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SUMMARY:

With six days left until Election Day, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. open by urging listeners to vote and tying the strong early-voting turnout to rising costs: gas, groceries, utilities, rents, and health care. Greene argues the federal “Big Beautiful Bill” and Project 2025 are hitting people across the board, and both hosts say the data center fight shows a shared concern that voters are ready to act on. The second half turns to changes to the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP), Indiana’s Medicaid expansion program, which begin January 1, 2027. Alexander walks through the notice recipients are receiving from the Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA): 80 hours a month of work, volunteering, school, or training, with documentation required. Greene stresses keeping copies of every document and meeting every deadline, and warns that people who lose coverage may wait months to return. Both hosts urge listeners to start saving pay stubs, volunteer records, and receipts now and to help older relatives use the FSSA website. Callers Joyce and Imhotep weigh in, with Imhotep describing hospital cuts and strains on nursing homes.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 — Six days left to vote; preview of the HIP changes

- Alexander previews the night’s two topics: voting, and changes coming to the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP)

- Says turnout across Marion County seems “extraordinary” and encourages everyone to have a voting plan

- Greene opens in prayer for the city, state, and country and for everyone who will be affected by the Medicaid changes

- Greene asks that information reach people so they will be protected from harm

00:02:35 — Early voting turnout and vote centers

- Alexander: many early voting sites opened last weekend, a march to the polls was held, and turnout in Marion County looks good

- Says Marion County voters can vote at any vote center, not just the one near home

- Greene: gas prices, grocery prices, and the war are pushing people to say “I need to go vote”

00:04:07 — Voters feeling the pinch

- Alexander says families that once followed the head of household’s party are now paying attention because the policies affect them directly

- Cites Marjorie Taylor Greene as an example of someone breaking ranks to speak honestly about how the president’s policies have harmed Americans

- Says voters should take that mindset to the polls

00:05:10 — Greene: why people are voting now

- Greene: the Big Beautiful Bill didn’t affect only one group of people; the impact is coming “across the spectrum”

- Lists education, health care, affordability, data centers, and rising utility prices as what has people worried

- Says people usually wait for a presidential election but are choosing to send a message now because the effects are happening now, not in 2028

- Says a strong turnout would make council members think twice about backing data centers, since next year brings a council race

00:07:47 — Data centers and the pocketbook

- Alexander: data centers have been one of the few issues that has brought people together, though many other issues could have done the same over the past 10 years

- Greene: attacks on the pocketbook — gas, food, rents, health care — become personal in a way other issues don’t

- Says “the them is turning into an us” for everyone outside the top 1%

- Lists costs people are weighing: referendums, health care, interest rates, and credit card debt

- Warns that Thanksgiving and Christmas will be more expensive

00:11:09 — Souls to the Polls this Sunday

- Alexander: Marion County Souls to the Polls will take people to the township vote centers right after church this coming Sunday

- Greene says it the effort could’ve been better organized; he would have told planners to get it to pastors a week or two earlier

- Greene says he supports the effort and encourages people to participate

- Greene notes rain is forecast for Tuesday and urges people not to wait, since any vote center in the county will work

00:14:02 — Caller Joyce: vote while you can

- Joyce voted last Friday at the City-County Building and notes the county’s website doesn’t make clear who represents what

- Says tomorrow isn’t promised, so people should vote while “still sucking air”

- Alexander says many of these community issues trace back to legislators’ decisions, including Medicaid and HIP

00:15:57 — Greene on Project 2025

- Greene applauds Joyce and says the mean-spiritedness people are seeing “is in that book, Project 2025”

- Argues voting is the only way to push back, and that Project 2025 benefits only a very few

- Questions why education and health care are being cut and where the savings end up, saying the community is being told to pay more for quality

00:17:59 — “After we vote, then what?”

- Alexander reads a comment from John on the Facebook feed and says there must be a plan for after the vote

- Says he expects “shenanigans” around certifying votes or seating winners

- Notes President Trump’s remark that an unfavorable outcome would leave the country “like France,” with rioting

- Alexander says the unrest in France is about the quality of education, not elections

00:19:43 — Greene: votes are leverage over officials

- Greene says a large turnout tells candidates and officeholders where the voters are, because they “go with the people who vote”

- Says voting also lets people hold officials accountable and remove them after one term

- Asks listeners how much pain they are willing to endure from gas prices, the war, referendums, and health care costs

- Says the French unrest came from years of frustration over concerns that were never properly answered

00:23:05 — Healthy Indiana Plan changes begin January 1, 2027

- Alexander: the changes take effect January 1, 2027, but people should prepare now

- Says members will be asked for documentation covering the last quarter of this year

- Urges saving receipts and documenting volunteer hours and work hours in the way the new rules require

00:24:13 — Greene: keep paperwork and watch for FSSA notices

- Greene cites a recent article’s figure of 58,000 people not currently in compliance with new work requirements and says the goal of the changes is to reduce Medicaid enrollment, calling it part of the Project 2025 playbook

- Compares it to the child care voucher freeze under the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), which he says saved money by not adding new vouchers

- Urges members to read FSSA mailings, learn what waivers or exemptions exist, and complete the paperwork on time

- Says recertification will require tracking data every three months [Note: FSSA says HIP renews every six months and compliance is checked every three months.]

- Says to keep copies of everything, since FSSA is not fully staffed and lost paperwork could cost someone coverage

00:27:54 — Start now, and use the FSSA website

- Alexander: members who think they have until January 1 should begin documenting now

- Warns that the mail and walk-in appointments may not be reliable, citing the overwhelmed Social Security Administration after its recent changes

- Recommends learning the FSSA website, which will let members upload photos of documents and confirm they are on file

00:28:58 — Caller Joyce: “I need human interaction”

- Joyce, who was born in the 1950s, says she would have to get her grandkids to use the website and wants to talk to a person

- Says she gets constant robocalls about Medicare

00:30:22 — Helping people who aren’t computer savvy

- Alexander: some members may need a grandchild, church member, or other trusted person to upload documents, which usually takes 15 to 20 minutes from a couch

- Greene: caregivers must help because this is not a one-time event; people can qualify in January and April and lose coverage later

- Greene suggests putting deadlines on a calendar so no one is cut off over a technicality, such as a document arriving a day late

- Greene calls the process “mean-spirited” and warns that people cut off may wait six or nine months to return, with some risking their health

00:34:05 — FSSA exemptions still unclear; Denise’s comment

- Alexander says FSSA has acknowledged that the exemptions are not yet clear even as the rollout begins

- Reads a chat comment from Denise about baby boomers entering the nursing home system

- Notes a lawyer to help with this process can cost about $400, and says the show hopes to spare listeners that expense

- Alexander says that, as Greene said before the break, people are going to die

00:35:54 — Caller Imhotep: voting and the health care cuts

- Imhotep, who works in health care, says some people tell him their vote doesn’t matter, and breaks it down: mayors produce police, and prosecutors, school boards, assessors, and councils all come from local votes

- Says politicians must “meet people where they are”

- Says the health care cuts trace back to the “big, ugly bill,” and claims 80% of IU Health’s revenue comes through Medicare and Medicaid

- Says friends who work in surgery report slowdowns, nurses sent home, and emergency rooms turning people away unless they have a heart attack, stroke, or major accident

- Says nursing homes are absorbing costs for people with substance use disorders who are too young for Medicare and don’t qualify for the Medicaid waiver, and tells families to “buckle up” as the sandwich generation

00:39:44 — Greene responds; the 80-hour requirement

- Greene says Imhotep spoke truth and that others in the field confirm it

- Alexander shows the plain FSSA letter and reads the requirement: 80 hours a month of work, community service or volunteering, school or job training, or a work program, which can be combined

- Alexander also cites a $580 monthly income figure [Note: FSSA describes $580 (federal minimum wage × 80 hours) as an alternative to 80 hours of activities, not an additional requirement.]

00:42:06 — Greene: documents, AI, and disappearing jobs

- Greene: keep pay stubs, because recertification will ask for proof of work

- Finds it ironic that unemployment is up, especially among Black workers, while AI and kiosks eliminate jobs at the same time the state demands proof of work

- Questions whether 58,000 people can find work, noting many on Medicaid have disabilities that limit them to certain jobs

00:44:30 — Competing for jobs: layoffs and automation

- Alexander says Microsoft is offering buyouts to 60,000 employees, and that UPS and Apple have cut jobs, so Medicaid recipients will compete with laid-off workers

- Greene: where are the jobs for people with limited skills or disabilities, and how long will they exist as technology replaces them

- Says reaching a human is becoming something people pay extra for, citing an AI service advisor and restaurant kiosks

- Notes volunteering may be key for meeting the requirement

00:48:22 — Renewal timing and navigating online accounts

- Alexander: the FSSA notice gives an example in which a May 2027 renewal requires showing three previous months of compliance

- Says someone with a January renewal should start collecting documents now and have someone help upload them

- Shares a tip: when he calls customer service, he looks at his online account so both he and the representative see the same screen

00:49:43 — Closing: vote and share the Medicaid information

- Greene’s closing: go vote, and share the Medicaid information with everyone you know

- Says “what you don’t know can kill you,” and people must get started now to avoid being cut off and having to get back on

- Alexander says the show will return to the topic and urges listeners to tell their loved ones

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SUMMARY:

With early voting underway, Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene devote the episode to education, joined by Rev. Dr. Wayne Moore, who is seeking a second term on the Pike Township School Board. Moore describes a district doing better than most but squeezed by the General Assembly, falling enrollment, and the loss of per-student funding to charter schools. The three discuss the record 38 school referendums on the November ballot, why they expect many to fail, and why they say school boards must explain the money to taxpayers. Greene warns that closed or failing charter schools can turn public school property into development land, and that the appointed Indianapolis Public Education Corporation will control who gets IPS buildings. The second half turns to Turning Point USA's Club America chapters in Indiana high schools, which Alexander maps on air and urges voters to ask school board candidates about. Callers Joyce, Barbara, and Imhotep weigh in on redistricting, what happens to charter school buildings, and curriculum that centers African-American literature. Greene closes by urging Pike Township voters to re-elect the three incumbents and announcing this weekend's march to the polls.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 — Welcome, prayer, and the education focus

- Alexander introduces Moore, an incumbent on the Pike Township School Board seeking another term

- Greene opens in prayer, thanking Moore for his willingness to serve on the school board

- Moore says he is excited to join the Concerned Clergy conversation

- Alexander says the show will center on education and urges voters in Pike Township, IPS, and every district with a school board race or referendum to pay close attention

00:03:27 — Moore’s platform as an incumbent

- Moore is closing out his first four years and seeking a second term

- Says he sits on the committee negotiating a contract for the district

- Says education is under a “government gavel” and Pike Township is doing better than many other townships

- Says no one knows what the General Assembly will do heading into 2027, and that the last two years have been extremely difficult for districts statewide

00:05:29 — A record number of school referendums

- Alexander: roughly 38 referendums are on the November ballot and resources are stretched across Indiana; voters should back candidates who want to put resources into schools

- Greene: Moore was instrumental in getting Pike’s referendum across the finish line by explaining it to the community

- Greene says districts with surplus money now will face referendums again within a year or two

- Greene predicts not all 38 referendums will pass, depending on who speaks for them and whether they’re explained rather than looking like another tax increase

00:08:37 — The Pike ballot and Moore’s warning on referendums

- Moore: three seats, four candidates, and three incumbents; he strongly encourages voters to consider the incumbents given the state of education

- Says not all referendums will be accepted, and that even districts like Carmel, Hamilton, and Zionsville are now signing up for major referendums

- Says school boards and bargaining units must shift from “us against them” to working together for survival

- Says the aim is graduation and proficiency, with as many teachers and services as possible kept in place

00:11:42 — Fellow incumbents and Pike’s biggest challenge

- Moore names the other two incumbents as Terry Webster and Alonzo Anderson, saying there is work still to finish

- Says Pike’s biggest challenge is a stronger budget, to secure staff and school security

- Says nearly every district has lost students, and losing 200 students means losing the dollars that pay teachers

- Says school boards need to communicate with the community rather than seek to be “important”

00:13:56 — Charter schools and the loss of per-student funding

- Alexander says much of the student movement is due to charter schools scattering students in many directions

- Greene: when a charter picks up a couple hundred students, the district loses funding tied per student, often learning of it mid-year and having to cut

- Greene notes diesel and gas costs are straining shrinking school district budgets

- Greene says this is why IPS needed to keep an elected board rather than an appointed one

00:16:36 — Moore on how charter funding is deducted

- Moore: when students leave for charters, the money follows, and it comes out of the district’s funds

- Says Pike’s state dollars are paid out to charters first; with 75 students gone to charters, the charter school is paid before the township

- Calls it disrespectful to a township that has educated students for 132 years

- Says Pike is effectively supporting two systems, the township district and the charter district

00:19:11 — Vouchers and the case for public education

- Alexander says more Indiana vouchers now go to families earning over $100,000 than to lower earners, though the program was meant to help the less fortunate

- Moore says he is running on public education and is a product of it

- Notes IPS has existed for 173 years; says charters have a far shorter record and there aren’t enough successful ones to meet graduation and proficiency needs

- Warns against “wolves in sheep’s clothing” joining public education boards

00:22:38 — Lawmakers’ role in school board structure

- Alexander says many of the problems Moore describes are caused by legislators who change the rules and put boards in place to carry their water

- Argues voters must look at the legislators making these laws as well as at school board candidates

- Says the districts are suffering because of the laws lawmakers have passed

00:24:30 — Caller Joyce: redistricting and the courts

- Joyce says Indianapolis was divided up to dilute the Black vote and that people should be able to vote on their own

- Says some people in the courts need training, citing a police officer she says should not have been reintroduced to the force

- Alexander thanks her and returns to Moore

00:26:41 — Do Pike families understand the referendum?

- Alexander asks whether parents understand charter schools, the referendum, and other district dynamics

- Moore: “Some do and some don’t”; most people are still gaining knowledge about the referendum

- Moore says that if taxpayers paid for the referendum they ought to know about it, especially if the district needs to ask again

- Moore hopes the board will set a clearer line of communication about referendums

- Alexander previews Turning Point USA and says voters should ask school board candidates whether they support it in schools

00:30:23 — Caller Barbara: what happens to charter buildings?

- Barbara asks whether charter schools own IPS buildings and what happens to the property if a school closes

- Alexander says charters can acquire buildings for a dollar

- Greene: this is how neighborhoods are gentrified, as failing charters leave property that becomes development land

- Greene says the IPS superintendent has said she must sell schools, but the appointed Indianapolis Public Education Corporation (IPEC) will control who gets the buildings

00:33:03 — School property, data centers, and playing chess

- Greene says charter-school rules are being modified, but that has not yet happened

- Says school property is massive, including athletic fields, and is the kind of land a data center developer would love to get for a dollar

- Says the Black community is often hurt because that money doesn’t flow into school systems the way it should

- Greene: “while we’re playing checkers, others are playing chess,” planning five to ten years out

00:34:52 — Why charter schools struggle to sustain enrollment

- Greene says he is pro-public education and that charters need a minimum number of students to be sustainable

- Cites the STEM school on Michigan Road, which he says is in the news this week for being short of students

- Says many charters lack resources for special-needs children

- Says rising rents and utility costs push families to move, so charters lose students they counted on

00:37:57 — Turning Point USA’s Club America chapters

- Alexander says falling birth rates mean “the math ain’t math” for adding schools

- Presents a map of Turning Point USA’s Club America, its high school chapter program, and describes its toolkit and regional contacts

- Says there are over 20 schools in central Indiana, with 11 on the north side of town and six on the south side

- Urges voters to ask school board candidates whether they support Turning Point USA

00:41:06 — Moore on Turning Point’s reach and curriculum

- Moore says the data shows 65 chapters statewide, including ones in Westfield, Huntington North, and Cardinal Ritter

- Says most listed schools are outside Marion County except Brebeuf, that Ritter should be on the list, and that Pike and North Central are not yet on it while Decatur is “moving”

- Says school boards aren’t discussing it and calls the curriculum “poisonous and dangerous,” saying he and Greene did a show on it

- Moore says the group caters to young white people and shows no Black or brown students in its literature

- Alexander lists Zionsville, Perry Meridian, Noblesville, Mooresville, Hamilton Southeastern, Franklin Central, Fishers, Brownsburg, and Brebeuf among the schools

00:45:33 — Governor Braun and Turning Point in schools

- Alexander says everyone should know whether a school board candidate supports it

- Moore says the group has no business in an extracurricular program in schools

- Moore says Governor Mike Braun found a way to push it into school systems and that the announcement showed only white children

00:46:25 — Caller Imhotep: deconstructing the curriculum

- Imhotep says he saw Moore at Roland Martin’s recent book signing in Indianapolis, where Martin shared strategies, and urges boycotts of corporations that don’t treat people fairly

- Argues education must be deconstructed, asking whether charter schools, including Black-run ones, use African-American literature and instructors

- Calls Turning Point an “ethnostate” and links it to the “Great Replacement” and white-supremacist doctrines, saying ministers are the torchlight against it

00:49:29 — Moore’s closing thoughts on books and education

- Moore says the books Imhotep listed are being taken out of libraries, which is a detriment to any new charter school

- Says education has become a threat to “the other culture”

- Says education once meant going back to the neighborhood to bring others along, a tradition he says we’ve lost and must regain

00:51:14 — March to the polls and a vote for the incumbents

- Greene: marches to the polls will take place in every township this weekend; Pike’s leaves Bethel AME at 11:30 for the Pike library, with “Souls to the Polls” on Sunday

- Greene urges voting for Moore and the other two Pike incumbents, saying the district needs people who already understand Turning Point USA, budgets, and money

- Greene thanks Moore for stepping up, saying his love for children is unquestionable after four years on the board

- Alexander urges everyone to vote

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SUMMARY:

With early voting underway, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. spend this episode in conversation with Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears, who is seeking another term. Mears describes his path from a west-side Indianapolis upbringing to the prosecutor’s office, his decision to stop prosecuting simple marijuana possession, and community-driven programs such as the Second Chance Workshop, a Saturday youth program, and an annual book bag giveaway. The hosts contrast his approach with elected officials they say ignore community input, citing Flock cameras and data centers. The second half turns to the two constitutional questions on the November ballot: Public Question 2 (judicial residency) and Public Question 1 (denying bail). Mears and both hosts urge a “no” vote on each, argue that Marion County’s appointed judges are unaccountable to local voters, and say Mears’s answer is simple: let Marion County elect its judges. A caller, Denise, asks how to get the word out; the hosts fault party leadership for not making the questions a turnout issue sooner. The show closes with a push for early voting and the Saturday, October 24 “March to the Polls.”

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 — Show open, prayer, and introduction of Prosecutor Mears

- Alexander welcomes listeners and previews the guest, who is “putting his hat back in the ring” for prosecutor

- Greene opens in prayer for local, state, and national leaders

- Alexander brings Mears on and asks him to share his vision for the office

00:03:46 — Mears’s background and the marijuana decision

- Mears: prosecutor since 2019 and a 20-year veteran of the office; from Indianapolis’s west side and a graduate of Cardinal Ritter High School

- Became the elected prosecutor in 2019 when Prosecutor Curry became ill

- One of his first acts was to stop prosecuting simple possession of marijuana, citing racial disparities between usage rates and who ended up in the system

- Says he wants resources focused on violent crime and on building relationships so contact with the office isn’t only “after something bad has happened”

00:06:44 — Second Chance and disparities in enforcement

- Mears describes the Second Chance Workshop, which helps people get driver’s licenses reinstated and convictions removed from their records

- Alexander: a youthful mistake can follow a person for life, and some communities pay for those mistakes longer and harder

- Greene: the programs are packed, and word spread in the community that they aren’t a setup

- Mears’s example: a student caught with marijuana on a college campus gets an administrative write-up, while the same act elsewhere in the city used to mean arrest and prosecution

00:08:49 — Why presence in the community builds trust

- Alexander says Mears stands out for being active in the community — youth events, basketball leagues — rather than an “us against them” prosecutor

- Mears credits the Concerned Clergy president for the advice to be with the community rather than against it

- Argues trust cannot be earned “by sitting in your office”; leaders must meet people where they are

- Says the Concerned Clergy’s power comes from its footprint in the community

00:11:02 — Community distrust of the system

- Alexander notes community distrust about whether people will be treated fairly, and that few other elected officials make comparable efforts

- Greene commends Mears’s outreach and says he “raised the bar” for elected officials

- Greene: relationships are the key to trust and can’t be built with an us-versus-them mentality

00:13:38 — Ideas that come from the community

- Mears: the driver’s license program grew from people who said they were afraid to drive their kids to school or get to work

- Says many of his best ideas are “stolen” from community members

00:15:30 — Partnerships: expungement, youth basketball, and book bags

- Mears: the Second Chance Workshop grew from a man who said he was fine with doing the time but not with a “life sentence” of convictions following him; Indiana’s expungement law made the program possible

- Partnered with Don Carlisle, head coach at Ben Davis, on his Underdog program, which opens the gym on Saturdays for basketball and leadership development

- Runs an annual book bag giveaway with Pastor Moore and Pastor Greene, after the pastors told him there was a need

00:17:32 — Officials who listen and officials who don’t

- Alexander: it’s frustrating to bring community feedback to other elected officials who won’t receive it, and refreshing to see one who does

- Greene: many officeholders are self-serving, hard to reach, and skeptical of the community, and go on the defense over issues like Flock cameras and data centers

- Greene says decisions are implemented first and the community is labeled “troublemakers” afterward, and that some plans for 2027–28 are known to officials but not discussed with residents

00:21:35 — Council response to Flock cameras and data centers; first break

- Alexander: on Flock cameras, body cameras, and data centers, the community raised concerns up front and was brushed off by the City-County Council and the mayor

- Says officials now present moratoriums and limits as heroic when they could have had the conversation from the start

00:23:40 — Violent crime, conviction rates, and who decides

- Alexander reintroduces Mears and Greene and asks how he responds to critics who question his commitment to prosecuting violent crime, noting Marion County doesn’t select its judges

- Mears: conviction rates are the highest they’ve been in a number of areas, including homicides and cases involving children

- Says he watches jury trial numbers closely because they reflect the community’s verdict on the office

00:25:53 — Mears on Public Question 2: judicial residency

- Mears urges voters to watch for the question on the ballot to amend the Constitution so judges don’t have to live in the county

- Says Marion County already can’t vote for its judges, who are appointed by Governor Braun, whom Mears says couldn’t get more than about 40% of the vote in Marion County

- Warns judges could live in places like Hamilton County and have no connection to the community, calling it “a recipe for disaster”

- [Note: Alexander reads the ballot language as follows: the Constitution would be amended “to permit the judge of a city or town court to reside in” the county where the court is located or the bordering county closest to the city or town. WFYI’s 2026 voter guide describes the amendment as covering city and town court judges, who hear misdemeanor, traffic, and city ordinance cases. The speakers discuss it as applying to Marion County’s appointed judges generally; that characterization does not appear to match the ballot language as read.]

00:28:07 — Alexander reads Question 2; Greene on how Questions 1 and 2 combine

- Alexander puts the question on screen and reads it

- Greene: taken together with Question 1, voters would have no way to address a judge who “goes rogue,” a possible “slippery slope” toward no-bail decisions

- Greene says the Concerned Clergy, the Baptist Minister’s Alliance, and the General Association of Missionary Baptists in Indiana issued a statement urging “no” votes and calling the changes harmful to Marion County and the state

- Notes the governor is appointing two more judges who retire at year’s end

00:31:07 — Judges in rural counties vs. Marion County

- Greene: it’s problematic for Marion County, Lake County, and other counties with many Black and brown residents, and asks why electing judges works in other Indiana counties but not here

- Argues rural judges are part of their communities and can be voted out; Marion County voters can’t do that

- Alexander: Marion County keeps having things “taken away,” and its resources support other communities; teases the bail question after the break

00:33:40 — Public Question 1: bail and the Constitution

- Alexander explains Question 1: judges would gain discretion to deny bail beyond murder and treason, which are the only exceptions now

- Notes judges already have discretion over bail and bond amounts

- Mears: bail has been a constitutional right since statehood to prevent governments from punishing people, including for political reasons

- Says a bail decision isn’t really appealable and that the decision-maker would have no connection to the community

00:37:22 — Caller Denise: how do we get the word out?

- Denise thanks Mears for acknowledging racial disparities and says she will vote for him

- Asks how to spread the message that Questions 1 and 2 should both be “no,” especially to younger voters, and worries about judges brought in from small towns

- [Note: Denise says Donald Trump was “found guilty” of rape and “did not get due justice.” Trump was found civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll case and was separately convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records; he was not criminally convicted of rape.]

00:40:37 — Mears: a role for the parties; the question is “intentionally confusing”

- Mears says he was at a community meeting discussing this very issue and sees a role for the state and local Democratic parties

- Calls the bail question’s wording “intentionally confusing” — he says he had to read it three times, despite being an attorney for 20 years

- Credits the Concerned Clergy, the Baptist Minister’s Alliance, and other groups for educating the public

00:41:26 — Hosts on getting information out

- Alexander agrees and says the question is confusing and that the show is trying to help voters understand it

- Greene: the party should already have been talking about it, because it could have been a lever for Black turnout

- Greene’s fear: rural voters know to vote for it while Marion, Lake, and Vanderburgh County voters either skip it or vote “yes” on the word “bail”

- Says people are already voting and “we need to be shouting from the rooftops”

00:43:52 — Unopposed Democrats and the stakes

- Alexander: Democrats running unopposed should treat these referendums as their opponent and campaign against them rather than “go on vacation”

- Greene: the changes will hit Black and brown people hardest — “this is ICE for Black people”

- Greene is disappointed that on October 14 the party hasn’t been louder, saying it should have started in June or July and that “the community is driving it”

00:46:37 — Mears on sentencing, accountability, and electing judges

- Alexander asks how the changes could affect prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations

- Mears: people want a fair system, and without guidelines and checks the result is abuse

- Says decisions of appointed Marion County judges are “not really reviewable” and bail rulings can’t realistically be appealed

- His “simple solution”: make Marion County’s judges elected so they must answer to the community, and not amend the Constitution

00:49:04 — How to support the Mears campaign

- Mears: find the campaign on social media and on its website, and volunteer or join him on Election Day

- Says the most important thing anyone can do is vote — for him and against both constitutional questions

- Alexander thanks him for joining and begins wrapping up the program

00:50:05 — Early voting and the march to the polls

- Alexander mentions early voting at the City-County Building;
”March to the Polls” is October 24th (a Saturday)

- Greene: the Concerned Clergy is part of the Hoosier voting coalition, with groups including Indivisible and MADVoters, organizing “March to the Polls” events next to each satellite early-voting site in every township

- Greene: Marion County’s turnout will have a big impact on statewide races and on any “blue wave”

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SUMMARY:

With early voting underway in Marion County, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. devote this episode to walking listeners through what’s actually on this November’s ballot. The centerpiece is Public Question 1, a statewide constitutional referendum that would let a judge deny bail — at their own discretion, based on “clear and convincing evidence” — to anyone charged with an offense other than murder or treason, not just those crimes as under the current Constitution. Both hosts argue against it: Marion County doesn’t elect its judges, so there would be no way to vote out a judge who used the new power unevenly; judges already have supervision, electronic monitoring, and other tools short of denying bail outright; and data the ACLU of Indiana compiled from jails across the state shows more than 98% of people classified as high, moderate, or even low risk do not go on to commit a new violent crime — meaning the change would reshape due process for everyone over a very small number of cases. They also cover judicial retention votes (which only ask whether to keep standing judges, not elect new ones) and the wave of roughly 40 school-funding referendums on ballots statewide, including the IPS referendum, which the hosts say won’t prevent cuts regardless of the outcome and which stems directly from last year’s state property-tax legislation (SB1) shifting the funding burden onto local referendums. Two callers phone in: Imhotep, who connects the bail referendum to the economics of the private-prison industry and cites state-level data on how incarceration rates dropped after marijuana legalization, and Josephine, who asks the hosts to cut through the question’s wording with a plain “yes or no.”

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 — Show open: disclaimer, prayer, early voting underway

- Alexander: early voting began the day before at the City-County Building downtown; voters can also request a mail-in ballot

- Greene opens in prayer for the city, state, and national leadership during the “election season”

- Preview of tonight’s focus: ballot questions, the bail referendum, and school-funding referendums

00:04:48 — Why this midterm election carries real weight

- Greene: this is a critical election for democracy, and voters need to know not just that to vote but who and what they’re voting for

- Flags gas prices, an ongoing war, and school referendums (including ones in Wayne and Washington Townships) as consequences riding on this ballot

- Greene: Public Question 1 (the bail referendum) will appear on every ballot statewide

00:06:26 — Indiana’s low turnout and the midterm trap

- Alexander: Indiana’s voter turnout is historically poor, and many voters only learn about major policy shifts after the fact — e.g., through a letter saying a benefit or program has changed

- Argues midterm elections are routinely underrated even though they directly affect property taxes, school assignment, and the legal process

- Greene adds that redistricting and other “fast-tracked” changes are also in play this cycle

00:09:40 — Public Question 1: what the bail referendum actually says

- Alexander reads the ballot language: current law denies bail only for murder or treason when “the proof is evident or the presumption strong”; the amendment would extend that denial to any offense if the state proves by “clear and convincing evidence” that no release conditions would reasonably protect public safety

- Alexander and Greene summarize the practical effect: a judge could decide to withhold bail based on their own read of the evidence, before trial

- Cites an ACLU of Indiana summary of the amendment’s text and implications, shared on the show’s Facebook page

00:10:22 — No elected judges in Marion County — why that matters here

- Greene: Marion County lost the ability to elect its own judges years ago, so there is no way to vote out a judge who used this new bail authority unevenly

- Argues it’s unwise to concentrate that much discretion in one appointed official with no accountability mechanism

- Both hosts stress that an arrest is not a conviction — someone could be arrested for something “frivolous” and still lose their liberty pretrial under the new standard

00:13:26 — Political incentives: judges courting favor for appointment

- Alexander: with a Supreme Court majority seen as deferential to the Trump administration, and a tiered system of lower courts, the “one or two bad actors” concern is bigger than it sounds

- Greene: judges hoping to be appointed to higher (including federal) posts would have an incentive to deny bail aggressively to “impress” the president, particularly against people of color, since that visibility could help their career

00:15:16 — Judges already have non-bail tools; the gun-law comparison

- Alexander lists the tools ACLU data shows judges can already use short of denying bail: supervision, bail conditions, electronic monitoring, no-contact orders, treatment, drug testing, and travel restrictions

- Draws a parallel to gun-safety debates: just as advocates often note “there are already laws in place” after mass shootings, he argues the same logic applies here — existing tools are already available, and a sweeping constitutional change risks collateral damage (mistrials, dropped charges, successful not-guilty verdicts, plea deals) for people who never needed to be denied bail in the first place

00:18:01 — A Marion County example: wrongful accusation risk

- Greene cites a real Marion County case near Riverside Park in which a police officer initially claimed a young Black man pointed a weapon, and video later showed that wasn’t true

- Argues that under a no-bail standard, that same man could have been held in jail — losing a job, housing stability, and more — based on an initial accusation that didn’t hold up

- Both hosts stress they aren’t accusing all officers of this, but that the risk of a wrongful initial account is real enough that a judge shouldn’t have unchecked discretion to deny bail based on it

00:20:48 — What the ACLU’s data actually shows

- Alexander reads Indiana-specific data from the ACLU: 98.6% of people classified high risk, 98.9% classified moderate risk, and 99.4% classified low risk did not go on to commit a new violent crime

- Contrasts this with the narrative pushed by local media, social media, and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) blaming prosecutors and “revolving door” releases for crime

- Argues the actual share of cases involved is under 2%, often closer to 1–2 cases statewide per year by Greene’s framing

00:22:45 — Why amend the Constitution for such a small number of cases?

- Greene: a change this sweeping would affect far more than the 1–2% of people it’s meant to target, since it resets due-process standards for everyone charged with a non-murder/treason offense

- Alexander draws a comparison to national rhetoric about voter fraud, which he says affects roughly .00008% of votes over 30 years, yet is used to justify large-scale changes to voting systems — arguing the bail referendum follows the same pattern of using rare cases to justify broad disruption

00:26:01 — Recap: how to actually read Public Question 1

- Back from the first break, Alexander walks through the exact ballot wording again, pointing out that the question starts with “shall” and lays out the state’s proposed new standard

- Frames the “due process” problem directly: the amendment lets the state act on what a prosecutor or judge believes before a trial has happened

- Notes that people are regularly found not guilty, have charges dropped, or see evidence or witness testimony change — all reasons due process matters before bail is denied

00:29:42 — Drawing the ICE parallel

- Alexander argues ICE’s current enforcement approach — presuming guilt, removing people without ties to or family in the countries they’re sent to, and offering no due process — mirrors what Public Question 1 would authorize domestically

- Greene agrees, and adds that how this would play out “for anybody other than a white man” could look very different, warning this puts everyone on a path similar to ICE’s enforcement model

- Both hosts conclude their recommended vote is no

00:32:09 — Caller Imhotep: misdemeanors, private prisons, and the marijuana-legalization data

- Imhotep, drawing on family members who work as attorneys, argues the criminal justice system’s daily caseload is driven by misdemeanors and petty crimes, not major felonies — meaning this referendum’s effects would “leak down” into minor cases far more than advertised

- Connects the push to the private-prison industry (citing CCA, a major private-prison operator) and its need for high occupancy to stay profitable, noting ICE enforcement has helped supply bodies to private facilities

- Cites reported prison- and jail-population drops of 50–70% in states like Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada after marijuana legalization as evidence the private-prison industry has a financial incentive to find other ways to keep facilities full

- Also raises concerns about a local public-affairs program (a prior day’s broadcast featuring Indianapolis City-County Council President Maggie Lewis) not asking tough questions about Flock camera use, the Dalys Jett investigation, and an incident involving a young man removed from a public forum

00:36:54 — Judge retention votes, explained

- Alexander: in addition to the bail question, voters will see judge retention questions — a yes/no on whether to keep a sitting judge, not a vote for new candidates, since Marion County judges aren’t elected

- Greene notes a separate process is already underway: a judicial nominating committee has sent the governor a list of 10 names to fill two upcoming judicial vacancies from retirements

00:39:23 — School-funding referendums statewide, including IPS

- Alexander: roughly 40 school districts across Indiana, including IPS in Marion County, have funding referendums on this ballot

- Frames the core questions for voters: what does the money fund, and what will it mean for property taxes?

00:40:28 — How SB1 created this wave of referendums

- Greene traces the referendums back to the legislature’s 2025 property-tax bill (SB1), which cut property taxes while also reducing direct school funding — pushing districts, inside and outside Marion County (”donut counties”), to go to voters for funding instead

- Argues this shifts the cost rather than eliminating it, and that households will feel the funding gap directly regardless of whether their property tax bill technically goes down

- Notes that the IPS referendum’s money would ultimately be controlled by IPEC, an appointed (not elected) board, which Greene says is a major source of public distrust — compounded by rising AES and Citizens Energy rate increases that make the added referendum cost harder for fixed-income households to absorb

00:44:46 — IPS says cuts are coming regardless

- Alexander: even if the IPS referendum passes, IPS has said cuts are still coming — because IPS shares referendum revenue with charter schools under current law, which limits how far the money goes

- Argues this dynamic pits IPS and the charter sector against each other for the same pool of money, and that charter schools “win either way” — if IPS loses funding, that reinforces the case for charters, and if a traditional school closes, charter operators are positioned to acquire the building cheaply

- Notes Indianapolis Star reporting suggesting this referendum could further strain, rather than mend, the formal relationship between IPS and charter operators

00:47:09 — Undisclosed school-closure plans

- Greene: IPS has already signaled publicly that some school closures are coming, but hasn’t disclosed which schools or who might take over those buildings

- Argues voters deciding on the referendum deserve to know whether their own neighborhood school is on a closure list before casting a vote they believe is “saving” it

- Frames IPEC’s decision-making as money-driven rather than centered on what’s best for students

00:49:26 — What’s missing from the ballot debate

- Alexander: nothing currently on the table guarantees what transportation, extracurricular activities (athletics, cheerleading), or related logistics will look like regardless of how the referendum vote goes

- Notes the presence of Turning Point USA programming in schools and the absence of any guaranteed counter-programming or alternative, framing it as one more example of funding gaps affecting what students actually experience day to day

00:50:22 — Caller Josephine: a plain-language gut check

- Josephine, worried about a hypothetical where a family member could be jailed indefinitely without due process over a minor offense, asks the hosts directly: is the answer “yes” or “no”?

- Greene answers simply: “No”

- Alexander ties her question back to the ballot language, explaining that voting “no” means declining to change the Constitution, and acknowledges the wording itself is confusing enough that even attorneys he’s spoken with have said so

00:52:52 — Closing: have a plan to vote

- Greene’s closing message: get a plan together, vote, and bring others — failing to participate is what allows constitutional changes like this one to pass

- Argues that whatever gets changed in the Constitution this cycle is unlikely to benefit ordinary residents, and more likely to benefit the wealthy and those already in power

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https://progressiveindiana.net

https://progressiveindiana.net

SUMMARY:

With Indiana’s voter registration deadline and early voting landing within days, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. devote the full show to a get-out-the-vote push. They walk listeners through the Indiana voter portal (checking registration, finding a polling place, previewing a sample ballot), flag several Marion County-area races to watch — the open Secretary of State seat, the Senate District 29 race between John Ruckelshaus and Christina Moorhead, and J.D. Ford’s run against Victoria Spartz for Congress — and argue the Secretary of State’s office matters more than voters realize because of its role certifying elections. Both hosts raise concerns about voter intimidation (ICE presence at polling places), a rumored move toward martial law around the election, and the outsized influence of money in politics (citing Elon Musk’s nine-figure spending on Republican primaries). Two callers phone in: Imhotep connects Musk and Newt Gingrich’s political histories to a broader point, via George Carlin, about working- and middle-class voters repeatedly backing candidates who don’t serve their interests; Joyce offers practical turnout tactics — carpooling, free and discounted IndyGo bus fares for veterans and seniors, and organized “Souls to the Polls” drives. The show closes with Greene and Alexander debating whether Indiana, unlike other states seeing Democratic gains this cycle, has the party organization needed to produce a “blue wave” of its own.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 — Show open: disclaimer, prayer, and the voting calendar

- Greene opens in prayer, asking for peace amid “a lot of confusion” and for the nation’s leaders

- Alexander: Monday is the last day to register to vote in Indiana; early voting begins Tuesday

- Both hosts stress the need for a concrete, “intentional” plan to vote rather than waiting for Election Day

00:04:40 — Voter rights under attack

- Alexander: the Supreme Court has weakened civil-rights protections against gerrymandering and voter suppression under the current administration

- Greene cites a rumor he heard last week that martial law could be declared around the election in mid-October — framed explicitly as something he heard, not confirmed

- Alexander notes an executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to screen mail-in ballots

- A Facebook commenter’s remark (”modern day slavery”) is read into the record as reflecting how some viewers feel about the moment

00:07:26 — Checking your voter status; previewing the ballot

- Alexander walks through the indiana.gov voter portal live on the stream: checking registration status, registering, finding polling locations, and viewing a sample ballot

- Notes Indiana has just under 4.76 million registered voters

- Flags the Secretary of State race as the top of the ticket to understand, naming Greg Ballard, Max Engling, and Beau Bayh among the field

00:09:00 — Why the Secretary of State race matters

- Greene: campaign ads increasingly omit party affiliation, making it harder for voters to know who they’re backing without independent research

- Greene stresses candidates should be vetted on what their office actually controls — the Secretary of State doesn’t set gas prices or taxes, for instance

- Both agree straight-ticket voting and surface-level impressions (yard signs, a friendly face) are a poor substitute for research

00:15:28 — Why the Secretary of State certifies — and why that’s dangerous

- Greene argues the role is nationally significant because a president seeking re-election in 2028 would want sympathetic Secretaries of State in place, drawing a parallel to the 2020 call in which Trump asked Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find” votes

- Alexander adds concerns about certifying elections and the use of fake electors in the past

- Greene: turnout — specifically in Marion County, which he says needs roughly 60–65% turnout for a Democrat to win statewide — is the deciding factor

00:17:21 — ICE at the polls and the turnout fight

- Alexander cites reports that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said ICE agents would be present at polling locations, and argues their purpose is both intimidation and a potential pretext to interfere with voting machines or ballot counting

- Greene: even without an ICE-specific label, the presence of visible law enforcement is likely to depress turnout in minority communities

- Greene cites Hendricks County as reliably Republican and warns Marion County turnout can’t make up for a weak showing in surrounding counties

- References Tiffany Stoner’s narrow (few-hundred-vote) state house loss in a prior cycle as proof that turnout alone can decide close races

00:21:39 — Money in politics: Musk’s $100 million

- Back from break: a Facebook comment about Pete Hegseth’s remarks on using Elon Musk in the midterms prompts discussion

- Greene: Musk has committed roughly $100 million to help Republican candidates win races in states like Florida, Texas, and Georgia, underscoring how outside money can swing down-ballot races, including Indiana’s Secretary of State contest

00:24:50 — Senate District 29: Ruckelshaus vs. Moorhead

- Alexander flags Senate District 29 (covering parts of Pike and Wayne Townships, Carmel, and Zionsville) as a race to watch, noting Republican John Ruckelshaus appears well-funded, citing large campaign signage already up

- Greene: Christina Moorhead is the Democratic candidate; the race will again come down to turnout, including whether Democratic-leaning voters in Republican-heavy Zionsville show up despite the area’s lean

00:26:49 — The “blue wave” test

- Greene: if Democrats are seeing gains (”a blue wave”) in other states but not in Indiana, that discrepancy deserves serious scrutiny the day after the election

- Notes concern over reports the Speaker of the House may delay swearing in newly elected members

- Frames the open question as whether Indiana will be part of any national Democratic wave or sit it out

00:28:28 — Why Trump is skipping Indiana

- Greene observes Trump has been campaigning in reliably Republican states like Alabama and Arkansas where Democrats are now showing unexpected strength — but not in Indiana

- Alexander and Greene read this as a sign the president isn’t worried about Indiana’s outcome, for better or worse

- Greene credits strong Democratic organizing in Texas, Florida, and Georgia (citing Stacey Abrams’ track record in Georgia) for making those races competitive

00:33:19 — Caller Imhotep: Musk, Gingrich, and the crime bill

- Imhotep connects the Hegseth/Musk midterm story to Newt Gingrich’s involvement, tracing it back to Gingrich’s role in the 1994 “Republican Revolution” and the 1994 crime bill, which he argues Bill Clinton still takes disproportionate blame for despite bipartisan support

- Cites a George Carlin bit as the frame for his larger argument: working- and middle-class voters (making roughly $250,000 or less) repeatedly vote for billionaires and millionaires who “don’t care” about them

- Invokes James Baldwin to argue some voters are motivated less by self-interest than by a desire to see harm done to others

- Notes white voters helped elect Obama but have since shifted, pointing to unfulfilled promises (a $5,000 payment pledge, tariff relief) despite Republicans controlling the House, Senate, and presidency

00:38:00 — Greene responds: voting against your own interest

- Greene agrees some voters back anti-ICE, anti-immigrant policies even while losing their own Medicaid/Medicare coverage or access to nearby hospitals, driven by a desire to see the policies hurt someone else

- Argues this pattern holds consistently in poorer, rural areas, and that not voting functions the same way — preserving the status quo that benefits wealthy donors like Musk

- Recalls Hamilton County flipping for Obama in a prior cycle when enough voters there were suffering economically, and wonders whether a similar shift could happen again given high gas and grocery prices

00:40:46 — Caller Joyce: practical turnout tactics

- Joyce suggests organizing early-voting trips to the City-County Building, recalling how churches used to organize group drives

- Flags that IndyGo (the bus system) offers free rides for veterans and half-price fares for seniors — a way to offset high gas prices while getting people to the polls

- Suggests carpools and community incentives (”car parties,” games) to keep turnout efforts social and motivating

00:43:14 — Souls to the Polls and March to the Polls

- Greene confirms two “Souls to the Polls” events, organized in part by the Democratic Party, on the two Sundays the City-County Building is open for early voting (Oct. 25 and Nov. 1)

- Also flags an Oct. 24 “March to the Polls” organized by the Hoosiers Voting Alliance, a roughly 10-organization coalition that includes the Concerned Clergy, Indivisible, and the League of Women Voters, with activity planned across townships citywide

00:45:08 — Closing message: barriers are intentional

- Alexander: voters should expect “barriers” to be intentionally placed in their path and plan around them rather than being discouraged by them

- Greene: strong turnout this cycle sends a message to candidates ahead of the 2027 and 2028 elections that voters are paying attention, regardless of this particular race’s outcome

00:47:12 — Can Indiana lead a blue wave?

- Alexander says he doesn’t expect Indiana to be part of any national Democratic wave, citing a lack of party cohesion and organizational strength compared to Texas, Florida, and Georgia

- Greene agrees other states appear better organized and credits that organization (again citing Stacey Abrams in Georgia) for their competitiveness, while Indiana’s efforts seem more scattered (”siloed”) without a unified strategy

- Alexander adds that the state party is “still reeling” from the May primaries

00:49:24 — Sign-off

- Hosts close urging listeners to have a plan to vote, noting early voting begins the following week

- Thanks to viewers and callers; sign-off for the week

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https://progressiveindiana.net

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SUMMARY:

Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene use central Indiana’s school bus driver shortage as a jumping-off point for a wider critique of the “school choice” system in Indianapolis. Their core argument: choice is meaningless if a family can’t get their child to school in the first place, and the shift away from stable, neighborhood-based community schools — toward a shifting landscape of charter operators, vouchers and district transfers — has placed an unreasonable research and logistics burden on parents, particularly those already stretched thin by low wages, housing instability and childcare. A WISH-TV news package on the regional bus driver shortage kicks off the discussion, followed by two callers — Mayhem and Imhotep — who argue the instability is by design: charter schools chase money while public schools lose local control, operators like Forest Manor get “flipped” repeatedly with little accountability, and the recent elimination of Enroll Indy leaves parents who were sold on it stranded. Imhotep also connects the current moment to the history of court-ordered busing in Indianapolis and argues that earlier generations fought harder for labor and civil rights than today’s generation fights for neighborhood schools. The hosts close by tying the bus driver shortage directly to a parallel teacher shortage — arguing that neither problem is being seriously addressed, and that both add up to kids simply not getting the education they’re entitled to.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:01 — Show open: no FM broadcast tonight, new call-in number

- Different call-in number for tonight only, since Praise Indy’s stations are occupied with Circle City Classic prep

- Show still streaming live on Facebook and YouTube; replay posted to the Progressive Indiana Network Substack

- Preview of tonight’s topics: the central Indiana bus driver shortage, IMPD’s use of Flock camera technology, and new data showing families earning over $100,000/year benefiting most from Indiana school vouchers

- Greene: “So much is happening in our community. We can’t stop.”

00:04:32 — WISH-TV report: central Indiana school bus driver shortage

- WISH-TV’s Tre Drexelius reports Washington Township Schools is short about 20 drivers, leaving 9 routes without permanent assignments; office staff and mechanics have had to step in

- Indianapolis Public Schools is down about 20 bus drivers; MSD Wayne Township also reports a shortage

- Districts cite Indiana’s commercial licensing/CDL requirements as a barrier; Washington Township is offering free CDL training and hosting a “Drive the Bus” recruitment event

- Brownsburg Community Schools is exploring a new bus schedule to improve efficiency

00:06:41 — Transportation costs and staffing strain across districts

- Alexander: the report reflects issues playing out district-wide, including at IPS

- Greene: transportation costs are volatile and largely outside districts’ control — gas prices, staffing costs — and cuts to other programs often follow

- Greene: every township and county system around Marion County, from Zionsville to Lawrence Township, faces the same financial squeeze

- Frames it as one more strain layered on top of already-thin school budgets

00:09:38 — “We can’t even find bus drivers” — the practical stakes

- Alexander: no amount of debate over whether charter schools are “good or bad” matters if a district can’t physically get kids to the building

- Notes the historic shift from neighborhood walking/community schools to today’s sprawling, district-spanning bus routes

- Greene: the erosion of community schools has made families “much more dependent on transportation,” and that dependency has grown more costly over time

- Greene connects the transportation strain to the ongoing IPS/IPEC referendum conversation

00:13:03 — No school choice growing up vs. today’s “restaurant” model

- Alexander: earlier generations had no “school choice” — your school was simply assigned by where you lived, start to finish

- Alexander: today, families are expected to shop for schools “like a restaurant or a gas station,” with no guarantee a given school will exist a semester from now

- Greene: real accountability came from schools being locally answerable to the community; “choice” replaced that accountability rather than adding to it

- Greene raises the core question: are parents actually being given good choices, or just choices?

00:18:24 — Charter money vs. public-school control

- Alexander reads a Facebook comment from Imhotep arguing that “school choice” doesn’t actually give parents many real options — schools end up choosing students, not the reverse

- Alexander: charter schools are largely driven by money, while traditional public schools like IPS are largely about control of assets and enrollment

- Greene agrees, describing a pattern of allowing community schools to decline rather than investing in fixes, then launching charter alternatives that may not survive

00:21:01 — Charter turnover and “who owns it when it fails?”

- Greene: over half of charter schools that open eventually close, while the funding that could have gone to sustaining community schools goes elsewhere

- Raises unresolved questions about property ownership and accountability once a charter shuts down

- Greene: real “choice” only helps if what’s being chosen from is actually good — otherwise “choice ain’t buying you nothing”

- References Butler Lab School as an example of a strong option only available to families in a specific catchment area — not a citywide choice

00:23:59 — Education as “a Friday night date” / break

- Alexander: the current system reduces choosing a school to picking a restaurant for date night — improvised, unstable, marketing-driven

- Notes a school can be open in the fall and closed by the following semester with little warning to families

00:26:09 — Back from break; introducing Mayhem’s call

- Alexander recaps the transportation/choice discussion and notes another Facebook comment from Imhotep about teaching his son local history

00:27:45 — Caller Mayhem: Forest Manor and “historic amnesia”

- Mayhem argues the community has “historic amnesia” about how often Forest Manor’s building has changed hands as a so-called charter school, with little transparency about where the money went

- Describes a pattern of operators taking over, extracting funding, and closing within months

- Argues charter operators across “Naptown” exploit hopeful parents, using children as “scapegoats or guinea pigs” for financial gain

- [Note: Mayhem does not name specific operators or dollar amounts on air, so these claims are not independently verified here]

00:30:51 — Alexander pushes back gently on “ignorant” framing

- Alexander says he’s hesitant to call parents “ignorant,” noting most young parents never had access to information comparing school districts or outcomes

- Frames the confusion as a structural failure, not a parental one

00:31:41 — Caller Imhotep: Project 2025, vouchers, and busing history

- Imhotep connects Indiana’s current voucher expansion to arguments dating to Project 2025-style policy proposals, and cites a recent report that over 17,000 Indiana households earning above roughly $100,000/year now use vouchers — a shift from vouchers’ original framing as support for low-income urban families

- Recalls being told, after moving to Indianapolis, about historic long-distance busing of Black students to Decatur Township-area schools, and references Judge S. Hugh Dillin’s role in that history

- Argues his own generation (Gen X) and the boomers before it didn’t do enough to prepare younger generations for this fight, contrasting past labor and civil-rights organizing (citing the National Guard’s response to auto and steel workers in Flint) with today’s more “performative” activism

- Criticizes local elected officials — naming Maggie Lewis and Carlos Perkins — as complicit for not using legislation to force change

00:35:39 — Enroll Indy shuts down; Forest Manor as a “prime example”

- Greene notes Enroll Indy, the centralized enrollment system that helped drive the charter-school boom, is being eliminated

- Calls the Forest Manor situation a “prime example” of the broader pattern: a school closes, ownership and its money trail become murky, and no one tracks what happened to the students afterward

- Greene: this isn’t parents’ failure to do their own research — it’s poor choices “sold” to them by gatekeepers as if they were good ones

00:38:16 — “Gatekeepers” sell Enroll Indy, then pull it away

- Greene: Enroll Indy was marketed to parents as transformative (”the greatest thing since sliced bread”) and is now being shut down with little public notice

- Warns parents who relied on it won’t find out it’s gone until they try to log in

- Greene: the resulting confusion and chaos serves the interests of the “gatekeepers” who built and are now dismantling the system, while anyone who pushes back is painted as “anti-education”

00:40:52 — Frustration: education quality shouldn’t depend on ZIP code

- Alexander says all children — whether in Washington Township, Pike Township, Lawrence Township or IPS — should receive comparable quality education without parents having to “figure out” which is best

- Notes quality can swing year to year at the same school depending on funding and enrollment, not just district to district

- Both hosts agree an average 20-something parent, already managing housing, work and childcare, cannot reasonably be expected to also become an expert on comparative school performance

00:44:46 — Politics, gatekeeping, and intentional decline

- Greene: the erosion isn’t accidental — school board members who once prioritized education over money have been replaced by people focused on other interests, including gentrification

- Describes a strategy of letting a neighborhood’s schools (and property values) decline to make redevelopment cheaper, calling it a decade-long, intentional process

- Alexander and Greene agree the people benefiting financially from this pattern don’t want it named publicly

00:49:06 — Convenience over quality; the parent’s real calculus

- Alexander: parents’ school decisions are driven far more by logistics — housing, work commute, availability of vouchers — than by actual measures of educational quality

- Greene adds that children with special needs face an even steeper version of this burden

- Both agree that under the old, community-school model, families didn’t have to navigate this alone or constantly re-evaluate; that stability has been deliberately dismantled

00:52:40 — Teachers caught in the same system

- Alexander and Greene close out the education discussion by noting the same dynamics are pushing teachers out of the profession — most just want to teach, not navigate constant policy upheaval

- Greene cites third-grade retention/testing policy as an example of a rule teachers themselves would not have chosen

- Frames declining teacher retention as another downstream effect of the same “gatekeeper”-driven instability discussed earlier in the show

00:55:34 — Closing: bus drivers, teachers, and the throughline of the night

- Alexander ties the episode together: the show opened with a shortage of bus drivers and is closing on a shortage of teachers — meaning families face barriers just getting kids to school, and barriers to quality instruction once they arrive

- Both hosts commit to continuing the conversation regardless of district (IPS or township), citing transportation, unions and charter schools as ongoing threats to student learning

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SUMMARY:

On Pastor Greene’s birthday, he and Rev. Tony Alexander dig into two connected fronts: the fallout from Indy’s Flock camera controversy and a devastating new report on Indiana’s early childhood education system. Following Chief Terry’s new policy requiring an active case number before officers can access Flock (automated license plate reader) data, the hosts scrutinize IMPD’s public FAQ page — which claims Flock cannot detect faces, gender, or race and shares no data with federal agencies — against a New Republic investigation into hacked Flock camera data showing images sorted, filed, and sold to over 2,000 agencies nationwide, netting the company an $8.4 billion valuation. IMPD’s own 301 leased cameras account for less than half of the 627 Flock cameras operating in Indianapolis, raising questions about who owns the rest and how freely data flows between agencies. The second half of the show confronts a new report ranking Indiana 51st in early childhood education, alongside the staggering fact that 518 Indiana child care programs — roughly 10 a week — have closed in the past year, displacing an estimated 25,000 to 26,000 children with no funded path back into structured care. Both hosts place direct responsibility on Rep. Bob Behning, the 20-year chair of the House Education Committee, and callers Imhotep and Reverend Phillips weigh in on Christian hypocrisy in governance and government dysfunction more broadly.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Program open and birthday greeting

- Rev. Alexander previews the two main topics: Indiana’s early childhood education ranking and a Flock camera systems update.

- Happy birthday wishes for Pastor Greene, who leads the opening prayer for flood-impacted families across central and northwest Indiana.

00:02:27 Recap — Chief Terry’s new Flock policy

- Rev. Alexander recaps last week’s Public Safety Committee fallout: Chief Terry has now stated Flock camera data can only be accessed by officers when tied to an active case number, with a fuller written policy still forthcoming.

- Rev. Alexander is skeptical that IMPD’s public claim — that Flock is used only for license plate and vehicle images, nothing more — holds up against what he’s hearing from other sources.

00:04:46 The pattern behind the policy change

- Pastor Greene traces the new policy directly to the officer caught running the same person’s plate roughly a thousand times for personal, non-case-related reasons — a pattern flagged nationally, not just in Indianapolis.

- He notes the relevant oversight body, the General Orders Board, failed to reach quorum this week, stalling formal review of any new policy.

00:09:11 The Fraternal Order of Police’s likely position

- Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene agree the police union will support keeping Flock cameras but will resist any restrictions on how they’re used — wanting expanded identification features, not tighter limits.

- Pastor Greene stresses residents need to know exactly what’s in the city’s Flock contract, including which optional features Indianapolis is or isn’t using.

00:14:43 The New Republic investigation — hacked data and a 2,000-agency network

- Rev. Alexander details a New Republic article showing hacked Flock data revealing highly specific captured details — down to a patch on a motorcyclist’s bag — that get uploaded, sorted, and sold to police departments nationwide, fueling an $8.4 billion company valuation.

- Example cited: Alpharetta, Georgia (population 67,000) has Flock camera data accessible to more than 2,000 agencies, including colleges, an airport, and a federal Inspector General’s office — directly contradicting IMPD’s claim that federal agencies have no access to its data.

- Pastor Greene argues broad data-sharing across law enforcement, university police (Butler, IU, Ivy Tech), hospital security, and neighboring municipalities (Speedway, Lawrence, Fishers, Greenwood, Southport) is functionally inevitable once a city buys into the Flock network — and that IMPD’s stated confidence federal agencies are excluded doesn’t hold up given how eagerly the federal government has sought other data, like voter rolls.

00:18:12 Who actually owns the cameras

- IMPD’s FAQ states it leases 301 automated license plate readers, but the public Deflock map shows 627 total cameras in Indianapolis — meaning more than half belong to other entities: state police, universities, hospitals, and surrounding municipalities all plugged into the same shared network.

00:21:35 Indiana ranks 51st in early childhood education

- A new report ranks Indiana dead last (51st) in early childhood education.

- Pastor Greene reveals that as of last week, 518 Indiana child care programs have closed in the past year — a number Reverend Alexander calculates, at an average of 50 children per program, to roughly 25,000–26,000 displaced children, comparable to the enrollment of an entire school district the size of IPS.

- Pastor Greene: displaced children aren’t landing in other daycare programs — they’re going to informal, unstructured care with relatives, setting them up to struggle against the same third-grade reading retention standards as everyone else.

- Investments from the United Way, Lilly Endowment, and the state’s own Paths to Quality program funded facility upgrades that are now being abandoned — money spent building an infrastructure the state has since defunded.

- The Paths to Quality pathway technically still exists, but several of the closed facilities were high-tier (Level 3 and 4) providers, raising the question of why anyone would still pursue it without funding certainty.

- Pastor Greene: providers closed largely because voucher payments simply weren’t coming — a slow-moving application process left both providers and families without the money that was supposed to sustain the system.

00:28:01 Caller Imhotep — Christian hypocrisy and misplaced priorities

- Imhotep argues that professed Christian faith among GOP leaders like Gov. Braun and the Lieutenant Governor is measured by works, not words — and their actions in office don’t reflect that standard.

- He contrasts Massachusetts and (improving) Wisconsin against Indiana’s decline, and criticizes how a viral controversy over an individual’s identity and finances consumed public attention while displaced children were forgotten.

- His closing argument: current U.S. war spending, if redirected and divided among the states, could fund enormous investment in children instead.

00:31:41 Ten a week, and nothing stopping it

- Rev. Alexander reframes the 518 closures as roughly 10 a week, with no current mechanism in place to slow the pace.

- Pastor Greene: 2027 is the pivotal legislative session — will lawmakers commit real, sustained voucher funding, or continue treating it as optional? He frames it as a 50-50 proposition.

00:32:07 What real commitment would look like — and the odds

- Pastor Greene lays out what a credible legislative commitment requires: a real budget line, a public statement of intent, and follow-through — not another one-time gesture that has to be renegotiated every session.

- He’s blunt that the current stopgap funding the governor released is temporary and expires by the end of December, with no long-term mechanism behind it.

- Since Republicans hold the legislative majority, any fix requires Republican lawmakers explicitly acknowledging the damage their own prior votes caused — something Rev. Alexander calls a very high bar to clear.

00:38:14 Caller Reverend Phillips — a broader frustration with government dysfunction

- Reverend Phillips voices frustration with state leadership, government shutdown coverage, and legislators he feels aren’t governing with clear thinking or public benefit in mind.

- Rev. Alexander pushes back gently on the framing afterward: it’s not that these legislators are uneducated — they’re well-resourced with legal support and know exactly what they’re doing. The issue is priorities, not ignorance.

00:42:01 Naming names — Rep. Bob Behning and accountability

- Pastor Greene names Rep. Bob Behning, chair of the House Education Committee for over 20 years and on the ballot this cycle, as the figure most responsible for the policy direction that produced a 51st-place ranking.

- His challenge to voters: reelecting a two-decade incumbent overseeing this outcome without demanding accountability only invites other states, like Mississippi, to copy Indiana’s approach.

- Rev. Alexander adds that Indiana’s failures get blamed on Black parents specifically, when the state’s 51st ranking and 518 closures span the entire state, urban and rural alike.

00:44:41 Redistricting fatigue and a possible opening

- Rev. Alexander suggests the massive national spending on redistricting fights over the past year may not pay off as intended, given how many families across the political spectrum have been directly hurt by these closures — a potential opening for real electoral consequences in November.

- Pastor Greene agrees the fallout could “blow up in your face” politically, since child care closures don’t respect income or party lines — everyone eventually needs a workforce, a level playing field, and functioning public systems, whether they’re rich or not.

- His closing ask of legislators: a real budget commitment for 2027-28, not another wait-and-see promise.

00:49:08 Program close — birthday sign-off

- Rev. Alexander warns that without funding, the current third-grade cohort will be the first to feel the full weight of this crisis in standardized testing, and it won’t be limited to Black children — it will hit families statewide.

- Program closes with birthday wishes for Pastor Greene and thanks to listeners and callers.

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SUMMARY:

Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene spend the hour dissecting a chaotic City-County Council Public Safety Committee meeting happening the same night, where IMPD Chief Terry presented her department’s budget request of roughly $400 million while facing pointed questions about the Dalys Jett case and the department’s use of Flock camera technology. Protesters demanding transparency on the Jett shooting packed the chamber and were repeatedly removed by deputies under Committee Chair Councilor Leroy Robinson before Councilor Jesse Brown intervened to explain the crowd’s frustration. Chief Terry told the committee IMPD had shared unredacted body cam footage with the Jett family and that evidence shows Jett shot one officer, striking his protective vest — claims that contradict what the family’s own representatives have said publicly, and that triggered the biggest wave of removals from the room. Both hosts return repeatedly to a central frustration: the department can deploy license-plate-reading Flock cameras instantly but has taken months to release body cam footage from a fatal shooting. The Flock conversation deepens with revelations that officers have used the system to track personal contacts thousands of times each, with no clear department policy governing appropriate use — a problem the chief says will go to the General Orders Board for review. Rev. Alexander walks listeners through a public website, maps.deflock.org, where anyone can see the location of Flock cameras in their neighborhood. Callers Guy and Joyce close out the show with reflections on voter registration deadlines, turnout, and community unity, and the hosts tie everything back to the 2027 mayoral election, where every candidate’s stance on Flock technology and police leadership deserves a direct answer.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Rev. Alexander previews a lively Public Safety Committee meeting happening at the City-County Building the same night, where IMPD is presenting its budget.

- Pastor Greene opens in prayer, noting he’s joining from a calmer setting than the meeting itself.

00:02:26 Why the crowd showed up — budget hearing meets Dalys Jett case

- The Public Safety Committee meeting drew a much larger crowd than usual because attendees wanted answers from Chief Terry about the Dalys Jett shooting, not just the department’s budget.

- Rev. Alexander: recently leaked video doesn’t reflect well on how officers handled the incident, and raises doubt about whether Jett ever fired at officers at all.

- Pastor Greene: he’s long urged the previous chief to release body cam footage quickly after incidents like this — delay and editing erode public trust, especially now that doorbell and security cameras exist throughout most neighborhoods and will surface footage regardless.

00:04:49 The $400 million contradiction — instant cameras, 90-day body cam delays

- Pastor Greene highlights the irony playing out in the same budget meeting: IMPD wants instant, real-time Flock camera capability while taking up to 90 days to release body cam footage from a fatal shooting.

- His view: there’s no legitimate practical reason for that gap, and it directly erodes public trust on both sides — community and law enforcement alike.

- He predicts, based on past pattern, that any video release will land late on a Friday afternoon heading into a weekend, timed to minimize news coverage.

00:07:00 Inside the chamber — protesters removed, then Councilor Jesse Brown steps in

- Rev. Alexander recounts the meeting itself: livestreamed on Channel 16, packed with people demanding answers on the Jett case.

- Committee Chair Councilor Leroy Robinson had sheriff’s deputies remove multiple attendees for talking over Chief Terry.

- Councilor Jesse Brown eventually spoke up to explain why the crowd was upset — they’ve wanted direct answers from the chief and hadn’t gotten them.

- Pastor Greene: the council chamber is supposed to be “the people’s house” — when people can’t get answers anywhere else, this is where they’re entitled to show up and be heard.

00:10:01 Chief Terry’s claims vs. what the family has said publicly

- Chief Terry told the committee IMPD shared unredacted video with the Jett family and that evidence shows Jett shot one officer, striking his protective vest, in addition to one officer shooting another.

- Rev. Alexander notes this contradicts everything reported from the family’s own spokespeople, who have said they were not shown unredacted footage — the only confirmed detail from the family’s side is that one officer shot another officer.

- Pastor Greene: if IMPD truly has footage showing Jett fired first, releasing it would have ended the controversy immediately — the fact that it hasn’t been produced, despite ample time to review it, is itself telling.

00:13:29 The room erupts — and the case for showing the evidence

- The night’s biggest wave of removals happened right after Chief Terry claimed to have proof of what happened — the room erupted in reaction.

- Pastor Greene: if the department has definitive footage, community members would accept it and side with law enforcement. Initial public narrative treated Jett as a dangerous suspect; that framing quietly softened once more facts emerged, without acknowledgment.

- His bottom line: officers absolutely have the right to defend themselves against gunfire, but there’s a real difference between that and firing indiscriminately because another officer is firing.

00:16:17 Watching the footage — “Keystone Cops,” and questions about training

- Rev. Alexander describes available video as chaotic and disorganized — his own initial reaction was confusion about what he was even watching.

- Pastor Greene reveals Jett had contacted police the day before the incident about an unrelated wallet dispute — undercutting any narrative that he was anti-police. He raises pointed procedural questions: officers shooting into the dark in a residential neighborhood, with other people’s safety at risk, simply because another officer was firing.

- Both hosts: nearly a month later, basic questions about why an officer shot another officer remain unanswered, despite no real technological barrier to releasing that information sooner.

00:20:22 What accountability requires — and Chief Terry’s missed opportunity

- Rev. Alexander: community advocates want balance — accountability wherever it’s warranted, whether that points toward the community or law enforcement.

- He argues this was a chance for Chief Terry, new to the role this year, to build credibility through direct communication — an opportunity that instead deepened distrust.

- Pastor Greene reiterates: the department is not being asked to defend an armed suspect firing at police — it’s being asked to prove, with evidence it already controls, what actually happened.

00:23:47 IMPD’s Flock camera stance — swimming against a national tide

- Rev. Alexander notes that cities in Florida, Texas, and even Fort Wayne, Indiana are dropping or declining to renew Flock camera contracts, while IMPD is doubling down and pledging only to “better monitor” its use.

- Pastor Greene: that pledge implies admission they weren’t monitoring it before — reportedly only after a national newspaper’s investigation surfaced officers repeatedly tracking the same license plates.

00:27:27 Highway-style plate scanning as harassment — and where the cameras are

- Rev. Alexander compares Flock tracking to state troopers scanning every passing license plate on the highway — calling it harassment when applied without cause.

- Pastor Greene raises a pointed equity question: are there more Flock cameras in Black neighborhoods than white ones? Rev. Alexander confirms a public site — maps.deflock.org — shows exact camera locations; a live search that night showed 506 cameras across Indianapolis.

00:33:45 Facebook question from Denise — accountability and no clear policy

- A Facebook viewer, Denise, asks how IMPD decides who to investigate after a Flock hit, and whether an officer can simply accuse someone.

- Rev. Alexander: there currently appear to be no clear rules governing Flock usage. Chief Terry told the committee a policy proposal will go to the General Orders Board for review.

- Pastor Greene: officers already found to have tracked the same license plate over a thousand times illustrates how far unchecked usage can go — and warns that drafting, legally vetting, and negotiating any policy through the police union could take a year or more, during which officers facing scrutiny will simply argue no policy existed at the time.

00:39:18 Denise’s second question — tracking by race and religion

- Denise also asks whether Flock could be used to track people by name in ways that reveal race or religion.

- Rev. Alexander connects this to broader surveillance concerns: Indiana’s secretary of state has already shared voter data with the federal government, and DOGE-era access to Social Security data shows how much identifying information the government already holds outside of Flock — pointing to recent targeting of college students as an example of that data already being used.

00:40:37 Caller Guy — voter registration deadlines and historically low turnout

- Guy cites 2022 midterm turnout of just 37.2% of eligible Indiana voters and urges listeners to confirm their registration before the October 5th deadline, sharing the Voter Registration Office phone number.

- He frames the upcoming election as a check on the current administration’s efforts to further restrict voting access.

00:43:14 Caller Joyce — unity, gentrification, and shared struggle

- Joyce reflects on ongoing gentrification concerns and the tactics used to keep communities divided, arguing no single group should be blamed in isolation — the shared response has to be unity, not division.

- She thanks the hosts for consistently providing information the community can act on.

00:45:28 Voter registration resources and the road to November

- Rev. Alexander adds the indianavoters.in.gov portal as a self-service way to confirm registration status and address information ahead of early voting, which starts October 6th.

- Pastor Greene ties the Flock and Jett case discussions directly to the 2027 mayoral race: whoever becomes mayor decides whether Chief Terry stays, and every mayoral candidate should be asked directly where they stand on Flock technology and police accountability, since Mayor Hogsett’s continued support is the reason the program hasn’t been paused already.

00:48:53 The Flock contract and mayoral accountability

- Rev. Alexander notes IMPD’s Flock contract likely runs at least another year or two — raising the question of whether a new mayor would renew or end it in 2027.

- Pastor Greene stresses that Chief Terry inherited this arrangement — it was signed before she became chief — and voters need to know where every mayoral candidate in the 2027 Democratic primary stands on these questions before casting a ballot.

00:52:00 IMPD and ICE — the standard answer

- Rev. Alexander notes the committee also asked IMPD about its relationship to ICE activity; the department gave its standard response that it does not get involved in ICE enforcement and handles only state and local matters.

- Program closes with thanks to listeners and callers.

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https://progressiveindiana.net

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SUMMARY:

Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. spend the hour on two fronts: ICE’s active presence across every side of Indianapolis this week, and continued Northwest Indiana flood recovery. On ICE, both hosts press local leadership — particularly Mayor Hogsett — to speak out publicly the way Democratic leaders did in Minneapolis, arguing that those being detained are largely working people, not the “worst of the worst” originally promised. Pastor Greene announces a new sign-on campaign, backed by the Greater Indianapolis Multifaith Alliance, calling on the mayor and City-County Council to respond publicly. Caller Imhotep cites a claim that IMPD has the highest rate of police shootings of Black people in the country and describes IMPD detaining and handcuffing a coach and students from Crispus Attucks; caller Mayhem raises Indiana’s anti-mask laws and the fact that ICE is now exempt from them. In the back half, the hosts turn to flood recovery, spotlighting Indiana 211 data showing Lake County with over 41,000 storm-related cases — more than every other affected county combined — yet the weakest response. Councilor Oliver, a longtime disaster-relief organizer, calls in and draws the parallel to Katrina. The show closes with a practical walkthrough of how to apply for FEMA assistance before the October 25th deadline.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Rev. Alexander opens in praise and prayer; previews the night’s two main topics: ICE activity in Indianapolis and continued Northwest Indiana flood recovery, with about 30 days left until early voting begins.

00:03:38 ICE is active across every side of Indianapolis

- Pastor Greene confirms ICE has been operating on the east, west, north, and south sides of Indianapolis this week.

- He traces this to AG Todd Rokita encouraging ICE to target any city he felt wasn’t complying with the state’s new immigration law. (Note: Greene incorrectly says SEA 75 — the 2026 Indiana law mandating local cooperation with ICE is SEA 76.)

- This isn’t limited to people who are undocumented — Pastor Greene notes he himself could be stopped based on skin color and asked to prove his status, despite being a U.S. citizen.

00:05:35 A sign-on campaign and the mayor’s inadequate response

- Pastor Greene announces a new sign-on effort, backed by an interfaith coalition including Rabbi Aaron Spiegel and GIMA (the Greater Indianapolis Multifaith Alliance), because Indianapolis leadership — the mayor’s office, the majority-Democrat City-County Council — has been largely silent.

- Mayor Hogsett issued a statement, but Pastor Greene calls it generic: welcoming language about city services, not real leadership.

- His challenge extends to mayoral candidates: if you want the job, say publicly where you stand on ICE before you’re the one who has to handle it.

- This is not just for “the worst of the worst” — it’s people who have jobs, pay taxes, meet their court appointments, and have committed no crimes. Pastor Greene calls the current approach a witch hunt based on skin color and origin.

00:09:28 Why local silence matters — the Minneapolis contrast

- Rev. Alexander contrasts Indianapolis with Minneapolis, where Democratic leadership at every level — mayor, governor, attorney general — spoke out publicly and in unison, making it a national story.

- Indianapolis doesn’t have that same unified public stance, especially with no expectation of pushback from the governor’s office.

- The faith coalition’s press release, “Indianapolis faith leaders call on Mayor Hogsett and City-County Council to respond to ICE activity,” includes a public sign-on link.

- Pastor Greene: this is intentionally interfaith — Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians — because the moral objection isn’t limited to one tradition.

00:20:53 Caller Imhotep — leadership silence, IMPD shootings, and Crispus Attucks

- Imhotep expresses disappointment in local leadership — naming Leroy Robinson, Maggie Lewis, and Carlos Perkins among others — for not verbally speaking out, contrasting with Chicago, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Memphis, which has effectively been under extended federal occupation for eight to nine months, including a fatal National Guard shooting of a Black man — reportedly a first in the country’s history.

- He cites a statement from Nathaniel Lee that Indianapolis’s IMPD has the highest rate of police shootings of Black people in the country — higher than New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles — and criticizes the lack of accountability from city leadership on public safety.

- He describes a recent incident: IMPD stopped students from Crispus Attucks near a dangerous 10th Street intersection, made them sit on the curb, and handcuffed the coach who came out to ask what was happening — a heavy-handed response to a legitimate traffic-safety concern that could have been addressed with a simple conversation.

- His closing message: November matters, and flipping the House and Senate creates real accountability tools — up to and including charges against officials who fail their duties.

00:25:06 Caller Mayhem — masks, Indiana law, and who ICE really is

- Mayhem argues Indianapolis police corruption predates Trump — this administration has just made it bolder and more brazen.

- He notes Indiana has laws letting residents protect themselves against masked individuals falsely claiming authority — but points out no one can verify these masked ICE agents are even who they claim to be, or U.S. citizens themselves.

- His example: his mechanic was detained at an ICE operation in Kokomo for four to five months.

- Rev. Alexander clarifies: ICE is legally exempt from Indiana’s anti-mask laws — a change passed within the last year.

00:27:25 Response — judicial warrants, impersonation risk, and the cost of silence

- Pastor Greene: masked, unidentified agents create real danger — homeowners can’t distinguish a legitimate ICE agent from someone impersonating one, especially without a shown judicial warrant (not an ICE-issued one).

- Leadership needs to give the community and law enforcement cover by clearly and publicly rejecting these tactics — regardless of party.

00:29:21 New ICE rules and the Minnesota precedent

- Rev. Alexander details the new rules as of September: ICE can now operate in unmarked cars, without flashing lights, without body-worn cameras, and masked without identifying themselves.

- He cites Minnesota, where Renee Good was killed by ICE, then evidence and agents were removed from the scene entirely, with no accountability trail.

- Much of this requires action beyond the local level — Congress needs to intervene, since this affects far more than one group of people.

00:31:45 The vote as the available lever

- Pastor Greene: November is the clearest available action. He warns that ICE presence may be strategically deployed in heavily Democratic areas like Indianapolis specifically to deter voter turnout, and urges people to vote anyway.

00:33:33 Disaster recovery data — Lake County dwarfs every other county combined

- Rev. Alexander presents Indiana 211 disaster report figures: Lake County, 41,608 people affected; Porter County, just over 5,600; Madison County, 3,138; Marion County, 1,909; Hamilton County, 1,791; Delaware County, 1,534.

- Lake County’s total is more than double every other affected county combined — yet it received the weakest, slowest response of any of them.

- Pastor Greene calls the data staggering and says resource allocation should reflect that imbalance — but predicts, if the dollars are tracked, they won’t.

00:38:49 Cleared streets in Marion and Hamilton Counties vs. ongoing outages in Gary

- Rev. Alexander notes streets in Broad Ripple and Hamilton County have already been cleared, while residents in Gary and Lake County are still working to get their power turned back on.

- Indiana 211 has confirmed it is prioritizing disaster-relief callers — meaning everyday callers with non-disaster needs are being asked to wait, a tradeoff Rev. Alexander flags as its own problem.

00:42:25 Caller Councilor Oliver — echoes of Katrina, and a new relief effort for Gary

- Councilor Oliver, who organized Katrina relief caravans to New Orleans and Meridian, Mississippi in 2005, describes hearing the exact same pattern play out this time: an immediate, well-funded response to Carmel, followed by a full week of near-silence specifically about Gary — first vaguely referred to as “Northwest Indiana” before officials would even say the city’s name.

- He’s organizing a new Labor Day relief effort with two trucks already secured and donations staging at Reverend Covington’s church, aimed specifically at Gary.

00:46:36 How to apply for disaster assistance — a full walkthrough

- Rev. Alexander walks through disasterassistance.gov step by step: individual assistance applications, FEMA coverage for costs not covered by insurance (child care, medical, lodging, moving, funeral expenses), and video walkthroughs available in English, Spanish, and other languages.

- Practical tips: call your credit card company and mortgage lender directly if you’ve been affected — many are offering grace periods and concessions.

- The governor has announced roughly $2.1 million in available funds — both hosts stress this is a small amount relative to need and urge people not to wait, since funds could run out before the October 25th application deadline.

00:48:46 Program close — don’t wait

- Pastor Greene: $2.1 million sounds like a lot until you consider how many people are in crisis — get your application in now rather than risk being told the money is already gone.

- Rev. Alexander confirms the FEMA individual assistance deadline is October 25th, but urges people to apply immediately rather than wait.

- Program closes with thanks to listeners and a reminder to check back next week.

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https://progressiveindiana.net

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SUMMARY:

Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene spend the hour on a single, urgent story: Gary, Indiana went 14 days without power after the August flooding — one of the longest outages of its kind in recent U.S. history — and neither the state nor NIPSCO said a word about it until a Saturday press conference nearly two weeks in. Both hosts admit they didn’t know Gary was still without power until pastors organized their own relief caravan. Pastor Greene recounts how a coalition of faith leaders — Bishop Posey, Pastor Wayne Moore, Pastor Guthrie, Pastor Reagan Robinson, and others — self-organized within 24 to 48 hours, filling a 26-foot U-Haul with supplies that were gone within two hours of arriving in Gary. Meanwhile, Hamilton County received Black Hawk helicopters to lift bridges the day after flooding hit. Councilor Oliver, a longtime disaster-relief organizer going back to Katrina in 2005, called in to describe being ready to help anywhere in the state and never once hearing Gary mentioned by name from the governor’s office. Caller Imhotep, a Gary native, makes the case that Gary is actually on the upswing — new investment, a 55-year low in crime — and argues the slow-walked response fits a pattern of the GOP wanting federalism only when it benefits their own pet projects. Both hosts close by naming the plain arithmetic of the story: Gary’s median household income is just over $38,000; Hamilton County’s is $121,000. Reverend Phillips calls in with an extended word of encouragement and faith for the people of Gary, and El Amin raises pointed questions about what happens if an outage like this became permanent or more widespread — and whether the AI data centers in the area ever lost power at all.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Opening headline: after 14 days, power has finally been restored to Gary, Indiana — ranking among the top 15 longest power restoration delays on record.

- Pastor Greene opens in prayer for storm-impacted families, especially in Northwest Indiana.

00:03:19 A predominantly Black city left without the same response

- Rev. Alexander frames the core question: Indiana is a Republican-led state, but the portion of the state that is predominantly minority — Gary — isn’t getting the same service or urgency in a disaster.

- Rev. Alexander admits he didn’t know Gary’s power was still out as of last Wednesday’s show — it wasn’t confirmed restored until today.

- Even with power back, Gary residents are dealing with spoiled medication, spoiled food, and trees that damaged homes, forcing some to relocate.

00:05:14 Mold, disease, and the scale of what’s ahead

- Pastor Greene: mold is now a serious concern in flood-damaged homes across Broad Ripple, the Butler area, and Carmel — and Gary’s outage lasted far longer, compounding the risk.

- The Marion County Health Department, including Dr. Caine and her staff, was deployed to flooded areas of Marion County to treat illnesses from stagnant water.

- Pastor Greene: Gary has a long way to go, and “we” means all of us — this isn’t just Gary’s problem to solve alone.

00:07:02 Faith leaders self-organize a relief caravan

- Rev. Alexander applauds the pastors who mobilized: Bishop Posey, Pastor Wayne Moore (Olivet Missionary Baptist Church), Pastor Guthrie (First Baptist Bridgeport), and Pastor Reagan Robinson, who held a joint press conference the prior Wednesday.

- Rev. Alexander admits he assumed Gary had already rebounded — until the Saturday press conference revealed trees were still down, outside crews were on the ground, and NIPSCO had provided no coordination with the utility crews arriving from other states.

- Pastor Greene: for him, it started Thursday with a phone call. Within 24–48 hours, Bishop Posey secured a 26-foot U-Haul, and the relief effort was underway by Friday.

00:09:39 The state’s rainy day fund — over $4 billion sitting unused

- Pastor Greene: Indiana has more than $4 billion in surplus and rainy day funds. The governor could release those dollars directly rather than waiting on FEMA.

- Carmel reportedly moved ahead with its own recovery work, trusting federal reimbursement would eventually catch up rather than waiting on it first. Gary needed that same posture of urgency.

- Donations dropped off at Antioch, Bridgeport, and Purpose of Life churches reached Gary by Sunday — and were gone within two hours, including diapers being handed out on the spot.

00:12:29 The deafening silence — and a warning about assuming it’s over

- Pastor Greene: this is, to his knowledge, one of the longest outages of its kind in the country — and the silence beforehand was deafening. Neither host knew as of the prior Wednesday’s show.

- Pastor Greene’s caution: don’t walk away from Gary just because the power is back on. Two weeks of accumulated damage doesn’t disappear when the lights come back.

00:13:37 Black Hawk helicopters in Hamilton County vs. no tree crews in Gary

- Rev. Alexander: the day after flooding, Hamilton County had Black Hawk helicopters lifting bridges. Gary couldn’t get tree crews to clear roofs, streets, or cars.

- Even after the governor spoke up following Saturday’s press conference, Rev. Alexander asks: where were you before this? Gary has data centers, rate increases, and money flowing in — but couldn’t get basic tree-cutting crews organized.

00:15:22 Caller: Councilor Oliver — a career of disaster response, and total silence on Gary

- Councilor Oliver recounts organizing relief caravans to New Orleans after Katrina in 2005 (turned back by fuel shortages, redirected to Meridian, Mississippi) and later helping rebuild homes there directly.

- He was ready to help wherever needed this time — Hamilton County, wherever — but never once heard Gary mentioned by the governor’s office until it broke through independently.

- His closing message: you can’t wait on government. He’s organizing a Labor Day caravan with Reverend Covington, Friendship, and Reverend Bates’s church to bring donated goods to Gary.

00:19:56 Response — the church can only provide temporary relief

- Rev. Alexander: church-led relief is valuable but only ever temporary. Actual recovery requires state and federal funding and coordinated decision-making — someone with authority to say “we need this crew here, power restored there.”

- Federal disaster funding has reportedly now been approved for Gary.

00:22:01 A pause for a listener in crisis

- Rev. Alexander addresses a message received in the Facebook chat from a listener expressing suicidal feelings and hopelessness.

- He takes it seriously on air, confirms the show has the person’s contact information, commits to reaching out privately rather than on the show, and offers words of encouragement: today is not the end, and tomorrow can be better.

00:23:07 Caller: Imhotep — Gary’s comeback story, and the hypocrisy of selective federalism

- Imhotep, a Gary native, recently visited the King Center and Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta with his family and reflects on Dr. King’s actual message: not about integration for its own sake, but about the equitable distribution of tax-funded resources to Black neighborhoods that pay into the same system as everyone else.

- He describes Gary’s genuine comeback: new investment from Mike Epps and outside investors, a 55-year low in the murder and crime rate, and a jobs program modeled on approaches used by NYC Mayor Mamdani and Baltimore Mayor Scott — both cities also posting historic crime lows.

- His sharpest point: Republican governors — DeSantis in Florida, Abbott in Texas after Hurricane Harvey — routinely reject “big government” until their own states need federal disaster relief, then take it. Applying that same anti-federal posture to Gary while other governors got help is, in his words, criminal.

- He also flags a class-action lawsuit filed by Attorney Allen alleging NIPSCO turned away contractors who came to help restore power.

00:28:03 Caller: Reverend Phillips — a word of faith for Gary

- Reverend Phillips, who has family in Gary, offers an extended message of encouragement and scripture-rooted hope for the city: stay focused on God, stay together, and trust that the current hardship will not be the final word.

00:32:38 The “Michael” moment and the money already flowing into Gary

- Rev. Alexander connects Gary’s current cultural spotlight — the “Michael” biopic, the Chicago Bears’ negotiations to relocate to Northwest Indiana, and major data center construction — to the core question of the night: if this much investment and attention exists, why couldn’t basic disaster response reach the people already living there?

- His challenge: an area doesn’t deserve the economic development it’s chasing if it can’t take care of the people it already has.

00:33:54 Caller: El Amin — what if the outage had been permanent, and did the data centers ever go dark?

- El Amin, whose wife is from Gary, asks what would happen if an outage like this became permanent or spread more widely — no ATM access, no working credit cards, spoiled food across an entire region.

- He also raises a pointed question: were the AI data centers in the area ever without power at all?

00:35:22 Post-El Amin discussion — gentrification, intentionality, and NIPSCO’s history

- Pastor Greene raises a pointed question: is the delay about caring for the people currently in Gary, or about anticipating who might move in and out as investment increases?

- He notes NIPSCO’s documented history of underserving Black and brown neighborhoods, and argues that pattern, combined with the length of this outage, cannot be dismissed as coincidence.

- Both hosts agree: some of this was intentional, and it should carry consequences.

00:38:04 The unglamorous logistics of recovery — debris, dumpsters, and who pays

- Pastor Greene walks through practical recovery gaps that get overlooked: Marion County has roll-off dumpsters for flood debris; Gary does not. Someone has to pay for hauling debris to the landfill, and right now no one has answered who that is.

00:39:05 A challenge to local media — go get the comparison story

- Rev. Alexander challenges local news outlets and reporters directly: go to Broad Ripple, Hamilton County, and Gary and do a side-by-side comparison of cleanup progress — are the same trees and bridges still down in Hamilton County as in Gary?

- Rev. Alexander directly raises the possibility that this is connected to the administration’s documented pattern of withholding disaster relief from areas that didn’t vote for Trump — and asks whether Gary is being punished both for being a Democratic-leaning area and for being predominantly Black.

- He also questions whether private conversations may have already occurred between NIPSCO and Governor Braun’s office before the governor’s public statement.

00:41:51 Response — staying engaged, and the questions to ask months from now

- Pastor Greene: the community cannot assume Gary is being treated the same as Hamilton County just because news cameras show helicopters in one place and nothing in another.

- His call to action: track where FEMA and state dollars actually go over the next one to three months. If Gary and Lake County end up at the bottom of that list, the community has an obligation to raise the alarm — silence costs lives.

00:44:51 The Des Moines report — Gary’s numbers, as told by out-of-state media

- Rev. Alexander challenges influencers and news organizations chasing likes and clicks: the most detailed reporting on Gary’s crisis so far has come not from Indiana media but from KCCI News in Des Moines, Iowa.

- That out-of-state report included Gary’s population (67,000), median income ($38,700), and its ranking among the 15th-longest power outages in recent history — details Rev. Alexander says Indiana’s own media should have been the ones to surface.

- Rev. Alexander confirms the AI data centers in the area never lost power — construction continued uninterrupted throughout, unlike Gary itself.

00:46:49 Pastor Greene — exploited poverty, mold, and the health toll to come

- Pastor Greene: this comes down to not exploiting poverty — some people can survive a crisis because they’re rich, and others are left to suffer, and in 2026 that mindset is egregious.

- He worries about elderly residents, like a grandmother in a home for 50 years, breathing mold because of what he calls “Mickey-mousing around” and slow-rolled power restoration.

- Both hosts agree there will be real, and likely fatal, health consequences tied directly back to this crisis — even if no one connects the dots publicly.

- Practical fallout: residents who missed two weeks of work, particularly in service jobs, now face rent they can’t cover and the real possibility of eviction.

00:48:41 Closing numbers — median income tells the story

- Rev. Alexander closes with the plainest possible comparison: Hamilton County’s median household income is $121,000; Gary’s is just over $38,000.

- Program closes with thanks to listeners and callers.

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SUMMARY:

With central Indiana still reeling from record flooding, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. open with the question that will frame the entire hour: does our government actually care for the people? To answer it, Rev. Alexander plays a clip from a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing in which Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) walks through Matthew 25 verse by verse — “I was hungry,” “I was thirsty,” “I was a stranger,” “I was naked,” “I was sick” — and asks Dr. Julie Margetta Morgan of the Century Foundation to assess the Trump economy against each one. The data is damning across the board: 4 million Americans off SNAP (700,000 of them children), low-income families losing roughly $1,200 under H.R. 1, Medicaid cut by $1 trillion, ACA premium tax credits expired, immigrants terrorized by ICE, and the unhoused facing a NOFA lawsuit that could strip $3–4 million from Indianapolis’s permanent supportive housing funding. Between clips, Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene connect Warnock’s Senate testimony to the local Indianapolis reality: Streets to Home lost six unhoused residents to the floods and still can’t locate them; CICOA — Central Indiana Council on Aging — is barely surviving; the Fair Housing Center is operating under profound budget uncertainty; and Mitch Roob’s tenure leading FSSA gutted CCDF child care funding that Indiana is still trying to claw back. Caller Guy responds to the framing with an Animal Farm analogy — some animals think they’re more equal than others — and makes the case for supporting Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s defense of Haitian TPS workers and for turning out at the November midterms. The program closes with a voting urgency segment: check your registration on the Indiana Voter Portal, prepare for potential voter suppression at the polls in November, and get ready for souls to the polls.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Rev. Alexander opens with flood recovery concerns — many central Indiana residents still displaced, no flood insurance, looking to FEMA for help.

- Pastor Greene opens in prayer for storm-impacted families, including those living near the river.

00:03:28 Indiana flooding — FEMA, insurance, and the cuts that matter now

- Central Indiana flooded unexpectedly last week with little warning — many residents are still trying to get home.

- Many flood victims don’t have separate flood insurance and will need federal disaster relief.

- FEMA has undergone massive DOGE-era staffing cuts. Pastor Greene: nobody worried about FEMA until now — and now we need it and it’s been hollowed out.

- Pastor Greene: the president’s decision to release disaster dollars will be the critical variable; we’ll have a real answer within a month.

00:06:48 The central question — does our government care for the people?

- Rev. Alexander frames tonight’s central question: does the federal government — and Indiana’s state government — actually care for the people?

- We’ve already seen the administration admit in court that it withheld disaster funds from states that voted Democratic. That’s the backdrop.

- Tonight, Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock from a Senate committee hearing will help walk through the answer using Matthew 25.

00:08:57 Senate hearing clip — Sen. Warnock and Dr. Morgan: hunger and SNAP

- [From a Senate committee hearing] Sen. Warnock opens by citing a Fox News poll: more than half of voters say Trump’s economy only helps the rich; three in five feel pessimistic about the economy.

- He introduces a Matthew 25 framework: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.”

- Dr. Julie Margetta Morgan (Century Foundation): 4 million Americans have lost SNAP benefits under this administration, including 700,000 children. One in three Americans has skipped meals to cope with the cost of living crisis.

- Sen. Warnock: Republicans claim those cut from SNAP are able-bodied men — but you’re saying children are going food insecure.

00:11:32 Response — SNAP cuts, CCDF, and Indiana’s own record

- Rev. Alexander: SNAP cuts aren’t just a federal story — Indiana is stripping child care benefits too, with school-age children losing access to programs right here.

- Pastor Greene: applauds Warnock for using Matthew 25 to challenge self-described Christians in Congress. Children have also been cut from CCDF — the Child Care and Development Fund — here in Indiana.

- Mitch Roob, who runs Indiana’s FSSA, oversaw cuts that Indiana is still fighting to recover from. Indiana is now just trying to claw back some vouchers, not all.

- We’re cutting Medicaid, Medicare, and food programs — and calling it righteousness. That doesn’t line up with Matthew 25.

- Pastor Greene: if you claim to be a Christian nation, how do you rationalize food deserts, people without housing, people without health care?

00:14:28 Christian nationalism vs. Matthew 25

- Rev. Alexander: are you Christian first or nationalist first? Are you putting Trump before Jesus? Are you putting policy before the Word?

- Pastor Greene: they’re putting country before God. Matthew 25 says “I was a stranger and you invited me in” — that’s the direct counter to the ICE movement.

- Lt. Gov. Beckwith has implied that to be a Christian you must be a white American nationalist. Pastor Greene: they miss the whole thing. Jesus himself is speaking in Matthew 25.

00:18:08 Senate hearing clip continues — clothing and housing

- [Hearing resumes] Sen. Warnock: “I needed clothes and you clothed me.” How have the president’s policies been for poor, unemployed, or unhoused Americans?

- Dr. Morgan: low-income families lost roughly $1,200 under H.R. 1 — the One Big, Beautiful Bill. The administration has imposed time limits and work requirements on rental assistance and proposed cuts to homeless support programs. Rising utility costs are also hitting the poorest families.

00:19:17 Response — the unhoused in Indianapolis; Streets to Home and the NOFA lawsuit

- Pastor Greene: the Streets to Home initiative was working with a camp, hoping to get people housed — and then the flood hit. About six individuals can no longer be located. Please pray.

- The NOFA — Notice of Funding Availability — which is the largest community financial instrument for homeless services in Indianapolis, is now in a lawsuit. The Trump administration restructured it without the required 60–90 day public comment period.

- Even before the lawsuit, Indianapolis was set to lose $3–4 million next year. People in permanent supportive housing could lose their rental funding and return to homelessness.

- The lawsuit could drag to the Supreme Court, which leans toward Trump. Pastor Greene pledges to keep the community informed.

- Sister Denise asks about the Fair Housing Center — Pastor Greene: it still exists today, but its budget is in deep uncertainty. Amy Nelson could give a fuller picture; at the federal level, fair housing is not prioritized.

00:26:01 Response continued — CICOA, the nonprofit sector, and economic pressure

- Rev. Alexander: CICOA — Central Indiana Council on Aging — which provides Meals on Wheels, ramp installation, and other senior and disability services, is barely surviving.

- Pastor Greene: he’s not sure organizations like CICOA will even exist by end of 2027. They’ve already gone through a huge staff reduction and are running fundraisers just to hold on.

- The entire nonprofit sector is suffering — fair housing, homeless services, senior services — because the government has pulled funding from entities that help people.

- Pastor Greene responds to Denise’s question about economic conditions: yes, there’s enormous financial pressure across the board — AES bills are up, gas is up, people are in near-shock about what they’re dealing with.

00:27:29 Senate hearing clip — healthcare and Medicaid

- [Hearing resumes] Sen. Warnock: “You looked after me.” How have the president’s health care policies been?

- Dr. Morgan: Medicaid has been cut; ACA premium tax credits have not been extended, jacking up premiums for millions; employer-sponsored plan costs are rising. People are choosing between being uninsured or taking skimpier coverage.

- Sen. Warnock: the Trump administration cut $1 trillion from Medicaid and called it waste, fraud, and abuse. Did they cut more than that? Dr. Morgan: they cut care for American families.

00:28:28 Response — healthcare in Indiana

- Pastor Greene: healthcare is a terrible place right now. He was in a meeting today — not promising. Medicare is under attack; the state isn’t trying to add anything, only cut based on dollars and cents even where there are surpluses.

- Indiana already went through major healthcare cuts in 2025 and 2026. Nothing in the forecast changes that in 2027.

00:29:36 Senate hearing clip — immigration; then caller Guy

- [Hearing resumes] Sen. Warnock: “I was a stranger and you invited me in.” How has the Trump economy been for law-abiding immigrants and dreamers?

- Dr. Morgan: families are afraid to go to work or send children to school because of ICE. Benefits and programs for law-abiding immigrants are under attack. The Trump economy serves the rich, Trump himself, his billionaire colleagues, and the banks that got him to roll back consumer protections.

- Rev. Alexander on TPS: Haitian immigrants under Temporary Protected Status have been here legally since as early as 2010 — some for 15 years, with careers, mortgages, children in school. They’re being given 30–60 days to uproot. A minor league baseball coach in San Diego was detained by ICE.

- Caller Guy answers Rev. Alexander’s question with an Animal Farm reference — some people think they should be more equal than others — Guy argues it’s a numbers game, and the group that wants to be more equal is losing demographically. He cites Republicans Governor DeWine of Ohio defending Haitian TPS workers: Ohio recruited them because no one else would do the work. Deporting them is economically self-defeating. Guy’s two remedies: support DeWine’s stance; vote on November 3rd.

00:42:47 Post-Guy discussion — Haitians, healthcare workers, and the demographics of suppression

- Pastor Greene agrees with Guy: Ohio businesses recruited Haitians because they couldn’t get anyone else. Getting rid of them is illogical.

- Pastor Greene: “I agree with Guy” — some people see the growing minority population as a threat and are trying to suppress it through every mechanism available: DEI elimination, MEI, immigration enforcement, voter suppression. This comes all the way down to who they’re trying to screen out of voting.

- Lt. Gov. Beckwith is named as someone who makes this explicit. It’s being done in the wide open. The problem is some people still can’t believe it.

- Faith communities across traditions — Muslim, Jewish, Christian — all agree on loving the stranger, feeding the poor, treating the homeless with dignity. The government is not aligned with any of that right now.

00:45:12 Senate hearing clip — Sen. Warnock’s closing statement

- [Hearing resumes] Sen. Warnock’s closing: Trump has been president 18 months. He was elected to lower costs. He has raised costs for everybody and shredded the safety net. “This Trump economy isn’t just bad. For me, it’s a moral abomination. This is bigger than politics. It’s about humanity.”

00:45:52 The moral document — budget as faith statement

- Pastor Greene: the budget is a moral document. If we were concerned about people, our decision-making would look different. This administration is committed to money — for a certain number of people — not to people broadly.

- Rev. Alexander: Warnock used Dr. Morgan’s data to make facts coincide with Matthew 25. That’s what good public theology looks like.

00:46:29 Voting urgency — midterms, the SAVE Act, and voter roll purges

- Sister Denise notes that many white women voted for Trump — and they too are at risk of losing voting rights under the SAVE Act’s identification requirements. If you’ve been married or divorced, name mismatches could block you from voting.

- Rev. Alexander: check your registration now at the Indiana Voter Portal. Indiana has already handed voter data to the federal government — they’re combing through it.

- Pastor Greene: if you’re not in the rich category, you’re on the menu. The system is designed for the rich to get richer. Be committed to a voting plan regardless of what November looks like — ICE agents may be deployed at polling sites in high-Latino or minority-heavy precincts to suppress turnout.

- Rev. Alexander: he expects a heightened effort at the midterms specifically, not 2027 or 2028. Trump doesn’t want to lose the Senate and House and face real committee oversight and potential impeachment proceedings.

- Both hosts: souls to the polls. We tested the primary. November has to be bigger.

00:53:00 Program close

- Rev. Alexander: Senator Warnock led the program tonight. We appreciate his work in the Senate.

- Rev. Alexander signs off with a blessing for next week.

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SUMMARY:

Pastor Greene is back after several weeks away, and he and Rev. Tony Alexander spend a dense hour on Indiana’s education crisis — framing it as the convergence of federal gutting, state Republican policy, and local structural power grabs. The show opens with a brief update on the Dalys Jett case: as of airtime, the family was scheduled to view the body-worn camera footage that evening at 5:30 p.m., nearly three weeks after the July 22nd officer-involved shooting. The education segment anchors on two interlocking crises: 38 Indiana school districts seeking November referendums for operating funds they can no longer sustain after Governor Braun’s property tax restructuring, and the IPEC (Indianapolis Public Education Corporation) — the appointed, mayor-aligned body now controlling IPS — whose first executive director, Karega Rausch, has been largely invisible in the push to pass a $95 million November referendum. The hosts track IPS’s enrollment collapse from over 100,000 students in Amos Brown’s era to just over 30,000 today as a measure of the district’s dismantling in real time. Caller Imhotep connects underfunding of education to corporate tax avoidance, declining school lunch quality, and the ongoing stadium-subsidy dynamic — asking why the Chicago Bears owners might receive $2 billion in public support while children’s lunch trays go bare. Caller Guy asks the Concerned Clergy to host a community forum featuring former IPS superintendent Dr. Eugene White and other education advocates before the November election. Caller Pat frames the education crisis as deliberate racial suppression. Caller Mayhem closes with a sharp critique of voter complacency and political celebrity culture. Both hosts close on the need for constituents to know their local elected officials — and to know that those officials may no longer actually control the decisions that matter.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Pastor Greene back after several weeks away; opens in prayer for storm-affected families.

- Rev. Alexander previews the agenda: education dominates, with 38 referendums on the November ballot and IPS governance in flux.

00:03:25 Dalys Jett update — body cam viewing scheduled for tonight

- Rev. Alexander recaps last week’s guest, , representing the family of Dalys Jett, killed in an officer-involved shooting on July 22nd.

- As of tonight, the family was scheduled to view the raw body-worn camera footage at 5:30 p.m. — a viewing that had been previously delayed because the injured officer had not yet given her statement.

- Rev. Alexander: hoping the meeting happened; no statements yet as of airtime.

- Both hosts: continuing to pray for the Jett family and for the injured IMPD officers who are recovering.

00:05:42 IPS at 30,000 — the enrollment collapse and what it means

- IPS is the largest school district in Indiana, but that designation now means something very different than it once did.

- When Amos Brown was regularly invoking IPS’s size to demand resources, the district served over 100,000 students. It now serves just over 30,000.

- That enrollment collapse is the direct result of the dismantling Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene have been documenting for years — through charter expansion, neighborhood disinvestment, and policy choices.

- The appointed IPEC board — which reports to the mayor, not to voters — will now be responsible for deciding which IPS school buildings get sold, to whom, and for how much. Taxpayers who funded those buildings for decades have no direct vote in that process.

00:09:19 38 referendums — the statewide school funding crisis

- 38 Indiana school districts are bringing referendums to voters in November, seeking operating funds they can no longer sustain after Governor Braun’s property tax restructuring redirected school funding.

- The crisis is statewide — not just Indianapolis. Rural and suburban districts, including some in Hamilton County and Zionsville, are in the same position.

- Programs at immediate risk if referendums fail: sports, transportation, band, arts, counselors, teaching staff. Sports in particular serve a dual function — academic motivation and an outlet that reduces classroom disruption.

- By 2028, even more districts will face referendums; some are relying on a surplus that won’t last.

00:15:04 The compounding cost squeeze — wheel tax, AES, and referendum fatigue

- Pastor Greene: voting against a school referendum doesn’t mean someone is anti-education. It may mean they’re already drowning in compounding costs.

- Marion County just passed a new wheel tax. AES Indiana rates went up this year and go up again in January. Each increase is marketed individually as modest — but together they represent $600 or more per household in new annual costs.

- A family already stretched by AES increases and the wheel tax may support education but simply not be able to vote for more money. That context needs to be part of the conversation.

- Pastor Greene: school districts need to be doing community meetings now — not waiting until October to ask people to vote on something they don’t understand.

00:20:07 IPEC and the invisible referendum campaign

- Rev. Alexander raises the critical question: who is the public face of the IPS referendum? Because the answer appears to be nobody.

- Karega Rausch, IPEC’s first executive director, is not visibly campaigning for the referendum. IPS superintendent Alicia Johnson is not visibly campaigning. Interim director Michael O’Connor is not visibly campaigning.

- Pastor Greene: this may be intentional. Nobody wants to stand up and say “trust the seven appointed people we put in charge — give them $95 million.” Because that’s a hard sell.

- The deeper question: is the referendum supposed to pass? Or is a quiet, soft campaign that ends in a failed referendum the actual plan — paving the way for a state takeover of IPS?

- Pastor Greene: IPEC was created over the community’s objection. He and Rev. Alexander were both at the city-county building protesting. The community said no; the process went forward anyway — just like the data center moratorium vote.

00:29:13 Caller Imhotep — crony capitalism, school lunches, and the McCaskeys

- Imhotep (turning 60 in October, political science minor) frames the education funding crisis as structural: crony capitalism — socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for everyone else.

- Only 56% of Americans read at a sixth-grade level; most don’t understand the systems well enough to recognize how they’re being exploited.

- The corporate tax avoidance angle: Meta, Google, NVIDIA all use offshore sites to minimize federal taxes, while states hand them whatever incentives they want. Meanwhile, education claws for every dollar.

- The Chicago Bears stadium discussion: we still haven’t finished paying bonds on the RCA Dome (long demolished) or Lucas Oil Stadium — where the namesake contributed roughly $10 million of a $700 million facility. Now there’s talk of giving the McCaskey family (Chicago Bears owners) $2 billion in public money. Yet education has to fight for every penny.

- School lunches: Imhotep reports hearing from young people that school lunches have looked paltry since the start of the year — a consequence of USDA program cuts under the Trump administration.

- His closing argument: until corporations pay their fair share of taxes into the general fund, education will keep getting squeezed.

00:28:41 Follow-up — private money and ballpark projects

- Rev. Alexander: Trump always claims to find private money for his pet projects. Somehow that money flows freely for ballparks and lawn projects, but not for education.

00:29:13 Caller Guy — spotlight Dr. Eugene White; host a community forum

- Guy invokes former IPS superintendent Dr. Eugene White as a community resource who knows where the money goes and has the students’ interests at heart.

- He notes a school board election is also on the November 3rd ballot — most people don’t know how many candidates are running or which districts are open.

- His ask: the Concerned Clergy should host a community forum before November featuring Dr. Eugene White, Imhotep, and other education advocates. The Concerned Clergy used to be all over these kinds of issues.

- Pastor Greene responds: he knows Dr. White well and can make that happen. The real challenge is getting people to show up — they’re at the cigar bar or on TikTok. The Concerned Clergy is not against a forum; the question is whether the community will come.

- He also reminds listeners: a school board election won’t change much, because IPEC — not the elected board — makes the real decisions now. Strategy has to target IPEC accountability, not just school board races.

00:37:20 Caller Pat — deliberate suppression, not neglect

- Pat argues the education crisis is not accidental — it’s a well-planned tactic. Deny education, health, and housing, and you choke the light out of a people.

- The only Black students this administration cares about are those who can generate revenue — athletes being scouted for professional leagues.

- Her call to action: stop being lackadaisical. Mobilize, organize, vote.

- Pastor Greene: Ms. Pat is 100% right. Private schools don’t track their students into trades. They provide broad exposure. That’s by design — the tracking is for public school students, not for those whose parents can pay.

- The cycle: undereducated people don’t vote. Voter suppression is therefore self-reinforcing. The appointed board, disappearing judges, disappearing school boards — it only happens where Black people are. Kokomo and Lafayette still have elected school boards.

00:45:48 Caller Mayhem — voter complacency and political celebrity

- Mayhem argues the problem is bigger than education: voters have made celebrities out of politicians instead of treating them as employees.

- Indianapolis City-County Council “misleadership” has been given a blank check because voters don’t hold them accountable.

- Amos Brown was silenced for talking about education and for talking about the Black Expo — a warning about what happens to voices that push back.

- His bottom line: we’re partly to blame. We worship politicians who run us instead of running them.

- Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene agree: constituents who don’t know who their city-county councilor or state rep is cannot hold anyone accountable. You have to know who they are and how they voted before you can demand anything.

- Pastor Greene closes with the Ron Gibson/data center example: if your councilor voted for data centers over community objection, do you still vote for them because they send the most mailers? That’s the problem.

00:50:45 Program close

- Rev. Alexander: folks need to take heed. Know your elected officials. Know how they vote. Then hold them accountable.

- Both hosts sign off with a blessing for the week.

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SUMMARY:

Solo again without Pastor Greene, Rev. Tony Alexander devotes the first two-thirds of the hour to the police-involved shooting death of 21-year-old Dalys Jett on July 22nd, bringing in Pastor Davanta Scruggs — Jett’s cousin and family representative — to lay out what the family knows, what they’ve been told, and what keeps shifting. The picture that emerges is one of a rapidly changing official narrative: IMPD initially said Jett fired at officers, then acknowledged it could not definitively say he fired the gun allegedly found in his possession, and confirmed that at least one officer was shot by friendly fire from a fellow officer. A meeting for the family to view the raw body-worn camera footage — promised after the second injured officer was discharged from the hospital — has been postponed because that officer has not yet given her statement, a condition the family says was not disclosed when the viewing was originally scheduled. As of airtime, no new date has been set. The family has asked for the footage by Friday, August 7th — the day of a press conference and candlelight vigil at Hovey Street Church of Christ — with the celebration of life for Dalys Jett at New Direction Church on Saturday, August 8th at noon. In the final segment, Rev. Alexander pivots to the Dr. Fauci congressional hearings, the Bovino mass deportation rally debacle, and a broader commentary on discrimination and accountability.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Rev. Alexander opens solo — Pastor Greene is traveling — leads opening prayer for the family of Dalys Jett and for community-police trust.

- Preview: officer-involved shooting of Dalys Jett, July 22nd; guest Pastor Davanta Scruggs representing the family.

00:04:34 Local News Coverage

- Rev. Alexander plays a WTHR (Channel 13) report by Ashton Hackman covering the family’s request to view body cam video.

- Report notes: two officers were shot, one by accidental friendly fire from a fellow officer; the second injured officer was discharged Monday.

- Pastor Scruggs, speaking in the clip: IMPD’s account keeps shifting; the family wants to see body cam footage before the narrative hardens.

- IMPD statement in the clip: committed to transparency; delay is to protect investigative integrity and respect all parties; sharing footage is required under state law.

00:06:31 Introducing Pastor Davanta Scruggs — family member and representative

- Rev. Alexander introduces Pastor Davanta Scruggs, who is both the family’s representative and Dalys Jett’s cousin; Jett’s father is Scruggs’s uncle.

- Scruggs: the family has endured a devastating tragedy and is at a loss for words; the Concerned Clergy’s condolences and heartfelt grief are extended.

- As of 7:08 p.m., the family has received no answers and no confirmed date to view the body cam footage.

00:09:49 Dalys Jett — who he was and what the family knows

- Scruggs confirms he is part of the family, not just a representative. Dalys Jett was his little cousin; his father is Scruggs’s uncle.

- The family will not speak to the facts of the case until they see the footage — not because they don’t have opinions, but because they want to respond to evidence, not speculation.

- IMPD has issued multiple conflicting accounts and has retracted some of them over the course of the investigation.

00:10:17 What actually happened on July 22nd — the shifting narrative

- Rev. Alexander recaps the known reporting: Jett was near 38th and Franklin, reportedly going back to retrieve his wallet with the mother of his child when law enforcement was called.

- Ring doorbell footage showed three to four officers surrounding Jett; the footage did not clearly show whether he pulled a weapon.

- IMPD initially stated Jett fired at officers. IMPD has since said it cannot definitively confirm that Jett fired the gun allegedly in his possession.

- IMPD confirmed that at least one officer was struck by friendly fire from a fellow officer — raising further questions about the original account.

- Scruggs: IMPD’s narrative has changed multiple times. That is exactly why the family needs to see the footage.

00:14:28 The postponed viewing — what the family was promised and what happened

- A meeting was scheduled for Thursday, July 30th for the family to view the raw body cam footage — before any community-facing edited release.

- That meeting was postponed. IMPD’s stated reason: the injured officer had not yet reviewed all the footage or given her statement — a condition IMPD had not disclosed when the meeting was set.

- Scruggs: the family learned the officer had been discharged from the hospital the same way everyone else did — through the media. IMPD did not contact them.

- Chief Terry was unequivocal: the footage would not be shown until the officer has seen it and given her statement. No timeline for that statement has been provided.

- The family had agreed to hold off on public statements if IMPD showed them the footage by August 5th. That did not happen.

00:23:11 Weekend events — press conference, vigil, and celebration of life

- Friday, August 7th, Hovey Street Church of Christ: press conference at 5 p.m.; candlelight vigil at 6 p.m. Dalys’s mother and father will speak. Partners: Live Free Indy, the Black Church Coalition, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL).

- Saturday, August 8th, New Direction Church — Triumph Center, 5330 East 38th Street, Indianapolis: viewing 9 a.m.–12 p.m.; celebration of life at 12 p.m.

- Scruggs’s ask to listeners: post on social media calling on IMPD to release the body cam footage of the killing of Dalys Jett; come out this weekend to stand with the family.

- Rev. Alexander: the family needs answers before they close the casket. The community needs accountability before the narrative hardens around the initial — and now discredited — reports.

00:34:08 No response to the family’s Friday deadline

- As of airtime, IMPD has not responded to the family’s request for footage by Friday, August 7th.

- Rev. Alexander: we want speedy recovery for the injured officers and speedy answers for this family. Both matter.

00:38:16 Dr. Fauci hearings — credit, blame, and the fifth

- Rev. Alexander pivots to the congressional hearings with Dr. Fauci from the prior week, in which Fauci pleaded the fifth.

- His argument: Trump took public credit repeatedly for Operation Warp Speed and the vaccine rollout. Now supporters blame Fauci for those same decisions. Trump talked about bleach and horse pills; Fauci did not.

- Fauci pleaded the fifth because Republicans had pre-announced their intent to imprison him — any answer could be twisted into contempt or perjury. He still showed up and was respectful.

- Contrast: Trump cabinet members routinely storm into hearings with attack binders (e.g., Pam Bondi) and refuse to answer legitimate questions. Fauci simply invoked his constitutional right.

00:44:19 ICE shootings, the Iran cyberattack, and scapegoating

- Rev. Alexander connects the Fauci hearing to a broader pattern: in the ICE shootings in Minnesota, the administration blamed victims before any investigation; in a cyberattack on water utilities, the federal government’s own cybersecurity agency concluded Iran was the source — Trump blamed Minnesota.

- The pattern: blame political enemies, protect political allies, regardless of the facts.

00:49:52 The Bovino Fishers rally debacle

- Greg Bovino — former CBP commander — held his mass deportation rally last Saturday, which had been advertised in Fishers. It was moved repeatedly, finally held in a muddy field under a tent.

- $50 to $500 admission. State Representative Jim Lucas, scheduled to speak, did not — and called the event a sham; his wife twisted her ankle in the mud.

- Rev. Alexander: Bovino no longer holds any position. He has no power to deport anyone. What exactly did attendees get for their money?

00:52:55 Program close

- Rev. Alexander closes with a pointed observation: people are literally playing in the mud to go after people they don’t like.

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SUMMARY:

Rev. Tony Alexander flies solo again — Pastor Greene is traveling in Kentucky — for an hour-long argument that ties three seemingly separate threads into a single thesis: discrimination is not a relic of the past but an openly admitted, court-documented policy of the current federal government. He opens with condolences for the family of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham and prayers for the recovery of Sen. Mitch McConnell, before turning to the TPS crisis hitting central Indiana’s Haitian community — an estimated 7,000 people facing loss of work authorization and potential deportation. He then presents the administration’s own court admissions as Exhibit A: Trump lawyers acknowledged in federal court that disaster relief was withheld from states because they voted Democratic — a form of political discrimination the Supreme Court has effectively endorsed through its redistricting rulings. Pivoting to mail-in voting, Rev. Alexander frames Trump’s campaign against it as pure control, not security — pointing out that Trump himself votes by mail and conducts over 3,000 financial transactions electronically. Caller Tony raises the labeling trap — communist, socialist — being used to splinter the Democratic coalition, and Rev. Alexander agrees that Republican message discipline versus Democratic internal fracturing may be the decisive factor heading into the midterms. The program closes with a warning about the August 1st mass deportation rally in Fishers headlined by former CBP Commander Greg Bovino — and a call for civil, organized counter-presence from Hamilton County residents who imagine themselves exempt from these dynamics.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Rev. Alexander opens solo — Pastor Greene is traveling in Kentucky — leads opening prayer himself.

- Condolences for the family of Sen. Lindsey Graham; prayers for the recovery of Sen. Mitch McConnell and for full transparency about his condition.

00:05:54 TPS ends — 7,000 Haitians in central Indiana lose work authorization

- The Supreme Court’s elimination of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians takes effect; approximately 7,000 Haitians in central Indiana will lose the right to work.

- These are legal residents — many with mortgages, jobs, and children enrolled in schools — given 30 to 60 days to upend their lives.

- Indiana already leads the nation in foreclosures; removing thousands of homeowners and workers will worsen that crisis.

- Rev. Alexander: this is a question of basic humanity — do we care for our neighbors, or are we simply exercising power because we can?

00:10:12 The assault on DEI — words vs. principles

- The attack on DEI is not really an attack on the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion — it’s an attack on the people those principles protect.

- Grants have been pulled for containing the words “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” or “climate” — with no substantive review of what those grants actually did or whom they served.

- Rev. Alexander: the administration admitted in court documents that it was withholding disaster relief funds from states that voted Democratic — Rhode Island, Maine, New Jersey, New York.

00:14:04 Court-admitted discrimination — disaster relief and political loyalty

- Trump DOJ and DHS lawyers went into federal court and stated the reason funds were withheld was that states did not support Donald Trump.

- A state that is 48% Republican and 52% Democrat gets nothing — because the 4% margin means the overall state “didn’t vote for Trump.”

- The administration has discriminated against: law firms representing certain clients, universities for their stances, and now entire states for their voters’ presidential preference.

- Rev. Alexander’s tie-back: if they’ll admit to discriminating against states, why would anyone believe there’s no discrimination against Black businesses?

00:20:13 The Trump family and the unfair advantage

- While DEI is dismantled for being an “unfair advantage,” Trump family members are placed on corporate boards — with government contracts following within weeks.

- Disclosures show Trump made over 3,000 trades in six months, many timed around his own announcements.

- Truth Social posts are now being sold as a premium subscription — giving paying traders advance notice of administration moves.

- Rev. Alexander: everything I’ve described shows who actually has the unfair advantage. It is not small minority businesses.

00:23:32 Mail-in voting — control, not security

- Trump campaigns against mail-in voting but votes by mail himself; the Trump family almost certainly does too.

- His proposal: the U.S. Postal Service should screen mail and determine whether voters receive their mail-in ballots — placing that power in an understaffed, underfunded agency already raising prices and cutting service.

- Trump trusts electronic systems for over 3,000 stock trades, cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and wire transfers — but not for voting, which happens once or twice a year.

- Rev. Alexander: this isn’t about security. It’s about control. If it were about security, they’d start with the security of their own money.

00:32:08 Greg Bovino comes to Fishers — the mass deportation rally

- Former CBP Commander Greg Bovino — who was reassigned to California after spreading false narratives about protesters attacking agents during ICE shootings in Minneapolis — is headlining an August 1st mass deportation rally in Fishers, Indiana.

- Tickets: $50 general admission, $500 private dinner.

- ICE has set up a central Indiana headquarters in the Hamilton County area.

- Counter-protesters are planned. Rev. Alexander urges civil, safe engagement — and urges residents of Fishers, Noblesville, and Carmel to recognize they are not exempt from these dynamics.

00:37:50 Caller Tony — the labeling trap and Democratic fractures

- Tony calls in: Trump is using the labels “communist” and “socialist” to discredit any dissent — branding anyone who disagrees as un-American.

- The labels are divisive within the Democratic Party itself: progressives, democratic socialists, and centrists are fighting each other publicly in ways Republicans never do.

- Rev. Alexander agrees: Republicans fall in line — in votes, press releases, and public statements — while Democrats air their fractures in the open. The right smells blood in the water heading into the midterms.

- Republicans who deviate only do so after losing their primary or announcing a resignation — and even then, the deviation is usually milquetoast (”I’m concerned about some of these decisions”).

00:44:19 Discrimination is not history — it’s current policy

- Rev. Alexander ties everything together: court records prove the administration actively discriminates against political opponents. The Supreme Court has blessed racial discrimination in policing and political discrimination in redistricting.

- Pulling grants for the word “climate.” Withholding disaster relief for voting Democratic. Pulling people over for looking a certain way. These are not echoes of the 1960s — they are 2026.

- Rev. Alexander’s closing argument: the fight today is greater than it was in the ‘60s, because too many people have accepted the narrative that discrimination is over — while the government admits in court that it isn’t.

00:50:57 Program close — Fishers rally and call to action

- Rev. Alexander: whatever you do to counter the Bovino rally, do it safely and civilly.

- Directed specifically at Hamilton County residents in Fishers, Noblesville, and Carmel: you are not exempt from this. Stand up. We need you.

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SUMMARY:

Back together after a week off, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. spend a dense, wide-ranging hour on two connected fronts: the gutting of minority business opportunity in Indiana and the parallel dismantling of Indianapolis Public Schools. On the business side, Governor Braun’s elimination of the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program triggers the first extended discussion — both hosts trace a pattern of actions since Braun took office (Martin University funding, the Indiana Black Expo name change, the DBE cancellation) that they argue reveal an intentional, racially targeted agenda. Caller Imhotep adds a street-level observation: watching road paving crews work 30th and 29th Streets near Riverside with zero Black laborers — under a Chicago-based contractor, Meade, Inc. — and invokes Attorney General Todd Rokita’s role as the legal catalyst for the DBE elimination. Caller El Amin poses the oldest question in Black political thought: the Farrakhan vs. King debate on integration vs. self-determination, his grandfather’s maxim that Black freedom has always depended partly on good-willed white allies, and asks where those allies are now. Both hosts pivot in the second half to the breaking announcement — mid-show — that Karega Rausch, president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, has been named as the first executive director of the IPEC (Indianapolis Public Education Corporation), the new body overseeing both IPS and charter schools. Callers Joyce and Guy engage on charter school accountability, the IPS November referendum, and who controls the narrative when The Mind Trust has a marketing budget and IPS does not.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Announcer legal disclaimers and station open for Concerned Clergy weekly town hall on Praise AM 1310 / 95.1 FM.

- Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene back after a week off; Pastor Greene opens in prayer.

00:02:29 Governor Braun eliminates Indiana’s DBE program

- Governor Braun announced the elimination of the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program — ending goals, tracking, and good-faith effort requirements for minority contractor participation on state contracts.

- The goals weren’t being met even before the cut; no disparity study was done to justify the decision.

- The Baptist Ministers Alliance and Concerned Clergy issued a joint public statement calling the action egregious.

- Pastor Greene: equal opportunity is not discrimination — opening doors to qualified people who found them historically closed is fairness, not favoritism.

00:04:32 The post-George Floyd reversal

- After Floyd’s death, corporations and governments nationally acknowledged discrimination and disparity — now the same administration is calling those remedies illegal.

- Pastor Greene connects this directly to Trump and the MEI (Merit, Excellence, and Intelligence) framework replacing DEI: no metrics, no goals, no accountability — just a charade.

- Rev. Alexander: at least DEI had measurable percentages — 15, 8, 3, and 1. MEI has nothing but rhetoric.

00:06:16 Minority contractors in practice — crumbs and cutoffs

- Rev. Alexander details how the DBE system already worked against minority contractors in practice: accepted below-market rates just to get in the door, then cut off once dollar thresholds were met.

- Studies every five years by the state, city, and minority groups have consistently confirmed disadvantage — IU, Purdue, IUPUI, Ball State all built major projects with under 5% minority participation.

- All Trump had to do was say “it’s not fair” to override decades of documented data. No new study, no evidence.

00:08:22 Governor Braun’s pattern — IBE, Martin University, and the DBE

- Pastor Greene catalogs the pattern: from day one, Braun has targeted predominantly Black institutions — Martin University funding, renaming the Black Health Fair, the IBE reception dynamics, and now the DBE elimination.

- Receiving an award from Indiana Black Expo one day, then signaling to his base the next: Pastor Greene calls this blatant, offensive, and degrading.

- With no DBE requirement, large white-owned firms have zero profit motive to subcontract with minority firms. The argument that MEI will produce more opportunities for Black businesses is, in Pastor Greene’s words, a charade.

00:11:19 Rev. Alexander — the IBE reception and a missed opportunity

- Rev. Alexander: the governor’s reception at Indiana Black Expo should have been used to publicly name the community’s expectations, not to give a warm welcome.

- A missed chance to say: we see what you’ve done from day one — here’s what we want to see from you.

- Pastor Greene: the state won’t even collect the data anymore because they don’t want to be caught. What we have is existing disparity data — and that data is damning.

00:15:10 Caller Imhotep — Rokita, road crews, and the majority claiming discrimination

- Imhotep: Attorney General Todd Rokita was the behind-the-scenes catalyst for the DBE elimination — issuing the “unconstitutional” legal opinion that gave Braun political cover.

- He traces the Supreme Court’s role: from overturning affirmative action to allowing ICE to target people by race — you can’t use race to hire, but you can use it to stop people.

- Fishers rally: anti-immigrant activist Greg Bovino (former CBP commander) — paid by outside groups, previously fired — is stirring up trouble in a community with significant immigrant residents.

- Walking the 30th and 29th Street paving project near Riverside: the contractor, Meade, Inc. (a Chicago-based firm), had zero Black laborers among those doing tar and asphalt work — even at a $21/hour non-skilled level.

- Invokes Ben Franklin’s principle: it is the majority’s responsibility to uphold the rights of the minority.

00:20:08 Post-Imhotep — contract rules and the galvanize moment

- Rev. Alexander explains the contract tier system: city contracts use XBE percentages (15/8/3/1); state contracts use DBE; federal dollars effectively remove the requirements entirely.

- Meade, Inc. is a Chicago firm doing major Indianapolis road work — local workers are mostly absent from large projects generally.

- Rev. Alexander: we’re past monitoring — there’s nothing left to monitor. The response must be galvanizing across organizational silos.

00:22:33 Caller El Amin — Farrakhan vs. King; where are the good white allies?

- El Amin raises the oldest strategic debate in Black political thought: separation and self-reliance (Farrakhan) vs. integration and coalition-building (King). On employment and education today, he doesn’t have the answer.

- His grandfather’s maxim from the pulpit: Black folks would still be slaves without some good white folks. He wonders where they are now.

- Rev. Alexander: he sees evidence they still exist — the No Kings rallies showed cross-racial coalition energy. DEI cuts hurt women too; voting rights attacks target women too. Those are coalition-building opportunities.

00:24:36 Post-El Amin — complacency, coalition, and the Indy Chamber

- Pastor Greene: Indiana’s Black community has been too complacent. Monitoring and advocating without action isn’t a strategy.

- Women-owned, Black-owned, and Latino-owned businesses should be joining forces — this is not a narrow issue.

- Governor Braun ran as a small business champion without qualification. His actions have revealed a whites-only definition of that promise.

- Pastor Greene reaches out to the Indy Chamber: they need to go on record. If they only represent large businesses, small businesses should leave.

- El Amin (in the chat): “Taking the penny out of circulation might be a sign to move us out of circulation.” Pastor Greene: the goal is ultimately to funnel more people into the prison system — education, business exclusion, and incarceration are all connected.

00:31:55 IPS governance — the new entity and the referendum

- IPS is now under a new governance structure (IPEC — Indianapolis Public Education Corporation) with a November referendum seeking approximately $95 million.

- Rev. Alexander previews the segment: who will lead this new entity, and what does their background signal?

- Facebook commenter Ryan: charter schools are taking over Indy and people don’t understand how terrible they really are.

00:33:47 Breaking news — Karega Rausch named IPEC executive director

- Mid-show announcement: Karega Rausch has been named the first executive director of IPEC.

- His background: education and charter schools director under Indianapolis mayors Bart Peterson and Greg Ballard; director of Stand for Children’s local affiliate; chaired the Indiana Charter Schools Board; president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers since 2020.

- The Mind Trust announced the hire before the mayor did — a telling signal of who is driving the decision.

- Rev. Alexander: watch how hard Rausch fights for the IPS referendum. A charter-system loyalist softballing the referendum tells you everything about the long-term plan.

00:36:23 IPS as the Titanic — disruption, union busting, gentrification

- Rev. Alexander: children are being tossed to and fro with every new superintendent and strategic plan — IPS education is sinking in real time.

- Pastor Greene: the goals behind this process are multiple — destroy the teachers union, ultimately destroy IPS itself, gentrify school site real estate, and funnel financial benefits to those with The Mind Trust connections.

- The person hired is meant to execute the master plan, not disrupt it.

- IPS needs the referendum to pass; the charter sector will get its money either way. Rausch has every incentive to go soft on the fight.

00:38:00 Caller Joyce — IPS alumna, contract accountability, magnet schools

- Joyce, an IPS graduate with family members who were IPS principals, traces the dismantling of IPS back to the governor who was “too good to live in the governor’s mansion” and then became vice president, and a mayor who began breaking down the school system. (Note: Joyce appears to be conflating two governors — it is Gov. Braun, not Pence, who does not live in the governor’s mansion; Braun commutes by helicopter from his home in Jasper.)

- Charter schools take the contract money and then fail to uphold their contracts — she asks what happens in that case, because many have closed with no accountability.

- IPS has Herron, magnet schools — real, community-embedded institutions. Charter pop-ups from outside the city don’t know the community’s situation.

00:40:54 Post-Joyce — special needs, level playing fields, and the charter marketing machine

- Pastor Greene: charter schools don’t want special-needs children (higher cost, different staffing) — they cherry-pick the cream of the crop and leave IPS with more expensive students and fewer resources.

- If charters claim to be public schools, they should be held to public school standards: accept all students, work for the referendum, be accountable for results.

- Charter schools with The Mind Trust backing send glossy mailers every back-to-school season. Schools without money can’t compete for the narrative — and Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene certainly aren’t getting on CNN to tell the truth about charter performance.

00:47:13 Caller Guy — DEI in practice, Alexander Miles, and who controls the charter narrative

- Guy: DEI programs produced variety in representation, but the actual placement of people of color in jobs has been lacking. Cites inventor Alexander Miles — who automated elevator doors — as an example of Black innovation that goes uncelebrated.

- Asks whether data exists comparing charter vs. public school performance.

- Rev. Alexander: IDOE publishes it annually. Charter schools don’t perform better than public schools — and in many cases perform worse. The data is public; it’s just not on people’s lips because the other side controls the narrative.

- Republicans stay on one message always. Democrats and progressives don’t. That’s a resource and discipline problem, not a facts problem.

- Pastor Greene closes: the mayor who runs charter schools has never mentioned their performance data in a State of the City address. That silence is its own data point.

00:53:31 Closing argument — the DEI/education double standard

- Rev. Alexander’s closing observation: for DEI in business, Black companies must prove decades of track record before getting a contract. For charter schools, you can walk in with an idea from last year and be trusted with children’s education.

- The double standard is the point.

- Rev. Alexander closes out callers, notes Reverend Phillips is in the queue for next week.

00:54:36 Station close

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SUMMARY:

Pastor Greene is traveling, so Reverend Alexander goes it alone — anchoring a focused, data-driven hour around a single thesis: DOGE, officially declared dead this week, was itself the most significant example of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. Opening with the announcement of DOGE’s dissolution, Rev. Alexander walks through the CLASP (Center for Law and Social Policy) report “Tracking the Harm of DOGE Cuts,” cataloguing layoffs and eliminations across six federal agencies — HHS, Homeland Security, Education, the IRS, the CDC, and Social Security — and connecting those cuts to the foreclosure crisis, healthcare access gaps, and the gutting of services for children, seniors, and the disabled. A brief call from Fulton, who rings in asking for prayer for a health issue, becomes a live illustration of the healthcare access crisis Rev. Alexander has been describing. Caller Guy returns with his trickle-down vs. bubble-up framework and ties the Supreme Court’s TPS ruling to the labor crisis now confronting Ohio Governor DeWine in Springfield. Reverend Phillips calls to react to the energy assistance cuts before losing his connection. The final segment pivots to election integrity, where Rev. Alexander makes a pointed logical argument: Trump never claimed elections were rigged when Democrats ran them and he won (2016, 2024), only when Republicans ran them and he lost (2020) — which, Rev. Alexander argues, amounts to an implicit admission that Democrats run cleaner elections. The program closes with an announcement of the homegoing services for Mark Russell, a longtime Urban League of Indianapolis leader.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Announcer legal disclaimers and station open for Concerned Clergy weekly town hall on Praise AM 1310 / 95.1 FM.

- Rev. Alexander opens solo — Pastor Greene is traveling — and leads the opening prayer himself.

- Lead topic announced: DOGE is officially dead.

00:02:16 DOGE is dead — and it was the real waste, fraud, and abuse

- DOGE formed roughly 30 days after Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, headed by Elon Musk and uncredentialed young staffers with no agency knowledge or security clearances.

- Elon Musk departed May 2025 saying his work was done; the agency itself dissolved this week.

- Staffers’ own depositions: they used ChatGPT to scan for keywords like “DEI” and “climate” — cutting grants with no substantive review.

- Rev. Alexander’s verdict: DOGE was itself the waste, fraud, and abuse — wasting money, operating on a fraudulent mandate, and abusing the federal workforce.

00:06:50 The CLASP report — children, public health, and immigration

- CLASP (clasp.org) report “Tracking the Harm of DOGE Cuts” details cuts to six agencies.

- HHS / Administration for Children and Families: 700 layoffs; 40–50% cuts to Head Start; 50% cuts to Office of Child Care — programs that served nearly 1.5 million children.

- CDC: NIOSH eliminated; 18,000+ new HIV patients unable to access cut treatment programs.

- DHS: Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties gutted; Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services eliminated — leaving immigration processing dysfunctional despite being Trump’s stated top priority.

00:11:40 The CLASP report continued — IRS, Social Security, and the human cost

- IRS: 7,000+ layoffs. Social Security: 7,000 employees gone by September 2025, serving a base of 71.6 million beneficiaries.

- Some fired workers had to be re-hired after agencies discovered the cuts were catastrophic — at further cost with no accounting provided.

- Over 300,000 total federal workers lost jobs; no report was ever issued on what was saved or what the process cost.

00:13:22 Caller Fulton — prayer for a health issue

- Fulton calls in asking for prayer for a recurring swollen calf.

- Rev. Alexander prays for him on air, asking for healing and access to care.

- Rev. Alexander connects Fulton’s difficulty getting medical care directly to the HHS cuts just discussed — premiums skyrocketing, preventive care disappearing.

00:17:33 Foreclosures, faith communities, and the fraying safety net

- Gloria in the Facebook chat recalls church prayer meetings as a communal support network; Rev. Alexander reflects on how streaming, cell phones, and competing activities have eroded that infrastructure.

- Foreclosures now at a seven-year high — tied directly to federal job losses and the elimination of DEI departments across universities and corporations.

00:20:46 Indiana’s complicity — alignment with federal cuts

- Indiana’s Republican supermajority has not pushed back on any federal cuts — actively aligning state policy with Washington and already surrendering Indiana voter data.

- Rev. Alexander: it’s not that the administration is out of touch — it’s intentional and, as Pastor Greene would say, immoral.

- ICE family separations cited as another example of policy that is harmful and known to be harmful.

00:24:08 DOGE’s legacy — no accountability, no receipts

- DOGE never issued a report on what it actually saved or what the process cost the government.

- Elon Musk left with a black eye; his own employees admitted they saved nothing and had no idea what they were doing.

- Rev. Alexander’s summary: DOGE came in for three months, cut like butter, left, and now it’s gone — with 300,000 people’s lives upended and nothing to show for it.

00:29:24 Caller Guy — money transfer, trickle-down, and Springfield, Ohio

- Guy frames the DOGE cuts as a simple money transfer — those who worried COVID assistance would discourage work are now enriching themselves through the same government they dismantled.

- Trickle-down economics doesn’t reach most people; bubble-up investment does. This administration is firmly trickle-down.

- The Supreme Court struck down TPS (Temporary Protected Status) protections; Ohio Governor DeWine — no progressive — is now publicly criticizing the ruling because Haitian immigrants were deliberately recruited to fill workforce gaps in Springfield, Ohio.

00:33:05 Post-Guy discussion — TPS, Haiti, and trickle-down

- Rev. Alexander explains: Ohio communities proactively settled Haitian workers legally under TPS; the Supreme Court has undone that investment.

- Haiti’s government has effectively been replaced by gang rule — TPS was a humanitarian lifeline, not an open-borders policy.

- Trickle-down is simply money moving from one pocket to another — it never reaches the bottom.

00:37:12 The CLASP report continued — FDA, energy assistance, and farmers

- FDA: 3,500 layoffs weakening oversight of food and drug safety.

- HHS Division of Energy Assistance: a $4.1 billion program helping 6.2 million households with utility bills — cut by DOGE, especially harmful given the AES Indiana rate increase that just took effect.

- The same food programs that feed seniors and children also support American farmers through federal contracts — cutting them hurts both ends of the supply chain.

- Trump’s response to tariff damage to farmers: a $12 billion stimulus payment rather than lifting the tariffs.

00:41:27 Caller Reverend Phillips — energy assistance and Project 2025

- Reverend Phillips reacts to the energy assistance cuts, calling Project 2025 dangerous.

- Call drops before he can complete his point.

- Rev. Alexander: a Project 2025 checklist review of 2026 would show check marks across nearly every line item discussed tonight.

00:46:50 Election fraud — the data

- Between 2000 and 2026, only 99 documented fraud cases in U.S. elections over 26 years.

- The Brennan Center found just 30 possible illegal votes out of 23 million cast from 2017 to present.

- All the money, lawsuits, executive orders, and threats being spent on election fraud are addressing a problem that essentially does not exist.

00:49:33 Election fraud — the logical argument

- Trump won in 2016 under Obama (Democrat) — no fraud claims. Lost in 2020 under his own Republican administration — 60+ lawsuits, all lost; Bill Barr confirmed no fraud; only fraud found was Trump’s own fake electors.

- Won in 2024 under Biden (Democrat) — no fraud claims. The pattern: Trump only cries fraud when Republicans ran the election and he lost — implying Democrats run cleaner elections.

- Current push: directing the Postmaster General to vet mail-in ballots sets a precedent that could extend to intercepting Social Security cards or any other mail.

00:52:33 Program close — homegoing services for Mark Russell

- Rev. Alexander announces homegoing services for Mark Russell — more than two decades of service at the Urban League of Indianapolis — Thursday 7/9 at noon at Williams & Blue Funeral Home, with viewing at 10 a.m.

- He asks listeners to pray for Mark Russell’s family.

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SUMMARY:

On the eve of the Fourth of July holiday, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. anchor the hour around two converging crises in Indianapolis: the Metropolitan Development Commission’s refusal to place a moratorium on data center development, and the severe understaffing of the city’s park ranger corps at a moment when summer park safety is already in crisis. The MDC voted today to push forward with a special data center zoning framework — forwarding it to the City-County Council rather than pausing to address unanswered community questions about environmental impact, utility costs, and property values. Both hosts argue the decision reflects a pattern of closed-door negotiations with developers that excludes the public and that other cities, including Henderson, Kentucky, have handled more wisely. Then, Rev. Alexander shares a startling disclosure from a recent RDC Northwest Community Resource District Council meeting at Riverside Park: Indianapolis has 220 parks but only seven park rangers — dropping to six the following week — meaning the city cannot put even one ranger per shift per side of town. Caller Guy connects both topics through the lens of public information access, invoking Lincoln’s maxim that a republic depends on an informed citizenry. The program closes with a study in contrasts: Riverside Park’s “Sunday Fun Day” model of intergenerational community ownership — which produces no incidents — versus the chronic disorder at Northwestway Park, which Pastor Greene traces to higher rental property rates, lower homeownership, and a resulting absence of community investment. Both hosts close with a holiday weekend safety message and a call for HOA and community leaders around Northwestway to replicate the Riverside model.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Announcer legal disclaimers and station open for Concerned Clergy weekly town hall on Praise AM 1310 / 95.1 FM.

- Rev. Alexander welcomes listeners and the Progressive Indiana Network Substack audience; greets Pastor Greene; previews topics including data centers and city parks.

- Pastor Greene offers opening prayer.

00:02:35 MDC data center moratorium vote — the community loses

- Rev. Alexander reports that the Metropolitan Development Commission met that day and declined to place a moratorium on data center development, instead forwarding a special zoning framework to the City-County Council.

- Pastor Greene: deeply disappointed. Communities overwhelming asked for a moratorium — not a rejection of data centers, but a pause to get answers on environmental, utility, and infrastructure questions. A few insiders overrode the majority.

- The hosts urge constituents to remember this at election time. The AES Indiana rate increase also took effect that day, with another increase coming in January.

- Both agree the rush is not about wisdom — it’s about keeping developer timelines intact. The unanswered questions about who pays for infrastructure, what happens to property values, and how many data centers the grid can actually support are being deliberately avoided because the answers may not be community-friendly.

00:08:56 Public process breakdown — closed-door negotiations and the indy.gov resource

- Rev. Alexander: all negotiations with data center developers have been conducted behind closed doors. Community members are given one-way presentations at MDC sessions, not genuine input forums. Feedback is acknowledged and ignored.

- He directs viewers to indy.gov — search “data centers” — to find FAQs, draft zoning regulations, meeting recordings, and proposed guardrails (lighting, noise, environmental, water usage).

- Pastor Greene: Indianapolis had no data center zoning at all prior to this process. What the council is now receiving is a framework to create that zoning — a workaround to avoid the moratorium communities wanted.

- Cities like Henderson, Kentucky have already placed moratoriums to do exactly this kind of deliberate planning. Marion County is not doing the same.

00:20:20 Capacity limits and the Boone County ripple effect

- Pastor Greene: there is a hard limit on how many data centers Marion County’s utility infrastructure can actually support. Nobody knows what that number is, because nobody has paused to find out. The internet rollout taught this lesson; data centers will teach it again.

- Citizens Energy Group has reportedly told developers they’ll pay for their own infrastructure upgrades; AES Indiana reportedly has not taken that position — creating an unequal burden on ratepayers.

- Rev. Alexander: the scope must be Indiana-wide, not Marion County alone. The Meta data center in Boone County (Lebanon) affects Marion County’s grid. A regional master plan is needed.

00:23:01 Meta’s America’s Workforce Academy — opportunity in the new landscape

- Rev. Alexander pivots to a jobs message: Meta is launching its America’s Workforce Academy, training workers for data center construction and maintenance. Indianapolis is one of roughly 24 selected sites, with a launch expected around August.

- The program is accessible at https://www.meta.com/actions/americas-workforce-academy/. It targets tech-savvy young people, and Meta representatives specifically mentioned recruiting gamers — people accustomed to extended, high-focus screen time.

- Rev. Alexander: even while advocating for a moratorium, he wants young people to know these jobs exist and are well-compensated. Don’t let advocacy and opportunity be mutually exclusive.

00:27:16 Break recap and pivot to park safety — the RDC Northwest meeting

- Rev. Alexander recaps the MDC vote for listeners coming back from commercial, then transitions to park safety.

- Earlier that Monday, the RDC Northwest Community Resource District Council — working with IMPD’s Northwest District — hosted a meeting at Riverside Park to discuss park safety issues, particularly at Riverside and Northwestway Park.

00:28:25 220 parks, seven rangers — the staffing crisis

- The park rangers at the meeting disclosed a stunning figure: Indianapolis has 220 parks, but only seven park rangers — a number dropping to six the following week when one departs.

- Current split: four rangers on day shift, three on night shift, citywide.

- Rev. Alexander: this is not enough to cover a single side of town per shift, let alone deter ongoing problems at the city’s most troubled parks.

- Pastor Greene: during summer, rangers take vacations too — so the real number is even lower much of the time. Some parks have almost certainly gone years without seeing a ranger. When something happens there, the city will blame the community rather than acknowledge the prevention failure.

00:32:16 Who owns parks? — the councilor question and budget reality

- Rev. Alexander: who on the City-County Council is advocating for parks? He recalls Councilor Duke Oliver as a former champion of parks funding, but is unsure who currently holds that role.

- Pastor Greene identifies Councilor Dan Boots as the current chair of the Parks Committee. He notes that the budget decisions that led to this staffing level predate Boots, and that without mayoral support and a budget line item, there is no path to more rangers.

- Both hosts: the police chief will correctly say she doesn’t have the resources for parks. This has to be solved at the mayoral and budget level, not the police level.

00:35:58 The youth employment pipeline — lifeguards becoming reluctant security

- Rev. Alexander: when he was growing up, city parks were important sources of first jobs for young people — lifeguards, pool staff, golf course workers. Friends of his worked at Douglas Park.

- Parks staff disclosed that young workers are now refusing to take those jobs because they’re being forced into informal security roles their training doesn’t support — telling peers to stop roughhousing, mediating conflicts, and then having to go to school with those same peers the next week.

- This creates a vicious cycle: fewer young workers → pools and parks unable to open → fewer resources for families → more unstructured time contributing to the very disorder that drove workers away in the first place.

00:38:51 Caller Guy — facts, Lincoln, and park ranger history

- Guy asks whether any reliable cost-benefit analysis exists for Indianapolis data center development. Rev. Alexander: not yet — which is precisely why communities are asking for a moratorium.

- Guy invokes a maxim attributed to Abraham Lincoln: If the people know the facts, the country will be saved. Those suppressing public information about data centers are acting against that principle.

- On parks: Guy recalls significant controversy when Indianapolis park rangers were first introduced — questions about their authority and conduct. That controversy has since quieted, Guy notes wryly — which Rev. Alexander points out may be because the rangers themselves have nearly disappeared.

- Guy: perhaps the city’s logic is that if there’s no visible disorder in the parks, they don’t need many rangers. Both hosts push back: the disorder is very visible.

00:41:51 Riverside vs. Northwestway — community ownership as the variable

- Rev. Alexander reports a key finding from the Monday Riverside meeting: Riverside Park’s “Sunday Fun Day” community has a genuine relationship with their park rangers — they know them by name. Rev. Alexander confirmed with Commander Lewis that Riverside has had no incidents in recent weeks despite being packed every Sunday.

- Northwestway Park, by contrast, is the number one source of calls in the Northwest District — issues nearly every day.

- The difference: Riverside has long-term residents who have taken ownership of the space. They run organized events, have vendors, attract OGs with show cars who mentor younger attendees — creating an intergenerational environment where a takeover mentality doesn’t take root.

- Pastor Greene: the Riverside model works because the people there are homeowners with a stake in the community. Northwestway Park is surrounded by higher concentrations of rental property — renters don’t have the same incentive to invest community time and energy. This connects directly to fair housing failures and declining Black homeownership rates, which Councilor Amy Nelson has addressed in her policy work.

00:48:39 Call to action — HOAs, community leaders, duplicate the model

- Rev. Alexander: Northwestway Park is also surrounded by HOA communities and homeowners, not just rentals. There’s a church next door. Those stakeholders need to step up, talk to their HOA leaders, and start hosting structured community events — the way Riverside does.

- Don’t wait for the park rangers who aren’t coming. Take ownership before the park is taken over.

- Pastor Greene: it will require IMPD and city support to sustain, but the model works anywhere if the neighborhood is vested. Neighborhood watch groups with strong community ties produce measurably less crime.

00:52:23 Program close — Fourth of July safety message

- Rev. Alexander: thank you to all listeners. Parks have splash parks, pools, and cooling centers — enjoy the outdoors this holiday weekend, but be safe.

- Both hosts wish the audience a safe Fourth of July.

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SUMMARY:

With the Indiana Republican state convention just concluded and Stacey Abrams’ Urban League keynote fresh in mind, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. open a dense, politically charged hour with two interlocking arguments. First, they contend that the Republican Party has ceased to exist as a coherent institution — replaced by MAGA — and that traditional Republicans who fall in line with party dictates have effectively become what Rev. Alexander calls the “house Negroes” of the MAGA movement, a parallel he illustrates with the Republican delegation’s rapid pivot from incumbent Secretary of State Diego Morales to unknown party pick Max Engling within 30 days. Second, they work through the practical implications of Stacey Abrams’ presentation the previous day at the Urban League luncheon, which laid out 10 steps to autocracy and 10 counter-steps to defeat it. Caller El Amin broaches the topic of academic free speech, given the recent non-renewal of IU lecturer Jessica Adams, who was suspended after Senator Jim Banks took issue with her classroom use of “Make America Great Again” as an example of covert white supremacy. Caller Guy returns with a historical argument for reclaiming Black contributions to American democracy — Crispus Attucks, Frank Wills, Russel Honoré — as essential public relations infrastructure for the movement. The program closes with both hosts calling on the community to organize, speak up, and demand democracy, with Pastor Greene warning that too many people with power are going along silently with the erosion of rights and history.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Pastor Greene’s opening prayer includes a petition for those affected by earthquakes in California.

00:03:00 Republican delegation recap — Morales out, Engling in

- Rev. Alexander reports on the Indiana Republican state convention in Fort Wayne: roughly 1,800 delegates, incumbent Secretary of State Diego Morales dumped within 30 days of Republican leadership withdrawing support in favor of Max Engling.

- A Terre Haute candidate (correction: Dave Shelton is from Vincennes) with actual relevant experience was also passed over. Delegates fell in line behind the party’s choice with no apparent independent evaluation of Engling.

- Rev. Alexander’s argument: this is the definition of “house Negro” behavior — following orders without question, getting privileges from the master while abandoning your own values.

- The distinction between Republican and MAGA is not subtle: Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have explicitly said the Republican Party is dead and has been replaced by the MAGA Party. Traditional Republicans who haven’t noticed are the last to know.

00:06:30 MAGA fractures within Indiana Republican politics

- Pastor Greene notes visible fractures: Trump threatening to withhold his signature from a bipartisan housing bill unless he gets voter suppression provisions; only three or four Republican members of Congress showing any backbone.

- At the state level: AES Indiana received its rate increase; Governor Braun is replacing the IURC chair after the fact, despite having hired the person who approved the rates months ago.

- Someone connected to the state’s trail programs resigned this week, citing the governor being too heavy-handed.

- The party dynamic: Braun is MAGA, Beckwith wants to be even more MAGA, and traditional Republicans who don’t conform are being pushed out.

00:09:17 Max Engling and what he’s actually promising

- Pastor Greene: Engling’s explicit platform is to limit voter participation, not expand it — targeting people of color specifically. He’s being openly racist about it and calculating that MAGA voters will reward that posture.

- This is Project 2025 in action at the state level: assume non-citizens are voting, use that as cover to suppress legal voters of color.

- Rev. Alexander: whatever differences existed between Morales and Engling on the substance, Republican delegates don’t know Engling at all — they just did what they were told. That’s the house Negro dynamic in practice.

00:15:11 Rev. Alexander’s primary season story — the parking lot parable

- Rev. Alexander shares a personal anecdote from primary canvassing: a woman on a cane comes out of her car calling Democrats idiots, while he — a Democrat — is the only one there to help her get to the door.

- When she came back out after voting (Republican, of course), she told him “I love you.”

- Pastor Greene: this is exactly what Stacey Abrams was describing — partisan identity has replaced moral reasoning. It’s not right vs. left, it’s right vs. wrong. Doing the right thing shouldn’t make you an idiot.

- The MAGA framework needs division and anger to function. A civil conversation about shared problems is the enemy of their strategy.

00:21:38 Stacey Abrams’ Urban League keynote — 10 steps to autocracy, 10 to defeat it

- Abrams was the keynote speaker at the Urban League of Indianapolis luncheon the previous day, presenting two frameworks: 10 steps to autocracy (expand executive power, cut government levels, install loyalists, attack media, scapegoat vulnerable communities, destroy support systems) and 10 steps to defeat it (commit, share, organize, mobilize, litigate, disrupt, deny, engage, elect, demand democracy).

- Rev. Alexander notes the steps to autocracy map directly onto what the Trump administration has been doing: Medicaid and Medicare cuts, USAID gutted, DEI eliminated, Elon Musk with a chainsaw.

- The Urban League had roughly 1,400 people in the room. Rev. Alexander’s ask: don’t just have the meal — share what she said. That’s step two on her own list.

- Rev. Alexander adds an eleventh step of his own: tie Indiana’s dismal quality-of-life rankings directly to the Republicans who have governed the state for decades.

00:25:04 Caller El Amin — The chilling effect: IU professor fired for naming MAGA

- El Amin calls in with a pointed question: how do you organize and share information when people are losing their jobs for speaking up?

- A recent case: IU social work lecturer Jessica Adams lost her position after using an academic graphic that listed the MAGA slogan as an example of covert white supremacy. Senator Jim Banks intervened to have her removed.

- Pastor Greene: El Amin is right, and this is precisely one of Abrams’ 10 steps — controlling education to control the message. Turning Point USA clubs in schools, the new law restricting faculty speech, rewriting history — it’s all part of the same system.

- The attack is intentional and systematic. The response must be equally intentional and systematic. Commitment — Abrams’ first step — means acting even when there are consequences.

00:30:57 Republicans who don’t see it yet — a direct address

- Rev. Alexander addresses traditional Republicans directly: you may call yourself MAGA, but MAGA has drawn a line and you’re on the wrong side of it. Trump and Trump Jr. have said the Republican Party is gone. Your family values candidate has been convicted of sex crimes and skipped his own child’s wedding.

- Gloria in the chat asks how to get the 10 steps to the people. Rev. Alexander’s answer: that’s what we’re doing right now. But the Urban League also needs to keep pushing what she shared — don’t let it end with the luncheon.

00:33:42 The 10 counter-steps in detail — litigate in public

- Rev. Alexander recaps Abrams’ 10 steps to defeat autocracy: commit, share, organize, mobilize, litigate, disrupt, deny, engage, elect, demand democracy.

- His emphasis: the “litigate” step doesn’t only mean courtrooms. Litigating in public — using a radio show, a Facebook page, a community platform — is how non-lawyers fight back.

- Pastor Greene: Jamal Bryant and Senator Raphael Warnock are both coming to Indianapolis next month. The question is what the community does with those visits beyond being in the audience.

- AES Indiana rate increases are coming in July and again in January. Indiana budget season is approaching. These are the organizing moments.

00:44:38 Caller Guy — Trumplicans, Mussolini’s playbook, and erased Black patriots

- Guy calls back after technical difficulties. His framing: what Trump is doing is not new — it’s Benito Mussolini’s playbook, adopted by Hitler, exploiting a population that feels downcast and left behind.

- Guy poses names to the audience as a test of public relations failure: Crispus Attucks (first patriot killed in the Boston Massacre, whose name is rarely mentioned in mainstream media); Frank Wills (the Watergate security guard who discovered the break-in); Russel Honoré (who led federal relief after Katrina).

- How many people know these names? If the community doesn’t tell its own story, the erasure succeeds. Taking away Black history from national cemeteries and military records is the same playbook, just institutionalized.

- Rev. Alexander: Guy is right, but the point is that a government entity is now actively removing those references — from national cemeteries, from military history. The outcry needs to match the scale of the erasure.

00:50:08 Closing — demand it, don’t go silently

- Pastor Greene: where are the people committed to pushing back? Too many minorities with power are going along with it, saying nothing. We have too many voiceless people.

- El Amin posts in the Facebook chat: “Emancipation: 400 Years of History” — a resource link Rev. Alexander directs listeners to visit and share.

- Pastor Greene closes with an urgent call: we can’t dance around this. Demand democracy. Don’t go silently. Stand up.

00:52:45 Station close

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SUMMARY:

Broadcasting through a summer storm, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. open with a brief celebration: last week’s advance warning about the planned Northwestway Park takeover worked, and the park had a safe, family-friendly weekend. That good news is immediately paired with a new alert — a social media-organized takeover is now planned for Skateland on Glen Arm Road on the west side. The bulk of the program pivots to a sustained, data-driven indictment of Indiana’s record under decades of Republican supermajority rule, anchored by a Purdue University quality-of-life study ranking Indiana 46th out of 50 states. Both hosts connect the dots from defunded youth programs (PAL Club, OK Program, IMPD Cares) and charter school expansion to the park takeover problem — arguing that cuts to prevention always produce the very public safety crises politicians then use to demand more police. Caller Imhotep phones in from Atlanta, where he is attending FIFA World Cup events with young people, and draws a direct line from Dr. King’s “beloved community” to the anti-DEI funding cuts ravaging nonprofits. Callers Tony and Guy add personal testimony and political framing. The program closes with a direct message to Indiana Democratic candidates: stop playing footsies with Republicans and make them own Indiana’s dismal rankings on foreclosures, education, and quality of life heading into November.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Pastor Greene offers opening prayer, asking specifically for the safety of those affected by the storm.

00:03:04 Northwestway Park success -- and the next takeover threat

- Rev. Alexander reports that last week’s on-air warning about the planned Northwestway Park takeover had its intended effect: the park had a safe, family-friendly weekend with no incident.

- A new social media-organized “takeover” is now planned for this Saturday at Skateland on Glen Arm Road on the west side of Indianapolis.

- Both hosts repeat the message: young people are welcome to come enjoy themselves, but the community will not allow a repeat of the chaos pattern.

- Pastor Greene notes that parents may assume the skating rink is safe and need to be warned; takeover events attract people from across the city, and it only takes one encounter to escalate.

00:07:02 Gerrelian Ragland and Pain to Progress -- community filling the gap

- Rev. Alexander directly addresses Gerrelian in the Facebook chat, calling on the community to keep the environment safe.

- Pastor Greene highlights Gerrelian’s youth program Pain to Progress, along with Anthony Hampton’s south-side sports programming, as examples of community members filling the void left by defunded city programs.

- Programs that have been cut or defunded: PAL Club, the OK Program (targeting African American males), IMPD Cares. These are now being replaced piecemeal by community volunteers with no stable funding.

- Pastor Greene’s call to city-county councilors: fund programs like Pain to Progress directly. A pizza party costs money. Poverty is real. Prevention is cheaper than reaction.

00:08:42 The PAL Club, the OK Program, and what was lost

- Pastor Greene details the value of programs like the PAL Club: they gave young people non-threatening contact with police officers, building relationships before any arrest or crisis interaction.

- The OK Program specifically targeted African American males and operated alongside IMPD Cares. Both are gone.

- Pastor Greene: people today say “I’m a product of the PAL Club -- it saved my life.” The concept works. It will come back eventually, possibly under a different name like Pain to Progress, but it needs real funding to operate at scale.

- Rev. Alexander adds: cuts aren’t limited to PAL Club -- DEI rollbacks and anti-poverty program eliminations are sweeping away the CYO, charter schools lack extracurricular activities, and the entire ecosystem of youth development is being stripped at the federal, state, and local levels simultaneously.

00:15:10 Prevention vs. incarceration -- the false economy of cuts

- Pastor Greene: cutting youth programs while expecting public safety is a contradiction. What are 13-, 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds doing this summer if not at home twiddling their thumbs?

- You can’t police your way out of it -- IMPD doesn’t have enough officers to cover every corner, every garage, every park, every event.

- Tourism, downtown sporting events, the city’s reputation -- all of it is at risk if you keep cutting prevention and then express surprise when something goes wrong.

- Denise in the Facebook chat: it’s a vicious cycle -- F-grade schools get defunded, which feeds the street pipeline, which produces the public safety crisis that gets blamed on parents.

00:19:34 Break toss and framing the second segment

- Rev. Alexander previews the second segment: connecting the dots between what’s happening at the federal level and what Republicans have done in Indiana specifically.

- Imhotep is first in the call queue when they return.

00:21:23 Caller Imhotep -- FIFA in Atlanta, King’s beloved community, and the $300 billion question

- Imhotep calls from Atlanta, where he has brought young people to attend FIFA World Cup events; notes heavy DEA and ATF security presence has kept things in order, with only a minor crowd incident at State Farm Arena involving local streamer Tysonette.

- Connects the show’s discussion to the Georgia governor’s race: Keisha Lance Bottoms is running on free textbooks, free junior college, free first two years of four-year college, and mandatory job training for released prisoners; the Republican candidate offers none of that.

- Visited the King Center the previous day with the young people he brought; shed a tear reading Dr. King’s vision of the beloved community -- which he argues is exactly antithetical to anti-DEI funding cuts, school defunding, and nonprofit slashing.

- Closes with the $300 billion figure: federal money is going to reparations for Trump’s war on Iran, while that same amount could fund all American college students, all trade schools, and five years of health care.

00:25:34 Post-Imhotep -- Connecting federal cuts to Indiana’s Republican record

- Rev. Alexander: Imhotep’s point is federal, but it’s happening right here in Indiana too -- and with the Republican State Delegate Convention coming up this weekend, this is the moment to make the connection explicit.

- Rev. Alexander names the data: Indiana is #1 in foreclosures (worst in the country), 45th in education, leads in Black unemployment, and ranked 46th in quality of life by a Purdue University study from June 2025.

- This happened under a Republican supermajority -- through Daniels, Holcomb, Braun, and Pence -- and Indiana Democratic candidates need to be saying that clearly, not playing footsies with Republicans.

00:30:52 Pastor Greene -- Make them own it; Behning and the education numbers

- Pastor Greene: you can’t have different facts. Purdue’s numbers are what they are. Representative Bob Behning has chaired the House Education Committee while Indiana’s education ranking has fallen -- make him own it.

- The Republican majority passed the policies that produced these results. No Democratic candidate can credibly be blamed for Indiana’s foreclosure crisis or its education standing -- Democrats haven’t had the votes.

- Indiana Republicans won’t break with Trump because he’ll primary them. There’s no backbone in the current Congress. Democrats must be bold enough to stand on the facts and make Republicans answer for them.

00:36:32 The Republican State Delegate Convention preview

- Rev. Alexander: the Republican delegation meets this week. Sen. Jim Banks has already signaled who he’s backing for Secretary of State -- someone most Hoosiers don’t know -- and Republicans will fall in line regardless.

- That’s the difference: Republicans unify behind whoever their machine picks. Democrats need to learn that discipline for November.

00:37:04 Caller Tony -- Growing up in Gary, the bookmobile, and what’s being lost

- Tony, 62, grew up in Gary in a single-parent household with three sisters. His family relied entirely on publicly funded programs: the bookmobile (a mobile library that parked in his neighborhood), summer programs, and free school lunch.

- Those programs gave him his love of reading and shaped his childhood positively. Hearing that all of it is being cut breaks his heart for his grandchildren’s generation.

- Rev. Alexander: Indiana is 45th in education. IPS has been dismantled over 20 years. Charter schools lack extracurriculars. A new education commission chaired by the Indianapolis mayor is forming while public school funding is being stripped.

00:41:10 Caller Guy -- Follow the money; trickle-down vs. bubble-up

- Guy: it’s simple -- follow the money. Conservatives believe in trickle-down economics (wealth flows down from the top); progressives believe in bubble-up (investment in the masses builds upward).

- The money going to Iran is going to contractors -- and look at who those contractors are connected to. This is the same pattern as the Iraq reconstruction era: war and foreign expenditure enriches the already-connected.

- Investment in people is the best investment. The conservative framework says it believes that too, but the budget doesn’t reflect it.

00:43:19 Closing argument -- Indiana under Republican rule

- Rev. Alexander reframes Guy’s point: every dollar in this federal government flows to Friends of Trump or Family of Trump. Democratic candidates should run on that at every level.

- Indiana is last or near-last in foreclosures, education, quality of life, and Black unemployment. Republicans have been in charge. Connect the dots. Stop being scared. Make them own it.

- Pastor Greene: the Purdue data is not opinion -- it’s fact. Child care, education, health care -- Republicans own the results. Democratic candidates need the guts to say so clearly.

- Rev. Alexander closes: Purdue said Indiana is 46th in quality of life. Republicans have been leading Indiana. The question for November is whether voters want to continue down that road.

- Juneteenth reminder: coming up this weekend. Don’t forget your history.

00:47:57 Station close

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