TGIF 9/8/17

Here are this week's random thoughts; deep thinking is coming tomorrow.

We ran into a friend at a festival here in town this evening, who told us the story of getting a ticket for running a red light on his commute to work. He said he immediately, without prompting, started explaining to the officer that he was listening to news radio and it was at the time that they were talking about Trump's decision on DACA that he got so angry and frustrated that he stopped paying attention land that's how he ran the red light.

Sadly, the officer wasn't having any of it, and our friend got no relief for the infraction. But, this is New York, and we historically have a hard time not acting on stuff that doesn't need action. How long before we codify 'listening to the radio' becomes a specific category of distracted driving, like texting or talking on the phone or taking a selfie? Or better yet, how long before we see 'It Can Wait - News Radio Stop" signs on the Thruway?

Speaking of New York, we're one of the states that has sued president Trump for his decision to end the DACA program. There are now 15 Blue states and the District of Columbia involved in the suit. Am I the only one who sees comedy in this? After all, one of the alleged reasons for the administration's decision to wind the program down was the threat of a lawsuit by Red states.

What's interesting is that neither the Red nor the Blue states are suing the right people: that would be the 535 member of Congress who can't, or won't, come to term on legislation that 'fixes' integration. Can the Attorneys General get together and take on Congress in court?

We learned in an earlier TGIF post that Wisconsin is 'investing' three billion dollars in incentives to bring Foxconn to Paul Ryan's district er - I mean - to a depressed area of the Badger state. Which is fine, I guess; I mean, if you're willing to take 250 million bucks out of the education budget and put it into keeping a professional sports team in Milwaukee, why wouldn't you be willing to bet the farm for a foreign company promising to bring jobs to your state?

Why is what's happening in Wisconsin relevant tonight? Well, because we're about to see a battle royale across North America for rights to bet a totally new farm on the new second headquarters for Amazon. Per the company's website:

We expect to invest over $5 billion in construction and grow this second headquarters to include as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs. In addition to Amazon's direct hiring and investment, construction and ongoing operation of Amazon HQ2 is expected to create tens of thousands of additional jobs and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the surrounding community.

Now we all know how much time the president has spent talking about the Foxconn project - #jobsjobsjobs and #MAGA and all that -- but how much time has he spent talking about an American company looking to make an investing in an American city and hiring American workers?

That would be zero. Zip. Nada.

Why?  Because Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon, owns the Washington Post. 'Nuff said.

TGIF.