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This evening's music features soul and r&b singer, songwriter and associate of James Brown Bobby Byrd. Enjoy!

"The only thing “dangerous” about a gang of Reddit investors blowing up hedge funds is that some of us reading about it might die of laughter."

-- Matt Taibbi

News and Opinion

Saying 'Peace Not Going to Break Out... Anytime Soon,' Raytheon CEO Sees 'Solid Growth' in Middle East

Sixty years to the month after President Dwight D. Eisenhower prophetically warned against the "unwarranted influence" of the "military-industrial complex" in his farewell address, the chief executive of one of the world's biggest weapons makers affirmed that ongoing war in the Middle East is good for business.

During a Tuesday earnings call, Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told investors he anticipated the Biden administration would temporarily block the sale of 7,500 of his company's Paveway bombs to Saudi Arabia, a nearly $500 million deal sealed during the final months of former President Donald Trump's tenure. Hayes quasi-cryptically said that a certain "offensive weapons system" to a certain "customer in the Middle East [who] we can't talk about" was coming off the company's books.

No single sale, not even one for half a billion dollars worth of so-called precision bombs, is going to seriously dent Raytheon's profits. On Tuesday's earnings call, Hayes sounded upbeat: "Look," he told investors, "peace is not going to break out in the Middle East anytime soon. I think it remains an area where we'll continue to see solid growth."

An actual quote from the CEO of @RaytheonTech

“Look...peace is not going to break out in the Middle East anytime soon. I think it remains an area where we'll continue to see solid growth.” Face vomiting

This guy gets our taxpayer to profit off war. pic.twitter.com/eg4iQqbCMI

— CODEPINK (@codepink) January 27, 2021

Unlike Trump, the new administration appears far more concerned about the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which has killed well over 100,000 people, many of them with weapons made in and sold by the United States. Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Joe Biden is freezing arms sales to the Saudis, and to the United Arab Emirates, pending further review.

Such sales are nothing new. In January 1957, Eisenhower proclaimed the eponymous doctrine extending U.S. military aid to any Middle Eastern nation beset by the bugaboo of Soviet-led international communism. The Cold War meant hot sales for the likes of Raytheon, which in addition to pioneering microwave ovens was at the time turning out cutting-edge missiles that would change the ways wars were fought.

Wars haven't stopped being fought in the Middle East—in no small part due to incessant U.S. intervention in the region—and today Raytheon is a $100 billion behemoth that, with over $25 billion in annual sales, is the world's fourth-largest weapons seller.

Continuity in provocation...https://t.co/8y0lophdls

— Jeffrey St. Clair (@JSCCounterPunch) January 28, 2021

Iran disappointed over Biden administration's refusal to lift sanctions

Iran has responded with anger and disappointment to the new US secretary of state saying American sanctions against Tehran will not be lifted until it comes back into verifiable “full compliance” with its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.

Antony Blinken said Iranian compliance would take some time, indicating there is unlikely to be any major movement in negotiations until after the Iranian presidential elections in June.

Blinken made his remarks at a press briefing, prompting some Iranians to claim the Biden administration was using the same failed bargaining tactics as Donald Trump.

Hesameddin Ashena, adviser to the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, told Blinken on Twitter if this kind of approach had been effective, then “Donald Trump would not have left the White House waiting for a phone call from Iran”.

The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has in a series of interviews and articles over the past fortnight set out a plan whereby Iran would come back into compliance with the deal as soon as the US lifted its panoply of sanctions. He also insisted Iran was not willing to renegotiate the existing deal, or to discuss its missile programme.

The Half-Baked Smear Campaign Against Robert Malley — and Biden’s Iran Policy

As a top national security official in the Obama administration, Robert Malley helped negotiate the 2015 nuclear agreement between the United States and Iran, which President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. The ongoing fight over the deal and whether the U.S. can or should rejoin it largely informs the battle over Malley, who currently leads the International Crisis Group, an organization dedicated to ending violent conflicts. But the fight over Malley also ties into a broader debate over how the U.S. should engage in the Middle East: either through diplomacy with rivals or continuing thus far failed attempts to bludgeon them into submission.

The attacks against Malley’s appointment have been personal, with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and others outright accusing the International Crisis Group head of “radical” sympathies with the Iranian government and enmity with Israel. In a recent New York Times column, Bret Stephens claimed, “Malley is widely seen as one of Tehran’s premier apologists in Washington.”

The ad hominem nature of the attacks against Malley has irked many Washington analysts, who see it as the start of a broader campaign to intimidate the incoming Biden administration over its Iran policy.

“This is standard operating procedure for the pro-Likud right wing,” said Joe Cirincione, a fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and previous head of the Ploughshares Fund, a nuclear nonproliferation organization, referring to the right-wing Israeli political party whose bent animates many Washington hawks. “This is how they operate. They traffic in bullying and lies as the main elements of their policy operation. They’d like to defeat Rob Malley and nail it as another scalp on the wall, but second, they would like to impose a cost on Biden and show that if he wants to move forward on his Iran policy, it will be difficult. Malley is the direct victim of the attacks, but Biden is the target.”

Is A PERMANENT Fence Around The Capitol An Overreaction?

US House members ask for more security amid fears they're targets

Pervasive fear among some members of Congress that they will be the targets of further politically motivated violence following the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol has led more than 30 of them write a letter to House leaders.

The group sent the letter to the House of Representatives speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, asking for more support over security concerns.

As the less senior politicians do not have personal protection services provided by the government around the clock, they are asking if they may use their personal allowances for additional security costs in their home districts, such as for hiring local law enforcement or other security personnel.

The letter, first obtained by CBS News, reveals an enduring anxiety and sense of unease among lawmakers. It was sent by the Democratic representatives Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Dean Phillips of Minnesota.

And it was signed by 29 other Democrats who represent states all across the country, including Texas, Rhode Island, Washington, Georgia, Illinois, Alabama and Kansas, and one Republican, the Michigan representative Fred Upton.

Police chief wants permanent fence around U.S. Capitol after riot

The U.S. Capitol Police’s acting chief called Thursday for permanent fencing around the U.S. Capitol complex, citing the Jan. 6 riot by a mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

The call for “vast improvements” of Capitol security came a day after a West Virginia man was arrested when his car parked close to the complex’s temporary barrier was found to contain a handgun and ammunition, as well as a list of members of Congress.

Acting Capitol Chief Yogananda Pittman noted that a 2006 security assessment of the Capitol “specifically recommended the installation of a permanent perimeter fence.”

“In light of recent events, I can unequivocally say that vast improvements to the physical security infrastructure must be made to include permanent fencing, and the availability of ready, back-up forces in close proximity to the Capitol,” Pittman said.

2/ When the time is right, the fencing around the White House and U.S. Capitol, just like the plywood we’ve seen on our businesses for too long, will be taken down.

— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) January 28, 2021

3/ We look forward to working with Congresswoman Norton on not only ensuring continued public access to the Capitol, but also preventing any proposed security installations from intruding into our local neighborhoods.

— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) January 28, 2021

Biden Withdraws 'Horrific' Trump Rule Attacking Social Security Disability Recipients

Social Security defenders on Thursday celebrated news that the Biden White House has withdrawn a regulation pushed by the Trump administration that, if finalized, could have stripped disability insurance benefits from hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people.

One of several attacks on Social Security the Trump administration attempted to complete during its final days in power, the proposed rule would have subjected some disability insurance recipients to more frequent eligibility reviews—a move that would have added another layer of difficulty to an already strenuous process aimed at determining whether beneficiaries still qualify for the program.

David Sirota: New Signs Dems ABANDONING 2k Check Promise

As White House Floats Skimpier Relief Bill in Bid for GOP Support, Progressives Warn Going Small Would Be 'Catastrophic'

With the Biden White House reportedly weighing the possibility of splitting its proposed coronavirus relief package into two parts in an effort to attract some Republican support, leaders of the Congressional Progressives Caucus are warning that anything less than the president's $1.9 trillion opening offer would represent an unacceptable betrayal of economically desperate Americans.

In a letter (pdf) to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday, more than two dozen members of the CPC Executive Board wrote that "if we aim too low, the financial consequences will be catastrophic, long-lasting, and borne by the American families who can least afford it."

The letter was signed by CPC chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), deputy chair Katie Porter (D-Calif.), caucus whip Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and 21 other lawmakers.

"We are concerned by the views of some in Congress who are advocating for a scaled-back, 'wait and see' approach," the letter states, alluding to the bipartisan group of lawmakers that the White House economic team has sought out for input on coronavirus relief in recent days, despite warnings that outreach to austerity-obsessed Republicans is both futile and dangerous.

"This goes against both the economic consensus and the voices of our constituents, who are crying out for additional relief to keep food on their tables and a roof over their heads," the letter continues. "The families and small businesses that make up the economy do not have the luxury of 'waiting to see' how this public health and economic crisis progresses—they need relief now."

Pointing to the Obama administration's woefully inadequate response to the Great Recession as a cautionary tale, the progressive lawmakers cautioned that "if we do not act now, a prolonged, sluggish economic recovery will surely result."

Hours of scrolling, endless refreshing: US tech woes make scheduling vaccine a nightmare

People across the United States have likened signing up for a vaccine shot in recent weeks to refreshing a page for highly coveted concert tickets. In Michigan, a website for vaccine sign-ups crashed almost immediately after the state expanded vaccine access to people 65 and older. The site, which processes 900 appointments on a typical day, saw more than 25,000 people trying to register. In Texas one website saw 9,000 appointments fill in less than six minutes. Users in Minnesota reported similar issues. Some health departments in Florida are using the ticketing site Eventbrite, leading to concerns about ticket scalpers buying up slots and reselling them.

The Trump administration promised in November that 20m Covid-19 vaccines could be distributed by 2021. As of this week just 18.5 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and about 3.2 million people have been fully vaccinated.

New vaccine doses can only be produced so quickly, but supply is just part of the problem. For Americans whose vaccines are not being arranged through their workplace, scheduling can be a major setback.

Most states have no centralized system to register for appointments and those that do exist are rife with glitches. Both these hurdles have made it difficult for those who aren’t tech savvy and people who don’t have time to refresh an online sign-up all day to get a potentially life-saving vaccine slot.

Biden signs order to reopen Obamacare markets for special Covid-19 coverage

Joe Biden has signed an executive order to reopen federal health insurance marketplaces in an executive action meant to signal the importance of expanding healthcare, a key commitment during his campaign.

The order is designed to aid people who lost their jobs, and consequently their health insurance, amid the pandemic.

The order will formally reopen HealthCare.gov insurance markets for a special sign-up opportunity geared to people who need insurance during the pandemic. ...

“As we continue to battle Covid-19 it is even more meaningful [that] Americans have access to healthcare,” said Biden, in a brief appearance at the White House as he signed the order. Biden went on to emphasize he was not expanding Obamacare at this time. Biden said the orders would, “undo the damage Trump has done”.

“I’m not initiating any new law, any new aspect of the law,” he said. “Of all times that we need to reinstate access to the affordability of and extent of access to Medicaid is now – in the middle of this Covid crisis,” Biden said.

Biden’s executive order will reopen the marketplace from 15 February to 15 May.

European regulator gives green light for Astra-Oxford Covid-19 vaccine

GameStop Shares: Dark Pools Owned by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, UBS, et al, Have Made Tens of Thousands of Trades

Dark Pools owned by the biggest names on Wall Street – such as Goldman Sachs’ Sigma X2, JPMorgan Chase’s JPM-X, UBS’ UBSA, Morgan Stanley’s MSPL, and Credit Suisse’s Crossfinder — have been making tens of thousands of trades in the shares of GameStop on an ongoing weekly basis. FINRA, Wall Street’s highly compromised self-regulator, reports the Dark Pool data on a stale basis, two to three weeks after the trading has occurred. It is then lumped together for the whole week, rendering it useless in terms of monitoring price manipulation. ...

It’s a fair guess that you haven’t heard a peep about Dark Pools on the evening news. The fact that you haven’t is a perfect commentary on why mainstream media is failing the American people when it comes to exposing Wall Street’s serial looting of the little guy.

But when a bunch of quixotic posters on a Reddit message board can be parlayed into the exciting narrative of a Robinhood band taking on the evil hedge funds, it goes viral on the evening news – sucking in hundreds of thousands more unsophisticated retail investors.

It’s important to remember who has been pumping the GameStop/Reddit story on CNBC. That would be none other than Andrew Ross Sorkin, who created a completely false narrative about who and what caused the crash of 2008 – appearing to be intentionally protecting the reputations of the mega banks on Wall Street. Sorkin’s reporting on the 2008 crash looked even more suspect when we repeatedly asked the New York Times to correct his outrageously incorrect reporting and they failed to change one word.

What’s being ignored in all the current hoopla is that the largest federally-insured banks in this country, that now double as trading casinos and Dark Pools thanks to the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, have every incentive to suck in the small investor at the top of a market bubble in order to create an escape route for themselves. It’s called “distribution” and it occurs, by hook or crook, at the top of every market bubble.

Krystal Ball: Billionaire CRIES About Wealthy Paying Fair Share AGAIN

I know this GameStop stuff is funny, but you have to remember this is hurting real people who own multiple boats

— Kevin Farzad (@KevinFarzad) January 27, 2021

GameStop's three largest shareholders earn over $2bn amid stock surge

The three largest shareholders in GameStop, the video game retailer at the center of a frenzied duel between Wall Street and small investors, have made more than $2bn from the company’s astronomic recent share rise. Stock in the company continued its vertiginous rise on Wednesday, hitting a fresh 52-week high of $354.83, making the 13% stake held by Ryan Cohen, 34, GameStop’s largest single shareholder, worth more than $1.3bn.

Over the past two weeks, according to CNBC, Cohen’s net worth increased an average of $90m a day, or nearly $4m per hour, as GameStop stock has surged more than 1,550% this year alone.

Other winners include Donald Foss, the 76-year-old founder and former CEO of Credit Acceptance Corp, a subprime auto lender. Foss bought 5% of GameStop early last year for about $12m. His stake is now worth more than $500m.

GameStop’s chief executive, George Sherman, has seen his 3.4% stake jump to a value of about $350m. ...

But some in Wall Street are also making huge gains. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, owned 9.2m shares in GameStop at the end of December, according to a regulatory filing. If it still holds all those shares, they were worth more than $3bn on Wednesday.

Wall Street and stock market are metaphors for a society rotting from self-indulgence, greed, widening inequality, and financial entrepreneurship that builds nothing, improves nothing, creates nothing, and solves nothing, but merely moves money from one set of pockets to another.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) January 28, 2021

Krystal and Saagar: Robinhood CEO EMBARRASSES Himself With Pathetic Excuse For Shutting Down Trading

GameStop shares plunge after ban by Robinhood app

Amateur trading app Robinhood stopped users from investing any further in GameStop – a US chain of video games stores – and seven other companies on Thursday, after an extraordinary rise in their value, spurred by users of the chat forum website Reddit, that cost some hedge funds billions of dollars. The move slammed the upward surge in their share prices into reverse and sparked allegations that the hedge funds had wielded influence over Robinhood and other trading platforms to stop the rout. ...

GameStop shares were down 44% by the end of the day, while the share prices of seven other companies caught up in the affair, including Nokia, BlackBerry, Trivago and AMC, also suffered big falls as share-buying was effectively halted.

Traders joining in the frenzy have flocked to Robinhood, an app which claims to “democratise” finance by letting ordinary people trade shares and more complex financial instruments, such as options. The trades are offered free of commission charges and the app, which was founded only in 2013, now has more than 13m users. But the buying ban on the Reddit traders has sparked a furious backlash. Social media lit up with theories about hedge funds with an interest in the Robinhood company and other trading platforms flexing their muscles to quash the Reddit rebellion.

One customer has already filed a class action lawsuit in New York, according to reports in the US. As the backlash built, Robinhood said on Thursday evening that it would allow limited trading on the stocks on Friday.

Saagar Enjeti: Janet Yellen Paid 800 GRAND From Hedge Fund Linked To Robinhood Scandal

This is beyond absurd. @FSCDems need to have a hearing on Robinhood's market manipulation. They're blocking the ability to trade to protect Wall St. hedge funds, stealing millions of dollars from their users to protect people who've used the stock market as a casino for decades. https://t.co/CGkJxVfzkv

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) January 28, 2021

Reddit traders exposed illegal practices of hedge funds – Max Keiser on Robinhood saga

What Is Important About The Reddit Gamestop Short-Squeeze

So, some Redditors found that Gamestop was being massively shorted. They bought up the stock, forcing the hedge funds involved to buy those stocks at huge prices to cover their shorts. This is known as a short squeeze, and market players do it all the time. What is different here is that a bunch of unwashed hoi polloi are getting in on the action.

The main hedge fund appears to have been driven to bankruptcy, or it would be if it wasn’t going to get bailed out.

And that’s what matters: not what the Redditors have done, which is 100% legal and done all the time, but the institutional response: to bail out rich people who got caught with their pants down.

The markets exist, at this point, for one reason and one reason only: to give money to rich people. It is an insider game, and if you’re on the inside you essentially can’t lose. The exceptions are very rare, the class of insiders is protected at all costs, as it was in 2008 to the tune of 20 trillion or so in the US alone (ignore the Treasury and things like TARP, the real action happens at the Fed.) Other central banks also flooded the system with money, so the end result was probably over a 100 trillion. ...

Hope you’re enjoying that $600 check, as Biden reduces the $2,000 check to $1,400 and says he’s OK with means testing it.

To review:

- Politics is to be manipulated only by K Street.

- The stock market is to be manipulated only by Wall St.

- Dissemination of information is to be manipulated only by corporate media outlets.

Those are the rules.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 27, 2021

GameStop Madness with David Dayen | Useful Idiots

Merrick Garland Wants Former Facebook Lawyer to Top Antitrust Division

As the fight over the direction of the Biden administration’s antitrust policy intensifies, a new figure has entered the fray, scrambling the calculus: Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland. The battle so far has largely been fought out between lobbyists for Big Tech and their allies on the one hand and skeptics of monopoly power on the other. But according to three sources familiar with the discussions, Garland is hoping to install as the head of the Department of Justice antitrust division a longtime aide who served under him during the Clinton administration and who later was the attorney charged with shepherding his ill-fated Supreme Court nomination. That lawyer, Susan Davies, however, would be a controversial pick for another professional connection of hers: Facebook. ...

In 2012, Davies represented Facebook in a lawsuit brought by an advertiser, Sambreel Holdings LLC, that was effectively kicked off Facebook’s platform after the tech giant lured away all its clients and banned users from downloading it. In December, the Federal Trade Commission launched an antitrust suit against Facebook, looking to break it into its component parts and ban it from the type of anti-competitive behavior Davies defended as their counsel. ...

The rest of Davies’s client roster, meanwhile, is equally worrying to opponents of concentrated power, as she has spent most of the last decade working on behalf of major mergers, fending off antitrust enforcement, and, as her law firm bio puts it, “frequently interact[ed] with regulators and policy makers on behalf of corporate clients.”

Republicans considering more than 100 bills to restrict voting rights

After an election filled with misinformation and lies about fraud, Republicans have doubled down with a surge of bills to further restrict voting access in recent months, according to a new analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice.

There are currently 106 pending bills across 28 states that would restrict access to voting, according to the data. That’s a sharp increase from nearly a year ago, when there were 35 restrictive bills pending across 15 states.

Among the Brennan Center’s findings:

• More than a third of the bills would place new restrictions on voting by mail

• Pennsylvania has 14 pending proposals for new voter restrictions, the most in the country. It’s followed by New Hampshire (11), Missouri (9), and Mississippi, New Jersey and Texas (8)

• There are seven bills across four states that would limit opportunities for election day registration

• There are also 406 bills that would expand voting access pending across 35 states, including in New York (56), Texas (53), New Jersey (37), Mississippi (39) and Missouri (21)

Ex-Governor Fined $1000 For Poisoning Flint Michigan

General Motors announces plan for all-electric lineup by 2035

General Motors has announced it plans to phase out gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles globally by 2035, a dramatic shift by the largest US automaker away from fossil-fuel-powered engines.

GM, which also said it plans to become carbon neutral by 2040, made its announcement just over a week after Joe Biden took office pledging to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and dramatically boost the sales of electric vehicles.

GM sold 2.55m vehicles in the US last year, only about 20,000 of which were electric vehicles (EVs). It said in November it was investing $27bn in electric and autonomous vehicles over the next five years, up from $20bn planned before the coronavirus pandemic.

Mary Barra, GM’s CEO, has aggressively pushed the automaker internally to embrace electric vehicles and shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles. She said in a statement the automaker had worked with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an environmental advocacy group, to “develop a shared vision of an all-electric future and an aspiration to eliminate tailpipe emissions from new light-duty vehicles by 2035”.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Suck It, Wall Street

'Sending a message': GameStop investors on why they bought shares

The System Is Rigged - Episode 4537: Game Stop Corp

Congressman’s Companies Evicting Renters During Pandemic

Emmett Till's home gains landmark status and will turn into museum

Remnants of mosque from earliest decades of Islam found in Israel

Do you drink bottled water? Read this

Bloomberg Reporter: The INSIDE Story Of How Reddit Took Down Wall Street Hedge Fund

Rising: SHOCKING Report Reveals Cuomo Undercounted Nursing Home Deaths By THOUSANDS

Krystal and Saagar: Biden Team LOSES IT At Slightest Criticism By NYT

A Little Night Music

Bobby Byrd - I need help (I can't do it alone)

Bobby Byrd - We Are In Love

Bobby Byrd - Signed, Sealed & Delivered

Bobby Byrd - If You Don't Work You Can't Eat

Bobby Byrd - Keep on doing what you're doing

Bobby Byrd - Saying it and doing it are two different things

Bobby Byrd - Never get enough

Bobby Byrd - Funky Soul #1 Part I & II

The J.B.'s & Bobby Byrd - Shake Your Money Maker

Bobby Byrd - Doin' The Do

Bobby Byrd - I Know You Got Soul