Articles chosen with care. Comments welcomed. Linked articles in bold purple
◆ Poland gives Trump enthusiastic greeting. Why?
Radio Poland gives part of the answer: He says US stands firmly behind “mutual defense” commitment
Comment: The main answer is that they perceive him as tough and ready to deter Russia, which the Poles (understandably) see as militarily aggressive and expansionist.
◆ Rep. Steve Scalise, who survived assassination attempt, back in intensive care for infection (CNN)
He barely survived the initial injuries, was recovering well until this setback, which puts him in “serious” condition in the ICU
◆ Anarchists, left-wing radicals plan massive demonstrations in Hamburg, site of G20 meetings (Washington Post)
Up to 100,000 protesters [plan to] turn the old merchant city into a site of a global contest over capitalism, the environment and ethnic nationalism. . . .
Warning of violence, security officials say the demonstration could draw as many as 8,000 members of the militant left, from Germany and beyond. Among its participants will be “black bloc” demonstrators with anarchist sympathies who wear dark clothes and cover their faces. Authorities said their concerns mounted following the discovery of materials used to prepare molotov cocktails, along with knives, slingshots and baseball bats. –Washington Post
Comment: Peaceful protests are fine, of course, but not violent one. Those should be contained, with arrests leading to stiff sentences. People who organized the violence should be dealt with harshly by the courts.
◆ Japan and Europe agree on broad outlines of huge trade deal (Washington Post)
will cover nearly 30 percent of the global economy, 10 percent of the world’s population and 40 percent of global trade. –Washington Post
Comment: The Post says it is aimed at Trump. Partly true. But it is also aimed at Brexit. But its main aim is simpler than these strategic ploys: it is aimed at increasing income in Europe and Japan.
◆ Air pollution reduces solar power output (KUOW)
The story began with a Duke scientist noticing the Taj Mahal had to be cleaned every few years because of pollution deposits.
Bottom line: cleaning the solar panels regularly helps.
Comment: It seems to obvious; I was struck that scientists seem not to have noticed it earlier.
Clinton friend and now Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe was CEO of this company when this doozy was pulled off.
Comment: The problem with targeted subsidies is that they always favor insiders. That’s true even when the projects succeed.
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A new wave of leaks targeting the Trump administration has actively endangered ongoing intelligence and military operations being conducted by the United States and its allies, sparking anger and concern inside and outside the White House. –Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon
that it is “a war to safeguard the dignity of the Lebanese and Arab people.” The statement declared Hezbollah’s murderous campaign a “heroic operation.”
If Venezuela was plunged into chaos and violence and the Bolivarian Revolution destroyed, we would go to combat,” Maduro said to a crowd of supporters, referring to the socialist, populist platform that transformed Venezuela under his charismatic predecessor, Hugo Chávez. “We would never give up, and what couldn’t be done with votes, we would do with weapons. We would liberate the fatherland with weapons.” –Washington Post
They will treat the testimony like a Rorschach test, seeing in it whatever preconceived mental images they have.
I’ve never been sold on that idea and preferred to open the appointment process to the best man . . . for the job, and in the cases of Judge William Webster and Robert Mueller I think they served the FBI very effectively, respectfully and professionally as “outsiders” during their tenures as Director of the FBI. Both stayed out of the limelight, projected a positive image and never embarrassed the FBI.
Comment: 
Amazon doesn’t necessarily need a huge swell of lower-income shoppers to join Prime for the effort to pay off. Even if Amazon were to get a tiny fraction of them hooked on Prime, which offers free two-day shipping on millions of items, it could pay off in the long run because Prime customers are highly loyal. –Business Insider
The arguments for the agreement are that America has isolated itself from a global movement, backed by scientists, that supports collective action to slow global warming, some of it man-made.
The Paris deal was never a treaty, only a presidential agreement (like the Iran Deal). After all, treaties need ratification, and that’s a higher hurdle. Why not just let the President sign it himself, call it something besides a treaty, and skip that whole pesky ratification thingy?
Purdue President Mitch Daniels painted the move as Purdue’s ticket into the future.
If the United States withdraws from the accord, it would find itself in farcically lonely company. The pact was signed by 195 countries, with only Nicaragua and Syria bowing out. . . . Some climate experts actually suggest that, given Trump’s steady dismantling of environmental protections, it’s better for the United States to leave the pact altogether than to undermine it from within.
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In the short term, this lowers the temperature. Anybody who faces legal jeopardy will avoid testifying to Congress while Mueller is on the case. That leaves the stage to Comey, who wants to testify and take his revenge in public for the shabby way he was treated.
It should never be done for lesser reasons: because you think Pence would be a more stable and reasonable leader, because you think Democrats would do a better job, or because you have deep (and sincere) questions about Trump’s policies or personality. He was elected President of the United States for a four-year term. Unless he committed a serious crime to win that election or has committed one since then (such as obstructing justice), or has a debilitating illness, then we live with the voters’ choice in 2016.
Trey Gowdy keeps rising
North Korea fires another missile, says (probably falsely) it can launch nuclear weapons.
The 1996 Congressional Review Act gave Republicans the power to reverse end-of-term rules by the president with a simple majority, within a set time.
The bipartisan agreement includes policy victories for Democrats, whose votes will be necessary to pass the measure in the Senate, as well as $12.5 billion in new military spending and $1.5 billion more for border security requested by Republican leaders in Congress. –Washington Post
Anyone who has read the 2014 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change knows that, while the modest (0.85 degrees Celsius, or about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warming of the Northern Hemisphere since 1880 is indisputable, as is the human influence on that warming, much else that passes as accepted fact is really a matter of probabilities. That’s especially true of the sophisticated but fallible models and simulations by which scientists attempt to peer into the climate future. To say this isn’t to deny science. It’s to acknowledge it honestly.
The appalling terrorist assaults perpetrated by ISIS in Europe have led to significant changes in the European state of mind. By exposing the vulnerability of EU state borders, they have prompted rudimentary initiatives to secure those borders and increase counter-terror cooperation among EU member states, while also boosting the popularity of far-right parties.
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Hat tip to Ed Vidal 
rian civil war has left more than 400,000 people dead, among them graveyards full of children and innocent noncombatants. About half the country’s 23 million people have been left homeless, and of those, 4 million have been driven abroad (some of them contributing to Europe’s refugee crisis and its consequent rightward political shift). The war occurred for many complex reasons, including social and political ones. The severest drought in recorded modern Syrian history in 2007–10, however, made its contribution. –Juan Cole
Hat Tip: Daniel Pipes and Campus Watch.