{"id":187139,"date":"2013-06-07T18:44:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-07T23:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/06\/07\/so-full-of-hope-and-change\/"},"modified":"2013-06-07T18:44:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-07T23:44:00","slug":"so-full-of-hope-and-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/06\/07\/so-full-of-hope-and-change\/","title":{"rendered":"So Full of Hope and Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 400px;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"219\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-R1W0NaGerU\" width=\"390\"><\/iframe><i>Roll Tape<\/i><\/div>\n<p>Senator Jeff Merkley, who has been doing everything but blinking his eyes in Morse code to, is now <a href=\"http:\/\/livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com\/entry\/sen-merkley-obama-took-nsa-data-collection-very\">criticizing Barack Obama for being <b>WAY<\/b> too flip about spying on everyone in the United States<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) on Friday criticized President Barack Obama&#8217;s response to the recently publicized National Security Agency phone and Internet data surveillance programs.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">&#8220;There are several parts to this that the president glossed over,&#8221; Merkley told MSNBC after Obama spoke.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">The Oregon senator said Obama took the data collection &#8220;very lightly.&#8221; In response to the president&#8217;s claims that the appropriate Senate Intelligence Committees were briefed on the NSA programs, Merkley said he had to seek out &#8220;special permission&#8221; to learn about the intelligence initiatives because that information was not freely available. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Merkley is unwilling to admit it, but the core of this problem is that Barack Obama <b>does not care<\/b> about the 4<sup>th<\/sup> amendment or the right to privacy of the American people.<\/p>\n<p>It is a calculus that is based on hypocrisy, cowardice, and venality.  He is unwilling to support our rights if there is an off chance that something bad will happen.<\/p>\n<p>Supporting civil rights, and the Constitution, matters most when its <b>difficult<\/b>., not when it&#8217;s <b>convenient<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">Worst \u2026\u2026\u2026 Constitutional \u2026\u2026\u2026 law \u2026\u2026\u2026 professor \u2026\u2026\u2026 ever<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roll Tape Senator Jeff Merkley, who has been doing everything but blinking his eyes in Morse code to, is now criticizing Barack Obama for being WAY too flip about spying on everyone in the United States: Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) on Friday criticized President Barack Obama&#8217;s response to the recently publicized National Security Agency phone &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}