When most people hear the word 'filibuster', they automatically think of Philip Armbruster, inventor of the steam banjo and the self-ladling tureen. In fact the filibuster is a vital tool in the legislative sabretache, used to ensure that a minority group, such as the American public, does not have its best interests steamrolled by the marching jackboots of the majority in power. And yet, there is a fierce Republican effort to do away with this ancient tradition. What is a filibuster, you ask stupidly? I groan. The word 'filibuster' comes from the Dutch vrijbuiter, from which we also get 'freebooter'. The original sense of the word was that of a mercenary, someone inclined to take hostages. It came into its modern sense when officially condoned in 1872: the exercise of the right to 'unlimited debate' to literally talk legislation to death, sheer loquacity grinding legislative business to a halt.

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I heard it.
I knew I would.
John Kerry said it.
George W. Bush said it.
And myriad others will join the chorus.

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Goebbels Award for Condi

by Greg Palast

"It's appalling that this story got out there," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on her way back from Iraq.

What's NOT appalling to Condi is that the US is holding prisoners at Guantanamo under conditions termed "torture" by the Red Cross.  What's not appalling to Condi is that prisoners of the Afghan war are held in violation of international law after that conflict has supposedly ended.  What is NOT appalling to Condi is that prisoner witnesses have reported several instances of the Koran's desecration.

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A Case of Double Standard

By Ghali Hassan

J ust imagine that up to 750 innocent people killed in Cuba after Cuban soldiers opened fire on peaceful demonstrations against the regime of President Fidel Castro. Would the U.S. governments and its allies support the demonstrators and condemned the brutality of the Castro regime? Chances are that the U.S. government and its allies will invade Cuba, and if successful will remove the Castro regime and replace it with a U.S-friendly regime.

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The Wayward Airplane

By BEN TRIPP

We had another one of those terror alert thingies just the other day. A small airplane flew very close to the capitol buildings where they used to run the US government. 35,000 human beings, plus the entire legislature, were evacuated from the area. The government was shut down and America's #1 librarian was hustled down into the secret war bunkers underneath the undisclosed location. Fighter jets chased after the small airplane. To read the news accounts, the guys flying the small airplane must have been pretty foggy on events of the last few years, because they were buzzing along closer and closer to the pretty round-topped building with all the columns in front until they noticed all the planes with missiles around them.

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By Greg Palast

[Quito] George Bush has someone new to hate. Only twenty-four hours after Ecuador's new president took his oath of office, he was hit by a diplomatic cruise missile fired all the way from Lithuania by Condeleeza Rice, and then wandering about Eastern Europe spreading "democracy." Condi called for? a constitutional process to get to elections? this came as a bit of a shock to the man who'd already been constitutionally elected, Alfredo Palacio.

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