Today's edition of quick hits:
* President Obama will address the public this evening, but this afternoon, he made his case to lawmakers directly.
* Don't expect a vote anytime soon: "President Obama on Tuesday asked Senate Democrats to delay a vote authorizing a military strike on Syria as he embraced a U.N. effort to secure Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles. Obama told Democrats at a meeting on Capitol Hill he wanted the vote delayed to give the international diplomatic process more time to work."
* Secretary of State John Kerry announced plans to meet with Russian officials in Geneva on Thursday to discuss the crisis in Syria.
* Ezra Klein makes the case that recent developments with Syria are "a better outcome than the White House could have hoped for."
* Note, however, that Gary Samore, Obama's former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, told Greg Sargent that a deal may not come together, and successfully implementing an agreement will be very difficult.
* Bolstering the intelligence: "An investigation by the international group Human Rights Watch found that the Syrian regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad is most likely responsible for the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack outside Damascus that the U.S. government says killed more than 1,400 people. Although the intelligence services of France and Germany have also said they believe the Assad regime carried out the attack, the Human Rights Watch investigation is the first in-depth assessment not conducted by state intelligence agencies."
* NSA: "Newly released documents show that a federal judge who oversaw a secret U.S. spy court almost shut down the government's domestic surveillance program after he "lost confidence" in officials' ability to operate it."
* Pakistan "is set to release the Afghan Taliban's former second-in-command to help facilitate the peace process in neighboring Afghanistan, a Pakistani official told NBC News on Tuesday."
* China: "Worried about its hold on public opinion, the Chinese government has pursued a propaganda and police offensive against what it calls malicious rumor-mongering online. Police forces across the country have announced the detentions of hundreds of microblog users since last month on charges of concocting and spreading false claims, often politically damaging."
* And immigration reform isn't dead just yet: "Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte, chair of the House Judiciary Committee overseeing immigration, said he expected Congress to pursue reform legislation despite a tight schedule featuring debates over Syria, health care, and the debt limit.... Goodlatte said he expected votes soon, perhaps in October, on a series of smaller House bills on border security, internal enforcement, guest workers, and high-tech visas."
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.