memeorandum: Dianne Feinstein joins push to keep health plans (Seung Min Kim/Politico)

8:10 PM ET, November 12, 2013

Top Items:

Christie's tea-party problem — The day after Chris Christie, the cuddly moderate conservative, won a landslide reelection as the Republican governor of Democratic New Jersey, I took the Internet Express out to Iowa, surveying its various newspapers, blogs and such to see how he might do in the GOP caucuses …

Discussion: Politico, Booman Tribune, Talking Points Memo, RH Reality Check, PostPartisan, Business Insider, Washington Monthly, The Hinterland Gazette, Weasel Zippers, Little Green Footballs, Daily Kos, Hullabaloo and The Dish

Tom Kludt / Talking Points Memo:

WaPo Publisher Calls Cohen Column ‘Brilliant’ — Before Richard Cohen's latest column sparked widespread outrage, the publisher of the Washington Post praised the piece. — Katharine Weymouth tweeted a link to Cohen's column on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's (R) relationship with the tea party, which she hailed as “brilliant.”

Discussion: Taylor Marsh, Mediaite, Feministing and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Ryan Grim / The Huffington Post:

Richard Cohen Defends Column: ‘Word Racist Is Truly Hurtful’ — Richard Cohen says that his latest piece was not intended to be and shouldn't be read as racist. — “The word racist is truly hurtful,” he told The Huffington Post on Tuesday. “It's not who I am. It's not who I ever was.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Shakesville, Daily Kos, ThinkProgress, Mediaite, Balloon Juice, theGrio and TheBlaze.com, more at Mediagazer »

Hamilton Nolan / Gawker:

Richard Cohen Has Written Something Insane About Interracial Marriage — Cotton-topped ladies man Richard Cohen hilariously poses as a “liberal” columnist at the Washington Post, despite being... how can we put this gently... a power-worshiping bigot. Don't take our word for it.

Discussion: Twitchy, Joe. My. God., Daily Kos, theGrio and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Matthew Yglesias / Slate:

Racist Op-Ed Columns Are a Strange Business Strategy — I'm not sure what, if anything, Jeff Bezos will do to try to turn around the financial fortunes of the Washington Post. But Richard Cohen's column today suggests one small step that the owner of the daily paper in a majority-black city could take …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Raw Story, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Talking Points Memo, The Week, No More Mister Nice Blog and ThinkProgress

Alan Taylor / The Atlantic Online:

Richard Cohen on Black-White Marriage — I'm not racist. I just don't recognize my country. — Here's a fairly amazing paragraph from Richard Cohen's latest: … Right. I'm not racist. I just don't recognize my country. Also, the sight of you, and your used-to-be-lesbian black wife …

Discussion: The Wrap, p m carpenter's commentary, Balloon Juice, Booman Tribune, Business Insider and Making Light

President Bill Clinton / Ozymandias:

Assessing the Healthcare Rollout … When OZY sat down with President Clinton, one of the things we were most interested to hear were his impressions of the recent national health care rollout. Here's what he had to tell us. — 1. The country is better off with the Affordable Care Act than without it.

Josh Gerstein / Politico:

Obama's critic-in-chief strikes again — President Bill Clinton — the man President Barack Obama once dubbed his “Secretary of Explaining Stuff” — once again has some explaining of his own to do with the Obama White House. — In an interview released Tuesday, Clinton called for a fix …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice and BizzyBlog

Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:

Dem. Rep.: ‘I Think the President Was Grossly Misleading to the American Public’ — Rep. Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon, said that President Obama was “grossly misleading” on Obamacare: — “Very misleading,” the Democratic congressman says of Obama's promise that you can keep your health care plan, if you like it.

Discussion: Power Line, The PJ Tatler, National Review and Scared Monkeys

Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:
Bill Clinton: ‘President Should Honor the Commitment’ and Let People Keep Their Insurance Plans

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, Yahoo! News, Post Politics, Red Alert Politics, Talking Points Memo, Conservatives4Palin and NewsBusters

Rush Limbaugh:
Clinton Lectures Obama: Keep Your Word

Discussion: Politico

Mark Murray / NBCNews:

NBC poll: Christie faces divided GOP, trails Clinton in hypothetical '16 race — If New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie runs for president in 2016, he would likely face the dual challenges of uniting a fractured Republican Party and besting a formidable Hillary Clinton in a general election, according to a new NBC News poll.

Discussion: The Week, New York Times, The Fix, Mediaite, NewsBusters, Daily Kos, AEIdeas, Talking Points Memo, Taylor Marsh, No More Mister Nice Blog, p m carpenter's commentary, The Dish, ABC News and Liberaland

Alex Bolton / The Hill:
Left wants challenger for Hillary

Discussion: CNN, Daily Kos, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Politico, WJLA-TV, Shakesville, Power Line, The Raw Story and Prairie Weather

David Weigel / Slate:
The Media's 2016 Presidential Fantasies

Discussion: Ross Douthat, The Plum Line, Guardian, Business Insider, Yahoo! News, Hullabaloo, Prairie Weather and Washington Monthly

Katie Glueck / Politico:
Poll: Hillary Clinton 44, Chris Christie 34

Discussion: CNN, The Hinterland Gazette, Joe. My. God. and Riehl World News

Brian Beutler / Salon:

GOP about to hurt itself again!: New ploy to kill Obamacare will blow up — The new “Keep Your Health Plan Act” sounds great — but its timing reveals Republicans' dubious ulterior motives — Starting on Jan. 1, votes to repeal Obamacare will become votes to take health insurance away from a lot of people.

Discussion: The Mahablog and A plain blog about politics

Matt Higgins / CBS Sacramento:

Calif. Insurance Commissioner: More Than 1M Californians Having Insurance Cancelled Due To ACA — SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CBS Sacramento/AP) — Health insurer Anthem Blue Cross of California has agreed to a two-month extension of about 104,000 individual policies after failing to give the required 90 …

Discussion: The Gateway Pundit and Weasel Zippers

Evan McMurry / Mediaite:
Fox Guest on Obamacare Website: 'Al Qaeda Couldn't Have Run This Worse'

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Red Alert Politics and The Raw Story

Frank Newport / Gallup:

Congressional Approval Sinks to Record Low — Current approval at 9%; 2013 average now 14% — PRINCETON, NJ — Americans' approval of the way Congress is handling its job has dropped to 9%, the lowest in Gallup's 39-year history of asking the question. The previous low point was 10%, registered twice in 2012.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, ABC News, The Daily Caller, Outside the Beltway, CNN, Firedoglake, Liberaland and Reuters

David Shamah / The Times of Israel:

Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant, space station — A cyber-security expert says several ostensibly secure facilities became victims of the virus that struck Iran's nuclear program — A Russian nuclear power plant was reportedly “badly infected” by the rogue Stuxnet virus …

Discussion: CANNONFIRE, Outside the Beltway, The Moderate Voice and Liberaland

New York Times:
Iran Nuclear Talks: Unfinished, but Alive

Discussion: CFR.org, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, CNN, National Review, Mondoweiss, emptywheel and The Dish

Ivan Watson / CNN:

Projected Typhoon Haiyan death toll falls, but tensions rise amid aid bottlenecks — Typhoon Haiyan — Cebu, Philippines (CNN) — While still unimaginably devastating, Typhoon Haiyan may not turn out to be as deadly as initially thought, the president of the Philippines told CNN's Christiane Amanpour Tuesday.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, New York Times, BBC, VICE, Washington Post, WGBH News, The Week, Sydney Morning Herald and Associated Press

John Fund / National Review:

The Truth about Navigators — James O'Keefe, the guerrilla videographer who helped bring down ACORN (the “community organizing” group that Barack Obama worked for as a lawyer and trainer) and got NPR's president fired, is back. — This time, his undercover investigators focused on Obamacare's …

Discussion: PJ Media, The Heritage Foundation, Twitchy, Ed Driscoll, Scared Monkeys, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, The Lonely Conservative, The Other McCain, Betsy's Page, Riehl World News and Hot Air

Benny Johnson / BuzzFeed:

“Don't Get Screwed By Obamacare, Find A Sugar Daddy!” Says Dating Website — Don't get screwed, by the government. — Seekingarrangement.com is a site that connects young females and older males for a “sugar daddy arrangement.” — seekingarrangement.com

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, Taylor Marsh, Mediaite and National Review

Sharyl Attkisson / CBS News:

Memo warned of “limitless” security risks for HealthCare.gov — (CBS News) WASHINGTON — CBS News has learned that the project manager in charge of building the federal health care website was apparently kept in the dark about serious failures in the website's security.

Discussion: msnbc.com, Crooks and Liars, American Prospect, Weasel Zippers, The Daily Caller, Hot Air, Scared Monkeys, The PJ Tatler, The Lonely Conservative and Washington Free Beacon

Seung Min Kim / Politico:

Dianne Feinstein joins push to keep health plans — It's not just red-state Democrats who want to take aggressive steps to mend controversial provisions in Obamacare. — Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she will co-sponsor a bill by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) …

Alex Roarty / NationalJournal.com:

Why Obama Won't Bounce Back — History shows presidents who aren't running for reelection don't recover from drops in their approval rating. — President Obama's approval rating is hovering around 40 percent, which could make him a drag on Democrats running in next year's midterm elections.

Discussion: Reuters, Mediaite, Hot Air and PostPartisan

Emily Schultheis / Politico:

Dem poll: Kay Hagan lead vanishes — Incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) is near the top of national Republicans' target list for 2014 — and a new poll shows her lead over her potential GOP challengers has all but evaporated. — Against state House Speaker Thom Tillis, Hagan leads by only 2 points …

Discussion: The Hill, Weasel Zippers, Outside the Beltway, National Review and The PJ Tatler

Blair Kamin / Chicago Tribune:

Tallest building ruling: Willis Tower loses to One World Trade Center — One World Trade Center will be the nation's tallest building when it is completed next year. — One World Trade Center will be the nation's tallest building when it opens next year, a Chicago-based tall buildings …

Discussion: BuzzFeed and Outside the Beltway

Bryan Preston / CNN:

Voter ID critics proved wrong — Editor's note: Bryan Preston is editor at large of the conservative blog PJ Media. He was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the “Laura Ingraham Show” and was communications director of the Republican Party of Texas.

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Sarah Palin And Matt Lauer Had An Insane Conversation — To watch Matt Lauer and Sarah Palin try to discuss health care on Monday's “Today” was to watch two entirely separate conversations awkwardly meet in the middle. — When Lauer told Palin that the Tea Party was really into repealing Obamacare, she was very into that.

Discussion: Daily Kos, PostPartisan, Taylor Marsh and Today

Charles Lane / Washington Post:

Liberals' investment drives Tesla's survival — These are trying times for Tesla Motors. Its third-quarter sales and revenue disappointed the markets, causing a sell-off in its high-flying stock. Then a Tesla Model S burst into flames after a collision, the third time that's happened.

Discussion: Hit & Run