Filibustery is a website devoted to making the filibuster -- and the proposals in the U.S. Senate to reform it -- more understandable. It is being developed by journalist Josh Kalven. Read more about its development here: From the News Junkie to the Newcomer, By Josh Kalven, Columbia Journalism Review, (February 1, 2011).

Reid moves closer to ending secret holds in Senate, By Michael O'Brien, The Hill (07/28/10)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) added a bill to eliminate the practice of secret holds on nominees to the Senate calendar on Wednesday....

Adding the legislation to the calendar has the effect of moving the legislation closer to the point where Reid could bring it up for a vote.

If Reid does bring it up, it appears that he may have the votes to do away with the practice after Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) lobbied Senate colleagues to end it. Sixty-seven votes are needed to change Senate rules, and McCaskill, as of late June, had said she'd gathered 68.

The Senate Rules Committee has instructed the Secretary of the Senate to publish its roll call votes using an XML format. This is a tipping point change!

• Senate to Expand Transparency of Senate Votes, Jim DeMint, May 5, 2009.

Low-tech Senate slow rolls disclosures, by VICTORIA MCGRANE, Politico (4/22/09).

You can learn instantly via Twitter that Claire McCaskill needs an iPhone repair or that Chuck Grassley burned his leg on his Iowa farm.

But if you want to comb through the details of a senator’s quarterly campaign finance reports online, it’s going to take a month to get the information — and a boatload of government money to make it available.

After the New York Times ran a front page article this morning about how Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y) defended tobacco companies when she was a young lawyer (As New Lawyer, Senator Was Active in Tobacco’s Defense, By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI, New York Times, March 26, 2009), Gillibrand started using Google AdWords, to respond.

• Gillibrand Uses Web Ad For Rapid Response, National Journal "Tech Daily Dose" (March 27, 2009).

Simply search for "Gillibrand" on Google and an ad from her campaign proclaiming that "Gillibrand Fights Tobacco" should appear to the right.

Jeff Bliss reported for Bloomberg on Friday, January 26, 2007, that Senator Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee may subpoena Bush administration documents related to domestic surveillance.

I don't trust what they're doing, Rockefeller said in an interview on taped for Political Capital, a weekly 30 minute Bloomberg television program on politics, economics and public policy hosted by Al Hunt.

The full story, Rockefeller Says He May Subpoena Documents on Spying is available online.

Read the related story Review of prewar Iraq intelligence: Senate Requests, White House does not reply posted by James Jacobs.