Thomas Friedman, why don't you break up?

Thomas Friedman: the US has to bomb 7 muslim-majority countries in perpetuity because um they're the real racists https://t.co/WIx3SRJt66 pic.twitter.com/gCsLJ1MYxK

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) August 16, 2017

Friedman . . . otm?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/opinion/stephen-paddock-las-vegas-terrorism.html

If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim … If only he had shouted “Allahu akbar” before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas … If only he were a member of ISIS … If only we had a picture of him posing with a Quran in one hand and his semiautomatic rifle in another …

If all of that had happened, no one would be telling us not to dishonor the victims and “politicize” Paddock’s mass murder by talking about preventive remedies.

No, no, no. Then we know what we’d be doing. We’d be scheduling immediate hearings in Congress about the worst domestic terrorism event since 9/11. Then Donald Trump would be tweeting every hour “I told you so,” as he does minutes after every terror attack in Europe, precisely to immediately politicize them. Then there would be immediate calls for a commission of inquiry to see what new laws we need to put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Then we’d be “weighing all options” against the country of origin.

But what happens when the country of origin is us?

What happens when the killer was only a disturbed American armed to the teeth with military-style weapons that he bought legally or acquired easily because of us and our crazy lax gun laws?

Then we know what happens: The president and the Republican Party go into overdrive to ensure that nothing happens. Then they insist — unlike with every ISIS-related terror attack — that the event must not be “politicized” by asking anyone, particularly themselves, to look in the mirror and rethink their opposition to common-sense gun laws.

So let’s review: We will turn the world upside down to track down the last Islamic State fighter in Syria — deploying B-52s, cruise missiles, F-15s, F-22s, F-35s and U2s. We will ask our best young men and women to make the ultimate sacrifice to kill or capture every last terrorist. And how many Americans has the Islamic State killed in the Middle East? I forget. Is it 15 or 20? And our president never stops telling us that when it comes to the Islamic State, defeat is not an option, mercy is not on the menu and that he is so tough he even has a defense secretary nicknamed “Mad Dog.”

But when fighting the N.R.A. — the National Rifle Association, which more than any other group has prevented the imposition of common-sense gun-control laws — victory is not an option, moderation is not on the menu and the president and the G.O.P. have no mad dogs, only pussy cats.

And they will not ask themselves to make even the smallest sacrifice — one that might risk their seats in Congress — to stand up for legislation that might make it just a little harder for an American to stockpile an arsenal like Paddock did, including 42 guns, some of them assault rifles — 23 in his hotel room and 19 at his home — as well as several thousand rounds of ammunition and “electronic devices.” Just another deer hunter, I guess.

On crushing ISIS, our president and his party are all in. On asking the N.R.A. for even the tiniest moderation, they are AWOL. No matter how many innocents are killed — no matter even that one of their own congressional leaders was shot playing baseball — it’s never time to discuss any serious policy measures to mitigate gun violence.

Whoa that’s a helluva column. How the fuck did that come from Thomas Friedman?

how many Americans has the Islamic State killed in the Middle East? I forget. Is it 15 or 20?

tbf, this is not a good metric for the danger posed by the Islamic State.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-arab-spring.html

The most significant reform process underway anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia. Yes, you read that right. Though I came here at the start of Saudi winter, I found the country going through its own Arab Spring, Saudi style.

tom friedman is worthless as a writer, how the fuck does he have a job

oh man, i read that last night and kept loling. so many friedmanisms in that

do you think he reads anything in his own newspaper?

does he speak arabic?

imagine being this credulous, each new day must be so exciting

does he speak arabic?

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, November 24, 2017 9:52 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

none of these fucks do

He probably has at best a rusty ability to wrap his tongue around liturgical Hebrew

I am becoming more set in the theory that his whole deal is a performance with another layer that other cons like Limbaugh, Hamburg etc don’t quite have.

ref: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/surprise-winner-in-thomas-friedman-porn-title-contest-20130510 I mean come on.

He’s playing to a different audience but he’s running the same type of game.

do you think he reads anything in his own newspaper?

NYT has a looong history with this.

In honor of Thomas Friedman’s latest love letter to Saudi here is 70 years of the NY Times describing #Saudi royals in the language of #reform.

— Abdullah Al-Arian (@anhistorian) November 24, 2017

a challenger appears

When confronting a challenging problem, it’s sometimes useful to listen to someone who looks at it from an entirely different angle. That’s why I found it fascinating to talk about the rise of populism and nativism with Bono: My latest column: https://t.co/pOGsOByofo

— Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) September 21, 2018

Every time I see Thomas Friedman, I think about kicking his severed head down a rural back road until an amber sunset burns into my eyes and I feel one with nature. And then dinner. pic.twitter.com/FwYURS77IM

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) April 24, 2019

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D8RCSd7W4Ac31Ri.jpg

Team building exercise at Dave & Busters.

classic tom

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D_su7-yWsAAODN3.jpg

growing the pie

this man has been a professional writer for decades

a growing pie lifts all boats

not only that, but he is DISTURBED that no one else is talking about growing the pie

enriching the soil by cannibalizing entrepreneurs and risk takers

grrr was just taking an old friend of mine to task as gently as I could for posting that damn NYT piece and agreeing with it

"if only Democrats catered to Republicans" part LXVIII

pretty sure Bernie was talking about how his policies were going to grow the economy and another NYT columnist took him to task for it

https://frinkiac.com/meme/S10E05/1084499.jpg?b64lines=Tk8sIE5PLCBOTy4gWU9VCiBDQU4nVCBMT1NFIFRIRSBQSUUuIFRIRQogUElFIElTIFlPVVIgSEVBUlQu

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NSDoWNhFCBM

This is real plague on both your houses material. pic.twitter.com/Ak5ibdMokB

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) July 19, 2019

"the chin". week burn. calling mayor pete alfred e neumann - top drawer stuff.

I prefer not to call myself a "centrist." That label implies someone whose views are mush, situated between two clearly defined poles of left and right. My views are not mush. They just emerge from a different approach to politics.

This era calls for a different approach -- one best articulated by Linton Wells, the defense analyst and expert on resilience. Wells argues that to find the solutions to today's wicked problems you should "never think in the box and never think out of the box. You have to think without a box."

Trump just threw complexity out the window and went full dog whistle on race to hold and expand his base. Democratic candidates are being more serious, but their need to win primaries tugs them back to the old binary checklist -- even though the real solutions require a left-wing wrench, a right-wing hammer and all sorts of new tools and combinations we've never imagined.

The right question on education is not whether college should be "free." It's what should be taught there and who should teach it.

Leave your rigid right-left grid on the hook outside the door. That's actually happening locally. But taking that national is really hard.

For Democrats who want to be serious: How do they think without a box against an incumbent president who speaks without a box -- without any restraints?

I don't have the answer, but I'm working on it! We all should be.

I hate him

clearly a Buttigieg endorsement in his future

^ sad lol

Wait that’s a real Friedman quote and not some simulator or parody?

it's the emmis Tom

that is the real thing (and the italics is in the original)

to quote John Houseman in his signature role, TF has "a skull full of mush"

Opinion

Why I LIke Mike

By Thomas L. Friedman

I have a pet theory about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — that it is to wider trends in world affairs what Off Broadway is to Broadway.

you don't say

footlights! curtain! genocide!

Tom Friedman and his traveling menagerie, touring the rust belt in his box truck, dazzling americans with his extensive collection of pet theories

omg his Bloomberg endorsement column is the laugh riot of the season! Five stars!

Don't miss the disclaimer! Greatest exit line since Some Like It Hot!

the only more expected thing than this would be Friedman endorsing a TED Talk for president

it's the first column of his i've all the way through in several years. a laugh a minute, seriously fucking hilarious.

"a moderate progressive with a heart of gold but the toughness of a rattlesnake"

and then the reveaal of the donation to Mrs Friedman's literacy museum

nothing sez "heart of gold" like "gift of gold"

bump

cuz Tom's fellow Bloombito supporters must read this

Was someone supporting Bloomberg on this messageboard?

Sanpaku doesn’t count

Effectively, we’d ‘reboot’ our society in two or perhaps more weeks from now. “The rejuvenating effect on spirits, and the economy, of knowing where there’s light at the end of this tunnel would be hard to overstate. Risk will not be zero, but the risk of some bad outcome for any of us on any given day is never zero.’’

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/opinion/coronavirus-economy.html

you go first, asshole