Health Care or Prisons?.............

At a time when we Americans may abandon health care reform because it supposedly is “too expensive,” how is it that we can afford to imprison people like Curtis Wilkerson? Mr. Wilkerson is serving a life sentence in California — for stealing a $2.50 pair of socks. As The Economist noted recently, he already had two offenses on his record (both for abetting robbery at age 19), and so the “three strikes” law resulted in a life sentence...Link

May be criminal............

A former senior adviser to President Richard Nixon says an alleged Bush Administration effort to raise terror alerts around the time of the 2004 election could be criminal if true. Speaking on MSNBC’s Countdown’s, former Nixon counsel John Dean discussed the implications of former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge’s assertion that Bush administration officials pressured him into raising the terror threat level from yellow to orange on the eve of the 2004 presidential election...Link

Drug CEOs don't make much money........

Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical companies and their chief executives on Friday, declaring that they "don't make a lot of money" and shouldn't be scapegoats in the health care debate...Link

Mexico legalizes drug possession..........

Mexico decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin on Friday — a move that prosecutors say makes sense even in the midst of the government's grueling battle against drug traffickers. Prosecutors said the new law sets clear limits that keep Mexico's corruption-prone police from shaking down casual users and offers addicts free treatment to keep growing domestic drug use in check...Link