The Commentariat -- Sept. 18, 2013

NEW. Pedro da Costa & Alister Bull of Reuters: "The U.S. Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that it would continue buying bonds at an $85 billion monthly pace for now, surprising financial markets that were braced for a reduction in the central bank's economic stimulus."

Craig Whitlock, et al., of the Washington Post: "The man named as the shooter in Monday’s Washington Navy Yard rampage had a highly checkered four-year career as a Navy reservist, a period marked by repeated run-ins with his military superiors and the law.... Aaron Alexis was cited at least eight times for misconduct for offenses as minor as a traffic ticket and showing up late for work but also as serious as insubordination and disorderly conduct, said a Navy official.... Law enforcement officials said Tuesday that Alexis had acted alone in the rampage and engaged in a firefight with police that lasted more than 30 minutes. They said they are reviewing his medical and criminal histories...." ...

... Theresa Vargas & others of the Washington Post have more on Alexis's history of erratic behavior & run-ins with the law. "A Navy official ... said that Alexis received a general discharge for 'misconduct' and that [a] 2010 firearms incident in Texas played a role in his departure." ...

... Joseph Goldstein, et al., of the New York Times: "The former Navy reservist who killed 12 people in a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday had exhibited signs of mental illness dating back more than a decade, including a recent episode in which he complained about hearing voices and of people sending 'vibrations to his body' to prevent him from sleeping, law enforcement officials said Tuesday. Only a month ago, the gunman, Aaron Alexis, 34, was suffering from hallucinations so severe that he called the Newport Police Department in Rhode Island where he told officers he was on business." ...

... Craig Whitlock, et al.: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel intends to order a security review at all U.S. military bases worldwide, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday, a day after a contract worker -- who had obtained a security clearance despite a history of violent behavior -- killed 12 people in a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard." ...

... Jake Tapper of CNN: "Navy officers were aware that in 2004 Aaron Alexis was arrested for shooting out the tires of a car in a black-out fueled by anger, and yet they admitted him into the Navy and granted him security clearance in 2007 anyway...." ...

... Carol Leonnig & Ed O'Keefe of the Post: "The owner of the company that employed Aaron Alexis, who police have identified as the Navy Yard shooter, said he would not have hired the Fort Worth computer technician if he had known about some of his brushes with the law and said the military should have shared more information with the company about Alexis' history. His complaints come amid calls from several members of Congress, including the senator [Thomas Carper (D-Del.)] with lead federal oversight over the District of Columbia and federal employees, for a serious examination of how federal agencies and government contractors conduct background checks on potential hires. A Defense Department report to be released Tuesday raised questions about whether the Navy had been properly conducting such checks on government contractors." ...

... The Post is liveblogging developments. ...

... The Post has sketchy profiles of the victims. ...

... Some Massachusetts academics do a regression analysis & conclude just what you & I would have expected, but not what Wayne LaPierre would want us to know: "We observed a robust correlation between higher levels of gun ownership and higher firearm homicide rates. Although we could not determine causation, we found that states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides." ...

     ... Charles Pierce: "The results of the study may seem little more than an exercise in confirming the obvious, but that's an exercise the country needs. It needs to have the obvious -- guns kill people, health-insurance helps keep them alive, large banks are all thieves, economic oligarchy is incompatible with political democracy ... proven to it, over and over again, because the industry of bullshit has become too efficient. The contempt for learning, the scorn heaped on reason, the distrust of expertise, has leached like foul water into all of our institutions, and particularly into our politics." ...

     ... CW: I don't know which comes first here, the chicken or the egg. Do wingers mistrust science & other book-learning stuff because the facts refute their beliefs, or do their beliefs "prove" to them that scholars & scientists are untrustworthy? ...

... Wingers would like you to know that Alexis was a "liberal who supported Obama," according to a self-described conservative friend of his. ...

... You may have heard -- because that is what has been reported -- that the NRA opposes allowing people with Alexis's mental health history to purchase a firearm, but Steve M. of NMMNB sets the record straight. Since no judicial authority had committed Alexis to a mental institution, the NRA deems him good to pack heat.

... David Edwards of the Raw Story: "New Fox & Friends host Elisabeth Hasselbeck [who used to be the winger dingbat on ABC's "The View"] on Tuesday suggested that 'the left' was trying to make Monday's mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard about 'gun control,' when what the country really needed was a registry to track video game purchases." ...

... Don't worry, Elisabeth. As Dana Milbank notes, the prospects for gun control legislation are nil. Deranged Americans planning suicide by mass-murder will still acquire guns in our wonderful free-market system, and these periodic massacres will continue apace, providing the news media with occasional ratings boosts & non-victims many opportunities to tut-tut about whatever aspect of the latest shooting spree most irritates us.

C. J. Chivers takes the New York Times' third stab at reading the U.N. inspectors' report on the August chemical weapons attack. Each new version of the story differs from the one before. Now Chivers writes the lede, "Details buried in the United Nations report on the Syrian chemical weapons attack point directly at elite military formations loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, some of the strongest findings to date that suggest the government gassed its own people.... The inspectors, instructed to investigate the attack but not to assign blame, nonetheless listed the precise compass directions of flight for two rocket strikes that appeared to lead back toward the government's elite redoubt in Damascus, Mount Qasioun, which overlooks and protects neighborhoods and Mr. Assad's presidential palace and where his Republican Guard and the army's powerful Fourth Division are entrenched."

Peter Baker & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "... deep in his fifth year in office, Mr. Obama finds himself frustrated by members of his own party weary of his leadership and increasingly willing to defy him." CW: I don't have a lot of faith in either Baker or Peters when it comes to analyzing stuff, but this report seems to be pretty even-handed, & the writers manage to get real people commenting on the record. ...

... Arnie Parnes of the Hill: "A struggling President Obama is calling for help from members of his first-term A-Team, who have left the White House for other jobs. With his poll numbers falling and his second-term floundering so far, Obama has sought help from the former aides who helped catapult him to the presidency.... Ex-advisers like [David] Plouffe, [Robert] Gibbs and David Axelrod routinely participate in calls with current White House staffers, and Obama has invited the first-term all-stars to strategy sessions on other issues too, former aides said." ...

... Katrina vanden Heuvel of the Nation, in the Washington Post: "As the liberal revolt against the potential nomination of Larry Summers to head the Federal Reserve revealed, President Obama faces increasing pressure from a wing of the Democratic Party no longer willing to sign onto the conservative economic policies of Wall Street. President Obama announced that he would not negotiate on raising the debt ceiling. That he would not sign on to the delay or defunding of health-care reform. That he wanted the harsh and mindless across-the-board cuts known as sequestration repealed... This time his 'bright red lines' might mean something, because increasingly restive progressive legislators in the House and Senate will hold him to his promise." ...

... BUT. Extreme Austerity. Harry Stein of the Center for American Progress: The entire conversation about federal spending, across party lines, has moved way to the right. "Last year, the House of Representatives demonstrated an understanding that austerity could go too far when it rejected the extreme Republican Study Committee budget. Senate Democrats now accept spending levels in line with previous [Paul] Ryan budgets, and the federal budget is stable over the medium term. Despite all that, House Republican leaders are demanding a new round of discretionary spending cuts." ...

... Greg Sargent points to this National Review post by Bob Costa, which details how Tea Party & like-minded pressure groups are revved up & fiercely pushing GOP members of Congress to insist upon defunding ObamaCare, much to the consternation of Republican leadership. "For the tea-party coalition and its leaders, it's a triumphant return to power inside the Beltway...." ...

... Sargent: "The scam is working, successfully persuading untold numbers of GOP base voters Obamacare's demise is at hand. There's no sign GOP leaders know what to do about it or can get the votes to keep the government open." ...

... Even the austerity fanatics that comprise the Wall Street Journal editorial board are begging conservative House members not to pursue their quixotic plan to defund ObamaCare. "Kamikaze missions rarely turn out well, least of all for the pilots." Via TPM. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...

I cannot remember a time when one faction of one party promises economic chaos if it can't get 100 percent of what it wants. That's never happened before. But that's what's happening right now. -- Barack Obama, in a speech delivered Monday ...

... Jonathan Chait of New York: "Since taking control of the House of Representatives in 2011, a coterie of Republicans ... [hold the] belief ... that the absence of cooperation should lead not to stalemate but to the president bending to their will. That assumption implies a delegitimization of the presidency that Obama has come to understand, belatedly, that he can't accept." Thanks to contributor MAG for the link. ...

... CW: Teabaggers are sociopaths. They don't think they have to play by the rules because they think any rules that give their opponents a fair shake are illegitimate. It's like playing poker with a card cheat. Since he's stacked the deck against you, you lose most hands. Then, by the luck of the draw, you happen upon a hand so good you can't lose & win a big pot. So the card cheat sticks you up & leaves with the pot. The 2012 election was Obama's big pot. ...

... BUT. Many MOCs are acting out of sheer self-interest rather than from crazed ideology or delusions of defunding. New York Times Editors: "If you're wondering why so many House Republicans seem to believe they can force President Obama to accept a 'defunding' of the health care reform law by threatening a government shutdown or a default, it's because [hard-right activist] groups have promised to inflict political pain on any Republican official who doesn't go along.... These groups, all financed with secret and unlimited money, feed on chaos and would like nothing better than to claim credit for pushing Washington into another crisis. Winning an ideological victory is far more important to them than the severe economic effects of a shutdown or, worse, a default, which could shatter the credit markets. They also have another reason for their attacks: fund-raising. All their Web sites pushing the defunding scheme include a big 'donate' button...." ...

... Whatever the motivation, here's one outcome. Jake Sherman & John Bresnahan of Politico: "House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor are playing the last cards in their hand -- and they're most likely losers. The House Republican leadership's decision to try to defund Obamacare this week in its government funding bill, and their promise to wage a a no-holds-barred fight to delay the health care law as part of the debt ceiling fight, is a double-barreled strategy that could set Boehner, Cantor, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the House Republican Conference up for two big defeats."

Michael Schuman of Time: Today Fed Chair Ben Bernanke will announce "whether the Fed will scale back, or 'taper,' its unconventional economic stimulus program known as quantitative easing...

Blame It on Boehner (Because It's His Fault.) Evan McMorris-Santoro of BuzzFeed: "President Barack Obama told Telemundo Tuesday that the future of immigration reform comes down to the decision of one man: House Speaker John Boehner. 'The only thing that's holdin' it back right now is John Boehner calling in to the floor,' Obama told Telemundo's Jose Diaz-Balart in a wide-ranging interview, 'because we've got a majority of members of Congress, Democrats and some Republicans, in the House of Representatives, who would vote for it right now if it hit.'"

Dana Milbank takes a field trip to the Heritage Foundation. President Obama has a secret plan to arm Al Qaeda in Libya & Hillary Clinton makes too much money & Valerie Jarrett controls the U.S. military and, and ... Benghaaaaazi!

Obama 2.0. New York Times Editors: "The coal industry and its allies [partially financed by the Koch brothers] are angry about President Obama's energy policies, and they have decided to take it out on his nominee to lead the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas and oil. The commission has no regulatory authority over coal. But that doesn't matter to the industry. It has come out against Ronald Binz, the nominee, because he supported clean fuels when he was a state energy regulator.... Senators should ignore the attacks from vested special interests, many of whom deny the existence of climate change, and confirm Mr. Binz."

Maureen Dowd pulls out her Obama-Is-Aloof column. Same title & all, but she plugs in the news of the day, like why couldn't Obama be more like the CEO of a Washington hospital where victims of the Navy Yard massacre were being treated. Here's what the doctor/CEO said: "There is something wrong, and the only thing that I can say is we have to work together to get rid of it." Now, I'm in agreement with this sentiment, but it is hardly a memorable, president-worthy remark. If Obama had said that, MoDo would have pulled out her Obama-Is-Clueless template. Speaking of clueless, It isn't clear Dowd knows Obama was talking about her when he said, "I think that folks here in Washington like to grade on style," a remark which Dowd cites.

Local News

Weed Rules (wherein "Rules" may be a noun or a verb). Jeremy Meyer of the Denver Post: "Denver City Council Monday night passed a historic bill that sets the rules and regulations for the retail marijuana industry in the state's largest city." The ordinance is here.

David Wenner of the Central Pennsylvania Patriot News: "Gov. Tom Corbett [R] said Monday he's willing to use billions in federal Medicaid expansion funds to enable roughly 500,000 uninsured Pennsylvania residents to buy health insurance coverage on the Obamacare health insurance exchange. He'll do so only if the Obama administration gives in on many things, including allowing Corbett to impose new work and cost sharing requirements on people already covered by Medicaid, as well as on those who would obtain the new coverage." CW: looks like talking tough & pretending Medicaid expansion isn't Medicaid expansion is the way Republican governors plan to garner millions of federal dollars for their state while still railing against ObamaCare.

The Rent Is Too Damn High. Mireya Navarro of the New York Times: "With New York City's homeless population in shelters at a record high of 50,000, a growing number of New Yorkers punch out of work and then sign in to a shelter, city officials and advocates for the homeless say. More than one out of four families in shelters, 28 percent, include at least one employed adult, city figures show, and 16 percent of single adults in shelters hold jobs. Mostly female, they are engaged in a variety of low-wage jobs...." CW: Navarro cites one young woman-- Dierdre Cunningham -- who holds two part-time jobs, one as a bank teller & the other as a sales clerk for a Manhattan electronics store. Please somebody explain to me why multi-multi millionaires like "savvy businessman" Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase should get away with keeping this woman working part-time (so she isn't eligible for benefits) for wages that don't allow her to put a roof over her head. ...

... ** CW: Which brings to mind this horrifying post by Tom Edsall, who details some of the ways Jamie & his banker buddies exploit the poor, through their interests in payday loan outfits that charge borrowers in the neighborhood of 400 percent interest. Edsall demonstrates how predators at all levels scam the poor. I'd really like to know what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is doing about some of this. Other than collecting some data & making it available to reporters, as Edsall reports, I don't see that the CFPB is doing anything, & I don't think they have the authority to do anything other than to say, "Look, look, this guy is a crook." ...

... Which brings to mind the $700MM+ fine the feds imposed upon Jamie's Giant Bank. Contributor Diane calculated that the proposed fine would amount to no more than .0375% of JPMorgan Chase's 2012 profits, & "2013 profits are projected higher than 2012." In fairness to Jamie, Diane is just a girl so she probably doesn't have the "intrinsic aptitude" to do complicated stuff like math. ...

     ... Update. Oops, looks as if Larry was right. Diane is two decimal points off. The fine will be closer to three or four percent of profits, not .0375 percent. See comment by Maxwell's Demon below. (If anybody thinks MD's math & mine is wrong, please wise us up.) ...

... Which brings to mind this post by Juan Cole which contributor Kate M. remarked on the other day: "It is a great mystery why Barack Obama even considered rewarding Summers for his role in increasing income inequality in the US and around the world and in allowing the non-banks to play banks and both to operate as casinos. Obama praised Summers for his alleged role in helping dig back out of the 2008 hole. In fact, Summers made the recovery far less robust than it should have been, by arguing against a bigger stimulus. Moreover, Obama did not note Summers' role in helping cause it in the first place. Plus, since the recovery has been a recovery for rich people, Summers isn't owed much thanks from the 99%." ...

... So all of this makes us unsurprised by this report. Maya Rhodan of Time: "The poverty rate and the number of people living in poverty haven't budged since 2011 despite the slowly improving economy, according to a report released early Tuesday. 46.5 million people were living in poverty in 2012, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2012 Income Poverty and Health Insurance report. That translates into a national rate of 15% of Americans below the poverty line." ...

** It's the Economy, Stupid. John Cassidy of the New Yorker wraps it all up: "Why is Washington so screwed up? Some people blame the Tea Party, others blame the lobbyists; my culprit is the economy. Countries with healthy economic systems tend to have polities that function pretty well. (The United States of the postwar era is a good example.) Countries with dysfunctional economies tend to have dysfunctional political systems, in which radical groups look for someone to blame and rival interest groups fight over the spoils. And that, sadly, is where we are now.... For forty years now, the engine that generates across-the-board rises in living standards has been stalled, with incomes stagnating at the bottom and in the middle while growing rapidly at the top."

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.