Obama unaware as U.S. spied on world leaders: officials.  —  The National Security Agency ended a program used to spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a number of other world leaders after an internal Obama administration review started this summer revealed to the White House the existence of the operations, U.S. officials said.

60 Minutes: Benghazi  —  The following script is from “Benghazi” which aired on Oct. 27, 2013.  The correspondent is Lara Logan.  Max McClellan, producer.  —  When Chris Stevens was killed in Benghazi, Libya, on the anniversary of September 11th last year, it was only the sixth …

Here's how GOP Obamacare hypocrisy backfires  —  GOP base doesn't understand right wants to turn Medicare, Social Security and more into a very similar program  —  The smartest thing yet written about the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act's federal exchange program is a post …

McCain: Clinton ‘Very Strong Candidate’  —  Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talk prior to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee nomination hearing in Washington, D.C.  —  Sen. John McCain knows a few things about presidential elections …

Banksy rips New York Times for rejected op-ed  —  It isn't news that's fit to print.  —  Elusive British graffiti artist Banksy took a swipe at the New York Times today for denying him a spot on the newspaper's coveted op-ed page, where he was planning to trash the new World Trade Center tower.

Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News?  —  Much of the speculation about the future of news focuses on the business model: How will we generate the revenues to pay the people who gather and disseminate the news?  But the disruptive power of the Internet raises other profound questions …

Dems demand refund from ObamaCare website contractors  —  Five House Democrats are asking the Obama administration to seek a refund from the companies who built the ObamaCare website, which has so far failed to work for most people trying to sign up for health insurance.

LGBT Job Discrimination Ban To Get Senate Floor Consideration By Thanksgiving  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to announce the coming floor consideration of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act on Monday, his office says.  —  Handout / Reuters  —  WASHINGTON — Majority Leader Harry …

PARTY CRASHERS  —  In the late nineteen-sixties, Mitch McConnell came to Washington to work as an aide to Senator Marlow Cook, a Kentucky Republican.  Cook backed clean-air standards and limits on strip mining.  It was a time of political diversity among Republicans: in 1970 …

I Did Not ‘Recant’ on Voter ID Laws  —  Richard A. Posner on judges, data, and consequences  —  A month or so ago, a new book of mine, called Reflections on Judging, was published by the Harvard University Press.  I have been a federal court of appeals judge since 1981 …

House leaders plot new fall GOP strategy  —  For the first time in months, House Republicans are facing no immediate cataclysmic deadlines, and GOP leaders are struggling to come up with an agenda to fill the 19 legislative days that are left in 2013.  —  Need evidence?

60 Minutes: Benghazi  —  Benghazi was a planned, sophisticated attack by al Qaeda against a barely protected American outpost.  Lara Logan reports.  —  WEB EXTRAS  —  See all 107 Comments

Obamacare Rate Shock and Premium Joy: Now It's Real  —  The conversation about Obamacare shifted a bit over the weekend.  Nobody has forgotten about the technical problems with healthcare.gov. But now critics are also focusing on something else: Reports of sharp premium increases that some individual consumers are facing.

Right-wing Populism Could Hobble America for Decades  —  The tea party is going down.  Dysfunction is not.  —  In the Federalist Papers, James Madison promised that a large republic with a representative government would avoid the “instability, injustice and confusion” that had plagued many nations in Europe.

Obama Takes Friendly Fire  —  Incoming from Democrats:  —  “Dem Party is F****d.”  That was the subject line of an email sent to me Sunday by a senior Democratic consultant with strong ties to the White House and Capitol Hill.  The body of the email contained a link to this Los Angeles Times story about Obamacare “sticker shock:”

Why is broadband more expensive in the US?  —  Home broadband in the US costs far more than elsewhere.  At high speeds, it costs nearly three times as much as in the UK and France, and more than five times as much as in South Korea.  Why?  —  Men's haircuts, loaves of bread …