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"

Trump may or may not be going insane, but he is certainly driving most of us crazy

President Trump in an undated and uncredited photo that appeared on websites this past summer.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

"DONALD TRUMP IS A MADMAN"

That was the headline on a New York Daily News editorial that declared:

"The President of the United States is profoundly unstable. He is mad. He is, by any honest layman's definition, mentally unwell and viciously lashing out.

"Trump is broadcasting discredited [Muslim] hate videos even as he now tells multiple people in his inner circle that the real, verified 'Access Hollywood' video in which he boasted of grabbing women 'by the pussy' -- words for which he has already publicly apologized -- was falsified."

The News went on to suggest "some might say we are just suffering through the umpteenth canny, calculated presidential eruption designed to distract the nation from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, or perhaps from unpopular [tax] legislation working its way through Congress."

"Quite possible, The News editorial board said. "But ... the sheer strangeness of Trump's behavior leads us to conclude we are witnessing signs of mania."

WNYC-FM

This morning, Brian Lehrer on WNYC-FM, New York and New Jersey Public Radio, said following the news really can drive you a little crazy before enumerating all of the times President Trump has launched assaults on the truth recently.

"Maybe it's Trump who is going insane," Lehrer said.

The Record

In a front-page story below the fold today, The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper, reported that Trump's anti-Muslim tweets "spark outrage" (1A).

But the editors gave far more space on Page 1 to the firing of Matt Lauer, co-host of the "Today" show, assigning the story to Staff Writer Jim Beckerman, one of the veterans who survived widespread layoffs at the Gannett-owned daily.

"Oh, Matt,

you too?"

The coy headline was bad enough, but Beckerman also treats Lauer kindly, calling the accused sex abuser "the lovable co-host of 'Today'" ... with a "good-guy persona" (1A).

Readers will have to search for a story from Bloomberg, which reports Lauer's poor performance as a journalist during "Today" interviews of Hillary Clinton and Trump on the 2016 presidential campaign trail:

"...Lauer  was criticized for spending much of his time with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton focused on her use of a private email service, while failing to push Trump as hard on other topics" (6A).

Reader speaks out

You can find "reviews" of The Record's print edition on NorthJersey.com's Facebook page.

Reader Michael Esposito said:

"Please Gannett Publishing ... I beg of you ... please put this once-great newspaper you've destroyed out of its misery. It's become an embarrassment in the world of journalism. On the plus side, it now takes me so little time to read what's left of the paper that it frees me up to do other things. You should be ashamed of yourselves, but that would involve having a conscience. You possess none.

"Concerning the Money and Markets Report that would appear every Sunday ... where did it go? First, it was removed from the delivered paper and only appeared in the digital edition. Now it's gone from there as well. Is there a weekly vote or something among you greed heads as to what part of the paper you'll eliminate next ? Eventually this once-legendary newspaper will be reduced to the size of a pamphlet. Shameful, but apparently you don't care."