US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to break up UnitedHealth's medical empire.

That company is not a monopoly, strictly speaking, but it is big enough to diminish competition in a way that harms the public.

I've chosen to avoid the term "health care" in referring to medicine. The use of "care" in describing medicine is a PR campaign that I get a bad feeling about.

US citizens: call on Biden to support a treaty to ban autonomous weapons.

If you phone, please spread the word! White House: +1-202-456-1111 and (TTY/TDD) +1-202-456-6213

Democrats need to mobilize support based on class, which can unite most Americans, rather than race or identity, which tend to divide groups.

Most Americans nowadays are poor and struggling; that is something they can share. For some, bigotry against their various identity groups plays a part in causing that; but not for all. The other causes, the ones associated with class, makes anyone who is not wealthy a victim, so it can mobilize all those people together.

Given this, why does the corrupter have followers? Partly by appealing to religious fanatics. Partly by blaming minority groups for the consequences of systems that make life bad for them (which often are the work of the rich and the plutocratist politicians). We are warned not to underestimate the corrupter's appeal to his target audience. He knows how to touch many Americans emotionally. His willingness to use that dishonestly, and his lack of any commitment to really address Americans' real problems, facilitates his doing winning misguided support.

Kamala Harris said she supported "Medicare for all", but it turned out she meant private insurance, for all with limits on medical treatment. What she supports in that area now is not clear.

Russian liberal opposition politician Ilya Yashin, just released from Putin's prison through an exchange of prisoners, criticized that very exchange.

He said, "It encourages Putin to take more hostages." He is thinking like the patriotic hostage I wrote about yesterday.

He did not want to leave Russia, either; he wanted to stay there and campaign for freedom. I understand those feelings, but in any fight there can be times when it is better to retreat than to stay put and be totally defeated. This was one. Putin makes it nearly impossible to campaign for freedom, justice, truth or peace in Russia.