(Click image to enlarge) The good news regarding capital punishment is that 21 countries carried out executions in 2012, the same number as the previous year but down from 28 countries 10 years earlier. The top five (the U.S. is No. 5) executed 682 people, excluding the uncounted thousands executed in China. “Those five countries […]

Read more

As the dust briefly settles on the Texas capitol, there is a lot of finger pointing among Republicans. They seem amazed that passage of perhaps the most draconian anti-abortion bill in the nation was blocked by a brilliant state senator, who, of all things, is a woman, and the apparent sentiment among large numbers of […]

Read more

Make a call to Time-Warner Cable’s customer service and you may find yourself talking to an American—in Mexico City. According to Jill Anderson, the author of Los Otros Dreamers, a forthcoming book about young Mexican-American adults who have been deported or who returned on their own volition, there is an industry growing in Mexico City […]

Read more

Editor’s note: State Senator Wendy Davis (pictured) killed a bill in the Texas Senate last night that would have outlawed abortions after 20 weeks, among other prohibitions. She filibustered for more than 12 hours. Geoff Rips was in the Senate gallery. The following is his report. Austin, Texas Democracy broke out in one of the […]

Read more

UPDATE: This article was published at the same time that Texas Senator Wendy Davis (above) was filibustering a bill in Texas that would have placed the most restrictive limitations on abortion in any state in the country. She succeeded. As of midnight this morning, the bill was dead. As I write, Wendy Davis, a state […]

Read more