Benjamin Wittes on “the perjury trap”:

Ok, here’s a little primer on the perjury trap: What it is, what it isn’t, and whether Bob Mueller’s seeking an interview with Trump in which Trump might lie is one or not.

First off, the perjury trap is a real thing. It’s not simply a concoction of the right-wing fever swamp. When it happens—and it is successfully argued only rarely—it is a form of entrapment that can constitute an affirmative defense against a charge of perjury.

Bennett Gershman, in a law review article on the subject, described the perjury trap as “the deliberate use of the grand jury to secure perjured testimony” and suggested that the hallmarks include the intentional solicitation of

Susan Walsh at Politico says it’s a myth that Scott Pruitt has already trashed a lot of environmental laws and regulations. It’s true that he’s tried, but (hooray) it’s not that easy.

The truth is that Scott Pruitt has done a lot less to dismantle the EPA than he—or his critics—would have you believe.

It’s not for lack of trying. Pruitt has taken aim at just about every major Obama-era EPA rule, which has made him a pariah on the left, a hero on the right and the bureaucratic face of Trump’s vocal advocacy for fossil-fuel interests and other industrial polluters. But so far he’s only managed to delay a few rules that hadn’t yet taken effect. His supporters,

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the NFL versus the witches:

Witches, man. Just when you thought we were safe from their malignant influence on America’s virtue, the NFL has proven we are still in real danger from their dark powers.

In danger how? Witchy witchy seduction.

Bailey Davis, the 22-year-old former New Orleans Saints cheerleader, was recently fired for violating team social media rules by posting an Instagram photo of herself in one-piece lingerie that shows as much skin as a one-piece swimsuit in a Nordstrom’s ad, and a lot less than their cheerleading outfits. She has since filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for gender discrimination. When she spoke to a representative from the Saints’ human resources

In the New Yorker, Molly Ringwald looks at the three John Hughes movies she starred in in the 80s, when she was a teenager. She starts with watching The Breakfast Club with her 10-year-old daughter.

It’s a strange experience, watching a younger, more innocent version of yourself onscreen. It’s stranger still—surreal, even—watching it with your child when she is much closer in age to that version of yourself than you are. My friend was right: my daughter didn’t really seem to register most of the sex stuff, though she did audibly gasp when she thought I had showed my underwear. At one point in the film, the bad-boy character, John Bender, ducks under the table where my character, Claire, is

How They see Trump.

Hope one day you find someone who sees you like Ben Garrison sees Trump. pic.twitter.com/f2IhCwJxDQ

— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) April 7, 2018

… Read the rest

It was windy at Andrews yesterday.

Very windy.

Windy every whichaway.

… Read the rest

Classic. Trump’s own people tell him that Scott Pruitt’s many corrupt and/or brainless acts have made him toxic and Trump reeeeeeeally ought to replace him with someone not quite so extravagant and cozy with lobbyists, but Trump is so happy with the way Pruitt is making the water dirty again that he just can’t bear to lose him. Dirty water and filthy air for the people! Wave the tiny fist!

John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, told President Trump last week that Scott Pruitt, the embattled administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, needed to go in the wake of damaging allegations about ethical infractions and spending irregularities, according to two officials briefed about the conversation.

But Mr.

When the ideology becomes life-threatening.

A young #trans man broke his arm playing football & is rushed to hospital. Before being treated he is asked to discuss his trans status & hormones at length. Why? So wrong! SEE: https://t.co/iJ8K3u47jk @RozKaveney @MunroeBergdorf @JakeGraf1 @christineburns @MxJackMonroe

— Peter Tatchell (@PeterTatchell) April 5, 2018

Peter Tatchell tweets:

A young #trans man broke his arm playing football & is rushed to hospital. Before being treated he is asked to discuss his trans status & hormones at length. Why? So wrong!

It’s called taking a medical history, and it has to be done. They have to know what meds patients are on in order to avoid killing them. That’s why.… Read the rest

Jessica Valenti points out what one would think was obvious: something said on Twitter isn’t magically not what the tweeter actually thinks, simply by virtue of being on Twitter.

On Thursday, the recently hired columnist Kevin Williamson was fired from the Atlantic after an uproar over his views on abortion – namely his belief, first mentioned in a 2014 tweet, that women who have the procedure should be executed by hanging.

Initially, the editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, defended Williamson, writing in a memo to staff that he did not believe “taking a person’s worst tweets … in isolation is the best journalistic practice”. But after the release of a podcast in which Williamson talked at length about hanging women, the

So this is what they think of us.

Of conservative writers, Kevin Williamson is one of those most willing to be heterodox, most committed to reality-based reporting, with a bold intellect and indomitable character. But the philistine progressive mob can’t stand him. Why? Because he won’t bend the knee…to them.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 28, 2018

Heterodox, bold, indomitable – that’s how we describe a columnist who advocates hanging for women who end their pregnancies?

It’s “philistine progressive” to say a columnist who advocates hanging for women who end their pregnancies shouldn’t be on the staff of a mainstream magazine? On the grounds that advocating  hanging for millions of women should not be normalized in that way? If only … Read the rest

Here’s a surprise: the Trump administration has thrown down some sanctions on Friends of Putin.

The US has imposed sanctions on seven Russian oligarchs and 17 senior government officials, accusing them of “malign activity around the globe”.

Twelve companies owned by the oligarchs, the state arms exporter and a bank are also sanctioned.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the penalties targeted those profiting from Russia’s “corrupt system”.

The move was a response to Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, he said.

The sanctions are also being imposed because of the actions taken by the Kremlin in Crimea, eastern Ukraine and Syria, Mr Mnuchin said in a statement on Friday.

He accused the Russian government of “malicious” cyber-activities

Women in STEM fields have a laundry list of stories about men telling them they aren’t clever enough to be there.

A new study published Wednesday adds to a growing body of hard evidence to back up those stories.

It finds that men in STEM subject areas overestimate their own intelligence and credentials, [and] underestimate the abilities of female colleagues, and that as a result, women themselves doubt their abilities — even when hard evidence such as grades say otherwise.

It’s a wonderful loop, isn’t it – men think they’re better than they are so they forge confidently ahead regardless and they feel entitled to tell women they’re not good enough so women are kneecapped, so men think they’re … Read the rest

Jezebel:

It is not easy to admit our mistakes, particularly now, given the current media climate and general culture of intolerance on college campuses. Still, we feel that we owe our readers an apology.

We should not have hired Cannibal Witch, an elegant writer and thinker who, we have come to believe, after serious consideration, does indeed eat children.

They thought she might change. They thought she deserved a second chance.

However, it was Cannibal Witch’s recent appearance on Lou Dobbs’s podcast, Dobb Knobbin’ with Lou Dobbs—during which she discussed having eaten children as recently as today—that we have decided to part ways. The language she used to describe eating children made it clear to us that her

Guest post by Maureen Brian.

Midnight on April 4th was the deadline for companies to submit their data on their gender pay gap, if any, to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Then some editor at the BBC had the notion of inviting wannabee-famous Jordan Peterson to comment on the whole exercise for BBC Radio4 Today.

In the course of a very scrappy interview it became quite clear that he didn’t like it. Not one bit. Certain things, it would seem, are ordained by God – that people who work long hours are all men and thus should be paid a lot more just for being, that the bulk of child or elderly relative care must fall upon women, that … Read the rest

Some right-wingers are, of course, saying it’s not fair, it’s censorship, it’s plickal krecknis.

Williamson’s hiring in March outraged some liberals, who pointed to 2014 tweets (since deleted) in which he opined “the law should treat abortion like any other homicide” and added, when considering an appropriate punishment for women who undergo abortions, “I have hanging … in mind.”

Williamson’s firing on Thursday prompted equally-angry responses from some of his fellow conservatives in the media, who contended the move shows they are an oppressed minority — “ghettoized,” in the words of the Resurgent’s Erick Erickson.

Ghettoized by the Nazis of plickal krecknis. It will be the gas chambers next, just you wait and see.

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/981969864515555331

https://twitter.com/SouthernKeeks/status/981967695653625857

Yes, “a different … Read the rest

This just in – The Atlantic has fired Kevin Williamson, the “women who get abortions should be hanged” guy.

https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/981955064515448833

https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/981956057344901120

That’s good, but why was he hired (or signed up) in the first place? It was already known that he thought and wrote that women should be executed for ending their own pregnancies. Would the Atlantic sign up a writer who had written that Jews should be murdered? Bosnians? Muslims? Atheists? Tutsis? I doubt it. It’s weird that women are apparently an exception.

It's almost like he told @TheAtlantic exactly what to expect from him and they failed to listen to his literal words and the words of all of the women who pointed them out. Go figure.

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Allison Meier at Hyperallergic tells us about a database project to collect fugitive slave ads, which are themselves a source of information on slaves and slavery.

Readers of the May 24, 1796 Pennsylvania Gazette found an advertisement offering ten dollars to any person who would apprehend Oney Judge, an enslaved woman who had fled from President George Washington’s Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon. The notice described her in detail as a “light mulatto girl, much freckled, with very black eyes and bushy black hair,” as well as her skills at mending clothes, and that she “may attempt to escape by water … it is probable she will attempt to pass as a free woman, and has, it is said,