After the death of PIPA this morning comes the news that Lamar Smith, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee who planned on resuming the markup of SOPA, the House version of anti-piracy legislation, in February, has put the bill into cold storage. The work of the grassroots coalition did the trick: SOPA and PIPA are dead for now.

The biggest Internet presence in the world will have something to add to the growing online protests against anti-piracy legislation, though they won’t go as far as shutting down their operations. Google plans to highlight the issue with an action item on their famously spare homepage.

This is a major breaking story. The main reason that the lame duck session was so productive was that the rest of the legislative session was so UNPRODUCTIVE, because the Republicans were able to ran out the clock. Senate Democrats are taking a stand and saying, we cannot work this way anymore.

The key person from Treasury working with the Attorneys General investigation into foreclosure fraud is leaving almost immediately, although he doesn’t appear to have his next teaching gig lined up. Rather interesting timing, yes?

A letter from Rep. Brad Miller and other members of Congress urges the Financial Stability Oversight Council to take action to prevent the foreclosure fraud problem from becoming a systemic crisis. The letter reminds the FSOC that Dodd-Frank gives them the power to avoid a systemic crisis. Barney Frank has signed the letter, and Chris Dodd has already admonished Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to employ FSOC to mitigate systemic risk. And thus far?

Crickets. From both the Administration and the media.

Chris Dodd didn’t have many questions in yesterday’s hearing on the foreclosure crisis. But he did use the opportunity to call on Tim Geithner to convene the Financial Stability Oversight Council to prevent this crisis from blowing up the economy.

On Tuesday, Iowa’s Attorney General Tom Miller testified to the Senate Banking Committee it would be months before the combined AG “investigation” came up with a settlement. That’s almost exactly the moment when the Washington Post posted a story reporting the AGs were close to a settlement.

Chris Dodd, whose name sits at the head of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, doesn’t seem to know the intricacies of the law that bears his name. . . .

I think it’s important to recognize that “the White House” is not a monolith. There are sometimes counteracting forces there, and one aide may not know what the other aide is pushing. Increasingly the internecine fights get aired out in public, though typically anonymously. That’s the best way to read this denial of the plan I mentioned yesterday, to make Elizabeth Warren the interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think Chris Dodd’s newfound concern about management experience stems from either the recognition that his past confirmation negligence led to failures at (in particular) SEC and OTS or his genuine concern that the CFPB wouldn’t effectively protect consumers’ interests if it were led by Elizabeth Warren.