The Senate No's on Financial Reform received 35% more banking cash per senator

Quick hit on the Financial Reform Bill — Free Speech Dollars at work. From Matt Taibbi's new blog at Rolling Stone (my emphasis):

An analysis by a group called Maplight.org uncovered an interesting fact about the vote. The 38 Senators who opposed the bill in the cloture vote this afternoon received an average of $103,266 in campaign contributions from commercial banks. The 60 Senators who were yea votes took an average of $76,759.

Obviously this is just part of the puzzle, but it's worth noting. The pull Wall Street exerts on a bill like this comes via several different avenues -- campaign contributions are one, the potential for future employment (a big factor for staffers, and for retiring members like certain Democratic Party committee chairs) is another, the proximity of the lobbyist community (one staffer I know grumbled about the "literal intermarriage" factor, i.e. members married to lobbyists) is another.

It looks like the linked site, Maplight.org, is worth book-marking as well — a very useful tool. Taibbi will have a longer piece in the print edition; can't wait.

Side note: For fun, check out Taibbi's takedown of the Steinbrenner Slobituary, the wall-to-wall paean to one of America's worst bosses. The post offers a formula for calculating how long the public slobbering will go on, and contains a fast Full Taibbi on our special version of the perfect peasant. A taste:

They've got peoples' heads so turned around in this country that this ring-around-the-collar self-flagellating terror at being thought of as poor and subordinate has people reflexively worshipping their bosses, to the point where George Steinbrenner -- a workplace Caligula so stupid and self-centered that he could not be convinced George Constanza wasn't named after him -- is somehow thought of as cute and lovable.

Something spicy for a hot afternoon. Enjoy.

GP

(About the "peasant" reference: "It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board.")