San Francisco General Hospital, a public hospital systematically gouges patients that come to the emergency room. It refuses to cooperate with private insurance companies, so whatever charges they don't cover bankrupt the patient.

The hospital was recently named after Zuckerberg, but he is not in charge of it, so I don't expect that he is personally responsible for this practice. However, the grasping spirit demonstrated by renaming a public hospital after a billionaire donor could be related to it.

With Medicare for All, hospitals would not have any way to do this. They would get paid by Medicare, and they would get the amount Medicare pays.

Cyntoia Brown has received clemency and will be released from prison.

Many people feel disgust for sex workers, and are inclined to treat them unfairly. The same happens to blacks, because of racism, but I think sex workers get it even worse. I think Brown's conviction was an example of this disgust at work.

I agree with the article that her age did not matter to the issue. She had the right to self-defense at age 16, and she would have had the same right if she were 26, 36, 46, or 86. We don't need to label all teenage sex workers as ipso facto "trafficking victims" in order to respect their rights.

Defining populism: a populist movement is one that consistently promises to channel the unified will of the people, and by doing so defeat the schemes of the powerful elite.

I don't think Bernie Sanders denies that a substantial fraction of Americans are right-wing and disagree with him. Thus, I think he is not really a populist by this definition.

A study suggests that overprotecting children may encourage mental illness in teenagers.

Turkey demanded that the US withdraw its troops from Syrian Kurdish territory or else Turkey will attack there.

In effect, Erdoğan is figuring Trump will back down when threatened.