According to Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown, Russ Feingold’s defiance on the so-called financial reform bill irks liberals. She even finds one liberal to say how irked he his. That’s right, one (1) and he doesn’t claim to speaks for all liberals.

It’s possible to give two very different interpretations of the Obama presidency so far. The first is a relatively positive interpretation. Proponents of this view argue that even though Obama has faced a united GOP willing and able to use filibusters to thwart initiatives, and even though he has had opposition within his own party to progressive initiatives, he has still managed to rack up an impressive list of achievements. Take health care as an example. The health care legislation wasn’t all that progressives wanted, not by a long shot. But the legislation is an impressive start and, importantly, it leaves the door open to further change. Though people forget, programs such as Social Security or Medicare weren’t perfect at first, but were improved substantially over time.

Four banks were closed by the FDIC yesterday, bringing the 2010 total up to 90 — a number we didn’t reach last year until after Labor Day. The Fed, meanwhile, seems comfortable with high unemployment and apparently thinks the banks are doing just fine. But one potential financial reform proposal — the Kanjorski Amendment — still remains in play, which would take power away from the Fed and put it in the hands of a systemic risk council, which would be expected to either break up or strongly regulate institutions that pose a systemic risk.

Meanwhile, the FDIC is hiring a new Senior Congressional Relations Manager. Sounds like he or she will have some serious business on their desk on the day he or she walks in the door.

For those of you who may be concerned that the Senators assigned to the conference committee to sort out the House and Senate financial reform bills may not be up to snuff, we have a McClatchy profile of Senator Judd Gregg (R. N.H.), one of the Republican members, to assure us.

We shouldn’t assume a perfect analogy between strengthening the Volcker rule and spinning off the swaps desks. Each has independent merit on its own terms, and one shouldn’t be traded away for the other.

The Administration has rather bizarrely stuck deficit reduction into the national security strategy while ignoring several equally–probably more–important issues that the ascendancy of the deficit hawks has led this country to neglect. Which is just one more indication of how dangerous and counterproductive the deficit scolds are to this country

The Obama Administration is panicked over the possibility that the Senate financial reform bill might get out of hand and actually, uh, reform the financial industry. So they’ve called out the troops to encourage a cloture vote before there’s any assurance that important amendments to strengthen the bill will be brought to a vote.

Government regulatory agencies and congressional oversight committees are captured by the industries they’re supposed to regulate. Massive and supposedly unforeseen disaster occurs as a result. Public is outraged. Congress and President seize the moment to demand sweeping reform. And then… well, not so much. The reforms that eventually get passed never seem to go as far as they should, and the industries responsible emerge largely unscathed.

An analysis of the legislative language changes made to modify the original Bernie Sanders Audit the Fed amendment (SA 3738), after those modifications were unexpectedly introduced on the Senate floor 5/6/2010.

Research 2000 finds the trend line in favor of Bill Halter in the Arkansas Senate race, with Halter gaining to within a single-digit deficit with Blanche Lincoln, 43-35. An earlier poll by the same outfit had Lincoln in front by 13 points, 44-31. Importantly, Lincoln stands well below the 50% threshold needed to move on to the general election.