I am putting all links mentioned in today's show here, and will post the blog about today's show separately.

Everyone’s talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons. In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters’ minds, both discredited the G.O.P.’s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence. And for those on the progressive side of the political spectrum, these are hopeful times.

The Insider’s Crusade

Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day. Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard Law) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Princeton, Harvard Law), looks on proudly. Nearby, his foreign policy advisers will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford, Oxford D. Phil.).

The domestic policy team will be there, too, including Jason Furman (Harvard, Harvard Ph.D.), Austan Goolsbee (Yale, M.I.T. Ph.D.), Blair Levin (Yale, Yale Law), Peter Orszag (Princeton, London School of Economics Ph.D.) and, of course, the White House Counsel Greg Craig (Harvard, Yale Law).

Yes, we allowed the french language to sneak into this week's show -- here's that word, so well pronounced by all:

Dirigisme (from the French) (in English also "dirigism" although per the OED both spellings are used) is an economic term designating an economy where the government exerts strong directive influence.

Tony's rant: (hey it's worth listening today just to hear this!)

The silver Swan, who living had no Note,

when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.

Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore,

thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:

"Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!

"More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise."

and the song was published in Gibbons' First Set of Madrigals and Motets of 5 parts (1612)

 A Conversion in 'This Storm'

By David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 18, 2008; A01

First of two articles

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had a stern message for more than two dozen of the nation's most powerful hedge fund managers gathered in the third-floor conference room near his office.

Paulson told them it was time to begin regulating the opaque realm of hedge funds, reversing his long-held opposition. "You should not be thinking about how to fight it but how to make it work," he recounted telling them at the meeting last month.

They were stunned. One manager recalled muttering as he walked out: "What happened to the Hank Paulson we knew?"

With his 30-month tenure nearing its end, Paulson is leaving behind a legacy of federal interventionism that few would have expected from this former head of the investment giant Goldman Sachs. (read the rest at link above)

Here's Tony's syndicated column this week

Blankley

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Who's Going on the Presidential Honeymoon?

by Tony Blankley

Tony Blankley's Email | Author Archive | Author Biography

I was thinking about what we traditionally call the postelection "honeymoon," of which President-elect Barack Obama is now in the second week. But what exactly is meant by the metaphor? As a starting point, I looked up the word in my well-worn Oxford English Dictionary: "The first month after marriage, when there is nothing but tenderness and pleasure (Samuel Johnson); originally having no reference to the period of a month, but comparing the mutual affection of newly-married persons to the changing moon which is no sooner full than it begins to wane; now, usually, the holiday spent together by a newly-married couple, before settling down at home."

First of all, who are the parties on the honeymoon?  (read the rest at link above!)

And here's Bob Scheer's TruthDig piece:

Change We Can Bank On

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081118_change_we_can_bank_on/

Posted on Nov 18, 2008

By Robert Scheer

This is not change we can believe in. Not if Robert Rubin or his protégé, Lawrence Summers, get to call the shots on the economy in President-elect Barack Obama’s incoming administration. Both Clinton-era treasury secretaries deserve a great deal of the blame for the radical deregulation of the financial industry that has derailed the world economy. They both should, along with former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, perform rites of contrition and be kept at a safe distance from the leadership of our nation.

Yet Rubin and Summers are highly visible in the Obama transition team, with Summers widely touted as Obama’s pick for secretary of the treasury. (read the rest at link above)

Robert Scheer is the author of a new book, “The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.”