romney, this is bain thing ain't going away anytime soon. it's monday may 21st, and this is "now." joining me today, msnbc contributor, jonathan capehart of the "washington post." retired army captain and author wes moore, msnbc political analyst joan wal ksh of salon.com and the indutiable, from the new yorker. new york mayor cory booker found himself in hot water after making this comment about the president's campaign on "meet the press" yesterday. >> i have to say from a very personal level, i'm not about the to sit here and indict private equity. this kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. >> hours later, booker posted this video on youtube walking back that criticism. >> mitt romney has made his business record a centerpiece of

his campaign. i encourage it for the obama campaign to examine that record and to discuss it. >> if the president's advisers were pressuring booker to mitigate his criticism, here's why. this morning obama's campaign released a new five-minute web videotape highlighting an indiana paper company shuttered after it was bought by bain. >> to me romney takes from the poor and the middle class and gives to the rich. just the opposite of robin hood. >> jonathan capehart, on the heels of all of this, there is a new rnc web ad saying it's a petition launched by the rnc called stand with cory. is there -- is there something wrong with saying something the white house might disagree with? >> well, no. in a democracy and especially ours you should be able to disagree with the president, disagree with the administration, disagree with the reelection effort. but on the other hand, when you're a surrogate for that administration, for that

re-election effort, you should be a little more careful in how you talk about certain things. i mean, cory booker is a man of principle. he believes firmly in everything that he says. so i don't fault him for feeling the way he felt. but he shouldn't be surprised by the amount of pushback and reaction he's gotten from both sides. >> it would seem like cory himself pivoted rather quickly. that video out hours after he made his appearance on "meet the press." beau biden is joining us now from north carolina where he will be campaigning later today on behalf of the obama/biden ticket. it is always a pleasure to see you on our air. >> thanks for having me on. >> so mr. biden, sharing the last name biden with a vice president named biden, you're familiar with the events of recent weeks, which is to say folks going off message. how do you think the administration has handled this? how would you grade the events of the last 24 hours in terms of managing the message?

>> i let you and the great roundtable have you there assembled, great grade people. i'm here to talk about in north carolina, i was in virginia to the talk about a great grassroots organization called veterans for obama. we're laying this out. it's grace roots organization with 10,000 people strong. and talking about why veterans i being one among many think. obama should be re-elected to a second term. that's why i'm here in north carolina. >> we will be going back to the bain question in a second. but the last poll that we had shows between president obama and mitt romney on veterans, obama's winning 44% of the vet vote. romney is winning 37%. that's a change from 2008 when president obama lost the veterans vote to john mccain by 10%. what do you think accounts for that change? we still are fighting two wars and the fact that we're still in afghanistan is definitely a subject of much debate and

discussion. >> i think number one, it's a -- it represents the fact that this president has been a strong and decisive commander in chief. you know, he's done the three things you need to do. one, he knows when, where and how to deploy our forces. he's done just that. done it exactly the way he said he was going to do it as a candidate and now as commander in chief. he authorized the missioning that eliminated osama bin laden from the face of the earth and gone about decapitating al qaeda. number two, as commander in chief he knows when, how and where to redeploy our forces. he ran as i an candidate who was going to responsibly end the war in iraq, and done that. he's on a path to handing over authority in afghanistan to the government there. thirdly and this is very important, he understands his mission as commander in chief doesn't end there, it's taking care of veterans. from the moment is he became president of the united states, he's increased veteran spending

more than nel president hases in 30 years on behalf of veterans. that's why you see a 10%ers budget increase in the va and that's contrasted against what mitt romney did in his four years as governor for veterans. >> attorney general biden, you have former service member to my right nodding in agreement with everything you're saying. wes moore, i want to bring you in here. in terms of veterans' attitudes towards this war and their conception how the president handled it. a lot of us have the mistaken impression if you're in the army you're pro-war. a lot of veterans believe in very specific and very thought through use of force and that the fact that president obama has had a light footprint which we'll talk about later has been very good for this country and sort of not using the military in a broad sense but using it in discreet measures has won him support among those who have served. >> understanding these aren't

just numbers we're talking about when we're deploying brigades. these are lives. it is also about the people serving and their families. not only do i completely agree whale beau biden was saying but in addition to that, you look at the passage of the new gi bill, one of the most aggressive and assertive plans in making sure veterans are taken care of educationally when he they come home and the joint forces worked with the first lady and mrs. biden, has not gone unrecognized by a lot of veterans. specifically on this area, the president has a great foot to stand on. we'll be using that during the campaign as well. >> the president seems to have a few things to stand on this election cycle. i have to bring it back to the bain question because there is that new ad out and what is fair game. joan, we didn't get you guys in when we first started talking about that. david axelrod said this weekend it's not fair to talk about mitt romney's mormonism but talking about his record at bain is fair

game. what do you make of that? >> it's absolutely fair game. he has set himself up as a job creator. he has used various figures, 10,000, 100,000 several thousand jobs created. he's brought it in and we get to talk about it. that's what was so painful about what cory booker did. i'm going to disagree with jonathan, that never happens, i do fault cory booker for what he did. i think what he did was all about cory booker, making himself the new wall street democrat. i'm going to be nice to these guys. he did two things wrong. he will -- the president has never bashed private equity. he's talking about the bain experience. it's not as though democrats demonize all private equity. that was wrong. he did something that people haven't pointed to very much. he managed to equate reverend wright ad which was racist and horrible and also from a super pac potentially with the obama ads which are for the most part from the obama campaign, which

zillions brave, which is absolutely what we're supposed to be doing. these are not the same things. it's not an outside group throwing dirt at mitt romney. it's the campaign saying, we think you should look at this. we think this matters. >> mitt romney came back saying this is character assassination. >> we've reached some amount of kind of metaumbrage war when we're nauseated by cory booker being nauseated by a campaign ad. >> and the rnc has i'll stand with cory petitions. >> and cory booker as far as i can tell was responding partly to that 30-second ad about a worldwide grinding systems that is accuses bain of coming in and they said if we lose money, bain makes money. if we make money, bain makes money. it made it sound like the producers. this company going around and buying companies and shutting them down and somehow magically making a bunch of money. it's true if you watch that an, you don't necessarily get an accurate viewpoint of what the private equity does. i think that debate is a bigger debate than you can probably have in a 30-second campaign ad.

>> if i can just ad, i completely agree. the idea of paralleling putting reverend wright and the work of bain is inaccurate. but also in fairness, i think there's a certain context we need to think about mayor booker's remarks. one thing i think, i think we can all agree, the president he probably does not have a more effective surrogate than cory booker. he has done a great keel to support the president up to this point and will continue to do so. the important thing is this. what he said about bain in terms of its effect in newark is factually correct. it gains revenues for the city. it invests people's pension plans. however, it is not a job creator. that is not in its business model. that's where mitt romney if he wants to talk about he's a job creator, that's not accurate and that is worth examination. >> mr. attorney general, are you in north carolina. i, we have to wrap it up. i want to ask you one last

question, is president obama and is vice president biden, is that ticket going to hold on to north carolina come november this year? >> 100%. and they've been an incredible team, but the president has along with the assistance from my father, the vice president. yes, yes. but can i just say one thing, alex? you know, the issue is not private equity. it's mitt romney. joan has it right. he doesn't have a record to run on as a job creator. he was 47 among 50 states notice job creation in his four years as governor of the commonwealth of massachusetts. and private equity, i have no problem with private equity. it's a very important part of our economy. but it's a question about you can't run as a job creator if you're in private equity. i've never met any of my friends in private equity who say that's what their business is about. that's what's mitt romney tried to tell the american people as a qualification why he should be

president of the united states. it doesn't add up. that's the point that needs to be made. >> and in fact, his record as a an job creator as governor of massachusetts is not something that we would call i think sterling. we haven't heard that much about it. perhaps we will hear more about it. >> you won't hear him talk about it because there's no record to run on. can i say one thing alex? he wants to return to a policy of george w. bush. this president has created 4.2 million jobs, more than george w. bush did in eight years as president. his advisers are telling us that he wants to return torn the george w. bush economic policy in that's a debate i want to have every day. >> thanks again to attorney general beau biden. holding it down for us in north carolina. we hope you see you again sometime soon, sir. coming up, a war, a nuclear threat and a global credit crisis, some of the key issues president obama is discussing with nato leaders in chicago today. we will review the good, the bad and the ugly from the talks next on "now."

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milestone. we'll set a goal for afghan forces to take the lead for combat operations across the country in 2013. next year. >> consensus on withdrawal from afghanistan is one of several foreign policy deals the president secured in the past three days. european leaders supports his advice to match debt cutting efforts with pro growth stimulus measures and g-8 leaders imposed tough new sanctions on iran this july. wes, there seems to be a bit of good alongside the sort of bad and ugly coming out of the the nato and g-8 summit. i want to focus on afghanistan, the words terminate and end being part of that sound we just played. is this a good thing for the president right now in terms of the election cycle. >> it's a very good thing because i think the president will walk into re-election in november knowing that will operations in iraq having now completed. and that we are on a definite

slide slope with full international cooperation as to what is afghanistan will look like the end of 2014. the question we've still got to answer regardless of what happens in november, there are still going to be costs associated with afghanistan, not just international costs in terms of the training of afghan forces and what happens in the region but costs of the veterans coming home, costs of taking care of a lot of the men and within who who will need support. but politically, this is a very good thing for the president because the president has essentially said these are things that were high on my checklist and things that i have accomplished as commander in chief. >> two things. in terms of the payment question, it's $4.1 billion a year for forces in afghanistan. european leaders are balking about picking up that paycheck given what's going on fiscally in europe. if we're talking about physically what's going on in europe, the euro zone, what is happening right now, a thick veil of mystery how it's going to turn out. at the end of the day, it would seem to give president obama

some wind in his sails that the europeans with the the assistance of francois hollande maybe we need to try combination measures. >> i think this helps the president a lot, rhetorically. more people are joining into the notion you cannot cut your way out of this kind of pain that we've cust as much as we can cut and that government spending helps the recovery. we really can't afford things getting much worse in europe. it hurts our economy, too. this does not necessarily change anything that's going to happen in europe but gives a real vote of confidence to the message that he's been preaching at home that austerity and cutting is not the answer. >> and doesn't it sort of undermine the romney doctrine. >> yes. >> if there is a romney doctrine? what can mitt romney really say? he wrote an op-ed in the chicago tribune this weekend that basically went back to a lot of this kind of cold war rhetoric. he's vilifying the russians.

where can he go on foreign policy. >> i heard this was this mitt romney op-ed in the tribune supply feel like a sucker whenever i read a mitt romney article. >> here we're going to finally have a debate in this campaign and this op-ed mentions afghanistan only in passing, mainly how we need to increase funding as a way to encourage europe to increase their military funding and if a sense it's not that different on the other side which is to say in the 2008 campaign, obama was all about we're going to take the fight to the taliban and go aggressively in afghanistan because that's the good war and iraq is the bad war. then you read the story about the david sanger in the "new york times" and see his policy has been pretty different from what he said in the campaign. so maybe we shouldn't be paying that much attention to what the candidatesen say about foreign policy anyway in the campaign because what they do in office seems to not be reflective of that. >> i will read a quote. out of the experience emerged mr. obama's light footprint

strategy which i name checked in the last bloc, in which the u.s. strikes from a distance but does not engage in years long occupations. that shapes the president's thinking how to deal with the challenges that followed, libya, serbia and nuclear iran. you're goi it's difficult for the republicans right now. >> it's not fully accurate over what happens over the past two years. when people look at the fact there was this is true surge and you know, regardless of a lot of opinions about it, fact is, what the president enacted and pruusd forward was effective on the principles he put the troops in afghanistan for. if we look at there was a significant rollback of taliban forces and there are large swathes of afghanistan that are controlled by afghan national army and afghan national police and you look at the fact that

there is, there, was a larger force protection in place that was put in place, all those things that the president wanted to push with the surge have been accurate and in place. now that the light footprint, how we're thinking about things going forward is only going to work because of the actions the president put in place for the past two years. >> it is good to hear someone with a bullish attitude with what's happened and perhaps what's going to happen. jonathan, when i hear the words end, terminate in afghanistan, president karzai says the gratitude of the afghan people, he acknowledged the gratitude of the afghan people for the support that your taxpayers money has provided us over the past decade. thanks for picking up the bill. >> this goes to -- the relationship between the united states and hamid karzai, no matter which president, president bush or president obama has been, how shall we

say, fraught. and you know in the "new york times" story, i believe it was yesterday, the front page story about the afghanistan strategy and how we got to the this point, there are a couple of things in there, two key things that the president barack obama when he was briefed on all this two things that shocked him. one was how unstable and unpredictable hamid karzai is, was and is. and the second piece being how much this war was actually costing. he looked at it and said this is going to be a trillion dollars over ten years. >> sticker shock. >> when i see light footprint, it works in terms of a strategy and a new way of doing things for the military. but light footprint to me also says cheaper, not in a negative way, not in a way that would do harm to the troops and detriment to the national security but the president has been looking at how top conduct this war in a way that doesn't bust the treasury. >> it's a fiscal imperative at this point as we talk about our nation's finances. we didn't even talk about the

dpts relationship between president zi darry and president obama of the united states. anyway, after the break, protesters in chicago take the nato summit by storm. we will take a look at the messages behind is the demonstrations next. my cut hurt! mine hurt more! mine stopped hurting faster... [ female announcer ] neosporin® plus pain relief starts relieving pain faster and kills more types of infectious bacteria. neosporin® plus pain relief. for a two dollar coupon, visit neosporin.com.

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how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers. inside the nato summit mapping out an exit strategy for the war in afghan, demonstrations are taking place outside. protesters planned a day long rally at boeing's headquarters. yesterday, 45 people were arrested following an anti-war demonstration. we were talking during break whether this could be the resurgence of occupy in a sort of broad national sense, and everybody had different thoughts. joan, i want to get yours first. we know that the protest today is going to be centered around

boeing. the boeing has received over $12 billion from the department of defense to produce war machines used to murder innocent civilians all over the world. other grievances they've discussed include climate change, income inequality, gay rights, women's rights and foreclosures. >> there's not a lot to the disagree with in that list. obviously i share a lot of those values. the reasonable i don't know that this is going to represent a big new surge for occupy is that i feel as though the original goal, the original issue was income inequality. it came at a time that people were very upset and perceiving what had happened in terms of student debt, household debt, foreclosures and the message we are the 99% was incredibly unifying the fluee plur bus u numb and now people could get behind it. now as they've gotten somewhat more radical, i have to say the violence that broke out yesterday some of it was definitely provoked and egged on by the police.

some of it wasn't. the violence in itself detracted in their message that lots of people watching tv only saw these clashes and didn't hear the critique and solutions. that's going to be problematicing. >> part of the reason it's device i be, this is a radical message and the reason is by definition, they're protesting the democrats and the republicans. this is less a continuation of occupy and more a continuation of movements that go back to the anti-war marches, anti-globalizations demonstrations. >> wto. >> insofar as our light footprint doesn't look light if you're a yemeni or in many other countries this is a debate that isn't happening in the presidential campaign where the protesters might disagree. it is less mainstream. >> wes, one of the things we talked about we've been talking about the optics of the protests

and the messages. i thought the fact that the police were bringing out sound cannons, they're these reminders of the 1960 sz when you hear about that stuff. another reminder of the 1960s and '70s was veterans who were throwing their medals onto the ground and two of them were quoted as saying these are supposed to be for acts of her rowism. i don't feel like a hero. there's no honor in these wars. there's just shame which is a powerful message in this day and age. >> it's a powerful message. i'm incredibly proud of my service. and proud of the men and women that i served with, but i also know that there is eight larger national frustration about these conflicts. so it is good to see that we are on a very real glide path at this point to coming up with a real sense of conclusion to what these conflicts will be and what the legacy are going to be. >> the first time i'd seen veterans aligned with sort of the culture of civil disobedience that sprung up

around occupy. perhaps it's because of the nato and the g-8. this is the first time you see a union of those two sort of schools that they've been involved in and in collusion in many cases. it really goes back to honestly the larger legacy of veterans inside this country. some of the leaders of the civil rights movements were veterans fighting in world war ii who said we're treated better overseas fighting than back in our own country. so the legacy of activism not just fighting overseas but when they come back home is something involved in the u.s. military lineage in our history. >> it's hard for me not to imagine how big these crowds would be if mccain had been elected in 2008 and had followed the exact same policies it it would be huge. so this is when there's a democrat notice office, a lot of democrats don't feel like coming out and protesting even though these might be the samal issues they prosted under bush. >> the administration's counter-terrorism policy in a lot of ways, it's the same

policy as the bush administration. even things like the killing of al awlaki, the killing after american citizen and the precedent that sets and the fact that the left has been largely silent on that. >> here's the thing. the veterans who fought and they came back, some of them ran for office. congressman charlie rangel fought in the korean war, came back, ran for office and now he's in congress. where are the people in the occupy movement who are going to take their protests from the streets to the halls of congress as an elected member of the u.s. house of representatives or the senate? if we're going to get from just a list of grievances and a list of disparate causes that people care about to the point where they become actually change in law, they're going to have to field some candidates. right now, unless i'm missing something, i don't know of an occupy candidate anywhere in these united states. >> and certainly you don't see

the democratic elected officials scared confident occupy movement the way some republican officials rshs scared of the tea party. >> the way many republican officials are scared of the tea party. as members of congress ramp up for a new budget battle, the finger pointing has begun. we'll talk with the president of americans for tax reform, grover norquist when he joins us next live on "now." also, get a free flight. you know that comes with a private island? really? no. it comes with a hat. see, airline credit cards promise flights for 25,000 miles, but... [ man ] there's never any seats for 25,000 miles. frustrating, isn't it? but that won't happen with the capital one venture card. you can book any airline, anytime. hey, i just said that. after all, isn't traveling hard enough? ow! [ male announcer ] to get the flights you want, sign up for a venture card at capitalone.com. what's in your wallet? uh, it's ok. i've played a pilot before.

house minority leader nancy pelosi and house speaker john boehner are setting the is taken for another battle over the debt limit. and once again, the fundamental disagreement is over raisingtachs. the fight comes as a new report may give americans another reason to lose faith in congress. according to the sun light delegation, congressional members now speak at a tenth grade level a full grade lower than they did in 2005. joining us from washington sgs

grover norquist author of "debacle" and what we can do now to regain our future. it's great to see you. >> good to be with you. >> let me ask you first. it's nato and g-8 season. do you feel like what has happened in europe vis-a-vis we're seeing the beginning of rejection of austerity plan has been a thumbs plan for the republican plan and your plan to make this all about cutting spending and not doing any revenue raisers. >> the idea of spending more money and stimulus spending what greece has been doing for a decade and got europe in the problems it's in, the idea of spending more is endorsed by the french socialist and this is going to help obama carry north carolina and virginia. i'm not sure that we want to follow the european path which is to spend more. when people talk about austerity, they're raising taxes over there. that's true. that's not a very good idea. it kills growth. >> but grover, there has been an

austerity plan in place in the eurozone greece's unemployment rate is 21.7%. 136,000 businesses are expected to close in greece this is year alone. >> yes. if you have regulatory regime as greece does, if you spend like crazy and put every third person on the government payroll as greece does, if you pay the government workers more than everybody else, it doesn't work very well. greece and europe are basically california and illinois in five years if we keep going on obama's path. that's what we want to avoid. that's what this election is about. are we going to end up like that or go back to what the united states has traditionally been. >> okay. i won't tell anybody from california that they are the new greece. moving on beyond that. >> they're on their way. >> grover, late talk about the rhetoric around this were debt limit because on a certain level, it seems like compromise has gone the way of the dinosaur. a quote you gave to the hill over the weekend talking about

chuck schumer's proposal to levy a 30% capital gains tax on people who renounce their citizenship after edwauardo saverin rin threatened to leave the country presumably to avoid taxes. you said i think schumer can probably find the legislation to do this. it existed in germany in the 30s. at the probably just plagiarized and translated it from the original german. now, in a season where political rhetoric is as sharp as it's been perhaps historically, do you think having these lowed metaphors is an effective tool in getting both sides of the aisle to compromise to move the country forward? >> what schumer is talking about doing is having an exit tax for people who try and leave the country. that was done in germany, it was done in east germany under is the soviet occupation when people wanted to leave, they were told you have to pay for your wonderful education, it was an exit tax.

it's a way that the east germans raised money. row deeshia and south africa didn't want their wealth producers to leave their countries so they had onerous exit taxes. this is not a new idea. >> so you're saying effectively you're not really trying to recall the specter of nazi germany policies in making a statement like that? >> no, we could go with the row deeshians, that's a pretty good example. >> i want to follow this line of thought which is to say the depart it your of the moderates, the club for growth which endorses many of the same policy proposals you put forward has been active this season. a lot of people credit club for growth with giving richard murdoch a victory over richard lugar. a lot of moderates saying it's becoming more difficult to stomach the climate there. -they say your tax proposals

pose the republican's party shift to the right institute matt and ornstein talked about how come we don't have the bipartisanship anymore. if you understand what they're saying, they define bipartisanship as an ever growing federal government. and the bipartisan part is the republicans under nixon agree it should be bigger and ted kennedy want dd to be a lot bigger. there would be a bipartisan agreement to make it sort of a lot bigger every year. the modern republican party post reagan, post tea party movement is committed to reducing the total size of government as a percentage of the economy. the paul ryan budget reforms government so that it becomes less expensive. the democrats want a bigger government and more power in washington. the republicans want a smaller government and more power in the hands of individuals. they're trying to go in different directions. and therefore, whether he you talk about compromise, if somebody wants to go east and somebody wants to go west,

what's the compromise? the mistake that or ren steen andman make is that they take the constant growing of government which was i think a mistake for the economy, and theynounce that's bipartisanship. that's nonsense. we have plenty of bipartisanship at the state level. there you see real reforms on labor law, for government workers on tort reform, education reforms, vouchers and scholarships. there's a great deal of bipartisan movement in the right direction at the state level. >> grover norquist, unfortunately we have to leave it there, sir. it is a season of tax fisticuffs. i'm sure we will be asking you to come back sometime very soon. >> that would be fun. >> we are just getting breaking news in now. you're looking live at the inside of the courtroom where former rutgers student dharun ravi has been given a probationary sentence 30 days in prison. he was convicted of bias, intimidation and using a webcam to spy on his roommate tyler

clemen clementi's encounter with another man. jonathan, you know, we talk about bullying and the way it sort of changed american public life and certainly young life in america. is this vindication for folks who have been bullied and felt -- who have been you know unfairly targeted in society? >> well, it's vindication in that he's getting 30 days. he's being held accountable in some way. now the -- just hearing this news right now and not knowing all the details and whether 30 days is adequate, if 30 days is the right amount of time. tyler clementi took his life at a time when so many other young people, tyler believed i believe was 1 when he jumped off the george washington bridge but he was one of many in that will month, if i remember correctly, who killed themselves, young -- someone as young as 12, and i think tyler was one of the oldest to kill themselves in

this one week where lgbt community but i also think americans as a whole were sort of horrified by what was happening, why were these kids taking their lives, why were they bullied to the point where they felt that the only way they could make it stop was to end their own lives? and so if anything, maybe this will show that someone that if they do step forward and complain and the adults to whom -- and the adult who are getting the complaints take the complaints seriously, that there is some recourse. >> some form of justice. we'll have more on that later. after the break, turning states from red to blue. is new anti-immigrant friendly legislationings in states like arizona opening the door for democrats in november? we'll take a look at that next. [ male announcer ] if you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® liquid gels. nothing starts working faster than zyrtec®

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states it flipped from red to blue in 2008, it has an eye on breaking new groundswell. one of the potential prizes would be arizona which is in part riding on the democratic senate candidate richard carmona. in the new yorker, they write four years ago obama's campaign declined to challenge john mccain for arizona but this year it wants to turn arizona into a tossup state. the candidate should be able to drive a record number of latino voters to the poll. kay, this is a fascinating thesis. the latino is actually a third of the state but only represents 13% of registered voters. you mention a guy who was -- a new latina member of the phenix city council who was buoyed by student organizers who call themselves team awesome. they got a latino turnout to go up by 500%. >> one of the surprising things to me when i was in arizona was there wasn't already a stronger

latino presence. they have the majority in four of the eight council districts and only had one seat till last fall. carmona will be the first latin notes senator from arizona. this is the sense of a movement that was galvanized in the last few years partly by the raids by sheriff joe arpaio and then in 2010 by the passage of sb-1070, a law that inspired a tremendous amount of backlash and outrage and organizing in anger, even though it's never fully been put into effect and hasn't done anything as a law except inspire backlash. >> joan, in 1994, california voters approved prop 187 which denies state services including education and medical care to unauthorized immigrants. it energized voters helping to turn california into one of the most reliably blue states in the country. >> it's a very, very similar story. you also has governor pete

wilson at that time who was thought to have a really bright political career, possibly a presidential future. he decided he was going to double down on the anti-immigrant sentiment and these cuts. its went out in a blaze of shame. and he really woke up the latino community and people got organized. you have the same phenomenon where you have the majorities in certain city council districts but people weren't voting and being turned out. there was also a time karl rove believe there had when they will thought latinos could be reliable republicans. >> bush got 44%. >> that time seems to not be the time we are living in now. >> seems to have passed because of the same draconian anti-immigrant legislation. >> interesting. we'll talk exoneration next on "now." [ female announcer ] the next generation of investing technology

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welcome back. time for what "now." dozens of roman catholic dioceses and institutions including the university of notre dame are suing the obama administration over its contraception mandate. joan, this thing is not going away soon. cardinal dolan is involved in this. i think 40 different catholic institutions involved in this lawsuit. >> but major catholic institutions are perfectly happy with the compromise that the administration reaped earlier this year, alex. they are fighting a losing battle. and they've got the idea of religious freedom backwards frankly. they are imposing on the rest of the country's religious freedom with this opposition to this plan date. people want this, catholic people want this as we learned, 98% of catholic women at some

point in their lives use contraception. this is so outrageous and such an outreach by cardinal dolan. disappointing. >> how does this play for the republican party? i think it just makes independent women, working women sort of think, this is crazy. >> right. because remember, mitt romney and the republicans want to run on the economy. every day they're not talking about the economy is a day that they lose. so if you know, the archbishops want to sue the obama administration and give the obama administration one more day or five more days or five more months to talk about what they're trying to do to not only safeguard contraception but also women's health, great for them. >> nearly 900 defendants are wrongly convicts -- have been wrongly convicted of serious crimes in the u.s. and spent a combined total of more than 10,000 years in prison according to a database set up by two law schools. wes, it's shocking. something like half of them reply african-american, 90% are men.

the convictions are a serious issue in the u.s. and yet, this is the first time we've had a database set up to collect the information about them. >> we're getting to the first dynamic where we can include dna and advanced ways of checks with certainty whether or not a person is guilty or not. it shows a larger legacy and a larger legacy challenge we've had within is the criminal justice and juvenile justice system within this country where these type of numbers while they are shocking, i don't think anyone is really surprised by them. and that's really the larger problem that we have. >> yet, the conversation around prison reform and justice reform is not really happening in any meaningful way at the national level. hopefully we'll get the conversation going. >> this isn't just a societal and ethical issue, but a financial issue. >> indeed it is. thanks to jonathan west, kelefa sanneh and joan. i'll see you back tomorrow when

i'm joined pa trish i can't believe murphy it, eric bates and joan walsh is back for more. double down. until then, you can find us at facebook.com/nowwithalex. and degreeal mitchell is live from the windy city. good afternoon, andrea. >> good afternoon. thanks so much from the nato summit here. we're live in chicago with special coverage of the nato summit. joining us today, chuck todd, john yang, former secretary of state madeleine albright. obama's senior campaign adviser david axelrod and romney senior campaign adviser eric fern strom. it is windy in chicago. a. . instead i got heartburn. [ horse neighs ] hold up partner. prilosec isn't for fast relief. try alka-seltzer. it kills heartburn fast. yeehaw!

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