Update: Zazi's father was allowed to go home after three hours of questioning. At 4:45 pm, Najibullah Zazi is still there.

ABC News is reporting:

The Aurora man under FBI investigation for alleged ties to a New York bomb plot, has admitted he has ties to al-Qaida and is in negotiations to plead guilty to a terror charge, a senior law enforcement official told ABC News. The official said Zazi had received explosives training and his possible guilty plea would be part of a deal to cooperate with the government.

The report says Zazi made the admissions this morning. The NY Daily News has a similar account. [More..]

[EZRA:] Can you support the Finance Committee bill in its current form?

[ROCKEFELLER:]No.

[EZRA:]Why?

[ROCKEFELLER:] There are a number of big things. The Children's Health Insurance Program is put into the exchange. That's like putting it into a farmer's market. It loses its defined benefits. And children need defined benefits. Obviously the public option. I feel very strongly about that as a discipline on the private health insurance market. The public health insurance option doesn't have to make a dime. It doesn't have to make Wall Street happy or shareholders happy. It just has to sell a product at cost. That will put pressure on private insurance companies to bring down their premiums. [MORE . . .]

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah starts tonight, beginning the Days of Awe culminating in Yom Kippur. The President offered this message:

L'shana tova, tikatevu to all of you.

This is an Open Thread.

Time:

[O]ne place where Baucus does not appear to be so flexible is on the question of adding a government-run "public option" to the measure as an alternative for providing coverage to the uninsured.

Thus, if as Paul Krugman endorses, BaucusCare is the template for health care reform, what that means is that Democrats will enact a huge tax increase on the middle class with no real reform of the system.

Because that is what an individual mandate means. That is political suicide. If BaucusCare is the template, what must be removed is the mandate. Forget about health care "reform." Just expand Medicaid, provide subsidies and enact the meaningless unenforceable regulations that people seem to think will work. But forget about the rest of it.

Speaking for me only

Coming from Krugman, this is shockingly absurd (as opposed to Robert Reich, who gets it exactly right, as does Booman):

There’s enough wrong with the Baucus proposal as it stands to make it unworkable and unacceptable. But that said, Senator Baucus’s mark is better than many of us expected. If it serves as a basis for negotiation, and the result of those negotiations is a plan that’s stronger, not weaker, reformers are going to have to make some hard choices about the degree of disappointment they’re willing to live with.

(Emphasis supplied.) After writing so well on the stupidity of the political bargaining on the stimulus bill, it is shocking to read this ridiculous column from Krugman. Indeed, Krugman writes:

Update: CBS' Rick Salinger reports at 11:30 pm Thursday, the questioning ended for the day and Zazi will return Friday for more questioning.

****

Najibullah Zazi, the 24 year old person of interest in a federal terror investigation that is linked to last week's apartment searches in Queens, NY, began his second day of voluntary interrogation at 2:00 pm Thursday at the FBI office in Denver. As of 11:00 p.m., he was still there. I presume he is completely innocent of terror activities. But I question whether his voluntary cooperation will prove beneficial to him in the long run -- legally and otherwise.

CBS News today reported that Zazi filed bankruptcy in March, 2009 in the Eastern District of New York. The order of discharge was entered last month. Zazi's debts consisted of $52,000., all stemming from credit cards. At least 15 of the 20 credit card accounts were opened in a four month period in 2008. [More...]

I'm beating Jeralyn to the TV Open thread tonight cuz Fringe's 2nd season premieres tonight at 9. That's what I'm watching tonight (I rewatched Season 1 this week so I am fired up and ready to go.) What are you watching tonight?

This is an Open Thread.

And that's Ezra, feeling the prevailing breeze and trying to remain relevant:

[Grassley]has made Baucus look like a weak, ineffectual fool. . . . He let Baucus end the process with a compromised bill and not a single vote of confidence from his Republican colleagues. He made Baucus look like a knave.

Later Ezra writes "Baucus [was left] with little evident power at this juncture. . . . That means the White House and the Senate leadership are going to play the primary role in both offering concessions and guaranteeing their preservation in the process. The bill remains in Max Baucus's committee, but at this point, it's largely out of his hands."

Ezra is a bit of a mouthpiece for the White House these days so this is a harbinger that Baucus has been thrown under the bus by the White House. Yesterday was a big day.

Speaking for me only

Ryan Grim:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters at a Thursday briefing that she was glad to see the Senate making progress on its version of health care reform but she emphasized that the House plan would look markedly different - by including a public option. "I fully support the public option. The public option will be in the bill that passes the House," Pelosi (D-Calif.) said purposefully.

Still in play.

Speaking for me only

Arthur Folsom, the Denver lawyer for Najibullah Zazi, says he will bring his client back to the F.B.I. office today for more questioning . (My earlier post on yesterday's search of Zazi's home and voluntary marathon interview is here.)

Former Sen. Gary Hart, who now serves as vice chairman of the Homeland Security Council, says he met yesterday with New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Hart doubts that the police have "uncovered an al-Qaeda terrorist cell that was planning a major terrorist attack." [More...]

What's going on?

This is an Open Thread.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is the legislative voice of the view, championed in the blogs by Ezra Klein and on cable TV by Dylan Ratigan, that "the market" can cure what ails health care in this country. Wyden writes a NYTimes Op-Ed arguing for this view:

The problem with these [health care] bills, however, is that they would not make the exchanges available to all Americans. Only very small companies and those individuals who can’t get insurance outside of the exchange — 25 million people — would be allowed to shop there. This would leave more than 200 million Americans with no more options, private or public, than they have today.

Wyden then argues for his bill - which has as much chance of passing as does single payer. Which is to say none. But even if it did become law, it would not work imo. The notion that insurance companies will compete amongst themselves in a way that will improve health care is simply a fantasy (See Scarecrow on the MA experience.) They never have and they never will. The only way competition would actually work to improve health care is where a public option is available. Wyden and his fellow "market magic" advocates do not care about a public option. Certainly their right. But they are wrong, imo. In any event, it is all academic as the Wyden proposal never even can arrive now, much less be DOA. It is a discussion about unicorns.

Speaking for me only