Who Runs Gov

Wow. Lou Dobbs, putative presidential candidate, just can’t catch a break.

An anti-immigrant group is now making it official: It’s pulling its support for Dobbs and his presidential run, in the wake of Dobbs’ recent claim that he in fact supports a path to legalization for undocumented workers, saying that Dobbs “deeply offended his base.”

Previously, Dobbs had spent years blasting “amnesty” for illegals and trafficking in other anti-immigrant sentiment, prompting the long-running campaign to oust him from CNN. In a recent interview with Telemundo, however, he surprised a lot of observers by declaring he’d always been supportive of a route to legalization.

Dobbs’ new declaration is too much for the anti-immigrant group Americans for Legal Immigration, which just blasted out this release:

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is withdrawing support for Lou Dobbs after years including the suspension of websites calling on Dobbs to run for President due to the perceived change in Mr. Dobbs’s stances on immigration issues.

“While Mr. Dobbs claims his positions have not changed, however, that is not the perception of many of our mutual supporters,” said William Gheen of ALIPAC…

“Lou Dobbs has deeply offended his base of supporters and ALIPAC is going to remain loyal to those Americans who support our existing immigration laws instead of Amnesty disguised as reform.”

The group, the first to call for Dobbs to run for president, has now suspended all support for his campaign. It had previously expressed its chagrin about Dobbs’ apparent change of heart; now they’ve officially yanked support for good.

Xenophobes for a Dobbs Presidency is no more! It’s unclear how his presidential hopes can recover from such a severe blow. Thanks to reporter Beth Marlowe for the catch.

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Texas governor Rick Perry is getting lots of attention for calling Obama a socialist in a speech to a crowd of Tea Partiers the other day.

But Perry made another, equally lurid charge — he said that the Obama administration is using Texas as a dumping ground for undocumented immigrants — and now a local official we contacted there is contradicting Perry’s claim.

Perry — mindful of what you need to say to whip up the Tea Party crowd these days — claimed that a local official in Presidio County, which is in Texas on the border with Mexico, had been told by the Feds, as Perry put it, to “get ready for an influx of illegal aliens who were captured illegally crossing the border.”

Perry said the administration was “punishing this state.”

But the Superintendent of Presidio Independent School District, Dennis McEntire, tells us that in fact, the illegals are being sent to the Mexico side of the border. McEntire tells our reporter Ryan Derousseau that the U.S. government is taking nearly 100 undocumented immigrants caught daily in Arizona to a bridge leading to the Mexican town of Ojinaga. They are not being deposited in Texas, he said.

Now, anti-illegal-immigrant types will argue that this is still a threat to Texas because they’re being dropped right near the border. But the local official (who doesn’t support the initiative) tells us that the undocumented workers are sent to a shelter in the Mexican town and that the Mexican government has agreed to pay bus fare to ship them back to their home towns.

Bottom line: The most lurid aspect of Perry’s claim — that the U.S. government is using Texas as a dumping ground for illegals — appears to be untrue.

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After meeting last night, House Dem leaders have decided to proceed with a resolution today condeming Joe Wilson for his “you lie,” outburst, leadership aides say — but the resolution will sidestep the immigration-related substance of Wilson’s attack on the President.

“A resolution of disapproval will come to the floor today, likely in the afternoon,” Kristie Greco, a spokesperson for Dem Rep. James Clyburn, emailed me.

Greco confrmed that the resolution won’t discuss Wilson’s claim that Obama lied when he said his health care proposal wouldn’t insure illegal immigrants, and instead would only focus on Wilson’s conduct. “The resolution will be simple, non-partisan and address the breach of conduct during the Joint Address,” Greco said.

The decision to sidestep what Wilson said suggests Dem leaders may be reluctant to engage in a debate with Republicans over the veracity of Wilson’s immigration claim. Both sides will speak out today on the House floor about Wilson, and Dems may worry that a resolution addressing Wilson’s claim would give Republicans an opening to amplify his case.

It’s interesting to contrast this with the GOP’s handling of the House’s 2007 resolution condemning MoveOn for dissing General Petraeus. Today’s Wilson resolution will be the lowest form of condemnation available, while Repubs didn’t flinch from attacking MoveOn’s conduct as “reprehensible” and condemning it in the “strongest possible terms.”

What’s more, while House Dems voted en masse to condemn MoveOn after intense pressure from the right, today House GOPers will mostly side with Wilson.

Today Dems will forego the opportunity to use this resolution to contest the accuracy of what Wilson actually said — a claim that has become central to the health care debate — even though non-partisan observers have done just that and sided with the President.

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Looks like MSNBC has a bit of a Pat Buchanan problem on its hands.

In the wake of Buchanan’s latest (ahem) racially charged diatribe, in which he described America as a “country built basically by white folks,” a respected immigration reform group is demanding that the network stop granting Buchanan a platform to share what might charitably be termed his ideas on racial issues.

“We’re really concerned that MSNBC is putting this guy on when he should be on Fox,” Paco Fabian, a top official at America’s Voice, a frequently quoted group advocating immigration reform, told me. “He’s got a long history of being questionable on race issues in particular.”

In case you missed it, Buchanan got into a tussle with Rachel Maddow last night about Sonia Sotomayor. Buchanan said: “White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks.”

Fabian of America’s Voice says his group is putting together a letter to MSNBC, and reaching out to Latino groups as signatories, calling on the network to stop letting Buchanan offer commentary on racial issues, particularly with debate looming on immigration reform.

“This was one of the last straws,” Fabian said. “We’re really concerned that some of the language he has been using is going to come up with immigration.” Not a good story for MSNBC…

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