Thursday Evening News Roundup

— So much for Republican outreach to the Latino community. A group of conservative Hispanic business leaders set up a forum, the first Hispanic Leadership Network conference scheduled for next month in Miami, and promoted it as a way for Republican presidential hopefuls to interact with the community — and virtually all the big names — Romney, Thune, Daniels, Perry — flatly turned them down, with a number of others not bothering to respond even in the negative to the invitation. The only potential candidate to accept the invitation was Tim Pawlenty, who has less of a chance than I do of becoming president — and I have a feeling he probably only agreed to come as a favor to Norm Coleman, who helped organize the thing.

— Remember when a little bit (or even a lot) of snow didn’t faze state and local governments in Minnesota? Nowadays, budgets are so starved after decades of tax cutting that cities have to essentially pray it doesn’t snow.

— Check out the video of David House’s interview with Bradley Manning (and wonder at how Manning could be rotting in solitary confinement for seven months on the say-so of the somewhat dodgy Adrian Lamo).