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	<title>SwamplandCategory: Government &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
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	<description>Political insight from the Beltway and beyond</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:04:12 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>SwamplandCategory: Government &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com</link>
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		<title>Report: Government Scooping Up Verizon Phone Records</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/06/report-govt-scooping-up-verizon-phone-records/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/06/report-govt-scooping-up-verizon-phone-records/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jun 2013 04:03:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Associated Press</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=97245</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(WASHINGTON) — The government has been secretly collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon under a top secret court order, according to the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Obama administration defended the National Security Agency&#8217;s need to collect telephonerecords of U.S. citizens, but critics said it was a huge over-reach. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Thursday that the top secret court order for telephone records is a three-month renewal of an ongoing practice. She spoke to reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference. The sweeping roundup of U.S. phone records has been going on for years and was a key part of the Bush administration&#8217;s warrantless surveillance program, a U.S. official said Thursday. The White House offered no immediate on-the-record comment. A senior administration official did not confirm the Guardian newspaper report that the NSA has been collecting the records, but the authenticity of the document was not disputed by the White House. The administration official insisted on anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly by name. The order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, the Guardian reported. The order requires Verizon, one of the nation&#8217;s largest telecommunications companies, on an &#8220;ongoing, daily basis,&#8221; to give the NSA information on all landline and mobile telephone calls of Verizon Business in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries. The newspaper said the document, a copy of which it had obtained, shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of U.S. citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk, regardless of whether the people are suspected of any wrongdoing. The disclosure raised a number of questions: What was the government looking for? Were other big telephone companies under similar orders to turn over information? How was the information used? Former Vice President Al Gore tweeted that privacy was essential in the digital era. &#8220;Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?&#8221; wrote Gore, the Democrat<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=97245&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/verizon_ap_0605.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>How to Fix the Post Office: Keep the ‘Last Mile,’ Outsource the Rest</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/06/03/how-to-fix-the-post-office-keep-the-last-mile-outsource-the-rest/#ixzz2VAsKHcI9</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/06/03/how-to-fix-the-post-office-keep-the-last-mile-outsource-the-rest/#ixzz2VAsKHcI9#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:16:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=97018</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=97018&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/168420277.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">US Postal Service Mail Delivery Ahead Of Second-Quarter Results</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">drogers1271</media:title>
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		<title>2 FBI Agents Killed in Training Accident in Va.</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/19/2-fbi-agents-killed-in-training-accident-in-va/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/19/2-fbi-agents-killed-in-training-accident-in-va/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 19 May 2013 22:41:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Associated Press</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=96014</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[(VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.) — Two FBI special agents on the agency&#8217;s elite Hostage Rescue Team have been killed in a training accident in Virginia, officials said Sunday. The accident happened off the coast of Virginia Beach on Friday, the FBI&#8217;s national press office announced in a statement Sunday. No other details were given and the cause is under investigation. The special agents were identified as Christopher Lorek, 41, and Stephen Shaw, 40. Lorek joined the FBI in 1996 and is survived by a wife and two daughters, 11 and 8. Shaw joined in 2005 and is survived by a daughter, 3, and son, 1. &#8220;We mourn the loss of two brave and courageous men,&#8221; Director Robert Mueller said in the statement. &#8220;Like all who serve on the Hostage Rescue Team, they accept the highest risk each and every day, when training and on operational missions, to keep our nation safe. Our hearts are with their wives, children, and other loved ones who feel their loss most deeply. And they will always be part of the FBI Family.&#8221; The Hostage Rescue Team is part of the Critical Incident Response Group based at Quantico in northern Virginia. Most recently, members of the team successfully rescued a 5-year-old boy from a small underground bunker where he was being held hostage by a 65-year-old man. The man was killed by agents. Trained in military tactics and outfitted with combat-style gear and weapons, the group was formed 30 years ago in preparation for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. The team is deployed quickly to trouble spots and provides assistance to local FBI offices during hostage situations. It has participated in hostage situations more than 800 times in the U.S. and elsewhere since 1983.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=96014&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/19/2-fbi-agents-killed-in-training-accident-in-va/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">timeassociatedpress</media:title>
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		<title>Shinseki Stonewall</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/03/25/shinseki-stonewall/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/03/25/shinseki-stonewall/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:31:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=91189</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[General Eric Shinseki, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, appeared on CNN yesterday. The interview was a nothingburger, but I suppose we should be grateful that the Secretary has offered proof of his existence. Candy Crowley did her best, pressing Shinseki on the 900,000 unprocessed disabilities claims&#8230;and he offered the standard VA stonewall: no veteran should have to wait, the backlog will be resolved in 2015. But Crowley did not ask the crucial question: Why aren&#8217;t the claims processed according to severity? Why should an Army Ranger who suffered a 100% debilitating traumatic brain injury in Konar Province three years ago still be waiting for his disability check? Why should that Ranger have to wait behind a Vietnam veteran, who is filing a 3rd time claim to get his disability for post-traumatic stress raised from 50% to 60%? I don&#8217;t begrudge Vietnam veterans the right to have their claims re-evaluated. They&#8217;ve gotten a historically bum deal. But I&#8217;m sure that if you asked these mistreated heroes if they thought those who&#8217;d suffered more severe injuries in more recent wars should go to the front of the line, they would say yes, absolutely, a no-brainer. The question is, why hasn&#8217;t the VA&#8211;and the Obama Administration&#8211;made this obvious call. The answer is: for the same reason that it&#8217;s hard to get anything done in Washington. Special interest power. In this case, the special interests are the older veterans groups, the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, whose membership is overwhelmingly Vietnam and Korean veterans, with a sadly, and rapidly, declining cohort of the Greatest Generation vets. Is it any accident that the Legion and VFW attacked my column&#8211;in the VFW&#8217;s case, in a loathsome hyperbolic manner&#8211;calling for Shinseki to step down two weeks ago, while the groups representing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans agreed with me? For the record, I think the VFW and American Legion are fine organizations; they&#8217;ve provided tremendous comfort and community to veterans of previous wars. But they are doing all veterans a disservice now. As for Eric Shinseki,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=91189&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>The Wages of Moderation</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/18/the-wages-of-moderation/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/18/the-wages-of-moderation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:11:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=85466</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This week&#8217;s print column on the latest, sad&#8211;but sort of hopeful&#8211;attempt at bipartisanship.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=85466&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>A Response to David Frum, Who Seems to Like the Obama Stimulus Better Than He Thinks He Does</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/12/04/a-response-to-david-frum-who-seems-to-like-the-obama-stimulus-better-than-he-thinks-he-does/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/12/04/a-response-to-david-frum-who-seems-to-like-the-obama-stimulus-better-than-he-thinks-he-does/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:48:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Grunwald</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=83103</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[David Frum has carved out an admirable niche as a voice for sanity inside the Republican Party, so I must admit I was disappointed when his review of my book about President Obama’s stimulus ignored my reporting on the GOP’s departure to crazytown. And while I realize that Frum isn’t really a reporter—more of a big thinker, I guess—I must admit I was irritated when his long response to my “grumbly tweets” harping on the errors in his review made me sound like a thin-skinned liberal. It isn’t true! Well, the liberal part isn’t true. But Frum’s double whack at The New New Deal does raise legitimate questions about green industrial policy that deserve a response beyond 140 characters. First, while I appreciate Frum’s kind words about my reporting, I want to harp a bit more about his errors. Let’s start with his description of me as “Grunwald, who wrote an early cover story for TIME hailing Obama as FDR Redux.” No, Peter Beinart wrote that story. I specifically explained why Obama isn’t FDR Redux. Frum says Obama “committed nearly a trillion dollars to countercyclical fiscal stimulus” in three years. No, more than $1.5 trillion. Frum describes Obama’s education reforms as “liberal activism.” No, Race to the Top took on teachers unions to promote charter schools and test-driven accountability. Frum also quotes an early passage he mocks as my “final anti-climactic conclusion to the story of the smart grid,” which led him to conclude our grid will not be “appreciably smarter in 2013 than it was in 2008.” If he had read on, he would have learned that the grid is much smarter now, much more capable of self-monitoring and self-healing; I explained how digital troubleshooting prevented a blackout at the 2011 Orange Bowl. More recently, smart meters helped the hapless Beltway utility Pepco restore power to almost all of its customers within two days of Hurricane Sandy. Before I address Frum’s problems with the stimulus, it’s worth noting that Frum doesn’t really have many problems with the stimulus. He acknowledges that it<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=83103&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">michaelgrunwald</media:title>
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		<title>The Obama Cabinet</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/29/the-obama-cabinet/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/29/the-obama-cabinet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:18:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joe Klein</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[In the Arena]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=82918</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I don&#8217;t have a dog in the Secretary of State hunt.* But I do have an idea about how to get both John Kerry and Susan Rice into the Cabinet. First of all, Kerry should not be the next Secretary of Defense. He&#8217;s a policy guy, not a budget guy — and the Pentagon job, for the foreseeable future, is about budget cutting. My candidate to replace the indefatigable Leon Panetta — whenever he chooses to go — is current Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who knows the place backwards and forwards and can handle both the policy and budget aspects of the job. I think Kerry would be a terrific Secretary of State. He&#8217;s been doing the job, more or less, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, doing really valuable diplomatic work for the Obama Administration, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I think Rice would be fine too. I love her toughness — and I have a soft spot for diplomats, like the late Richard Holbrooke, who aren&#8217;t always entirely diplomatic, but she could also replace Janet Napolitano at the Department of Homeland Security, a job that requires both toughness and diplomacy. And what of Napolitano? She&#8217;s a former U.S. prosecutor — and was a spectacular governor of Arizona, during a brief period of electoral sanity in that jejune state — and I think she&#8217;d make a great Attorney General. Eric Holder hasn&#8217;t been. Major-league financial miscreants like Countrywide mortgage&#8217;s Angelo Mozilo still walk the streets freely. No one has paid a price for the utter corruption in the housing market and on Wall Street. The word is that Holder wants to stay on as Attorney General. He shouldn&#8217;t. Napolitano would be better. Whoever replaces Timothy Geithner — and wouldn&#8217;t it be great if it weren&#8217;t a Wall Street toady, perhaps former FDIC regulator Sheila Bair — should be looking closely at the big banks, which still need to be broken up, and the less-than-kosher derivatives markets. I&#8217;d like the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs to be a very public figure (unlike the reticent<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=82918&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jklein1271</media:title>
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		<title>As Government Reacts to Sandy, Lessons from Katrina and Other Natural Disasters</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/10/30/lessons-from-katrina-and-other-natural-disasters/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/10/30/lessons-from-katrina-and-other-natural-disasters/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2012 15:27:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jay Newton-Small</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=81116</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Hunkering down last night under the howling winds of Sandy and reading every scrap of information on the storm, I was struck by the fact that seven years after Hurricane Katrina, local, state and federal officials were incredibly well prepared. Newark Mayor Cory Booker answered distress calls on Twitter; New Jersey Governor Chris Christie evacuated the shore; and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg sent in city workers to help evacuate NYU Tisch Hospital after its backup generator failed. There was a striking difference in leadership between these men and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, both of whom watched like deer staring blankly into headlights as Katrina approached in 2005. There was also a difference of presidential leadership. George W. Bush named his friend Michael Brown, a lawyer and former director of the International Arabian Horse Association, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. No one would make that mistake again. President Obama not only picked an experienced disaster management expert &#8212; Craig Fugate, former director of Florida&#8217;s Division of Emergency Management &#8212; but one from a key swing state, just in case. The relative smoothness with which the government handled the storm also reflected FEMA’s high level of funding: a battle Democrats won in the wake of Katrina, insisting that emergency funds, like payments for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, need not be offset by spending cuts or taxes. “The federal government’s response has been great. I was on the phone at midnight again last night with the President, personally, he has expedited the designation of New Jersey as a major disaster area,” Christie, a top surrogate for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said on NBC’s Today. “The President has been outstanding in this and so have the folks at FEMA.” (PHOTOS: The Toil After the Storm: Life in Sandy’s Wake) On the night before Katrina hit New Orleans, I was with Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. We’d just returned from two days in Idaho where Bush had been mountain biking in<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=81116&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/10/30/lessons-from-katrina-and-other-natural-disasters/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sandy_brooklyn_1030.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Hurricane Sandy hits in the Brooklyn</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jnewtonsmall</media:title>
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		<title>Fast and Furious Report Destroys Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/20/fast-and-furious-ig-report-destroys-right-wing-conspiracy-theories/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/20/fast-and-furious-ig-report-destroys-right-wing-conspiracy-theories/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:22:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=78775</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For more than a year and a half, everyone from House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa to right-wing provocateurs on Fox News have been lobbing fiery accusations about Operation Fast and Furious, including that it was a plot conceived by the White House for a variety of nefarious purposes. Fast and Furious, you will remember, was the name of an investigation run by ATF agents and federal prosecutors in Arizona that allowed thousands of guns to be sold to operatives of Mexican drug gangs who then smuggled them across the border for use in the drug war. The operation was exposed after a U.S. border agent, Brian Terry, was killed and two guns that ATF and prosecutors had allowed to “walk” as part of Fast and Furious turned up at the scene of the crime. You will also remember that Republicans worked themselves into a rabid fever on the subject. One expects a certain amount of irresponsible and baseless accusation from far right commentators, but it’s worth remarking on just how outlandish the accusations were. Ann Coulter declared that the operation was run by Holder for the White House with the intention of killing American law enforcement officials for the purpose of advancing gun control: Until someone can tell us otherwise, there is only one explanation for why President Obama&#8217;s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gave thousands of guns to Mexican drug dealers: It put guns in their hands to strengthen liberals&#8217; argument for gun control… Innocent people dying was the objective of Fast and Furious, not collateral damage. And after the Obama administration cited executive privilege and refused to provide documents to Congress (documents later made available to Horowitz for his investigation), Michelle Malkin said Obama himself was involved: The maneuver that they undertook yesterday just underscores something that some of us have been emphasizing since day one of this scandal over the last year and a half – and that is that Obama is at the center of it. That kind of talk may be standard<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=78775&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/20/fast-and-furious-ig-report-destroys-right-wing-conspiracy-theories/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">calabresim</media:title>
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		<title>One Nation on Welfare</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/06/one-nation-on-welfare/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/06/one-nation-on-welfare/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:54:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Sorensen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=77816</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As Democrats in Charlotte tell it, Barack Obama is helping out the most deserving Americans with federal spending. Last week in Tampa, Republicans accused the President of giving Big Government credit for the private sector&#8217;s hard work. Here&#8217;s the reality, as Michael Grunwald writes in this week&#8217;s magazine, now available online to subscribers: We&#8217;re all on the government dole. Republicans have tried to divide the country into bold entrepreneurs and leeching welfare queens. But while everyone who works is a &#8220;maker,&#8221; we&#8217;re all &#8220;takers&#8221; too. In describing his own heavily subsidized life, Grunwald gets at the intractable nature of tax expenditures and other government goodies that balloon the deficit while pampering those Americans who already have it pretty easy. His opening: The sun is shining on Miami Beach, and I wake up in   subsidized housing. I throw   on a T-shirt made of subsidized   cotton, brush my teeth with   subsidized water and eat cereal made of subsidized grain. Soon the chaos begins, two hours of pillow forts, dance parties and other craziness with two hyper kids and two hyper Boston terriers, until our subsidized nanny arrives to watch our 2-year-old. My wife Cristina then drives to her subsidized job while listening to the subsidized news on public radio. I bike our 4-year-old to school on public roads, play tennis on a public court  and head home for a subsidized shower. Then I turn on my computer with subsidized electricity and start work in my subsidized home office. It’s just another manic Monday, brought to us by the deep pockets of Big Government. The sunshine is a natural perk, and while our kids are tax deductible, the fun we have with them is not. The dogs are on our dime too. Otherwise, taxpayers help support just about every aspect of our lives. Go ahead and read the whole thing.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=77816&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/09/06/one-nation-on-welfare/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/swampbrnation_0917.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">brnation_0917</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/7666b70a5b0305bd59953f5bca02cce5?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Adam Sorensen</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">More...</media:title>
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		<title>Obama Cashes in on Auto-Bailout Success, but Skepticism of Government Remains</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/24/obama-cashes-in-on-auto-bailout-success-but-government-skepticism-remains/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/24/obama-cashes-in-on-auto-bailout-success-but-government-skepticism-remains/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:30:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Sorensen</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[2012 Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Campaigns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mitt Romney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Polls]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[auto bailout]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitt romney]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=66449</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[New poll numbers illustrate both why President Obama has chosen the auto bailout to make his case for re-election, and why Mitt Romney continues to talk about his own vociferous opposition to the policy. If that sounds like a contradiction, that's because it is. Such is the nature of the American public's view of government.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=66449&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://swampland.time.com/2012/02/24/obama-cashes-in-on-auto-bailout-success-but-government-skepticism-remains/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</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/2012/02/sl_bailout_0223_blogii.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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		<media:content url="http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/sl_bailout_0223_blogii.jpg?w=200" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">sl_bailout_0223_blogII</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/7666b70a5b0305bd59953f5bca02cce5?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">Adam Sorensen</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://www.people-press.org/files/2012/02/2-23-12-4.png" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">pew2</media:title>
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		<title>The Death of the Fairness Doctrine</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/23/the-death-of-the-fairness-doctrine/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/23/the-death-of-the-fairness-doctrine/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:35:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Katy Steinmetz</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fairness doctrine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fcc]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rush Limbaugh]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=54842</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“I would encourage you,” Rush Limbaugh wrote to President Obama in 2009, “not to allow your office to be misused to advance a political vendetta against certain broadcasters whose opinions are not shared by many in your party.” That, Limbaugh said, was what the President would be doing if he supported FCC rules regarding “so-called” public interest. In particular, Limbaugh was arguing against the resurgence of the Fairness Doctrine, a divisive rule the FCC officially threw out on Monday. To many on the right, the Fairness Doctrine and other rules regarding media content have represented arrows of government-imposed censorship aimed only at them, regulatory weapons that amounted to the “death knell of talk radio,” as Limbaugh wrote. First instituted in 1949, the Fairness Doctrine was a policy that required holders of broadcast licenses to discuss issues that were important to the public and to give contrasting viewpoints on those issues. Broadcasters didn’t have to give equal time to those viewpoints; they just had to make sure multiple perspectives were presented. With Reagan in the White House, the FCC voted to repeal the rule in 1987, but legislators have tried to bring it back since then. For years, the argument in Congress went like this: Democrat: Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine is a matter of providing accountability and balance for the American people. Republican: Poppycock. It’s a ruse to silence the American people who don’t agree with you, particularly Glenn Beck. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski called this perennial debate a “distraction” in a Monday statement on the commission’s site, in which he announced the elimination of the Doctrine and 82 other “obsolete” rules. Obama also called it a distraction when Democratic stalwarts like Nancy Pelosi and Bill Clinton expressed interest in reviving it two years ago. (Obama did not support bringing it back.) Clinton cited the unbalanced nature of talk radio where “big money” is fueling “right wing talk shows.” Beck meanwhile has said that “talk radio balances the scales” against outlets like the New York Times, NBC News and TIME. Newt<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=54842&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">Katy Steinmetz</media:title>
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		<title>Eric Cantor and Barack Obama Finally Agree On Something</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/03/eric-cantor-and-barack-obama-finally-agree-on-something/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2011/08/03/eric-cantor-and-barack-obama-finally-agree-on-something/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:36:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Scherer</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=53784</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here is House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in an interview today with the Wall Street Journal: People are tired of the pain. They want to be given some hope. I think that sensible prudent fiscal management will be a foundation for that. We need to lay out a vision for how America can lead again, for how our young people, our students coming through school now, will have the opportunities that we have, and to make sure that we will be able to innovate, and compete in this country. Those are the real themes politically that will be most prominent as we go towards November ’12. Here is President Barack Obama in his 2011 State of the Union: We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time.  We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.  We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business.  We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government.  That’s how our people will prosper.  That’s how we’ll win the future. Notice anything? One of the great ironies of the last several weeks in Washington is that both parties have been reading the same polls. They know what the American people want to hear, a sense of hope, that can-do attitude that America has long embraced at the center of the national narrative. Yet the policy differences about how to fulfill this desire are so far apart that the effect is just the opposite. The nation&#8217;s political leaders, rather than lay out a vision for how America can lead again, have demonstrated both domestically and internationally how little hope there is for clear leadership anytime soon. Partisan interests have trumped the common good. But that won&#8217;t stop either side from speaking in the same broad terms about the way forward.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=53784&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/government-domestic-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">michaelscherer</media:title>
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