FDL’s first “webinar” took place on Monday, April 26, at 8-9 pm EDT.

Marcy Wheeler moderated a panel that included Army Ret. Col Ann Wright and David House, friend of Bradley Manning.

We’re excited to announce the first virtual conference for the FDL Membership Program: on Monday night at 8pm EDT, we’ll have a discussion about Bradley Manning’s conditions and the latest news surrounding his detention with special guests David House, Ret. Col. Ann Wright, and Marcy Wheeler.

Thanks to the support and generosity of everyone who signs up to be a Founding Member of the Firedoglake Membership Program, we can continue to provide an independent space for the people who make FDL what it is on a daily basis — our community. From all of the staff here at FDL, we thank you sincerely for your generosity, and look forward to working with you in shaping our path toward the future.

I’ve been calling a lot of the people who have joined the FDL Membership Program over the past couple of days, and it’s been one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in the five (yikes!) years since we opened the doors. Much to my surprise, many were people who have never even commented here before, and it was the first time I’d ever had the opportunity to interact with many of them.

Join us and help support the future of independant journalism and activism. Please become a member of Firedoglake today.

I’d like to follow up on what Jane said this morning. I’ve just got four questions for you.

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.

The only evidence to emerge so far against Bradley Manning comes from Adrian Lamo, a hacker who was in a mental institution three weeks before he says Manning contacted him. Charlie Savage reports in the New York Times that Lamo has miraculously “remembered” new evidence from his chat logs that connects Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. But instead of asking Lamo to go back to Wired, or the Washington Post, and get copies of the chat transcripts he gave them, the New York Times says “no problem, we’ll just publish this based on the recollections of someone who was in a mental institution two weeks before all this happened.”

I come to Steven Rattner’s Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry from a very particular perspective. As a Michigander whose husband still works in the auto industry and whose town has benefited from battery subsidies, I’m a grateful direct beneficiary of the work the Obama Administration did to save the auto industry. But that also means I read this book, which might have been subtitled, “Wall Street gapes at Detroit” from the perspective, “Detroit gapes back at Wall Street.”

The primary value Peter Daou’s piece on liberal bloggers had yesterday was that it named names, and it gave outlets like Politico an excuse to link to something. Although journalists won’t say so in public because they’ve been told these things “off the record,” they well know who gets under the skin of people at the White House. And that’s why things said by Glenn Greenwald, or John Aravosis, or on FDL consistently get picked up in the media as prime examples of the “professional left.” We hear about it when they call us for comments, or when they want to book us to respond.

The last afternoon of panels is stacked, and three of our best have been scheduled at the same time, so FDL will attempt the unprecedented, unscripted and extremely dangerous triple liveblog!

Over on Emptywheel, Rayne will be covering Marcy as she takes on one of Obama’s signature broken promises: the failure to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. On our Elections page, Michael Whitney will liveblog a panel on marijuana policy and politics featuring Jon Walker. And at the FDL News Desk, my fingers will do their level best to keep up with David Dayen as he tackles the foreclosure crisis.