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.

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 …

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 …

13 Times The Reagan White House Press Briefing Erupted With Laughter Over AIDS  —  In Jon Cohen's 2001 book, Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine , he detailed the Reagan administration's early indifference to the growing epidemic.  White House acting press secretary Larry Speakes …

Why mass transit is doomed in America: Politicians don't know people who use it  —  If big, liberal cities can't adequately fund their transit systems, what hope does anywhere else have?  —  If you want to know why mass transit is doomed in the United States, look at the place where it is undoubtedly …

Obamacare media updates are starting to get tense  —  Every day, usually about 2 p.m. or so, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services hosts a half-hour-long call on the status of the insurance marketplace.  Now, every day, we here at Wonkblog will update you on what the federal government told us about how Obamacare is going.

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.

U.S. justices decline to hear another Obamacare challenge  —  (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a broad new legal challenge to President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare law.  —  The court rejected a petition filed by Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia …

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.”

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.

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.

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 …

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 …

Pope Francis Tells Faithful He Worked As A Nightclub Bouncer  —  As head of the Catholic church, Pope Francis is charged with bringing people into the faith.  —  But the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reported the pope told churchgoers Sunday that he used to make money by kicking people …

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.

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 …

GOP member: Iran deal like Chamberlain's appeasement of Nazi Germany  —  Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) on Monday compared the Obama administration's short-term deal on Iran's nuclear capability with former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's attempt to appease Nazi Germany.

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 …

Documents reveal British banned Geller and Spencer because of their ‘pro-Israeli views’  —  The British government tried to cover its tracks.  But a new cache of documents Robert Spencer and I have received in our battle to overturn our being banned from Britain reveal that a chief reason …

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.

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.

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?”

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 …

Immaculate Stability (Wonkish)  —  David Andolfatto, understandably, rises to Steve Williamson's defense against the barbarians.  But I'm sorry to say that he still doesn't get the point.  —  He says that he's simply offering an alternative model — and Noah Smith takes him at his word.

Healthcare.gov Still Barely Works  —  As we get back up and running from the Thanksgiving Holiday, the deadline for the Obamacare website has come and gone.  CNN was able to get it to crash live on national television.  —  But that's okay.  The Obama Administration got the New York Times …

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 …