Breaking Fake News Update (v25)

 Fake News Broke on November 12, 2015!

Lordy, lordy, what do we have here? More breaking fake news, that's what! 

Yesterday, the FOTUS stepped away from honoring veterans by telling them and their families all kinds of crazy, irrelevant stuff (that's real news I'll address later), and called in to chat with the guys on the Pat McAfee Show. At that time, he expressed his dislike for the kickoff format the NFL has adopted. 

According to the linked article, the president said the change was "demeaning to football" and added that he doesn't think it makes things any safer. 

I mean you still have guys crashing into each other. And it’s the opposite of what the game… the ball is in the air and nobody is moving. It’s supposed to be when the ball is in the air, when the ball is played, you’re supposed to be moving.

My favorite part of his remarks? The part he left unsaid.

I don’t want to say what it reminds me of because I’ll get myself into big trouble but it is not football.

What on earth does it remind him of? Why will saying whatever that is get him in big trouble? If saying that avoiding STDs during the 70s was his personal Vietnam War, and saying he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes, and cheating on all his wives didn't get him in trouble, what on earth is he worried about? 

I can't wait to hear the results of the MAHA leather helmet study - I'm dyeing to hear what the hairdressers comb up with! 

As always, when fake news breaks, I'll have it for you here!

Quick Takes (v48): The Zero Percenters

Quick Takes

We've been hearing for a long time about the 10%, the 1% and even the .10%. You know, the rich, the richer, and the richest of Americans, the ones with all of the money. The people we love to hate. The millionaires and billionaires, the latter group which That Guy From Vermont says shouldn't even exist.

There are lots of ways to identify who falls into these buckets, as this article shows. I've put two calculations into the table: individual income, as of 2019, and net worth, as of 2016, the most recent data available for this method of calculation.

To be honest, I think many people who express concerns about the 'wealth gap' are in the Top 10% based on income, and some may be there based on net worth as well, who have no idea they've "made it" - which is just one problem we have when talking about all of this income stuff in generalities. 

We also hear a lot -- a LOT -- about corporations that don't pay any taxes, and of course, about their owners or executives. You know - Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos. And maybe some other folks, but honestly I'd be hard pressed to name any of them, as would most people. Because, if we were to believe the politicians (you know the ones I'm talking about), Jeff Bezos is the worst person in the entirety of the history of the universe.

But here's the thing: there are LOTS Of corporations that don't pay federal taxes, or that get credits against their federal tax liability, giving them an effective tax rate of zero percent. Not just Amazon - although that's the one about which we hear the most.  There's a list, from CNBC, that came out back in December showing the 91 Fortune 500 companies - 91! - with that coveted 'zero percent or less' effective tax rate.

It includes Amazon, we know, but also companies I'm bucketing as follows:

• energy and natural resources, including American Electric Power, Atmos Energy, Chesapeake Energy, Duke Energy,Edison International, Occidental Petroleum and more; 
• financial services, including Ally Financial, Brighthouse Financial, Hartford Financial Services, Prudential Financial Services, and SPX; 
• food and beverage services, including Aramark, Darden Restaurants, MolsonCoors, and Starbucks;
• automotive, logistics and transportation: FedEx, General Motors, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Navistar International, Penske Automotive, Ryder Systems, and Trinity Industries;
• travel and tourism: Alaska Air Group, Avis Budget Group, JetBlue Airways, MGM Resorts International;
• media: Netflix, Gannett;
• construction: Beacon Roofing, Builders FirstSource, Mohawk Industries;
• fashion: Levi Strauss, Phillips-Van Heusen, Tapestry;
• health care/pharmaceutical: Eli Lilly, McKesson, Tenet Healthcare;
• long-established companies with familiar names, including  Deere, DowDuPont, Halliburton, Honeywell International, IBM, OwensCorning, PitneyBowes, US Steel, Whirlpool; and
• tech companies: Activision Blizzard, DXC Technology, Nvidia, and Salesforce.com among them.

Note that my bucketing is based on personal knowledge or a quick, 100,000-foot-level Internet search and may not directly match how the company considers itself. I do know that many of these companies (and those from the list that I didn't include above) could be hugely diversified and may defy this kind of general bucketing done by a rank amateur like me, or even by an expert. 

That said, I tried to show the breadth of the issue of companies not paying federal taxes, and to illustrate the dearth of publicity about any of these companies - other than Amazon, of course - from the candidates who are running for president or other elected office.  

I get that we like to put faces and names on political issues - easier for people to understand, to remember, and to attack with anger -- I get it.

But,

• if you're running as the climate change guy, look at all the energy companies on the full list, and tell me why you're not shouting about those companies and telling me what we can do if they only paid taxes; 
• if you're running as the savior of health insurance (or even health care) as we know it, look Eli Lilly and McKesson, and talk to me about what you're going to do to make sure they pay their fair share; and; 
• if you're running as the person who's going to clean up Wall Street (again) and the financial industry (again), why are you not pointing your fingers at the easy, easy targets on this list, and showing us all the things you'll do with all that tax revenue?

And, instead of telling us how you're going to tax the wealthy a lot and tax the middle class not very much,l - understanding that people in that 10% bucket think they are the middle class and think they don't deserve to be taxed any more - why not start telling us how you're going to ensure we get that 21% corporate tax rate from all these companies?

Quick Takes (v46): A Victory Lap?

There's MATH, the Andrew Yang tag for Make American Think Harder, and then there's math, the kind that says that getting 6% of something is just as good as getting 100% of the same thing., which is the kind of math Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is proudly trying to sell us.

AOC is tweeting about a "victory lap" because Amazon, which is not building its 25,000-job second headquarters in Queens in part because of her efforts, is instead is adding 1,500 employees in leased space in Hudson Yards. In the article linked above, we learn that

"The giant online retailer said it has signed a new lease for 335,000 square feet on the city’s west side in the new Hudson Yards neighborhood, where it will have more than 1,500 employees,” The Wall Street Journal reported. "Amazon is taking the space without any of the special tax credits and other inducements the company had been offered to build a new headquarters in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City, the company said."

That's right: 1,500 jobs instead of 25,000; leased space instead of new construction, and no incentives - well, none that we no of for Amazon anyway.

The developers of the Hudson Yards project, however, are getting nearly twice what Amazon would have had for their HQ2, according to this piece in the New York Times.

But with far less public attention, the city government has for more than a decade been funneling even more aid to Hudson Yards, a 28-acre complex of gleaming office buildings and luxury residential towers that is one of the nation's' biggest real estate projects in recent years. 

In all, the tax breaks and other government assistance for Hudson Yards have reached nearly $6 billion, according to public records and a recent analysis by the New School.

And Amazon may still be able to get some breaks here if they qualify for a "discretionary tax credit" that three other companies mentioned in the article are eligible for; the credits, if fully realized, would be worth over $40M for those companies alone.

Also happy about this bullet-dodging announcement? State Senator Michael Gianaris, the guy who was put on a team that could kill the Amazon project, and when they pulled out, was abruptly removed from the group. From a NY Times article yesterday here's what he said in a statement.

Amazon is coming to New York, just as they always planned. Fortunately, we dodged a $3B bullet by not agreeing to their subsidy shakedown earlier this year. 

Gianaris and AOC seem convinced that the $3B would have gone to Amazon whether they had created 1 job or 1 million jobs, but that doesn't jive with multiple published reports, including this one in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

As part of the deal, New York state taxpayers will be on the hook for up to $1.525 billion should Amazon meet its 25,000-job pledge, pay an average salary of $150,000 and occupy at least 4 million square feet of space within the next 10 years, as promised. That number would increase to $1.7 billion if Amazon exceeds its goal and gets to 40,000 jobs by 2032.

The D&C report is consistent with the Agreement which shows the job creation incentives are entirely dependent on the jobs actually being created within the specified timeframes.

And yet, even today, AOC was tweeting something completely different. Take a look.

While we’re here, let’s clear up some GOP disinfo: - “It’s 1500 jobs vs 25,000”: The 25,000 jobs figure was a 10-20 year fantasy # from Amazon, not a promise or agreement. In exchange for that lack of commitment, they wanted billions of public $. Their Y1 jobs projection was 700.

Those subsidies are a "10-20 year fantasy" if Amazon doesn't deliver the jobs, as far as I can tell. And of course I'm not an expert on how to read these things, but the table in the agreement seems pretty clear. 

And I get that economic development deals are messy and that there are always opposing viewpoints on them. I get that I live upstate not in Queens or in Hudson Yards, and so wouldn't have felt the pain of the HQ2 deal, even though I would have felt the benefits. But as a New Yorker, I'd like to see politicians doing less patting themselves on the back for killing a deal the size of Amazon's HQ2, and see them be a little more honest in their communications. 

There'll be plenty of time for patting themselves on the back when, for example, they fix the corporate tax code so that companies like Amazon don't get to pay $0 in federal taxes. 

Just a thought.

The Update Desk: Amazon's 'Monopoly'

In a Sunday School post last month, I shared Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren's idea that tech companies need to be broken up. Warren's conversation with Ed O'Keefe on Face the Nation started with him asking her why she thought that needed to be done.

Because the giant tech companies right now area eating up little, tiny businesses, startups - and competing unfairly. 

In Warren's mind, platform companies should not be competing with platform users, putting their own products ahead of the competition in search returns, and so on.

So what I'm saying is we've got to break these guys apart. You want to run a platform? That's fine, You don't get to run a whole bunch of the businesses as well. You want to run a business? That's fine. You don't get to run the platform. Think of it this way, it's like in baseball. You can be the umpire or you can own one of the teams, but you don't get to be the umpire and own the teams.

So Facebook would have to sell off Instagram, Amazon would have to sell off Whole Foods, and "all those little businesses that they're running, competing businesses. Yup."

Warren says this can happen under our anti-trust rules that are already in place.

But is this a solution in need of a problem?  Let's take a look.

Sunday School 3/10/19

I wandered around three classrooms this morning. I'm not sure exactly what I was looking for, so I'm not exactly sure if I found it or not.

Let's start with Face the Nation and Ed O'Keefe's interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), one of the declared presidential candidates. He kicked things off with her recently announced plan to break up tech companies, asking her why it needs to be done. Her answer?

Because the giant tech companies right now area eating up little, tiny businesses, startups - and competing unfairly. 

The thing is, Warren says, the platform companies should not be competing with people who use their platforms, putting their items ahead of the competition in the search returns, and so on.

So what I'm saying is we've got to break these guys apart. You want to run a platform? That's fine, You don't get to run a whole bunch of the businesses as well. You want to run a business? That's fine. You don't get to run the platform. Think of it this way, it's like in baseball. You can be the umpire or you can own one of the teams, but you don't get to be the umpire and own the teams.

So Facebook would have to sell off Instagram, Amazon would have to sell off Whole Foods, and "all those little businesses that they're running, competing businesses. Yup."

O'Keefe asked who the federal government was to tell these companies they had to do this; Warren mentioned long-standing anti-trust laws.  But, she's not anti-market, she pointed out, she's pro-markets-that-work:

The way markets work is they have to have rules and they have to have a cop to enforce them. A market without rules is theft and I'm not in favor of theft, I'm in favor of markets that produce real competition. 

She talked about taxing the ultra rich, noting that the top 1/10th of 1% will pay about 3.4% of their total net wealth in taxes while the 99.9% will pay about 7.4% and that's not fair because (paraphrasing here) when all of their inherited wealth was actually being earned by their families way back in the day, they did it on the backs of the rest of us -- along the lines of Obama's "you didn't build that" but in a way that seemed to be less offensive, if not more accepted. We 99-per-centers educated all of those workers back then, and built the roads, bridges, and factories, and so

So what we're really saying is look, just put a little back in the kitty. This is what we're asking for. Pay a fair share, so the next kid has a chance to build something great and the kid after that and the kid after that. 

She also said if anyone labels her as a socialist, "it's just wrong."

The Update Desk: Amazon in NYC

I wanted to provide some additional information on the Amazon/NYC deal, specifically what's been going on since the darn thing failed last month. The NY Post has been doing a lot of coverage, naturally, and so I'll share some of the updates they've been focusing on.

First, the Sonofa Gov has been working his tail off, trying unsuccessfully to get the giant company to reconsider its hasty decision to back out of the deal. He even called Jeff Bezos himself, and that wasn't enough to swing the deal.

Even the New York Times got into the aftermath, publishing a full page ad that was paid for by the Partnership for New York City and signed by a bunch of current and former politicians, labor leaders, business leaders, and educators.  That, too, will likely fall on deaf ears, but at least it shows other companies that the folks in NYS and Albany aren't complete idiots.

Noodling Around: The Failed Amazon Deal

I've been thinking about the Amazon deal that just went poof in NYC, coming to terms with why I supported this project even though I long have questioned the value of most economic development projects, and thinking about my utter frustration with politicians in New York State.

The deal would have provided performance-based incentives over the course of a decade, in addition to other incentives under local programs designed to encourage development in 'opportunity zones' as well as a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreement on property developed for community use on the Amazon campus.

There was to have been a new school, job training, infrastructure improvements, and more. And yes, there would have been issues to deal with along the way - there's no question about that on a project of this size. But these incentives are not new - the state regularly offers these deals, and others, to companies large and small, for a variety of promises. Counties and cities across New York also offer their own incentive programs, with similar mixed results.

A deal of this significance falling apart? That's new for us, so I'm trying to understand what happened.

Right from the get-go, why did Amazon walk away so quickly? Lots of speculation there, including the possibility that they weren't really committed to Long Island City in the first place. I admit to some surprise that any location in New York was chosen; for better or worse, we're a blue state, after all. And our Sonofa Gov's protestations notwithstanding, we're not really a business-friendly state.

So, while questioning the company's haste in leaving is certainly valid, it seemed clear the local (and national) killer attack progressives didn't want to play with Amazon. I say that because, at least from their public comments, they were happy to see the deal fall apart and happy to criticize Amazon, Bezos, de Blasio and Cuomo, and not all that interested in running towards salvaging the deal. If I were Amazon, and wanted to expand into an area that said they wanted me to be there, only to find out that I'm going to be fought at every single turn by folks who seem uninterested in negotiating with me, and that apparently even doing the things that the opponents wish were going to be done wasn't going to be enough, I'd think hard and fast about putting down roots, too. And my answer would likely have been the same as Amazon's.

Meanwhile, Virginia, a more business-friendly state, has moved forward quickly to approve their (much smaller) incentive package, clearly showing a welcoming attitude and a willingness to participate fully to bring  HQ2's 25,000 $150K jobs to their neck of the woods. Similarly, things look pretty upbeat in Nashville, which will be getting another 5000 high-paying Amazon jobs.  And yes, the incentives are smaller, but they can be, because of the differences in the business climate, as well as the political climate.

Let's untangle a few more noodles.

The Update Desk: Please Say it Ain't So

I'd love to say it ain't so, but it is in fact so, according to these updates:

• The Associated Press tweeted  BREAKING: Amazon drops New York City as one of its new headquarter locations, will not search for another.
• Reuters tweeted BREAKING: Amazon says it will not build headquarters in New York after mounting opposition $AMZN
• J David Goodman tweeted AMAZON CANCELS PLAN TO COME TO NEW YORK "After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens" - Amazon spokeswoman Jodi Seth

And here is the statement released by Amazon, as published in the NY Times:

After much thought and deliberation, we've decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens. For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long term. While polls show that 70% of  New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.

We are disappointed to have reached this conclusion - we love New York, its incomparable dynamism, people and culture - particularly the community of Long Island City, where we have gotten to know so many optimistic, forward-leaning community leaders, small business owners, and residents. There are currently over 5,000 Amazon employees in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island, and we plan to continue growing these teams.

We are deeply grateful to Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, and their staffs, who so enthusiastically and graciously invited us to build in New York City and supported us during the process. Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have worked tirelessly on behalf of New Yorkers to encourage local investment and job creation, and we can't speak positively enough about all of their efforts. The steadfast commitment and dedication that these leaders have demonstrated to the communities they represent inspired us from the very beginning and is one of the big reasons our decision was so difficult. 

We  do not intend to re-open the HQ2 search at this time. We will proceed as planned in Northern Virginia and Nashville, and we will continue to hire and grow across our 17 corporate offices and tech hubs in the US and Canada. 

Thank you again to Governor Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, and the many other community leaders and residents who welcomed our plans and supported us along the way. We hope to have future chances to collaborate as we continue to build our presence in New York over time.

It will be interesting to see who, now, will be creating the 25,000 $150,000 promised jobs that would have helped create and support countless small businesses that would have spun off from this project, and how long it will take for those jobs and small businesses to materialize. And unionize, of course.  I'll wait patiently for that.

And I'll wait patiently for all of the politicians who proudly declare that they won't accept corporate money to similarly disavow union money.

And, I'll wait patiently for the Dems in the NY Legislature to immediately meet with NY's  Congressional delegation - Schumer, Gillibrand, and all the folks in the house, including AOC -  to demand legislation to update corporate tax regulations so that so that American companies like Amazon can no longer legally have a $0 federal tax liability - and I want them to do that FIRST, before they worry about taxing the rich businessmen who own and run the companies that they so desperately do not want here in the Empire State. 

Waiting patiently, but not holding my breath (I'm not an idiot).

Please, Say it Ain't So!

If you're a New Yorker like me, these can be crazy times.

• Our Sonofa Gov has his lowest favorability rating I think since he took office, even though we've now got a trifecta state government (single party control of the whole shebang) and the agenda is moving forward at a pace described by one member of the media as 'drinking from a firehose'; 
• Our senior senator suffers as well from poor ratings;
• Our our junior senator announced her candidacy for president and, in doing so, branded herself a liar; 
• We're doing our taxes and feeling the pain of the Christmas present the president and the Republicans gave us back in 2017; and
• We're maybe going to blow the Amazon deal. 

That's right - we're maybe going to blow the Amazon deal, which will bring one of the company's new headquarters locations to Long Island City (the other is being built in Arlington VA).

What does this Amazon HQ2 deal mean for the two areas?  Here's a snippet from CNN back in December. that touches on what the deal means, and what the selected cities need to be working on - now.

The to-do list for both locations includes making sure there's enough housing for new hires, improving the local transportation and infrastructure and adding nearby schools. The company says it will invest $2.5B in each place. Both will have more than 25,000 workers over time, and hiring starts next year. 

And, as that article noted, "there's still plenty of work ahead for New York and Northern Virginia."

So, Virginia is moving forward full steam ahead but what's happening in New York?

Wondering on Wednesday (v154)

Mandel Ngan / AFP- Getty Images

Let's dive right in to the wonderful, shall we?

For starters, here's the picture of the members-elect of the House, none of whom were giving a Nazi salute, and it made me wonder what their photographer said to them that the photographer at Baraboo High School didn't say to the guys attending the prom, who do in fact appear to be giving said salute? 

It was reported the yesterday that the First Lady was unhappy with a particular employee of the West Wing. Actually, what was reported was a statement from the First Lady's office stating that the employee in question "no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House" and after a mistaken report that the employee, Deputy National Security Advisor Mira Ricardel, had been walked out of the White House, today the official statement came that Ricardel would in fact be leaving to take another position in the administration.

I wondered about a couple of things here -- first of all, whoa! That's a pretty bold thing for the FLOTUS to do. And then, I thought about her interview with Tom Llamas on ABC,the part about having told POTUS that there were people working for him she didn't trust, and they there were still people working there that he shouldn't trust. So I wonder, can we expect more personnel statements from her as we move into the traditional post-midterm period of churn? Shall we we have an office pool on who's going to be next to go? And finally, is this Melania doing her best to #BeBest?

Votes are still being counted around the country, trying to determine who will go to Washington to represent their constituents in January.  We're familiar with the shenanigans going on in Florida and Georgia and even here in the NY-22, but one race I hadn't been paying that much attention to was for the Utah seat currently held by Mia Love. Love is behind her opponent, Ben McAdams, by around 900 votes or so after the latest count.  In addition to her fame as the first female black Republican ever elected to Congress, she's also known for the special recognition she got from the president the day after the midterms.

Speaking about Republicans who failed to properly embrace him, Trump said

On the other hand, yo had some that decided to "let's stay away." "Let's stay away." They did very poorly, I'm not sure that I should be happy  or sad, but I feel just fine about it.

Carlos Curbelo; Mike Coffman -- too bad, Mike: Mia Love. I saw Mia Love. She'd call me all the time to help her with a hostage situation. Being held hostage in Venezuela. But Mia Love gave me no long, and she lost. Too bad. Mia. 

If the ballot counting ends up going in her favor, I wonder what Trump will say then?  Anyone else willing to bet he'll take the credit?

Finally, there's a whole lot of wondering going on about the Amazon 2HQ2 announcement, not the least of which is why a trillion dollar company needs to get a couple of billion bucks in economic development deals and job credits and incentives from NY and Virginia taxpayers for the privilege of having them locate their new digs in Long Island City and Crystal City, respectively.

I think, from the outside looking in, one could be forgiven for wondering if we've lost our ever-loving minds.

Quick Takes (v26): Drone Wins and Losses

Quick Takes

Have you heard of the NUAIR Alliance?  If you pay attention to progress being made on drones in upstate and Central New York, you might be familiar with it. Here's what the Alliance is all about, from their website:

The NUAIR Alliance is a New York based not-for-profit coalition of more than 200 private and public entities and academic institutions working together to operate and oversee Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) testing in New York, Massachusetts, and Michigan. Headquartered in Syracuse NY, NUAIR supports the NY UAS Test Site at Griffiss International Airport in Rome, NY, one of just seven FAA-designated UAS test sights in the United States. We are at the forefront of public policy development, commercialization, and integration of UAS technology.

Rome is a key site in the drone world, as we learn from this article in the Rome Sentinel last fall.

Griffiss, with high-definition air traffic surveillance, state-of-the art data collection and analysis capabilities, is the foundation for testing and certification of drone detect-and-avoid systems to meet future FAA standards and support the safe integration of commercial drones into US airspace. 

It's also home to two projects that are important locally and nationally: U-SAFE, to "further catalyze and expand the economic opportunities being created" by the UAS industry, and NUSTAR, which "will offer independent performance and safety benchmarking testing for drones and drone related products."  Both should help bring more drone activity to the area.

So, too, will the 'drone corridor' which will eventually stretch 50 miles or so from Rome to Syracuse, the partnership with NASA, and the investment of millions of dollars by the state. As our Sonofa Gov Andrew Cuomo noted in September,

The development of the drone corridor is expected to unlock a trillion-dollar global industry and attract businesses, development and new drone technology to the state, specifically in Central New York. Dividends are already paying off, as regionally-based SRC Inc. plans to initially hire 50 engineers following its announcement of a $65M contract with the US Army to develop a system to detect and defeat small drones. Additionally, the company plans to add up to 1000 new hires over the next five years thanks in large part to the state's investment in the UAS industry which is working to create an ecosystem that will attract companies to CNY. 

Sheesh -- with all of that energy and investment from educational institutions, businesses, and both the state and federal government, you would think that our area would have been a perfect spot to test package delivery drones with Amazon, right?

Wrong.

Maybe it's because it's the feds, and we all know how much the president can't stand Amazon, or maybe it was just bad luck, or maybe it was a poor proposal, but we were passed over by the US Department of Transportation to be one of 10 national test sites for drone technology. Amazon had teamed up with NYS and NUAIR on the proposal, but in a decision called "highly confounding" by John Katko, who represents Syracuse in Congress,

... federal official instead selected 10 other locations as test sites for a program launched by president Donald Trump last year to speed the safe integration of drones into the national airspace. The ten projects approved by Trump's administration include other high-profile technology companies - such as Google parent Alphabet and Uber - that will team up in public-private partnerships. 

Katko said he'll try and get to the bottom of it, and of course there's always a chance we'll get picked if there's a next time. Or if we partner with someone other than Amazon, maybe?

We do have some good news on drones, though.

The Syracuse Fire Department will use drones, when it's appropriate, to help with firefighting efforts. Potential uses could be identifying hot spots in fires, or fighting fires in large commercial buildings where it's hard to get a good view of where issues are.

And, Beak and Skiff, the apple people, are the first in the world to pollinate apple trees using drones; they tested the technology on a small section of their 300 acres, with help from Dropcopter, a local start up company.  The firm had previously used their technology on cherry and almond trees, but never before on apple trees.  The company's co-founder, Adam Fine, sees a lot of potential for drones in agriculture.

We know that agriculture is one of the most significant points of entry for the commercial use of drones, and it holds the most opportunity to impact the industry and economy.

If you ask me, there's a whole lot more potential with this than there is with delivering packages to my porch - and probably much more benefit as well. It will be fun to see how things turn out.

Trump in Transition (v25)

So, Donald Trump continues to try and transition,which would be good, except for those times he seems hell-bent on going form being president to being, I don't know - maybe a bad carnival barker?

He's been barking, as it were, about suspended ABC investigative reporter Brian Ross, who reported incorrectly on breaking news about Mike Flynn. According to this report from CNN,  here's what happened, in a nutshell:

Ross had initially reported Friday morning that Flynn was prepared to testify that Donald Trump as a candidate had instructed him to reach out to the Russians. Ross said more than sever hours later on World News Tonight that his information was actually that Flynn was prepared to testify that Trump made the request as president-elect. On Saturday evening, ABC News said Ross had been suspended for four weeks without pay for what it termed the "serious error."

The stock market reacted to the news of Ross's report by temporarily dropping 350 points; by the end of the day, things were almost back to normal, and the market closed up 2.9%, the best showing all year.

So, here's the president's tweet from Sunday morning in response to ABC's reporting disaster:

Now, of course, there are many out there in Trump land who think the president is spot on - the network should be sued, because fake news, like elections, has consequences. Or something like that - I don't want to put words in any one's mouth.

But here's the thing: Remember when Trump slammed Macy's for dropping his clothing line after his racist remarks against Mexicans?

A presidential candidate calling for a boycott of an American company? Say it ain't so! And that wasn't all -- he tweeted bad! stuff about Macy's nearly three dozen times, a period during which the company's stock dropped 46% -- a proud moment for Trump, for sure -- he told us so!

People who lost money when Trump boycotted Macy's should consider hiring a lawyer, right? And so should all of those people who were slated to lose their jobs earlier this year, because the company is doing so badly after the Trumpeters boycotted and the president chose not to save their jobs? Yeah, they should sue, too. 

Lockheed dropped over a billion dollars in value on the basis of that tweet -- so I think they should consider suing, also - don 't you agree?

And Amazon shareholders?  That company dropped $5 billion  back in August, when the President tweeted about them, initially starting with a tweet about the Washington Post and fake news (WaPo is owned by Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos).

Get thee to an attorney, forthwith and post-haste! And hurry!

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.