Non-Paper Daily, 1.15.2009

*After hitting a flock of birds shortly after takeoff today, a plane crashed in the Hudson River. All passengers and crew made it off safely, in a true testament to training, preparation... and the value of those plastic instructions in the seatback pocket.

*Roland Burris, err The Magic Man, was officially sworn in today as the junior senator from Illinois.

*Hearings on Capitol Hill in regard to Obama's cabinet confirmations continued today. Of the big appointments--Clinton as Secretary of State, Holder as Attorney General, and Geither at Treasury--all are going well, even with the hiccup Geither is experiencing in regard to a former housekeeper he employed who turned out to have exceeded her immigration term. She went on to get a green card and, seemingly, all is well.

*9:00PM eastern time on Friday: That is the hour that Bush's team no longer inhabits the West Wing. Hooray! With the exception of a few key positions, the staffers will turn in their keys and leave for the final time.

Bailout the Failures

Yet one more reason the Bush Administration is just a bunch of douchebags.

Congress insisted that in order to pass the bank bailout bill then the provided funds could not be used to give bank executives (the very executives that ran these banks into the ground) massive compensation packages. The Washington Post reported yesterday, however, that the Bush Administration slipped one sentence into the final bank bailout bill that took all the bite out of that provision.

There you go, our finest at work. Just a little more than a month to go.