Rep. John Campbell on the government shutdown; What is it like to sign up for Obamacare in California?; Danny DeVito and Judd Hirsch reunite in 'The Sunshine Boys'; Picture This: Documenting the Los Angeles Dodgers; Former Guatemalan soldier accused of atrocities convicted of US immigration fraud, Etiquette Lesson: How to deal with a significant other's annoying obsession, plus much more.
Rep. John Campbell on the government shutdown
Many people didn't think the government shutdown would happen, but it did. Yesterday we heard reaction from California Democrat Janice Hahn, so this morning we turn to California Republican John Campbell to take the pulse of his party.
Congressman John Campbell represents the 45th district in California and sits on the House Budget Committee.
Interview Highlights:
Has your position changed now that the government has shutdown?
"No, my position has not changed at all. I think there are two things that have happened. First of all, we have made four different attempts with the Senate and the fifth one last night where we are trying to send them different things.
"Yes, we want to repeal Obamacare and we tried that, but then every offer since then has been something less than that, and each one of these bills, included with it, is funding the government through Dec. 15. We are doing the best we can, but their position, Harry Reid's and the President's, is we will not negotiate."
They sound like offers everyone knew would be rejected anyway. Are they offers just to make an offer?
"We want Obamacare fully repealed. But I understand the President is the President, the Senate is the Senate and we're not going to get that. The President and the Senate need to understand they don't control the entire government either. We are willing to compromise, we are offering compromises, we understand we won't be able to repeal Obamacare fully.
"But the President needs to understand he is not going to be able to maintain this law without some changes either. The idea that the President and the Senate have that its my way or the highway, just doesn't work in a democracy. I think eventually they'll figure that out."
But the game is sort of over in that sense, you're asking the winner in this, the democrats, to still compromise when they don't have to?
"First of all, many laws are put into effect and repealed. I mean prohibition was a law of the land and it was repealed. Slavery was the law of the land and it was repealed. Just because a law is in effect doesn't mean its good, doesn't mean its working, doesn't mean the people support it."
But, Congressman, yesterday we saw health care exchange websites around the country crashing as servers became overloaded with people...Isn't that some shred of proof that the demand is there?
"How about all the people at Walgreens and at UPS who have now lost their health coverage? How about all the small companies that no longer want to hire a 51st employee because it will cost them too much money? How about all the people I know who were told by the President, 'if you liked your health care you can keep it, but they now can't keep it, or the price of it has gone up specifically because of the Obamacare mandates?
"For every person, and I'm not going to say that no one is going to benefit from Obamacare, there will be people. But for every person who benefits form Obamacare there are going to be three of four who are going to be hurt by it. And that's why I would like to repeal this law."
How would you characterize this shutdown?
"There are 279 elected Republicans in federal office. 100 percent of those people want Obamacare repealed, there is no disagreement on that. There is complete support within our conference, within the Republican Caucus for the position we are taking for the fight we're in and the reason we are in this fight."
But we're starting to see Republicans coming out against this shutdown and some of the tactics of the GOP, California Republican Devin Nunez said yesterday, he called some within the party "lemmings":
"There are about eight Republicans out there that want to basically give to Harry Reid's position. Eight out of 233 or 234, so it is a small number that are taking that position. I have never seen our group as unified as we are right now. "
How long do you think this shutdown will last?
"Ask Harry Reid."
Let's say Reid does come to the table...what are Republicans willing to compromise at that point?
"We want something on Obamacare. We want something dealing with that law. We've thrown several different proposals out there and I think we'll negotiate from there. As far as what we're willing to accept, I don't know. If the debt limit gets thrown in there, who knows how many different things can wind up being on the table and maybe there would be some large general agreement.
Everybody has to win something, everybody has to lose something. But we're not going to be doing any further negotiating with ourselves, I'm sure the democrats won't do that either, but as I've said here many times, we can't make an agreement if we don't talk. So the first step is for the Senate Democrats to agree to sit down and talk about some kind of deal."
What is it like to sign up for Obamacare in California?
Obamacare officially launched on Tuesday, though not without some delays and glitches.
The online healthcare exchange websites in many states were bogged down by too much traffic, leaving many users with stalled pages, site crashes and the spinning wheel of death. In our state the Covered California website reported it got a million page views in the first hour and about 800,000 every other hour of the day.
Freelance writer Janice Worthen was among the millions who visited the Covered California site yesterday and she joins us now to tell us about her experience.
Danny DeVito and Judd Hirsch reunite in 'The Sunshine Boys'
Danny Devito and Judd Hirsch first traded barbs on the hit sitcom "Taxi" back in the late 1970s-early 1980s. Decades later, they reunite as a squabbling vaudeville duo onstage for tonight's opening of Neil Simon's "The Sunshine Boys" at the Ahmanson Theatre.
The play focuses on the relationship between the comedy team of Al Lewis (Hirsch) and Willie Clark (DeVito). But then Lewis leaves the act.
Hirsch says, "Since my character says to his on that fatal night, 'I'm retiring,' it put this man into a tizzy."
"And rightly so," says DeVito, not missing a beat.
But then CBS comes along and offers to revive their act, setting off antagonism and hilarious antics between the two. TV viewers will recall DeVito and Hirsch had the same kind of chemistry on "Taxi."
"To have the history that we have, Judd and I," says DeVito, "being thrust together in 'Taxi' in 1978...for that five years it was a family. We got very, very close."
Even while they talked with Alex Cohen, the two kept bouncing off of each other, laughing and reminiscing along the way.
To see The Sunshine Boys: The play opens tonight and runs through November 3rd at the Ahmanson Theatre. Get more info on tickets here.
Former Guatemalan soldier accused of atrocities convicted of US immigration fraud
A former Guatemalan soldier has been found guilty of immigration fraud by a Riverside County jury. What makes this case so unusual is that the soldier, Jorge Sosa, has been accused of participating in the massacre of civilians during his country's bloody civil war in the 1980s
KPCC's Leslie Berestein Rojas has the story.
Sports Roundup: MLB playoffs, NBA training camp and more
The Major League Baseball playoffs are in full swing, the sounds of leather on hardwood are in the air and we try to address the question of who would win a fight between a unicorn and a mermaid.
It's time for sports and we're joined by our aces Andy and Brian Kamenetzky.
The Dodgers are in Atlanta tomorrow to start the playoffs against the Braves, but Andy all of a sudden they don't feel as a strong as they might have been even a week ago.
The team has a huge payroll and had a remarkable comeback going from worst to first in dominating fashion. Now in any playoffs, you can't account for luck. If things don't workout for them and they get bounced, will the season be considered a failure?
World Series prediction: Aa good matchup? A blow out? Which team wins it all?
Training camps have opened for both the Lakers and Clippers, the season is just a month away. Are the Clippers going to be as good as most think they will be?
Brian are the Lakers going to be as bad as some think they will be?
Sports fans love to debate things that will never have a resolution. One of the more fun debates is who would win in basketball one on one and yesterday Michael Jordan talked about who he would have liked to matched up against.
'Upsetting' video depicting abuse of mentally ill inmates shown in court
Today in a courtroom in Sacramento, an attorney representing mentally ill inmates is expected to screen disturbing video footage documenting how such prisoners have been treated. Nearly an hour's worth of similar footage was shown yesterday.
For more on this video and the role it's playing in how mentally ill inmates are treated, we're joined now by Paige St. John of the LA Times.
Families arm kids with emergency plans
Deportations can be examined in numbers. An estimated 200,000 people deported between 2010 and 2012 say they have children that are U.S. citizens. It's the lasting impact that these deportations have on family members. From New Mexico In Depth, reporter Sarah Gustavus takes us into the home of one teen is dealing with life after her brother's deportation.
Jackie has struggled in the years since her older brother was deported. She’s a quiet high school sophomore with a big, sweet smile. Jackie says she and her brother were inseparable growing up.
“He’d put his hat on and we’d have tea parties,” she says. “He was basically my best friend.”
Jackie says she was almost a different person before her brother was removed from the United States.
“I was more happy and active and with my friends and teachers,” she says. “I wanted to be friends with almost everybody.”
Her brother was accused of carrying on a sexual relationship with a minor three years ago and went to court. Jackie was at her aunt’s house when she learned that her brother was detained by immigration officers and would be removed from the United States. She broke down crying.
“Who am I going to go talk to when I’m sad?” she asked. “Who am I going to go to when I’m scared?”
Both of her parents are living in the United States without legal status, and her father was detained with her brother. Her father was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody because he didn’t have a criminal record. Jackie says she is now worried both her parents might be deported.
The exact number of immigrant parents deported from the United States is unknown, but Congress requested in 2010 that ICE collect data on those deportations. The news site Colorlines obtained Department of Homeland Security data that indicated over 200,000 individuals who were deported from 2010 through 2012 reported that they had U.S. citizen children.
Sarah Nolan is the executive director of Comunidades en Accion y de Fe, an immigrants’ rights organization known as CAFÉ, in Las Cruces near the U.S.-Mexico border. Nolan says parents who are vulnerable have created deportation readiness plans.
“They have an emergency plan for if one or both parents get deported and what happens when they’re alone,” she says.
Nolan compares this preparation to families who teach their kids how to get out of the house during a fire.
“They have points of contact,” she says. “They have armed their older children with a rapid response.”
Nolan says a parent’s deportation is a huge burden on teens. They don’t often talk about how they are feeling, but she says parents report to her that their children’s “grades are going down or they got in trouble in school. They cry a lot or they just get very quiet.”
Centro Savila, an organization that offers counseling and other support services to immigrant families in Albuquerque, is growing, but the organization recently had to start a waiting list for new clients.
Angelica Regino, a social worker in the South Valley near Albuquerque, says younger children may show the stress in different ways says. “The adults can tell you exactly how they’re feeling,” she says. But for the children, Regino says, “it’s different. They don’t have those words.”
Regino works at Centro Savila, an organization that offers counseling and other support services to immigrant families. Clients pay by donation and no one is turned away if they don’t have insurance or can’t afford an hour-long session. This is a unique model that’s hard to find anywhere else in New Mexico.
The counselors and in social workers see children, and adults like John (not his real name). John is worried about speaking publicly. He’s 24 and says he lived through many stressful years growing up, knowing he or his parents could face deportation.
John says his mom worried constantly.
“She has plan Bs and plan Cs, and she has money stashed,” he says. “Depending on what situation, she has different ways to react to them.” But John says his dad didn’t talk openly about his feelings, adding “he’s very brave.”
John didn’t discuss his emotions until his daughter was born nearly two years ago.
“She counts on me,” John says. “Having depression and feeling suicidal, those are not an option anymore because I have a daughter now. I would be hurting her if I did something to me.”
John recently became a legal permanent resident, but he is still dealing with the effects of years of anxiety. He says coming to Centro Savila made a big difference for him.
The organization started last year with volunteers and now has four staff members. Centro Savila is growing, but the organization recently had to start a waiting list for new clients.
This story was produced with New Mexico in Depth, an investigative online news organization that collaborates with the Fronteras Desk on New Mexico stories.
App Chat: Keeping track of your health
Now that summer is over, the days are getting shorter and the holidays are coming up. Letting yourself go a little bit is pretty much inevitable. But if you want to keep things in check throughout the fall season, we have some technology that might help.
This week, Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica joins the show with some health apps that help track how much you move and how much you eat.
Moves
Tracks all your activities automatically in the background and can tell when you're walking versus cycling versus running. Tracks where you're going, too, to show you a record of where you've been. For example it might show I walked from home to a coffee place nearby, and it took me 20 minutes to walk there. Then I hopped on a bike and rode it downtown, and it took me 14 minutes by bike. Really fun and useful for seeing where you've been and how much activity you've been getting.
Lose It
Lets you enter food and track calories, but the main appeal is that it can scan the barcode of pretty much anything and allow you to bring in that information without manually entering it. So if you're eating some Wheaties, for example, you can scan it and it'll bring in all the Wheaties information, where you can correct for what you're eating and whatnot.
RunKeeper
Not just for running! People use it for walking, cycling, etc. and it helps track where your routes are, how much activity you've been doing, how close you are to a goal, etc. If you set goals within the app, it can tell you how close you are to meeting that; for example my husband has a goal of riding a thousand miles on his bike before the end of 2013, and RunKeeper keeps a tally of how many miles he's ridden so far. There's also an extra paid feature of RunKeeper where you can have it live broadcast where you are, which can be useful if you compete in races and you have family who want to watch your progress.
Etiquette Lesson: How to deal with a significant other's annoying obsession
No matter how content you are with your significant other, chances are they have an obsession or habit that can really get on your nerves.
Maybe your boyfriend plays video games for hours a day, or perhaps your wife just can't stop binge-watching reality TV. Whatever the issue, we figured you could use some guidance on how to broach the subject with your loved one.
To help us out with that we turn to Slate's Emily Yoffe, best known for her Dear Prudence advice column.
Picture This: Documenting the Los Angeles Dodgers
Every so often we’ll sit down with photographers and talk about their work in our recurring segment, "Picture This."
This week we talk to longtime Dodgers photographer, Jon Soo Hoo, who has been the official team photographer for the past 28 years.
Unlike the other sports photographers who focus on the field, Soo Hoo often concentrates on activity outside the baselines. He loves to shoot fans catching fouls balls, or missing them, and he has full access to the team whether its in the dugout, the locker room or on the team plane.
"Anybody with a camera can shoot the game action," Soo Hoo said. "But a lot of people are scared to walk up to Tommy Lasorda with a wide angle lens, stick it in his face, and get him to start posing."
It's a job that is a lot of fun, but requires long hours. Soo Hoo usually arrives at the ballpark by 11 in the morning, and often doesn't leave until the wee hours of the next day. Sometimes new players are a little wary of him, at least at first.
"It all starts at spring training," Soo Hoo said. "Once they get to know me, and they realize I'm not 'media', they realize I'm not going to do anything to make them look bad."
So for instance, if he's shooting around one of the many poker or domino games in the dugout, he's careful.
"If I see any cash on the table, not like there's ever been any, but if there were any, I would certainly not pick my camera up to shoot it," he said.
In his almost 30 years with the team, he's followed players from their first day in the show to their retirement from the game. While he loves his job, he admits some seasons, like this winning one, are more fun than others.
Soo Hoo said he considers himself a sports photojournalist, but admits he'd have a hard time being a news photographer.
"At sporting events, you know there are going to be two teams, in these two colored uniforms, and they will be in this area," he said. "There will be an outcome. Somebody's going to win. Somebody's going to lose."
Covering a natural disaster, a war, even a house fire? That's different. "I'd be in over my skis at that point," Soo Hoo said.
But what he does know is how to capture the incredible moments of joy and disappointment that are part of baseball. And while he might not have the same amazing 65-year run with the team that his colleague, Vince Scully's had, he's looking forward to his fourth decade. And who knows, maybe a fifth.
See more of John Soo Hoo's photos at his official Dodgers Photo Blog.