The Jaffe Briefing - February 28, 2022

TRENTON – Don’t mess with Roscoe the Rottweiler; he may soon have a lawyer. There’s a bill banging around Trenton that would allow your not-so-friendly pet to be awarded legal representation in, perhaps, his ongoing fight for more kibble. The bill, A1965, has already moved through the Assembly Judiciary Committee, establishing a two-year pilot Statewide Animal Advocate Program. Judges hearing criminal cases that affect a pet’s welfare can appoint an attorney or law student who volunteers to defend Roscoe’s best interests. Advocates argue there’s no one in the criminal justice system who looks out for animals. And since this proposal has no cost to the state, then why not? Hopefully, Roscoe’s whole kibble issue can be settled in mediation, rather than heading to a jury trial.

STATEWIDE – Happy Pothole Day?  Today marks the official beginning of New Jersey’s pothole repair season, in which crews set out on their annual mission to begin addressing the craters that destroyed major roads throughout the winter, NJ.com reports. This means the state Transportation Department will be closing off sections of pock-marked roads, as the crews swap road salt for asphalt.  Pothole Day is always warmly welcomed; although early work this year already addressed 37,000 potholes, give or take. And the savings  from these efforts can be amazing, if you factor an average $600 repair per car. 

STATEWIDE – With the mask mandate for New Jersey schools and child care centers to be dropped in just one week, the state has some great new stats to prove Gov. Phil Murphy is making the right decision. The state’s infection numbers are crumbling like your axle on a pothole, with just over 1,000 new cases reported over the weekend. The numbers are down 33% from last week and 85% from a month ago, indicating that we have control over this multi-phase pandemic for this one fleeting moment. Eager to see if lifting the mandate will cause a spike in infections, but based on our vast medical education and experience, we doubt it.

BRIEFING BREATHER

Spider webs were the very first form of Band-Aids.

STATEWIDE – If you look at the calendar, and you tend to follow stuff, you’d know today’s the deadline for hospitals to start firing workers who refused to get the COVID booster. You may recall Murphy imposed this no-nonsense mandate, as the latest variant was bearing down on New Jersey. In a last- second move, the New Jersey Hospital Association on Friday asked the Murphy administration for a 90-day extension of today's deadline. Murphy said last week that he isn’t backing away. That’s interesting, NJ 101.5 notes, as Hackensack Meridian Health, one of the state's largest hospital groups, has more than 7,000 workers not complying. Will they get the swift boot today? Based, again, on our vast medical education and experience, we doubt it.

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – Last week, we introduced you to “Hank the Tank,” a massive, 500-pound bear who has been ripping through neighborhoods and damaging at least 30 properties. There’s an update: Hank the Tank is actually a brigade of three bears, according to the latest DNA evidence.  State wildlife officials are now trapping all the bears they can find around town, tagging them for further genetic analysis and shipping them off to a “suitable habitat” away from fancy houses and cars. This is serious stuff. Just on Friday, one of the Hanks smashed a window and squeezed into a house while a family was home. The Hanks gotta go.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

There was another travesty of World War I on this day in 2011, as the last surviving solider dies in West Virginia at age 110.

WORD OF THE DAY

Parable – [PAIR-uh-bul]- noun

Definition: A story having an ending based on moral attitude, a standard of conduct, or a religious principle.

Example: The story of the Ukraine people might stand as a parable for the times.

WIT OF THE DAY

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”

-Albert Einstein

BIDEN BLURB

“Nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference.”

-Joe Biden

WEATHER IN A WORD

Gleaming