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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: How To Fight Wall Street

OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "Here's the best way to help promote justice, economic fairness, and liberal ideals: Activists must demand real action on bank criminality from the President, Attorney General Holder, the Mortgage Fraud Task Force, and the Attorneys General for all fifty states. Real action, especially criminal investigations, will reinforce another goal popular among progressives: electing Democrats. Now that 91 percent of MoveOn's members have voted to support President Obama's reelection, their next step should be to make it more likely - by pressuring him to take legal action against crooked bankers, a move that will be popular across the political spectrum. As for underwater homeowners, imagine what could happen if they get organized."

Romney Was Outsourcing Pioneer

Romney was an innovator … at outsourcing. W. Post: "During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components … While Bain was not the largest player in the outsourcing field, the private equity firm was involved early on, at a time when the departure of jobs from the United States was beginning to accelerate and new companies were emerging as handmaidens to this outflow of employment. Bain played several roles in helping these outsourcing companies, such as investing venture capital so they could grow and providing management and strategic business advice as they navigated this rapidly developing field."

Romney message on economy not in sync with GOP governors. W. Post: "Whether it is in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin or other potential swing states, many GOP governors talk of the improvements they’re seeing … Then came a news report Thursday that the Romney team had asked Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) not to tout the improvements in his state’s economy … [Romney] says that the policies of Republican governors, in contrast to those of some Democratic governors, are helping to fix the economies of those GOP-led states … [But] how much credit [in Michigan] goes to Obama’s 2009 bailout of the auto industry — a policy Romney objected to — as opposed to the business-friendly policies Snyder has put in place in the past 18 months? Three other states have had their unemployment rates drop by 20 percent or more since the 2010 elections: Florida, Minnesota and Ohio. In Florida, Scott succeeded fellow Republican Jeb Bush, so there has not been a dramatic change in policies in the state. In Minnesota, Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton replaced Republican Tim Pawlenty."

Romney's Immigration Speech Fizzles

Romney struggles to appeal to Latinos and conservatives. W. Post: "[Romney] took a first step Thursday toward trying to soften his image among skeptical Hispanic voters … [But h]e did not say what should happen to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, nor did he mention the Dream Act, the stalled legislation he previously vowed to veto…"

Speech criticized from all sides. CBS: "Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a pro-immigration group, criticized Romney's policy outline. 'He promised a mandatory employment verification system, which is the underpinning of his radical 'self-deportation' position, with no mention of a line to get into for the millions of undocumented workers currently in the U.S.,' Sherry said. Meanwhile, Ira Mehlman, spokesman with the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group critical of immigration, said … Romney's position turned '180 degrees' from the policies he backed in the primary, where he called for self-deportation…"

Austerity Still Not Working

Keynes biographer Robert Skidelsky compares the US to Britain: "While the Obama administration continued to stimulate the U.S. economy—through the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—George Osborne, the new British Conservative chancellor, pursued a modified Hayekian experiment .. Two years later, the score card is in. Since May 2010, when U.S. and British fiscal policy diverged, the U.S. economy has grown—albeit slowly. The British economy is currently contracting. Unemployment in the United States has gone down by 1.4 percentage points; in Britain, it has gone up by 0.2 percentage points. And despite keeping up stimulus measures, the Obama administration has been more successful in reducing the government deficit—by 2.5 percentage points compared with Osborne’s 1.9 percentage points."

Brazil embraces stimulus over austerity. NYT: "Brazil’s stimulus spending has helped preserve jobs, keeping unemployment at a historic low of 5.8 percent, down from 13 percent a decade ago … improvements in tax collection and the earlier surge in the economy helped bolster state finances …"

States embracing austerity have higher unemployment. ThinkProgress: "In the median 'spending cut' state: The unemployment rate is 4.1 percentage points higher; There are 6 percent fewer private-sector jobs; The state economy is growing 2.7 percentage points slower than before the recession."

Senate passes farm bill with food stamp cuts, House may try to cut deeper. NYT: "The Senate bill would cut a total of $23.6 billion from current spending levels, including about $4.5 billion from food stamps … The House Republican budget introduced earlier this year by Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, would reduce food stamp spending by about $134 billion over the next decade and turn the program into block grants for the states … Feeding America, an antihunger group based in Chicago, said the [Senate] cuts would reduce benefits by about $90 per family and affect 500,000 households in 15 states."

Congress Inches Toward Compromise

Senate may be close to student loan rate compromise. Politico: "…a deal could be announced as soon as Friday, sources say, although early next week seems more likely … The talks have centered on how to pay the roughly $6 billion it will cost to keep the interest rate on federal Stafford loans at 3.4 percent … The list of options Reid and McConnell are considering include one favored by Reid that would tweak pension payment contributions by employers and increase premiums paid by businesses for Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. coverage. The leaders also are discussing ideas that House and Senate GOP leaders offered to the White House. Those proposals include a 0.4 percent increase in federal employee retirement contributions over the next three years, or a combination of offsets that would reduce overpayments to Social Security recipients, revise certain Medicaid taxes and stop subsidizing the interest that accumulated on certain student loans."

Boehner, Reid sound optimistic about transportation bill compromise. The Hill: "House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday that 'clearly there's some movement' … 'I don't think we'll need an extension,' Reid said during a news conference at the Capitol. 'I hope not.'"

Health Reform Beneficiaries Anxious

People with pre-existing conditions anxiously await Supreme Court ruling. NYT: "The Government Accountability Office estimates that 36 million to 122 million adults under 65 have a pre-existing condition. As many as 17 million do not have insurance … If the mandate that everyone buy coverage is struck down, the Obama administration and the insurance industry say that the protections for people with pre-existing conditions should be, too. If the ailing pile in without the larger pool of healthy people, premiums would skyrocket, insurers say."

Community health care centers may also lose out if Supreme Court overturns Affordable Care Act next week. NYT: "Tens of billions of dollars could easily vanish, especially depending on the outcome of the November elections … The Affordable Care Act allocates money for such diverse efforts as creating insurance programs for people who have pre-existing medical conditions and cannot find private coverage, offsetting employers’ costs for early-retiree health plans, bumping up the pay for some primary care doctors and a broad array of public health initiatives, like funds for state vaccination programs."

Supreme Court Slams Unions

Supreme Court ruling harms union organizing. ThinkProgress: "Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, agreed with the result but not the opinion. Their opinion noted that once again, the Roberts Court had gone beyond the scope of the case to unnecessarily set new constitutional precedent: that the in some circumstances, workers must effectively opt-in to paying union dues — rather than just being able to opt-out of parts of those dues."

Supreme Court signals more anti-union rulings to come. American Prospect's Garret Epps: "…their opinion all but begs right-wing advocacy groups and public employers to use its emerging First-Amendment jurisprudence to take down public-employee unions and in essence find a Southern-style 'right to work' law in the Constitution … To underline his concern, Breyer took the unusual step of summarizing his dissent from the bench, while Alito, a poor winner, glowered at him like an angry headmaster five seats away."

Breakfast Sides

NYT's Paul Krugman slams NJ Gov. Christie's prison privatization scheme: "…the one thing the companies that make up the prison-industrial complex … are definitely not doing is competing in a free market. They are, instead, living off government contracts. There isn’t any market here, and there is, therefore, no reason to expect any magical gains in efficiency … So let’s see: Privatized prisons save money by employing fewer guards and other workers, and by paying them badly. And then we get horror stories about how these prisons are run. What a surprise!"

Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Barney Frank call for stronger Wall St. rules. McClatchy: "[Sen. Scott] Brown broke with most of his party to back the final version of Dodd-Frank. But he did so only after insisting that the sponsors drop a $20 billion annual charge on large banks designed to cover the costs if any failed in the future and needed to be dismantled - a decision Frank sharply criticized in the telephone news conference Thursday … Frank and Warren both said it was crucial for U.S. regulators to implement a strong version of the Volcker Rule…"

House passes "Drill Baby Bill" bill. HuffPost: "The bill approved Thursday would require analysis of regulations that critics say could drive up gas prices and would block the release of oil from a strategic reserve unless it's matched by a boost in domestic oil production. The measure passed on a 248-163 vote. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the bill…"

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