'Assign seats, Southwest, and make your extra buck. But remember your customers.'

'Southwest Airlines becomes like every other airline'

Chicago Tribune editorial board

After Southwest Airlines' "decision to do away with unreserved seating," the airline referred to itself as a "low-cost airline," but from a "customer perspective, that has not been true for a very long time," says the Chicago Tribune editorial board. By "removing its open-seating policy, its last remaining meaningful distinction, Southwest finally admits it has become just like American, Delta and United." The airline is now "disguising the true cost of a flight in reasonable comfort."

Read more

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

'Biden is right: End lifetime tenure on the Supreme Court' 

David Firestone at The New York Times

An "18-year maximum tenure for justices, as Biden and many others have proposed, shouldn't be ping-ponged around by whatever faction is dissatisfied with the current court," says David Firestone. It is a "good idea born of a mistake by the Constitution's drafters, who weren't able to foresee the problems caused by lifetime appointments." The nation's founders "did not fully anticipate how a justice might become insulated from reality after serving on the court for many decades."

Read more

'Kamala Harris needs to put arrogant plutocratic donors in their place' 

Jeet Heer at The Nation 

The "new push against antitrust action and regulating cryptocurrency represents a reversal of hard-won gains under Joe Biden," says Jeet Heer, but it's also a "politically risky move that threatens to blur the distinction between Democrats and Republicans." Democrats "already have egg on their faces from their earlier willingness to take money" from crypto players, and the "antitrust and pro-regulation position" is popular. Kamala Harris "needs to reject the bad advice she's getting from wealthy donors."

Read more

'The US military is in a crisis of recruitment, trust, and spending. The draft can fix it.'

Dennis Laich at Newsweek

The military's "recruitment crisis can be chalked up in part to views of the military itself," says Dennis Laich. The U.S. has "cultivated an image of war as easy and inexpensive," so the "reality of our many wars no longer touches the general populace." A "lottery-based draft of all eligible Americans" would "minimize military intervention, bolster national security and reduce the likelihood of nuclear war," and conscription would "make up for the deficit in recruitment."

Read more