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MORNING MESSAGE: This Saturday, Workers Stand For America

OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "There is a big rally Saturday in Philadelphia, to begin to "change the conversation" to focus on the needs of working Americans. Read America's Second Bill of Rights, which demands: Full employment and a living wage. Full participation in the political process. A voice at work. A quality education for all. A secure and healthy future. You got a problem with that? Saturday the Workers Stand for America campaign launches. At the rally, participants will be encouraged to sign America’s Second Bill of Rights and then call on lawmakers of both parties to add their signatures of support. It will also be presented to delegates at both the Democratic and Republican conventions and to candidates this fall."

Romney Struggles On Healthcare, Wind, Welfare….

Romney campaign touts benefits of individual mandate. W. Post: "In an interview with Fox News Channel on Wednesday, Andrea Saul invoked Massachusetts’s expansion of health coverage as a defense to a harsh new ad funded by a super PAC supporting President Obama. In the spot, a former steelworker whose plant was closed by Bain Capital blames Romney, who co-founded the firm, for his family’s loss of health insurance and his wife’s subsequent death from cancer. 'To that point, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health-care plan, they would have had health care,' Saul said in the interview. "

Gingrich admits Romney has "no proof today" that President Obama is gutting welfare reform. CNN: "I think if the ad makers had asked me I would have said, 'This makes it possible,' … We have no proof today…"

Romney hides opposition to wind power tax credit while campaigning in IA. NYT: "In Des Moines, Mr. Romney called for developing a range of energy resources including wind power, but he pointedly did not mention his opposition to an administration-supported tax credit for the wind industry that Republican leaders in both Iowa and Colorado strongly favor."

And tries to avoid nuclear waste issue in NV. Roll Call: "…Romney is taking no chances in what is expected to be a close contest for Nevada’s six electoral votes by neither opposing nor endorsing the controversial proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository … [Prof. David] Damore added that Sharron Angle, who ran against Reid in 2010, used the same strategy and came up short in a state where voters are yearning for specific solutions."

President stresses women's health in CO speech. NYT: "Mr. Obama departed from his usual, broader stump speech to focus on his health insurance law, and to reopen a debate over contraception that roiled the Republican presidential nomination contest this year and helped solidify his support among women. 'The decisions that affect a woman’s health, they’re not up to politicians. They’re not up to insurance companies. They’re up to you,' he said. 'And you deserve a president that will fight to keep it that way.'"

Romney may give Donald Trump and Sarah Palin choice convention slots. NYT: "Inviting Mr. Trump to speak, as risky as that could be, is actually a way for the Romney campaign to exercise some degree of control over what he might say, like his demands that President Obama prove his American citizenship."

Super PACs Face Legal Scrutiny

NY AG steps up investigation into secretive campaign groups. NYT: "Close to two dozen such groups have already received Mr. Schneiderman’s requests, including three major Republican-affiliated groups, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, co-founded by the political strategist Karl Rove; American Action Network; and American Future Fund. The office has also requested information from Democratic groups, including Priorities USA Action, which was founded by two former aides to President Obama; Patriot Majority USA; and America Votes … Under New York law, tax-exempt groups — including foundations, trade associations and social welfare organizations — that do business or raise substantial amounts of money in New York must file auditors’ reports and their federal tax returns with the attorney general’s office…"

Republicans continue to dredge up bogus examples of voter fraud. W. Post's Jonathan Bernstein: "…the latest conservative talking point is the claim that there were a bunch of felons who voted improperly in Minnesota in 2008 … charges that were pretty convincingly rebutted when they were made back in 2010 … some of the Minnesota voters targeted as 'frauds' were perfectly legitimate people whose only crime was sharing a name with an ex-felon … The overall evidence is pretty clear; there just isn’t a significant vote fraud problem in the United States…"

Breakfast Sides

Welfare reform left more poor kids without help. ThinkProgress' Pat Garofalo: "As this chart from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows, in 1979, welfare reached 82 out of every 100 families with children who were living in poverty. By 2010, that had dropped to just 27, leaving many impoverished families out to dry…"

Banks engaged in money laundering thanks to weak law. NYT: "Foreign banks until 2008 were allowed to transfer money for Iranian clients through their American subsidiaries to a separate offshore institution. In the so-called U-turn transactions, the banks had to provide scant information about the client to their American units as long as they had thoroughly vetted the transactions for suspicious activity. Suspecting that Iranian banks were financing nuclear weapons and missile programs, the loophole was finally closed in 2008. The new money-laundering claims made by the New York Department of Financial Services against Standard Chartered are particularly embarrassing for the Treasury Department, because they show how, until 2008, foreign banks could collaborate with their Iranian clients to circumvent United States sanctions."

July was the hottest month … ever. HuffPost: "July 2012 was officially not only the warmest July on record, but also the warmest month ever recorded for the lower 48 states, according to a report released Wednesday by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center. The average temperature for the month came in at 77.6°F overall, which is 3.3°F higher than the 20th-century average, and 0.2°F warmer than the previous hottest month on record, which was July 1936, way back in the Dust Bowl era."

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