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That's an interesting finding of facts on your part - can you cite some established evidence?

Yes, the police report made by the arresting officer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

"According to the charging documents submitted by the Baltimore police,[27] at 8:39 a.m, Lieutenant Brian W. Rice, Officer Edward Nero, and Officer Garrett E. Miller were patrolling on bicycles and "made eye contact" with Gray,[24][28][29"

He was stopped because he was a well known criminal hanging out in a high-crime area who took off running as soon as he saw the police and wouldn't stop when asked to.

Do you blame him for running? Freddie Gray was not a suspect in a crime. He was not seen doing anything illegal. He was not found to be engaged in any illegal activity. He fucking made eye contact. He did not show sufficient humility in the face of police presence by casting his eyes downward as young black men are supposed to.

Motherfucker, you've got big white militia assholes carrying automatic weapons and drawing down on Federal officers and the cops are polite and careful not to hurt their delicate feels. A young black man makes eye contact and he's sent to the morgue. You think these guys ever have to worry about "making eye contact" with law enforcement?

http://www.capitolhillblue.com...

Wake the fuck up.

Here's something that will deflate your entire argument: most conservatives don't claim to be open and inclusive - you set up that straw man and knocked the hell out of it.

Rand Paul, the conservative subject of this article is a man made from people parts.

Rand Paul: GOP must be more diverse, inclusive
'We have to show concern for those who aren't doing very well'

Oink, oink, oink. Happy now?

Fact is, it buys votes so everyone does it.

you'll get a flight on a Paul Wellstone plane!

So is a Wellstone plane a plane that is piloted by two borderline-incompetent pilots with a history of needing corrective reminders? Pilots who failed to maintain a safe airspeed and put the plane into an unrecoverable stall because they weren't paying attention to the instruments while looking for the airport that they were having difficulty finding under IFR flight? I don't see what incompetent pilots making a mistake have to do with a lawsuit against the government, perhaps you could explain this a little more, using facts and logic?

I think it says a lot that you appear to believe the tripe you're spewing. Let me guess: 9/11 was also an inside job, and the Illuminati control all the world governments from the shadows?

from FactCheck:

The report that Bush "screamed" those words at Republican congressional leaders in November 2005 is unsubstantiated, to put it charitably.

We judge that the odds that the report is accurate hover near zero. It comes from Capitol Hill Blue, a Web site that has a history of relying on phony sources, retracting stories and apologizing to its readers.

From Capitol Hill Blue:

I also let my prejudices get in the way. When some White House sources came to me with a story that claimed George W. Bush called the Constitution a “god damned piece of paper, I believed it without question because of my personal prejudices against Bush. I now believe I was wrong and that the incident never happened. The story in our database was modified to reflect my belief that I was lied to about the statement and I was wrong to print it.

Fact check first... The "piece of paper" quote is phony.

As far as i can tell, this is the original article (it has been retracted): http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml
FactCheck.org: http://factcheck.org/2007/12/bush-the-constitution-a-goddamned-piece-of-paper/

Right, because his predecessor was sooooo much better at this sort of thing, huh?

Spare me your sour grapes, and suck it up. Apparently your candidate lost, and now all you can do is complain about very unimportant and petty things, that's sad.

It's just a goddamn piece of paper anyway.

Wouldn't it be great if that were true? But it's probably not. The incident was reported in 2005 in the Capitol Hill Blue blog, but it appears that Capitol Hill Blue is not a highly reliable source. The U of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Political Fact Check calls this story "extremely unlikely" and says, "the Web site that reported those words has a history of quoting phony sources and retracting bogus stories."

Yet this is a President that reportedly exploded at people yelling 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'.

Which, as much as I consider Capital Hill Blue an untrustworthy resource (Call it a left-wing Drudge Report. At one time they were known to single source things, though they told you when they did.), they've had way too much of a tendency to be ahead of the curve on stuff for me to assume they're wrong on anything.

Pug

Then read this:

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"
--President George W. Bush

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that "goddamned piece of paper" used to guarantee.

On Friday, President Bush signed legislation that will name a new $110 million, nine-courtroom addition to the federal courthouse in Bryant's honor.

Bryant was known for his dedication to Constitutional law and believed that lawyers could stop injustice.

"Without lawyers, this is just a piece of paper," Bryant said of the Constitution in an interview with The Washington Post last year. "If it weren't for lawyers, I'd still be three-fifths of a man. If it weren't for lawyers, we'd still have signs directing people this way and that, based on the color of their skin."

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that "goddamned piece of paper" used to guarantee.

On Friday, President Bush signed legislation that will name a new $110 million, nine-courtroom addition to the federal courthouse in Bryant's honor.

Bryant was known for his dedication to Constitutional law and believed that lawyers could stop injustice.

"Without lawyers, this is just a piece of paper," Bryant said of the Constitution in an interview with The Washington Post last year. "If it weren't for lawyers, I'd still be three-fifths of a man. If it weren't for lawyers, we'd still have signs directing people this way and that, based on the color of their skin."

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/2422

Obama - For whom the bells have tolled
May 3, 2007 - 7:56pm.

"Chi-Town, we have a problem."

At least, that would be the message to Barack's campaign handlers, if they were willing to listen. And unfortunately for Barack, that "if" is just a tad too big for his britches.

While his rise into national prominence was a delicate thing of beauty, those of us from Illinois scratched our collective heads, wondering why this semi-hack from our state house was flying like a swan, when the reality is that he lucked into office because of extreme, consistent, and religious based failures by Illinois Reich Wing commissars who run our GOP - more often than not, into the ground, if not into prison.

For all his failed memory lapses contained in his book, at least he reportedly wrote most of it. That is good. Kudos for that. As I try to get one of several (5) I have written published, I admire his success (at the same time that I would kill for 10 private minutes with his agent), the many errors and misrememberances are not a problem. But are they a symptom? Only time will tell.

No, we need not feed his publisher's pockets to find more obvious omens of Barack's ultimate future in this election cycle. It can be broken down into four pretty telling points, and two very disgusting ones.

Let's start with Barack himself. He has several serious problems, the kind that will derail a national campaign by erosion, collapse, and painful agony. In that respect, his campaign resembles Hillary's - because hers suffers from the same problem.

Barack's first problem is called "Rezko". A professional, political whore who buys pols in Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois when it suits his purposes, his close, constant rubbing of elbows with Barack is actually far worse than anything Harry Truman did with his Pendergast connections. Harry's wife's White House deep freeze freezer hardly qualifies as graft.

Right, but the problem is that the NSA didn't realize they needed a warrant until the conversation was intercepted.

I think the core issue here is whether we want the government to obey the constituting authority, or not. If we're going to allow it to disobey, then the life-span and scope of every right, every enumerated power, risks becoming ephemeral as soon as there is a pressure upon the government to accomplish something where those prohibitions and enumerations stand in the way. The motivation for letting the government disobey, no matter how sterling, still forms the basis for a power structure that is governing without hard limits of any kind. Consequently, it is my firm conviction that if an action is forbidden, then that's the end of it — there is no excuse, emergency, or exigency that allows the government to break its own laws. None.

An additional problem is that conversations between overseas enemies and people in the US are potentially more important to intercept, from the NSA's perspective, than a typical conversation between overseas opponents, but that's a different kind of problem.

From my perspective, it doesn't matter how deep the problems pile up, where they come from, or if resolution to them looks like it is a slam-dunk with just a small compromise made with regard to the constitution. In the end, the constitution provides a perfectly effective mechanism for making changes to itself — nearly any change one can imagine — and if there is a problem of sufficient magnitude, then the duty and obligation of the government is to make those needs known, arrange to bring about the appropriate convention, representation and vote-gathering mechanisms, and see if the people also feel that the problem deserves the kind of change the government is advocating. If the people agree, then the change will be made, and the government will no longer be in the position of behaving criminally.

As things stand now, direct and obvious breaches of constitutional prohibitions, usurpation of powers not enumerated, and the making of legislation of explicitly forbidden are all part of day to day government operations. The president himself has been reported to have said of the constitution that it is "just a god-dammed piece of paper", judges even at the supreme court level not only render unconstitutional opinions, they also shirk dealing with constitutional issues using the most transparent excuses imaginable. This is the fruit of making law in any way that seems convenient in order to ameliorate the problems of the day. From where I stand, this fruit is far more bitter than, for instance, having the government say, "we were unable to [fill in the blank] and this has resulted in a poor outcome of [fill in the blank]." Finally, I would like to put forth the idea that just because the government can do something, doesn't mean it should. My parents taught me that when I was very young, and I saw the sense in it more or less immediately (actually, there was a beating involved, but still, timewise, we're not talking about a long sinking-in period; it isn't that difficult a concept.) The US government has yet to learn this lesson. Some might argue that they have, but at some point the lesson was forgotten; I say that regardless, they need to learn or re-learn it now, before things get much further out of hand.

Maybe what's needed is a law that expands the definition of "declaration of war" to include non-state organizations.

Perhaps what is needed is something that can stop the government from declaring war on states that are not actively making war against us or our allies. Terrorists rarely act at the behest of a nation's people or even their governments at large. In this case — the current Iraq invasion — no such link has ever been demonstrated. Again,

Also, the President doesn't believe in separation of powers, he believes in his absolute authority as dictator. After all, to him the Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper.

The Constitution ( and the Magna Carta, and the Articles of Confederation, etc., etc.) is just a piece of paper.

I believe the technical term is "Goddamned piece of paper".

I think that of them all, my favorite quote was this

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

The cosntitutiomn was ment as a way to presever our rights as humand, and limit what can be taken away. Howe3ver, none of that matters anymore since the Constitution is just goddamned piece of paper

there are things that could work as preventing the use of national ID's
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am4
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am10

But then any lawer and paid by the government judge will make swish chease of even the most simplest of rights.

Perhaps you should look at reality and realize the constitution means DICK in today's america.

"It's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W Bush

The way that Iraq has been handled has turned it into a disastrous failure, with no apparent path out. Two years into the occupation of Germany, German police had taken over general policing and border control duties. The occupying force in Germany was under 20,000 men within two years of V-E, while three and a half years into Iraq the 140,000+ American troops in Iraq continue to be pulled back into fortified megabases as the rest of the country slips toward anarchy.

Total postwar combat casualties in the American occupations of Germany, Japan, Haiti, former Yugoslavia: Zero

On the domestic side, I continue to be shocked by the inaction of our elected officials as major elements of the Federal Government continue to do everything they can to remove transparency and accountability from the political process. I was brought up to believe that Republicans supported limited government, but I haven't seen much evidence of that since before 1996. Secret laws, intimidation of critics, ballooning federal deficits, blinding and willful incompetence at all levels of the governent... it's like a nightmare. All of the people who stand to benefit from a corrupt government are silent-- media, government contractors, officials, large corporations. The people who are afraid to lose their reputation and livelihood are silent. The media are fractured, manipulated, and have their own concepts of fairness and balance used against them to weaken their message. ...and the people who refuse to see what is being done in their names continue to raise a hue and cry about issues that don't matter while corrupt men continue to pervert the ideals that America stands for.

The Bush Administration has been a disastrous failure for America, and for the world we should be an example to. I wish I could trust that the Democratic victories in this election will produce a change, but I don't have a lot of hope for improvement in the near future unless we all work together to demand it.

after all, it's just a goddamned piece of paper.

is a piece of paper.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/arti cle_7779.shtml

And even if the quote was never substantiated, the point's valid. The information scribbled on a piece of paper is software, but software is only as trustworthy as the system it runs under. Whether it's a boarding pass waved under the nose of a sleepy TSA goon and a non-sentient optical scanner, or an end-run around the Constitution passed under the nose of a sleepy populace and two impotent branches of government.

+2, Funsightful.

Any journalist can tell you the news, but it takes a comedian to tell you the truth.

I modded you funny, but meta-moders and I have differences of opinion on funny vs. insightful.

So, I'll explain. The parent is referring to Bush on the Constitution: "Just a goddamned piece of paper".

It had better be hearsay...

It is. From that article (fixed the link):

I've heard from two White House sources who claim they heard from others present in the meeting that the President of the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper."

Hearsay starts at only one degree of separation, and this has two. For instance, "Alice told me she saw Bob steal the money" is inadmissable in court - the court (rightly) only cares what Alice has to say in the matter. This report, however, is equivalent to "Alice told me that Bob told her he saw Cindy steal the money." Hearsay isn't allowed in court because it very quickly turns into slanderous fantasy. For further reading, I will simply refer you here.

Also, it's good habit to always consider what sort of agenda the source might have. Snippets from today's front page:

The shortest distance to our salvation is a straight ticket - My wife [will] vote a straight ticket - a Democratic one. So will I.

Cops raid California candidate's office, home - For two days, a Republican congressional candidate ...

Top US general says God tells Rumsfeld what to do - The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.

Tough race, influence-peddling probe haunt Rep. Curt Weldon - Add this to Republican Curt Weldon's long list of re-election woes his very own October surprise.

Unknown gaining ground against GOP opponent - She's got zero political experience, unless you count a stint as president of her suburban community club.

Notice a pattern? Doesn't really seem all that to objective to me.

No, you're 100% incorrect.

I honestly don't know why that meme is still floating around the interwebs. The guy at capitolhillblue was the only person to push this story and he did it with anonymous sources.

If you read here it has the followup article CHB wrote 3 days later, titled "Where there's smoke, there's ire" which CHB pulled from his own site

"This article has been removed from our database because the source could not be verified."

It surprises me that he repeats the same claim just a week ago

Not to mention that he first claims he heard it from 3 sources, then later changed it to two sources. The man reported shiat either he or someone else made up.

I honestly don't care about getting modded up, but please mod down the AC.

No, you're 100% incorrect.

I honestly don't know why that meme is still floating around the interwebs. The guy at capitolhillblue was the only person to push this story and he did it with anonymous sources.

If you read here it has the followup article CHB wrote 3 days later, titled "Where there's smoke, there's ire" which CHB pulled from his own site

"This article has been removed from our database because the source could not be verified."

It surprises me that he repeats the same claim just a week ago

Not to mention that he first claims he heard it from 3 sources, then later changed it to two sources. The man reported shiat either he or someone else made up.

I honestly don't care about getting modded up, but please mod down the AC.

Nice straw man. Can I play? How about, consider someone who is openly critical of the President through online forums. W decides to declare that person an "illegal combatant" and sics Alberto Gonzales on him. Gonzales then subpoenas identifying information from Google. (Hmmm... sounds a little like what happened to some dissidents in China wrt. to Yahoo, doesn't it?)

Which is more evil: Google complying with the dubious request of the US Executive Branch (which may end up being "law" here in a moment), or Google fighting the request?

After all, under that little Constitution thingy ("Just a goddamned piece of paper!"), we have those silly rights like the right to Due Process, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, the right to a speedy trial, etc...

It's just a goddamned piece of paper! So shut up!

Nope, because the constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper ©King George the First, Nov. 2005

While we're at it, can someone please
Repeal
all
SECRET
LAWS!?

Eh? Did you even read that? That Capitol Hill Blue retraction you cite is dated Jul 9, 2003. The Constitution story you're objecting to is two and a half years *after* he stopped using the bogus source Dec 9, 2005

Eh? Did you even read that? That Capitol Hill Blue retraction you cite is dated Jul 9, 2003. The Constitution story you're objecting to is two and a half years *after* he stopped using the bogus source Dec 9, 2005

Done deal:

"GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

"I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."

"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

I've heard from two White House sources who claim they heard from others present in the meeting that the President of the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper."

The record shows the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that "goddamned piece of paper" used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the "Constitution is an outdated document."

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/arti cle_7779.shtml

Anymore questions you'd like answered?

"...to authors and inventors..."

Also it does not say to authors and inventors or their representatives.
(E.g., the RIAA which is neither)

Congress AND the President both ignore the US constitution.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/arti cle_7779.shtml

Yeah. Like people burning flags.

it would not affect you or anyone you will ever know

So what you're saying is that if I'm investigated for paying $6500 to that evil jihadist organization known as Mastercard (aside: this predates all the right wing boohoohoo over the NYT coverage of "bank-tapping". Who needs "terrorist-loving" liberals when the Republicans' government is fully capable of blowing its own foot off?) that it doesn't "affect me" to have my payments frozen? It doesn't "affect me" to have the Men in Black come around my office and ask my boss how I'm doing and whether he knows what I'm doing in my free time? It doesn't "affect anyone I will ever know" to have the process repeated with everyone I've called or my relatives?

I don't have any confidence in your statement. At all.

The government still requires some sort of evenence to begin an investigation.

Sorry, couldn't hear you over my Hoover. Could you repeat that again? Sounded like you said something about idealism and flying rainbows.

you mean you think you have a constitution when the President of the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper" ?
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/arti cle_7779.shtml

I'm not afraid of a few scattered "terrorists" with box cutters and fertilizer bombs. I am afraid of my government whose commander and chief over nuclear weapons, jets, and a million man army army said the constitution is a "godamn piece of paper"

"GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

"I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."

"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/arti cle_7779.shtml

"Somehow, I doubt the administration bothered with technicalities like "warrants"."

You mean like this statement of lies straight from Bush's mouth? I love the statement "Constitutional guarantees are in place.." and "...we value the Constitution...", and then you look at this article where Bush says (and I quote):

""Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

"Read the fucking constitution and look up some judicial records before you open your big, dumb mouth please. The law is very specific about protecting journalistic sources, there is supposed to be no way around it."

Didn't you get the memo? The Constitution was put on hold, in the name of national security. Besides, the NSA is already rewriting the 4th Amendment to suit their own needs now.

Pretty soon whistleblowing will be the norm and Thoughtcrime will be the next wave of neighborly telling-do.

I take it you missed this article. You're not being un-American, you are being a terrorist supporter.

In 2003, we published reports that intelligence professionals had raised doubts about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and questioned claims of a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Our detractors claimed we made the whole thing up. Two years later, we were proven right.

We were the first news outlet to identify the names of women who claimed sexual abuse by Bill Clinton when he was attorney general and later governor of Arkansas.

Capitol Hill Blue is never very reliable, this is the same place that claims to have 'classified reports' from the US Secret Service saying that Cheney was in fact drunk when he accidentally shot Mr. Magoo. While that is still up for debate, if said reports do exists one would think that they would have been better publicized?

Link Here

So he appointed judges with views different than his own.

Who'd you vote for?

I don't know, ask diebold. They had the final say.

We already know what George Bush thinks about the constitution (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/art icle_7779.shtml), we already know that he doesn't care if weather We The People want him to do what he is doing (http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Controversial_data_ mining_program_continues_after_0224.html) and we also know that Mr. Bush is making preparations for martial law. After he retired, Tommy Franks toured the country announcing that after the next terror attack we will have to go to a military form of government (http://www.infowars.com/print/ps/franks.htm). This was unfortunate, he said, but necessary -- the people would demand it. He insisted that he was just a concerned citizen expressing his opinion -- but it turns out that he was payed over $400,000 by the White House to express this opinion.

Please get informed about what your government is doing.

Actually, I've heard an interesting quote attributed to him. This really deserves its own story, but I'll start small.

I suppose what amazes me is how he is seen now. What Bush has done is amazing for anyone even slightly versed in US political history. The ideas of checks and balances and the separation of powers, so essential to the mechanism by which our government is kept from encroaching upon us, do not even give Bush pause. We are discussing a man who called the Constitution a goddamned piece of paper. Remember the Oath of Office? The Constitution specifies that:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

How will history remember him is a small consolation for those of us concerned about our liberty.