Trump expected to keep the perfect record of GOP presidents who triggered recession

Satirist Bill Maher is hoping we can get rid of Donald J. Trump when the president's economic policies trigger a recession -- in a Republican tradition that dates to the early 1900s.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, who left office in 1909, every Republican president has seen a recession take hold in his first term, MarketWatch.com reported in May.

Now, satirist Bill Maher is hoping Donald J. Trump's massive, trillion-dollar tax cut for the wealthy, trade wars and other economic policies will trigger another recession and doom his presidency. 

"A recession is a survivable event; what Trump is doing to this country is not," the satirist said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."

"We survive one every time a Republican is in the White House, it's true," Maher said on Friday night. "Every Republican president since Teddy Roosevelt has presided over a recession."

"Four Republican presidents had two of them and Eisenhower had three," he said, adding:

"The United States has survived 47 recessions in all and since the Great Depression, we've never gone more than 10 years without one. Another recession is coming. Not because I'm rooting for it, because someone [Donald Trump] passed a giant tax giveaway to the rich that added trillions to the debt and started a trade war for no reason, and deliberately sabotaged the Affordable Care Act, and rolled back the rules for banks so they can once again gamble with our money. Those are actual policies for men with real power as opposed to me who just made a wish. I just made a wish! What am I, a genie?"

'I don't really care'

Maher also addressed the mixed message first lady Melania Trump sent when, on an unannounced humanitarian visit to a children's shelter in Texas, she wore a jacket with these words scrawled on the back:

"I REALLY DON'T CARE. DO U?"

Maher said she has other clothing in her wardrobe with messages that are just as provocative, including:

"That's Mrs. Hitler to You."

"I VOTED FOR HILLARY."

Melania Trump slaps away her husband's hand, seems to join the MeToo movement

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Today's selection of cartoons from Cagle.com focuses on Melania Trump, first lady of the United States, and her distaste for the husband who cheated on her after the birth of their son Barron.

Here are a half-dozen glimpses into her life as President Trump's third wife:

SUPPORTS A BIG BEAUTIFUL WALL: David Fitzsimmons, staff cartoonist for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson says Melania will be the one to build a wall -- between her and President Trump. 

GREEN CARD VIOLATION IN '96: Cartoonist Dave Granlund suggesting Melania might be arrested by Trump's ICE police for having worked illegally in the U.S.

STATE OF THE UNION IS STORMY: J.D. Crowe, staff cartoonist for the Mobile Register in Alabama, capturing the tensions of the Trumps' marriage. Adult film star Stormy Daniels bared most of the details of her sexual encounter with Trump, despite a $130,000 payment intended to shut her up.

NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT: Cartoonist Jeff Darcy of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland suggesting this is the big question on everybody's mind in the event she seeks a divorce from the Liar-In-Chief.

BROMANCE WITH FRENCH PREZ: Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star Tribune trying to explain the touchy feely meeting between Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron.

TRUMP SHITS ON WIFE'S CAMPAIGN: Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News commenting on Melania's attempts to stop cyber-bullying when Trump is one of the biggest such bullies.

See more cartoons: Chaotic Trump presidency

North Korea summit may be a distraction from mountainous breasts Trump adores

Adult film star Stormy Daniels is suing President Trump so she can make, uh, a clean breast of her affair with the New York billionaire after Melania Trump gave birth to their son, Barron. Melania is the stormy weather forecaster in this sendup from cartoonist Dave Granlund.

Cartoonist Granlund satirizing the war of words between North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and President Trump over which leader has a bigger nuclear "button."

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

We've survived another insane week of the Trump presidency -- with visions of an adult film star's enormous, surgically enlarged breasts and a possible summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Donald J. Trump would be the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean leader in hopes of obtaining a nuclear-disarmament pledge.

But former President Jimmy Carter obtained a nuclear disarmament agreement with Un's grandfather in 1994, according to ABC News.

And in 2009, former President Bill Clinton also went to North Korea at a time when tensions were high over its nuclear program, and helped free two journalists.

Just a distraction?

Trump's visit isn't a sure thing, but he's got such a mess on his hands at home it may not matter.

And all the coverage of a possible summit is distracting from last week's real news:

The probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election is intensifying, and could result in an obstruction of justice indictment against Trump as one former aide after another is charged or cooperates with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

And details of Trump's affair with a big-breasted porn star starting in 2006, after son Barron was born, are spilling out even as she sues to be allowed to tell all, including "still images" of what satirist Bill Maher speculates is Trump's "junk." 

Meanwhile, many are asking why Trump isn't applying sanctions Congress already OK'd against Russian dictator Vladimir Putin for his war crimes in Syria, and his recent, Kim Jong Un-like boast of having "invincible" nuclear weapons that could destroy U.S. defenses.

See: Trump isn't the only cause of stress in our lives

See:'Do You Remember When Love Was King?'

These doctored photos of President Trump and Kim Jong Un, above and below, appeared on Twitter (@bornmiserable).

N.J. environment

As today's front-page story in The Record shows, the environment in North Jersey went to hell while Chris Christie was governor from January 2010 to January 2018.

Now, the Woodland Park daily's environmental reporters are spending all their time on toxic disasters in Pompton Lake and Edgewater, the latter just across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

"Elevated levels of  a chemical that can be harmful to humans ... has been wafting in the air from the Quanta Superfund site in Edgewater for nine months [italics added] as workers continue to entomb a century's worth of pollution on the property closely surrounded by homes and businesses, Staff Writer Scott Fallon reports.

If the foul-smelling, potentially harmful air has been present for nine months, why is The Record just writing about it now?

Dysfunctional Englewood

The small city of Englewood has been mismanaged for decades.

Just look at the segregated elementary and middle schools; and high property taxes, despite revenue from the owners of million-dollar mansions on the East Hill, a small industrial area and hundreds of new apartments downtown and along Route 4.

Now, The Record leads today's Local front with a story under this headline:

"Englewood's 'dire' finances

 to be studied"

In the same sentence that quotes the "city manager," Englewood is referred to as a "borough" (1L).


Copy editors wanted

Readers eyes are rolling at another Mike Kelly piece that keeps them guessing on the meaning of the headline on today's Opinion front:

"It's time for a new plan

for Hudson rail tunnels"

Readers have to plow through thousands of words of background information on the Opinion front (1O) and the continuation page (4O) before Kelly reveals his solution in the last five paragraphs:

Appeal to the Port Authority to take over the project now that Trump has refused to fund the second attempt to replace the 100-year-old tunnels, which Christie initially killed in 2010. 

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.

Pope and Europeans lecture The Donald on importance of saving our environment

In this photo from Getty Images, everyone but President Trump looks like they just heard about a death in the family. Of course, as usual, Trump is behaving inappropriately after meeting Pope Francis in Rome.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

After their meeting today in Rome, Pope Francis gave climate-denying President Trump an encyclical urging action to slow climate change.

And at the G-7 summit in Sicily the president plans to attend later, worried European leaders are expected to push back against Trump's threat to pull out of the Paris climate accord.

The pope also appeared to refer disdainfully to how heavy the 70-year-old president is from stuffing his face with ice cream, fried chicken and Diet Coke.

As he shook the hand of first lady Melania Trump, the pope glanced at Trump, who dwarfed Francis, and asked, "What do you give him to eat, potica?" referring to a high-calorie Slovenian cake.  

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Pope Francis called those who build barriers "not Christian," referring to the then-GOP candidate's desire to build a wall on our southern border.

Trump said the comments were "disgraceful."

At the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, President Trump says, "Impressive! How did you get Mexico to pay for it?" The cartoon is from Nate Beeler of The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio.

Trump sworn in, Obamas leaving White House in transition from class to crass

This morning, New York's tabloids, the Post and Daily News, ran identical headlines and photos of President-elect Donald J. Trump and first lady-in-waiting Melania Trump, a former model whose nude photos with another woman both papers delighted in publishing.  The play on "Dawn of a new day" seems trite.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

It's official.

New York billionaire businessman Donald John Trump, once denounced as a wacko and racist, has been sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.

As Barack Obama leaves Washington today, it's useful to review what he has accomplished, and ask whether President Trump can possibly match his actions to the magic-wand promises he made during a long, bitter campaign that was designed to divide the nation.

Vice President Mike Pence was sworn in by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, whose 1991 confirmation hearing was marked by accusations of sexual harassment, similar to those made against Trump.

From AMERICAblog:

Among the things President Obama has accomplished these past eight years, despite racially motivated opposition from Republicans in Congress:

1. Obama saved the economy from imminent collapse. 

2. Passed health-care reform, giving 20 million people insurance.

3. Passed Wall Street Reform. 

4. Negotiated the Iran nuclear deal. 

5. Got the Paris climate deal signed.

6. Killed Osama bin Laden. 

7. Ended combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

8. Bailed out the auto industry.

9. Repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and put the full force of the U.S. government behind marriage equality.

And it's useful to review how poorly the tabloids treated Trump and his wife during the campaign: