The New York Times' David Kirkpatrick delivers the shocking and troubling news that Wall Street bankers are so disappointed in Barack Obama that they've started giving money to Republicans. Bankers! To Republicans!

Apparently Wall Street has long been a bastion of support for Democratic political candidates, but now that Obama has launched a campaign — unprecedented for a Democrat — to enact policies that may cut into corporate profits, some bankers are holding their noses and cutting checks to Republicans:

But this year Chase's political action committee is sending the Democrats a pointed message. While it has contributed to some individual Democrats and state organizations, it has rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. Instead, it gave $30,000 to their Republican counterparts.

The shift reflects the hard political edge to the industry's campaign to thwart Mr. Obama's proposals for tighter financial regulations.

Here's a chart illustrating that "shift" in giving, from the Center for Responsive Politics. It shows political giving from political action committees and individuals associated with commercial banking, going back to 1990. In every year since 1994, Republicans got more money than Democrats.

To make his case, Kirkpatrick cites CRP figures showing that individuals and PACs from the securities and investment business gave $89 million to Democrats in 2008, a 57% to 43% edge over Republicans. That's true. It's also true that, according to the CRP, the securities and investment sector favored Republicans over Democrats in the 2006, 2004, 2002, 2000, 1998, and 1996 election cycles. It's also true that, overall, the wider finance, insurance, and real estate industry has favored Republicans 55% to 45% since 1990. This is because people who care about money want Republicans to win elections, and always have.

But what about Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase and Obama's Chicago pal? Kirkpatrick makes much of the fact that JPMorgan Chase's PAC has "rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees" and given "$30,000 to their Republican counterparts."

He calls this a "shift." JPMorgan Chase has two PACs. One of them, it is true, gave 58% of its $130,427 in disbursements in 2008 to Democrats. But the other one, which handed out $797,977 in 2008, gave 53% of it to Republicans. In fact, both PACs have favored Republicans in all but two of the last six election cycles—one being the aforementioned 2008 cycle, and the other being 2002, when one of the PACs split its money 50-50. So Chase's shift to the GOP is more of a return to the way it's always behaved and should always be expected to behave, since "Wealthy Bankers Give Money to Republicans" is sort of axiomatic.

According to a newly released survey, Republican politicians dominate the congressional Twitter-verse. Meanwhile, Barack Obama just sent his first "Tweet" last month. Twitter Gap!

A Congressional Research Service report released last week (and published by Secrecy News) found that 60% of the members of Congress with Twitter accounts are Republicans, and that fully half of all congressional Twitterers are House GOP members. The study, which was conducted in August of last year is limited to U.S. senators and House members, shows GOP pols out-Twittering Democrats in virtually every category: A whopping 67% of all congressional "Tweets" are written by Republicans.

It certainly looks like things have turned around, Twitter-wise, for the Republican Party. In January 2009, GOP politicians were publicly wringing their hands over the party's failure to embrace social networking, and then-candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele was touting his Twitter followership as a qualification for the post. The Wall Street Journal covered the party's deliberate campaign to infiltrate Twitter:

Within days of the election, a technology consultant in Nashville, Tenn., started a Web site devoted to getting Republicans on Twitter, spotlighting which of the 168 RNC voting-members use the tool (last count: 20). A conservative strategist issued a 10-point action plan for rebuilding the party, declaring the No. 1 priority to be "winning the technology war with the Democrats."

They've already won. This chart, based on data from the CRS report, shows that the median GOP House Twitterer has nearly twice as many followers as her Democratic counterpart. Democrats still have the edge in the Senate, though we're only talking about 18 Senators with Twitter accounts, so it's not much of a victory compared with the 103 House Republicans.

The upshot of all this is that the Republican Party owns Twitter, and will hopefully continue to be too distracted with "Tweeting" stupid short sentences to their "followers" to develop a coherent policy agenda.

New York Gov. David Paterson consulted with "key Democratic leaders" over the weekend to discuss either a) his imminent resignation pending a New York Times report that he is a corrupt snuggling swinger or b) just talk about stuff.

UPDATE: WPIX says the story's coming out Wednesday.

Paterson has been battling maddeningly vague rumors that the Times is on the verge of publishing a career-ending story detailing either previously undisclosed marital infidelities or some sort of official corruption that will cause him to immediately resign. Today the Associated Press reports that Paterson spent the weekend in meetings and on phone calls with Democratic leaders, apparently prepping them for the fallout:

A Democrat close to the situation, though, said the meetings included discussions about whether Paterson would resign or announce he will not run because of the unsubstantiated claims in the whisper campaign surrounding the governor's behavior. The Democrat spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Paterson's spokeswoman told the AP that the calls were routine fundraising and strategy sessions. She also told Gawker yesterday that the mythical Times story does in fact exist, and that it's a perfectly normal boring profile for Metro.

In the exceedingly likely event that Paterson's spokeswoman is lying while desperately trying to forestall the inevitable, several possible scenarios have emerged: There's the swinging thing, which is buttressed by recent stories in the New York Post about a state trooper on the governor's security detail discovering Paterson "snuggling together" with an unidentified woman in a closet and Paterson being spotted "neck-kissing" a young lady in a New Jersey restaurant. There's also a rather run-of-the-mill corruption angle: Paterson recently delivered a contract to run a casino at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens to a company that Queens politico Rev. Floyd Flake partly owns, after which Flake met with Paterson to discuss a possible endorsement for Paterson's re-election bid. The Post's Fred Dicker writes today that many of Paterson's aides consider the Aqueduct deal "corrupt" and are threatening to quit over it, and that Paterson's "poor work habits and late-night, booze-fueled 'disappearances' at trendy nightclubs and undisclosed locations" have wrecked his staff's confidence.

Meanwhile, GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio can't stand the suspense anymore, and has issued a statement calling for the Times to—as the Albany Times-Union puts it—"print or get off the pot":

"The rumors about the Governor are a sad reflection of Albany politics," Lazio said. "No public official deserves to be the subject of over a week of innuendo and nasty speculation. If the New York Times is working on or has a story then they should confirm or print it. If they do not, then they have an obligation to stop this rumor mongering right now. Common decency demands it."

UPDATE: Politico's Ben Smith reports that the Times is set to interview Paterson tomorrow.

NObama's latest plan to curtail America's freedom is to deny our obese, no-attention-span-having schoolkids the option of gorging on Hot Fries and Snickers out of school-sponsored vending machines. Why won't our nation's soft drink conglomerates stand up for the children?

"Industry opposition to the new legislation has softened in part because the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo now sell far more than Coke and Pepsi. So instead of having to yank vending machines from schools, the companies could replace offerings with bottled water or juice." Oh. That's why.
[NYT]

The Business Insider posted an unconfirmed report that the New York Times' David Paterson story is so big that the New York governor will resign tomorrow. But Paterson's office is pushing back, telling Gawker "the governor is not resigning."

We asked Paterson's deputy communications director Marissa Shoenstein for a response and she emailed the following: "There is absolutely zero truth to these rumors. The governor is not resigning."

Reached by phone, Shorenstein also claimed that the story isn't coming out tomorrow or "any time soon" and called it a "profile" that's going to be running in the Metro section of the New York Times. She says more than one Times writer will be bylined on the piece and that her office has been in contact with them and the governor is cooperating. Finally, when asked whether or not anything that's going to be written in the forthcoming Times piece on Gov. Paterson could be described as scandalous, a "bombshell," or anything that might find itself in the public's general interest, Shorenstein gave a flat-out denial: "No."

This, of course, is all spin from the governor. The Times will publish when it's good and ready. And they'll have the final word. In the mean time, We left messages for NYT spokeswoman Abbe Serphos and for NYT metro editor Joe Sexton on both his home and cell phones. We'll update with their comment as soon as we hear back.

Until then, we're still left wondering: What the hell is in this thing?

Earlier, some commenters gave us some ideas.

• Runner Up: "He's not really blind."
  
  
• "Perhaps they've discovered that he has no idea how to govern."
  
  
• "I call banking kickbacks. That, or he wrote a cheque for a hooker like Jerry Springer."
  
  
• "He first became Lieutenant Governor when Eliot Spitzer hired him for sex?"
  
  
• "I'm guessing that he's a masturbator."
  
  
• "It's a hot li'l female, the Cuomo team is workin' overtime, and he will not resign."
  
  
• "He's a hardcore Warcraft player who got a little too into erotic role playing as a female blood elf mage. Expect some pretty disgusting screenshots from Goldshire."
  
  
• "He's a third-party in the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter sex tape."
  
  
• "Basically it's that he is actually a Belgian-born white dude named Tim Kimberly and he was once a paid assassin for Opus Dei."
  
  
• "Unless the "bombshell" Paterson news involves either of the two philias — pedophilia, necrophilia — or active drug-dealing to under-age children, serial murder, cannibalism, or dog fighting, I'm not going to give a shit."

And finally, our winner:

• "He's really Fred Armisen."

Wow. Just...wow. More as we get it, but in the mean time, the Paterson camp is firm in their stance of noting that there's nothing any of us should care about in this thing.

Update 1, 8:15 PM: Business Insider has now posted an update, noting a denial from Paterson's camp that matches up with what we got from Shorenstein. They've amended their headline with an asterisk, and other than coming from Paterson's "communications team" the denial's source goes otherwise unnamed.

Update 2, 10:00 PM: The Associated Press is running a story sourced via an anonymous Democrat "close to the situation" that Paterson met with Democratic leadership over the weekend, regarding his re-election plans. The source, however, notes that it was over the question of whether or not he's going to resign his office or announce that he won't be running again. This meeting has—as spun by Paterson's spokesman Richard Fife—nothing to do with rumors and/or accusations surrounding his personal life, but is instead simply part of "routine re-election campaign calls.''

Hunter Walker contributed to this report.

The Smoking Gun published theoretical Senate candidate Harold Ford's rider! Nothing too fancy—though he's allergic to shellfish, and apparently the driver who picks him up must not write his full name on the sign.

Presumably, if the driver just wrote "Harold Ford" (or "Ford"?), the would-be candidate would be swamped by a mob of adoring fans. So the rider stipulates that the sign read, cryptically, "H.F." (What if Howard Fineman is at the same airport? Or Hank Finkel? Or... Hitler Frankenstein?)

The Observer's John Koblin heard the New York Times is supposedly working on a major story on our wacky governor. The guy's admitted to drugs and adultery, what else could there be? (We're all ears!) Update: More sex, looks like.

The New York Daily News' Liz Benjamin points to a weird letter to the editor of the Post from the State Superintendent, who flatly denies the recent Page Six story on Paterson dining (and nuzzling) with a lady who is not his wife. And supposedly the bombshell story will make the earlier adultery revelations look tame in comparison.

For what it's worth, there is a rumor that the governor and his wife are swingers. And if that is what the Times is working on, all we can say is we look forward to reading them attempt to describe the practice in the house style.

Senator Richard Shelby will block all of Barack Obama's nominees until he gets his pork.

After his first day at his new job, Scott Brown "stayed true to his truck-driving, everydude persona by doing a shot of Irish whiskey and swilling a Bud Light draft at the Dubliner pub this evening to celebrate his swearing-in."

Fill-in-the-blank: "Four months ago, it appeared all but certain that the White House and Democrats in Congress would succeed in ___." If you guessed "cutting off private student loan sharks from the federal trough," you lose. Sallie Mae wins!

The President wants to end the Federal Family Education Loan program. In the FFELP, the government literally pays private lenders to rip off students. This is called "the free market." Basically there is not a single coherent reason to oppose ending this program, unless you are actually on the Sallie Mae payroll (like Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska). Ending the program would even save the government $80 billion over the next decade, according to the CBO, so of course "deficit hawks" (like Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska!) hate this plan. Oh, and the House passed this thing last year. It is stuck in this crazy other legislative body called "the Senate."