The Record politicizes proposed changes in health care; Paterson is two-time loser

Cartoonist R.J. Matson's take on President Trump's unsubstantiated claim his predecessor wiretapped Trump Tower in Manhattan before the election.

--HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front-page stories on proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act couldn't be more different.

Staff Writer Lindy Washburn's story above the fold appears to be an even-handed discussion of the long-awaited House Republican plan to repeal and replace Barack Obama's health-care law:

"How N.J.
may fare
with new
care act

"GOP plan would change
benefits based on income"

If you put aside the misleading main headline -- there is no "new care act," just a proposal -- you have to invest a lot of time in Washburn's story to find out how the changes affect New Jersey residents, including those with employee-sponsored plans, younger than 26, on Medicaid and women (1A and 7A).

But Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson's story, also on Page 1, deals with the proposal in purely political terms as Republicans and Democrats blaze away at one another (1A and 7A):

"Health tax
cuts geared
to help rich

"Corporations, wealthy
will see cost declines"

Confused readers may just throw up their hands and turn their attention to something else, assured by Washburn most of the provisions wouldn't take effect until 2020.

Two-times losers

The Record has for years been shoving Paterson news down the throats of readers -- most of whom live in Bergen County -- and today, two-thirds of the front page is devoted to the indictment of Mayor Joey Torres (1A).

The story is by Paterson Press reporter Joe Malinconico, a byline that has become familiar since the Borgs decided to save money on newsprint by jamming news from Bergen, Passaic, Morris and Essex counties into a single Local section.

Property taxes increased substantially during Torres' first stint as mayor (2002-10) even though he lured big-box stores and ratables to Silk City (6A).

Third term

Despite that, Torres again was elected mayor in 2014, making city residents two-time losers.

Now, Torres has been indicted for allegedly misappropriating "public resources and workers to advance a family business." 

And three DPW supervisors were charged with joining "in his blatantly crooked scheme," said state Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino, who slammed Torres' "old-school political corruption and abuse of power."

The mayor and his co-defendants "used municipal employees to do work on city time at a liquor warehouse leased by the mayor's daughter and nephew," prosecutors said.

The Record, other media failed miserably to report support for U.S. health-care law

A cartoon by Dave Granlund, above, explores charges that President Trump is acting like a dictator. 

Cartoonist Ed Wexler's "Donny's Daddy?" suggests Trump is in awe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who allegedly helped elect the tax-dodging New York billionaire on Nov. 8.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The groundswell of support for President Obama's Affordable Care Act seems to have come out of nowhere.

That's because until a month or so ago, when Donald J. Trump moved to repeal the 2010 law, all The Record did was channel Republicans' racially motivated attacks on what they cursed as "Obamacare," a word newspaper headline writers came to love despite the bias it reflects.

Today, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn reports repeal of the law may expose 810,000 New Jersey seniors on Medicare to "higher out-of-pocket costs," end $4 billion in federal spending in the state and cut 86,000 jobs (1A).

On another issue dominating the front page -- Trump's crackdown on all illegal immigrants, even those who haven't committed crimes -- when will the Woodland Park daily finally investigate the glacial legal immigration system (1A)?

The path from Green Card to citizenship often takes up to 5 years, and the system is so complex many legal immigrants hire lawyers they can't afford to help them navigate the forms, and repeated requests for information. 

In fact, the bureaucratic legal immigration system is believed to be a major cause of illegal immigration.

Old man Trump

Trump turned 70 last June and became the oldest person to hold the office of president about a month ago, so some commentators are blaming his age for all of the crazy things he says.

Black History Month began Feb. 1, but the president only visited the National Museum of African-American History and Culture on Tuesday.

USA Today reports Trump denounced anti-Semitism, even though his campaign attracted "an unusually high number of anti-Semites and white nationalists" (9A).

And in the annual proclamation on International Holocaust Day this month , Trump forgot to mention the 6 million Jews who died.

Jet-set food

Food Editor Esther Davidowitz should be ashamed of Tuesday's front-page promo and her breathless report on Gourmet Inflight Catering of Wood-Ridge.

The Better Living cover showed CEO Harry Purut holding the "smoked salmon tray" served to celebrities and "other multi-millionaires" who fly on private jets.

Big deal. Don't we eat much of the same food? What's the point of the story, except to give the caterer free advertising?

Davidowitz even managed to get in a plug for the Italian-American restaurant run by Purut's partner and chef brother-in-law.

Editors blocked health-insurance success stories until Trump moved to repeal law

Staff Writer John Cichowski, The Record's so-called commuting columnist, rarely ventures far from his computer, preferring to rewrite press releases, as on today's Local front, or publishing emails from readers. He's too lazy to ride trains and buses to report on the quality of service. Above and below, NJ Transit's double-decker rail cars at Newark Penn Station.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

"HOPE, DREAD, UNCERTAINTY"

This headline on Page 1 of The Record today does a great job of summing up the emotions of roughly 800,000 New Jersey residents after President Trump started the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Still, many readers are questioning why the Woodland Park daily is only now publishing success stories about former President Obama's signature health-care law (1A and 8A).

Staff Writer Lindy Washburn, the paper's veteran medical writer, doesn't report how many of those 800,000 New Jerseyans have health coverage for the first time.

Nor do readers learn how many want to see the law repealed or expanded.

A poll released in December by the Kaiser Family Foundation found only 26 percent of Americans were in favor of full repeal of the law, while 30 percent favor expanding it, according to NPR.

The poll found Americans continue to be divided along partisan lines about the law.

"Few brag about having Obamacare," Washburn writes, using the pejorative favored by Republicans who have repeatedly tried but failed to repeal the law since 2010.

Success stories

The story is filled with photos of smiling people whose coverage pays for care in their battles with breast cancer, debilitating heart disease and other conditions.

As in her past coverage, Washburn doesn't mention much of the confusion in New Jersey resulted from Governor Christie's attempt to sabotage the law by refusing to set up a state marketplace for purchase of insurance policies.

Instead, New Jersey residents were thrown onto an overburdened federal marketplace, and their choice of heath insurers has been severely limited. 

However, Christie did take credit for expanding Medicaid for low-income New Jersey residents, but relied completely on federal funds to do so.

Refugee ban

Another Page 1 story today reports Christie called the "rollout" of Trump's executive order temporarily blocking refugees from entering the country "terrible" (1A).

What the story doesn't mention is that after the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, Christie sought to bar all Syrian refugees, including children, from entering the United States.

That was followed by Record stories reporting that churches and social service groups defied the GOP thug, and settled Syrian refugees in North Jersey.

Free electric charging stations in the municipal garage in downtown Englewood.

Local news?

The Record today publishes three stories about Englewood, all by Staff Writer Michael W. Curley Jr. 

Two of the stories explore the many vacant storefronts in downtown Englewood, and a rise of bullying in the small city's public schools (1L and 6L).

But Curley -- and the editors who handled the first story before it was published -- downplay high rents as a leading factor in business vacancies.

The story on bullying in the schools doesn't mention that a bigger problem is segregation -- Englewood's elementary and middle schools are attended by few white students, and desegregation efforts apparently have been focused solely on the high school. 

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