Free Speech Show 15th Anniversary

James Tripp, Cathy Ladman, January Thomas, Bil Dwyer, Sean Green, Laurie Buckley and Steve Gelder join host Bill Bronner to celebrate the "Free Speech 15th Anniversary."
 
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"Free Speech Show" - The Future of the Internet

Here's the final podcast of this series with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss Net Neutrality and the future of an open Web In America.

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"Comedy Nation This Week" - July 27, 2012

Here's the final podcast in this series with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the Colorado shooting, new DNA evidence about some of our ancestors, the Russians in Cuba and more.

Trippitorial - Guns Are People

There’s been a lot of bad talk about guns in the news lately and I think it should stop. If the corporations that manufacture guns are people, aren’t guns people too? Do they not have feelings of their own?  If you cock them, do not people bleed?  If you hold one, do they not feel like a prick? Everybody on the news is talking about how they feel, but nobody’s asking the guns how they feel. If you tickle them, do they not misfire? I’ll tell you how they feel: Cheap. Used. Misunderstood.

If it was up to them, they’d be shooting themselves up in the air everyday in celebration. Sure, sometimes the bullets that go up come down into somebody’s head, but that’s not the gun’s fault. That’s gravity. What are you gonna do? Shoot Newton? And how are you gonna do that without a gun? That’s what I thought.

Guns are some of the most misunderstood weapons of mass destruction. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a bar and heard some guy say, my gun, she just doesn’t understand me.” Well, you know what? That works both ways, pal.

It’s like the N.R.A. says, "guns don't kill people, we do." guns aren't the problem. It's people who don't have guns who are the problem. We've got to put a gun in the hand of every man, woman and child in America.

Why, some of my best friends are guns. I know a girl who married a gun. She has ten kids. The gun is always going off.

Guns aren't the problem. It's people who are the problem. That's why we need guns---to get rid of the problem.

Of course, if guns are people, and people kill people, maybe guns do kill people.

I’m James Tripp and I’ll be back with another Trippitorial.

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"Free Speech Show" - What's Luck Got To Do With It?

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists celebrate Friday the 13th with a discussion about luck.

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"Comedy Nation This Week" - July 13, 2012

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss Mitt Romney at Bain Capital, Lesbian Super Pacs, outrage at Chinese made Olympic uniforms and more.

Trippitorial – Election Money

Elections are big business in this country. It is estimated that both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s campaigns will spend one billion dollars each. That’s two billion dollars. That’s more than I’ll make this whole year.

I guess the more the rich try to fool the poor, the more money they have to spend to get the poor to vote against their own self interests. If they want people without health care to vote against a plan to get them health care, that costs a lot of money, and cuts in education.

Speech is not free if somebody is paying for it. The rich would have you believe that money equals free speech. The more money you have, the freer you get to speak. Apparently, poor people must have nothing to say. It’s a good thing too. They’re so gauche.

In America, nothing is free unless the rich are paying for it or speech unless the rich are saying it. And that’s a good point, which is their point which makes me wonder if it’s such a good point.

You never hear about the poor influencing elections. All they have is a vote. Big deal. That doesn’t mean they’ll get to keep it. The poor can speak for free, but they’re gonna need some voter id. The peasants are revolting and so are the people they vote for.

The rich want to raise taxes on the poor---a poll tax. They also want to eliminate public education. Slaves don’t need to read. Next thing you know, they’ll be getting ideas. They’ll be thinking critically. They’ll be wanting two weeks of vacation.

The poor should be educated but they shouldn’t be so educated that they vote for someone who might represent their interests.

It’s time to get money out of politics. Any professional gambler knows the odds favor the house unless Sheldon Adelson is playing the House of Representatives. Then everyone loses.

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"Free Speech Show" - The Affordable Care Act

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act

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"Free Speech Show" - Hobbies

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss their hobbies

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"Comedy Nation This Week" - June 22, 2012

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the latest in the 2012 Presidential race, private prisons, the Justice Department's investigation of the cable industry, the weekly Trippitorial and more.

Trippitorial – Immigrant Song

Obama wants to give what amounts to amnesty to some illegal immigrants. We already gave it to bankers! There’s only so much amnesty to go around---domestically. Of course there’s always Amnesty International.

I say leave the illegal immigrants alone! I am sick and tired of people saying they’re sick and tired of the sick and tired. People who rail are people who fail to see the profit of putting illegal immigrants in jail.

This is a whole segment of the population that can’t vote for the people who are legislating against them. It’s a Republican wet dream. It’s a no lose proposition, especially if you’re Corrections Corporation of America, lobbying to correct America since 1983.

Illegal immigrants are the fastest growing segment of the American prison population and they’re starting to crowd out the pot smokers. Prosecuting illegal immigrants is big business for the private prison industry. Illegal immigrants are job creators.

Leave them alone. Illegal immigrants are some of my favorite people. They’re just like regular people, only illegal.

I get the other side. I, too, am tired of illegal immigrants coming to this country and stealing all our jobs. Of course I’m talking about Canadian comedians. The reality is you just have to be funnier than they are, and let’s face it, that’s not too hard.

But if you stop prosecuting illegal immigrants it’s bad for business and what’s bad for business is bad for America! Unless you weren’t born here, but that’s not my business.

Still, private prisons shouldn’t be too worried. The drug laws should keep their profits growing. But what happens if they make pot legal? There wouldn’t be anybody left to put in private prisons. I hope somebody bails them out.

Michael Bloomberg wants to make sodas illegal, which is bad for some business, but it could be good for the private prison business. The problem with the prisoners in this model is that they’re too big to jail.

For some Republicans, immigration reform isn’t enough. They want to get rid of some of the people that were born here too. Most Republicans don’t make sense. I think we should make English the official language of the GOP.

 

Mitt Romney is still on the fence about immigration. When he falls off, all of his wife’s horses and all the kingpins won’t be able to put Mitt Romney’s immigration policy back together again

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"Comedy Nation This Week" - June 1, 2008

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss, the jobs report, John Edwards acquittal, cannibals and spies.

Trippitorial – Commencement Day

This is the time of year when students are graduating and speeches are commencing. And so to graduates of the 2012 Trippitorials, I would like to say this:

Dean, President, Chancellor , faculty, members of the Board of Trustees, beloved parents,  grandparents, great grandparents, not so great parents, graduates, friends of the class of 2012, Senators, Congressmen, distinguished alumni:

As I look out at all your faces here today, I can’t see any of them because I’m in a radio station in North Hollywood. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see the hope in those feces…faces. And to that I say, stop hoping. If you don’t have a job now, you’re probably not going to get one, so why bother.

Statistically, nobody would be surprised if you moved back into your parent’s basement and kept eating their food. So I say, do it. When are you gonna have another chance like this? Your first divorce?

Today’s job market is abysmal. My advice to you is to borrow money from Mitt Romney’s parents and stay in school. Rack up another degree and another battery of student loans. You’re not gonna be able to get a job, so you might as well keep learning. And maybe the bank will learn a lesson when you can’t pay back any of their usurious loans.

In closing, I want you question everything you’ve been told in school. But do not question me. It is quite possible you have been lied to, indoctrinated, usurped, taught, tamed, torn, trained, tricked, broken, educated and diverted from your true nature. What if your teachers were wrong? What if they were, in fact, insane?

Congratulations, Class of 2012. Your parents are proud of you. They’re glad to finally get rid of you. Hopefully.

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"Free Speech Show" - Cable News, Newspapers, Blogs and the Internet; What's happened to the News?

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists examine the changing look of Modern media.

"Comedy Nation This Week" - May 25, 2012

Here's today's podcast with panelists Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss Net Neutrality, the Facebook IPO, the Space X launch, the latest Trippitorial and more.

Trippitorial - Space

This week, corporate America launched itself into space, and that’s a good place for it. Besides Earth, most of the rest of the Milky Way is unincorporated, which means, according to the United States Supreme Court, no persons live there.

I remember when NASA sent a probe to look for intelligent life on Mars. First, they should look for some here. Of course, instead of a probe, they’d probably use a drone. Maybe there’s some intelligent life in Yemen. Drones are better than probes because if you find an intelligent life form, you can blow it up, especially if it’s more intelligent than you.

Every year, NASA spends billions of dollars trying to contact alien life forms to let them know we're here. Maybe I don't want alien life forms to know that I’m here! You didn't see Native Americans sending up smoke signals to the Europeans: 'come get us!'

We can't let the aliens do to us what we’ve done to indigenous populations, even though we were just kidding. Besides I, for one, don't want to be running a casino in two hundred years. Maybe in thirty years...

Anyway, if man were meant to go into outer space, he wouldn't burn up during re-entry. Oh, you can go up there, you can go right ahead. Just don't come back.

That probe they sent to Mars indicated that there may have been life on that planet. I have enough trouble with the life on this planet. The probe found microscopic bacteria in a Martian rock. No wonder Martians are an extinct race. Who'd have sex with bacteria? Other bacteria, but that's not the point. The point is, if your species is gonna be around in a billion years, you have to be something somebody wants to have sex with. Maybe that’s not the point either.

I knew a girl once who said she'd had sex with aliens. She wouldn't have sex with me, but she had sex with aliens.

That’s definitely not the point. The point is it’s about time someone privatized space! It was getting too expansive.

I claim the second asteroid on the right for Queen Isabella of Spain!

"Free Speech Show" - Spirituality, Atheists and Religion

Here's today's podcast with me, Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss spirituality, atheists, religion and my soon to be published book, The Hierophant.

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"Comedy Nation This Week" - May 18, 2012

Here's today's podcast with me, Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss the Facebook IPO, census demographics, Greece, Spain and more.

Trippitorial - Robbing Banks

The real profit to be made in robbing banks is if you’re the bank doing the robbing. As soon as you give a bank your money, they create fees so they don’t have to give it back. So if you deposit five dollars, they’ll create a five dollar fee for only having five dollars. They’ll call it a “low amount” fee. You should have had six. Of course, then it would be a six dollar fee. This is a good system…if you’re a bank.

When I was a kid, banks used to give you toasters to open an account. They wanted your business.  They treated their customers like customers. Of course, there was more regulation and more competition. With all the bank mergers going on, soon there will just be the Fed and one big commercial bank with an investing subsidiary left standing, neither of which our government will control.

Nowadays banks treat their customers like a teat to be milked. They are to be raped and pillaged. Customers are something banks tolerate. Customers are to be exploited. If they’re dumb enough to pay one fee, maybe they’ll pay two. And meanwhile, the bank will be gambling with your money.

Every time I go into a bank, I expect the teller to produce a gun and say, “Stick ‘em up!” They charge interest rates larger than Louie the loan shark and break you if you fail to repay in ways that Louie can only dream about. There are no usury laws. Who needs ‘em?

Bank lobbyists have managed to re-legislate most of the 1933 banking act, except for FDIC insurance. They like that. After all, if they’re going to gamble with depositor’s money, somebody has to pay for it.

Now JP Morgan Chase is on their way to losing 2.5, maybe 3 billion dollars. They call it hedging because if they called it what it really was, it would be illegal. If only we’d let them regulate themselves. They wouldn’t break any more laws because there wouldn’t be any.

"Free Speech Show" - Aging, Retirement and Death

Here's today's podcast from New Dissident Radio with Laurie Buckley , Carrie Snow, James Tripp and host Bill Bronner:

Panelists discuss aging, retirement and death.