PRIVACY: Apple bans developers from creating, selling user Contacts databases. “One less thing developers can do with Contacts information after they have it.”

IT COULDN’T BE MUCH WORSE: A North Korean Pact Will Be Nothing Like the Iran Deal.

CHUTZPAH: Taliban Claim U.S. Violated Their Free Speech with Airstrikes on ‘Voice of Shariah’ Station.

STUDENTS SEEM TO BELIEVE THIS IS STILL AMERICA: A huge new FIRE survey, conducted by YouGov, indicates overwhelming support among students for due process protections on campus. For example, a whopping 85% seem to believe that they should be presumed innocent until proven guilty (the cheek!), yet a FIRE report on policies at the top 53 schools last year discovered that only 30% of them bothered to guarantee students this extremely basic right in campus proceedings. It might be too much to expect every college to hit Learned Hand levels of jurisprudence, but this Keyrock-level stuff should be plenty achievable.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Bad Iranian Deal Was Always Going to Get Worse.

The deal, after all, was a monstrosity born out of desperation for an Obama signature legacy. Or was it a product of an ahistorical, naïve, and therapeutic view of human nature — assuming that even theocrats and thugs view generosity as outreach to be reciprocated in kind rather than as abject proof of weakness to be exploited to the fullest? Or worse still, the deal was the manifestation of an unhinged view of the Middle East. For Obama, a revolutionary Shiite and Persian Iran was justified in seeking parity in the Middle East and attempting to carve out a legitimate sphere of influence. The ascendance of such an Iranian crescent, at least in the view of the Obama administration, would “check” the influence of both democratic Israel and the so-called more moderate authoritarian Sunni regimes in the Gulf and Egypt and Jordan. To believe in such a yarn, Obama would have to have believed either in some sort of dramatic and looming Iranian revolution to overthrow the mullahs, or an absurd theocratic enlightenment, or that whatever Iran did would not be as pernicious as what its enemies in the Middle East were doing. No matter: For all practical purposes, the U.S. after 2015 was a de facto partner of the Iranian regime and quite astonishingly assumed that the American-hating, anti-Semitic regime “could be a very successful regional power.”

Just think of them as Iranian intelligence agents with American security credentials, and you won’t go far wrong.

AT AMAZON, save on Men’s Socks.

STEIN’S LAW: Feds Collect Record Individual Income Taxes Through May; Still Run $532.2B Deficit.

That’s more than half a trillion dollars in just five months.

HE’S RIGHT: Dershowitz Blasts the ACLU for Becoming a ‘Hard-Left Political Advocacy Group.’ “The ACLU is no longer a neutral defender of everyone’s civil liberties. It has morphed into a hyper-partisan, hard-left political advocacy group,”

WORST. LEGAL ARGUMENT. EVER. “‘Provocative’ pictures of Meghan Markle show payout over topless Kate Middleton photos was wrong, magazine to argue.”

“[The magazine’s] lawyers will argue that it is “hypocritical” to award such a large sum to the Duke and Duchess when other members of the Royal family “are happy with sexy photos”, according to sources close to the case.”

Translation: Well, they didn’t mind having their private parts published, so what’s your problem?

MARGOT CLEVELAND: What To Look For In The Inspector General’s Report About DOJ And FBI Election Interference.

On the big picture, there will be two final take-aways of note from Horowitz’s report: first, whether the IG’s conclusions raise the possibility of criminal prosecution and, if so, of whom. The IG has already referred a criminal case against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe to DC’s U.S. attorney’s office. That was based on Horowitz’s findings that McCabe was responsible for leaks to the Wall Street Journal but lied about his role both to his former boss, FBI director James Comey, and to investigators.

While the IG report will not announce what criminal referrals, if any, have been made, the findings will provide insight, just as did the announcement that McCabe demonstrated a “lack of candor” in his conversations with Comey and investigators.

And:

Pay Attention to Comey’s Clinton Exoneration Memo

Further, in discussing “certain underlying investigative decisions were based on improper considerations,” look for the IG report to focus on Comey’s drafting of a memo exonerating Hillary Clinton while the probe was still ongoing and before the FBI had interviewed Hillary and two of her top aides. How the FBI handled those interviews will be another area likely discussed, given criticism already leveled at the FBI for allowing Hillary to be interviewed without swearing an oath and the investigators’ decision to grant Hillary’s aides immunity.

The report will also likely delve into the process by which changes were made to the draft memo, which originally described Clinton’s actions as “grossly negligent” before the FBI toned the charges down to “extremely careless.” The “grossly negligent” label coincided with the statutory requirement for criminal intent, likely explaining the modification. The question is whether Horowitz uncovered any evidence that those supposedly investigating Clinton altered the memo for that reason.

More at the link, and much more tomorrow when the report is released.

DAY ENDS IN “Y:” Berkeley Declares A ‘Climate Emergency,’ Calls For Population Control.

Man, I hate summertime reruns. Get some fresh programming on the late show, huh?

LOONIE: Trump Threatens People of Canada With the Loss of ‘A Lot of Money.’ “Everyone knows that inside every Canadian, an American is screaming to get out.”

Heh.

“H&R BLOCK INC. IS ONE COMPANY NOT HAPPY WITH THE TRUMP TAX CUTS:” H&R Block Shares Plunge as Simpler Tax Code Weighs on Forecast.

Filling out tax forms shouldn’t be like trying to lock down the whereabouts of Pepe Silvia.

THE DEEP HISTORY BEHIND THE TRUMP-KIM SINGAPORE SUMMIT.

SCOTT ADAMS: Trump Video Message To Kim “Might Be The Best Thing Anybody Ever Did In A Negotiation, Period.”

And here it is:

MATTHEW PETERSON: Thank God Trump Isn’t a Foreign Policy Expert.

In fact, many on the Right and Left over the past two years have suggested their main worry about Donald Trump is the fact he now represents America to the rest of the world and will cause a devastating disaster, nuclear or otherwise.

I propose some simple, evaluative questions and a thought experiment to set the minds of the nation at ease the morning after the most significant moment of the Trump presidency.

Does Donald Trump have enough experience and expert wisdom to give away as much to North Korea as the American foreign-policy establishment, with all its experience, top-shelf degrees, and stratospheric test scores, has given away in the past 30 years?

Does Donald Trump have enough experience and expert wisdom to keep the hostile stalemate the American foreign-policy establishment created and fostered with North Korea since America first waged the Korean War?

For that matter, does Trump even have the experience and caste of mind to start a war, say, in the Middle East, that costs trillions of dollars and disrupts and inflames the region as President Bush and his entourage did? Does he even know how?

Does Trump have the expertise to take over the wreckage of such a war and support jihadist rebels, help create ISIS and a global refugee crisis, and give Russia the most power it’s had in the region since the peak of the Cold War, like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did?

The truth may alarm you. Trump has never even started a war before—not even a little one.

As the wise old man said: “Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.”

HMM: Taliban Denies It Is in ‘Secret Talks’ With NATO.

Bill Roggio:

“We reject the mentioned claim and emphasize that no such secret process exists,” Zabihullah stated. He then postulated that Afghan officials may be negotiating with Taliban impostors.

“But it is entirely plausible that some supposed Mujahideen faces or materialistic persons could have tricked the desperate and nescient Kabul regime into believing they are Mujahideen representatives. This however is a different issue and such people have no relations with the Mujahideen of Islamic Emirate,” he said.

Zabihullah’s assertion that Afghan officials may be negotiating with sham Taliban is not as far fetched as it seems. In 2010, Afghan and U.S. officials thought they were negotiating with Mullah Mansour, who at the time was the deputy to then Taliban emir Mulla Omar (Mansour replaced Omar as Taliban Emir after he died in 2013). The would-be Mansour even met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai before he was discovered to be a charlatan.

It’s complicated.

BREAKING — ACTIVATE DRUDGE SIREN, CLEAR THE AIRWAVES: Raccoon that scaled skyscraper in downtown St. Paul is safe and sound.

Stand down on hashtag #mprraccoon. Repeat: Stand down on hashtag #mprraccoon.

NOT OUR KIND, DEAR: Why does the commentariat so despise Trump’s success?

The bizarre thing about the anti-Trump response to the Singapore summit is how simple-minded it is in its sophistication. Donald Trump clearly understands the tentative exploratory nature of his diplomatic initiative. He understands that the diplomacy might not work. But the possibility of effecting the denuclearisation of North Korea is too great an opportunity to pass up. It is a possibility, which means that it might fail. That’s one reason Trump is maintaining the tough sanctions that are imposed against North Korea. His strategy of maximum pressure brought Kim to the bargaining table. Let’s see what else it can do.

Notwithstanding the cavils of the ATMC, Trump won major concessions from Kim. The agreement they signed calls for the rapid, complete, and verifiable denuclearisation of the country. In a late addition to the agreement, it also calls for the destruction of a major missile test site. Kim also agreed to return the remains of some 6000 American dead to their families.

Will all of this happen? Stay tuned. Two final thoughts. One, this is what bold diplomacy looks like. It is two parts theatre, one part substantive agreement. You don’t get the result you want instantly. It is, to use a word Trump deployed a week or two before the summit, a “process.” You don’t get a reformation of human rights and McDonald’s and the beach-front condos all at once. You don’t even get all the military concessions all at once. But you start the ball rolling. You say nice things about Kim. You tell the world that he is “talented,” that only “one in ten-thousand” young men would have been able to step into the role and maintain power as he has. You flatter him. “Do you see Kim Jong-un as an equal?” one reporter asked. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make the world a safer place,” Trump responded, even share a stage with him. Who is the bigger man, the clucking reporter or Donald Trump?

It’s been embarrassing to witness.

GOLDENHAIR: “Trump. . .  Donald Trump.” (Video.)

ROGER SIMON ON TRUMP’S NEW FOREIGN POLICY: The Cooptation Doctrine.

Read the whole thing.

CHANGE? At Least 400 LGBT Candidates Vowing Political Wave This Campaign Season. “Katie Hill is more than one of the Victory Fund’s favored candidates. Democrats are hoping she will be able to defeat Knight, a Republican seeking his third term in Congress.”

WELL, GOOD: Senate to Review Any Future North Korea Arms Treaty.

Sen. Jim Risch (R., Idaho), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he has discussed future Senate approval of a treaty with President Trump and his senior advisers regarding new arms talks with North Korea.

“We have been taken by the North Koreans at least a couple of times, and that’s not going to happen again,” Risch said in a meeting with reporters on Monday.

Senators were “deeply, deeply disappointed” by the Obama administration’s failure to submit the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to the Senate for debate and vote on ratification.

“We all know how that ended,” he said. “I think it would have been different had we had a different role in that.”

Both houses of Congress need to claw back the powers they surrendered to the Executive branch.

#METOO: Democratic candidate who admitted to domestic abuse wins South Carolina congressional primary. “A congressional candidate in South Carolina who admitted to abusing his ex-wife 45 years ago and lost all support from national and state Democrats has won his Democratic primary, CNN projects.”

Via Derek Hunter who tweets, “If he were a Republican, every Republican would be asked about this, repeatedly, like Romney was asked about Akin several times. I wonder if any Democrat will be asked about this once, let alone for days on end. Doubt it.”