<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	xmlns:georss="http://www.georss.org/georss" xmlns:geo="http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>SwamplandCategory: 2012 Election &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
	<atom:link href="http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://swampland.time.com</link>
	<description>Political insight from the Beltway and beyond</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Tue, 21 May 2013 19:06:52 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.com/</generator>
<cloud domain='swampland.time.com' port='80' path='/?rsscloud=notify' registerProcedure='' protocol='http-post' />
<image>
		<url>http://1.gravatar.com/blavatar/11d9978cfec7d5a71822113fdc067df5?s=96&#038;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.png</url>
		<title>SwamplandCategory: 2012 Election &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com</link>
	</image>
	<atom:link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" href="http://swampland.time.com/osd.xml" title="Swampland" />
	<atom:link rel='hub' href='http://swampland.time.com/?pushpress=hub'/>
		<item>
		<title>Barbara, What? BUONO</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/21/barbara-what-buono/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/21/barbara-what-buono/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 May 2013 16:58:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Rogers</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Ads]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=96177</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Who is Barbara Buono? She&#8217;s the New Jersey state senator who has the difficult task of running for governor against &#8220;The Boss,&#8221; current Gov. Chris Christie. She&#8217;s down 32 points, and 78% of potential voters claim to not know enough about her to form an opinion, according to a Quinnipiac poll released last month. Bloomberg News reports that Buono is so low on campaign funds that her ads can only be seen online. The situation is, so to say, non buono. But she has come up with a clever way to get you to remember her, releasing an ad yesterday using her last name (pronounced the Italian way BUO-no) five times. Check out the new ad, in which she compares herself to U2&#8242;s Bono, Sonny Bono, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, above.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=96177&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/21/barbara-what-buono/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Ads</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/ads-elections/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-21-at-10-26-32-am.png?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-21-at-10-26-32-am.png?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-21-at-10-26-32-am.png?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Buono</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/509f545dfcf07266c1eb847a42170416?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">drogers1271</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>LA Picks New Mayor after Low-Drama Campaign</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/21/la-picks-new-mayor-after-low-drama-campaign/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/21/la-picks-new-mayor-after-low-drama-campaign/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 May 2013 11:27:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / MICHAEL R. BLOOD</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=96150</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(LOS ANGELES) &#8212; Los Angeles is about to elect its next mayor. Most residents probably won&#8217;t notice. A scant turnout is expected Tuesday when voters choose between two City Hall regulars who failed to bring much sparkle to the contest to succeed Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who exits office July 1 after two up-and-down terms. (MORE: Why Los Angeles Is a Bad City to Be a Letter Carrier) Only one of four voters in the nation&#8217;s second most populous city is projected to cast a ballot, possibly a historical low. And the tightness of the race suggests a winner might not emerge on Election Day, and it might take days to count all the ballots. Democrats Eric Garcetti, 42, a city councilman, and city Controller Wendy Greuel, 51, who could become the first woman to hold the job, occupy so much of the same policy turf they&#8217;ve been dubbed &#8220;Greucetti.&#8221; A steady stream of negative advertising from the campaigns and outside groups has helped obscure the candidates&#8217; promises about free-flowing traffic, new jobs and better schools in coming years. Voters will also judge three competing proposals to manage the city&#8217;s proliferation of pot shops, forcing residents to weigh the needs of the sick against complaints about crime around the dispensaries. While some cities successfully managed pot collectives, Los Angeles fumbled and dispensaries sprouted across the city. Proposition D would cap the number of collectives that opened prior to 2007 &#8212; about 135 &#8212; and raise taxes slightly; Proposition E would cap the number at the same level but raise no new taxes; Proposition F wouldn&#8217;t limit the number of pot shops but put stringent controls such as audits and background checks on employees. It also raises taxes. The proposition with the most votes wins, but only if it collects a majority. If none of the measures receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the issue could bounce back to the City Council. Greuel and Garcetti emerged from a March primary in which no candidate secured the majority needed to win<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=96150&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/21/la-picks-new-mayor-after-low-drama-campaign/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Elections</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/elections/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/cbef58d71daefb9ddab6c6b20018290c?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F0.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>GOP Ponders How to Capitalize on Obama&#8217;s Woes</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/20/gop-ponders-how-to-capitalize-on-obamas-woes/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/20/gop-ponders-how-to-capitalize-on-obamas-woes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 20 May 2013 10:24:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / CHARLES BABINGTON</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=96036</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(WASHINGTON) &#8212; The scandals dogging President Barack Obama are a political gift to Republicans, who could use some good luck after recent election losses. It&#8217;s not clear, however, how Republicans can best capitalize on Democrats&#8217; woes, legislatively or politically. Last November&#8217;s election dynamics complicate the picture on both fronts. Republican leaders are urging a bit of restraint in exploiting the White House&#8217;s new weaknesses. (MORE: Amid Scandals, White House Sends Out a New Message Point Man) Legislatively one of Obama&#8217;s biggest second-term goals is to overhaul the nation&#8217;s immigration laws, including a new pathway to citizenship for millions of people living here illegally. Many Republicans would like to deny him such a legacy-enhancing prize. But GOP strategists say their party may need &#8220;immigration reform&#8221; more than Democrats do. Hispanic voters overwhelmingly backed Obama in both his elections. The troubling trend for Republicans might worsen if they don&#8217;t show greater interest in Latinos&#8217; concerns. For many, that includes major changes to immigration laws. &#8220;There&#8217;s a political concern that we need to heal our rift with the Hispanic community,&#8221; said Kirby Wilbur, the Republican Party chairman in Washington state. He said, however, he&#8217;s not sure it&#8217;s necessary to offer citizenship for people who came here illegally. That&#8217;s precisely the kind of view that makes immigration difficult for Republicans. On other political fronts, the White House&#8217;s scandal problems offer a fat, easy target. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday ripped into the ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service. He apologized for the agency&#8217;s heightened scrutiny of tea party affiliates and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. Republicans have been equally indignant in ongoing inquiries into the administration&#8217;s role in last September&#8217;s terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, which killed four U.S. officials. The third controversy now dogging the White House &#8212; the Justice Department&#8217;s secret seizure of Associated Press phone records in a security leak investigation &#8212; has thus far stirred less emotion and partisanship on Capitol Hill. Taken together, Republicans say, these three controversies portray a rapaciously political<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=96036&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/20/gop-ponders-how-to-capitalize-on-obamas-woes/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Republican Party</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/republican-party/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/cbef58d71daefb9ddab6c6b20018290c?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F0.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Timeline: The Benghazi E-Mails</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/16/timeline-the-benghazi-emails/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/16/timeline-the-benghazi-emails/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2013 18:20:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zeke Miller and Alex Rogers</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Controversies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95806</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Eight months after the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi was attacked, leaving four Americans dead including Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, new internal documents have provided a fuller sense of how the Obama Administration approached the aftermath. The e-mails confirm White House statements that they did not substantively edit the talking points over the description of the attack in Benghazi or potential perpetrators. However, press secretary Jay Carney&#8217;s assertion that the Administration made just a single semantic edit to the talking points appears to have been false. According to senior Administration officials, Carney had not reviewed the full e-mail chain when he said in November that &#8220;the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word consulate to diplomatic facility because consulate was inaccurate.” In fact, White House officials had a longer back-and-forth with the intelligence community, and the State Department objected to a substantial portion of the talking points that CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell ultimately cut. The following timeline has been compiled from the 100 pages of e-mails released to the press by the White House on Wednesday. Friday, Sept. 14, 2012, 11:15 a.m. After members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) ask for unclassified talking points on what happened in the Benghazi attack, the director of the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis writes an initial draft for the CIA. The White House is first notified at 11:17 a.m., but is not yet presented with the draft. Sept. 14, 12:23 p.m. The CIA&#8217;s Office of General Counsel recommends an edit to the first bullet point, so as not to impede any future criminal prosecution. Sept. 14, 3:04 p.m. These talking points are sent to then White House national-security spokesman Tommy Vietor, deputy national-security adviser for strategic communication Ben Rhodes, and other Administration officials. Sept. 14, 3:27 p.m.  A CIA official e-mails, &#8220;We still have a number of components coordinating here on these points and we will have further edits. We are multi-tasking due to the time constraints.&#8221; The official promises another version of the talking points around<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95806&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/16/timeline-the-benghazi-emails/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<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/carney-benghazi.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/carney-benghazi.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/carney-benghazi.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Carney Benghazi</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/b456c5209a547a000e0b869f3333aa77?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">zekemiller</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-11-09-pm.png" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP 1</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-14-05-pm.png" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP 2</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-16-54-pm.png?w=531" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP 3</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-21-10-pm.png?w=596" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP 4</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-12-46-21-pm.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 12.46.21 PM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-49-28-pm.png" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP Denis</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-24-10-pm.png?w=518" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP 5</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-1-10-42-pm.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 1.10.42 PM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-1-00-00-pm.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 1.00.00 PM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-1-12-37-pm.png?w=502" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 1.12.37 PM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-29-46-pm.png?w=494" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP 7</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-11-52-44-am.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 11.52.44 AM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-11-54-21-am.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 11.54.21 AM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-11-56-00-am.png?w=527" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 11.56.00 AM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-34-06-pm.png?w=513" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP 7</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-1-16-33-pm.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 1.16.33 PM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-11-58-48-am.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 11.58.48 AM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-11-59-54-am.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 11.59.54 AM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-37-01-pm.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi USUN</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-12-02-49-pm.png?w=404" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 12.02.49 PM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-43-24-pm.png?w=504" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP 8</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-12-05-51-pm.png?w=504" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 12.05.51 PM</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-39-58-pm.png" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP 9</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-3-45-43-pm.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Benghazi TP 10</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/screen-shot-2013-05-16-at-12-14-04-pm.png?w=600" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Screen Shot 2013-05-16 at 12.14.04 PM</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Three Lessons from the Benghazi Emails</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/16/three-lessons-from-the-benghazi-emails/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/16/three-lessons-from-the-benghazi-emails/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2013 09:00:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Crowley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Controversies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95777</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The 100 pages of emails about Benghazi released by the White House on Tuesday evening provide a fascinating glimpse at the machinations of national security officials working under stress. The exchanges, which hashed out a set of talking points intended for members of Congress to use a few days after the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Libya that killed four Americans, tell us virtually nothing new about the now well-excavated story. But they do underscore a few important points: No one doubted a demonstration Every version of the talking points&#8211;which were first crafted by the CIA&#8211;asserted that a demonstration had occurred at the U.S. compound in Benghazi. &#8220;We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault&#8221; on the U.S. facilities, read the talking points. (Those facilities included a State Department post and a nearby CIA annex.) Throughout two days of exchanges that involved the CIA, FBI, State Department, and White House, no one ever challenged that claim, and that language survived to the end, even as many other phrases were deleted. It&#8217;s worth remembering that demonstrations against a notorious anti-Islamic amateur film actually had occurred in 20 other countries, a likely source of the early confusion. That undercuts the charge that the Obama administration ginned up a narrative about a nonexistent demonstration in Benghazi for political purposes&#8211;namely, to avoid explaining why al Qaeda-affiliated radicals were killing Americans in a country where the president had intervened militarily with apparent success. It is true that the final talking points were stripped of references to al Qaeda. But there may have been a reason for that. Early in the process, on the afternoon of Friday, September 14, the CIA&#8217;s general counsel warned colleagues about &#8220;express instruction&#8221; from law enforcement officials that &#8220;in light of the criminal investigation, we are not to generate statements about who did this.&#8221; (MORE: Joe Klein: Benghazi and Dick Cheney&#8217;s Staggering Lack of Self-Knowledge) The CIA made the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95777&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/16/three-lessons-from-the-benghazi-emails/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<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/e9858d26b2494cadaf37f150d29af4e5-0.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/e9858d26b2494cadaf37f150d29af4e5-0.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/e9858d26b2494cadaf37f150d29af4e5-0.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">A Libyan man investigates the inside of the U.S. Consulate after an attack that killed four Americans, in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 12, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya.</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/25edc643b57a776abbc75835c699af51?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">crowley100</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Scrambling To Find AP Leaker, Obama&#8217;s Administration Vindicates Bush</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/15/scrambling-to-find-ap-leaker-obamas-administration-vindicates-bush/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/15/scrambling-to-find-ap-leaker-obamas-administration-vindicates-bush/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 May 2013 09:45:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Controversies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95652</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After conducting 550 interviews and reviewing tens of thousands of documents, Justice Department investigators looking for the person who leaked details of a foiled al Qaeda bomb plot to the Associated Press in 2012 apparently still couldn&#8217;t make the case. So the feds faced a choice: subpoena the call records for 20 telephone lines used at work and home by AP reporters or risk failing to find the leaker. Choosing to use investigative tools Justice has resisted in the past, investigators not only went with the subpoena, they did it without notifying the AP. That decision shows three things. First, DoJ&#8217;s case against the leaker may be in trouble. Second, prosecutors are increasingly willing to intrude on media freedom. Third, George W. Bush and Barack Obama&#8216;s post-9/11 trend of limiting media oversight and expanding executive branch secrecy is continuing apace, whether Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder admit it or not. The records seizure was authorized by Deputy Attorney General James Cole because Holder recused himself from the case after the FBI interviewed him about the leaks, Holder said Tuesday. In a letter responding to protests from the AP, Cole said Tuesday that the department had issued the subpoena for the phone records as a last resort. Investigators had taken &#8220;all reasonable alternative investigative steps before even considering the issuance of a subpoena&#8221; for phone records, Cole wrote, and that the subpoena for the records was &#8220;drawn as narrowly as possible.&#8221; Taking Cole at his word, the breadth of the subpoena shows how far Justice still has to go. The subpoena covers call records, but not call contents, over the telephone lines of five reporters and one editor. That suggests investigators still don&#8217;t know who received the leak, let alone the identity of the leaker. If investigators decided not to subpoena the reporters notes before going for their phone records, it further suggests the feds don&#8217;t know where to start looking; if the feds already have subpoenaed notes, it means they haven&#8217;t found what they&#8217;re looking for. In a larger<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95652&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/15/scrambling-to-find-ap-leaker-obamas-administration-vindicates-bush/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<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/2013/05/168745863.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/168745863.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/168745863.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at a news conference in Washington, D.C., on May 14, 2013.</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/afd9484b1bca74216e145d2c49c8af45?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Inspector General Blasts IRS For Conservative Targeting</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/inspector-general-blasts-irs-for-conservative-targeting/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/inspector-general-blasts-irs-for-conservative-targeting/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 22:20:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zeke J Miller</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Controversies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95641</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration strongly criticized the IRS in an audit released late Tuesday into efforts by the agency to target conservative groups for additional scrutiny before awarding tax-exempt status. The inspector general found that IRS employees inappropriately flagged organizations with &#8220;tea party&#8221; and &#8220;patriots&#8221; in their names for reviews that lasted years, and then asked for intrusive information including donor lists and the political activity of organization directors. Tea Party groups had complained of unfair scrutiny in early 2012 though the IRS denied wrongdoing at the time. The audit was undertaken at the request of congressional lawmakers following constituent complaints, and not at the request of the IRS. According to the audit, IRS officials maintained a &#8220;Be On the Look Out &#8221; spreadsheet listing names or phrases that would indicate groups that may be too political to receive  &#8221;social welfare&#8221; status as 501(c)4&#8242;s for additional review. The criteria laid out to the exempt organizations division in June 2011: “Tea Party,” “Patriots” or “9/12 Project” is referenced in the case file Issues include government spending, government debt or taxes Education of the public by advocacy/lobbying to “make America a better place to live” Statement in the case file criticize how the country is being run According to the audit, more than 300 groups were flagged for additional review by the IRS, of which 72 included the words &#8220;tea party&#8221; in the name, 11 included the phrase &#8220;9/12&#8243; and 13 included the word &#8220;patriots.&#8221; In early 2012 many of these groups received detailed questionnaires asking for information about their donors and the past and potential future political activities of officials. These were among seven unnecessarily intrusive questions asked, the inspector general reported. In response to the report, IRS officials maintained that the targeting of group names was not done for political reasons, but just for &#8220;efficiency&#8221; in flagging suspect groups. &#8220;We believe the front-line career employees that made  the decisions acted out of a desire for efficiency and not out of any political or partisan viewpoint,&#8221; said Joseph Grant, the<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95641&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/inspector-general-blasts-irs-for-conservative-targeting/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<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/2013/02/irs.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/irs.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/irs.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Internal Revenue Services</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/b456c5209a547a000e0b869f3333aa77?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">zekemiller</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<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>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/inappropriate/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<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>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/rtxzlah.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/rtxzlah.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">AP hack</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/82d9b09d6bf4a8d7cc755c73ad7a3ae5?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>The New GOP Case Against Obama: He’s Cheney!</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/the-new-republican-framing-of-obama-hes-a-lot-like-bush/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/the-new-republican-framing-of-obama-hes-a-lot-like-bush/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 09:45:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zeke Miller and Michael Crowley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Controversies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95514</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Conservatives are not often fierce defenders of the media. But Monday&#8217;s news that the Justice Department obtained phone records for several Associated Press reporters as part of a national security leak probe raised a furor on the right, causing numerous Republicans to harshly criticize the Obama administration. While some may have genuine concerns about First Amendment protections, the right&#8217;s response also spotlighted an emerging Republican critique of Barack Obama as a Big Brother-style tyrant in charge of a power-abusing surveillance state. Before the AP news broke, conservatives were already up in arms over word that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for additional scrutiny, as well as new details about the controversial editing of talking points about last September&#8217;s terror attacks in Benghazi. Taken together, Republicans said the stories paint a picture of an administration willing to monitor and even menace its opponents and critics. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa linked all three DC scandals in a statement to reporters, charging that &#8220;top Obama Administration officials increasingly see themselves as above the law.&#8221; (MORE: White House: GOP Focus On Benghazi Tied To Mitt Romney) But the AP phone records produced a particularly surprising response. While Obama’s ardent prosecution of national security leaks has been well-documented in past years, particularly on the civil liberties left, it&#8217;s a relatively new cause for mainstream Republicans. “Whether it is secretly targeting patriotic Americans participating in the electoral progress or reporters exercising their First Amendment rights, these new revelations suggest a pattern of intimidation by the Obama Administration,” Doug Heye, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, said in a statement to TIME. “The First Amendment is first for a reason,&#8221; added Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. &#8220;If the Obama Administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation.” The explanation might be, in part, the angry cries from Republican members of Congress over the Associated Press reporting that appears to have triggered the Justice Department probe. In May 2012, the AP described<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95514&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/the-new-republican-framing-of-obama-hes-a-lot-like-bush/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</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/scandal_0513.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/scandal_0513.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/scandal_0513.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">U.S. President Barack Obama walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 2, 2013.</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/b456c5209a547a000e0b869f3333aa77?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">zekemiller</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Real IRS Scandal</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/the-real-irs-scandal/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/the-real-irs-scandal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 09:45:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Alex Altman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Campaign Finance]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95513</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The IRS is unpopular on its best days, and the past few have been among its worst. The agency&#8217;s admission that it targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny drew condemnation from across the political spectrum on Monday. &#8220;Outrageous,&#8221; declared Barack Obama. House and Senate leaders from both parties promised an investigation. Some of the Tea Party groups refused to even accept its apology. All this outrage threatens to obscure an important point: the IRS does need to crack down on political groups masquerading as social-welfare organizations. Many of the nonprofit groups who claim 501(c)(4) status either flout tax law or flirt with the murky line between electioneering and issue advocacy, all while using their tax-exempt status to conceal their donors. The problem isn&#8217;t that the IRS flagged nonprofit groups for additional review. The problem is that it did so poorly, lavishing special attention on Tea Party outfits when it should have been scrutinizing everyone &#8212; or at least more egregious offenders. (MORE: The Taxman Cometh: New IRS Scandal Echoes a Long History of Political Harassment) This is easier said than done. After the U.S. Supreme Court&#8217;s Citizens United decision in January 2010, donors flocked to 501(c)(4)s as a vehicle to pump cash into elections without disclosing the source of their contributions. The number of groups applying for social-welfare status has since doubled. In 2012, the news outlet ProPublica examined 72 501(c)(4) applications from groups that claimed to have no plans to spend money on elections. They compared those documents against the subsequent tax returns. Nearly half of the groups found their plans had changed. In last year&#8217;s elections, 501(c)(4) groups spent more than $300 million in dark money, according to Lisa Rosenberg of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan government-transparency group based in Washington. There is no way to police all these groups, Rosenberg acknowledges. But the IRS, deluged with social-welfare applications at the same time the Tea Party movement was on the rise, appears to have picked a political filter as a shortcut. &#8220;It’s the right thing to do to be looking into which of these groups are legitimate<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95513&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/the-real-irs-scandal/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Campaign Finance</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/campaign-finance-2012-election/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/147213422.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/147213422.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/147213422.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Tea party activist William Temple marches in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, June 27, 2012.</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/41a5f1af68b9fd647df540c67f1a464a?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Alex Altman</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama Tries to Put Benghazi Back on the Fringe</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/angry-obama-tries-to-put-benghazi-back-on-the-fringe/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/angry-obama-tries-to-put-benghazi-back-on-the-fringe/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 16:44:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zeke J Miller</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Controversies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95469</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President Barack Obama angrily batted away questions on Monday about his Administration’s response to the Benghazi attack, calling the recent furor over edited talking points a “sideshow.” Less than a week after emotional testimony in the House of Representatives brought the conservative obsession with Benghazi into the mainstream, Obama tried to contain the damage by framing the GOP focus on the attack as politically driven. “We dishonor [the victims] when we turn things like this into a political circus,” Obama said during a peevish joint press conference at the White House with British Prime Minister David Cameron. A week after the U.S. deputy chief of mission in Libya questioned the Administration’s official account of efforts to help the victims of the Sept. 11, 2012 assault, Obama tried to use his frustration to deflect new revelations that State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland edited intelligence-community talking points in the days after the attack to downplay potential security failures. &#8220;Suddenly, three days ago, this gets spun up as if there&#8217;s something new to the story,&#8221; the President added, saying the talking points reflected what he was being told by intelligence officials. &#8220;There&#8217;s no &#8216;there&#8217; there.&#8221; “The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow,” Obama said, noting that the Administration called it an act of terrorism almost from the start. “Who executes some sort of cover-up or effort to tamp things down for three days? So the whole thing defies logic.&#8221; In November, White House press secretary Jay Carney said only a small, semantic change had been made to the talking points. With his Administration’s credibility under assault, Obama spent 918 words arguing that the allegations were not to be believed, and accused Republicans of playing politics. “They’ve used it for fundraising,” he said. Until last week, the focus on the Benghazi attack had been the bailiwick of conservative news outlets and bloggers. Obama&#8217;s remarks were an attempt to knock the issue off the front page and back to the fringe. Instead his approach may add fuel to the fire. Obama’s<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95469&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/angry-obama-tries-to-put-benghazi-back-on-the-fringe/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<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/pol-obama-cameron-presser1-130513.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pol-obama-cameron-presser1-130513.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pol-obama-cameron-presser1-130513.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">British Prime Minister David Cameron listens as President Barack Obama speaks during their joint news conference in the East Room of the White House.</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/b456c5209a547a000e0b869f3333aa77?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">zekemiller</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Lingering Questions About the Benghazi Controversy</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/the-lingering-questions-from-the-benghazi-controversy/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/the-lingering-questions-from-the-benghazi-controversy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 09:00:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Scherer</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Controversies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95424</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The cover-up is often worse than the crime, they say. And that’s true. But these days there is also a corollary in Washington: the partisan outrage over a potential scandal is often more confusing than the alleged cover-up. So it is with the unfolding Benghazi controversy, which Republicans are eagerly comparing to Watergate and Iran-Contra. Last week, Senator Jim Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, even invoked the possibility of impeaching President Barack Obama for his handling of the episode, despite the fact that Congressman Darrell Issa, the California Republican overseeing the House investigation, said on Sunday that Obama &#8220;is not a target.” Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, went on CNN Sunday to argue that lives could have been saved had the military responded quicker to the attacks in Benghazi, even though the Pentagon and the State Department have both concluded that this is not the case. (VIDEO: Michael Crowley on the Politics of Benghazi) As more facts have emerged, few of the tidy story lines about the September 11, 2012 attack have held up. Republicans have long maintained that the Obama administration misled the nation by blaming the assault on a spontaneous demonstration, but leaked documents now show the intelligence community independently held this same misconception in the days after the attacks. Meanwhile the White House finds itself trying to explain away old statements that are clearly contradicted by newly public facts. One of the most newsworthy developments took place on Friday in the White House briefing room, when Press Secretary Jay Carney attempted to deal with incongruities between his past statements and newly leaked documents. He boldly claimed there were no contradictions. Carney has repeatedly argued that the intelligence community&#8217;s talking points on Benghazi had not been substantially edited or rewritten. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate,” Carney said last November. (MORE: Terror, Security,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95424&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/the-lingering-questions-from-the-benghazi-controversy/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<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/rtxzf3e.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/rtxzf3e.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/rtxzf3e.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Officials are sworn in before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on &#34;Benghazi: Exposing Failure and Recognizing Courage&#34; in Washington</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/a467a0981ef8e059913a0aa44ba7df1b?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">michaelscherer</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Senator: Obama Should Apologize for IRS Targeting</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/12/senator-obama-should-apologize-for-irs-targeting/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/12/senator-obama-should-apologize-for-irs-targeting/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 12 May 2013 16:38:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Associated Press</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Controversies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95417</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(WASHINGTON) — Republicans said Sunday that the Internal Revenue Service&#8217;s heightened scrutiny of conservative political groups was &#8220;chilling&#8221; and further eroded public trust in government. Lawmakers said President Barack Obama personally should apologize for targeting tea party organizations and they challenged the tax agency&#8217;s blaming of low-level workers. &#8220;I just don&#8217;t buy that this was a couple of rogue IRS employees,&#8221; said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. &#8220;After all, groups with &#8216;progressive&#8217; in their names were not targeted similarly.&#8221; If it were just a small number of employees, she said, &#8220;then you would think that the high-level IRS supervisors would have rushed to make this public, fired the employees involved, apologized to the American people and informed Congress. None of that happened in a timely way.&#8221; The IRS said Friday that it was sorry for what it called the &#8220;inappropriate&#8221; targeting of the conservative groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware. But according to a draft of a watchdog&#8217;s report obtained Saturday by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner, senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011. (MORE: Klein: The IRS Scandal Shows Obama&#8217;s Management Flaws) The Treasury Department&#8217;s inspector general for tax administration is expected to release the results of a nearly yearlong investigation in the coming week. Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, said last week that the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. But on June 29, 2011, Lerner learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog&#8217;s report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with &#8220;Tea Party,&#8221; &#8221;Patriot&#8221; or &#8220;9/12 Project&#8221; in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says. The 9/12 Project is a group started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said &#8220;the conclusion<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95417&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/12/senator-obama-should-apologize-for-irs-targeting/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Controversies</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/controversies/</primary_category_link>
		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/cbef58d71daefb9ddab6c6b20018290c?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F0.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups Over Tax Status</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/10/irs-admits-targeting-conservative-groups-over-tax-status/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/10/irs-admits-targeting-conservative-groups-over-tax-status/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 May 2013 19:47:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zeke J Miller and Alex Altman</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Controversies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95364</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Internal Revenue Service acknowledged Friday that it had inappropriately targeted conservative political groups for additional scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle, an admission that set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill and could damage the Obama Administration. Lois Lerner, the official in charge of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, revealed the move Friday at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association in Washington. Lerner said organizations whose names contained the phrase “tea party” or “patriots” were selected for additional reviews of their 501 (c) (4) tax-exempt status as social welfare groups. &#8220;That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate,&#8221; Lerner said, according to the Associated Press. &#8221;That&#8217;s not how we go about selecting cases for further review.&#8221; In a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon, the agency said the errors were limited to a group of IRA workers in its Cincinnati office, who singled out 300 applications for tax-exempt status for review. One-quarter of those were conservative groups. None of the groups had their status revoked, but some withdrew their applications in the face of requests to divulge their donors. &#8220;Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale,&#8221; the IRS said in a statement. &#8220;We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system.” Workers were looking for signs that the groups were primarily focused on political activity, which would have violated their tax status. Campaign finance groups have long complained that political groups have improperly received tax-exempt designations despite using their money to influence elections. The admission by the IRS was made ahead of a forthcoming report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. It comes a year after Tea Party groups first complained they had been subjected to undue scrutiny because of their political leanings. An IRS spokesperson would not comment on whether any disciplinary actions were taken against the responsible employees. The revelations incensed congressional Republicans and appeared to validate Tea Party complaints. &#8220;The fact<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95364&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/10/irs-admits-targeting-conservative-groups-over-tax-status/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<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/tea-party-patriots.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/tea-party-patriots.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/tea-party-patriots.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Tea Party Patriots</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/b456c5209a547a000e0b869f3333aa77?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">zekemiller</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Campaign Insider Book Argues Mitt Romney Lost Because Of Benghazi</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/benghazi-why-romney-lost/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/benghazi-why-romney-lost/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 18:07:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zeke J Miller</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Mitt Romney]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95143</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“No single mistake cost Mitt Romney the presidency,” former Romney advisor Gabriel Schoenfeld writes in the opening page of a tell-all book centered on one mistake on a single day in the 2012 campaign: The Republican’s hasty and flawed reaction to the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. But Schoenfeld argues nonetheless that Romney&#8217;s inability to respond cogently to the Benghazi attack was a key component of his defeat. “A man celebrated for his management prowess delegated an immense mount of decision-making power to individuals who failed to carry out successfully that and other basic functions,&#8221; writes Schoenfeld, who held the title of senior adviser on the campaign. The author substantiates his critique with a biting assault on Romney’s campaign team, especially campaign guru Stuart Stevens and especially policy director Lanhee Chen. “Chen was no Henry Kissinger.” Schoenfeld writes, noting that the policy director preferred to be referred to with the honorific of “doctor.” “Indeed, he had once self-deprecatingly boasted in a meeting that he could not find Finland on a map,” Schoenfeld adds. Stevens, he continues, was controlling about cosmetic issues like how to distribute the campaign’s major policy book—bound or on digital USB sticks—but wasn’t concerned by its contents. Despite his campaign title, Schoenfeld worked mostly outside the candidate’s inner circle. Reporters who covered the Romney campaign publicly wondered who the author was after news broke of his 74-page eBook, A Bad Day On The Romney Campaign: An Insider’s Account. Much of the book involves the a behind-the-scenes narrative of the Romney campaign on September 11, 2012, when the Cairo embassy came under attack and four Americans were killed in Benghazi. Chen, Stevens and Richard Williamson, a former Bush and Reagan foreign policy official who Schoenfeld writes was a “doer not a thinker,” authored a statement, which was never circulated to foreign policy experts who would have spotted its errors. The statement got major facts wrong, and used a national tragedy, the death of the Libyan ambassador and two other citizens, as a launching point for a tangential political<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95143&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/benghazi-why-romney-lost/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Mitt Romney</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/mitt-romney-2012-election/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/a-bad-day-on-the-romney-campaign.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/a-bad-day-on-the-romney-campaign.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/a-bad-day-on-the-romney-campaign.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">a bad day on the romney campaign</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/b456c5209a547a000e0b869f3333aa77?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">zekemiller</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Mark Sanford&#8217;s Comeback Win in South Carolina, a Time to Forgive</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/mark-sanford/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/mark-sanford/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 07:13:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joel Stein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[election Sandford]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elizabeth Colbert Busch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mark sanford]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95057</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Now Mark Sanford will be the one who has to forgive. Exceeding all expectations, the former governor and Appalachian-trail hiker regained his old Congressional seat, whipping Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch by nine points in a May 7 special election. His victory seemed so unlikely three weeks ago — when a report emerged that his ex-wife Jenny had filed a complaint that he violated their divorce agreement by showing up at her house without permission — that the National Republican Congressional Committee pulled its cash from his race. Local Republicans fled whenever reporters asked if they supported him. Sanford was easy to underestimate. Political comebacks following flamboyant extramarital affairs are rare;  he took out an ad in the newspaper comparing his campaign to the Alamo in ways that didn’t make sense. His few boosters didn’t help much: Cheating website AshleyMadison.com put his face on a billboard; Larry Flynt donated $2,600 to Sanford “because no one has done more to expose the sexual hypocrisy of traditional values in America today.” “I’m outnumbered right now,” he said in his Alamo ad, “but will fight to the end toward freedom and financial sanity in Washington so important to sustaining it.”  But Sanford overcame it all, partly just by working harder.  On the last day of the campaign, Sanford made ten stops; Colbert Busch didn’t make any. Sure, having Sanford in the House is another target in the Democrats&#8217; accusations of a war on women. Still, it was dumb of the GOP to abandon Sanford because  South Carolina’s first district is way red and Sanford dominated the primary. Sanford says he’s learned a lot about forgiveness and accepting other’s selfish choices. “After you’ve been through a complete cratering in life, you learn to let it go,” he said. The GOP better hope so, because he’s going to be around for a while. This article has been updated   <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95057&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/08/mark-sanford/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Elections</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/elections/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pol-sanford-130508.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pol-sanford-130508.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/pol-sanford-130508.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford celebrates his victory in the South Carolina first district congressional race at Liberty Tap Room in Mount Pleasant, S.C., on May 7, 2013.</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/44310a1af940f994952d1e4db73096cd?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">TIME.com</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Mark Sanford Redeems Career, Heading to Congress</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/07/ex-s-c-gov-sanford-back-in-political-office/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/07/ex-s-c-gov-sanford-back-in-political-office/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 00:42:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>AP / Bruce Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=95025</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(CHARLESTON, S.C.) — In a story of political redemption, Mark Sanford is headed back to Congress after his career was derailed by scandal four years ago. &#8220;I am one imperfect man saved by God&#8217;s grace,&#8221; the Republican told about 100 cheering supporters Tuesday after defeating Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch to win back the 1st District seat he held for three terms in the 1990s. &#8220;It&#8217;s my pledge to all of you going forward I&#8217;m going to be one of the best congressmen I could have ever been.&#8221; Although the race was thought to be close going into the voting, Sanford collected 54 percent of the vote against Colbert Busch, the sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert, in a district that hasn&#8217;t elected a Democratic congressman in more than three decades. About 32 percent of the district&#8217;s voters went to the polls. Green Party candidate Eugene Platt finished far behind. &#8220;Some guy came up to me the other day and said you look a lot like Lazarus,&#8221; Sanford told the crowd, referring to the man who, according to the Bible, Christ raised from the dead. &#8220;I&#8217;ve talked a lot about grace during the course of this campaign,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Until you experience human grace as a reflection of God&#8217;s grace, I don&#8217;t think you really get it. And I didn&#8217;t get it before.&#8221; Sanford, who turns 53 later this month, has now never lost a race in four runs for Congress and two for governor. And he said before the votes were counted Tuesday that if he lost this one, he wouldn&#8217;t run for office again. He saw his political career disintegrate in summer 2009 when he disappeared for five days, telling his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. He returned to admit in a tearful news conference he had been in Argentina with his mistress — a woman to whom he is now engaged. Sanford later paid a $70,000 ethics fine, the largest in state history, for using public money to fly for personal purposes. His wife and political<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=95025&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/07/ex-s-c-gov-sanford-back-in-political-office/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Elections</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/elections/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/1st-district-sc_subr.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/1st-district-sc_subr.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/1st-district-sc_subr.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Mark Sanford</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/cbef58d71daefb9ddab6c6b20018290c?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F0.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama, Romney Campaigns Subject To Repeated Hacking Attempts in 2012</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/07/obama-romney-campaigns-subject-to-repeated-hacking-attempts-in-2012/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/07/obama-romney-campaigns-subject-to-repeated-hacking-attempts-in-2012/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2013 09:30:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zeke J Miller</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[2012 Election]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=94918</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Less than a month after he joined the Obama campaign in August of 2011, Ben Hagen faced a challenge he wasn’t expecting — foreign nation-states were trying to gain access to the campaign’s databases and social media accounts with extraordinarily sophisticated means, Hagen tells TIME. The sole applications security engineer inside the campaign, it was Hagen’s job to keep them out. Obama campaign chief technology officer Harper Reed brought Hagen on so “he could sleep better at night,” the life-long security engineer recalled, “and after a few weeks I was sleeping very little.” The hacking attempts came in varying forms and not always from overseas. There were distributed denial of service attempts linked to Anonymous, the disparate online hacking collective, and attempts to steal credit card data by organized crime. But the most feared were hyper-targeted spear phishing attempts to gain access to all areas of the campaign “consistent with the work of foreign nation states,” Hagen said. The same was true across the aisle, where the Romney campaign was “under constant attack,” according to digital director Zac Moffatt, “four or five times a week.” Neither campaign official would confirm which nation states were responsible, but one Obama campaign staffer said she was warned about the threat from China in particular. (MORE: Hack Attack: China and the U.S. Trade Barbs on Cyberwarfare) News of the foreign attacks on American campaign machinery came as another political outfit, the National Republican Congressional Committee, fell under assault this week. The campaign attacks in particular appear to have been targeted at embarrassing the candidates and also gaining access to valuable data and policy information. Viewed in hindsight, the attacks present a disturbing picture of interference in core American political functions. The 2012 campaign&#8217;s phishing attempts, which targeted everyone from senior staff on the campaign planes to field organizers in swing states, were designed to get those thought to have access to the campaign’s data or social media accounts to click on malicious code, and thereby give the attackers a way in. The Obama staffer said phishing<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=94918&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/07/obama-romney-campaigns-subject-to-repeated-hacking-attempts-in-2012/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>2012 Election</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/hack.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/hack.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/hack.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Computer cyber hack</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/b456c5209a547a000e0b869f3333aa77?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">zekemiller</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Women and Faith Groups Believe in a President Hillary Clinton</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/03/women-and-faith-groups-believe-in-a-president-hillary-clinton/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/03/women-and-faith-groups-believe-in-a-president-hillary-clinton/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2013 14:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Elizabeth Dias and Zeke Miller</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[2016 Election]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=94742</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The shadow campaign to elect former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received a major boost Thursday as Emily’s List, the group dedicated to boosting women candidates, launched a campaign to elect a female President in 2016. While not explicitly backing Clinton’s potential candidacy yet, the group endorsed her in January 2007 just hours after she announced she was exploring a run for the White House and founder Ellen Malcolm served as campaign co-chair. Emily’s List president Stephanie Schriock said at a press conference that the group is “hopeful” Clinton runs. “I have to say there is one name that seems to be getting mentioned more than others,” she said. “We do not know if Hillary is going to run, but we are hopeful that she may.” The announcement came hours after the release of a nationwide poll from Quinnipiac University showing Clinton with a massive 52-point lead over her closest competitor, Vice President Joe Biden. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo garnered just 4%. No other candidate topped 1%. By all accounts Clinton is still weighing whether to mount another run for the White House, but already key pieces are falling into place. Last month super-PAC Ready for Hillary launched its first events to build a grassroots army in waiting for her candidacy. The group, advised by former Clinton aides Harold Ickes and James Carville, commended the Emily’s List announcement just days after supporters rallied outside the Florida hotel where Clinton was delivering her second paid speech since leaving the Obama Administration. The group has racked up more than 138,000 Facebook Likes and nearly 59,000 Twitter followers, and is now beginning to fundraise. Emily’s List has proved to be a potent fundraiser in recent years, raising more than $27 million for female candidates in the 2012 cycle. The #MPOTUS campaign includes digital ads and events in the early states of Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire. Ready for Hillary is not the only group already organizing for a Clinton 2016 run. On April 7, Faith Voters for Hillary joined Twitter with the handle @Faith4Hillary. The first<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=94742&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/03/women-and-faith-groups-believe-in-a-president-hillary-clinton/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>2016 Election</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/2016-election/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/hillary.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/hillary.jpg?w=200" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/hillary.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Hillary Clinton</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/b456c5209a547a000e0b869f3333aa77?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">zekemiller</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Poll: Americans More Concerned About Civil Liberties In Wake Of Boston Bombing</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/01/poll-americans-more-concerned-about-civil-liberties-in-wake-of-boston-bombing/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/01/poll-americans-more-concerned-about-civil-liberties-in-wake-of-boston-bombing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2013 19:59:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zeke J Miller</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Polls]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=94587</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Two weeks after the Boston Marathon terror attacks, the American people are far more concerned about new government limits on civil liberties than the need for new law enforcement measures to prevent future attacks, according to a new TIME/CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday. When given a choice, 61 percent of Americans say they are more concerned about the government enacting new anti-terrorism policies that restrict civil liberties, compared to 31 percent who say they are more concerned about the government failing to enact strong new anti-terrorism policies. The poll comes at a time when the Boston bombings, which killed three and maimed dozens, has reignited the debate over the unresolved tensions between civil liberties and our security, a topic that is the subject of TIME Magazine’s cover story this week. As Massimo Calabresi and Michael Crowley report, Tamerlan Tsarnaev exhibited a classic pattern of radicalization that might have been spotted through more intrusive surveillance of his online and religious activities. But although new guidelines expanded the FBI&#8216;s counterterrorism powers in 2011, they also limited the bureau&#8217;s ability to conduct surveillance on mosques like the one where Tamerlan had two public outbursts suggesting the extent of his religious radicalism. (PHOTOS: Images: Joy and Relief in Boston After Bombing Suspect’s Arrest) The TIME/CNN/ORC poll, which was conducted to coincide with the cover story release, found that Americans are becoming more resigned to the reality that future terrorist attacks will occur on the homeland. Only 32% of Americans believe that the U.S. government can prevent all major attacks, down from an average of 40% in 2011 and 41% in 2006.  That said, only 27% of Americans said they are less likely to attend large public events in the future because of fears of terror attacks, a number roughly on par with polls taken after the Atlanta Olympics bombing in 1996. Concerns about government encroachment on civil liberties, however, have grown in recent years, despite the Boston attacks. When asked if they would be willing to give up some civil liberties if that were necessary to curb<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=94587&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/01/poll-americans-more-concerned-about-civil-liberties-in-wake-of-boston-bombing/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Polls</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/2012-election/polls-elections/</primary_category_link><letterbox>1</letterbox><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/securitycover.jpg?w=150</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/securitycover.jpg?w=150" />
		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/securitycover.jpg?w=150" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">TIME Magazine Cover, May 13, 2013</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/b456c5209a547a000e0b869f3333aa77?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F2.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">zekemiller</media:title>
		</media:content>
	</item>
	</channel>
</rss>
