My favorite mayor, Oscar Goodman of Las Vegas, is leaving the Mayor's office in good hands. On Tuesday, voters elected his wife, Carolyn Goodman, to succeed him.

Ms. Goodman became mayor with 61 percent of the vote in the nonpartisan contest Tuesday, defeating Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani of Clark County, who could not overcome the popularity of the self-proclaimed Happiest Couple in the Universe. Mr. Goodman, a former mob lawyer who gleefully presided over the city with a force of charisma and a bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin, could not run again because of term limits.

I can hardly believe it's been 12 years since Oscar was elected Mayor. How time flies. He must be one of the most popular Mayors ever -- he was re-elected in 2007 with 84% of the vote. I'm sure he's sad to be leaving the job, he's always said it was the most fun he's ever had.

Congratulations, Carolyn! I hope you have as much fun in the job as Oscar, that Las Vegans appreciate you as much as they did him, and that we criminal defense lawyers get to see a bit more of Oscar now.

Alyssa Rosenberg writes about the launch of Bill Simmons' new site Grantland (a reference I presume to Grantland Rice, but I may be wrong.) It is a pretentious name for Simmmons, whose stuff I really really like, to adopt. And it justifies Rosenberg's observation:

The challenge Grantland faces, I think, is to convince readers that even though they might not be familiar with the subject of the piece, and even though it might take a serious chunk of time to read, it’s consistently worth the investment. Very, very few publications have that kind of pull: the New Yorker for one kind of audience, the New York Review of Books for another. If Grantland can become the first web-native publication to pull that feat off, it’ll be impressive.

As I wrote before, I really really like Simmons' work, but he's not going to produce that type of material, imo. His strengths, as I see them, are apparent in his column at espn.com and in his podcasts. Funny, quick and well paced. I do not think "30 for 30" is all that Simmons thinks it is. And it seems he might be going for a "30 for 30" vibe. In any event, Rosenberg does raise an interesting question - can longer form writing be successful commercially and creatively on the Web? Let's think about that on the flip.

This report on the oral argument before a panel of the Eleventh Circuit on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act might indicate that the panel is prepared to strike down the individual mandate portion of the law. But what about the rest of it?

Judge Frank Hull, the third member of the panel, repeatedly asked the lawyers about the possible effect of the court striking down the mandate, while upholding the rest of the law. She said the government had exaggerated the importance of the mandate. It will affect about 10 million persons at most, not the roughly 50 million who are uninsured now. She said the other parts of the law will extend insurance to tens of millions of persons.

Things that make you go hmmm. Personally, I'll believe that an appellate panel will strike the mandate down when I see it, but I've been wrong before.

Speaking for me only

Regular readers know how I have felt about Tim Geithner for a long while now. I think I first called for his resignation the day after he was confirmed as Treasury Secretary. I think my view has become the consensus of anyone not a Republican. See, e.g., Krugman, DeLong, Salmon and Judis.

Salmon says "It’s clear at this point that such a stimulus is not going to happen. The result is going to be devastating for millions of needlessly-unemployed Americans — and also for the fiscal health of the country as a whole. Geithner, it seems, deserves to shoulder a large part of the blame for that." Judis writes:

Will Obama continue to listen to Geithner? I certainly hope not. I used to blame the administration’s timid and self-defeating fiscal policy on Republican intransigence, but as Goldfarb’s profile shows, Obama and his Treasury Secretary deserve a good part of the blame for what is becoming Obama’s “Great Recession.”

(Emphasis supplied.) Speaking for me only

Did Ilyas Kashmiri really have a third eye? I've seen this reported a few places:

[Senior Taliban Commander]Qari Idrees said Kashmiri had taken part in Afghan Jihad against the Soviet occupation army and lost his two eyes and three fingers of his right hand in an explosion. However, he said, later his right eyesight was restored through a donated eye brought from Sri Lanka.

Lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn have filed their first discovery request.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Atrios says Geithner is awful. He cites to Americablog's writeup about this WaPo writeup on how Geithner is the head honcho for the Obama economy:

Geithner has [. . .] quietly gained influence, which he has used to press President Obama to curb the nation’s soaring debt even at the expense of spending that might more directly spur employment.

His success at driving the agenda signals his status as the president’s closest economic counselor. [. . .] Geithner’s efforts inside the White House have shaped how Obama confronts this defining moment. [. . .] The policies molded by Geithner — and the balance they strike between slashing the deficit and supporting the economic recovery — could also ultimately determine whether Obama will win a second term.

[. . .] Geithner says Obama must tackle the deficit now if he wants the government to be in a position to support the economy in the future and to continue to protect the elderly and the poor. “It’s been my view for some time that unless he played a major role in shaping and negotiating the broad fiscal framework . . . we would be left without the capacity to do a whole range of things that are really important,” Geithner [. . .] said. [. . .] “I have been a consistent advocate of him doing that early and often.”

[. . .] Once, as Romer pressed for more stimulus spending, Geithner snapped. Stimulus, he told Romer, was “sugar,” and its effect was fleeting. The administration, he urged, needed to focus on long-term economic growth, and the first step was reining in the debt.

Obama has made his bed with Geithner, and we have to suffer for it. We'll see if Obama has to suffer come next November. Oh btw, in this long article, the number of words written about the housing crisis? Zero.

Speaking for me only

Closing arguments are over, the jury has been instructed and will begin deliberating the fate of Tahawwur Rana, the Canadian businessman accused of conspiring with former DEA informant David Coleman Headley to provide material support to terrorists in connection with the Mumbai bombings and a planned attack in Denmark.

Rana is charged in three counts: Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Terrorism in India; Conspiracy to Provide Material Support to Terrorism in Denmark; and Providing Material Support to Lashkar e Tayyiba.

In closings, the defense attacked David Headley, while the Government said Rana and Headley were on the same team. [More...]

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich finished seven days of testimony today.

As he stepped off the stand, a jaunty Blagojevich tried to shake hands with lead prosecutor Reid Schar, but the government attorney turned away after the two had sparred for several days.

Judge James Zagel told jurors not to read anything into the rebuff, saying lawyers are instructed not to interact with witnesses.

At least one legal observer at the trial thought Blagojevich did better on the witness stand than expected. Does he have a chance? Can he persuade one juror? Team Blago may call a few more witnesses tomorrow, and then it's time for closing arguments.

Also today, Blagojevich wants the Judge to reconsider his refusal to introduce a transcrip in which Rahm asks Blago to appoint Forrest Claypool to the House seat Rahm was vacating. [More...]

Congrats to Michael Hancock, who easily defeated Chris Romer in today's runoff election for Denver mayor. Romer has conceded.

With 100-percent (110,441) of the votes counted, Hancock defeated Romer 58% to 42%. It was an all mail-in election, with 300,000 ballots mailed. Only 110,441 people voted. It's pretty amazing you can become mayor of a city the size of Denver with just 55,222 votes (although Hancock got more than that.)Hancock on his win tonight:

Tonight, we celebrate this victory, and believe me, we gonna party. Tomorrow is Day One.

Brad DeLong on Ryan Avent's comment about Obama and the economy:

[Ryan Avent]:

[W]hat is Mr Obama's plan? When Americans look at him now, what does he want them to see? Having bought so completely into the story that immediate deficit-cutting is necessary, Mr Obama can't easily demand new stimulus. At best, he can argue that his painful cuts are better in some way than those proposed by Republicans. "I'm not as bad as the other guy", is not a winning incumbent message when voters are upset.... Right now, the Obama administration seems short of economic ideas and (perhaps worse still) uninterested in labour market troubles. His Republican challengers aren't offering anything better. But Mr Obama has made himself extraordinarily vulnerable on the economy, and if he loses his job as a result he has only himself to blame.

The five things to do are: 1) recess-appoint qualified Federal Reserve Governors who understand the macroeconomics; 2) take as much risk as possible onto the Treasury's balance sheet so that the skittish private sector does not need to hold it; 3) use FANNIE and FREDDIE to goose the housing market; 4) have Tim Geithner say that at the moment a weaker dollar is in America's interest; 5) pray that the bond market does not panic.

(Emphasis supplied.) I'm not sure what DeLong means by "use FANNIE and FREDDIE to goose the housing market." I'm for using them to give relief to distressed homeowners, which should also help the housing market. Oh by the way, there is also $50 billion of HAMP money just sitting there.

Speaking for me only

Alyssa Rosenberg has a very good new blog at Think Progress on pop culture (before she guest posted on Matt Yglesias' blog.) This post on Shia LeBouef beefing with Megan Fox about Transformers hack director Michael Bay and feminism is a nice example of how Rosenberg can discuss inane subjects with great intelligence.

Imagine Transformers and feminism in the same sentence. Hard I know. But Rosenberg does it very well. Her site is an excellent addition to the Think Progress offerings.

Open Thread.

Tim Geithner could cost President Obama reelection:

In a general-election trial heat in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll [Mitt Romney] runs evenly with Barack Obama among all Americans, and numerically outpoints him, 49-46 percent, among registered voters -- not a statistically significant lead, given sampling error, but a clear reflection of Obama's vulnerability to a ell-positioned challenger.

Yes, it's the economy, stupid:

59 percent, a new high -- disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy, which, in a nutshell, is what the public's frustration is all about.

Mitt Romney can beat Obama in 2012, thanks to Tim Geithner. Let's hope the GOP is stupid enough to nominate someone else.

Speaking for me only