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.

Older Americans have a great deal at stake in the Nov. 6 congressional, local elections

The cover story in the AARP Bulletin this month lists 10 ways the Nov. 6 midterm elections will affect older Americans.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- "This year's midterm elections will impact older Americans for decades," AARP Bulletin reports.

AARP, whose stated mission is "empowering people to choose how they live as they age," lists the issues elected officials will be grappling with in the coming term:

Shoring up Social Security, rising drug prices, Medicare funding, growing or slowing Medicaid, the future of health insurance, bolstering retirement savings, lower retirement taxes, fixing pension shortfalls, more help for caregivers, and fraud against and abuse of people who are 65-plus.

100 percent nonpartisan

"This is one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime," political scholar Norman Ornstein recently told AARP editors about the 2018 midterm elections [on Nov. 6], "and we wholeheartedly agree."

"We are at a moment in which important decisions need to be made on many matters key to the lives of older Americans," AARP Bulletin reports.

"Some are obvious, like the future funding and structure of Medicare and our health-care system. 

"At the same time, many states are grappling with issues related to worker discrimination, retirement savings, underfunded pensions [New Jersey], Medicaid, caregiving and more.

"Those we put in office could shape the resolutions of these issues for decades to come," says AARP, adding the group is "100 percent nonpartisan."

"But we do want you to know about the issues facing older Americans, the ways each issue can be addressed, and the policies that our organization believes will best serve all older Americans.

"So vote. For you, your loved ones and America."

Shoring up Social Security

"Social Security's trust fund will fall short by 2034; if that happens, benefits would drop by about 20 percent, a 2018 government report says.

"Some elected officials have proposed cutting Social Security as part of deficit reduction.... And if Republicans still control Congress next year, Social Security's cost-of-living adjustment could face a major change."

Rising drug prices

"Prescription drug costs are increasing at a rate 10 times faster than inflation, and state legislatures, Congress and the federal government are starting to take on pharmaceutical companies.

"AARP supports allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, permitting the importation of safe lower-cost drugs, and speeding generic drugs to market."

Medicare funding

"Medicare's trust fund will fall short by 2026, according to a report by the program's trustees in June.

"House Republicans have proposed a budget that would give seniors a voucher-type option to enroll in private health plans, and have proposed other changes that would squeeze $537 billion out of Medicare.

"Whether that proposal moves ahead could depend on who controls Congress after November."

To read the rest of the AARP report, see:

10 Ways the Election Will Affect Older Americans 

New Jersey ballot

On Nov. 6, New Jersey residents will be voting for a U.S. senator and a member of the House of Representatives.

In Bergen County, the county executive is seeking another term, as are two members of the Board of Freeholders.

The ballot also includes two public questions seeking funding for programs in New Jersey and Hackensack.

GOP controls all branches of government, answers to an unhinged President Trump

Jimmy Margulies, former editorial cartoonist at The Record of Woodland Park, suggesting the wild week on Wall Street and Kanye West's visit to the White House weren't unrelated (Margulies calls it "the Trump-Kanye West merger"). You can find more Margulies and other cartoons at The Cagle Post.

VOTE ON NOV. 6 TO RESTORE

DEMOCRACY'S CHECKS, BALANCES

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The only time President Trump seems sane is when he invites a wacko like Kanye West to the Oval Office.

Last week, West's rant silenced Trump in a way we haven't ever seen.

One pop music critic claimed West was "sucking up" to the president. 

And did you see how uncomfortable Trump looked when West, in his red MAGA baseball cap, stood up, walked behind the president's desk and bent down to hug him as he remained seated?

GOP and 1%

Still, the Republican Party continues to allow Trump to destroy our democracy and dismantle the legacy of former President Barack Obama -- while so-called tax reform lines the pockets of the 1%.

The GOP controls all three branches of government.

Meanwhile, with the Nov. 6 mid-term congressional elections fast approaching, "many ... Republicans -- including those on the Supreme Court -- have engaged in a deliberate campaign to make voting harder," says Op-Ed Columnist David Leonhardt at The New York Times.

"They've reduced voting hours and added cumbersome identification requirements, among other things," Leonhardt wrote last week.

Obama weighs in 

Also last week, Leonhardt quoted Barack Obama saying:

"My message in this upcoming election is very simple: It's vote.

"This isn't really a 50-50 country. It's like a 60-40 country," Obama said, adding:

"Democrats could and will do even better, if everyone ... not only votes but makes sure that all your wishy-washy, excuse-making, Internet-surfing, TV watching, grumbling-but-not-doing-nothing friends and family members get to the poles. Vote."

Your vote to shift control of Congress to the Democrats could restore the checks and balances laid out in the U.S. Constitution.

Cartoonist Joe Heller of the Green Bay Press-Gazette in Wisconsin refers to an alarming report on climate change from a United Nations panel of scientists. "Do you smell something burning?"