The Guardian talks to the president of Ecuador, who’s been keeping Julian Assange safe from extradition all year. Did U.S. pressure vis-à-vis Edward Snowden work on him? You can judge.
He said the temporary travel document issued by his London consul on 22 June – and publicly disowned five days later — was a blunder.
“It was a mistake on our part. Look, this crisis hit us in a very vulnerable moment. Our foreign minister was touring Asia. Our deputy foreign minister was in the Czech Republic. Our US ambassador was in Italy.”
And Snowden releases a statement chastising the U.S. for the “extrajudicial” effort to … actually, someone tell me what’s extrajudicial about this? Ripping away a passport from someone who’s made two international flights during extradition discussons isn’t all that strange.
Benjy Sarlin and Ed Kilgore have swarmed the “GOP can win by turning out more white voters” beat that I stumbled across last week. Sarlin tracks the conservative figures who are telling their brethren that, yes, they can win if they avoid the Hispanic El Dorado and psych up their base.
On election night, Fox News anchor Brit Hume called the “demographic” threat posed by Latino voters “absolutely real” and suggested Mitt Romney’s “hardline position on immigration” may be to blame for election losses. On Monday, Hume declared that argument “baloney.” The Hispanic vote, he said, “is not nearly as important, still, as the white vote.”
Sean Hannity, a reliable bellwether on the right, has been on a similar journey since the fall. He announced the day after President Obama’s re-election that he had “evolved” on immigration reform and now supported a “path to citizenship” in order to improve relations with Hispanic voters. Hannity has now flipped hard against the Senate’s bill.
And Kilgore sees Sarah Palin joining the cause.
Anna Clark explains how political investigative journalism was rescued in Wisconsin—by Scott Walker!
Michael Beckel traces the Republican money that flooded into New Hampshire to build up Kelly Ayotte after her background checks vote drove down her poll numbers. Ayotte, since then, has voted reliably with Democrats on immigration and other bills—and she’s not up till 2016.
