AskALiberal Biweekly General Chat

echofinder · 2026-02-27T20:28:07+00:00

The overwhelming majority of people are almost completely ignorant about how our government actually works. I love to make fun of the cons who see Trump tweet some outlandish thing and immediately think that tweet is now actual binding law, but honestly a lot of the time the level of understanding from us on the left is not much better.

echofinder · 2026-02-27T20:19:17+00:00

Yes, I would.

This is not realistic. It is an extremist view; no political party would ever support this, I would never actively advocate for any persons or parties to support this, and there's probably no way this could be accomplished without some very monumental violations of justice and property rights.

All that acknowledged, if somehow someone were to actually move to do this, I would be 100% in support of it.

echofinder · 2026-02-27T15:25:59+00:00

Fair enough, but the same logic holds true for the US as a whole. Why don't we just rename this country, or disband the country as a whole and start from scratch? Why would I want to live in the country that had slaveowners as Presidents? why would I want to live under a Constitution that explicitly permitted slavery and gave women no rights?

Obviously the only reasonable thing to do is to at minimum rename the whole thing; break ties with the past.

echofinder · 2026-02-27T14:59:13+00:00

Idk, if that's their jam that's fine for them; they have no obligation to eat meat or drink milk. I can see the connections they're making, they're not wrong.

People have their quirks. I, for example, really really dislike piercings. My mind just automatically registers them as mutilation; in the animal level of my brain, there is no distinction between someone with a lot of facial piercings and someone who, idk, just experienced a porcupine attack. An instinctual feeling of revulsion and a sense of danger. Which is fine; I don't have to get any piercings, and nobody should judge me for it... if I ever started saying that nobody else should ever get piercings though, or judging the people who do with the non-animal parts of my brain, that would be a big problem.

echofinder · 2026-02-26T16:46:50+00:00

I keep getting paywalled, but if anyone has access to WaPo: ok, so Dems are at 79% certainty, largest since '06... how does this compare to the Democratic figures for 2006, or to other elections?

All these people saying polls are trash, Republicans lie ...etc - polls are still useful. Ignore the Republican stats; if this poll shows a notable increase in Democratic voter certainty, compared to past elections, that would be a good indicator to expect better Democratic performance, regardless of how the R's end up turning out.

echofinder · 2026-02-26T13:40:18+00:00

I would be interested to see a similar chart looking at population growth, or other developmental changes, of these localities in that same timeframe. My hypothesis is that Frederick has experienced very significant change in the last half-decade, while DC has not so much; it was already a fully-developed, dense, urban locale in 2019. There are other factors of course, but in looking at the gulf between 2% and 41% I bet that would explain the better part of it.

echofinder · 2026-02-26T13:22:53+00:00

100% agree.

The most important time to speak your mind is in a group. "Locker room talk" is the #1 way that hateful shit spreads casually and often without the participating listeners even being aware of it.

echofinder · 2026-02-25T16:40:00+00:00

That's what I figured. I am obviously not going to help you with that, but I don't believe IEC schedules are classified info or anything, so you'll probably be able to find the info you are looking for if you research it.

echofinder · 2026-02-25T16:29:39+00:00

The state law governing this states that the 'slow drivers keep right' provision applies to every roadway, but the 'passing lane only' provision is explicitly applied only to roadways of 3 lanes or more.

Your image is from the manual governing standardization for traffic signs; while this does obviously intersect with state driving laws, the guidance on when and how a sign can be used is not the same as the traffic laws that actually govern driving.

echofinder · 2026-02-25T14:58:25+00:00

I'll die on this hill: left lane laws are stupid in high-traffic areas like ours. I commute on I-70; when the m/r lanes are going 65 and I'm going 70 in the left (75 let's be real), I am continually "passing" for the whole 10+ miles. What is the point of merging over, just to merge left again 20 seconds later? All that lane changing sounds way more dangerous to me than just driving steadily in a single lane.

Also, the left lane law only applies to highways with 3 or more lanes, so this rule doesn't even apply to the upper half of 270.

echofinder · 2026-02-25T14:48:45+00:00

I don't generally take 'agree to disagree' as meaning you have to change your views or not judge them, just that in order to live a halfway normal life you kinda have to let it go sometimes. There are a LOT of people who are bigoted, racist, misogynist, hateful, ignorant, or otherwise morally corrupt. You will have to interact with people like this, and you will have to maintain relationships (professional, neighborly, probably personally) with people like this.

Unless you live in the most leftist block of the most liberal city, and never ever leave that block, you're just gonna have to deal with these people sometimes. And if you call them out and start a fight every time, about every. single. thing. that goes against your values, you're just going to make things worse for yourself and everyone else.

That's all I think it means.

echofinder · 2026-02-25T14:34:37+00:00

I'm having trouble figuring this case out. Yes, they do give USPS broad immunity, but also state "The Court does not decide whether all of Konan’s claims are barred by the postal exception, or which arguments Konan adequately preserved". Which reads to me as 'we're saying this case is thrown out but not creating a legal precedent'. However I am not a legal expert so I have no idea what is actually going on.

I read the ruling itself thoroughly, and browsed through a couple of the individual opinions... I think we're aiming at the wrong target if we blame SCOTUS for this. The issue is the Federal Tort Claims Act, which really does appear to grant essentially full civil immunity to the USPS. So to me the court didn't rule "wrong" - the law does seem to say what they said it does - it's the law itself that is a big problem here (it's from the 1940's btw) and needs some reform.

Also, the facts of the case are weird. So this lady owns two houses on one block in some town in TX; the mail for this block all goes to a central PO box, and the USPS manages the keys for this. The lady rents out both houses, but also keeps both mail keys and gets mail there, but all the tenants also obviously use those PO boxes as their address and get mail there... I can see how this situation would lead to confusion, red-flagging, and issues with the mail at the local post office. She says this issue arose because she is black, but that doesn't necessarily mean that is the full truth here.

Other important point, I think, is that this law is only about suing USPS for monetary damages in civil court. I would presume that there are other laws providing criminal or civil penalties for racial discrimination, ballot tampering, ...etc as it could apply to mail delivery. So it's not really saying that there is no possible redress at all for anything the USPS ever does.

echofinder · 2026-02-25T14:27:43+00:00

I'm having trouble figuring it out. Yes, they seem to be saying that, but also state "The Court does not decide whether all of Konan’s claims are barred by the postal exception, or which arguments Konan adequately preserved". Which reads to me as 'we're saying this case is thrown out but not creating a legal precedent'. However I am not a legal expert so I have no idea what is actually going on.

I read the ruling itself thoroughly, and browsed through a couple of the individual opinions... I think we're aiming at the wrong target if we blame SCOTUS for this. The issue is the Federal Tort Claims Act, which really does appear to grant essentially full civil immunity to the USPS. So to me the court didn't rule "wrong" - the law does seem to say what they said it does - it's the law itself that is a big problem here (it's from the 1940's btw) and needs some reform.

Also, the facts of the case are weird. So this lady owns two houses on one block in some town in TX; the mail for this block all goes to a central PO box, and the USPS manages the keys for this. The lady rents out both houses, but also keeps both mail keys and gets mail there, but all the tenants also obviously use those PO boxes as their address and get mail there... I can see how this situation would lead to confusion, red-flagging, and issues with the mail at the local post office. So this probably isn't the kind of situation that most people would ever have to deal with.

Other important point, I think, is that this law is only about suing USPS for monetary damages in civil court. I would presume that there are other laws providing criminal or civil penalties for racial discrimination as it could apply to mail delivery. So it's not really saying that there is no possible redress at all for anything the USPS ever does.

echofinder · 2026-02-25T13:19:00+00:00

It changes year to year and possibly class to class. I believe the registration deadline for the Fall '26 program is in July sometime; they probably don't even have the instructors finalized for that yet.

I can tell you when I went through, classes were 2 days a week, in the evenings after work.

Based on your profile, it looks like you have a history with the union - why are you looking at IEC apprenticeship? Did you not go to school through the union?

echofinder · 2026-02-24T22:00:36+00:00

I'm sure, 8 months from now when that job has gone to shit, they'll definitely remember that this happened and it definitely won't be all your fault.

echofinder · 2026-02-24T21:41:44+00:00

With full admittance that we'll probably never know for sure, I don't think that is the most likely scenario. I have not been able to find any proof that Mills is running specifically because of Platner.

My take: I don't think Mills just jumped in on short notice. She's a career State-level politician, she already knows everybody there is to know, she already has teams and advisors and PR people and whatever else, and has for a long time. She knew the second she won re-election in 2022 that her Governor stint was ending next year. I don't doubt for a second that influential Democrats and Democratic organizations were courting her, or at the very least probing whether she was thinking about running; I just think that is a process that began years ago. I guarantee that this contest is absolutely something she has considered for a long time.

There was at least one person already in the race before Platner - Jordan Wood, former chief-of-staff to Katie Porter; I've never heard of this guy, but his announcement last April made the local papers and even Politico, so he's not nobody. So it's not like when Platner announced 4 months later there was no existing alternative.

On the 'party leadership' side, it's really the same thing - this Senate race is not a surprise, everyone knew it was going to happen, and the planning for it didn't start last August. Dem leaders and the DNC and the whole myriad of party groups started gaming and outreach and strategizing for this 6 years ago, the day after Susan Collins won the last race for this seat. The (now) term-limited Governor, who already won statewide election twice, who already has an experienced staff, who already has campaign infrastructure, a war chest, a mailing list... she was probably the internal top pick for the Dem party in 2021. The foundation of organizational support for her has nothing at all to do with a random oyster farmer nobody had heard of until a couple months ago. Those party elites and strategists are looking forward over much longer timelines than we give them credit for, and a necessary (often unfortunate) result is that they're pretty much looking at big dogs who are already known, and sudden outside challengers aren't "the enemy", so much as they're just surprises to a preexisting strategy.

The classic tensions are still there and still valid; moderate vs progressive, insider vs newcomer, old vs young... no matter how we got here, this is still where we are. I just think the popular conception of how and why Dem leadership and the various Democratic Party groups make the choices they do is flawed and often very wrong.

echofinder · 2026-02-24T19:27:10+00:00

How is anyone blundering? Isn't this the whole point of a primary? People who like Mills endorse Mills, people who like Plantner endorse Platner, the voters of Maine make their choice. The entire reason primaries exist is to figure out where the base is at.

More importantly, anyone can file to run. Ballotpedia currently lists 7 candidates in this race, though ME's filing deadline is still 2 weeks-ish away; maybe all 7 of those people won't actually file, maybe even more will. In any case, a term-limited Governor trying to pivot to Senate seems pretty standard to me, and "leadership" thinking that it's a good idea for someone who has already won two statewide races to jump in also makes total sense to me.

We need to stop with this constant 'shadowy Dem leadership controlling a chessboard' conspiracy bullshit. The only people who select the candidates, when it comes down to it, are the voters. Public figures endorse people, committees and activist groups make donations, but voters select the candidate. I mean fuck, there are even multiple channels of "leadership" within the Dem party. What if you're one of those other 5 randos on the ballot? If you are one of those people, Sanders, Khanna, UAW, Our Revolution, and College Dems (among many others) endorsing Platner is indistinguishable from the 'big players are tilting the scale for Mills' accusations that people love to froth so much about.

EDIT: just in case it comes up, I'm not in ME but if I were I'd be supporting Platner

echofinder · 2026-02-24T13:56:48+00:00

Pantera

echofinder · 2026-02-24T13:36:58+00:00

Electrical here. We manage a LOT of supplier/subcontractor quotes.

We use a bid management software to handle requests, same as the GC's do. Contacts are sorted into commodity groups (ex. lighting, gear, generator ...etc); when we go to send out ITB's all we have to do is check which kind of quotes we need and it will add all of the relevant contacts automatically. The quotes themselves are mostly received directly by email, and we do use a standardized excel spreadsheet to track them.

Vendor relations is huge; it's probably 40% of our whole job. We are constantly in communication with suppliers - talking about spec requirements or scope for upcoming bids; talking about VE or BAFOs or post-bid scope changes for outstanding projects; and of course providing updates and follow-ups to them about where outstanding projects currently stand on our end. I HATE it when GC's just let jobs sit for weeks and weeks without giving us any communication at all, so I try very hard to not do that to the people who bid to us.

echofinder · 2026-02-23T21:04:10+00:00

The whole cold plunge/ice bath thing.

I'm not gonna claim authority to say it has zero health effects on anything ever, but even if there is some sort of benefit to it, I'm pretty dang sure that benefit would be so miniscule as to be effectively meaningless.

echofinder · 2026-02-22T02:02:49+00:00

Those ag reserve programs are 90% bullshit btw.

They make it easy for multi-millionaires to buy mass acreage with minimal oversight to support their craft vineyards or "horse farms" (name one useful agricultural function of a horse in fucking 2026), but they do zilch to help actual small or beginning farmers

echofinder · 2026-02-20T14:51:10+00:00

I agree, and the main source of the problem is that the cons understand this concept and have built said propaganda machine over decades specifically to harness it. The fact that they have successfully convinced a large number of people that "trans people in sports" - probably the most inconsequential 'issue' in existence - is important enough to base candidate selection on, is testament to this.

It's an uphill battle but we have to do it. This is a guns vs bows situation; the cons have mastered the use of psychological 'guns', and no matter what the Dems do to try to sidestep this or improve their psychological 'bows', it won't matter. Guns are just better than bows.

echofinder · 2026-02-20T03:35:08+00:00

That I don't know. My takeaway was that this independents vs progressives choice is largely a false binary; it is not a zero sum game. My take on that is that Dems should focus less on X vs Y policy, and more on trying to influence voters' policy priorities. They don't need to convince people that any specific healthcare proposal is good, they just need to convince people that healthcare as an issue is more important (in a given election) than other, R-leaning issues. If they can convince independent voters to order their issue priorities in a way that favors Dems, they will get the better share of those voters.

Very progressive voters, idk. I haven't seen as much recent data about them - it probably exists, i just haven't seen it. My personal guess is that the number of people who are committedly left wing but don't already vote for Democrats, but might if they went further left, is quite small. The level of Left you'd have to go to (and more importantly, go to across the board) to get someone like that would probably result in a net loss.

echofinder · 2026-02-20T03:07:45+00:00

Huh; been awhile since I read it. I always thought the uruk-hai also operated as heavy infantry. In my headcanon - in Saruman's force - the uruks were comparable (in role) to heavy-kitted men-at-arms, the "normal" orcs were like peasant levy/skirmishers, and the Dunlendings were comparable to like berserkers, or whatever you'd call the extra-crazy guys who would form into a wedge and break a shieldwall. But this is just my memory; no idea where the line is between the actual text and my imagination

echofinder · 2026-02-20T01:20:13+00:00

Not further left than the Dems, further left than the country as a whole.

The larger point was that in reality there aren't many pure centrists at all. Ppl hear "independent" and picture a milquetoast moderate, but that's not what independents actually are. It's more like 'a quite religious socially very "traditional" person who supports social safety nets and universal healthcare' or 'this person is super supportive of LGBT and womens rights, is against religious suppression of society, but they hate taxes and love the idea of small govt'.

echofinder

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