What are the things that president obama says that is disappointing, he say, number one, im not after people who are just getting marry. Decent care what people read in the library. I only want to go after terrorists. Nobody can prove there has been abuses of the power. I say, all this is being done in secret. How too you know if there were abuses. Number two, i think history shows us that when you have this much power, there will be abuse, and we have already had some of the snowden documents show that the fisa court has heard a lot of complaints about the nsa going beyond what was allowed to do even though they id like to think if i were president i would remember that the president s oath is to support and defend the constitution. I understand that its a difficult position. Next call for susan herman. Margaret. Florida. Good ahead with your question or comment. Im so glad to hear you and, i will get you book. Im such a supporter. Ever since 50 years ago, and the last 50 years, ive w
Capability. To what extent is there concern cut into itss military capability . Can you give us any more feelings on that . You listed it as one of the , but can you be more graphic . Can you give us any more detail as to the extent about the cuts to our military capability. Our military capability . Statess in the united and one of those involved in protecting the governments thetion when we published strategic defense and security review in october of 2010. Remarks, in my opening the administration at that time, although there were some underlying concerns, they were persuaded that we were going to spectrum of full capabilities, that they were reassured that our defense spending would remain above 2 , certainly throughout the life of this parliament, and that the numbers we were talking about for interventions in the future were scalable. They were not as great as we have managed before, but they were nevertheless militarily significant numbers for continuing operations and for large
We have a little time left, and there are several questions that are outside of the technical scope of your book, but wed love your expertise on. First is your feeling about the senates vote yesterday to change the filibuster rules. Well, whats happened now is that after many, many months and years, the senate has finally changed this part of the filibuster rule which required 60 votes to approve the president s nominations for Senior Officers in the government and some judges. Not the Supreme Court. Now itll take 51 votes, simple majority. Now, i think a lot of americans are surprised, well, why doesnt it take 51 votes anyway . A majoritys supposed to rule. But over the time they came into this notion that they wanted to protect the rights of the minority in the senate which is where this is all focused. But then now whats happened is that the republican minority has blocked so many things, so many judges, so many appointments that finally the white house and senator harry reid, the d
When it comes to patriot act today . Guest the status of the patriot act is something i think a lot of people dont understand. Because when it was enacted five weeks after 9 11, in october of 2001, congress hasnt had any hearings. They didnt get any idea what was going wrong. They had ideas about what tools to [inaudible] so the patriot act, ever since 2000 has been [inaudible] given the government all the dragnet tools to do surveillance and all these things. I found when george w. Bush left the white house people asiewmented the patriot act had gone away. People were telling me what does the aclu have to do now . Couldnt grow out of business and saying Mission Accomplished . The patriot act is very much with us. The Current Events i actually one thing i hope we can talk about. I think there might be some prospect for change. Where . Guest one thing that happened. I started writing this weak in the book in the middle of Barack Obamas first term. At that time, people didnt understand t
Room to read is an organization that is opening schools and libraries across the developing world for the poorest of the poor hundreds of schools, thousands of libraries so that every child everywhere is no longer denied an education because they were born in the wrong place at the wrong time. John wood is an amazing guy. He used to be a big executive at microsoft until he went on vacation in nepal. Thats when he saw the desperate need for books and libraries. He changed the course of his own life to change the lives of children all over the world. When i was growing up in pennsylvania, we had actually a bookmobile that came to our town. And we think of this kind of as a nepalese yakmobile. Weve got our yak loaded with books, and were about to head off to go to a secondary school here to deliver about 500 books to help them start their first library. When john arrives with his yakmobile, just look at the reaction. Reading isnt just fun. Its a way for them to connect to the world beyond