The World Bank? Blanket denials of that rumor, which never made much sense to me, but maybe it is a more influential gig than I imagine. Clinton has made it clear she will not be Secretary of State after 2012. So what then? I saw this interesting exchange between wonky bloggers E. Klein, M. Yglesias and J.Cohn. Yglesias' tweet:

Call me old-fashioned, but I think H. Clinton should consider another presidential run in 2016[.]

I do not know if she would be the best person to be President, but I remain convinced that she would be the best candidate (defined as the person with the best chance of winning) for President the Dems could offer. How soon will it be time for a Draft Hillary movement after 2012?

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias notes that according to a Marist poll, Anthony Weiner's constituency does not want him to resign. But, as andgarden pointed out the first day we were discussing this issue, Weiner's district could be eliminated in redistricting, rendering Weiner's reelection a moot issue. But what if Weiner does not go quietly in 2012 and instead decided to contest a newly drawn district that covers the old 9th? Nate Silver's discussion speculates about Weiner being challenged by a redistricted out Dem but does not consider the reverse:

Even a neighboring district is broken up to preserve the Ninth, though, that still would leave an unemployed Democrat who could challenge Mr. Weiner in a primary. [. . .] Mr. Weiner is unlikely to get a free pass, however the new boundaries are drawn.

Fair enough, but will Weiner give another Dem a free pass in a primary for a district that includes the old 9th? More . . .

Krugman:

[D]ebt relief for homeowners — which could have done a lot to promote overall economic recovery — has simply dropped off the agenda. The existing program for mortgage relief has been a bust, spending only a tiny fraction of the funds allocated, but there seems to be no interest in revamping and restarting the effort.

NYTimes article yesterday:

As the nation’s housing market continues to teeter, the Treasury Department on Thursday penalized three of the nation’s largest banks for subpar performance in administrating a government-sponsored program to modify mortgage loans for distressed homeowners. [. . .] Neil M. Barofsky, who resigned in March as special inspector general for the bank bailout, described the assessments and penalties as a “lost opportunity” to hold lenders more accountable. “It further reaffirms Treasury’s long-running toothless response to the servicers’ disregard of their contract with Treasury, and by extension, the American taxpayer,” Mr. Barofsky said in an e-mail.

[. . .] The administration predicted that three million to four million Americans would benefit, but so far, only 699,053 permanent modifications have been started. To date, Treasury has spent about $1.34 billion on HAMP.

(Emphasis supplied.) The good news is $48.7 billion is still available for an actual plan for the homeowner crisis. Now all we need is Obama to fire Geithner . . .

Speaking for me only

Yesterday I mentioned Radley Balko's new article at Reason on the number of wrongfully convicted Americans doing time.

Today I learned the entire July issue of Reason is devoted to Criminal Injustice and our country's over-reliance on prison and the failure of the war on drugs.

There's Prison Math, that asks what are the costs and benefits of leading the world in locking up human beings? Reason Editor Matt Welch writes The Ends Didn’t Justify the Means on our complicity in the devastating war on crime. Bruce Western writes Locked Up, Locked Out on the social costs of incarceration.

There's also an article on John Edwards, The Persecution of John Edwards, positing that "The only thing worse than Edwards’ ugly behavior is the government’s effort to put him in jail for it." [More...]

Closing arguments have ended in the retrial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. The jury has been instructed and will begin deliberating in the morning.

Crux of the defense closing: Rod never made a dime and is "a motor-mouth who talks endlessly" thinking out loud:

"He talked over me, over the judge, over the prosecutor,” said Goldstein, reminding jurors that when Blagojevich was on the stand he would often ignore his own attorney’s objections to questions from a prosecutor and answer before Zagel could rule.

“He likes to talk,” Goldstein said. “That’s all you heard. (Prosecutors) want you to believe this talk is a crime. It’s not. He floated ideas and that’s all it is.”

[More...]

Update: Verdict: NOT GUILTY on Mumbai count, GUILTY on Copenhagen and Guilty on providing material support to LeT.

Clearly, the jury did not take David Headley's cooperating testimony at face value. The Government has helpfully put its trial exhibits online, so you can see the evidence the jury saw, including Rana's e-mails and some video clips of his uncounseled post-arrest statement. (Rana waived his right to an attorney.)

****

The jury has reached a verdict in the Chicago Terror trial of Tahawwur Hussein Rana, accused of conspiring with former DEA informant David Coleman Headley, aka Daood Gilani and others in the Mumbai bombings, providing material support to a planned terror attack in Denmark and providing material support to terror group LeT. [More...]

The defense is making closing arguments in the trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

The jury in the Tahawwur Rana trial is still deliberating. Yesterday they had two questions, one about Ilyas Kashmiri, who is still either dead or alive. They wanted to know if "Pasha" was affiliated with ISI or LET and if Kashmiri was affiliated with LET. (The third count against Rana charges him with providing material support to LeT.)

Rep. Anthony Wiener said again today he won't resign. While I don't care about this story at all, I think he's toast.

Newt Gingrich aides resigned en masse today, including Rob Johnson, Sam Dawson, Dave Carney, Katon Dawson and Craig Schoenfeld.

On a more important topic, Radley Balko at Reason examines how many innocent Americans are imprisoned.

BTD and I are busy at our respective day jobs, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

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.