two dudes on msnbc talking about fried chicken. so horrible. >> i'm not running from that. i don't like watermelon, but i love some fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. >> i won't eat it in front of white people. got a feeling saying they're looking at me, saying they love it. . the "rachel maddow show" starts now. rachel, do you love good fried chicken as well? >> what i was going to tell you is you have to remind me at some point to tell you the story of the first time i took my girlfriend susan to a popeye's and she thought it was called pope yes. >> that's because the pope digs the stuff too. and like beyonce, he wants to put a ring on it. >> well done. thank you. good to see you guys. >> we're just that catholic. it overrides everything else. president obama spent the full day today campaigning in the great state of ohio. the great swing state of ohio, not incidentally. while he was there today, mr.

obama unveiled what looks to be a new phase. a new really pointed attack on his opponent this november, mitt romney. watch. >> the centerpiece of my opponent's entire economic plan is not only to extend the bush tax cuts, but then to add a new $5 trillion tax cut on top of it. the bulk of this would go to the wealthiest americans. what this means is the average, middle-class family with children would be hit with a tax increase of more than $2,000. let me make sure people understand this. they're asking you to pay an extra $2,000, not to pay down the deficit, not to invest in our kids' education.

mr. romney's asking you the pay more so that people like him get a tax cut. >> he's asking you to pay an extra $2,000 so people like him can get a tax cut. he's doing it for himself. this is a pointed new development in the campaign. and it hits on two important things. everybody keeps saying, you know, the republicans want to run on the economy and the democrats want to run on something else. i think the democrats want to run on the economy too. the two things they're hitting on is this, one is the economic plan that mr. romney is proposing. brand new analysis out that does show consistent analysis all along the shows what mr. romney is offering, which is what congressional republicans are offering as well, is, in effect,

a package of huge economic benefits for the wealthiest americans, one that would make things harder economically for the vast majority of people, for the middle class. that sort of tax plan, that sort of an anti-populist economic plan that is bad for most people but good for the rich people, that could be a political liability even in the best of times, but in bad economic times when the only people doing well are the already wealthy, being able to describe a candidate's tax plan like that is essentially a political shiv you can use against them. the twist to that knife is the personal part of it. this is to new development in the campaign. beyond the question of whether mr. romney's proposals will help wealthy people like him essentially as a class, there is also now the specific personal question of how much his economic plan would help him, him, mitt romney as an individual, someone who lives, we all know now, in a sort of different tax universe than most of the rest of us. >> we know that there was one year when you paid about a 13.9% tax rate. can we clear this up by asking you a simple yes-or-no question?

was there ever any year when you paid lower than the 13.9%? >> well, i haven't calculated that. i'm happy to go back and look. >> happy to go back and look. that was this past sunday on abc. there has still been no word from mr. romney on whether he went back and looked. >> abc news reached out to the campaign today after romney's answer. a spokesperson would only reiterate, mitt romney has paid his taxes in full compliance with u.s. law, and he has paid 100% of what he has owed. >> so still no answer. that was monday on abc. two days later on wednesday, mr. romney still apparently has not given them the information that he said he was going to give them. remember, when he said he was happy to go back and look, the question he was asked was whether he ever paid less than the 13.9% tax rate we know he paid in the one year for which he has released tax returns. here's the weird thing though. this "i'll go back and look" and then not actually going back and looking, this exact same thing

happened to mitt romney a decade ago, ten years ago. asked by "the boston globe" when he was running for governor of massachusetts, why he listed himself as a utah resident and not a massachusetts resident on his taxes, mr. romney told the globe ten years ago just like he told abc this week that he would look into it, he would find out just what was in his taxes and he would get back to them on it. quoting from the globe, asked whether he received any advantages in utah by filing as a full-time resident there in 1999 and 2000, mr. romney said he was not sure but would respond to specific questions in writing. if you want to say was there any tax benefit anywhere, you ought to help me understand exactly what that would mean and i would be happy to look at it, mr. romney said. i will get precisely the answer you would like, but you have to tell me exactly what you want, and i'll make sure i get that for you. still quoting from the globe here. but after a reporter submitted written questions to a campaign aide, his spokesman said mr. romney would not be responding, because, quote, he values his

privacy and his wife's privacy. what "the boston globe" was trying to get to there ten years ago was whether or not mitt romney was qualified to be the governor of massachusetts. not in some abstract political sense but literally qualified. whether he met the written qualifications you have to meet in order to be allowed to run for governor of massachusetts. massachusetts has the oldest functioning written constitution in the entire world. and dating back to the colonial era, the law in massachusetts says that you have to be a continuous inhabitant of massachusetts for the seven years immediately prior to you running for governor or you cannot run for governor. in 2002 when mitt romney moved back to massachusetts from utah to run for governor in massachusetts, that residency requirement was a really big problem for him. he maintained publicly until june of that year when he was running that he had always paid taxes as a massachusetts resident. so this residency requirement

was going to be no problem. clearly he meant the residency problem. he'd been paying massachusetts resident taxes. that's what he said all along. but that june, that year that he was running, june 2002, under pressure from the democrats in the state and under scrutiny from the boston press, that story fell apart because it turns out he had not been paying taxes as a massachusetts resident like he said he had. he had not been paying taxes as a massachusetts resident. he had been paying taxes as a utah resident. mr. romney said that wasn't the case, but he got caught. after he got caught, he admitted, yeah, he had been filing as a utah resident, but he was retroactively, now that he was running for governor, he was going back a few years and was going to change that retro actively, but it was a huge mess. i mean mr. romney had told a local newspaper reporter in utah that he had declared utah his primary residence for tax purposes. he had claimed a giant permanent resident of utah tax credit on his big utah house out there.

he saved $54,000 in taxes by doing that. he had signed multiple years of tax returns as a part-time only or nonresident of massachusetts. but all of that, he said, how are you going to explain doing all that? he said it was all other people's mistakes. the reporter he talked to in 2000 who noted that mr. romney had declared his utah home his primary residence, well, mr. romney said that must have been a mistake on the reporter's part. mr. romney told the massachusetts state ballot commission, quote, i have met with that reporter at least 100 times over the last three years, and i do not recall a specific conversation about my residence in utah. that reporter ultimately got a subpoena to appear in massachusetts and testify as to whether or not mr. romney told her that, and the paper resisted that subpoena. in terms of the tax break that mr. romney got on his utah house for being a full-time resident of utah, he blamed a clerk in the tax assessor's office in utah saying he had never asked for that tax break. somebody just accidentally gave it to him and accidentally saved

him $54,000. the county assesser ended up taking the heat for it, although she also said at the same time that such an error had never before occurred during her 12 years in office. what about all those tax returns for those multiple years that mr. romney signed saying he wasn't a massachusetts resident? can't really blame that on this reporter, can't really blame that on the clerk in the tax assessor's office. he signed these tax returns. what's his explanation for that one? his explanation was that he never bothered to read that stuff he signed. listen to this. mr. romney said he had always trusted his accountants and signed and dated the returns. he said he did not notice that a line asking for his domicile was left blank on the massachusetts returns. he said, quote, i do not read those or review them when i sign them nor their attached schedules. as you're probably aware, your tax return is one of those things you submit. you sign and submit under the penalty of perjury. this is something that was pointed out to mr. romney when he testified before the

massachusetts state ballot commission to try to be allowed to run for governor. quote, if i were to hand you an affidavit, mr. romney, and above it i typed in your signature and said "signed under the pains and penalties of perjury and said sign it," you would read it first, wouldn't you? romney, if you were to put it in front of me, yes. so you would sign documents under the pains and penalties of perjury without necessarily reading them, is that your testimony? romney, i have not read the entire massachusetts tax form nor the federal tax form, nor the utah tax form, and all them have me sign under pains of penalty, and i do not read the entire form. this was ten years ago. ultimately the residency ballot failed to keep mr. romney off the ballot in massachusetts. democrats tried it, but it did not work. but they were able to uncover about his tax history in trying to prove he was pt really a

massachusetts resident, showed that what he said was in his tax returns was not actually what was in his tax returns. mr. romney maintained publicly for months he was a massachusetts resident and he could prove it because he filed his taxes as a massachusetts resident all those years. that's what he said was in his taxes. that was not what was in his taxes. and he seems to have known it at the time even as he was making public claims to the contrary. when he finally got caught out in june of that year, he admitted that a few months earlier when he decided to run for governor earlier that spring, he had started the process of retroactively going back and changing those returns. mr. romney had not filed as a resident of massachusetts. he said he did, but he didn't. he misled the public about it the whole time, and he misled reporters who were trying to get to the truth about it. quote, earlier in the week, mr. romney rejected a request by the boston globe for copies of his tax returns with financial information redacted but his residential status visible.

a romney spokesman insisted the gop candidate had filed his returns as a massachusetts resident but told the globe reporter, you're going to have to take my word for it. you're going to have to take my word for it. it's really important what is in the tax returns but i'm not going to show you. trust me what's in them. after the truth starting coming out, mr. romney then said to the globe, just like he's saying to abc now, that he would get them all the information they wanted. sure, sure, i'll get you what you need. but even though he said that to the reporter, face to face, he did not. he just shut them down, just like he's shutting down abc ten years later. >> abc news reached out to the campaign today after romney's answer. a spokesperson would only reiterate mitt romney has paid his taxes in full compliance with u.s. law, and he's paid 100% of what he has owed. >> trust me, you're going to have to take my word for it. just like trust me when i said i have always filed taxes as a massachusetts resident except for the years where you caught me not doing that and they had

to retroactively go back and challenge them. this is becoming a bigger issue, not a smaller issue in the campaign. the new "new york times" poll that came out of all of the swing states got lots of attention because of the overall numbers showing president obama ahead of mr. romney in pennsylvania and ohio and florida, these hotly contested swing states right now. honestly that's fine as far as august polling goes for a november election, which is not very far. but look at this other thing that was in the polls. look at the responses to this question. asked if candidates should release multiple years of their tax returns, the majority of voters in florida, in ohio, and in pennsylvania, all say presidential candidates should release several years of their tax returns. given the history here in massachusetts, maybe especially mitt romney should. joining us now is james roosevelt jr. he is the top lawyer for the democratic massachusetts party when mr. romney's tax returns were part of their challenge about whether or not mr. romney was a massachusetts resident or not. mr. roosevelt, thank you for

your time tonight. thanks for being here. >> glad to be with you, rachel. >> this is not a very complicated story, but sort of a deep story. it's a deep dive into what we know about mr. romney and his history both as a citizen and in terms of his financial life. in terms of the way i explained that history in massachusetts, did i get any of that wrong as far as you know? >> no, i think you got it right. and in trying to present this case to the ballot law commission, we were trying to show exactly what he had said under oath, signing, as you point out, under the pains and penalties of perjury, not by the way, as he characterized it, to the best of his knowledge and belief, but under the pains and penalty of perjury. and we had the tax assessor statements in utah, we had the utah resident tax returns. the massachusetts nonresident tax returns, and then we had his attempt to retroactively rewrite his personal history. >> he was trying to

retroactively essentially refile his taxes so his massachusetts taxes would be filed as if he were a resident of that state. he was making that retroactive attempt while he was publicly maintaining up until the year that he had filed as a massachusetts resident? >> that is true. >> wow. that seems to me to be the heart of the problem. what is happening right now with the demands to see mr. romney's tax returns, both from the democratic opposition, but also from the press is that his answer has been to characterize what's in them, and then say essentially trust me. this is what's in them. there's nothing wrong in them. they show everything to be perfectly legal, trust me on them. as far as you're concerned, and you still have a stake in this matter. you're still a democratic party activist in massachusetts. do you feel like there's an allegory between the trustworthiness that he showed a decade ago and these questions now? >> well, i think it fits with the pattern of trying to rewrite what his beliefs are, what his

positions on issues are, and with trying to retroactively trying to rewrite his personal history. and the interesting thing was that in the ballot law commission hearing, we were trying to show what we believed to be true, that he had changed his residence to utah. he was trying to show that he had maintained continuous ties with massachusetts while he was in utah working on the olympics. and that's why he testified about his continuing business interests in massachusetts, his continuing return to massachusetts for board meetings that grew out of his employment at bain. >> looking through the transcripts today of his testimony before the ballot law commission, which were voluminous and sort of mind bending by the end of the day, one of the things that becomes quite clear is when he says he

spent lots of time in massachusetts, a lot of it is on business-related matters, serving on the board of the staples corporation, which was involved in his time at bane, serving on the board of another corporation called the lifelike corporation, and some other business interests that did not seem to be associated with bain. when there was this more recent controversy about whether or not he should be seen as being involved with bain after he left to go run the olympics, did you see that evidence that he presented a decade ago as being relevant to his case there? >> he was trying to show that he had family and social ties back to massachusetts. and really nobody was disputing that. the fact is that he had been very clearly stating one thing about his life and he started stating something else and that he did these statements that he then tried to change later in a way -- oddly enough it was always in way that saved him taxes, whether it was property taxes where he declared himself to have a principle residence in

utah and in massachusetts, which got him a tax benefit in both places, or income taxes. >> james roosevelt jr., former top lawyer for the massachusetts democratic party, a current legal volunteer for the party in the state, thank you very much for joining us tonight, sir. i really appreciate your time on this. >> nice to be with you. >> thank you. as always, mr. romney, if you would like to talk with me about any of this stuff, me casa es su casa. any time, we would love to have you, seriously. okay. more to come here, including the obama campaign officially making an argument, president obama approving a message that i think may never have been made by a democratic candidate running against a republican candidate in modern times. common wisdom said what they started doing is risky, but congressman barney frank will join us here to assess the risk. stay with us. congressman barney frank is still to come. stay with us. restore strength for up to 90% less breakage in three washes.

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hey, some legit big news in a story that we have been covering in an ongoing way for months now. when the iraq war ended in december, some regular joe civilians in st. louis, missouri, decided to throw a parade for iraq veterans to say welcome home. we missed you. we're glad the war's over. we're glad the war is over. st. louis' parade to mark the end of the iraq war was a huge success. 100,000 people, universal acclaim.

and, frankly, it called to question whether we as a country, do what we did at the end of previous wars, which is to welcome our home with a parade up broadway in new york city. like we did for wars from the spanish-american war, through the world wars, through korea to the first gulf war through the presidency of the first george bush. we did not do a parade in the 1970s to welcome home to troops who fought in vietnam as the vietnam war ended. we righted that wrong and honored vietnam veterans years later in 1985. the predominant sentiment at the time, then, as is now, that it was the right thing to do to honor those vietnam veterans with a parade at broadway. it's a shame it took so long to do it. st. louis in january of this year really called the question, are we going to treat iraq war veterans the way vietnam veterans were initially treated in this country? why wouldn't there be a welcome home and thank you for them in new york which is what we do as a country to mark the end of the iraq war? the pentagon said they were against there being a new york city ticker tape parade to mark the end of the iraq war. i say it was inexplicable because we had on this show a

pentagon spokesman to try to explain the view, and at the end of the show, that remained inexplicable to me. that spokesman, i should say, has retired from the pentagon. but they did not say they object to all parades to mark the end of the iraq war and welcome home iraq veterans. in fact, the pentagon says it likes the idea of doing that across the country for iraq veterans. except they just don't want it in new york. and, in fact, cities across the country have kept doing it. since the st. louis parade, there have been parades to mark the end of the iraq war, say welcome home, thank you to iraq veterans in houston, in tucson, in fayetteville, north carolina, in melbourne, florida, in richmond, virginia, in new hampshire, austin, texas, and then this weekend, there was another in the twin cities. minneapolis and st. paul, minnesota. >> and as an adult i now have the ability to stand up and do something for our community and for our military members to actually stop and say thank you. and why not?

why not do that? >> i think that's important right now. people are finally recognizing that you need to welcome these veterans home. >> the parade in the twin cities this past weekend to mark the end of the iraq war and welcome home iraq war veterans seems to have been a big success. the governor of minnesota issued an official proclamation of claiming this weekend in minnesota to be heroes weekend. and a senator was on hand for the parade. here she is on the left with was of the event organizers. the mayor of minneapolis, r.t. rybak. we should mention that a couple vintage t-6 thunders flew overhead at the parade. we have learned today and this is the big news, that the biggest city yet to do this kind of thing has just made their plans to do it. chicago. the third largest city in the country after new york and l.a., chicago has just issued the permit for that city's parade to mark the end of the iraq war, to say welcome home to the americans who fought the iraq war, to say welcome home and thank you. the chicago parade permit is for december 15th. it's designed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the

end of the iraq war. so mark your calendar. december 15th, 2012. chicago, the biggest one yet. honestly, that ought to be a national event if you ask me. it's on the one-year anniversary of the end of the war. the pentagon won't give their blessing to a parade in new york for some reason. and doing these things longer than a year from the end of the war is starting to seem like making the same mistakes as we made at the end of the vietnam war again. starting to seem a little bit weird, so my personal opinion, but chicago, december 15th, maybe the whole country should go. now look at this. this is interesting and political terms. the obama campaign a few days ago posted online this web ad, this web video about iraq veterans coming home and about the parades. watch. >> as your commander in chief, on behalf of a grateful nation, i'm proud to finally say these two words, and i know your families agree. welcome home.

welcome home. welcome home. >> welcome back. >> the welcome home parade was a parade to celebrate the end of the iraq war and to welcome hope the veterans who had been serving the country since 9/11. president obama kept his e the veterans who had been serving the country since 9/11. president obama kept hime the veterans who had been serving the country since 9/11. president obama kept his from iraq, and this was something that needed to be celebrated. >> being a veteran and being part of a generation of veterans that wasn't shown quite this kind of recognition, it just absolutely touched my heart. i don't know if i have the words to describe it. it was incredible. >> as these wars come to an end, we have an absolute respondent responsibility to take care of our veterans. >> at this time, i would ask all our vietnam -- >> the president's campaign in this campaign video citing specifically welcoming home the

veterans as a reason to vote for the president's re-election, and, of course, also the president ending the war in iraq. campaigning on that. maybe that means the president will be there in chicago in december. maybe it's time to talk to the pentagon about finally getting a parade in new york. but beyond specifically the parades, which i admit i'm hung up on, beyond specifically the issue of the welcome home plans for veterans, there is something even bigger going on in these politics and specifically in what the obama campaign is doing. you can see it even more clearly in another brand-new obama campaign ad that's just out. this one isn't one of these ones that ends up on the web, either. this is a big, made for tv, expensive ad buy that is airing in a bunch of swing states. this one, i actually think, is doing something historic. >> you watched and worried. two wars, tax cuts for millionaires, debt piled up. and now we face a choice. mitt romney's plan, a new $250,000 tax cut for millionaires, increase military

spending, adding trillions to the deficit, or president obama's plan, a balanced approach, $4 trillion in deficit reduction, millionaires pay a little more. >> increase military spending, adding trillions to the deficit. that's on the little short list there of things to feel bad about mitt romney, right? if you want to follow the way this ad makes you want to feel. this ad is taking on not just the legacy of the george w. bush years, but also mitt romney bragging, which he does on the stump regularly, that he will increase defense spending, and hanging that on him about the deficit. in my lifetime, i have never seen a democratic president play political offense on the issue of military spending so aggressively. i have never seen it. that's because the common wisdom for decades is that kind of message is impossible. it cannot work. democrats cannot criticize republicans for wanting to spend too much on the military. it can't work. that's the common wisdom and it has been since reagan.

it's changing now apparently. at least the obama campaign thinks it is. if their are right, that's a historic change for us as a country and our politics. barney frank joins us next.

now, we face a choice. mitt romney's plan, a new $250,000 tax cut for millionaires, increase military spending, adding trillions to the deficit. >> as your commander in chief, and on behalf of a grateful nation, i'm proud to finally say these two words, and i know your families agree. welcome home. welcome home. welcome home.

>> joining us tonight now for the interview is democratic congressman barney frank of massachusetts, who has been a very vocal proponent of at least being able to discuss the military budget as a thing that operates on the same kinds of dollars that other things in our budget operate on. congressman frank, thank you very much for being with us. nice to see you. >> great to see you, rachel, on this topic, where you have also done such very important work. >> thank you. since the presidency, maybe not the presidency, but the rise of ronald reagan, the political common wisdom is democrats can't go after republicans for being profly gat on defense spending, but that's exactly what the obama campaign is doing.

i guess assuming times have changed enough to make this less risky. do you think times have changed enough? >> i do, and you're exactly right. it is historic, and frankly, the timeline is beyond that. remember, john kennedy, whom i generally admired, ran against richard nixon on the grounds that the republicans hadn't spent enough on defense, there had been a missile gap, and for years, i have been involved in this, democratic candidates for president were told, your one vulnerability is if you're weak on defense. that's why a really superb public ver servant, michael dukakis, made the mistake of being in the tank. he was a veteran, had a right to do it, but it didn't look good. i think what has happened is this, rachel. for 60 years, the american public was focused on -- 50 years, from 1940 to 1990, there were very bad people who were heavily armed, first hitler and then stalin and his successors, and they meant us ill. now, i believe that we did not see an evolution in the soviet union early enough and we overprepared for it, but there was this fear that we were going to be attacked by somebody powerful. and that led to military spending that i think in some cases was excessive. the soviet union collapses in

1990. at first george h.w. bush and bill clinton begin to reduce the military because there was no longer this existential threat to our citizens, and then dick cheney and the other knee o'cons purr said george bush they can use the threat of terrorism as the functional political ee kwiv lent of come nation. the terrorists are terrible people, and i am very pleased that we are fighting against them, but they're not hitler, and they're not stalin. they don't threaten our existence as a country. they're threatening our lives. we have to fight them back, but that threat was blown up beyond the reality. so we got back into excessive military spending, including the two wars. i think what's happened finally is the american people understand there is no power in if world that comes remotely close to threatening our existence. they see how the iraq war backfired. it accomplished almost none of what it was supposed to, except it did get rid of saddam hussein.

but the destabilization of the nation and the country, we have now created in iraq iran's closest alley. they see the frustration in afghanistan, the american people, and we have the concern about the deficit, and people i believe now in the majority understand, yes, we must reduce the deficit. yes, we have to include the military, otherwise we devastate all of the programs that affect the quality of life at home, and given the nature of the world, we can afford to do it. we are significantly overspending. and let me say one last thing. i know this is a little too long. one of the things that gave me hope -- this is the first ad by a democratic president saying you're spending too much of the military. two weeks ago, i teamed up with a tea party republican, mick mulvaney from south carolina, and we offered an amendment in which the house voted by a large majority to reduce the amount of money the appropriations committee wanted to give the military. that was only $1.3 billion. of course, in any other government program, $1.3 billion would be a large amount of money. in the pentagon it wasn't much but it was still important, and

so i think, yeah, the president sees this right. the people are tired of this excess. they're tired of getting sent into all parts of the world where we do no good as much as we may be trying. they understand the importance of trying to have balanced approach. i'm glad he's doing that. it will be helpful and it's accurate substantively. >> that point of working with congressman mulvaney is on the republican side is really important and interesting. i was thinking about it last night watching the texas primary results. watching texas republicans pick someone to replace ron paul. he's leaving congress, stepping down from congress. and i was thinking about whether or not this thing, this dynamic you and i have talked about a lot is ever going to materialize, this idea of fiscal resistance on the republican side. mitt romney is still campaigning on spending more. >> and romney, i think is the outlier on this. a year ago, i offered an amendment to cut the military and so did mulvaney.

and what we noticed was we both lost, but a lot of democrats voted for my amendment against his. he's a tea party republican. a lot of republicans voted for his and against mine, so i talked to him, we offered it jointly. the democrats voted overwhelmingly, better than 80% for the $1.3 billion cut. the interesting thing with john mccain and romney saying you have cut too much, you've got to spend more, 89 of the 240 republicans voted for us. that's a very big chunk. more than a third. and the answer, yeah, the american republic understands that. first, they recognize that we are not threatened in our existence as a country. let me say three things. secondly, they recognize that a lot of these international adventures even if they're well intentioned don't work well. you know, the best trained and best armed young americans can't get people in iraq to like each other when they have been hating each other for a long time. they can't end corruption in afghanistan. our military is wonderful at doing what a military can do, stopping bad things from

happening, but they can't make good things happen, particularly in a ku tur that's foreign to us. and then they finally understand it's a choice. if you expand the military the way mitt romney wants to, then medicare is going to take big cuts. then you can forget about local police officers, and i think most of the people i represent are more worried about fire and police and local threats than they are about very far off ones. and i would be morally conflicted if i thought we could accomplish some of what we do when we intervene. generally it ends badly for us because you can't send military forces into these complex cultures and remake them. >> the dynamic you're talking about and that you have consistently identified is one that really still doesn't get much attention. i almost feel like we should only have these conversations in private because if we don't point out they're happening, maybe this dynamic will actually spread further before people get too alarmed by it. congressman barney frank of massachusetts talking about the nonpartisanship of critical thinking on this issue.

thank you so much. it was really good to see you. >> thank you. >> we've got a report coming up from richard engle who was in the middle of an incredibly hairy scene and captured incredible footage. that's still to come, plus lots more. stay with us. kate and i have been married for 15 years. that's 3 moves, 5 jobs, 2 newborns. it's no wonder i'm getting gray. but kate still looks like...kate. [ female announcer ] with nice'n easy, all they see is you -- in one step, nice'n easy with colorblend technology, is proven to give more blends of tones. for color that's perfectly true to you. [ rob ] i don't know all her secrets but i do know kate's more beautiful now, than the day i married her. [ female announcer ] with the dimensional color of nice'n easy, all they see is you.

today, august 1st, 2012, was a really, really good day for millions, for tens of millions of people in this country. today, for those tens of millions of americans, life got a little bit easier, a little bit less expensive, maybe a little bit healthier. things got a little bit better for lots of people in america because of one thing that happened in policy, today. today, also, for the very same reason, that today was such a good reason for so many people, for certain members of a certain political party in a certain chamber of the united states congress, today was a very, very bad day. august 1st, 2012, a day we will remember in america as the end of america as we knew it and loved it. august 1st, a day of somber reflection for future generations and then children and grandchildren, august 1st, 2012, when the end began.

still to come, the incredible true story of the conservative reaction to what honestly was a really good day for millions of the rest of us and even for millions of them. that's coming up. assuming the country doesn't implode before the end of this hour because of how scary august 1st, 2012, was. [ male announcer ] we did a febreze experiment

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correspondent is richard engle. he is in syria, in a safe place in syria. he's fine. but today he was caught in the middle of some major fighting about 40 miles outside of the city of aleppo. aleppo is at the center of the fighting of the war in syria. now watch this report from richard today. >> at 11:00 a.m., attack helicopters circle the sky over the city of arihah. from a rooftop, we hear their assault begin. it sounds like artillery from the helicopters. we move down to the ally to try to find out why syrian forces are attacking the city of 70,000 south of aleppo. we see civilians fleeing from open areas, searching for cover. and rebels on motorcycles in the main square. it appears that a large military convoy was passing by this town on the way to join the attack on aleppo. and as the troops were moving past here, the rebels in this town opened fire on them.

in a makeshift rebel media center, activists tried to upload videos of the attack they have taken with small cameras. they show me syrian tanks are now firing into arihah. the rebels attack the convoy to prevent reinforcements from reaching aleppo, but now this city is paying for it. back in the alleys, men on a motorcycle tell us there are bodies up the street, many. in a mosque. we find them along with their distraught relatives. witnesses say the victims were civilians standing outside a mosque and attacked by a helicopter. there seem to be many casualties here. eight bodies have been brought. they can't even get them to the hospital, so i they're just putting ice on top of the bodies. they can't move them around the city yet because there's still too much helicopter fire, still too much mortar fire coming in. men embrace the deceased. oh, uncle, oh, uncle, this man

cries. the rebels seem desperately outgunned and may have taken on a battle they can't win. each fighter says he only has about 60 bullets. and homemade grenades. how are you going to defend yourselves against a tank assault? [ speaking foreign language ] >> god is with us, he says. back in the media center, bad news has just arrived. one of the rebels' media activists has just been killed. one of more than a dozen killed in arihah today, and the rebels never stopped the syrian army convoy headed to aleppo. richard engle, nbc news, in northern syria. >> to repeat, richard and his team that he's shooting with were able to leave areha. they're safe tonight. i should also tell you that nbc news confirmed something that was initially reported by reuters which is that president obama has apparently signed what's called a presidential finding, authorizing unspecified support, apparently not weapons, but other kinds of support to the libyan rebels in syria,

specifically to help them oust the assad regime. in terms of what we are actually doing to help the rebels, it reportedly involves u.s. personnel helping at a secret command center operated by turkey along with some other countries. the syrian war seems to be on an almost infinite escalation track right now, but it's as hard to cover as ever. we'll be right back. direct rates side by side to find you a great deal, even if it's not with us. [ ding ] oh, that's helpful! well, our company does that, too. actually, we invented that.

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i know in your mind, you can think of the times when america was attacked. one is december 7th, that's pearl harbor day. the other is september 11th, and that's the terrorist attack. i want you to remember august 1st, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. that is a date that will live in infamy along with the other dates. the question is, if not us, who? if now now, when? >> that was coressman mike

kelly, republican, obviously, of pennsylvania, speaking about a catastrophic deadly attack on the sovereignty of our nation, which he says took place today, but which you might not have heard about, even if you were paying super-close attention to the news. if you did not, in fact, hear about this grave national crisis on par with pearl harbor and 9/11, you're probably living in the regular world here along with the rest of us and your family, i hope. congressman mike kelly, on the other hand, is living in a republican party that increasingly consists only of its own far-right fringe. and today in that alternative republican reality, there was an act of war, of carnage, of unspeakable violence committed against this great country by birth control. now, i will admit that i find the bollywood dance video featuring this planned parenthood life-sized birth control pill pack mascot kind of creepy, but i would not say it rises to the size of pearl

harbor or 9/11. >> a date that will live in infamy along with those other dates. >> the reason mike kelly is ranking today along with pearl harbor and 9/11 is because today is the day that, thanks to the new health reform rule, women with health insurance will get free birth control access as part of their health coverage. access to birth control is what congressman mike kelly says is raining terror down on america. and they say rick santorum didn't win something in the republican primary this year. >> one of the things i will talk about that no president has talked about before is, i think, the dangers of contraception in this country and the whole sexual libber teen idea and dangers. many say contraception is okay. it's not okay. >> contraception is not okay. when rick santorum pledged to use the office of the presidency to crack down on birth control last fall, rick santorum was in exactly no danger of ever getting that opportunity, right? but, of course, in a year when

republicans were excited about none of their choices, everybody did get a turn to be on top of the polls, even rick "birth control is not okay" santorum got his turn. rick santorum's political capital briefly rose among republicans this past year, and so did his early 20th century-era opposition to birth control. when health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius announced in january that insurance plans would be required to cover preventative services for women, including birth control, as of today, suddenly in the year 2012, virtually the whole republican party started fighting against access to birth control like they were defending hickem field in hindsight. the republicans spent about a month in february inveighing against access to birth control. which must have felt great to them, until they noticed stuff like the polling showing 40% of voters being less likely to vote for the republican presidential nominee because of his pledge to eliminate the new birth control benefit. maybe that was it. maybe it was whatever, but whatever it was, republicans had their sort of month of

anti-birth control, rick santorum candidacy excitement months ago. but then they had kind of laid off the birth control fight for a while, until today. today, as the new birth control access rule goes into effect, as women are seeing the benefits of greater access to contraception, republicans are back. back to talking about birth control access as a threat to democracy, as an act of war against america. >> one is december 7th. that's pearl harbor day. the other is september 11th, and that's the day of the terrorist attack. i want you to remember august the 1st, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. that is a date that will live in infamy along with those other dates. >> the obama coercion starts today. >> as mike said, august the 1st is a day that we, as americans will look at it as the largest assault on our first amendment rights. >> goodness gracious. the land of the free, home of the brave. we're no longer free in this country. >> so in new mexico, we're proud to stand arm in arm with