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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: Conservatives to Students, "Drop Dead!"

OurFuture.org's Terrance Heath: "Never mind 'class warfare.' Generational warfare continues apace, this time in the editorial pages of the Washington Post … 'Congress should fund the transportation bill and let the politically inspired loan rate lapse … Extending today’s low loan rate for a year — yes, lawmakers want to extend it for just a single year — is not worth the $6 billion it would cost.' … That's been the standard right wing response to young people who are struggling to find work amid grim job prospects, and facing life with massive debt that can burden them for decades, for the rest of their lives, and even beyond the grave. It's the same message the right has for parents like Francisco Reynoso, who struggles to pay off his dead son's student loans, simultaneously battling grief and collection agencies. It's the same message the right has for grandparents whose social security checks are garnished by student loan collection agencies. Drop dead. You're on your own. You'll get nothing, and like it."

Immigration Ruling Rattles Conservatives

States constrained from encroaching on federal authority to manage immigration. NYT: "The court put state governments on notice that they would have to tread carefully to avoid interfering with federal policy if they want to engage in immigration enforcement. The court also allowed, and even invited, lawsuits against Arizona’s law that are based squarely on civil rights claims that it would lead to racial profiling against Latinos and other immigrants…"

Supreme Court immigration ruling further complicates Romney strategy. W. Post: "The Arizona law is very popular with whites and independent voters, according to data from the Pew Research Center, while many GOP strategists think their party has little chance for success in battlegrounds such as Colorado, Nevada and Virginia if Romney doesn’t win close to 40 percent of Hispanics … Though [Romney] once called Arizona’s approach to immigration a 'model' for the country and vowed to reverse the Obama administration’s challenge to the law, his support for the measure seemed more muted Monday."

Scalia loses it. Salon's Paul Campos: "Like many a graying eminence, Scalia is becoming a caricature of his younger self. This is a serious problem, given that the Supreme Court continues to devolve into an institution dominated by cranky senior citizens, who are harder to get rid of than the longest-serving members of the old Soviet politburo. Indeed, Scalia seems headed down the path previously trod by those justices who clearly didn’t know when to hang up their robes. His career is beginning to resemble that of William O. Douglas, another justice who allowed a combination of immense arrogance and creeping decrepitude to transform him from a formidable figure into a ranting old man, whose performance on the bench became so embarrassing and disturbing that it is said the other justices made an informal agreement not to allow any decision to turn on Douglas’ vote."

Transportation Deal May Be Near

Deal may be near for transportation jobs bill. The Hill: "'I now for the first time think that we have a good chance of getting a bill,' [Sen. Jay Rockefeller] said … 'We may have to get an extension of a week or so because you have to write everything up' … Rockefeller said Keystone is 'probably not in it.' … Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, appeared confident about the talks — and kept details close to the vest."

Senate may work into the weekend to meet deadlines on transportation and student loans, reports Politico.

Congress considers delaying the sequester. Bloomberg: "Republican and Democratic congressional leaders are weighing whether to delay automatic federal spending cuts until March 2013, according to a House aide and industry officials who were briefed on the discussions … Leaders in both chambers are discussing whether to propose a catch-all bill that would delay the automatic cuts, fund the government through March or later and temporarily extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts and other tax laws …"

Obama Tags Romney As "Outsourcing Pioneer"

Obama slams Romney's record of outsourcing jobs at Bain. W. Post quotes: "If you're a worker whose jobs went overseas — you don't need someone who is going to explain to you the difference between outsourcing and offshoring. You need somebody who's going to wake up every day and fight for American jobs."

Campaign fundraising already at $3B. CNN: "Campaigns, parties, and PACs have raked in over $2.9 billion so far this year, and spent over $2 billion, according to a Federal Election Commission analysis of the first 15 months of the 2012 cycle … The single largest portion of the $2.9 billion raised was brought in by political action committees, which accounted for $986.4 million."

Breakfast Sides

Rep. Elijah Cummings takes the lead to defend distressed homeowners. W. Post: "Cummings has backed efforts, some more successful than others, to investigate mortgage-related abuses by banks and lenders, to expand foreclosure protections for U.S. servicemembers and their families and to make it easier for some homeowners to refinance their loans at lower interest rates. He has even done something he rarely does on other topics: criticize the Obama administration, saying it hasn’t done enough to help those in need."

"Fewer Weeks of Benefits Available to Unemployed Workers in 24 States" notes CBPP's Hannah Shaw: "Starting this week, workers in 24 states who exhaust their regular unemployment insurance (UI) benefits before they find a job will have fewer weeks of additional federal assistance available through the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program. This cut in EUC benefits resulted from the legislation enacted in February that continued EUC payments through the end of the year but changed the formula for determining the number of weeks of benefits."

"America is no longer a land of opportunity" says Joseph Stiglitz, in FT oped: "America used to be thought of as the land of opportunity. Today, a child’s life chances are more dependent on the income of his or her parents than in Europe, or any other of the advanced industrial countries for which there are data. The US worked hard to create the American dream of opportunity. But today, that dream is a myth."

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