Author Archive | Jim Lindgren

While I

The German press is reporting that Adolf Merckle, who has been described as Germany’s Warren Buffett, died when hit by a train. CNBC reported that Merckle committed suicide. He had lost a lot of money in a short squeeze on Volkswagen stock, but had reportedly obtained a bridge loan to shore up his investment company. […]

I like Adam’s Rib — and it’s one of my wife’s favorites (she’s a geneticist). I don’t know how Eugene can mention Adam’s Rib and lawyers marrying lawyers without quoting its most famous line: “Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called inbreeding, from which comes idiot children and more lawyers.”

Apparently, there were many red flags that might have tipped people off to Bernie Madoff

Orin notes that Elena Kagan is becoming SG. Some people might try to leverage a high government position into an elite deanship. Kagan is moving the opposite way. Even though Kagan has been a terrific Harvard dean — and has shaken up the law school world more generally — she is likely to have more […]

President-elect Barack Obama is reportedly about to announce a much bigger tax cut than was expected, as part of his stimulus package. Obama Eyes $300 Billion Tax Cut: Huge Breaks for Firms, Individuals Are Aimed at Winning GOP Support for Stimulus President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are crafting a plan to offer about $300 […]

The Report released Tuesday by the Barack Obama camp discloses, not only direct contacts between the Obama staff and Governor Blagojevich and his staff, but two other specific indirect contacts. It does not, however, disclose the only two contacts mentioned in the U.S. Attorney

When President-elect Barack Obama was first asked about the Blagojevich scandal he said:

[UPDATE: The post below points out an error by Rick Moran. He has been very gracious in acknowledging his mistake: Jim Lindgren, whose excellent timeline on the scandal is must reading for those who wish to understand the sequence of events that eventually trapped the Illinois governor, corrects two egregious errors made in this article. […]

Tom Maguire has a great roundup of reactions to the Arne Duncan appointment. Included are these: This pick wins raves from the Freakonomist: Freakonomics readers will remember Arne as the hero of our chapter on teacher cheating. He was head of the Chicago Public Schools when Brian Jacob and I were investigating how teachers and […]

Barack Obama’s latest choice — Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education — is a serious guy and an effective administrator. While I doubt that Duncan will push vouchers, he is in favor of charter schools and he is not beholden to education unions. From what I’ve seen of Duncan, Obama has made a great choice. […]

Barbara Flynn Currie, the majority leader of the Illinois [General Assembly], has been chosen to run the Blagojevich impeachment committee. She is very smart, seemingly very honest, and (I seem to recall) a friend and ally of fellow Hyde Parker Barack Obama. She is not viewed as a machine politician, but rather as a moderately […]

There is an old joke about the man who loses his car keys one night. He looks for his keys, not where he dropped them, but under the streetlight because the light is better there. The U.S. Attorney’s complaint and affidavit disclose Blagojevich’s alleged conspiracy to use unofficial intermediaries to convey what he wanted from […]

As he promised, Barack Obama had his staff prepare a report of contacts between his staff and the office of Governor Blagojevich. And it was ready for release in a timely fashion when the U.S. attorney’s office asked that the report’s release be delayed for a week. Dan Pfeiffer, the Communications Director of Obama transition […]

Barack Obama is introducing his Energy and Environmental team. So far there have been two press questions, neither about the Blagojevich scandal. UPDATE: The third question was from an NPR reporter, who asked about Rahm Emanuel. Obama had a prepared list of news reporters and he read their names from his list when calling on […]