Longer Extension of Unemployment Benefits Planned
Inside The Afghan Drug Connection
Should We Empathize With The Tea Baggers?

• ThinkProgress.org: FLASHBACK! Bunning Enthusiastically Backed Extending Unemployment Benefits That Weren’t Paid For In 2003

• 15 Million Unemployed In America [that they are telling us about] — Any Job Is A Good Job

• DID YOU KNOW? Unemployment Benefits Make People Not Want To Get A Job Says #2 Senate Republican

• Bloomberg:Senate leadership to raise job stakes, push long-term one-year extension of jobless aid, and add aid to states.

Senate Democrats are proposing to reinstate unemployment benefits that expired Feb. 28 as part of a $150 billion measure intended to boost the economy. The legislation would spend $81 billion to extend the unemployment benefits, including so-called Cobra subsidies… for the rest of this year. It also would send $25 billion to state governments to help prevent layoffs … The Senate aims to send the bill to the House for approval this week or next.”

• Real News Afghanistan: Marja and the Drug Industry

• VOA: Building Afghanistan’s Financial System

U.S. Treasury officials are working with their Afghan partners to lay the groundwork for more effective, corruption-free management of public funds.

The U.S. strategy for Afghanistan hinges on a two-pronged approach: improving security through building the capacity of the Afghan National Security Forces, and building governance capacity within the Afghan government so it can better provide much needed goods and services to the Afghan people. While battles, such as the ongoing one in Marjah, will still be fought, the focus is more and more turning to the transition of security responsibility to the Afghan security forces. At the same time, an increasing number of civilian experts and professionals are working with Afghan partners to build up Afghanistan’s capacity to become self-sufficient through good governance, and economic development initiatives.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury is one of the agencies involved in this effort. Speaking at the American University in Kabul on February 10, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Neal Wolin spoke of Treasury’s crucial role in preparing Afghanistan for the future.

The Treasury Department has a dual mission in Afghanistan. First, to strengthen Afghanistan’s systems of financial management so that Afghan authorities can collect, manage and spend Afghan resources on Afghan priorities transparently and effectively. And second, to combat illicit financial activity and deny funds to terrorists. [More here →]

More Disinformation From the “Winner” In GOP Texas Primary For Governor

• France Arrests Former Rwandan First Lady

WSJ: French authorities arrested the widow of the former Rwandan president killed in a plane attack widely considered to be the event that sparked the country’s 1994 genocide. [More here →]

• • Historian identifies Cubans who died fighting in Angola

An amateur historian writing a book on a key battle of the Angola war has obtained a list of the names of all 2,106 Cuban soldiers that the Castro government admits were killed in that conflict.

Cuba’s provincial newspapers published the names of each province’s dead around Dec. 7 1989, when all the soldiers’ remains were buried in simultaneous ceremonies throughout the island.

But the full list was not available until Peter Polack, a criminal lawyer in the Cayman Islands, obtained it last month from a memorial in South African to the struggle against Apartheid and colonial rule. [More here →]

Hate Groups On The Rise

Empathy for Tea Baggers?

• Why We Need to Have Empathy for Tea Party Lunatics

If we don’t understand how decent, god-fearing, victimized people can come to espouse such dangerous ideologies, we won’t be able to fight them effectively. [More here →]

A Coffee Party?