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	<title>Swampland &#187; Joe Klein &#124; TIME.com</title>
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	<link>http://swampland.time.com</link>
	<description>Political insight from the Beltway and beyond</description>
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		<title>Swampland &#187; Joe Klein &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com</link>
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		<title>Reactionaries in New York</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/18/reactionaries-in-new-york/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/18/reactionaries-in-new-york/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 18 May 2013 13:53:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95989</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Democratic candidates for mayor in New York are campaigning to win the support of the teachers union. They threaten to return the city to the horrors of the David Dinkins era.  Back at the turn of the 1990s, New York City was a mess. Crime was rampant. The schools were dreadful. Children in foster care were brutalized because&#8211;as the head of the Child Welfare Agency said&#8211;&#8221;oversight is racist.&#8221; The mayor was an incompetent. And, above all, the city was run for the benefit of its employees rather than its citizens. What followed was 20 years of governance by moderate Republicans, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. Crime is now at an historic low. The city is booming. There have been improvements in the schools, especially for those who&#8217;ve been lucky enough to attend a string of brilliant charter schools in poor neighborhoods like Harlem. The public employees unions still remain the major power brokers in the city, but they&#8217;ve been held in check. That progress is severely threatened now. Two weak Republicans are running and seem distinct underdogs. Unless some non-reactionary Democrat stands up as an independent defender of the public good, the way Ed Koch did 35 years ago, a period of backsliding seems imminent for the city. I wonder what Andrew Cuomo, a governor who has been willing to take on the reactionary hacks in the Democratic Party, thinks of this situation.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95989&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Education</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/education/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/164925862-new-york-city-council-speaker-christine-gettyimages-1.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Mayoral candidate Quinn</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Sorting Out the Scandals</title>
		<link>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2143562,00.html</link>
		<comments>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2143562,00.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2013 11:40:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Magazine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95793</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95793&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Magazine</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/magazine/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/360_cklein_0527.jpeg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">President Obama Takes Questions From The Press During News Conference</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Cheney Confesses</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/15/cheney-confesses/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/15/cheney-confesses/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 May 2013 15:04:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Dick Cheney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95690</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Former Vice President Dick Cheney has confessed to changing the CIA&#8217;s accurate information on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction for political reasons. You start out with the truth as reported by the intelligence community, and then you turn it into a total distortion once the political types in the White House and some senior folks at the State Department get their hands on it. Oh. Wait a minute. Cheney was actually talking&#8211;quite inaccurately&#8211;about Benghazi. But, boy, the lack of self-knowledge is staggering, or perhaps a spectacular rebellion by his subconscious. The shamelessness is staggering as well. He really should go away.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95690&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Dick Cheney</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/people/dick-cheney/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/rtxyzxr.jpg?w=116</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Former U.S. Vice President Cheney attends dedication ceremony for George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>InAPpropriate?</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/inappropriate/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/inappropriate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 13:59:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Controversies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95592</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Today&#8217;s scandal: the Justice Department targets the Associated Press in a search for government employees who may have leaked classified information. The question is, how was this different from previous government attempts to track down inside sources who leaked secrets—as in the Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby fracas during the Bush Administration? There is one glaring difference. In the Plame case, the Justice Department openly subpoenaed the records of the journalists who reported the story—Matt Cooper, then of TIME, was one—and those journalists had the option of given up their records or going to jail. That&#8217;s the way it has worked in the past. There is a disputed grey line within First Amendment rights—journalists have a responsibility to protect our sources, government has a responsibility to protect classified information (such as the identities of the CIA&#8217;s non-official cover operatives like Valerie Plame). It isn&#8217;t pleasant, and there are legitimate differences about where First Amendment rights end and national security begins, but it is open and straightforward process. Apparently, what has happened in this case, is that the Justice Department short-circuited prior practices, received secret subpoena authority (from the FISA court?) and covertly went after the information that it had requested in the past. That seems to be a substantial rewriting of the rules, a significant truncation of First Amendment rights. I&#8217;ve gotten flack from the civil liberties community in the past. I&#8217;m not a First Amendment absolutist. I believe that the government has a responsibility to prevent terrorist attacks, which includes the right to track the messages of suspected terrorists. It also has the responsibility to keep the secret technologies used in this effort secret—which was apparently the bright line in the AP story. (It may have revealed previously covert methods the government used to prevent an Al Qaeda attack.) Before I pass judgment in this case, I need to know the following: 1. Why were the usual methods—public subpoenas etc—not used in this case? 2. Has the government changed the rules with regard to journalists seeking covert information? 3. If so,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95592&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Controversies</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/controversies/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/rtxzlah.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">AP hack</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Real Diehl on Benghazi</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/real-diehl-on-benghazi/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/real-diehl-on-benghazi/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 17:13:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95472</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Washington Post&#8217;s Jackson Diehl is usually a reliable, and responsible, advocate for neocon-ish policies in the Middle East. His column today is a rebuke to those trying to make the Benghazi tragedy into a scandal. Indeed, Diehl asserts what should be obvious to any honest observer: there is no scandal here. There was merely inter-agency fol-de-rol concerning talking points. As I&#8217;ve written before, talking points seem the primary product of latter-day governance&#8211;which is a scandal of a different sort, one which has enveloped every Administration for the past 20 years. If only Presidents were as concerned with managing the government as they are with massaging the message. Diehl compares the current conservative melodrama with the liberal melodrama surrounding the &#8220;16 words&#8221; about the sale of yellowcake uranium to Saddam Hussein that George W. Bush infamously uttered in a State of the Union message. Bush was called on this inaccuracy by Ambassador Joe Wilson, whose bottom line was correct but whose details were hyperbolic or incorrect. The current controversy is far more frivolous than the 16 Words. Those words were used to propel us into an injust and obscene war. The talking points in this case, Diehl writes: &#8230;were edited over several drafts to remove references to the extremist militia Ansar al-Sharia and previous attacks in Benghazi. But this was not a cover-up. Instead, the changes were mainly the product of interagency tensions: State thought the CIA, which was mainly responsible for the Benghazi mission, was preempting an FBI investigation and trying to shift blame for the fiasco. Meanwhile, by the ABC account, every draft of the talking points says that the attacks “were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault . . .” That’s what Rice said. It might have been wrong, but it was the intelligence assessment at the time. So what, exactly, is the scandal? I&#8217;m not sure that this completely absolves the Administration, especially the State Department. Electoral politics may have been a consideration&#8211;although, in the ecology of<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95472&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Libya</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/libya-foreign-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Not Nixon, Exactly.</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/not-nixon-exactly/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/not-nixon-exactly/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 14:44:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95448</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I may have swung a bit too hard, putting Barack Obama&#8217;s Administration in the same league as Franklin Roosevelt&#8217;s and Richard Nixon&#8217;s when it comes to the Internal Revenue Service. The situation remains a major embarrassment, though. The most important difference is that the Roosevelt and Nixon IRS depredations came from the White House. This mess seems to have percolated from the middle&#8211;the IRS&#8217;s Cincinnati office (a major facility, by the way)&#8211;up to the upper-middle. It was an overreaction, to be sure&#8211;but, as Ezra Klein explains, it was a response to a very real problem: how do you draw the line between political advocacy, which is a taxable activity, and policy advocacy, which is not, if the advocate organizes itself as a 501(c)4? Here&#8217;s Ezra: Let’s try to keep two things in mind simultaneously: The IRS does need some kind of test that helps them weed out political organizations attempting to register as tax-exempt 501(c)4 social welfare groups. But that test has to be studiously, unquestionably neutral. The story thus far seems both chilling and cheering. Employees at the agency’s Cincinnati branch did employ a test that, in effect, targeted tea party groups. Whether they meant it to be discriminatory or they simply created one that was discriminatory is in contention, but ultimately immaterial. The IRS, more so than almost any other agency, must act in ways above reproach. But when the Cincinnati group explained their test to IRS exempt organizations division chief Lois G. Lerner, she objected to it and it was changed. A few months later, the IRS would release new guidance that suggested scrutinizing &#8220;political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement,&#8221; and after that, &#8220;organizations with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention (raising questions as to exempt purpose and/or excess private benefit.)&#8221; The context for all this is that after Citizens United and some related decisions, the number of groups registering as 501(c)4s doubled. Because the timing of that doubling coincided with<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95448&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Barack Obama</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/white-house/barack-obama/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>IRS Mess</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/11/irs-mess/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/11/irs-mess/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 May 2013 16:17:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95404</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Internal Revenue Service&#8217;s targeting of conservative groups is outrageous. Those who did this should be fired immediately. That&#8217;s obvious. It continues a slovenly week for Barack Obama. The President has been very proud of the absence of scandal in his Administration, and rightly so. The inability of his opponents to find any significant corruption in the historic $800 billion stimulus package was a real achievement, given the speed of the payout. None of his top aides have been caught up in taking bribes while in office — although their race through the revolving door into lucrative private-sector positions is well beyond nauseating. As in most presidencies, there have been an awful lot of political hacks populating the midreaches of this Administration. In the Obama instance, these have shown an anachronistic, pre-Clinton liberal bias when it comes to the rules and regulations governing many of our safety-net programs, like Social Security disability. And now they have violated one of the more sacred rules of our democracy: you do not use the tax code to punish your opponents. Lois G. Lerner, the IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, said the &#8216;absolutely inappropriate&#8217; actions by &#8216;frontline people&#8217; were not driven by partisan motives. Does anyone actually believe this? Yet again, we have an example of Democrats simply not managing the government properly and with discipline. This is just poisonous at a time of skepticism about the efficacy of government. And the President should know this: the absence of scandal is not the presence of competence. His unwillingness to concentrate — and I mean concentrate obsessively — on making sure that government is managed efficiently will be part of his legacy. Previous Presidents, including great ones like Roosevelt, have used the IRS against their enemies. But I don&#8217;t think Obama ever wanted to be on the same page as Richard Nixon. In this specific case, he now is. (Read more from Joe Klein on the IRS scandal.)<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95404&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Barack Obama</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/white-house/barack-obama/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/wp15cc51c9420347c59c6d7da4bbba98f8-0.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">President Barack Obama boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George&#039;s County, Md., on May 9, 2013.</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Still More Benghazi</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/11/still-more-benghazi/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/11/still-more-benghazi/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 May 2013 13:10:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Libya]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95399</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Seems to me that Andrew Sullivan has nailed the import of the latest email revelations. But there is one point to note for future reference. I&#8217;m not so sure that Nuland&#8217;s reference to her &#8220;buildings (sic) leadership&#8221; means Hillary Clinton. There is a cloud of highly defensive&#8211;sometimes to the point of weirdly paranoid&#8211;advisers who have always surrounded Clinton. (Think Sid Blumenthal, back in the day). It&#8217;s part of the DNA of Hillaryland. In my experience, this over-protectiveness often works to Clinton&#8217;s disadvantage. And it will be a real detriment to her presidential campaign, should she choose to launch one. I&#8217;m not sure that Clinton herself forced the talking points massage; but &#8220;Hillary Clinton&#8221;&#8211;the bubble that surrounded the Secretary&#8211;may well have. One other point: the amount of time spent on these talking points was obscene, and not at all unusual in the current Administration, or others in the recent past. The amount of time our leaders spend in spinning rather than governing or leading drives me absolutely nuts.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95399&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Libya</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/foreign-policy-2/libya-foreign-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>The Mission Continues</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/the-mission-continues-2/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/the-mission-continues-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 15:07:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Veterans]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95113</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I spent last weekend watching 73 recent veterans, most of them wounded, begin a 6-month public service fellowship, sponsored by The Mission Continues, the excellent program run by former Navy SEAL, Rhodes Scholar and Time 100 honoree, Eric Greitens. I&#8217;ve written about this program before. It is exemplary. It will grant 300 public service fellowships this year to recent veterans who find a local non-profit agency to sponsor them in their home communities. The Fellows also have to complete a rigorous personal development and leadership curriculum. There are several stories I&#8217;d like to tell you about Bravo Class&#8217;s orientation weekend, which took place in Brooklyn&#8211;and at the 9/11 Memorial downtown. But let&#8217;s start with  one told by Sarah Bradburn, a Mission Continues staff member who keeps track of the Fellows who live in the center stripe of the country, from Texas to Minnesota: Team,I apologize for the late email; I just returned home, but wanted to immediately document to you the experience that I had during&#8230;a 2 hour-plus layover [with some of the Fellows] at the St. Louis airport. After we arrived in St. Louis, I sent the group on ahead to get us a table at the airport Chili&#8217;s while I took Michael Patrick and his service animal Chief out to the animal relief area.  Michael and I were pulled for extra security as the TSA staff weren&#8217;t fully professional in working with Chief at our screening.  By the time we made it back through security, the rest of the Fellows were seated at the restaurant and had ordered. [W]hen Michael and I got close to the table, it was clear that our waitress had been crying &#8211; she was red in the face with mascara smears &#8211; and the Fellows were clearly giving her a hard time.  I was terrified; my stomach dropped and I couldn&#8217;t believe that our Fellows, the amazing new Bravo class fresh off the orientation high, could do this to this poor airport waitress. After I sat, I calmed them down, and we had great<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95113&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Veterans</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/veterans-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/050413_time_missioncontinues_1205.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Mission Continues members</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Benghazi Again</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/benghazi-again/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/benghazi-again/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 12:20:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95089</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Republicans, apparently with nothing better to do, are still chasing their tails over the tragic events in Benghazi on September 11. Actually, no. That&#8217;s not true. They&#8217;re chasing their tails over what happened after the tragic events of September 11. They&#8217;re mostly concerned that the Obama Administration tried to cover up the fact that this was a terrorist attack by a local militia (translation: local street gang) which aspired toward bad-butt Al Qaeda status. This is a pretty hard sell since, the day after the attack, the President called it an &#8220;act of terror.&#8221; It does seem that the Administration&#8217;s talking points were massaged a bit after the President&#8217;s candor. This may have been attributable to the presidential campaign and the Administration&#8217;s desire to low-ball the Al Qaeda threat. If so, this was a venial, not a mortal, sin. It affected not one life. More likely, though, the wording was scrubbed as a result of the nature of the investigation going on at the time&#8211;it may have been deemed premature to announce that it was a pre-meditated act of terror. Perhaps the local militia lucked into a situation where they showed up at the consulate and found very little security protection. Hard to say. There were protests all over the middle east that night, ginned up by jihadis using the excuse of a near-unseen anti-Muslim You Tube video. But let&#8217;s say the street gang had been casing the joint in advance. Who&#8217;s to blame  for  the lax security? This is the real substance of the case. Could it have been the Secretary of State? Undoubtedly, no. This sort of question is well below her pay grade. Could it have been the person in charge of embassy security issues? More likely, and that person resigned after the subsequent investigations&#8230;and even that might have been unfair for two reasons. Security was up to the Ambassador and Chris Stevens was well known for erring on the side of greater public access to U.S. facilities. Or, more plausibly, reason number two&#8230; Could it<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95089&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>National Security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/national-security/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/benghazi.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">A protester in front of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, on Sept. 11, 2012.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>An Angry Obama. Finally.</title>
		<link>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2142490,00.html</link>
		<comments>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2142490,00.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2013 13:43:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Magazine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=94687</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=94687&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Magazine</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/magazine/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/360_cklein_0513.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">US-POLITICS-EDUCATION-OBAMA</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Exclusive: White House to Streamline Obamacare Application</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/29/obamacare-progress/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/29/obamacare-progress/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:05:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=94390</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A few weeks ago, I gave the President a tough time about the slow and messy implementation of his health care plan. But there&#8217;s been some progress in recent weeks — and I&#8217;m happy to pass it on. One of the things that concerned me was the 21-page application form that was required for people to join a health care exchange — which, if you&#8217;re unfamiliar with the jargon, is an online health-insurance superstore (think Orbitz or Hotels.com) where individuals will have the collective market power of large corporations like, say, Time Warner. On Tuesday morning the Administration will announce a spiffy, new three-page application for individuals (find it here).* There will be a seven-page application for families (11 including the appendix), but even that one will be far better designed than the initial effort (find it here). &#8220;We did a lot of work testing words, to come up with simpler language,&#8221; an Administration official told me, &#8220;and we did time tests. Our average was seven minutes to fill out the paper version and even less if you do it online.&#8221; This compares favorably with applications for private insurance plans, which average about 17 pages (and can go as high as 35). &#8220;We&#8217;re hoping to move as many people as possible to the e-mail application form,&#8221; a second Administration official told me. &#8220;We received a lot of [negative] feedback from insurers and individuals like you when we published the first application forms, and we&#8217;re trying to be responsive to those concerns.&#8221; My primary concerns remain the implementation of the online superstores. I remain concerned that employees of small businesses won&#8217;t have a choice of health plans in the first year. I&#8217;m also concerned that the state exchanges run by the federal government — over the opposition of Republican governors — won&#8217;t offer as many choices as a true market should. There are more than a few other concerns and ways the system might be improved that I&#8217;ve written about in the past. The good news about the streamlined application, though, is<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=94390&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/29/obamacare-progress/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Care</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/health-care/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Fresh Air</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/29/fresh-air/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/29/fresh-air/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:12:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[People]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=94374</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m exhilarated by the news that Jason Collins, who plays professional basketball for the Washington Wizards, has come out of the closet. Andrew Sullivan, who has been such a stalwart and brilliant leader on this issue, quotes an absolutely crucial part of Collins&#8217; coming out article: No one wants to live in fear. I’ve always been scared of saying the wrong thing. I don’t sleep well. I never have. But each time I tell another person, I feel stronger and sleep a little more soundly. That is the crucial element for me, the reason why I&#8217;m exhilarated: the anguish that our gay brothers and sisters have felt has been not only a plague on their lives, but an idiotic toll on the sum of human happiness. There have been too many sleepless nights, too many business ideas not pursued, athletic dreams deferred, Friday nights&#8211;no,whole lives&#8211;spent in isolation. There are those who will say that the creative anguish helped contribute to the gay world&#8217;s amazing impact on the arts, and there is some truth to that. Just look at what 5000 years pariahdom did for the Jews! But this will be a small price to pay for all the gay doctors and nurses, lawyers, firefighters, bus drivers and certified public accountants who no longer have to lie&#8211;keeping secrets requires a lot of energy&#8211;and who will be able to pursue happiness without having to look over their shoulders. Jason Collins has smashed down one of the closet&#8217;s strongest doors. This great exhalation, the ability to breathe easier, is something to celebrate, indeed. And if you&#8217;ll permit me a slightly tortured segue: I believe that the same principle will hold if Obamacare is successfully enacted. The great exhale isn&#8217;t limited to those with pre-existing medical conditions. There are millions of self-employed individuals who have been oppressed by their general lack of market power when it comes to health insurance, their inability to get the same sort or rates and plans that employees of, say, Time-Warner do. There are millions more, trapped in stultifying<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=94374&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>People</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/people/</primary_category_link><letterbox>1</letterbox><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/rtxypzs.jpg?w=158</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Washington Wizards&#039; Jason Collins goes to the basket against Chicago Bulls&#039; Taj Gibson during the first half of their NBA basketball game in Chicago, Illinois</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Captured!</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/20/captured/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/20/captured/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:01:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Boston Marathon Bombings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=93552</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Some thoughts about Boston: 1. American law enforcement is extraordinary. This case was wrapped up with remarkable speed&#8211;with the help of surveillance cameras and, it seems likely, our ability to trace cell phone calls. Both of these tools have been controversial among civil libertarians&#8211;and indeed, in the days since the Boston attack, there have been those on the left who have warned against further government intrusion into our lives. I am not at all worried about that, not even slightly&#8230;because this is a country that, if anything, errs on the side of libertarian excess&#8211;as witnessed by the Senate&#8217;s disgraceful vote against background checks for guns, and the various tweets and noise pollution about the post-Boston need for armed citizens to defend themselves against terrorist marauders. I do not see how armed civilians would have made a difference in this case. In fact, those killed or wounded by gunfire this week in Boston were police officers (although I&#8217;m not sure the MIT campus police officer was armed). 2. Do not extrapolate. There is talk now that this will affect our immigration debate, or our gun control debate, or raise issues about the President&#8217;s vigilance against terrorism. These are the very sorts of arguments&#8211;tiny, tawdry political arguments&#8211;that disgust the overwhelming majority of Americans who (a) stood together,  with Boston, after the attacks and (b) celebrated the swift resolution of the case and (c) appreciated and were moved by Obama&#8217;s extraordinary address at the memorial service. These extrapolations are also specious because&#8230; 3.The government has been extremely successful in stopping other terrorist attempts. Rudy Giuliani, known for his intemperance on occasion, took to the airwaves after the capture of the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to say that both the Bush and the Obama Administrations have been rigorous and excellent in combating terrorist attacks. The record is, in fact, remarkable. But you can&#8217;t stop them all&#8211;and the promotion of the idea that we can entirely safe and protected from this filthy, insidious threat is a dangerous delusion. The fact that the Boston attack came from two<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=93552&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Boston Marathon Bombings</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/boston-marathon-bombings/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/h_50798443.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Wounded Vets Helping in Boston</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/19/wounded-vets-helping-in-boston/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/19/wounded-vets-helping-in-boston/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2013 22:15:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Veterans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[amputee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[army]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bicycle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[john wordin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kenny butler]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[matt dewitt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ride2recovery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[veterans]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=93538</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I spent the morning yesterday with John Wordin, the founder of Ride2Recovery&#8211;the excellent bicycle racing therapy program for wounded veterans. He told me that several of his members, who are amputees, were in the Boston hospitals, talking to victims of the Patriots Day attack. Here they are: Kenny Butler (below) and Matt Dewitt (right). Both are US Army veterans. Kenny is a full-arm amputee. Matt lost both of his. They&#8217;re able to participate in Road2Recovery events because John Wordin and his team have built special bikes that enable them to steer and brake despite their disabilities. (They&#8217;ve actually built bikes for quadruple amputees and carriers for paraplegics.) Courtesy of Ride2Recovery Kenny Butler John Wordin told me story after story about how the strenuous exercise of cross-country riding helped veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress, how the camraderie generated by riding and hanging together helped vets to talk about their experiences and heal each other. &#8220;After a day&#8217;s ride,&#8221; John told me, &#8220;very few of these guys have trouble sleeping.&#8221; And so Kenny and Matt are spending time with the many amputees in the Boston hospitals, telling them how&#8211;as President Obama said in his moving testimony at Thursday&#8217;s memorial service&#8211;it actually is possible to get up and run, and perhaps even race, again. This is a small but very important story. We inevitably hear when a Iraq or Afghanistan veteran acts out violently&#8211;but there are far more, less dramatic instances where veterans, even severely wounded veterans, come home and continue their service by helping their communities. As Eric Greitens, the Time 100 honoree who runs The Mission Continues, often tells his fellow veterans, &#8220;Thank you for your service&#8230;but we still need you.&#8221;<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=93538&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Veterans</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/veterans-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/untitled.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>Gun Control: What Really Matters</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/15/gun-control-what-really-matters/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/15/gun-control-what-really-matters/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:55:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Gun Control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=92887</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m worried about what happens if the Congress passes the tepid but worthy background checks measure being debated this week. It has become Armageddon because of the gun lobby&#8217;s intransigence&#8211;and the rest of us, the 90% who support background checks, will hail a major victory if it passes. But it won&#8217;t be a major victory. It could be, in the end, a significant defeat. This is, after all, a tiny piece of the gun control/violence puzzle. It doesn&#8217;t address the presence of semi-assault rifles and 30-bullet magazines. It doesn&#8217;t touch guns passed about privately among family and friends and gang members. And it doesn&#8217;t address the most significant piece of the problem: the mental health issue. A few weeks ago court documents were released that recounted the infuriating struggle of Jared Loughner&#8217;s parents to control their mentally ill son. They took away his shotgun. They tried to prevent him from going out at night. They knew he was headed for something awful, but there was no way&#8211;no legal way&#8211;to control him. I know other people, wonderful parents, who live in fear that their mentally ill son, who has acted out violently several times, will be the next shooter. But their son is in his late 20&#8242;s and they have no legal way to control him. It seems to me that the anti-gun crowd&#8211;and I am a vehement member of that crowd&#8211;is making a terrible mistake by not taking on the civil libertarians as well as the gun nuts. There should be a way that parents have more control over their violently ill children. There should be a  way that people diagnosed as paranoid-schizophrenics can be placed in a secure setting if they act out violently. There was, in the One-Flew-Over -the-Cuckoo&#8217;s-Nest 1970s, a bizarre glorification of the mentally ill among certain elite sectors&#8211;it was society that was crazy, not the inmates. The mental institutions were closed. Drugs would control the inmates released into society. This was a monumental act of moral irresponsbility that was compounded by a series of court<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=92887&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Gun Control</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/gun-control-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/518742998.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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		<title>Why Congress May Finally Do a Budget Deal</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/11/congress-may-finally-do-a-budget-deal/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/11/congress-may-finally-do-a-budget-deal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:45:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Magazine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=92606</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A professor at the university of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School wants to hook me up to a computer and test how well I make predictions. I can save him the trouble. Journalists are terrific when it comes to analyzing the past, pretty good on what’s happening right now and embarrassingly dreadful about the day after tomorrow. I stopped making predictions right after I assured CNN’s Jake Tapper that George W. Bush would never win the Republican presidential nomination after he lost the New Hampshire primary in 2000. Sometimes, though, I just can’t help myself. And this is one of those times: I think we’re going to get a bipartisan budget deal this year. You are skeptical. You should be. But I can summon a few tantalizing arguments to make the case. Both houses of Congress passed measures that would have withheld lawmakers’ pay if they didn’t pass a budget resolution this year—an acknowledgment that their constituents are getting pretty tired of the status quo. Several members of Congress have told me that the business community is particularly sick of the enduring economic uncertainty caused by the deadlock, which is an excellent thing: business has both the cash and the lobbyists to pressure a compromise. It may not be an accident that Democrats finally joined Republicans in producing budget blueprints this year. The two plans are ridiculous, but they exist. And they’ve created a clear path for President Obama to propose a more moderate and realistic plan that would cut entitlement spending and raise revenue. Both sides profess to be appalled by this, which is also good. Obama’s plan will be more politically palatable for reasonable Republicans if some Democrats refuse to vote for it. The President has also changed his legislative strategy. He has stopped trying to bang his head up against John Boehner and the Tea Party crowd. He is trying to make the deal in the less carnivorous Senate—and hoping that if the Republican House is presented with a fait accompli, several dozen non–Tea Partyers can be lured away<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=92606&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Magazine</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/magazine/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/pol-obama-budget-130411.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">President Barack Obama makes his way to the Rose Garden to speak on the budget on April 10,2013 at the White House in Washington.</media:title>
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		<title>Reform Social Security Disability</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/09/reform-social-security-disability/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/09/reform-social-security-disability/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:52:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social security]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=92428</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Back during the presidential campaign, Mitt Romney tried to make the argument that President Obama was soft on welfare reform. He missed the target. Welfare abuse has shifted to Social Security Disability. Chuck Lane has a very good column about this new form of abuse in the Washington Post today. The Clinton welfare reform—Temporary Aid to Needy Families—remains what it was: a humane way to move people from dependency to work. But a great many people have done an end-run around the system, checking into Social Security Disability—which has no work requirement—and never checking out. Now, to be sure, there are workers who fit the program&#8217;s inevitable intent: older workers who suffer serious injuries and need support until they reach the age of eligibility for social security. There are others whose medical or mental disabilities make them clearly unable to work. But the government has gotten sloppy about admissions. Remember, a good chunk of people receiving welfare simply disappeared when the work requirement was added. The reason? They already had full-time jobs in the black or grey markets. It took a while, but a great many of those folks finally figured out there was another scam to be had—social security disability. An argument can be made that it was humane to expand the SSD acceptance rate after the housing crash of 2008. There were no jobs to be had. But we are in recovery now—and scamming the system is never a good idea. The neighbors inevitably figure out who is gaming the system. The stories grow and become exaggerated—I&#8217;ve heard specific tales of abuse  all over America on my road trips. Faith in the federal government is shattered as a result. And so, the system needs to be reformed. It needs to be prioritized, just as the VA disability system does. The 55-year-old construction who hurt his back has my sympathy—I&#8217;d be in favor of lowering the eligibility age for both Medicare and Social Security a few years in such cases. But there are plenty of non-back-breaking jobs that construction<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=92428&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>social security</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/social-security/</primary_category_link>
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		<title>David Kuo</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/06/david-kuo/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/06/david-kuo/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:28:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Remembrance]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=92232</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My dear, dear friend David Kuo slipped away from us at 10:25 last night—April 5, 2013—after a courageous 10-year struggle against a cancer that was insidious and capricious, coming and going and finally staying. He was 44. How do I tell you about David? He was the sweetest of God&#8217;s creatures, and among the wisest, too. He was a man of faith, rather than of religion. He called himself a Follower of Jesus. Many of his friends had ministries, but David&#8217;s church truly had no walls. I met him about 17 years ago. He was an evangelical conservative in those days—and still was, in the truest sense, as his soul left his body, although political &#8220;conservatism&#8221; had taken itself to a place of cruelty that David couldn&#8217;t really abide. I forget what he was doing when I first met him, either working for the Empower America think tank or for Senator Dan Coats, [Actually, it was John Ashcroft.] maybe both. We met because I was writing about faith-based social programs and David knew where to find the best ones. We were friends, I think, instantaneously. He was the least self-righteous man of faith I&#8217;d ever met. He was, in fact, a hoot. He loved oysters and Martinis. And we were fellow members of a long-suffering tribe: We were Mets fans. At one point, David and I decided to go down to spring training—and golf school!—together. At his insistence, we rented a red convertible. David adored life, and living well. He always reminded me that Jesus&#8217;s first miracle was turning water into wine. Ahh, Jesus. He was the heart of the matter. We talked about Jesus a lot. We studied Matthew together. David&#8217;s fundamental verse was Matthew 25: &#8220;when you do this for the least of these, you do it for me.&#8221; It was the verse at the heart of the faith-based social programs that David never tired of promoting. He never could get me to cross the divinity bridge—I am a Jew, for chrissake. But Jesus was, too. He was<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=92232&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Remembrance</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/miscellany/remembrance/</primary_category_link>
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		<title>More Brill, More Obamacare Incompetence</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/04/more-brill-more-obamacare-incompetence/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/04/04/more-brill-more-obamacare-incompetence/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:04:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=92104</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Steve Brill, who wrote TIME&#8217;s Bitter Pill cover story last month, has a follow-up in his Reuters column about Obamacare&#8217;s inability to implement the rules it has set in place against the depredation of so-called &#8220;non-profit&#8221; hospitals.  I am really growing concerned about the sloppiness of this Administration. Bill Clinton, by contrast, was a governor. He cared about the &#8220;how&#8221; of government—how the Arkansas Department of Motor Vehicles dealt with its customers, for example. He brought that concern to Washington and made &#8220;reinventing government&#8221; a major initiative in his Administration. His reform efforts were hamstrung by the recalcitrance of the public employees unions, but he understood what was at stake: &#8220;Our biggest job is to move government from the Industrial Age to the Information Age,&#8221; he told me five years before he became President. If government didn&#8217;t work well, the public constituency for new and necessary programs like universal health care would evaporate. Barack Obama is not a &#8220;how&#8221; President. Oh, he pays lip service to government reform. His people can tell you the number of unnecessary regulations they&#8217;ve eliminated. It barely scratches the surface of what needs to be done—there is no creative destruction in government, regulations pile up on top of each other like silt, generation after generation. And while the Democrats are feeling pretty smug these days, given the overwhelming silliness of the Republicans, the President may be paving the way for a conservative revival—if Obamacare turns out to be as nasty a mess as, say, the Veterans Administration. The pattern is exactly the same: Obama does the right thing by allowing Vietnam veterans with Agent Orange claims or post-traumatic stress or Gulf War Syndrome to file for disability claims—but he makes no provision for how those claims will be process, leading to the current, outrageous backlog. He does the right thing by making health care available to the working poor, but he pays very little attention to how it will be implemented. (Knowing that his opponents are just salivating, waiting to turn the slightest screwup into Armageddon.)<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=92104&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Barack Obama</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/white-house/barack-obama/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/ppotw_01_1202.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Obama and Clinton</media:title>
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