About 40,000 Americans are said to have signed up for plans on HealthCare.gov  —  Roughly 40,000 Americans have signed up for private insurance through the flawed federal online insurance marketplace since it opened six weeks ago, according to two people with access to the figures.

Left wants challenger for Hillary  —  Liberal leaders want Hillary Clinton to face a primary challenge in 2016 if she decides to run for president.  —  The goal of such a challenge wouldn't necessarily be to defeat Clinton.  It would be to prevent her from moving to the middle during the Democratic primary.

The Truth about Navigators  —  James O'Keefe, the guerrilla videographer who helped bring down ACORN (the “community organizing” group that Barack Obama worked for as a lawyer and trainer) and got NPR's president fired, is back.  —  This time, his undercover investigators focused on Obamacare's …

I've Got Whooping Cough.  Thanks a Lot, Jenny McCarthy.  —  At this writing, I have been coughing for 72 days.  Not on and off coughing, but continuously, every day and every night, for two and a half months.  And not just coughing, but whooping: doubled over, body clenched …

Dem.  Rep.: ‘I Think the President Was Grossly Misleading to the American Public’  —  Rep. Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon, said that President Obama was “grossly misleading” on Obamacare:  —  “Very misleading,” the Democratic congressman says of Obama's promise that you can keep your health care plan, if you like it.

Virginia attorney general race: Herring takes lead, with a recount appearing likely  —  Democratic state Sen. Mark R. Herring took the lead in the extraordinarily tight Virginia attorney general race Monday evening, after he picked up more than 100 previously uncounted votes in Richmond.

Christie's tea-party problem  —  The day after Chris Christie, the cuddly moderate conservative, won a landslide reelection as the Republican governor of Democratic New Jersey, I took the Internet Express out to Iowa, surveying its various newspapers, blogs and such to see how he might do in the GOP caucuses …

CNN hires Brian Stelter as Reliable Sources host, media reporter  —  CNN has hired Brian Stelter, the New York Times media reporter, to serve as the new host of “Reliable Sources” its Sunday media program, and as a full-time media reporter on its digital side, POLITICO has learned.

How France Scuttled the Iran Deal at the Last Minute  —  Western and Iranian negotiators were putting the finishing touches on a far-reaching nuclear deal.  Then, at virtually the last minute, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius joined in the talks.  It didn't take long for the negotiations …

Confessions of a Quantitative Easer  —  We went on a bond-buying spree that was supposed to help Main Street.  Instead, it was a feast for Wall Street.  —  I can only say: I'm sorry, America.  As a former Federal Reserve official, I was responsible for executing the centerpiece program …

Time to Start Considering Obamacare's Worst Case Scenarios  —  The saying goes that things have to get worse before they get better.  But with Obamacare, things just keep getting worse—and then they get worse still.  In private, even many critics of the law are at least a bit surprised by how poorly the rollout has gone.

How immigration died — Part 1  —  Rep. Luis Gutiérrez's phone was ringing.  It was President Obama's chief of staff.  —  Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) was part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the middle of May that was on the cusp of a breakthrough agreement on immigration reform.

The New York Times's idea of an ObamaCare horror story.  —  Today's New York Times has an op-ed piece by a self-described ObamaCare victim, Lori Gottlieb, who identifies herself in her shirttail bio as “a contributing editor for The Atlantic and a psychotherapist.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe's son dies in plane crash near Owasso  —  Plane crashed around 4 p.m. after reporting engine trouble  —  A source close to Sen. Jim Inhofe has confirmed that his son, Dr. Perry Inhofe, was on board a plane that crashed near Owasso, Okla. on Sunday.  Perry Inhofe was killed in the crash.