As Murphy tries to fix what Christie broke, I wonder who will end evils of Trumpism?

Editorial cartoons continue to explore Russian interference and influence in the 2016 presidential election that Donald J. Trump won in the Electoral College. Steve Sack of The Star Tribune in Minneapolis takes on Russian trolls aiming to influence voters on Facebook, above.

Cartoonist Milt Priggee of Cagle.com has President Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin sailing off into the sunset. Trump has refused to embrace a tough public posture on Russia, as his aides have urged, The New York Times is reporting.

WASHINGTON POST: TRUMP'S 
FALSE CLAIMS (LIES) TOTAL 2,436

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: See a comment at the end of this post about the April 4, 2018, edition of The Record, including errors, the Kushner Companies in Hackensack, Mitt Romney and Toys 'R' Us.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

I started wide-eyed at a headline on the front page of my Gannett-owned local daily newspaper last week:

"NJ bills on

equal pay, 

sick leave

advance"

Even the lack of punctuation in "NJ" couldn't hide the significance of another progressive initiative by Governor Murphy, who was elected last November to end the long nightmare of the Christie administration.

That was The Record's edition on Tuesday. 

Other front pages last week reported Murphy's expansion of medical marijuana, and a proposal for $50 million in additional tuition assistance to low-income students -- the first step "toward making the [community] colleges entirely tuition free by 2021."

The story on equal pay for women began:

"Working women in New Jersey could soon have one of the nation's strongest laws guaranteeing pay equity after lawmakers moved Monday to pass a measure that would ban employers from paying them less than men for 'substantially similar work.'"

Who will end Trumpism?

So, those headlines and other moves by Murphy to fix mass transit, heal the environment and tighten gun control have me wondering who will be elected to begin repairing all the damage to our democracy since Donald J. Trump was sworn in as president in January 2017.

Beside trying to reverse everything Obama, Trump signed a tax law that was a massive giveaway to wealthy corporations that fund conservative Republican campaigns for Congress and the White House.

Will Trump be undone by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's wide-ranging investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election or will control of Congress shift to the Democrats after this November's midterm elections?

Either way, I'm on the edge of my seat.

WP Fact Checker

On March 1, The Washington Post's Fact Checker reported:

"In 406 days [since assuming office], President Trump has made 2,436 false or misleading claims."

For example, here is what Trump said about his tax cut on Feb. 24, 2018, and what the Fact Checker says.

Trump: "I really believe that while the tax cuts are the biggest ever, there has been no bill like that."

Fact Checker: "Trump's tax cut is 0.9 percent of the gross domestic product, meaning it would be far smaller than President Ronald Reagan's tax cut in 1981 -- which was 2.89 percent of GDP.

"Trump's tax cut is the eighth largest tax cut --and even smaller than two tax cuts passed under Barack Obama."

The sign for the Borg's Woods Nature Preserve in the Fairmount section of Hackensack, above and below, was leaning against a tree on Saturday.

Who was Roberta Starr?

Before March 2017, when the payroll-slashing Gannett Co. laid off about 50 reporters and editors at The Record of Woodland Park, expanded local obituaries appeared frequently in the news columns.

Essentially profiles in death of prominent local residents, these expanded obituaries have been few and far between in the past year.

On March 11, the photo with a paid death notice for Roberta Starr caught my eye, because she was a knockout.

A Brooklyn, N.Y., native like me, Mrs. Starr was a classically trained opera singer who "became the first female cantor accepted by the Herzliah Hebrew Institute in New York."

Mrs. Starr "was first, foremost, and always a teacher," the paid death notice said, noting she was profiled in The New York Times in 2001.

Mrs. Starr, 77, of Hackensack died on Feb. 19. The cause was cancer. She is survived by three children and nine grandchildren.

This paid death notice for Roberta Starr of Hackensack appeared in The Record's Local section on March 11, 2018.

General Poor's Tavern

The Record's story on the closing of General Poor's Tavern on Main Street in Hackensack was missing an important detail.

"When The Record had its offices on nearby River Street, the bar was a local hang-out for reporters looking for a story tip or just a cold brew," Staff Writer Rodrigo Torrejon reported last week.

But General Poor's was far more than that: 

It was the place for going away parties for Record newsroom staffers who were heading for bigger and better things.

I lost track of how many of those parties I attended, but at one point in the Nineties, I just stopped going to those boozy farewells.

Torrejon's story also was the first acknowledgement I've ever seen that The Record's decision to close its landmark River Street headquarters in 2009 hurt General Poor's, and other businesses on or near Main Street, like Solari's.

"The relocation of the Social Security office [and] The Record headquarters' move to Woodland Park ... have dealt far too many blows to the pub at 45 Main St.," Torrejon reported.

See: Hackensack is behind rank-and-file cops

Abandoning River City