Episode 43: Occupy Oakland, the First Amendment and Kim Kardashian!

The crowd falls silent to listen to one of many speakers at Occupy Oakland

What a week it’s been – between the Kardashian divorce saga, Groupon’s IPO and of course, the continuing Occupy protests, we have a lot to talk about this podcast. Most excitingly, we bring you some great soundbites from the interviews we conducted on the streets of Oakland, and then we have the pleasure of inviting UC Berkeley Professor Jesse Choper to talk to us about some of the First Amendment issues “Occupy” is encountering.

Starting with some of the hot-topics of the day – unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few days then you are aware of Kim Kardashian’s 72 day marriage on the cover of all those magazines by the supermarket check out. So what is the story? We talk about celebrity as a business, divorce and annulments, and whether it was all a big set-up.

On to more interesting news, Groupon, who we’ve spoken a lot about, went public this morning, and so we hear is doing incredibly well. At the time of writing, Groupon’s share price is up a full 31%! Hat tipping certainly in order there. Well done to Groupon.

While we’re on the subject of updates, we bring up an update in the extended saga of the Wal-Mart gender discrimination lawsuit, or now, series of lawsuits. Tune in to hear whether we think the women will have more luck filing as classes, state-by-state, than when they filed a single national suit.

And so on to “Occupy”. There was some great energy in Oakland this week; we were out and about taking the temperature so tune in to listen to what some labor leaders and inspirational business owners think about the protest. The interviews speak for themselves.

Finally, it was a privilege to talk to Professor Choper who was able to unravel some of the First Amendment complexities surrounding time and place restrictions, public versus private space, and the impact of corporate spending on American democracy.

Please join the debate as Charley and I face-off in this week’s Rocket Docket.

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