No progress was made to end a budget impasse that resulted in a government shutdown since 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday. News of the shutdown, which includes the closure of all national parks and a work furlough for 800,000 federal employees, generated a big response in the ethnic press. Key areas of concern included the shutdown’s effect on federal workers, loss of funding for social services, ramifications for immigration reform, and environmental impacts. 

For the moment, Obama  now has a foil who's making it easier for him to stand up for his health care initiative and outline his budget priorities. And Cruz gets to show that he's first among equals when it comes to opposing anything linked to Obama. Meanwhile, federal employees will be furloughed, any salary that they forfeit won't be spent in a still-fragile economy, and Congress's inability to make a deal will eventually threaten another loss of confidence in the markets.

After five years of nonstop bad news regarding black unemployment, the Obama administration was finally able to celebrate some good news last month, or so it seemed. In July African-American unemployment dipped to 12.6 percent, a small but significant change from June's 13.7 percent unemployment rate -- and substantially lower than the high of 16.5 percent that it reached in January 2010. But any celebration was likely short-lived. 

One might shrug off the sweeping voting restrictions approved last week in North Carolina as typical of a Southern state under Republican control. But look again: Unlike many of its neighbors, the Tar Heel State had been well down the path of progressivism for several years before the GOP shut it down during this year's legislative session. Indeed, North Carolina had broken away from its regional neighbors by expanding access to the polls, which helped increase minority-voter turnout. A strong and steady flow of newcomers to the state brought more open-minded political views to bear on local elections. 

Ro Khanna, formerly a high-ranking trade official in the Obama administration, announced this week his bid for California’s 17th District congressional seat, which is currently being held by the venerable Mike Honda. Khanna and Honda are both Democrats likely to be pitted against each other in 2014, due to new state mandates which allow two opponents from the same party to run against each other in the general election.  

There are  upwards of 11 million people living and working in the United States, in every state and city, who face the perpetual threat of physical exile from their lives and their homes, to be banished to a country they barely know or in which they can barely survive. The only crime most have committed was to cross an arbitrary confine seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Although their plight appears disconnected from ours, this threat involves every American who cares about their country and values their ancestral history. 

As Bobby Jindal begins to lay seeds for a possible run for the White House, approval at home seems to be falling for the Louisiana Governor. The new survey finds Louisiana voters are as conservative as ever, backing the Governor’s refusal to implement the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare to critics, by a 13 point margin. However, in a bright sign for Democrats, it also shows that the local electorate has grown slightly critical of Jindal’s refusal of expanded Medicaid dollars.

About 60 percent of the 17 million Asian-Americans in the United States are foreign-born. Ninety percent of Asian immigrants come to the United States through family-based immigration visas, so backlogs in the system affect their everyday lives. In fact, nearly half of the 4.3 million people in the family backlog worldwide are in Asia. “What people often…frame as a Latino issue, it’s just not true,” Moua said. One in 11 undocumented immigrants in the United States is Asian-American; and one in 10 Dreamers is Asian-American.

Reaffirming his commitment to protect current and future generations who depend on Social Security, President Obama declared in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, “Our government shouldn’t make promises we cannot keep -- but we must keep the promises we’ve already made.”  Indeed, we must keep the promise of old-age security that Americans have earned through hard work. The nation’s politicians should be held accountable to keep their word that they will not cut the Social Security benefits of older workers, retirees, people with disabilities and the children of deceased and disabled parents.

The United States’ system of government was created for a more representative government across all spectrums of society and flexibility to adjust to the changing norms of societal and economic realities with the passage of time. Political parties are not included in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. In the present, when the Founding Fathers, perhaps George Washington most of all, are revered to the point of demi-god status, two political parties have flourished and seeped into most mechanisms of government at the federal and state level. The practical applications of democracy in the United States need to be changed.