I agree with John that Republicans had better pay attention to the nation’s changing demographics. As he wrote, “A Republican party that continues to talk and act in ways that alienate Hispanics nationally is a party that is dooming itself.”

And that is why, while I haven’t the faintest idea who will win the presidential nomination, I’ll give you good odds on who the VP nomination will go to: Marco Rubio.

He’s young, he’s attractive, he’s very smart, he’s adroit on his feet in debate, he’s from the crucial state of Florida, where’s he’s popular. And he’s Hispanic.

As they say, what’s not to like?

Politico reported this morning that the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a supposed Washington “civil rights group” that spends much of its energy opposing Israel, has barred a well-known Syrian singer from its upcoming conference. According to the musician, the ADC opposed a pro-Syrian democracy song that he planned to sing at the event:

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a longtime Washington civil rights group, repeatedly asked the German-born Syrian composer and pianist Malek Jandali to reconsider his piece choice, Jandali told POLITICO. When he refused, Jandali was told today that he couldn’t perform at this weekend’s event. … [O]ther observers speculated that the song’s implications might have troubled the Syrian government, which is in the midst of a bloody crackdown on its citizens, or its allies.

And in case you’re thinking it’s a bit far-fetched that the Syrian government would have significant influence with the ADC, Politico further notes that, “the chairman of the ADC board, gynecologist Safa Rifka, is aligned with Syria’s ambassador to the United States Imad Moustapha. In a blog post, Moustapha called Rifka one of his three ‘best friends’ in Washington D.C.”

But even though the ADC has a troubling history of radical anti-Israel behavior (including honoring Helen Thomas after her notorious anti-Semitic remarks), it still has a respectable amount of clout in Washington.

For example, the group works with the State Department, Homeland Security and other government agencies. And according to the ADC’s website, Reps. Darrell Issa and John Conyers still sit on its advisory board. So far, both congressmen have neglected to respond to requests for comment on the issue. Which raises an interesting question: what exactly would the already highly-controversial ADC have to do that would make it too toxic for these politicians to associate with?

The news that Newt Gingrich’s senior staff has resigned en masse is the final stake in a campaign that made no sense long before it began, and I would wager we’ll be hearing tales that will confirm the worst suppositions of political professionals about Gingrich and about his closest adviser, his wife Callista. But in the end, politics is not personal, it’s business, and what this indicates to some degree is that shifts are underway all over the place as the race against Barack Obama appears more winnable.This is why late entries are not only possible, but likely, and that there is no way on earth to know at this moment who will prevail (although Jon Huntsman’s ignore-New-Hampshire strategy seems to indicate he’s one we can cross off the list). One key point, though. Mike Murphy, one of the most astute political strategists in America, has a piece in Time magazine about the alteration of the national voting demographic. Republicans, he points out sagely, cannot run a campaign as though the electorate were the same one as in 1980:

Here are the numbers: in 1980, white voters cast 88% of the total presidential vote; by 2008, the percentage had shrunk to 74%. Which is why, though George W. Bush in 2000 and John McCain in 2008 both won 55% of the white vote, McCain lost by 7 points and Bush essentially tied Al Gore.

A Republican party that continues to talk and act in ways that alienate Hispanics nationally is a party that is dooming itself.

A new Rasmussen poll out today found that 75 percent of respondents support a law requiring voters to show ID at the polls. Or, as DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz recently put it, a law that would “drag us all the way back to the Jim Crow” era.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of Likely U.S. Voters believe voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote. Just 18% disagree and oppose such a requirement.

Eighty-five percent (85%) of Republicans support a photo ID requirement at the polls, as do 77% of voters not affiliated with either major party and 63% of Democrats. But then support for such a law is high across virtually all demographic groups.

Wasserman Schultz walked back her hyperbole slightly earlier this week, conceding that “Jim Crow was the wrong analogy to use.” But she still claims that requirements to show ID at the polls – which are designed to cut down on election fraud – are racially discriminatory.

“I don’t regret calling attention to the efforts in a number of states with Republican dominated legislatures, including Florida, to restrict access to the ballot box for all kinds of voters, but particularly young voters, African Americans and Hispanic Americans,” she told CNN on Monday.

But Wasserman Schultz’s allegations seem to be out of sync with the rest of the country. According to the same Rasmussen poll, voters think that the possibility of illegal voting is a much bigger problem than preventing legitimate voters from casting a ballot, by a 48% to 29% margin. And after the rampant ACORN-initiated voter fraud during recent elections, who can blame them?

Nageh Ibrahim, the leader of an Egyptian Islamist terrorist group, had some interesting words of counsel for his “friend” President Obama, at the end of Eli Lake’s great Washington Times article on Egyptian prisoner escapees today:

Mr. Ibrahim said, however, that he had no ill will toward the United States or President Obama. He said that he was urging Mr. Obama to release Abdel Rahman from prison so he can return to Egypt. “I am giving advice to our friend Obama, release the blind sheik for your own benefit. No, this is not a threat, it’s advice from one friend to another friend. This will save America’s reputation from the cynicism of George W. Bush,” he said.

It’s been three years since Bush left office, and terrorists still can’t stop using left-wing talking points against him.

Sen. John F. Kerry’s staff at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has just issued a valuable report that examines U.S. civilian aid programs in Afghanistan. They note that the State Department and the US Agency for International Development have spent $18.8 billion there since 2001 and are currently spending $320 million a month—figures which exclude the substantial amounts being spent by the U.S. military on security assistance programs and other counterinsurgency projects.

What are we getting for our money? As the report notes: “The evidence that stabilization programs promote stability in Afghanistan is limited. Some research suggests the opposite, and development best practices question the efficacy of using aid as a stabilization tool over the long run.” The staff are right to note that “foreign aid, when misspent, can fuel corruption, distort labor and goods markets, undermine the host government’s ability to exert control over resources, and contribute to insecurity.”

Afghanistan has encountered all those problems. Too often aid has gone down a rat hole, with most of the benefits accruing to government contractors—and to various crooks. Even the Taliban have often benefited by extorting protection money from U.S.-funded aid projects. Even when aid reaches its intended target, it can result in distorting incentives—for example, Afghan professionals often can make more by working as drivers for international NGOs than as civil servants for the government of Afghanistan.

This is not an argument for eliminating U.S. aid but it is an argument for monitoring it more carefully—and for eliminating unnecessary programs.

Too often the U.S. government in both Iraq and Afghanistan has operated on the gratitude theory of counterinsurgency: that if we build great stuff for the populace, they will reject the insurgents. The problem is, people will not embrace the government if it is dangerous for them to do so. Providing security is job No. 1 for the U.S. in Afghanistan. Aid is valuable only to the extent that it directly supports that objective. Many development projects do not, and should be stopped.

I want to add two fairly verbose points to Peter’s post about how contemporary neuroscience very much does not close off debates about free will, no matter how many times or how condescendingly Sam Harris insists otherwise.

You don’t need to read any of that — in fact, you don’t need to know anything about the debate — to know that Harris is way too far out on a limb. Anyone who writes “there is simply no description of mental and physical causation that allows for [free will]” either hasn’t read enough or is being intellectually dishonest (see point #2 for more on this). Google Scholar shows 600,000+ articles that mention “free will” published in the last 18 months. The Wikipedia entry on the Neuroscience of Free Will has 16 sections and subsections and concludes that “there is no consensus among researchers about the significance of findings, their meaning, or what conclusions may be drawn.” Does it really sound right that all of these people just didn’t get the memo that the debate was self-evidently settled, as Harris snidely insists?

As for the content…

(1) It’s hard to escape the impression that Harris is engaging in philosophical debates the contours and stakes of which he doesn’t quite understand. He sometimes seems to confuse different technical concepts of “free will” and “rationality.” Argumentatively the confusion helps him, allowing him to dismiss one theory on the basis of convincing flaws in a related but distinct theory. But it makes it much harder to untangle what he’s claiming, why he thinks he’s so undeniably right, and how he thinks everyone else just hasn’t been paying enough attention.

Let’s separate out two different theories about why human motivation might be “opaque” to us. Read More