AG LYNCH’S PHOENIX AIRPLANE CHAT WITH SLICK WILLIE: My latest Observer.com essay. The meet-up between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton is an explosive story mainstream media cannot resist. Given Ms. Lynch’s official position and the current legal circumstances facing Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Phoenix Airplane Chat was a PAC of sorts, a political action conference or –my preferred word, connivance–a complete, unapologetic abuse of government power where party and personal interest trampled the rule of law. Remember that next time you hear the Democrats call an opponent a fascist, which, these days, roughly translates as an imperious abuser of power the Left doesn’t like.

HMM: Researchers just linked chronic fatigue to changes in gut bacteria.

AT AMAZON, deals in clothing for men. Also for women.

Plus, save on Car Care.

WHICH ONE ARE YOU: IDEOLOGUE OR PRAGMATIST? Jonah Goldberg hosts the latest video from Prager University:

THE NEW YORK OBSERVER has a breaking story on the Lynch-Clinton meeting.

Critical paragraph:

According to this source, whose credentials were checked and confirmed by the Observer with sources inside both the FBI and the United States Secret Service, the Attorney General was caught completely off-guard by the meeting and the source dismisses suggestions that have been raised alleging that she waited there to see Mr. Clinton or accommodated his request to see him. In fact, it seems from this source that it was Mr. Clinton who was maneuvering for face time with the Attorney General, because his plane had been scheduled to leave before hers arrived.

As Glenn says, read the whole thing. Full disclosure: I frequently write for The Observer. An essay I wrote on the Lynch-Clinton confab will appear in the publication.

POLICE: GUNMEN HOLDING PEOPLE HOSTAGE IN BANGLADESH RESTAURANT. “The Dhaka Tribune said at least 20 people had been taken hostage, but that was also unconfirmed…There are also unconfirmed reports that [OMITTED – ED] is taking credit for the attack, per BBC.”

UPDATE: “Worker who escaped reported gunmen shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they fired,” the London Daily Mail reports.

I JUST HOPE THE SCIENTISTS ARE WEARING THE RIGHT SHIRTS: End is nigh for Rosetta: Spacecraft will meet its end by crashing into a comet.

MEH. HOW MANY HUMAN-CAUSED AUTO DEATHS HAPPENED WITHIN A 100-MILE RADIUS THAT SAME DAY? First Known Tesla Autopilot Death Spurs Federal Investigation.

KEEPING AMERICA SAFE, BULLYING ONE HANDICAPPED TEEN AT A TIME: Shocking: Disabled Teen Returning From St. Jude’s Hospital Bloodied and Arrested by TSA.

AT AMAZON, DASH Buttons Galore. They keep promoting these, but does anyone actually use them?

I’M A LUMBERJACK AND IT’S OKAY: The 20 Most Impressive Wooden Structures in the World.

JOHN SCHINDLER: Moscow Rules of Espionage Go Global—If You Think It’s KGB, It Is.

“Punching back twice as hard” would send Putin a valuable message, but Obama reserves that rule strictly for America’s real enemies, like Republicans.

HMM: More Upheaval on Donald Trump’s Team as Two Staff Members Resign.

Kevin Kellems, who was hired on June 20 to oversee the campaign’s surrogate division — supporters on the team who defend Mr. Trump and promote his message publicly — resigned on Thursday, and Erica Freeman, who similarly dealt with surrogates, also quit.

In his resignation letter, which was shared with some staff members, Mr. Kellems acknowledged just how short his stint with the campaign had been.

“While brief, it has been an interesting experience, and am proud of the contributions made through our early-phase project endeavors,” wrote Mr. Kellems, who advised former House Speaker Newt Gingrich during his 2012 presidential campaign and also served as the communications director for former Vice President Dick Cheney.

He added: “Also have enjoyed meeting some fine and dedicated individuals throughout the organization. Look forward to running across several of you going forward.”

Mr. Kellems was said to have been frustrated with the dysfunction of the campaign’s senior leadership.

We’re less than three weeks out from the convention.

INCREASINGLY, IT SEEMS LIKE IT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF FEMINISM: Cathy Young: Feminists treat men badly. It’s bad for feminism. “Male faults are stated as sweeping condemnations; objecting to such generalizations is taken as a sign of complicity. Meanwhile, similar indictments of women would be considered grossly misogynistic.”

LORETTA LYNCH MORPHED INTO GEORGE COSTANZA SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: ‘I Wouldn’t Do It Again’: Lynch Admits Meeting With Bill Clinton ‘Raises Questions And Concerns.’

“Was that wrong? Should I have not done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing was frowned upon, you know, ‘cause I’ve worked in a lot of offices and I tell you people do that all the time.”

SOUNDS LIKE A GEORGIA JUDGE NEEDS TO BE REMOVED FROM THE BENCH: North Georgia newspaper publisher jailed over open records request.

A North Georgia newspaper publisher last week was indicted on a felony charge and jailed overnight – for filing an open-records request.

Fannin Focus publisher Mark Thomason, along with his attorney Russell Stookey, were arrested on Friday and charged with attempted identity fraud and identity fraud. Thomason was also accused of making a false statement in his records request.

Thomason’s relentless pursuit of public records relating to the local Superior Court has incensed the court’s chief judge, Brenda Weaver, who also chairs the state Judicial Qualifications Commission. Weaver took the matter to the district attorney, who obtained the indictments.

And the DA, too, by all appearances. Plus:

Thomason and Stookey are out on $10,000 bond and have a long list of things they cannot do or things they must do to avoid going to jail until their trials. On Thursday, for example, Thomason reported to a pretrial center and was told that he may have to submit to a random drug test – a condition of the bond on which he was released from jail last Saturday.

Alison Sosebee, district attorney in the three counties in the Appalachian Judicial Circuit, and Judge Weaver say the charges are justified. Weaver said she resented Thomason’s attacks on her character in his weekly newspaper and in conversations with her constituents.

“I don’t react well when my honesty is questioned,” Weaver said.

She said others in the community were using Thomason to get at her. “It’s clear this is a personal vendetta against me,” she said. “I don’t know how else to explain that.”

I question your fitness to sit on the bench, or to hold a law license.

GUN CONTROL IS ABOUT CULTURE WAR, NOT REAL WAR: Oh, so European-style gun control didn’t stop these extremists from storing rifles near this German mosque, huh?

OUR BEST MINDS HAVE BEEN LURED INTO INTERNET PLATFORMS OPTIMIZED FOR PROPAGANDA, SURVEILLANCE, AND SOCIAL CONTROL: Tech Slowdown Threatens the American Dream: Despite the allure of apps and social media, today’s digital technologies are doing little to generate the kind of prosperity that previous generations enjoyed.

WHO KNEW THE PAULINE KAEL CLUB HAD A UK CHAPTER? New Dating App Strives To Make Sure Brexit ‘Remainers’ Only Breed With Each Other.

THE ENEMY DOESN’T COORDINATE WITH YOUR NARRATIVE. Richard Fernandez on Benghazi and its aftermath:

Basically, the Benghazi consulate was overrun because the administration had established an embassy beyond the wire and outside the artillery fan. They had deceived themselves into thinking it was tenable. They entrusted its defense to unreliable militias. When it was attacked, they had no forces within practical range of relief. To explain the resulting disaster, they peddled a fairy tale which even they did not believe.  It was all wishful thinking from beginning to end and beyond. We are now in that beyond.

And the Secretary of State on duty when the attack occurred is likely to be our next president, in the ultimate example of failing upward.

Read the whole thing.

SO JOHN BANZHAF’S ETHICS COMPLAINT AGAINST BALTIMORE PROSECUTOR MARILYN MOSBY provides an example of how people on the right might respond to Democratic lawfare in things like the McDonnell, Rick Perry, or Tom DeLay cases. Such complaints may or may not ultimately succeed, but they put a cloud over the prosecution and prosecutors, and draw attention to their misbehavior. Plus — as Democratic operatives well know, but all-to-seldom experience personally — the process itself is the punishment.

Hey, someone could even file a complaint over Loretta Lynch’s clandestine meeting with Bill Clinton . . .

ONE PERCENTER WATCH: UC Berkeley ‘income inequality’ experts earn more than $300,000 a year.

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-OWNED INSTITUTIONS SUCH CESSPITS OF MISOGYNY AND BULLYING? Life at Facebook exposed:

Facebook has long been accused of being a sexist workplace and letting founder Mark Zuckerberg rule with an iron fist in a velvet perk-filled glove.

But as far as one ex-employee is concerned, the glove is now definitely off.

Antonio Garcia Martinez, a former Facebook advertising manager  who was fired two years ago, claims that working at the social network was like being in a cult akin to North Korea with Zuckerberg its unquestioned leader.

Female employees were told not to wear clothing that might be ‘distracting’ to male workers, human resource managers gave a speech during initiation for new employees in which they told women that there was a dress code which they had to stick to.

They also pulled women aside and ‘read them the riot act’ if their skirts were too short.

Men do not appear to have been given the same treatment according to Martinez’ new tell-all book, ‘Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley’, published by Harper Collins.

Plus an evergreen exit quote: “I trusted you to create art and what you f***ing did was vandalize!”

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: Autocide — The first known death in a self-driving car.