the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> thank you, my friend. thank you for staying home with us for the next hour. sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. local time. this past sunday, a local tv show in st. louis posts a taped interview for the republican candidate for senate in missouri. he had won the primary, the republican challenger trying to unseat clare mccaskill. >> if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that down. >> that was 10:30 a.m. local time. by about 2:00 that afternoon, talking points memo had written up the republican candidate's comments. they put it on this headline, republican senate nominee, victims of legitimate rape don't get pregnant. then it was just a matter of time, time rapidly ticking by. as of monday, 10:30 a.m., republican senator

scott brown was first out of the gate saying mr. akin should resign the nomination for u.s. senator. by 12:11 p.m., it is ron johnson. a wisconsin republican senator. todd akin's statements are reprehensible and inexcusable. he should step aside today. by 1:30 pm, it's the national princip principle -- republican senate committee. they should carefully consider what is best for him and the value he cares about and what he's fought for through his career public service. then, a half hour later, karl rove's pacs pull their ads from todd akin. then moments later, that committee decided to go beyond it's statement from a few minutes earlier and decided to pull their ads for todd akin as well. pulled $5 million worth of ads. then by 2:30, mitch mcconnell

pulled his support too. he said i believe he should take time with his family to decide if this statement will prevent him from effectively representing our party in the critical election. by 3:00 p.m., the leader of the republican party said i would step aside. an hour later when a republican charlie summers, running for senate in maine, says todd akin should resign, effective immediately. at 5:30 p.m. the head of a tea party group says he should step down and give conservatives a chance at taking back the senate on november. that was all on monday. then it was time to wake up on tuesday morning, and scott walker of wisconsin is saying, todd akin should step down. less than an hour later, at 11:50, richard burr says i

urge him to withdraw right now. ten minutes later, at noon, republican senator, olympia snowe is clear as well saying congressman akin should not represent the republican party in this fall's election. just moments later. speaking on a radio show, republican senator john mccain says this guy should drop out. ten minutes later, kelly ayotte fresh han from new hampshire says akin should step aside now. by 1:00, 45 minutes later, there's a new joint statement from one sitting republican senator from missouri and four former republican senators in akin's state in missouri and they say "the right decision is to step aside." two hours later, 3:00, rush limbaugh and old timy radio hour says todd akin must put the nation and his future ahead of everything else and make the right conclusion.

at 4:10 p.m. after all that, after initially only disagreeing with and then chastising him, after 36 hours of everybody else and their mother making a statement saying this guy has to go, finally, 36 hours into it, mitt romney, republican presidential nominee finally chimes in and says i think akin should exit the senate race. after that at 5:30 a statement from pete sessions of texas, head of the house republican campaign committee, he said, i believe that winning the race would mean that todd would not be that candidate would be on the ballot. in other words, get out. at 6:20, orrin hatch says he should step out. that's what you call a unified front and a fast one. do you notice a pattern of who you weren't hearing from? who isn't calling for todd akin to get out of the missouri senate race? democrats.

on liberal websites it's not just an absence of calls for him to get out of the race, it's unbridled glee over the prospect of him staying in the race. the conservatives want him to get out. fox news pundits telling him to get out. fox news hosts telling him to get out. the guy on the internet machine is telling him to get out. all on the right they're saying he should get out of the race. liberals want him to stay, of course they want this guy as the republican candidate in that senate race for obvious reasons. his democrat opponent, senator claire mccaskill is not rushing him either. >> it's not my place to decide. it's the people of missouri and i think that people of missouri have to make this decision. they had a hotly contested primary and todd won by a comfortable margin. i think for the national party

to come in here and dictate to the primary voters that they'll invalidate their decision, that would be pretty radical and that could be the backlash for the republicans if they did that. >> there is a reason that claire mccaskill is not wearing a lapel pin for him. in the primary, this ad going on and on and on about how many departments and the federal government todd akin wants to cut about and his family values. todd akin, missouri's true conservative. hear that republican primary voters in an overwhelming republican state? the mccaskill democratic campaign tried to get them to pick todd akin. if you're running against a guy like that, forget the head winds. democratic candidate congratulations.

against a more sane-seeming republican opponent you might not have had a chance in missouri but against todd akin, you're going to be fine. on a surface level this todd akin brouhaha looked like it was bad for the republican party. republican doing an embarrassing thing, must be bad for the party. very quickly, if you just scratch the surface, it was obvious this could turn out great for the republicans. if this could be a excuse to force him out of the race, the republicans could replace with a better candidate the guy that was the weakest candidate they had, probably the weakest candidate they had in any th theoretically winnable race in the country. and of course, big bonus, in pushing todd akin out, the republicans get to make a big show out of expunging from the party this one guy. casting out this one bad apple with this one crazy position on abortion. as if he's the only abortion

extremism problem in the party. it is not but they would love for it to be reported like that. so you have that well-timed cascade of coordinated republican action. throwing him out of the party was a win-win. for the republicans. get rid of a weak candidate in an important senate race and also paint him as the only guy in the party that is an extremist on the women's issues making those left look less extremist because of his absence. and frankly, it looked like it was going to be a win win for them at the beginning of the weak. it looked like they were going to pull this off and then it all fell apart. first of all, todd akin is not getting out of the race. he held a power summit last night in florida at the site of the republican convention with some of the biggest names on the social conservative right. not only is he not getting out of this race, he's rallying the troops and getting more support and publicity. now that republicans realize he is not getting out, they're essentially writing off their

chances of winning that missouri seat and looking for other seats they might be able to pick up instead in their attempt to take control of the senate. could tommy thompson win wisconsin. maybe? please, this is a mess. i can't believe todd akin is staying in. so yeah, todd akin is staying in, not getting out of the race. that's their first big problem. the other part of this strategy, remember i said it's a win-win. the first win -- the second win is even worse the way that's fallen apart. and this idea of casting todd akin as the one crazy guy thing, that part failed even harder. this week was supposed to be a ceremonial sacrifice. of todd akin as a way to free the party of the taint of abortion extremism, everybody talk about how crazy todd akin is and denounce him together, and when we get rid of him, it will look like we got rid of our crazy problem. look like we're not crazy. that has not worked.

because it turns out no believes that todd akin is an outlier. "the huffington post" said there are more than 40 republican house senate candidates other than todd akin who want to ban abortion for people that get pregnant from rape or incest. this is not the todd akin problem, it's the todd akin party. when local news outlets in states like pennsylvania covered the controversy look how they covered it. >> ryan like romney distanced himself from akin's remarks but in congress he joined him in opposing abortions even when a woman is raped. >> should abortions be available to women who have been raped? >> i'm proud of my record. >> in congress, paul ryan joined todd akin. this attempt to paint akin has the isolated in the party has

not gone according to plain in the last few days. because a, the press has done its job, and b, the republican parties position is the todd akin position. the platform adopts for the entire party the todd akin policy of no exceptions, no empathy for rape or incest victims. mitt romney and because he was all over the platform process, does this mean they're running the presidential ticket on todd akin's abortion policy? >> as far as our platform is concerned, this is the platform of the republican party. it's not the platform of mitt romney. >> oh. the republican party platform, that has nothing to do with the republican party's presidential nominee. rnc communications director, if you didn't exist somebody would have to make you up. sean spicer, tried it as well.

this was even better. his answer on the republican party having a platform on abortion that is the same as todd akin's platform on abortion. no exceptions for rape and incest, watch. >> our platform is just a simple set of principals, there's no additional language. so to talk about exceptions or whatever is just not found in the platform. >> our platform not having rape exceptions in it doesn't mean there are no rape exceptions in it -- i know we say we're banning abortions and there's no exceptions, that doesn't mean there's no exceptions. want to try that again? when vice presidential nominee paul ryan was grilled on the fact that his policy on abortion is the exact same as todd akin, here was his answer. >> mitt romney is the top of the ticket, and mitt romney will be president, and he will set the policy of the romney administration. >> so the republican party's response so far to the

allegation that the romney/ryan ticket embodies the same views of todd akin, their response has been don't worry that paul ryan shares those views, he has no chance at being president, so elect him vice president. and the republican party's platform has nothing to do with the republican party's nominee. and just because the platform has no mention of rape exemptions in it doesn't mean there aren't rape exemptions in it. romney campaign is now refusing to comment on reports that the anti-abortion doctor, from whom akin learned his views on rape and pregnancy, that doctor met personally with mitt romney and paul ryan in recent months. he was a prominent mitt romney surrogate in 2008, todd akin cited this guy as the source of his believes on rape and pregnancy and the romney campaign has been happy to denounce todd akin and say these ideas are crazy, but

have not shot down any reports about meeting with the guy from whom akin got the crazy theesy. they're refusing to respond. it is radio silence. they're not denying it, explaining it, or saying anything about it. the whole strategy of todd akin is an isolated problem. thinking they can run the whole party against todd akin for their political benefit has failed. the confirmation of that came in rather glorious fashion earlier today. >> political specialist sean boyd just finished an interview with romney literally a couple minutes ago. you were one of four local reporters to get to talk to him and what did you ask him? >> i had about five minutes with him and we got through a fair amount of material. the one stipulation was i don't ask him about abortion or todd akin, the missouri republican who created a firestorm after saying women's bodies such do

down -- >> the one stipulation was that i not ask him about abortion or todd akin. how did this happen? if this was working the way it was supposed to be working, when the republicans cooked up this plan for dealing with todd akin they would be scheduling interviews for mitt romney to talk about todd akin and how crazy he is and how much he disagrees with him, that's how you would win that allegation on the war on women thing. by expunging them. denouncing extremism and promoting your comparative moderation, that's how might turn this to appeal to women, right? that's what was supposed to be the good side of this policy for you. of throwing todd akin off the ball ballot. you get him off the ballot and look like the guy standing up for women's rights by going after todd akin. instead -- >> the one stipulation was that i not ask him about abortion or todd akin.

>> that was quick, i sort of hate campaign books now, but when the campaign book is written about the mitt romney campaign in 2012, there will be a chapter on whose genius idea it was to try to turn the todd akin issue into a republican asset. this big coordinated campaign the week before the republican convention and how its backfire completely screwed up any other effort at republican messages in the week between picking their vice president and their nominating convention. who came up with this idea to try to message the this todd akin story this way? who came up with this idea? my money is on eric fernstrum. i'd be happy to talk about it with you if you'd like to call. joining us now is ej dionne. senior fellow at the brookings institution, author of "our divided political heart." thank you for being with here.

>> the reason i did the tick tock at the top of all of the different republican responses to todd akin, using the same language, was to show that this seemed like a clearly coordinated thing for the republican party. do you think it's possible they thought they could turn the lemons into lemonade as it were? >> i think what they were trying do. by the way, i loved watching sna mccaskill defend todd akin's rights against the republican establishment and >> tom: washington. that was a delicious sound bite. and i think that some of the problems they face were revealed in that tick tock. for example, you noted that it took mitt romney 36 hours to come to this. and i think that's going to be an issue that's going to play longer. it's the question of does romney have to clear all of his positions with the republican right? if he jumped way out in front of

this, perhaps it may have had an affect. he was waiting, it appeared, to take the temperature of the republican right. that's a problem for them. second, i think the mass republican effort against akin, when he refused to drop out, gave the story more juice over the course of the week. as you also pointed out, we would not have paid any attention at all to this draft republican platform and the language on abortion, but because of the todd akin story and how big it became it became a big story. i think they're going to run into trouble among their right-to-lifers. the message is we'll use to you build a majority and use your votes in the polls and use your seats in congress but if you step on line and mess us up, we'll throw you under the bus. i'm waiting to see what happens next week with some social

conservatives and look at the republican establishment and say you don't cut us any slack. >> i was very struck by the report in politico, that akin was meeting with so many people preparing for the republican convention, you have to think, he was portraying himself as a martyr, looking at the speaking slots, they have given great speaking lots to rick santorum and mike huckabee, somebody they didn't owe anything to and doesn't have a -- you would think would put them there, but they're trying to front page their positive relationship with social conservatives if there is a revolt on this issue, will it be made known -- >> i don't think it will make itself manifest on the convention floor, but there won't be much news out of the convention. there's a lot of mischief that can happen outside the

convention hall at news conferences at noon, it will be interesting to watch that. i think it shows the box which mitt romney is in and it's the box that john mccain was in. he was not the first choice of social conservatives. a lot of social conservatives mistrust him. he has to make more and more of an effort to win them over when he ought to be shaking that etch-a-sketch and trying to appeal to undecideds, moderate voters, and women where there is an enormous gap. i think he'll have this contradiction of not being in a position to appeal to more moderate voters because we'll have to constantly reassure the social conservatives who largely voted against him in the primary. >> right up until election day and the thing that will probably most concern independent voters or moderate voters looking at him on those issues is if he will have to keep pedaling to keep the conservatives happy. once he already is president.

if he actually wins will he have to keep answering to them in that way? it's so unpredictable this time in the campaign. it's been fascinating. thank you for being here. nice to have you. >> great to be with you. >> columnist for "the washington post" and msnbc contributor. i mean it, eric, you have my number, any time. talk. the romney/ryan ticket is in a queasy spot right now. they have poll numbers among huge groups american voters almost identical, maybe a little worse than mccain/palin tickets four years ago when this ticket lost and lost badly. the weird thing is republicans say nathey're not worried about the bad poll numbers. don't bother with them, they have it covered. you'll be amazed at how they say they have it covered. [ kate ] many women may not be properly absorbing the calcium they take because they don't take it with food.

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every night on his very fine show, my friend ed schultz does something unsighunsighen -- unscientific. does something that is funny. he does a text poll. and just about every night, the results are cartoonishly lopsided. it's like 98 to 2. the losing side is always in the single digits. even though they're that lopsided every night only once in the whole history of their polling and their extremely

lopsided results that the ed show text poll produced a result of 100% to 0%. only once. in any survey of a substantial number of people even the hilariously uneven "ed show" text polls the number zero is a really rare result. in the latest nbc news/"the wall street journal" poll, the mitt romney ticket trails with african-american voters only has 0%. i'm supposed to say plus or minus the margin of error, but i think it's just plus. i don't think there would be minus from zero. it's no surprise that president obama would win a big majority of african american voters but zero is kind of intense, right? in comparison mccain and pail gotten 4% of the african american vote but romney polling

at nothing? what is the romney/ryan campaign doing about this dismal situation? nothing really except the false but always racially alienating charge that president obama somehow weakened work requirements for welfare, giving away this hard-working might and what's money to lazy welfare recipients who obama says don't have to work to get that guy's money. policy-wise it's completely and utterly untrue, if you know what i mean and the come pain has done five of those ads in two and a half weeks. and they have now down five of these ads saying president obama is the president of lazy welfare recipients taking your money. mitt romney is polling at 0% among black voters. given among how he is campaigning, maybe it's a number for him among black voters we can trust.

as for latino voters, the romney/ryan ticket is polling very poorly. it's 63% to 28%. 35-point margin, almost exactly the same margin that mccain and palin lost the latino vote when they lost to barack obama and joe biden. is the republican national convention going to help them at the convention. in the platform they wrote they want the arizona papers please law for the whole country after that, the romney immigration advisor celebrated by suing the federal government today trying to stop the president's dream act program that he instituted by executive action starting this month over the objectin inobjections of the republican congress. you can't necessarily say the republicans are in hot pursuit right now. same thing for the african-american vote of which they currently enjoy 0% support. with less support among black

voters, how can the republicans expect to win this time? there is a tactic of some use. it is very basic, tied and true in our american history, already organized and apparently funded for this year, and i personally find it creepy, and that creepy story is sclutively here, next. capella university understands businesses are trying to come back from rough economic times. employees are being forced to do more with less. and the need for capable leaders is greater than ever. when you see these problems do you take a step back, or do you want to dive right in? with a degree in business from capella university, you'll have the knowledge to go further in your career than you ever thought possible.

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not long ago, in houston, texas some conservative

activists got together and named themself afrs this street in boston. king street. king street in boston, not king street in texas, king street as in old king george iii who happened to be the king in charge when british troops guarding the king street customs house opened fire on american colonists in boston. five people died in the king street shooting, which became known as the boston massacre. the date was march 5, 1770. couple of centuries later in 2009, houston conservatives founded a tea party group and they named themselves the king street patriots after the site of that boston massacre, that historic and bloody confrontation. while much of the tea party movement withered away or just became a name-brand part of standard republican politics, this tea party group has one very other specific thing that

they are doing that is growing. it's this. true the vote. they call it an anti-voter fraud. you can see they're recruiting, right? you can donate, volunteer. need voter id, do you? true the vote's motto is equipping citizens to take a stand for free and fair elections. we got a first like after they were founded no to 12 in houston. >> the county attorney says it's received numerous complaints about overzealous poll watchers and heavily minority locations which a poll watcher said he was recruited by truitt vote who pro claims rooting out voter fraud as it main goal. >> reporters at the time showed that poll watchers in and around houston at that time tended to be white people and hang around in districts that were mostly not white, that were mostly african-american. the mostly white watchers were

looking down over mostly black crowds and sometimes they wandered around among the voter booths. so many voters and election voters complained about the aggressive tactics and general intimidation in those sites that the u.s. justice department said it would send in federal observers. since then, they have continued training volunteers and left the confines of houston. big time. now true the vote's model for poll watching and challenging voter registration is in place in at least 20 states. the group's tea party organizers say they want to be everybody, coast to coast. they say they will have trained a million poll watchers in time for the november election with no polling place unmanned. air a leader of the group told a national summit that the affect of volunteers on voters is supposed to be like driving and seeing the police behind you -- excuse me, the police following you.

come on down to your friendly local polling place and it will be like the police are following you. is this really how we will run the 2012 election? maybe so. in addition to the national summit in texas, true the vote have been holding summits, last month it was in florida. the list of sponsors complete the mighty mighty koch brothers funded americans for prosperity and the king street tea party yes. they held a summit in colorado. colorado's secretary of state, scott gessler was a speaker. he's the guy in charge of elections in colorado. he has spent his year trying to stop county clerks from mailing ballots from people who usually get one, including some troops overseas and last week, before his true the vote speak engagement he wrote to 4,000 colorado voters and told them to either prove their eligible to vote or get off the rolls. on saturday, true the vote will hold another summit, this one in ohio.

in that state the new republican majority tried to make it harder to vote. significantly harder. tried to cut the days for early voting in half, after democratic pressure they had to settle for cutting the last three days of early voting. as we've been reporting on the show, the republican secretary of state in ohio, allowed to expand the early voting time. in republican counties. he blocked democratic counties for doing the same. finally, after a lot of public pressure and attention, he decided all right we won't go county by county, we'll have less early voting for everybody. now he has threaten to fire two democratic election officials that still want voting on nights and weekends, which is especially popular with african-americans. so what will he be doing this weekend in occupying his saturday before the republican convention?

he will be a speaker at the true the vote ohio summit. the guy running the elections, in the state of ohio, in an election year. that guy, for reals. this true the vote thing has gone big time. joining us now is wendi wiser. director of the democracy program at the brennan center for justice at nyu school of law. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> i know you're not an expert on the history of true the vote, but in terms of the things they have done, did i get anything that you know to we wrong in that intro? >> absolutely not. >> how concerned are you with poll watching efforts and if they constitute voter intimidation? >> i'm very concerned this year. there is absolutely nothing wrong with people watching the polls and we should be taking all reasonable steps to stop voter fraud or any other kind of misconduct on elections but it's not reasonable to actually allow self-appointed political

operatives to as self-appointed police officers of our voting process. >> when they were involved in wisconsin they were open they wanted a big presence at the scott walker recall election. when he was not recalled from office, truitt vote described that as a victory. they described that as a victory, which is what they were looking for. do partisan declarations create a higher standard of anything they have to do to justify putting themselves in polling places the way they have? >> unfortunately, this is a problem with the law. we allow partisan political operatives to go in there and challenge voters eligibility on election day to create an intimidating environment with very few standards. this is something that we really need to fix. >> is this something left over from something that used to make sense and doesn't any more. was there ever a good reason for this? has this been part of voter

intimidation through history? >> many of the laws were put in place for the purpose of keeping down minority votes. especially black votes. after reconstruction, for example, in ohio, for example, in 1968 868, we had challenger legislation saying you could challenge people on if they have a distinctive mixture of african blood. those were the grounds of challenges. maybe this made sense in a day when you could tell whether or not people were eligible to vote based on what they looked like, color of their skin or gender. we don't live in that society anymore. this is a relic from a bygone era and doesn't make sense in modern elections. >> we saw the local news coverage in houston, if they are coast to coast and focus on

swing state s if not coast to coast, do you as somebody who studied this, do you have any advice for someone who feels intimidated in their polling place? >> absolutely. this is illegal to discriminate against voters, to intimidate voters, disrupt the polling place, and target people unreasonably for vote suppression. if you see it, you should report it to voting officials and law enforcement officials. this is something that we need to be vigilant against. no matter what the intentions are of the people doing the operations they can and do often slide into using tactics that suppress legitimate votes. we need to push back against that. >> people need to be confident in their right to vote. and know they have dress. wendy wiser, thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. the reason republicans don't want to talk about war policy in this election cycle and the reason that democrats should want to talk about that is coming up.

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the news cycles skidded and squealed into a sharp turn this week.

>> if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down. >> after that happened, that's all everybody talked about all week long. there was one bright spot, and for mitt romney, about this sharp, squealing turn into abortion politics, and that was the for a second it stopped everybody from talking about last week's big political news about something of mr. romney's he still won't let anyone see, something potentially embarrassing or maybe exonerating, something that rhymes with rax deturns. it's something he can easily end, but he will not, continuously, over and over and over again. it's still going and it's getting worse. mom: ready to go to work? ♪ ♪

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we're starting to get the schedules now for the political conventions, and with the caveat that a storm named after our executive produce ir's 4-year-old son might be bearing down on florida during the fist week, hi, isaac and a storm named joyce, named after my friend joyce might be bearing down on north carolina during the democratic convention.

with the caveat the schedule might be altered but the basic plans are in. monday night, major speaker is ann romney and mike huckabee and rand paul on the schedule that night. tuesday, big draw is supposed to be chris christie and that night rick santorum and mess of republican governors and wednesday night is paul ryan night is thursday, last night, the big kahuna, mitt romney, introduced by marco rubio. lots of other speakers booked, they book people to raise their profile, hi, ted cruz or book people as consolation prize for not winning some other thing. hi, you guys. other people, particularly the less-famous people are picked usually to anthropomorphize a certain talking point. it's tightlychoreographed. everything is to send a political message. nothing left to chance.

you want to know who they left to pick the vice presidential nominee? here's a hint. here is what he's asked when asked about his foreign policy experience. >> i vetted oted to send people war. not since hitler, not since stalin, have we seen so much evil delivered by one man. this is a cause that we cannot go unanswered. >> that's hint one. that's what he says is his relevant foreign policy experience for being a heartbeat way from the presidency. interest number two. that is his top staffer, dan senor, the george bush administration iraq war spokesman. hint number three. is the person speaking before paul ryan is introduced that night at the convention. jeb bush.

so, relevant foreign policy experience voting for iraq war, top adviser is spokesman for the iraq war, put his big speech on the night of george w. bush's brother's big speech. who is introducing paul ryan? condoleezza rice. rolling him out as if if he was paul wolfowitz. they won't say beep about our existing war in afghanistan during the whole convention but rolling out the iraq war instead. ornitiok, gacleic.. our caulwe g

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begins with back pain and a choice. take advil, and maybe have to take up to four in a day. or take aleve, which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. good eye. >> one bright side for the romney/ryan campaign, all of the talk about legitimate rape and forced child birth and how much ryan is like akin, one bright side of akin putting light on the soul of rape politics it

pushed out of the news cycle the style romney's tax returns. want to know what came up again in the news cycle? mitt romney's tax returns. 950 pages of documentses they say are associated with mr. romney's investments. we have not veryified the documents are what they purport to bebe they purport to be internal audits, financial statements and private investor letters for some of mr. romney's investment vehicles. eight entities he apparently invested in based in the kamen isla -- cayman islands. why there? they spell out how cayman island entities are typically set up to avoid u.s. federal taxes and under current cayman island laws the entity doesn't have to pay taxes on the islands either. this is legal but makes you wonder why that person might put money in the cayman islands or

answer questions about that if they were running for president of the united states and not president of the cayman islands. we have known this from the one year they released, we know some investments were off shore and that is one thing do you to avoid paying attackses but we have the trove of documents at gawker putting in black and white the tax avoidance benefit of what purports to be mr. romney's money in the caymans and yeah, this is the story that the campaign has been hoping to push out of the news cycle all summer long. they probably thought they finally did it with the announcement of paul ryan two weekend ago but honestly worked about a day as a distraction before everybody went back to asking the tax returns. then this week some respite, the news cycle did move on to congressman akin and republican policy and abortion, pregnancy and the connection, if any, to rape. it seems we're moving back to

mitt romney's taxes, no proof innin the documents today about what he paid or a smoking gun but he does have cayman islands investmentss and this explains why a person would want those. and the reason why is tax avoidance. we also learned today that as of this weekend in parade magazine, coming out on sunday, romneys unveil a new explanation as to why america does not need to see more of their tax returns thank you very much. according to excerpts released, mr. romney will explain he doesn't want to release his tax returns because he doesn't want that to to talk about the money he gives to his church. quote, this is now all public but we never intended our contributions to be known. it's a very personal thing between ourselves and our com t commitment to our god and our church. this particular thing used to be the thing mitt romney most

wanted to talk about with regard to his taxes, didn't want to tell you how much he made or reported or how much he paid or avoided paying what normal people pay, he wanted you to know he gives 10% of his money to his church. >> the bible speaks about providing tithes as offerings, i made a commitment to much church a long, long time i would give 10% of my income to the church and i followed through. >> he's honest, his integrity is golden. we pay our taxes, we are, beyond paying our taxes we give 10% of our income to charity. >> over the past ten years i never paid less than 13%, if you add in addition the apt to charity, the number gets well above 20%. >> a very jennogenerous. we give 10% of our income to our church. >> they keep bringing it up. 10% of income to my church but now that specific information, whit romneys keep volunteering to the press, we're now supposed to think that ngs is