The Jaffe Briefing - December 7, 2021
Marking the 80th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor Attack – December 7, 1941
STATEWIDE – Vote-by-mail ballots come in before Election Day, yet county officials are banned from counting them until the polls close. With the insatiable demand to know instant results, there’s now a bill in the state Legislature that would allow county election officials to start tallying ballots as they are received. The move is prompted by last month’s slow results for governor, as well as legislative battles in the 11th and 16th districts, prompting some good debate about ways to get the results in much, much quicker, New Jersey Monitor reports. It’s important to note the bill doesn’t address a thornier issue: the six-day grace period for mail-in votes postmarked by Election Day to be counted, dragging things out, especially for razor-thin, nail-biting elections.
ATLANTIC CITY – The threat is that four casinos could close if the state does not allow the gambling industry some generous tax breaks. That’s the claim from Senate President Steve Sweeney in the latest debate over legislation to allow the casinos to submit “payments in lieu of taxes” to Atlantic City, in return for promises they would not appeal their local property taxes. No clue which casinos are facing closure, but the bill is designed for the industry to pay less, while Atlantic City residents pay more. We’re talking breaks of $55 million in 2022, and likely between $30 million and $65 million in subsequent years through 2026, although some other casino payments would partially offset those losses to the city, Politico reports. Meanwhile, it’s been widely reported all year that gambling profits are way up, as the casinos recover from the pandemic. This all poses a bigger question: What responsibility does the state have to prop up one sector of private business?
NEWARK – No doubt that teachers have felt the full brunt of this lingering pandemic, evident in the fact that the city’s public schools lost 342 teachers and other staff to retirement from May to October. Yet, Chalkbeat is wondering why the school system is not bending over backwards to support the teachers who have elected to remain. School districts nationwide have given “thank you” bonuses of up to $5,000 per teacher, funded with federal aid. Yet, in Newark, teachers are only being offered the opportunity to complete a lengthy application for a $1,000 grant, to only be used to buy school supplies. The teacher’s union is calling it “just a slap in the face,” adding that some schools actually rejected applications that teachers submitted. So shortsighted.
BRIEFING BREATHER
About 7% of all humans who have ever lived are alive today.
TRENTON – There’s no talk about reverting public schools to remote learning, but there are plenty of school districts dealing with spikes in COVID and now requiring students to quarantine 14 days at home. NJ.com reports there were 3,024 new positive student cases and 858 new positive cases among teachers and school staff just last week. Another way of looking at it: 2.66 cases among every 1,000 students and 4.41 cases among every 1,000 school staff members, the highest infection rates since September, when the state started tracking school data. “Learning loss” remains a paramount issue, as this pandemic drags and drags.
ATLANTIC CITY – There’s a new kind of bar, and expect many more to come. The Press of Atlantic City is talking about the Rekt Café on Pacific Avenue, near the Tropicana. You bring your own booze, order coffee or whatever, and then enjoy a joint, just as if you were in Amsterdam. It is considered the city’s very first recreational marijuana café, where you buy your weed from a “budtender” and then sit on the patio to light up. Bar owners say the new operation is a safe place to get high, as opposed to buying some of that wacky stuff they are selling on the boardwalk.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
MILAN – A local dentist is now an international joke, after pulling out a fake arm to a nurse trying to administer COVID vaccine. The nurse told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that something just didn’t feel right when she uncovered his arm. It felt cold and gummy, and the skin color didn’t match the color of the rest of his body. She lifted his shirt more, quickly realizing he presented a silicone arm. The dentist brashly admitted that, yeah, he was trying to scam the system in the hopes of obtaining a “super” health pass to enter restaurants, cinemas, theaters and other venues in Italy. He will still need to be vaccinated for his next stop: Prison.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 2013 that comedian Don Rickles received treatment for a flesh-eating disease on his leg, and was expected to make a full recovery. He did, now he’s dead.
WORD OF THE DAY
Fomite – [FOH-myte] – noun
Definition: An object (such as a dish, doorknob, or article of clothing) that may be contaminated with bacteria or viruses and serve in their transmission.
Example: “You touched a fomite? Wash your hands.”
WIT OF THE DAY
“Boy those French. They have a different word for everything.”
-Steve Martin
BIDEN BLURB
“One anti-cancer drug costs $14,000 in the United States. That same exact drug by the same manufacturer costs $6,000 in France.”
-Joe Biden
WEATHER IN A WORD
Chilly