memeorandum: Virginia Is Now One Step Closer to Being an Official Blue State (Ruy Teixeira/The New Republic)

1:50 PM ET, November 8, 2013

Top Items:

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: The Dish, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Weasel Zippers, Taylor Marsh, Roger L. Simon, The Gateway Pundit, Wall Street Journal and Patterico's Pontifications

Chuck Todd / U.S. News:

Exclusive: Obama personally apologizes for Americans losing health coverage — In an exclusive interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, President Obama said that he is “sorry” that some Americans are losing their current health insurance plans. “We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear …

Ron Fournier / NationalJournal.com:

I'm Sorry, Too, Mr. President — Obama apologizes for breaking promise on health care reform. — I'm sorry, too, Mr. President. — I'm sorry you couldn't finesse a single Republican vote for health insurance reform in 2010. — I'm sorry Republicans decided to re-litigate the law rather …

Discussion: Associated Press, Right Turn, The Gateway Pundit, Hot Air, Politico, Conservatives4Palin and Wall Street Journal

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:
Obama Considers Administrative Fix To Health Care Law

Discussion: National Review, Daily Kos, Forbes, The Incidental Economist and Ross Douthat

Juliet Eilperin / Washington Post:
President Obama apologizes to Americans who are losing their health insurance

Discussion: The Fix, The Hill, Hot Air and Betsy's Page

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: Hot Air, Talking Points Memo, No More Mister Nice Blog, Connecting.the.Dots and First Read

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: Questions and Observations and The Reaction

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 …

Discussion: AMERICAblog News, Talking Points Memo, Erik Wemple, Guardian, Daily Kos and The Raw Story, more at Mediagazer »

New York Times:

Accounts Differ to F.B.I. and CBS on Benghazi — Dylan Davies, a security officer hired to help protect the United States Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, told the F.B.I. he did not go there the night terrorists attacked it on Sept. 11, 2012, an account that contradicts a version of events …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Crooks and Liars, Politico, U.S. News, ThinkProgress, Foreign Policy, AMERICAblog News, The Raw Story, Taylor Marsh, Poynter, Liberaland, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Capital New York, Little Green Footballs and CNN, more at Mediagazer »

David Simpson / CNN:
‘We were wrong’: CBS's Lara Logan apologizes for Benghazi report

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Voices and The Raw Story

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: ThinkProgress, Firedoglake and Washington Wire

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

Discussion: Real Time Economics

New York Times:

Rules to Require Equal Coverage for Mental Ills — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday will complete a generation-long effort to require insurers to cover care for mental health and addiction just like physical illnesses when it issues long-awaited regulations defining parity in benefits and treatment.

Discussion: Capital New York, ThinkProgress, Post Politics and Shakesville

Jen Christensen / CNN:
Feds boosting mental health access, treatment

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

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

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:

Former MSNBC Host's Health Plan Cancelled, New Plan Costs 3.5 Times More — “Thnx Mr. President.” That's all former MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan had to say to President Barack Obama on Thursday when he announced that the health insurance plan he purchased on the individual market after leaving the news network was being cancelled.

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

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

The Mutilated Economy — Five years and eleven months have now passed since the U.S. economy entered recession. Officially, that recession ended in the middle of 2009, but nobody would argue that we've had anything like a full recovery. Official unemployment remains high …

Discussion: Campaign for America's Future

Tal Kopan / Politico:

Bill O'Reilly: Chris Christie won't do my show — Fox News host Bill O'Reilly complained Friday that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie refuses to appear on his show. — “He won't submit to an interview with me,” O'Reilly said on “CBS This Morning.” “Christie will not. He just won't do it.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Ashley Alman / The Huffington Post:
Chris Matthews Takes A Crack At Chris Christie And Wife

Discussion: Hot Air and Weasel Zippers

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: Talking Points Memo, Weekly Standard, Roll Call and Post Politics

Brian Beutler / Salon:

GOP's intolerance trap: How ENDA fight explains all of U.S. politics — America's liberalization has coincided with the right's increasing extremism. Is the House GOP running out of time? — Back in September of 1996, when the ideological sorting of the country's two major political parties …

Discussion: The Plum Line and Booman Tribune

New York Times:

Kerry Joins European Officials at Iran Nuclear Talks — GENEVA — Secretary of State John Kerry arrived here on Friday to lead a concerted diplomatic push to close an interim nuclear deal with Iran, though he cautioned before plunging into negotiations, “There are important gaps that have to be closed.”

Discussion: Via Meadia, NBCNews, BBC, National Review, Mondoweiss, First Read and Hot Air

Washington Post:
Iran is offered temporary relief from some sanctions if it freezes uranium enrichment

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Jerusalem Post, New York Times, Power Line, Prairie Weather and National Review

Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:

Netanyahu: ‘This Is a Bad Deal—a Very, Very Bad Deal’ — A very unusual statement from the Israel prime minister on the eve of a possible nuclear detail between the U.S. and Iran: — “I met Secretary Kerry right before he leaves to Geneva,” said Netanyhau. “I reminded him that he said that no deal is better than a bad deal.

Discussion: The Back Channel, The Lonely Conservative and Conservatives4Palin

Lynne Marek / Chicago Business:

Onion quits print — The Onion is halting its print version in Chicago and its two other remaining markets with its Dec. 12 issue. The newsweekly was 25 years old and is survived by its website and a new creative service for advertisers. — “It's sad to see a print edition no longer exist …

Discussion: The Verge, The Switch and Poynter, more at Mediagazer »

Reuters:

Exclusive: Snowden persuaded other NSA workers to give up passwords - sources — (Reuters) - Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden used login credentials and passwords provided unwittingly by colleagues at a spy base in Hawaii to access some of the classified material he leaked to the media, sources said.

Discussion: Little Green Footballs, Mashable, Liberaland and Techdirt

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: protein wisdom, National Review and Weasel Zippers