By Lee A. Daniels
The condition of America’s political economy – that is, the political war in Washington between the Congressional Republicans and President Obama over how to fix the economy – may well get worse.

By The Editors
Amid the surprising display last month of productive bipartisan cooperation between the Obama administration and the Democrats and Republicans in Congress, there was one glaring failure: The Senate rejected the DREAM Act, legislation which proposed to grant citizenship at the end of a ten-year period to children of undocumented immigrants who successfully earned post-secondary degrees or entered military service.

By George E. Curry
It has always been hard to overlook the high-profile Congressman from Harlem. If one ever had the privilege of meeting Charles Rangel, it was impossible to ignore his sharp intellect, his commanding presence, his booming voice or his smartly-tailored suits. Today, the defrocked chairman of one of the most powerful committees in Congress, like too many African-American political figures, has been accused of unethical lapses in judgment.

By The Editors
Are America’s long-term unemployed – those unable to find work for six months or more – being pushed further down the road to ruin?

Two million of the nation’s nearly 15 million jobless workers will lose their unemployment benefits between November 30 and December 31 unless Congress once again extends unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed.

By Lee A. Daniels
One might think that the gathering of the leaders of nearly a score of black women’s political and civic organizations in Washington last week to discuss the midterm elections would be a cause for celebration.

All agreed that, despite the good news embedded the midterm election results, the word “challenging” is a significantly understated description of the political environment black Americans now face.

By The Editors
In mid-November, right after the mid-term elections, the new Congress will immediately face a revealing test of its character: It will have to decide whether to extend the federal unemployment benefits that have kept millions of Americans afloat through the long-lived economic crisis.

By The Editors
Congress has yet to approve the appropriation, and it doesn’t look like, with the mid-term election looming, they’re going to this year.

Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) commemorates the 45th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, a bill that remains a cornerstone feature of American democracy. The Act is widely considered one of the most successful and effective civil rights statutes ever passed by Congress and continues to play an important role in combating ongoing voting discrimination throughout our nation.

By The Editors
Support for legislation that would have given the residents of the District of Columbia a voting representative in Congress, seemingly assured earlier this month, collapsed this week over an amendment to the bill that would have substantially weakened the city’s gun-control law.

By Doug Miller
Former Massachusetts legislator Edward Brooke III, a Republican and the first African American elected by popular vote to the U.S. Senate, was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal on October 28, becoming only the 150th American citizen to receive the award since George Washington.