Debt Ceiling Deal Depends On U.S. Senate

The Senate has been working on a bipartisan deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. But House conservatives have signaled they might not go along with a Senate deal. Steve Inskeep talks to Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia about how he thinks the impasse can be resolved.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep. The prospects for a deal to avoid default and reopen the government now depend on the U.S. Senate, whose members include Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, who's on the line. Senator, welcome back to the program.

SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS: Good to be with you, Steve.

INSKEEP: OK. So let's remember, last night Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid put out a statement saying he's optimistic, and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell in the Senate, also says he's working on an agreement. Do you believe the Senate will deliver?

CHAMBLISS: Well, they both issued similar statements at the end of last week and over the weekend and it didn't come together. So I hope this time that it does, Steve. Because it's high time we quit this business of shutting down the government. There are too many things that are today impacting the lives of Americans, and just around the corner - i.e., the end of the month and the first of next month we're looking at veterans' benefits and Social Security checks and whatnot being impacted by the shutdown. And that means we're going to have a sure enough serious impact on people's lives. So let's hope so. I think folks on both sides of the aisle in the Senate are ready to get this done.

INSKEEP: Well, let's look at the deal, at least as it's been described. I know the legislation hasn't been passed out but it's described as reopening the government, raising the debt ceiling until early next year. Republicans get a concession on Obamacare. There would be additional income verification for people getting subsidies. Democrats get some minor concessions. Is that something that's likely to get your vote if that's the form it takes?

CHAMBLISS: I'm going to look at what the details are. The income verification is actually part of the law now, but this is supposed to tighten it up even more, and certainly that's key. But you know, we're not talking about a long-term solution, Steve. That's going to impact the decision making on the part of a lot of us.

We're talking about temporarily reopening the government by extending a CR, a continuing resolution, and temporarily raising the debt ceiling only for about four months here. So there's less demand in the minds of those of us who have to cast a vote if it's a temporary situation versus permanent situation.

INSKEEP: Do you think it's important, Senator, to get a big bipartisan vote in the Senate for whatever you send over to the House, where there has been a little bit of chaos?

CHAMBLISS: Well, that's always the goal we have because you want all legislation to have the support of both sides of the aisle. That usually means obviously(ph) it's a pretty good piece of legislation. Here I think it's more important than ever. Speaker Boehner is having lots of problems on the House side corralling his troops over there. And it's not (unintelligible) but it's kind of imploded with this CR debt ceiling issue that we've been working on. So...

INSKEEP: Would you urge him, Senator, to use Democratic votes if he possibly can? He's been trying to pass a deal with only Republicans.

CHAMBLISS: Yeah, I think he's going to have to have Democratic votes. In fact, he could even be in a situation now because of the timeline we're working on where it takes an overwhelming vote of Democrats and some Republicans to get to 218, but I think that's exactly the scenario that his folks have left him now.

INSKEEP: Now, is there a layer to this crisis that we don't see, Senator Chambliss? For example, are people talking privately with Speaker Boehner from the Senate side to the House side?

CHAMBLISS: They are. John is one of my dearest friends. I talk to him regularly anyway, but particularly on this issue we've been conversing regularly, and others have. He talks to Senator McConnell regularly, and I know other members of the Senate have been engaged in conversation with not just the speaker but rank and file House members, trying to encourage them to continue to dialogue, continue to work on it.

Because this doesn't do anybody any good, these types of confrontations.

INSKEEP: We've just got about - forgive me, Senator, we've just got about 30, 40 seconds here.

CHAMBLISS: Sure.

MONTAGNE: I want to ask about another relationship here. Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in the Senate have objected to reopening the government unless Obamacare is also defunded. They didn't show up for a Republican lunch, I'm told, according to Politico, on Tuesday. Have you heard from them and do you think they will try to talk this out, which could take us well past the deadline, days past the deadline under Senate procedures?

CHAMBLISS: Mike and Ted were not at lunch yesterday, but I don't think that is any indication of any issue being involved there. Their stated purpose of shutting down the government early was to defund Obamacare and those of us who've been around a while kept saying, guys, that's not going to happen. It can't happen.

I think they've come to the realization now that it's not going to happen and I think in all good conscience they are trying to figure out what it is they would like to have now to see the government reopened and the debt ceiling raised. But they're probably looking at the next round rather than this round. It's just not going to happen now.

INSKEEP: Senator Chambliss, thanks as always.

CHAMBLISS: OK. Steve, always good to be with you.

MONTAGNE: Saxby Chambliss is a Republican senator from Georgia.

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Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/16/235235700/sen-chambliss-comments-on-government-shutdown?ft=1&f=3
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IBM 3Q revenue short of expectations, stock down

NEW YORK (AP) — IBM said Wednesday that its third-quarter net income rose 6 percent, but its revenue fell and missed Wall Street's expectations by more than $1 billion. The company's stock fell in extended trading.

The Armonk, N.Y., computing company earned $4.04 billion, or $3.68 per share, up from $3.82 billion, or $3.33 per share, in the same quarter last year. Excluding one-time charges, the company earned $3.99 per share, above expectations of $3.96.

Revenue dropped 4 percent to $23.7 billion from $24.7 billion. That fell short of the $24.8 billion expected by analysts surveyed by FactSet. Adjusted for the effects of foreign currency exchange rates, the company said revenue fell 2 percent.

IBM is the world's largest technology-services company. Its results provide a gauge of businesses' appetite for technology spending. IBM has grown its earnings each quarter in the past decade, a streak that likely extended through the first quarter of this year.

The company's business has been stable because many of its customers sign long-term contracts that guarantee regular revenue, even when the economy is tough. It also helps that IBM no longer has a direct connection to the personal computer industry, where a sales slump has been hurting the makers of microprocessors and desktop and laptop computers.

Even so, revenue for its services business fell 3 percent. It's hurt by currency fluctuations, which can translate to fewer dollars IBM makes on overseas sales. Adjusting for that, services revenue would have been up 1 percent.

Systems and technology revenue tumbled 17 percent, and the division lost $167 million during the quarter. Software revenue rose 1 percent.

In after-market trading, IBM shares fell $11.08, or 6 percent, to $175.65. They finished the regular session up $2.07 at $186.73.

IBM said results for the July-September period were helped by lower expenses, including a steep drop in its tax rate and the absence of $408 million in charges related to job cuts that it logged in the year-ago period.

The company also noted that its revenue for Internet-based services is up more than 70 percent so far this year.

International Business Machines Corp. said it's working to improve results in certain growth markets and certain hardware businesses that are lagging. As a result, it still expects to post an adjusted 2013 profit of at least $16.90 per share. Analysts expect earnings of $16.87 per share.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ibm-3q-revenue-short-expectations-stock-down-214041025--finance.html
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Baby North West's Birth Plays Out on Next "Keeping Up with the Kardashians": Watch a Preview Here!

As we're just beginning to see more and more glimpses of baby North West, her birth story is currently playing out on "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."

In a preview for next week's episode, Kim Kardashian discovers she has toxemia and has to have her baby right away, five weeks before her due date.

Making a panicked call to sister Khloe, the 32-year-old reality star shares, "I have to deliver the baby right now!" Promising viewers an inside look, the promo states, "Be there the day Kim becomes a mom."

Check out the preview in the player below and catch the birth episode of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" on Sunday, October 27th at 9:00pm ET on E!

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/kim-kardashian/kim-kardashian-1039505
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Dems Kidding Themselves on Who Is Winning

By Peter Beinart, The Daily Beast - October 16, 2013

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Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/16/dems_kidding_themselves_on_who_is_winning_317858.html
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From England, one man feeds Western media on Syria

In this photo taken on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2013, Rami Abdurrahman, gestures during an interview with The Associated Press in Coventry, England. He's practically a one man band, but Rami Abdurrahman's influence extends far beyond his modest home in this small English city. The bald, bespectacled 42-year-old operates the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights from his house in the cathedral city of Coventry — and a review of recent media coverage suggests its running tally of killings and clashes is the most frequently cited individual source of information on Syria's civil war for the world's leading news organizations. (AP Photo/Raphael Satter)

In this photo taken on Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2013, Rami Abdurrahman, gestures during an interview with The Associated Press in Coventry, England. He's practically a one man band, but Rami Abdurrahman's influence extends far beyond his modest home in this small English city. The bald, bespectacled 42-year-old operates the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights from his house in the cathedral city of Coventry — and a review of recent media coverage suggests its running tally of killings and clashes is the most frequently cited individual source of information on Syria's civil war for the world's leading news organizations. (AP Photo/Raphael Satter)

COVENTRY, England (AP) — He's practically a one man band, but Rami Abdurrahman's influence extends far beyond his modest home in this small English city.

The bald, bespectacled 42-year-old operates the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights from his house in the cathedral city of Coventry — and a review of recent media coverage suggests its running tally of killings and clashes is the most frequently cited individual source of information on Syria's civil war for the world's leading news organizations.

"He's just everywhere," said Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. "He's the go-to guy for figures. ... I can't think of anybody who comes close."

Abdurrahman, who says he makes his living from a local clothing shop, says the Observatory relies on four unnamed activists in Syria and a wider network of monitors across the country to document and verify clashes and killings. But as the Observatory has increasingly found itself at the center of Western reporting on Syria's civil, some say his figures — and his sources — need more scrutiny.

Opponents say Abdurrahman is in cahoots with the opposition forces bankrolled by Gulf Arab states, skewing casualty figures to keep the spotlight off rebel atrocities. Others contend that Abdurrahman is in league with the Syrian regime. They accuse him of overplaying incidents of sectarian violence to blacken the reputation of those trying to topple President Bashar Assad.

Abdurrahman sees the competing allegations as evidence that's he's being fair; "You know you're doing a good job when all the sides start to attack you," he said in a recent interview.

Still, one prominent critic says it boggles the mind that a man living in Coventry is somehow able to count and categorize the dead in Syria hour by hour, every day of the week.

"Something is going on which is quite fishy," said As'ad AbuKhalil, a professor of Middle Eastern politics at California State University Stanislaus.

BUSY MAN

Abdurrahman was working on four hours' sleep when he met The Associated Press at Coventry's drab-looking train station earlier this month.

He'd planned to get to bed by 10 p.m. the previous night, but rebel infighting in the Syrian border town of Azaz meant he stayed up until 2 a.m. monitoring developments. He got up again at 6 a.m. to check for overnight updates.

"It's not a nine-to-five job," Rami said as he drove across the city, a white dove-shaped air freshener dangling from his rear-view mirror.

By his own account, Abdurrahman operates as a kind of human switchboard, fielding calls round-the-clock from Syrian activists, international journalists, and human rights workers. Particularly intense news days had seen up to 500 calls, he said.

Suspicions have long dogged Abdurrahman. Is the self-exiled Syrian really who he says he is? Who's behind his organization? And is he accurate enough to justify the world's reliance on his reporting?

Switching from English to Arabic and often speaking through a translator, Abdurrahman — whose real name is Ossama Suleiman — defended his decision to use a pseudonym as part of the Arab tradition of the nom de guerre.

He said he received money from a European human rights group, but declined to name it. Only after prodding did he say he had been receiving less than 100,000 euros ($137,000) a year since 2012 in support of his work.

"We're in a state of war," he said. "It's difficult to be completely transparent."

SYRIAN NETWORK

Abdurrahman, born in the Syrian city of Banias, says government harassment of his family first sparked his interest in human rights work. He left for Britain in 2000, moving to Coventry, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of London, where the revenue from the clothes shop helps support him, his wife, and their young child.

He launched the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in May of 2006, saying the activists he met while in Syria formed the group's core.

Counting the words out with his hand, Abdurrahman said his modus operandi was: "Document, verify, and publish."

That methodology has been put to the test in Syria, where both sides stand accused of peddling misinformation. Abdurrahman said his work was like navigating a "sea of lies."

Abdurrahman boasts 230-odd informants on the ground, ranging from Syrian journalists who leak him stories on the sly to employees of military hospitals who fill him in on army casualties. He said he sticks to the journalistic gold standard of only accepting a story once it had been confirmed by a second source.

He claims to have rarely gotten it wrong, saying he could think of only two cases in which he overstated casualty figures. Other mistakes, such as confusing a car bombing with a mortar strike, were more common, but in every case he insisted errors were corrected.

"We're human, we make mistakes," he said. "But it's our intention not to repeat them."

A LEADING NEWS SOURCE

Abdurrahman's accuracy matters because so many news organizations use his reporting. A review of stories published by three major newswires, including The Associated Press, over the past year show he's cited more often than SANA, Syria's government-run news agency.

Experts attribute the exposure to Abdurrahman's non-stop publication schedule, and the fact that so many observers are barred from Syria and that others are at risk of kidnapping or worse. That means journalists, human rights groups, and even the United Nations — which put out its own death toll at more than 100,000 back in July — have to rely at least in part on his figures.

That level of prominence worries those who harbor doubts about his organization.

"Let's assume good faith," said Nadim Shehadi, with London's Chatham House think tank. "Let's assume he's genuine, and qualified, and everything. He relies on too many sources to be able to check."

The problem with checking what's going on in Syria is that few people can gain access to the areas involved, said human rights researcher Cilina Nasser, who has collaborated with Abdurrahman in compiling casualty figures on several mass killings.

Nasser, who works for London-based Amnesty International, described Abdurrahman as careful and "usually accurate."

Her opinion was largely seconded by Lama Fakih, a researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"In broad strokes, the reporting is solid," she said.

Nasser said it was important to keep in mind that everyone — from Abdurrahman to the journalists charged with following up on his figures — labors under the same handicap.

"There's always something missing," she said, "which is us being on the ground."

___

Online:

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights English-language website: http://syriahr.com/en/

___

Raphael Satter can be reached at: http://raphae.li/twitter

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-20-Britain-Syria's%20Scorekeeper/id-f5fa8e291d5d4263817209c6a4aa6652
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'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' finds humor in humanity

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Maria Elena Fernandez
NBC News

8 hours ago

Fox Broadcasting Co.

"I grew up around a ton of cultures and ethnicities and sexual preferences in Berkeley," says "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" star Andy Samberg. "To have that be the tone of the show is very comfortable for me, and I'm very happy that people have taken note and said it's a big deal in that it's not treated like a big deal."

Andy Samberg’s “Brooklyn Nine Nine” character, Detective Jake Peralta is seated at his desk at the police precinct, head in hands and hung over when he receives an antidote from fellow detective Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), one handed down by her grandfather: a glass of raw egg yolks. “You look like the corpse we just pulled out of the river,” says their commander, Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher), as he walks in. Jake plays it off by claiming the drink is part of his fitness routine.

“You should drink it all,” Holt deadpans and pauses. “For your guns.”

It’s an amusing line the way the Emmy-winning Braugher dryly delivers it during a recent taping on the show's Los Angeles set. Samberg is inspired to improvise different endings that involve consuming the drink, insulting Santiago’s grandfather and trying to one-up Braugher. Soon, both actors are cracking up.

The exercise proves that Fox’s new comedy “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” isn’t going for edge. “Parks and Recreation” producing team Dan Goor and Mike Schur have teamed up again to create a throwback workplace comedy that features daily life in a Brooklyn precinct without a laugh track a la “The Big Bang Theory” or a fake documentary crew like “Parks.”

But the show is quietly breaking ground (it has yet to crack five million viewers) with one of the most ethnically diverse casts on broadcast television. Samberg’s star detective is a goofball but skilled investigator whose two bosses are black men—one of whom is gay—and two of his detective peers are Latinas. In the same way that ensemble dramas like “ER,” “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” paved the way for multiculturalism without tokenism, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” defies stereotypical comedic expectations and finds the humor in humanity—not skin color or ethnic background or sexual preference.

“The worst kind of comedy, the worst kind of stand-up to me is when they talk about what you’re looking at—‘I’m Jewish’ or ‘I’m wearing glasses,” Samberg said. “You want to hear jokes about life and things you can relate to. I don’t think this show will ever go out of its way to make comments in that regard.”

Instead, the laughs are found in how the stoic and hard-to-read new commander Holt reacts to Peralta’s antics or how badly Santiago wants to beat Peralta’s closure rate—not where they come from or who they sleep with. Detective Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio) is in love with hard-to-get detective Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), a tough cookie who doesn’t speak with an accent or acts particularly sassy. Sgt. Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews) is a hulk of a man who has become petrified of fighting crime since he became a father of twin girls; office secretary Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti) is just plain insane.

“I was working on this thing for a month before I realized that there’s two black guys running the precinct—and I work on the show!” said Crews during an interview with NBCNews in his dressing room. “I didn’t even think about that, which is so cool because, oh my God, we have all been there. I’ve turned down a lot of stuff where the message was ‘We’re going to be diverse!’ Give me a break. We’re in Brooklyn. If you don’t make it diverse, it looks funny. We are what ‘Friends’ should have been.”

During an interview in the set’s evidence room, Beatriz, who played Sofia Vergara’s character’s sister on “Modern Family” earlier this year, teared up as she described what it means to her to play a Latina whose ethnicity is not the butt of the jokes or the essence of her character.

“I remember as a kid watching TV and looking for myself and not being able to find myself very often,” she said. “There were very few shows I could see myself. I get a little emotional about it because it’s very important. Back in the day, people would go to theater to watch the human story. Now we’re watching it from our houses; to know that there are people who are watching it who can see themselves is a good feeling. I don’t talk about being Latina every day. I also don’t talk about what kind of deodorant I use. It’s something that happens or is a part of me. And it’s the same on the show. It’s almost monumental in its normalcy.”

The producers and casting director Allison Jones assembled the cast of veterans and fresh faces by staying open-minded during auditions. Once Samberg was cast in the lead role, Goor said his team went about making the Brooklyn precinct as realistic as possible without committing any characters to certain backgrounds or ethnicities. “Parks,” which is set in a small Indiana town, also boasts a multi-ethnic cast that includes Aubrey Plaza, Rashida Jones, Retta, and Aziz Ansari alongside star Amy Poehler.

“Our feeling was not calling attention to their ethnicities and not calling attention too much to Captain Holt being gay,’ Goor said. “We just feel like in real life you’re in a workplace and the Latina lady is not referencing the barrio. She’s a person, just like you’re a person. To a certain extent, it’s just writing toward reality.”

For example, Beatriz auditioned for the role of “Megan.” When the producers decided they wanted to hire her, they renamed her “Rosa.” That the two top officers in the precinct turned out to be black men, Goor said, was a function of wanting to work with Crews from the outset and being pleasantly surprised that Braugher, who is known for his dramatic heft, wanted to test his comedy chops. The role of the commander was always written as gay because the writers wanted the new leader to be a hard-working, ambitious policeman who had been held back because he had come out of the closet in the 80s.

“I’m not playing a gay police captain,” Braugher of his first comedic television role. “I’m playing a police captain who happens to be gay. The distinction is large in my mind. The gay police captain is eventually going to be wearing hot pants and singing ‘YMCA.’ The police captain who happens to be gay is going to be a huge collection of personality characteristics and motivations. I’ll get a husband one of these days but he’ll be my sweetheart as opposed to that man candy we bring in for stunt casting.”

In that same way, detective Boyle (Lo Truglio) is trying to win Rosa’s heart without any mamacita jokes or “spicy” references. “I love that these are traits that don’t define the characters,” the former “Reno 911” star said in an interview. “They shouldn’t. The reality of a police precinct in Brooklyn today is what you see here.”

Braugher jokes that he was lost in the “woods of drama” when “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” found him and won him over with its realistic treatment of diversity. “Broadcast TV is very conservative and they’re always concerned about reflecting the audience’s prejudices rather than reflecting the world as it is. When you’re going into people’s homes, there’s a big pressure to be lovable and acceptable. But life is made up of all these juicy parts. I’m not necessarily a fan of that kind of conservatism. I would like to start by holding a mirror up to life. And this is a show that does that.”

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/entertainment/brooklyn-nine-nine-finds-humor-humanity-not-stereotypes-8C11381614
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'Game of Thrones' Parody Turns King's Landing Into Renaissance Park (Video)

What if Eddard Stark was never the lord of Winterfell, but instead ran a Renaissance theme park?

That's the premise of a hilarious new video splicing together scenes and overdubbing lines from the first season of HBO's Game of Thrones. The plot doesn't make much sense, but who cares? Here's what's certain: Eddie Stark must turn a rag-tag gang of employees -- including Terry (Tyrion) and Denise (Daenerys)  -- into competent workers to save the fair.

PHOTOS: 'Game of Thrones'' Most Gruesome Death

Say what you will about the shady characters in Game of Thrones – the lords and ladies of Westeros have impeccable accents. That's not the case here -- and that's half the fun of the video.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/live_feed/~3/TrnIYH3DUOA/story01.htm
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