‘South Korea’s democracy prevailed — but it wasn’t guaranteed’
Byunghwan Son at MSNBC
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol “may offer some valuable implications for other countries with a presidential system, including the United States,” says Byunghwan Son. It is “reasonable to assume — though far from certain — that a politically cornered Yoon decided to gamble on declaring martial law.” American politicians “should be following along closely,” because “no matter how unlikely it might seem, a politically cornered president can resort to martial law with surprisingly little initial resistance.”
‘How Democrats could use the lame duck to save medication abortions’
Erwin Chemerinsky and Miles Mogulescu at the Los Angeles Times
Democrats “should push through legislation to repeal the Comstock Act, which could be used to prevent legal medically induced abortions everywhere in the United States,” say Erwin Chemerinsky and Miles Mogulescu. It is “imperative that lawmakers do so in the upcoming lame-duck session.” Abortion is the “one issue that Democrats won in this election,” so “Democrats need to think about what they can do before they lose the White House and the Senate.”
‘Hit men aren’t what you think’
Aymann Ismail and Dennis Kenney at Slate
It is “too early to draw definitive conclusions about” the UnitedHealthcare shooting, say Aymann Ismail and Dennis Kenney. The shooter “seemed to be someone who knew what they were doing, but the idea of a professional hitman, those are pretty few and far between.” A “professional hitman would probably prefer to do something less public with limited exposure,” but the “exposure was fairly high, and most professionals don’t like that amount of risk.”
‘$8 billion for Intel won’t fix America’s chip problem’
Bloomberg editorial board
The Chips and Science Act has been “at best a mixed success,” says the Bloomberg editorial board. Such “measures rarely work out as intended, and Intel is a good example,” so “does showering this company with billions of taxpayer dollars really make sense?” Subsidies “can prop up a struggling company, but they’ll also shield it from competition, crowd out new entrants, delay hard choices and set the government’s interests at odds with those of shareholders.”