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Two justices defend being part of a case involving a company where they own stock

Personal information on voters in 40 states is readily available to online searchers, sometimes including home addresses, voting history and race.

That was what Aki Peritz, a former CIA counterterrorism analyst, found when he tapped into the online voter registration systems in all the states and Washington, D.C.


In an op-ed for the Washington Post, he said North Carolina makes the most personal information available. Searchers need enter only a first and last name, and the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement will furnish a home address, voting status, voter registration number, party, race, ethnicity, registration date, polling place and a complete voting record. Other states that reveal large amounts of personal information include Kansas, Montana, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin.

"There is certainly a transparency-in-government argument to be made in making this data available to the public. Maybe having this information in the wild, for anyone to view, doesn't seem worrisome; after all, some addresses and phone numbers are still in the phone book, assuming you can find one," Peritz wrote. "It's nonetheless troubling because an individual can opt out of the telephone directory, but one can't opt out of being in the official voter database, unless a voter deliberately chooses not to ever vote again. Millions of American voters shouldn't have to disenfranchise them

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Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

The B-2 "Spirit" Stealth Bomber flys over the 136th Rose Parade Presented By Honda on Jan. 1, 2025, in Pasadena, California. (Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

After a short and successful war with Iraq, President George H.W. Bush claimed in 1991 that “the ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert.” Bush was referring to what was commonly called the “Vietnam syndrome.” The idea was that the Vietnam War had so scarred the American psyche that we forever lost confidence in American power.

The elder President Bush was partially right. The first Iraq war was certainly popular. And his successor, President Clinton, used American power — in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere — with the general approval of the media and the public.

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Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are
a close up of a typewriter with the word conspiracy on it

Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are

The Comet Ping Pong Pizzagate shooting, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a man’s livestreamed beheading of his father last year were all fueled by conspiracy theories. But while the headlines suggest that conspiratorial thinking is on the rise, this is not the case. Research points to no increase in conspiratorial thinking. Still, to a more dangerous reality: the conspiracies taking hold and being amplified by political ideologues are increasingly correlated with violence against particular groups. Fortunately, promising new research points to actions we can take to reduce conspiratorial thinking in communities across the US.

Some journalists claim that this is “a golden age of conspiracy theories,” and the public agrees. As of 2022, 59% of Americans think that people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories today than 25 years ago, and 73% of Americans think conspiracy theories are “out of control.” Most blame this perceived increase on the role of social media and the internet.

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Why a College Degree No Longer Guarantees a Good Job
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Photo by MD Duran on Unsplash

Why a College Degree No Longer Guarantees a Good Job

A college education used to be considered, along with homeownership, one of the key pillars of the American Dream. Is that still the case? Recent experiences of college graduates seeking employment raise questions about whether a university diploma remains the best pathway to pursuing happiness, as it once was.

Consider the case of recent grad Lohanny Santo, whose TikTok video went viral with over 3.6 million “likes” as she broke down in tears and vented her frustration over her inability to find even a minimum wage job. That was despite her dual degrees from Pace University and her ability to speak three languages. John York, a 24-year-old with a master’s degree in math from New York University, writes that “it feels like I am screaming into the void with each application I am filling out.”

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