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Anchored by Jake Tapper, The Lead airs at 4 p.m. ET on CNN.
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money lead
NFL's pink sales under scrutiny
NFL's breast cancer awareness sales are raising eyebrows about how much money is going to the American Cancer Society.
national lead
Problems plague Obamacare rollout
President Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and indeed his administration, have been well-known for being on the cutting edge of technology.
Yet when it came to the roll out of Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, someone dropped the tech-savvy ball.
The federal exchange website "healthcare.gov" has at times been slow, inaccessible to users, and – in the words of the White House – prone to frequent "glitches."
The administration expected about 60,000 people to sign up for an account at the same time, but ended up getting 250,000 people, which overwhelmed the system, said Aneesh Chopra, former U.S. Chief Technology Officer for the Obama White House, the first person to hold that job.
"The good news is we're not inventing a new form of physics, we're simply addressing the problem that's been identified, they're looking to find ways to expand that capacity at that account creation step, it will be resolved over the next couple of weeks," said Chopra.
But the problems are not limited to volume.
"According to other IT experts, it's been software issues, in addition to not knowing what the volume was going to be," said former Medicare director for the George H. W. Bush administration Gail Wilensky.
FULL POST
politics lead
Pawlenty: Tea party 'overplayed their hand,' and 'didn't have the leverage'
A two-week government shutdown ended with Republicans essentially conceding, signing onto a bill that leaves Obamacare – which caused the shutdown in the first place – pretty well in tact.
The original move to include defunding or delaying Obamacare in any bill that would fund the government came from a small group of conservative House Republicans, mostly tea party (or tea-party supported) members.
"They overplayed their hand here. One of the adages you have to keep in mind is: when you negotiate, the person with the leverage wins," said Tim Pawlenty, president of Financial Services Roundtable and former governor of Minnesota. "They didn't have the leverage here."
FULL POST
politics lead
Senator-elect Cory Booker on that midnight call from Obama, and where he will live in Washington, D.C.
President Barack Obama called newly-elected U.S. Senator Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, late Thursday night to congratulate him on his win. The call apparently went to voice mail.
"He left a message for me last night which was incredibly gracious after midnight, I'm sorry I missed his call," said Booker.
The former Newark Mayor said Obama "was my friend before he was my president," and said he will never forget his first in depth conversation with the then-Senator-elect.
FULL POST
national lead
House Republican: President Obama already got his tax increase
The deal to re-open the government and avoid defaulting on the nation's debt is temporary. Another fiscal fight is on the horizon in just a few months.
"The big issue on the table right now that should be of concern to every American is the $17 trillion debt and $60 trillion of unfunded liabilities. That weight has enormous implications for our future," said Republican Congressman Richard Pittenger, a member of the House financial services committee.
FULL POST
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