Martha Plimpton joined Lawrence O'Donnell on The Last Word Wednesday to tout a new effort designed to push back against the anti-abortion extremists running Congress.

The actress spoke on behalf of the Bill of Reproductive Rights, a new initiative of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which declares the right to make your own choices about your reproductive health and future a "fundamental human right."

The star of Raising Hope noted that 1 in 3 women in America will have an abortion at some time in her life. She added: "The point of all of this is to make people understand that the shame and the isolation that go along with this conversation have no place in what is essentially a perfectly legitimate and constitutionally protected medical procedure."

Plimpton is hardly the only luminary backing the camapign. It's also getting support from Kevin Bacon, Sandra Bernhard, Billy Crudup, Olympia Dukakis, Jenna Fischer, Caroline Kennedy, Lisa Kudrow, Tea Leoni, Audra McDonald, Oliver Platt, Amy Poehler, Kyra Sedgwick, Sarah Silverman, and Meryl Streep.

Here's the full text of the Bill of Reproductive Rights, which can be found at drawtheline.org:

The Bill of Reproductive Rights states:

We the people of the United States hereby assert the following as fundamental human rights that no government may deny, and that our governments at every level must guarantee and safeguard for all.

1. The right to make our own decisions about our reproductive health and future, free from intrusion or coercion by any government, group, or individual.
2. The right to a full range of safe, affordable, and readily accessible reproductive health care—including pregnancy care, preventive services, contraception, abortion, and fertility treatment—and accurate information about all of the above.
3. The right to be free from discrimination in access to reproductive health care or on the basis of our reproductive decisions.

Michael Perez / AP

In a decision being cheered by voting-rights advocates, a judge has issued a preliminary injunction against Pennsylvania's controversial voter ID law.

Judge Robert Simpson ruled that poll workers can ask voters for ID, but they cannot turn away voters who do not have one. Nor can such voters be forced to cast a provisional ballot.

The ruling did not strike down the law, it merely ensured that the law won't be in effect for this fall's election.

“We are very glad voters will not be turned away from the polls this November if they do not have an ID,” said Judith Browne Dianis of the Advancement Project, which helped bring the case, in a statement.

Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice was more effusive. “Today’s decision is a clear victory for Pennsylvania voters and the cause of voting rights across the country," Weiser said in a statement.

State election officials had last week made modifications to the law in an effort to convince the judge not to block it. But Simpson wrote: “I cannot conclude the proposed changes cure the deficiency in liberal access [to ID's] identified by the Supreme Court.”

But despite the victory, some concerns remain. Voting-rights advocates expressed dissatisfaction that poll workers will still be allowed to ask for ID, potentially causing confusion. “This injunction serves as a mere Band-Aid for law’s inherent problems, not an effective remedy,” said Penda Hair of the Advancement Project.

And some said the state's $5 million ad campaign informing voters that they'll need ID has already sown confusion. "It's our hope that the state will revise its public education," Benjamin Geffen, a lawyer with the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, another group that helped bring the case, told Lean Forward.

Some Republican supporters of the law claimed a partial victory, citing the fact that, as it stands, the law will be in effect for future elections. "It's still a victory for election integrity, because ultimately every voter will need to have a photo ID," Steve Miskin, a spokesman for State Rep. Mike Turzai, told Lean Forward. Turzai provoked anger among voting rights supporters when he told a group of fellow Republicans in June that the law would "allow" Mitt Romney to win Pennsylvania this fall.

The legal fight may still not be over. The judge's ruling can be appealed to the state's Supreme Court.

Mitt Romney has benefited from an unlawful tax strategy employed by Bain Capital, three separate tax law experts tell Lean Forward.

“It violates the established tax law,” one put it flatly.

At issue are documents posted online Thursday by Gawker.com. They show that, like many other private equity firms, Bain has reduced its tax bill via an aggressive strategy that converts management fees, which are taxed as ordinary income, into capital gains, which are taxed at the lower 15% rate, tax experts who have reviewed the documents say. The documents show Bain has employed this strategy to convert over $1 billion in fees into capital gains, The New York Times reports.

Romney left Bain some time between 1999 and 2002—the exact date is contested—but there’s no dispute that, through his severance agreement, he maintains a financial interest in the investment funds at issue.

The Romney campaign has said Romney has no control over his investments. “Governor and Mrs. Romney’s assets are managed on a blind basis,” Michele Davis, a campaign spokeswoman said in a statement to The Washington Post. “They do not control the investment of these assets, the investment decisions are made by a trustee. Furthermore, the trustee does not decide where funds he invests in are domiciled, the sponsors of the funds do.”

On his blog Thursday, Victor Fleischer, a prominent tax law professor who teaches at the University of Colorado Law School, explained how the management fee conversion strategy often works.

“Each year, before the annual management fee comes due, the fund manager waives the management fee in exchange for a priority allocation of future profits,” Fleischer wrote. “There is minimal economic risk involved; as long as the fund, at some point, has a profitable quarter, the managers get paid.”

But in order to be legal, there needs to be some chance that the manager will lose out under the new arrangement, Dan Shaviro, a professor of taxation at NYU Law School, and the author of several books on tax policy, explained. And in Bain’s case, Shaviro, Fleischer, and a third prominent tax law professor who asked to remain anonymous all said, there just isn’t enough risk.

“[Bain] managers get to choose whether or not to waive [the management fee] on an annual basis,” Fleischer said. “So they can look at how their portfolio investments are doing on an annual basis and decide.”

“It is in my view improper, and it violates the established tax law,” said the third tax law professor. “In a court of law, I would rather be on the government’s side.”

“It’s just a fancy game with the IRS,” the professor added.

To be sure, the IRS isn’t known to have brought any cases relating to the management fee conversion strategy. Shaviro said that’s because the outmanned agency has been unable to keep up with the slew of sophisticated tax avoidance strategies pioneered in recent years. “They have too much stuff to worry about.”

In a statement to the Times, a Bain spokesman said the documents show "compliance with all laws.” And Fleischer and Shaviro both cautioned that different tax lawyers might come to different conclusions. “It’s conceivable that someone got an opinion that this works,” Shaviro said. “But in cases like this, I think the best, most reputable tax lawyers probably would refuse to give an opinion,” he said, because they would strongly doubt its legality.

On his blog, Fleischer was blunter: “If challenged in court, Bain would lose,” he wrote, and added: “Bottom line: Mitt Romney has not paid all the taxes required under law.”

So what did those documents on Bain Capital's offshore tax schemes, posted by Gawker Thursday, really tell us? There was no smoking gun, but tax expert David Cay Johnston of Reuters joined The Last Word to explain that they add to the evidence that Mitt Romney is pulling out all the stops to lower his tax bill.

"They're very revealing that Romney and Bain are doing everything they can to avoid and delay taxes, particularly the low 15% tax on dividends," Johnston told Lawrence O'Donnell.

A bipartisan 2008 Senate report concluded it's an "open secret that there's tax avoidance going on, through a particular kind of vehicle used through the Cayman Islands and elsewhere," Johnston recounted. "And these audits Gawker got suggest strongly that that's exactly what they've been doing."

"If Romney would avoid a 15% tax, what else would he try to avoid?," Johnston asked. "That's a pretty low tax."

In a new interview with Parade magazine, Romney claims he has avoided releasing his tax returns because he doesnt want to reveal information about the charitable contributions he's made to the Mormon church.

On The Last Word Wednesday, Lawrence O'Donnell welcomed policy wonks Jared Bernstein and Robert Reich to help him take on perhaps the two biggest policy lies that Mitt Romney has been pushing lately. 

First, Bernstein, a Lean Forward contributor and former White House economist, explained in detail why Romney's claim that by repealing Obamacare he'll extend and strengthen the program is "completely upside down."

Said Bernstein:

The suggestion that by putting that $716 billion back in, Mitt Romney will extend the life of the program—its exactly the opposite. Those dollars, the $716 billion, are extra costs that are in Medicare, that are taken out in the Affordable Care Act. They are things like overpayments to private insurers, excessive reimbursement rates. When you take those out, according to that groovy guy, the Medicare Actuary, you actually extend the life of the program by eight years. And this was quite clear on all those factual rebuttals, by putting that money back in, he's actually shortening the life of the program by eight years ... so this is completely upside down.

Indeed, The New York Times reported today that according to several experts, repealing the ACA's Medicare savings, as Romney wants to do, would shorten the life of Medicare by eight years.

Bernstein went on to debunk Romney's charge that President Obama has cut seniors' benefits by $716 billion.

"Those dollars come from inefficiencies on the delivery side, nothing on the beneficiary side," he said, echoing a point that many objective observers have made. "In fact the Affordable Care Act improves the benefits of Medicare."

Then it was Reich's turn. The former Clinton administration Labor Secretary took on Romney's false—and racially incendiary—charge that President Obama has relaxed the work requirements for welfare, so that recipients can simply sit around and "pick up a check." In fact, as we've written, Obama insisted that states had to show they were putting more welfare recipients to work in order for their changes to be approved.

Said Reich:

It's exactly the opposite of what Romney has been saying ... Republicans for years have been saying we want more flexibilty at the state level for a lot of these programs. So what the president does is, he turns around he says, 'OK states, you have some more flexibility, particualrly if you're going to put more welfare recipients to work.' And then Romney turns around and he says .... the president actually ... got rid of the work requirement.' I mean nothing could be further from the truth.  

So there you have it. Two crucial policy areas, and two flat-out lies from Mitt Romney. Now you have chapter and verse.

A new voter ID law passed by Republicans in Pennsylvania could disenfranchise over three quarters of a million voter, and will likely hit the poor and minorities hardest. In a sign of the confusion the law's requirements are already creating, even the state official charged with enforcing it has acknowledged: "I don't know what the law says."

On August 3, Alex P. Kellogg and Evan Puschak went to inner-city Philadelphia for MSNBC's Lean Forward to hear from some of those affected, at an event organized by the SeniorLAW Center, a nonprofit group that advocates for seniors. 

Lenora Carey, 101, told them she's voted for decades but has no ID. If it weren't for help she's getting from voting rights groups, she'd likely be shut out this time. 

"We struggled thru the '60s for the right to vote," Jerome Kennerly, a 62-year-old African-American military veteran said. "And here it is the 2000s, and we’re struggling with the same things? Come on, it’s a nightmare."

Monday's Supreme Court ruling on Arizona's immigration law was at first reported as something of a mixed bag—the court struck down part of the law, but upheld another part. And Arizona's Republican governor Jan Brewer even tried to claim an outright victory, telling reporters that the court upheld "the heart" of the law.  

We've already explained that's way off the mark. The court struck down most of the law, and said it couldn't yet rule on one provision requiring police to ask about people's immigration status because it hasn't gone into effect yet.

And on The Last Word Monday, Julian Epstein, a former chief counsel to the House Judiciary committee, went further, telling Lawrence O'Donnell that in fact, the court's ruling was an almost complete victory for opponents of the law.

"It's very important to understand that this was not a split decision," said Epstein, a Democrat. "This was an old-fashioned slap-down by a conservative court against the Arizona law, and a conservative movement on immigration."

 Epstein added: "This was a huge victory for the Obama administration."

On The Ed Show earlier Monday, Rep. Raul Grijalva called Brewer "delusional."