The Jaffe Briefing - July 27, 2022
TRENTON – Access to public records in New Jersey should be simple. But issues surrounding the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) – which safeguard that right – are complicated and maddening. It’s now a common practice for meat-and-potato lawyers to file OPRA requests with the local police departments about traffic accidents or whatever to drum up clients, using public staff for personal gain. Town halls are also consistently jammed with inane OPRA requests from gadflies, aspiring politicians, angry spouses and others with self-serving reasons far beyond the public’s right to know. There are plenty of disputes, as you can imagine, as towns are buried under requests and beg for relief. And now the state comptroller is weighing in, saying the state’s Government Records Council is not responding quick enough, taking 21 months, on average, to decide who is right and who is wrong. OPRA requires that the five-member council decide disputes “as expeditiously as possible.” OK. But the chronic abuses surrounding OPRA remain the paramount issue.
STATEWIDE – Weed is legal in New Jersey, but why not across the nation? That’s what Sen. Cory Booker is wondering, as he kicked off a Senate hearing yesterday by claiming that “federal cannabis prohibition has failed,” NJ.com reports. Booker, chair of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that focuses on things like this, believes there are no benefits to this national ban of cannabis, noting it simply has filled prisons with sellers and users, many of whom are minorities. To Booker, this is all a “festering injustice” and it’s finally time to stop classifying cannabis as a Schedule I drug. Southern Republicans are quick to disagree, dismissing racial justice as a real issue related to pot, showing, yet again, how we all seem to live in completely different galaxies. Meanwhile, New Jersey just opened its 17th weed store – the state’s first drive-thru – in Lodi.
RIDGEFIELD – You have one big job: Put the right body in the right box. But a local funeral home failed to do that, when grieving family members were quick to note the woman in the casket was not grandma. The Record reports the apparent mix-up occurred when two deceased women, both with the last name of Kim, ended up at the funeral home at the same time. It resulted in a casket containing a body that was 20 years younger than the 93-year-old deceased. When the funeral director opened the casket at the last moment before it was lowered in the grave, one mourner said, “this is not my mom.” There’s now a $50 million lawsuit – far beyond the full refund that was offered.
BRIEFING BREATHER
Vacuum cleaners were originally horse-drawn.
LONGPORT – Major League Baseball — a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that uses the latest sciences and analytics to perfect every piece of the game — relies on a singular, semi-retired guy from Longport who sells his secret mud to the league. The New York Times unearthed a terrific story about a South Jersey man with a gray ponytail, blurry arm tattoos and a flat-edged shovel who sells the mud used for every single MLB baseball. It is called “Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud,” extracted from the swamps of Jersey, rubbed into professional baseballs as an alternative to tobacco spit or infield dirt for 2,430 major league games played each season. And all the goop is extracted from a hidden spot, thrown into plastic buckets and then sold to a grateful league.
BEDMINSTER – 9/11 Justice, an advocacy group comprising families and survivors who have been working for 20 years to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for any complicity in the 9/11 terror attacks, is releasing a blistering, 30-second TV ad admonishing numerous pro golfers and former President Trump for their role in propping up the upstart LIV Golf League, a venture fully funded by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. On Friday, they plan to hold another press conference in Bedminster to express their outrage for this “multi-billion dollar public relations stunt.” Families are slamming the Trump course for hosting such a tournament, as well as anyone else on the planet who stands to benefit from this huge money grab.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
WARSAW – The family cat: an “invasive alien species?” Apparently so, as a respected Polish scientific institute has classified Garfield and other domestic cats as aliens because of the damage they cause to birds and other wildlife. Cat lovers have their claws out, as you can imagine, slamming the Polish Academy of Sciences for entering “Felis catus,” the common house cat, among a database of 1,787 bad animals. Many are worried such a designation is calling for all cats to be euthanized. Or perhaps only Scratchy.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was a big day, on this day in 1993, when Mets pitcher Anthony Young ends 27-game losing streak.
WIT OF THE DAY
“If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.”
– Steve Jobs
BIDEN BLURB
“We’ve actually increased manufacturing, thank God, even though we’ve missed opportunities. But we’ve increased manufacturing here at home.”
-Joe Biden
WORD OF THE DAY
Morass – [məˈras/] – noun
Definition: An area of muddy or boggy ground
Example: Attempting to fight a bogus parking ticket in a Jersey shore town is like entering a legal morass.
WEATHER IN A WORD
Refreshing