You may have heard that the House leadership planned a vote yesterday on H.Con.Res. 51, a resolution to end the war in Libya, but pulled it when they thought it might actually pass. Fox News's source indicated the House leadership preferred a narrow loss that would send a "message" to the Obama Administration, though one would think passing the resolution, thus actually preventing further Administration action in Libya, would also "send a message." Anyway, Repubs are doing their damndest to pass the worst possible Defense Authorization bill, but it's not going as well as they'd hoped -- the bill includes amendments prohibiting use of ground troops in Libya and stating that its passage doesn't authorize the Libya war, and the McGovern-Jones amendment demanding a quicker pullout in Afghanistan damn near passed. Sadly, Section 1034, which lets the President wage war on anyone-anywhere-anytime-even-on-Americans-in-America-right-now, still remains in the bill, despite the best efforts of Reps. Lee (D-CA) and Amash (R-MI). So Roots Action helps you demand that Congress pull out of Libya and ensure future Libyas don't happen again.

Meanwhile, Rep. Royce (R-CA) plans to introduce a bill that would destroy the National Housing Trust Fund. Mr. Royce tells us that the NHTF is "a slush fund for special interest housing groups" -- imagine, a "slush fund" that Congress refuses to fund! One almost yearns for those halcyon days when Republicans told us that we should do everything on our own and not expect help from anyone, lest our fellows consider us worthless and weak. The National Housing Trust Fund has only been around since mid-2008, and it's never been all that well-funded. We've been pushing for a mere $1 billion in funding (far less than one-tenth of one percent of the national deficit) so we can help low-income folks get decent housing and create jobs for all the planners and engineers and construction workers who'd help them. Why is that so much to ask of Republicans? NETWORK, the national Catholic social justice lobby, helps you fight the destruction of the National Housing Trust Fund.

California residents, take note: AB 52 would give the state insurance commissioner veto power over proposed health insurance corporation rate hikes. You may remember Anthem's proposed 39% rate hike on individual policy holders from 2010, and Blue Cross's proposed 59% rate hike on the same folks from earlier this year. You may not know that health insurance corporations have jacked up rates 131% over the last 10 years in California, which figure rather outstrips inflation. And they've never been made to justify any of it! Now, thanks to all the bad PR they got, Blue Cross did eventually drop the proposed 59% rate hike, so some of you might say well, we don't need to give the government new powers -- everything worked out for the best! First off, it's your government, so the power's yours. Second off, bad PR won't work as well when it's every damn corporation jacking up rates all at once, a fairly easily-imaginable scenario, and that's what a properly-empowered insurance commissioner can stop. So CALPIRG helps you tell your state Assemblyperson to support AB 52.