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OAKLAND, Calif. — A 16-year-old was taken into custody Tuesday for intentionally setting an 18-year-old man on fire as he slept on an AC Transit bus, police said. Oakland police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said the teen was arrested by officers from her department and the school district's police force. “This was a horrific crime,” Watson said. “Anyone who thinks lighting someone on fire is okay is not okay.”

PRESIDENT OBAMA: We did this to put to end the days when the individual market had no standards, when every year, thousands of Americans would be dropped from their coverage. People are acting like this is some new phenomenon. Every year there was churn in this individual market. The average increase was double digits on premiums in this same market, with or without the Affordable Care Act. People were getting, often times, a very bad deal. (Organizing for Action campaign event, November 4, 2013)

The Department of Energy withheld troubling cost and performance data on a major stimulus award from a federal watchdog before the company servicing the award went bankrupt, according to a report released on Tuesday. The report focuses on the department’s handling of a pair of federal awards worth about $126 million for ECOtality, a San Francisco-based green energy company that declared bankruptcy in September. DOE’s inspector general, which authored Tuesday’s report, released an audit in July that expressed concerns about the department’s management of ECOtality’s $100 million stimulus award for the installation of electric vehicle charging stations. The report revealed...

RUSH: It's pathological. With Clinton it was (Clinton impression), "I never had sex with that woman, not a single time, never, and I never asked anybody to lie." And that then became a controversy over the definition of "is." Remember that? Depends on what "is" is. This is pathological. Obama is now saying he didn't say what he said. Obama is now trying, by the way, if I can do this, he's trying to implement the Limbaugh Theorem. This is the latest example of the very thing the Limbaugh Theorem described: The president pretending to fight against the snake oil...

**SNIP** Several reporters asked Carney about Obama’s attempted revision, and why the president won’t admit that he “misspoke” by telling Americans “you can keep it.” “Thank you for the question. I just want to be clear. The president was referring to the law and to the fact that the law was written in a way,” Carney initially responded. When pressed to explain why the president won’t say he “misspoke” in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, Carney declared that “it’s a little bit more complicated than that.” As he tried to deny the contradiction between Obama’s “you can keep it” statements...

We all owe Ron Paul a debt of gratitude for jumping in to help save Ken Cuccinelli. This is huge. === On Monday, former Congressman and staunch libertarian Ron Paul (R-TX) campaigned for Virginia Republican Governor candidate Ken Cuccinelli and said Virginias would be giving up on liberty if they voted for Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Tuesday's election and would be "insane" if they voted for so-called libertarian Robert Sarvis, the third-party candidate who may siphon enough votes from Cuccinelli to spoil the election. ===

Little more than a week after millions of consumers received health care cancellation notices, lawmakers in both parties are pushing legislation to redeem President Obama’s pledge that anyone can keep their existing coverage under the nation’s controversial new law. -snip In the Republican-controlled House, officials say a vote is likely as early as next week on a bill to let insurers continue selling any individual policies that were in effect on Jan. 1, 2013, even if they provide coverage deemed insufficient under Obamacare.

<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Sarah Palin will soon be on a holiday season book tour.</p>

Conventional wisdom holds that America’s transition from a manufacturing to a service-based economy is nearly complete. Mining and making stuff are out; surgery and software development are in. The U.S. has entered a post-industrial era. Not so fast, says Vaclav Smil. In his new book, Made in the U.S.A.: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing, Smil argues persuasively that manufacturing matters as much in the current century as it did in the last—and that a revitalized manufacturing sector is vital for restoring growth, jobs, and American social dynamism. Technology creates efficiency, Smil writes. But, as he shows, efficiency confuses...

The Illinois House of Representatives voted Tuesday to allow same-sex couples to wed, ending months of delay over the issue in the Capitol and clearing the way for Illinois to become the 15th state, along with the District of Columbia, to permit gay couples to marry. The vote was 61 to 54, with two members voting present. “In Illinois, we tried civil unions and that separate status has time and time again proved to fall short,” said State Representative Greg Harris, a sponsor of the bill, urging his House colleagues to approve the measure Tuesday. The measure passed the Illinois...

Obamacare: Day 36America Held HostageRoundup of News & ViewsNo. 6.  Nov 5, 2013   Obama Denies Making "You Can Keep Your Plan" claims Article at Daily Caller   Obama "You Can Keep Your Plan" montage Article at You Tube   Tavenner TestifiesMarylin Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, testified today before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services oversaw construction of the failed Healthcare.gov website.Article at Politico   Tens of Thousands canceled in ColoradoArticle at Denver Post   140,000 "transitioned" in MinnesotaArticle at Star Tribune   280,000 expected...

Move over, Sharks and Jets. New Yawk's next turf rumble could pit roach against roach. According to an ongoing study called the National Cockroach Project, the roaches of three NYC neighborhoods—the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, and Roosevelt Island—are genetically distinct. Like many of the city's humans, each group tends to stay in its own neighborhood. And, since American cockroaches originated overseas, these urban insects can also claim immigrants as ancestors. To find out more about what's bugging the Big Apple, we sat down with the project's lead scientist: Mark Stoeckle, an infectious-disease specialist and senior research associate...

Via Greg Hengler, a perfect follow-up to Obama’s revisionism last night. Three points. One: What’s the word she utters at around 1:10? Is she … trying to say “misled”? I guess someone needs to tell the nominal head of one of America’s two major parties, who’s been a member of Congress for nearly 10 years, that “my-zeld” isn’t the correct pronunciation. Two: She’s still pushing the idea that insurers are canceling plans en masse quasi-voluntarily rather than doing it because (a) the law now requires that every plan feature a menu of certain “essential benefits” and (b) HHS wrote the...

It’s now a matter of bipartisan consensus that President Obama should have been more honest and forthright in selling his health-care plan. Here is the transcript of the speech he never gave: Hello, St. Paul! It is so good to be back in the great state of Minnesota. Go Gophers! [We love you!] I love you back! [Stomping, cheers.] I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been talking about health-care reform a little lately. [Laughter.] I want to set the record straight on a few things today. Republicans are out there scaring folks, and saying that they’ll lose their...

Fraud in the inducement n. the use of deceit or trick to cause someone to act to his/her disadvantage, such as signing an agreement or deeding away real property. The heart of this type of fraud is misleading the other party as to the facts upon which he/she will base his/her decision to act. Example: "there will be tax advantages to you if you let me take title to your property," or "you don't have to read the rest of the contract--it is just routine legal language" but actually includes a balloon payment. (See: fraud, extrinsic fraud)

Some of these are mine, but for the most part these are graphics found circulating around...

After a national backlash from social conservatives, the American Psychiatric Association (ASA) has dropped its designation of pedophilia as a “sexual orientation.” In May, the APA released the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). In this document, the first new edition in 10 years, the APA described pedophilia as a sexual “orientation.” The classification went largely unnoticed until last month, when the NeonTommy blog of the Annenberg Digital News at the University of Southern California published a blog post critical of the terminology. Social conservatives said calling pedophilia an “orientation” was a step towards...

THE PRESIDENT: That’s not going to happen as long as I’m President. (Applause.) The Affordable Care Act is here to stay. (Applause.) And so today, I want to speak plainly, clearly, honestly, about what it means for you and for the people you care about. Now, let’s start with the fact that even before the Affordable Care Act fully takes effect, about 85 percent of Americans already have health insurance -– either through their job, or through Medicare, or through the individual market. So if you’re one of these folks, it’s reasonable that you might worry whether health care reform...

I had to watch this at work today. I thought FReepers might want to take a stab at critiquing it.RUN. HIDE. FIGHT. Surviving an Active Shooter Event

It might not seem possible that President Obama could do more harm to his credibility and the public's faith in government than misleading Americans about health insurance reform. But he can. The president is now misleading the public about his deception. In a speech Monday night to his political team, Obama said: "Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed." No, no, no, no, no--that's not what the...