The Jaffe Briefing - October 22, 2020
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – Let’s get the party started! That’s the message from county election officials, who will begin on Saturday to open and tally ballots they received early. A new law allows the counting to begin 10 days before the election, prompting more coffee runs to county offices. NJ.com reports there were six million ballots already issued to New Jersey voters. Nearly two million have been returned so far, meaning there’s already piles and piles to count. Yeah, you can still get your vote counted by Nov. 10, if your mail-in ballot is received by 8 p.m. that night. But why wait? County election officials are well-caffeinated, primed and ready to tally this weekend.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL – Hard to believe that a campaign mailer sent out less than two weeks before the election is not 100% accurate and true. But, that’s apparently what House challenger Stephanie Schmid did. Her campaign fired off a mailer with a glaring lie, saying Rep. Chris Smith (R-Hamilton) backed a 2017 Republican healthcare plan to strip Affordable Care Act protections for pre-existing conditions, NJ Globe reports. Here’s the nonsense: “Congressman Smith voted for a healthcare plan that guts protections for people with pre-existing conditions like cancer, asthma and diabetes.” NJ Globe sought a quote from Schmid about this false allegations. Her response? “Nope, I’m headed into a meeting, and I answered this (call) because I thought it was the person that I’m meeting with, so I don’t have the time to give you a full statement or interview right now.” Good to see a Congressional candidate provide such a complete defense for this apparent blunder.
BRIEFING BREATHER
The California DMV has issued six driver’s licenses, to date, to motorists named “Jesus Christ.”
GARWOOD – Garwood is a speck of a town, but apparently a haven for domestic terrorists and alleged members of Antifa. That, at least, are the allegations of the Garwood Republican Party, posting on Facebook that the Garwood Democrats participated in an event to defund the police. The Garwood Republicans want you to know they stand with the Garwood Police, and want you to assume, we guess, that the Garwood Democrats are a fringe liberal group that think otherwise. Apparently these kooky, lunatic Democrats are also trying to intimidate candidates and voters. Only voters can save Garwood from “hate, bitterness and divisive scare tactics.” Garwood Democrats’ response: “This is exactly the kind of inflammatory rhetoric which resulted in the recent plot to assassinate police officers in Michigan as part of an action that included kidnapping and executing the governor there.” No clue what’s going on with these super-local candidates in this half-mile burb, but there’s one, clear, obvious fact: The fries are perfectly salted at Garwood Lanes.
PATERSON – The emergency call came in: A parrot was stuck on top of City Hall. The city’s bravest then suited up, piled into a fire engine and zoomed over to City Hall on Tuesday. That macaw perched on the building's roof needed to be saved. Fire crews promptly extended a ladder truck up the roof, where media reported the bird was “frightened” high up on the roof top. The bird, later identified as “Chewy,” would best respond to his owner. So firefighters brought the guy up the ladder and “the bird just jumped on him and was visibly relieved,” authorities told NorthJersey.com. There was a tearful reunion and no injuries. It was a good day for the Paterson Fire Department.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
LOS ANGELES – When Mookie Betts stole two bases in the first game of the World Series, the real winner was the marketing team at Taco Bell. They struck gold, able to generate national news coverage for the company’s “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco” promotion. That means everyone in the country will get a free Doritos Locos Taco, which they can then wash down with a $2.99 fountain soda, as they buy a bunch of other full-priced food, too. “Free” tacos are available on Oct. 28, as the marketers high-five. The real gold? This tweet from this Dodgers superstar: “TACOS ON ME!!!!,” as well as Betts’ urging folks to post their best taco photos on Twitter and make sure to tag him. Again, you can’t buy this kind of advertising.
OSLO, NORWAY – You know it’s a Dumpster fire of a year when the lady in charge of Daylight Savings Time is apologizing for adding an extra hour. Iselin Nybo, whose duties as minister of Trade and Industry include implementing Daylight Saving Time, has quietly admitted that, yes, the clocks will be set back an hour Sunday morning in accordance with the traditional time change. She is deeply sorry. "As minister of time, I strongly regret that 2020 will be another hour longer.” But she also has a nice spin, in her comments to the Norwegian News Agency, saying: “When we set the clock back, the night gets an hour longer. This means that when we get up on Sunday, the sun has managed to get a little further up above the horizon than at the same time the day before, and we get a brighter morning than we would otherwise have.” Otherwise, yeah, there is nothing good about the extra hour.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 1991 that General Motors announced a nine-month loss of $2.2 billion. Blame it on the Ford Escort?
WORD OF THE DAY
Dorsal – [DOR-sul] – adjective
Definition: Relating to or situated near or on the back especially of an animal or of one of its parts
Example: Hard to tell which Garwood politician that is from the dorsal view.
WIT OF THE DAY
“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
-Mark Twain
TODAY'S TRUMPISM
“Remember, BIDEN is going to raise your taxes at a level never seen before. This will not only be very costly for you, it will destroy our economy, which is coming back very rapidly.”
-Donald J. Trump
WEATHER IN A WORD
Warm
THE NEW 60
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by Andy Landorf & John Colquhoun
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