The Fox News host invited the Dutch historian on his show to discuss his comments at Davos about the need for higher taxes on the rich went viral. Carlson apparently was attracted by Bregman pointing out the hypocrisy of people flying in their private jets to Davos to discuss climate change but the interview went off the rails when Bregman described how Fox News and its on-air personalities were millionaires who had been bought off by the billionaire class to not talk about the need for higher taxes and instead talk about immigrants. Carlson clearly did not like being told to his face that he is a mere mouthpiece for the oligarchy and went on a profanity-laden tirade.
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I am constantly on the lookout for signs that attitudes are moving in more positive directions and in the last week I came across two. One is that the Trump administration is starting a global effort to end the criminalization of homosexuality.

The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it’s still illegal to be gay, U.S. officials tell NBC News, a bid aimed in part at denouncing Iran over its human rights record.

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, is leading the effort, which kicks off Tuesday evening in Berlin. The U.S. embassy is flying in LGBT activists from across Europe for a strategy dinner to plan to push for decriminalization in places that still outlaw homosexuality — mostly concentrated in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.

“It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct,” said a U.S. official involved in organizing the event.

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After much ballyhoo and getting cities all across the US to compete to offer incentives to locate their second headquarters in their region, Amazon finally chose New York City. The city and state had offered massive amounts of tax benefits to this company that has made its founder Jeff Bezos one of the wealthiest people in the world. But the local community was not pleased because the incentives offered to Amazon would come from money that would have gone to fund schools and other services and they organized protests.
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Cody Fenwick writes that the government funding deal that was just signed by Donald Trump was much worse for him that what the media are generally reporting, though even they concede that it was pretty bad for him. What is telling is that the deal requires the government to treat detainees with basic decency, such as not putting them in wire enclosed cages that were so cold that the detained children called them ‘ice boxes’ and even the sandwiches they were given were frozen.

As Fenwick writes:
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Elliot Abrams is an aggressive warmonger who oversaw US involvement in all manner of atrocities in Latin America going back to his time in the administration of George H. W. Bush. He was convicted in 1991 on two counts of withholding information to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair but was pardoned along with others because these people protect their own. He has now reappeared as Donald Trump’s point person to Venezuela, no doubt because of his expertise in subverting governments in that region.
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So to no one’s surprise, Donald Trump has caved once again on funding for his stupid wall, accepting an even worse deal than what he was offered before the government was shut down and another one he could have got when the government was shut down. So the great deal maker has shown that his great skill in getting successively worse deals, as described by Ryan Bort.
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