I think the answer to your question has several layers. I'll start with the most general layer and get more specific from there...
The ActivityPub protocol, which Lemmy and Mastodon (and other services) use to communicate, is published by W3C and was developed by a group of people. This page on W3C includes a list of authors. It looks like at least one author has a Mastodon account; I'm curious to see if mentioning them here will federate to Mastodon and get a response: @cwebber@octodon.social
Each Lemmy instance (there are >600 of them) was started by a different person. This is usually (but not always) the first admin listed in the sidebar on that instance's homepage. Sometimes the founder is not the most active admin; in many cases they have recruited others to help in order to spread the work and reduce the chance that the instance dies when the founder has some unforeseen life event. Here are a few people who started some of the larger instances: @dessalines@lemmy.ml (mentioned above) @ruud@lemmy.world @sunaurus@lemm.ee @TheDude@sh.itjust.works @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com @smorks@lemmy.ca (took over that instance from a previous owner)
If anyone is viewing this in an app, it might show you an image preview that only shows one of the two photos in the imgur link. It doesn't make sense without the second photo:
I think others have answered your question better than me, but I'll chip in my two cents anyway.
The definition depends on who is saying it.
Within mainstream US politics, Republicans use "liberal" as a catch-all pejorative for any person or group further to the left of themselves. It is usually aimed at Democrats but could also refer to Greens, communists, etc.
The irony is that, in a broader political context, Republicans are very much liberals, too. People outside the US political mainstream who sneer about "liberals" are usually referring to this larger group, which basically encompasses the capitalist status quo in the "western" world.
"Latitude" can mean freedom of choice, or scope of work, rather than position on the Earth. I think he's saying that it looks like the work of some low-level employee just doing what they're told without thinking much about it.
Current favorites:
99% invisible
Articles of Interest (on hiatus)
Serial (takes long breaks)
Revisionist History
Cautionary Tales
Behind the Bastards
The Economics of Everyday Things
The Past and the Curious (for the kids)
Podcasts I don't listen to you much anymore, though they have some good episodes:
Deep Cover
Radiolab
This American Life
The Moth
Odd Lots
Animal Spirits Podcast
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
The Washington Redskins finally changed their name, and all my conservative relatives were like "What a bunch of ridiculous woke bullshit!" Really, guys? You don't understand why that might not be the best name?
If you win a state by one vote (offer not valid in Nebraska and Maine), you get all that state's electoral votes.
I'm going to pile on to your good answer.
Since you only need 51% to win all of a state's electoral votes, any additional votes beyond 51% could be considered excess votes that are not helpful. The system rewards candidates whose supporters are spread around, and punishes candidates whose supporters are heavily concentrated in a handful of states.
For example, in 2016 Hilary Clinton got 4,269,978 more votes in California than Trump. That's 4,269,977 more than she needed to win the state. Meanwhile, she lost Michigan by 10,704 votes, lost Pennsylvania by 44,292 votes, lost Florida by 112,912, etc. Hell, she lost Texas by less than a million votes. If Hilary's supporters in California had been spread around in other states she would have won the national election easily.
