https://progressiveindiana.net

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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https://progressiveindiana.net

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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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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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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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https://progressiveindiana.net

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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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https://progressiveindiana.net

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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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https://progressiveindiana.net

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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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SUMMARY:

With summer underway and a Democratic state convention just behind them, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. open this week’s program on two urgent fronts: the state of the Indiana Democratic Party in the aftermath of the Secretary of State convention vote, and a gathering threat to public safety at Northwestway Park on Indianapolis’s northwest side. On the political front, both hosts dissect the convention outcome — Beau Bayh over Blythe Potter — and the immediate backlash from some Potter supporters threatening to sit out November, tracing the dysfunction back to a chronic leadership vacuum within the state and Marion County Democratic Party. Caller Marilyn provides a sharp firsthand account of bureaucratic neglect in the state’s disability services system, which both hosts connect directly to low voter turnout and the failure to hold elected officials accountable. The second half of the program focuses on a social-media-organized “Motion Party” takeover announced for Northwestway Park the coming Saturday — a flash event that follows a weapons-brandishing incident the previous Friday — raising alarms about park safety, IMPD staffing shortfalls, vanishing park ranger funding, and the mayor’s silence. Both hosts close with a call for proactive city leadership before a crisis forces reactive finger-pointing.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Rev. Alexander previews the evening’s two topics: the Indiana Democratic state convention outcome and park safety heading into summer.

- Pastor Greene joins; offers opening prayer.

00:02:48 Indiana Democratic convention recap -- Bayh wins, party fractures

- Rev. Alexander reports on the Democratic state convention: over 2,300 of roughly 2,500 delegates attended; State Treasurer and Comptroller nominations were uncontested formalities; all the heat was in the Secretary of State race between Blythe Potter and Beau Bayh.

- Immediately after Bayh won, the room split — many Potter supporters publicly declaring they won’t support Bayh in November. Rev. Alexander urges Democrats to reconsider given the stakes of the Secretary of State race.

- Pastor Greene: the fracturing traces back to how the process was run -- Marion County, as the largest delegation, needed to model transparency and fairness from the start to earn trust on the back end.

00:05:51 Leadership vacuum in the Indiana Democratic Party

- Pastor Greene: without transparency and accountability going in, there can be no trust coming out. The party cannot unite for a blue wave if people feel the process was tilted.

- Rev. Alexander: Indiana Democrats have no single public-facing leader -- only a collection of silos. Township leaders, city-county councilors, reps, senators -- each running their own kingdom, none galvanizing the whole.

- Pastor Greene agrees: fresh leadership is required. The current leaders have not delivered on the two fundamentals -- raising money and turning out voters -- and should step aside.

- Both hosts: this didn’t get broken in one election and won’t be fixed in one. Transparency and accountability must come first; trust follows.

00:13:23 Indiana needs Democratic mayors supported, not picked off

- Rev. Alexander: the urgency isn’t just November -- Democrat mayors in Terre Haute, Evansville, Muncie, and other Indiana cities need coordinated party support now, or they’ll be picked off one by one.

- Instead of spending party money on travel, send resources directly to those local organizations to empower them with the same playbook.

- Pastor Greene: the current leadership cannot bring about the unity needed. The party has been intentionally kept divided by those who benefit from the chaos. Who can unify? That question has to be answered honestly -- and asked: when did Indiana Democrats last win a statewide election?

00:17:21 Convention aftermath -- room splits, SOS stakes

- Rev. Alexander: the room split almost literally the moment the SOS vote was called, echoing the division visible on Facebook in real time. Despite the disappointment, he urges Democrats not to give up -- the Secretary of State position is too critical.

- Pastor Greene: Morales has been egregious with taxpayer money; his own party may not even nominate him. The Concerned Clergy raised the unifying-message question during delegate training -- now they’ve seen the answer play out.

- Republicans, by contrast, will close ranks the moment their convention produces a nominee. Democrats must do the same.

00:21:41 Caller Marilyn -- Disability services crisis and congressional accountability

- Marilyn, legal guardian of a severely disabled 43-year-old nephew with the cognitive level of a 6-year-old, calls to describe the state’s attempt to eliminate his 24-hour care -- not because he doesn’t need it, but because the state won’t pay for it.

- She contacted Rep. André Carson’s office for help; his office redirected her directly back to the very agency that had already denied her nephew’s claim.

- Her broader point: elected officials give auto-generated responses to constituent calls, cannot be reached, and face no accountability. Both parties have proven indifferent to people’s actual needs.

00:24:24 Post-Marilyn discussion -- Funding cuts and the voting imperative

- Rev. Alexander: Marilyn’s experience is not isolated -- organizations like Noble of Indiana are losing funding that serves people in exactly her nephew’s situation, as are programs for disabled children statewide.

- Pastor Greene: CICOA (Central Indiana Council on Aging) is on the cut list for seniors; FSSA announced a six-month freeze on autism support applications just the prior week. These cuts happen because the party in power can -- low voter turnout lets them.

- Rev. Alexander: elected officials in the minority should be shouting these cuts from every bullhorn and billboard. The public doesn’t know what’s being cut. Silence is a failure of transparency.

00:29:31 Northwestway Park -- Background and the takeover threat

- Rev. Alexander introduces the park safety topic: spoke earlier that day with the IMPD Northwest District commander and the Northwestway Park manager.

- Northwestway Park -- trails, soccer fields, splash park, picnic areas -- has seen an uptick of incidents; the previous Friday saw two people brandishing weapons before officers dispersed a crowd.

- A “Motion Party” has been announced on social media for Saturday, June 13th at 2 p.m. at Northwestway Park -- $5 cover, promoted on Instagram, drawing expected crowds from across the city.

- Pastor Greene: his daughter lives near the park; he’s been getting calls. Cuts to park programming, predicted years ago to cause exactly this, have now arrived.

00:36:00 The Motion Party -- What’s coming and why it’s dangerous

- Rev. Alexander details the social media flyer: the date is barely visible, the event is branded as a “Motion Party,” it mirrors the spinning and flash-mob patterns seen across the city.

- Pastor Greene: youth coming from all sides of town with unresolved school conflicts, in a permitless carry state, in summer heat -- this is not a question of if something goes wrong, but when.

- Community presence alone won’t stop it; the problem recurs the next Saturday at a different park. A city-wide solution is needed, not a one-off response.

- Rev. Alexander: IMPD Northwest District commander is already stretched -- the city is budgeting for 2,000 officers but only has about 1,200. Park ranger funding is also being cut.

00:42:07 Mayor’s accountability and the summer youth employment pipeline

- Rev. Alexander: the responsibility falls on the mayor. City parks are city property. But there’s no public plan, no designated point person, and budget season is likely to bring cuts, not investment.

- When something goes wrong, Chief Terry or the current chief explains it after the fact -- the mayor is absent from the proactive conversation.

- Rev. Alexander raises a secondary issue: parks have historically been entry-level employers for teens (lifeguards, maintenance). Staffing shortages have already forced some parks to close for seasons. Community-driven events like Mike Epps’s park initiatives are filling the gap where sustained city investment should be.

- Pastor Greene: the mayor or his designee needs to own this, name a solution, and get ahead of it -- not wait for a shooting to assign blame.

00:45:22 Imhotep in the chat -- Closing the loop on Northwestway

- Rev. Alexander responds to Imhotep’s question in the Facebook chat: yes, the Motion Party is this Saturday, June 13th; Riverside Park’s regular events continue separately on Sundays.

- Indy Parks and the IMPD Northwest District are now aware of Saturday’s planned takeover; both hosts hope the advance notice sends a signal to would-be disruptors.

- Rev. Alexander: the community values Northwestway Park as a resource -- families, walkers, soccer players -- and will not allow it to be taken over and abandoned.

- Pastor Greene closes: the city must be at the table. Leadership has to step up before the crisis, not just show up to assign blame after it.

00:49:54 Program close

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SUMMARY:

In a dense, two-topic hour, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. open with a sharp response to Indiana Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith's public call to normalize hate speech and his characterization of Islam as a "demonic death cult." Pastor Greene details a press release issued jointly with the Baptist Ministries Alliance and the General Missionary Baptist Convention demanding Governor Mike Braun formally retract Beckwith's remarks, and announces a multi-faith Religious Freedom Summit at the Statehouse the following Thursday. Callers Imhotep and Tim engage on the theme of media bias and Black community self-determination before Rev. Alexander pivots to a rant on Trump administration anti-DEI policy and the unqualified nomination of Bill Pulte to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The second half of the program focuses on the upcoming Indiana Democratic state convention, where delegates will nominate candidates for Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and State Comptroller. Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene parse Senator J.D. Ford's last-minute endorsement of Beau Bayh over Blythe Potter, express concern about the chaos it is sowing among progressives, and detail a candidate forum convened by the Concerned Clergy coalition to probe both SOS candidates on voter access, Black community engagement, and accountability -- framing the Secretary of State race as one of the most consequential on the November ballot.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Rev. Alexander previews the evening’s two topics: fireworks in the Democratic Secretary of State race, and Lt. Governor Beckwith’s call to promote hate.

- Pastor Greene joins; offers opening prayer.

00:03:17 Lt. Governor Beckwith’s hate speech and the Concerned Clergy response

- Rev. Alexander describes Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith’s public statement calling for Americans to be given “permission to hate” and his characterization of Islam as a demonic death cult -- framed as inconsistent with his professed Christian faith.

- Pastor Greene details a press release crafted jointly with the Baptist Ministries Alliance (Dr. Wayne Moore), Dr. Clyde Posey, and the General Missionary Baptist Convention, demanding Governor Braun publicly retract Beckwith’s remarks.

- Both hosts note this is not Beckwith’s first offense -- he previously referred to African Americans as “three-fifths of a person” -- and that the governor has responded with silence in both instances.

- Pastor Greene: the call to hate is a moral issue, not a partisan one; the response is coming from Democrats and Republicans alike.

00:07:12 Religious Freedom Summit announcement and governor’s non-response

- Pastor Greene announces a multi-faith Religious Freedom Summit at the Indiana Statehouse Thursday at noon, organized with Sen. Fady Qaddoura, bringing together participants across faiths and races.

- The three formal asks from the Concerned Clergy coalition: a public retraction of Beckwith’s statements, a reaffirmation of commitment to religious liberty and dignity for all Hoosiers, and a clear statement that hate-filled rhetoric has no place in state leadership.

- Governor Braun has not responded as of airtime; both hosts tie his silence to his own plans to put Turning Point USA clubs in Indiana schools and his political interest in not alienating Beckwith as a future competitor.

00:10:13 Beckwith’s pattern of behavior and political motivation

- Rev. Alexander: Beckwith’s demeanor at public events -- smug, taunting, dismissive of concerns -- mirrors the behavior of Indianapolis City-County Councilor Gibson at the data center meeting; it’s a calculated performance, not incidental.

- Both hosts speculate Beckwith is positioning himself for a higher profile ahead of the Republican convention and potentially a future run against Braun.

- Pastor Greene: regardless of the motive, you can’t let someone holler fire in a movie theater. It must be called out, especially by the governor.

00:14:23 Caller Imhotep -- Universal moral code, media silence on dissent, and Palestine

- Imhotep argues every faith tradition shares a common core -- do unto others -- making Beckwith’s worldview antithetical to all faith, not just Christianity.

- Notes that white ministers are actively speaking out against Beckwith-style rhetoric on social media but are invisible to mainstream media.

- Closes with a pointed observation about Arab American voters in Michigan who boycotted Kamala Harris over Palestine: given what has since happened there and the rise of figures like Beckwith, he argues that abstention had real consequences.

00:17:00 Post-Imhotep discussion -- Beckwith as political performance

- Rev. Alexander affirms Imhotep’s thesis on media conditioning and draws a direct comparison between Beckwith’s conduct and the Councilor Gibson data center incident -- same playbook, different venue.

- Pastor Greene: Beckwith’s escalating rhetoric will continue unless addressed; notes Braun’s self-interest in not denouncing his lieutenant governor.

- Denise posts in the chat asking whether there was a call for Beckwith to step down; Pastor Greene clarifies the formal ask stopped at retraction, though he notes public pressure may eventually push further.

00:20:15 Rev. Alexander’s rant -- DEI dismantling and the DNI nomination

- Rev. Alexander pivots to a rant on the Trump administration’s anti-DEI campaign -- cutting any program that an AI search flagged for the phrase “diversity, equity, inclusion” -- while simultaneously appointing unqualified loyalists.

- Highlights the nomination of Bill Pulte to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: no security experience, no intelligence agency background, no law enforcement history.

- Raises the implicit contradiction: a president who claims to have been shot at and survived multiple close calls is putting someone with zero security credentials in charge of national intelligence.

- Closes the loop on the staged-assassination-attempt conspiracy theory circulating online and why Trump’s failure to tighten security makes it harder to dismiss.

00:26:30 Caller Tim -- Stop complaining, pool resources, vote

- Tim urges the Black community to stop focusing energy on racist rhetoric and instead adopt the model of Asian Americans: pool resources, invest in each other, put the right people in office.

- Recommends Black churches purchase land around their buildings and generate revenue by renting facilities six days a week to sustain their missions.

- Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene affirm the voting imperative while pushing back gently: sharing information isn’t complaining, it’s how you help people vote wisely -- politicians win by deceiving voters, so you have to arm people with facts.

00:30:39 Accountability for elected officials -- both parties

- Rev. Alexander: voting isn’t enough if you then excuse whatever your candidate does in office. Accountability must follow the win.

- Pastor Greene: Trump didn’t campaign on tariffs, war with Iran, or rising gas prices -- he won on a different message and then governed another way. Voters have to be discerning, not loyal.

- Both hosts agree: whoever the next Secretary of State is, the Concerned Clergy will hold them to what they said.

00:32:06 Indiana Democratic convention preview -- SOS, Treasurer, Comptroller

- Rev. Alexander lays out the stakes: the Democratic convention that Saturday will nominate candidates for Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and State Comptroller (formerly the Auditor). The Republican convention will do the same.

- On the Republican side: the question is whether incumbent Diego Morales -- who has faced significant opposition from within his own party -- survives. Former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard is also in the Secretary of State race as an independent.

- Democratic delegates: hundreds coming from Marion County alone, approximately 2,500 statewide. Results expected Saturday evening.

- Treasurer and Comptroller candidates are running unopposed; only the Secretary of State race is competitive on the Democratic side.

00:33:53 Senator J.D. Ford’s endorsement of Beau Bayh

- Rev. Alexander: Senator J.D. Ford -- who had explicitly said he was staying out of the Secretary of State primary -- endorsed Beau Bayh just days before the convention vote, creating immediate backlash from progressives who supported both Ford and Potter.

- Pastor Greene: the timing is the problem. Jumping in four days out after saying you’re staying neutral sends mixed signals and creates chaos at exactly the wrong moment for party unity.

- Both hosts note comments on Councilor Jesse Brown’s Facebook page -- the top comment reads “Y’all made this a war” -- indicating the endorsement is deepening fissures that will be hard to close after the convention.

- Pastor Greene: he doesn’t believe Ford acted arbitrarily; there’s something behind it they don’t know yet, and it may not be a satisfying answer for those offended. The distraction pulls focus away from Ford’s real opponent -- Republican Victoria Spartz.

00:38:19 Concerned Clergy’s candidate forum with Potter and Bayh

- Pastor Greene details a candidate forum convened by the Concerned Clergy, Baptist Ministries Alliance, and General Missionary Baptist State Convention of Indiana, with both Secretary of State candidates -- Blythe Potter and Beau Bayh.

- Questions focused specifically on the Black community: voter access and protection, Black community outreach strategy, staffing diversity, Black-owned business engagement via the SOS business registration function.

- Context: current SOS Diego Morales has already provided Indiana voter data to the federal government; the next SOS will face immediate federal pressure.

- Both candidates’ responses recorded; Pastor Greene expects the winner to appear on the Concerned Clergy program multiple times to be held accountable to their commitments.

00:43:47 Why the Secretary of State race matters more than ever

- Rev. Alexander: the SOS controls voting -- and voting is under more direct attack than at any point in memory, from executive orders on mail-in ballots to the threat of ICE presence at polling places.

- Pastor Greene: ICE at the polls will deter not just Latino voters but Black voters who avoid any law enforcement presence. Indiana’s already-low voter turnout cannot absorb that kind of intimidation.

- Rev. Alexander invokes the Trump-Raffensperger call: Trump didn’t call the governor of Georgia after losing in 2020 -- he called the Secretary of State. That office controls whether votes get found or not.

- Pastor Greene names the coalition present at the candidate forum: Dr. Posey (General Missionary Baptist of Indiana), Dr. Moore (Baptist Ministries Alliance), Dr. Clyde, and himself -- meeting at Purpose of Life Church.

00:48:26 Post-forum fallout -- J.D. Ford endorsement revisited

- Rev. Alexander: the Ford endorsement of Bayh has already surfaced in comments on Councilor Jesse Brown’s page as evidence that Democrats are “making this a war” -- poisoning the well for post-convention unity.

- Pastor Greene: whoever wins on Saturday, the real opponent is the GOP. Every distraction from that fight is a gift to the Republican side.

- Both hosts close with a call to watch Saturday’s results and a promise to report out more details next week.

00:55:15 Program close

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SUMMARY:

Back after a one-week technical hiatus, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. anchor the hour around a double-barreled critique of racial disparity in how youth misbehavior is covered and prosecuted in Central Indiana. The first half examines a Mill Stream (Noblesville High School) article about Hamilton County fight clubs and spinout gatherings, contrasting the sympathetic economic framing the article applies to white suburban teens with the blame-and-curfew response routinely directed at Black youth in Marion County. Callers Joyce, Mayhem, Moteph, Deanna, and Reverend Phillips each add perspective on parental responsibility, media bias, and the double standard in criminal justice outcomes. The second half pivots to Indiana Democratic Party organizing: Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene argue that Marion County Democrats are in structural disarray -- unable to run effective PC meetings, let alone mobilize for November -- while Boone and Hamilton County Democratic precinct committees are already a year into door-knocking, voter ID, and blue-wave training. Both hosts close with a direct warning that Marion County leadership must get organized or be held accountable when Indiana fails to ride a national Democratic wave.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 Station ID and program open

- Rev. Alexander opens with Substack/Progressive Indiana Network replay information and previews the evening’s topics: Democratic conventions, delegate decisions, and racial disparities in how youth misbehavior is addressed.

- Pastor Greene joins, offers opening prayer.

00:03:29 Hamilton County fight clubs -- The Mill Stream article

- Rev. Alexander introduces a Mill Stream (Noblesville High School newspaper) article titled “The Cost of Community is Inconvenient,” covering fight clubs and teen mob gatherings at Sonic and other Hamilton County businesses.

- Article attributes the behavior to economic hardship -- teens can’t afford bowling alleys or movies -- a framing neither host has ever seen applied to similar activity in Marion County.

- Pastor Greene notes Hamilton County officials will likely suppress coverage; in Marion County, identical behavior would lead local news.

00:07:07 Double standard in narrative framing -- curfews, parents, and the article’s spin

- Pastor Greene observes that when Marion County youth misbehave, media asks “where are the parents?” and talks curfews; the Mill Stream piece never mentions parents at all.

- Rev. Alexander reads additional article passages arguing businesses, adults, and teens are all “suffering” -- language he has never seen used to describe similar incidents involving Black youth.

- Rev. Alexander: the narrative frame set at the top of an article determines the entire direction of the discussion -- starting with economic hardship leads to movie ticket subsidies, not accountability.

00:11:19 Hamilton County wealth data and the cyberbullying factor

- Pastor Greene: the article’s economic hardship framing doesn’t hold up -- Westfield, Noblesville, and Carmel data show household incomes and property values roughly three times Marion County’s.

- Both hosts note the Mill Stream’s author appears to be a Noblesville High School student, which may explain why parental accountability is absent from the piece.

- Pastor Greene: cyberbullying spans all communities and income levels and is a key driver of the fighting; resources alone won’t fix it. He expects Hamilton County to fund recreational solutions that won’t address the root cause.

- Rev. Alexander: social media connects youth across county lines -- everyone is chasing the same trends -- making the behavior universal even as the framing remains racially bifurcated.

00:18:22 Caller Joyce -- Racial double standard in parental blame

- Joyce argues the tried-and-true solution is mobilizing churches, which already have brick-and-mortar facilities, to create positive programming for young people.

- Cites her experience at Church’s Chicken giving honor roll and perfect attendance coupons as a model for bringing parents and youth into positive spaces; criticizes gatekeeping as an obstacle to youth investment.

- Rev. Alexander: in every discussion of Black youth on this station, parents are immediately implicated; this article about Hamilton County teens never goes there.

- Pastor Greene: Hamilton County will likely throw money at recreational resources, which won’t solve the underlying cyberbullying dynamic -- and the IBJ or IndyStar would never have framed a Marion County version of this story the same way.

00:25:35 Caller Mayhem -- Hamilton County hypocrisy and Section 8

- Mayhem argues Hamilton County teens regularly come to Marion County to cause trouble and return home, yet Hamilton County dodges scrutiny.

- Points out that Section 8 housing exists in Hamilton County too, contradicting its public image.

- Concedes both communities cover up bad behavior, but says Marion County’s is uniquely exposed and prosecuted while Hamilton County’s is buried.

00:27:36 Caller Moteph -- Media thesis, Lawrence Hill incident, and the cover-up pattern

- Moteph clarifies the show’s thesis: the question is not whether bad behavior exists, but how differently it is covered and adjudicated by county and race.

- Cites a recent incident at a Lawrence Hill public park where a Black workout group doing nothing wrong was forced out -- contrasted with how Hamilton County youth destructiveness is handled.

- Shares firsthand knowledge of Hamilton County cover-ups including a wealthy family’s teens hospitalized for substance abuse with no public reporting.

- Invokes Malcolm X’s quote on media conditioning communities to hate the oppressed and love the oppressor.

00:31:03 Caller Deanna -- Personal testimony: parental sacrifice as the solution

- Deanna shares a personal story: after losing a stepchild to violence, she moved, left a relationship, homeschooled her children, took a major pay cut, and relocated outside Indianapolis.

- Reports her children are off anxiety medication and healing; credits setting firm boundaries, including with extended family.

- Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene affirm her testimony while noting her sacrifices are not options available to all Marion County parents.

00:33:37 Criminal justice disparities and transition to second segment

- Pastor Greene summarizes: Hamilton County has more money to spend on solutions, spins the problem differently, and faces no pressure to implement curfews.

- Rev. Alexander ties it together: the same offense -- drugs, violence, spinning, fight clubs -- will be handled as a misdemeanor with diversion in Hamilton County and as a felony in Marion County. Bail, bond, and sentencing all differ by geography and race.

- Rev. Alexander previews the second-half topic: Marion County Democratic Party organization heading into November.

00:37:38 Caller Reverend Phillips -- Justice system reform

- Reverend Phillips calls for better training, focus, and oversight of the justice system, arguing those in authority need more willingness to correct bad behavior rather than deferring to credentials.

- Call drops before he can complete his full point.

00:39:40 Marion County Democratic Party in disarray

- Rev. Alexander argues Marion County Democrats must organize now -- post-primary, pre-convention -- with delegate decisions on Secretary of State and other positions coming up.

- Reports that a recent PC meeting was chaotic and left newly elected precinct committee members confused and demoralized rather than energized.

- Pastor Greene: a blue wave doesn’t happen by accident. Marion County has been hearing calls for new Democratic Party leadership for months; people are frustrated that some PC candidates couldn’t get on the ballot.

00:43:46 Obama precedent and the stakes for statewide Democrats

- Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene push back on a Facebook commenter’s fatalism (”Indiana is and will always be red”), citing Obama’s 2008 Indiana win as proof a blue wave is achievable.

- Pastor Greene: a Black woman is now running for Indiana State Treasurer; she cannot win without massive Marion County turnout. Same logic applies to Secretary of State and other statewide races.

- Pastor Greene: Marion County Democrats who are already registered must be activated to vote -- registration alone means nothing; boots-on-the-ground PC work is the mechanism.

00:47:48 What Marion County PCs need to do differently

- Rev. Alexander: resources alone aren’t enough -- you need strategy. Marion County Democratic clubs are siloed and inconsistent.

- Pastor Greene contrasts Marion County’s dysfunction with Boone and Hamilton County Democratic PCs, who spent the past year knocking doors, listening to voters, and feeding intelligence back to the party -- not just campaigning for individual candidates.

- Those counties ran training sessions, filled vacancies, and built a coordinated blue-wave infrastructure; Marion County has done none of this.

00:50:56 Direct call to action -- Marion County Democrats on notice

- Rev. Alexander: PCs are supposed to carry out exactly this mission -- the Democrat handbook says so. Marion County is spending its energy bickering instead of organizing.

- Pastor Greene: the chaos persists because some insiders benefit from it -- gatekeeping PC appointments, tolerating vacancies, keeping newly elected members confused. That has to end.

- Both hosts close with a direct warning: if Indiana misses a blue wave that reaches surrounding states, those responsible will and should be held accountable. You can’t pick up your ball and go home because your primary candidate lost.

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SUMMARY:

In this week’s edition of the Concerned Clergy Radio Show, hosts Reverend Tony Alexander and President Pastor David W. Greene Sr. dive into a timely and wide-ranging conversation about Christian nationalism versus true Christian discipleship, anchored by Pastor Greene’s recent article for Voices for Democracy examining how Christian nationalists systematically ignore Matthew 25 — Jesus’s explicit call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for strangers. Drawing on Trump’s Easter behavior, J.D. Vance’s attack on the Pope, Indiana Lt. Governor Beckwith’s three-fifths remarks, and the governor’s plan to bring Turning Point USA clubs into middle and high schools, the hosts argue that what is being sold as Christian faith is in reality a bid for racial and political power — and that the full interfaith community must respond, as evidenced by the ongoing assault on voting rights and the looming loss of CICOA services for Indiana’s elderly and disabled. Callers including Tim, Joyce, Guy, and Imhotep each add their own perspective, ranging from Black economic self-determination to humanist philosophy to a call for broad faith-community solidarity.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:01:42 — Opening Prayer

- Pastor Greene opens in prayer for the nation, state, and local leaders.

- Prays against discord wherever the devil is sowing it.

- Asks God’s protection over Rev. Alexander and blessings on all listeners.

00:02:06 — Topic Introduction: Christian Nationalism vs. Christian Discipleship

- Rev. Alexander previews the night’s topic: what is Christian nationalism, and how does it compare to actual Christian discipleship?

- Notes Pastor Greene recently spoke on the subject with Voices for Democracy.

- Frames the question through recent events: Trump attacking the Pope at Easter, attacks on Robert Mueller after his death.

- Asks: can we honestly say a president who behaves this way is following Christ as a disciple?

00:05:20 — Pastor Greene on His Voices for Democracy Article / Matthew 25 and the Black Church

- Pastor Greene was invited to write an article on Christian nationalism’s silence regarding Matthew 25.

- Matthew 25 is Jesus’s direct teaching: did you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for strangers and the sick? Christian nationalists systematically avoid this passage.

- Instead they cast poor people as victims of their own choices — a form of classism — pointing to Lt. Gov. Beckwith’s three-fifths remarks as a modern example.

- The Black church, emerging from slavery, grounded its faith in a Jesus who lifts the oppressed and disenfranchised — the opposite of a Jesus wielded to maintain hierarchy.

- Christian nationalism’s vision of Jesus is “completely opposite” of the Jesus who ministered to women, people with questionable pasts, and the woman caught in adultery.

00:10:01 — Rev. Alexander: Oppressors and the Oppressed Using the Same Faith

- Rev. Alexander observes the historical paradox: enslaved people looked to Jesus for liberation while their oppressors used the same faith to keep them down.

- People of faith trusted God even as that faith was weaponized against them.

- Transitions to first caller.

00:10:38 — Caller: Anonymous — On the Word “Christian” and the White Church’s Silence

- Caller identifies as a child of God and son of God, not a “Christian” — noting the word was originally used as an insult in New Testament times.

- Points to January 6th imagery: the American flag, the Confederate flag, a Jesus flag, and a noose together — Jesus has nothing to do with nooses or racism.

- Challenges the white church’s historical silence: on slavery, on interracial marriage, on racism — where was the church then, and why won’t it speak now?

- Expresses concern that Black people are leaving for Islam in part because the church has failed to draw people with love.

00:13:09 — Response: The Silence of White Churches / Lt. Gov. Beckwith / Turning Point USA in Schools (Part 1)

- Rev. Alexander clarifies: the Black church was doing the work — the caller’s critique is aimed at white church silence.

- Pastor Greene agrees this silence must be confronted; the attacks by Trump and Vance on the Pope demand a response from the broader faith community.

- Warns against honoring the flag over the Bible — nationalism dressing itself as faith.

- Lt. Gov. Beckwith, himself a pastor, is actively teaching Christian nationalist ideas to his congregation.

00:17:00 — The Silence of White Churches / Turning Point USA in Schools (Part 2) / The Faith Community Must Respond

- The governor’s plan to bring Turning Point USA clubs into middle and high schools is “extremely dangerous” — it teaches superiority, discrimination, and racism to children.

- The double standard: slavery cannot be taught in schools, but Turning Point USA can come in and ignore Matthew 25.

- The faith community that must respond is broad: Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Presbyterian, Muslim — not limited to any single denomination.

- Christian nationalists want to be the sole authority on truth — even rejecting the Pope’s call for peace.

00:19:09 — Rev. Alexander: The Risk of Holy War

- Rev. Alexander expresses fear that current rhetoric — what troops are being told, the framing of conflicts — is pushing the country toward a religious war, not just a geopolitical one.

- The danger is a war defined not by nukes or oil but by competing faiths.

00:20:21 — [BREAK / Return] Caller: Tim — Black Economic Self-Determination and the Church

- Tim argues Black people must stop supporting “racist clowns” and leave white churches that won’t speak up, returning to anointed Black churches.

- Calls for pooling resources: Black doctors, Black lawyers, buying back community businesses — “hit them in the pocket.”

- References John Reed’s killing on Michigan Avenue; notes few pastors showed up to protest.

- Advocates for returning children to Sunday school, teaching Black history at home, requiring Black authors for school reports.

- Tim is fifth generation married, father present — credits God, family, and community for keeping his children out of crime.

00:23:17 — Caller: Joyce — Chattel Slavery, Desensitization, and Community Alarms

- Joyce builds on Tim’s comments, noting Black people were great long before American slavery — and weren’t even the first enslaved group

- Describes Black people being treated as chattel and systematically desensitized through media narratives.

- Mentions the jubilee tradition of debt forgiveness as a model worth noting.

- Raises a local concern: tornado warning alarm systems in Indianapolis’s Black community aren’t working, and Fall Creek is rising.

00:24:55 — Response: Broadening the Fight Beyond the Black Church

- Rev. Alexander notes the conversation has narrowed toward the Black community, but discipleship is broader — all followers of Christ, across all communities, must be in this together.

- Pastor Greene agrees, noting Jews are often lumped in with Black people by the same forces — the fight belongs to the whole faith community.

- Acknowledges Tim’s call for ownership and responsibility, while stressing the need for coalition with others.

- The church’s declining attendance is real — parents who’ve left the church aren’t raising children in it — but that can’t be an excuse to ignore the crisis.

00:29:10 — Trump as a Spiritual Model? / Truth Social, the Pope, and Easter Golf

- Pastor Greene: Christian nationalists dress up nationalism as faith, operating from a hierarchy in which whiteness is supreme.

- Rev. Alexander: if Trump claims to be a Christian, ask him directly — is Jesus your Lord and Savior? Is Jesus your king?

- Trump is plastering his own face across Washington and Florida, renaming bodies of water after himself, commissioning a golden statue.

- On Easter, instead of attending church, Trump posted attacks on Truth Social, condemned the Pope, and played golf.

- “That’s who you’re following as a disciple of Christ, folks. You need to find a better example.”

00:31:13 — [BREAK / Return] [CLIP: Trump] on Iran Negotiations

- Rev. Alexander plays a clip of Trump being asked about American financial considerations in Iran negotiations.

- Trump: “The only thing that matters... you cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all. That’s the only thing.”

- Rev. Alexander’s takeaway: he just told you he doesn’t think about you — your finances, your spiritual condition, none of it.

00:32:04 — Caller: Guy — Iran Assets, Pentagon Firings, and a YouTube Testimony

- Guy notes Trump’s fixation on Obama and the Iran nuclear deal — points out the money sent to Iran was Iran’s own frozen assets, not a gift.

- Suggests the Trump administration’s mass firing of Pentagon intelligence staff has left them ill-equipped to navigate the Strait of Hormuz situation.

- Recommends listeners search YouTube for the story of a white Georgia farmer crushed under his tractor who reportedly received a message from Jesus Christ about the Black community.

00:33:57 — Caller: Imhotep — Humanism, Historical Context, and Why Young People Leave the Church (Part 1)

- Imhotep reframes the question: rather than asking if Trump is a Christian, ask if he is humane — “the things he says and does are inhumane.”

- Identifies as a humanist who has studied Buddhism’s four noble truths and eightfold path; argues shared humanity is a stronger unifying force than religion.

- Invokes his grandmothers (101 in 2001; 97 in 2016): “ain’t nothing new under the sun.”

- Historical walk: Black Codes (1700s), Bacon’s Rebellion (late 1600s), St. Augustine as first settlement before Jamestown, Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, John Brown and Harpers Ferry (1859).

- The Puritans practiced a harsher form of Christianity in America than what they left behind in England — this behavior is not new.

00:37:17 — Caller: Imhotep — Why Young People Leave the Church (Part 2) / New BOY Mentoring

- At a Center for Leadership Development meeting, Imhotep observed the crowd: 75% Black women, 25% Black men — men must be more engaged.

- Three reasons young people aren’t in church: (1) single-parent homes where the working parent is at the hospital on Sundays; (2) young people are deconstructing — they read, they research on WorldCat and iCat, and they call out hypocrisy when a pastor rides a $200,000 Jag while the congregation eats cup noodles; (3) [implied: lack of male mentorship].

- His friend who runs New BOY (New Breed of Youth mentoring program) says you have to listen to young people.

- Solution: show them — 25–30 years of coaching and mentoring, leading by example as “a simple human being.”

00:39:03 — Response: Adults Must Act Now / Refighting the Civil Rights Movement

- Rev. Alexander refocuses: this moment requires adults to act — religious liberties for all faiths are under attack, even for self-described Christian nationalists who are still attacking Christians.

- The cross-faith coalition that works in redistricting fights can work here too.

- Pastor Greene: we are refighting the civil rights movement — the same forces that opposed voting rights, integration, and justice under Dr. King are back, more powerful.

- The Bible warns: cast out a demon and it returns with greater numbers. That’s what we’re seeing.

- The youth will be victims of this — they can’t lead the fight. Adults in the faith community must come to the table.

00:43:47 — White Christian Nationalism Is About Power, Not Service

- Pastor Greene draws the sharpest contrast of the night: at the core of Christianity is service to others; white Christian nationalism is about gaining power over others.

- They want power over Black people, Jewish people, poor people — the opposite of “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

- Turning Point USA has moved from college campuses to middle and high schools — Charlie Kirk’s operation is spreading fast.

- Some Black churchgoers migrate to white churches seeking proximity to power — sitting next to a senator or congressman feels like access — but that’s the wrong reason to choose a church.

- Pastor Greene has personally challenged pastors: how do you reconcile Matthew 25 with criminalizing the homeless?

00:45:48 — Voting Rights, Redistricting, and Pastors Who Criminalize the Homeless

- Rev. Alexander connects the dots: the same people who put their hands on Bibles at inauguration are stripping voting rights.

- Within hours of the Supreme Court’s redistricting ruling, officials in ongoing elections moved to redraw lines and redo votes — unprecedented.

- Pastor Greene: stopping an election midway is an act of pure power-seizure, not governance.

- The president doesn’t want to give up Congress; minimizing the Black vote is the mechanism.

- These actors aren’t heathens — they’re sitting in somebody’s church every Sunday morning.

00:50:17 — Closing: CICOA, IPS Funding Cuts, and What Discipleship Actually Looks Like

- Rev. Alexander ties the abstract to the concrete: CICOA (Central Indiana Coalition on Aging) is about to go away — services for widows, elderly, and disabled Hoosiers disappearing.

- Education funding is being cut from IPS.

- The services that embody Matthew 25 — feeding, clothing, caring — are being stripped away in real time.

- This is the difference between Christian nationalism and Christian discipleship: one seizes power, the other serves people.

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SUMMARY:

The night after the May 5, 2026 Indiana primary, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. take stock of what the results mean for Indiana Democrats heading into November. Pastor Greene, himself a Senate candidate in the primary, reflects candidly on the experience of running a campaign before the conversation turns to the structural problem at the heart of Indiana Democratic politics: a Marion County electorate that turns out at 15% in primaries and needs to hit 45% or better to elect anyone statewide. The hosts walk through the numbers on voter turnout, the Secretary of State race, the Bayh name recognition question, Trump’s $13.5 million primary purge of redistricting dissenters, and what all of it means for down-ballot candidates like Kerry Forestal and Christina Moorhead. Listener comments from Gloria, Victor, Jill, Joseph, and caller Guy round out the discussion with on-the-ground perspective.

WHAT’S INSIDE

00:00:00 — Opening and Replay Reminder

- Rev. Alexander opens by reminding listeners they can catch the full show replay on the Progressive Indiana Network’s Substack the following morning.

- He notes the Indiana primaries are effectively over, with only provisional and military ballots still pending.

- He welcomes Pastor David W. Greene Sr. and sets up the evening’s focus: what happened in the primary and what work remains before November.

- Pastor Greene opens in prayer for the listening and watching audience.

00:01:40 — Pastor Greene on Running for Senate

- Rev. Alexander asks Pastor Greene — who ran for Senate in the primary — to share what the experience is like from a candidate’s perspective.

- Pastor Greene reflects that running a campaign is a relentless grind: canvassing, responding to requests, preparing materials, and managing volunteers, all while still having to live your regular life.

- He describes the emotional roller coaster — some days energized, some days drained — and says he was simply relieved when Election Day finally arrived.

- He frames the outcome plainly: “nothing beats a failure but a try,” and says running taught him a great deal about himself, other people, and how the political machine actually operates.

00:05:38 — Volunteers vs. Voters: The Primary Turnout Problem

- Rev. Alexander notes there was unusual volunteer energy for a primary, with lots of people standing behind candidates — but that enthusiasm didn’t translate into actual votes.

- Pastor Greene explains the core disconnect: most people don’t understand that the primary determines who’s on the November ballot, not November itself.

- He uses Senate District 29 as an example: roughly 10,000 people voted across all candidates in the primary, but winning in November will require 25,000 votes at minimum — and possibly close to 60,000 if participation trends continue upward.

- The lesson: a small minority of voters determines the primary, while the overwhelming majority only shows up in November.

00:07:56 — Marion County by the Numbers

- Rev. Alexander puts Marion County’s turnout in concrete terms: 632,000 registered voters, just over 15% participation in the primary — an improvement over past cycles, but still dismal.

- He walks through the math: every additional 15 points of turnout doubles the effective voting pool, yet Marion County is still well below 50%.

- Listener Gloria comments on Facebook that many people she encountered didn’t even understand what the primary was or what its purpose is.

- Pastor Greene agrees, noting some residents saw campaign signs and assumed they were for November — they didn’t know a May election was happening at all.

00:09:27 — Why Turnout Is the Only Variable That Matters

- Pastor Greene says he has no magic solution to the turnout problem, but points to contested races and national/state conditions as the drivers of the modest increase they did see.

- He argues statewide candidates cannot win without Marion County turning out at 45% or better — a candidate can visit every county in Indiana and still lose if Marion Democrats stay home.

- He uses Secretary of State Diego Morales as the cautionary case: Republicans were embarrassed by him and barely put him in public, yet he won because Marion County turnout was too low to overcome rural Republican numbers.

- His bottom line: 15% primary turnout means 85% of Marion County Democrats didn’t participate — and that gap is what has consistently cost Democrats statewide races.

00:13:13 — Listener Feedback: The Voter Education Gap

- Listener Gloria’s comment surfaces a deeper problem: voters who don’t know the difference between a primary and a general election, or an off-year and a presidential-year election.

- Rev. Alexander says this is something you encounter constantly when canvassing — it’s not just apathy, it’s genuine lack of civic knowledge.

- Pastor Greene agrees and says the work ahead isn’t just get-out-the-vote but voter education and preparation at a basic level.

- Listener Victor comments that Democrats show up strong for the state convention but tank in November — Rev. Alexander says he’s heard this before, particularly the assumption that local Democrats don’t need to vote because their candidate is already safe.

00:15:32 — Post-Primary Division: Will Democrats Unify?

- Pastor Greene raises the unity problem directly: before the election, he saw social media posts where people were asked whether they’d support the primary winner — and a lot of responses were “maybe” or “it all depends.”

- He argues that failure to heal the primary divide will make it impossible to win in November, because you’re not winning anything with 15% turnout.

- Statewide candidates need to not just win Marion County but win it by enough of a margin to overcome the rural Republican advantage — simply “getting” Marion County isn’t enough.

- He uses SD-29 nominee Christina Moorhead as an example: she needs strong Democratic turnout specifically in the Pike and Wayne portions of Marion County, or she cannot win.

00:17:40 — Caller Guy: Reasons for Optimism

- Caller Guy agrees with the hosts’ overall framing but argues 2026 will be different: Beau Bayh — Evan Bayh’s son — is presumed to be the Democratic nominee for Secretary of State after the June convention, and Guy believes the Bayh name will drive turnout among longtime Democrats and independents.

- Guy also points to growing voter disenchantment with Trump’s economic record — gas prices, food prices, farm input costs — as a potential crossover motivator even among some Republicans.

- He flags the massive Trump-aligned spending in the Indiana Republican primary as a signal of what’s at stake and notes that money was the mother’s milk of those one-issue anti-redistricting ads.

- Rev. Alexander thanks Guy and flags that he’ll address the optimism — and the money — after the break.

00:21:51 — Back from Break: The $13.5 Million Primary Purge

- Rev. Alexander reframes Guy’s optimism: the same forces that just spent $13.5 million — up from $250,000 last cycle, a 5,000% increase — to primary redistricting dissenters will not sit out November.

- He argues Democrats cannot afford to run on the cheap and need real resources to support candidates, not assume passion alone carries the race.

- Pastor Greene calls the spending a naked power play by private backers expecting a return on investment — not party money, but donors who want something specific in exchange.

- Both hosts agree it sent a clear message to every Republican officeholder: cross Trump and you’re gone.

00:29:35 — What That Money Is Really Buying

- Pastor Greene connects the primary purge directly to the 2027 redistricting cycle: the newly installed MAGA senators in rural districts are safe from Democratic challenge and will vote accordingly when the map comes up again.

- He argues Trump funded these candidates specifically because redistricting was coming — the investment was never just about 2026, it was about locking in the 2027 vote.

- Listener Gloria comments that campaign finance used to have rules and regulations — Rev. Alexander agrees and says the current environment is the wild, wild west.

- Pastor Greene closes the thought: when someone spends that kind of money, they are committed to winning, and that money will be back in November.

00:32:48 — Candidate Visibility and the DNC Investment Question

- Listener Jill raises two issues: candidates need to do more retail politics to introduce themselves to voters, and the national Democratic Party isn’t investing enough at the local level.

- Rev. Alexander partially agrees but notes this primary season featured more candidate forums than he’s seen before — the problem wasn’t opportunity, it was whether voters showed up.

- He also pushes back on the DNC framing: the $13.5 million in Republican ads didn’t come from the party — it came from individual donors making phone calls, and Democrats need to think the same way.

- The Republican ads were simple one-issue attacks — “this person voted against redistricting, against Donald Trump” — effective precisely because they were that blunt.

00:36:18 — The Bayh Name Recognition Problem

- Rev. Alexander raises a skepticism about the Bayh name that goes further than Guy’s optimism: voters who remember Birch and Evan are aging out, and younger voters and newer Indiana residents have no idea who the Bayhs are.

- Pastor Greene fully agrees: the people who know the Bayh name are 40-plus; 20- and 30-year-olds don’t know the family at all, because it’s been over 20 years since Evan Bayh held office.

- He warns that assuming name recognition will carry Beau Bayh is a miscalculation — he has to run a real campaign in Marion County, answering the basic voter questions: who is he, what will he do, why should I vote for him.

- They both point to Evan Bayh’s own last race as a cautionary tale: a household name who lost because Marion County didn’t turn out at the level he needed.

00:39:33 — Healing the Primary Divide

- Rev. Alexander frames the post-primary moment starkly: in this environment, the choice is MAGA or Democrat — there is no third lane — and any further Democratic fracturing is a direct gift to Republicans.

- He says it doesn’t matter which candidate you supported in the primary; the entire party is now the concern, and unity is non-negotiable.

- Pastor Greene puts it on party leadership: what happens over the summer — the conversations, the planning, the direction-setting — will determine whether Indiana Democrats can capitalize on a potentially favorable national environment.

- He contrasts MAGA’s structural advantage — one leader, one message, unified turnout — with the Democratic reality of multiple leaders who must coordinate deliberately rather than following a single signal.

00:42:58 — Know Your Candidates: Voter Research and Campaign Finance

- Listener Joseph comments that voters need to verify and trust — do the homework, know the candidates before November.

- Rev. Alexander expands on this: for statewide races especially, if you can’t meet the candidate in person, look up their record — how they voted, what they supported, what they said they’d take away.

- He argues the campaign finance picture is part of that research: when $13.5 million floods into a primary, people should be asking right then where it came from, not just reporting the number.

- Pastor Greene agrees: anyone spending that kind of money is expecting a return on investment, and voters deserve to know what that return is.

00:45:05 — Trump’s Loyalty Demand and the Long Game on Redistricting

- Pastor Greene lays out the long-term implication: the Trump-backed candidates who won their rural primaries are essentially in office now — Democrats aren’t beating them in November.

- Those five or more new MAGA legislators will be in place for the 2027 redistricting vote, which is exactly what the spending was designed to achieve.

- Rev. Alexander adds that Trump has said out loud that judges he appoints should be loyal to him — nobody should be surprised that legislators he funds are equally beholden.

- Pastor Greene notes Indiana Senate leadership itself could shift as a result, since the new members tip the internal balance further toward the MAGA faction.

00:47:35 — Door-Knocking vs. Social Media: What Actually Works?

- Listener Jill advocates for candidates going old school — events, door-knocking, direct voter contact — and Rev. Alexander asks Pastor Greene to weigh in from his own primary experience.

- Pastor Greene says door-knocking has a 10% hit rate at best: safety concerns, ring doorbells, and general reluctance mean only one in ten people will actually open the door.

- He says you still have to do it — leaving material and showing you were there matters — but the kitchen-table conversation of the old days is largely gone.

- The answer isn’t one silver bullet: you need events, door-knocking, social media, texts, emails, and mailers all at once, and you just hope enough of it lands.

00:50:30 — Closing: Make Your Plan to Vote Now

- Rev. Alexander thanks Pastor Greene for his efforts during the primary season and acknowledges there is still a lot of work ahead.

- He closes with the same message the show started the year with: don’t wait until November — make your plan to vote now.

- He reminds listeners the show replay will be available on the Progressive Indiana Network’s Substack the following morning.

- Pastor Greene and Rev. Alexander sign off and wish the audience a blessed week.

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