The Commentariat -- Sept. 17, 2013

Carol Morello, et al., of the Washington Post: "At least 13 people are dead and several others were wounded after a gunman opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, police said, spreading fear and chaos across the region as authorities sought to contain the panic. The incident, in which the death toll rose almost hourly, represents the single worst loss of life in the District since an airliner plunged into the Potomac River in 1982, killing 78.... The suspected shooter, identified by the FBI as Aaron Alexis, 34, living in Fort Worth, is among the 13 dead. Alexis was a military contractor, one official said.... [D.C. Police Chief Cathy L.] Lanier described the other possible suspect, who has not been located, as a black man in his 40s with gray sideburns, wearing an olive-drab military-style uniform. He, and the man who was cleared, came under suspicion when they were seen on surveillance videos." ...

... Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "The dead gunman in Monday's shooting at the Washington Navy Yard is Aaron Alexis, 34, a Navy veteran who was discharged after he was arrested in a shooting incident -- but was later hired by a government subcontractor. Police said it was unclear if Alexis acted alone, or how he accessed the tightly guarded Navy Yard.... Alexis, a native of New York City, worked for a company called The Experts, a subcontractor to Hewlett Packard on a federal contract to work on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet network, according to a statement from Hewlett Packard. It was unclear if Alexis was still employed by that subcontractor, or if his work took him to the Navy Yard." ...

... The Post has a liveblog of developments here. ...

... Liz Goodwin of Yahoo! News: "Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has postponed a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on 'stand your ground' self defense gun laws slated for Tuesday morning in the wake of Monday's shooting at the nearby Navy Yard complex that's left at least 13 dead, included the suspected gunman." ...

... Zack Beauchamp of Think Progress: "David Frum is a former Bush Administration speechwriter and one of the loudest conservative voices arguing in favor of new laws targeted at reducing gun violence. When the news of the Navy Yard shooting broke Monday morning, Frum took to Twitter to explain the rules that opponents of gun law reform attempt to impose on conversations about it." CW: Frum's observations are exactly right. ...

     ... Winger Charles C. W. Cooke of the National Review is not amused.

CW: This is extremely weird. In a New York Times report I linked yesterday, Rick Gladstone & Nick Cumming-Bruce led with: "Rockets armed with the banned chemical nerve agent sarin were used in a mass killing near Damascus on Aug. 21, United Nations chemical weapons inspectors reported Monday in the first official confirmation by nonpartisan scientific experts that such munitions had been deployed in the Syria conflict.... The widely awaited report did not ascribe blame for the attack...." ...

     ... NOW, however, that same story at the same link has a new reporter -- Cumming-Bruce is merely a contributor & C. J. Chivers shares the byline with Gladstone -- and the new lede contradicts the original lede: "A United Nations report released on Monday confirmed that a deadly chemical arms attack caused a mass killing in Syria last month and for the first time provided extensive forensic details of the weapons used, which strongly implicated the Syrian government. While the report's authors did not assign blame for the attack on the outskirts of Damascus, the details it documented included the large size and particular shape of the munitions and the precise direction from which two of them had been fired. Taken together, that information appeared to undercut arguments by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria that rebel forces, who are not known to possess such weapons or the training or ability to use them, had been responsible."

Oliver Knox of Yahoo! News: "President Barack Obama on Monday formally cleared the way for the U.S. to send equipment and training to vetted Syrian rebels, enabling them to resist a chemical weapons attack, the White House said. Obama issued a memorandum to Secretary of State John Kerry saying that such assistance 'is essential to the national security interests of the United States.'"

Jackie Calmes & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Obama on Monday seized on the fifth anniversary of the 2008 financial collapse to warn that House Republicans would reverse the gains made and willfully cause 'economic chaos' with the uncompromising stands they have staked out on looming budget deadlines." Here are the President's full remarks, including his remarks on the shooting at the Navy Yard. CW: I embedded this speech as two separate videos in yesterday's Commentariat:

David Graham of the Atlantic: "a small team of Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee ... did Obama in" on the likely Summers nomination. "In July, almost a third of the Democrats in the Senate sent a letter to Obama imploring him to appoint Janet Yellen to the job instead.... Obama was reportedly angry at the letter, and dispatched aides to Capitol Hill to vent and get the troops in line. While Majority Leader Harry Reid promised to support whomever the president picked, he apparently wasn't able to keep his caucus completely in line.... Maybe Republicans don't have a monopoly on disarray after all." ...

... Felix Salmon of Reuters: "The real lesson of the past few months, however, is that the Fed chairmanship should never become a political football. If Obama wanted to nominate Summers, he should have just done so, rather than raising a trial balloon in July and then letting it slowly deflate."

Noam Scheiber of the New Republic: "This time, there really will be a government shutdown. What makes this different is that, in addition to having carved out hardline positions, neither side has an incentive to back down. ...

... Digby: Conservative Republicans can't decide if President Obama is "an implacable fascist dictator attempting to destroy the country" or a weaking who will back down in a standoff with Congress. "... it's hard not to laugh at people who believe a fascist crypto-Muslim anti-American dictator will back down in the face of Peter King on his signature initiative. These are not serious or smart people."

Ben Protess & Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay more than $800 million to a host of government agencies in Washington and London -- and make a ground-breaking admission of wrongdoing -- to settle allegations stemming from a multibillion-dollar trading loss, people briefed on the matter said.

Julian Pecquet of the Hill: "Democrats and Republicans are trading accusations of crass political opportunism as the House rekindles its investigation into the terror attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) leaked a report over the weekend taking aim at the State Department's independent probe. The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), responded with his own list of the 'Top Ten Unfounded Allegations on Benghazi.'"

Gubernatorial Race

Rick Pearson of the Chicago Tribune: "Bill Daley abruptly ended his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor [of Illinois] today, telling the Tribune that a lifetime in politics had not prepared him for the 'enormity' of his first run for office and the challenge of leading the state through difficult times. Daley, a member of two White House administrations, a presidential campaign manager and the son and brother of two former Chicago mayors, dropped out of the race less than four months after declaring his political resume gave him the best credentials to replace Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn."

Local News

Michael Grynbaum & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "In a coronation of sorts on the steps of City Hall, the state's Democratic leaders, eager to retake the [New York City] mayor's office after almost two decades out of power, feted [Bill] de Blasio as a bold new messenger for their party -- even as they praised William C. Thompson Jr., the second-place primary finisher who had held out nearly a week before announcing his withdrawal."

News Ledes

New Orleans Times-Picayune: "Citing the 'grotesque' misconduct of federal prosecutors, a judge on Tuesday granted a new trial for five former New Orleans Police Department officers convicted in the deadly shootings at the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent cover-up.... The order grants a new trial for former police officers Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso as well as Arthur Kaufman, who was convicted of orchestrating the cover-up after being assigned to investigate the shooting. All were tried and convicted in 2011 for their roles."

Reuters: "Colorado authorities coping with the aftermath of last week's deadly downpours stepped up the search for victims left stranded in the foothills of the Rockies and evacuations of prairie towns in danger of being swamped as the flood crest moved downstream."

New Jersey Star-Ledger: "The fire that destroyed dozens of businesses along the boardwalk in Seaside Park and Seaside Heights Thursday was sparked by an electrical malfunction, investigators confirmed at a press conference this afternoon. Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato said fire investigators are confident that electrical wiring was to blame, saying the wiring was apparently damaged by exposure to salt water and sand during and after Hurricane Sandy."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 16, 2013

President Obama on the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers:

Buh-Bye, Larry!

** Annie Lowrey & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Lawrence H. Summers, one of President Obama’s closest economic confidantes and a former Treasury secretary, has withdrawn his name from consideration for the position of chairman of the Federal Reserve amid rising opposition from Mr. Obama's own Democratic allies on Capitol Hill. In a statement released by the White House on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Obama said he had accepted the decision by his friend even as he praised him for helping to rescue the country from economic disaster early in the president's term." Thanks to contributor MAG for the heads-up. Update. The Times has since expanded its story & added Binyamin Appelbaum to the byline. ...

... Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post has much more: "... amid an intensifying uproar of liberal Democrats and left-wing groups opposed to his nomination, Summers decided to withdraw his name on Sunday, telephoning the president to tell him his decision. When word of Summers's candidacy first circulated, liberals erupted, furious at what they said was his record of supporting deregulation in the Clinton administration. Obama took to defending him when questioned on Capitol Hill.... In order to buy time and cool tensions, the White House announced that no decision would be made until the fall. But that gave only space for Summers's opponents to strengthen the opposition to his candidacy, with four of the 12 Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee, which would confirm Summers, signaling opposition." Here's Summers' letter to the President. ...

... CW: According to a Reuters report, published Friday, the four Democratic Senators on the banking committee who opposed Summers were Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Jeff Merkeley (Oregon), Jon Tester (Montana), AND "Colleagues of [Elizabeth] Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, expect her to vote against Summers if he is nominated.... Sources said she has expressed concerns about Summers to her colleagues and had raised them with people in the White House. She has stayed silent out of respect for Obama." CW: Maybe Sen. Warren, out of respect for her former Harvard colleague, told Larry there was no way in hell she would vote for his nomination. ...

... Update. Ben White of Politico: "During their [phone] call, Summers told Obama he believed there was now too much political opposition to his nomination to move forward, a person familiar with the phone call said. Summers told Obama that his nomination now would create too much political uncertainty for the Fed and could thus be damaging to the economy. Obama accepted Summers' rationale and did not attempt to convince him to continue as a candidate for the Fed job, the person said." ...

... Charles Pierce: "Senator Professor Warren was one of the driving forces behind a genuine populist uprising of liberal Democratic senators ... and that uprising has kicked Larry Summers to the curb. She has quietly carved out a leadership role in the one area in which she is an acknowledged expert.... Quite simply, she is doing what she said she would do when she was running for the Senate. She has enough allies to get done a lot of what she wants to get done. Anything this president -- or his successor -- wants to do as far as national economic policy now has to go through her, and through the coalition to which she belongs." ...

... Here's Elizabeth Warren's "thwacking speech" (September 9) to the AFL-CIO to which Pierce refers:

... ** John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "In recent weeks, numerous stories appeared that quoted White House and Treasury Department insiders saying how much the President respected Summers ... and how much he valued his advice. But we already knew that. The key question was ... how much political capital [Obama] would be willing to invest in landing him at the Fed. If you looked at the issue in terms of cold political calculus, which is how Presidential aides look at most things, it was pretty clear which way the cost-benefit analysis would come out.... It's only reasonable to speculate that the White House political shop prevailed upon the President to give up on nominating Summers, that he reluctantly agreed, and that somebody told Big Larry the news and gave him the option of withdrawing gracefully before another name was announced." ...

... Scott Lemieux in Lawyers, Guns & Money: "Now one has to hope that Obama will do the right thing and nominate Yellen rather than spitefully picking a white guy worse than Summers (such as Donald Kohn.)" ...

... Kathleen Geier of Washington Monthly: "Members of the Fed are mostly drawn from the pool of distinguished economists, so given women's agonizingly slow progress within the econ, it may be a long time before another woman is as well-positioned as Yellen to break the Fed's glass ceiling." ...

... CW: I agree with Steve M. of NMMNB in his assessment of why Larry dropped out (and with contributor Kate M. who doesn't let us forget all the millions Larry will make "consulting" Wall Street firms), but I'm not sure President Obama will pass over Yellen for Alan Greenspan acolyte Donald Kohn, as Steve M. fears. As we found out this week, Obama is not afraid of "looking weak," & I don't want to think he would sink the economy just so his economic team could keep that "No Girls Allowed" sign on their club door. We'll see. ...

... Evan McMorris-Santoro: "... the end of Summers’ bid isn’t the end of progressive pressure on Obama. [Women's and] progressive leaders won't be happy until current Fed vice chair Janet Yellen has the Fed job."

NEW. Rick Gladstone & Nick Cumming-Bruce of the New York Times: "Rockets armed with the banned chemical nerve agent sarin were used in a mass killing near Damascus on Aug. 21, United Nations chemical weapons inspectors reported Monday in the first official confirmation by nonpartisan scientific experts that such munitions had been deployed in the Syria conflict.... The widely awaited report did not ascribe blame for the attack...." ...

... Reuters: "France, Britain and the US have agreed to seek a 'strong and robust' UN resolution that sets precise and binding deadlines on the removal of Syria's chemical weapons, the office of the French president, François Hollande, said, emerging from talks with John Kerry and William Hague in Paris." ...

... Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "According to a State Department official's account of the negotiations [between the U.S. & Russia] that began Thursday evening and ended Saturday afternoon with a framework accord to secure and eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, it was a deal that almost did not happen. In the end, the deal was written entirely by the U.S. side. The Russians agreed to it in an impromptu poolside conversation between Kerry, Lavrov and their deputies, who dragged over chairs to join them. Kerry made final edits to the draft on an iPad in his hotel room." ...

... Liz Sly of the Washington Post: "At the close of a week hailed in Moscow and Washington as a triumph of diplomacy over war, more than 1,000 people died in the fighting in Syria, the latest casualties in a conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people and can be expected to claim many more." ...

... Jason Easley of PoliticusUSA: "The notion that [Russian President Vladamir] Putin saved [President] Obama is political spin by his critics who are trying to tarnish his diplomatic victory in any way that they can. It is a display of how deeply Republicans hate this president that they are so willing to label Putin a hero, not even a year after their presidential nominee called Russia our biggest rival.... Making Russia shift from denying the existence of Syria's chemical weapons and Assad's responsibility for the attack in less than a week is a sign of presidential strength. To Republicans, diplomacy equals weakness. The right is trying to turn Obama's strength into a shortcoming, and sacrificing facts, the truth, and consistency while trying to score cheap political points." ...

... Anne Barnard of the New York Times: "Both sides in Syria's civil war see the deal to dismantle President Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons stockpiles as a major turning point. It left rebels deflated and government supporters jubilant. And both sides say it means the United States knows Mr. Assad is not going anywhere anytime soon.... Rebels and analysts critical of Mr. Assad's government say he has a well-established pattern of agreeing to diplomatic initiatives to buy time, only to go on escalating the fighting."

If we continue to set a precedent in which a president ... is in a situation in which each time the United States is called upon to pay its bills, the other party can simply sit there and say, 'Well, we're not going to ... pay the bills unless you give us ... what we want,' that changes the constitutional structure of this government entirely. -- Barack Obama, in an ABC News interview aired Sunday (see full interview in yesterday's Commentariat)

It has taken our President the Constitutional Scholar a full two years to figure that out. -- Constant Weader

Benghaaaazi! Karen DeYoung: "House Republicans will begin their promised fall assault on the Obama administration's conduct before, during and after the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, with the publication Monday of a report updating their investigation of the incident and a hearing Wednesday with testimony from a high-ranking State Department official. The report, prepared by majority staff for House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), focuses on what it calls 'shortcomings' in the Accountability Review Board investigation of the attack...."

Food Fight. David Rogers of Politico: "The farm bill is back....The final text of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's proposed cuts from nutrition spending is due out Monday. Floor votes could come this week in what remains a closely fought battle. Fox News has jumped in, distributing scores of videos to Capitol offices of last month's report featuring the surfer deadbeat [buying lobster with his monthly food stamps benefit]." ...

... Samantha Wyatt of Media Matters: "In reality, Greenslate [the surfer dude] bears no resemblance to the overwhelming majority of SNAP recipients, many of whom are elderly, children, or rely on the program for a short time while looking for work.... Fox's attempt to demonize food stamp recipients as a caricature of willful dependency ignores the fact that SNAP kept 4.7 million people out of poverty in 2011, many of whom are children or the elderly. Unlike Greenslate, the majority of these individuals relied on the program not because of laziness, but necessity."

Paul Krugman: "... while there is legitimate uncertainty about what the Fed should be doing, the costs of being too harsh vastly exceed the costs of being too lenient. To err is human; to err on the side of growth is wise." ...

... Emily Alpert of the Los Angeles Times: A "small but surging share of Americans ... identify themselves as 'lower class.' Last year, a record 8.4% of Americans put themselves in that category -- more than at any other time in the four decades that the question has been asked on the General Social Survey...."

Glenn Greenwald: NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander is an insane trekkie who, when he ran the Army Intelligence and Security Command, employed a Hollywood set designer to create (at taxpayer expense) an "Information Dominance Center" modeled after the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. CW: Greenwald's sourcing seems unimpeachable. Alexander strikes me as creepy, not someone you want to put in charge of anything.

Gubernatorial Race

Beth Reinhard of the National Journal assesses the Virginia race for governor: "Terrible candidates, awful campaign take Virginia from bellwether to sideshow." ...

... James Hohmann of Politico on why Ken Cuccinelli is losing to Terry McAuliffe. CW: The election is almost two months away. That gives Cuccinelli plenty of time to catch up. If Virginians care about policy, they'll vote for McAuliffe (though McAuliffe's performance before the Northern Virginia Technology Council, which Hohmann covers, doesn't speak well for McAuliffe in this area). If they care about ethics, they'll probably vote for Cuccinelli, the lesser of two evils.

Local News

Azi Paybarah of Capital New York: "Gov. Andrew Cuomo will hold an event with Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson later this morning to help bring an end to the Democratic mayoral primary, according to multiple sources. De Blasio won Tuesday's primary with just over 40 percent of the vote, the threshold needed to avoid a run-off with the second-place finisher, pending a count of outstanding ballots." Via Joe Coscarelli of New York.

Photo below relevant to a comment I made in today's Comments:

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Police now believe two shooters, including one in fatigues, have killed four people and wounded eight others at the Washington, [D.C.,] Navy Yard on Monday, throwing the region into fear and chaos during the morning commute. At least one of the shooters is 'down,' police said mid-morning, but it was unclear whether that means the suspect has been arrested or shot. They said the other suspect remains at large, and police believe they have pinned down one between the third and fourth floors of one of the buildings on the installation in Southeast Washington." ...

     ... Here's the Post's liveblog of developments....

The Nation: Charlotte, North Carolina, police shot and killed "Jonathan Ferrell, a 24-year-old former football player at Florida A&M University [after he] crashed his car in Charlotte, North Carolina" & went to a nearby house for help. Officer Randall Kerrick has since been charged with "voluntary manslaughter." A CNN story is here.

The Commentariat -- Sept. 15, 2013

Devin Dwyer of ABC News: "President Obama says a tumultuous month as commander in chief, when his policy toward Syria took a number of unexpected turns, may not have looked 'smooth and disciplined and linear,' but it;s working." CW: Stephanopoulos says in his lead-in to the interview, "If it works, and that's big 'if' right now, the President may be able to claim a measure [a word he stretches out & delivers with a skeptical inflection] of victory for an approach that's brought him a mountain of criticism." That's George, perfectly playing one of the Village people, unhappy perhaps that Obama has deprived ABC News of increased ratings courtesy of war coverage. Schmuck. (For more on Village people groupspeak, see Michael Tomasky's review of Mark Leibovich's Our Town, linked below.)

Steve Holland of Reuters: "President Barack Obama vowed on Saturday that Syria will be held to account if it fails to live up to its promises to surrender chemical weapons as he faced questions about how a deal brokered by U.S. and Russian diplomats would be enforced." Here's the "Statement by the President on U.S.-Russian Agreement on Framework for Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons." ...

... Here's the framework of the agreement between the U.S. & Russia for the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons, via the State Department. ...

... The AP summarizes the points of agreement & unresolved issues. ...

... NEW. Here is a transcript of remarks by Kerry & Lavrov, following the meeting in which they forged the agreement on Syrian chemical weapons, via the U.S. State Department. ...

... NEW. Right on cue, Margaret Wente of the Toronto Globe & Mail, writes a column that's getting a lot of Internet action titled, "Barack Obama, the 98-pound weakling." (See my headline prediction in yesterday's Commentariat. Thanks, Margaret. ...

... Oliver Holmes of Reuters: "Syrian warplanes and artillery bombarded rebel suburbs of the capital on Sunday after the United States agreed to call off military action in a deal with Russia to remove President Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons." ...

... CW: forgot to run President Obama's weekly address yesterday. He follows up on his speech re: reaching a diplomatic solution. He cut it, of course, before the U.S. & Russia reached the above agreement:

Forget the Syria debate, we need a debate on why we're always debating whether to bomb someone. Because we're starting to look not so much like the world's policeman, but more like George Zimmerman. Itching to use force and then pretending it's because we had no choice. -- Bill Maher

... Actually, James Fearon, writing in the Monkey Cage, suggests a reason: "... where [Russia & the U.S.] have ended up should be starting to look familiar, and arguably tells us something about the structure of post-Cold War international politics.... Multilateral cooperation through the UNSC [United Nations Security Council] thus often take the form of the US, sometimes with allies, threatening to intervene without UNSC authorization. This is the 'outside option,' and it stands behind negotiations over whether there are terms for a UN resolution that both the US and the 'constrainers' would both prefer to its exercise. Usually this leads to intervention or multilateral action with UNSC authorization, as in Bosnia or Haiti. But sometimes not, as in Kosovo or Iraq."

Jim Kuhnhenn of the AP: "President Barack Obama is marking the fifth anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse by trying to lay claim to an economic turnaround and warning Republicans against moves that he contends would risk a backslide. His message to the GOP: Don't oppose raising the nation's debt limit, don't threaten to close down the government in a budget fight, and don't push to delay the health care law or starve it of federal money. The economic emphasis, after weeks devoted to the Syrian crisis, begins coming into focus in a series of events kicked off by a Rose Garden speech Monday." ...

... NEW. Economist James Galbraith in Al Jazeera America takes a realistic; i.e., pessimistic, view of our economic future. & provides quite a useful sketch of the last 100 years of economic history. Thanks to contributor Barbarossa for the link.

Bill Barrow of the AP: "Tea party activists, once unquestioned as a benefit to the Republican Party for supplying it with votes and energy, are now criticizing GOP leaders at seemingly every turn. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that more than 7 in 10 self-identified 'tea party Republicans' disapprove of the job performance of GOP congressional leaders. Many of the major tea party groups are backing 2014 primary challengers against Republicans the activists deem too moderate, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell." ...

... ** Thomas Mann & Norm Ornstein, from an update of their book It's Even Worse Than It Looks: "The old conservative GOP has been transformed into a party beholden to ideological zealots, one that sees little need to balance individualism with community, freedom with equality, markets with regulation, state with national power, or policy commitments with respect for facts, evidence, science, and a willingness to compromise. These two factors -- asymmetric polarization and the mismatch between our parties and governing institutions -- continue to account for the major share of our governing problems. But the media continues, for the most part, to miss this story." ...

... CW: I have been trying for a couple of days to get to Michael Tomasky's NYRB review of Mark Leibovich's Our Town, which is here. Contributor Ken Winkes, who cited the review, picked out the most interesting part: "Alan I. Abramowitz ... performs a multivariate analysis of the factors that are likely to make a citizen a Tea Party supporter. Conservative ideology matters most. But next -- ahead of demographic factors like age, gender, and income, ahead of church attendance and even party identification -- are 'racial resentment, and dislike of Obama.'" I do ask that you remember the right's antipathy for the Clintons, though. Wingers accused Hillary Clinton of being a socialist & a murderer & Bill Clinton of running drugs out of the Arkansas woods. Darrell Issa's hearings on the IRS & Benghazi look fairly tame compared to Congressional hearings & special counsel investigations of Watergate, Travelgate, Vince Foster, Hillary's missing billing records, etc.

** Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Lawrence H. Summers's prospects of becoming chairman of the Federal Reserve have become murkier since three key Democratic senators signaled in recent days that they would oppose his nomination. Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana and a member of the Banking Committee, said on Friday that he would vote against sending Mr. Summers's nomination.... Two of Mr. Tester's fellow Democrats on the committee, Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, have also signaled through their aides that they would vote no.... As skepticism grows..., the White House has made it clear to Democrats on Capitol Hill that Mr. Summers is Mr. Obama's choice. Republicans, too, are wary of Mr. Summers. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, and Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas have both said that they would not vote for Mr. Summers. In August, Mr. Roberts said, 'I wouldn't want Larry Summers to mow my yard.'" ...

Gretchen Morgenson & Robert Gebeloff of the New York Times: big banks have been hoarding ethanol credits & selling them at prices 20 times the rates they sold for just 6 months ago as EPA regs force refineries to purchase them. "The market in ethanol credits is exactly the kind Wall Street loves: opaque, lightly regulated and potentially very lucrative." Oh, and they're not exactly regulated, but Scott Mixon, acting chief economist of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said the agency was thinking about thinking about it. Thomas "O'Malley, the chairman of PBF Energy, likens the outcome to a hidden tax on the public. Unlike other taxes, which go to the government, this one goes to the speculators. CW: of course the ultimate victim in this banking scam is the driving public, who will have to pay for the price-gouging. AND/OR our gas tanks will corrode thanks to too much ethanol in the mix. Simple solution: change the law to reduce the ethanol requirement. Oh. Congress.

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "Dan Pfeiffer, President Obama's 37-year-old chief strategist and one of his longest-serving advisers, was hospitalized twice last week after suffering 'stroke-like symptoms,' White House officials confirmed on Friday."

Missed this Friday afternoon news dump. Byron Tau & Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "The Obama administration on Friday told labor union leaders that their health plans would not be eligible for tax subsidies under Obamacare next year. A White House official said the Treasury Department has concluded that such an exemption is not possible under the Affordable Care Act. The labor unions have been asking that their union plans, known as Taft-Hartley plans, be eligible for premium subsidies the way plans on the new insurance exchange will be. A senior administration official said the White House looked at several ways to make the union plans eligible for subsidies but couldn't find one."

Maureen Dowd takes us on a field trip to the C.I.A.'s Langley HQ with actors Claire Danes & Mandy Potamkin, who star in "Homeland," a Showtime series about the C.I.A.'s complicated ops. CW: maybe MoDo thinks it's her job to give us little people thrilling peeks behind-the-scenes peeks at places we're not likely to go; otherwise, I don't know why she writes this stuff.

Local News

** Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: Washington D.C. "Mayor Vincent C. Gray's decision this week to veto a law requiring Wal-Mart to offer higher pay pitted support for a 'living wage 'against a desire to spur investment and job growth in the city.... Barring a last-minute change by one of five council members who voted against the measure in July, it appears likely to die during an override attempt on Tuesday... For ... thousands ... who cross the city line every day on their way to the Landover Wal-Mart, the battle was about something more basic: low prices. Gray's decision brought focus to the flipside of the living-wage debate: that Wal-Mart's customers are often as economically disadvantaged as those who scrape by on its hourly wages."

Mark Guarino of the Christian Science Monitor: "Marriage licenses will no longer be given out to same-sex couples in Pennsylvania, a state judge has ruled, putting into limbo the legal status of more than 100 couples who married recently despite a long-standing ban on same-sex marriage in the state."

Sarah Jones in Wall of Separation: Texas creationists are making new trouble for Texas schools. The Board of Education appointed several creationists to a panel to review biology textbooks, and -- surprise, surprise -- they're attempting to get the teaching of creationism into the kids' biology books. One reviewer wrote,

I understand the National Academy of Science's [sic] strong support of the theory of evolution. At the same time, this is a theory. As an educator, parent, and grandparent, I feel very firmly that 'creation science' based on Biblical principles should be incorporated into every Biology book that is up for adoption.

      ... Via Steve Benen.

Brinley Bruton of NBC News: "The Vatican's new secretary of state [Archbishop Pietro Parolin] has said that priestly celibacy is not church dogma and therefore open to discussion, marking a significant change in approach towards one of the thorniest issues facing the Roman Catholic Church.... He added that while it was not dogma, clerical celibacy was a deeply entrenched Catholic tradition." Also via Benen.

AND Benen posts video the Christian Broadcasting Network tried to cover up of Pat Robertson's claim that AIDS-afflicted gay people in San Francisco go around spreading the disease by means of secret rings that cut the hands of those they shake hands with. CW: Robertson's theorizing begins at about 1:50 min. into the tape & is gratuitous; it has little to do with the preceding discussion.

News Ledes

AFP: "More than 500 stranded victims of major flooding in Colorado braced for a new round of heavy rain Sunday that is threatening to impede rescue efforts. Officials noted that many of those unaccounted for may simply not be able to telephone loved ones because of flood damage to many cell phone towers." The Denver Post's lede story is here. More stories linked on the Post's front page.

AP: "Tropical Storm Manuel churned very near to Mexico's southwest Pacific shoreline Sunday as thousands on the country's Gulf rim sought shelter from approaching Hurricane Ingrid....