No help, of course, for the 99ers, whose stressful situation is every bit as tragic as that of this latest group of unemployed Americans. Perhaps if we all dressed as bankers and lobbied Congress, they'd approve Tier 5 benefits.

And let's give special thanks to Ben Nelson, who never disappoints because we expect so little:

2,502,000: The number of jobless people who have lost access to unemployment benefits since June 2.

The Senate is expected next week to vote to extend unemployment benefits, but the delay has caused a lapse in benefits for some 2.5 million of the nation’s jobless.

Earlier this year, Congress approved up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits backed by the federal government — an addition of 73 weeks to the traditional 26 offered by the states. The duration of benefits varies from state-to-state, and pending legislation doesn’t extend the maximum beyond 99 weeks. It would have allowed those unemployed beyond 26 weeks to continue accessing the current program through the remainder of 2010. The previous extension expired on June 2.

A recent analysis by Goldman Sachs economist Alec Phillips showed that reducing unemployment benefits now would be the earliest a federal extension was cut off. In earlier recessions, the government extended benefits an average of 23 months after the peak unemployment rate was hit. The peak jobless rate in the current downturn was 10.1% in October, just eight months ago.

The House of Representatives passed legislation including a benefit extension in May, but Democrats in the Senate have been unable garner the 60 votes necessary to break a Republican-led filibuster. Many Republicans support extending benefits, but object to the proposal’s addition to the deficit. On Friday, a successor was named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd. West Virginia’s Carte Goodwin is expected to provide the 60th vote for passing the unemployment extension when he is sworn in on Tuesday.

As the partisan gridlock kept the Senate from acting, some $2.76 billion in payments to the unemployed were held back. The legislation is likely to include retroactive payments, but that is little relief for many of the jobless who needed the money immediately.

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Thanks, Sen. Stabenow, it's nice to know someone has a clue. But what about the Speaker of the House? I know Nancy Pelosi can change minds, because we saw the work she did on the health care bill. And I even understand the struggle she has with lily-livered House members who are much more interested in winning than helping the unemployed.

But I have to ask, once again: If the Democrats don't stand for helping the victims of this economic depression, if they don't stand for protecting the people who need it most, what, exactly, do they stand for?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Congress will not take up any measure to give the long-term jobless more weeks of unemployment benefits beyond the 99 weeks available in some states.

Congress is currently locked in an epic battle just to preserve the 99 weeks for the rest of the year. In a seemingly futile effort to appease deficit hawks, Dem leadership already weakened its "extenders bill," formally known as the American Jobs and Closing Loopholes Act, by shortening the unemployment extension through November instead of December.

Hundreds of thousands of people, however, have already exhausted 99 weeks of benefits with no jobs in sight. Thousands signed a petition to demand Congress add a "Tier V" to the four tiers of benefits that currently make up the 99 weeks.

A reporter asked Pelosi at her weekly press conference if there were any plans to help the 99ers.

"No. This bill will go until the end of November, at that time we'll take up something, but not between now and then," said Pelosi (D-Calif.). "The situation I see is that members who are from low unemployment areas are very concerned about the deficit. Members who are from high unemployment areas are very concerned about jobs. So we have to come to a compromise as to how to move forward, and we did with this bill going to November."

But come November, if Congress takes up anything related to unemployment, it will most likely be another temporary extension of existing benefits. The extension under consideration this week is the fourth in the last six months. And while a handful of senators have pledged to constituents that they will fight for more weeks of benefits, Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has said that "99 weeks is sufficient."

Well, yes, Max. I'm sure for you, it is sufficient. Of course, you probably don't even know that people like me who were collecting the maximum benefit ran out at 72 weeks, nor do you care. But don't expect us to care about you, either. Buh bye, DSCC! Buh bye, mid-term elections!

Here's more evidence of the Democratic party's concern for the unemployed:

WASHINGTON – Laid off workers would lose subsidies to help buy health insurance and states would be denied billions in federal aid under a plan by House leaders Thursday to trim a bill extending jobless benefits.

Democrats struggled to extend jobless benefits for people who have been out of work for long stretches as lawmakers worried about the growing budget deficit balked at the price tag of the package.

The cuts would reduce the package by about $31 billion, to about $112 billion. Business tax increases would pay for some of the bill, which would still add more than $50 billion to the deficit.

[...] When the subsidy was first enacted, Congress estimated it would benefit 7 million laid-off workers and dependents. It would have cost $6.8 billion to extend it through November.

Democratic leaders have also proposed eliminating $24 billion in aid to cash-strapped states to help cover Medicaid expenses, Cuellar said. Congress increased the federal government's share of the federal-state insurance program for the poor last year.

Oops! There goes that touching concern about healthcare coverage for those hit hardest in these hard times. No Medicaid money? Oh well, those people should just die and decrease the surplus population.

What will it take to make the Democratic leadership understand that their half-assed attempts to win the mid-term elections are the very same tactics that will convince so many voters to stay home on Election Day?

We have a seemingly endless supply of money for war. Why are we so very thrifty when it comes to this economic disaster?

You know what? If I hear one more Beltway insider tell me there is "no political will" for another tier of unemployment benefits, I think I'll scream:

My inbox is filled with desperate people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and are hoping that somehow Congress will include additional weeks of coverage in future legislation.

But after speaking with a number of House and Senate staffers in recent hours, it appears less and less likely that a so-called "Tier 5" of unemployment coverage will become law anytime soon.

According to one House staffer, the problem is while many on the Hill believe that adding a Tier 5 of additional weeks of benefits makes good economic sense, any such legislation faces several formidable hurdles.

One of the reasons they cite is "lack of political will." You want to know what they mean by "political will"? They mean they're not being deluged with calls, letters and faxes. (Although there is an online petition. Hint, hint.)

You know why they're not being deluged with calls, letters and faxes?

Because people are confused. They think that last extension of the filing deadline added additional benefits - and it didn't.

For the past month, I had to dig deep to find details on that bill, and got confusing and misleading responses from everywhere. (Believe me, I was motivated.) I even talked to Hill staffers who thought the bill added additional benefits. All it did was move the deadline for filing for the extension that already existed. It didn't do a thing for people who'd used up their benefits in this jobless recovery.

So is it any wonder the American public is confused? It doesn't help that there's no major TV coverage - and the big-name progressive groups like MoveOn are strangely silent on this crucial economic issue. (Not to mention the Democratic leadership. Hel-lo? Mid-term election issue, anyone?)

People know there aren't any jobs. And while the Tea Party folks seem to think everyone else is unworthy of a helping hand, most people don't want their neighbors and relatives to suffer during a major recession. Since they were barraged with news stories about passing an unemployment extension, they think the problem was already taken care of.

I know. My benefits just ran out with no job in sight, and everyone I've told - intelligent, informed people who are political junkies - told me I wouldn't have to worry because the new legislation added more benefits. It didn't.

It's not that people don't care. It's that they don't know.

Call your Congress critters. Tell them if we have money to bail out Wall St., we have money to help people who can't find these mythical jobs.

The Brad Blog: Kentucky election officials found guilty of election fraud

Petrelis Files: There's a fantastic online archive of a multitude of federal records of all sorts, from many agencies, that were pried loose through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Tina Dupuy: The tea parties mark a milestone in civil rights

Open Left: Coburn pouting filibustering unemployment extension

Facing South: Who opposed Student Loan Reform? Follow the money

darrel plant: Rand takes the train to Portland and a Caribbean cruise

Look closely, ladies and gentlemen, because the Republican party is the face of evil. How could anyone in their right mind oppose unemployment benefits during the worst recession in living memory? Simple: Because when a Republican says people won't look for jobs because they're on unemployment, he's really complaining they still have too much dignity to accept slave labor at slave wages.

Because as always, the GOP is about cheap, disposable labor with no legal protections. With the help of Blue Dog Democrats, they may eventually get their way. But for now, they'll try to strip away whatever shred of dignity a working person has left.

And really, we can't have that, can we? The little people might get ideas above their station:

A debate on the Senate floor Monday over unemployment compensation crystallized, at least for a moment, the divide between the two parties in Washington.

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working."

Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl said during debate over whether unemployment insurance and other benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended.

"I'm sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can't argue that it's a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it's a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here," said Kyl.

I have a friend who just three years ago was making six figures as a freelance artist. Now he's down to $1,000 a month when he's lucky, has sold everything he owns except his computer (because he uses it for work) and can't move to a cheaper place (he's already living in an efficiency) because he literally can't afford to move. I've been trying to talk him into applying for food stamps; so far, he hasn't.

And I don't think he's all that unusual. Right now, I know people who are selling their blood, lying their way into marketing focus groups, and trash-picking stuff to sell on eBay. (If I don't get a job before the latest unemployment extension runs out, it won't be long before I join them.)

It's really, really bad out here and getting worse. Mr. President, stop giving money to bankers and help our desperate unemployed:

CAPE CORAL, Fla. — After an improbable rise from the Bronx projects to a job selling Gulf Coast homes, Isabel Bermudez lost it all to an epic housing bust — the six-figure income, the house with the pool and the investment property.

Now, as she papers the county with résumés and girds herself for rejection, she is supporting two daughters on an income that inspires a double take: zero dollars in monthly cash and a few hundred dollars in food stamps.

With food-stamp use at a record high and surging by the day, Ms. Bermudez belongs to an overlooked subgroup that is growing especially fast: recipients with no cash income.

About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.

Their numbers were rising before the recession as tougher welfare laws made it harder for poor people to get cash aid, but they have soared by about 50 percent over the past two years. About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.

“It’s the one thing I can count on every month — I know the children are going to have food,” Ms. Bermudez, 42, said with the forced good cheer she mastered selling rows of new stucco homes.

Members of this straitened group range from displaced strivers like Ms. Bermudez to weathered men who sleep in shelters and barter cigarettes. Some draw on savings or sporadic under-the-table jobs. Some move in with relatives. Some get noncash help, like subsidized apartments. While some go without cash incomes only briefly before securing jobs or aid, others rely on food stamps alone for many months.

The surge in this precarious way of life has been so swift that few policy makers have noticed. But it attests to the growing role of food stamps within the safety net. One in eight Americans now receives food stamps, including one in four children.

From the AFL-CIO NOW blog, news that now Orin Hatch has joined in preventing a vote on extending unemployment benefits. Shame on every member of the media that doesn't hammer them on preventing the unemployed from getting this much-needed help:

Because of the actions of two Republican senators, every day this month 7,000 jobless workers have lost their unemployment insurance (UI) coverage. Each day these two Republicans continue to stand in the way of Senate passage of a UI extension, 7,000 more workers will run out of benefits.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has tried twice to bring the UI measure to a vote on the Senate floor. First Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), then Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) blocked action.

Christine Owens, executive director for the National Employment Law Project (NELP), says workers are “devastated” by the Republican roadblock. Unemployed workers across the country are devastated and dismayed by the failure of the U.S. Senate to extend their lifeline. Every day, 7,000 additional workers are facing the total loss of benefits, in many cases after struggling to find work for more than a year and a half.

The official unemployment rate now is 9.8 percent, while the number of those who have given up looking for work or are underemployed stands at an appalling 26 million workers.

Click here to tell the Senate it’s time to pass an extension of UI benefits.

In September, the House overwhelmingly passed a UI extension that called for an additional 13 weeks of (UI) for jobless workers in high unemployment states (more than 8.5 percent) who have exhausted their benefits without finding new work.

Last week, the AFL-CIO urged the Senate to approve legislation that provides 14 weeks of benefits to all jobless workers who can’t find new work and an additional six weeks for those in high unemployment states.

Says AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director William Samuel: Failure to extend benefits would pull the safety net out from under laid-off workers who are struggling to find jobs that have become increasingly scarce…a record 5 million workers have been unemployed for six months or more and there are now six unemployed workers for every available job in the United States.

NELP estimates 400,000 workers exhausted their benefits in September and without any extension, another 1.3 million will run out of benefits by year’s end.

Says Owens: "It’s shameful and callous. Because the Senate has not acted, hundreds of thousands of workers are languishing without any means to support their families in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It’s time for the Senate to do right by the families hardest hit by the recession—the Senate needs to do whatever it takes, working weekends included, to make this happen."