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Senators who would be president say they want to win, literally, on paper

What's the best way to prevent more high-tech online Russian interference in the 2020 election? Millions of sheets of good old-fashioned paper.

That's what most of the Democratic senators running for president are signaling by proposing legislation Wednesday to require the use of hand-marked paper ballots in all federal elections – ideally starting with their own next year.


When Kamala Harris of California was asked on ABC's "The View" why paper ballots were the best method to ensure election security, her response was simple: "Because Russia can't hack a piece of paper."

Thirteen senators introduced the bill Wednesday. All are Democrats, and five of them are running for the White House, a virtual guarantee the measure will go nowhere in the Republican-majority Senate.

In addition, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the presidential aspirant who has power over election administration legislation as the top Democrat on the Rules and Administration Committee, has her own ideas for bolstering election security and did not sign on to this bill. Neither did Michael Bennet of Colorado. The presidential candidates who did were Harris, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

In addition to the paper ballot mandate, the bill would ban Internet, Wi-Fi and cellular connections for voting machines. The Department of Homeland Security would also have the authority for the first time to set minimum security standards at each stage in the voting process. And state and local governments would be given $500 million to buy up-to-par ballot scanning machines, with an additional $250 million allocated for ballot-marking machines for voters with disabilities.

States would also be reimbursed by the federal government for any expenses incurred for post-election audits or ballot printing, and states would be required to conduct audits after all federal elections to detect any cyberhacks.

The principal sponsor, Ron Wyden of Oregon, says he's already secured endorsements from the League of Women Voters, the Brennan Center for Justice, Protect Democracy, Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fair Fight Action, the group created by Stacey Abrams after she narrowly lost the governor's race in Georgia last fall.

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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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