The same day that the comptroller's office assured the public that Wall Street was on track for its second-best year ever, Bloomberg reports that Lloyd Blankfein and his top deputies are preparing to collect bonuses worth $111.3 million in stock. Mr. Happy Face will receive about $24.3 million, and Goldman president Gary Cohn will get about $24 million. But before you rev up your engines, these behemoth bonuses aren't from this year, when employment has yet to bounce back from Wall Street's financial tangle. These bonuses are delayed payoff from last year and 2007. You remember 2007, right? That was the year Goldman settled with the SEC for $550 million over mortgage-security fraud charges. Come to think of it, 2007 was also just before Goldman took $10 billion from the U.S. Treasury, which must have helped because last year it posted a record $13.4 billion in profit. As for Wall Street at large, overall bonus payments are likely to be smaller than last year, with Morgan Stanley warning some employees of a 10 percent to 30 percent drop in the size of their bonus checks. But since the financial sector has yet to replace all the jobs it shedded, the comptroller's report predicted that average bonuses will probably be higher. Not that they can throw themselves a party or anything.

The end of the lame-duck session is fast approaching, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying to stuff as much legislation in as he can before the Democratic majority is severely curtailed when the new session of Congress, with its recently elected tea partiers, commences in early January. There's the omnibus spending bill, which funds government operations, New START, a treaty which would further reduce the nuclear-weapons stockpiles of Russia and the United States, and potentially another crack at "don't ask, don't tell." But in order to fit in everything, Reid is planning to keep the Senate working all the way up to Christmas, and perhaps again following Christmas (you know, like everyone else). Obviously, this is an affront to Jesus and all of America.

Four Republican members of the commission tasked with investigating the cause of the financial crisis have decided to circumvent the bipartisan project and release their own report, with some key differences. The group, led by former congressman Bill Thomas, will conclude that rather than putting any onus on Wall Street for its role in the growth of subprime mortgages and credit default swaps, it was totally the government's fault for pushing homeownership and then not being prepared when the bubble burst. In order to make sure the blame doesn't make its way over to the financial sector, the group had previously voted to ban the phrases Wall Street, shadow banking, interconnection, and deregulation from the commission's official report, which they claim is too partisan. So they want to exclusively blame the government, but they don't want to mention the government's decision to deregulate the banks? Even though they could blame repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which let commercial banks set up investment arms, on Bill Clinton? Although these terms weren't mentioned specifically, we suspect they are also banned: fat cats, accountability, making sure this doesn't happen again, and logic.

Financial Crisis Panel In Turmoil As Republicans Defect; Plan To Blame Government For Crisis [HuffPo]

If you are a person who uses a digital intra-office memo or messaging service at work, imagine how you would feel if it turned out that someone had read all the personal conversations that you've had with your co-workers. Sure, you're careful because you know HR could read it someday, but what are the chances? You've probably said a bunch of things you'd rather keep private. Now imagine that the person who has read all your conversations is going to post them on the Internet. And then imagine that you work for a media website known for its snark and occasionally shady reporting tactics. This would be bad.

Despite speculation that Time would name the WikiLeaks founder its Person of the Year, the magazine went for the safer option, leaving Julian Assange in the same runner-up category as the tea party and the Chilean miners. Better luck next year! Seriously, miners, we hope next year is much better for you. By any definition of the term — person with the most impact, person most speculated over, person with the awesomest hairstyles — Assange was it. So the decision to name Mark Zuckerberg instead feels dated. Time magazine! Did no one tell you that you're in a struggle to stay relevant in a rapidly changing media landscape? The profile, which starts with the overhyped fact that Zuckerberg doesn't have his own office — de rigueur for any tech start-up — goes to great lengths to demonstrate that Zuckerberg is both nothing like his character in The Social Network and a human person.

In a serious blow to the Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize winner (and Cut favorite) Robin Givhan is departing after fifteen years. She'll be headed to work for Tina Brown at the Daily Beast and Newsweek. The Post "Style" section, where she long worked, also recently lost media columnist Howard Kurtz to Brown. Meanwhile, the same section has lost art critic Blake Gopnik as well — he's headed to New York for an unnamed opportunity here.

Givhan, Gopnik leaving the Washington Post [WP]
[Jeremy W. Peters/Twitter]