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November 13, 2013 | | KERRY'S DILEMMA This is not going to be a warm welcome back to Washington for John Kerry. The U.S. secretary of State will urge the Senate on Wednesday to "pause" on the new round of sanctions against Iran—and it will be a tough sell, several sources told The Daily Beast. "The secretary will be clear that putting new sanctions in place would be a mistake," said State Department spokesman Jen Psaki. The ultimate decision to go through with additional sanctions will likely be up to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Banking Committee chair Tim Johnson—and if they decide to go through with the sanctions, it's extremely likely it will pass the Senate and the House by large margins. You've got your work cut out for you, Kerry. HELPLESS Panicked survivors in the Philippines began looting Wednesday, five days after one of the deadliest storms on record killed thousands. There were reports of residents smashing open underground water pipes as essential supplies ran out on the islands devastated by Typhoon Haiyan, and a mass burial was called off in Tacloban as the police convoy carrying bodies reported hearing gunfire. Tacloban's mayor, Alfred Romualdez, who organized the burial, urged survivors to leave the city if they could find better supplies elsewhere. "I have to decide at every meeting which is more important, relief goods or picking up cadavers," Romualdez said. MORE BAD NEWS Clock's ticking. Healthcare.gov is unlikely to have fixed all its glitches by the White House's deadline at the end of November, a government official said Wednesday. The website, where Americans can sign up for health-care coverage under the Affordable Care Act, has not been able to hold up to the 20,000-30,000 Americans using it—half of its intended capacity. What's more, CGI Federal, the contractor who built the site, has only fixed roughly 60 percent of the problems it has identified so far. President Obama and other White House officials have insisted the site will be running in tip-top shape by Nov. 30, but government officials and other contractors working on the site have concluded that the only way to fix the problems is for people to use other methods to sign up for insurance. OUTRAGE There's something to be said for defending your words despite the entire Internet being against you. The Washington Post's Richard Cohen said Wednesday that "it's a slander" to suggest that he does not support interracial marriage. In Cohen's column about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday, he wrote: "People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York—a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?)" Cohen insisted the offending statements were describing how he believes Tea Party Republicans feel, not how he himself feels. "This is just below the belt," he said of the criticism. "It's a purposeful misreading of what I wrote." RABBLE ROUSINGS When Sarah Palin is promoting a book called Good Tidings and Great Joy, that should be the first clue that all is not what it seems. The former Alaska governor kicked off her 15-city book tour on Tuesday—which includes stops in battleground Tea Party regions. In fact, Palin has been using her book's release to go after her enemies—even within the Republican Party. Her very targeting of these regions shows the deep divide within the party, especially since she often gets behind candidates who are not favorites of the establishment GOP—and her endorsees win about 60 percent of the time. Is this book tour just another way to swing races for the Tea Party? | | 
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