Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Go Go Wall Street!

Just in case it wasn't enough to give taxpayer money to Wall Street executives in the form of 1.6 billion dollars in bonuses (since they've done such a bang-up job), the banks have decided that they don't even have to tell us where the rest of the bailout money went.



The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been spent? What was it spent on? How much is being held in savings? And what's the plan for the rest? None of the banks provided specific answers.



One more time, for those who missed the lesson: if you're starving and your kids can't afford to go to school, money from the government is welfare and therefore bad. If you're costing your investors millions and taking home millions more in bonuses, money from the government is a "bailout" and therefore not only good, but necessary.

*applause*

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Who's Got The Mandate Now?

After the election, a number of Republicans were bitching that Obama didn't really win by THAT much, since he only had 62 million votes, which is about what Bush got in 2004.

Of course, tallying so many votes takes time, and now we see Obama with over 68 million votes - and counting. Check out fivethirtyeight for the details.

And some fun facts compiled by Open Left:

When the final totals are made, there will have been 26 million more votes in 2008 than 2000. That increase is in excess of 100% of the nation's population increase during the last eight years.

...

Obama received votes from the second highest percentage of the American population ever. With another million or so votes to count, currently 22.62% of the population voted for Obama. The all-time leader was Reagan in 1984, when he received the vote of 23.09% of the population. With up to another million votes to be added, Obama might still pass that total.

...

If Democrats win both of the outstanding House seats, and squeak out one of the remaining Senate seats, then there will be exactly the same number of Democrats in the House and Senate combined--316--as there were in 1993-1994 (note: this number includes Sanders as a Democrat on both occasions, and Lieberman as a Democrat on this occasion)



Although I don't REALLY count Lieberman as a Democrat anymore, and I don't think anyone else does either, other than Harry Reid.