Here is the link to the Friedman op-ed that was the subject of “Mandatory reading”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/opin…putin.html
If the link doesn’t work, go back to Google and Friedman Whatever Trump is hiding is hurting all of us.
Addendum to “Mandartory reading”
22 Thursday Feb 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Puzzle Guy Politics 
Mr. Friedman isn’t a Trump supporter. I get it. But it seems he just can’t bring himself to accept the fact that Trump was rightfully elected much to the chagrin of the Democrats who did their dead-level best to derail his campaign. (Dare I say by colluding with the Russians?) But Donald Trump is the threat to our Democracy? Really? He states the FBI has done us “amazingly proud”. I am deeply disturbed by the fact that this same FBI was involved in trying to throw a presidential election. James Comey let Hillary Clinton off the hook when we all watched his press conference where he laid out the case against her then let her off with “extremely careless” instead of “gross negligence” which would have been grounds for indictment. And how did that come about? Because of crooked FBI agents who were in the tank for her and were bound and determined to make sure Donald Trump was not elected. Please forgive my brevity in responding but as facts come about, the upper echelon of FBI management who were privy to the investigation are all scrambling like rats off a sinking ship.How many of them have retired, were re-assigned, or fired? Why so? I haven’t seen any of them standing proudly and declaring they were above reproach. If there’s a threat to our democracy, it’s not Donald Trump. The fact that our supreme law enforcement agency could inject themselves into an election is the real threat to our democracy.
David: There is absolutely nothing in Friedman’s op-ed that even implies that he cannot accept the fact that Trump was rightfully elected president. Friedman’s SOLE concern is how 45 is handling the presidency since elected and his entire commentary fits that time-frame. So, quit assigning to the author, something he never wrote. The Comey who let “Clinton off the hook” was the same Comey who broke from FBI guidelines and, two weeks before the actual election went public with the discovery of HRC e-mails that showed up in exchanges between Abedin and Weiner. It has now been documented in a book by Lanny Davis that thereafter, HRC suffered measurable drops in support in key electoral states. How is it that you make no mention of Comey’s more recent involvement that actually hurt HRC??? In the final analysis David, what you have done in your reply, is to largely deflect away from the substance of Friedman’s screed: You’re a bright guy (and I don’t say that gratuitously), so see if you can take each one of Friedman’s points and rebut them. For example, what evidence do you have that Trump has actively taken steps to thwart future Russian interference in our elections?