memeorandum: Slowly They Modernize: A Federal Agency That Still Uses Floppy Disks (Jada F. Smith/New York Times)

11:35 PM ET, December 6, 2013

Top Items:

South Carolina Sheriff Refuses To Lower Flag For Mandela — Rick Clark, the sheriff of Pickens County, S.C., vowed on Friday to defy President Obama's order that U.S. flags be lowered to half staff in honor of deceased South African leader Nelson Mandela. — Clark made his promise …

Discussion: NPR, The Hinterland Gazette, The Raw Story and Liberaland

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

7 Nelson Mandela Quotes You Probably Won't See In The U.S. Media — The former South African president, who died Thursday, was a revolutionary and a deep skeptic of American power. — Siphiwe Sibeko / Reuters — “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, The Daily Caller and Spectator

Facebook:

Ted Cruz · 562,730 like this — Nelson Mandela will live in history as an inspiration for defenders of liberty around the globe. He stood firm for decades on the principle that until all South Africans enjoyed equal liberties he would not leave prison himself, declaring in his autobiography …

Discussion: Daily Kos and BOR

The Atlantic Online:

Apartheid's Useful Idiots — Nelson Mandela died yesterday, and all around the world, much-deserved hosannas are coming in, praising the life of one of the most important figures in modern Western history. That last bit reflects my own bias. What's become clear in all my studies …

Discussion: msnbc.com, Daily Kos, Washington Monthly, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES and Balloon Juice

Tom Kludt / Talking Points Memo:

Meet The Mandela RINOs: Republicans Who Lost Their R-Card For Praising Mandela — Republican politicians have tried to pay homage on Facebook to the late Nelson Mandela since his death on Thursday, but many of their conservative supporters want to hear none of it.

Discussion: American Prospect

ThinkProgress:

The Right Wing's Campaign To Discredit And Undermine Mandela, In One Timeline — The world is celebrating Nelson Mandela as a selfless visionary who led his country out of the grips of apartheid into democracy and freedom. But some of the very people lavishing praise on South Africa's …

Discussion: Informed Comment, National Review and The Impolitic

Anneta Konstantinides / ABC News:

Ted Cruz Criticized for Praising Nelson Mandela — While much of the world was eulogizing Nelson Mandela, some of Sen. Ted Cruz's followers were fuming that the man who defeated South Africa's apartheid and won the Nobel Peace Prize should be reviled as a communist and a terrorist.

Discussion: ABC News, The PJ Tatler and Twitchy

Leslie Larson / NY Daily News:

Sen. Ted Cruz's praise for Nelson Mandela met with criticism by supporters — The Texas senator posted a message on his Facebook page saying that Mandela would ‘live in history as an inspiration for defenders of liberty,’ but some of the comments posted called the former South African leader a 'terrorist …

Discussion: The Hinterland Gazette, p m carpenter's commentary, Liberaland and Joe. My. God.

Washington Free Beacon:
Matthews to Sharpton: McConnell Worse than de Klerk

Discussion: The PJ Tatler

Max Boot / Commentary Magazine:
The Character of Nelson Mandela

Discussion: The Monkey Cage, Slate, The Daily Caller, The Dish, News Desk, TIME, Spectator, The New Republic, National Review, BREITBART.COM and Betsy's Page

Lucy McCalmont / Politico:
Rick Santorum ties Obamacare, Nelson Mandela

Discussion: CNN, The Lead with Jake Tapper, The Hinterland Gazette, The Moderate Voice, The Dish, p m carpenter's commentary, Outside the Beltway and The Reaction

Jacob Fischler / BuzzFeed:
South Carolina Sheriff Refuses To Lower Flag For Nelson Mandela

Discussion: Mediaite

Nick Wing / The Huffington Post:
Dick Cheney Didn't Regret His Vote Against Freeing Nelson Mandela, Maintained He Was A ‘Terrorist’

Discussion: The New Republic, The Immoral Minority, CNN, Gawker, Brains and Eggs, Liberaland, Right Wing Watch, US Department of State, Hullabaloo, Mediaite, Londonderry Patch News, Daily Kos, ThinkProgress, National Review, ≠ Inequality Matters and New York Times

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:
Matthews: South Africa's White Apartheid Leaders Were More Patriotic Than GOP

Discussion: Hot Air and National Review

Adam Peck / ThinkProgress:
Rick Santorum Compares Obamacare To Apartheid

Discussion: Austin Chronicle, The Week, Mediaite, No More Mister Nice Blog, Shakesville and Washington Monthly

Jennifer Epstein / Politico:
Nelson Mandela funeral: George W. Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton to attend Mandela memorial

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and TheBlaze.com

Dylan Scott / Talking Points Memo:
Santorum: Fight Against Obamacare Like Fight Against Apartheid

Discussion: Jezebel, Gawker and Liberaland

Travis Gettys / The Raw Story:

Sarah Palin: ‘Angry atheists’ are trying to ‘abort Christ from Christmas’ — If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, Sarah Palin said, he would probably go on Fox News to complain about the war on Christmas. — The former half-term governor of Alaska and failed vice presidential candidate appeared Thursday …

Discussion: Mediaite, Liberaland, Right Wing Watch and Jezebel

Dylan Byers / Politico:

Carney criticizes report on Sebelius — The White House on Friday criticized as misleading a report in POLITICO Magazine claiming that President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius met just once since the signing of the Affordable Care Act more than three years ago.

Discussion: PostPartisan, Hot Air, National Republican … and Taegan Goddard's …

Justin Sink / The Hill:
White House: Obama won't insist on jobless aid in budget deal

Discussion: The Agonist

Brendan Sasso / The Hill:

Patriot Act author: Obama's intel czar should be prosecuted — Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the original author of the Patriot Act, says Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be prosecuted for lying to Congress. — “Lying to Congress is a federal offense …

Discussion: Politico, Hot Air, Firedoglake, The Daily Caller, Hit & Run, The Switch, SiliconBeat, Talking Points Memo and The Gateway Pundit

Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic:

Exclusive: The Obamacare Error Rate Has Fallen Dramatically — Some perspective on the latest ACA freak-out — These days it seems like everybody following Obamacare is talking about the 834s. Those are the personal data files that healthcare.gov sends insurance companies, in order to notify them of new enrollees.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Reuters, Daily Kos, National Review, Washington Monthly, Hit & Run, Talking Points Memo and Hot Air

Jada F. Smith / New York Times:

Slowly They Modernize: A Federal Agency That Still Uses Floppy Disks — WASHINGTON — The technology troubles that plagued the HealthCare.gov website rollout may not have come as a shock to people who work for certain agencies of the government — especially those who still use floppy disks, the cutting-edge technology of the 1980s.

Discussion: Business Insider

Detroit Free Press:

Rand Paul on Detroit: The city's future won't come from Washington; magic is in Motown — DETROIT — The best way to bring Detroit back from the brink of economic collapse isn't through a government bailout, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said during a speech to the Detroit Economic Club today.

Discussion: The Raw Story and The Fix

Richard Pollock / Washington Examiner:

Doctors boycotting California's Obamacare exchange — WATCHDOG OBAMACARE CALIFORNIA HEALTH CARE HEALTHCARE.GOV HEALTH CARE EXCHANGES — An estimated seven out of every 10 physicians in deep-blue California are rebelling against the state's Obamacare health insurance exchange and won't participate …

Discussion: Ed Driscoll, Weasel Zippers and TheBlaze.com

Jonathan Martin / New York Times:

Challenged by Tea Party, Veteran Mississippi Senator Seeks 7th Term — WASHINGTON — Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican who was first elected to the Senate in 1978, set up a generational and ideological clash in the state's Republican primary when he announced Friday that he would seek a seventh term in 2014.

Discussion: USA Today, Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly and Althouse