As feared, the gang of so-called "moderates" led by Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA-10) have extracted yet more concessions, says CQ ($):

Hoyer said he expects the mortgage bill to reach the House floor by Thursday. The bill will be sent back to the House Rules Committee on Wednesday, where the agreed- upon changes will be made via an amendment to be made in order by the new rule.

There was, of course, no reason for the bill to go back to the Rules Committee unless it was necessary to change the list of amendments made in order for consideration. And since the original rule allowed a manager's amendment that matched the list of Tauscher's demands for changes, the only reason to sent the bill back is if Tauscher has upped her demands.

So what has she extracted over the weekend?

Early negotiations appear to center on language that would make it more difficult for risk-taking speculators, investors and homeowners — often referred to as "bad actors" — to resort to the bankruptcy option before exploring all other avenues of modification.

Interesting.

Why?

Under current law, bankruptcy judges are permitted to modify mortgages on second homes, including through reductions in principal, but not on primary residences. The provision under debate now would expand that option to mortgages on primary residences.

And that means that speculators and investors aren't effected under this bill, since current law already permits mortgage modifications on all but primary residences. So speculators and investors only come under this bill if they're also in danger of losing their own homes.

So the only thing left here is the homeowners who Tauscher thinks are "bad actors." (Though speaking of "bad acting," I think an award for that goes to Tauscher's office for claiming her vote in favor of the original rule was an indication of her support for the underlying bill is now revealed for the bullshit it was. Tauscher will of course vote for this next version of the rule, too, for which there's no possible reason but that it will permit her to change the bill she supposedly supported, but demanded be withdrawn from the floor.

So, why is it that she wants to make it even harder to enter bankruptcy than she already helped make in with her vote for the repugnant 2005 bankruptcy bill?

Steny Hoyer -- who himself provided a vote for that awful bankruptcy bill -- answers:

"The interest is in stabilizing the market for first homes, so people can have homes," Hoyer said.

The interest is in stabilizing the market for first homes. By kicking people out of them, and dumping them back in the hands of banks that are barely able to keep their heads above water thanks to the bad mortgages they already hold and which are paying them jack shit right now.

What a great way to stabilize the market!

What this really means is that the banks would rather drive these people out of their homes with the current mortgage price still on their books, so that when they start shoveling the next round of bank bailout money out of the helicopter, they can point to those inflated values and say, "The guv'mint owes me this much. It's all there in black and white. Now gimme!"

The horrible, destabilizing alternative posed by this bill? Let a judge decide if there's a different number he or she can put on it so that the homeowners can keep writing the bank a regular check.

Horrors!

Ladies and gentlemen, your bankers have become the mythical Welfare Queens. Rather than work for a living, they're now in the business of boosting their losses so that they can get the biggest bang for the bailout buck.

And can you blame them? You know they're gonna get it.

One last note:

Hoyer added that negotiators are trying to make sure that before a homeowner goes into bankruptcy court seeking a mortgage modification, "there is a good faith effort to help" on the part of lenders.

I don't know whether that's just a slip of the tongue, or confusion, or what. Hoyer wants to make sure there's a good faith effort to help on the part of the lenders? And he's going to do this by making it harder for borrowers to have their mortgages adjusted in bankruptcy?

You want to see good faith efforts by lenders? Start adjusting some mortgages on them involuntarily. Then you'll start seeing some efforts.

How does lessening the possibility of renegotiation encourage lenders to make good faith efforts... to renegotiate?

Anyway, the bottom line is that the bill goes back to Rules on Wednesday, and comes back out to the floor on Thursday under the current deal.

I doubt it's gonna happen, because too many Members are sort of preprogrammed (usually happily so) on rules votes. But if you were happy with the bill the way it was, and thought Tauscher got a fair amount of concessions the first time, then here's your chance as a progressive -- finally! -- for your own freebie vote against the rule.

The rule that's in place, H. Res. 190, has not expired and won't expire. It authorized debate, as most rules do, "at any time after the adoption of this resolution." Which means that defeating the new rule doesn't destroy the majority's ability to bring the bill to the floor, and doesn't jeopardize control of the floor.

Of course, there's still the opportunity for Republicans to join forces with Tauscher's gang in a motion to recommit the bill and make the changes they wanted that way. And I suppose there's some danger that Tauscher's gang is so hellbent on gutting this bill that they might even agree to swallow some poison pill in a motion to recommit in order to be rid of it. But at least their treachery will be out in the open. Let's see Steny Hoyer vote for a Republican poison pill motion to recommit just to kill this thing. I don't think that's happening.

But others will. Maybe it's not such a bad idea to drive them out into the open after a week of having them skulk around in the shadows on this.

UPDATE: The other thing that could happen, of course, is they just pull the bill again, because they think enough of Tauscher's gang will bolt that the bill would go down.

At this point, F. 'em. Let 'em come out on the floor and vote down mortgage relief in the middle of the biggest foreclosure crisis ever. That might be only marginally worse than passing it their way.

You wanna flex, Tauscher? Let's see you sell the bill's outright failure at home.

And the Speaker wanted to see you stand up and state your objections in Caucus? Well, I want to see you do it on the floor.

UPDATE 2: The updated version of the CQ article (still $) says:

Among the changes is a requirement that a homeowner seeking protection in bankruptcy court must convince the judge he or she has made sufficient efforts to complete a loan modification through the Obama administration’s voluntary refinancing program. Judges would also be required to consider interest rate reductions lowering the monthly mortgage payment to no more than 31 percent of the borrower’s income before considering a principal reduction.

Meh.

But I feel at least a little better to know this:

"I think this will work," said Brad Miller, D-N.C., of the compromise. "I’m OK with it. It encourages lenders to make the modifications voluntarily."

But while that's all well and good, it only says more strongly that Tauscher was fudging it when she instructed her staff to say she supported the bill. She clearly had significant enough problems with it that she started bragging about "flexing," and forced the bill off the floor.