Indiana News
Around the Corn - Indiana Briefs
We begin last Sunday in Crown Point, where a 38-year old Chicago woman was forcibly removed from Franciscan Health hospital despite being in active labor. Mercedes Wells, with the help of her husband Leon, delivered a healthy baby girl eight minutes later in their car on the side of the road. As of Friday, Franciscan Health Crown Point CEO Raymond Grady says the attending doctor and nurse have been terminated and cultural competency training has been mandated for all labor & delivery staff. This incident marked the second time in less than a week that a Black woman had been turned away from a US hospital despite being minutes away from giving birth.
Moving onto another indignity, the family of Indiana National Guardsman Terry Frye is accusing Indiana US Senator Jim Banks of using the untimely death of the 23 year-old as a “political prop.” Frye was killed in a multivehicle collision on I-65 near Whitestown on November 14, when his Humvee was involved in an incident with a car-carrier truck driven by Goderdzi Gujabidze, a native of the Republic of Georgia. The truck driver is being held by ICE, though they have not provided information on the man’s immigration status. Banks ran directly to social media, posting “Indiana National Guardsman Terry Frye should still be alive. His life was cut short on I-65 by an illegal who never should’ve been here in the first place.” Again, we don’t know that. Meanwhile, Frye’s family responded in a statement to WTHR: “We do not appreciate his tragedy being weaponized. Please let our family grieve without being pulled into politics.”
Another untimely death we covered recently was the shooting of Maria Florinda Rios Perez. Recall, the cleaning lady was shot through the locked front door of a Whiteland home when she showed up to work at the wrong address. This week, the homeowner - Curt Anderson - was arrested and charged with one count of voluntary manslaughter. After an initial hearing in Boone County Court Friday, Anderson, 62, is free after posting the $25K bond.
Staying on the crime beat, we move to Indianapolis where - despite howls to the contrary by President Trump, Attorney General Todd Rokita, and the Republican mob - new data reviewed by Axios shows violent crime is down significantly year-over-year. In that time, homicides are down 22%, robberies 15%, aggravated assault down 22%. Non-fatal shootings are down 16% and overall violent crime has decreased 20%. When compared with 2021, murders are down a whopping 55%.
For the next story we remain in the Circle City. On Wednesday, an overflow crowd saw the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance - a group created by legislators to coordinate the relationship between public and charter schools in the state capital - introduce various proposals to modify the overall structure of public schools in Indiana’s most populous municipality. And here I’m quoting from Mirror Indy:
[Mayor Joe] “Hogsett brought four different ideas to the alliance to discuss how the overall structure of public schools within IPS boundaries could change.
The first would give IPS control over all schools in its boundaries. IPS’ publicly elected school board would act as a charter school authorizer, giving the district say over the opening and closures of all Indianapolis schools. The Mayor’s Office of Education Innovation, a current authorizer, would become a place charter schools could appeal to if they disagreed with IPS’ decision-making.
The district would also support facility and transportation needs for all schools. This model would likely bring the least transformative change to district schools and would keep tax dollars flowing through IPS.
The second idea would create an advisory board of IPS, mayor and charter school appointees. This new, appointed board would receive property tax dollars to distribute among schools for transportation and facilities needs. The board would also oversee charter schools. Existing roles, like the IPS school board and the Office of Education Innovation would still exist, but they would take their policy cues from the newly created board.”
A third model would dramatically reshape the way Indianapolis schools are managed. It would create a new Indianapolis Education Authority, made up of the mayor, an education secretary appointed by the mayor, and a nine-member policymaking board entirely appointed by the mayor.
IPS would still exist, and four of its school board members would have seats on the overarching policymaking board. But, the IPS school board would cede significant power to the city in this model. Specifically, the policymaking board would receive tax dollars and make decisions about transportation and facilities management.
Finally, a fourth option would place the mayor at the top of the organizational chart. The mayor would appoint all members of the IPS school board, which would then oversee all schools — independent charter and IPS-run buildings included. The fully appointed school board would oversee transportation and facilities and charter school authorizing.”
That study was not the only major review to drop this week, as Secretary of State Diego Morales on Thursday released a report conducted by the Voting System Technical Oversight Program at Ball State University. This analysis comes in response to the passage of HEA1633, which directed his office to look into whether changing the timing of local elections and shifting from a precinct-based voting system to vote centers would save money and/or increase turnout. Though no formal policy recommendations were made, It found that municipal elections cost almost 3X as much to administer per vote than even-year elections. Realigning municipal elections with larger cycles could “modestly” increase participation in the midterms and presidential elections, but “would lead to significant increases” in the number of Hoosiers participating in municipal contests.
This weekend, Indianapolis is hosting the National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC). Pope Leo spoke to over 15,000 young people via video link on Friday, ruminating on topics ranging from the Sacraments and mental health to artificial intelligence and the future of the Church
“Be careful not to use political categories to speak about faith,” the Chicago-born pontiff said. “The Church does not belong to any political party. Rather, she helps form your conscience so you can think and act with wisdom and love.”
Finally in briefs, Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical maker Eli Lilly on Friday became the first healthcare company to reach $1T market capitalization. Lilly becomes only the second non-tech firm to join the exclusive club, following multinational holding company Berkshire Hathaway. Their stock price has soared this year, driven by massive sales growth of the weight-loss injection Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro.
Beckwith
It is my regrettable duty to inform you we have to talk about Micah Beckwith again this week. The lieutenant governor’s Hamilton County church is embroiled in a sex abuse scandal while his office is subject to a criminal investigation in Marion county over employment fraud and deepfake revenge porn. Last Sunday, according to Tom LoBianco at 24sight News - who has been all over this case - Beckwith and Chad McAtee, the state superintendent of the Assemblies of God denomination, delivered back-to-back sermons at the Life Church campus in Noblesville where they told congregants to ignore the allegations. Recall, the head of the entire Life Church cluster (and Beckwith’s best friend and podcast partner) - Nathan Peternel, is reported to have pressured teens to talk about their (and his) sex lives over the course of the last 30 years. These revelations began coming out several weeks ago after Peternel’s 24-year-old son was arrested on four counts of owning and distributing child sexual abuse material. Furthermore, police found over 50 videos of the elder Peternel and his wife either naked or engaged in sex acts on the son’s phone.
Despite these accusations, Beckwith and McAtee defended the pastor, calling him a “man of integrity,” comparing him to Jesus, and accusing the church’s “enemies” of “spreading lies.” For his part, though he hasn’t been speaking or appearing publicly, Peternel is bragging that he can’t be fired. In a recording obtained by LoBianco, Beckwith’s bestie and boss boasts, “I hire and fire pastors, so all employees work for me. The board doesn’t do that. So the board can’t fire someone, right?” Apparently, these proclamations of absolute power inside the church are routine. And though Peternel carries himself with an air of invincibility, he does acknowledge there is a way to remove him, either by congregant revolt or intervention by Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination.
Redistricting
In our top Indiana story this week, we continue to look at the ongoing redistricting saga. Now, as we know, President Trump has been pressuring leaders in red states to engage in unprecedented mid-decade redistricting - redrawing congressional maps to favor Republicans so he can maintain a majority in Congress despite historic unpopularity. This process began earlier this year when Texas gerrymandered their maps to favor GOP candidates in five additional districts (an update on that in national news). GOP lawmakers in Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio have followed suit, with California passing a statewide resolution to table their independent redistricting commission in favor of Democratic-leaning partisan maps in response. Trump has been ratcheting up the pressure on Hoosier Republicans for months, both in person at the White House and by dispatching Vice President JD Vance to Indiana on two occasions in hopes of convincing Governor Braun to call a special session.
In October, the governor did just that, requesting lawmakers convene in early November. However, that plan immediately went off the rails as GOP lawmakers knew they didn’t have the votes behind the scenes. They kicked the start of the special session into the first week of December to buy time. Still, Hoosier Republicans didn’t have the appetite and by the end of last week Senate President Pro Tem Rod Bray announced he will not convene a special session, appearing to make history by ignoring the governor’s call.
Tuesday was Organization Day at the Statehouse - the ceremonial beginning of the 2026 legislative session - and despite calls from an incredibly sparsely-attended pro-redistricting rally - the punt was made official with the State Senate voting to adjourn until January. All 10 Democratic senators joined half of the Republican caucus in passing on Braun’s gambit. The final tally was 29-19. MADVoters held a civic literacy lab across the street and anti-redistricting rallygoers greatly outnumbered their pro-cheating counterparts.
So, last Sunday, while we were on air here, President Trump targeted Bray and Terre Haute-area State Senator Greg Goode in a Truth Social post, excoriating the two as “RINOs” and calling for those opposed to his scheme to be primaried. Well, apparently some MAGA partisans don’t think an intraparty challenge is a sufficient motivator, because they’ve resorted to criminal harassment to pressure the holdouts.
Last Sunday night, Goode was the victim of an attempted swatting. The Vigo County Sheriff said someone had contacted their office to report a crime at the Senator’s residence in an attempt to draw police to the home, guns blazing. This would be the first of many such incidents throughout the week.
On Wednesday, State Senator Dan Dernulc was also targeted by an attempted swatting attack, though police in his hometown of Highland in Northwest Indiana recognized the prank for what it was.
On Thursday, we learned of additional swatting attacks on two additional state senators - Rick Niemeyer of Lowell and Spencer Deery of West Lafayette. By Friday, the number of Republican legislators threatened with violence by the right flank of their own party reached eight, with Huntington’s Andy Zay reporting his business was on the receiving end of a bomb threat. Governor Mike Braun announced he too had been threatened by the MAGA mob for failing to procure two more ill-gotten congressional seats for Daddy Don.
Indiana Guard to be deployed to DC
And our final bit of Indiana news this week, about 300 Hoosier National Guard members are due to deploy to the nation’s capital next month in support of the Trump administration’s federal occupation of DC. The troops, primarily from Bloomington and Gary, will dril at Camp Atterbury before leaving for Washington in early December, where they will receive additional training from the DC National Guard.
However, a federal judge on Thursday ruled the entire DC mission to be illegal, concluding the president does not have authority to send in troops for crime deterrence. US District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, rejected the administration’s broad assertion of executive authority, but stayed the order until December 11 - giving the Trump regime time to appeal.
US/World News
HooCares - Quick Headlines
We begin our US briefs aboard Air Force One, where President Trump drew outrage this week for responding to a question about the Epstein scandal from Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey by retorting, “quiet, piggy.”
In economic news, the International Monetary Fund is seeing signs of a slowing US economy, though a lack of data resulting from the recent government shutdown leaves the forecast less than certain. For example, the Labor Department announced Wednesday that it will not be releasing a full jobs report for October. Instead, we have to rely on other numbers to determine the health of the economy - and it’s not good. An analysis from The Century Foundation, a liberal think tank, showed US consumers are falling behind on utility bills, with past due balances up nearly 10%. Despite 40+ years of free-market deregulation that birthed these conditions, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon whined about “anti-business policies” at the American Business Forum in Miami. The real problem in our economy right now is not regulation, but concentration, with nearly all US GDP growth tied up in AI data center projects by just seven companies.Despite warnings of the AI bubble’s imminent popping, chipmaker NVidia - whose processing power is driving the AI boom - posted strong earnings on Wednesday. That didn’t help the stock market though. Even with a positive Friday, major indexes closed the week in the red. Investors may be starting to feel the pain the rest of us already know intimately.
We talked about redistricting in Indiana, but this week Trump’s gambit to steal extra congressional seats ahead of next year’s midterms may have taken an even greater blow when a federal judge blocked the new maps passed by Texas Republicans on Tuesday. US District Judge Jeffrey Brown - a Trump appointee - wrote that the maps likely constituted an illegal race-based gerrymander. Of course, that’s of no concern to right-wing crank Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who on Friday blocked the lower court ruling, putting the appeal on hold while SCOTUS considers the case.
Also in the courts this week, it appears the politically-motivated prosecution of former FBI director James Comey may be dead in the water. Comey is seeking to have the charges against him dismissed due to “fundamental errors” in the prosecution. His team alleges misconduct by interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan, who allegedly did not obtain a valid grand jury indictment and, instead, filed fraudulent paperwork.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Washington, D.C Saturday under the banner “Remove the Regime” to demand the impeachment and removal of Donald Trump, decrying the deployment of National Guard troops in the capital as an abuse of presidential power and vowing to lobby Congress directly for action. The event kicked off with rallies at Union Station and built to a main march at the Lincoln Memorial, featuring live music and speakers, and was organized by the Removal Coalition along with dozens of allied activist groups. While the atmosphere blended protest and political mobilization, the organizers made clear this wasn’t a celebration but an explicit push-for-action to “change the trajectory” of U.S. democracy rather than just express dissent.
Moving to international news, the United Nations Security Council gave its approval to the Trump administration’s 20-point plan for peace in Gaza. The vote was 13-0, with China and Russia abstaining.
Speaking of Russia, The U.S. dropped a 28-point “peace plan” that basically locks in Russia’s territorial gains, limits Ukraine’s military, and pushes Kyiv to give up NATO membership - and then pressured Ukraine to accept it by Thanksgiving or risk losing U.S. support. Kyiv publicly said it’s willing to talk but won’t sign away its sovereignty, while Europe spent the week freaking out and trying to sand down the plan so it doesn’t look like a formal surrender. Russia, meanwhile, praised the direction of the proposal and kept bombing Ukrainian cities to improve its leverage. All of this culminated in emergency talks in Geneva, where U.S., Ukrainian, and European officials are now scrambling to rewrite the deal into something that isn’t just Moscow’s wish list printed on State Department letterhead. And in the middle of it, Marco Rubio -Trump’s secretary of state - aggressively defended the plan, framing the concessions as “pragmatic realism” and insisting the U.S. has to force a peace “whether Ukraine likes it or not,” which only intensified the bipartisan backlash.
The UN COP30 summit in Brazil ended with a compromise deal that boosts climate finance - most notably tripling adaptation funding by 2035 - and launches a wave of 117 concrete “Plans to Accelerate Solutions” under the new Action Agenda, but it glaringly omitted any binding roadmap to eliminate fossil fuels, drawing sharp criticism from vulnerable nations and activists. Major protests also re-emerged, led by Indigenous groups demanding climate justice and an end to deforestation, even as a fire at the venue briefly evacuated the talks and unsettled proceedings. In short: ambition on finance, big programs proposed — but little progress on the fossil-fuel ban that many saw as essential.
Trump accuses Democrats of ‘seditious behavior, punishable by death’
With months of escalation between US cities and the Trump administration amid the deployment of national guard troops, a group of six former service secretaries and retired four-star admirals and generals released a report on Monday about the risks of politicizing the nation’s armed forces. The report warns that increasing domestic military deployments, such as using national guard troops for immigration enforcement in the US, and removing senior military officers and legal advisers have made the armed forces appear to serve partisan agendas.
Donald Trump erupted at six Democratic lawmakers after they issued a video urging U.S. military and intelligence personnel to refuse illegal orders, calling their message “seditious behaviour” and declaring it “punishable by death.” The lawmakers - Elissa Slotkin, Mark Kelly, Chris Deluzio, Chrissy Houlahan, Maggie Goodlander and Jason Crow - are all veterans of the armed services or intelligence community. Trump’s posts included calls for their arrest and reposts of messages saying “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!!” Democratic leaders condemned the remarks as a grave threat of political violence and demanded immediate Republican-led accountability, while the White House insisted Trump did not intend literal executions even as it defended the underlying accusation that the lawmakers were undermining the chain of command.
Congress votes to release Epstein files
Congress overwhelmingly passed and the President signed into law legislation compelling the Department of Justice to release its files on Epstein - under the new law, the DOJ has 30 days to produce documents, though redactions are allowed. Meanwhile, the DOJ formally asked a federal court to unseal long-secret grand-jury testimony connected to Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, which could shed new light on the network of enablers and powerful figures tied to the case. Also, scrutiny intensified on several high-profile individuals: two longtime aides to Epstein - his lawyer and accountant - are facing civil claims for years of enabling his operations. Survivors of Epstein’s abuse meanwhile are sounding the alarm about growing threats and fearing that even the forthcoming document dump might be gutted if too much gets redacted. In all, the scandal has shifted from dormant to operational—it’s no longer just about what Epstein did, but who helped him and who might yet be exposed. That said, many have raised concerns that Attorney General Pam Bondi might redact parts of the files, as the bill allows redactions in certain specific instances, including when documents “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”
In a separate vote, on Wednesday the House overwhelmingly chose to repeal part of a new law that gives senators the ability to sue the federal government for millions of dollars if their personal or office data was accessed without their knowledge. The unanimous vote was a bipartisan rebuke after Majority Leader John Thune added the provision to the funding bill that passed earlier this month to end the nation’s longest government shutdown.
One person already facing consequences for their role in the Epstein scandal is Larry Summers. The prominent liberal economist and former president of Harvard announced Wednesday he is stepping away from his position teaching at the university’s Kennedy School of Government. Summers, in addition to his role as treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, served as an economic advisor to President Obama and is apparently guiding the economic policy plank of the Center for American Progress’s ‘Project 2029,’ the unimaginatively-named normie lib response to the Heritage Foundation’s Christian nationalist playbook, Project 2025.
But the breakup between Harvard and Summers is not the only relationship to end due to the Epstein scandal. Georgia’s conspiracy-peddling MAGA loon Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene announced Friday she is resigning from Congress, effective January 5, 2026. MTG has fallen out with President Trump recently, and was one of four Republicans to break ranks and sign the discharge petition requiring House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring the release of the Epstein files to a vote.
Trump hosts MBS, Mamdani in White House meetings
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince got the full-blown royal treatment at the White House on Tuesday, where Donald Trump greeted him with red-carpet fanfare, military flyovers and a lavish dinner, signalling a sharp rehabilitation of US-Saudi ties after years of strain following the Jamal Khashoggi killing. The agenda included major announcements: Saudi Arabia was designated a “major non-NATO ally,” steps were taken toward a potential US sale of F-35 jets, and promises of massive Saudi investment in the US and expanded cooperation in AI, defense and economic ties were front and center. While the pomp was abundant, underlying policy details (especially around Israel normalization and Palestinian statehood) remain vague and the deeper implications for human-rights accountability were largely skirted.
Then Friday, New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani met with President Trump for a surprisingly cordial Oval Office encounter despite their public animosity. They presented a united front on major issues like housing, groceries, cost of living and public safety - moving above their ideological clash to focus on areas of agreement. Trump lauded Mamdani’s electoral win and signalled readiness to back his agenda, while Mamdani emphasized his commitment to New Yorkers’ economic concerns over culture war issues.
Democrats in disarray?
You couldn’t script a better snapshot of today’s Democratic Party dysfunction than what we saw this week. On the same day Mamdani walks into the White House for a sit-down with Donald Trump, House Democrats - including Indiana’s Frank Mrvan - are busy lining up to help Republicans pass a resolution “condemning the horrors of socialism.” That’s the tell. Because while Mamdani is out there showing that you can speak clearly about housing, groceries, public safety - working-class issues - without apologizing for it, the national party is still terrified of its own shadow. Instead of defending material politics, they join Republicans in punching left, as if disavowing the word “socialism” will save them from being called socialists. We’re all still waiting on the joint resolution condemning the horrors of capitalism.
And then you get Jamie Raskin - one of the smartest Democrats in Congress, and a guy I usually really like - saying out loud what the whole party seems to believe: that Democrats are “the conservative party in America.” And they are. What do I mean? Conservative as in: the party exists to preserve the system. They seem uninterested in paving a new way forward, instead trying to rewind the clock to 2015. Well guess what? The Obama era wasn’t as rosy as you remember. Without it, you don’t get Trump. So, were we ever on the “right track”? The party celebrates being a “vast tent” with “room for anyone,” even Marjorie Taylor Greene if she ever feels like putting on a blue jersey. If you’re wondering why voters treat Democrats like an empty vessel rather than a force for change, well…
And yet somehow, voters still prefer Democrats by double digits going into next year’s elections. According to PBS and Marist, Dems would beat Republicans 55-41 if the midterms were held today. Voters aren’t begging for a centrist party that tiptoes around its own base. They want competence, stability, and someone who can describe their problems without flinching. Mamdani does that. The national leadership? They’d rather pass symbolic resolutions reassuring Wall Street that nothing scary will happen on their watch.
And despite this massive polling advantage, the DNC is so short on vision and grassroots energy that it had to take out a $15 million loan just to stay afloat going into the election year. This is a party leading in the polls yet governing like it’s 1996: allergic to ideology, unsure of what it stands for, and constantly trying to reassure donors that nothing disruptive is coming. When you put it all together - Mamdani’s clarity, the anti-socialism vote, Raskin’s “we’re the conservative party,” the polling gap, and the DNC loan - you get the same conclusion: Democrats haven’t failed because they’re too bold. They’ve failed because they refuse to stand for anything at all.
