Vote and let the bastards hear you - but don't stop there

It's Election Day.

Of course it should be a national holiday today, a celebration of democracy and a chance for everyone to take the time to carefully consider, then cast their ballot if they so choose.

We likely won't find out the results of many races tonight or overnight, necessarily.

Let me remind you, we waited 36 days to find out who won the Presidential Election in 2000. Delayed results have been normal over the entire history of the United States.

It's only due to the Pedophile-in-Chief making a lot of noise about that lag, and his idiot and/or cynical followers and supporters who take up the lazy complaint.

The delays are structural, for reasons others explain better than I do – but two of the most obvious:

Some states don't let mail-in and absentee ballots start getting counted until actual Election Day, while others are able to process them as they come in. So several important states lag, including the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as well as Maine.

The other thing is that as a party, Republicans tend to vote in person on Election Day, which shows an immediate spike in the evening ... but as more numbers come in, that tends to change overnight. It's called the "Red Mirage" into a "Blue Shift," and it's not new.

Nevertheless. We can expect A LOT of complaining about this observable and explainable phenomenon. Don't sweat it.

To be sure, there's likely going to be some high-jinks in play, both on Election Day today and in the days to follow with legal challenges and anecdotal reports of ballot interference.

Recall Dinesh D'Souza's 2022 film "2,000 Mules," which was a made-up fantasy that Republicans rallied around as an accurate and journalistic documentary about the 2020 election that Donald Trump lost. It was not. You already know – it was complete fantasy projecting a Democratic Party conspiracy to steal the election – and did a lot to get people aware of what fucking liars the GOP and particularly the Hard Right are, and the lengths – and energies expended – they will go to to push this bullshit.

Please note that almost $12 billion is being spent on campaign financing for this year's election – the most expensive in American history. Meanwhile, how's your grocery bill? You fill up your tank this week?

As I've noted here, three-time Grimes impregnator Elon Musk has spent $445 million of his own money this cycle – on Republicans. That we know about.

For comparison, the geriatric boogeyman to the Right, George Soros himself, has spent just $100 million on Democratic candidates this cycle.

Those are just the high-profile spenders – as you know, lots of millionaires and billionaires are quietly spending tons too.

Speaking of billionaires, here in California we've got a ballot measure – Proposition 40 – that would impose a one-time tax on state residents with a net worth of more than a billion dollars, with funds going to health care and education.

The tax is 5 percent. And it's spread over 5 years.

But these fucking babies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat this proposition – even creating two decoy propositions that would negate Prop 40 if passed – rather than pay up for the public good.

Many of them are loudly threatening to leave the state.

Over a one-time 5-percent tax payment.

There are problems with Prop 40, but the hit-dog-hollers gnashing and wailing by these sociopaths is instructive.

Please keep these personalities in mind while you're voting to smash the oligarchy today, and tomorrow, and forever forward.

It's unclear if it will pass, but this is the type of disproportionate reaction that shows the public how greedy and selfish these assholes are. Billionaires don't need to exist – on paper – I'm certainly not explicitly calling for the guillotines, because that's more of a French thing.

We could do more of this instead:

Wired came out with a report yesterday outlining an announcement from an undercover activist group called "The Capytistas" – a mashup of the capybara, and Zapatistas.

They say they've been targeting and tracking multiple billionaires for at least a year now, with the intent of creating dossier profiles on each target, complete with maps of home addresses, other properties and travel patterns – and the Capytistas plan to dox each of these billionaires in coming weeks.

As Wired's Dell Cameron writes: The group has adopted a quote from folk singer and labor organizer Utah Phillips: “Democracy is not dying, it’s being killed ... and those who are killing it have names and addresses.”

The Capytistas – a group of activists, researchers, journalists, artists, among other anonymous personnel, according to Wired – say they're even getting more than a million bucks for this undertaking from ultra-wealthy benefactors who apparently want to help fight the class war.

To be sure, we've seen this movie before. The hacker group "Anonymous" in particular was an acute disappointment in the mid-2000s, after failing to do much despite a target-rich environment during the George W. Bush years. They've since disappeared.

The Capytistas are targeting Elon Musk himself first and foremost, along with his brother Kimball, and various executives who work for Elon. Other venture-capitalist investors are also on the impending list to be released.

According to Wired, The Capytistas say they "intend to level the playing field by giving oligarchs a taste of the invasions of privacy they commit, and monetize, every day."

So, that's inspiring.

Community activism comes in all shapes, sizes, directions and undertakings.

Make sure you did your own activism by voting today.

All right – I'm off to go drop of my own ballot.

Happy Democracy Day.

Be Safe, Be Good.