The Jaffe Briefing - June 14, 2022
TRENTON – Proud to say New Jersey has some of the tightest gun control laws in the land, and they could become even tighter. NJ.com says Gov. Phil Murphy is putting pressure on the state Legislature to pass some bills that have been sitting around. Some back-room negotiations are expected to see if there’s a future for proposed laws that require people to pass a training course to obtain a gun permit, increase the age for people to buy shotguns or rifles from 18 to 21, and ban the future sale of .50 caliber weapons. And here is our personal favorite: making it much easier to hold gun manufacturers liable in civil lawsuits. Bring it on.
STATEWIDE – Been to the grocery store lately and wondering why you are now paying $6 for your box of Frosted Flakes? Yeah, not so grrreat. But the bigger concern is the 450,000 or so households in the state who require government assistance to put food on the table. Despite all this alarming inflation, the additional SNAP benefits offered during the pandemic are set to expire by July 15, affecting 866,381 individuals in New Jersey who depend on this critical federal benefit. NJ.com reports a single person on SNAP benefits now gets $243 a month to buy groceries, with emergency pandemic aid. That support could drop as deep as $20 a month, at a time when food prices rose 9% in April, the 17th consecutive month of increases.
SEA BRIGHT – Anyone who drives through this small beachfront town likely has two questions. First, and most importantly, what’s with all this damn traffic? And in a very distant second: Why does this speck of town have its own school district? There are no easy solutions for the first question. But, for the second, there are now efforts to merge Sea Bright’s school district with other itty-bitty districts in nearby Highlands and Atlantic Highlands, the Asbury Park Press reports. Earlier this year, the state began offering incentives for small school districts to merge. A study has already taken place, via Kean University, determining it would make plenty of sense. All eyes are on these shore towns, potentially serving as a viable, working template for other teeny-tiny hamlets who also want to end the maddening duplication of services.
BRIEFING BREATHER
George Washington invented instant coffee. (That would be George Constant Louis Washington, a Belgian immigrant to New York.)
TOMS RIVER – With teens too young to hang in the bars, where can they get together on a summer night? That would be the beach, where residents are now complaining about drunken whippersnappers listening to loud music, littering, fighting and urinating all over the place, when good people are trying to get some sleep. The Asbury Park Press says barrier island residents are calling for a curfew to shoo these dang kids away. Yes, it is a problem. But rather than just pushing the problem elsewhere, and then decreeing the problem as solved, how about creating more recreational programs that welcome teens? You see the same problem all over LBI. Parents go to bars and restaurants; bored kids go to the beach.
LACEY — A woman who nearly drowned when she jumped into a canal to save a neighbors’ dog can’t sue its owners for her injuries. That’s the ruling yesterday from the state Supreme Court, unanimously rejecting the good Samaritan’s claims for cash. She argued the law would have allowed her to sue for her neurological and cognitive damages if she was saving a person. But a pooch? No way. “Notwithstanding the strong emotional attachment people may have to dogs… sound public policy cannot sanction expanding the rescue doctrine to imbue property with the same status and dignity uniquely conferred upon a human life,” a judge wrote.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
WASHINGTON – Is the FBI just a bunch of dang liars? That’s what some treasure hunters are claiming. The FBI says it found nothing during its super-secret 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold. But Finders Keepers, a treasure-hunting company that led the feds into the woods in Pennsylvania in hopes of getting a finder’s fee, now thinks that agents found a fortune in gold. The treasure hunters have been haranguing the government for details on its dig, with the FBI admitting it had 17 relevant videos and then saying it only had four. Last week, under court order, the FBI divulged the contents of those four videos – which happened to be the exact same content that Finders Keepers shared with the feds before they dug. Now the FBI claims it has no video of the actual excavation, yet Finders Keepers say it has evidence that video was shot and want the federal agents punished. Is that possible?
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 1777 that the Continental Congress unveiled the American flag and, thus, Flag Day!
WORD OF THE DAY
Virtuoso – [ver-choo-OH-soh] – noun
Definition: One who excels in the technique of an art; especially a highly skilled musical performer
Example: I am just a humble virtuoso of the bongos.
WIT OF THE DAY
“In a million years of falling off, humans never realized that maybe the pedestal isn’t made for their kind.”
- Adeel Ahmed Khan
BIDEN BLURB
“Given a fair shot, given a fair chance, Americans have never, ever, ever, ever let their country down. Never. Never. Ordinary people like us. Who do extraordinary things.”
-Joe Biden
WEATHER IN A WORD
Same