(Reuters) - President Barack Obama has ordered the National Security Agency to stop eavesdropping on the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank as part of a review of intelligence gathering activities, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

The order is the latest move by the White House to demonstrate that it is willing to curb at least some surveillance in the wake of leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden of programs that collect huge quantities of data on U.S. allies and adversaries, and American citizens.

The NSA's surveillance of the Washington-based IMF and World Bank has not previously been disclosed.

The debacle caused by the Republicans shutting down the government raised the hopes of many Democratic partisans that the Republicans would be swept out in the midterms.

But, not to be outdone, the Democrats countered with a debacle of their own with the incredible mess incurred by the incompetent roll-out of ACA - thus raising the hopes of Republican partisans that they will retain control of the House.

Note that the hospitals mentioned are all private hospitals. Doctors and hospitals are also responsible for high medical costs in the United States, it is not just the privatized health care system or health insurance companies that contribute to exploding costs.

Oh. Wait.

Goldman Sachs Gives Hillary Clinton Almost Half A Million Dollars In Less Than A Week

In speeches on October 24 and October 29, Goldman Sachs gave Clinton $200,000 a speech. Thursday's speech was a closed door meeting with Goldman and its clients. The prior Tuesday she spoke at a session hosted by Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

From Goldman Sachs to the Carlyle group, business interests are lining up to give huge amounts of cash to the Clintons personally for such speeches.

In the meantime, the two parties are moving to ensure that the same faces and choices will be given to voters despite overwhelming discontent over the two-party monopoly on power. With a system protecting incumbents and control of the two main parties, such public opposition remains largely immaterial and business interests are already putting money down on candidates like Clinton -- and the "style of honesty" that they crave.

(Sigh!) One can be forgiven for wondering aloud whether AP pollsters nowadays watch any other games besides those in select BCS conferences.

NIU QB Jordan Lynch is having a phenomenal year by any rational standard, but he is being roundly ignored by an ESPN-led sports media that's simply enthralled by Texas A&M's Johnny Manziel, who's repeatedly throwing the ball up for grabs into double and triple coverage, while the unheralded and underrated Aggie receiving corps gets little or no credit for working overtime to grab the receptions and make him look halfway decent.

One of these days, karma is going to catch up to the self-promoting "Johnny Football"®, and his balloons will burst and the blinders will fall away from pundits' eyes, as he tosses six interceptions in a single game.

Obamacare: The Insurance Scam

A scam is a fraudulent operation designed to make money. A scam unfolds over time with a team of swindlers seeking to rob the victim without the victim ever knowing they have been scammed.

In Confessions of a Confidence Man, Edward H. Smith lists the "six definite steps or stages of growth in every finely balanced and well-conceived confidence game." Let's go through these six steps and see how the process of selling the ACA to the public fits.
[...snip...]

6. The In-And-In

The purpose of the final phase of the con is to make sure the victims do not realize they've been conned.

Obama signed the ACA on March 23, 2010. Immediately the marketing began. The three words we heard the most to describe it were universal, affordable and guaranteed. Of course, the ACA is none of those. But members told us personally that if they told the truth, they wouldn't be re-elected.
[...snip...]
The public has been led to believe that the ACA has changed the behavior of health insurers. In this section we briefly explain some major areas of concern and why many of the promises of the ACA are false.