(NNPA)—“The hardship and suffering caused by unemployment penetrates every area of life. While politicians are tallying up the economic costs of unemployment, I wish they’d be more aware of the social and moral consequences…” —Eva Burrows,  the 13th General of the Salvation Army

It is unconscionable that the Senate has taken a 10-day July 4th recess after failing last week to pass a much-needed jobs bill. As a result, unemployment benefits for more than one million out of work Americans have now been terminated. The bill would have also extended tax cuts for small businesses, provided billions of dollars to states to prevent layoffs of state and local workers, extended Medicaid reimbursements for states and made available $1 billion for a youth summer jobs initiative. The filibuster by a coalition of the heartless, the careless and the unconcerned meant that on July 1, unemployment checks stopped for 1.2 million Americans.

(NNPA)—Last week, I wrote that the Senate might be an all-White affair, given that the Illinois Sen. Roland Burris is on his way out, and the most competitive candidate for the United States Senate, Congressman Kendrick Meek of Florida, is facing major challenges. I wrote that the Senate might be all White. I was wrong.

First of all, there are Asian-American senators from Hawaii. Secondly, New Jersey is represented by Sen. Robert Menendez. Further, one of those who opposes Meek, Marco Rubio, is Cuban-American. And, while their candidacies are long shots, two African-Americans are in Senate races—Michael Thurmond from Georgia, and the mysterious Alvin Greene from South Carolina. There may be others, but these are the most prominent.

(NNPA)—The big story about the NAACP convention meeting in Kansas City was whether President Obama would come or not. But I think that Ben Jealous hit the right nerve in his opening speech to the convention when he delivered a report that the organization had put together from a series of meetings in affected communities in the Gulf area where the oil spill occurred.

The report found that minorities have been locked out of contracts for cleanup and other kinds of work and are routinely given the lowest-paying jobs; people are at risk of losing their houses and businesses because work has dried up; many of these communities were hit by Katrina and Rita and have not recovered; fumes and pollution are a serious problem and workers are often not given the correct protective clothing. Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, also spoke at the convention and backed up the findings in the report and vowed to work with communities to produce clean water, clean land.

(NNPA)—“If the teachers sit on their hands this fall, it would be a disaster for Obama and the Democrats,” said a scholar who follows educational politics last week. And it would be a gift to an opposition which has said no to a tax on big banks, apologized to big oil, and encouraged bigotry and fanaticism at its fringes. Teachers have a right to express disappointment in Obama—they spent millions helping to elect him in 2008.

The administration has angered teachers in a dispute over whether funds intended for them can be diverted into an educational program. This dispute may or may not be solved in a few weeks, but the teachers’ anger echoes other segments of the progressive coalition—angered that the change they hoped for hasn’t come to pass, angered that Obama seems to be just a regular politician.