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off the table, In the plan off the table, he acknowledged that “mass incarceration” of nonviolent drug users is an “outdated” policy and said he will focus resources on prevention and recovery, admitting that “drug addiction is a disease.”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

Unfortunately, there is a direct relationship between WisGANsin State Senator Glenn Grothman’s physical hotness & ideological heinousness. What’s a girl to do? Check out the photos.

Wisconsin Governor (R-surprise!) Scott Walker is a true Renaissance Man of Asshatery. He must be commended for his hard work, consistency and brazen bigotry in targeting not just workers‘ rights, not just reproductive rights, but even pay equity! Thursday, Walker passed over 50 bills but announced them Friday afternoon before the holiday weekend, so they would get less attention. Among the bills was

1. a bill banning abortion coverage in policies obtained through a health insurance exchange, which will be created in 2014.
2. a bill requiring doctors to consult and examine a woman seeking abortion privately, away from her friends and family, and to make sure she isn’t being pressured into having an abortion.
3. a bill requiring sex-ed teachers to stress abstinence as the only way to prevent STDs and pregnancy. The bill also says teachers don’t have to address contraception at all. (How nice of the bill!)

Read the rest at Feministing

Sunday, The Israeli Governmentbarred German author Gunter Grass from entering Israel over a poem the Nobel Laureate wrote on Israel, Iran and nuclear weapons. So called pro-Israel Hawks often accuse people who are critical of Israeli policy of anti-Semitism. I, myself, have had the honor of being called a self-loathing Jew.

But what makes Grass’s relationship with Israel and anti-Semitism more complicated is that heserved briefly in the Nazi SS Waffen, as he revealed in 2006. I don’t think that Grass is an anti-Semite. He was drafted at age 17, just like the Pope was drafted at age 14, and has dedicated much of his life to anti-Nazi writing. But his past makes it that much easier for people to dismiss his criticism as anti-Semitism and even Nazi ideology. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said,

Once again, Feministing is partnering with the Civil Liberties and Public PolicyConference,From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom, which will be held next weekend, April 13th-15th at Hampshire College. We should really thank Republicans for making this conference even more relevant and urgent than it usually is. Last year, Lori and Jos attended the conference. This year, Lori is returning and will be joined by Eesha, who is also speaking THREE times! (Holding Our Movements & Ourselves Accountable, Our Lives, Our Voices: Reproductive Justice and Immigrant Communities and Strategic Action Session: Abortion Access).

Read the rest at Feministing

George Zimmerman claims he killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in self- defense, though Zimmerman outweighed Martin by over 60 pounds and though his gun outarmed Martin’s pack of skittles. Part of Zimmerman’s dubious defense claim is that he was the one whose screams for help can be heard on the 911 calls made by concerned neighbors. But experts say this is not the case.

Read the rest at Feministing.

Whether he’s refusing to pay his child support so he can afford to fund his campaign and go on luxury vacations,lying about not being able to afford it, calling President Obama a liar, or yelling at constituents, Illinois congressman and Tea Party darling Joe Walsh knows how to keep it classy. So, I shouldn’t be surprised by his most recent disgusting comments about Tammy Duckworth, who is running against him  in Illinois’s 8th congressional district. Duckworth served as Assistant Operations Officer and a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Iraq. After her helicopter was ambushed and hit by a grenade, she successfully landed the helicopter, but lost her legs and her right arm in the blast.

In an interview with Politico,  Walsh reflected on Duckworth’s achievements:

“I have so much respect for what she did in the fact that she sacrificed her body for this country,” said Walsh, simultaneously lowering his voice as he leaned forward before pausing for dramatic effect. “Ehhh. Now let’s move on.What else has she done? Female, wounded veteran … ehhh,” he continued. “She is nothing more than a handpicked Washington bureaucrat.  David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel just picked her up and dropped her into this district.”

Read the rest at Feministing.

The awesomely talented “Pop Culture Pirate,”  Elisa Kreisinger, has just released her latest work of video remix art, which plays with Mad Men, our expectations, and social norms.  Kreisinger is  a media fellow at the Center For Social Media at American University, a new media and video trainer for the Women’s Media Center, and an ”appropriation video artist” whose creations, like the Fran Lebowitz Coming Out Remix and the Sex and the City: QueerCarrie  remixes, have been featured in Salon, After Ellen, and Logo, to name a few.

In a (g-chat) interview, Kreisinger said,

 “When you’re culturally ‘poor’ for representation, both queer and feminist, you have to reuse the things you have access to, whether it be for subtext, your own entertainment or for critique. My hope was that I could turn the mixed feelings I had about the retro-sexual roles of women in mad men into something practical: product that my feminist theory addressed in theory only.”

Read more at Feministing

If you’re one of those people worried about the collapse of traditional society and nostalgic for the days when women knew their place… you probably won’t be reading Feministing. But if you did, you’d be thrilled to see this infographic from The National Journal, showing that women make less than men — they even make up 44% of the workforce!

Read more at Feministing

Trigger Warning

The vigilante shooting of Trayvon Martin, an African-American 17 year-old-male visiting his father in a gated community in Florida,  armed only with skittles and an iced tea, is a tragedy and an outrage. The fact that George Zimmerman — a 28-year old unregistered community watch member, who followed Martin from his SUV and was armed with an automatic weapon, and had a criminal record and a penchant for reporting young black men as “suspicious” — claimed self-defense is ridiculous. And the fact that law enforcement accepted Zimmerman’s tale and has allowed him to walk free is a miscarriage of justice and a threat to public safety. But nothing is as chilling, painful and heart-wrenching as hearing what sounds like Martin’s cry for help in the background of a 911 call (at around 1:30 in the video. The transcript is here.)

Read more at Feministing