Free Speech Consequences: After Charlie Kirk’s Death
Release Date: 09/17/2025
Economic Inequality in the United States: The New Price of the American Dream
Beneath the Cypress and Star
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Astroturf Politics: The Illusion of Grassroots Power
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How AI in Tax Law and LLMs Can Help Us Better Understand U.S. Tax Code
Beneath the Cypress and Star
In this episode, we explore and how are revolutionizing the way experts interpret and manage the tax code. These advanced systems can ingest not only statutory text but also historical court rulings, IRS guidance, regulatory updates, and decades of academic research assessing the real-world effectiveness of tax policies. By correlating these datasets, LLMs can uncover inefficiencies, contradictions, outdated provisions, and that traditional review methods routinely miss. For most of U.S. history, Congress amended the tax law piecemeal because no human, nor any legislative office, could...
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Rethinking Progress: The Paradigm Shift in Societal Values and the Well-Being Economy
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In this episode, we explore the growing call for a well-being economy, a reimagining of progress that moves beyond GDP and material growth to focus on collective human flourishing. The conversation challenges the assumption that wealth accumulation and longevity define success, arguing that true advancement lies in connection, emotional health, and ecological harmony. By contrasting Western materialism with Bhutan’s philosophy of , the hosts reveal how societies can reorient their goals toward meaning and sustainability. The discussion examines the hard physical limits of outward expansion...
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Understanding Free Market Economics Through Milton Friedman’s Lens
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Monetarism and the doctrine of shareholder-value maximization pushed U.S. companies toward an extract-at-all-costs model, which offshored jobs, hollowed out the domestic workforce, expanded the labor pool at home, and steadily eroded people’s ability to earn a livable wage. This model treats the economy like an infinite reservoir rather than a closed system with limits, so each demand for “more value” becomes another round of resource extraction, social, economic, and environmental, much like a malignancy growing without regard for its host. Before the rise of shareholder primacy in the...
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The Cost of Living Crisis and the 2026 Midterm Elections: America on the Brink
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The United States is entering a volatile period as the deepens and the 2026 midterm elections approach. The dismantling of the social safety net under the One Big Beautiful Bill has left millions of Americans without essential support, sparking unrest and uncertainty across all fifty states. Food insecurity, inflation, and rising unemployment are converging into what economists warn could be a sustained national emergency. As the Trump administration's policies prioritize symbolic displays of power over practical governance, citizens are finding themselves trapped between economic...
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Building Fair Governance Through Participatory Budgeting
Beneath the Cypress and Star
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Capitalism and Exploitation: The Engine Beneath the System
Beneath the Cypress and Star
In this episode, we unpack the complex relationship between capitalism and exploitation, tracing how thinkers from Marx to modern critics have argued that the system’s survival depends on surplus extraction. Drawing on , we explore how profit emerges when workers create more value than they receive in wages. We also confront the uneasy question: can capitalism exist without exploitation? — a question that continues to haunt economic and moral debate. Exploitation isn’t just an unfortunate side effect of capitalism; it’s the very mechanism that keeps it running. The conversation turns...
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Trump Boat Bombings: How U.S. Strikes Are Shaping the War on Drugs in Latin America
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National Guard Deployment: How Far Can Presidential Power Go?
Beneath the Cypress and Star
In this in-depth episode, we confront one of the most pressing and misunderstood questions in American governance: national guard deployment and its evolving role in maintaining internal security. With headlines dominated by discussions of possible troop movements, the use of force in U.S. cities, and questions about the limits of executive power, our conversation dives into the complex interplay between law, politics, and national defense. We begin by examining the mechanics of how the National Guard deployment process works in U.S. cities, shedding light on how governors and the federal...
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This episode dives into the free speech consequences emerging in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death: how various government bodies, employers, and public figures are responding to speech that mocks, celebrates, or criticizes the tragedy. We explore the tension between accountability and expression — when does criticism cross a line, what protections (or lack thereof) speech contributors have, and how "cancel culture" becomes part of the debate. Listeners will gain insight into how society balances free speech and consequence in a moment of political polarization and grief.
Sources
https://abcnews.go.com/US/operate-independent-agency-laura-loomers-pressure-campaigns-reshaping/story?id=124285112
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