Most Recent Posts

Good morning, fellow political junkies.Today finds the Senate in continued debate aimed at reaching a legislative agreement that keeps the federal government open into the new fiscal year which starts Oct. 1.

Meanwhile, there seems to be a growing mood among congressional Republicans to test President Obama's resolve to not negotiate over raising the debt ceiling in a few weeks.

Here are some interesting political items or themes that caught my eye this morning.

Trying to buy more time before a federal government shutdown that could happen October 1 without a budget deal, some lawmakers are raising the prospect of a one-week spending bill, writes The Hill's Alexander Bolton. One downside is it would force the crisis over how to keep the government open one week closer to the crisis over raising the debt ceiling which the Obama administration now says must be accomplished by mid-October. .

Republicans are coalescing around an idea to shift the Obamacare fight to the debt-ceiling debate, while Democrats, for their part, are united in their position that Republican attempts to link conditions to raising the same debt ceiling are a non-starter, report Manu Raju, Jake Sherman and Ginger Gibson of Politico.

Sen. Ted Cruz may have won over many grassroots conservatives with his 21-hour anti-Obamacare Senate talkathon, but many of his Republican colleagues view him as selfish, divisive and counterproductive, and that's only for starters, writes Jeremy Peters in the New York Times. Meanwhile, Los Angeles Times' cartoonist columnist David Horsey has a fairly withering Cruz commentary.

Former president George H.W. Bush served as the official witness at the wedding of two long-time friends in Maine where same-sex marriage was legalized in December, as my NPR colleague Mark Memmott reports.

Lawmakers are seeking to extend a visa program for Iraqi interpreters, perhaps adding it to the continuing resolution to keep the government operating into the new fiscal year, reports The Hill's Jeremy Herb. That brought to mind a recent story by NPR's Quil Lawrence on the plight of the Afghan translator whose U.S. visa was delayed despite the best efforts by a U.S. soldier who owes him his life.

Alan Simpson, the wise-cracking former Republican senator from Wyoming, is known for speaking his mind. One person who apparently had heard just about enough from him was Lynne Cheney, wife of former vice president Dick Cheney. Simpson reports she told him to "shut up" at a Wyoming social event, reports Laura Hancock of the Star Tribune.

Staying on the wild-west theme, the Center for Public Integrity's Michael Beckel provides a good reminder that not all is as it seems in the sometimes untamed world of online political fundraising. His "Hucksters for Hillary" report shows how easy it is for someone to misuse a famous politician's name to try to raise money from the public without any apparent link to the politician's campaign.

So that happened. Comedian Dan Nainan allegedly punched journalist Josh Rogin in the face, twice, in an apparent reaction to critical tweets by the journalist about the comic's stand-up routine at a charity event at a DC comedy club. Rogin tweeted about the alleged attack in real (presumably painful) time and Huffpo threw together a short post.

Authorities in western China apparently wanted to make an example of 16-year-old Yang Hui.

He was the first person in China to be arrested under a new rule against "rumor mongers," defined as people who intentionally post a rumor that is reposted 500 times or viewed 5,000 times.

But the government's case collapsed, the boy was released, and the local police chief was suspended after allegations that he bribed a local official (a coincidence, the China Daily reported).

Many governments have taken measures to censor or restrict the Internet and social media, a topic we've written about often at Parallels. The Chinese in particular go to great lengths. But some observers are now wondering whether the new Chinese rules can be effectively implemented or are just an invitation for officials to abuse their powers and curtail citizens' rights.

Yang Hui attends junior high school in Gansu province and lives with his grandfather. On Sept. 12, three days after the new rule was issued, a karaoke parlor employee was found dead on the street in Yang's hometown.

The dead man's family refused to give his body to the police for an autopsy. The police confiscated the corpse and ruled the employee had committed suicide by jumping off a building.

Related NPR Stories

Parallels

Jordan Accused Of Targeting Online Dissent

A satellite cellphone rings for rebel commander Bashar al-Zawi, at home with his family in the Jordanian city of Irbid. It's a rare domestic break for this wealthy businessman turned rebel commander. But he is anxious to get back to his battalion of 5,000 fighters in southern Syria.

They are taking part in a rebel offensive that is squeezing the Syrian army around the city of Dera'a. Military analysts say the fight is one of the most strategically important battles in Syria's civil war, because Dera'a, close to Damascus, is President Bashar Assad's stronghold in the southwest.

What are Zawi's aims when he returns to Dera'a later that night? "Escalation. I'm a leader of a brigade — so my job is not to preach peace," he says with a laugh.

Syrian opposition leaders were deeply disappointed by President Obama's decision to call off threatened military strikes in favor of diplomacy after the Syrian government allegedly used chemical weapons against its own people.

And on the ground in southern Syria, rebel commanders say U.S. promises of lethal aid appear to be on hold as Washington pursues a diplomatic track.

But Zawi shrugs off disappointment with the most recent U.S. policy shift. He is focused on the fight for Dera'a, where, he says, months of quiet preparation have paid off.

Rebel sources say earlier this year Saudi Arabia stepped up arms shipments through Jordan; the CIA vetted the rebel groups that received the arms to make sure none went to Islamist extremists. Zawi says there are no extremists in the south.

"There is a good command between the groups, and hopefully, we will be successful, but there is a shortage of ammunition," he says.

And that's where Zawi and other commanders see a link between the U.S. turn to diplomacy and waning U.S. support for rebels on the ground. The pipeline of weapons, ammunition and nonlethal aid pledged by the U.S. has slowed in recent weeks, just as rebels were inching closer to regime-controlled Dera'a. America's focus, says Zawi, has shifted to destroying chemical weapons, while the rebels insist on destroying the regime.

Enlarge image i

An initiative in Los Angeles County is trying to help the homeless by first connecting them with a place to live. The "housing first" model has been used in cities across the country in recent years to combat long-term homelessness.

In L.A. County, the Home For Good project focuses on those who are most at risk, aiming to end chronic homelessness in the area by 2016. Homeless-services providers are gathering information about the population and ranking individuals' vulnerability. Then, the goal is to move the most in need into permanent housing, quickly.

Research has shown that the "housing first" model can save money by keeping the chronically homeless out of emergency rooms, jails and shelters.

The approach has its critics, though, even among advocates. They argue that devoting so many resources to this subpopulation isn't helping to reduce overall homelessness.

Help On The Streets

AmeriCorps members Robert Harper and Charles Miller make daily rounds on Los Angeles' Skid Row, to seek out the most vulnerable people living on the streets. They work with other agencies to find them a permanent place to live — and they try to do it fast, Harper says.

"A person is out here about to die and you tell them, 'Sign a waitlist and wait for a year'? Come on, now," he says. "We're known as the 90-day people."

On a recent day, they visit Billy Ray West, who had agreed to meet them at a nearby fast food joint. West, 53, is an alcoholic and has lived on the streets for more than 30 years. If they can help him track down his birth certificate, he'll be under a roof within the next few months, no strings attached.

West is what these agencies would call "chronically homeless:" people who have been living on the streets for an extended period of time and may suffer from a disabling condition. They make up a quarter of L.A. County's homeless population but use three-quarters of its homeless resources, according to the United Way.

Before meeting Harper and Miller, West says, he hadn't received much help on Skid Row. But he says that's on him. "You know, I've just really been too damn lazy, just sitting ... around doing nothing. You know, just drinking all day," he says. "That's basically my fault, because I wasn't doing nothing to help myself."

Cross-Agency Collaboration

The Two-Way

$64,000 Raised So Far For Homeless Man Who Turned In $42,000