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Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.

MORNING MESSAGE: The Calculation Behind Romney's Lies

OurFuture.org's Dave Johnson: "The Romney campaign is limiting media access to the candidate and offering little in the way of substantive policy proposals. They are instead using press releases, advertisements, message-trained surrogates, cooperative media like FOX, Drudge, talk radio, allied newspapers and the right's blogosphere, while coordinating with massively-funded outside groups like Crossroads GPS, Americans for Prosperity, Heritage Foundation and others. This is a key thing to get, the Romney campaign believes that they can win this election using lies and propaganda as 'truths' to drive their campaign story. They are making the calculation that the right's media machine has become sufficiently powerful for their version of reality to reach enough of the public…"

Romney Welfare Ad Slammed As False

Politifact calls Romney ad attacking Obama's state waiver program for welfare reform, "Pants on Fire!": "Romney’s ad says, 'Under Obama’s plan (for welfare), you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.' That's a drastic distortion of the planned changes to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. By granting waivers to states, the Obama administration is seeking to make welfare-to-work efforts more successful, not end them. What’s more, the waivers would apply to individually evaluated pilot programs -- HHS is not proposing a blanket, national change to welfare law."

Romney cites Bill Clinton in welfare ad. Clinton calls ad "not true." W. Post quotes: "The administration has taken important steps to ensure that the work requirement is retained and that waivers will be granted only if a state can demonstrate that more people will be moved into work under its new approach.

Romney turns to Gingrich for help. CNN: "Gingrich – who suggested to senior Romney advisers they take on the welfare issue - has been asked to participate in a conference call on behalf of the Romney campaign, expected to take place Wednesday, according to a Gingrich source. He will also do a number of television interviews and will write an op-ed in a conservative publication to buttress Romney's position … He often referred to Obama as the 'food stamp president,'…"

Welfare smear intended to deflect from "Romneyhood" charge. NY Mag's Jonathan Chait: "In place of his lackluster defensive exertions, Romney is instead mounting a hyper-belligerent offensive. If Obama attacks him for redistributing from the middle class to the rich, Romney will paint Obama as redistributing from the middle class to the poor … Romney still has given no sign that he has a meaningful plan to prevent himself from being defined (accurately, I’d say) as a plutocrat running on retro-Bushian policies."

"America not a 'kibbutz,' says Romney." CNN: "'What America is not a collective where we all work in a kibbutz or we all in some little entity, instead it's individuals pursuing their dreams…' [said Romney.] … It comes the week after Romney returned from a three-country foreign swing that included a stop in Israel, the home of the collective farms known as kibbutzim."

Support from women buttressing Obama in swing states. NYT: "…while the poll suggests that Mr. Romney is making inroads among women in Colorado, where he is also showing strength against Mr. Obama by several other measures, support for Mr. Obama among women has otherwise held up in the battleground states. As a result, Mr. Obama has so far been able to stave off bigger losses in the most hotly contested states, in particular among independents, who are divided in Colorado and Wisconsin and supporting Mr. Romney in Virginia, and white men, who are supporting Mr. Romney by double digits over the president in all three states."

The Battle For The Senate

Control of the Senate up the air, says Daily Beast: "While voters in Wisconsin and Arizona still have to pick their nominees in primaries this month, [Cook Political Report's Jennifer] Duffy pointed to Senate races in Montana, Virginia, and Massachusetts as being crucial to deciding the balance of power in November … Although Duffy and other analysts are unusually reluctant to predict a winner, both Democrats and Republicans are so confident of winning the Senate that they have pushed major pieces of legislation like funding the federal government past December’s lame-duck session and into the new year…"

MO goes Tea Party for GOP senate nominee. Politico: "Rep. Todd Akin — a six-term social conservative whom the vulnerable Democratic senator helped promote to GOP voters because she thought she had the best chance of beating him — won the Republican primary Tuesday night over two rivals."

MI GOP voters pick Senate candidate with most racist ad of the year. MLive: "Former U.S. congressman Pete Hoekstra was easily holding off a challenge Tuesday, winning Michigan’s Republican U.S. Senate primary … Until recently, his campaign was focused almost exclusively on Stabenow.
That included a controversial anti-Stabenow ad that aired during the Super Bowl early this year. It featured a young Asian woman speaking in broken English and thanking Sen. 'Spenditnow' for sending American jobs overseas."

Recession-Scarred Generation

Recession-scarred generation reluctant to make big purchases. Bloomberg: "Confronting a jobless rate above 8 percent since 2009 and student-loan debt hitting about $1 trillion, 20-to-34-year-olds are renting apartments, cars and even clothing to save money and stay flexible. As the Great Depression shaped the attitudes of a generation from 1929 until the early years of World War II, so have the financial crisis and its aftermath affected the outlook of young …"

Changing OH economy has uneven impact. W. Post: "There are some new jobs but, as the economy shifts, they do not always match workers’ experiences. Here, as in other manufacturing states, those changes may mean a permanent deflation of incomes and expectations … Booming biotech clusters are creating new health-care products and unfamiliar jobs. There is also a resurgence in auto manufacturing that has saved existing jobs more than it has created new ones … the state is benefiting from a shale-gas boom … but many of the new drilling jobs are filled by out-of-state workers … per-capita incomes have not increased since 2007 …"

GOP Guns For Volcker Rule

Republican draft legislation to water down Volcker rule. Politico: "House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus is considering introducing legislation to make changes to the controversial Wall Street trading crackdown … and is soliciting feedback on what would be a less 'burdensome' alternative … There is little chance any proposal unveiled by Bachus this year would make it into law, but introducing legislation would afford House Republicans the opportunity to detail how they would change a key part of the Dodd-Frank law in advance of the November elections."

Banks slow to reform after mortgage settlement. HuffPost: "Despite the approach of an early-October deadline by which servicers must fully comply with the new standards, those who defend and process foreclosure cases say little improvement has emerged … Obama administration officials maintain that progress will develop gradually, as mortgage companies overhaul their systems. Before the foreclosure crisis, servicers merely mailed out bills to homeowners and collected checks on behalf of the investors who own most of the loans. Today, they confront a host of complex tasks, managing a flood of paperwork while making determinations about loan modifications."

Breakfast Sides

President announces drought aid, pushes Congress for more. ABC: "The Obama administration is authorizing an additional $30 million to help farmers and ranchers in areas hit by the severe drought … The president called on Congress to pass the farm bill to 'not only provide important disaster relief tools, but also make necessary reforms and give farmers the certainty that they deserve.'"

Obama signs law requiring he detail what sequester would cut. Politico: "'It’s going to be a hell of a Labor Day,' said Jim Dyer, a former GOP staff director to the House Appropriations Committee, estimating the date the White House Office of Management and Budget will issue its report that details programs and projects targeted for cuts on Jan. 2, 2013. 'You put specifics out there, and each cut is a story unto itself. It’s an unenviable position to be in.' … White House officials don’t sound worried about releasing details of spending cuts, noting those can be skirted — if Republicans make concessions on taxes."

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