I saw this Time article on reconciliation and the Byrd rule linked in a blog. It is riddled with errors. The most important seemed to me to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the Byrd Rule. The Time article states:

Republicans would invoke the Byrd rule – which would require a 60-vote majority to overcome – every five minutes, forcing Dems to pare down the bill and pass something much, much less ambitious. It took weeks to get a cloture vote to start the debate -- imagine how long it'd take to get the 2,074-page bill through God knows how many Byrd rule objections -- even if everyone proves to be germane.

The error is glaring and rather amazing. If in fact, every Byrd Rule point of order was subject to a cloture vote, there would be no point to reconciliation at all. And of course, Time gets it utterly wrong. In the very link Time provides, this is demonstrated to be so:

Another hectic day.

This is an Open Thread.

The Chicago Tribune reports that terror suspect David Headley, aka Daood Gilani, is cooperating with authorities and providing information about the Mumbai terror attacks of November, 2008.

David Coleman Headley, who has been cooperating with authorities, is being investigated as a scout for the Mumbai attack, which targeted multiple sites, including two hotels, a train station, a cafe and a Jewish community center. A source familiar with the probe said Headley's co-defendant in the newspaper case, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, is suspected to have paid for Headley's India missions.

As I wrote here, it wouldn't be the first time Headley has cooperated. Under his original name, Daood Gilani, he worked his way out of a 1997 heroin case by providing information to the DEA. He ended up with a 15 month sentence (his co-defendant James Lewis got 100 months.) After Headley/Gilani was released from prison, and while he was on supervised release, the court granted him permission to travel to Pakistan. The Government then joined his request to terminate his supervised release three years early. [More...]

Coloradans buying tilapia from Whole Foods in Colorado Springs can take an extra bit of pride in knowing who is raising the fish for the vendor supplying Whole Foods: Inmates at Arrowhead, a minimum security facility for drug/alcohol and offenders.

About 95 inmates-turned-fish-farmers earn 60 cents a day, plus bonus. It amounts to a paycheck of about $40 a month. The fish biz started small six years ago and is now the biggest industry at Arrowhead.

The fish are raised in 12,000-gallon fiberglass tanks built by the inmates, located in a greenhouse, without hormones, “in water, baking soda and salt."

"Relaxing music" is piped in to make the fish mellow. Amount sold: 100,000 pounds a year. [More...]

• As Sewers Fill, Waste Poisons Waterways, a really gross story on NY sewer problems in the New York Times.

• NY Times Editorial on how police are using GPS devices as surveillance tools without court orders

• S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford faces 37 ethics charges.

• In the New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin compares the old NY Pizza Connection trial to the upcoming trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs says he is considering a 2012 Presidential run. In the meantime, he may seek the Senate seat of Democrat Robert Menendez.

The only way I see for Dobbs to run for President is on a third party ticket. Maybe he'll bring Sarah Palin or Tom Tancredo along for the ride...into oblivion.

Back in the Summer, Paul Krugman wrote:

To grasp the problem, you need to understand the outline of the proposed reform (all of the Democratic plans on the table agree on the essentials.) Reform, if it happens, will rest on four main pillars: regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition. [. . .] [K]nock away any of the four main pillars of reform, and the whole thing will collapse — and probably take the Obama presidency down with it.

As potential reform, the HCR proposals provide "regulation" (I am not a believer in regulation as an engine for reform of the health insurance industry), mandates (but not employer mandates) and subsidies (inadequate). Absent a public option, they do not provide potential for competition. This is not reform. In July, Jacob Hacker wrote:

As Jeralyn notes, Beltway Dems, eager to declare "victory" on the health care issue are preparing to deal away the public option. What will be interesting to me is what will they come for next from this "reform" proposal? It seems clear that the Beltway Dems are prepared to give away any and all parts of the proposal in order to get 60 votes + Olympia Snowe. Reconciliation will only be considered if progressive Democrats say no to the giveaway.

The Village Wonks and their allies have never cared about the public option (a perfectly reasonable position) and are willing, no, eager, to jettison the public option. That is their right. But for Democrats who believe that the public option is the only worthwhile reform in the proposal, this is an unacceptable capitulation. It is time to consider forgetting the "reform" part of this and just focus on passing the "assistance" part of the proposal. More . . .

The Iron Chef finale or the Americn Music Awards? I'm watching both, but I'd rather be watching Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters. (No spoilers please until the West coast has had a chance to view it.) I don't think either of tonight's two finalists are up to past Iron Chefs.

I highly recommend AMC's The Prisoner, which re-airs episodes 1 and 2 tonight. There's also Sunday Night Football.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome, TV related or not.

Are Democrats really willing to forego the public option? Sounds like it.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber's second-ranking Democrat, acknowledged he was open to changing the bill's controversial government-run public health insurance option favored by the left."We are open because we want to pass the bill," Durbin told the NBC program "Meet the Press."

Now what? Nate Silver says progressives should give it up, it's not that big a deal anyway and reconciliation could lead to other good provisions being stripped. Jon at Firedoglake disagrees. And FDL's Jane Hamsher explains the progressive reasoning behind choosing the public option as a fighting point. [More...]

Faghoul Abdelli and Mohamed Terari spent six years at Guantanamo, were ordered released in 2006 and returned to Algeria in 2008.

They were charged with crimes in Algeria and acquitted this week. More background here and here.

They aren't the first detainees sent home to Algeria and charged with crimes. Amnesty International has this report on what happens to them once returned to Algeria. Here's another report.

On Friday, Judge Gladys Kessler ordered Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed to be released. Not surprisingly, he doesn't want to return to Algeria. Current results of Guantanamo habeas challenges: Federal courts have ordered 31 detainees released and upheld detention for 8.

The Chicago terror charges against David Headley, formerly Daood Gilani, and Tahawwur Hussain Rana are interesting for a number of reasons. They are particularly big news in India, where FISA surveillance information has authorities connecting them to the Nov. 2008 Mumbai attacks and to high level people in Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (Lashker e Taiba) and Harkat-ul Jihad Islamid.

What's getting some, but not enough news, is Headley's 1997 bust in New York for conspiracy to import heroin into the U.S. (The New York Times briefly refers to it here.)He was charged under his original name, Daood Saleem Gilani, along with a codefendant James Leslie Lewis. (Lewis was sentenced to 120 months, later reduced to 100 months.)

After Headley's arrest, he was ordered detained pending trial. But, he began cooperating with the DEA. The U.S. Attorney's office submitted some sealed documents (obviously cooperation letters) and got him out on bond. He was sentenced to only 15 months and when he got out from Ft. Dix, the DEA sent him to Pakistan to make some cases. [More...]