Posts made by bi4smooth

@raphjd

Well, I made that mistake only once - which you were quick to point out, so I looked it up (eventually) and admitted my mistake...

Would that I were infallible like you, but I am not...

Some VPNs to not permit the use of their networks for torrenting. You may be being blocked there...

It is also possible that Kaspersky is blocking you... I've had a lot of "false positives" from that suite over the years.

FWIW: I've found (personally) that Windows software in my home network isn't the greatest way to do torrenting.

Instead I do the following (NOTE: I'm a computer consultant who knows Linux inside and out, so there's that to consider!)

• I get a small virtual Linux host at linode.com. Cost: $5/mo
• I install the GUI front end, and tiger-vnc.
• I install firefox & qBitTorrent from RHEL and/or EPEL repos
• I keep almost all ports closed, save for the torrent port I choose (firewalld)... except to my home network, which I add to the firewall's trusted zone
• I browse my torrent sites from the virtual Linux & do all my file I/O there - with the ultra-fast internet connection it is afforded... When a download completes, I then use a remote tool (I use WinSCP) to copy the files to my home Windows system... I generally seed for about 2-weeks, and ever since I started using this method to d/l and seed my torrents, my share ratios have been exponentially better!

Problems? The only REAL problem I have is the limited storage... but I manage... and if I wanted MORE storage, I'd just have to pay for it!

OH! One more thing - once a month or so I use the linode console to change the IP address of my system...

@raphjd said in Department of Justice Stymies Congressional Attempt to Get Information on Hunter Biden Probe:

@bi4smooth

For what?

It's the same DOJ that failed to act when Holder was found in Contempt of Congress, in a bi-partisan vote? Fast and Furious, any of that ring any bells?

Yes, the same DOJ that failed to act when former Trump advisor Mark Meadows was found in contempt of congress...

I know it's hard for you to fathom, what with your authoritarian-biased views, but the structure of the American Government is - at its foundation - a separation of powers. No one branch of the Government - not the Exec (Presidency), not the Legislative (Congress), and not the Judicial - can do anything that anther branch cannot undo! There is NO absolute power in our Government - every potential action of any one branch can be overturned... and sometimes requires the approval of... another branch.

In this case, finding someone in contempt of congress is major shit - so the Legislature has to approve of it AND the Justice Department (part of the Executive branch)... and it's not at all uncommon for Congress (a purely political entity) to make a referral and for Justice (a legal, non-partisan entity... well, until Trump got ahold of it) to nix it...

YOU say that the Dept of Justice is politically motivated in failing to bring charges in certain cases... but they are cases against both conservative & liberal sides... I say the referrals themselves are politically motivated, and the Justice Dept is quashing their unsupported (legally) charges. Again, against both sides...

It's the same DOJ that called angry parents "terrorists".

Angry parents who made threats against local authorities? Threats backed up with guns?

Yes!! And it was the right call!

@raphjd

You really have a VERY limited mind... you've made that same argument before, and I've successfully refuted it before... yet, you make the same assertion over and over again...

Alzheimer's can be a terrible and debilitating disease. If you are having memory problems, please seek help! There aren't any TREATMENTS yet, but those same scientists who tried to kill the entire human population with their revolutionary COVID-19 vaccines are also working on treatments (even cures) for memory-loss issues like Alzheimer's.

@raphjd

Sorry, not from Joy Reid... incorrect, sure... but not from any left-wing site.

@raphjd

The same DOJ that wouldn't prosecute Trump?

@raphjd

But they didn't say anything - likely because he was "one of them" (a Democrat)... not that Republicans don't do the same thing (Donald Trump sound familiar?)

Tribalism in politics leads to terrible things... witness current state of politics (whether you want that to be Trump or Biden doesn't matter - they're both awful)

@raphjd

Yeah - rhetoric like that is the problem....

@raphjd

Show me a single instance where I've revealed a source that is Joy Reid (who I couldn't pick out of a lineup, much less listen, watch, to or read), or Slate, or Salon, or any other particularly Liberal source.

In reality, my news sources are mostly middle-of-the-road... some lean slightly liberal, some slightly conservative. Fox news is not commonly on my list of sources. More importantly, I get a lot of my news from foreign news sources... Australian, German, English, Japanese, and others...

@raphjd

How explicitly do I have to make it: we agree on this point. QI is bad law, and bad cops need to be dealt with. Not doing so reflects badly on ALL cops (witness current conditions).

@raphjd

LOL to quote the Republicans in the 1990s, and the Democrats in the 2010's... and quite honestly, both sides in the 2020s:

You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

@raphjd

Fox news isn't the same as the Yahoo channels & Russian propaganda sites you so often use as sources....

Pedophiles are awful people. They can be found in all walks of life: some are conservatives, some are liberals, some are green-party activists, some are communists, some are nazis, some are white, some are black... you get the idea.

@raphjd

I'm sorry - but tempers are flaring over abortion rights on BOTH sides now...

You show 20-plus violent attacks on pro-life protesters
Others will show you 20-plus violent attacks on pro-choice protesters

A LOT of bad actors on both sides - and absolutely no room in the middle.

These are local counties to me (Hillsborough is the county for Tampa, Pasco is the county just to the North).

What happens in this video is not at all atypical, and I think what happened is what SHOULD have happened.

• She ran a stop sign
• She got pulled over & was upset
  -- so far perfectly normal and fine --
• she got belligerent, then she got her husband involved
• she got even MORE belligerent & wouldn't even listen to her husband when he said she needed to calm down.
  ... then the shit hit the fan...

The husband (a Sheriff's Deputy in the larger Hillsborough County) tries to defend his wife (with her constant goading and whining in the background) and decides to try to play a "professional courtesy" card to get her out of it... only (possibly because of the wife's behavior, possibly not) the ticketing officer says no.

Had he left it there, she'd have gotten a ticket and all would be done... but noooo

She continues to be belligerent - not even willing to let the Deputy say the "spiel" he's got to about options - and the husband starts in on the "professional courtesy" thing. He insists on talking to a supervisor, he really thinks escalating things is going to get him somewhere...

It does... it gets him a perjury charge and a return ticket to the unemployment office. He let his wife goad him into getting him a criminal charge AND the loss of his job/career.

Here's a simple rule: when you mess up, admit it and move on!

My grandfather said: when you find yourself in a hole, the first step is always the same: stop digging

This guy kept digging & finally hit a sewer line full of shit! And for what he did, he got the punishment he deserved.

As a cop, you have my respect and my thinks for doing a job that is difficult on its BEST days! But respect and thanks is not the same as carte-blanche to break the law, or let your wife do so! You still have to follow the same laws the rest of us do!

IMHO, cudos to the Pasco Sheriff's office for following up professionally, and cudos to the Hillsborough Sheriff's office for dismissing a bad egg when it was revealed.

I'm currently 58, he is 35. Just 3 years together so far. But in addition to being different generations, we're also different races: I'm Irish/American, he's Vietnamese/American.

@raphjd

Yeah - just down to the bottom of the first page of this nonsense was TLDR:

• The Red Flag law the Senate passed doesn't REQUIRE IT, it just provides federal backing to states who DO already (including Florida!). (And Red Flag laws have been upheld by wide margins in SCOTUS rulings... so "unconstitutional" is just plain wrong...
• Democrat activists are NOT still harassing SCOTUS members at their homes. The idiot who showed up with plans to kill Justice Kavanaugh kinda scared some sense into them (or, it made the optics bad - either way, they stopped... for now)... not saying they won't start up again, but the assertion they're still doing so is just plain wrong.
• The moron who was arrested outside Justice Kavanaugh's residence didn't get far enough to warrant the assertion that it was an attempted assassination. But that doesn't make what he did, or his intentions any less dastardly... still, word choice matters!
• The Dems already passed the legislation increasing (expanding to the entire families) security for SCOTUS members. That's water under the bridge, and complaints that Dems are stopping it are just wrong. DID they fail to act quickly when the Senate passed it? YES! Did they do so nefariously? Depends on who you ask WHEN! (Context matters too!)... mostly, Dems didn't think it a high priority, so it wasn't fast tracked... until the Kavanaugh incident - at which point it WAS quickly passed.

And that's only in the first paragraph!

Not that some of the points made aren't valid, just that they're presented in patently FALSE ways!

A waste of time to read... save yourselves....

@raphjd

Yup - any Gov't body who doesn't do exactly what @raphjd wants is dirty!

It couldn't possibly be a LEGAL thing - after all, the Justice Department wouldn't have any decent LAWYERS to decide those things...

NAH! Has to be that they're crooked and covering shit up!

@raphjd

This is what happens when political parties DON'T do the proper investigations of their candidates!

This dude was only a few hundred votes shy of being the Governor of Florida! (We got Ron DeSantis instead - so we're still mostly a shit-show of incompetence! But that's been Florida for DECADES now! There's a REASON Trump relocated here after his presidency: he's among friends here - CRAZY people are as common as green grass & palm trees here!)

He had previously been the mayor of Tallahassee (the State Capitol, but a very small town still). Surely SOMEONE knew of his predilection for hard drug use and male prostitutes from back then?

@raphjd

Agreed (qualified immunity should not apply to cops doing criminal things)

Bad cops need to be identified, prosecuted, and removed (at least from the force, if not from society - eg.: prison)

That doesn't mean all cops are bad. Extrapolation from single incidents is just plain wrong.

@raphjd

Not at all - the shit-show in Seattle didn't get any support from me (when BLM rioters essentially took over parts of Seattle in 2020)...

AOC & Bernie seldom see any love from me, but I don't stand for them being accused of terrible (false) things just because your Russian masters want to drive a wedge between Americans (real ones). I also don't stand for Leftist attacks on Sen Cruz or Sen Paul. (That doesn't mean I support everything Sen Paul does or says - he's a crackpot and an idiot, IMHO)...

But you can't be swayed by FACTS! You have your OPINIONS, and in spite of any FACTS, your opinions are ALWAYS right! Damned right!

EVERYONE has the right to protest our Government! INCLUDING ILLEGAL ALIENS! That's one of the things about the US that makes us BETTER than most other countries... we don't just give and protect the rights of CITIZENS - we apply those same rights and protections to ALL PEOPLE!

While the rally with Trump on the morning of Jan 6 was completely LEGAL and I have (and had) no issue with that protest, the parts that came later WERE criminal (hence so many who have pleaded GUILTY to actual, serious crimes!)

Another analogy: walking up to my door and ringing my doorbell isn't a crime. Neither is it a crime if you do that and run away! But if you ring my doorbell ... and THEN break my door down? Well, THAT is a CRIME!