Yesterday, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake officially filed an FEC complaint against John McCain for exceeding the spending limit of $54 million that he agreed to when he opted into public financing originally but which he now finds inconvenient.

Christy puts it well:

As Markos of DailyKos pointed out in joining the complaint, "John McCain has officially blown past campaign spending limits mandated by his original acceptance of public campaign funding. While he has signaled his intent to withdraw from such financing, that has been hindered by the fact that he used the promise of public funding to secure a campaign loan." Guess the campaign finance laws only apply when they aren't inconvenient for McCain's ambitions.

Jane has more as she takes the complaint in to the FEC:

Jane filed the complaint on behalf of bloggers and activists everywhere -- have you signed on? Read the full text of the complaint (pdf) HERE and sign your name on to the complaint HERE.

And what do ya know, looks like CNN noticed:

Last week in a post I wrote that while sexism in the blogosphere was a problem, it was more external than internal.  Just a few days later The Collins campaign brought that point home when Collins' Director of Internet Strategy, Lance Dutson referred to FDL as "the foul-mouthed fem-blog FiredogLake."  

Dutson made this comment as part of a series of insults hurled at FDL, Daily KOS, and Moveon.org.  Apparently having women front pagers who curse is just as bad (or maybe worse?) as being a "hate-site".  

Jane and the FDL crew put out a press release demanding an apology and for Dutson to be fired..

From the Press Release:

"I'm deeply offended that Senator Collins would speak about professional women in such a degrading and offensive manner," said Hamsher. "It is well beneath the dignity becoming a sitting Senator to engage in such coarse and misogynistic rhetoric."

Christy Hardin Smith, featured FDL blogger, said: "The sexist undertones used on Sen. Collins' blog are appalling - the use of "fem-blog" is erroneous and dismissive. Citizens in this country have a right -- an obligation -- to hold those who ask us for our votes accountable. Women have just as much right as men to speak up for their country and their families, whether Senator Collins likes that or not."

I'm glad to see FDL fight back. This dismissive attitude towards women should be beneath a sitting Senator, especially since that sitting Senator is a woman. There is no doubt that in her political career Susan Collins has had people attempt to dismiss her because of her gender. It's disgusting that her campaign would engage in this kind of rhetoric to attack an opposing viewpoint.

Much of the press coverage of YearlyKos has focused women political bloggers, namely the lack of them attending the convention.  What's interesting is that the same media gave almost no coverage to the BlogHer convention held only one week before. But I guess it's easier to accuse other institutions of being sexist rather than reflecting on your own.

Jane Hamsher tackles this same subject at FDL today.  I liked this passage in particular about the lack of women at an Obama sit-down with top bloggers.

Now I don't think for a minute that the Obama people sat down and said "let's not invite any women." What they were obviously going for, based on Garance's information, were wonky, "serious" bloggers like Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein. Which is fine, they can invite whoever they want, but the fact that this group was almost exclusively men is more reflective of the fact that those "serious" institutions are comprised mostly of men. And those people do get support in a way that we women in the blogosphere absolutely do not. Much like advertisers who think we're not "serious," the organizations that support, promote and sustain men -- which are completely external to the blogosphere -- are a much bigger problem than Duncan or Markos's linking habits.

Go here if you haven't heard the news.  Jane Hamsher is a dear friend and one of the most important people in the progressive movement today.  She's a mentor and a role model, she's fiercely loyal to her friends and allies, and she's willing to work strategically and pragmatically to fight injustice at great personal cost.  She is a genuine American hero, and let's hope everything turns out for the best.

Always remember that the blogs and the new progressive movement are built by people, not by a mass megaphone, and people like Jane create the space for us to flourish and make change.

Update (Jonathan): Christy Hardin Smith is passing on a humble request from Jane to help keep FDL going.

What FDL has put together is very impressive.  Here's Jane Hamsher on Keith Olberman tonight.  More interesting than that is what Howie Klein is doing with Blue America, supporting progressive candidates with money and by producing generically useful commercials.  This post on Firedoglake is very much worth reading.

Two interesting developments this cycle are local blogs that are allowing the emergence of new locally-based progressive leaders who have influence, and blogs like FDL, which are a hybrid community and activism platform.  Like Chris, I'm feeling bored by the political environment, and somewhat useless, but it's good to look at what's emerging and be excited and energized by the new leadership ripping through the staid pay-to-play political fabric all over the country.

With this nasty letter in the Washington Post, online editor Jim Brady shows just how aggressive he is willing to be to avoid accountability at his newspaper.  It's quite remarkable, actually.  He still does not understand what went wrong.

Howell committed an act of journalistic malpractice.  She was caught in an error on a very important story, and her reaction to the readership who commented on it was to stonewall.  Then she grudgingly admitted an error four days later, decrying partisanship and namecalling the whole time.  It was a pathological incapacity to take responsibility.

And now Brady comes back with a truculent regurgitation of right-wing bias, as if to prove that he might be accountable to someone, but that someone is not 'the left' or 'partisans'.  In his bitchy little note, he wouldn't even name Jane Hamsher or Atrios by name, even though he quoted both of them.  They were intentionally nameless and faceless mean angry bloggers.  Jane of course is an accomplished screenwriter, novelist, and journalist, Duncan has a PhD in economics.  Riff raff.

But here's the money quote on what this is all about:

In fact, Abramoff directed clients to give to members of both parties, but he had donated his own personal funds only to Republicans.

That's just nonsense.  The American Prospect showed as much in a study done by a nonpartisan research group:

But the Morris and Associates analysis, which was done exclusively for The Prospect, clearly shows that it's highly misleading to suggest that the tribes's giving to Dems was in any way comparable to their giving to the GOP. The analysis shows that when Abramoff took on his tribal clients, the majority of them dramatically ratcheted up donations to Republicans. Meanwhile, donations to Democrats from the same clients either dropped, remained largely static or, in two cases, rose by a far smaller percentage than the ones to Republicans did. This pattern suggests that whatever money went to Democrats, rather than having been steered by Abramoff, may have largely been money the tribes would have given anyway.

So even if Brady's claim were true, and I would concede that it could be technically true (though no one to my knowledge has proved it), it obscures the larger and much more relevant point that Abramoff was a key cog in a Republican political machine.  That is the point that Brady is effectively covering up.  I'm sure he isn't covering it up because he is a right-wing political operative, as he derisively would snort.  He isn't.  The Washington Post has done excellent work on the Abramoff scandal, far outpacing the New York Times.  But that doesn't mean that the paper is acting responsibly, for it isn't.

Jim Brady repeated something that isn't true, or at least, is extremely misleading.  And he did it to prove, childishly, that Jane Hamsher didn't 'win'.  That he's not accountable to her, because she's mean.  Well having comments on a blog, or allowing technorati on your site, or doing online chats, doesn't mean anything if you don't actually act based on the feedback.  It's not accountability or transparency, it's entertainment for riff raff.

In other words, I disagree with Jay Rosen's insulting comments to Jane Hamsher:

Meanwhile, flaming the friends of transparency isn't helping anyone. Get it, Jane?

Is Brady a friend of transparency?  That's hard to tell, since he's certainly not acting in good faith.