly 94,000 registered voters. So take SD11 (Linda Rogers). She got 4,099 votes. The Trump guy got 5865. So 5865/94000 = 6.2% of total registered voters made the decision to pick a Trump-backed candidate over the incumbent. Why are we letting an extremist subset of the population drive our state even further down? The national estimate is 1 in 6 Trump voters regret their vote. These MAGA extremists can’t be what the majority of Hoosiers want... can it?

    • Amy comments: This primary cycle presents a critical crossroad for the fall—will Hoosiers continue to let shadow-funded special interests dictate our state’s direction, or will we finally flip the script? Our state has been under one-party rule for more than twenty years; real progress begins with breaking that grip.

  • Liz Brown narrowly takes the lead in unofficial results for Indiana Senate District 15 race (WPTA)

    • Trump-endorsed Brown leads by only 15 votes over Darren Vogt

    • ‘Vogt, a Northwest Allen County Schools Board member and staffer for Republican U.S. Senator Jim Banks. Vogt was endorsed by both Attorney General Todd Rokita and Banks.’

  • At the State House level, voting against redistricting didn’t seem to matter as much

    • Incumbents Greg Steuerwald, Peggy Mayfield, and Jennifer Meltzer won despite defying Trump in December

    • Elvis has left the building: Only one House incumbent lost their primary, the Trump-endorsed Bruce Borders (WWBI)

  • Congress

    • Shreve, Spartz win remarkably close races (ICC)

    • 80 year-old Baird beats back Haggard (TradingView)

    • Republicans nominate Porter County commissioner to run against Mrvan for Congress (NWI Times)

    • McAuley (Indianapolis Recorder) wins 7th District primary

• Democrats

  • US House

    • Incumbents Mrvan, Carson (Mirror Indy) cruise in reelection bids.

    • Establishment favorites Decio (WNDU), Allen (Courier&Press) win handily

    • Wirth easily wins testy 6th District race (Columbus Republic)

    • State Sen. J.D. Ford wins 5th Congressional Democratic primary election (IndyStar)

      • State Sen. J.D. Ford — Indiana’s first openly gay lawmaker — won the IN-5 Democratic primary with 40% in a seven-candidate field.

      • Ford made history in 2018 by flipping conservative Sen. Mike Delph’s seat; he’ll now face incumbent Rep. Victoria Spartz in November.

      • Republicans hold a clear structural advantage in IN-5, but Ford has experience winning in unfavorable terrain.

    • Progressives Cox (Exponent), Meyer (IPM) top experienced opponents

  • State Senate

    • McGill (WFFT), Baker (Journal&Courier), Dixon-Tatum (Herald Bulletin), Root (Current) cruise in respective primaries

    • Indianapolis area

      • Allissa Impink wins Senate District 46 Democratic primary (IndyStar)

      • Moorhead wins in Senate District 29 Democratic primary (Mirror Indy)

      • Forestal, Albright to face off for Senate District 31 (Current)

  • State House

    • No major surprises in House primaries, but Cole defeats Levi (Current) in HD 37 and Wellington tops Kebe in HD29 (Current); Progressive Henry tops business Dem Cochran in HD 72 (News&Tribune)

• Notable Local Races

  • Primary turnout is up in Marion County, but Indiana’s voting numbers remain consistently low (WFYI)

    • Statewide, Indiana primary turnout held flat at just under 17% — nearly identical to 2024.

    • Marion County bucked the trend, with nearly 100,000 voters turning out — about 15,000 more than 2024.

    • Hamilton County saw roughly 50,000 ballots cast at 18% turnout — down 1% from 2024.

  • Marion County

    • Sweeney Bell narrowly defeats Lopez Owens as potentially decisive number vote for deceased Kern (IndyStar)

      • Incumbent Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell won the Democratic primary by ~2,100 votes — while 4,500 voters chose Bobby Kern, who died of a stroke April 3.

      • Ballots were already printed and mailed before Kern’s death; Indiana law barred removing his name.

      • Kern was a frequent critic of Sweeney Bell — his ghost vote likely cost challenger Karla López-Owens the race.

      • Sweeney Bell faces Republican Robbin Stewart in November — an attorney whose law license was recently suspended.

      • Amy comments: The majority of voters voted against the incumbent, but she still won. I think the number of voters for the dead guy shows how uninformed Hoosier voters are. We have major work to do.

    • Kelvis Williams wins Democratic primary for Marion County sheriff (WISH)

      • Kelvis Williams defeated Gregory Patrick 55%-45% in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Marion County sheriff.

      • Williams is the current executive officer under outgoing two-term Sheriff Kerry Forestal, with four decades of law enforcement experience.

      • Before the primary, Williams faced criticism for a mailer headlined “Your Official Democratic Team!” that implied party endorsement — the Marion County Democratic Party stopped endorsing primary candidates in 2023 and was not consulted.

      • No Republican has filed to run — Williams is effectively the next sheriff of Indianapolis.

  • Lake County

    • Jerry Williams captures Democratic Lake County Sheriff nomination (Gary Crusader)

      • Jerry Williams, a Gary native and 33-year Indiana State Police veteran, won a six-way Democratic primary for Lake County Sheriff with 26% of the vote.

      • Finishing order: Jerry Williams (ISP Major) 26%, Steven Flores (St. John Police Chief) 22%, Edward Jenkins (LCSD Deputy Chief) 18%, Jason Gore (retired ATF agent) 18%, Maria Garcia Trajkovich (LCSD Deputy) 13%, Jack Gregory Sanchez (LCSD Deputy) 3%.

      • He’ll face Republican David K. Crane Jr. in November in a county where Democrats hold a substantial structural advantage.

  • Clark County

    • Voters not surprised to see incumbent Clark County sheriff lose in primary (WLKY)

      • Former Jeffersonville Police Chief Kenny Kavanaugh defeated incumbent Sheriff Scottie Maples in the Republican primary for Clark County Sheriff.

      • Maples was never accused of wrongdoing but served under former Sheriff Jamey Noel, now in prison for stealing millions in taxpayer dollars.

      • Both Kavanaugh and Democrat Tim Deeringer are former Jeffersonville PD Chiefs and campaigned on restoring accountability to the office.

  • Monroe County

    • Deckard wins nomination for Monroe County Commissioner (IPM)

      • Trent Deckard defeated fellow Monroe County Council member David Henry 59.7%-40.3% for the Democratic commissioner nomination.

      • No Republican filed — Deckard is effectively the next Monroe County Commissioner.

      • Key issues facing the new commissioner: the county’s new jail project and budget cuts following Braun’s income tax reductions.

Other Indiana News

• Public school group expects record number of school referendums (ICC)

  • Up to 100 Indiana school districts may ask voters for new property tax revenue this November — a record.

  • The driver: last year’s Senate Enrolled Act 1 property tax reforms, which ICPE estimates will cost public schools $744M through 2028.

  • Districts that don’t go to voters this fall can’t try again until November 2028.

  • Per-pupil public school funding has effectively dropped 7% since 2010-2011 when adjusted for inflation.

  • State funding increasingly diverted to vouchers, charter schools, and education savings accounts while public schools got only a 2% increase in last year’s budget.

• Braun adds Indiana gas tax suspension on top of sales tax break (ICC)

  • Gov. Braun extended the gasoline sales tax suspension another 30 days and added the 36-cent excise tax — saving Hoosiers 59.3 cents per gallon total.

  • In April, Braun told reporters he lacked legal authority to suspend the excise tax without legislative approval — he clearly received new advice.

  • The combined 30-day suspensions will cost state coffers $104M and local units $52M; the state is still $425M above fiscal year projections.

  • Average Indiana gas prices rose from $4.14 in April to $4.76 this week — up from $2.70 before the war with Iran began.

  • AG Rokita has opened price gouging investigations and sent warning letters after receiving 150+ complaints.

  • GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan calls it a “perfect storm” — Iran’s Hormuz blockade plus the BP refinery outage in northwest Indiana.

• Indianapolis council approves data center for Martindale-Brightwood (WFYI)

  • The City-County Council approved California-based Metrobloks’ rezoning request to build a data center on a 14-acre former drive-in theater site in the historically Black Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood.

  • Residents have opposed the project for months, citing the neighborhood’s legacy of lead contamination from decades of industrial use and fears of additional noise, water, and power burdens.

  • Councilor Jesse Brown — who doesn’t represent the district — tried to pull the vote for a public hearing but lacked the authority; he separately introduced a non-binding resolution urging a temporary stay on high-impact data center approvIals, which passed.

  • The councilor who does represent the area and supports the project — Ron Gibson — had his home shot in April. note left behind read “No Data Centers.” No arrests have been made.

  • Indiana’s 2019 tax abatements for data centers have made the state a magnet for the industry, driving rapid expansion across multiple neighborhoods and townships simultaneously.

• Hobart officials OK Amazon data center site plan in tense meeting with residents (NWI Times)

  • Hobart’s Plan Commission voted 8-0 to approve two site plans totaling 750+ acres for Amazon’s data center project after a nearly five-hour meeting.

  • Standing-room-only crowd was overwhelmingly opposed — residents cited health risks, noise, property values, and environmental impact in what they called a “sacrifice zone.”

  • The only speakers in favor were a NIPSCO employee and a regional economic development official — both were jeered by the crowd.

…And Finally This Week

• Micah Beckwith Says The Death Penalty Is ‘A Blessing’ (PFAW)

  • Beckwith lamented the Indiana legislature’s narrow rejection of firing squad executions earlier this year on an appearance on “The Kuyper Files.”

  • He argued capital punishment is biblically mandated, citing Romans 13, and that opposing it means being “more virtuous than Christ.”

  • He called execution a “blessing” for death row inmates because it gives them the chance to “be in the presence of Jesus.”

  • On cost: lethal injection is expensive; a firing squad costs “a couple bucks.”

  • He framed non-execution as anti-life — arguing that without it, “evildoers basically run amok.”

  • The show’s name references Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch theologian whose doctrine that Christ is sovereign over “every square inch” of human existence is a foundational text of Christian nationalism.

On a Sunday morning just days before Indiana’s 2026 primary, Scott is joined by Fort Wayne state house candidate Sharon Wight and Indianapolis artist and political content creator Fred Miller for a wide-ranging look at a week in which American democracy appeared to be losing on almost every front simultaneously. The show opens with the White House Correspondents Dinner assassination attempt, dissecting both the security failures and the Trump administration’s opportunistic strongman response — from the FCC going after ABC’s broadcast licenses to the DOJ’s second indictment of James Comey, all set against the backdrop of 42 House Democrats handing the administration a blank check for warrantless surveillance. The conversation moves through King Charles’s pointed address to Congress, the ongoing Iran war and its devastating economic fallout for Indiana farmers and drivers, and the Supreme Court’s 6-3 gutting of the Voting Rights Act — a ruling Scott frames as the culmination of Chief Justice Roberts’s 40-year project. The Indiana half of the show covers SNAP cuts alongside Indianapolis becoming a federal food program hub, marijuana legalization signals from Governor Braun, Medicaid work requirement hypocrisy, Indiana’s HIV testing program being quietly shuttered, AI data center fights in Indianapolis and a proposed quarry threatening Fort Wayne’s Eagle Marsh, Mayor Hogsett’s scandal-plagued legacy and a cocaine-on-the-campaign-trail story from a Democratic state senate primary, Indiana’s primary election mechanics and the independent candidacy of Greg Ballard, tornado season and the defunding of the National Weather Service, and a federal mob gambling ring takedown called Operation Porterhouse Parlay with tentacles reaching into organized labor and, potentially, the Indiana Democratic Party.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00:00:34 Introduction and Housekeeping

00:04:18 White House Correspondents Dinner Assassination Attempt

00:11:06 Trump’s Strongman Response: FCC, ABC, and Comey

00:17:20 Political Speech, Self-Censorship, and the Chilling Effect

00:21:01 Trump’s Cult of Personality: Passports, Dollar Bills, and Court Defiance

00:23:04 Mifepristone, FISA 702, and Frank Mrvan

00:29:28 King Charles Addresses Congress

00:35:13 The Iran War: Ceasefire, Troop Withdrawals, and War Powers

00:42:09 Economic Fallout: OPEC, Gas Prices, and Indiana Farmers

00:49:12 National Electoral Landscape: Maine, Virginia, and the Voting Rights Act

00:59:27 The Crossroads: Indianapolis as a SNAP Hub

01:04:43 SNAP Cuts, Christian Nationalism, and Blessings in a Backpack

01:09:24 Marijuana Legalization in Indiana

01:16:14 Medicaid Work Requirements and the HIV Testing Program

01:23:52 AI Data Centers, the Irvington Forum, and the Fort Wayne Quarry

01:32:59 Indianapolis Mayor Hogsett’s Record and the Marion County Machine

01:37:06 Election Reform and Greg Ballard’s Independent Run

01:40:44 Indiana Primary Preview: Republican Senate Infighting and a Democrat’s coked-up canvassing misadventure

01:45:54 Tornado Season and the Defunding of the National Weather Service

01:49:39 Operation Porterhouse Parlay: Gambling, Organized Labor, and Lake County Democrats

01:56:43 Closing and Guest Plugs

IN DEPTH:

WHCD Shooting

• Suspect charged with attempting to assassinate Trump at press dinner (Guardian)

  • Cole Tomas Allen, 31, of Torrance CA, charged with attempted presidential assassination, firearms transport, and unlawful discharge — first charge carries potential life sentence.

  • Armed with shotgun, pistol, and three knives; shot one officer in the chest (vest saved him); Allen was tackled before reaching the ballroom where Trump, Vance, Hegseth, and Rubio were attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

  • Manifesto sent to family before attack called Trump “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor” and listed administration officials as targets “prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest” — Patel notably excluded.

  • Allen traveled by train from California, checked into the Washington Hilton as a guest, and has no prior criminal record; motive not yet established, not cooperating with investigators.

• WHCD shooting exposed MAGA media’s secret social media operation (Salon)

  • Within minutes of the attack, MAGA officials and influencers — Todd Blanche, Pam Bondi, Mike Johnson — all independently arrived at the same conclusion: Trump needs his $400 million White House ballroom. The speed and uniformity was the tell.

  • A former MAGA influencer claims the messaging was coordinated through group chats, including one called “Fight Fight Fight” — her account aligns with what was observable in real time.

  • The same machinery then pivoted to manufacturing outrage: Ben Stiller’s Knicks victory post and AOC’s condemnation of violence were both reframed as pro-assassination messaging.

  • Meanwhile 300,000 posts claiming the attack was “staged” appeared on X by Sunday midday — a hall of mirrors where coordinated MAGA messaging on one side met conspiratorial pattern-seeking on the other.

• Reporters covered the correspondents’ dinner shooting in real time. Conspiracy theories still spread (AP)

  • Staged shooting conspiracy theories flooded the internet within minutes despite hundreds of professional journalists live-reporting from the scene — facts didn’t prevent the rumors, they just gave people breadcrumbs to misinterpret.

  • Key fuel for the theories: Leavitt’s pre-dinner “shots fired” quip, Vance being escorted out first, and MAGA’s instant pivot to the ballroom agenda.

  • University of Maryland researcher Jen Golbeck: conspiracy theories thrive not despite available information but because of it — the flood of contradictory real-time updates pushes people toward simplified narratives.

  • Emily Vraga, a professor at the University of Minnesota who studies political misinformation, said that sometimes more information is not necessarily better, especially in such a polarized time when people can pick and choose the facts they like and assemble their own narrative puzzles: “Meaning doesn’t have to be tied to reality.”

Fascism Watch

• Trump lashes out at ‘60 Minutes’ anchor for reading alleged gunman’s manifesto (Politico)

  • O’Donnell read the shooter’s manifesto aloud — “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes” — and Trump immediately assumed it was directed at him, volunteering “I’m not a rapist” and “I’m not a pedophile” before anyone said it was about him.

  • O’Donnell hadn’t mentioned Epstein; Trump brought the association himself, then declared he’d been “totally exonerated.”

  • Trump called O’Donnell “horrible people” and “a disgrace” for reading a public court document into the record — a notable response from a president who had just expressed solidarity with the press corps who’d shared the panic with him hours earlier.

• Deranged Trump Rants Edited Out of 60 Minutes Interview After Shooting (TNR)

  • CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a heavily edited version of Trump’s post-WHCD shooting interview, cutting his claim that the No Kings protests are funded “just like the SPLC was funded” to finance the KKK — and his assertion that Charlottesville was a “Southern Law deal” staged to make him look bad, at an event where actual neo-Nazis marched.

  • Also cut: an incoherent answer connecting transgender issues, men in women’s sports, and emptying mental institutions to explain why people want to assassinate him.

  • Trump falsely claimed CBS paid him $38 million in their settlement — the actual figure was $16 million to his presidential library, not to him personally.

  • Decoding Fox News’ framing: the edits don’t protect Trump — they actually obscure how incoherent the unedited answers were.

• Melania Trump calls for Jimmy Kimmel to be fired after ‘expectant widow’ joke in WHCD skit (Politico)

  • Trump and Melania both called for ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel Monday over a pre-shooting parody monologue in which he joked Melania had “a glow like an expectant widow” — a joke delivered two days before the WHCD shooting.

  • “Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America,” she said in a statement Monday. “People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”

  • The jokes were part of a fake WHCD monologue Kimmel recorded Thursday; the actual dinner hired a mentalist, not a comedian, this year.

  • Kimmel’s show was already briefly pulled by Sinclair and Nexstar last September after comments about Charlie Kirk’s killing — the FCC, which has been threatening broadcaster licenses under Trump, didn’t respond to comment requests.

  • The pressure campaign fits a pattern: Trump has long targeted late-night hosts, and FCC chair Brendan Carr has been actively exploring ways to strip licenses from networks critical of the president.

• FCC orders early license renewal for ABC stations following Kimmel’s first lady joke (NPR)

  • FCC ordered Disney/ABC to file early license renewals for its 8 TV stations within 30 days — licenses not due until 2028 — directly after Trump and Melania called for Kimmel’s firing over the “expectant widow” joke.

  • FCC chair Carr didn’t mention Kimmel specifically, instead citing Disney’s DEI policies — thin cover for what the lone Democratic commissioner called “the most egregious First Amendment violation this FCC has taken to date.”

  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “The FCC has just pulled out a sword to hang over every single news organization in America.”

  • First Amendment attorney Andrew Schwartzman: Carr “knows full well he lacks any legitimate legal basis” — this is harassment designed to intimidate, not regulation; the process could take years and ultimately cost broadcasters their licenses.

• Leavitt threatens press freedom in press conference (Heather Delaney Reese)

  • Leavitt returned from the start of maternity leave to deliver a press conference arguing that calling Trump a fascist is “indistinguishable” from the shooter’s manifesto — using the legal term “slander” deliberately, laying groundwork for treating political dissent as actionable.

  • She read a list of Democratic officials by name — Jeffries, Warren, Schiff, Shapiro, and others — with decontextualized quotes attached, handing a target list to the most radicalized Trump supporters while making no mention of Trump’s own years of “vermin,” “enemies of the state,” and January 6th rhetoric.

  • Jeffries fired back directly: “This so-called White House press secretary wants to lecture America about civility — get lost and clean up your own house” — noting that a pardoned January 6th insurrectionist had already threatened to kill him.

  • The author’s framing: this is the administration’s Reichstag moment — using a violent incident to criminalize dissent, in the same playbook used by authoritarian regimes historically. Worth presenting as one perspective, but a sharp one grounded in documented facts.

• Trump’s picture is coming to some U.S. passports (NBC)

  • Trump’s image and gold signature will appear in a limited-edition U.S. passport issued for the 250th anniversary — the State Department couldn’t confirm whether a sitting president has ever appeared in a passport before.

  • The commemorative passport was exclusively reported by Fox News before the State Department announced it — a tell about who the audience is.

  • All the Things Trump Has Put His Name and Face on as President (Time)

    • Trump’s name or face now appears on: passports, dollar bills, gold coins, national park passes, federal agency banners, the Kennedy Center, the Institute of Peace, battleships, a prescription drug website (TrumpRx.gov), and baby investment accounts — a branding campaign that would make a dictator blush.

    • Several of these are facing legal challenges: the Kennedy Center rename, the national park pass design, and the Institute of Peace takeover are all in court.

    • The national parks service updated its policy to invalidate passes with stickers covering Trump’s face — a response to park enthusiasts protesting by covering his image.

    • Historical footnote: this isn’t new behavior — Trump put his name on COVID stimulus checks during his first term too.

• Trump flouts lower court rulings in unprecedented display of executive power (AP)

  • AP review: Trump administration found violating court orders in at least 31 lawsuits in 15 months — about 1 in 8 cases where courts blocked its actions — plus 250+ violations in individual immigration cases; legal scholars say prior administrations averaged a few violations per full term.

  • Higher courts sided with the administration in nearly half the 31 cases, which critics say is actively rewarding noncompliance — Justice Sotomayor in dissent: “Each time this Court rewards noncompliance, it further erodes respect for courts and the rule of law.”

  • Judges have been scathing: one called the administration “ham-handed” for trying to “bully the states,” another accused DOJ of “hallucinating new text” in court orders to achieve preferred outcomes.

  • Georgetown constitutional scholar: “The federal government should be the institution most devoted to the rule of law. When it ceases to feel itself bound, respect for the rule of law is likely to break down across the country.”

• Court restricts abortion access across the US by blocking the mailing of mifepristone (NPR)

  • The 5th Circuit blocked mifepristone from being mailed or prescribed via telemedicine, requiring in-person dispensing only — a ruling that restricts abortion access in every state, including those where it remains legal.

  • Mail-order mifepristone had become the primary workaround for abortion access since Dobbs, including to women in ban states — this ruling effectively closes that route while the Supreme Court appeal plays out.

  • The ACLU: rural communities, low-income people, domestic violence survivors, and people with disabilities will bear the heaviest burden.

  • The Supreme Court unanimously preserved mifepristone access in 2024 but dodged the core issues on standing — Danco Laboratories has already asked the Court for emergency relief, setting up a direct rematch.

• Former FBI Director James Comey indicted over alleged ‘threat’ against Trump (CNN)

  • Trump’s DOJ indicted James Comey for posting a beach photo of seashells spelling “8647” — legal experts call it an almost certain loser, as prosecutors must prove Comey “knowingly and willfully” threatened the president’s life over an ambiguous shell formation he deleted the same day.

  • This is the second Comey indictment — the first, for lying to Congress, was thrown out because the prosecutor was improperly appointed; the pattern of repeated prosecution is itself grounds for a selective prosecution challenge.

  • First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh: “This is not going anywhere. This is clearly not a punishable threat.”

  • Separately, a judge allowed Comey’s daughter Maurene’s wrongful termination lawsuit to proceed — she was fired two weeks after winning a conviction against Diddy, and alleges it was retaliation for being her father’s daughter. She had also led the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell.

• 42 House Democrats Join GOP in Passing Warrantless Mass Surveillance Bill (Truthout)

  • House passed a clean FISA Section 702 extension 235-191 with 42 Democrats crossing over — no warrant requirement, no meaningful reforms, a three-year blank check for warrantless surveillance of Americans’ communications.

  • 22 Republicans voted against it; the 42 Democrats who voted for it provided the margin — civil liberties groups called it “dangerous and shameful,” noting Democratic leadership didn’t even whip against it.

  • The bill is expected to be dead on arrival in the Senate, where Republicans need Democratic votes and the bill includes a central bank digital currency ban that complicates passage.

  • The stakes: Section 702 has already been used to spy on BLM protesters, members of Congress, journalists, and campaign donors — and nothing in this bill would prevent that from happening again under an administration that calls political opponents “enemies within.”

  • One of the 42 was Indiana’s Frank Mrvan (D-IN1)

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Royal Visit

• White House makes ‘two Kings’ post with photo of Trump, King Charles (The Hill)

  • The White House posted a photo of Trump and King Charles captioned “two Kings” — the same week Trump told 60 Minutes “I’m not a King” and blamed “No Kings” protesters for inspiring the WHCD shooter.

  • The contradiction is complete: Trump simultaneously denies being a king, blames anti-monarchy protesters for political violence, and then lets his own White House call him one next to an actual monarch.

• King Charles draws cheers and applause with reference to ‘checks and balances’ on the power of the president in address to Congress (Independent)

  • King Charles addressed a joint session of Congress Tuesday and delivered a pointed defense of separation of powers, independent judiciary, and checks on executive authority — drawing standing ovations from both parties — hours after the White House posted content promoting Trump as an American “King.”

  • Without naming Trump, Charles noted the Magna Carta has been cited 160 times by the U.S. Supreme Court as “the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances” — the chamber erupted.

  • Standing feet from JD Vance, Charles called for “unyielding resolve” in defense of Ukraine — Vance has boasted of cutting off all U.S. funding to Kyiv.

  • Charles also praised NATO as essential to transatlantic security and announced Britain’s biggest sustained defense spending increase since the Cold War — a direct rebuttal to Trump calling the alliance a “paper tiger.”

Iran War/Military

• Iran offers to reopen Strait of Hormuz if US lifts its blockade and the war ends, officials say (AP)

  • Trump called off his envoys’ trip to Pakistan last Saturday, then claimed Iran sent a “much better” proposal afterward — suggesting he may be using walkouts as a negotiating tactic, or that the trips are more theater than diplomacy.

  • Iran’s counter-offer: reopen the strait and end the war in exchange for lifting the U.S. blockade — but nuclear program discussions pushed to a later date, which Rubio immediately ruled out.

  • Iran’s foreign minister met Putin in St. Petersburg Monday, where Putin praised Iran’s “heroic” resistance; Iran is also trying to persuade Oman to support a toll collection mechanism for strait passage.

  • Trump says he’s ‘not satisfied’ with Iran’s proposal to end the war (AP)

    • Trump rejected Iran’s latest proposal Friday almost as soon as it was delivered, saying “I’m not satisfied” without elaborating — negotiations continue by phone after he called off his envoys’ Pakistan trip last week.

    • Trump framed the choice bluntly: “Do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever? Or do we want to try and make a deal? Those are the options.”

    • Iran’s foreign minister spent Friday calling regional counterparts — Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Azerbaijan — to build support for his country’s proposal, signaling Iran is working to broaden its diplomatic backing.

• Takeaways from Hegseth’s first hearings in Congress since the start of Iran war (AP)

  • Claude responded: Hegseth’s first congressional appearance since the war began: $25 billion spent so far, 13 Americans killed, 400+ injured, the strait still closed, Iran still …

  • Hegseth’s first congressional appearance since the war began: $25 billion spent so far, 13 Americans killed, 400+ injured, the strait still closed, Iran still has enriched uranium — and lawmakers expect the real cost estimate is closer to $100 billion.

  • Hegseth called congressional critics “the biggest adversary we face” — while tacitly admitting the war has far outlasted Trump’s original “few weeks” promise.

  • The school strike that killed 165 people including children is still “under investigation” — Hegseth called it “an unfortunate situation” after Democrats noted he cut the civilian casualty prevention division by 90%.

  • Even some Republicans broke ranks: Sen. Joni Ernst rebuked Hegseth for forcing out Army Chief Gen. Randy George, who pulled the Army out of its worst recruiting crisis since Vietnam — Hegseth’s only explanation was “we needed new leadership.”

• Trump administration says its war in Iran has been ‘terminated’ before 60-day deadline (AP)

  • Trump administration declared the Iran war “terminated” for War Powers Resolution purposes — arguing the ceasefire paused the 60-day clock, which expired Friday, allowing them to avoid seeking congressional authorization.

  • Legal experts call it unprecedented: “Nothing in the text or design of the War Powers Resolution suggests the 60-day clock can be paused or terminated” — Sen. Kaine called Hegseth’s argument “very novel” with “certainly no legal support.”

  • Even Sen. Susan Collins voted to end the military action, saying “that deadline is not a suggestion; it is a requirement” and demanding a clear mission and defined exit strategy.

  • One hawkish think tank adviser’s workaround: just declare a new operation called “Epic Passage” focused on reopening the strait — which would reset the 60-day clock entirely.

• Hegseth orders withdrawal of 5,000 US troops from Germany (Politico)

  • Pentagon ordered withdrawal of 5,000 of 38,000 U.S. troops from Germany — announced Friday, two days after Trump floated it on social media, surprising Pentagon officials who hadn’t heard of it before his post.

  • The move is retaliation for European allies’ limited support for the Iran war, not the result of any strategic review — the Pentagon’s own global posture review earlier this year did not call for European withdrawals.

  • A former Republican national security adviser warned the pullback primarily benefits Russia, not the U.S., by weakening deterrence and Mediterranean power projection.

Economic Fallout

• UAE’s shock OPEC exit: What it means for the oil cartel’s future and for crude prices (CNBC)

  • The UAE quit OPEC last Friday — a direct consequence of Iran’s missile and drone attacks on UAE shipping and infrastructure, though Abu Dhabi didn’t officially attribute the exit to the war.

  • The UAE was OPEC’s second most important member; together with Saudi Arabia it controlled most of the world’s 4+ million barrels per day of spare capacity — its departure leaves the cartel “structurally weaker” and undermines Saudi Arabia’s ability to manage the organization.

  • Short term the exit changes little with the strait closed, but long term it’s bearish for oil: when the strait reopens the UAE is expected to pump at maximum capacity without OPEC constraints, potentially flooding a recovering market.

• Oil price tops $126 a barrel after Trump warns Iran blockade could last ‘months’ (Guardian)

  • Brent crude hit $126 a barrel Thursday — highest since 2022, up 13% in 24 hours — after Trump told oil executives the blockade could last “months if needed” and described Iran as “choking like a stuffed pig.”

  • Markets are abandoning hope for a quick diplomatic resolution; bond yields in Japan, Germany, and the UK hit multi-decade highs as stagflation fears spread globally.

  • Economist Paul Krugman: “A full-on global recession is more likely than not if the strait remains closed for another three months” — which he called “all too possible.”

  • Without resolution, analysts warn prices could approach the all-time 2008 record of $147 — Iran has already predicted $200 oil.

• Spirit Airlines goes out of business after 34 years, ceases operations immediately (PBS)

  • Spirit Airlines shut down Saturday after 34 years, canceling all flights effective immediately and leaving 17,000 employees out of work overnight — passengers showed up at airports to find no one there.

  • The Trump administration’s proposed bailout never materialized; Transportation Secretary Duffy’s explanation: “We often times don’t have half a billion dollars laying around” — this from an administration that just called for $1.5 trillion in Pentagon spending.

  • The White House blamed Biden for blocking the JetBlue merger in 2023; a Cato Institute analyst fired back that Trump’s decision to bomb Iran drove jet fuel prices through the roof and finished Spirit off — “a compounding effect in terms of policy.”

  • United, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest are offering $200 one-way flights for stranded Spirit passengers with proof of purchase — cold comfort for the 17,000 workers who set their alarms for 3 a.m. to find out if they still had jobs.

• Indiana leads the US with 84 cent jump in gas prices (FOX59)

  • Indiana led the nation in week-over-week gas price increases — up to an average of $4.78, with prices hitting $4.99 at some stations — compounded by the BP Whiting Refinery going unexpectedly offline on top of the Iran war price spike.

  • Braun’s sales tax suspension expires May 8 and covers only the 17-cent sales tax — not the 36-cent excise tax, which he says he won’t touch because it funds infrastructure, meaning Hoosiers are still paying Indiana’s top-five-highest gas tax burden regardless.

• Price spikes stressing Indiana corn, soybean farmers (Axios)

  • Indiana farmers are getting squeezed from both sides: diesel up to $5.25 from $3.60 a year ago, fertilizer near peak levels, while corn sits in the mid-$4 range and soybeans under $12 — near or below break-even.

  • Purdue ag economist: the gap between optimistic livestock farmers and struggling crop farmers is the widest he’s seen in a decade of monthly surveys.

  • The Iran war didn’t create the farm crisis but it’s accelerating it — and if high costs persist into fall, fewer Indiana corn acres get planted in 2027.

  • The political question hanging over all of it: Indiana farmers overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2024 — will they still feel that way in November?

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Elections

• Janet Mills drops out of race for US Senate (Maine Public)

  • Maine Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the Senate race Friday, citing lack of funds — handing the Democratic primary to oyster farmer and combat veteran Graham Platner, who had already lapped her in polling and fundraising.

  • Platner is a genuine insurgent: 60+ town halls, large crowds, no establishment backing initially — and he survived a tattoo controversy and attack ads from Mills without losing ground.

  • The DSCC, Schumer, Gillibrand, and the DNC all immediately endorsed Platner, giving the outsider the institutional backing he needs to take on Collins in November.

  • Republicans are already running a scorched earth operation — $68 million in ads booked for the general, 70% from Republican groups, with a $2 million corporate PAC already hitting Platner on old social media posts.

• Virginia weighs legality of new congressional map favoring Democrats that could reshape US House (Guardian)

  • Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on whether to invalidate the voter-approved redistricting amendment — focusing on whether Democrats violated procedural rules by voting on the amendment while early voting was already underway.

  • The core legal question: does “election” mean the single Tuesday of voting, or the entire early voting period — a distinction that could determine whether four Democratic House seats live or die.

  • The national tit-for-tat context: Republicans think they net up to 9 seats from Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio redraws; Democrats think they net up to 10 from California, Utah and Virginia — Virginia’s legal outcome could tip the balance.

  • Florida’s DeSantis has called a special legislative session starting Tuesday to redraw congressional maps — potentially canceling out Virginia’s gains before the court even rules.

• US supreme court ‘demolishes’ Voting Rights Act, gutting provision that prevented racial discrimination (Guardian)

  • Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act 6-3 along partisan lines — making it nearly impossible to challenge racial gerrymandering by requiring plaintiffs to prove intentional discrimination, a standard Congress explicitly rejected when it amended the VRA in 1982.

  • The practical effect: states can now draw maps that dilute Black voting power as long as they claim partisan rather than racial motivation — Obama called it permission to gerrymander “under the guise of partisanship rather than explicit racial bias.”

  • Kagan in dissent: “Today’s decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter” — and warned that majority-Black districts across the South now “exist only on sufferance, and probably not for long.”

  • Trump told reporters states should redraw their maps in response to the ruling: “I would” — setting up a potential mid-decade scramble to eliminate minority-majority districts before November.

• The Supreme Court’s Death Blow Against Voting Rights Is the Culmination of John Roberts’s 50-Year Crusade (The Nation)

  • The Nation’s reporting on Roberts’ National Archives files shows he was the primary architect of Reagan’s opposition to the VRA’s effects test in 1982 — scripting Reagan’s statements, writing talking points, and driving the policy fight — then told Congress at his 2005 confirmation hearing he was merely “a 26-year-old staff lawyer” following orders.

  • Roberts’s 1982 memos used the same “quota system” framing that became Wednesday’s majority opinion — the through-line from Reagan’s DOJ to the Supreme Court’s ruling is 40 years in the making, written by the same person.

  • The lesson Roberts took from losing in 1982: don’t fight it in Congress, change the judges — “You didn’t need 60 senators or 218 representatives. Five like-minded conservatives would be enough — and now they would have six.”

  • Former Sen. Feingold, who questioned Roberts at his confirmation: “I don’t think any of us felt that he was really going to try and undermine the Voting Rights Act. Then he did.”

• Supreme Court ruling will reshape American politics. The only question is when (AP)

  • Florida is the only state with a clear path to mid-decade gains from the ruling — DeSantis had the special session pre-planned, the legislature approved a new map Wednesday, and the primary isn’t until August; the map could net Republicans four seats.

  • Most other Republican states face primary calendar obstacles — Louisiana’s early voting starts Saturday, Georgia’s primary is May 19, Tennessee’s candidate filing deadline was March 10 — making immediate redraws legally treacherous.

  • Longer term the VRA ruling reshapes the entire political map: more than a dozen majority-minority Democratic seats in Republican-controlled states are now vulnerable, with political scientists calling the VRA “essentially dead” as a tool against vote dilution.

  • Democrats have one counter-move: spread minority voters across more districts in states they control rather than concentrating them — but that faces internal resistance from Black and Hispanic representatives who want to preserve majority-minority districts.

• Louisiana suspends House primaries as red states face pressure to redistrict (WaPo)

  • Louisiana Gov. Landry suspended the state’s May 16 House primary elections — with early voting set to start Saturday and ballots already mailed to overseas voters — so the legislature can redraw the map eliminating the majority-Black district first.

  • Rep. Cleo Fields, whose district was ruled unlawful, called it “the wrong move” and said voters’ fundamental rights shouldn’t be “sacrificed for a rushed political agenda.”

  • UCLA election law professor Richard Hasen called it “naked partisanship” — then noted that under the current Supreme Court’s approach, “naked partisanship is more of a defense than an indictment.”

  • A lower-court order still bars Louisiana from changing its map, and legal challenges are expected — voting rights groups that have already run radio ads and billboards for Saturday’s early voting say erasing those votes mid-election is unconstitutional.

• Southern GOP states scramble to redraw maps after ruling gutting Voting Rights Act (CNS)

  • Florida already had its new maps ready — the legislature passed them the same day as the ruling, awaiting DeSantis’s signature, designed to flip up to four Democratic-leaning seats by reducing minority-opportunity districts.

  • Alabama reversed course Friday and called a special session for May 4, just two weeks before its primary — the National Redistricting Foundation called it “a head-spinning reversal of precedent” and filed to block it at the Supreme Court.

  • Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee are all making noise but haven’t called special sessions yet — South Carolina’s GOP leaders say their map is already optimized and they don’t need one.

  • UCLA’s Rick Hasen on the long game: “It’s just a matter of time that southern states are going to dismantle some, if not many, or all of their districts that were required to give minority voters representation” — with the full impact likely felt in 2028 and 2030.

Crossroads

• USDA confirms SNAP hub will move to Indianapolis (ICC)

  • USDA confirmed Indianapolis will become one of five national hubs for the new Food and Nutrition Administration, relocating SNAP program offices from Washington as part of a broader agency reorganization affecting 2,600 employees.

  • Sen. Jim Banks led the pitch to USDA Secretary Rollins last year — Braun and Banks are both claiming credit for landing the hub.

  • The agency says SNAP and other nutrition programs serving 42 million Americans will continue without disruption, but hasn’t confirmed how many employees will actually relocate to Indianapolis or when.

  • Worth watching: this is a massive reorganization of the agency that administers SNAP during a period of federal workforce disruption — “no disruption” assurances from the same administration that has repeatedly disrupted federal agencies deserve scrutiny.

  • Irony: Indiana SNAP Work Rules Could Cut Food Aid (inkFreeNews)

    • New federal SNAP work requirements will affect about 12,000 Indiana recipients who must now report work hours — with any reduction in hours, even temporary, potentially triggering benefit loss and months of bureaucratic reinstatement.

    • A Hamilton Project analysis found stricter work requirements reduce SNAP participation more than they increase employment — meaning the rules push people off food assistance without getting them jobs.

    • Feeding Indiana’s Hungry director: most SNAP recipients already work or are caregivers or students — the new rules add reporting burden to people already navigating unstable hours and rising grocery prices.

• US House passes ‘skinny’ farm bill that keeps big GOP cuts to food assistance (ICC)

  • House passed a “skinny” farm bill 224-200 that largely punts on major policy — because last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” already made sweeping SNAP cuts, this version mostly just reauthorizes existing programs through 2031.

  • Democrats’ core objection: the bill locks in $187 billion in SNAP cuts from last year’s law without addressing farmer cost pressures from Trump’s tariffs or the Iran war fuel spike — “it is going to make hunger worse,” Rep. McGovern said.

    • House Cements $187 Billion Cut to SNAP—But Hey, Free Chicken! (Mother Jones)

      • Tucked into the Farm Bill: SNAP recipients will finally be able to buy rotisserie chicken with their benefits — the only hot food item added — a genuinely bipartisan win that most Democrats still voted against because accepting it meant accepting $187 billion in SNAP cuts in the same bill.

  • One notable win: an amendment stripped a provision that would have shielded Roundup maker Monsanto from cancer liability lawsuits — it would have mooted a Supreme Court case argued this week.

  • The Senate hasn’t introduced its version yet — and with three years of extensions already behind them, the farm bill is now eight years overdue for a meaningful update.

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Cannabis

• Braun signals openness to marijuana legalization as outside report outlines policy considerations (ICC)

  • Gov. Braun signaled growing openness to marijuana legalization Tuesday, citing Indiana’s border-state reality — 96% of Hoosiers live within a 100-mile drive of a licensed dispensary in another state, and residents are already spending an estimated $1.8 billion annually on marijuana.

  • The Trump administration’s federal rescheduling of medical marijuana this week gave Braun political cover: “I think the fact that the feds made that move, that makes it more likely.”

  • Indiana is one of only 10 states with no medical marijuana law — yet unregulated delta-8 THC and THCA products are “ubiquitous” in the state because legislators have repeatedly failed to ban or regulate them.

  • A new RAND/Fairbanks Foundation study estimates legalization could generate $180 million in annual tax revenue by year five — while the state currently spends $10-20 million a year just on enforcement.

Healthcare

• FSSA hiring 400 employees to monitor Medicaid eligibility ahead of work requirements (ICC)

  • Indiana is hiring 400 employees to conduct eligibility checks on 560,000 Healthy Indiana Plan members — at least three times more checks than currently required — while FSSA’s own secretary admits the state will save no money from kicking people off.

  • Work requirements take effect Jan. 1, 2027: 80 hours monthly of work, school, job training, or volunteering — with quarterly compliance checks under state law and six-month redeterminations under federal law.

  • The One Big Beautiful Bill shifts SNAP administrative costs from 50% to 75% state-funded starting October 2026 — an unexpected $37 million hit to Indiana’s budget in fiscal year 2027, rising to $50 million annually.

  • “This is not your doctor’s job, to keep you eligible. It is not the hospital’s job. It is not the health plan’s job to keep you eligible. It is not even FSSA’s job to keep you eligible,” Roob added. “It is the recipient’s responsibility. It is their personal responsibility.”

• Indiana to sunset HIV outreach program amid federal funding cuts (ICC)

  • Indiana is shutting down its Special Populations Support Program on June 30 — eliminating HIV testing and outreach in addiction treatment settings that conducted 4,575 tests in 2024 alone — after a $6.7 million drop in federal ARPA pandemic funding.

  • The program specifically targets people with substance use disorders, the unhoused, and the incarcerated — populations unlikely to seek testing in traditional medical settings and at highest risk for transmission.

  • Marion County Public Health’s chief medical officer: “The longer someone goes untested, the more likely they are to spread the virus unknowingly because treatment is delayed.”

  • The state says HIV treatment won’t be affected — but public health experts are uniform that testing is the entry point to treatment, and without it, new infections go undiagnosed for years.

Development

• Eastside data center developer faces questions about project (Mirror Indy)

  • DC BLOX, a Georgia-based developer, held a community forum in Irvington seeking buy-in for a $2 billion data center campus on the east side — near Irvington Community Elementary School and the Pennsy Trail — with about 150 skeptical residents showing up.

  • The developer is using the variance-not-rezoning strategy that Decatur Township residents are currently fighting in court, bypassing the full City-County Council vote that killed Google’s Franklin Township data center last year.

  • Residents’ core objections: proximity to an elementary school, diesel generator testing, tax abatements for a $2 billion project, and a developer that by its own admission doesn’t know the community yet.

  • The Metropolitan Development Commission hearing is June 11 — and at least one resident summed up the room: “They’re gonna tell you whatever they can to get this thing done.”

  • Recall: Indianapolis proposes data center zoning rules, but critics say protections fall short (WFYI)

    • Indianapolis released draft data center zoning rules: 200-foot residential buffer, 65-decibel noise cap, generator testing banned 5 p.m.–7 a.m.

    • Critics say the rules are too weak — no meaningful limits near schools or parks, diesel generators still allowed, clear pathway for more development.

    • City leadership won’t consider a moratorium; Osili: “We are not a city that will be banning something like infrastructure.”

• Inskeep: Google won’t pay for transmission upgrades after all

  • AES Indiana will add a profit margin on top of the $73.8 million figure, so the total cost will be higher.

  • The latest filing calls into question Google and AES Indiana claims about its data centers paying their fair share.

  • Check out the docket: https://iurc.portal.in.gov/docketed-case-details/?id=863a591f-643e-f111-88b3-001dd80673f1

  • Recall: AES, Google say partnership will save customers $770 million (FOX59)

    • Google says it will pay all costs for its Monrovia data center’s electricity and new infrastructure under a deal filed with state regulators — protecting AES Indiana’s 533,000 existing customers from footing the bill.

    • The projected savings: $8/month per customer in avoided rate increases over 15 years, enabled by HEA 1007, Indiana’s 2025 law requiring large new customers to cover their own energy costs.

    • IURC ruling expected September 2026 — the outcome sets the template for every data center energy deal that follows.

• Quarry developer holds information meeting, seeks to answer all concerns (WANE)

  • US Aggregates and Indianapolis-based Heritage Group held a packed public meeting in Fort Wayne Wednesday to address community concerns about a proposed quarry in southwest Allen County — with residents making clear they intend to fight it.

  • Key concerns: blasting vibrations, truck traffic on residential streets, groundwater impacts (the quarry will extend below the water table), air quality from a proposed adjacent asphalt plant, and effects on nearby Eagle Marsh and Fox Island County Park.

  • Fort Wayne Mayor Sharon Tucker came out against the project Thursday, saying it isn’t “a good fit for the area” — though the city has no jurisdiction since the site is outside city limits, leaving the decision to Allen County.

Elections

• Indy Mayor Joe Hogsett weighs a fourth term, amid scandals and project delays (IndyStar)

  • Hogsett refused to rule out a fourth term despite explicitly promising a “third and final term” in 2022 — and having called for two-term limits during his 2015 campaign — saying downtown development projects “tug at his heartstrings” and he’ll decide by end of year.

  • His unfinished business list is more unfinished than finished: old City Hall deal collapsed this month, City Market delayed until at least 2028 after cutting ties with developers, MLS stadium stalled, downtown heliport going nowhere — of the major 2022 capstone promises, only the jail redevelopments are on track.

  • The scandals complicate the legacy math: the IndyStar/Mirror Indy “Mr. Clean” investigation exposed his former chief of staff cashing in on millions in city incentives overseen by a city official he was romantically involved with, plus a pattern of no-bid contracts to former staffers and campaign donors.

  • A UIndy political scientist says Hogsett’s political capital has been “really weakened” — and keeping the fourth-term door open is itself a power move, letting him maintain leverage over three Democrats already running: City-County Councilor Vop Osili, state Sen. Andrea Hunley, and DPW official David Bride.

  • Hogsett ended 2025 with $1.2 million in the bank — not the war chest of someone who’s definitely done.

• Marion County sheriff’s candidate accused of ‘shady tactics’ (Mirror Indy)

  • A flyer for Marion County sheriff candidate Kelvis Williams falsely implied six Democrats — including party chair Myla Eldridge and county clerk Kate Sweeney Bell — form an “official Democratic team” endorsed by the Marion County party, which dropped slating in 2023.

  • Williams initially said he had the candidates’ permission, then recanted — none of the candidates contacted said they agreed to be on the flyer.

  • The mailer is fracturing alliances: at least one voter who planned to support Williams switched to opponent Gregory Patrick after seeing it, and Prosecutor Ryan Mears — who endorsed Williams — is blaming Bell and calling it “shady misleading tactics.”

  • The broader subtext: the mailer looks like old-guard slating tactics from an era the party officially abandoned, and it’s reigniting tensions between Marion County’s establishment Democrats and reformers heading into Tuesday’s primary.

• Secretary of state candidate Ballard knocks Indiana’s primary system (ICC)

  • Ballard is calling for Indiana’s two major parties to start paying for their own primaries — pointing out that taxpayers spent $13.3 million running the 2024 primaries for parties that restrict who can even participate in them.

  • The current system requires candidates to have voted in their party’s last two primaries or get county chair approval — Ballard calls it “broken” and inaccessible to everyday Hoosiers.

  • Ballard is still collecting the 37,000 voter signatures needed just to get on the November ballot — a barrier that itself illustrates his point about the system favoring the two major parties.

• Trump’s Indiana redistricting revenge aims to topple state Senate’s leader (ICC)

  • Trump’s redistricting war on Indiana’s Republican Senate isn’t really about the seven senators facing challengers — it’s about toppling Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, who doesn’t face election until 2028 but controls the caucus leadership vote before next session.

  • A pledge to vote against Bray for pro tem was a Trump endorsement “litmus test” — one Republican candidate called it “unethical” because “you’re already asking me to sell a vote before I’ve even been elected.”

  • The spending is staggering for state legislative races: pro-redistricting groups have put in $5 million+, including a Banks-affiliated dark money group; Bray has countered with $3.5 million from campaign funds and formed his own dark money nonprofit in March to level the field.

  • Bray on potentially losing his leadership post: “If they choose me again, I’d be honored. If they don’t, I’ll wish the person best of luck” — and on the redistricting fight itself: “What is a little frustrating is that based on a difference of opinion on one issue, just the opposition that has brought.”

• Indiana Senate Candidate Andrew Dezelan Arrested on Drug Charges in Fishers (Avenues Recovery)

  • Democratic SD-31 candidate Andrew Dezelan was arrested Sunday night in Fishers after police found cocaine in his car while he was allegedly canvassing — just days before the May 5 primary.

  • Officers found him canvassing a neighborhood he claimed to have HOA permission to be in, visibly sweating, speaking rapidly, with pinpoint pupils — all noted as signs of drug impairment.

  • He tried to drive away when asked for ID, resisted handcuffing multiple times, and is currently booked in Hamilton County Jail — five days before the primary he’s running in.

  • Dezelan is a former 11-year policy director for the Indiana Senate Democratic Caucus who had made marijuana legalization a campaign priority; he posted “got a new bag of tricks with me for this last stretch” on Instagram shortly before his arrest.

  • He’s one of four Democrats in the primary, including Marion County Sheriff Kerry Forestal — a race that was already being watched as a potential pickup opportunity in a district Republicans have held for decades.

Climate

• 3 tornadoes strike Indiana counties, causing damage (WISH)

  • Three tornadoes confirmed in Indiana Monday — an EF-1 near Seymour in Jackson County and two in Morgan County southwest of Indianapolis, including an EF-1 and an EF-0 near Mooresville — no injuries reported.

  • Damage included destroyed barns, a damaged home, snapped trees, and 39 utility poles downed or leaning in Jackson County; Morgan County roads remained closed Tuesday morning.

• Indiana confirmed tornadoes 2026 (Indiana Weather Online)

  • 11 as of April 6 plus the three above makes at least 14

  • Annual average of 22

• The past 3 years have each ranked in the Top 5 for tornadoes in Indiana (USNWS Northern Indiana)

Finally This Week

• 22 arrested in Northwest Indiana FBI raids for alleged illegal gambling ring in “Operation Porterhouse Parlay” (CBS)

  • FBI, IRS, and CBP raided two Northwest Indiana restaurants — Gino’s Steakhouse in Merrillville and Paragon Restaurant in Hobart — plus a Schererville home Wednesday, arresting 22 people across seven states in a federal gambling and extortion takedown dubbed “Operation Porterhouse Parlay.”

  • The alleged operation ran from 2021 through this week: online betting sites, phone and text wagering, lines of credit for bettors, and collectors who tracked down and physically threatened people who didn’t pay.

  • The three alleged ringleaders — James “Jimmy the Greek” Gerodemos, Dean “Dean Gem” Gialmas, and Chris Gerodemos — owned the restaurants used to collect and launder money; defendants range in age from 21 to over 80.

  • FBI Indianapolis special agent in charge: “This was not the case of harmless casual gambling — this was coercion, intimidation, and financial exploitation.”

• Muscle for NWI gambling ring chased undercover agent at speeds of 100 mph, feds say (NWI Times)

  • Three weeks before the raids, an undercover FBI agent leaving a meeting with “Jimmy the Greek” Gerodemos was tailed by alleged enforcer Michael Campbell — nicknames “Michael Way Out” and “Chuckie Hoffa” — who crossed three lanes of U.S. 30 at the last second to follow the agent onto I-65.

  • Campbell allegedly drove over 100 mph, weaved through traffic, tailgated surveillance vehicles, and illegally activated emergency amber lights on a union-registered truck — the chase lasted over an hour and reached the Lafayette area while Campbell and Gerodemos stayed in constant phone contact.

  • The incident illustrates exactly what prosecutors mean when they say this wasn’t casual gambling — it was an organized operation with dedicated muscle tracking down anyone who got too close.

• Local 81 Donated $5K to Lake Co. Sheriff Candidate (Tom McDermott - Facebook)

  • Previously: Ex-Lake County, Ind., sheriff John Buncich sentenced to 15 years, 8 months in bribery scheme (ABC 7)

  • Indicted Campbell, LiUNA 81 (Father Mike Sr. is fmr. Local 81 biz manager, brother Corey is current biz manager) have deep ties to Congressman Frank Mrvan, State Senator Rodney Pol, Dem Chair Karen Tallian (Corey was appointed Deputy Party Chair for Labor Relations and it is rumored that he’ll be implicated in labor-mob dealings).

HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us

Keil Roark: https://www.keilroark.com/

SUMMARY:

With less than a week to go before Indiana’s May 5th primary, Scott Aaron Rogers sits down one-on-one with Keil Roark, one of four Democrats running in Indiana’s 9th Congressional District. Roark — a former UAW assembly line worker, Navy Reserve officer, and Purdue-trained electrical engineer who has worked at Chrysler, Ford, Cummins, and Rolls-Royce — is running as an explicitly moderate candidate, arguing that his working-class background and ability to appeal across party lines makes him the strongest general election contender in this deep-red district. The conversation covers his personal story and motivation for running, the geography and character of the sprawling 9th District, and a look at his economic priorities: increasing wages, congressional stock trading, healthcare (including his skepticism of Medicare for All and his ACA-plus-prevention alternative), wealth inequality and tax reform, trade and reshoring manufacturing, the threat of automation and AI to workers in both blue- and white-collar fields, and the need for federal oversight of AI data centers. Moderate Roark agrees with progressives on this issue: the economic game has been rigged for too long.

WHAT’S INSIDE:

00:00:23 Introduction and upcoming PIN coverage

- Scott previews PIN’s May 5th primary election night broadcast with Derrick Holder, Brianna Newhart, Carlie Dunn, and Kelly Delong

- Announces Sunday PIN Virtual Town Halls with Dr. Tim Peck

- Find us on social media @hoosleft on Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube; @hoosleft.us on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky; PIN is @progressiveindiananetwork on most social media sites, @PINIndiana on TikTok and BlueSky

00:03:29 Meet Keil Roark: background and biography

- UAW assembly line worker for 8+ years; Navy Reserve officer for 11 years (3 active, 8 reserve)

- Electrical engineer by trade; worked at Chrysler, Ford, Cummins, and Rolls-Royce

- Has taught at Ivy Tech, ITT, and Sullivan; father of four

- Running to serve, not to build a résumé — motivated by financial stress he sees in the community

00:06:04 The 9th District: geography, culture, and Hoosier unity

- The district stretches from Bloomington in the northwest to Clark County near Louisville and Dearborn County near Cincinnati

- Vast rural areas in between — Scott County, Jackson County, Jennings County, Monroe County — with stark cultural differences

- The unifying moment: IU’s 2025 NCAA football championship

00:09:33 Why run? Service, the tax code, and leaving something better behind

- Roark traces a lifelong thread of service: church volunteer work, ESGR work at Camp Atterbury (2007–2010), Navy Reserve

- Flags the $7.25 federal minimum wage and the FICA tax cap (~$180K) as examples of a tax code rigged against working people

- Wants to leave his kids a world with good-paying jobs and real upward mobility

00:16:22 Affordability as the defining issue: union decline and supply chains

- Scott frames the affordability crisis around the concentration of capital; Roark agrees and traces union decline over 50 years

- NAFTA and WTO accelerated outsourcing and gutted union labor

- The CHIPS Act as a rare bipartisan win — bringing semiconductor manufacturing back from Taiwan

- China’s near-monopoly on critical minerals (titanium, etc.) as a parallel supply chain vulnerability

00:22:39 Minimum wage: what we need vs. what we can get

- Federal minimum wage stuck at $7.25 since 2009; Roark says actuarial science puts the right number at $25/hour

- His realistic political target: $15–$18/hour, citing Virginia’s recent $15 passage

- Brief detour into congressional insider trading — Roark supports a No Stock Trade Act and blind trusts for sitting members

00:27:36 Healthcare: ACA reform, prevention, and Medicare for All skepticism

- Roark’s near-term priority: reinstate ACA subsidies, which he says he’d push for on day one

- Proposes adding a preventive care incentive to the ACA — modeled on Japan’s system — offering premium reductions for annual checkups, blood work, dental, exercise

- Not yet sold on Medicare for All: raises concerns about funding, wait times, and specialist access under a universal system

- Scott pushes back: those problems exist now; the real waste, fraud, and abuse is systemic and corporate, not individual

00:37:50 Wealth inequality and tax reform

- Roark calls Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” — cutting Medicaid and SNAP to fund billionaire tax cuts — un-Christian and un-American

- Proposes raising the top income tax rate from ~35% to 45–50% (Scott says that’s not high enough; Roark revises to 55–60%) to account for effective rates billionaires actually pay through borrowing against assets

- Trade reform: supports bringing manufacturing back, criticizes how US consumer spending has effectively subsidized China’s military buildup

00:43:18 Automation, AI, and the future of work

- Scott challenges the “reshore manufacturing” argument: automation means far fewer jobs even if production returns

- Roark’s answer: push workers toward “three-dimensional” skilled trades (electricians, plumbers, millwrights) that robots can’t yet replace, and medical/care jobs (nursing, phlebotomy)

- Supports UBI as a contingency once AI unemployment data warrants it

- Scott extends to the “pink collar” care economy — nurses, home health aides — and argues government must mandate living wages in those fields or face social unrest

00:48:22 AI, the Great Depression, and congressional inaction

- Roark shares his grandfather’s Depression-era stories as a warning about mass unemployment

- Argues Congress is dangerously tech-illiterate; as an electrical engineer he’d push for AI hearings and legislation

- Scott: tech oligarchs have purchased both parties’ silence on automation’s consequences

00:51:49 AI data centers: regulation, transparency, and community value

- Roark calls for AI regulation on labor displacement grounds and on data center siting

- Communities deserve transparency: who’s funding the project, what’s the tax revenue, what’s the value proposition — then let communities vote

- Scott: if they’re built with renewables and closed-loop water systems and actually pay their taxes, maybe; right now they’re just dumping on communities

- Scott mentions Maine’s AI data center moratorium; Roark notes counties are beginning to use moratoriums and state-level abatement controls

00:54:38 Closing: where to find Keil Roark

- Website: keilroark.com

- Accepting last-minute donations and volunteers for sign deployment

- Scott invites Roark back for a general election conversation if he wins the primary

Upcoming Programming

- Sunday, 10:30 a.m.: HoosLeft This Week with guests Fred Miller (songwriter/artist) and Sharon Wight (HD-81 candidate).

- Sunday, 7 p.m.: Final PIN Virtual Town Hall of the primary season with Dr. Tim Peck (IN-9).

- Tuesday, May 5, 7 p.m.: PIN Election Night coverage with Scott, Derrick Holder, Brianna Newhart, Kelly DeLong, Carlie Dunn, and guests.

HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us

Karla Lopez Owens: https://klo4change.com/

SUMMARY:

Karla Lopez Owens joins Scott Aaron Rogers for a wide-ranging conversation about her campaign for Marion County Clerk -- the office overseeing court records, child support, marriage licenses, and, most critically, the Marion County Election Board. An immigrant from Mexico who arrived in the United States at age eight, Karla draws a direct line from her childhood as an interpreter and translator for her family in professional settings to her fifteen years of public service work, most recently as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney and Director of Community Outreach with the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office. She talks about the clerk’s role as a vehicle for a people-first philosophy of government — demystifying bureaucracy, meeting constituents where they are, and breaking down barriers that go well beyond language. The conversation takes a sharp turn into the state of Democratic Party politics in Marion County, with Karla laying out three root causes of the county’s historically low voter turnout: systemic access barriers for transient and marginalized populations, a lack of competitive primary races, and deep voter apathy rooted in a feeling of abandonment by party leadership. She speaks candidly about Marion County Party Chair Myla Eldridge’s mass challenge of dozens of progressive delegate and precinct committee candidacies in early 2026, calling the hearing “traumatizing and demoralizing.” Scott and Karla close on the mechanics of civic power-building: why voting in the Democratic primary is a prerequisite for running for office, and how overwhelming people power is the only path to reforming a party establishment that controls resources and access.

WHAT’S INSIDE:

00:00:22 Introduction and Housekeeping

- Scott introduces the show one week out from the May 5, 2026 Indiana primary.

00:04:44 Meet Karla Lopez Owens

- Karla arrived in the U.S. from Mexico at age eight with her family, who were searching for work.

- Her mother worked at a turkey factory in North Carolina before relocating to Indianapolis to work as a housekeeper after a call from a relative.

- Karla and her sisters grew up serving as interpreters and translators for their family in professional settings -- doctors’ offices, attorneys’ offices, schools.

- She describes this bridging role as her introduction to public service, and notes the mix of welcoming and unwelcoming experiences that shaped her drive to make government more accessible.

00:07:54 Citizenship, Civic Engagement, and the Decision to Run

- Karla became a U.S. citizen at 18 through a family-based petition and registered to vote immediately.

- She frames running for clerk as a continuation of fifteen years of public service -- including five and a half years at the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office and five years as voter education chair for the Indiana Latino Democratic Caucus.

- She recently served as president of the Indiana Latino Democratic Caucus; new leadership was elected the same day as this interview.

- The clerk’s office is, in her view, the ideal vehicle to scale the people-first work she’s already doing.

00:10:47 The Scale of the Job: Marion County Clerk vs. Congress

- Marion County is Indiana’s most populous and most diverse county; a countywide elected official represents more constituents than any member of Congress.

- In the November 2024 general election -- one of the most consequential in modern history -- Marion County had the second lowest voter turnout in the state.

- Karla calls that result “unforgivable” and sees reversing it as central to her candidacy.

- Lake County and Marion County together could be driving statewide Democratic performance if organized properly.

00:14:28 What the Marion County Clerk Actually Does

- The clerk’s office is among the most public-facing in county government: it is the official record keeper for court records, handles filings to initiate legal proceedings, manages child support payments, issues marriage licenses, and oversees other administrative procedures.

- The clerk also serves as secretary to the Marion County Election Board, which oversees all countywide elections and trains and equips poll workers.

- Karla emphasizes the office’s dual role: administrative record-keeping and the election infrastructure that determines who participates in democracy.

00:16:44 People-First: Ideas for Improving the Office

- Karla resists framing the clerk’s role as purely administrative -- she sees significant leeway to change culture, outreach posture, and accessibility.

- Her model comes from her circuit court work overseeing hardship license cases, where she often acts more like a social worker than a prosecutor -- guiding pro se litigants step by step through processes they don’t understand.

- She advocates for meeting people in the community with information, not just waiting for them to come to the office.

- Visibility and consistency matter: public servants who show up, stay, and actually listen rather than making brief appearances.

00:22:00 Redefining Accessibility

- Accessibility goes beyond language and disability accommodations -- it encompasses the economic realities of poverty.

- Many court users don’t have credit cards, bank accounts, smartphones, or access to ride-share; they can’t use a parking app or pay a fee online.

- Karla describes writing out step-by-step instructions for court users with low literacy as a routine part of her current job.

- Potential solutions she raises: more bus passes, stronger inter-agency relationships, expanded community advocates.

00:25:13 Government as Public Good

- Scott frames the exchange in terms of the Democratic philosophy of government as a service that belongs to the people -- not an alien, intimidating institution.

- Karla agrees that demystifying the processes and making the clerk’s office a known, trusted resource is foundational to everything else.

- The conversation pivots toward Marion County’s voter turnout problem and what a people-first clerk can do about it.

00:27:07 Why Marion County Voter Turnout Is So Low

- Karla identifies three categories of causes from research she’s read: structural access barriers, lack of competitive races, and voter apathy.

- Structural barriers hit transient populations hardest -- renters, students, people who move frequently and lose track of registration; Karla relates this to her own childhood, attending a new school every year until North Central High School.

- The lack of competitive primary races removes a reason to participate; if nothing is contested, there’s nothing to vote for.

- Apathy is the result of people feeling abandoned and alienated by systems designed to serve a select few -- not a personal failing of individual voters.

00:30:35 How to Reverse It

- The fix requires consistent, meaningful outreach at the community level -- apartment complexes, soccer clinics, wherever people actually are -- not token appearances.

- Education on rights and processes is the second lever: people who know what’s available are more likely to engage.

- Karla flags the practical requirement many don’t know: to run for any party or elected position in Indiana, you must have voted in a Democratic primary. She calls this information the establishment “doesn’t want you to know.”

- She acknowledges the party’s selective enforcement of rules and the exceptions that are quietly made for favored candidates.

00:34:31 The Democratic Party Is Also the Problem

- Karla turns the criticism inward: it’s not just Republican voter suppression that drives down turnout, it’s the behavior of the Democratic establishment itself.

- She pivots to February 2026, when Marion County Party Chair Myla Eldridge filed dozens of challenges against progressive candidates for precinct committee person and Indiana state delegate.

- The hearing before the Marion County Election Board -- where then-clerk Kate Sweeney Bell served as adjudicator -- was “traumatizing and demoralizing” for the challengers.

- Notices went out on a Friday at 5 p.m. before a holiday weekend with a wrong email address; Karla had to reassure participants they weren’t being sued.

00:40:01 The Pattern: Eldridge, Bell, and the 2022 Precedent

- Karla notes that Bell and Eldridge have swapped the clerk and party chair roles, creating a continuous power structure across cycles.

- She watched back hearings from previous election cycles and found eerily similar patterns of targeted challenges.

- Her critique isn’t with rules per se -- as an attorney she respects procedural law -- but with the systemic barriers the establishment creates while invoking rules selectively.

- Emails go unanswered, calls go ignored, and discretion is exercised only when it serves those in power.

00:42:19 Safe Seats, Both Parties Ratchet Right

- Scott lays out his critique of safe-seat politics: the conventional wisdom says safe Democratic seats produce more progressive officeholders, but he argues the opposite is true.

- Money captures safe seats regardless of party; in blue districts, the result is Democrats who work for developers and real estate interests, govern as centrists, and actively resist new entrants from marginalized communities.

- Karla agrees it’s a reflection of current Democratic Party leadership and frames it as the reason for the low-turnout doom loop: a corrupt establishment demotivates the voters it needs.

- The solution is organized people power -- replacing those who hold a stranglehold on the party structure with new leadership built from the ground up.

00:44:50 Why Voting in the Primary Is the Key

- Karla returns to the practical ask: even if you’re disillusioned, voting in the primary preserves your right to run for office in Indiana.

- Pulling a Democratic primary ticket is a prerequisite for running as precinct committee person, state delegate, city-county council, state representative, or state senate -- you cannot access the ballot without it.

- She calls this the rule the establishment weaponizes while quietly making exceptions; getting that information into communities is part of her platform.

- The 2026 primary saw an unprecedented surge of people wanting to be involved as precinct committee persons and state delegates -- exactly the wave Karla wants to channel.

00:49:04 People Power Over Establishment Resources

- Resources in party politics flow through the establishment; outsiders have to kiss the ring to access them, which means compromising their platform.

- The only alternative is resourcefulness and coalition-building from the ground up.

- Karla identifies herself as a socialist democrat and progressive democrat who wants to work with the party -- but will work to replace leadership that won’t engage honestly.

- She expresses genuine optimism: there’s energy, enthusiasm, and ganas (will) to build something new if people channel it into concrete civic action.

00:53:19 Cross-Party Support and the Case for Competition

- Karla notes she has received commitments from Republicans who’ve seen her work and believe in her vision of local government that serves everyone.

- First-time voters, young voters, and new citizens are among those newly engaged and at stake in this election cycle.

- She embraces primary competition as healthy; if you can stand on your record, you should welcome a challenge.

- Karla is on the ballot three times in her east-side Irvington neighborhood: for clerk, precinct committee person, and Indiana state delegate.

00:54:22 How to Get Involved

- Website: klo4change.com

- Email: karla@klo4change.com

- Instagram: @Kowens - official campaign account

- Substack: forthcoming post summarizing her platform and the campaign’s work

- Campaign needs: phone banking, canvassing, and poll workers on Election Day more than money at this stage

- Karla thanks her volunteers and closes with a commitment to continue the work regardless of the outcome.

00:57:47 Outro and Upcoming Programming

- Election Day is May 5, 2026; early voting is currently open.

- Thursday, 7 p.m.: HoosLeft interview with Keil Roark (IN-9 congressional candidate).

- Sunday, 10:30 a.m.: HoosLeft This Week with guests Fred Miller (songwriter/artist) and Sharon Wight (HD-81 candidate).

- Sunday, 7 p.m.: Final PIN Virtual Town Hall of the primary season with Dr. Tim Peck (IN-9).

- Tuesday, May 5, 7 p.m.: PIN Election Night coverage with Scott, Derrick Holder, Brianna Newhart, Kelly DeLong, Carlie Dunn, and guests.

- Subscribe at progressiveindiana.net; follow PIN and HoosLeft across social platforms.

HoosLeft This Week opens with late-breaking news from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting before turning to a packed week in national and international news: the Iran war enters its third month with twin blockades strangling global oil markets, Trump fires another cabinet secretary and the Kash Patel drinking story drops, the Roberts Court’s shadow docket origins are exposed, Congress loses more members to scandal and death, and the Epstein pardon question heats up. In the second hour, Nick Marshall joins to cover Indiana: data center regulation battles in Marion County and Clark/Floyd Counties, ICE’s expanding footprint in Indianapolis, the Kleinhelter sheriff scandal and a DCS patronage deal in Dubois County, a Medicaid provider clawback fight, the Indiana Supreme Court taking up the RFRA challenge to the abortion ban, Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith’s war on a high school percussion ensemble, the Diego Morales Secretary of State fiasco, and the Seventh Circuit’s last-minute reinstatement of Indiana’s student ID voting ban.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00:00:34 Welcome

00:02:45 Guest Introductions

00:04:00 WHCD Shooting

00:05:08 Iran: War Update and Strait of Hormuz

00:12:49 Iran: Economic Fallout

00:18:28 Latin America Operations

00:23:42 Cabinet Turnover, Kash Patel, and SPLC Indictment

00:29:02 Drug Policy

00:32:37 Supreme Court Ethics

00:37:25 Congressional Misconduct and Turnover

00:43:25 Epstein Files and Maxwell Pardon

00:47:21 Virginia Redistricting

00:52:13 Palantir and Technofascism

00:57:13 Destiny Wells Sign-Off

00:59:54 The Crossroads: Data Centers

01:14:33 ICE Expansion in Indiana

01:23:02 Corruption: Kleinhelter and DCS/Krupp

01:32:49 Healthcare: Medicaid Clawbacks and Abortion

01:41:47 Beckwith

01:49:20 Elections: Morales, Student IDs, and Secretary of State Race

01:54:50 Closer: Melania’s Beehive

01:55:33 Guest Promos and Outro

01:58:42 Sign-Off

IN DEPTH:

• War in the Middle East

  • Trump threatens to knock out ‘every single power plant’ and ‘every single bridge’ in Iran (Yahoo! News)

    • Trump declared “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!” Sunday before threatening to destroy every power plant and bridge in Iran if Tehran walks away from a nuclear deal

    • Witkoff and Kushner were due to head to Islamabad Monday for a second round of talks, but Iran’s lead negotiator says a deal is “far from final” and any agreement must move “step-by-step” with reciprocal actions — a direct rejection of Trump’s ultimatum approach.

    • The ceasefire is already fraying: Iranian gunboats fired on tankers in the strait over the weekend, Iran closed the waterway again, and U.S. Marines seized an Iranian cargo ship — all while Trump was claiming a deal was imminent.

    • The economic stakes are staggering: 20% of the world’s oil normally flows through the strait, an estimated 10% of global supply has been knocked out, over 80 energy facilities are damaged, and Iran is losing an estimated $435-500 million per day from the blockade.

  • As tensions escalate in the Strait of Hormuz, US and Iran both fire at ships (ABC)

    • The Strait of Hormuz is locked down Monday after a weekend of escalating violence: Iran fired on two Indian-flagged tankers that had been given clearance to pass, and U.S. Marines seized an Iranian cargo ship after disabling it with fire from a guided-missile destroyer.

    • Iran has pulled out of the next round of peace talks in Pakistan and the ceasefire expires Wednesday — with Trump warning Sunday that if no deal is reached, “the whole country is going to get blown up.”

    • 20,000 seafarers are stranded in the Persian Gulf, rationing food and water, unable to leave through the only exit — one crew member told ABC News “we feel like we are in a prison.”

    • The gap between diplomacy and reality has rarely been wider: Trump was claiming a deal was “a day or two away” as Iranian forces were firing on ships they had just cleared to pass.

  • Trump says the US will extend its ceasefire with Iran at Pakistan’s request (AP)

    • Trump announced an indefinite ceasefire extension with Iran Tuesday — a day before it was set to expire — though the U.S. naval blockade continues and Iran has not confirmed it will return to the negotiating table.

    • Iran’s condition for rejoining talks is the same it’s been: end the blockade; Tehran’s UN ambassador said Iran has “received some sign” the U.S. might be ready to do so, but nothing is confirmed.

    • Both sides remain dug in: Trump warned of “lots of bombs” without a deal, while an IRGC general threatened to destroy the entire Middle East oil industry if war resumes — and Iran’s chief negotiator said Tehran has “new cards on the battlefield” not yet played.

    • Even has Trump announced an extension of the ceasefire, he continued issuing combative, blustering statements on Truth Social.

  • Exclusive: US intercepts three Iranian oil tankers in Asian waters, sources say (Reuters)

    • The U.S. has intercepted at least three Iranian supertankers in Asian waters — off the coasts of Malaysia, India, and Sri Lanka — redirecting them as part of the naval blockade, which has now turned back or redirected 29 vessels total.

    • The scale of oil being blocked is significant: the three named tankers alone were carrying roughly 4.65 million barrels of crude, including the fully loaded Dorena now under U.S. Navy destroyer escort in the Indian Ocean.

    • Iran responded Wednesday with its first ship seizures since the war began, capturing two container ships attempting to exit the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz after firing on them and a third vessel.

    • The Strait remains at a near standstill nearly two months into the war, with the U.S. deliberately targeting Iranian ships in open ocean rather than the strait itself to avoid floating mines during interception operations.

  • Trump claims US has total control over strait of Hormuz after Iran seizes two container ships (Guardian)

    • Trump claimed Thursday he has “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz — the same day Iran seized two container ships by commando boarding and the Pentagon privately warned Congress it could take up to six months to clear mines from the strait.

    • The mines are the buried lede: approximately 20 are believed planted, some remotely maneuvered making them harder to locate, meaning the economic damage could outlast any peace deal by half a year.

    • Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei — who replaced his father, killed in the February 28 opening strike — has had three leg surgeries, hand surgery, and severe facial burns that make it difficult to speak, while the IRGC has filled the resulting power vacuum with a more hawkish collective leadership.

    • Trump said he’s in no rush for a deal and wants one that’s “everlasting” — while oil sits at $100 a barrel, Iran refuses to return to talks, and the IEA chief called this “the biggest energy security threat in history.”

  • Israel-Lebanon ceasefire extended by three weeks, Trump says (Axios)

    • At an Oval Office meeting with both ambassadors — a meeting that started as a State Department session with Rubio and was upgraded to a White House summit three hours before it began.

    • The extension serves two purposes: advancing direct Israel-Lebanon peace talks and preventing renewed Lebanese fighting from blowing up the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire, which Iran claims Israeli strikes in Lebanon are already violating.

    • The gap between Trump’s optimism and Lebanese reality is wide: Lebanese officials say a trilateral Netanyahu-Aoun-Trump summit is unlikely while Israel occupies 6% of Lebanese territory and continues strikes — and Trump appeared genuinely surprised to learn Lebanese law bars contact with Israel, then asked Rubio to get it cancelled.

    • Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli villages shortly before the meeting began, the IDF struck back, and Trump told reporters Israel can defend itself during the ceasefire as long as it does so “carefully” — a formulation that leaves the ceasefire’s durability entirely to interpretation.

  • Kushner, Witkoff — not Vance — heading to Pakistan for ‘direct talks’ with Iran, White House says (CNBC)

    • Witkoff and Kushner head to Islamabad Saturday after Iran reached out requesting direct talks — a diplomatic restart after negotiations appeared dead earlier this week when Iran refused to show up for a planned second round.

    • The White House is downgrading the delegation’s profile from Vance to Kushner and Witkoff, framing it as a preliminary listening session — “go hear what they have to say” — before deciding whether to send heavier hitters.

    • Pete Hegseth declared “Operation Epic Fury” a decisive success Friday, conveniently omitting that the administration originally promised the war would conclude in four to six weeks and has since quietly abandoned that timeline.

    • Trump told Reuters Iran will be “making an offer” but said he doesn’t know what it is yet — a statement that suggests the U.S. is going into Saturday’s talks without knowing Iran’s bottom line, nearly two months into a war that has shaken global energy markets.

  • Iran says no meeting with U.S. negotiators planned in Pakistan (CNBC)

    • Iran stood up Witkoff and Kushner — the White House announced Friday that Iran had reached out requesting direct talks in Islamabad, dispatched the delegation Saturday morning, and Iran then said no meeting was planned and flew its delegation out of the country.

    • The economic pressure is escalating in parallel: Treasury Secretary Bessent said the Russian oil waiver won’t be renewed, Iran’s oil waiver at sea is dead, and the U.S. sanctioned a major Chinese “teapot” refinery for buying billions in Iranian crude — squeezing Tehran’s remaining revenue streams.

    • Bessent warned Iran may have to start “shuttering production” within two to three days as the blockade tightens — damage to oil wells from forced shutdown could be long-term and irreversible, adding a new dimension of economic devastation beyond the immediate crisis.

    • The administration that promised a four-to-six week operation is now rebranding a two-month war with no deal in sight as “decisive” — while Iran won’t show up to talks and the ceasefire holds only because Trump keeps unilaterally extending it.

• Bailouts

  • U.A.E. Asks U.S. About a Wartime Financial Lifeline (WSJ)

    • The UAE is quietly asking Washington for a currency swap line — a financial lifeline — as the Iran war drains its dollar reserves, shuts off its oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, and spooks investors who once viewed it as a stable haven.

    • The Emiratis delivered an implicit threat: if they run short of dollars, they may be forced to conduct oil sales in Chinese yuan — a direct shot at the dollar’s global reserve currency status that Trump’s war has now put at risk.

    • The UAE has $270 billion in foreign reserves and its dirham is pegged to the dollar, but Iran fired over 2,800 drones and missiles at the country before the ceasefire — and Saudi Arabia’s finance minister warned that even a full end to hostilities won’t produce a quick recovery, with tanker logistics alone potentially taking until end of June to normalize.

    • The bottom line: Trump’s war is now threatening to accelerate the very de-dollarization of global oil markets that U.S. foreign policy has spent decades trying to prevent.

  • White House mulls using Defense Production Act in Spirit Airlines takeover (CBS)

    • The Trump administration is exploring using the Defense Production Act to bail out Spirit Airlines, which missed an interest payment this week and may have only days left to operate — the airline’s attorney warned it could collapse imminently unless it gains access to $250 million in cash currently frozen by creditors.

    • The proposed deal would have the federal government lend Spirit $500 million, become its senior creditor, use the airline’s excess capacity for military transport, and ultimately own 90% of the company before selling it to another carrier.

    • The bailout is creating a cabinet rift: Commerce Secretary Lutnick is pushing for it, while Transportation Secretary Duffy argues it would only delay an inevitable collapse and create a political headache.

    • The Iran war’s jet fuel crisis is the proximate cause of Spirit’s final spiral — a low-cost carrier with razor-thin margins and no cushion for a 30%-plus spike in fuel costs is exactly the kind of company that doesn’t survive an energy shock of this magnitude.

  • Indiana governor ‘likely’ to extend gas tax break (ICC)

    • Gov. Braun says he’ll likely extend Indiana’s 30-day gas sales tax suspension for another 30 days, citing the unresolved Iran war — though gas prices have already fallen from $4.14 to $3.69 since the suspension began.

    • If he doesn’t extend, the sales tax rate jumps from 17.2 cents to 23.3 cents per gallon in May — and after a second extension, Braun would need legislative approval to go further, which he says would likely require a special session he doubts will happen.

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• Latin America

  • U.S. soldier who won $400K betting on Maduro’s capture charged with using classified information (Yahoo! News)

    • A U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant who participated in the January 3 capture of Nicolas Maduro has been charged with betting $33,000 on Polymarket using classified knowledge of the operation — and walking away with $409,881 in profit.

    • Master Sgt. Gannon Van Dyke then tried to cover his tracks by asking Polymarket to delete his account, changing his crypto exchange email to an unregistered address, and routing proceeds through a foreign cryptocurrency vault — before a photo surfaced of him on what appears to be the deck of a ship in military fatigues on the day of the raid.

    • Trump compared Van Dyke to Pete Rose betting on his own team — “that’s not so bad” — before lamenting prediction markets generally, a remarkable stance given that Trump’s own Truth Social has a prediction market partnership and Donald Trump Jr. holds a financial stake in Polymarket and advises Kalshi.

    • The case is part of a broader prediction market reckoning: the White House has already warned staffers against betting on the Iran war with insider knowledge, and congressional candidates were fined this week for wagering on their own elections.

  • In visit to Havana, State Department warned Cuba it ‘has a small window to make a deal’ (Miami Herald)

    • Senior State Department officials made the first U.S. visit to Havana since the Obama administration on April 10, delivering a blunt message: release political prisoners, implement economic reforms, and do it fast — “they have a small window.”

    • The U.S. offer included free Starlink internet access and compensation discussions for the $9 billion in properties confiscated after Castro took power — carrots alongside the stick.

    • Cuba’s priority was the opposite: ending what it called the U.S. “energy blockade” that cut off Venezuelan and Mexican oil supplies, leaving the island in an accelerating economic crisis.

    • The diplomatic talks are happening under a surveillance drone and Trump’s threat that he could “take Cuba” at any moment — Cuba’s government responded Friday that it “will never be a trophy, nor another star in the American constellation.”

  • US military kills two more people in strike on alleged drug boat in Pacific (Guardian)

    • The U.S. military killed two more people Friday in a strike on a small boat in the eastern Pacific, part of a campaign that has now killed at least 178 people since last September — with the military posting videos of the explosions to social media while providing no detailed evidence the targeted vessels were actually involved in drug trafficking.

    • Legal experts, the ACLU, and UN officials say the strikes violate both domestic and international law; families of two men from Trinidad killed in a strike have sued the government, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has been asked to investigate — while Trump has called the campaign “an act of kindness.”

  • Sheinbaum Warns of Sanctions After 2 U.S. Officials Die in Chihuahua, Says “There Is No Permission” for U.S. Operations (IB Times)

    • Two U.S. Embassy officials and two Mexican state officials were killed in a crash following an anti-cartel operation targeting drug labs in Chihuahua — and Mexican President Sheinbaum says she had no knowledge U.S. personnel were involved.

    • Sheinbaum drew a hard line: “There is no permission for foreign agents to participate in operations in our country,” and has opened a formal investigation into whether Mexican sovereignty was violated.

    • The deeper threat to Sheinbaum isn’t the crash — it’s the implication that Chihuahua state authorities may have been running a parallel security channel with U.S. agencies, bypassing federal oversight entirely.

    • The incident lands at the worst possible moment: Trump has been pushing for expanded U.S. operational involvement against cartels in Mexico, and this episode hands him both a precedent and a pressure point.

• Trump’s Crash-out Cabinet

  • Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is leaving Trump’s Cabinet after abuse of power allegations (AP)

    • Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is out, becoming the third Trump Cabinet member fired in weeks — following Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi — amid allegations of an affair with a subordinate, drinking on the job, and using staff to run personal errands for her family.

    • At least four Labor Department officials were already forced out as the investigation progressed, including her chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, and the security detail member she allegedly had the affair with.

    • Chavez-DeRemer had been the rare Republican with genuine union support — the Teamsters backed her — but during her tenure the department rolled back over 60 workplace regulations, including minimum wage protections for home health care workers, mine safety rules, construction site lighting requirements, and seat belt requirements for farm workers.

    • The administration also canceled millions in grants that had helped reduce the number of child laborers worldwide by 78 million over two decades — all while Chavez-DeRemer’s farewell statement claimed she never stopped fighting for American workers.

  • Trump’s navy secretary ousted over dispute about shipbuilding (Guardian)

    • Trump fired Navy Secretary John Phelan Wednesday — not over the Iran war, but over slow shipbuilding reforms, a deteriorating relationship with Hegseth and deputy defense secretary Steve Feinberg, and an ongoing ethics investigation into his office.

    • Feinberg appears to be the real winner: he moved to strip Phelan of authority over major shipbuilding programs before the firing, and sources say he has now consolidated control over navy acquisition and shipbuilding.

    • Phelan’s replacement is Hung Cao — a Vietnamese refugee, former Navy officer, and 2024 Virginia Senate candidate who lost to Tim Kaine — who more closely aligned with Hegseth’s cultural agenda and is now acting Navy secretary.

    • Phelan’s departure is the fifth high-ranking official out since the Iran war began, with GOP senators privately warning Lutnick, Gabbard, and Patel are next; one Republican senator summarized Trump’s mood as “he’s preparing to really let a lot of them go.”

  • …or at least that’s their story (Irish Star)

    • According to Fox News, the real reason Hegseth fired Navy Secretary Phelan was that Phelan refused to ignore a federal court order blocking Hegseth’s attempt to demote Senator Mark Kelly — a retired Navy captain whom Hegseth tried to punish for urging service members to refuse illegal orders.

    • The judge’s ruling found Hegseth had “trampled on Senator Kelly’s First Amendment freedoms” and unconstitutionally retaliated against him — meaning Phelan was fired for complying with the Constitution, while Hegseth continues running the Pentagon.

  • The FBI Director Is MIA (Atlantic)

    • Kash Patel had a full “freak-out” on April 10, frantically calling aides and members of Congress to announce he’d been fired — because he couldn’t log into a computer system; it was a technical glitch, and he was never fired.

    • Multiple current and former officials describe Patel’s drinking as a recurring national security concern: security detail members have had difficulty waking him, breaching equipment was requested to get through a locked door, and early-tenure meetings had to be rescheduled around his alcohol-fueled nights.

    • Days before the U.S. launched its war with Iran, Patel fired members of the FBI’s Iran counterintelligence squad — officials say the timing left the country dangerously shorthanded at the worst possible moment.

    • Patel has weaponized the bureau against Trump’s enemies while hollowing out its institutional capacity: agents are polygraphed to identify critics of Patel or Trump, experienced staff are being purged or quitting, and the turnover has left the FBI’s counterterrorism muscle memory — one former official’s phrase — dangerously depleted.

    • The portrait that emerges is of a director who is erratic, frequently absent, and obsessed with loyalty and merchandise aesthetics while the country is at war — “we don’t have a real functioning FBI director,” one official said.

  • FBI Director Kash Patel sues The Atlantic for article that alleged excessive drinking (PBS)

    • Kash Patel sued The Atlantic for $250 million Monday over its reporting on his alleged excessive drinking and erratic management of the FBI — the magazine said it stood by its reporting and would vigorously defend the “meritless lawsuit.”

    • Patel is following Trump’s established playbook of using defamation suits as a press suppression tool — a strategy with a mixed record: Trump’s WSJ and NYT suits were both dismissed, though CBS and ABC settled before trial.

    • The lawsuit’s claim that The Atlantic’s failure to give Patel more response time constitutes “actual malice” is a legal stretch — actual malice requires knowingly publishing falsehoods, not tight deadlines.

    • The Atlantic’s reporting was sourced from more than two dozen people; Patel’s FBI has been polygraphing employees to identify anyone who speaks critically of him — making the sourcing conditions for this kind of story unusually hostile and the reporters’ work unusually significant.

  • Southern Poverty Law Center indicted on federal fraud charges (NPR)

    • The Trump DOJ indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center Tuesday on wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering charges, alleging it secretly paid over $3 million to informants inside white supremacist groups without disclosing the program to donors.

    • The SPLC says the program — which dated to the 1980s and was shared with law enforcement — saved lives; acting AG Todd Blanche says it “manufactured the extremism it purports to oppose,” a characterization the SPLC vigorously disputes.

    • The indictment lands in a context that strains credulity: the same DOJ that fired prosecutors for insufficient evidence against Trump’s enemies, installed unlawfully appointed loyalists, and has explicitly targeted left-wing organizations is now prosecuting the country’s most prominent hate group tracker.

    • The SPLC has been a Republican target for years — the FBI severed ties with them under Kash Patel, House Republicans held hearings attacking them, and the indictment follows the organization’s documentation of Turning Point USA in its annual hate and extremism report shortly before Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

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• Drugs

  • Trump signs order fast tracking review of psychedelics for mental health disorders (NPR)

    • Trump signed an executive order directing $50 million toward psychedelic-assisted mental health treatment and ordering the FDA to fast-track review of psilocybin and ibogaine — both currently Schedule I drugs — marking the first time the FDA has offered to expedite any psychedelics.

    • The policy was apparently set in motion by a text from Joe Rogan to Trump about ibogaine, to which Trump replied “Sounds great. Do you want FDA approval? Let’s do it.” — Rogan and former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell were both present at the signing ceremony.

    • The science behind the order is more substantive than the celebrity optics suggest: a 2025 JAMA study found a single LSD dose eased anxiety and depression for months, VA trials of psychedelics for PTSD are underway in multiple states, and psilocybin has shown promise for smoking cessation.

    • The FDA will issue national priority vouchers to three psychedelics next week, potentially enabling approval in weeks — a dramatic acceleration for drugs that have been federally banned since recreational use ended government research in the 1960s.

  • Trump moves to reschedule marijuana (Politico)

    • The Trump DOJ moved FDA-approved and state-approved medical marijuana products from Schedule I to Schedule III Thursday, the most consequential federal marijuana policy shift in decades — and scheduled a June 29 hearing to expedite broader rescheduling.

    • The change doesn’t legalize marijuana federally, but gives cannabis companies significant tax relief and lends new legitimacy to medical marijuana programs in over 40 states.

    • The fingerprints of industry money are all over it: Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers, who gave $750,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee, helped persuade Trump to include reclassification in his December executive order, and a billionaire cannabis advocate who is a personal friend of Trump’s also shaped the policy.

    • Republicans are already pushing back — Sen. Tom Cotton called it “a step in the wrong direction” — while critics warn the administration is building another tobacco industry, with the cannabis industry rejoicing while patients remain an afterthought.

• Courts

  • John Roberts’s About-Face on Supreme Court Activism (Jacobin)

    • The New York Times unearthed internal memos showing Chief Justice John Roberts used the Supreme Court’s shadow docket to unilaterally block Obama’s Clean Power Plan — intervening without oral argument, without factual review, and with an explicitly prejudged outcome, according to the column’s account of the Times reporting.

    • The memos reveal Roberts did this as the same man who spent his early career crusading against judicial activism, provided Reagan’s DOJ with anti-activist talking points, and promised senators at his confirmation hearing he would merely “call balls and strikes.”

    • The specific target of Roberts’ intervention was EPA climate regulation — he apparently objected to a single blog post and declared that reducing coal emissions would cause “irreparable harm.”

    • Sirota’s bottom line: John Roberts became the exact bogeyman John Roberts warned America about, and 79 senators — including many Democrats — confirmed him anyway.

  • The Chief Justice and His Wife Took $20 Million From Firms He Rules On (Existentialist Republic)

    • A whistleblower complaint filed with congressional judiciary committees in 2022 documented that Jane Sullivan Roberts earned $10.3 million in commissions over seven years from law firms that argued cases before her husband’s court — income Roberts mischaracterized as “salary” on federal disclosure forms for sixteen consecutive years before quietly correcting it in 2023.

    • Federal law requires recusal when a spouse has a financial interest that could be substantially affected by a case’s outcome — Roberts did not recuse from more than 500 cases argued by the law firms paying his household in commissions.

    • Roberts’ response to the ethics crisis was to architect the Court’s first formal ethics code in 2023 — with no enforcement mechanism, no body to receive complaints, and no authority to impose sanctions, which the Brennan Center called designed to fail.

    • The piece’s bottom line: Thomas took gifts, Alito took flights, and Roberts mislabeled law firm money on federal forms for sixteen years — but has successfully maintained his reputation as the Court’s institutional grown-up while committing the most systematic and documented financial misconduct of the three.

• Congress

  • Some Democrats regret voting to expel George Santos (Axios)

    • Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned Tuesday moments before the Ethics Committee was set to recommend sanctions, having been found guilty of funneling $5 million in misallocated COVID funds to her own campaign — she’s also under criminal indictment and denied wrongdoing to the end.

    • Her resignation has triggered unexpected buyer’s remorse among Democrats over the 2023 Santos expulsion, with multiple members now saying they regret voting to remove him before he was convicted — Santos later pleaded guilty and got 87 months, then was pardoned by Trump.

    • The due process debate now centers on Cory Mills: Mace is forcing an expulsion vote next week, but even some Democrats say they won’t move against him while the Ethics Committee investigation is still open.

    • The precedent problem cuts both ways — some Democrats say the standard has to apply equally to both parties, while others say Congress shouldn’t be in the business of expelling members ahead of courts, judges, and juries.

  • Democratic Congressman, 80, Dies in Office After Announcing Reelection (TNR)

    • Democratic Rep. David Scott of Georgia has died at 80, becoming the fourth Democratic House member to pass away since Trump took office — all over 70, all from safe Democratic districts.

    • Scott had been planning to run for a 13th term despite visible cognitive decline: a primary opponent discovered through public records that he hadn’t voted in six consecutive elections including 2024, colleagues told Politico he struggled with detailed conversations and relied on scripts, and a rambling House floor speech about tariffs ended with his microphone being cut off.

    • His death raises the same uncomfortable question his planned candidacy already had: at what point does the Democratic Party address the pattern of elderly members in safe seats holding on well past the point of effective representation?

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• Epstein

  • DOJ inspector general to review compliance with Epstein Files Transparency Act (MaddowBlog)

    • The DOJ’s internal watchdog announced it is auditing the department’s compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, after months of congressional complaints that the DOJ has withheld documents the law requires to be released.

    • Acting AG Todd Blanche told Fox News just 12 days into his tenure that the DOJ has released everything and is “not sitting on a single piece of paper” — a claim Democrats and survivors have disputed and the Inspector General is now formally examining.

    • The audit will evaluate the DOJ’s processes for identifying, redacting, and releasing Epstein records — with a public report promised when complete, meaning the scrutiny isn’t going away before the midterms.

    • The investigation adds to a growing pile of Epstein-related pressure on the administration: Pam Bondi dodged her congressional subpoena, the Oversight Committee is split over a Maxwell pardon, and the UK has arrested Prince Andrew and Peter Mandelson — all while the White House is visibly desperate to make the story go away.

  • Oversight members split over whether to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, committee chair says (Politico)

    • The House Oversight Committee is split on whether to support pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for her testimony in the Epstein investigation — chair James Comer called it a bad look and said Maxwell is “the worst person in this whole investigation” other than Epstein himself.

    • Maxwell has invoked the Fifth Amendment and her lawyer says she’ll only talk if Trump grants clemency — and that lawyer believes a pardon is likely, noting she was quietly moved to a minimum security facility after a two-day DOJ interview in which she told Todd Blanche she never saw Trump engage in impropriety with Epstein.

    • The conflict of interest is glaring: Trump is the only person who can grant Maxwell clemency, Maxwell’s DOJ interview was specifically designed to clear Trump, and the investigation is being conducted by a committee that answers to a Republican majority with no apparent appetite to implicate their president.

    • Democrats unanimously oppose a pardon, with ranking member Garcia calling it “a massive cover up” and “a huge slap in the face to survivors” — and calling for an investigation into why Maxwell’s prison conditions improved after her Blanche interview.

    • The investigation is gaining urgency alongside the UK’s arrest of Prince Andrew and former Ambassador Peter Mandelson for crimes related to their Epstein associations — pressure that makes the question of Maxwell’s cooperation increasingly central.

• Virginia Redistricting

  • Virginia votes to redraw congressional maps, favoring Democrats (VPM)

    • Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday bypassing the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission, triggering maps that would give Democrats 10 of Virginia’s 11 congressional seats — a net swing of roughly four seats heading into the midterms.

    • The vote is part of an escalating national tit-for-tat: Trump pushed Texas to redraw maps for GOP advantage, California Democrats responded by flipping five seats blue, and Missouri and North Carolina drew new Republican-favoring districts — Virginia is the latest move on the board.

    • The campaign shattered Virginia records at $85 million spent — with the pro-redistricting side outspending opponents three-to-one, fueled largely by dark money from national figures on both sides.

    • The result may not stand: multiple Republican lawsuits were deliberately punted by courts until after the referendum, and the Virginia Supreme Court is now expected to rule on legal challenges that could nullify the outcome entirely.

  • Republican proposes giving Democratic-leaning part of Virginia back to DC after redistricting vote (AP)

    • Republicans responded to Virginia’s redistricting referendum by introducing the “Make DC Square Again Act,” which would reverse the 1847 retrocession that returned Alexandria and Arlington to Virginia — stripping roughly 400,000 heavily Democratic voters from the state and dulling the new maps’ partisan advantage.

    • The historical justification is thin and the political motivation is transparent: Alexandria and Arlington voted 77% for Harris in 2024, and a University of Maryland historian called the bill “not even a retrocession bill — it’s really a Virginia voter suppression bill.”

    • A separate pathway being floated is a Trump executive order declaring the original retrocession unconstitutional, which would eventually force a Supreme Court ruling — conveniently landing before a court Republicans have spent decades packing.

    • The bill’s prospects in Congress are slim, but it signals the escalating national tit-for-tat over redistricting heading into the midterms, where every seat counts in a razor-thin House majority.

• Tech

  • Palantir’s summary of CEO Alexander Karp’s manifesto is generating buzz. Read the 22 bullet points. (Business Insider)

    • The 22 points are a summary of Karp’s 320-page book “The Technological Republic,” published in early 2025 — so this isn’t new thinking, it’s Karp’s long-held worldview being amplified now

    • The manifesto calls for reinstating the draft, rearming Germany and Japan, and declares that Silicon Valley has a “moral debt” and “affirmative obligation” to participate in national defense

    • Point 21 is the most nakedly ideological: certain cultures have “proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful” — with no specification of which ones, which does the work for you

    • Point 22 attacks pluralism directly: “inclusion into what?” — a dog whistle framing multiculturalism as cultural surrender

    • The Bellingcat founder nails the real point: “These 22 points aren’t philosophy floating in space — they’re the public ideology of a company whose revenue depends on the politics it’s advocating”

  • What the Palantir CEO’s ‘manifesto’ tells us about the changing face of war (France24)

    • Palantir published a 22-point manifesto Saturday calling Silicon Valley’s “engineering elite” to obligatory military service, proposing mandatory national service, rearming Germany and Japan, and declaring that some cultures have “proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful” — without specifying which ones.

    • The document is a sales brochure dressed as philosophy: Palantir’s CTO has openly described the company’s core product as “optimizing the kill chain from sensor to shooter,” it built the AI targeting system the Pentagon just asked Congress to fund at $2.3 billion, and it signed a strategic partnership with Netanyahu’s government during the Gaza campaign that killed over 70,000 Palestinians.

    • The company has flourished under Trump — $4.5 billion in 2025 revenue, more than half from government contracts, with Trump naming Palantir executives to key government roles while the company recruits former officials in return, erasing the line between vendor and government.

    • A Quincy Institute researcher puts it plainly: Palantir “should be a vendor” — instead it funds political campaigns, uses dark money to block AI regulation, and is actively trying to shape U.S. domestic and foreign policy while its founder Peter Thiel lectures about the coming of the Antichrist and calls democracy incompatible with freedom.

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• The Crossroads

  • Tech

    • Decatur Township residents sue to block $4B data center (WFYI)

      • Decatur Township residents are asking a court to overturn approval of a $4 billion Sabey Corp. data center, arguing the developer used a variance-of-use filing to deliberately bypass the full City-County Council vote that killed a similar Google data center in Franklin Township last year.

      • The legal argument is straightforward: variances are supposed to be narrow exceptions, not a workaround to rezone 130 acres of land near residential neighborhoods without council oversight.

      • A 30-year land use veteran calls the strategy “troubling” — and warns it’s already spreading, with a second developer now filing a variance to build a $2 billion data center on the east side using the same playbook.

      • Mayor Hogsett has never created a specific zoning classification for data centers, a gap residents say was deliberate and has stripped them of their rights in the process.

    • Indianapolis proposes data center zoning rules, but critics say protections fall short (WFYI)

      • Indianapolis released draft zoning rules Tuesday that would formally define data centers for the first time in Marion County, requiring a 200-foot buffer from …

      • Indianapolis released draft zoning rules Tuesday that would formally define data centers for the first time in Marion County, requiring a 200-foot buffer from residential land, capping noise at 65 decibels, and banning generator testing between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m.

      • Developers would also need utility providers to verify adequate electrical and water capacity exists before breaking ground — a direct response to neighborhood concerns about energy and water demand that current rules don’t address.

      • Critics say the rules are too weak: the Citizens Action Coalition says the draft still allows high noise levels, doesn’t meaningfully restrict proximity to neighborhoods, schools, or parks, and still permits diesel generators — and has called for a moratorium that city leadership shows no appetite for.

      • The political fault line is clear: Pat Andrews, who fought the Decatur Township data center, says the city deliberately avoided zoning rules to deprive residents of their rights, while Council member Vop Osili — a 2027 mayoral candidate — says “We are not a city that will be banning something like infrastructure,” continuing, “I think many of us look upon power and data centers as infrastructure in the very same way that we view power lines, telephone lines and sewer lines.”

    • AES, Google say partnership will save customers $770 million (FOX59)

      • Google and AES Indiana have filed a proposal under state law requiring Google to cover the full cost of its proposed Monrovia data center’s electricity and infrastructure — meaning existing ratepayers wouldn’t foot the bill for a trillion-dollar company’s expansion.

      • The deal projects $770 million in savings spread over 533,000 customers across 15 years — roughly $8 per month per customer in avoided rate increases, not new savings.

      • The proposal was filed under HEA 1007, a 2025 Indiana law specifically designed to ensure large new customers bear the costs of the energy demand they create — a direct result of the policy fights over data center energy costs that have been roiling the state.

      • The IURC is expected to rule in September — and the outcome will set a precedent for how Indiana handles the roughly $1.3 billion in new energy infrastructure Google says the project requires.

  • ICE

    • US citizens detail claims of abuse by federal immigration officers (Scripps)

      • Four U.S. citizens testified at a House Democratic hearing Wednesday about abuses at the hands of federal immigration agents, including Marimar Martinez — shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in October 2025 — who told lawmakers “my own government was calling me a domestic terrorist” while she was held in federal detention with bullet wounds.

      • Newly released police video from the Martinez shooting captures an agent saying “it’s time to get aggressive” moments before opening fire; DHS claimed she rammed agents, she says an agent swerved into her car, and the Justice Department ultimately dropped all charges against her.

      • A pastor, Rev. David Black, testified that masked agents struck him in the head with seven pepperballs while he protested outside an Illinois detention center — calling it “only a reflection of what is being done to people in my community who have no pulpit and platform.”

      • Stephen Miller and Tom Homan declined Democrats’ invitation to testify; Republicans called the hearing a distraction and said the focus should be on reopening DHS — a response that treats the shooting of American citizens as a procedural inconvenience.

    • Senate passes budget plan for ICE and Border Patrol in bid to reopen Homeland Security Department (AP)

      • The Senate passed a $70 billion budget resolution 50-48 at 3:30 a.m. Thursday to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years — using the budget reconciliation process to bypass the 60-vote filibuster threshold Republicans can’t clear with only 53 seats.

      • The vote came after an all-night amendment series, with Democrats pushing amendments to lower healthcare costs and arguing that hundreds of billions for immigration enforcement is the wrong priority while families struggle with affordability.

      • The bill is now hostage to House Republican infighting: members want to add the SAVE America Act voter ID provisions and farm funding, while Sen. Kennedy warned this is “the last train leaving the station” for Republican priorities before the midterms.

      • The rest of DHS — including TSA, which has already caused airport security line backlogs — remains unfunded, and Senate Majority Leader Thune warned other department functions may run out of money before the winding budget process concludes.

    • ICE is searching for coworking space in 90 cities, including Indianapolis (IndyStar)

      • DHS is actively seeking coworking space for hundreds of ICE personnel in 90 cities including Indianapolis, as the agency continues its federally-funded expansion — on top of an existing field office and a recently leased Carmel location that was hidden from public lease databases.

      • Indianapolis Mayor Hogsett’s office learned about the latest expansion from the press, not the federal government: “We don’t welcome this presence in our community.”

      • The scale of ICE’s buildout is staggering: Congress handed the agency $75 billion through the One Big Beautiful Bill, and a separate plan calls for 92,000 additional detention beds nationwide — with Indianapolis previously considered for an 8,500-bed facility that Rep. André Carson says remains unresolved.

      • The pattern is consistent: federal officials expand ICE’s footprint in communities without notifying local governments, withhold locations from public records, and deflect questions to agencies that provide no answers.

• Corruption

  • Governor removes Dubois County sheriff from Indiana law enforcement board after failed settlement (ICC)

    • Indiana’s Law Enforcement Training Board rejected a settlement that would have let Dubois County Sheriff Tom Kleinhelter keep his law enforcement certification until 2027, sending the case back for further review — hours later, Gov. Braun removed Kleinhelter from the board he had been sitting on while it reviewed his own case.

    • The settlement’s fatal flaw, according to opponents: the board has held other officers accountable for the same violations without delay, and cutting a deal for an elected sheriff sets a troubling double standard.

    • Former ISP Superintendent Doug Carter didn’t mince words: “Mike Braun and Josh Kelley should have removed Kleinhelter months ago, and by not doing so, they have disrespected this body.”

    • The case has a Kafkaesque wrinkle: decertifying Kleinhelter won’t actually remove him from office since his authority comes from being elected, not from his certification — he could remain sheriff even without law enforcement credentials.

  • Lawmakers blast newly created special advisor position for ex-DCS director (WRTV)

    • Indiana lawmakers are raising questions about a newly created $210,000 “special advisor” position created for outgoing DCS Director Adam Krupp — a job with no description, never posted publicly, and billed to the DCS budget while reporting to the Governor’s Office.

    • Democrats say the money would be better spent hiring three additional caseworkers, noting the bitter irony that Krupp’s tenure included terminating dozens of DCS frontline workers for “operational efficiencies” — and now he’s getting a soft landing at full salary while those workers are gone.

    • The arrangement creates a governance puzzle that nobody can answer: with Krupp as special advisor, new Director Dorfmeyer running the agency, and Secretary Gloria Sachdev overseeing DCS from above, lawmakers are asking who actually makes decisions at one of Indiana’s largest and most critical agencies.

    • Braun’s office declined an on-camera interview, Republicans haven’t responded to press inquiries, and the State Personnel Department confirmed there is currently no job description — suggesting the position was created for Krupp specifically with no process, no transparency, and no clear public purpose.

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• Healthcare

  • FSSA seeks return of $200 million in improper payments to attendant care providers (ICC)

    • Indiana’s FSSA is seeking $200 million in repayments from the state’s five largest attendant care providers after audits found errors in nearly all Medicaid claims reviewed — including missing background checks for caregivers, billing for unauthorized services like physical therapy, and at least one case where a company’s own COO was listed as the patient.

    • The audit was triggered by an unexplained $150 million surge in Medicaid claims between 2021 and 2022 — a red flag the Braun administration says points to systemic abuse of a program serving elderly and disabled Hoosiers.

    • At least one provider is pushing back hard: Tendercare Home Health CEO Eric Deitchman says his company provided 150 pages of documentation per patient and has been audit-deficient-free since 1994, and warns that prepayment review could create a cash flow crisis for a business that pays 650 employees every two weeks.

    • The audits are part of a broader Medicaid crackdown that has already removed 400,000 Hoosiers from the rolls — with work requirements set to kick in January 1 that could cut even more, even as the state’s sickest patients remain and costs haven’t fallen commensurately.

  • Indiana Supreme Court will hear challenge to religious-based abortion lawsuit (FOX59)

    • The Indiana Supreme Court will take up the religious freedom challenge to Indiana’s near-total abortion ban directly, bypassing the Court of Appeals, with oral arguments set for September 10.

    • A Marion County court already granted a permanent injunction in March finding the ban imposes a “substantial burden” on religious exercise protected under Indiana’s own Religious Freedom Restoration Act — the state is now appealing that ruling.

    • The case was brought by the ACLU on behalf of five anonymous women and Hoosier Jews for Choice, whose religious beliefs include the right to abortion — a direct collision between the state’s evangelical-driven ban and the religious liberty framework Republicans themselves championed.

    • The outcome could create a broad religious exemption to Indiana’s abortion ban, effectively carving out access for a significant portion of the population whose faith doesn’t align with the state’s imposed theology.

• Christian Nationalism

  • ‘Demonic filth’: Beckwith doubles down on Westfield High School Band comments (IndyStar)

    • Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith called the Westfield High School indoor percussion ensemble’s spring show “demonic filth” because it includes classical opera selections from Carmen — a piece performed by high school ensembles across the country — and urged parents to pull their kids from public schools using vouchers.

    • The show in question is a classical music performance built around Bolero, Carmen Fantasy, and Capriccio Espagnol, themed around the tension between restraint and passion; Beckwith’s specific objection is that Carmen depicts adultery.

    • The backlash against Beckwith has been swift: the mayor of Westfield, the school district, and the Indiana Percussion Association all issued statements defending the band, which responded by rallying community support under #StandingRockStrong.

    • This is Beckwith’s second public conflict with Westfield schools — he previously threatened to push to defund the district after being disinvited from an appearance, and parents protested his visit to the school in early 2025 over his rhetoric on immigration and LGBTQ issues.

  • Beckwith calls Valparaiso Community Schools ‘woke’ after controversial visit (IndyStar)

    • Lt. Gov. Beckwith called Valparaiso Community Schools “woke” after its superintendent apologized that students were offended by individual conversations Beckwith initiated after a career fair appearance — and is demanding the superintendent resign despite the fact that McCall had already announced he’s leaving July 1.

    • The superintendent’s actual offense was promising to vet outside speakers more carefully; Beckwith’s official bio, read aloud before he spoke, included the phrase “fighting the woke agenda,” and students were held in the auditorium after the speech due to a scheduling gap they hadn’t been told about.

    • Beckwith framed the superintendent’s apology as coddling students, while also criticizing the district for allowing students to walk out in an ICE protest — a protest schools are not required to punish under Indiana law.

    • The incident fits a national pattern of conservative political attacks on public education, even as a comprehensive review of K-12 history education found no evidence of the indoctrination conservatives claim is widespread.

• Elections

  • FINANCE REPORT FEUD: Morales’ office denies Ballard campaign’s accusation of being blocked from filing (Indiana Citizen)

    • Greg Ballard’s campaign is blaming Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales for a three-week delay in providing portal login credentials that prevented them from filing their first-quarter finance report on time — forcing the campaign to release its numbers via press release instead

    • The Election Division fired back saying the blame rests with the Ballard campaign, which failed to include an email address in its original March 11 filing — meaning the system couldn’t auto-generate login credentials

    • Ballard’s campaign disputes that account, saying it tried for weeks to get portal access and only received login credentials on April 2 — two days after the first quarter closed

    • The irony is thick: a candidate running against the incumbent Secretary of State for incompetent election administration got tangled up in what his campaign is calling the incumbent’s incompetent election administration

    • Greg Ballard has raised $289,807 in his first six weeks running for Secretary of State as a Lincoln Party independent — outpacing every candidate in the race except Morales and Democratic frontrunner Beau Bayh, who have both crossed seven figures.

  • Indiana college ID voting ban goes back into effect as injunction is stayed (ICC)

    • The Seventh Circuit reinstated Indiana’s student ID voting ban Monday on an emergency motion, putting between 40,000 and 90,000 student voters back in legal limbo — with early voting for the May 5 primary already underway.

    • The state’s “election integrity” argument has a glaring hole: military IDs, VA cards, and tribal IDs without expiration dates still qualify, while student IDs — which had worked without incident for decades — were singled out as insufficiently rigorous.

    • One plaintiff, IU student Josh Montagne, voted with his student ID the day after the injunction was granted; that vote’s validity is now unclear.

    • A “reasoned decision” from the appeals court is promised within two business days — meaning this could flip again before primary day.

• And Finally this Week

  • Melania Trump is growing the White House honey program with a new beehive (AP)

    • Melania Trump announced a new White House beehive shaped like the White House, timed to the state visit of King Charles III and Queen Camilla — both committed beekeepers — adding about 30 pounds of annual honey production to the existing hives’ 200-225 pounds.

    • The existing program, which dates to 2009 under Michelle Obama, produces clover honey used for White House meals, official gifts, and food bank donations.

  • “Honey Traps” in espionage, seduction for secrets (Historia Scripta)

    • Honeypotting — using romantic or sexual relationships to extract intelligence — is one of espionage’s oldest tools, dating back centuries but refined into a systematic weapon by the Soviet KGB during the Cold War.

    • KGB female agents known as “swallows” or “Mozhno girls” were deployed against Western diplomats across the globe; targets ranged from a French ambassador to a U.S. Marine guard who handed over embassy floor plans and top secret cables, serving nine years of a 30-year sentence — and at least one target, a French military attaché confronted with incriminating photos, chose suicide over exposure.

    • The standard playbook: cultivate the relationship, capture photographic evidence, then present the target with a choice between cooperation and disgrace — a formula so reliable the Washington Post reported in 1987 that most Westerners who spent time in Moscow had their own personal honeypot story.

HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us

Kirsten Root: https://www.rootforindiana.org/

SUMMARY:

Scott sits down one-on-one with Kirsten Root, Democratic primary candidate for Indiana State Senate District 21 — a district spanning all of Tipton County and parts of Hamilton and Howard counties, including Westfield, Sheridan, Tipton, and Kokomo. Kirsten is a social worker and former DCS family case manager challenging Republican incumbent Jim Buck. They talk about her background in child welfare and what it taught her about how the state punishes poverty, the real-world fallout from Mike Braun’s Senate Enrolled Act 1-2025 property tax overhaul and SEA 1-2026’s Medicaid and SNAP eligibility restrictions, the healthcare desert facing Indiana communities (including a HIP expansion proposal as a state-level public option), reproductive rights, the Iron Nation initiative and Indiana’s connection to Israeli military technology through the Applied Research Institute, utility monopoly corruption and Jim Buck’s donor ties to NiSource and Duke Energy, the Democratic Party’s neoliberal drift, corporate money in Democratic primaries, and what it’s going to take to actually fight back in the statehouse.

WHAT’S INSIDE:

00:00:23 Welcome and Introduction

- Scott introduces the HoosLeft podcast and its mission as Indiana’s unapologetically progressive independent media outlet.

- Subscription pitch: progressiveindiana.net, $5/month or $50/year.

- Social handles: @hoosleft.us (Blue Sky, Instagram, Threads); @hoosleft (Facebook, TikTok, YouTube); @progressiveindiananetwork (most platforms); @pinindiana (Blue Sky, TikTok).

00:03:15 Guest Introduction: Kirsten Root

- Democratic candidate for SD-21, challenging Republican incumbent Jim Buck.

- Second appearance on the HoosLeft family of programs; first one-on-one with Scott.

- Campaign website: rootforindiana.org.

00:04:13 Easy W’s: Who and Where

- Originally from LaPorte; now five years in Sheridan in the southern part of the 21st District.

- District covers all of Tipton County and parts of Hamilton and Howard counties.

00:05:11 Life on the Campaign Trail: The NIPSCO Picket Line

- Most memorable campaign moment: joining NIPSCO workers on the Kokomo picket line at 4:30 a.m.

- Only 17 workers directly affected by the lockout, but hundreds came from across the state in solidarity.

- NIPSCO tried to spin the lockout as community goodwill; Kirsten notes they simply didn’t have the workers to turn off the power.

- Workers expected to ratify a new contract and return by end of the week.

- Scott: Kokomo has deep UAW and labor history going back to Chrysler; NIPSCO has been a thorn in northwest Indiana’s side for generations.

00:08:15 The More Interesting W: Why

- Kirsten’s years at DCS investigating child abuse and neglect showed her how the state systematically punishes poverty rather than addressing it.

- Families working two and three jobs, leaving kids home alone, were being investigated for neglect rather than supported.

- DCS no longer requires a college degree for family case managers; her last director came from finance with no child welfare background.

- Everything flows from the state level — funding, policy authority, hiring standards.

00:12:00 SEA 1-2025 and SEA 1-2026: Real-World Consequences

- SEA 1-2025 (Braun’s property tax overhaul): sheriff’s departments can’t hire, mental health funding cut, health department budgets slashed across the district.

- Scott: the shell game — property tax “savings” are being paid for by gutted local services; rising home values have eaten most of the actual dollar savings anyway.

- Communities told they’re saving money while mayors and county councils take the blame for raising local taxes to cover the gap.

- SEA 1-2026’s Medicaid and SNAP eligibility restrictions compound the damage, targeting the same families DCS was supposed to serve.

- State also preempting local governments from enacting rent restrictions.

00:22:42 Kirsten’s Platform: Local Government and Care Before Crisis

- Restore funding and autonomy to local governments; get care in place before situations become emergencies.

- Many Indiana counties have no labor and delivery ward.

- Hamilton County — wealthiest in the state — has no SANE nurse; sexual assault survivors including children must travel out of county for a forensic exam.

- Howard County Sheriff (a Republican who endorsed her opponent) told Kirsten: no public EMS in Kokomo, no mental health capacity, no money for new training.

00:28:29 Corporate Greed as the Through-Line

- NiSource (NIPSCO’s parent) billing up 17% while profits rise a similar amount; IURC performing a show investigation.

- Blackstone continuing to buy up Indiana utilities.

- State gave Walmart $17 million in subsidies — money that could have gone to small businesses or public services.

- Kirsten: Republicans focus on demonizing SNAP recipients rather than the corporate greed driving poverty in the first place.

00:30:33 Healthcare for All Hoosiers

- Medicare for All isn’t achievable at the state level; expanding Indiana’s HIP program to create a public option available to all Hoosiers is.

- We’re already paying for everyone’s insurance — a HIP expansion makes it visible and accessible.

- Obstacle: Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), headquartered in Indianapolis, has a direct financial interest in killing any public option.

- Jim Buck’s top corporate donors: NiSource, Duke Energy, and a third utility — connected directly to his legislative record of removing utility restrictions.

00:33:14 Abortion Rights and Reproductive Healthcare

- Repealing Indiana’s near-total abortion ban is a core priority.

- OB-GYN residency programs closing because students can’t get clinical training in Indiana.

- If Republicans were actually pro-life, they would fund prenatal care in rural counties — they don’t.

- No one wants to live and work in Gilead; the ban accelerates the brain drain.

00:36:02 The Iron Nation Initiative and Indiana’s Role in Military Technology

- Scott raises the Iron Nation initiative, announced the prior week.

- piece in connects a strike on an Iranian school to technology developed in Indiana.

- Indiana’s Applied Research Institute — a public-private partnership involving IU, Purdue, and the IEDC — had a role in developing the Maven smart system.

- State investing $15 million with Israel in telecommunications technology while refusing to fund basic healthcare and education.

00:37:25 Calling Fascism What It Is

- Fascism is a spectrum — Pinochet’s Chile was free-market fascism without tanks in the streets.

- ICE detention camps where people are dying; black SUVs kidnapping people off streets — that’s fascism.

- Kirsten was asked at a dog park in Ireland what it’s like to live in a fascist country. The rest of the world already sees it.

00:39:35 Democrats’ Own Role in Getting Here

- Too many Democrats too comfortable with corporate money, corporate consolidation, corporate power.

- Mussolini defined fascism as the merger of corporation and state.

- You can’t take the corporate money and flip it for good — it taints you.

- A CD-5 candidate told Kirsten he feels like Robin Hood redistributing corporate money to downballot races; she’s not buying it.

- Secretary of state race: Beau Bayh is taking corporate money; Blythe Potter is not. Kirsten endorses Blythe Potter.

00:43:15 The Democratic Party’s Aaron Burr Problem

- Hamilton endorsed Jefferson over his friend Burr — not because he liked Jefferson, but because Jefferson stood for something.

- Aaron Burr, perpetually unwilling to pick a side, is the Democratic Party.

- FDR, the New Deal, Social Security, LBJ, Medicare, Medicaid, labor rights — Democrats built that. Then the Clinton era threw it out.

- Indiana Democrats are stuck in the Clinton era. Those corporate Democrats helped pave the road to where we are now.

00:45:18 Earning Trust: The Kokomo Pastor Conversation

- A Black pastor in Kokomo challenged Kirsten: the Democratic Party takes Black voters for granted — why are you different?

- Kirsten’s answer: he’s right to be skeptical. She’s a white woman and doesn’t ask for trust she hasn’t earned. She’ll spend every day earning it.

00:46:26 Voting for Change for 20 Years

- Obama ran as a progressive and won in a landslide; didn’t govern that way.

- Biden tried to go bigger; kneecapped by corporate Democrats like Joe Manchin.

- The lesson Trump teaches: you can go big. Democrats have been too timid.

- Because we failed to do the big things, we got more Trump. The Democratic Party has become the conservative party.

00:50:46 Why Kirsten, Not Her Opponent?

- She genuinely likes her primary opponent — but one of them will go to the statehouse and say they’ll do their best in the minority.

- The other will go to Republican counties, educate constituents, cause scenes, and fight. She’s the second one.

- Scott pushes back on the Michelle Obama “go high” doctrine: when they go low, step on them.

- Kirsten agrees: the moment demands fighters, not nice guys.

- She’s a woman who worked DCS — there is nothing anyone can say to her that she hasn’t already weathered.

00:53:30 The Negotiation Principle: Anchor to Your Values

- Centrist Democrats start from the compromise position. That’s not negotiating — it’s capitulating before the conversation starts.

- Kirsten’s social work parallel: the deal is simple — either you do these things and your life gets better, or it stays the same. That’s the only deal on the table.

00:54:44 How to Reach Kirsten Root

- Website: rootforindiana.org.

- Active on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and most other platforms.

- Town hall the following night; child safety panel Thursday.

00:55:35 Outro and Upcoming PIN Programming

- Thursday, 8 p.m.: Democratic primary debate, Indiana’s 6th Congressional District — William Kory Amyx, Nick Baker, Cinde Wirth. Moderated by Scott.

- Saturday, 2 p.m.: Online-only IN-9 congressional debate — Brad Meyer, Tim Peck, Keil Roark. Moderated by Kacey Blundell.

- Sunday, 10:30 a.m.: HoosLeft This Week — guests Destiny Wells (IN-7) and Hancock County Democratic Party Vice Chair Chuck Gill.

On this week's edition of HoosLeft This Week, host Scott Aaron Rogers is joined by Indiana State Senate candidates Gabrianna Gratzol (District 11, South Bend/Elkhart area) and Ethan Sweetland-May (District 47, southern Indiana) for a wide-ranging discussion of a week that somehow managed to be even more chaotic than usual. The conversation covers the on-again-off-again US-Iran ceasefire collapse and its cascading global energy crisis, Indiana's financial and institutional entanglement with Israel's war machine through the Iron Nation initiative and the Applied Research Institute's role in Palantir's Maven targeting system, Trump's escalating feud with Pope Leo and what it means for Catholic voters, ICE abusing French grandmothers in nightgowns to First Amendment wins for a Brown County app developer, the Epstein network's tentacles through New Mexico Democratic politics into the Trump orbit, the DOJ's systematic dismantling of judicial independence, Clarence Thomas's corruption-soaked speech at the University of Texas, the class rage simmering beneath a string of attacks on tech and corporate targets, the ISTA union's betrayal of its own staff, Viktor Orbán's landslide defeat in Hungary and what it might portend for MAGA-aligned populism, the New Jersey special election victory of progressive Analilia Mejia, Eric Swalwell's disgraceful exit from Congress, Indiana's primary intrigue including the student ID ruling and Governor Braun's contradictory endorsement strategy, the Diego Morales implosion at the Secretary of State's office, and the state's deepening crises in child care, healthcare, and housing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00:00:35 Introduction and Support HoosLeft

00:02:32 Meet the Guests: Gabrianna Gratzol and Ethan Sweetland-May

00:04:16 The Iran-Israel-U.S. Ceasefire Collapse

00:09:16 Operation Economic Fury and the Global Energy Crisis

00:11:47 Indiana’s Stake in the War: Iron Nation and Applied Research Institute

00:23:09 Trump vs. the Pope: Christian Nationalism on Trial

00:31:07 ICE Roundup: French Grannies, Road Rage, and State Accountability

00:37:59 The ICE Tracker App and a First Amendment Win for a Hoosier

00:40:12 Tech Giants Roll Over: Regulation and Working-Class Accountability

00:42:39 Pam Bondi, the Epstein Files, and the Epstein Class

00:50:04 DOJ Under Blanche: Purging Judges, Protecting Insurrectionists

00:58:41 The Courts: Small Wins and Big Losses

01:05:55 Clarence Thomas, Harlan Crow, and the Speech No One Covered

01:11:26 Elite Rage, Class Violence, and the Breaking Social Contract

01:19:33 Indiana: ISTA Union Scandal and the Fight for Organized Labor

01:24:53 Hungary’s Election and the Fall of Orbán

01:30:52 New Jersey Special Election and the California Governor’s Race

01:39:43 Indiana Primary: Student ID Ruling, Braun’s Endorsements, and Bopp’s Ballot Gambit

01:46:03 Diego Morales and the Secretary of State Race

01:50:15 Indiana Roundup: Child Care Vouchers, Eli Lilly, and the Hospital Crisis

01:57:34 Closing: Support the Campaigns, Upcoming PIN Events

IN DEPTH:

• Middle East War

  • Allies try to puzzle out US blockade of Iran (Politico)

    • The U.S. began a naval blockade of Iranian ports Monday, targeting ships that have visited or paid tolls to Iran — including in the critical Strait of Hormuz.

    • The blockade’s biggest risk is confrontation with China or Russia, whose ships may simply ignore it and dare the U.S. Navy to stop them.

    • Logistics are murky — commanders don’t yet know how to verify toll payments, handle detained crews, or whether they have enough assets to enforce it.

    • American allies are sitting this one out, with Britain flatly refusing to participate and Spain calling the broader war a senseless downward spiral.

    • The White House is betting the blockade forces Iran to reopen the strait, but the strategy’s endgame remains publicly undefined.

  • Israeli strikes on Lebanon continue as U.S. hosts historic diplomatic talks (PBS)

    • The U.S. hosted the first direct Israel-Lebanon talks in over 30 years, with Rubio framing the goal as a permanent end to Hezbollah’s influence — not just a ceasefire.

    • Israeli strikes continued in Southern Lebanon throughout the day, including smoke visible on the horizon, even as the talks were underway in Washington.

    • Hezbollah was excluded from the talks and said it wouldn’t abide by any resulting agreement, including demands to disarm.

    • Israel’s ambassador called the most significant takeaway that both countries see themselves united against a common enemy in Hezbollah.

    • Italy announced it would suspend its defense cooperation agreement with Israel as consequences mount over the ongoing campaign.

  • 10-day Lebanon-Israel ceasefire begins after weeks of conflict (France24)

    • A ten-day Israel-Lebanon ceasefire took effect Friday, with Israel striking over 380 targets in southern Lebanon in the hours before it began and killing at least seven people in a strike on Ghazieh shortly beforehand.

    • The ceasefire’s fine print is already contested — Trump says Hezbollah is included, but the State Department says Lebanon itself is committed to dismantling Hezbollah, a condition Netanyahu is also insisting on.

    • A Hezbollah lawmaker credited Iran’s pressure for making the ceasefire happen, framing it as Iran’s leverage — not a concession — tied directly to the Strait of Hormuz standoff.

    • Trump called a broader Iran deal “very close” and floated traveling to Pakistan to sign it, while over a million Lebanese remain displaced and 2,000 are already dead.

  • Iran says strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ but sounds warning on US blockade (Guardian)

    • Iran’s foreign minister declared the Strait of Hormuz open Friday, but the IRGC gave only qualified support and Iran’s parliamentary speaker warned it would close again if the U.S. blockade continues — making the opening conditional at best.

    • Oil dropped below $90 a barrel on the news, but analysts warn few vessels will risk passage in such uncertain circumstances and any return to normality remains distant.

    • Trump claimed Iran agreed to never close the strait again, indefinitely suspend its nuclear program, and surrender enriched uranium — Iran has publicly rejected all three claims.

    • The Lebanon ceasefire is fraying before it’s a day old: Netanyahu posted a video saying Israel “has not finished the job” with Hezbollah minutes after Trump said Israel was “prohibited” from striking Lebanon, and an Israeli drone killed someone in southern Lebanon shortly after.

  • Iran closes Strait of Hormuz once again, fires on tankers (Axios)

    • Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz again Saturday, citing the ongoing U.S. blockade as “maritime piracy” — a direct reversal of the brief opening that had oil markets cautiously optimistic.

    • Iranian forces fired on at least three commercial ships in the strait, including two Indian vessels, with one ship hit after being given clearance to enter and then attacked anyway.

    • The escalation came hours after Trump declared a deal was “a day or two” away and claimed Iran had agreed to stop enriching uranium “forever” — claims Iran had already publicly rejected.

    • Trump’s response was to accuse Iran of getting “a little cute” — suggesting he’s still trying to project control over a situation that is visibly deteriorating.

  • US planning to seize Iran-linked ships in coming days (Jerusalem Post)

    • The U.S. is planning to board and seize Iran-linked oil tankers in international waters in the coming days — expanding “Operation Economic Fury” beyond the Middle East under the authority of the Indo-Pacific Command.

    • The target includes “dark fleet” vessels evading sanctions and insurance requirements, giving the U.S. broad latitude to interdict ships well outside the Persian Gulf.

    • Iran responded by reasserting military control over the Strait of Hormuz, attacking several ships Saturday, and with Supreme Leader Khamenei warning of “new bitter defeats” for its enemies.

    • The White House is framing the escalation as leverage toward a peace deal — but the gap between Trump’s optimism and conditions on the water grows wider by the hour.

  • Europe has ‘maybe 6 weeks of jet fuel left,’ energy agency head warns (AP)

    • Europe has roughly six weeks of jet fuel remaining, and the head of the International Energy Agency is warning of flight cancellations “soon” if the Strait of Hormuz stays blocked — KLM is already cutting 160 flights citing rising fuel costs.

    • The IEA chief called this the largest energy crisis ever faced, warning that failure to reopen the strait by end of May could push weaker economies from high inflation into outright recession.

    • Even a peace deal won’t quickly fix it — over 80 regional energy facilities have been damaged, more than a third severely, and the IEA estimates it could take up to two years to restore prewar production levels.

    • The people who will suffer most are the ones with the least say: developing nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, while the powers whose decisions caused the crisis insulate themselves from the worst of it.

  • Braun: Iron Nation-Indiana to create ‘strategic bridge’ between Indiana, Israel (FOX59)

    • Gov. Mike Braun announced Iron Nation-Indiana, a $60+ million initiative to attract Israeli tech companies to set up U.S. operations in Indiana.

    • The state is putting in $15 million; the private Iron Nation venture fund is committing more than $30 million.

    • The program targets connections between Israeli startups and Indiana’s corporate, healthcare, university, and industrial sectors.

  • Did the State of Indiana help strike an Iranian girls’ school? (Big Money)

    • According to this investigative piece, Indiana’s Applied Research Institute — a state-funded public-private partnership with Purdue and IU presidents on its board — helped fast-track Palantir’s AI targeting software into military use through a program called Tradewinds, which reduced contract timelines from two years to a few weeks.

    • Palantir’s Maven Smart System, which the piece links to a February strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed 156 girls, consolidated surveillance and targeting into a single platform where hundreds of targets can be selected in minutes.

    • The piece raises the broader warning that the same surveillance infrastructure being built for overseas targeting — with Indiana institutions’ fingerprints on it — is already collecting data on American civilians domestically.

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• Religion

  • Trump says he won’t apologize to Pope Leo and explains his reason for posting much-criticized meme (AP)

    • Trump publicly attacked Pope Leo XIV — the first American pope — for opposing the Iran war, calling him weak on crime and bad on foreign policy, and refused to apologize.

    • Leo fired back from the papal plane, saying he doesn’t fear the Trump administration and will keep speaking out for peace and dialogue.

    • A Trump social media post depicting himself in a Jesus-like healing pose was deleted Monday after backlash; Trump claimed he thought it showed him as a doctor.

    • Trump went further, claiming Leo was only elected pope because the Vatican thought an American could manage Trump — a claim with no basis offered.

    • Even the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pushed back, with its president reminding Trump that the pope “is not his rival” but “the Vicar of Christ.”

  • U.S. Bishops Committee Hits Back After Vance Tells Pope To ‘Be Careful’ Discussing Theology (HuffPost)

    • The head of the U.S. bishops’ doctrinal committee publicly rebuked JD Vance, clarifying that Pope Leo wasn’t freelancing on theology but invoking over a thousand years of Catholic just war doctrine.

    • Bishop Massa’s pointed rejoinder: just war theory requires defense against an active aggressor after all peace efforts have failed — which is precisely what Leo said, not a personal opinion.

    • Vance, a 2019 convert, lectured the pope about theological carefulness while misreading the doctrine he was defending — just war theory already accounts for WWII; it’s the framework Leo was applying, not contradicting.

    • The episode puts Vance in the remarkable position of a six-year Catholic telling the Vicar of Christ to stay in his lane on a doctrine the Church has held since Augustine.

• ICE/DHS

  • French widow, 86, flies home after ICE detention ordeal (Guardian)

    • Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé, 86, was released from federal immigration detention and flown back to France after the French government intervened, more than two weeks after being arrested in her nightgown at her late husband’s Alabama home.

    • She had moved 4,000 miles from Brittany to Alabama to reunite with and marry William “Billy” Ross, a former U.S. Army captain she had fallen in love with in the 1950s when she worked as a secretary at the French military base where he was stationed.

    • The circumstances reek of weaponized immigration enforcement: a probate judge overseeing the inheritance dispute believes her late husband’s son, a retired state trooper, tipped off ICE about her visa overstay two days after a court order froze the estate’s assets — which she’s entitled to half of under Alabama law.

  • ICE agent faces felony charges in February road rage incident in Minnesota (MPR)

    • A Hennepin County prosecutor charged an ICE agent with felony assault after he allegedly pointed his service weapon into another vehicle during a road rage incident on a Minneapolis highway — in an unmarked rental SUV with no indication it was law enforcement.

    • The agent admitted drawing his firearm after the other vehicle had already rejoined normal traffic, corroborating the victims’ account and undermining any self-defense argument.

    • The county attorney is separately investigating 17 other use-of-force incidents involving ICE and Border Patrol agents, including the killings of two protesters — but those cases are moving slower because federal agents have stonewalled evidence requests.

    • If convicted, Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. would not be eligible for a presidential pardon because the charges are state, not federal — a detail that matters enormously given the current occupant of the White House.

  • Judge rules in favor of Indiana ICE-monitoring app creator (IndyStar)

    • A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from pressuring Apple and Facebook to suppress Brown County, Indiana man Mark Hodges’ ICE-tracking app and a Chicagoland ICE sightings page, ruling the government likely violated the First Amendment.

    • The First Amendment explicitly protects the right to observe and record law enforcement in public — the government’s argument that these apps interfere with ICE operations and endanger agents is the same logic used to justify suppressing any accountability journalism.

    • The judge found that former AG Pam Bondi and former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem didn’t request removal — they demanded it, and used “thinly veiled threats” of prosecution to coerce the platforms into censoring constitutionally protected speech.

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• DOJ

  • Bondi skips House deposition on Epstein files, faces contempt threat (Scripps)

    • Pam Bondi no-showed a congressional subpoena Tuesday, with the Justice Department arguing she can’t be compelled to testify because she’s no longer attorney general — a legal theory Democrats flatly reject.

    • The subpoena stems from Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files release, where victims’ names were left exposed while powerful figures’ names were redacted — the opposite of what the transparency law was supposed to accomplish.

    • Trump fired Bondi on April 2, conveniently rendering her a private citizen just as congressional pressure over the Epstein files was peaking.

    • House Oversight Democrats say contempt proceedings are next if she continues to ignore the subpoena — but with Republicans holding the majority, whether that goes anywhere is another question.

  • Epstein Was Never Properly Investigated in New Mexico Despite Reports to FBI. Follow the Money Far Enough and It Leads to Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, DJT, and a Trillion-Dollar Nuclear Deal. (Alisa Writes)

    • New Mexico Governor Bruce King sold Epstein Zorro Ranch in 1993 and introduced him to the attorney who became his Power of Attorney — who was then appointed U.S. Attorney for New Mexico; Bruce’s son Gary later served as state AG, took Epstein money for two decades through shell companies, and never opened an investigation.

    • Governor Bill Richardson signed half a billion in public financing for Forest City Enterprises — whose founding Ratner family maintained documented Epstein ties through 2016 — while visiting Epstein’s island and being named by survivors as an abuser.

    • Ivanka Trump worked at Forest City Ratner before joining the Trump Organization; Brookfield later acquired Forest City, bailed out Kushner’s 666 Fifth Avenue using Qatari money while Kushner held Middle East policy authority, and is now Trump’s partner in building American nuclear infrastructure.

    • The author’s thesis: it’s not a conspiracy, it’s a self-reinforcing network where everyone who took the money became a node — and nodes protect the network because the network protects them.

  • Judges fired after blocking deportation of pro-Palestinian students (Guardian)

    • The DOJ fired six immigration judges, including two who ruled against the Trump administration in deportation cases involving pro-Palestinian students.

    • The dismissed judges had both been Biden appointees with backgrounds in immigration defense — a pattern an NPR analysis found the administration is deliberately targeting.

    • Judge Patel learned she was fired by email mid-hearing on Friday and had to notify her courtroom before being walked out.

    • The DOJ framed the firings as impartiality enforcement; Patel called it a broader effort to reshape the immigration bench to match the administration’s political agenda.

    • Patel warned the purge creates dangerous conditions — less experienced judges, faster case pressure, and shrinking room for due process.

  • Key prosecutor in John Brennan investigation has been removed from case (AP)

    • The lead prosecutor in the DOJ’s investigation of former CIA Director John Brennan was removed after telling Justice Department officials she didn’t think the evidence supported criminal charges — the DOJ called it routine reassignment.

    • The case stems from a Jim Jordan referral accusing Brennan of lying about the 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian election interference — a claim Brennan denies — and is part of Trump’s broader campaign to criminally prosecute political enemies.

    • The removal follows a clear pattern: Trump fired Pam Bondi for insufficient progress on prosecuting his foes, and previously forced out a Virginia U.S. attorney who declined to charge Comey and James — his replacement secured indictments that a judge then threw out for being unlawfully appointed.

    • Acting AG Todd Blanche has said Trump has “the right and duty” to be involved in directing investigations against people he has issues with — a statement that would have ended careers in any prior administration.

  • DOJ moves to erase seditious conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers, Proud Boys in Jan. 6 cases (PBS)

    • The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to erase the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders who organized the January 6 Capitol attack.

    • This goes beyond Trump’s January 2025 clemency, which commuted sentences — vacating convictions would wipe the criminal records entirely.

    • The motion was signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who framed it as a routine prosecutorial discretion call in the interests of justice.

    • Juries had convicted the leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, of orchestrating violent plots to stop the transfer of power after Trump’s 2020 election loss.

• Courts

  • LGBTQ+ groups score legal victory over Trump, restoring Pride flag at Stonewall National Monument (Advocate)

    • The Pride flag will return permanently to the Stonewall National Monument after the federal government settled a lawsuit over its February removal.

    • Under the agreement, the National Park Service must reinstall the flag within seven days and cannot remove it except for maintenance.

    • Plaintiffs included the Gilbert Baker Foundation and Lambda Legal, who argued the flag qualified as a historically relevant exception to federal flag rules — a position the settlement effectively concedes.

    • The case is dismissed with prejudice, meaning the government can’t relitigate the removal policy at Stonewall.

  • Judge dismisses Trump’s $10B Wall Street Journal lawsuit over Epstein birthday letter story (Independent)

    • A federal judge dismissed Trump’s $10 billion defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal over its reporting on an alleged birthday letter Trump sent Jeffrey Epstein, ruling Trump fell nowhere near the “actual malice” standard.

    • The dismissal is without prejudice — Trump’s team says it will refile an amended complaint.

    • The WSJ’s defense is straightforward: the letter is real, publicly available, and subsequently confirmed by documents Trump himself signed into law releasing.

    • It’s the second major defamation suit Trump has lost at the dismissal stage, following a judge’s scathing rejection of his $15 billion suit against the New York Times.

  • Appeals court again blocks Boasberg contempt probe into Alien Enemies Act deportations (AP)

    • A divided D.C. Circuit panel blocked Judge James Boasberg’s criminal contempt inquiry into Trump officials — including Kristi Noem — for defying his order to halt deportation flights to El Salvador.

    • The 2-1 majority, both Trump appointees, ruled Boasberg overstepped by probing executive branch national security deliberations; the Biden-appointed dissenter warned the ruling could undermine federal court authority for generations.

    • The majority also accepted the administration’s argument that Boasberg’s written order technically didn’t apply to planes already outside U.S. airspace when it was issued.

    • The ACLU said it will ask the full D.C. Circuit to take up the case, calling it beyond dispute that the administration willfully violated the court’s order.

  • Clarence Thomas Can’t Get American History Right (TNR)

    • Clarence Thomas delivered an hour-long speech at UT Austin this week ostensibly honoring the Declaration of Independence’s 250th anniversary — and used it to declare that progressivism and American founding ideals cannot coexist, in what one legal scholar called “close to theology on the bench.”

    • Thomas opened with a genuinely moving tribute to the Declaration’s ideals and his grandparents’ sacrifices — then pivoted to 50 minutes of historical fabrication, blaming progressivism for Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao with no supporting evidence and considerable contrary evidence.

    • Blaming Segregationist Woodrow Wilson for introducing progressivism to America, Thomas selectively quotes Wilson’s 1887 academic paper on public administration to make Wilson sound like he was importing German authoritarianism — but the full passage argues the opposite, that European administrative models were a poor fit for America and needed to be Americanized.

    • Thomas also conveniently ignores that Wilson went to war with Prussian autocracy in 1917, that fascism was explicitly anti-socialist, that Hitler drew inspiration from American Jim Crow and Native American removal policies, and that Theodore Roosevelt — not Wilson — was progressivism’s first presidential champion.

    • The speech was introduced by Harlan Crow, the billionaire megadonor who spent two decades lavishing Thomas with undisclosed luxury gifts — making Thomas’s warning about officials who succumb to “the enchanting siren songs of flattery” a remarkable exercise in self-unawareness.

  Leave a comment

• Pitchforks

  • Sam Altman’s home targeted in second attack; two suspects arrested (SF Standard)

    • Sam Altman’s San Francisco home was targeted twice in one weekend — a Molotov cocktail Friday morning and an apparent gunshot Sunday at 1:40 a.m.

    • Two suspects were arrested Sunday after surveillance cameras captured their license plate; police found three firearms at their residence.

    • The Friday suspect, a Texas man, was booked on attempted murder and arson charges after also making threats at OpenAI’s headquarters.

    • Altman responded to the first attack by acknowledging that fear and anxiety about AI is “justified,” given the scale of societal change underway.

  • Worker who allegedly set fire to California warehouse compares self to Luigi Mangione (Guardian)

    • A Kimberly-Clark warehouse employee allegedly set a fire that caused over $600 million in damage, then texted a co-worker comparing himself to Luigi Mangione — framing the act as class-based grievance.

    • Video posted to social media shows the suspect igniting toilet paper inside the warehouse while saying he doesn’t make enough money to live on.

    • Chamel Abdulkarim wasn’t initially suspected — co-workers were blaming the robots until the video surfaced.

    • He faces up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted on arson charges.

  • Amazon worker dies on warehouse floor; colleagues continue working around his body – ‘Let’s get back to work’ (Mint)

    • An Amazon warehouse worker in Troutdale, Oregon died on the job April 6, and employees allege his body went unattended for over an hour while operations continued around him.

    • A supervisor allegedly told workers to “just turn around and not look” and get back to work.

    • Amazon disputes the characterization, saying CPR was administered immediately by on-site staff and the area was cordoned off while EMS responded.

    • Employees raised separate concerns about dangerously hot conditions in the building, with some speculating heat may have been a factor — though the cause of death remains unknown.

  • Newly unsealed records reveal Amazon’s price-fixing tactics, California attorney general claims (Guardian)

    • Newly unredacted court documents reveal Amazon systematically punished independent sellers who dared charge a penny less on competitor sites like Walmart and Target — suppressing their sales by stripping access to the Buy Box, which can crater revenue by 80%.

    • The mechanism is straightforward monopoly behavior: Amazon charges sellers high fees, then uses its market dominance to force those same sellers to raise prices everywhere else so Amazon always looks cheapest — meaning consumers pay more across the entire internet, not just on Amazon.

    • Internal emails show Amazon employees celebrating when the scheme pushed sellers off Temu, and tracking an Indiana furniture seller’s price hikes on other sites in real time.

    • Amazon now controls 56% of U.S. online retail spending — up from 47% in 2022 — while the company that built its brand on “everything store” low prices is accused of being the reason your prices are high everywhere else too.

  • Someone Has to Be Happy. Why Not Lauren Sánchez Bezos? (NYT)

    • The Times handed Lauren Sánchez Bezos thousands of fawning words while her husband laid off a third of the Washington Post newsroom, paid $40 million to flatter Melania Trump, and his warehouse workers are dying on the clock — and the piece treats all of it as charming texture in a love story.

    • The article’s own reporting undercuts its tone: Bezos promised to give away most of his $124 billion fortune in 2022, has since more than doubled it, and has distributed $2.4 billion — which a philanthropy expert quoted in the piece notes lags badly relative to his wealth.

    • Sánchez Bezos deflects every hard question — the Post layoffs, Trump’s influence, the Amazon layoffs — with breezy pivots the Times repeatedly lets her walk away from.

    • The piece inadvertently makes the strongest case against itself: a woman going to space with Katy Perry, co-chairing the Met Gala, and wearing lace bras at inaugurations is not a story about joy — it’s a story about what obscene wealth looks like when it stops apologizing.

  • Union for ISTA staff files unfair labor charges (WFYI)

    • The union representing Indiana State Teachers Association staff has filed NLRB charges alleging ISTA management retaliated against union leaders who objected to an opaque internal restructuring plan.

    • Three Professional Staff Organization officers — including its president and vice president — were placed on administrative leave and two face termination, all while seeking information about the restructuring.

    • The core irony: a teachers union is accused of doing to its own staff exactly what PSO members spend their careers fighting against on behalf of educators.

    • PSO says the dispute goes beyond retaliation, pointing to broader concerns about ISTA leadership, transparency, and organizational direction.

• Elections

  • Viktor Orbán’s Loss Was Also a Defeat for MAGA (Atlantic)

    • Orbán’s 16-year rule ended Sunday in a landslide, with opposition leader Péter Magyar’s Tisza party projected to win a supermajority in parliament.

    • The defeat is equally Trump’s and Vance’s — both invested extraordinary public political capital in Orbán’s reelection and got nothing for it.

    • Magyar ran as a conservative who defected from Orbán’s inner circle, not a leftist, and his victory crowds waved EU flags alongside Hungarian ones.

    • The article argues Orbán’s real export was the illiberal governing model now being replicated in Washington — making his fall more than a local story.

    • Upcoming elections in France, Italy, Poland, and Spain become the next test of whether MAGA-aligned populism can survive without its flagship example.

  • Peter Magyar vows to end corruption that thrived under Orban (Times of London)

    • Magyar held his first press conference vowing to dismantle Orbán’s “criminal organization,” warning that shredders are already running full time at government ministries — with outgoing Foreign Minister Szijjárto specifically accused of destroying documents related to EU sanctions violations and potentially leaking sensitive EU documents to Russia.

    • Magyar’s agenda includes setting up an asset retrieval office by June to claw back millions lost to Orbán cronyism, unlocking an estimated €20 billion in frozen EU funds, and determining whether Orbán himself should face jail for corruption.

    • JD Vance visited Budapest last week to back Orbán, and spoke at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium — an Orbán-funded institution Magyar says will immediately lose state funding, calling the mixing of party and government financing a criminal offence.

    • Magyar won a two-thirds supermajority, giving him the power to oust Orbán appointees from key state positions — but analysts warn he faces an entrenched “party-state” and a constitutional court stacked with Fidesz loyalists.

  • Reps. Swalwell, Gonzales signal exits from Congress ahead of possible expulsion votes (WaPo)

    • Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Tony Gonzales (R-TX) both announced departures Monday to avoid expulsion votes over separate sexual misconduct allegations.

    • Swalwell denied assault but admitted unspecified “mistakes in judgment”; Gonzales acknowledged an affair with a staffer who later died by self-immolation.

    • The paired exits were timed to keep the House’s partisan balance intact — one Democrat, one Republican.

    • Swalwell also abandoned his California gubernatorial campaign, where he had been a leading contender before the allegations broke Friday.

    • The ethics cleanup may not stop there — Reps. Cherfilus-McCormick and Cory Mills, both of Florida, are facing separate expulsion pressure from their own colleagues.

  • Progressive Analilia Mejía takes New Jersey US House special election, giving Democrats another win (AP)

    • Progressive Analilia Mejia won New Jersey’s 11th District special election Thursday, called minutes after polls closed, on a platform of abolishing ICE, Medicare for All, higher wages, and calling billionaires’ grip on the economy a “stranglehold.”

    • AIPAC’s super PAC tried to kneecap the primary by targeting the more moderate Malinowski for questioning unconditional Israel aid — and ended up elevating Mejia, who goes further and calls Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide.

    • She was backed by Sanders, AOC, and Warren, and defeated the establishment candidate anyway — adding to a Democratic special election winning streak heading into the midterms.

    • The Republican framing of her as a dangerous socialist didn’t move the needle in a district Trump is increasingly losing — Harris carried it by 9 points in 2024, and Sherrill won reelection there by 15. Mejia’s margin was about 20 points.

  • In major win for voters, judge blocks Indiana GOP’s student ID ban (Democracy Docket)

    • A federal judge blocked Indiana’s ban on student IDs for voter identification, restoring access for an estimated 40,000 students in time for the midterm elections.

    • The court found the state eliminated a form of ID that had worked without incident for nearly two decades while producing zero evidence of fraud tied to student IDs.

    • The judge called SB 10 “a solution in search of a problem” and said the state failed to justify singling out student IDs as the only otherwise valid form of identification banned from the polls.

    • The ruling is a preliminary injunction, not a final decision, but the judge indicated plaintiffs are likely to win — a strong signal the law may ultimately be struck down.

  • Judge rejects effort to kick Indiana Senate candidate from GOP primary ballot (ICC)

    • A judge ruled Thursday that Alexandra Wilson stays on the May 5 ballot in the SD-38 race against incumbent Greg Goode, rejecting conservative heavyweight Jim Bopp’s attempt to disqualify her over a 2010 criminal charge that was pleaded down to a misdemeanor.

    • Bopp, a close Braun ally backing Trump-endorsed Brenda Wilson, argued the original felony charge made Alexandra Wilson ineligible — the judge disagreed in three sentences.

    • The stakes: if Alexandra Wilson splits the anti-Goode vote with Brenda Wilson, Goode — who voted against redistricting — survives, which is exactly what Bopp accused her of engineering.

    • Alexandra Wilson denied the scheme and released recordings of Trump staffers offering her political appointments if she’d drop out — suggesting the White House was directly involved in trying to clear the field.

  • Braun issues endorsements for lawmakers, including some who voted against redistricting (WFYI)

    • Gov. Braun endorsed House Reps. Peggy Mayfield, Jennifer Meltzer, and Greg Steuerwald — all three of whom voted against redistricting — directly contradicting his own December threat that opposing redistricting would carry “political consequences.”

    • In the same announcement, Braun fell in line with Trump and endorsed seven primary challengers targeting Senate Republicans who voted against redistricting: Paula Copenhaver vs. Spencer Deery, Michelle Davis vs. Greg Walker, Trevor De Vries vs. Dan Dernulc, Blake Fiechter vs. Travis Holdman, Tracey Powell vs. James Buck, Brenda Wilson vs. Greg Goode, and Brian Schmutzler vs. Linda Rogers.

    • The split approach suggests Braun is trying to have it both ways — rewarding House allies while joining Trump’s purge of Senate opponents — and hoping nobody notices the contradiction.

  • Top GOP election official blasts ‘pattern of negligence’ under Diego Morales (IndyStar)

    • Indiana’s Republican Secretary of State Diego Morales is being torpedoed by members of his own party — including his predecessor Connie Lawson and the GOP’s own election division co-counsel — who accuse him of nepotism, sloppy election administration, and spending public money on a $90,000 luxury SUV from a campaign donor.

    • The indictment is damning on its face: the official responsible for issuing notary licenses couldn’t get his own staff properly notarized, forcing candidates to rush back to Indianapolis to refile paperwork.

    • Both the Republican co-director and co-counsel of the Indiana Election Division are walking out the door immediately after the primary — a mass exodus that speaks louder than any letter.

    • Morales faces a convention fight in June against Knox County Clerk Dave Shelton, while on the Democratic side Beau Bayh and Blythe Potter are competing for their party’s nomination.

• Other Indiana News

  • Governor to pump $200M into child care vouchers, take 14K kids off waitlist (ICC)

    • Gov. Braun’s administration proposed a $200 million investment to reopen Indiana’s child care voucher program, which has been closed to new enrollees for over a year with nearly 35,400 children on the waitlist.

    • The money would bring enrollment from 43,000 back up to 57,000, pulling about 14,000 children off the waitlist as soon as May — with priority for foster, kinship, special needs, and homeless children.

    • The move requires State Budget Committee approval Thursday, enabled by a significantly rosier revenue forecast — Indiana is currently $653 million ahead of its budget plan.

    • About 21,400 children would still remain on the waitlist even if the full investment is approved.

  • Braun, Eli Lilly enter agreement to add nuclear energy to IN grid (IndyStar)

    • Gov. Braun announced a letter of intent with Eli Lilly to explore nuclear energy feasibility in Indiana — a state with no existing nuclear capacity and no clear timeline for building any.

    • The partnership is driven by two converging pressures: Hoosiers facing rising utility bills from investor-owned utilities already under state regulatory scrutiny, and massive power demands from data centers that would otherwise push utilities toward more gas plants.

    • Lilly’s angle is emissions reduction; Braun’s is positioning Indiana as a “nuclear energy leader” — though the technology involved, small modular reactors, remains expensive, complicated, and unproven at scale.

    • A letter of intent to explore feasibility is a long way from a reactor — but it fits a national pattern of corporations and states making nuclear announcements that may take decades to materialize, if ever.

  • Insurers owe Indiana hospitals more than $1 billion, IHA says (FOX59)

    • Indiana hospitals delivered over $717 million in care last year that went unpaid by insurers, with the Indiana Hospital Association estimating total unpaid care statewide likely exceeds $1.6 billion.

    • Greene County General Hospital escalated Tuesday by serving Anthem with a breach of contract notice, accusing the insurer of paying claims far below contractually required rates even after acknowledging the errors.

    • The IHA’s pointed question: premiums keep rising, so where is the money actually going?

    • Rural hospitals are most exposed, operating on razor-thin margins already squeezed by Medicaid reimbursement cuts since Trump took office — the IHA warns Indiana hospitals are approaching a breaking point.

    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.

HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us

Whetstone for Congress: https://www.whetstoneforcongress.com/

SUMMARY:

Scott Aaron Rogers sits down with John Whetstone, a Crawfordsville native and small business owner running as a progressive Democrat in the crowded primary for Indiana’s 4th Congressional District ahead of the May 5, 2026 primary. Whetstone, who grew up poor in a trailer park, lost his father to the brutalities of the pre-ACA health care system, and once made his living traveling the country playing Magic: The Gathering professionally, makes the case that his working-class background and genuine experience with struggle is what distinguishes him in a field of seven Democratic candidates. The conversation covers his three-pillar platform of health care, economic fairness, and tax justice, and why he believes the fight is top-down rather than left-right.

WHAT’S INSIDE:

00:00:23 Introduction

- Scott introduces the episode and reads from Whetstone’s campaign biography: born and raised in Crawfordsville, attended Southmont High School, lost his father before graduating, pursued business management after graduating in 2015, and traveled the country competing professionally in Magic: The Gathering before returning home during COVID-19 and eventually opening his own small business.

00:03:32 The Easy Dubs: Who, What, When, Where

- Whetstone says his bio tells part of the story but leaves out that he grew up poor in a trailer park surrounded by neighbors dealing with fixed incomes, medical bankruptcy, divorce, and the criminal justice system.

- He says those early experiences gave him a perspective on working-class need that he doesn’t see reflected in most of Washington.

- On the district geography: Whetstone confirms Lafayette and West Lafayette as the largest cities, with Brownsburg and Avon also substantially populated. The district runs from Martinsville in the south to Newton and Jasper counties in the northwest, including communities on Central Time in the Chicago media market.

- Whetstone notes he is centrally located in Crawfordsville — about 90 minutes to Martinsville, two hours to the northern end — giving him a geographic advantage over candidates from the district’s extremes.

- On what’s interesting about the district: Whetstone says it’s the people, not any one place — a consistent, genuine Hoosier kindness that crosses political lines everywhere he’s traveled in the district.

00:07:50 The Why: Why Congress, Why Now

- Whetstone says he started eyeing a state house seat but found that the people he was recruiting to volunteer and donate were frustrated at being locked out of politics — especially young people under 30.

- He decided to run for Congress when he saw no young progressive on the ticket for IN-04.

- He and Scott discuss the extreme gerrymandering of Indiana Statehouse seats, with Whetstone noting that as Montgomery County Democratic secretary, he coordinates with candidates who hold as few as two precincts in the county. He was present at the Statehouse protests when Republicans fast-tracked the redistricting vote in early December.

- Scott notes that some Republican legislators have nonetheless shown conscience and drawn their own lines when it comes to certain actions from the current administration.

00:14:28 Three Big Things: Health Care

- Whetstone grounds the health care discussion in his family’s experience: his father worked multiple jobs simultaneously — factory work, maintenance, moving mobile homes — and ran himself down trying to pay off medical debt, much of it incurred before the Affordable Care Act covered pre-existing conditions. He describes the ACA’s passage as a genuine turning point for his family, particularly for access to insulin and other medications his father needed.

- He says the country needs to keep advancing beyond the ACA and not treat it as a finish line.

- On Medicare for All: Whetstone says he is aligned with the Sanders model — single payer, insurance companies out of the equation except possibly as supplemental coverage — while acknowledging no single model is perfect and all policy should remain open to improvement.

- On dental and vision: He says they should be covered as a matter of course, and notes that he himself just obtained health, dental, and vision coverage for the first time as an adult. He says no one approaching 30 should still be treating a dentist visit as an exciting milestone.

- On the innovation objection to single payer: Whetstone argues that pharmaceutical companies are making two- to three-thousand-percent profit margins and that regulation would not destroy their industry — if they exit, someone else will fill the role at lower margins.

- On insurance company employees: He says a large portion could be absorbed into government administration of the health care system, continuing similar work without serving private insurers like Anthem or Blue Cross.

- On funding: Whetstone says the 1% needs to pay its fair share, corporations need to pay their fair share, and a 300-million-person covered base gives government enormous collective bargaining power to drive down the cost of procedures and prescriptions.

- On rural health care specifically: He and Scott discuss the wave of rural hospital closures and labor and delivery department shutdowns across Indiana, and Whetstone says he is a strong advocate for rural transit expansion to connect patients in underserved areas with specialized care in larger cities.

00:25:43 Three Big Things: Economic Fairness and the Wealth Tax

- Whetstone proposes a wealth tax modeled roughly on Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax: 1% on wealth over $10 million, 2% on wealth over $1 billion, with room to go higher incrementally.

- He argues that working people already pay a wealth tax in the form of property taxes on their homes — their primary asset — and asks why billionaires should be exempt from equivalent accountability on theirs.

- He says the wealth tax would raise revenue to fund health care and rural transit, among other priorities. [Note: Warren’s Ultra-Millionaire Tax proposal has been estimated to raise approximately $3 trillion over 10 years, more than Whetstone’s on-air “couple trillion” estimate.]

- Scott raises the Eisenhower-era top marginal income tax rate of 91% and notes that the current concentration of extreme wealth is partly the consequence of decades of declining tax rates on high earners — that a wealth tax wouldn’t even be necessary if those rates had been maintained.

- Whetstone pivots to the corporate tax rate, correcting himself mid-thought: the One Big Beautiful Bill (signed July 4, 2025) made the 21% corporate rate permanent. [Note: The 21% rate was originally set by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, cutting it from the previous 35%. Whetstone initially misspoke, citing 23%; Scott’s on-air correction to 21% was accurate.] Whetstone says his first target is to roll it back to 35%.

- He supports exit taxes on corporations that attempt to flee U.S. tax obligations, and agrees with Scott’s point about Biden’s effort to establish a global corporate minimum tax.

- Scott and Whetstone discuss Dollar General as a case study: pays around $10/hour, profits in the billions annually, and its employees frequently rely on public assistance — meaning taxpayers are effectively subsidizing the company’s low-wage model.

- On the Democratic Party’s marketing failures: Whetstone says Democrats consistently lose the branding battle to Republicans, who successfully present themselves as the party of small government while massively expanding ICE funding, surveillance infrastructure, and the military.

00:35:17 Three Big Things: Minimum Wage

- Whetstone supports raising the federal minimum wage to $17.25/hour, pegged to the calculation that 30% of income covering a one-bedroom apartment in Indiana’s 4th District works out to approximately $17.24/hour. He rounds up to $17.25 and would tie future increases to inflation.

- He notes that as a working person, he has never experienced a minimum wage increase in his lifetime. The federal minimum has been $7.25/hour since 2009.

- He supports a stepped implementation: large employers (20+ employees) would raise first, followed by small businesses a few months later, to allow consumer spending to percolate through local economies before the mandate hits smaller operators.

- On the small business objection: Whetstone argues from his own management experience that stimulus spending — like minimum wage increases — cycles through local economies quickly. He says the stores he managed achieved three years of planned expansion in six months during COVID stimulus. He also notes that Dollar General’s skeleton staffing leaves no room to cut labor costs in response to a wage increase.

- Scott corroborates from personal experience in Bloomington-area restaurant management: after the last federal minimum wage increase, the following year was a significantly better one — employees and customers alike had more money to spend.

- The NJ/PA study Whetstone references but can’t name is almost certainly the landmark 1994 Card and Krueger study, which compared fast food employment on both sides of the New Jersey/Pennsylvania border after New Jersey raised its minimum wage, and found no negative employment effect.

- Scott raises the 1968 minimum wage peak: at $1.60/hour, it represented the highest purchasing power in U.S. minimum wage history; in inflation-adjusted dollars, that’s approximately $15 today. Had the minimum wage tracked productivity growth rather than inflation alone, it would likely be in the $20s or higher.

00:47:14 Race Dynamics: A Crowded Primary Field

- Whetstone gives a shout-out to Thomas Hall Jr., who recently withdrew from the Democratic primary and endorsed Whetstone, joining his campaign as a data specialist.

- Scott references a recent Progressive Indiana Network debate that featured a full field of Democratic candidates on screen.

- On the Republican side: incumbent Jim Baird faces a serious challenge from Craig Haggard, a former state representative from Mooresville. Whetstone says Haggard will be waiting if Baird doesn’t survive his primary.

00:50:40 Why Whetstone?

- Whetstone argues his biggest advantage is lived experience: he grew up in a trailer park, lived without heat and water while saving to open a small business, and has genuine relationships with the material struggles his platform addresses.

- He says this authenticity is what breaks through partisan lines — that going into a room of Republicans and talking NASCAR before talking policy opens doors that polished messaging doesn’t.

- Scott notes the average net worth of a U.S. congressperson is well north of a million dollars, pointing to Indiana’s 6th District incumbent Jefferson Shreve as an example of the wealth concentrated in Congress.

- Whetstone says he won’t be swayed by money or pressure — he’s used to telling people no.

00:52:25 What We Missed: Magic: The Gathering

- Whetstone describes his years as a professional Magic: The Gathering player: income drawn entirely from tournament winnings and coaching (at $17.50/hour), traveling the country every weekend, observing how different communities lived, and bringing what worked back to Crawfordsville. COVID shut down the circuit; he still plays occasionally, including a recent trip to Atlanta, but his priorities are now his neighbors’ material welfare.

- Scott attempts a Magic: The Gathering reference; Whetstone finishes it for him, citing the card “Balance” — which redistributes all resources equally among players — as the through line.

00:54:07 Where to Find John Whetstone

- Facebook: John Whetstone for Congress

- Website: whetstoneforcongress.com (volunteer and donate)

- Social media hashtag: #VotedWhetstone

00:55:01 Outro and Programming Note

- Scott reminds viewers of the upcoming Progressive Indiana Network virtual town hall on Sunday at 7 p.m. — viewer questions only, submitted via web form or asked live on Facebook, YouTube, and ProgressiveIndiana.net.

- HoosLeft This Week airs Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Eastern on YouTube, Facebook Live, and ProgressiveIndiana.net.

- HoosLeft social handles: @HoosLeft.us (Blue Sky, Instagram, Threads) and @HoosLeft (Facebook, TikTok, YouTube).

- PIN social handles: progressiveindiananetwork (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, YouTube); @PINIndiana (Blue Sky, TikTok).

This week on HoosLeft This Week: the theological and political fault line between Pope Leo and Pete Hegseth's Easter messaging; Trump's escalating threats against Iran, a ceasefire, and its rapid collapse as Israel struck Lebanon; suspicious prediction market trading around the ceasefire announcement and bipartisan calls to regulate it; the 25th Amendment and impeachment talk from an unlikely coalition; Indiana's congressional delegation on the Iran war and Governor Braun's gas tax holiday; the White House's pressure campaign against Alexandra Wilson and Trump's state legislative endorsement blitz ahead of Indiana's May 5 primary; special election results in Georgia and Wisconsin; the Michigan Senate race and the DNC's rejection of an AIPAC resolution; elections in Hungary and Peru; Melania Trump's Epstein statement, FBI notes corroborating survivor allegations, Pam Bondi's refusal to testify, and Bill Gates's upcoming congressional testimony; ICE conditions at Miami Correctional and the Dilley facility in Texas, shootings in California and Minnesota, Monroe County Sheriff Marte's lawsuit against AG Rokita, and the deportation cases of a U.S. soldier's wife and Kilmar Abrego Garcia; Indiana sheriffs charged in public integrity investigations; the Ball State/Rokita free speech settlement; the John Deere right-to-repair settlement; Indiana utility legislation and data center opposition in Shelbyville and Indianapolis; media consolidation and WRTV layoffs; and the successful return of the Artemis II crew. Guests: Marsha Fleming, Knox County Democratic Party chair and co-host of the Left of Midlife podcast, and Isaac Chapman-Whitehead, president of College Democrats at Indiana University.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00:00:34 Introduction

00:02:41 Guest Introductions: Marsha Fleming & Isaac Chapman-Whitehead

00:05:21 Pope Leo vs. Pete Hegseth: Two Versions of Easter

00:14:17 Trump’s Iran Threats & the Easter Deadline

00:19:01 The Ceasefire: Terms, Collapse, and Lebanon

00:36:00 Pakistan Negotiations & Where Things Stand

00:39:03 25th Amendment & Impeachment Talk

00:44:07 Indiana’s Delegation on Iran & Braun’s Gas Tax Holiday

00:51:12 Indiana Primaries: Alexandra Wilson & White House Pressure

00:58:51 Georgia Special Election & Wisconsin Supreme Court

01:03:22 Michigan Senate Race & the DNC/AIPAC Fight

01:11:13 Hungary & Peru Elections

01:14:22 Melania Trump’s Epstein Statement & Paolo Zampolli

01:19:45 FBI Notes, Pam Bondi’s Subpoena & Bill Gates

01:25:04 ICE in Indiana: Sheriff Marte vs. Rokita & Carson at Miami Correctional

01:31:55 ICE Nationally: Dilley, California & Minneapolis Shootings

01:36:33 ICE Deportations: Soldier’s Wife, Kilmar Abrego Garcia & IU Researcher

01:39:58 Indiana: Two Sheriffs Charged

01:45:49 Ball State Settlement & John Deere Right-to-Repair

01:51:55 Indiana Utilities & Data Center Opposition

01:57:55 Artemis II Splashdown

02:00:26 Sign-off & Upcoming on PIN

IN DEPTH:

• Easter -> Two Different Expressions of Christianity

  • This Easter, an American Pope Confronts an American War (New Yorker)

    • Pope Leo XIV publicly named Trump for the first time, urging him to find “an off-ramp” from the Iran war

    • The new Pope spent his first eleven months quietly assessing the Vatican internally before Trump’s wars thrust him into an unavoidably public, confrontational role

    • Pete Hegseth held a Pentagon prayer service asking God for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy” — framed as a direct contrast to Leo’s Palm Sunday peace message

  • American-born Pope Leo may not visit US while Trump is president after diplomat meeting disaster (Independent)

    • Leo directly rebuked Hegseth’s “pray for victory in Jesus’s name” rhetoric, saying Jesus “rejects the prayers of those who wage war”

    • Pentagon’s Elbridge Colby summoned Vatican diplomat Cardinal Christophe Pierre and warned the U.S. can do “whatever it wants” militarily The Daily Beast

    • A U.S. official invoked the Avignon Papacy — when France militarily dominated the Church in the 1300s — as a threat The Daily Beast

    • Pope Leo declined a White House invitation to celebrate July 4th, choosing instead to spend it on Lampedusa with African refugees

  • Pope Leo XIV denounces the ‘delusion of omnipotence’ he says fuels the US-Israeli war in Iran (AP)

    • Presiding over evening prayer services at St. Peter’s Basilica, Leo called the war a “delusion of omnipotence” and directly challenged leaders using God to justify violence — a clear shot at Hegseth’s Christian-nation framing

    • “Enough of the idolatry of self and money!” Leo said. “Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”

    • “It is here that we find a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive,” he said. “Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death.”

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• Iran

  • Threats -> Ceasefire -> Negotiations

    • On Easter, threatens ‘hell’ on Iran’s infrastructure if Strait remains blocked (Reuters)

      • On Easter Sunday, Trump posted the following:

        • “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” Open the F------ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

      • Trump told ABC News the conflict should end in days, but if not “we’re blowing up the whole country” — with “very little” off the table

      • Targeting power plants and bridges follows earlier threats to hit desalination plants, which international law experts said could violate humanitarian law

    • Trump threatens ‘whole civilization will die tonight’ ahead of Iran deadline (Politico)

      • On Monday, Despite the annihilation rhetoric, U.S. strikes that night hit only military targets on Kharg Island — Vance said civilian infrastructure was still on hold pending Iranian proposals

      • But then Tuesday morning, Trump posted:

        • “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

    • U.S. and Iran agree to 2-week ceasefire, suspending Trump’s threat to annihilate Iran (NPR)

      • U.S. and Iran reached a two-week ceasefire less than two hours before Trump’s 8 PM deadline, brokered by Pakistan

      • As part of the agreement, Trump said the U.S. and Israel would suspend bombing Iran for two weeks, subject to Iran following through on its commitment to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for safe passage during the ceasefire period.

      • Both sides claiming victory: Trump says military objectives were met; Iran says the U.S. agreed to the “general framework” of its 10-point proposal

        • According to Iranian officials, the proposal requires the lifting of all sanctions and UN resolutions against Iran, alongside the release of Iranian assets held overseas. Other demands include the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from military bases across the region, compensation in the form of estimated reparations, and Iran’s right to nuclear enrichment.

    • Suspicious Trading Around Ceasefire Announcement

      • Newly created Polymarket accounts bet big on US-Iran ceasefire in hours before Trump’s announcement (Politico)

        • Newly created Polymarket accounts placed hundreds of thousands in “Yes” bets on a ceasefire hours before Trump’s announcement — while his public rhetoric was still threatening to “annihilate a civilization”

        • This mirrors earlier suspicious betting patterns before the capture of Nicolás Maduro and previous Iran military actions — same platforms, same timing, same new-account pattern

        • Both Polymarket and Kalshi have acknowledged the problem; bipartisan legislation is pending to extend insider trading laws to prediction markets

      • Rep. Ritchie Torres calls for probe into futures trades placed ahead of March pause on Iran hostilities (CNBC)

        • Rep. Ritchie Torres called for an SEC/CFTC probe into $500 million in crude oil futures trades made in the 15 minutes before Trump announced a pause in Iran strikes last month— potentially the largest insider trading case in history

        • Torres has legislation pending to bar federal officials and political appointees from trading event contracts based on nonpublic government information — it has 42 Democratic cosponsors but is dead in the Republican House

        • This is the second time Torres has raised the alarm — the first was after a Polymarket account made $400,000 on the Maduro ouster — and a separate group of House Democrats has also written to the CFTC demanding answers

    • Netanyahu: Ceasefire doesn’t cover Lebanon (Times of Israel)

      • Four hours after US President Donald Trump’s announcement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issues a statement welcoming the ceasefire between the US and Iran, while stressing that it does not cover Lebanon.

      • “Israel supports President Trump’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks subject to Iran immediately opening the straits and stopping all attacks on the US, Israel and countries in the region,” the PMO says in a statement only issued in English.

    • Lebanese reeling after Israel’s devastating attacks (Al Jazeera)

      • Hours after the ceasefire took effect, Israel launched 100+ airstrikes across Lebanon in under 10 minutes, killing at least 254 and wounding 1,160 — with no warnings given

      • Strikes hit densely populated residential areas of Beirut that had been spared for months, including neighborhoods far from any Hezbollah presence

      • Analysts say Netanyahu is racing to “maximize operational achievements” in Lebanon before a final US-Iran deal forces him to stop

    • Pakistan Reiterates That Lebanon Is Still Part of Ceasefire Despite Israel’s Attacks (Common Dreams)

      • Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who played a key role in brokering the deal announced on Tuesday, said that “Iran and the United States of America, along with their allies, have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere, including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.”

      • Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, said on Wednesday afternoon that this was not the agreement the parties reached on Tuesday

      • Israel’s Lebanon assault is being characterized by some foreign policy analysts as a deliberate attempt to blow up a ceasefire over which Israel had been sidelined, and it worked…

    • Iran clamping down in Strait of Hormuz amid tenuous ceasefire (CBC)

      • Iran re-closed the Strait of Hormuz after Israel’s Lebanon strikes, with just 7 ships passing per day versus a normal 140 — and physical oil prices hit record levels

      • Iran is demanding tolls for safe passage through the Strait — an idea Trump himself had previously floated — prompting Trump to post “They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now”

      • Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — who hasn’t been seen in public since taking over — vowed retribution and promised to take “management of the Strait into a new phase”

    • Historic U.S. and Iran negotiations in Pakistan continue past midnight (PBS)

      • Vance and Iranian Parliament Speaker Qalibaf — a former Revolutionary Guard commander — held direct face-to-face talks in Islamabad, the most substantive U.S.-Iran contact since the 2015 nuclear deal negotiations

      • The two sides remain far apart: the U.S. wants to restrict Iran’s nuclear program and reopen the Strait; Iran is demanding compensation for strikes, release of frozen assets, and an end to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah

      • The U.S. began mine-clearing operations in the Strait regardless of the outcome — Trump told reporters “whether we make a deal or not makes no difference to me”

      • Israel continued striking Lebanon throughout the talks, with the Lebanese death toll surpassing 2,000 — while Iranian state TV noted “serious” differences remained at the table

  • Lawmakers’ Reaction to Trump Threats

    • An eclectic, bipartisan group suddenly calls for removing Trump using the 25th Amendment (CNN)

      • Trump’s “whole civilization will die tonight” post triggered 25th Amendment calls from an unusual coalition: dozens of Democrats, MTG, Alex Jones, Candace Owens, and Anthony Scaramucci

      • Invoking the 25th requires a majority of the Cabinet plus the vice president to declare the president unfit — there’s no sign Vance or any Cabinet member is considering it

      • GOP Sen. Ron Johnson said Trump “loses me if he attacks civilian targets” — signaling even loyal Senate allies saw infrastructure strikes as illegal

      • No removal is imminent — but the public breadth of the coalition calling for it is historically unprecedented

    • House Democrat says he has filed articles of impeachment against Trump (The Hill)

      • 70 Democrats including Nancy Pelosi and Chris Murphy formally called on the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment

      • Rep. John Larson (D-CT) filed impeachment articles against Trump over the Iran war, citing the “whole civilization will die” post as evidence of unfitness for office

      • “Donald Trump has blown past every requirement to be removed from office. And it’s getting worse. His illegal war in Iran is not only driving up prices for American families — it has cost American lives,” said Larson. “He’s becoming more unstable by the day. His profane and sacrilegious Easter Sunday and subsequent threats, including ‘a whole civilization will die’ and ‘open the Strait … or you’ll be living in hell’ not only foreshadow war crimes, but put our security at risk,” he added.

    • House Democrat moves to impeach Hegseth over Iran war (Axios)

      • Rep. Yassamin Ansari filed impeachment articles against Hegseth for “repeatedly violating his oath” — citing the bombing of a girls’ school in southern Iran as evidence of deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure

      • Hegseth is now Democrats’ top Cabinet target following the ousters of Noem and Bondi — and polls show him among the least popular Cabinet members

      • Polls have shown Hegseth is among the least popular members of the Cabinet, with the mounting costs of the Iran conflict placing further strain on his public image.

    • Indiana Angle:

      • Indiana’s congressional delegation reacts to Trump deadline for bombing Iran (WTHR)

        • Todd Young: Trump is applying “maximum leverage” and using escalatory language to force a quick end — not actually planning to commit war crimes

        • André Carson: Trump has “no imminent threat” justification, was “drawn into this war by Netanyahu,” and has shown only “indecision, divisiveness and recklessness”

        • Both agreed rising gas prices are hurting Hoosiers — Young pushed releasing strategic petroleum reserves, Carson noted it’s only a temporary fix

        • Previously: Indiana’s congressional delegation reacts to initial Iran strikes (Axios)

          • Baird, Yakym, and Stutzman applauded Trump’s “decisive” action; Spartz expressed reservations; Carson, Mrvan call for war powers resolution.

      • Gov. Braun signs order to pause tax on gas for 30 days as Indiana prices hit $4 (WFYI)

        • Braun signed an executive order suspending Indiana’s 7-cent-per-gallon gas sales tax for 30 days — no legislative approval needed — as Indiana prices hit $4.13/gallon

        • The suspension covers only the sales tax, not the 36-cent excise tax — and only gasoline, not diesel

        • “I want to be clear: House Democrats support this suspension, but Gov. Braun and Statehouse Republicans are only cleaning up a mess that they helped create,” House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta said in a press release. “Hoosiers are tired of unstrategic and unfocused foreign wars that cost American lives, drive up gas prices and raise the cost of living.”

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• Elections

  • Indiana Angle:

    • Judge kicks dispute over same-last-name candidate back to Indiana Election Commission (ICC)

      • A judge sent back to the Indiana Election Commission a challenge to Alexandra Wilson’s place on the Republican primary ballot for an Indiana Senate seat

      • The fight is politically motivated — Trump-endorsed Brenda Wilson wants Alexandra Wilson removed to clear the path against incumbent Sen. Greg Goode, who voted against Indiana’s congressional redistricting plan

      • The removal effort hinges on a 2010 resisting law enforcement charge from when Alexandra was 19 — since expunged — with Bopp arguing the expungement is irrelevant because she was still convicted at the time she filed

    • How the White House tried — and failed — to push a candidate out of a Republican state Senate primary in Indiana (NBC)

      • Senior White House aides — including deputy chief of staff James Blair and political director Matt Brasseaux — personally called, texted, and pressured Alexandra Wilson to drop out, offering jobs and warning of “ugly” attacks if she stayed in

      • Blair made the calls from a plane to Germany with Marco Rubio — and when Wilson wouldn’t budge, Bopp filed to disqualify her the very next morning

      • The pressure campaign also involved Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, Gov. Braun’s chief of staff, and the Club for Growth — showing how deep the White House’s involvement runs in Indiana’s state Senate primaries

    • Trump dives deeper into Indiana’s Republican primary fights (ICC)

      • Trump has now endorsed challengers to seven of the eight Republican state senators who voted against redistricting — branding incumbents “RINO LOSERS” and challengers “REAL Republicans”

      • Outside dark money groups — Hoosier Leadership for America, American Leadership PAC, and Club for Growth — are running TV, radio, and mail ads tied to Trump’s endorsements against targeted incumbents

      • Trump also endorsed all 10 Indiana House Republicans who voted for redistricting and face primary challengers — while withholding endorsements from three House members who voted against it but whose challengers haven’t gotten his backing either

  • This Week’s Elections

    • Republicans win Georgia race — but Democrats post largest swing yet in special House elections (NBC)

      • Republican Clay Fuller held MTG’s Georgia seat, but won by only 12 points in a district Trump carried by 37 — a 25-point swing toward Democrats, the biggest of any House special election in Trump’s second term

      • Democrats have now improved on Trump’s 2024 margins in every House special election this term, and have flipped 28 total state legislative seats since last year

      • Democrat Shawn Harris outperformed despite being outspent 4-to-1 — Fuller and outside groups spent $4 million to Harris’s $1.1 million

    • Two Democrats and a Republican secure seats in the Georgia Legislature (AJC)

      • Georgia also held three state legislative special election runoffs Tuesday — two safely Democratic seats stayed blue, one deep-red Republican seat stayed red — no partisan flips

    • Liberal judge cruises to victory in Wisconsin Supreme Court race (Politico)

      • Liberal judge Chris Taylor won a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat Tuesday, expanding the liberal majority to 5-2 and locking in liberal control until at least 2030

      • Conservatives haven’t won a Wisconsin Supreme Court race since 2019 — liberal judges have won four straight, including last year’s race where Elon Musk spent millions and still lost

      • The liberal court has already used its majority to end a GOP gerrymander, overturn Wisconsin’s 176-year-old abortion ban, and lock in a 400-year school funding increase

  • Other Elections

    • US

      • How big of a tent do Democrats want? Hasan Piker is testing the limits in Michigan’s Senate primary (Michigan Public)

        • Progressive Abdul El-Sayed is running for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat with Bernie Sanders’ backing, campaigning alongside Twitch streamer Hasan Piker — a move that’s splitting Democrats over how big a tent the party should build

        • El-Sayed is in a three-way primary against Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow; the winner faces former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers in November for Gary Peters’ vacated seat

        • Establishment Democrats and Jewish groups are condemning Piker over controversial statements including “America deserved 9/11,” calling Hamas “a thousand times better” than Israel; McMorrow suggested Piker was analogous to MAGA white nationalist Nick Fuentes

        • Gaza is the fault line: El-Sayed and McMorrow both call it a genocide, but El-Sayed wants to end military aid entirely while Stevens calls herself a “proud pro-Israel Democrat”

        • Piker — who has 3.1 million Twitch followers and has hosted AOC and NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani — argues the backlash is really about suppressing a younger, more populist wing of the party rather than about him personally

      • DNC rejects resolution condemning influence of pro-Israel Aipac lobby (Guardian)

        • The DNC’s resolutions committee voted to kill a measure targeting AIPAC’s dark money influence in Democratic primaries — despite AIPAC spending $221 million in Democratic races since 2022, including $22 million in Illinois alone

        • Two further resolutions — recognizing a Palestinian state and conditioning military aid to Israel — were punted to a “Middle East working group” that critics say exists mainly to avoid difficult decisions

        • DNC Chair Ken Martin defended the outcome by pointing to a separate blanket anti-dark-money resolution — without naming AIPAC specifically

        • AIPAC’s spending has backfired in at least one race: in New Jersey, a $2 million effort to defeat progressive Analilia Mejia failed, and she won the primary anyway

        • Polling consistently shows the Democratic base has shifted sharply away from Israel since Gaza — making the establishment’s posture increasingly at odds with its own voters

    • International

      • Peru faces record field in election, corruption and crime top voter concerns (Reuters)

        • Peru holds elections Sunday with 35 presidential candidates and no one polling above 15% — a runoff on June 7 is almost certain, with right-wing Keiko Fujimori holding a narrow lead

        • Fujimori is the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, who served 16 years in prison for human rights abuses before dying in 2024 — and has herself faced corruption charges tied to the Odebrecht bribery scandal that has implicated four Peruvian ex-presidents

      • MAGA’s global model faces existential test in Hungary (Axios)

        • Vance traveled to Budapest to boost Orbán ahead of Hungary’s April 12 election — the most serious threat to Orbán’s 16-year grip on power, with challenger Péter Magyar channeling voter anger over corruption and a struggling economy

        • The U.S. and Russia are both intervening to keep Orbán in power, while the EU and Ukraine want him gone — Hungary’s foreign minister was caught on leaked audio telling Russia’s foreign minister “I am always at your disposal”

        • Orbán has spent 16 years reshaping Hungary’s courts, media, and electoral maps to entrench his power — what the European Parliament calls “electoral autocracy” — and has never lost under the system he built

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• Epstein/DOJ

  • Melania Trump holds extraordinary White House event to deny ties to Epstein, knowledge of his crimes (AP)

    • Melania made an extraordinary White House statement denying Epstein ties — but her decision to revive the issue herself almost certainly pushes it back into the spotlight after the Iran war had largely buried it

    • She acknowledged being in overlapping social circles with Epstein and Maxwell, but called a 2002 email to Maxwell “trivial casual correspondence” — without elaborating on its contents

    • The West Wing knew she was making a statement but may not have known what she’d say — and the White House press office didn’t respond to requests for comment

    • Melania called for congressional hearings for Epstein survivors — Democrats immediately agreed; Republicans were split, but Thomas Massie turned attention back to the Justice Department, saying it’s the attorney general’s job to bring in survivors for testimony. Massie, who has pressed for more arrests in the Epstein case, ended a social media post with a call to “PROSECUTE!”

    • The statement came months after HarperCollins UK apologized and retracted passages from a book suggesting Epstein introduced her to Trump — the most recent of several retractions she cited

  • The Man Who Links Melania Directly to Epstein (Daily Beast)

    • The man sitting next to JD Vance in Budapest this week helping prop up Viktor Orbán’s reelection campaign is Paolo Zampolli — Trump’s special envoy for global partnerships and the man who introduced Donald and Melania

    • Zampolli appears multiple times in the Epstein documents, discussed buying a modeling agency with Epstein, and was named a partner in Ghislaine Maxwell’s ocean charity

    • Zampolli’s ex-girlfriend, Brazilian model Amanda Ungaro, rode Epstein’s “Lolita Express” at age 17 and is now threatening to “expose everything” — while accusing Zampolli of using his Washington connections to have her arrested by immigration authorities amid a custody dispute

  • FBI records detail potential witnesses of SC Epstein victim. They aren’t public. (Post & Courier)

    • Unreleased FBI handwritten notes from 2019 contain names of potential corroborating witnesses to a South Carolina woman’s allegations that Epstein trafficked her as a teen and that she was forced into a sex act involving Trump

    • Key details in the handwritten notes never made it into the official FBI summaries released by DOJ — and the FBI never appears to have contacted at least one of the witnesses named in those notes

    • Pam Bondi, who was just ousted as AG, is still subpoenaed to testify April 14 about DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files

  • Pam Bondi defies House subpoena over Epstein files (Axios)

    • Bondi is refusing to comply with her congressional subpoena, claiming she was subpoenaed as AG and no longer holds that office — Democrats are threatening contempt

    • The subpoena passed on a bipartisan basis, with Mace, Burchett, Boebert, Cloud, and Perry joining every Democrat — and Mace says Bondi “will still have to appear”

    • Epstein survivors Maria and Annie Farmer are demanding Bondi testify under oath, saying DOJ’s handling of the files “betrayed the trust of survivors”

  • Bill Gates will testify in the Epstein probe; Pam Bondi testimony postponed (NPR)

    • Bill Gates will testify before House Oversight in June — he appears thousands of times in the Epstein files, met with Epstein repeatedly after his 2008 conviction, and flew on his private plane

    • The Epstein files contain claims that Epstein helped Gates obtain medication for an STI from “sex with Russian girls” — and that Gates wanted to secretly give that medication to then-wife Melinda French Gates, who told NPR the revelations filled her with “unbelievable sadness”

    • Also scheduled to testify: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on May 6, and a prison guard on duty the night Epstein died on May 18 — while Maxwell is refusing to testify without immunity or clemency

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• ICE

  • Indiana angle:

    • Monroe County Sheriff sues AG Rokita over ICE compliance law (WRTV)

      • Monroe County Sheriff Ruben Marté has sued AG Rokita over Indiana’s new ICE compliance law, SEA 76, arguing it requires detaining people without a judicial warrant — a violation of the Fourth Amendment rights he swore to protect

      • Marté says complying with the law would expose Monroe County to “significant civil liability” — and notes his office already honors ICE detainer requests when accompanied by a judicial warrant

      • Rokita already has an ongoing lawsuit against Marté over the county’s immigration detention policy — this new suit is Marté firing back

    • Congressman cites ‘heartbreaking’ detainee accounts during Indiana prison visit (ICC)

      • Rep. André Carson toured Miami Correctional Facility and met privately with ICE detainees, just days after a second detainee death at the facility in less than two months

      • Carson says detainees told him at least one death may have been preventable — the person was “screaming” with no functioning intercom system, and personnel failed to respond rapidly

      • Detainees described two-week waits for medical care resulting in “a few Tylenol capsules,” 3:30 a.m. breakfasts, and court documents arriving after filing deadlines had already passed

      • Indiana DOC has received $5 million so far under its ICE detention contract — Carson is calling for an end to ICE detention at the facility entirely, saying the dual-use model is “simply unsustainable”

  • Facilities

    • Democrats says ICE’s notorious Dilley detention center is operating in ‘a new era of secrecy’ under new DHS chief (Independent)

      • Democratic lawmakers visiting ICE’s Dilley family detention center in Texas say staff greeted them with scripted “propaganda” from DHS leadership and refused to answer questions — directing all inquiries in writing to Washington

      • More than 300 people including 77 children are currently detained at Dilley — part of roughly 6,200 children placed in ICE detention since Trump’s second term began

      • Emergency crews have been dispatched to Dilley nearly a dozen times in six months for children with seizures, broken bones, respiratory distress and plunging oxygen levels — a five-year-old has had untreated cavities for months, receiving only Ibuprofen

      • Rep. Joaquin Castro says the facility has grown “more secretive, not less” under new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin — “there are people there with grave medical conditions that are worsening because they’re not treated as fully human”

  • If they don’t shoot you first

    • California man shot by ICE says officials falsely labeled him a gang member (Guardian)

      • A California man shot by ICE agents during a traffic stop says officers fired on him as he was trying to reverse away from them — he was hit by more than six bullets including one to the face and has undergone three surgeries

      • ICE claimed he’s an 18th Street Gang member wanted for murder in El Salvador — but provided no evidence, and Hernandez was acquitted of that murder charge in 2019; his attorney says he has never been in a gang

      • This follows a pattern: ICE shot Renee Good in Minneapolis in January, claimed she “ran over” an officer, but footage showed otherwise — and in Oregon, DHS called a shooting victim a gang member when she was actually a prior victim of sexual assault

    • Minneapolis ICE shooting: City releases video that undermines feds’ version of events (KMSP)

      • Minneapolis released video of a January ICE shooting that directly contradicts federal agents’ sworn accounts — the DOJ dropped charges against the two men arrested and opened a criminal probe into the ICE officers for making “untruthful statements” under oath

      • The U.S. Attorney’s Office opened a criminal probe into two ICE officers after video evidence revealed their sworn testimony included “untruthful statements” — “lying under oath is a serious federal offense,” an assistant secretary acknowledged

      • The two men originally charged with assaulting a federal agent had those charges dismissed with prejudice after “newly discovered evidence” proved “materially inconsistent” with the original complaint

  • Deportations

    • US soldier’s wife freed from ICE detention as deportation attempt continues (Military Times)

      • ICE detained a U.S. soldier’s wife on a military base in Louisiana while the couple was there to register her as a military spouse — she was brought to the U.S. from Honduras at 20 months old and issued a removal order as a toddler

      • Sgt. Matthew Blank said he “never imagined” doing the right thing — registering his wife for military benefits — would result in her being taken away

      • Annie Ramos has been released with a GPS monitor pending removal proceedings; she says “all I have ever wanted is to live with dignity in the country I have called home since I was a baby”

    • Trump administration reaffirms plans to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia (Al Jazeera)

      • The Trump administration insists on deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia — not Costa Rica (which has offered to take him) — a destination critics say is purely vindictive

      • Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March 2025 in violation of a protection order, imprisoned at the notorious CECOT facility, and only returned to the U.S. in June after a unanimous Supreme Court ruling

      • Since his return, the administration filed human smuggling charges against him, detained him again when he was released, and proposed deporting him to Uganda before settling on Liberia — an escalating pattern of retaliation against a man with no criminal record

    • Congo says it will receive third-country deportees from the U.S. under new deal (PBS)

      • Congo has agreed to accept U.S. deportees who are not Congolese — joining at least seven other African nations in Trump’s third-country deportation program, which has cost at least $40 million to deport roughly 300 migrants

      • Many of the African nations signing these deals have notoriously repressive governments and poor human rights records — including Eswatini, South Sudan, and Equatorial Guinea

      • A key concern: many deportees being sent to these countries have U.S. court protection orders specifically barring their return to their home countries due to safety concerns — now being shipped to a third country instead

    • IU postdoctoral researcher deported after pleading guilty to smuggling E. coli DNA into the US from China (WTHR)

      • A former IU Bloomington postdoctoral researcher was sentenced to four months in prison and deported to China after pleading guilty to smuggling E. coli DNA into the U.S., mislabeled on a shipping manifest as “women’s underwear”

      • The FBI caught him at O’Hare after he returned from a UK research trip — he initially denied knowledge before admitting he mislabeled the package to circumvent U.S. law

      • The FBI also presented evidence that Xiang was a Chinese Communist Party member who lied about his party ties during his immigration interview