Now, a dictatorial but senile Trump rules nation by saying, 'We'll see what happens'

Editorial cartoonist Milt Priggee tries to cram in all of problems that beset the nation since the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president in January 2017, including "endless wars," "denouncing free press," "American self-isolation," "climate-change denial" and "Big Pharma's opioid-addiction crisis." 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Under Donald J. Trump, the worst president in U.S. history, our great nation is being ruled by tweet and happenstance.

After the president (not North Korea, as I wrote earlier) cancelled a scheduled June 12 summit to discuss a nuclear-disarmament treaty, Trump tweeted the meeting might take place after all.

"We'll see what happens," the president said weakly to the cowardly White House press corps, which has yet to confront him and demand, "Please stop lying to the American people."

Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress rammed through the biggest tax cut ever for the wealthy and big corporations, ensuring massive budget deficits in the future.

Yet, the president still refuses to release his tax returns. 

See more editorial cartoons below and on The Cagle Post.

Jimmy Margulies, former editorial cartoonist at The Record of Woodland Park, a once-great local daily newspaper, has owners of National Football League teams climbing into bed with Trump when they held players could no longer kneel during the national anthem without leaving themselves open to punishment and exposing their teams to possible financial penalties.

Cartoonist Kevin Siers of The Charlotte Observer spelling out the NFL team owners' anthem policy, using the acronym, "RESPECT": "Revenue, Enrichment, Sales, Profit, Earnings, Cash and Trump."

In this cartoon by Stephane Peray, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and President Trump give the finger to a white dove, a symbol of peace.

Cartoonist Dave Granlund has Trump blaming cancellation of the summit meeting on Kim Jung-un's "name calling."

R.J. Matson, the cartoonist at Roll Call, says Trump, under relentless pressure from the Russia investigation, is claiming investigators are the ones who are breaking the law.

Trump dismantles more of Obama's legacy as probe reveals large payments to lawyer

Cartoonist Dave Granlund captures President Trump's sole motivation: Undoing every one of Barack Obama's accomplishments, including the Iran nuclear deal. But the news media have pretty much stopped mentioning Trump's racial animus toward the former president.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Another week of dizzying events inside and outside of the White House is behind us.

As usual, commentators, opinion writers and cartoonists have been scrambling to keep up with the fast-moving events.

And, as usual, the White House press corps disappoints.

They are more interested in disseminating Trump's many lies than in confronting him. 

Meanwhile, Trump attorney and longtime fixer Michael D. Cohen set up a shell company that paid hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

That same Essential Consultants LLC received more than $1 million from an American company with ties to a Russian oligarch and several corporations with business before the Trump administration, The New York Times reported.  

"Transactions adding up to $4.4 million flowed through Essential Consultants starting shortly before ... Trump was elected president and continuing to this January," The Times said.

Bill Maher video

Today's selection of editorial cartoons from Cagle.com ends with a video of Bill Maher delivering a new rule on HBO called "Married to the Mob." 

He said on Friday night that Trump, at the head of a New York mob, is running and ruining the country, all to enrich himself and his family. 

In another Granlund cartoon, President Trump tries to fracture Michael Cohen's skull as the attorney drowns in The Swamp. 

Jimmy Margulies, former editorial cartoonist for The Record of Woodland Park, suggests attorney Michael Cohen was President Trump's bag man.

After the president pulled out of the Iran deal, cartoonist Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News recalled Trump's claim when he was the frontrunner in the 2016 presidential race that if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, he wouldn't lose any voters.

Cartoonist Rick McKee of The Augusta Chronicle also weighed in on Trump and the Iran deal.

Trump, Giuliani and other supporters spin web of lies that will bring down president

TRUMP REWRITES COMMANDMENTS: "THOU SHALT NOT LIE down and take it from the Fake News Media" and "THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY with anyone who's not a Ten!" are two of the commandments President Trump follows, says editorial cartoonist Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News.

WOLF AT THE DOOR: Comedian Michelle Wolf killed it at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, D.C., where she blasted Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders -- who was sitting on the dais -- for telling lies to the news media. This is another Zyglis cartoon.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The Washington Post, the great daily newspaper President Trump loves to hate, is reporting the Liar-In-Chief has surpassed 3,000 false or misleading claims.

"Our latest update includes 3,001 false or misleading claims Trump made since the day he took office to the end of April," the newspaper said.

"That's an average of nearly 6.5 [bogus] claims a day" for a total of 466 days, the Fact Checker said, up from an average of 4.9 such claims in his first 100 days.

Some of the lies are explored in today's roundup of editorial cartoons from Cagle.com, which brings together artists from the United States and Europe.

JUMPING SHIP: A third Zyglis cartoon shows lawyers, White House aides and others abandoning Trump at a rapid clip.

SELF-PORTRAIT: Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News.

DRIVING LIBRULS CRAZY: Trump supporters don't take Trumps' lies personally, says cartoonist Pat Bagley of The Salt Lake Tribune. "Love how that drives libruls crazy," a man says after the president admits, "I lie all the time about everything and spent a lifetime ripping off people just like you!"

CARTOONIST KEVIN SIERS: Trump hired attorney Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, but that backfired when the loose cannon claimed in an appearance on Fox that the president repaid the $130,000 in hush money meant to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels about their sexual encounter. Previously, the president said he knew nothing about the payment. "He'll get his facts straight," the cartoonist for The Charlotte Observer says, quoting Trump.

WE CAN'T WAIT: In a second cartoon, Siers shows Trump in prison as Giuliani says, "Trust me, so far so good! Now on to step two...."

KENNEDY V. TRUMP: Cartoonist Randy Bish of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review contrasts John F. Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you" and Trump's "Ask how much money it will take for her to never talk about that night in the hotel." 

The chaotic Trump presidency in cartoons from Stormy Daniels to Russia meddling

"Nothing to see here," President Trump says in this cartoon from Daryl Cagle of Cagle.com, a site for artists worldwide. Try as he might, Trump hasn't been able to distract the news media from his affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels, his lawyer Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to silence her, and the FBI raid on Cohen's home and office. Below, Nate Beeler of The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio explores the menage a trois among Trump, Cohen and Sean Hannity, the Trump shill on Fox. "It's all consensual," Hannity claims.

Hannity is portrayed as Trump's lap dog in this cartoon from Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has so many leads to follow in another cartoon from Zyglis called "Which Hunt."

In another Daryl Cagle cartoon, Trump calls the FBI raids on Cohen, the lawyer who is often called the president's fixer, "an attack on our country." Not a single reporter laughed in Trump's face when he made that ridiculous comparison.

"The Unraveling," another Zyglis cartoon, notes publication of a book by fired FBI Director James Comey brought vicious attacks from the president and calls for his arrest by Republican leaders.

Trump as the puppet of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the Syrian war criminal, is explored by Jimmy Margulies, former editorial cartoonist at The Record of Woodland Park.

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

Trump's crazy train or daily D.C. shit show has the world mocking the United States

Graffiti on a building in Mary Ellen Kramer Park at the Great Falls in Paterson.

In N.J., The Record reduces

Bergen County news even further

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: The Celebrity Birthdays feature on Page 6BL in today's Better Living section notes "film producer Harvey Weinstein is 66." I guess even sexual predators deserve a listing. See a reader's comment at the end of this post.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A cornered President Trump is lashing out again on Twitter at Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a fellow Republican.

Mueller is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, as well as the finances of the Trump Organization, the 500 real estate and business entities of which the president is the sole or principal owner.

Late Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, less than two days shy of McCabe's retirement.

Like fired FBI Director James Comey, McCabe has handed over to Mueller memos documenting his conversations with the president.

Meanwhile, "60 Minutes" plans to air an interview with adult film star Stormy Daniels next Sunday.

She has offered to return $130,000 in hush money she was paid to keep quiet about her affair with Trump in 2006 after Melania Trump gave birth to their son, Barron.

Daily shit show

What a daily shit show Trump is putting on in Washington, D.C., turning our democracy into a laughing stock around the world.

No president has been tarred with so much scandal or has proven to be such a loose cannon -- insulting others and praising himself in an endless stream of lies the news media seem obsessed with spreading around the world.

'A scam ... a fraud'

Also on Friday, The New York Times and The Observer of London reported a voter-profiling company called Cambridge Analytica "harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission...."

"The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump's campaign in 2016."

"This was a scam -- and a fraud," the social network said in a statement.

Editorial cartoonist Kevin Siers of The Charlotte Observer commenting on the firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon Mobil.

Rick McKee, editorial cartoonist at The Augusta Chronicle, capturing the chaos of the Trump administration.

Many observers are betting the meeting between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un will never come off or that the two leaders are so illegitimate, nothing will come of the summit, says editorial cartoonist Nate Beeler of The Columbus Dispatch.

Local news?

I could not find a single local-news story from Bergen County in The Record's Local section on Saturday, with the exception of a police brief on a missing Paramus woman.

This from a local daily newspaper that began life as The Bergen Record, and is still called that by many older readers, decades after it became just The Record.

On Sunday, even Mike Kelly's column on the Opinion front (1O) was about Paterson.

The Record's local-news operation was on life support when the Gannett Co. took over from the Borg family in July 2016, and slashed the payroll of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of daily and weekly papers, and (201) magazine.

Now, residents of the 70 Bergen County communities can go days or weeks without seeing any news of their town.

Legal marijuana?

Gannett's reporting is weakest when trying to predict the future, as James Nash did on Sunday's Page 1.

Nash questioned whether the state Legislature will approve a bill to legalize marijuana by the June 30 deadline, and if it does, whether the state can develop rules by July 1, 2019, when weed would be sold to anyone.

Instead of speculating about the future, why doesn't Nash and other reporters write balanced stories seeking opinions on each side of issues such as legal marijuana, taxing millionaires and so forth.

Bylines

In redesigning The Record's print edition, Gannett eliminated the "by" in reporters' bylines.

Now, a reporter's name appears in boldface type and the publication appears next to it.

But "The Record" has been eliminated in favor of a fictitious publication, "North Jersey Record."

So it's no surprise #gannettruinedmypaper is appearing more and more on social media.

Built on lies, corruption, racism and more, the Trump presidency cannot possibly last

An illustration by William Hogan expresses the question that is on the minds of tens of millions of Americans outraged by the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

ONLY SOLUTION TO GWB MESS

IS TO DOUBLE TOLL TO $30

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Angry Americans are no longer reading between the lines when President Trump speaks or tweets.

They know his outrageous claims are designed to deceive both his supporters and his far more numerous detractors.

In fact, Trump seems to have hypnotized all of those reporters who hang on his every word and eagerly publish or broadcast those lies.

More than a year after Trump's illegitimate presidency began, news media big and small prefer those infuriating sound bites and unchallenged quotes to pushing back forcefully against Trump and his surrogates.

The major networks devoted hours of coverage to Trump's lie fest -- his so-called State of the Union speech last Tuesday.

The blowhard complained Democrats stayed seated and didn't applaud. Good for them. 

He should be grateful none of them called him a liar, as a GOP congressman did when Barack Obama gave one of his State of the Union speeches.

It's long past time the news media start acting skeptically when Trump gives a scripted speech -- such as recording the speech, but only broadcasting excerpts, and with instant fact-checking.

See: Trump's Liar of the Union speech

Mueller probe

That ridiculous GOP memo about the FBI will only prompt Special Counsel Robert Mueller to work even harder to obtain guilty pleas and indictments in the probe of Russia's election interference and possible collusion with Trump associates.

The Record, my local daily newspaper, ran the Trump-Mueller confrontation on Page 11A of today's paper.

Menendez column

One of readers' biggest complaints about Mike Kelly is they often don't know where the veteran Record opinion columnist stands on the issue or subject he is writing about.

Kelly's celebration of Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., as a political "escape artist" is just another example of how the columnist has become little more than a space filler at the Gannett-owned paper (1A).

As usual, Kelly interviews political scientists and other so-called experts, but doesn't speak to a single Democratic voter about Menendez, who has avoided a second corruption trial after the first one ended in a hung jury.

Nor does Kelly mention Menendez might face a challenge at the polls in the primaries before the  mid-term elections in November.

He should have condemned New Jersey's senior senator for consorting with Dr. Salomon Melgen, a jet-setting fraudster who Menendez calls his close friend:

Democratic voters have no use for Menendez 

Jury should have found Menendez guilty

Raise toll to $30

The Record today continues extensive coverage of traffic woes in Leonia and other towns near the George Washington Bridge that are flooded with vehicles seeking short cuts around the growing  congestion.

Of course, the only real solution isn't mentioned in the Road Warrior column on today's Local front: 

The Port Authority must double the cash toll to $30 as an incentive for drivers to use mass transit or at least abandon their enormous gas-guzzling SUVs for car pools or gas-electric hybrids that get big toll discounts.

Leonia has blocked off side streets, but those restrictions are being challenged in court.

News media love Trump Liar of the Union speech, more GOP propaganda about FBI

President Trump during his first -- and probably last -- State of the Union speech on Tuesday night (photo by Win McNamee via AP). 

A photo of Trump that was published after he was fired by NBC for calling Mexicans rapists and drug runners. Same tie, same lies as on Tuesday night.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

I must be the only one who remembers when a South Carolina Republican shouted "You lie" as President Obama delivered a health care speech to Congress in 2009.

Where were the shouts of "liar" during President Trump's first State of the Union speech on Tuesday night -- or Liar of the Union speech, as I like to think of it?

Instead, I had to listen to upbeat coverage of the speech on the morning TV news, with only a minute or so devoted to a rebuttal from Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass.

"It would be easy to dismiss the past year as chaos. Partisanship. Politics. But it's far bigger than that," he said, according to CNN. "This administration isn't just targeting the laws that protect us -- they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection."

Local coverage

The Page 1 headline in The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper, is puzzling, if not downright awkward:

"TRUMP TOUTS

OPTIMISTIC TONE"

One definition of "tout" is "attempt to sell." But can you try to sell an "optimistic tone" or should that have been:

"TRUMP ATTEMPTS

TO SELL OPTIMISM"

The sub-headline claims, "Speech advances infrastructure, immigration plans."

But no action  was taken on Tuesday night -- it was just a speech -- so "advances" is inaccurate.

Liar in Chief

After telling lies his entire life, does anyone really believe Trump -- con man, white supremacist, abuser of women and tax dodger -- was speaking the truth in his call for bipartisanship and unity?

"Trump offers same policies in new bipartisan packaging," was the headline over a Politico.com report.

Sounds just like media reports about Chris Christie, when he was governor of New Jersey and hailed as a "bipartisan compromiser" even as he executed one veto after another to keep Democrats in line. 

Fact Checker

Trump's claim that African-American unemployment "stands at the lowest rate ever recorded" is a total fabrication, according to The Washington Post Fact Checker:

"The African-American unemployment rate has been on a relatively steady decline since it hit a peak of 16.8 percent in March 2010.... "The rate had already fallen to 7.7 percent when Trump took the oath of office -- it is now 6.8 percent."

During the 2016 campaign, Trump claimed falsely that 58 percent of black youths were unemployed -- the actual figure was 19.2 percent, the newspaper said.

Secret memo

And the news media can't seem to get enough of the secret GOP memo about alleged investigative abuses at the FBI as part of the Russia probe.

Reminds me of all the time and space they devoted to the endless GOP lies about Hillary Clinton's emails -- stories that helped derail her campaign against Trump in the 2016 presidential election.

See: Media rewrite Christie history