I am using tonight’s Late Night post for a point of personal privilege, because I have been so patient and so quiet for so long. Some months ago, I pointed Jane Hamsher to a post Pam Spaulding published about issues with her blog (Pam’s House Blend) and asked if she, Jane, thought there was a place for Pam in our bloghouse. Luckily, Jane agreed that this would be a swell fit and deputized me to find out if Pam would be interested in making her home here with us.

This week, I am at Netroots Nation #6 in Minneapolis, and I had planned to bring you a video all about one of the themes I saw running through the first day of panels, speeches and briefings. . . I had planned to bring you video, but I am only here through Sunday and that is probably not enough time to upload my usual eight-or-so minutes because the speed of the internet connection here is pre-millennial. . . again.

At a time when we should be reining in the capitalism that failed so badly, we are instead capitulating to it, using the event of the failure of our corporate masters to give them even more. How is that even happening? And to what degree does the blogosphere deserve some of the blame?

I’m asking for your help today. We need to raise at least $50,000 by the end of June so that we can continue to cover stories like the BP oil spill, Prop 8, Social Security, financial regulation, and the wars in the Middle East without fear that the rich and the powerful can pick up a phone and cut our funding if they don’t like what we write. And if we’re doing our job right, they won’t. That’s the role of a functioning fourth estate: to hold those in power accountable.

Please donate to Firedoglake – $20, $35, or whatever you can afford – to reach our fundraising goal of at least $50,000 by June 30.

The new Wikio blog rankings are about to be released, and because of our rather impressive surge, they gave us an advanced peek. FDL has jumped to ninth place among all political blogs, and considerably higher if you are looking at the so-called left side of the blogosphere.

I’d like to think that FDL’s growth is the result of contributors, moderators, support staff and all the commenters and readers working tirelessly to provide original reporting, meaningful analysis, and a place where policy is valued over personality, and results mean more than rhetoric.

I’ve said many times that it’s impossible to expect progressive members of Congress to hold together if they don’t have the backing of their natural fiscal constituencies — the liberal interest groups and the unions. Without that support, they’re left to raise money from PACS and other corporate sources to sufficiently fund their campaigns. That’s why they take turns championing progressive bills that ultimately fail so they can pretend they do something, and then voting for bad bills that ultimately pass so someone else can be the failed hero. When Tammy Baldwin votes for one PhRMA-friendly bill after another, progressives can say “hey, but she’s so good on LGBT issues!” Which never actually pass either, but the kabuki keeps activists sufficiently docile and donating to large organizations who fundraise off amping up outrage.

But it’s also worthy to note that it’s hard for them to withstand the assault of liberal “pundits” who sneeringly derided their efforts as naive, futile and “purist.” They should be proudly taking credit for their role in delegitimizing progressive opposition to the bill in liberal intellectual circles, much the same role that the same people played during the Iraq war.

Ahhh, the power of the Democrats! To all of you who said that Dems couldn’t get anything done, to all of you that said Congressional Democrats couldn’t find the President’s desk with a map, a flashlight, and guided tour from Desirée Rogers, to all of you that said this White House did not know how to play political hardball, I say: Behold!