it legitimized super pacs. president obama said super pacs are bad.ically opposed to this. >> at least now. jeffrey katzenburg is one of the other names on the democratic side. $2 million so far? >> he's a big hollywood giver. he cares a lot about gay rights. he's more of a general democratic giver. he bankrolls candidates across the country. if he's looking for some kind of tax break for a studio, a little bit more than being a democrat. >> nicholas, thank you so much. a lot of times we see these names in the media and you hear about them, but we don't really know how much they're giving and which causes they are most closely aligned with. so thank you for shedding light on all that. >>> day three of jury watch at the john edwards trial in north carolina. jurors ended their talks yesterday shortly after asking for access to exhibits they wanted to take a closer look. the former presidential candidate is accused of using campaign money to help hide his affair with rielle hunter. >>> neither side is satisfied with a 30-day sentence for dharun ravi, the

for the spooky pacs we don't know. we have no idea. i think that's the important part to find out. >> stephen: you think that's important. knowing where the money came from do you think it's important to the voters in missouri? >> they are not known for wanting people to show things? >> no, no, no, you've got that wrong. we are the show me state as you well know stephen. >> stephen: i have a colbert super pac. i have so much cash would you like some of it. >> can't ask you for it because that would be coordination which you well know is illegal. >> stephen: i was trying to entrap you in a federal crime. >> you were. >> stephen: good laidism missouri senator claire mccaskill, not a big fan of secret money. we'll be right back. [cheers and applause] ♪ [cheers and applause] >> stephen: welcome back. folks, i am proud to announce that today is the official release date of my beloved "i am a pole and so can you." it's the heartwarming coming of age story of a pole searching for it's place in the world. it's the perfect gift for mother's day

same thing with rick santorum he got help and mitt romney had a super pac helping him.ere is the problem and i was talking to a gingrich advisor yesterday, at times the newt gingrich super pac would take the campaign off message, they went in south carolina, they wanted to talk about guns and religious liberty. the super pac at the time, which couldn't coordinate with the campaign, wanted to talk about bain capital and forced newt gingrich to talk about it when he didn't want to. >> let's switch gears, two star politicians from new jersey poking fun at their images, governor chris christi and cory booker. >> stand back! >> i got this, i got this. >> booker, i'm not a number two guy i'm not background singer. mitt, sir, with all due respect i know you need a big -- >> ex cuss me, mayor. i got this. >> christi! >> oh, boy, i know that you're pretty plugged in on this mark, more than the rest of us, explain the joke here, please. >> of course this is a playoff of the seinfeld episodes where newman and kramer each time they would say kramer or newman! this was a three minut

the more super pacs you have that are not closely aligned with the campaign, you know, there is a pac that is the kind of -- the official super pac of the campaign. the obama campaign has the official super pac, but anyone with money can go start a pac, figure out a message, and put it on the air or get it out somehow. and the chances of something happening then that are counterproductive to the campaign are great. anyone in the mitt romney campaign will tell you the minute you walk into their headquarters in boston or you see them on the road, all he wants to talk about is the economy. they've been so public about it, i'm surprised the professionals working on the pac in question didn't understand they had a winning message. >> earl, romney had an event in new hampshire this afternoon where he tried to get back on message with the economy. what does it say to you that a super pac within his own party is diverting attention away from what is essentially his most powerful argument for election? >> and that's the danger too because when you have so many super pacs out there, they can ta

not a whole lot will introduce you to a college student and a recent college grad using their super pac power to fight the two political machine. welcome to our team my name's abby martin it's friday may eighteenth eight pm and you're watching our t.v. this week as the long awaited nato summit in chicago and things are heating up thousands of activists from all across the country a flooded to the city for a massive protests against the twenty eight member states and addition to the ordinance is created to limit protester rights the city has already spent one million dollars on a riot gear to anticipate the crackdown against protesters for more on the events on the ground here's artie's on the stasi a charkha. the windy city of chicago turned sunny turned sour and the hometown of the u.s. president plays host to this year's nato summit nato is the u.s. commanded military alliance responsible for wars and war crimes on a global basis already the most watched city in the u.s. . as thousands of protesters begin to descend on chicago the city is in security overkill moat you've got a bunch o

as more of a third party pac. no i don't think it's fair to say i'd say you know frankly the second party the democrats and republicans are almost so similar it's it's tough to tell them apart we think that american go in a free or a less for your direction and we hope to run freedom candidates in both parties and all parties americans like choice for cars and coffee and fast food and why only have two choices for her political parties we think we should invest in you know plurality strategy so we're going to do well you know ron paul is such a popular man for multiple reasons i mean he has such an amazingly consistent track record in congress and everything he says it's just it just seems so genuine and i think that has really helped his following what are the chances of continuing to garner similar candidates like this i mean what how do you guys see that panning out. so i'm going forward i'm in the wrong hole tell just so you know that the movement is not about him it's about his ideas you know his ideas again

i think it's the wrong course for a pac or a campaign.> why obama versus romney is bound to get ugly. also the man who says it's an evil genius campaign. >>> and only in america. saying good-bye to donna summer. this is "piers morgan tonight." >>> we start with breaking news in the trayvon martin case. evidence directly connected to the shooting. never before seen is being released. photographs and video and documents and tapes. what do they reveal and mean for the murder charge against george zimmerman? joining me is benjamin crump, attorney for the trayvon family. dramatic developments tonight with the release of a lot of evidence. i want to go through some of this with you in order if i may. first of all, the revelation that there were traces of thc, a by-product of marijuana, inside of trayvon martin's body. what do you make of that? is it significant? is it relevant? >> there's no significance that there was trace amounts of marijuana in trayvon martin's system. piers, what's really relevant is the fact there was no toxicology report

i think it's the wrong crse for a pac or a campaign. i hope that our campaigns can respectively be about the future and about issues and about a vision for america. >> mitt romney firmly rejecting a conservative super pac ad. is it an inevitable sign of things to come in the campaign? joining us is deval patrick. it's a pretty nasty stuff, this is. what is your view of how this has come out, front page of "the new york times" saying it was ever going to be made into ads, the backtracking and mitt romney's reaction. what do you make of it all? >> it's gotten an awful lot of attention. it's sad, but frankly not surprising. the republican party announced years before the campaign began that their priority was tearing down this president. and you compare that, and i think the american people will, with the president who for four years has been asking americans to turn to each other, not on each other because we have big challenges in front of us. it's going to take all of us working together to solve them. >> but the interesting thing, i gu

it's the wrong course for a pac or a campaign.spectively be about the future and about issues and about a vision for america. i have been disappointed in the president's campaign to date which is focused on character assassination. i think that we are wiser to talk about the issues of the day and what we do to get america working again and talk about our respective records and so with that, i certainly hope that you get a chance to so our first ad coming up in a couple of days. >>shepard: there you go rejecting that plan, karl cameron, governor romney's response was mighty direct. >>carl: and he said i hope you watch the ad next week when they come out because it will be positive and he contrasted that to the first two of the three presidential ads from obama's campaign last few weeks that included attacks on mitt romney's personal character say this is clearly a campaign bit obama folks as a character assassination attempt where he will speak about issues. an opportunity for form to try to take the high road and put the president

lastly, we are currently interviewing parents to join our pac, and at our pac meeting on may 15, we will be doing that and making recommendations to the board on june 12. thank you. president yee: thank you. deputy superintendent carranza? deputy superintendent carranza: thank you, president yee. we had a good opportunity that afternoon, and i want to be clear that we made commitments to continue to meet on a monthly basis next year when our pac representatives and to agendize for each one of those meetings specific topics so we would have more of an opportunity to go in depth. just as a way of fairness, my office was not responsible for the agenda, so the 12 minutes, it minutes, six minutes, it was not on our agenda. we would have preferred more time. it did give us a good place to start the conversation, and i also appreciate recommendations -- recognition that there were documents from middle school pathway programs and others, and staff members have brought information that we provided to the parent organization. we are willing to do some more information, as well. i think one of the

i think it's the wrong course for a pac or a campaign. i hope that our campaigns can respectively be about the future. >> a leaked copy of the 54-page proposal titled "the defeat of barack hussein obama" first reported in the "new york times," was presented this week to the super pac funded by joe ricketts, whose family owns the chicago cubs. the proposal refers to president obama as the metrosexual black abraham lincoln and lay out a storyboard for a short film to publicize wright's racially incendiary sermons, including this remark after 9/11. >> america's chickens coming home to roost. >> in a statement to nbc news today, the super pac insists the ads won't air, adding the proposed campaign reflects an approach to politics that mr. ricketts rejects, and it was never a plan to be accepted. still, on a day the romney campaign wanted the focus to be on its raising more than $40 million last month, a reignited debate over how super pacs can both help and hurt a campaign. >> voters do not distinguish between ads coming from the campaign ver

we can debate super pacs all along. the whole message, the whole idea behind this as pointed out in first read, doesn't match the record. this president has a record. he is no longer this ominous character from chicago that no one knows. he has been in the white house now. michael? >> the record hasn't stopped me opening my e-mail on an almost daily basis and getting a caption that says, you must read this. usually in all caps with some preposterous theory about the president. i come back to saying that this is bad political strategy. it cultivates support among a very narrow part of the base. it is not going to win the hearts and minds of independents who i think would be repulsed by this. the best thing that could happen to barack obama's re-election is that a campaign like this be implemented. >> all right, michael, thank you very much. and i greatly appreciate all of you bringing your voice to this big story this hour. thank you. >>> for the first time, more minority children were born in the united states than whit

where do you see the super pac argument going? >> i think we're entering a phase where the super pacs are professionalized and institutionalized. they're almost, you know, attached and tethered to the party. when karl rove is running crossroads and is coordinating with the outside groups and is running a half a billion dollars in ads, it's not too different than when he's the head of the rnc and running those ads. they are not flakey, independent operators, you know, they are members of the party in good standing. they've worked in the party apparatus on both sides of the aisle, you know, in these super pacs democratic and gop side, it's not like it's kind of a fly-by-night operation. i think we'll see this become a permanent part of the landscape. i think that consultants will move into these operations and professionalize them and they're here to stay. >> nicholas, again, can't say enough what a great article it was, ron christie, thanks for coming up. and don't forget to watch "up with chris hayes" 8:00 a.m. eastern time on sat

super pac.> yeah. may sound like a joke but dozens of young people have jumped up and taken him up on his offer. we'll talk to one later. especially in this economy. but with three kids, being home more really helped. man: so we went to fidelity. we talked about where we were and what we could do. we changed our plan and did something about our economy. now we know where to go for help if things change again. call or come in today to take control of your personal economy. get free one-on-one help from america's retirement leader. like a ramen noodle- every-night budget. she thought allstate car insurance was out of her reach. until she heard about the value plan. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate. >>> now to news about your health and it's confusing. for years prostate cancer screening was considered almost routine but not anymore. a task force studying the issue is advising men to skip the test all together. alina cho is in new york. this is confusing. it's tough to know what

to use red two thousand and eight but this is a different election in this election we have super pacs. romney doesn't have to sign his name to any ad with reverend wright super pacs can just do it so i mean can we expect that come september or october we will see reverend wright come out i think i think reasonably so i think one of the things that is interesting about the way romney reacted this to this specifically is that he spent the whole primary cycle saying hey i will not i will not say to any super back that they should stop what they're doing when it comes to attacking my primary opponents but as soon as he hits the general which he essentially is in now an attack ad comes out that even the specter of an attack ad comes out about reverend wright he all the sudden jumps to repudiating something that remember he's not supposed to have any control over as a super pac so it's an interesting juxtaposition i think romney did the right thing in this particular instance i don't think rights should be on the table i think it's tasteless to put it back on the table i mean you know durin

let's look at this ad put out by a new super pac.he ad takes on bill nelson for being too cozy with president obama, let's watch it. >> president obama said no to the keystone pipeline. bill nels sided with president obama instead of the people of florida. say no to bill nelson, and choose connie mack for u.s. senate. >> it's so awful, i mean ezra, i love the way you describe the grainy pictures with the grim forbidding voice. i wish everyone would just say i will not be influenced by any ad that shows black and white picture that's is subversive in making this guy look evil without saying the words, but they work, don't they? >> yes, and i don't know, that bill nelson guy seemed pretty evil to me from that. this is the upside, they are issue ads. negative ads tent to have more issue content. bill nelson really did side with president obama on the keystone pipeline, even though that was not a fair assessment. it was paid for by freedom pac, what do they want? who is funding them? and that's what citizen's united did here. they said c

the koch brothers are going to kick in nearly $400 million to the super pac effort. the u.s.ce about a hundred million dollars. romney romney's own pac and the rest of the money will come from smaller but no less influential groups. news of this broke just before my interview with david axelrod. >> there was a report this morning that the republican super pacs apart from romney and his own super pac intend to spend a billion dollars in this campaign, setting up shadow organizations, as well as running media so a handful of politicracs are going to try to buy this government. and the stakes of that are pretty profound. i'm obviously concerned about the implications for our race but we -- we braced ourselves and we have been talking about this for sometime for it, and it's a concern it's one of my big concerns, but for congressional candidates, it has got to be a nightmare. we saw in the last election 2010 in the last three weeks of those campaigns, super pacs swooped in and they spent, you know, huge amounts of money in the final three weeks to influence those congressional ra

i am super pac! >> but now a challenger threatened my throne. who is he? there's one guy that literally started one in four of the super pacs that have been formed since the citizens united ruling. >> 64 seems like an extraordinary number of super pacs to me. because i have 0. >> he's formed 400 political action committees on the state level. >> he's run for several offices. >> he's raised 18 million dollars. >> he's a billionaire an economist. >> he was running for three offices at the same time. >> he's currently on the ballot for u.s. senator, u.s. house of representatives. >> he has run for president of the united states. >> he has run for just about everything. >> and his name is-- what is his name. >> i don't know it is josu, if it is hosu. >> hosu or also known as joshua. >> i have always called him mr. la rose. >> stephen: well, ayla rose by any other name spells like a mystery. join me tonight as i go in search of the man who would ride my pac tails. >> it's a mystery. he's got a lot of super pacs. but we don't know anything about him. who is this

it is the wrong course for a pac or campaign. i hope that our campaigns can be about the future and issues and a vision for america. i have been disappointed in the president's campaign to date, which as been focused on character assassination. we are wiser to talk about issues of today, what to do to get america working again. >> he is talking about the obama ad painting bain capital as top killers. -- job killers. >> it is reflective of the influence that super pacs have. they are spending more than political parties. this was an act of greed on the part of the proposers and stability, because the idea of running on -- against president obama on his association with rev. right, which did not turn out to be an issue in 2008 -- to make it an issue in 2012 is analogous to a decision by the money a campaign -- mondale campaign to run against ronald reagan as a warm lockne -- were among corporat -- warmonger. reverend wright has not been an issue this first four years, it is not going to be an issue. it just feeds of those who despi

it is the wrong course for a pac. i hope our campaigns can be about the future and issueand a vision for america. i have been disappointed in the president's campaign to date which has been focused on character assassination. we are wiser to talk about issusues othe day and what we do to get america workinggain. >> he is talking aboutut the obamama ads painting romneney and bain capital as a job killers. it buries mitt romney's message for a full day, mark. >> it is s must've of reflective of the influence t that per pacs have. they are spending more than political partie this was an act of greed on the part of the proposed yours -- proposers, and stability, because the idea of running against president obama on his association wi rev. right, which did not turn out to be an issue in 2008 -- to make it an issue in 2012 is analogous to a decision b the m mondale campaign to run against ronald reagan as a warmonger with the rockets readto explodeny minutute. if he had not donet in the first four years, it would no be an