News media do another awful job, wasting our time in trying to call midterm elections

A voter entering the Fairmount School in Hackensack around 2 this afternoon to vote in the 2018 midterm congressional elections, as well as on county races and two ballot questions. Voting machines were set up in the cafeteria. Hackensack schools were dismissed after a half day.

A voter using a cane as he approached the doors to the Hackensack High School gymnasium, another polling place where voting machines were set up.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Nearly 2 years into the presidency of Donald J. Trump, not a single reporter has had the courage to confront him and say, "Mr. President, please stop lying to the American people."

Instead, they've covered every one of his partisan rallies, and spread his lies around the world with no fact-checking.

Then, days or weeks later, The Washington Post or New York Times thunder about all of the lies Trump has told.

Who will win?

Today is Election Day across America, and the news media have spent the past few weeks obsessing over who will win, and whether Democrats will be able to take control of the House and Senate.

Why not just wait for the results to come in after the polls close, and devote all that energy to laying out the issues instead of relentlessly focusing on politics?

Polls are notoriously inaccurate, yet their reports are filled with them, and updated every day, it seems.

Sensational ads

NBC, CBS and other networks accept the most sensational, deceptive or inaccurate campaign ads, signaling to viewers that only the bottom line matters.

It's no surprise there are so many apathetic voters in Hackensack and elsewhere across the nation.

The blame rests squarely on the news media, who seem cowed by Trump's campaign to portray them as the enemy of the people.

It's another sad day for the Fourth Estate.

Hackensack Councilman Leo Battaglia, in dark top and cap, in the Fairmount School cafeteria this afternoon.

Vote on Tuesday to help stop Trump lies, corruption, chaos and white nationalism

After President Trump claimed he could eliminate birthright citizenship from the U.S. Constitution, cartoonist Nate Beeler of The Columbus Dispatch adopted a Halloween theme, showing Trump cutting out parts of the constitution as if he were carving a pumpkin.

Cartoonist Marian Kamensky shows Trump rushing down to the border and tossing children born in the United States to illegal immigrants over the fence.

Jimmy Margulies, onetime editorial cartoonist for The Record of Woodland Park, has Trump using white-out on the constitution.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- I never thought I'd miss those idiotic car commercials on TV.

But the onslaught of sensational political ads in the runup to the midterm congressional elections has me squirming on my red-leather couch.

I've been squealing with delight when I can fast forward through them on recorded programs, as I do with all the stupidity used to sell Chevys and Mercedes-Benzes.

Well, we've got only two days to go before Election Day on Tuesday. Don't forget to vote.

My wife and I, as well as our college-age son, have already voted a straight Democratic ticket, and sent in our mail-in ballots.

Voting for Democrats is the only way to stop Trump, as I wrote last November: 

Read: Only way to beat Trump

 is to always vote for Democrats 

U.S. Senate race

The choice for U.S. senator from New Jersey is so depressing the Star-Ledger and NJ.com noted in an editorial, "...Both candidates are slippery characters, even by Washington standards."

Another news site called the contest a choice between "Crooked Bob" and "Greedy Bob."

The NJ.com editorial noted, "Before he was caught in 2015, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., broke Senate rules by routinely accepting expensive gifts, including private jets to luxury resorts abroad.... He then used his office to promote the personal and business interest of the man who paid the bills.

"It's a miracle that Menendez escaped criminal conviction, and an act of profound narcissism that he stayed in the race ... putting a Democratic seat at risk while Donald Trump sits in the White House."

But the friend he freeloaded off, Dr. Salomon Melgen, a prominent South Florida eye doctor, was convicted of defrauding Medicare of $73 million, and since February, has been serving a 17-year sentence in federal prison.

He also was ordered to pay $42.6 million in restitution to Medicare, and could be ordered to pay more, the Sun Sentinel reported in February.

GOP challenger

Menendez's Republican challenger, Bob Hugin, "estimates he earned up to $200 million at Celgene, a pharmaceutical firm known for its vigorous fight to keep cheaper generics off the market so it could repeatedly hike the cost of expensive cancer drugs," according to NJ.com. 

Celgene also paid $280 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging the firm covered up potentially fatal side effects of its cancer drugs, and defrauded Medicare, the Oct. 28 editorial said.

"Our hope is that voters remember Trump is on the ballot, that they choke down their reluctance and vote for Menendez. He's no gem but he's better than Hugin," NJ.com said.

In a broadside paid for by the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, John McCann, the Republican candidate for the House of Representatives from the 5th District, is being portrayed as a "Tea Partier" who "failed to pay more than $100,000 of his own taxes." The campaign material also says he raised "local taxes four times while on the Cresskill Town Council and voted for higher property taxes."

Where you can find fair, non-partisan info on next week's elections in N.J., the nation

In Bergen County, N.J., where I live, the Nov. 6 ballot lists candidates for county executive, freeholder, sheriff, U.S. House of Representatives from the 5th District and U.S. Senate. The ballot also has two public questions.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Given the news media's relentless focus on politics, you might have given up hope of finding resources you can trust in the week before the crucial midterm elections.

I'm passing along four listed in the October 2018 issue of AARP Bulletin, but you'll find the sites discuss issues of concern for all Americans, not just the older ones.

Project Vote Smart at Votesmart.org surveys candidates for their positions on issues of importance to voters.

The site relies on financial support from citizens and foundations, AARP Bulletin reports, and doesn't accept donations from business, unions or political parties.

At RealClearPolitics.com, go to the Election 2018 tab to find a wealth of information on specific races in your state or across the country.

Co-owned by its two founders and Crest Media, it relies on advertising for funding.

Ballotpedia.org features 275,000 "neutral, reliable"

articles written and curated by its staff about politics at all levels of government.

Ballotpedia is sponsored by the nonprofit Lucy Burn Institute, based in Wisconsin.

PolitiFact.com, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for journalism, checks statements made by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups.

"Politifact's mission is ... to provide voters with accurate, independently vetted information so they can govern themselves in a democracy," said Editor Angie Drobic Holan.

The nonprofit Poynter Institute is the owner, and revenue comes from online advertising  and grants.

Read: Older Americans have a great deal

 at stake on Nov. 6

"The most consequential elections of our lifetime," is how one political scholar describes the Nov. 6 balloting in AARP Bulletin's cover story.