memeorandum: Bear Stearns Closes in on Deal To Sell Itself to J.P. Morgan (Wall Street Journal)

12:50 AM ET, March 17, 2008

Top Items:

JPMorgan Acts to Buy Ailing Bear Stearns at Huge Discount — Bear Stearns, facing collapse because of the mortgage crisis, agreed Sunday evening to be bought by JPMorgan Chase for a bargain-basement price of less than $250 million, the two companies announced.

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Crooked Timber, Buck Naked Politics, JustOneMinute, Taylor Marsh, Obsidian Wings, Marginal Revolution, Hoffmania! and AMERICAblog

Wall Street Journal:

Bear Stearns Closes in on Deal To Sell Itself to J.P. Morgan — Bear Stearns Cos. was closing in on a deal Sunday afternoon to sell itself to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., as worries deepened that the financial crisis of confidence could spread if Bear failed to find a buyer by Monday morning.

Discussion: Eschaton, DealBook, Economist's View, Emptywheel, The Big Picture, Grasping Reality …, Dealbreaker, The Agonist, The Bonddad Blog, Reason Magazine and HorsesAss.Org

Matthew Yglesias:

Sunday Financial Meltdown Blogging — Every now and again, and then increasingly as things start looking worse, I get a comment like “how can you write about [thing that's not earth-shatteringly important] when the economy is [something terrible happening in the economy].”

Discussion: Brendan Nyhan

Scott Lanman / Bloomberg:

U.S. Fed Cuts Discount Rate, Says Dealers May Borrow — The Federal Reserve, in an emergency weekend decision, cut the rate on direct loans to commercial banks and opened up borrowing at the rate to primary dealers in government securities. — In an announcement before the start of trading …

Discussion: Hullabaloo

Larry Kudlow / The Corner:
JP Morgan Chase + Bear Stearns

Discussion: The Volokh Conspiracy

Yalman Onaran / Bloomberg: JPMorgan Chase Buys Bear Stearns for $240 Million

Gretchen Morgenson / New York Times:
Rescue Me: A Fed Bailout Crosses a Line

Discussion: Balkinization, The Huffington Post, Greg Mankiw's Blog and The New Republic

Mike Allen / The Politico:

Obama's church accuses media of character assassination — The Chicago church attended by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) issued a statement Sunday contending that coverage of his pastor's inflammatory remarks amounted to character assassination and “an attack on ... the history of the African American church.”

Discussion: Hot Air, NewsBusters.org, Gateway Pundit, The Sundries Shack, Donklephant, Political Byline, Stop The ACLU and PoliGazette

Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:

Oprah, Obama, And Wright — It has been reported that Oprah Winfrey, who endorsed Obama, is the other famous member of Wright's now controversial church. However, she seems to have moved away from that church quite some time ago - this is from 2002: … I wonder what Oprah would say about the direction Wright's ministry took.

Marc Ambinder:
An “Attack” On The Church — CBS News's John Bentley spent Palm Sunday …

Discussion: The Daily Dish, TalkLeft, The Other McCain and Ben Smith's Blogs

New Jersey Online:

McGreevey aide says he had sexual trysts with ex-governor, wife — A former aide to James E. McGreevey said today that he had three-way sexual trysts with the former governor and his wife before he took office, challenging Dina Matos McGreevey's assertion that she was naive about her husband's sexual exploits.

Discussion: Gawker, Gateway Pundit, The Corner, The Daily Dish, Political Byline, Pam's House Blend and The Other McCain

Michelle Gallardo / WLS-TV:

Obama answers questions about Rezko, pastor — No campaign stops were scheduled Sunday for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. He was in the Chicago area Saturday night for a fundraiser. — The Illinois senator was in an Indianapolis suburb also this weekend, where he …

Discussion: White Collar Crime Prof Blog and EconoPundit

Sweetness & Light:
Pastor Wright Erased From Obama's Website

Discussion: NewsBusters.org, The Jawa Report, The Corner, JustOneMinute and Stop The ACLU

Little Green Footballs:
Obama Web Site ‘Disappears’ Radical Pastor

Discussion: The Corner and Don Surber

Mark Steyn / The Corner:
Pew research center

Discussion: The Daily Dish

Think Progress:

One Year Later, Market Where McCain Strolled ‘Freely’ Is Controlled By Sadr, Too Unsafe For Americans To Visit — On April 1, 2007, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) strolled through the open-air Shorja market in Baghdad in an effort to prove that Americans are “not getting the full picture” of what's going on in Iraq.

Discussion: The Daily Dish, The Seminal, Crooks and Liars, Associated Press, Hullabaloo, The Newshoggers, Angry Bear and Political Byline

New York Times:
Iraqis See a Candidate's Agenda in McCain's Visit

Discussion: AMERICAblog

ABCNEWS:

Bill Clinton: ‘Chill Out,’ Let Voters Decide — Former President Says Most Democrats Like Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — Bill Clinton, in an exclusive interview with Robin Roberts, said he thinks Democrats are torn between two candidates they like, and that it's time to “chill out” …

Discussion: Wake up America and TVNewser

Allahpundit / Hot Air:

Video: Juan Williams lowers the boom on Obama — By special request of Ace, who tells me his commenters were buzzing about it this morning. Williams has never had much patience for grievance culture so this shouldn't surprise. He's juggling a lot of balls here — the “authenticity” …

Discussion: Little Green Footballs, American Power and Perfunction

Scott Horton / Harper's:

The Gathering Storm at Justice — I don't in the ordinary course review and recommend law review articles, but I've just come across one that is close to indispensable for public affairs junkies. On December 7, 2006—the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor—at least eight U.S. attorneys …

Discussion: Centerpoint Review

New York Times:

Op-Ed Contributors: Reflections on the Invasion of Iraq — To mark this week's fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the Op-Ed page asked nine experts on military and foreign affairs to assess their previous and current outlook.

Discussion: Right Wing Nut House, Jules Crittenden, Balloon Juice, The Glittering Eye, The Newshoggers, Matthew Yglesias, toohotfortnr, TBogg, The Impolitic, Unqualified Offerings and Once Upon a Time

Ilan Goldenberg / democracyarsenal.org:
It's Not the Execution — The NY Times has its five year retrospective …

Discussion: New York Times and Angry Bear

Gallup:

Gallup Daily: McCain at 47% to Obama's 44% — PRINCETON, NJ — The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update on registered voters' general election preferences for president finds that John McCain has opened up a slight advantage over Barack Obama, 47% to 44%, while McCain and Hillary Clinton remained tied at 46% each.

Discussion: The Jed Report and TPM Election Central

Alan Greenspan / Financial Times:

We will never have a perfect model of risk — The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the second world war. It will end eventually when home prices stabilise and with them the value of equity in homes supporting troubled mortgage securities.

Discussion: Economist's View, Real Clear Politics and Paul Krugman