I still think Obama will appoint Yellen. Why? A couple of reasons.

1) Remember when 'everyone' was convinced that he was going to appoint Susan Rice as Secretary of State when Hillary left? How he had to because he defended her so strongly? I think Obama is defending Summers in the same spirit but that doesn't mean he has a lock on FedHead.

2) Remember when Obama was criticized for not having more appointments for women and minorities in his 2nd term? He said something like, "it's early and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised...". He knows that passing over Yellen will look very bad.

I haven't kept up with the Manning trial in detail and don't have a strong feeling of what sort of sentence he will get. It seems as though the judge is trying to be fair. John Walker got life but may be released in 2015 (30 years). Jonathan Pollard got life but may be released in 2015 (28+ years). I would be very surprised if Manning got more than them and 10 years sounds sufficient to me at the moment.

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.