So despite the recent news that there is neither a real nor a theoretical basis for austerity, President Obama continues his laser-like focus on getting a Grand Bargain. Imagine if he'd worked this hard and strategized this relentlessly for a jobs bill!

President Barack Obama is reaching out to Republican senators — the most receptive participants from his recent “charm-offensive” dinners — to jump-start talks to reach a “grand bargain” on entitlements, spending and taxes, according to White House and Congressional officials.Obama — fighting against steep odds to reach a big legacy deal on deficits and debts — has personally pressed Congressional leaders for another shot at reaching an agreement similar to one that fell apart during negotiations with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in 2011.Republicans Obama considers to be committed to another round of negotiations in good faith.

But a senior White House official told POLITICO any speculation about specific participants would be “wrong,” and refused to confirm any names because none of the potential attendees had yet been contacted or even briefed on the new process.

The official did say the group of probably no more than eight would be largely “self-selecting” — GOP senators who had previously expressed interest in a budget working group.Obama’s team has kept Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in the loop, according to leadership sources, but so far the effort has been spearheaded by the West Wing.

Again: We can not let our guard down. Obama wants this deal, no matter what. We have to stop him.

So earlier today we wondered whether Speaker John Boehner is going to directly lobby his Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate to walk with him on Paul Ryan's road to recession. As everyone knows, things are not going too well for Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" debacle. Apparently Ryan was so much on the defensive during his speech at the Economic Club of Chicago that he ended up conceding the point that it was President George W. Bush who wrecked America's economy. With this backdrop it is going to be interesting to see which Senate Republicans will step up to embrace Ryan's roadmap to recession.

We have heard that Senator Susan Collins does not want any part of it. Senators Rob Portman and Lamar Alexander backed off from it as well. So which Senate Republican is going to embrace Ryan? Enter Senator Scott Brown.

Apparently Scott Brown is saying "Thank God" for Paul Ryan's budget plan:

"Finally we had congressman Ryan come forth with a budget proposal, thank God, because we haven't had one in a couple years and that now has forced the debate and forced the President actually to come forth with his budget proposal," Brown said.

There is no going back for Brown at this point. His words, blessing Ryan's plan to gut Medicare should be tagged on his forehead from here on out.

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Sen. Bob Corker appeared on Hardball yesterday to talk financial reform and Mitch McConnell's amazing verbatim spew of the Frank Luntz talking points designed to kill any meaningful Wall Street reforms. He took care to point out that he has "never used those Frank Luntz talking points...", confirming the not-too obscure fact that Mitch McConnell has memorized them all and IS using them. (Full text of Luntz memo)

He optimistically predicts final passage of Dodd's bill with 70 Senators voting for it. Of course, Dodd's bill doesn't really have much in the way of derivatives reform. That's Senator Blanche Lincoln's bill.

In fairness to Sen. Corker, he has been the one single Republican who actually tried to find a bipartisan solution to financial reform before the GOP leadership shut down the entire effort.

Joe Conason:

Corker’s conduct exemplifies the Republican strategy (which, in fairness, he may not have fully understood until last week). Having spent months working on the bill with committee chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Corker suddenly found himself vowing to support a filibuster over provisions in the bill that he had helped to write.

If Senator Corker isn't filibustering the bill, then who is the 41st vote? Let me guess...maybe Ben Nelson?

Because I live in a city (the unhip part), I actually know people who occasionally use payday lenders. And while the industry is ripe for all kinds of abuse, the people who use these lenders conscientiously (the ones who don't roll over the loan, thus incurring obscene amounts of interest) insist they want that option -- because it's still cheaper than going to the loan sharks.

However, the number of people who do roll over those loans is great enough that the payday lending industry needs to be very tightly regulated. The industry knows that; that's why they pour so much money into campaign coffers. But there's simply no question that the interest rates are usurious and this is exactly the sort of thing Democrats have been fighting to change. Not a good place for "bipartisan" compromise! From the NY Times Dealbook:

Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who is playing a crucial role in bipartisan negotiations over financial regulation, pressed to remove a provision from draft legislation that would have empowered federal authorities to crack down on payday lenders, people involved in the talks said. The industry is politically influential in his home state and a significant contributor to his campaigns, records show.

The Senate Banking Committee’s chairman, Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, proposed legislation in November that would give a new consumer protection agency the power to write and enforce rules governing payday lenders, debt collectors and other financial companies that are not part of banks, Sewell Chan reports in The New York Times.

Late last month, Mr. Corker pressed Mr. Dodd to scale back substantially the power that the consumer protection agency would have over such companies, according to three people involved in the talks.

Mr. Dodd went along, these people said, in an effort to reach a bipartisan deal with Mr. Corker after talks had broken down between Democrats and the committee’s top Republican, Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama. The individuals, both Democrats and Republicans, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the negotiations.

Under the proposal agreed to by Mr. Dodd and Mr. Corker, the new consumer agency could write rules for nonbank financial companies like payday lenders. It could enforce such rules against nonbank mortgage companies, mainly loan originators or servicers, but it would have to petition a body of regulators for authority over payday lenders and other nonbank financial companies.

Consumer advocates said that writing rules without the inherent power to enforce them would leave the agency toothless.

I don't know how serious he is, but this was something that he said which makes a lot of sense and goes against the grain of what we've seen from Summers.

Reuters:

Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, reiterated President Barack Obama's call for stronger financial regulation, including giving regulators the power to properly address the failures of large institutions and protect their customers.

He asked leaders of business and public policy at the Citizens Budget Commission's fundraiser in New York to accept the role of government in preparing for and responding to crisis. Business should support, rather than thwart the government in its efforts, he said.

"A strong government (that) responds to market failures, provides social protection regulates potential abuses and supports economic conditions is undeniably in the long-run interest of business," he said.

While Summers said he understood business antipathy, "history teaches us that active government is a necessary force," he added.

His pleas came as negotiations over financial reform dragged on in Washington, with strong disagreements on creation of a new government watchdog for financial consumers. Senate Banking Committee Christopher Dodd has been trying to bridge a gap with Republicans, who oppose an independent consumer protection agency, and discussed with Republican Senator Bob Corker the possibility of making the agency a division of the Federal Reserve.

The fat cats of Wall Street will fight this to the bitter end no matter how many times our economy collapses because of their shennanigans.

And we need more of Elizabeth Warren please:

While members of the Senate Banking Committee debate proposals to fix the nation's broken financial system and ineffective approach to protecting consumers, Elizabeth Warren has one message: Pass a strong bill or nothing at all. "My first choice is a strong consumer agency," the Harvard Law professor and federal bailout watchdog said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "My second choice is no agency at all and plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor"

This is very, very interesting news. Is the White House serious, or is this a pro-consumer doggie biscuit to keep the left wing off their back? Here's hoping it's the real thing:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration waded into negotiations over Wall Street regulations Wednesday, calling for limits on the size of financial institutions and insisting that consumer protections remain a central objective of legislative attempts to rein in the industry.

In the Senate, talks continued on how to create a consumer protection entity. Republicans pressing for a watered-down consumer agency even as they voiced optimism that they could reach a deal with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, within a week.

The Treasury Department circulated proposed legislation that would prevent commercial banks from carrying out high-risk trades and that would restrict the size of financial firms to holdings no greater than 10 percent of the entire financial industry's liabilities. That restriction would apply only to firms that grow through a merger or an acquisition.

Consumer protections and doing away with financial firms deemed too big to fail are two of the key elements of the legislative efforts to overhaul the rules that govern Wall Street and prevent a recurrence of the 2008 financial crisis. In reiterating its points, the administration was making certain its views were being heard in the Senate at a sensitive time in negotiations between Dodd and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.

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You'd think rape would be one issue Republicans would be smart enough not make into a partisan issue, but no. They couldn't help themselves.

Franken passed an amendment that was attached to a defense bill that would withhold government contracts from companies that refused to let employees bring rape cases before the courts. It should be tough voting against rape, but thirty Republicans did just that and now they are whining the night away because bloggers and some MSMers have highlighted their atrocity. And in their usual silly reality, they are blaming Sen. Al Franken because they are getting hammered over their malfeasance.

Al Franken fallout has GOP fuming

The Republicans are steamed at Franken because partisans on the left are using a measure he sponsored to paint them as rapist sympathizers — and because Franken isn’t doing much to stop them.

“Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape —and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don’t think it’s a very constructive thing,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.

“I think it’s going to make a lot of senators leery and start looking at things he’s doing earlier on, because I don’t think it got appropriate attention ahead of time.”

--

Franken, who declined to be interviewed, has said previously that the measure was inspired by the story of former KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones, who alleges that she was drugged, beaten and gang-raped at age 19 when stationed in Baghdad. She fought the arbitration clause in her contract, and in September the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that Jones’s sexual assault allegations were not “related to” her employment, allowing her to proceed in court. KBR is fighting the ruling.

--

“I don’t know what his motivation was for taking us on, but I would hope that we won’t see a lot of Daily Kos-inspired amendments in the future coming from him,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, No. 4 in the Senate Republican leadership. “I think hopefully he’ll settle down and do kind of the serious work of legislating that’s important to Minnesota.”

Aides point out that despite attacks on Republicans by liberal commentators like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann and on blogs such as Daily Kos, Franken never appeared on any of the shows or on the blogs to make a partisan argument about the matter, saying that the senator turned down entreaties to do so.

Also, they point to the 10 Republicans who voted for the amendment as proof that it wasn’t a partisan measure.

“Sen. Franken has been proud to partner with both Republicans and Democrats to find common-sense solutions to the problems we face,” said Jess McIntosh, his spokeswoman. “He’s been working hard for Minnesota since he got here five months ago and has already introduced 10 bills — four of which were introduced with Republican co-sponsors, and two already passed the Senate with broad bipartisan support.”

Cornyn should be embarrassed by the Republicans, but instead tries to say they were misrepresented. Really? Did he vote yes or no? That's the only question that should be debated. All the Republicans who voted against Franken's measure have a lot more to answer for. Bad PR is just the beginning.

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(h/t David at Video Cafe)

Guests today on This Week with Jake Tapper included Sen. Bob Corker, Sen. Sherrod Brown and White House economic advisor Austan Gollsbee. Corker, at times a relatively reasonable Republican, talked about an amendment he will introduce for the financial reform bill that will financially penalize Wall St. executives if their firm fails. Is it sincere - or obstructionism? Goolsbee seems to think it's the latter:

CORKER: There is no question, and I think that first of all, I plan to offer changes to this resolution authority that say that, if a large entity like this has to go through this resolution where in essence they're liquidated in an orderly way, I think that everything that the executive team and the board members have earned through this company over the last five years needs to be clawed back.

In other words, there needs to be some penalties assessed to the management that have caused the country to have to go through this orderly liquidation process. So absolutely, I will be offering an amendment that deals with that, so that we're taking back, we're clawing back all the earnings that management has made out of this firm, if it has to go through orderly liquidation. I think that's very appropriate, and certainly I'm going to be doing that on the floor if it doesn't make it into the base bill.

TAPPER: Austan, can the White House get behind that clawback provision? Are you being out-populisted by Republicans?

GOOLSBEE: Well, look, in the bill now -- the president went to Cooper Union this last week to revisit the spot where more than two years ago, he went and said we need to have fundamental reform--

TAPPER: But there is no clawback in this bill?

GOOLSBEE: There is a requirement that they're all fired. If you get to that point, all the management is fired--

TAPPER: So they take their $500 million to their home in the Hamptons.

GOOLSBEE: -- all the shareholders are wiped out. Well, look, as I say, on any details, we're open to looking at negotiating the details of how we carry out the president's principles. But if negotiation -- and Senator Corker, to his credit, is not in this camp -- but if the negotiators are going to come forward more as a delaying tactic and we're just going to put in hundreds of amendments and try to keep this going so as to stall, delay and kill reform, that's not going to happen. This is going to pass.

Wall Street and global banking interests have shown a remarkable ability to shape regulation to their ultimate benefit. This bill won't really solve that problem.

Senator Bob Corker got honest the other day when he said that repealing HCR was a fair tale.

GOP SENATOR: REPEAL 'NOT GOING TO HAPPEN'.... The Republican message gets a little more muddled.

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker said Wednesday that Republican efforts to repeal sweeping health care reform are futile, and instead promoted incremental fixes in a wide-ranging talk in Nashville.

In the immediate aftermath of the reform's passage, many of Corker's Republican colleagues, including 2008 presidential contender Sen. John McCain, have pledged to repeal the legislation. Corker described that as unlikely, given the reality of needing 67 votes in the Senate to overcome a presidential veto of repeal legislation.

"The fact is that's not going to happen, OK?" Corker told dozens of people at Vanderbilt University.

Corker's remarks come on the heels of Sen. Richard Burr's (R-N.C.) comments that he doesn't see a full repeal as a realistic option, either. "It may not be total repeal at the end of the day," Burr said in a radio interview. "It may be a series of fixes over the course of this bill getting enacted that allow us to change and possibly bend that cost curve down."

You know that the GOP plans to run on the lie that they can repeal HCR if they win in the midterms so he probably got another tongue lashing since they were already pissed that he tried to work with Chris Dodd on financial reforms -- because he immediately spoke to the Weekly Standard and backtracked.

Greg Sargent:

Corker told The Standard he only meant that repeal can’t happen next year, not that it can never happen. “It’s an issue of simple math,” Corker said, adding that as long as Obama is president, “it takes 67 votes in the Senate for that to occur.”

But, tellingly, when asked by The Standard if he would commit to supporting repeal in 2012 if a Republican is elected President, he demurred.

All of which is to say that the folks pushing for repeal are signaling that they’re going to keep this crusade going for years to come. Here, for instance, is another writer suggesting that Republicans might be able to repeal Obamacare in the year 2014 if they develop large enough Congressional majorities.

So if any Republicans who harbor doubts about the repeal push are hoping it’s a fad that will eventually blow over, it’s clear that some on the right have no intention of letting go of their repeal dream. Ever. Repeal: The long war.

There's a reason why they tried to kill any form the health-care bill took. It's almost impossible to repeal any bill because of the super majorities needed in Congress to do just that as well as holding the presidency. But the conservative movement doesn't need facts or reality these days to fire up their base. Lies work just as well.