DOMESTIC ECONOMICS: “Repealing the Estate Tax” ☮

The Republican budget would give the richest family in America, the Walton family of Wal-Mart, a tax cut of up to $52 billion by repealing the estate tax – a tax that only applies to multi-millionaires and billionaires. But, if you are a lower income senior citizen you may not be able to keep your home warm in the winter because of a cut of about $4 billion to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

PROGRESSIVE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM: “Non-Violent Resistance with George Lakey” / RT America / On Contact with Chris Hedges ☮

George Lakey, author of “Viking Economics: How the Scandinavians Got it Right and How We Can Too”, joins Chris Hedges to discuss non-violent resistance against the corporate state. RT Corresponent Anya Parampil looks at successful non-violent tactics used in the civil rights movement.

CRITICAL THINKING: “Why Skepticism is the Right Approach to the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia” / Michael Shermer ☮

Bear with us for a second, but do you know the Belinda Carlisle song “Heaven is a Place on Earth”? It’s actually scientifically accurate. American public intellectual Michael Shermer says that any idea of the afterlife makes zero sense: your mind and therefore your memories are beholden to your body and that any version of you that made it into heaven, should there actually be one, would just be a copy of you and unable to register that they were actually in heaven. Likewise, should you be able to scan your brain and “live forever” by being uploaded to a body in the future, it still wouldn’t be you, just a copy. Confused? The explanation makes more sense from the mouth of Shermer himself… writing the theory behind multiple you’s living in various timelines gets a little too Back to the Future… another sweet ’80s reference if we do say so ourselves.

PROGRESSIVE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM: “Paid Patriotism, the NFL and Dennis Kucinich” / RT America / Jesse Ventura ☮

Jesse Ventura and Former Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich discuss US wars of aggression in Iraq and Libya. Kucinich addresses his peace keeping mission to Syria. Brigida Santos gets the governor’s opinion on Colin Kaepernick and the politicization of football.