So said President Obama, French President Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The New York Times reports:

President Obama and leaders of Britain and France accused Iran on Friday of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel, saying the country has hidden the covert operation from international weapons inspectors for years. Western officials claim the site is built inside a mountain near the ancient city of Qum, one of the holiest Shiite cities in the Middle East.

Appearing before reporters in Pittsburgh, Mr. Obama said that the Iranian nuclear program “represents a direct challenge to the basic foundation of the nonproliferation regime.” French President Nicholas Sarkozy, appearing beside Mr. Obama, said that Iran had deadline of two months to comply with international demands or face increased sanctions. “The level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the entire international community,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said, standing on the other side of Mr. Obama. “The international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand.”

This is no surprise it seems to me. I assume there had been a delay in this announcement due to the disputed election results in Iran. To wit, the West did not want to provide Iran's ruling regime a rallying point. As the reform movement has basically been stamped out in Iran, time ran out. This is a very difficult situation.

Speaking for me only

Here's a shocker - Ezra Klein gets Kent Conrad to admit he opposes government run health insurance programs like Medicare:

[KLEIN:]Do you support the public option?

[CONRAD:] No. [. . .] I don't think a government-run plan best fits this culture. A plan that's not government-run has the best chance of succeeding in being passed into law. [. . .] [T]he public option as defined by the committee of jurisdiction in the House, the Ways and Means Committee, is tied to Medicare levels of reimbursement. [. . .] If my state is tied to that reimbursement, every hospital goes broke.

The solution seems obvious to me - North Dakota should be exempted from Medicare and all government run health insurance programs.

Speaking for me only

Ryan Grim:

The Blue Dogs have been surveying their membership over the last several days; coalition co-chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) has been collecting the responses. She listed the four top priorities that have emerged: Keeping the cost under $900 billion, not moving at a faster pace than the Senate, getting a 20-year cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office and addressing regional disparities in Medicare reimbursement rates. So, the Huffington Post asked, the public option is not a top priority? "Right, the group is somewhat split," she said.

Good news. Now, to the fight to insure it is a robust public option continues. Grim has more info on that at the link.

Speaking for me only

Apparently, like me, deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is a Fringe fan:

It's been 89 days since Manuel Zelaya was booted from power. He's sleeping on chairs, and he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and "Israeli mercenaries'' are torturing him with high-frequency radiation.

Massive Dynamic must be behind it. All kidding aside, what a mess. Especially when the UN is pulling out of monitoring the upcoming election:

Via FDL, The Hill reports:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday shot down a healthcare compromise that has been viewed as the best chance for getting a bipartisan bill through the Senate. . . . “I don't even want to talk about a trigger,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. She said the “attitude” of her fellow Democrats is that “a trigger is an excuse for not doing anything.”

Well done Madam Speaker.

Speaking for me only

Bump and Update: The New York Defendant, Iman Ahmad Afzali, has been ordered released on 1.5 million bail. His friends and relatives will be posting real property.

Najibullah Zazi has been indicted for conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in New York. He will be transferred imminently. CBS' Rick Sallinger called this the other day.

The new charge carries a possible life sentence, and the sentencing guidelines provide for a life sentence. The one-count Indictment is here and the Memorandum Suppporting Detention is here.

It contains new details alleging Zazi purchased large amounts of chemicals in Aurora, CO, rented a hotel suite on two occasions where they believe he tested them and made phone calls inquiring about instructions. [More...]

Via Bowers, this:

Many centrists credit Rahm Emanuel, now White House chief of staff, then a congressman from Illinois and a member of leadership, for pushing Pelosi to protect vulnerable members. “Rahm could say, ‘Nance, I’m the guy who delivered the House.’ He had a special ability to talk to her,” said a senior Democratic aide.

Leaving aside the lie behind the Rahmbo propaganda (Rahmbo got it all wrong in 2006, not wanting to run against the Iraq Debacle. Dems won despite him, not because of him), what this tells me is that Rahm has leverage with Blue Dogs, not the Progressive Caucus. He means nothing to them. Rahm seems to recognize this:

Your turn.

This is an Open Thread.

Ezra Klein:

Medicare Advantage is a Medicare carve-out that allows private insurers to offer plans for seniors. The original vision for the program was simple enough: Private competition will drive costs down. The private market, as you may have heard, is more efficient and effective and adaptable. No reason seniors shouldn't benefit from that ingenuity. So Medicare would give private insurers the money it would spend on a beneficiary, and the private insurers could try to do a better job with it. Medicare Advantage, however, failed in its mission: prices shot up. Private insurers complained that they couldn't compete with Medicare for the same amount of money Medicare spends.

(Emphasis supplied.) And yet, Ezra tells us that exchanges, the private market, will be the magic wand that fixes health care. Which makes this line from Ezra ironic -- "faced with an instance where the government program proved relatively lean and efficient, and the private market expensive and wasteful, Republicans have mounted a ferocious defense of the market's right to continue burning through taxpayer dollars." Ezra's insistence that an exchange with a mandate without a public option is the magic bullet for health care reform is pretty much what he is criticizing Republicans for on Medicare Advantage.

Speaking for me only

The JournOList campaign against Howard Dean, the public option and reconciliation, got me to thinking - what exactly do they consider an acceptable health care bill? From what I can gather, they are insistent on 2 provisions only (though of course they "support" many others)- mandates and exchanges. To get those two provisions, they seem prepared to sacrifice everything else. Would that really be a progressive achievement? I do not think so. Some other people agree with me. Via digby, Gene Lyons writes:

[JournOLister Jon] Chait, however, also thinks progressives should shut up and accept a deeply flawed bill. . . . Baucus' bill would force millions of working Americans currently without coverage to spend up to 13 percent of their annual income on private health insurance policies they can't afford.

Digby writes "They seem intent upon taking what should be an historic progressive achievement and turning it into a hated, regressive tax on their own constituents." It was that line that got me to thinking about what Bill Clinton, with less of a mandate and a much less progressive Congress, accomplished in 1993. Let's compare on the flip.

The Denver Post reports the apartment complex where Najiboullah Zazi and his family live have started eviction proceedings against the family.

An apartment worker driving a golf cart, who identified himself only as Jim, said he posted the notice Tuesday afternoon due, in part, to concerns that people whose names were not on the lease have been living in the Zazi apartment.

Mohammed Zazi, was ordered released on Monday subject to electronic home monitoring. The U.S. Marshal's Service today said Mohammed Zazi is unlikely to be released before tomorrow's hearing. It's unknown if the eviction order will affect the release order. Arthur Folsom, Najibullah's attorney and PR spokesperson were unaware of the eviction notice when contacted.

Rutabaga Ridgepole at TPM Muckraker today writes "Did Zazi's Lawyer Sell Him Out To The FBI?", in part quoting my earlier post, Najibullah Zazi's Legal Representation (many thanks to Rutabaga for the compliments.) Other lawyers (including three of our best) have been weighing in with similar thoughts. [More...]

Remember when?

[Rahm] Emanuel really teed off on the Dem-versus-Dem attacks, calling them “f–king stupid.” This was a direct attack on some of the attendees in the room, who are running ads against Dems right now.

That was then, this is now: