memeorandum: McConnell quietly convenes group for next fiscal showdown (Alexander Bolton/The Hill)

8:00 PM ET, November 8, 2013

Top Items:

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:

Obama's Second-Term Slide Continues — 65% Disapprove of his Handling of Economy — Barack Obama has had a difficult year since his reelection victory. His overall job rating stands at 41%, down 14 points since last December. A majority (53%) now disapproves of the way he is handling his job as president.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Associated Press, Firedoglake, Politico, The Plum Line, The Daily Caller, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, Pejman Yousefzadeh, Business Insider and Post Politics

George E. Condon Jr / NationalJournal.com:
How Obama Blew the Entire Last Year

Discussion: Associated Press

Aaron Blake / Post Politics:
Poll: Obama's approval hits new low

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

Peggy Noonan / Wall Street Journal:

Noonan: 'I'm Gonna Be the Republican Nominee' — Mitch McConnell on the shutdown's failure, ObamaCare's future, and his own primary challenge. — Washington — It is a month since the government shutdown and a day after the election. The minority leader of the U.S. Senate …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Riehl World News, Pejman Yousefzadeh, No More Mister Nice Blog, Hot Air, First Read and Connecting.the.Dots

Andrew Kohut / Wall Street Journal:

The GOP Is in Better Shape Than You Think — Independents favor the GOP on handling the economy by a whopping 46%-30% margin. — Tucked away in recent polls—which have documented the extraordinary anger directed at the Republican Party during the shutdown crisis—are measures of clear disappointment with the Democratic Party.

Discussion: VodkaPundit, Questions and Observations, CANNONFIRE and The Reaction

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
McConnell quietly convenes group for next fiscal showdown

Discussion: Booman Tribune

Igor Bobic / Talking Points Memo:

Former ‘60 Minutes’ Producer: Discredited Benghazi Story Was Done To Appeal To Conservatives — A former “60 Minutes” producer who was fired over a 2004 story about then-President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard said Friday that CBS' now retracted story about the attack in Benghazi …

Discussion: Associated Press and Liberaland

New York Times:

CBS Correspondent Apologizes for Report on Benghazi Attack — The correspondent for the disputed “60 Minutes” segment about the attack on the United States Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year apologized on the air Friday morning, saying it was a “mistake” to put …

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:

CBS 60 Minutes' Lara Logan Apologizes for Erroneous Benghazi Survivor Report: ‘We Were Wrong’ — CBS 60 Minutes reporter Lara Logan admitted on Friday that a person who claimed to have been witness to the deadly September 11, 2012 attack on an American consulate in Benghazi and who served …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Hullabaloo, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and The Daily Banter

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:

Obama Considers Administrative Fix To Health Care Law — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering a fix to the president's health care law that would expand the universe of individuals who receive tax subsidies to help buy insurance, an administration source told The Huffington Post.

Discussion: American Prospect, Talking Points Memo, The PJ Tatler, Forbes, Roll Call, National Review, Daily Kos, Washington Post, The Incidental Economist, Ross Douthat, The World's Greatest … and The Moderate Voice

Lynn Sweet Washington / Chicago Sun Times:
Sweet: Obama tries to empathize over health insurance cancellations, but is that the best he's got?

Discussion: Conservatives4Palin and Patterico's Pontifications

Mark Finkelstein / NewsBusters:
Obama Plays The Victim: 'I've Been Burned' By ObamaCare Website

Discussion: The Daily Caller

McClatchy Washington Bureau:

Analysis: Tens of millions could be forced out of health insurance they had — Facebook Twitter Google Plus Reddit E-mail Print — WASHINGTON — Even as President Barack Obama sold a new health care law in part by assuring Americans they would be able to keep their insurance plans …

Discussion: Pejman Yousefzadeh, Fox News Insider, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, The Lonely Conservative and Ed Driscoll

Jennifer Epstein / Politico:
Obama laments site, not health plans

Discussion: The PJ Tatler and Twitchy

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:
Former MSNBC Host's Health Plan Cancelled, New Plan Costs 3.5 Times More

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Gateway Pundit, Weasel Zippers, Twitchy and Instapundit

Donna Cassata / Associated Press:

House GOP Leader: No Vote On Immigration Reform This Year — WASHINGTON (AP) — The third-ranking House Republican told immigration advocates that lawmakers won't vote this year on the issue, confirming what many had long assumed. — California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the majority whip …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Liberaland and The Plum Line

Brian Beutler / Salon:
GOP's intolerance trap: How ENDA fight explains all of U.S. politics

Discussion: The Plum Line and Booman Tribune

The Daily Beast:

Exclusive: Obama's Secret Iran Détente — Long before a nuclear deal was in reach, the U.S. was quietly lifting some of the financial pressure on Iran, a Daily Beast investigation reveals. How the sanctions were softened. — The Obama administration began softening sanctions …

Discussion: CNN, The Lead with Jake Tapper, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Heritage Foundation, Weasel Zippers, The Dish, Taylor Marsh, Jihad Watch, New York Times, The Gateway Pundit, Roger L. Simon and Patterico's Pontifications

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:

Obama Burns Media Supporters with Apology — Many were hurled under President Barack Obama's bus on Thursday night when he told NBC News reporter Chuck Todd that he was “sorry” those who were losing their health insurance coverage were shocked by this eventuality because of repeated “assurances” he made to the contrary.

Discussion: JustOneMinute and Outside the Beltway

Shahien Nasiripour / The Huffington Post:

New York Fed Chief Levels Explosive Charge Against Big Banks — The head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Thursday that some of America's largest financial institutions appear to lack respect for the law, a potentially explosive charge against an industry already roiling …

Discussion: Firedoglake, ThinkProgress and Washington Wire

William C. Dudley / newyorkfed.org:
Ending Too Big to Fail

Discussion: Real Time Economics

Jennifer Haberkorn / Politico:

Only 5 enrollments completed in D.C. Obamacare exchange — Only five people have fully completed the enrollment process in the D.C. insurance exchange, according to information compiled by lawmakers from four of the insurance companies participating in the exchange.

Discussion: National Review and The Lonely Conservative

Associated Press:

HOME DEPOT APOLOGIZES FOR RACIST TWEET — You are here — Home » AP Company » Home Depot apologizes for racist tweet — NEW YORK (AP) — Home improvement maker Home Depot Inc. on Thursday apologized for a tweet that showed a picture of two African-American drummers with a person …

Discussion: The Raw Story

Noah Bierman / The Boston Globe:

Scott Brown gets a plea to run in N.H. — WASHINGTON — The signs are mounting. Scott Brown travels almost weekly to New Hampshire. Last month he formed a political action committee there to raise funds; this week he attacked the state's Democratic senator on his favorite target: national health care.

Discussion: CNN, Politico, Daily Kos, Roll Call, Talking Points Memo, Weekly Standard and Post Politics

Jordan Weissmann / The Atlantic Online:

Yep, Being a Young, American Adult Is a Financial Nightmare — Here are the graphs to prove it. — Poverty is an astonishingly common experience here in the world's richest country. As I wrote this morning, almost 40 percent of American adults experience it for at least a year by age 60.

Discussion: The Dish

Jennifer Kabbany / The College Fix:

UC Berkeley Student Government Bans Term ‘Illegal Immigrant’ — The UC Berkeley student government has banned the term “illegal immigrant” from its discourse, deeming the phrase racist, offensive, unfair and derogatory. — In an unanimous vote, student senators passed a resolution that stated the word …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, National Review, protein wisdom and Liberaland

Frank Newport / Gallup:

Most Uninsured Americans Ignoring Health Exchange Sites — Three in 10 are familiar with the exchanges — PRINCETON, NJ — In the midst of widespread news coverage of problems with the federal health exchange website, relatively few uninsured Americans (18%) — the primary target population …

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, The Daily Caller, Hot Air, Talking Points Memo, First Read, Post Politics, Politico and Right Wing News

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

Guns & Ammo Editor Apologizes for Pro-Gun Control Column, Steps Down — Unconditional Apology Follows Reader Outrage in Social Media — Jim Bequette, the editor in chief of Guns & Ammo, issued an abject apology Thursday for the magazine's recent editorial advocating gun regulation …

Discussion: Hit & Run, Voices and The Reality-Based Community

Benjamin Weiser / New York Times:

Pine Bush, N.Y., School District Faces Accusations of Anti-Semitism — The swastikas, the students recalled, seemed to be everywhere: on walls, desks, lockers, textbooks, computer screens, a playground slide — even on a student's face. — A picture of President Obama …

Discussion: The Week, BBC and Capital New York