The Jaffe Briefing - January 6, 2022
EAST RUTHERFORD – Yeah, it’s been a debate in sports bars for years: Why do the “NY” Jets and Giants play in New Jersey? Despite the fact that these two lovable losers, with a combined record of 8-24, are not exactly contenders for anything, one New York fan filed a $6 billion lawsuit in Manhattan, demanding they move back to New York. This guy from Greenwich Village – apparently with a straight face – is demanding the teams flee the swamps of Jersey by 2025. “The Giants and Jets have no legal or ethical right to play in a stadium built on cheap landfills in New Jersey and still call themselves New York franchises,” his lawyer says. Moreover, as long as the teams are in the Meadowlands, they need to be called the East Rutherford Giants and the East Rutherford Jets, the plaintiff demands, making for some interesting logo updates. The NY Daily News says the Giants vow to defend themselves; no comment yet from the Jets. But with the inept defense these teams have already shown this season, we should all be worried.
JERSEY CITY – Here’s a law we can all get behind. Hudson County officials are proposing a new, simple policy for county workers: If you still refuse to get vaccinated, and get infected with COVID, then you can’t use non-accrued paid sick time to recuperate. Better yet, these workers would have to pay for mandatory biweekly testing out-of-pocket. Harsh? Yes. Necessary? You bet. Meanwhile, those workers who are vaccinated would get 80 hours of additional paid sick time, under the proposal. The Hudson County View reports that 900 county employees are still not vaccinated, despite everything, and county officials are now, officially, fed up.
ON THE RAILS – Hey, psst, anyone know how to steer a train? NJ Transit is dealing with an unprecedented number of COVID cases among its 12,000-person workforce. There’s now 700 workers who have tested positive, more than double the number of positive cases on its highest previous day, April 27 of last year. At that time, NJ Transit could drastically reduce service because, frankly, no one was on the buses or trains anyway. Today, despite the alarming infection rate, NJ Transit says it is still managing to be at 97% levels for rail service and 94% for bus service, the Record reports. For the moment…
BRIEFING BREATHER
A journalist in 1950 predicted that women in the year 2000 would be amazons like Wonder Woman.
AT WORK – You at work? And co-workers are there too? Then, according to the Asbury Park Press, consider yourself very lucky. The newspaper reports the latest surge in this pandemic has knocked out the workforce in many sectors, especially in retail food service. To keep the doors open, workers are now on staggered shifts, deliveries are scaled down, store hours are reduced, everything is sanitized again and again, and there’s a prevailing message to employees: If you feel sick, stay the heck away. With the state reporting nearly 30,000 confirmed or suspected cases each day – and that doesn’t include home tests – the objective is to be “business as usual,” although nothing could be farther from the truth.
IN THE MEDIA
TRENTON – Today’s crisis at City Hall: Will the City Council allow legal ads in the Trentonian? The city clerk claimed the daily tabloid – despised by most city officials for its unapologetic headlines – has “no redeeming news value” and is “exploitive” of women. Because of this, there’s a recommendation to not restore the newspaper’s legal advertisements. The city yanked this financial lifeline last year, following the latest barrage of negative news reporting of all the glorious shenanigans at City Hall. Trenton officials must now decide if the Trentonian will get some business this year, or if the revenue remains with The Times of Trenton, whose reporting is much more even-handed. City Clerk Matthew Conlon, who has had regular run-ins with the tabloid, complained of the 'semi-nude' photographs each day of the Page Six girl, a longtime staple that has no bearing on the tabloid’s coverage of the Trenton area and its leaders. Yes, the Trentonian can be over-the-top, but city officials should not intentionally strangle the free press. That’s up to the public, which chooses whether or not to subscribe.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
NASHVILLE – A top Tennessee House Republican lawmaker – best described as “passionate” – is apologizing this morning to everyone, after going berserk at a high school basketball game, confronted the referee and was booted from the gym. And the best part: he tried to “pants” the referee. Rep. Jeremy Faison, 45, posted on Twitter that he “acted the fool tonight and lost my temper on a ref.” Faison added: “I was wanting him to fight me. Totally lost my junk.” The lawmaker lunged at the referee, trying to pull down his pants, which, miraculously, stayed up. Since 2019, Faison has been the House caucus chairman, an influential position in the House. Democrats gleefully pounced, a Knoxville lawmaker tweeting: “Pantsing’ a ref on the gym floor is next level bullying…not even the stuff of middle school locker rooms.”
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 2012 that a virus stole 45,000 passwords and log-ins from Facebook. No one “liked” it.
WORD OF THE DAY
Antithetical – [an-tuh-THET-ih-kul] – adjective
Definition: Directly opposite or opposed
Example: Is there anyone more antithetical than Donald Trump and Joe Biden?
DIMWIT OF THE DAY
“We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore….We're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue… And we're going to the Capitol.”
-Donald J. Trump, on Jan. 6, 2021
BIDEN BLURB
“At this hour, our democracy's under unprecedented assault, unlike anything we've seen in modern times. An assault on the citadel of liberty, the Capitol itself. This is not dissent; it's disorder. It's chaos. It borders on sedition, and it must end now. I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward.”
-Joe Biden, on Jan. 6, 2021
WEATHER IN A WORD
Brisk