Katie Halper

When god closes a website, he opens a Facebook page! George Zimmerman’s defense attorney, Mark O’Mara, has established a Facebook and Twitter account for his client after Zimmerman disabled his previous website, which raised $200,000 for him.  Zimmerman just plum forgot to disclose this money when the judge was determining his bond, something his lawyer deemed an “oversight.” You know when you forget about a couple hundred thousand dollars you have lying around? Of course you do – we’ve all been there. As of 2:11 PM on April 30th, the Facebook page already has 772 likes, and the twitter account has 625 followers and 41 tweets.

Read more at Feministing

Saturday night’s White House Correspondents Dinner was chock-full-o corny jokes and problematic jokes (like “fat” jokes about Chris Christie– as if there aren’t substantive things to make fun of the Governor for). But there were some great moments that were both funny and meaningful from President Barack Obama and Jimmy Kimmel. Here’s a video compilation I made with a top 10 list below it. Warning: nothing will ever come close to Stephen Colbert’s brilliant, satirical, subversive and courageous roast of Bush back in 2006.

Read the top ten at Feministing

Republican consultant Alex Castellanos is pretty good at his job. It’s not easy to fully represent the extent of the Republican Party’s sexism, and yet Castellanos manages to do so in both content and form! And that’s pretty impressive. He demonstrated his skills on Meet the Press, as he denied the well-documented phenomenon unequal pay. Castellanos must have unsubscribed from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research e-mail list, or he would have heard about their study showing that women make 77 cents  cents per men’s dollar But, knowing it’s better to show than tell, Castellanos was in top sexist form, constantly interrupting Rachel Maddow, who was typically fact-based and gracious,  and even saying, “I love how passionate you are.  I wish you are as right about what you’re saying as you are passionate about it.  I really do.” Maddow called out Castellanos for being “really condescending” and explained, “[m]y passion on this issue–is actually me making a factual argument.” I don’t know how Maddow remained so calm, cool and collected. I’m pretty sure I would have combusted.

Video and transcript at Feministing

I’ll be performing Laughing Liberally this Monday (the 30th) at the Playroom Theater! I’ll be performing again on May 14th, too. They start at 8.

151 West 46th Street, 8th Floor
between 6th & 7th Avenues

Hope to see you there!

In February, five members of “Pussy Riot,” Russia’s radical, feminist, punk band, enteredMoscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral stood at the altar and sang “Mother of God, Blessed Virgin, drive out Putin!” For their protest art against President Vladimir Putin, three members of the band were arrested, charged with hooliganism, which can carry a seven-year long prison sentence, and have been held in jail since March. The three women, Nadya Tolokonnikova, Maria Alekhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, say they are members of the band, but deny participating in the events at the Cathedral.  On Thursday, a judge turned down a request to release the women on bail until their trial starts. He extended their detention until June 24th. Amnesty International, which has taken up the case, explains that,

Even if the three arrested women did take part in the protest, the severity of the response of the Russian authorities – the detention on the serious criminal charge of hooliganism – would not be a justifiable response to the peaceful – if, to many, offensive – expression of their political beliefs. They would therefore be prisoners of conscience….

The broader political context surrounding the anti-Putin protests at the time – and the anti-clerical, anti-Putin content of the activists’ message (themselves unpunishable) – have clearly and unlawfully been taken into account in the charges that have been brought against them.

[...]

Read more at Feministing

The Economist has mapped out all the executions that have taken place in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Not surprisingly, as Think Progress points out, “[o]ver one-third of all executions during this period took place in Texas, for a total of 481 people killed by that state. Of the remaining, non-Texas executions, the overwhelming majority are clustered in a small group of southern states.”

Read more at Feministing

Check out this hilarious video, Rick Santorum Aborts Presidential Campaign, in which Ashley Judd, Michelle Trachtenberg, Katy Mixon, and Eliza Coupe counsel Santorum, “If you weren’t mature enough to carry your campaign to term, you shouldn’t have engaged in the risky behavior that began it.”

Read more at Feministing

Australian marriage equality advocate, writer and blogger Adrian Fernand is trying to get to people’s hearts and minds, through their stomachs. He’s driving around Australia in an Ice Cream Truck of Love, handing out free ice cream and raising awareness about marriage equality. As he explains in this video, Fernand is making the point that

Some people like vanilla. Others might like strawberry. And some people like chocolate. What if I were to say this person isn’t allowed ice cream, simply because I don’t like chocolate. Now that wouldn’t be fair now would it? That’s why we believe everybody should have ice cream, no matter which flavor they like.

Read the rest at Feministing

Prostitutes and secret service and Latin America, oh my. This year’s Summit of the Americas was reduced to a scandal about secret service agents too dumb or too cheap to pay the money they owed the sex workers they solicited in Cartagena.

But the real story is that Latin American leaders are coming out of the woodwork and stating that the war on drugs is not working. These leaders are calling for reforms ranging from legalization, to decriminalization, to focusing of treatment instead of incarceration. And what’s shocking is that they are not just the lefty leaders who have come to power on Latin America’s so-called Pink Tide.

In addition to the left wing presidents in Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil, to name a few, some of the strongest calls for reform are coming from the right:  Colombian president and former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos is wants to debate alternatives to the drug war; Mexico’s Felipe Calderon, who has launched a controversial drug war which has left nearly 50,000 dead wants the United States to consider replacing it’s draconian approach with “market alternatives.” And Guatemalan right wing former military man  President Otto Perez wants to decriminalize drugs.

For his part, Obama announced that while legalizing drugs was off the table, In the plan off the table, he acknowledged that “mass incarceration” of nonviolent drug users is an “outdated” policy and said he will focus resources on prevention and recovery, admitting that “drug addiction is a disease.”

See the videos at Feministing