Firedoglake Announces Membership Program

If you are a regular reader of 'The Garlic', you know that in our link-laden posts, we often highlight the voices of those on Firedoglake.com, people like Jane Hamsher, Marcy Wheeler (Emptywheel), David Dayen, Blue Texan, TBogg, Lisa Derrick, Attaturk and others.

This morning, founder Jane Hamsher announced an ambitious project - Firedoglake Membership Program;

The Washington Post is supported by Kaplan. The Huffington Post was supported by venture capital, and had to sell out to AOL in order to expand their reporting capabilities. Think Progress is supported by CAP. And there are many entities that are subsidized by the political parties, and the money that tries to influence them. But the fact is that online advertising revenues provide only a small fraction of what their dead tree counterparts did, and will not sustain the same kind of staffing and resources necessary to pay people for their efforts.

[snip]

At FDL, 75% of all our expenses go to paying the salaries of our staff, and the rest is devoted to technical and other costs that help them do what they do. Some of that revenue comes from advertising, but most comes in the form of donations. But those donations are usually tied to individual issues, and don’t provide a steady stream of predictable revenue that allows us to plan and grow.

Last year, Craig Newmark of Craigslist said he thinks that by the year 2020, NPR will be a “dominant force” in media because of their membership model.

“I have a feeling that membership models and philanthropy models will be stronger than advertising-supported organizations, because people are willing to pay for trustworthy news,” he said.

We agree. If you trust and value the reporting at FDL, from Hillman Award Winner Marcy Wheeler’s work from Scooter Libby to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to Dave Dayen’s work on mortgage foreclosure and Jon Walker’s reporting on health care, from Wikileaks and Bradley Manning to Audit the Fed and the BP oil spill, consider becoming a Founding Member of the Firedoglake membership program. Your annually renewing membership will help us do a lot more of the things we want to do, like sending Dave Dayen to report on the Wisconsin labor protests, or Michael Whitney to the Gulf to cover the BP oil spill, or the three-person team that covered the Prop 8 trial in San Francisco.

Blue Texan echoed the call;

But the hard truth is, FDL doesn’t have a Sugar Daddy like the Brothers Koch. We don’t have a Fortune 500 media company behind us. And we’re not running interference for Democratic politicians just because they’re calling themselves Democrats — we’re holding them accountable. What a concept.

Maybe your tax return is dropping in the mail this week ... Or you got a bonus for your hard work ...

For as little as $45 dollars (what's that, about a weeks' worth of coffee?), you can become a 'Founding Member" of Firedoglake.com and get a good feeling of supporting a well-worthy cause.

Go to the Membership Page and sign up, be on the ground floor of this great project.

Get a glove, get in the game ...

FISA Update #4 - Don't Let the Fat Lady - Or The Fat Corporate Cats - Sing!

SIGN THIS PETITION!

We did two posts yesterday (that you can see here and here) on the collapse of our democracy, with the U.S. Senate caving in to give the Bush Grindhouse their Stay Out of Jail Card, passing the Protect American Act, which included immunity for the telecommunication companies that bought the "It's legal" bullshit.

Scarecrow, from Firedoglake, gets our spotlight today;

"The Fourth Amendment has been handed down to us unchanged for over two centuries:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Almost none of that is left if today's bill stands. In an age in which "bipartisan" has come to mean weak Democrats joining unanimous Republicans to vote against the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment would be eviscerated by a bill that provides a virtual blank check for the executive to invade the privacy of Americans ..."

In the post, Scarecrow offers a link to a petition that Firedoglake has started, to urge the House of Representatives to reverse this action by their cowardly brothers, when the two houses meet in conference to bang it out.

Tell House Members to Stand Firm Behind the RESTORE Act!

The FISA bill passed by the Senate is a disgrace. By legalizing warrantless spying on Americans and granting retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, the Senate seeks to ensure that the Bush administration's illegal spying programs are never investigated or subjected to the rule of law. The Senate bill is a profound betrayal of the votes of millions of Americans who voted in 2006 to put Democrats in control of Congress in order to increase, not eliminate, checks and oversight on this administration, and to restore the rule of law to our country.

The House's RESTORE Act is an infinitely superior bill. It provides real safeguards on the President's spying powers while providing him with the surveillance powers he needs to protect the country. It enables the issue of the legality of the President's spying programs to be decided where it belongs -- in a court of law. And it preserves the crucial balance that has existed for decades between enabling necessary surveillance on Americans and ensuring that our political leaders do not abuse that power.

In the wake of the discovery of the Watergate crimes and decades of surveillance abuses, the Congress of the mid-1970s acted on a bipartisan basis to put into place safeguards to ensure that even our highest political officials must adhere to the law and can only exercise eavesdropping powers with real safeguards. The RESTORE Act continues that tradition, while the Senate bill eviscerates it. We urge Democratic House members to stand firm behind the bill they passed and not capitulate once again to the bullying, manipulative demands of the Bush administration for ever-greater unchecked power, as embodied by the warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity provisions of the Senate bill.

Go here, to Firedoglake, and sign the petition and take part in, hopefully, getting this thing straight.

SIGN THIS PETITION!

Good Post Alert: How George Bush became the new Saddam

Perhaps, what the Bush Grindhouse has tried to pull off, something the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) overlooked, would have worked, but only if they controlled the entire world media.

Canadian Patrick Graham, writing for MacLeans, has, if it were a court case, some serious rebuttal to the PetraeusReportPalooza, in the cover story this week;

How George Bush became the new Saddam; COVER STORY: Its strategies shattered, a desperate Washington is reaching out to the late dictator's henchmen.

Trex, over at Firedoglake chips in on it;

Late Nite FDL: We Are the New Saddam

But, alas, rather than band together and work towards a sane, clear strategy for getting us out of Iraq, our Congress - the Senate, in particular - chooses to get lathered over a newspaper ad.

Bonus Links

Peter Baker: 9/11 Linked To Iraq, In Politics if Not in Fact

Sidney Blumenthal: Bush's stairway to paradise; Hoping that history will somehow vindicate him, the president has entered a phase of decadent perversity.

Clock's Ticking Again - Some More Heads To Be Pulled Out of Asses ... Step Right Up Dorothy Rabinowitz ... And Richard Cohen

Just when we thought it would be safe ... They put their heads right back in it ...

Too bad Ronco is in bankruptcy ... Perhaps we could have had Ron Popeil come up with something ... The Ass-O-Matic, or some such device, that could help these dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds.

I wanted to stay away from all the knuckle-dragging neonitwits and hardcore rightwingers, who believe the verdict against felon I. Lewis 'Scooter" Libby is the biggest injustice since a well-known cross hanging on Mount Calvary.

There was no underlying crime ... The Special Prosecutor was illegal ... Overstepped his authority ...

Bah-Bah ... Woof-Woof ...

One point they make, that can be agreed with, is Libby shouldn't have been the only one charged with a crime ... Cheney and Rove, at minimum, should have been paraded in a perp-walk on this one ...

BUT SCOOTER LIBBY LIED TO INVESTIGATORS, LIED TO A GRAND JURY AND OBSTRUCTED THE INVESTIGATION!!!

AND HE GOT CAUGHT!!!

So, as we instructed John Fund recently (on a different matter), step up to the line, Dorothy Rabinowitz, and pull your head out of your ass ...

And, don't you shy away there, Richard Cohen ...

The Runaway Train That Hit Scooter Libby? ... Forget about the train, you weren't even close to the station

As soon as Dorothy is finished, it's your turn

Links

A Tale of Two Prosecutors - Mike Nifong is punished, but Patrick Fitzgerald isn't.

The Runaway Train That Hit Scooter Libby

Special Nod To Firedoglake, for a bit of inspiration

Meet Dorothy Rabinowitz

Joe Klein's stirring defense of Lewis Libby

Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert















Ron, if you can, come up with an "Ass-O-Matic" or something that these dwarfs, finks, phonies, frauds can use ... There's only going to be more of them ...