Aspen Financial Services took the damage-control strategy of attacking the messenger to an outrageous new level. When local journalist Dana Gentry started reporting on the company’s dismal performance and disgruntled investors, Aspen and its chief, Jeff Guinn (son of late former Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn) filed a subpoena to examine her sources of information.
Emotions shouldn’t guide public policy. However, emotional arguments are the favorite currency of a fast-rising lobby: animal lovers. Time and again, that currency pays off.
The costly, counterproductive war on drugs has turned the United States into incarceration nation. According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, 716 of every 100,000 people in this country are locked up, by far the highest rate in the world, well ahead of such beacons of freedom as Rwanda, Cuba and Russia.
