Yesterday’s SOPA strike was enormously successful, not only raising attention to the issue but moving a tremendous amount of politicians for a one-day event. Over 4.5 million people signed Google’s petition against SOPA. The Wikipedia action gave high-profile attention to the issue as well, and even if Facebook and Twitter’s responses were muted, overall the online community made themselves heard.

But those of us charting the protest yesterday were struck by how most of the lawmakers turning against the bill were Republicans. If you look at the latest whip count on PIPA, for example, you see that more Republicans oppose it at this point than Democrats.

The House returns to session today, and you can forgive them for feeling a distinct sense of deja vu. When they left, they faced a deadline to pass a payroll tax cut, extended unemployment benefits and a doctor’s fix for Medicare reimbursement rates. Weeks later, they return to a deadline to pass a payroll tax cut, extended unemployment benefits and a doctor’s fix for Medicare reimbursement rates. Even that limited agenda will be a stretch for the GOP.

As part of the omnibus spending bill, the federal government will delay enforcement of new regulations for increased energy efficiency in light bulbs. Republicans claim that this delay, achieved through blocking Energy Department funding for enforcement through Fiscal Year 2012, will “save” the incandescent light bulb, but in reality incandescent bulbs were never banned. And light bulb manufacturers put a lot of money and effort into meeting the standard, so they oppose the delay altogether.

It’s almost not even worth getting to Walsh’s core charge, that the government forced banks to lend to people who couldn’t pay them back. I suppose the government forced banks to slice up those loans into securities and then either lose the paperwork or fail to honor the procedures demanded by the pooling and servicing agreements. Or the government forced banks to sell the securities to investors without telling them they were taking the other side of the bet against the securities. Or that they knew about the irregularities with the loans, and received them at a discount from the originators, without passing on the information to investors who thought the loans were highly rated and perfectly legitimate. And on and on.

Yesterday’s setback for Speaker John Boehner on a continuing resolution to fund the government shows what little real control Boehner has over his caucus. With 242 members, Boehner has the ability to pass any legislation he wants without Democratic crossover votes – and in this case he got 6 Democratic crossovers. He has a good deal of power at his disposal to threaten Congressmen, to tell them their legislation will never see the light of day, to withhold needed campaign support, to knock them off committee assignments. He did all this and more yesterday. And he still could not budge the more conservative members of his party.

Everyone’s talking about this exchange from last night’s CNN/Tea Party Express debate (I assume the CNN/MoveOn debate is next week), where the crowd cheers the prospect of allowing an uninsured man to die. And I’ll get to that in a moment. But perhaps just as rotten was when the crowd booed Ron Paul, who’s supposed to be a kind of Tea Party godfather, for daring to suggest that not every Muslim is responsible for 9-11. Beyond the crassness of this incident, it should definitively end the speculation that the Tea Party is anything other than an outgrowth of the Republican Party.

The New York Times editorializes on the federal gas tax today, which is a bit depressing. The tax is much smaller than in other countries around the world, and yet when it expires September 30, what is normally a routine extension could turn into another hostage situation from the Tea Party crowd.

Whether you think this is a kabuki dance or not (and I’m pretty certain the debt limit will be increased), it’s pretty clear that Republicans want to play out the string on this, and won’t stop until Wall Street makes some tangible signal to raise borrowing costs or come close to a meltdown. We are headed for the kind of moment we saw with TARP, where lawmakers agree to something under extreme pressure. As Digby says, that doesn’t usually go well.

There’s never been a more powerful lobbying team than the one assembled on this vote. And not only are the members of Congress who need to be reached amenable to their persuasions, they are in many cases wholly owned properties of entities like the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber spent $30 million on House Republican candidates last year. If they can’t bring enough of them along to vote, nobody can.

The House just passed a bill that funds the government through September 30, despite 59 Republican defections. The bill would not have passed without Democratic votes; a majority of Democrats voted against it.