Here’s some good news in an otherwise dispiriting Congressional session. A Republican House member is trying to accumulate support for a bill that would extend the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act by three years. As I’ve been reporting, a failure to extend this law would mean that all debt forgiveness, in the form of principal reductions or short sales, would be viewed for tax purposes as earned income for the borrower, leading to a giant tax bill on the phantom income.

Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee’s incumbent-retention program, has pinpointed the nine most vulnerable GOP House members up for re-election and wants supporters to focus only on them. All represent districts that carried President Obama in 2008. Here’s a look at the endangered nine.