Fred Klonsky proclaims his agreements with NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman.
“If Democrats can choose a nominee who speaks to our impending challenges, but who doesn’t say irresponsible stuff about immigration or promise free stuff we can’t afford, who defines new ways to work with business and energize job-creators, who treats with dignity the frightened white working-class voters who abandoned them for Trump,“wrote Thomas L. Friedman in this morning’s New York Times.
I think this is good advice.
Well, except for that part about “frightened white working-class voters…”
As for promising free stuff we can’t afford? I’m down with that.
Of course, Friedman is probably talking about national health care and free college tuition.
I’m thinking of corporate giveaways and tax breaks to Amazon.
Billions and billions of tax giveaways to corporations. Outrageous.
Be a good corporate citizen. Pay your taxes.
Be a patriot. Pay your taxes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane . . . and pay your workers wages commensurate with their importance to the ongoing viability of your business, including customer service and care, instead of funneling outlandishly-exorbitant profits “upwards” while squeezing “low level” workers’ pay to what you can do merely because you can get away with i on account of your lobbyists. Also, stockholders are WAY TOO QUIET in this regard. And what about oil companies paying for ocean cleanup of their pwn oil products?
In a democracy, a person’s moral center is the real source of power–it’s been anesthecized by wealth in the wealthy way too long. Time to wake up. CBK
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“who doesn’t …promise free stuff we can’t afford” is a not so subtle denigration of Sanders and Warren.
Thomas Friedman is a great one for promising free stuff we can’t afford, when he was promising the spread of Democracy in Iraq through a war that cost the life of nearly 5000 American troops , cost the lives of hundreds of thousands (Johns Hopkins said a million) of Iraqis and will end up costing American tax payers trillions.
Sorry, but Friedman is not worthy of being quoted for any reason, except to demonstrate how wrong and dishonest a NY Times columnyist can be.
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A great one for criticizing the promise of free stuff
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“…promise free stuff we can’t afford,..” that’s another damn swipe, snipe and smear of Bernie. This is really getting sickening. Even Markos Moulitsas was denigrating Bernie on MSNBC. Bernie is not promising “free stuff,” he’s very open and frank that it will be funded with taxes. But here’s the thing…….any rise in taxes will be more than off set by the benefits accrued from universal health care, tuition-free university, a $15 minimum wage, college debt forgiveness and putting the brakes to US imperialism. These fake liberals or progressives would have probably been against the creation of Social Security, the FDIC and unemployment insurance in the 1930s. Oh yeah, Social Security is “free stuff” according to Friedman and the other millionaires. I guess Medicare and Medicaid are “free stuff” too? Ronnie Raygun went all over the country propagandizing against Medicare in the 1960s; he said that it would lead to socialism and a loss of freedom.
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The 8 Biggest Corporate Welfare Recipients in America… google it.
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Only Republicans are allowed to give “free stuff that we can’t afford” and it goes to the billionaires who need it the least. Friedman seems to believe with all his cynical heart that voters only will vote for someone offering free stuff to the very rich because Friedman seems to believe voters agree with his adoration of the rich that spending money on them is the only thing America can “afford”.
Friedman’s values are very warped and even worse, he has such a low opinion of voters that he thinks they are all as cynical as he is.
Friedman would have been demanding that LBJ end social security and Medicare because we just can’t afford it.
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well said: he is a dedicated naysayer who associates his own views to the larger populace
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David Sirota raises an important point, which is consistently omitted when Friedman’s opinion pieces are published:
“If politicians are forced to disclose every last asset they own, you’d think at the very least, the New York Times – in the interest of basic disclosure – should have a tagline under Friedman’s economic columns that says ‘Tom Friedman is an heir to a multi-billion-dollar business empire.'”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/billionaire-scion-tom-fri_b_26164”
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Heirs to the Throne
Friedman puts on airs
Especially on his stache
But no one really cares
Cuz Friedman is an a**
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“Hello, I’m Mr. Friedman”
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“Friedman puts on errs” also works
To sum up, Friedman puts on heirs, airs, errs and hairs.
So, he’s an heiry, airy, erry, hairy fellow.
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🙂
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But other than that, he’s great.
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Or perhaps because of that.
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YES.
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