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politico.com — The three Senate Republicans who broke with their party to support President Barack Obama’s Wall Street reform plan asked Obama Thursday not to make a recess appointment for the director of a controversial consumer protection agency.

Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine "strongly [urged]" the President not to bypass the Senate, but to "follow regular order" in naming the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, according to the letter obtained by POLITICO.

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netrootsnation.org — The financial reform bill was but a first step. It created a consumer financial protection bureau, but left the big banks more concentrated than ever, with the financial casino open for gambling. The bankers are getting million dollar bonuses, but foreclosures continue at record levels, small businesses can't get loans, payday lenders are still gouging workers. We'll explore next round of citizen protests, criminal prosecutions, and congressional policy reforms needed to make Wall Street once more the servant, not the master of the real economy.

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netrootsnation.org — The rising tide of populist anger in the face of Wall Street bailouts and continued high unemployment threatens to take an ugly reactionary turn unless it is channeled to more progressive policies of job growth. This panel will address current public attitudes and ideas for steering opinion and action more progressively.

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nytimes.com — Perhaps the last best hope of Democrats to pass legislation aimed at creating jobs before the November elections seemed to be crumbling in the Senate on Wednesday as Republicans signaled that they would block a bill to expand government lending programs and grant an array of tax breaks to small businesses.

Wrangling over the small-business measure began in earnest after Senate Democrats, breaking a two-month partisan logjam, finally succeeded in winning an extension of unemployment insurance. The vote was 59 to 39, with two Republicans joining Democrats in support of the extended benefits, which are retroactive to June 1. One Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, voted against it.

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latimes.com — President Obama reversed decades of lax oversight of the financial industry Wednesday by signing a landmark overhaul of regulations, but he still faces a major task — appointing a director for the powerful new agency charged with protecting consumers from unscrupulous deals.

The law dramatically toughens oversight of the industry, from Wall Street's executive suites to the Main Street storefronts of mortgage brokers and payday lenders.

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online.wsj.com — President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the most sweeping financial overhaul since the Depression, putting the country on a course toward a more muscular regulatory framework.

The law gives the government authority to take over and liquidate failing financial firms, injects transparency into transactions involving financial instruments called derivatives and will restrict banks from making risky bets with their own capital. It directs agencies to write hundreds of new rules.

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huffingtonpost.com — Today, President Obama signed into law the Restoring American Financial Stability Act - the most important regulatory overhaul of our nation's financial system since the reforms that led to 60 years of sustained growth after the Great Depression.

For eight years, Wall Street played Russian roulette with America's future while Republicans in Congress and President Bush looked the other way. This law ends bailouts for big Wall Street banks and protects consumers and the financial system from the damaging practices that got us into this mess.

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online.wsj.com — In one of the largest penalties in Wall Street history, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to pay $550 million to settle civil charges that it duped clients by selling mortgage securities that were secretly designed by a hedge-fund firm to cash in on the housing market's collapse.

But the agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission ends a showdown that had deeply shaken America's most powerful financial firm at a cost that outside observers deemed a bargain.

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reuters.com — A big majority of Americans are unfamiliar with the sweeping overhaul of financial rules that was headed to final approval in Congress on Thursday, according to an Ipsos Public Affairs online poll.

The poll found 38 percent of Americans had never heard of the overhaul and 33 percent had heard of it but knew almost nothing about the legislation, which tightens regulations on the financial industry in an effort to avoid a repeat of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

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tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com — John Boehner twisted himself into a pretzel this week when he told the Washington Post he had "no idea" whether Republicans would once again attempt to privatize Social Security if they retake the House in November. He couldn't just say "no" -- he followed up with the explanation that he couldn't say because he didn't want to prejudge the outcome of the GOP's voter survey.

"We're not going to prejudge what's going to come out of this listening project," he said.

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