UPDATE: We'll finally be able to say good riddance to Christie, N.J.'s worst governor

The defining moment in Governor Chris Christie's eight years in office was the Bridgegate scandal in September 2013, when many believe he orchestrated a five-day traffic jam at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge. That was his way of retaliating against the borough's Democratic mayor, who had refused to endorse the GOP thug's reelection bid in November 2013.

This January 2014 Daily News front page accurately predicted the impact of Bridgegate on Christie's presidential bid, which crashed and burned in February 2016. Then, he endorsed New York billionaire Donald J. Trump for the GOP nomination.

600 mean-spirited vetoes marred

conservative ogre's two terms

Editor's note: A day after The Record heaped praise on Governor Christie, NorthJersey.com fact-checked his last State of the State speech, and reported many of his claims were misleading. The report doesn't appear in today's print edition.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

After dropping out of the presidential race in February 2016, Chris Christie failed miserably to salvage his reputation as the worst governor in New Jersey history.

Despite the upbeat news media coverage of his last State of the State address on Tuesday, the GOP bully will forever be defined by the 2013 Bridgegate scandal, and his 600 vetoes of progressive legislation aimed at improving the lives of most state residents. 

In every year of his two four-year terms, Christie made major decisions that brought New Jersey to its knees.

They ranged from killing a major expansion of mass transit to bungling the recovery from Superstorm Sandy to trying the sabotage the Affordable Care Act to wrecking the state's finances.

Crappy coverage

Wednesday's coverage of his speech in The Record, my local daily newspaper, is yet another example of the crappy journalism readers have had to endure since Gannett bought its publisher, North Jersey Media Group, in July 2016.

Political Columnist Charles Stile and Trenton reporter Dustin Racioppi, who is assigned to cover Christie, filed reports that treat the conservative ogre much too kindly.

The sub-headline over Stile's Page 1 column called the speech a "praise-filled swan song."

"Swan song"? For Christie, it's more like a "gorilla song." 

A front-page box labeled "Highlights" refers to Christie boasting "about his proudest moments over eight years in power."

The box also refered to the speech as a "90-minute victory lap," and his many failures were called "challenges."

Christie and Trump 

No surprise, given that The Record was the only major New Jersey daily that failed to call for Christie's resignation after he threw his weight behind Donald J. Trump's White House bid.

Nor did The Record even report the Star-Ledger and six Gannett papers had demanded Christie step down after endorsing Trump, a racist, con man and serial liar.

Stile was Christie's chief booster in his first term, portraying the governor as a "bipartisan reformer" despite liberal use of the veto pen to control the majority Democrats in the State Legislature.

And after writing an expose when Christie's vetoes numbered in the 300s, Racioppi never bothered to tally them again, even when they sailed past 500.

Wednesday's editorial in The Record contained a far more honest assessment of Christie's reign, noting "he ran to win," but that "his failure is that he did not run to govern for eight years" (10A).

Vetoes go missing 

Nowhere in The Record's nearly two full newspaper pages of text and photos on Wednesday is there any mention of Christie's veto of a $15 minimum wage or a tax surcharge on millionaires (1A and 6A).

Nor are there references to his voodoo finances, which robbed funds from women's health initiatives, environmental cleanup, mass transit and other programs to balance the revenue-starved state budget year after year. 

And his massive 90%-plus cut in state subsidies to NJ Transit effectively put the state's commuter rail and bus operator on the road to ruin.

That has given Record transportation reporter Curtis Tate the chance to write a long series of critical stories that usually fail to mention Christie's role in trying to destroy the agency.

New rail tunnels

In 2010, his first year in office, Christie signaled his war on mass transit by cancelling new Hudson River rail tunnels, then grabbing nearly a billion dollars in leftover funds from NJ Transit and the Port Authority to fix roads and bridges.

That allowed the conservative ogre to delay hiking the state's second-lowest-in-the-nation gas tax until November 2016, rescuing a Transportation Trust Fund for road and rail improvements he nearly drove into bankruptcy.

Good riddance

Next Tuesday, Christie will finally leave office, and he'll be succeeded by Democrat Phil Murphy, who has the unenviable job of repairing all the damage the GOP bully did.

Even Christie's so-called 2% cap on local budgets hasn't failed to stem the rise of property taxes, highest in the nation.

So, all together now, Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Donald J. Trump after NBC fired him for calling Mexicans rapists and drug runners. After Governor Christie dropped out of the presidential race in early 2016, he endorsed Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.

In this 2010 photo, real estate mogul Jon Hanson, left, a major fundraiser for Christie, is shown with the governor. Hanson also was a close friend of Malcolm A. Borg, then chairman of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record. Hanson and Borg once jointly owned a private jet based at Teterboro Airport. Before the Borgs sold NJMG to Gannett, did the friendship color The Record's news coverage of Christie and Hanson, who also served as an adviser to the governor? 

When reporters asked Governor Christie whether he had any role in the September 2013 closure of access lanes to the upper level of the George Washington Bridge, he joked he moved the traffic cones to block two of the three lanes, below.

Christie was never charged in the scandal, but he spent more than $10 million in taxpayer funds so his legal team could write a whitewash report about his so-called lack of involvement. In the court of public opinion, he was found guilty of directing aide Bridget Anne Kelly to declare that it was "time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

  

'Trump drops dead and the nation rejoices' is the headline I can't wait to write for real

In this cartoon from Pat Bagley of The Salt Lake Tribune, the people of Puerto Rico are still waiting for real relief, but GOP leaders rushed to approve a tax plan that is little more than a $1.5 trillion giveaway to the super rich, including all those big corporations that threatened to withhold millions of dollars in campaign funds.

Cartoonist Jimmy Margulies, formerly of The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper, says the GOP tax plan means smaller deductions for homes and bigger deductions for Trump Hotels.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: This post has been updated with a link to the "Mueller Baby" impeachment carol.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

New York billionaire, con man, racist and tax dodger Donald J. Trump has held the office of president of the United States for only 11 months, but I long ago tired of hearing his voice.

His tweets -- taking credit for a robust economy and stock market records -- are filled with lies.

They are painful to read, and have me wondering why the news media keep on quoting and analyzing them, and seeking reaction to every idiotic word.

I probably wrote thousands of headlines on the night copy desk of The Record, when that once-great local daily newspaper was headquartered in Hackensack.

But the headline I'm itching to write still eludes me:

"TRUMP DROPS DEAD

 AND THE NATION REJOICES"

You'd think all that low-quality McDonald's food and steaks and Diet Coke would have done in the 71-year-old moron by now.

Instead, it looks like Trump will be bounced from office by the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election or impeached by Congress when control swings to the Democrats after the November 2018 midterm elections.

Of course, the latter can only happen, if the tens of millions of Democrats who didn't bother to vote in November 2016 go to the polls next year.

See: 'Mueller Baby' impeachment carol

Cartoonist Dave Grandlund calls House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell liars after they claimed the tax overhaul would benefit "everyone ... even the middle class." But the pair were quoted endlessly by newspapers on the positive effects of the tax plan on the middle class, and their sound bites dominated TV news.

GOP tax overhaul

The tax overhaul pushed by the president and approved by Republicans in Congress was panned by the news media, including The New York Times:

"G.O.P Wins on

Tax Cuts, but

Faces a Brutal

Election Year"

News media, voter apathy

Let's hope that in 2018, we don't see the kind of voter apathy that sidelined millions of Democrats in the 2016 presidential election.

Voter apathy can be traced directly to the media, including TV and radio news, and newspapers big and small.

For more years than I care to remember, the media have been relentless in their political focus when covering elections. 

Everything is reported in terms of Republicans and Democrats, and reporters and editors seem unable to grasp the importance of exploring issues, and reporting what would be good for the country.

This is essentially "he said, she said" journalism that is of little help to readers.

Turnout falls

On Monday, a front-page story in The Record disclosed turnout in the Nov. 7 election for New Jersey governor "hit an all-time low" after steadily declining since 2001, even though more people have been registering to vote.

The Record has done a poor job of keeping up with Governor Christie's nearly 600 vetoes, but Monday's story reported that in 2015, the GOP bully vetoed a bill that would have made voting "more convenient."

The story didn't note that Christie and other Republicans are synonymous with voter suppression while Democrats want to widen voting.  

"Dubbed the Democracy Act, it would allow for early voting, including extended and weekend hours up to two weeks before a Tuesday election.

"Online, automatic and same-day voter registration. among other initiatives, were also proposed, under the bill sponsored by outgoing Assembly speaker Vincent Prieto," a Democrat.

The bill has been reintroduced, and action is expected after Democrat Phil Murphy takes office as governor on Jan. 16, replacing Christie, whose two terms of mean-spirited rule brought the state to its knees.

Dem voters stop spread of Trump poison; paper slants stories on N.J. governor-elect

This and other hair-swap photos of President Trump and Kim Jong Il are amusing, but do little to ease the tension from their war of words over North Korean missile tests.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

We witnessed a simple but powerful lesson in democracy this week when voters in Alabama chose Democrat Doug Jones for U.S. Senate over a Republican who promised to spread President Trump's poison.

Democrats haven't won a Senate seat in Alabama since 1992, CNN reported, adding:

"But the Alabama results also reflect trends in prior elections like the race for governor in Virginia this year that could bode well for Democrats in the upcoming 2018 mid-term elections, when control of the House of Representatives, and now the Senate, will be in play."

Turnout of Democratic voters rose, especially in rural counties in the state's agricultural "Black Belt," where African-Americans make up between 59% to 82% of registered voters, CNN said.

So, that's the key. 

When Democrats vote -- instead of giving in to apathy or GOP propaganda about Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton, as they did in the 2016 presidential election -- sexual predators, con men and liars like Trump are sent packing.

Write-in votes in the Alabama race totaled 22,780 -- 2,000 more than Jones' margin of victory.

The front page of the New York Daily News commented on losing Republican Roy Moore, who was shown in a photo riding a horse to his polling place:

'SCREW YOU & HORSE

 YOU RODE IN ON'

N.J. angle?

As clear as the News' headline was, a headline on a Page 1 column in The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper, is a puzzler:

"Booker wins, 

Christie loses in Alabama"

Readers' hoping to explore this so-called New Jersey angle today ran smack into several paragraphs of boring background:

"More than five years ago, Gov. Chris Christie and then-Newark Mayor Cory Booker teamed up as New Jersey's bipartisan bros...."

That's how Staff Writer Charles Stile began yet another political column, putting legions of readers immediately to sleep.

Counting lies

Op-Ed Columnist David Leonhardt of The New York Times reports President Obama "averaged a little more than two blatant, distinct falsehoods per year during his presidency. Trump is on pace for 124 a year."

See: Trump's Lies vs. Obama's

Gov.-elect Murphy

The Record's editors made a huge mistake when they assigned Dustin Racioppi, the Trenton reporter who covers Christie, to also cover the gubernatorial campaign that ended in victory for Democrat Phil Murphy on Nov. 7.

Racioppi gladly channeled Lieutenant Gov. Kim Guadagno, whose ads and tweets were filled with smears and lies, without bothering to seek rebuttal from the Murphy camp.

Racioppi v. Murphy

Now, Racioppi is covering the transition, as he did in a Page 1 story on Wednesday, claiming:

"Gov.-elect Phil Murphy plans to move ahead with a long and costly list of policy proposals once he takes office, despite identifying signs of greater financial instability in the month since winning the election."

On Tuesday, another reporter's front-page story had Murphy and the state's two U.S. senators "pleading ... for federal funding" for new train tunnels under the Hudson River, "seven years after Gov. Chris Christie put the brakes on what would have been the most expensive transit project in the country."

In his two terms in office, Christie brought New Jersey to its knees financially, and nearly destroyed NJ Transit, but in its stories on Murphy, The Record is treating the Christie years as the new normal.

And whatever happened to Trump's much ballyhooed $1 billion infrastructure plan?

#MeToo

More than half of The Record's front page on Monday related the powerful stories of "everyday women" in North Jersey who had been sexually assaulted or harassed by a building superintendent, grandfather, college professor and a minister.

How could the same newspaper, in its premier Sunday edition, also run a Page 1 column from so-called Road Warrior John Cichowski, lamenting missing, broken and upside-down road signs for the umpteenth time since he started writing the column more than 14 years ago?

Our illegitimate president is dying to sign illegitimate GOP tax break for super rich

Using President Trump's own boastful words from the "Access Hollywood" tape, cartoonist Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News contrasts his election to the firings of Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor, Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein, all of whom were accused of sexually harassing women.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

With every tweeted lie and racial slur, President Trump shows just how unfit and unstable he is to hold the highest office in the land.

Yet, just before 2 a.m. Saturday, Senate Republicans, with only one holdout, approved Trump's massive tax break for the super rich, including wealthy corporations that threatened to withhold GOP campaign funds in the crucial 2018 midterm elections.

They would go into effect on Jan. 1, according to Vox.com:

"Republicans are on track to pass a tax bill by the end of the year, and if they’re able to stick to that schedule and the bill is signed by ... Trump, it would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2018.

"The sweeping overhaul of taxes would reduce rates for corporations and individuals (although individual tax cuts would eventually expire), and would also repeal the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, effectively kicking 13 million people off their insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

"But Americans won’t see a big difference in their tax return when they sit down to file this spring; the proposed cuts in the bill contains would show up the following year.

"'When they’ll really see the difference is a year from March and April,' said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget."

A big disappointment in terms of news coverage is how the media continue to quote the multitude of lies Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans have told about the economic benefits of their bill.

And in a news analysis on Saturday, The Times questioned whether the coming big win will help or hurt Republicans:

"...It remained to be seen whether the result ... will spare Republicans from the emerging political backlash that was evident in Democratic election victories around the country last month."

Russian probe

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn became the fourth Trump insider to plead guilty or be indicted in the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and the special counsel expects him to cooperate and implicate others.

Emails shared with The New York Times and newly public documents reveal that Flynn was in touch with senior members of the Trump transition team both before and after his pre-inauguration discussions with Russia's ambassador, contradicting the White House's portrayal of "a rogue actor," the newspaper reported.

Prosecutors also have interviewed Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and adviser.

"FLYNN READY TO NAME NAMES"  was the all-caps headline Saturday on the front page of The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper.

Political cartoonist Dave Granlund commenting on the firing of "Today" show host Matt Lauer after women complained about sex harrasment and worse. The Record of Woodland Park described him as the "lovable" co-host of the NBC morning show.

Is Trump insane?

In today's Record of Woodland Park, Columnist Mike Kelly must be the last journalist in America to question Trump's sanity (Opinion front).

On Friday's front page, Kelly used one of his favorites words in the first sentence of a column on a job fair for state prison inmates who were about to be released.

"Robert Fudali stood in the center of a gymnasium at Northern State Prison in Newark ... and gazed into his future."

Kelly has used the word "gaze," "gazed" or "gazing" so many times in the past that some readers' eyes just roll when they see it.

Here is Kelly's first sentence from a May 31, 2007, column: 

"Brandon Kennedy gazed through the chain-link fence outside his Paramus school on Wednesday."

And when Kelly doesn't use the word, many readers notice, as I did for Eye on The Record when I read his 2014 column on Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer:

"Today's paper doesn't add a thing to the Bridgegate scandal, especially Mike Kelly's lame column on Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, one of the Democrats who have complained about the GOP bully's muscle flexing (A-1).

"His lead paragraph is a turnoff:

"'Dawn Zimmer sits in a chair in a quiet, sun-splashed conference room next to her mayor's office on the second floor of Hoboken's City Hall.

"At least the burned-out columnist didn't have her 'gazing' out the window or into the distance or whatever, as he has had so many other subjects in the past.

"With an intro like that, readers fully expect the reporter ... will tell them next where City Hall restrooms are located."

NJ Transit

Every weekday morning, thousands of NJ Transit commuters wonder whether they'll find a seat on their rush-hour bus or train.

Thanks to Governor Christie's drastic funding cuts and the do-nothing Port Authority, NJ Transit service hasn't been expanded in decades.

Don't tell that to Curtis Tate, who spends all his time writing about everything but the service, as he does today on Page 1:

"Management exodus at NJ Transit"

Menendez is guilty and Christie is history; Trump sets record for lies in his first year

In these photos from Getty Images, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, left, and his friend, Dr. Salomon Melgen, were tried in federal court in Newark, but the judge declared a mistrial after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked on the 18 counts against them.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The most famous case of jury nullification likely was the 1995 acquittal of O.J. Simpson despite all of the evidence against him in the brutal double murders of his estranged wife and her friend.

And on Thursday in Newark, 10 out of 12 members of  a federal jury reportedly were determined to vote "not guilty" on the corruption charges against Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., before the judge declared a mistrial.

I feel Menendez is guilty of having an unspoken corrupt arrangement with his friend and co-defendant, Dr. Salomon Melgen, to trade gifts and political contributions for official favors.

That's why the senator tried to pressure Obama administration officials to drop charges against the eye doctor in an $8.9 million Medicare billing dispute.

Pay to play

If you live in New Jersey, you're familiar with "pay to play," especially as it is practiced in small towns and cities that fill jobs or award contracts to engineers, attorneys, consultants and others who contribute to council and school board candidates.

The arrangement between Menendez and Melgen was on a grander scale -- the eye doctor gave nearly $700,000 to entities that could help the senator get re-elected in 2012, as well as free flights on his private jet and a $4,934 stay at a Paris hotel.

During the Newark trial, most of the news outlets I followed, including The Record of Woodland Park, rarely mentioned that in April, Melgen was convicted in federal court in West Palm Beach, Fla., on 67 counts of defrauding Medicare out of as much as $105 million from 2008 to 2013.

The case was labeled one of the largest Medicare rip-offs ever, but Melgen's sentencing was postponed until December.

On his side

The Record has been on Menendez's side since he was indicted in April 2015 on bribery, fraud, making false statements and other charges.

And Friday's paper devoted nearly three full pages to the mistrial, including a so-called analysis on Page 1, a favorable editorial, and a column by Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin, who compared the jury deliberations to the Henry Fonda movie "Twelve Angry Men."

"...No one should count Bob Menendez out," the editorial concluded. "He's a fighter."

As if Friday's coverage wasn't enough, Editor Richard Green put a really long Mike Kelly column recapping the Menendez trial on Page 1 today.

Tackle it, and if you haven't been able to sleep lately, the column will knock you out immediately.

Although he was never formally charged, the court of public opinion convicted Governor Christie of masterminding lane closures on the George Washington Bridge in September 2013 to retaliate against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee for refusing to endorse Christie's re-election bid. The ensuing Bridgegate scandal derailed his White House campaign.

Christie 3-parter

I wasn't able to get through "The Christie Legacy," a tedious, 3-part retrospective of Governor Christie's two terms by Record political Columnist Charles Stile, once the governor's chief booster.

Shit. I barely read the headlines.

Stile wrote column after column polishing the GOP bully's image as a compromiser, and tried to be the first Trenton reporter to signal Christie's run for president (maybe the veteran reporter was hoping to become White House press secretary).

The sub-headline on the first part, which ran last Wednesday, said:

"OPPORTUNITY SQUANDERED

 FOR A GIFTED POLITICIAN"

The final part on Friday listed his "successes and failures," but I didn't see a word about how Christie single-handedly destroyed mass transit, and cut NJ Transit's state subsidy by $300 million a year or 90%.

And did Stile spend any time on Christie's nearly 600 vetoes or threats of vetoes, which he used to control the Democratic majority in the state Legislature?

He put the kibosh on everything from a millionaire's tax surcharge to the $15-an-hour minimum wage.

The Record has made too little of how Christie's divisive, mean-spirited rule was a foreshadowing of what the nation is experiencing under President Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress.

"Worst governor in New Jersey history" would have been an appropriate headline for Stile's three-parter.

HuffingtonPost.com reports many people are hilariously reimagining President Trump's awkwardly using two hands to drink from a water bottle, including this one of him kissing a framed photo of daughter Ivanka.

Fact Checker

Last week, The Washington Post's Fact Checker reported "our updated tally of President Trump's false/misleading claims [read 'lies']: 1,628 claims in 298 days."

"In the last 35 days, Trump has averaged an astonishing nine claims a day," said the newspaper, which has awarded numerous Pinocchios to the Liar-In-Chief.

"There are now at least 50 claims that he has repeated three or more times. The president's claim that 'Obamacare is failing' continues to top the list ... followed by his habit of taking credit for business decisions he didn't make. 

"Two claims about taxes are on the rise: that the tax plan will be the biggest tax cut in U.S. history and that the United States is one of the highest-taxed nations (both false).

"Ten months in, the president's tally stands at 1,628 false or misleading claims through Nov. 13. That's an average of 5.5 claims a day and puts him on track to reach 1,999 claims by the end of his first year in office, though he obviously would easily exceed 2,000, if maintained the pace of the past month."

I'm still waiting for a reporter from The Washington Post or any other news outlet to get up at a news conference and tell Trump:

"Mr. President, please stop lying to the American people."

Only way to beat Trump and clones is vote in every election, always pick a Democrat

Jimmy Margulies, former editorial cartoonist at The Record of Woodland Park, commenting on Democratic candidates winning races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia last week, above.

Another Margulies cartoon. Back from his Asian trip, Trump is expected to serve up the middle class in trying to get the GOP tax cut for the rich passed and signed into law.

'The Resistance showed up

 at the polls,' Bill Maher says

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

We've heard lots of theories explaining why a Republican con man, liar, racist, sexual predator and tax dodger won the 2016 presidential race by a technicality in the Electoral College.

"Rural America still really dislikes Democrats," said an Opinion piece that ran on Monday in The New York Times.

"...The key to Democrats' fortunes in 2018 and 2020 will be to execute on the fundamentals -- pick quality candidates who don't mess up, make sure voters get to the polls [italics added], and take advantage of President Trump's low approval numbers ....," said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at New America, a Manhattan-based think tank.

He is among those weighing in on last Tuesday's off-year elections, and referring to the tens of millions of unenthusiastic Democrats who stayed home on Nov. 8, 2016, and effectively defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.

In New Jersey and Virginia, enough Democrats went to the polls last Tuesday to overwhelm Republican gubernatorial candidates who were seen as Trump clones or surrogates.

Satirist Bill Maher said those and other victories across the country are "all being chalked up to a radical, new Democratic strategy called actually voting."

Mayor-elect Wilmot Collins of Helena, Mont., in a photo from Facebook.

The Resistance

In his Friday night monologue on HBO, Maher said he was feeling better than he had in a whole year.

"Democrats finally won some elections," Maher said. "The Resistance showed up at the polls."

Democrats won governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, a lesbian was elected mayor of Seattle, and a Latina single mom won the balloting for mayor of Topeka, Kan., said the host of "Real Time with Bill Maher."

A Liberian refugee is the mayor-elect in Helena, Mont., a conservative state with a history of tensions over immigrants.

Wilmot Collins, who arrived in Helena 23 years ago,  will be the first black mayor in the state's history. 

The election was non-partisan, but Collins leans Democratic and has been critical of Trump, Slate.com reported.

'Liberal revenge'

Maher called some of Tuesday's election results "liberal revenge fantasy."

The satirist said a "shill for the NRA" was beaten by the boyfriend of a shooting victim, and a Republican member of Virginia's state legislature who wanted to restrict the bathrooms transgender people use was beaten "by a trans woman."

Maher said just like in her gender reassignment surgery, "she made sure America has one less dick."

In The Record

Today's front page in The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily paper, is dominated by news of a federal jury deadlock in the corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, the Democrat who is New Jersey's senior senator.

As is The Record's habit when covering a big trial, a long news story on the latest developments in the Newark courtroom runs with an even longer column on the same exact events by Mike Kelly (1A and 6A). 

Kelly's byline identifies him as "Columnist, North Jersey Record" -- a fictitious publication.

A column that echoes a news story is the surest way to tell readers editors are desperate to fill space as the newsroom staff struggles after more than 350 of their colleagues were laid off by Gannett Co.

The latest to go is Bob Klapisch, The Record's baseball columnist. @BobKlap said in a Nov. 3 tweet:

"Looks like I've come to the end of the road with the Bergen Record. The baseball column has been eliminated by Gannett. On to free agency."

Big laugh line

The biggest laugh line on Page 1 today is in a news story on Trump's proposed tax plan.

The Record actually quotes Governor Christie, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House adviser Ivanka Trump as saying "the package of tax cuts and simplifications would unleash economic growth not seen since the turn of the century" (1A).

Republicans have used the same argument in trying to sell tax cuts for the rich and wealthy corporations since Ronald Reagan was president nearly 30 years ago, and none of us has seen any of that trickle-down proseprity.

The Valley Hospital

New stories today and Monday on a proposed new Valley Hospital in Paramus don't mention the Ridgewood hospital's tax-exempt status (today's Local front, Monday's front page).

Nor does Staff Writer Lindy Washburn ask Paramus officials and residents about the potential impact on their property tax bills, if the hospital pays no taxes on the $750 million project after it is completed in 2023.

The hospital's Ridgewood campus would still offer medical services, but after a 10-year battle, village residents succeeded in stopping the development of bigger buildings on the property.

Although fewer than 30 people showed up for Monday night's hearing on a new hospital in Paramus, The Record's headline today called the move "popular" (1L).

Election results

Half of your property tax bill may go to support schools in your town, but The Record has never taken school elections seriously.

School election results from last Tuesday's elections in Bergen and Passaic counties did not appear until Monday (6L).

Results of county and municipal elections appeared on Sunday's 7L.

Democrat Assad Akhter, the first Muslim to sit on the Passaic County Board of Freeholders in 2016, was elected last Tuesday to serve out the rest of an unexpired term.

On his Facebook page last Tuesday morning, Akhter posted photos of voters who were shocked and brought to tears by the defeat of Clinton in the 2016 presidential election:

"Do you remember this feeling?? It happened a year ago to this day.... and our nation has been suffering ever since. Don't let this happen here in New Jersey! Don't take victory for granted! Don't allow others to make excuses for not voting! This is our future....GET OUT THERE AND VOTE! VOTE ROW B IN PASSAIC COUNTY!"

NJ Transit

The Record led the Sunday edition with another in a series of so-called investigative stories on the "crisis" at NJ Transit, the state agency that provides bus and train service (1A on Sunday).

Little is made of the annual state funding cut of more than $300 million Christie imposed on NJ Transit, forcing the agency to raise fares and cut some service.

"The agency was once considered a model for mass transit," Staff Writer Curtis Tate said on the continuation page before making an awkward veiled reference to Christie's funding cut of more than 90%:

"But after years of lackluster state funding, it struggles to fully fund its operations and capital improvement program."