White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said today that the White House does not plan on changing its timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, despite a decision to temporarily halt most joint operations with Afghan military forces.

NATO ordered the cutback following an increase in insider attacks, in which Afghan military and police officials have turned their guns on the NATO troops with whom they're assigned to work. The most recent ones occurred this weekend and killed six members of the international coalition. In total, some 51 NATO members have died this year in so-called "green-on-blue" attacks.

On the show today, NBC News Military Analyst Gen. Barry McCaffrey (Ret.) said the United State is facing a "strategic vulnerability" and "withdrawal under pressure" as it tries to prepare the 350,000-member Afghan army for U.S. withdrawal in 2014. 

President Obama threw out some zingers today in his critique of the GOP's Master Theory on how to fix the economy.

"You want to make a restaurant reservation or book a flight? You don't need the new iPhone; try a tax cut," the President joked. "Try and drop a few extra pounds? Try a tax cut. They've got one answer for everything."

The President may be onto something. According to a highly informative column by the New York Times' David Leonhardt, tax cuts may actually lead to economic decline not growth. On the show today, Alex provided us with her own "visual" of what the economy looks like when politicians take an ax to taxes. Take a look below. 

Here is the actual chart, courtesy of the New York Times. It shows that economic growth went up when the first President Bush and President Clinton raised taxes, but plummeted when President George W. Bush slashed them not long after taking office.

Leonhardt does make the point that some economists think overhauling the tax code could spark growth, but the problem with Governor Romney's plan is that, well, there is no plan -- and depending on which tax breaks he might keep or eliminate, it's possible another across-the-board cut could keep that line on a path...right to the basement. 

Members of the NAACP descended on Philadelphia today, as the State Supreme Court listened to arguments over a new photo ID law that could keep as many as 9 percent of Pennsylvania's registered voters from casting a ballot in November.

Be warned, voter ID could be this year's hanging chad, and the campaigns are preparing for the possibility of legal challenges come November 7.

As we've pointed out a number of times on the show, voter ID requirements could make it much harder for African Americans and Hispanics to vote, since they are far more likely than whites to lack government-issued photo ID. According to a recent study released by the Black Youth Project, turnout for young minority voters could drop by as many as 700,000 in November.

But, keep in mind, these laws impact everyone--including the elderly. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 18 percent of Americans over the age of 65 don't have photo ID, and getting one isn't always that easy.

This is why the Obama campaign is out in the field with staff members who are making sure that voters are prepared for what awaits them at the polls on Election Day.

Union leaders and school officials are back at the bargaining table for day three of a huge strike that has impacted 350,000 Chicago students.

So far there is no indication that the two sides are going to bridge the gap soon. The main sticking point is over a proposal to base teacher evaluations on student test scores.

The Obama Administration has stayed on the sidelines so far, but its shadow is looming large in this showdown. Not only is Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel President Obama's former Chief of Staff, but many of the school reforms that have attracted the ire of the union have been championed by Secretary of State Arne Duncan, the former head of the Chicago Schools System.

What are the long-term implications of the standoff? It's hard to say. According to the Washington Post, the strike could further highlight the divide between the President and the teachers' union, or it may be viewed as something far less national: a local battle-of-the-wills between two hard-charging personalities, Mayor Emanuel and Chicago Teachers Union leader Karen Lewis.

If you needed a reminder that the U.S. is still at war, here's one: on the eve of the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an airstrike killed al-Qaida in Yemen's number two leader, Saeed al-Shihri. It's unclear if the the U.S. or Yemen initiated the attack.

Regardless of who was behind it, al-Qaida is a shell of the organization it was a decade ago. Much of this is due to President Obama's embrace of unmanned drones that fly over Pakistan and Yemen and fire deadly missiles at terrorist masterminds. According to the New America Foundation, between 2004 and 2007 there were just 10 drone strikes in Pakistan. In 2010, there were 122.

President Obama's joystick-operated offensive has helped strengthen the Democratic party's reputation on national security. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll released today, President Obama scored 11 points higher than Governor Romney on the question of which candidate is better on handling terrorism. This is a change from just four years ago, when polls showed voters viewed Republicans as stronger on issues of national security.

But the question remains as to whether success is coming at the expense of our values and future security. Just this past week, a federal judge overturned an Obama Administration rule that denied legal counsel to Guantanamo Bay inmates not looking to overturn their detention.

And on the issue of drone strikes, the ACLU's Hina Shamsi warned that they are "deeply unpopular in nations that we seek to make allies with; they are leading to animosity against the United States; and there have been killings of innocent bystanders that really call into question whether or not America has been applying the law it helped write in the years after World War II.”

During the first night of their convention, Democrats launched a vigorous defense of President Obama's health care law, rolling out personal stories from people who have benefited from the Affordable Care Act.

Amid those testimonials was a video tribute to the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Using footage from Kennedy's 1994 Senate race against Governor Romney, it offered not only a stark contrast between Romney and President Obama but Democrats and Republicans.

Kennedy was a huge champion of health reform, and his words provide a defense of the law that Romney and the Republicans want to repeal. Ironically, health care was one issue on which Romney and Kennedy didn't disagree. While governor of Massachusetts, Romney worked with Kennedy to enact the state's landmark law, which eventually became the basis for the Affordable Care Act.

But as Romney runs on the Republican line, that moment of collaboration is all but forgotten. Instead, Romney is running from the issues that Democrats--through the vision of Kennedy--are betting will help them win in November.

If you heard Governor Romney's acceptance speech last week, you may have noticed that he failed to once mention the war in Afghanistan. In fact, according to the Associated Press, this is the first time in sixty years that a Republican nominee didn't talk about war during his party's acceptance speech.

This isn't just any war. This is a war that has been going since shortly after the September 11th attacks. It is a war that has killed more than 2,000 American soldiers. And it is a war where 88,000 American troops are still fighting. But we did not hear a peep out of Gov. Romney.

Even columnist Bill Kristol thought Romney made a mistake.

Perhaps, Romney's silence is acknowledgement that his policies are in line with those of President Obama. Whatever the reason, the President will likely not forget to mention Afghanistan, Iraq or his biggest achievement: hunting down and killing Osama bin Laden.

For the first time in recent memory, it's the Democrats who are driving the conversation on national defense, not the Republicans.

When Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are flying across the country on their new campaign plane, it's likely Ryan isn't tapping his feet to the music blaring over the speakers.

That's because the 42-year-old Ryan says the 65-year-old Romney's music taste is better suited for an elevator ride. The revelation got one of the biggest laughs of Ryan's acceptance speech last night.

So, what's on Ryan's iPod? He says it starts with AC/DC and ends with Zeppelin.

However, on the show today, John Heilemann joked that Ryan may not have been telling the whole truth. Zeppelin, as in Led Zeppelin, would likely file under "L" on an iPod.

If you're keeping tabs, the Obama Campaign playlist starts with AgesandAges and ends with the Zac Brown Band.

Alex's iPod, by the way, starts with Atlas Sound and ends with The Zombies.

What are you listening to?

The last time we heard Governor Romney speak so explicitly about his Mormon faith was in 2007, when he famously gave a speech offering a strong defense of religious freedom. Whether for political purposes or personal ones, Romney pretty much stopped talking about his religion soon after that.

But now the Governor appears to be opening up a little bit and shedding some light on his deep religious convictions, which help shape his life from a young age. The Washington Post has a fascinating look at Romney's time as leader in his Boston church.

Next week, at the Republican National Convention, a member of the Mormon Church will deliver the invocation and Governor Romney's role as a Mormon bishop will be woven into the biographical narrative.

Over this past weekend, BuzzFeed reporter McKay Coppins accompanied Romney and his family to church. What Coppins found was hardly remarkable; it was humanizing. Coppins describes Romney as just any other churchgoer--singing hymns, taking part in religious sacraments, and keeping his grandchildren from getting bored. Coppins writes:

At one point, Romney took a restless, blonde-haired grandson onto his lap and flipped through a picture book to quiet him. At another, a congregant with a thick New England accent stood and asked for volunteers to join the women's choir that was about to sing. Egged on by an encouraging nod from her husband, Mrs. Romney rose (along with the majority of the women in the chapel) and made her way to the stand. The hymn they sang, "Because I Have Been Given Much," is a Mormon standard, whose pay-it-forward moral teaches that every individual should use the blessings they've received to bless the lives of others.

Romney also sat down for an interview with the magazine of Washington's National Cathedral. In it, Romney said, "Every religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These should not be bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree."

This isn't much, and Romney still hasn't publicly used the word "Mormon" in any recent speeches. But as he creates the narrative for the convention and the rest of the campaign, it will be hard for him to completely ignore his faith.

Republicans need a net gain of just four seats to take control of the Senate. But already, Rep. Todd Akin's comments are making it less likely that Republicans will be able to count on Missouri to carry them to the majority in the Upper House.

This afternoon, the Cook Political Report removed the Missouri Senate race from the "tossup" column and placed it in the "likely Democrat" row.

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza made his NOW debut today to talk about the impact Akin could have on races aside from his own.

Since that took up much of the time, we were unable to ask him about a recent column on "The Fix" website, outlining the G.O.P's other potential down ballot concern: Rep. Paul Ryan. According to Cillizza's team, Ryan and his Medicare could sway five races (listed in the above graphic) and potentially put the Republican Party's dream of controlling both houses of the legislature at serious risk.

Yes, that's where the Inter-Parliamentary Union places the United States in its most recent report on female participation in national parliaments. It's number 79, to be exact. That ranking puts the U.S. behind Afghanistan (#35) and Iraq (#41), two countries that don't exactly have the best track records when it comes to women's rights.

According to the report, women make up only 17% of the Senate and 16.9% of the House. In Afghanistan, women make up just about 28% of both the Upper and Lower Chambers of the Parliament.

This year, the U.S. has a good shot at improving those numbers. According to the 2012 Project at Rutgers, 298 women are running for the House of Representatives, a record number. The previous record was set two years ago, when 262 women ran. That year, however, the number of women serving in Congress dropped for the first time in thirty years.

Some in the G.O.P. are reportedly growing nervous over Governor Romney's pick of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate. They think it was a mistake that could cost some congressional members in vulnerable districts their jobs.

What's interesting is that nearly every Republican member of the House voted for the Ryan Budget--the very one that includes those controversial cuts to Medicare.

What's more, the House G.O.P has a record of not getting much done. According to USA Today, the 112th Congress is on track to becoming the least productive one since 1947. So far this year, only 61 of the 3,914 bills that have been introduced have become law. That's less than two percent.

Many of the bills the House has passed are not only controversial, they haven't even left the Capitol. The list includes the repeal of the Affordable Care Act; the "National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act," a bill that would force states that allow concealed weapons to recognize permits from other states; the "Protect Life Act;" and, of course, a bill that would block funding to NPR.

Maybe the Ryan Medicare plan isn't their biggest worry.