I suggest you look long and hard at your information sources. But the problem here is that nobody is actually releasing "real" signup numbers. Who knows what HHS is actually feeding us as "signups" on the websites. They won't actually tell us what their numbers mean and all they don't tell you that there is no way they can know if a "sign up" actually has paid their premiums or not. I've heard that nearly 50% haven't, but we don't know if that's true so I don't go around saying that it is. I DO know one person who 'signed up" and then didn't proceed to pay the premiums personally. She did so to figure out exactly what her costs would be, what kind of subsidies she would receive and then decided that medicaid was better with her unemployment situation. I'm sure she's not alone. So I know that the numbers from HHS are not reflective of new insurance policy holders and strangely showed the exact numbers needed to break even, being an election year that is suspect to me.

Also, the ACA has only increased what insurance costs for all of us. Take away the subsidies and the average person is paying more, LOTS more for insurance. Premiums went up for nearly everybody, deductibles went up in most cases, out of pocket maximums when up for many, and millions lost their employer provided insurance to be tossed onto the exchanges. These numbers are pretty well known and verified.

So the ACA remains a failure on all the points used to sell it. You want to put the rose colored glasses on and say "it will get better!" and I'm firmly in the "Government programs have never done that before". Face it, we are 6 years into this thing which has yet to be fully implemented because this administration has openly extended the deadlines. It's not going to get better without some changes, and changes to the ACA are "off the table" according to Obama's statements over the government shutdown mess last year. The ACA's popularity continues to fall along with the prospects of the Democrats who tied their success to this misguided law, and there is a good reason for that...

Go get your own numbers, primary sources preferred. Forget what your "friend" is telling you, he's a blue cool-aid drinker and either doesn't know better or is misleading you on purpose.

Your continued attempts to paint me as logically inconsistent because of the examples I'm using to show YOUR inconsistencies is noted. That I use a regulation as an example, is not equivalent to me agreeing with it. In FACT, I was poking holes in your argument using a regulation that was generally well supported (if not foisted on us) by the left and comparing it to your voiced position that my health was government's (i.e. and thus your) business. Both the ACA and HIPPA are products of the left's ideology and have little direct constitutional support for their existence; banning large soft drink cups from the 7-11 is the same kind of thing. You got painted into a corner.

I see your last response as an attempt to spin out of a loosing position which doesn't advance this debate. Admit it, you have paint on the bottom of your shoes as you left footprints on your way out.

So are we going to advance here or are you going to insist that I cannot carry on a logical argument? Because if we are not advancing in at least understanding each others positions, I have better things to do and I bet you do to.

I disagree with that last statement. I've never heard a liberal attempt to justify their position on a legal decision based on the author's intent. I've only heard them start making vague statements about how it *should* mean something else, about how the constitution is flexible and needs to be living (i.e. changing) in today's world. In fact, *that* is exactly what is taught in public schools and colleges today. My daughter just got done having a debate with her professor about this and he certainly wasn't interested in what the authors of the constitution intended. He had some other really strange views too, but I'm not sure he wasn't attempting to stimulate the argument with the rest.

My point is, the rank and file liberal is not concerned about original intent, they are concerned about how the ruling will advance their cause and argue from that perspective. When I bring up the original intent issue, they don't usually know what I mean, or if they do, quickly dismiss the issue. I've never had one address the issue, or argue that the framers where arguing for their view.

Take the latest Hobby Lobby case. Clearly the majority in this case was reading the original intent of the law, where the descent was all over the place and argued all sort of "unintended consequences" of the decision that hadn't gone their way. They where NOT arguing original intent, they didn't argue from the meaning of the law as written, they argued their position based on what they thought the results of the ruling would be.

So, I'm willing to discuss original intent with any liberal who cares to think about it. There are some valid questions to be raised at time, but I find few willing and fewer able. This isn't a straw man argument, where I define my opponents position and sweep them away, but I won't sit here and engage in much debate with somebody who won't acknowledge the logic of original intent having merit.

Then go away.

Look, if we don't intend to interpret our laws based upon what the laws where intended to mean when they where written, then what's the use of having courts? What's the use of having any laws to start with? They apparently don't mean anything today if they can mean something else tomorrow.

What the *framers* (the guys that authored the document, argued about it and signed it) wanted it to mean *IS* important. IF you don't want to admit that, then I'm not sure if we have any common ground from which to continue a discussion on, much less would I want to try. All you need do is go back and re-interpret anything you wrote to suit your current logical needs and leave me trying to nail jello to the wall. No thanks, I have better things to do than debate the equivalent of astrophysics with a 2 year old who cannot read.

Go ahead, stick your tongue out at me..

So, can we not agree that "original intent" *should* be what is used to interpret the constitution? That we should be appointing judges who have this ideology?

Because I don't care what "team" you are on or if you consider yourself your own player, there is grave danger in the abandonment of "original intent" in the courts. We simply MUST be appointing judges with the correct ideology, regardless of party, and I firmly feel that seeking "original intent" based judges is the ONLY logical way this can work. Anything else is folly and will destroy us. My reasons for saying so are plain and logical.

Yet, you would accuse me of political bias? My argument is from history, from logic, not from political association or rhetoric. How anything other than "original intent" can be tolerated by the public is something that amazes me. As a people we have forgotten from where we came, many now look upon our forefathers in scorn and tolerate such errors in logic like the one I've been arguing cannot continue, if we are to survive as the same country, on the same principles as we where founded. If we abandon these principles, we will do so to our discredit, and destroy what we inherited, a free country, purchased and kept free for 200+ years by the blood of it's patriots and our forefathers. This is not about politics...

You have stepped out on the slippery slope with both feet and I'm not so sure you realize it.

My Healthcare is NOT your business, nor are my choices about what I eat. Why do I say this? Remember the HIPPA rules? My medical care is SUPPOSED to be between me and my doctors, only after the government inserted itself in the health care did such things become important to government, and this NEVER should have been the case. All sorts of things get justified this way, because all you need to do is come up with a reason it costs the government (heck, invent a program to make that true) and volia, you have a "right" to mandate things in law. You see, now that we have universal health care, we will have HHS telling doctors what treatments we can get, which ones we can't get. Don't fool yourself, people will use your EXACT logic to make it happen. We will all end up going to a health care system that resembles what the VA is today, it's just a few short steps away and with your logic there is nothing to stop it.

So, I'm guessing you are not for what NSA does, snooping on your phone calls, yet you want the government to intrude even more into our lives? If so, Do you see the logical problem you have? On one hand you decry the NSA's data collection efforts that include information about you, but you don't have a problem with a law that intrudes into my personal life because you think it's for my own good.

I don't want to be involved in your personal life, AT ALL. That includes passing laws that govern how you must live, who you associate with, what you read, what you say or what you eat. In return, I would ask that you return the favor. Everybody needs to take responsibility for their OWN lives and we all need to keep our noses out of each others business, either directly or by using government to pass laws.

Government's place should be to make sure that there is fairness on the playing field and the field level. They should remove players who are unable to play fairly and the criminals (jail). Government should protect those who are incapable of playing and even help coach substandard players so they can play better, but for the most part, government should not be part of the game. The rest of us should be free to play the game as we see fit, doing what works for us. It's what Freedom, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness is supposed to be. People with your logic are allowing freedom to be stripped away, bit by bit. Please consider carefully what I'm saying, for all our good.

What planet do you live on? (or what internet do you use?) I'm fairly sure that the NSA has been tracking bitcoin transactions for about as long as the criminals have been using it. Heck, even the FBI likely has the capacity.... You do realize that ALL transactions are public knowledge by design, ANYBODY could track everything.

That's what they said about Hula Hoops and skate boards.... Ye of little faith, there is no bottom to the deaths of the stupidness of the American consumer.

My mod points! Where did they go!

Mod this post up.

You are drinking the blue stuff... Look, the ACA has not added to the insurance rolls, and in fact has been close to a wash (assuming the unverifiable numbers from HealthCare.gov can be trusted.) But the main selling points where 1. Increase coverage by 70 Million (everybody will have insurance) [FAILED], 2. Costs would go down [FAILED], and 3. You can keep your doctor [Not exactly true], 4. You can keep your insurance [Not true for most of us].

I'm being charitable on the enrollment counts vrs the number of people who lost health insurance because of the ACA too. I'm pretty sure that we have LESS people insured than we had before and certainly we didn't get 70 Million onto the insurance rolls. Don't get me started on the website issues being a harbinger of how these kinds of programs go.. Oh my..

So, if you want to trumpet something from the left's social programs, I suggest you pick something else. Obamacare is so far a abject failure that hasn't made progress on ANY of it's stated goals that has and will cost us trillions. Hopefully it can be done away with in about 2.5 years.

OK, then we generally agree that what we have now is beyond what the framers intended. Where we differ is on the advisability of what we have done to date.

But I also think that we need to be STRICT in our understandings of original intent and accept nothing less from our judges. You see, the reason we are here is that many in the USA believe that the Constitution is squishy, that it can have all kinds of interpretations, that I can choose to read it in any way that I like. They DON'T think that original intent is a valid argument, that we can simply "redefine the words" and change it's meaning as the language changes. We have a lot of judges who follow such views, who don't mind refactoring the constitution to fit what they want it to say, not what the framers intended it to say. This practice needs to stop. Because you are right, there IS an amendment process prescribed, and we should be forced to use one of those processes to change the meaning of the constitution, to alter or clarify what the framers intended and how this country should work in the modern world. We should NOT be allowing our judges to rule on any other basis but original intent, and if that doesn't allow us to do what needs to be done, we must go though the hard process of proposing and ratifying amendments.

But there is at least one party in this country which does not hold fast to such ideals, where original intent is not the measuring stick used to evaluate the judges they nominate, but the judge's stand on the social issues of the day are more important. This kind of thing subverts the whole process and needs to stop... See where this goes?

You do know that the "custom OS" is really Android both on their tablets AND their phones. They just took the Google branding out of it and rolled their own interface layer. Sorta like CentOS does to Red Hat Enterprise, only under the Apache license.

I'm guessing that they will continue to keep the "Fire OS" close to Android, but they are free to deviate if they want.

They like Apple Sauce, Perhaps?

Dang, even if you buy it outright it is LOCKED to the AT&T network. Amazon has got to undo that mess or I'm NOT EVER going to think about it.

Any phone you buy outright should come UNLOCKED by default. Any phone you own after the contract is over should be unlocked upon request, if not automatically by the carrier...

Isn't that was AT&T is doing... Ripping out a tooth every month for 24 months... I don't think I have that many teeth.... Left that is....