The "new messages" is at the top of the list of forums when you are at the main forums page. So, from this message, click "Forum Index" at the top of the messages where it says "Forum Index >> Website Feedback". That will take you to the main page. Then, in nearly the same location it will say "Forum Index". Look to the right of that and it will say "Read new messages since my last visit".

Isn't that forum always like that? I feel your pain but we are at an all-time high for the number of forums now. I really don't want to create another one.

SAM2, you must already have superpowers given that you still sign in after all the crap you took for your Big Three FAQ.

A couple of other benefits to signing are:

1) if you want, you can receive email notices of responses to your posts. So, you don't have to keep coming back to check for replies;
2) there is another link for "new messages" that lists messages since you last logged in. That is the primary way I read the forums.

Anonymous wrote:and as i stated with the floodgates open, nobody in the future is going to take a stand to stop it.

there will be weak attempts to change the rules but for the most part it will be all talking points and pontificating with little to no action backing it.

the influence is going to get ridiculous

You may be correct that the floodgates will now be open. But, Obama losing because he refused to support pro-Obama super pacs would make no difference to that being the case.

It's also possible that the the current experience may create bipartisan support for campaign finance reform. One could argue that Romney's campaign is being derailed by a handful of individuals funding his opponents. Newt likely wouldn't have won South Carolina were it not for the Adelson $5 million. Santorum would be sunk without his sugar daddy, Foster Freiss. I think even Republicans are beginning to understand that one or two rich guys shouldn't be able to have that much influence on a national election.

Anonymous wrote:
You are kidding right? THAT is your example? In 2010 the Dems were in control of the Senate. Don't try to blame a filibuster when Reid couldn't even gurantee that he could bring his OWN people to the table! If he can't get cloture on a bill the leader of his own party would like than it is his problem, not the minorities problem.

Just to add to what the previous poster wrote. It requires 60 votes to invoke cloture (which ends a filibuster). Because of the many lawsuits that delayed the seating of Al Franken and then the illness and eventual death of Ted Kennedy, Democrats essentially never had 60 votes. This is one reason that Obama has had so much difficulty in getting legislation passed. The Republicans have used the filibuster exponentially more than it has ever been used in past Senates. In the case of the vote on the DISCLOSE Act, all Democrats voted in favor. One Independent, Joe Lieberman, was attending a family funeral and did not attend the vote. Harry Reid voted in favor, but then switched his vote in a tactical move that would allow him to later reintroduce the legislation.

So, Reid brought his people to the table. The Republicans used the filibuster to block the legislation. That is simple fact.

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Anonymous wrote:"Don't hate the player, hate the game" doesn't even make sense in this case.

He actually hated the game -- now is joining the game -- again. He did this with the public financing issue too. While he tries to say it isn't politics like usual it acutally is politics like usual.

I love how you say Obama wants to make the rules more fair for everyone. Please show me where he has ever proposed campaign finance reform beyond just speaking abou tit. Please show me where he has had either the Democratic controlled Senate or Democratic controlled House (previously) even consider one of the campaign finace reforms he has given lip service to.

I don't falut him for that but rather just realize he is a poitician who flip-flops and his name is not Romney.

In 2010, after criticizing the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling directly to the face of Supreme Court justices in his State of the Union address, Obama supported the DISCLOSE Act which would partially undo Citizens United. The House passed the act:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/24/disclose-act-house-passes_n_624698.html

However, in the Senate, every Republican joined in a filibuster to prevent a vote on the Act:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/27/AR2010072704656.html

I believe this directly answers your request to "show me where he has had either the Democratic controlled Senate or Democratic controlled House (previously) even consider one of the campaign finace reforms he has given lip service to. "

Anonymous wrote:
oh and folks get in a tiffy or cry foul when romney "plays by the rules" and pays his 15% (or 13.9%) tax on $20 million but its ok for obama to play those same rules when it comes to superpacs after he's called them out for being wrong (even though its legal)? theres hypocricy for you...

I'll point out that in the thread about Romney's taxes I used the same exact phrase, "Don't hate the player, hate the game". But, with regard to Romney's taxes, Romney both plays by the rules and supports those rules. In fact, he wants to make the rules even more favorable for himself. Obama wants to make the rules fairer for everyone. Similarly, with regard to super pacs, Romney both plays by the rules and wants to make the rules even more favorable for himself -- allowing direct corporate contributions to candidates. Obama wants to make the rules more fair for everyone.

So, I'l repeat, don't hate the player, hate the game. But, with regard to both super pacs and and taxes, Romney wants to make the game worse while Obama wants to make the game better. There really is no disconnect there.

As I've said before, don't hate the player, hate the game. Obama didn't make the rules. He doesn't even like the rules. But, the rules are the rules. Do you really expect him to bring a knife to a gun fight?

Hypocrisy is expecting one set of rules for yourself and another set of rules for others. Sort of like you seem to be doing.

Thanks. I deleted it.

Anonymous wrote:
NP here. Agreed it is a bad analogy. But comparing a Hebrew School to Roots PCS wouldn't be, would it?

http://www.rootspcs.org/School_Philosophy___Mission/school_philosophy___mission.html

That's a closer comparison. I suppose I could argue that one either way. But, since I don't have time right now, I'll abstain.

Anonymous wrote:I oppose [yet another] school dedicated to serving at-risk youth. What is this, 17 such schools now?

And yes, a help-at-risk-youth school would be an African American school. You know it as well as I do.

oops! Did I really say that?! Sounds a little, I dunno, bigoted when a white person says that about black people. Just like it does when you -- a person of color, of that I am certain -- says it about white-skinned Jews.

Peace.

Hebrew is closely linked to Jewish culture. Are you suggesting that being an at-risk youth is closely linked to African-American culture? Or, did you just make a poor analogy?

TheManWithAUsername wrote:
I read the pieces, which regard two particular incidents. Are you saying that the many quotes attributed to him are all inaccurate? Here's a bunch:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2009/04/questions-about-ahmadinejad-apos-s-famous-quote/9872/

If that's what you're saying, I'm not equipped to judge the translations and not up for the major research project of checking the context of every one of those. But the first question would be whether you actually think they're all false or distorted.

None of the quotes provides a source so it is impossible to verify context. However, they all follow a similar formula, which I can paraphrase as this:

"The Zionist state is the root cause of conflict in the region and its aggressions are creating hostility. Eventually, as a result of that hostility and other historical factors, the Zionist regime will cease to exist".

These are not threats to eliminate Israel. Just statements concerning something he believes to be an historical inevitability. If a US leader says "Eventually the Castro regime in Cuba will cease to exist", is he threatening to wipe out the Castro regime? I don't think so.

TheManWithAUsername wrote:Regardless, as I said, I believe that they support terrorism, that they abhor Israel, and that they hate us somewhat less. That's what makes them distinct, though unfortunately not unique.

I obviously don't have access to the intelligence regarding their support for terrorism, and we apparently disagree on our government's trustworthiness on that point. I'm shocked if you'll disagree that they have expressed extreme hostility to Israel, but sorry, I'm not going to go over every single anti-Israel quote to explore it's reliability.

Clearly, the Iranian leadership has expressed extreme hostility to Israel. Equally clearly, Israeli leaders have expressed extreme hostility to Iran. I am not sure why either of those realities requires the US to be hostile to Iran.

TheManWithAUsername wrote:I appreciate that you think the bar should be higher when murder is considered. In this disagreement and in our last, you have seemed to take the position that one should not support such action, even as an armchair statesman, unless one has perfect certainty. One of my points in both of these disagreements has been that we casually support all kinds of policies that can have far worse impact.

I certainly try very hard not to support such policies. But, nevertheless, two wrongs don't make a right. Justifying a bad policy because we have worse policies doesn't seem particularly wise.

TheManWithAUsername wrote:Again, you seem to be treating me like I'm Sean Hannity. I don't believe that we were created by God to benevolently rule the world with the sword and bible. But I think it's equally absurd to say that governments don't differ in morality or that we're relatively immoral, if either is your position.

Of course governments differ in their morality. I vehemently disagree with the current Iranian government. This website has a green stripe across the top signifying my support for the Iranian opposition. There was a brief trend of websites taking this symbolic step some time ago. DCUM may well be one of the last remaining websites continuing to do it. But, my hostility toward the current Iranian regime does not mean that I will condone the killing of their scientists which I believe is morally wrong, pragmatically ineffective, and practically simply a step toward escalation. In fact, if killing Iranian scientists solved the problem as you seem to suggest, why would Panetta be predicting that Israel would attack Iran in April?

I want to end this post by responding to this quote from the beginning of your post:

TheManWithAUsername wrote:Nice way to hedge your bets - if you win the argument, you win, and if you lose, it's because I'm an unreasonable jerk who never really says anything.

I detest the attitude that discussions are contests like a football game or hockey match. Discussions should not have winners or losers. This is not a debating club. Discussions are for sharing points of view and information. You have stated that you support the killing of Iranian scientists and provided a list of justifications for that support that I believe to be overly reflective of US propaganda. My intention is not win some sort of contest, but only to suggest that you consider that the policy you support may not be as effective as you imagine and that the justifications you provide may need to be questioned more than you seem to be willing.

TheManWithAUsername wrote:I can see that you're just dying to argue with someone who advocates for invading Iran. It's a big world - go find that special someone. I'm not him, and all your pretending won't make it so.

I hesitated to enter a discussion with you because I have see how you have responded to others in the past. You really act like any disagreement is some sort of personal insult. You write paragraph after paragraph without really saying anything, but rather simply acting irritated that someone bothered to object to what you wrote. But, let me make a few more points to further clarify my position.

1) While Ahmadinejad has made some idiotic statements, the statement most widely attributed to him -- that he would like to destroy Israel -- he, in fact, never made. For a fuller explanation of how a non-fact has become a fact in so many people's mind, see this:

http://www.juancole.com/2010/02/ahmadinejad-once-again-fails-to-call.html

or this:

http://www.juancole.com/2008/09/ahmadinejad-censored-distorted-in-us.html

2) There is no reason to believe that Iran behaves any more irrationally then any other country. While you perceive Iran as innately hostile to the US, the facts are that it is the US that has marshaled military forces along Iran's border, it is the US that has shot a Iranian civilian airliner out of the sky killing all aboard, it is the US that flies drone missions over Iran in violation of international law, it is the US that has invaded and occupied Iran's neighbors, and it is the US whose leading politicians constantly make bellicose threats to attack Iran. To the extent that Iran in a threat to the US, one must rightly consider whether that is a cause or an effect.

3) You support the assassination of Iranian scientists because you "believe there is a significant danger that Iran will do something terrible with a nuclear weapon." But, let me ask you this:

a) what evidence do you have that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon? Here is Leon Panetta as recently as last month: "Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/09/panetta-admits-iran-not-developing-nukes/

b) what evidence do you have that killing a small number of scientists will, in fact, prevent or delay a nuclear weapon from being developed (f one were even being developed)? I am not sure that either of us has evidence either way, but I think its reasonable to suggest that those who support killing civilians should have a higher bar to meet.

c) what evidence do you have Iran would behave differently than any other country that has nuclear weapons? If you are going to go back to your list of quotations -- most of which did not say what you seem to believe they said -- please provide a source for those quotes so that they can be fairly evaluated.

I simply have to comment on one more sentence from your last post:

"Several administrations have made this claim over decades, citing multiple specific instances."

I cannot read this without a feeling of deja vu. This sounds exactly like the sort of thing that supporters of the Iraq invasion repeated ad nauseum about Iraq's WMD program. I'll remind you that that program turned out not to exist.

Now, let me posit another theory. What if the hostility between the US and Iran has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. What if the issue is simply which of us has the bigger dick? Even without nuclear weapons, Iran has the size, population, wealth, and motivation to be a major player in the region -- a regional hegemon if you will. Iran could easily dominate Iraq which currently has a Shia-led government. Bahrain and Kuwait and parts of Saudi Arabia have large Shia populations. Iran would not have to engage in military actions to achieve influence in these areas. Iran's relationship with Hizballah in Lebanon extends its influence to Israel's northern border. In the petroleum market, it can play a significant -- and in the eyes of the US -- counterproductive role.

So, what if the US policy to prevent Iran from achieving the sort of influence of which it might be capable is to simply "bitch slap" Iran periodically? To keep Iran under pressure and continually demonstrate its weakness in order to undermine its stature in the region. In fact, when Iran can't even develop a civilian nuclear power plant without being subject to a regime of international inspections, outside interference, and other hurdles not faced by governments elsewhere, that is one giant bitch slap. The repeated killing of Iranian scientists may or may not slow down or prevent a nuclear program, but it certainly highlights weaknesses in Iranian security, adding further humiliation to a regime that has suffered many humiliations.

TheManWithAUsername wrote:
Below are the best I could find in 30 minutes or so. The first one, which I quoted above, responds to your request pretty well. However, from his more typical statements I’d say that it’s unfair to say that he has expressed a desire to destroy the U.S. I do believe my government’s conclusion that Iran has been sponsoring terrorism for decades, including acts against the U.S., so putting it all together I’d say that he is our enemy and would consider a major terrorist attack against us if empowered to execute one.

Let's be clear, you could not locate a direct quote by an Iranian leader saying that he would like to eradicate the US and you now believe it is unfair to say that Iranian leaders have expressed such a desire. Yet, you justified the assassination of Iranian scientists because you take them at "their word that they would gleefully eradicate us if they could." So, your justification has simply melted away, but the conclusion which it justified remains?

You are doing a pretty good George W. Bush imitation with your developing rationalizations. First, killing scientists was supposed to be a better alternative to an all out war. Then, assassinations were justified because Iranian leaders said they want to eradicate us. Now, assassinations are justified because you "believe my government’s conclusion that Iran has been sponsoring terrorism for decades." So, you support killing civilian scientists -- which is an act of terrorism -- because Iran sponsors terrorism? Wouldn't Iranians be justified in saying that you are their enemy and would consider a major terrorist attack against them if you were empowered to execute one?

Personally, I would not believe a single damn thing my government says when it comes to foreign policy. Have you already forgotten the lies that were told about Iraq? Clearly, those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.