'Birthers' lawsuit challenging Obama's election is dismissed

The “birthers” lose, again.

This morning, a U.S. District Court Judge in Santa Ana dismissed a federal lawsuit challenging President Obama’s election on the grounds he wasn’t born in the U.S.

In his opinion, Judge David O. Carter stated that it is not within the constitutional power of the federal courts to “overthrow a sitting president.”

The case, brought forward by California attorney Orly Taitz, a leader of the so-called “birther” movement, claims that Obama doesn’t meet the constitutional qualifications to be president because he has not shown he is a “natural born citizen” of the U.S.

Support for Obama slips in California, poll finds

Support for President Obama has slipped slightly in California but remains strong, according to a new Field Poll.

The poll found that 60% of respondents rate Obama favorably and 31% unfavorably. Back in March, 65%  of those surveyed favored Obama’s performance, while 21% disapproved.

"These ratings place him in about the mid-range of the job assessments given to his five immediate predecessors at about the same point in their presidencies," according to the poll.

California voters are more concerned about the war in Afghanistan, the poll found. "While Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan is supported 48% to 31%, voters are divided about whether troop levels there should be increased (33%), kept at current levels (16%) or cut back (37%)," according to Field.

Study pours cold water on performance-based teacher pay

One of the most intensely debated aspects of President Obama's "Race to the Top" fund for education, especially here in California, has been its insistence on a mechanism that would allow for teacher evaluations based on the performance of their students. It's a no-brainer as far as a lot of people are concerned, but teachers unions abhor it and California law specifically forbids linking teachers with student achievement, at least at the state level.

Now comes some interesting, and perhaps counterintuitive, news from Portugal, where the government recently began tying teacher pay to student achievement. A study released in May (and brought to our attention today by the Public Education Network) contains this stunner of a conclusion: "Overall, our results consistently indicate that the increased focus on individual teacher performance caused a sizable and statistically significant decline in student achievement."

That's right, students did worse when teacher pay was based on their performance. Go figure.

The study, by the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany, does contain solace for supporters of performance-based pay. Simply put, the Portuguese system might not be the best example of how to put together such a system, and the authors acknowledge that "teacher incentives ... may improve student achievement" if done well.

--Mitchell Landsberg

Obama's speech faced reception problems -- technical and otherwise

Across the Southland, school districts dealt with varying challenges related to President Obama’s Tuesday address to students, including technical difficulties and parents who did or did not want the speech broadcast during school hours.

For most students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, classes don’t begin until Wednesday. Commonwealth Avenue Elementary was an exception, because it runs on a year-round calendar because of overcrowding. So Commonwealth became the official viewing site for district officials, the media and visiting dignitaries Tuesday morning. A number of Commonwealth students still missed the speech, however, because of technical difficulties.

After Obama’s remarks, a faculty delegation participated in a round table discussion with Deputy Secretary of Education Anthony W. Miller. Participants discussed the benefits and limits of federal stimulus dollars at the campus.

Before the federal bailout arrived, Commonwealth stood to lose as many as 10 of 42 teachers. In the end, three were laid off and two took jobs elsewhere. All three laid-off teachers are currently working in the school as long-term substitutes, but any open permanent slots must soon be filled by laid-off teachers from elsewhere with more seniority, said Principal Young Ae Park.

Nor was the federal money sufficient to prevent some class-size increases. And Park must now share her assistant principal with another school.

“We don’t have manpower to sustain what we have done the past 10 years,” she said, referring to the school’s rising test scores.

Schwarzenegger tops 1 million followers on Twitter

Over the weekend, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger broke a barrier few fellow politicians have: the 1 million followers mark on Twitter.

Only President Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona have more.

“With Twitter you don’t have just 100 people in front of you,” Schwarzenegger said in a conversation with the website’s founders at the company’s San Francisco headquarters last week, “you have an endless amount.”

Schwarzenegger, who rose to fame connecting to audiences as a bodybuilder and movie star, has taken a liking to the social networking site, on which users share bursts of information in 140-character bites.

In recent weeks, his online following has learned, for instance, that his favorite food is “a good NY steak,” preferably barbecued.  He’s told followers that he still keeps the sword from "Conan the Barbarian" in the office. The picture he posted has garnered more than 206,000 page views. And the idea of signing visors of state vehicles sold at California’s much-publicized garage sale last week was first suggested to Schwarzenegger on Twitter.

Not that it’s been entirely smooth sailing. In a July video posted to Twitter, he brandished a large knife amid budget talks that centered on slicing deeply in education, healthcare and other state programs. He later defended himself as not an "El Stiffo" governor.

Among the politicians nipping at Schwarzenegger’s tweeting heels are a pair of Democrats who want to replace him. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is on the precipice of 1 million followers, while Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, who is not yet officially a candidate for governor, has nearly 750,0000 followers.

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento

Obama's Oxy professor reports: 'He still didn't agree about that grade'

Does your grade on a college term paper still tug at you years or decades later? Well, join the man in the White House.

Last week, President Obama had a warm reunion in the Oval Office with Occidental College politics professor Roger Boesche. The two hadn’t seen each other since 1981 when Obama, then known as Barry, was about to transfer from the Los Angeles college to Columbia University in New York.

Over the years, Obama has cited Boesche as one of his most influential teachers, but the two had had only sporadic contact via e-mail.

Thursday they met again at the president’s invitation. Boesche, back in his Eagle Rock home Saturday, said Obama jokingly recalled that pesky “B” Boesche had given him on a paper on European political thought. The president, Boesche said, also reminded him that he had turned down his appeal for an “A.”

“He still didn’t agree about that grade,” said Boesche, laughing.

Their discussion of 10 minutes or so touched on more serious topics such as healthcare. Boesche, 61, has struggled with rheumatoid arthritis and said he thanked the president for his reform efforts.
Boesche said he, his wife Mandy and their daughter Kelsey came away impressed by Obama’s charm and friendliness.

“It was a complete thrill,” he said.

(The White House press office did not respond to a request for the president’s response to the reunion.)

Asked if he had seen the makings of a president in his young student nearly 30 years ago, Boesche said he could not claim he had. He urged other professors and teachers to “realize that in any class you could have a child, a young man or woman, who could do incredibly great things in the world. So teach as well as you can.”

-- Larry Gordon

Top photo: Occidental College professor Roger Boesche pictured in his Eagle Rock home office in December. Credit: Jay Clendenin/Los Angeles Times. Bottom photo: Barack Obama, seen in the photo he submitted with his 1979 college application. Credit: Occidental College

Obama remains very popular in Los Angeles, Times Poll finds

When it comes to L.A. and Barack Obama, the honeymoon continues.

Candidate Obama won overwhelmingly in Los Angeles back in November. Now, five months into his presidency, how's he doing? 

A new Los Angeles Times Poll shows his popularity remains extremely high in the city. By a 72%-17% margin, voters in Los Angeles approve of the job Obama is doing as president. 

The approval cuts across racial and ethnic lines. Obama gets approval from 88% of African American voters but also from 69% of whites and 69% of Latinos.

The Times Poll of 1,500 registered voters was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research in conjunction with Public Opinion Strategies, both polling firms based in Washington, D.C. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. The poll was conducted June 10-16. 

— David Lauter

 Check Sunday's Los Angeles Times for full results of the new Times Poll on topics including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's political future, the city's budget deficit and a look ahead at next year's race for governor. There will be additional poll results on the public's view of the Los Angeles Police Department and more. Poll data will also be broadcast on KTLA News.

Photo: L.A. Times

Obama's speech inspires Muslims in Los Angeles & around U.S.

In Los Angeles, Salam Al-Marayati beamed as he watched President Obama enumerate Muslim contributions to civilization and the United States.

In Dearborn, Mich., home to the nation’s largest Arab American community, leaders quietly hoped that Obama’s speech in Cairo would usher in a new era in American attitudes toward them.

And in Washington, the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations praised Obama for repeatedly quoting the Koran and acknowledging damaging stereotypes of Muslims.

Even as Obama’s speech today reverberated through the Muslim world, back home it offered inspiration to U.S. Muslims seeking a new image for their community -- one they said had been eclipsed by the rhetoric of religious extremism in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

“I came away feeling confident that this president does take seriously his role in opposing stereotypes of Islam,” said Al-Marayati, head of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council, who rose at 3 a.m. to watch the speech on television in his living room. “He will be a major source for all of us as one who debunks the myths about Islam and Muslims to the American public.”

Read full story here.

-- Duke Helfand in Los Angeles and P.J. Huffstutter in Fort Wayne, Ind.

A second L.A. official to leave Villaraigosa to work for Obama

Another member of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s senior staff is heading to Washington.

President Obama on Friday announced that he has nominated Mercedes Márquez, general manager of the city’s Housing Department, to become assistant secretary for community planning and development at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, the post would be a reunion of sorts for Márquez. During the Clinton administration, she served as the senior counsel to the HUD secretary for civil rights and fair housing.

"Mercedes is energetic, passionate and has a deep understanding of the challenges facing big cities," Villaraigosa said in a statement released by his office. "She will be a true partner for Los Angeles at the federal level. I look forward to working hand in hand with her to build more affordable housing, invest in communities, revitalize our urban core, and build the foundation for more housing options for our hard-working families."

Maria Shriver says Obama joke wasn't funny to millions

Maria Shriver, California’s first lady and a Democrat who endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton last year, gave the president a wrist-slap this morning after he made fun of the Special Olympics, the nonprofit group for mentally disabled athletes founded by her mother.

Obama, who appeared on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno," said he’d improved at bowling lately, scoring 129. “It was like Special Olympics or something,” the president said, with a huge grin.

In a statement this morning, Shriver said, “While I am confident that President Obama never intended to offend anyone, the response that his comments have caused, coupled with the reaction of a primetime audience, demonstrate the need to continue to educate the non-disabled community on the issues that confront those with a developmental disability."

Shriver added: “Oftentimes we don’t realize that when we laugh at comments like this it hurts millions of people throughout the world.”

Obama called her brother, Tim Shriver, the chairman of Special Olympics, to apologize. Their mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, was a founder of the organization.