Lou Dobbs abruptly quits CNN on the air -- video

CNN's outspoken and controversial anchor/commentator Lou Dobbs suddenly announced his retirement during his program today, effective immediately.

See the video below.

Dobbs, who's been particularly outspoken on the issue of illegal immigration, said the country's current problems require rigorous discussion based less on partisanship than empirical evidence. He said he'd been under pressure to take a new direction in his life (politics) and he was going to do so in an effort to help save what he called the country's beleaguered system of capitalism.

Over the past six months, it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us.

And some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving, as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day. And to continue to do so in the most direct and honest language possible.

CNN, which isn't doing all that well in recent ratings anyway, has also been under pressure to....

No 'Sister Souljah' moment for Obama at healthcare town hall

It must have been music to the president's ears, a spontaneous crowd rendition of "Yes We Can!" from the crowd of 1,800 at Portsmouth High School in New Hampshire. "I remember that," he said with what sounded like a mixture of nostalgia and rue.

For the rest, President Obama's foray into the turmoil that has roiled town hall meetings across the country was a disappointment.

Outside the hall, protesters were loud and insistent. On a church lawn overlooking the high school, they toted signs that said "Hands Off My Healthcare," "Obamacare, It's to Die For," and "Obamacare, Down the Chute Granny."

But inside, questions were, well, polite. With his poll numbers slipping and public skepticism about healthcare reform growing, White House aides had hoped Obama would get a nasty question, like those that have greeted members of Congress on the issue. A tough question would have allowed the president to knock down some of the fears about his healthcare plan -- much as Bill Clinton did in calming voter fears that he was too liberal to be president by distancing himself from hip-hop artist Sister Souljah in 1992.

So, without a good pitch to hit, the president took batting practice -- setting up his own pitches and knocking down some of the myths that have stirred up fear.

On death care: The rumor about "death panels," Obama said, got started because of an amendment in the House bill -- authored by a Republican -- that would have allowed seniors to get Medicare reimbursement for consultations with doctors about end-of-life care like hospice and living wills. They are spreading a rumor, he said, that we want to "pull the plug on Grandma because we decided it's too expensive to let her live anymore."

"I am not in favor of that," Obama said, adding that the underlying argument -- rationing of care -- is at the core of opposition to healthcare reform, a fear that "some bureaucrat ... some bean counter" will decide whether a patient can get a test or procedure.

"I don't believe anyone should be in charge of your healthcare decisions except you and your doctor," he said. "I don't think government bureaucrats should be meddling. But I also don't think insurance company bureaucrats should be meddling."

On costs and taxes: "I won't sign a bill that adds to the deficit or the national debt," he said, belittling Republican critics in Congress who "say with a straight face that we've got to be fiscally responsible" when they supported the cost-heavy prescription drug bill enacted by the Bush administration. Noting that "paying for it is not simple," Obama argued that insurance companies are getting $177 billion a year in overpayments from Medicare that can serve as an important down payment on reform.

On the public option: There's "nothing inevitable" about a government-funded program forcing out private insurers as long as it's self-sustaining, Obama said, adding, "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the post office that's always having problems."

Finally, on the last question, a man from Derry, N.H., seemed to get Obama's goat when he asked about the new White House website and email address -- flag@whitehouse.gov -- that invites Americans to flag any misinformation circulating on the Internet on healthcare.

Calling it "another example of the media distorting" things, Obama said there is no intention to collect "an enemy's list," only to correct the record. "Come on guys," he said, "we're trying to be responsive to the questions being raised."

Obama has two more town hall appearances this week: On Friday, he does a town hall in Bozeman, Mont., and on Saturday he holds one in Grand Junction, Colo.

Maybe somebody will rail.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Some Latinos, angry at Obama and Congress, threatening to boycott census

The Senate this week confirmed Robert Groves, a former census official and sociology professor at the University of Michigan, to run the Census Bureau. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke pronounced him ''a respected social scientist who will run the Census Bureau with integrity and independence.''

The appointment will hardly still controversy over the 2010 census.

To guarantee the most accurate count of the 300 million or so Americans, federal officials promise confidentiality. But now a group of Latino clergymen is charging that widely published census data is being used to crack down on illegal immigrants. And they're calling on people in the country illegally not to answer the census.

"Law enforcement has been very effective in areas where the data of census 2000 has been used," said Rev. Miguel Rivera, head of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, a Washington-D.C.-based group of 20,000 churches, many of them storefronts serving undocumented workers.

Required by the U.S. Constitution, the census is used to apportion seats in Congress. With residents leaving amid a fiscal meltdown, California could lose a congressional seat. With new residents moving in, Utah or North Carolina could gain. And, beyond the politics of the thing, the census is also used to apportion more than $300 billion in federal dollars to states and cities. So, high stakes all around.

Disappointed that President Obama has not pushed harder for immigration reform to help the estimated 12 million undocumented Latinos in the country, Rivera told NPR that he hopes a boycott will put pressure on Congress to do just that. "If they don't want [a loss of]  funding for their constituents, maybe losing seats at the congressional level, then what they have to do is roll their sleeves and move forward with comprehensive immigration reform," he said.

Los Angeles activist Nativo Lopez is trying to convince the group he heads, the Mexican American Political Assn., to endorse the boycott. Latinos -- who helped elect Obama -- feel betrayed, he said, believing that despite great campaign rhetoric, the Obama White House is just continuing the Bush crackdown on illegal immigration while ignoring the impact of the recession on undocumented workers.

"There is no incentive for me to cooperate with the federal government to conduct this count unless we get relief from the federal government on the types of issues that are devastating our families socially and economically," he said.

In North Carolina, where a Latino undercount could seriously damage the state's chances of getting another congressional seat, Roy Crisanto, pastor of El Tabernaculo De La Uncion, a Pentecostal church, is telling members to join the boycott.

“The government wants to count people,” Crisanto told the Charlotte Observer, “but not give them the benefits that come with being counted.”

Other Latino groups are gearing up to fight the boycott, fearing that it could undermine the very count that helps the community with needed funds.

Arturo Vargas, head of the National Assn. of Latino Elected Officials, called the boycott "irresponsible," reminding his colleagues that an undercount would affect funding and representation for a decade.

"The irony is that the enemies of immigration reform, this is what they want," Vargas told the Wall Street Journal. "They don't want these people counted."

Catholic bishops have also joined the be-counted campaign. "It is important to get the word out because some of the populations we serve tend to normally be undercounted," said San Antonio's Archbishop Jose Gomez, an official in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "The U.S. Census is a useful tool for learning about God's people, who and where they are, and many other facts that shed light on their lives, possibilities and struggles."

Census forms are to be mailed out in the spring. Between now and then, look for this debate to rev up.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo:  New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson speaks to Latino voters during a rally in Denver in October. Credit: Associated Press

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More questions about Barack Obama's birth certificate, still

Well, here we go again on the Barack Obama birth certificate controversy that just won't die because it's one of those zombie issues like who really killed JFK.

No less an authority on politics, history and government archives than the Pat Boone is now raising serious questions about the legitimacy of the entire Obama administration and everything it has done since those 21 guns went off shortly after noon on Jan. 20.

This is because a lot of people, including firebrand conservative Alan Keyes (as The Ticket described here in February) and now Boone, insist or suggest or imply that Obama cannot be president of these United States because they insist, suggest or imply he wasn't really born in Hawaii but was actually born in Kenya, his father's homeland.

(See below for the certificate of live birth provided by the Obama staff a year ago, even though technically that's not a birth certificate.)

(Helpful Ticket Political Reminder: Obama thoroughly thumped Keyes, a last-minute hopeless fill-in GOP candidate, in his initial 2004 U.S. Senate run in Illinois. So there may be a lingering issue there in the mind of Keyes, wherever that is.)

Now, none of this should actually matter because Obama's mother was an American, if you consider Kansas America. So she could have been on Mars when wee Barry emerged and he'd still be American. All the courts have consistently thrown out challenges to the first African American president's legality. And Obama's spending, golfing and official POTUS Air Force One jacket sure don't indicate he's got any doubts about his legitimacy.

But maybe the courts are all part of a vast Kenyan socialist conspiracy or something. As they do daily, Wonkette has a lot of fun with its own theory about this conspiracy theory.

Anyway, the latest development is that Pat Boone, in an article headlined "Mr Obama, Show Us Your Birth Certificate," goes on a long while about the hassle of non-terrorists trying to board commercial American flights nowadays. Which is so true, isn't it?

It's gotten so bad, Pat reports, that he's actually turned down some gigs just to avoid the airport hassle. Which must be a nice position to be in, even with the hassle.

Pat -- we call him that because we've never met -- questions the validity of the certificate of live birth published on The Ticket. He raises dramatic fears about what will happen if years down the road Obama is actually proven to be legally barred from holding the Oval Office as is, say, California's Austrian-born Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But then PB gets to his main point:

If I have to produce my passport, my driver’s license, my birth certificate, for things like leaving the country and returning, buying and selling and leasing and renting — all the things ordinary citizens are required to do all the time — why then, in the name of decency and equality, and, in the “open” and “transparent” approach to government Obama promised, should our elected leader not do the same?

Now, some might say, who is this Pat Boone to question the legitimacy of the president of the United States? Well, he's a lifelong conservative who had a very nice voice and made so many popular hits for your parents that for many years he was second only to a singer who died of drug issues (that would be Elvis).

Pat's qualifications also include popularizing the wearing of white suede shoes about a century or so ago, even though such foot gear is impossible to keep unscuffed for more than 27 seconds..

Pat says Obama is dismantling America’s free markets, taxing the higher-earning middle class into despondency, spending and taxing the nation into bankruptcy, imposing socialistic, government-run healthcare, seriously weakening our military and encouraging our enemies and enacting crippling and fraudulent “global warming” laws, among other nefarious things.

And, he asks, what if "he wasn’t even legally entitled to be president at all. Yes, it is important, crucially and everlastingly important. America’s very future depends on the defense of, and obedience to, our basic constitutional laws."

So while it seems unlikely Pat will be invited to perform at the next White House lesbian gay pride celebration, this birth certificate thing doesn't seem to be going away as quickly as white suede shoes.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Obama news conference: Where next on immigration reform?

The next question is on immigration reform and whether the president will reach out to Sen. John McCain, an advocate of immigration reform.

President Obama says he would “love to partner” with McCain and others on what is going to be “a critical issue.”

The current system, he said, “is putting a strain on border communities who oftentimes have to deal with a host of undocumented workers, and it keeps those undocumented workers in the shadows, which means they can be exploited at the same time they are depressing U.S. wages.”

Obama says he hopes to convene a “working group to start looking at a framework of how this legislation might be shaped.” In the meantime, he says, he is taking administrative steps in order to persuade the American people that, should an immigration reform law be crafted, the people will believe it can really be executed.

To that end, he says, his secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, is working on strengthening border security. On the other hand, he adds, attention must be paid to the employers who are essentially “inviting workers in.” He does plan to have something in place this year, he says, and acknowledges his full plate: “I have been accused of doing too much,” he says. “We are moving full steam ahead on all fronts.”

-- Robin Abcarian

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Photo: Matthew Cavanaugh / EPA (Obama responds to a question from the news media during a press conference on his 100th Day in Office from the East Room of the White House.)

Factcheck.org alters 'not true' charge about U.S. guns

Last Friday FactCheck.org, the nonprofit independent organization that monitors political claims and charges, issued a report challenging President Obama's claim in remarks during his Mexico visit that 90% of crime-recovered guns there came from American sources.

Based on that report, The Ticket published this item.

Tuesday FactCheck.org issued an explanatory correction, in effect saying that while the president's 90% claim is not supported by statistics, the organization cannot prove the number is wrong. Here is the FactCheck statement:

We are correcting our April 17 article "Counting Mexico's Guns" and sending this revised Summary to our list.

 We originally concluded that Obama’s 90 percent figure was “not true” and based on a “badly biased” sample of recovered guns. We are retracting both those characterizations. The 90 percent figure is not supported by government statistics, but we cannot prove it is wrong.

Our error was to think we had confirmed that Mexican officials submit for tracing only those guns they believe likely to have come from the U.S. Law enforcement officials say they don't know if that's the case.

We have corrected the article throughout. We apologize for this mistake.

Full news conference transcript of Presidents Obama and Calderon

Following is the transcript of the joint news conference by Presidents Felipe Calderon of Mexico and Barack Obama, on April 16, 2009, Mexico City. Some news: The U.S. leader would not commit publicly to a ban on assault weapons:

PRESIDENT CALDERÓN: (As translated.) Ladies and gentlemen of the press, of the media, I would like to give the warmest welcome to Mexico to President Barack Obama, and to the delegation accompanying him. This is a historic event that will inaugurate a new era, a new relationship between our two countries.

Today in the meetings that we have held we have confirmed the determination of both governments to consolidate the very, very close contacts and links that join and bring together Mexico and the United States. We have new projects in important affairs such as security, migration, competitiveness and global affairs.

As never before we have decided that the fight against multinational organized crime must be based on cooperation, shared responsibility, and in trust, a mutual trust. 

Both governments recognize that the Merida Initiative is a very good starting point in order to strengthen cooperation in security. But we want to go beyond, we want to go further in order to liberate, to free our societies from the criminal activities that affect the lives of millions of people.

We have also agreed to expedite the times so that we can have available the resources for this Merida Initiative, and we have also decided to launch other activities that are in the hands of our governments.

For example, we can adopt new measures for preventing illicit flows at the border, particularly....

As Obama tackles immigration, Texas legislator suggests immigrants Americanize names

The White House is making plans to roll out an immigration reform proposal next month, one that would make good on President Obama's promise to Hispanic voters to tackle the thorny issue.

On tap, White House aide Cecilia Munoz told reporters this week, is a reform package that "controls immigration and makes it an orderly system," one that would also provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country.

With 6 million Americans out of work, many of them blue-collar employees who believe immigrants are pushing them out of their jobs, conservatives predicted tough political sledding for any reform effort. "They will face a bloodbath," GOP commentator Pat Buchanan said this morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

But one Republican legislator in Texas has a unique spin on how to help immigrants, and even second- and third-generation Americans, assimilate. Republican Betty Brown said this week she thinks Americans of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent should change their names to make it easier for poll workers to identify them.

According to the Houston Chronicle, the comment came late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting because they may have a legal trans-literated name and then a common English name used on driver’s licenses or school registrations.

Brown, who with her husband Ron operates a ranch near Terrell on land that has been in her family for four generations, suggested that Asian Americans should find a way to make their names more accessible. She said:

Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here? ... Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?

No word on how Ko responded. Perhaps, like us, he was speechless. But Texas Democratic Chairman Boyd Richie found plenty of words. He accused Republicans in Texas of trying to suppress votes with a partisan identification bill and Brown of "adding insult to injury with her disrespectful comments. "Brown spokesman Jordan Berry said Brown was not making a racially motivated comment but was trying to resolve an identification problem. He also said Democrats are trying to sensationalize her comments because polls show most Texans support requiring identification for voting.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo: David McNew / Getty Images

Full text of President Obama's Costa Mesa Town Hall meeting

Remarks by and and Questions of President Obama at a Costa Mesa Town Hall Meeting

Orange County Fair and Event Center, Costa Mesa, California,    3:44 P.M. PDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, everybody.  (Applause.)  Everybody have a seat -- we're going to be here a while. Well, thank you so much Orange County for the wonderful reception.  Thank you.

First of all, let me thank Jerome for the wonderful introduction. Give him a big round of applause.  (Applause.)  We've got a number of elected officials who are here, who I want to acknowledge. We've got the Lieutenant Governor, John Garamendi. 

Give the Lieutenant Governor a big round of applause. (Applause.)  We've got the Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, who is here. (Applause.)  Got an outstanding member of Congress, Representative Loretta Sanchez.  (Applause.) Now, this is not Loretta's district, this is actually Dana Rohrabacher's district.

AUDIENCE:  Booo --

THE PRESIDENT: No, no, no, we actually -- our office screwed up and I think didn't get the invitation to him on time, so he's not here. That was a screw-up on our part. So I want to let him know we're sorry about that, and I want everybody to give him a big round of applause, it's his district.  (Applause.)

Secretary of State Debra Bowen is here. (Applause.)  State Comptroller John Chiang is here.  (Applause.)  Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell is here.  (Applause.)  And I've got a couple of others.  We've got the Mayor of Santa Ana, Miguel Pulido, who's here.  (Applause.)  We've got -- let's see, who else?  We have -- State Senator Jose Correa is here.  (Applause. We have State Representative Jose Solorio here.  (Applause.)  We have the State Democratic Party Chair Art Torres is here.  (Applause.)  And a great friend and supporter, Steve Westly, is here.  Give everybody a round of applause.  (Applause.)  I hope I did not miss anybody.

Now -- and all of you are here. Give yourself a big round of applause.  (Applause.)

All right. Now, let me just say that, for those of you who have chairs, go ahead and sit down so folks behind you can see. All right. Make sure to sit down if you've got a chair.  We'll have time to shake hands afterwards.

Now, it is always good to get out of Washington for a little while, and come to places like Costa Mesa.  (Applause.) The climate is a lot nicer and so is the conversation.  (Applause.)  So I am looking forward to taking your questions in a few minutes and talking to you about your concerns.  But before I do, I want to say a few words at the top. And I'm going to start out just by talking about these AIG bonuses you've been hearing about.

Now, I know a lot of you are outraged about this -- rightfully so.  I'm outraged, too.  It's hard to understand that a company that's relying on extraordinary assistance from taxpayers to keep its doors open would be paying anybody lavish bonuses.  It goes against our most basic sense of what's fair and what's right.  It offends our values.

But these bonuses, outrageous as they are, are a symptom of a much larger problem.  And that's the system and culture that made them possible -- a culture where people made enormous....

Obama Town Hall: A lesson on banking and how AIG is like a suicide bomber

We grant you that the whole AIG bailout and bonus debacle -- the credit default swap mess, the mortgage-backed securities swamp -- are very difficult concepts to grasp in detail. Which is why we hope in the future that when President Obama gets a notion to explain them to folks in town hall meetings, he polishes his spiel.

Or maybe a nice PowerPoint presentation would help.

We were with him when he began by saying, "Let me talk about the larger issue -- banks -- for just a second. I am so frustrated with this banking situation."

Then, he went pretty wonky about over-leveraging and the weakened housing market and we just thought, OK, fine, let's see if he can describe the mess in a way that makes sense and doesn't make people want to go to sleep. Our on-the-scene colleague, Tony Barboza, reports that people sat still, listened and fanned themselves with paper. No one but us fell to the floor in a swoon.

Obama tried to localize the issue and summed up the reason the Feds had to step in to save the banks.

"If you just got one small bank, take the community bank -- what was the name of your community bank?" he asked the woman who had posed a question earlier. "If Fullerton Community Bank fails, we've got something called the FDIC -- the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. -- that would take it over, guarantee the deposits and it would be able to kind of sort things out and sell the bank fairly quickly and it doesn't threaten the system as a whole.

"When you've got big big banks -- Citicorp or Bank of America or Wells Fargo -- that control 70% of the banking system and all of them are weakening, you can't afford to have all those banks going under, even though the deposits might be guaranteed. We had to step in, it was the right thing to do, even though it's infuriating. ..."

Well, OK, that all made sense, but then he compared AIG to a suicide bomber, and at that, we really perked up.

"Same thing with AIG," Obama said. "It was the right thing to do to step in. Like they've got a bomb strapped to them and they've got their hand on the trigger, you don't want them to blow up, but you've got to ease them off the trigger."

And the president held out his arm and pantomimed a hand on a trigger, and we were rapt, waiting for what would happen next.

But then he called for a final question from the crowd.

-- Robin Abcarian

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Photo: David McNew / Getty Images