UPDATE: The Record tries to panic us into thinking all of our taxes are going up

Jimmy Margulies, onetime editorial cartoonist at The Record of Woodland Park, has North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un wondering about how much he can get for his nuclear missiles after President Trump's lawyer paid $130,000 to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

During his successful campaign and in his budget address on Tuesday, Governor Murphy made clear he wants to raise taxes only on New Jersey's millionaires.

But on Tuesday, he also proposed restoring the 7% state sales tax, which former Gov. Chris Christie cut to 6.625% before he signed a 23-cents-a-gallon hike in the gas tax in October 2016.

That was the first and last tax hike the GOP bully signed during his eight years in office -- starving New Jersey of revenue and prompting him to grab money from mass transit, the environment, women's health and other programs to balance his budgets.

Still, The Record of Woodland Park wasted no time trying to panic non-millionaires into thinking their taxes are going up, too.

"Gov. Phil Murphy unveiled ... $1.6 billion in new taxes that will hit the paychecks of the wealthy and retail purchases of everyone in the state," the lead paragraph of a Page 1 story declared on Wednesday.

Of course, that was a reference to the miniscule hike to restore the state sales tax to 7%, but The Record's reporters made sure to bury that on the continuation page.

Does anyone care? If you can't afford a hike of a few cents in the sales tax, then your personal finances are a disaster.

'Ambitious' agenda

The story, written by James Nash and Dustin Racioppi, called Murphy's first-year agenda "ambitious."

A preview on Tuesday's front page asked, "How is he [Murphy] going to pay for his progressive promises?"

One of the biggest mistakes Gannett editors made was assigning Racioppi to cover Murphy.

The Trenton reporter's coverage of Christie largely ignored the nearly 600 vetoes the GOP thug executed to kill bills passed by the Democratic majority in the State Legislature.

Among many other measures, they included raising the minimum wage, taxing millionaires, hiking the gas tax to fund transportation improvements, and restricting the sale of assault-style rifles.

Affects who?

Inside Wednesday's paper, a graphic showed "how Murphy's $37.4B budget could affect you."

Turns out Uber and Airbnb services would be taxed for the first time in 2019. 

Big deal. Shouldn't they pay taxes, too?

Millionaires would pay a 10.75% tax on every dollar of income over $1 million, compared to an 8.97% tax on income over $500,000 now. 

Long overdue, and the 1% will hardly notice it.

Murphy said NJ Transit fares won't be going up in 2019.

Three cheers.

The state's earned income tax credit program would get an additional $27 million, giving more tax relief to low- and moderate-income earners.

And the state's minimum wage would be raised to $15, starting with a jump to $11 in 2019.

Sounds like a win-win for the vast majority of New Jersey's 9 million residents.

So, why is The Record's coverage of Murphy and his proposals so negative?

Correction

A rare correction on Wednesday's 2A noted a headline on Page 1L on Tuesday was "incorrect."

"A former Hackensack police officer will receive $105,416 for unused sick pay and vacation days."

The sub-headline on Tuesday said the payout will be "105,00."

There was no correction of Tuesday's incomprehensible Page 1 headline over the fatal crash of a helicopter into the Hudson River:

"BAG BEHIND CRASH?"

High schoolers put news media to shame by confronting Trump on Florida murders

Cartoonist Jimmy Margulies listing the five stages of grief among officials after another school shooting: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance -- with a payoff from the gun lobby.

Editorial cartoonist Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star Tribune shows how from their fortresses, President Trump, Republicans in Congress and conservatives call for more -- not fewer -- guns.

STUDENTS TAKE OVER ROLE

 OF CALLING FOR REFORM

 -- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Surely, we are witnessing one of the darkest chapters in the history of American journalism.

Once, in the not too distant past, reporters saw their role as challenging authority, exposing wrongdoing and calling for reform.

Now, our news media have ceded that responsibility when it comes to gun control to high school students who survived the Parkland shootings, which were nothing less than 17 premeditated murders.

During "listening sessions" at the White House, not a single reporter confronted President Trump, and asked him how he could allow the murders of 17 innocent students and staff members in a Florida high school.

Instead, they scribbled furiously, and strained to capture photos and videos of his ridiculous proposal to arm teachers and other school staff.

Reporters have been reduced to the role of stenographers and videographers.

One Colorado teacher who showed a TV reporter the loaded pistol he carries in his classroom even was quoted by the CBS Evening News as saying he would be justified missing a gunman and killing an innocent student, if he could stop the death of more kids.

Confronting Rubio

At a forum in Florida, angry students and parents confronted Sen. Marco Rubio and a top representative of the National Rifle Association -- "demanding that politicians and lobbyists support stricter gun-control measures," the New York Post reported.

Promoting AR-15

Today, Columnist Mike Kelly uses the front page of The Record of Woodland Park to promote the semi-automatic AR-15 -- used in the Parkland murders -- as "deadly" because it is so "easy to fire [and] load," and as "the most popular rifle in America" (1A).

The irresponsible columnist at my local daily newspaper also went to a firing range near his office to shoot an "AR-15-style rifle."

He uses the first two paragraphs of his column to describe in detail how easy it was to pick up the deadly weapon, load it and squeeze the trigger time and again -- essentially recounting how Parkland gunman Nikolas Cruz killed student after student on Feb. 14. 

His column today is "shameful" and "idiotic" -- the words Kelly himself used on the Opinion section front just a week ago to describe how we don't confiscate the weapons of people like Cruz when "they are behaving strangely."

Kelly definitely is one columnist who is "behaving strangely." 

Cartoonist Dave Granlund exploring what he calls the National Rifle Association's "plan for school security."

'Everybody is exhausted'

Several pages of The Record today explore "the chaos of life and its collision with technology [social media] and tragedy..." (1A, 6A, 7A and Better Living front).

"More of us [are] feeling drained, frazzled and emotionally overrun... We are exhausted," Staff Writer Jim Beckerman reports.

He blames everything from wildfires in California, rising tensions with North Korea, "the non-stop barrage of presidential tweets," mass shootings, red-blue state political divisions and three of the worst hurricanes on record.

The headlines on the Better Living front:

The Trump effect

Politics may actually be stressing you out

Of course, The Record and other news media are guilty of causing a lot of this stress by focusing on nothing but "politics," and the partisan divide in Trenton and Washington.

Issues and what is good for the people of New Jersey and the nation rarely appear in news stories and opinion columns.

Veteran Trenton reporter Charles Stile does little else but write about politics -- his tedious, boring  column is called "Political Stile," and The Record often runs his garbage on the front page.

On Wednesday, The Record reported on Page 1 that Governor Murphy praised students staging gun control protests across the country, and vowed "once again to sign a package of gun-control legislation that was blocked" by his predecessor, Chris Christie.

But the very next day, Stile's ridiculous front-page column carried this headline:

"Murphy cautious

 after Parkland shooting"

As Trump divides nation, men + women, Democratic voters are saying, Never again!

After President Trump asked the military to plan a July Fourth parade in Washington, D.C. -- like the one that wowed him when he visited France -- the popular vote loser was portrayed as just another tin-pot dictator by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

As our long national nightmare drags on into a second year, women candidates and their Democratic supporters are vowing to turn out in record numbers in the November 2018 elections for Congress.

Racist, con man, pussy grabber, tax dodger and serial liar Donald J. Trump won the 2016 presidential election in the antiquated Electoral College because of lower Democratic turnout.

"He won because Hillary Clinton was less attractive to the traditional Democratic base of urban, minorities, and more educated voters," Forbes opinion writer Ori Ben-Shahar said of Trump on Nov. 17, 2016.

"The story of Hillary Clinton's defeat ... is not the Trump Movement erupting in ballots.... The story ... is very simple: 

"The Democratic base did not turn out to vote as it did for Obama. Those sure-Democrats who stayed home handed the election to Trump," Ben-Shahar said.

Headquarters of The New York Times on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, opposite the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

'Slovenian Sphinx'

The New York Times' Maureen Dowd wrote a scathing opinion column about Trump:

"He [Trump] is an idiot savant who plays in the roiling ocean of Twitter as naturally as a blubbery-necked sea lion.

"Only Donald Trump, a Rat Pack relic who spurred the reckoning with his transgressions toward women, could send out a tweet taking credit for the women's march.

"But the Slovenian Sphinx has her moments," Dowd said of Melania.

"Trump could humiliate his wife by being a big, horny pig [cavorting with a porn star and telling her not to worry about Melania, at home with a new baby], but he is the one who comes off as ... an embarrassing husband and an embarrassing president and an embarrassing leader of the free world."

See: Trump presidency cannot possibly last

Also: Media love Trump Liar of the Union speech


'Promises, promises'

The Record, my local daily newspaper, today launched a project to hold Governor Murphy "accountable" for the promises he made while campaigning for the job (1A).

The all-caps headline over the story, which covers half of Page 1:

"PROMISES, PROMISES"

I'm certain the Woodland Park daily never did this when GOP thug Chris Christie was governor nor have the editors bothered to hold Trump "accountable" for all the lies he tells about his so-called accomplishments.

Today, Dustin Racioppi, the reporter who covered Christie -- and served as one of the paper's chief apologists for his mean-spirited rule -- wrote stiffly:

"The Record will update this list as needed with the status on these promises as Murphy moves through his tenure."

Racioppi is no wordsmith, but the same can be said about Charles Stile, Mike Kelly, John Cichowski and so many others left in the wake of the mass layoffs after Gannett bought North Jersey Media Group from the Borg family in July 2016. 

For these and many other reasons, readers and critics have long referred to The Record as "The Wretched."

Best bites?

I was shocked by the list of "Best Bites" from Chef Christine Nunn, owner of Picnic Catering by Christine, as published in The Record's Better Living section at the end of January.

She recommends food shops selling pork, beef, veal and cold cuts without saying whether any of the meat is free of harmful antibiotics, growth hormones and carcinogenic preservatives.

Is any of the produce she recommends organic? Readers don't have a clue.

For fish, she ignores The Fish Dock, a small shop in Closter that sells an astounding variety of fresh fish direct from Iceland, not from a wholesaler.

And the five -- soon to be six -- H Marts in Bergen County carry as many Asian ingredients as Mitsuwa in Edgewater, and at far better prices, plus the Korean supermarkets offer free food samples on the weekends.

Omitting, rewriting or fudging Christie history is lowest form of journalism by far

President Trump's attempts to derail the Russia investigation by firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller and demonizing the FBI are reflected in cartoons by Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, above, and freelancer Milt Priggee, below.

IN DAVOS, FOREIGN PRESS

 BOO 'FAKE NEWS' TRUMP

 --HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

In the nearly three months since Phil Murphy was elected governor of New Jersey, my local daily newspaper has been rewriting the eight years Chris Christie reigned as the worst chief executive in state history.

Editors, columnists and reporters at The Record, a Gannett-owned daily, seem to have been struck with amnesia.

A week ago, a front-page column ran under this headline:

"Gov. Murphy
must earn his
$175,000 salary"

In just his third paragraph, burned-out political columnist Charles Stile penned this fiction:

"Voters gave [Governor] Christie, and his penchant for lavish perks and his colorful, sometimes abrasive behavior, a wide berth because he was on the job, getting things done. He was earning his pay."

Getting things done?

Like destroying the environment? Like executing more than 600 vetoes to kill a tax surcharge on millionaires, a $15 minimum wage and other progressive bills approved by the state Legislature?

Violated Constitution

On Page 1 the very next day, readers of the Woodland Park daily learned Christie borrowed nearly $1 billion to renovate the State House and two other projects -- "all without asking permission from voters, as required by the state's constitution."

We need more debt like we need a hole in our collective heads.

The day after that an editorial blasted Christie for seven years of "head-in-the-sand thinking" -- pulling New Jersey out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, "a coalition of nine New England and mid-Atlantic states that require utilities to buy credits for each ton of carbon they emit." 

The goal of the multi-state coalitions is to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and slow climate change.

Destroyed transit

Also last week, a front-page story reported Governor Murphy ordered a comprehensive audit of the state's troubled commuter rail and bus agency, NJ Transit, which has raised fares, cut service, and neglected maintenance and safety improvements.

Remarkably, reporters Curtis Tate and Dustin Racioppi never mentioned Christie, who put the agency on the ropes beginning in 2015.

How could they forget Christie cut the direct state subsidy to NJ Transit's operating budget to $33 million in 2015 from $348 million in 2009, the year before he took office, according to The New York Times' New Jersey Transit, A Cautionary Tale of Neglect.

See: Good riddance to Chris Christie


Local news?

One of the biggest impediments to stronger penalties against drivers who kill pedestrians in crosswalks is John Cichowski, who has written The Record's Road Warrior column for more than 14 years.

On Thursday, he devoted an entire front-page column to praise "traffic reform" after graduate student Weiqi Wang, a native of China, was fatally injured crossing the street in November 2016 in front of Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Cichowski doesn't call for stronger, criminal penalties against drivers who kill pedestrians.

Nor does he mention that Carlos A. Poole, 49, of New Milford, identified by police as the driver of the car that struck her, was issued only three motor-vehicle summonses for violating a 2010 law that drivers must stop for pedestrians in crosswalks.


Food coverage

Like coverage of local news, The Record's food coverage is going from bad to worse:

On Jan. 20, a Better Living cover story on "top cheese shops in North Jersey" ignored Jerry's Gourmet & More, the Englewood store that has one of the best selections of cheese in North Jersey as well as numerous free samples. 

Then on Wednesday, the Better Living cover puzzled readers with this headline:

"14 FOOLPROOF KITCHEN HACKS"

Kate Morgan Jackson, a food blogger also known as the Queen of Cholesterol, offered a "few smart [kitchen] tricks and tips," such as using a "vegetable peeler to dot butter" (3BL).

The word "hack" was never defined; one definition is "a writer or journalist [like Jackson] producing dull, unoriginal work."

Despite Russian meddling in the 2016 election and the chaos of his first year in office, President Trump is expected to claim during his State of the Union speech on Tuesday the country is stronger and better than ever before, as shown in this cartoon by freelancer Dave Granlund. 

Trump booed

I doubt cowardy White House reporters or others in the United States will follow the lead of members of the foreign press who booed President Trump in Switzerland last week.

Trump was complaining about the news media again, and lamenting how "mean," "nasty" and  "fake" the press can be.

You can hear the boos in this piece from the Huffington Post:

Trump booed at Davos

Large and small news media are killing us with political conflict, sowing voter apathy

Evangelicals supporting President Trump are relieved the porn star he screwed didn't get pregnant and have an abortion, says Jimmy Margulies, a nationally syndicated cartoonist. On Friday night, satirist Bill Maher noted she was the first porn star paid to keep her mouth closed.

Here, Margulies expresses skepticism about the overweight 71-year-old's clean bill of health, given that the New York billionaire's favorite foods are cheeseburgers, steaks and huge slices of chocolate cake.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: The end of this post has been updated to include mention of a flawed article about Hackensack that ran in The New York Times' Real Estate section.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

For as long as I can remember, the most overused words in news media coverage of government are "Republican" and "Democrat."

The media know partisan conflict makes headlines, and there is nothing more infuriating than those TV sound bites from President Trump, Mitch McConnell and Democratic leaders.

Newspapers and TV anchors reduced to a blame game the chaotic government shutdown on the first anniversary of Trump's inauguration as the illegitimate president.

Saturday's Page 1 headline in The Record, the Gannett-owned local daily newspaper, couldn't be clearer:

"CONGRESS

"Midnight deadline passes

after Democrats block

GOP's stopgap plan"

The media -- large and small -- seem incapable of covering government by discussing issues, and taking a stand on what is good for the nation, New Jersey and their people.

And the relentless focus on partisan politics causes widespread voter apathy; tens of millions of Americans, many of them Democrats, simply don't vote, which is how the Liar-In-Chief got into office in the first place.

Coal and fish

The other night, I watched Major Garrett, White House correspondent for CBS News, struck dumb when Trump's environmental protection administrator said he refuses to favor renewable solar and wind energy over other forms, including coal.

Garrett could have pointed out that emissions from coal generating plants kill people prematurely or that they are linked to mercury in fish, but didn't.

What would EPA Czar Scott Pruitt say to that? I guess we'll never know.

Governor Murphy

Phil Murphy was sworn in as New Jersey's 56th governor last Tuesday.

But by Thursday, his pledge to raise the minimum wage to $15, and his executive order tightening rules on disclosing gifts weren't considered front-page news in The Record.

In fact, the Woodland Park daily has been running a series of news stories and columns suggesting Murphy might be "too liberal" for New Jersey -- echoing the lie-filled gubernatorial campaign of Kim Guadagno, who was lieutenant governor under Chris Christie, the worst governor in state history.

And The Record, often referred to as The Wretched, ignored Governor Murphy's non-partisan tweet on inauguration day:

Governor Phil Murphy‏Verified account @GovMurphy Jan 16

I urge you to join us on the road forward. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent. We all share a common destiny. We must undertake a common cause. #NewDayNJ

39 replies 46 retweets 229 likes

 

Tarnished, not golden

Take a look at today's Opinion page (1O), which is dominated by a guest columnist, Carl Golden, who claims: 

"One essential truth emerged from Gov. Phil Murphy's inaugural address on Tuesday: It will be a metaphysical impossibility to get to his left. New Jersey has not been governed in modern history by a chief executive so unabashedly and unapologetically left of center."

Golden is a onetime Record reporter who went on to become chief spokesman for two of New Jersey's most conservative governors, Tom Kean and the other Christie -- Christie Whitman -- so the column about Murphy, a Democrat, is no surprise.

And The Record takes pains to hide Golden's conservative past by identifying him at the end of the column only as "a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University" (4O).

Golden; Charles Stile, The Record's political columnist; and Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi, who was assigned to cover Murphy after years of covering Christie, know "left" and "liberal" are loaded descriptions for progressive Democrats like Murphy.

They seem only interested in creating conflict and making headlines in their coverage of the new governor -- lots of heat, but no light. 

Food coverage?

The Record's Better Living cover today claims "one of the season's best dining deals" is Hudson Restaurant Week (Jan. 22-Feb. 2), when restaurants offer three-course lunches and dinners "for $40 and under."

But there is no mention that a far better deal can be found across the Hudson during New York City's Restaurant Week (Jan. 22-Feb. 9), when hundreds of restaurants offer three-course lunches for $29 and three-course dinners for $42.

Saturday's Better Living cover purported to report on the top cheese shops in North Jersey, but Food Editor Esther Davidowitz somehow omitted the incredible selection of cheeses -- as well as free samples -- at  Jerry's Gourmet & More in Englewood.

Taxing hospital

Friday's Record brought some good news for home and business owners in Hackensack, where property taxes are unusually high because of all the tax-exempt property located in the city of 45,000.

The City Council is renewing its attempt to get one those non-profits, Hackensack University Medical Center, to "pay some of the estimated $19 million" in taxes it would owe every year, if HUMC wasn't tax exempt, The Record reported.

In a 2015 settlement, the hospital agreed to pay Hackensack $4.5 million over three years, resolving several issues, including tax appeals on four hospital properties.

Upbeat article

Many Hackensack residents were pleased last week after The New York Times published an upbeat profile of the city under this headline:

Hackensack, N.J.: Small, Ethnically Diverse and Affordable

But in the comments section, others noted flaws in the piece, including absolutely no mention of the high property taxes home and business owners pay to make up for the tens of millions of dollars in revenue withheld by such non-profits as Hackensack University Medical Center.

That omission was especially glaring because the article was published in The Times' Real Estate section.

Noisy jets

There also was no mention of the biggest quality of life issue: 

Endless noise from the business and celebrity jets at Teterboro Airport that pass over the Fairmount section and Prospect Avenue high-rises.

The article was written by Jay Levin, a reporter at The Record who was laid off last year.

Levin spent many years crafting expanded obituaries of prominent local residents, but his flawed Hackensack article shows he may be out of practice writing about the living.