The Jaffe Briefing - January 5, 2022
STATEWIDE – Five days into 2020 (2), and New Jersey is facing the highest number of COVID cases ever. Cases are up 95% just from a week ago and 810% from a month ago. Yeah, you are tired of reading this, and we are tired of writing it, as this pandemic drags through its 22nd month. The state has reported more than 20,000 daily cases for seven days in a row, yet Gov. Phil Murphy is not calling for additional restrictions, for the moment. It’s not just New Jersey; there are 3.4 million new cases across the country. There’s much more testing, contributing to the high numbers. But there are still a lot of people not realizing how contagious this thing has become, as it seems to be everywhere, ginning up the rates.
NEW BRUNSWICK – Among the many entities staring at omicron is Rutgers University, preparing for the onslaught of students to return to campus later this month for the spring semester. There are concerns that RU may have to change its mascot to the “Super Spreaders,” as students jam back into the bars, dorm parties and all the other nooks and crannies where college kids thrive. TAPInto New Brunswick reports the school has a plan: Requiring all students to have booster shots by the end of the month, with the proof uploaded to a portal. RU is still hoping for an in-person experience, as 100,000 or so people return to its three campuses, with plenty of protocols for vaccination and testing. Hoping it all magically works.
TRENTON – Kindly explain yourself. That’s the message from the state Supreme Court, wondering why the former judge who broke the tie for Congressional redistricting sided with the Democratic map. The court is now seeking more information following a Republican challenge. The decision may seem painfully obvious to the casual eye, as John Wallace Jr. is a registered Democrat, and explained that, duh, the previous map was carved by Republicans. Regardless, the state’s highest court said, “a more detailed statement of reasons would assist the Court, asking him to “amplify the grounds for his decision.” Perhaps there’s not much else to “amplify.”
BRIEFING BREATHER
Saint Lucia is the only country in the world named after a woman.
PATERSON – Torres for mayor? Not so fast. Because Joey Torres served jail time as a corrupt politician, the city says he can’t submit nominating petitions for the mayor’s election. The Paterson Press sought comment from Torres, who was happy to say “my potential candidacy poses a threat” to current Mayor Andre Sayegh, and vowing attorneys will be getting involved. The bigger question: Do voters have an appetite for a disgraced politician who spent 13 months in state prison for using city employees to renovate a family business on the city’s dime? According to the City Clerk, we will never know.
TRENTON – Besides Paterson, the best news beat in New Jersey is covering our dysfunctional capital city. The Trentonian clearly enjoys the senseless day-in, day-out battles, like this gem: Mayor Reed Gusciora needed to sign a last-minute executive order on New Year’s Eve so city workers would get paid. Why? Because four of the seven city council meetings didn’t show up for a remote meeting. Instead, Council President Kathy McBride dashed off a statement, saying the mayor concocted the payroll issue to piggyback on other docket items that he wanted to pass in 2021. “This type of political gamesmanship is beneath the dignity of the mayor’s position,” McBride wrote. “People cannot be fooled and can see the mayor for what his true agenda is.” No one wins here, other than the Trentonian with more glorious news copy. And, with McBride’s term up June 30, it’s only gonna get better.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
COLUMBUS, OH – Local media is still talking about the botched license plate design last year, in which a “Birthplace of Aviation” banner was flown from the front, rather than its back end, from a plane. Public records are now showing a bureaucratic nightmare, in which everyone looked at the plate for their own special purpose, but no one detected a big, fat glaring error. For example, the Ohio Department of Public Safety focused on color saturation, centering and image placement, while the Highway Patrol ran numerous tests to ensure readability. Meanwhile, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and his wife, Fran, controlled the imagery’s overall messaging — from its rural and urban themes, to ensuring references to the state’s water resources and history, to the breed of a playful dog on the plate. Yet no one – no one at all – noticed the plane was flipped around, with the banner running backwards, over a detailed, painstaking 15-month design process.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was one year ago today that hundreds of armed wackjobs reached Washington D.C. with big plans to attack American democracy within 24 hours. The former president later describes them as “very special.”
WORD OF THE DAY
Sully – [SUL-ee] – verb
Definition: To make soiled or tarnished
Example: I hate seeing cigarette butts sullying my favorite winter walking trail.
WIT OF THE DAY
“I’ll say I would go back in time and bring scientists with me and create a hairspray that would not cause global warming. But it would still give us ‘80s hair.”
- Julianne Hough
BIDEN BLURB
“Are we going back to March 2020 — not this last March 2021, but March 2020 — when the pandemic first hit? That’s what I keep getting asked. The answer is absolutely no. No.”
-Joe Biden
WEATHER IN A WORD
Slippery