Some countries are banning their citizens for travelling to China for organ transplants. This is because of suspicion that China kills people to get their organs.

Is stopping people that suffer from chronic pain from getting painkillers any more legitimate than stopping them from getting abortions?

I agree with the author about this. Indeed, I have a friend who suffers from pain that incapacitates per, and perse can't get enough painkiller for every day of the month, which results in a few days each month when perse can't get get out of bed.

The design of the US electoral college makes no sense in terms of present-day politics.

The almost unstoppable victory of the Taliban could eliminate what elements of freedom Afghanistan has gained, unless a compromise protects them.

The Taliban are confident they can defeat the Afghan government army. They can't fully defeat the US army in battle, but they can chip away at the territory until soldiers control only the ground they stand on. The one thing they could not defeat is a force of Afghans fighting for their freedom.

If young urban Afghan women would like to retain freedom in the future, I recommend form militias with in some Kurdish and Yazidi women soldiers as officers. A force like that would have a chance of maintaining control of some part of the country, so if it asks for assistance, that assistance would not be wasted.

All the Democrats achieved by resisting the bully's border demands was some virtue signaling. They gave in on the substance.

Lawsuits may stop the bully from using a "state of emergency" to get more money for the wall, but even if that happens, the bully has already won a victory. If he does the same thing twice a year, he will get most of what he wants by the 2020 election.

This demonstrates the error of negotiating by making sticking to the status quo your demand. Your adversary can easily suggest making a "compromise" where you give up a part of what it wants. Each time this happens, you lose.

If you have made a deal, and your adversary demands to change it, you should respond by demanding a change in the opposite direction. Say something like this:

The previous spending levels do not represent what we stand for. They are a compromise: we made concessions to get that agreement.

If now you tear up that compromise and demand more, we do the same. In response to your demand for A, B and C, we now demand X, Y and Z.

After that, the natural way to meet each other "half way" is to stick with the status quo.