There are moments when a radical idea quickly goes mainstream. A cause for optimism but also caution; an opportunity for a practical challenge. -- The “Green New Deal,” a proposal for a green way out of recession, is such an idea. -- It has now been adopted in some form, in theory if not in corresponding action, by governments across the world.

Consider, for a moment, a tale of two countries: the United States, where stocks are up, G.D.P. is rising, but the terrible employment situation just keeps getting worse; and Germany, which took a hit to its G.D.P. when world trade collapsed, but has been remarkably successful at avoiding mass job losses. Here in America, we don’t really have a jobs policy: we have a G.D.P. policy -- that by stimulating overall spending we can make G.D.P. grow faster, and this will induce companies to stop firing and resume hiring. The alternative would be policies that address the job issue more directly [like] New-Deal-style employment programs -- perhaps politically impossible now. Alternatively, or in addition, we could have policies that support private-sector employment. And that’s what the Germans have done. Since [a large enough conventional stimulus] doesn’t seem to be in the cards, we need to talk about cheaper alternatives that address the job problem directly: an employment tax credit; the German-style job-sharing subsidy. The point is that we need to start doing something more than, and different from, what we’re already doing. And the experience of other countries suggests that it’s time for a policy that explicitly and directly targets job creation.

A successful Congressional vote on the health care reform plan could theoretically bring an end to the Republican Party.…Passing the Democrat´s health care reform could be a rebirth of a new, FDR type "NEW DEAL".... The problem that the GOP has is that if the Democrat´s health care reform plan is finally passed, and it is successful, this would be a major feather in the Democrat´s cap and it would be another recognition and support of FDR´s "New Deal" type programs. The real issue is that the basic goals of the Republican Party are to dismantle the American Middle Class and to increase the wealth and power of the very rich...the GOP is fighting the Democrat´s health care reform bill as a threat against the actual existence of their political party... if the health care bill passes and it works reasonably well, the Republicans could virtually disappear just as they did after the Republican President Herbert Hoover failed and after the successful Democratic terms of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. One can now only hope for a repeat of that situation.

Though Iran has expressed interest in a draft proposal for third party uranium enrichment, they have also sought additional talks and a handful of clarifications before finalizing the pact. The US appears to be ruling out any additional talks however. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now demanding that Iran accept the existing draft immediately “as is” and has said that under no circumstances would the US consider any alteration of the deal, which would see 70 percent of Iran’s uranium exported for further enrichment. [Note: Isn't Clinton just a "fount of diplomacy"?]

As the UN deadline expired on Friday, Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna that it was favorably examining a plan designed to defuse the standoff over the country's nuclear program, but that it could not respond before the middle of next week, saying it needs more time to examine and respond to the proposals. Western diplomats had initially warned they would not accept any further procrastination attempt by Iran, but Washington said on Friday it was prepared to wait until next week for Iran's reply. "I think we can stretch things a few days," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly in Washington following Iran's announcement. "But we're not going to wait forever."

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S apparent readiness to backtrack on the public insurance option in his health care package suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead. This was not true of Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Congresses that enacted the New Deal. With the exception of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933, the principal legislative innovations of the 1930s were enacted over the vigorous opposition of a deeply entrenched minority. Majority rule, as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents’ permission. Roosevelt relished the opposition of vested interests. He fashioned his governing majority by deliberately attacking those who favored the status quo. His opponents hated him — and he profited from their hatred. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” he told a national radio audience on the eve of the 1936 election. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

This video speaks to one of the MAJOR problems affecting the Obama administration today...TRANSPARENCY!

n closed-door negotiations with President Obama and his top aides throughout the spring, Big Pharma offered its support for comprehensive health care reform and pledged to cut $80 billion in costs over the next ten years. Just exactly what Obama promised in return wasn't made public and was the subject of intense debate on Capitol Hill Thursday, as senators wondered aloud if the White House had tied their legislative hands. Earlier in the week, there were reports that Obama had promised to oppose any congressional attempt to exact further money from the massive pharmaceutical industry, such as allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prices or import cheaper drugs from Canada -- two major priorities for congressional Democrats. In a Thursday meeting with Senate Democrats, some of those present thought the White House backed off that deal. The administration has now stepped in to clear up its position: Congress can vote to do those things -- just not as part of the health-care overhaul legislation. Of course, as the White House acknowledges, senators are free to push for drug-price negotiations or reimportation, but they may have to do so without administration support and, certainly, in the face of Big Pharma opposition.

In a new piece for Salon.com, Jeff Sharlet has more on the domestic side of the militarist-fundamentalist drive to devour the state, which we wrote about here yesterday. Sharlet writes of "The Family" -- the self-described "Christian Mafia" centered on the "C Street House" in Washington -- which for decades has spread its invisible, insidious influence throughout the U.S. government, while supporting mass-murdering dictators, rapacious crony capitalism -- and providing convenient cover and absolution for the high crimes and sexual misdemeanors of its members. Sharlet has written of The Family for years, in articles for Harper's and in his book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. He has described in great detail -- and from the inside -- a disturbing, decades-old network of big-time power players guided by cranks who push Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden, and Stalin as worthy role models in the pursuit of the Family's ultimate goal: a militarized, unfettered "totalitarianism of God." You would think that Sharlet's earlier revelations would have brought intensive, horrified scrutiny to bear on this nest of democracy-hating accomplices of atrocity and corruption -- but the stories never gained much traction in the corporate media. Who cares about all that boring stuff?

Now they are out to nickel and dime us to death. Here in my home town the traffic and parking department has been prevailed upon to “step up” its enforcement activity – and maneuvering to have parking meters work far into the night – in order help cover some of the city’s budget deficit.

As Molly Ivins used to like to say, "Isn't that nice?" Dick Cheney has found a publisher for his memoirs. (Mary Matalin signed him, conveniently.) Now all he needs is some #2 pencils and a good title. Our recent contest at BuzzFlash should certainly help with the latter. The serial liar is saying he just wants to write this story for his grandkids.

The pharmaceutical industry agreed Saturday to spend $80 billion over the next decade improving drug benefits for seniors on Medicare and defraying the cost of President Barack Obama's health care legislation, capping secretive negotiations with the White House and key lawmakers. The deal, expected to be announced later in the day, marked a major triumph for Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., as well as the administration. The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has been negotiating with numerous industry groups for weeks as he tries to draft legislation that meets Obama's goal of vastly expanding health coverage, has bipartisan support and does not add to the deficit.

A few days ago, I referenced,,... FDR's....cautious progressivism as perceived conservatism. The New Deal, as radical 1960s historians rediscovered but disapproved of rather unenchantingly, was indeed strategically conservative in its progressivism. Because to move quickly, FDR was forced to rely on the (hoped-for) good intentions of those being regulated, whether they were banks, businessmen, farmers, or state relief agencies, while circumnavigating as best he could a prodigiously conservative, Southern Democratic Congress. In general, FDR's Depression policies came to be seen by historians as a "holding operation;" the Second World War....really did fundamentally alter the relationship between the federal government and the citizenry. [Concerning] FDR's New Deal,....here's one aspect of it that cannot be disputed: The hard left, at the time, detested much of it as an unconscionable sellout to the powers that be. Sound familiar?

U.S. automaker Chrysler expects to close its sale of most assets to Italy's Fiat as early as Friday, its chief executive told a bankruptcy hearing which is considering whether to approve the transaction. The automaker wants to sell its stronger operations to a "New Chrysler" owned by Fiat (FIA.MI), labor unions and the U.S. and Canadian governments, in exchange for $2 billion paid to its lenders. Approval would be a victory for the White House, which had been criticized by many bankruptcy specialists for setting a seemingly unrealistic timeframe of 30-60 days in which to bring the automaker's operations through Chapter 11

When presidents pursue an ambitious agenda, which breaks with the recent past, the larger vision tends to get a name. We've seen a "New Deal," a "Square Deal," a "Fair Deal," a "New Frontier," and the drive for a "Great Society." President Obama is subtly hoping to build a "New Foundation." Obama inherited a series of crises and a country moving quickly in the wrong direction, so he's committed to a new foundation that the nation can build upon. Will "New Foundation" have a future? Time will tell.

Soon after getting into the White House, Barack Obama said bemusedly that some of his opponents were still fighting the New Deal. But now it looks like Obama himself may chip away at one of the cornerstones of the New Deal: and that is Social Security. After announcing that the recession has shrunk the payroll taxes that fund Social Security, Obama’s pathetic Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner signaled that cuts in the program may be in the offing. “The President explicitly rejects the notion that Social Security is untouchable politically,” Geithner said. Obama himself uses the derisive term “entitlement” for this benefit, as if the elderly and the disabled are acting like entitled little brats to expect to have any government help. Obama campaigned on preserving Social Security and accused McCain of wanting to cut it. Now, by preparing an assault on Social Security, he is engaging in a huge betrayal.

During Barack Obama's first hundred days, history has provided pundits and politicians with a grab bag of analogies. Obama himself has invoked Abraham Lincoln and put him on a pedestal. I'm not speaking figuratively: a bust of the sixteenth president sits on the same plinth in the Oval Office where Obama's predecessor had displayed a sculpture of Winston Churchill. Obama has also cited Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, an analysis of Lincoln's complex relationships with leading members of his cabinet, as a model for his own style of presidential leadership. Journalists have compared the youth and idealism of Obama and his supporters to John F. Kennedy's Camelot, and fashionistas have twittered about the dashing Michelle being a latter-day Jackie (with sinewy biceps). Still others have suggested that Obama embodies Reagan's charisma while reclaiming Reaganesque paeans to national greatness for the Democrats. A few wags have tried to burst the bubble of hope by comparing Obama to Jimmy Carter, another Washington outsider and intellectual who promised sweeping change but whose mandate collapsed under the weight of recession, malaise and crisis in the Middle East. Barack Lincoln. Barack H. Kennedy. Barack Carter. Barack Reagan. None have captured the imagination of editorialists, bloggers and journalists like Barack Delano Roosevelt. Note: See comments section for further article excerpts.

"If Obama’s conservative economic advisers are to formulate programs of benefit to Main Street rather than Wall Street, it will take movement activism to propel them in that direction, and to counter the inevitable attacks from the right—while at the same time educating the public with information, argument and a framework that resonates with widely shared American values. Throughout our history, it has been social movements (defined as organized and sustained collective action by people outside formal centers of power to press their grievances on the state) that have made public officials accountable and broadly responsive...the temptations [for Presidents] to mask a minimally responsive program in grand rhetoric, to throw in their lot with the wealthy who fund their campaigns and control so many resources, or to abandon domestic policy struggles for the short term empowerment and rally effect of war making — these are institutional pathologies that will tempt even the most angelic of presidents. Which is to say, if we want a new New Deal, we have to do it ourselves."

George Santayana once famously said, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” But what about those who don’t just ignore history, but who hire and take counsel from those who committed historic follies in the past? Back in November 1999, Congress passed legislation pushed by then Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX), rescinding the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act. A report by reporter Stephen Labaton and published in the New York Times on Nov. 5, 1999 under the headline “Congress Passes Wide-Ranging Bill Easing Bank Laws,” includes some remarkable quotes from key players in that sellout to the financial sector. Here’s Larry Summers, a chief architect of the current financial industry multi-trillion-dollar bailout giveaway being orchestrated by the Obama administration: ''Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century. This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.''

WILLIAM GREIDER: The corporate state is here. And I'd say, let's not argue over that. The fact is, if the Congress goes down the road I see them going down, they will institutionalize the corporate state in a way that will be severely damaging to any possibility of restoring democracy. And I want people to grab their pitch forks, yes, and be unruly. Get in the streets. Be as noisy and as nonviolently provocative as you can be. And stop the politicians from going down that road. And let me add a lot of politicians need that to be able to stand up. Our President needs that to be able to stand up.