Here are 321 reasons why it’s very important to vote for a Democrat in 2016

[Novara]

Here are 321 reasons why it’s very important to vote for a Democrat in 2016 - TBogg

Consider some numbers.

When Americans go to the polls on Nov. 8, 2016, pixie-ish destroyer of sloppy conservative legal reasoning, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, will be 83-years-old.

Belligerent scofflaw Antonin Scalia will be 80, as will the only Supreme Court justice whose vote matters: Anthony Kennedy, aka “Tony the Swing Vote.”

The next oldest is Stephen Breyer, who will clock in at relatively youthful 78-years-old.

From there you drop down a decade to Clarence Thomas who will be 68 — although it is possible that Thomas has already departed this earthly realm since he has yet to speak from the bench and his clerks may be running some kind of “Weekend at Bernie’s” scam because they need the full term to pad out their resumes.

83 + 80 + 80 + 78 = (carry the 1) 321 years and reasons why the next election might change the course of the next thirty years in America — or longer depending upon whether my hunch about Thomas is correct.

Because we are essentially a two-party system — or a “corporatist oligarchical duopoly” if you own a Guy Fawkes mask purchased with your trust fund stipend (fight the power, Chad!) — the nominee from one of those parties may have the opportunity to select anywhere from two to four nominees to the court that is The Boss of Us All.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/here-are-321-reasons-why-its-very-important-to-vote-for-a-democrat-in-2016/

[marym625]

1. even more reason to have a candidate to vote for

That actually cares about the American people. One that will fight for equity in pay, for unions, against the too big to fail, that is not in bed with the banks.

Whether or not people want to admit it, economics translates to social equality.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. I've heard the same arguments for as long as I've been politically active.

Every election is 'the most important ever' and if nothing else, the Supreme Court is supposed to make me vote for a specific candidate/party.

I would submit that it is exactly this sort of voting that has led us directly to the sorry state we're in. Lesser evil will always still lead to evil, just as greater evil does. If you want a good result, you have to demand candidates that are good enough to vote for without any sort of external 'threats' to motivate you to vote for them. That's the only way to make us move away from a worsening crisis of political uselessness.

[Thinkingabout]

4. What is your opinion of the law enacted by SC?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

5. Can you clarify?

Are we talking about a specific law, the law over the course of the court's history, the law during a specific period such as scalia's time on the bench or just the Roberts Court specifically?

[Thinkingabout]

8. The Citizens United was blessed as a gift from SC.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

10. I assume that's sarcastic.

CU was a disaster.

22 Democratic Senators voted to confirm John Roberts, rather than stepping up to block that weasel, and joined Republicans in making it possible. I hold them no less responsible for the crap we've gotten out of his court than I do the Republican President who nominated him, or the Republican Senators who voted for him.

And yet, time and again, we're exhorted to re-elect the very same schmucks who helped Republicans seat Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, simply because they've got a (D) after their names.

[Thinkingabout]

17. The point is the justices you complain about were nominated by Republicans.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

19. And confirmed by BOTH parties.

Complaining about those justices and then turning around to say we need to vote for the senators who voted for them is hypocritical.

If you want to sit on your high horse about Scalia et al, you have to disown ALL of the people who put them where they sit. Not just the ones on 'the other team'.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. Absolutely true

and yet people here refuse to see it. I made the same argument in 2008 and was derided and shouted down, yet history proved me, and everyone else who made this point, 100% correct.

And now they want us to vote for another evil in 2016 and we are traitors or "Republican shills" if we don't. They want us to share the blood on their hands and I for one have no intention this time.

[m-lekktor]

13. yep. and the next election is always the most dire and crucial election there ever was

and if you don't vote for the DEMS the universe will disintegrate. since i have been old enough to vote.

[Thinkingabout]

3. K & R

With more conservative judges on the SC will produce many more laws enacted by SC. Consider the SC rulings on voting issues, more laws to suppress voting. Overturn Roe vs Wade. Forget about same sex marriages. More laws like forced vaginal exams. There will be more things to come up like Citizens United. We got judges like Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas thanks to Republican nominations. Kennedy was also nominated by a Republican who swings back and forth.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

7. And....?

We got judges like Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas thanks to Republican nominations.

AND thanks to Democrats who voted to seat those justices, and didn't block them like Bork or Miers.

I'd have to go look it up again, but I think it was Scalia, the worst of the worst, who got confirmed 98-0.

Scalia was a bipartisan effort.

[Thinkingabout]

18. Again nominated by ?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

23. I'm not asting my time with you any more.

You've got nothing, all you can do is repeat your nonsense over and over.

[Thinkingabout]

25. I read you doing the same over and over. No, you will not convince me a republican as president

Is the better option.

[merrily]

26. Again, confirmed by?

You need both.

[merrily]

21. They didn't even ask Scalia many questions. And what were women supposed to make of seating Thomas?

A joint is worse than sexual harassment on a government job?

[merrily]

6. Yeah, we know. Merry Supreme Court and a Happy say hello t President Cruz to you as well.

God forbid 350 million Americans expect more than "Hey! I'm not running as a registered Republican."

[Kelvin Mace]

15. My choices for president will be

a person who will stick an eight inch butcher knife in my back, and a person who will stick an eight inch butcher knife in my back, but promises me they will pull it out three inches, maybe.

I have heard this argument about "pragmatism" and "reality" for several decades now and the country continued to swing right despite assurance all would be well if I just voted for the establishment Democrat.

I am done being an accessory.

[merrily]

20. Elena Kagan would not have been my choice. Neither would Breyer. Only heaven knows what will happen

after Ginsburg is not on the bench anymore. Breyer and Kagan already "strayed."

[Kelvin Mace]

9. People keep trotting out this argument

and it is moot.

It became moot when the Vichy Democrats REFUSED to filibuster Clarence Thomas and allowed him to have Thurgood Marshall's seat on the court. Thomas was as bad an ideologue as Bork, if not worse, and he was demonstrably, professionally unqualified for the position. Instead of filibustering and holding firm for a more qualified and less partisan nominee, the Dems quickly caved and pissed all over Marshall's legacy.

Without Thomas, Bush v. Gore would almost certainly have gone the other way and the last 15 years would have played out differently.

With the Citizens United ruling, it became game, set and match for the ruling oligarchs. The government, specifically elections, were now for sale to the highest bidder, and the highest bidder sure as Hell wasn't going to be us.

HRC will win in 2016, but it really won''t matter since the Koch's are buying the Congress. Even if she appoints a genuinely liberal justice to the court (as opposed to continuing the policy of appointing justices politically to the right of those they replace), that appointment will not be confirmed by the Koch senate.

Our one chance to roll all this back was that Obama would have lived up to his promises and been a real reform president. Instead he was just another center-right Democrat who sacrificed our liberty on the altar of of pragmatism to the god of bipartisanship. He reaffirmed the Bush police state, propped up its imperial war, and refused to punish Wall Street ghouls feasting on the poor and middle class.

People are now using the SCOTUS as a reason I, and others like me, MUST support a candidate who is well to Obama's right, who voted for Bush's illegal war, and is an absolute tool of Wall Street.

No, not happening.

[LondonReign2]

12. +1 a shitload

[Hiraeth]

28. Thank you for posting that.

This is how I see it, too.

[m-lekktor]

14. pffft. the snarky comment about the Guy Fawkes mask is a jab at activists.

fuck this condescending assholish article probably written by a POS 3rd way DEM party loyalist.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

16. I would edit that comment quickly.

Before you get a hide on it. You KNOW it will get alerted on as is, and no doubt simply get you a hide.

[merrily]

24. Even if it fits that author?

We can debate whether a poster gets paid or not, but there is no debate about that author.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

27. You know what goes on here.

The cliques, the hide-swarms, the jury-playing.

To be honest, I wouldn't put it past some folks to announce (via IMs or text alerts or whatever) that they'll do an alert on a given comment at time x:xx, so that their followers can refresh their browsers over and over at that time so that they have a greater chance to be chosen for the jury that judges it. I've seen similar tactics used on other sites.

[merrily]

29. If there was any doubt that they act in concert, a number of posts on this thread removed it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026518865

Not sure what they think they are accomplishing, but, whatever it is, apparently, it's worth a lot of work.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

30. same old same old.

And I'm sure I missed half of them anyway - I've got something like 40 of the froth at the mouth ideologues types on ignore already. Just added another logic-denialist type to the list a minute or two back, in fact.

[merrily]

31. After a lot of thought about it, no doubt.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

33. The only ones I put on after a single exchange

are the ones who immediately start throwing insults from the first post.

I generally have quite a few interactions with people with whom I disagree politically before I might even consider adding them for being illogical hypocrites.

[hobbit709]

32. And it won't mean shit unless the Democrats get at least 51 in the Senate.

And even then some will be DINOs.