HoosLeft This Week 7/27/25

Around the Corn * Indiana GOP Leadership Continues to Show Their Ass * Mike Braun continues to prove himself a toothless, empty blue shirt who can’t keep his red-pilled minions under control. Part of the reason for his toothlessness could be the lack of time he spends in the Governor’s office. FAA reports of his helicopter trips to and from Jasper show that he’s putting in a good 3 or 4 days a week at the Capital. * Last Week, we briefly touched on this one: State Supreme Court won't dismiss latest disciplinary complaint against Attorney General Todd Rokita * Not to be outdone, Diego Morales takes the wheel of the MAGA clown car, going on a 15-minute rant during a routine Motor Vehicle Advisory Board meeting, repeating the phrase “fake news” a dozen times * “Don’t pay attention to the fake news,” Morales said. “It is time for someone like me to share what we have done.” * “I’m not going to let the fake news, the fake IndyStar, the fake WIBC, to define me,” Morales said. “They are fake news, and they deserve to be called out.” * Never one to give up the spotlight for too long, Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith also found himself under the microscope this week… Twice: * Unexpected terminations: Beckwith replaces OCRA staff with congregants, friends and allies * As Micah Beckwith took office in January, the Republican lieutenant governor and his aides quickly remade a small state agency he oversees – removing long-time employees at the Office of Community and Rural Affairs to make room for political allies. * The turnover was possible because while the governor oversees most of the executive branch, state law places the lieutenant governor in charge of OCRA and the Department of Agriculture. * He has tapped Republican delegates who backed his bid for lieutenant governor at last year’s state party convention, followers of the church where he is a pastor, a radio personality who interviewed and endorsed him and more. * Indiana LG’s office closures, staff instructions suggest contrast with return-to-office order * Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith’s statehouse office has been repeatedly closed during public business hours in recent weeks — at times with no signage posted and no staff inside — even as Gov. Mike Braun has ordered a broad return to in-person work for state employees. * The Indiana Capital Chronicle visited the lieutenant governor’s office six times between late June and mid-July and found it dark or locked on four occasions. Three of the closures — June 20, June 27 and July 11 — fell on Fridays. * The Kind of “Results” You Get From Such “Leaders” * Hoosiers hit with historically high electric bill increases, consumer watchdog study shows * Citizens Action Coalition collected and analyzed 20 years of data from five of the state’s monopoly utilities — NIPSCO, CenterPoint, Duke Energy Indiana, AES Indiana and I&M — and found residents were hit this year with the highest year-over-year price increase since at least 2005. * The group’s key findings show a statewide average energy bill increase of more than $28 per month — a 17.5% jump. * Indiana’s college-going rate drops again, dipping to 51.7% * Fewer than 52% of Indiana high school graduates from the Class of 2023 went directly to college, according to the latest data quietly released by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. * That’s the state’s lowest rate in recent history and a continued decline from its previous plateau. * Just 51.7% of 2023 graduates, about 39,000 students, enrolled in college within a year of finishing high school, data showed. That’s down from a steady 53% between 2020 and 2022, and far below the state’s peak of 65% a decade ago. * Crossroads - Indiana News Intersects National News: USDA chooses Indianapolis as location of one of 5 regional hubs * As part of the USDA’s reorganization, the department announced a phased plan to relocate its agency headquarters and its staff from the Washington D.C. area to five hub locations, including: * Indianapolis * Salt Lake City * Fort Collins, Colorado * Raleigh, North Carolina * Kansas City, Missouri * The release said that the department’s reorganization consists of four main pillars, including: * Ensure the size of USDA’s workforce aligns with available financial resources and agricultural priorities * Bring USDA closer to its customers * Eliminate management layers and bureaucracy * Consolidate redundant support functions. * Officials said this is the first phase in a multi-month process. Leadership said they will notify offices with more information on relocation to one of the regional hubs. The release stressed that all “critical functions of the department will continue uninterrupted.” * Don’t Look Away – This is Still Happening: More details emerge about Camp Atterbury's use for ICE detainees * On Monday, Rep. André Carson (D-Indiana) said he’s learned Camp Atterbury is preparing to house 1,000 people. * “I stand firmly in my conviction that Camp Atterbury is for military training operations unless there are exigent or emergency or national security concerns,” Carson said in a Zoom interview. “And as a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, I’m always concerned with issues of national security. So some of the questions we need answers to must be answered. We cannot allow this Hoosier facility to be turned into another Alligator Alcatraz.” US / World News “Trump’s main tactic was never to bury his offenses, but to flaunt them. He covered his big crimes with smaller crimes, and covered his smaller crimes with scandals, and in the process attempted to destroy the very notion of truth. His presidency exposed the weakness and complicity of institutions and proved that trusting the official line was a sucker’s bet.” - Sarah Kendzior, PhD (MA - IU 2006), September 2022 * Again - Don’t Look Away: Gaza Famine * The entire 2.1 million population of Gaza is facing prolonged food shortages, with nearly half a million people in a catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death. This is one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time. * The latest food security analysis was released today by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) partnership, of which WHO is a member. * “We do not need to wait for a declaration of famine in Gaza to know that people are already starving, sick and dying, while food and medicines are minutes away across the border,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Today’s report shows that without immediate access to food and essential supplies, the situation will continue to deteriorate, causing more deaths and descent into famine.” * Famine has not yet been declared, but people are starving now. Three quarters of Gaza’s population are at “Emergency” or “Catastrophic” food deprivation, the worst two levels of IPC's five level scale of food insecurity and nutritional deprivation. * Epstein Distractions - Trump: “Look Over There!” * Every Day, a new attempted distraction * Trump Demands Commanders, Guardians Revert Names * MLK Files * Gabbard Accuses Obama of “Treasonous Conspiracy” * US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has released a previously classified report which she says points to a "treasonous conspiracy" to undermine the results of the 2016 presidential election. * The report Gabbard declassified was prepared by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee and is dated 18 September 2020. * The declassified report says the CIA "did not adhere to the tenets" of analytic standards and used "one scant, unclear, and unverifiable fragment of a sentence from one of the substandard reports" to conclude that Russia's Vladimir Putin wanted Trump to win. * There is little evidence in the document, however, that challenges the prevailing view in US intelligence that Russia sought to influence the vote in favour of Trump. * Among the key authors of the report was Kash Patel, who is now Trump's FBI director. * The US intelligence community published an assessment in January 2017 concluding that Russia had sought to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign and boost Tr… This is a public episode. 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