You supported a bunch of socialists. What the hell did you expect?

New York Post:

Local unions are waging war against President Obama’s proposed “Cadillac tax” on higher-cost health-care plans -- with one leader warning New York Democrats who approve the levy to watch out at the polls this year.

“The proposed tax is both terrible politics and bad policy, and it’s going to seriously undermine good health-care coverage for literally tens of millions of middle-class workers,” fumed Bob Master, legislative and political director for Communication Workers of America’s Northeast chapter.
...
“On the political side, I can tell you -- and this is not a threat -- that union members and middle-class voters whose taxes go up because of their health care, or whose health care gets cut, are not going to turn out for Democrats in hotly contested elections...”

To all those labor leaders who built their careers on boosting the Democrats while fulminating against “the rich”:  So taxing Cadillacs isn’t such a great idea when it turns out that your Cadillac is the one that gets taxed?

LATER, Elsewhere:

Via:  Instapundit

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Heckuva job, Timmy!

Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by [Treasury Secretary] Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.

AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc.^[1] and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm.  The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008.  The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Ace asks the questions:

Why was this extraordinarily generous 100-cents-on-the-dollar backdoor bailout offered to banks like Goldman Sachs?  To the extent you’re bailing them out -- why not something that makes a lot more sense like 60 cents on the dollar?  Why so generous -- careless -- with taxpayer money?

Is it necessary that Goldman Sachs not even take a haircut -- not even lose some profitability or the ability to pay huge bonuses -- for a year or two?

No.  Or at least it doesn’t seem so to me.  Even if I accept that some bailing out is necessary or prudent, what the hell is this crap with the full-on 100-cents-on-the-dollar complete immunization of Goldman Sachs against its extraordinarily bad decisions, all on the taxpayer dime?

Well, you can maybe see why Geithner demanded this be illegally withheld from the public, from stockholders, for example, who had a legal right to an accurate accounting of where AIG’s money was coming from and where it was going.  If you make it known to them, the public is informed, and then people start to get very annoyed that Goldman Sachs and other mega-banks aren’t even being asked to take a 30% haircut on one portion of their accounts.

And that the American taxpayer, meanwhile, is being shellacked for the full cost of this.

Take your blood pressure medicine, then RTWT.


Previously:

-----

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C-c-c-cold!

National Weather Service:

The average temperatures for the first three days of 2010 are among the coldest of record for Indianapolis. The last time the New Year began on a colder note was in 1940 or 70 years ago...

Indianapolis, Indiana
Lowest Average Temperatures
for January 1 - January 3
(records begin in 1871)

“Coldness” Rank	Average Temperature Degrees F	Year(s)
1 (tie)	1°	1928, 1887
3 (tie)	8.7°	1879, 1877
5	8.8°	1940
6	11.2°	1920
7	11.7°	2010
8	12.2°	1974
9	13.7°	1968
10	13.8°	1979
11	14.0°	1918
12	14.5°	2008
13	14.7°	1969
14 (tie)	15.2°	2001, 1977
16	15.3°	1958
17	15.5°	1901
18 (tie)	15.7°	1919, 1885
20	16.0°	1945

The latest forecast indicates that the first 10 days of the New Year will continue to remain near the top ten coldest starts to a new year. The average temperature for the first ten days of January is expected to be around 14 degrees. The last time the first ten days of a new year were colder was in 1999, and the last time Indianapolis experienced a cold spell of this duration or colder was in February 2007. The record cold for a ten day period is 0.5 degrees which occurred from December 15-24, 1989.

Indianapolis, Indiana
Predicted Lowest Average Temperatures
for January 1 - January 10
(records begin in 1871)

“Coldness” Rank	Average Temperature Degrees F	Year(s)
1 (tie)	8.2°	1970, 1887
3	8.3°	1879
4	9.0°	1884
5	9.4°	1912
6	10.6°	1979
7	12.3°	1999
8	12.5°	1968
9	13.2°	1942
10	13.4°	1875
-	13.5° projected	2010
11	14.1°	1988
12	14.2°	1940
13	15.1°	1969
14	15.3°	1977
15	15.6°	1893
16 (tie)	15.9°	1981, 1877
18	17.9°	1974
19	18.8°	1996
20	18.9°	1920

Gotta order some more oil!

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Vampires- again

Teresa (commenting here):

OMG - you'll all love this one... a tweet from KristineRusch...

RT @thrillerchick: @Jan_Burke: Nearly fell down laughing a bookstore today when I saw Jack London's White Fang shelved with vampire novels.

Previously.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 19:48:22 GMT | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Any guesses?

Washington Examiner:

Only a fourth of all Americans approve of the direction Obama and Congress are taking the country, according to a Gallup survey.

And I wonder how many of that “fourth” pay any taxes. (via: IP)

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BlogMeet report - Sunday, January 3

I counted 19 peak attendance (but I also consumed two glasses of Brugge’s “Tripel de Ripple,” so there’s a slight possibility of inaccuracy).  At any rate, we occupied three tables.  Brigid has photos (yes, the Waterzooie tasted as good as it looks), Turk has a video, Roberta has a brief report. Fun, fun, fun.

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Post-Detroit travel fun

The Big Guy had to fly to Boston (at 5:01 in the morning):

TSA2: “Y’know, this might go a little faster if you'd cooperate.”

TBG: “Y’know, this might go a little faster if you actually asked a question.”

...and then, once he got aboard...

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Changes make my head spin

The Other McCain moves to new digs here.

The famous Jim Treacher announces he’s really somebody named “Sean,” who is now hanging out with Tucker Carlson here.

And while we were distracted elsewhere, Doctor Zero (of Green Room fame) premiered his new site. (Archives, too!)

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