memeorandum: I'm changing my mind about Bitcoin. (Joe Weisenthal/Business Insider)

8:05 PM ET, December 2, 2013

Top Items:

Insurers Claim Health Website Is Still Flawed — Weeks of frantic technical work appear to have made the government's health care website easier for consumers to use. But that does not mean everyone who signs up for insurance can enroll in a health plan. — The problem is that so-called …

Marc A. Thiessen / Washington Post:

For Democrats in 2014, the Web site is not the problem — Democrats are praying that this weekend's relaunch of the Obamacare Web site will save them from an electoral bloodbath in 2014. Their hopes are misplaced. Here are five numbers that suggest that public anger over Obamacare will only grow as Election Day 2014 approaches:

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and National Review

Julianna Goldman / Bloomberg:

Obamacare Website Sign-Ups Said to Reach 100,000 in Month — About 100,000 people signed up for health insurance through the online federal exchange last month, a roughly four-fold increase from October even as a team of U.S. government and contractor programmers was fixing …

Discussion: PoliticusUSA, The Hill, Shakesville, Hot Air, Reuters, ThinkProgress, Weasel Zippers, Talking Points Memo, Business Insider, Mediaite, The Plum Line, Politico, Jammie Wearing Fools, First Read, Los Angeles Times, ABC News and Wonkblog

Ben Jacobs / The Daily Beast:
Is the HealthCare.gov Fix Too Late to Save Obamacare?

Discussion: Connecting.the.Dots

Brian Beutler / Salon:

R.I.P. Obamacare repeal movement: Crusade is officially dead — Back in July, long before we knew just how turbulent the rollout of the Affordable Care Act would be, and even longer before we knew just how committed Republicans were to the idea that Congress shouldn't boot people out of health insurance …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, msnbc.com, Speaker.gov, Liberaland, The Huffington Post and A plain blog about politics

Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo:

The Rise Of Obamacare McCarthyism — When House Republicans unveiled a proposal in the fall aimed at avoiding a dead-end government shutdown over Obamacare, the conservative backlash was swift and brutal: they called it a surrender, a betrayal, an appeasement of the health care law they all abhor.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Karoli / Crooks and Liars:

CA Assembly GOP Puts Up Fake California Health Exchange Site — California Republicans are desperate and shameless. In the past two weeks, GOP Assembly members have sent mailings out on what appears to be the state's dime to their constituents about health insurance.

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Ron Fournier / NationalJournal.com:

Fire Your Team, Mr. President — A White House shake-up can't stop with a sacrificial lamb. Obama needs to change the people around him to change how he governs. — President Obama needs to fire himself. Not literally, of course, but practically: He needs to shake up his team so thoroughly …

Discussion: Mediaite, Hot Air, TIME, Booman Tribune, VodkaPundit, naked capitalism and VentureBeat

The Hill:

Democrats admit reboot needs stronger White House team — Former administration officials and Democratic operatives say President Obama is ill-served by his current White House staff and must reboot his second term team following the disastrous ObamaCare rollout.

Discussion: Power Line, Hot Air, The Moderate Voice, A plain blog about politics, PostPartisan, VodkaPundit, Weasel Zippers, The Hinterland Gazette, Jammie Wearing Fools and The Reaction

Jennifer Epstein / Politico:
Obama to sign up for health insurance through exchange

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's …

Matthew Yglesias / Slate:

Drones Could Be Amazon's Undoing — Tonight on 60 Minutes, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced rather hazily that the company is working on trying to hone unmanned aerial vehicles as a last-mile delivery solution that could make ultra-fast same-day delivery a reality.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Marginal Revolution, Outside the Beltway, New York Times and The Dish

Charlie Rose / CBS News:
Amazon's Jeff Bezos looks to the future

Discussion: Businessweek, TechCrunch, Forbes, Guardian, ThinkProgress, USA Today, The Verge, Associated Press, Law Blog, American Prospect, Wonkblog, Firedoglake, PandoDaily, The Switch, Above the Law, Hot Air, NPR, GalleyCat, NBCNews, Hit & Run, Washington Post, Roll Call, The Other McCain, Gigaom and Taylor Marsh

Politico:
Obstacles to the Jeff Bezos drone dream

Discussion: BuzzFeed, The Daily Caller, iOwnTheWorld.com, Boing Boing, Jezebel and TheBlaze.com

David Pierce / The Verge:
Delivery drones are coming: Jeff Bezos promises half-hour shipping with Amazon Prime Air

Discussion: ThinkProgress, DCist, Gawker, CBS News, Patterico's Pontifications, ProfessorBainbridge.com, Achenblog, The Switch, Guardian, VentureBeat and Mock Paper Scissors

Nate Cohn / The New Republic:

Scott Walker Could Reunite the GOP — Unlike Chris Christie or Ted Cruz, Scott Walker can appeal to the entire party. — There's a real case that Chris Christie is the front-runner for the 2016 Republican nomination. That's pretty remarkable: He's for gun control, hails from the northeast …

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog

Joan Walsh / Salon:
GOP's massive 2013 mistake: How the party ignored its terminal illness

Discussion: Brains and Eggs, Liberaland, Associated Press and Taylor Marsh

Bruce Horovitz / USA Today:

Applebee's to serve tablets at every table — Hoping to appeal to younger diners, restaurants see a future in tablets for viewing menus, ordering and paying bills. — CONNECT — That endless wait for the restaurant check soon may be over. — Applebee's, the nation's largest casual dining chain …

Discussion: Business Insider and Liberaland

Darlene Superville / Associated Press:

5 NEW THINGS ABOUT OBAMA — You are here — Home » United States government » 5 new things about Obama — WASHINGTON (AP) — The man who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is more than just another celebrity, or the famous face behind the government's troubled health care website.

Discussion: Liberaland, The Daily Caller, TheBlaze.com and Jammie Wearing Fools

Scott Kaufman / The Raw Story:

Black female professor reprimanded for pointing out existence of structural racism to white male students — A faculty member at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, Shannon Gibney, received a formal reprimand for her handling of a discussion about structural racism in her Introduction to Mass Communication course.

Discussion: The Blotter and Jezebel

Dylan Byers / Politico:

MSNBC's Martin Bashir ‘on vacation’ after Sarah Palin remarks — Martin Bashir, the MSNBC host who has come under fire for the controversial remarks he made about Sarah Palin, is “on vacation” and will not host his namesake afternoon program on Monday, POLITICO has learned.

Discussion: FishbowlDC, Mediaite, Weasel Zippers and NewsBusters

Alexandra Jaffe / The Hill:

Cochran passes deadline on announcing reelection bid — Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), a veteran Republican facing a conservative primary challenge, passed this weekend his self-imposed deadline on announcing whether he would seek reelection. — According to a WTVA report from early November …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Rosie Gray / BuzzFeed:

NRCC's “Happy Holidays Is What Liberals Say” Shirt Removed From Website — War on Christmas? — Twitter: @NRCC — WASHINGTON — The National Republican Congressional Committee appears to have removed a t-shirt from its website that advocates against saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

Discussion: Business Insider, Mediaite and Liberaland

Jason Redmond / The Star-Ledger Editorial Page:

Christie's flip-flop on immigration: Editorial — Star-Ledger Editorial Board By Star-Ledger Editorial Board — If Gov. Chris Christie thinks voters won't notice if he promises one thing when he's running for governor, then another when he's running for president, he's dreaming.

Discussion: CNN, ABC News and Post Politics

Kevin Gosztola / Firedoglake:

NSA Sent Home Talking Points for Employees to Use in Conversations With Family & Friends During Holidays — A sheet of talking points for employees of the National Security Agency and Central Security Services, was sent out ahead of Thanksgiving to help guide conversations with family and friends during the holiday season.

Discussion: Guardian, The Verge and emptywheel

Daniel Halper / Weekly Standard:

Report: Obama Arranging Tehran Visit for Next Year — The Kuwaiti news outlet Al-Jarida reports that President Obama is seeking to arrange a trip to Tehran, Iran next year. — The headline of the article reads, “Obama would like to visit Tehran, official invitation after details resolved.”

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Hill, Hot Air, Mediaite, Yahoo! News, Weasel Zippers and Politico

ThinkProgress:

Private Prison Company Allegedly Put 73-Year-Old Grandmother In Solitary Confinement For 34 Days — Carol Lester, a 73-year-old grandmother serving time in New Mexico Women's Correctional Facility in Grants, is suing Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest private prison companies …

Discussion: The Impolitic and The Raw Story

Nicole Flatow / ThinkProgress:

Elderly Man With Alzheimer's Shot Dead After Wandering Onto Resident's Property — A 72-year-old who suffered from Alzheimer's was shot dead after wandering onto a man's property early Wednesday morning, ringing the doorbell and turning the door handle. After Joe Hendrix's fiancé called 911 …

ProPublica:

‘Please Wait’: New-and-Improved HealthCare.gov Has Same Old Problems — After a glowing news conference yesterday citing “night and day” progress on HealthCare.gov, I decided to log in this morning and take the Web site for a test drive, as I'm sure many others are doing. Early reports had been promising.

Discussion: capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org, Mashable, VodkaPundit, Hit & Run, Hot Air, HHS.govStrategy and Federal Eye

Mark Lagerkvist / Watchdog.org:

Court orders Christie administration to reveal New Jersey pension probe secrets — A New Jersey court may force Gov. Chris Christie's administration to reveal information about a hush-hush state pension probe involving Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno and a quarter-million dollar double-dipping scheme.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars

Sean Michaels / Guardian:

Bob Dylan sued for alleged racism — French-based Croatian community organisation file a complaint following controversial remarks made in 2012 — Bob Dylan has been sued by a French-based Croatian community organisation for alleged racism. Representatives from the Council of Croats in France …

Discussion: FP Passport, TIME, Mediaite, NPR, National Review and Gothamist

Maria Bello / New York Times:

Coming Out as a Modern Family — When my 12-year-old son, Jackson, asked me if there was something I wasn't telling him, I replied, “There are a lot of things I don't tell you.” — “Like what?” — “Adult stuff.” — He persisted: “What kind of adult stuff?”