Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/hung-f04.shtml

One in eight Americans does not have enough to eat and requires emergency food assistance. This staggering number is revealed in a report released on Tuesday by Feeding America (FA), a network consisting of thousands of food pantries, soup kitchens and similar agencies serving 37 million people in the US. The report, entitled Hunger in America 2010, paints a devastating portrait of the social misery faced by millions of American working people.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/pers-f04.shtml

Two years on from the biggest financial crisis to strike world capitalism since the 1930s, leading international bankers made clear at last week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that they will resist any attempts to reign in their speculative practices.

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/4/ignoring_torture_claims_and_questionable_evidence

A New York jury has convicted the US-educated Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui of attempted murder for shooting at US forces while jailed in Afghanistan in 2008. None of the Americans were injured, but Siddiqui was shot and wounded while in US custody. Human rights groups have long alleged that Siddiqui was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani authorities in 2003 and interrogated and tortured at the behest of the United States. In her testimony, Siddiqui claimed to have been held in a US secret prison. We speak to Siddiqui family spokesperson Tina Foster of the International Justice Network and Petra Bartosiewicz, an independent journalist who has been closely following Siddiqui’s case.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m62937&hd=&size=1&l=e

You can walk down many of the streets of Port au Prince and see absolutely no evidence that the world community has helped Haiti. Twenty three days after the earthquake jolted Haiti and killed over 200,000 people, as many as a million people have still not received any international food assistance.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/04-3

Last week, I wrote about a revelation buried in a Washington Post article by Dana Priest which described how the Obama administration has adopted the Bush policy of targeting selected American citizens for assassination if they are deemed (by the Executive Branch) to be Terrorists. As The Washington Times' Eli Lake reports, Adm. Dennis Blair was asked about this program at a Congressional hearing yesterday and he acknowledged its existence:

Link: http://www.truthout.org/bill-introduced-calling-constitutional-amendment-tackle-campaign-finance-ruling56658

Two lawmakers introduced a bill this week aimed at adding an amendment to the US Constitution, which would allow Congress and the states to regulate political expenditures by corporations.

Link: http://www.truthout.org/what-getting-dumped-my-girlfriend-taught-me-about-being-dumped-obama56648

It was a cold February night when I got together with Irene to watch Obama's first budget address to Congress. Irene was a drop-dead gorgeous woman whose beauty was matched only by her intellect. I had met her at a party a few days earlier, and already I was crazy about her.

Link: http://rawstory.com/2010/02/judge-seals-video-taser-homicide/

A potentially explosive video showing the death of a Louisiana man after being Tasered nine times in 14 minutes will be kept from the public for at least another five months, after a judge ordered the tape sealed. Former Winnfield police officer Scott Nugent has been charged with manslaughter and malfeasance over the death of Baron "Scooter" Pikes on January 17, 2008. Pikes was handcuffed during each of the Taserings. Winnfield police say Pikes was resisting arrest on an outstanding warrant. This man was brutally tortured to death by a sadistic monster wearing a police uniform who will not be punished for his actions. The police in America have a special license to kill without reason, given to them by a corrupt and murderous government.

Link: http://rawstory.com/2010/02/google-nsa-alliance-privacy-advocate-alarmed/

In the wake of Chinese-based cyber attacks against Google's corporate infrastructure, search giant Google turned to the U.S. National Security Agency to help it combat security threats, according to a a published report. It's a move that has privacy advocates itching for more information on the cooperation between the world's largest aggregator of data and the U.S. government's controversial spy agency.

Link: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/it-is-now-mathematically-impossible-to-pay-off-the-u-s-national-debt

A lot of people are very upset about the rapidly increasing U.S. national debt these days and they are demanding a solution. What they don't realize is that there simply is not a solution under the current U.S. financial system. It is now mathematically impossible for the U.S. government to pay off the U.S. national debt. You see, the truth is that the U.S. government now owes more dollars than actually exist. If the U.S. government went out today and took every single penny from every single American bank, business and taxpayer, they still would not be able to pay off the national debt. And if they did that, obviously American society would stop functioning because nobody would have any money to buy or sell anything.

Link: http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2010/02/04/initial-jobless-claims-rises-unexpectedly-stock-futures-down-dollar-up/

Speaking of the unemployed, the ranks of those claiming first-time benefits surprisingly rose again last week, to 480,000, the U.S. Department of Labor reported this morning, up from the revised 472,000 prior and ahead of expectations for a decline to 455,000.

Link: http://www.rferl.org/content/Obama_Warns_US_Will_Get_Tough_On_Trade_With_China/1948532.html

Obama says his administration is putting increased pressure on China to open up its domestic market further to reciprocal trade. Speaking at a Washington meeting with Democratic Party senators on February 3, Obama said that if the United States can increase its trade with Asia by even one percentage point, that will create thousands, maybe millions, of new U.S. jobs.

Link: http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/gaza-strip/4021-us-to-israel-ease-gaza-blockade-to-counter-goldstone-charges-of-war-crimes

The United States has suggested to Israel that easing the Gaza blockade would help counter the fallout from the Goldstone report on alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead a year ago.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020304057_pf.html

The world's largest Internet search company and the world's most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity. Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter.

Link: http://www.rense.com/general89/profound.htm

Our U.S. Congress causes most Americans of both parties intellectual trauma, emotional fits and mental anguish. Every week, 545 individuals misdirect, obfuscate, cloud, suppress, deny or avoid dealing with serious issues facing our civilization. Fact: they don't solve much, but they do perpetuate most of our problems.

Link: http://www.rense.com/general89/mcc.htm

Senator McCain's bill is called The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA). It would repeal key sections of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). DSHEA protects supplements if 1) they are food products that have been in the food supply and not chemically altered or 2) if they were sold as supplements prior to 1994, the year that DSHEA was passed. If a supplement fits one of these two descriptions, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot arbitrarily ban it or reclassify it as a drug.

Link: http://www.rense.com/general89/whos.htm

About to lose your home? Have you lost your home? Can you make the interest payments on your credit cards? Can you afford to maintain your car, your family's incidental needs, your children's health, or even buy enough food, gasoline or heating fuel? How did such a sad state of affairs come about in our country, once the most affluent in the history of the world? We have been massively betrayed by our national "leaders."

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50225

A leading international rights group urged the Colombian government to take action against what it called the "successors" to the far-right paramilitary militias, which continue attacking civilians and human rights defenders. In its new report, "Paramilitaries’ Heirs: The New Face of Violence in Colombia", Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the 2003-2006 demobilisation of the "brutal, mafia-like, paramilitary coalition known as the AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia)" was a failure, despite repeated government claims that the paramilitaries no longer exist.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/rhine02042010.html

Port au Prince, Haiti, January 12, 2010, 4:53 PM. We were eating dinner when the earthquake struck. As Californians we knew the meaning of the distorted room with plates sliding from the table and pictures tumbling from the wall. We grabbed hands and ran outside. The building held, unlike many others nearby.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/drones-targeted-killings-and-fifth-amendment

When an American citizen leaves the U.S., they don't give up their constitutional rights. Which is why it's so downright scary that at a hearing yesterday, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair admitted that the Obama administration reserves the right to order the assassination of Americans abroad who are suspected of involvement in terrorism.

Link: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/house-passes-cybersecurity-bill/

The House today overwhelmingly passed a bill aimed at building up the United States’ cybersecurity army and expertise, amid growing alarm over the country’s vulnerability online. The bill, which passed 422-5, requires the Obama administration to conduct an agency-by-agency assessment of cybersecurity workforce skills and establishes a scholarship program for undergraduate and graduate students who agree to work as cybersecurity specialists for the government after graduation.

Link: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/02/ken_lewis_already_relishing_th.html#ixzz0ensmLgPH

No WAY is Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis going to be the only one to answer for the acquisition of crappy Merrill Lynch and its crappy bonuses, "a person close to Lewis's defense team" (who may or may not be Ken Lewis himself) tells Charlie Gasparino today on the Daily Beast. NO WAY will he be a scapegoat, alone, for the people who twisted his arm to go through with the Merrill deal by telling him he would be fired if he didn't. "If this thing goes to trial you can expect both Paulson and Bernanke to be on the witness list." If he's going down, he's bringing them down, too. Bringing them down to Chinatown. Order in the court!

Link: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/02/05/2010-02-05_cuffed_for_doodling_on_a_desk.html#ixzz0enqwwBfp

Alexa Gonzalez, a student Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills, Queens, was handcuffed and detained at police precinct for doodling on her desk with erasable marker. 12-year-old Queens girl was hauled out of school in handcuffs for an artless offense - doodling her name on her desk in erasable marker, the Daily News has learned. Alexa Gonzalez was scribbling a few words on her desk Monday while waiting for her Spanish teacher to pass out homework at Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills, she said. We would handcuff a little girl for doodling, but we would never handcuff a politician for being a corrupt mass murdering war criminal.