If you're feeling angry, apathetic or lazy as Election Day approaches, just vote by mail

Donald J. Trump has claimed to be a self-made billionaire, but that's total fiction, according to a New York Times investigation, and cartoonist Joe Heller of the Green Bay Press Gazette in Wisconsin illustrates the fraud. 

IN HACKENSACK, YOU CAN REJECT

 $165M SCHOOL PLAN FROM HOME

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- If you are one of the Democrats angered by the bitter partisan battle that ended with Brett Kavanaugh getting a lifetime seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, the solution is as close as your mailbox.

All you have to do to vote on Nov. 6 -- in a bid to move Congress to the left -- is apply for a mail-in ballot, fill it out in the comfort of your home and send it in.

The Bergen County clerk sent out forms to register to vote, as well as applications for a mail-in ballot, so you no longer have an excuse to remain on the sidelines, as millions of apathetic or lazy Democrats did in the 2016 presidential election.

If Democrats take control of Congress, there is a real possibility we could see the impeachments of both President Trump and Associate Justice Kavanaugh in 2019.

With a mail-in ballot, you can really procrastinate: 

"Mail-in ballots that bear a postmark date of November 6, 2018, which are received by the County Board of Elections by 8:00 p.m. on November 8, 2018, shall be considered timely submitted," according to an insert in my mail-in ballot.

By the way, you'll need two stamps to mail back the ballot, but you also can hand carry it to the Bergen County Administration Building in Hackensack. 

$165M referendum

Meanwhile, Hackensack's notoriously apathetic residents also can use a mail-in ballot to reject a Board of Education referendum to spend a total of $165.1 million on a new junior high school and existing schools.

If approved, local property taxes surely will go up; about 45% of your taxes already go to support the schools.

School board President Lara L. Rodriguez has mentioned Jan. 22, 2019, as a possible date for Hackensack residents to vote on the proposal -- clearly a strategy to use winter weather keep the vote down.

Well, don't let the school board get away with it: Vote against the plan by mail-in ballot.

Read: Enrollment hike of 120 students

 doesn't justify $165M plan

Ballot deadlines

The deadline to apply for a mail-in ballot by mail is "not less than 7 days prior to an election."

In person, you can apply "up to 3 p.m. on the day before the election."

The voter-registration deadline is 21 days before the Nov. 6 election; this year that's Oct. 16.

And if you received a mail-in ballot in the 2016 presidential election, county election officials were obligated to send you a mail-in ballot for the 2018 General Election on Nov. 6.

And you'll get a mail-in ballot for all future elections, unless your notify the officials in writing you do not want to receive them.

The mail-in ballot, instructions and inserts for the mid-term elections for Congress -- less than a month away -- are in three languages, English, Spanish and Korean. Plus, the Nov. 6 ballot has statewide and Hackensack public questions.

Democrats must vote a straight party line, if they hope to gain control of Congress.

If approved, the first public question would authorize the state to issue $500 million in bonds to provide grants to schools, school districts and county colleges for technical education, school security and water infrastructure improvements. The second public question would set up a Municipal Open Space, Recreation and Historic Preservation Trust Fund in Hackensack.

Trump gets played by Putin days after U.S. indicts 12 Russians for election meddling

Editorial cartoonists around the world are lampooning President Trump's bromance with Russian dictator and Syrian war criminal Vladimir Putin. Kevin Siers of The Charlotte Observer pulls no punches, above. See The Cagle Post for more.

Holds ex-KGB spy blameless

after acting like drunk uncle with allies

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman called on President Trump to step down after his shameful performance on Monday in Finland.

Standing next to Vladimir Putin -- the ex-KGB spy he met with behind closed doors -- Trump backed the dictator's claims of innocence over U.S. officials who have condemned Russia for interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

Remarkably, no member of the U.S. media laughed in his face or shouted, "Shame on you!"

Just last Friday, the Justice Department unveiled indictments of 12 Russian intelligence officers on charges of hacking Democrats' computers during the 2016 campaign. 

Your drunk uncle

Trump went to the meeting in Helsinki, Finland, after acting like your drunk uncle by insulting everyone -- high and low -- and making inappropriate comments in Europe and Great Britain.

All of that was on display at the NATO meeting this week and during his visit to London, where he blasted Prime Minister Theresa May in a newspaper interview, then praised her in person.

Is Trump off his meds? Did he ever take them during the 2016 presidential campaign? Talk about a loose cannon.

The White House insisted the so-called summit meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was on despite the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers.

Treasonous

Of course, whether that interference affected the outcome is beside the point. If Trump campaign officials knew about Russian hacking of Democrats, that's treasonous on its face.

Also this week, The New York Times published the "complete list" of the 487 "people, places and things" Trump has insulted on Twitter since he became president.

That number likely soared close to or over 500, if you include his bombshells at the NATO meeting and in London.

The two faces of President Trump were explored in cartoons by Steve Greenberg, above, and Sherif Arafat of Egypt, below. Above, Trump says, "Keep your friends close ... and your enemies closer."

A happy face to the Russian Bear, left, a howling maniac to NATO officials.

Dutch cartoonist Tom Janssen shows how Trump left Europe and England in shambles, but has nothing but good things to say about Putin.

The anti-Trump demonstration in London was the focus of cartoonists Bob Englehart, above, and Sean Delonas, below.

Delonas, onetime cartoonist at the New York Post, shows how Trump provided the "hot air" for London's "Baby Trump Balloon."

As high schoolers, teachers are cut down, NRA has Trump and Congress by the balls

Madison Cantrell, a junior, hugging a fellow student at a prayer vigil held on Friday afternoon for 8 students and 2 teachers killed during a gun attack at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas (Photo credit: David J. Phillip/AP).

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- "School shootings are now as American as apple lie," is how John Cassidy of The New Yorker started his column on the slaughter at a Texas high school last week.

"And Friday's tragedy at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, followed the usual recipe."

Cassidy said the only "atypical" aspect of the shooting is that the 17-year-old gunman reportedly used a shotgun and a revolver his father owned legally to kill his 10 victims and wound 13 others.

Will the father be charged with being criminally responsible in the murders?

Trump sits on hands

Of course, we can predict inaction from President Trump and the GOP-dominated Congress, who are bought and paid for by the National Rifle Association.

NRA campaign contributions to both Republicans and Democrats are the blood money they use to get re-elected.

The NRA has them by the balls in the same way Trump boasted on the "Access Hollywood" tapes about how easy it was to grab women by the pussy.

From Kevin Siers of The Charlotte Observer in North Carolina, Congress claims, "See I am doing something!"

Rental cars, guns

You have to be 25 years old to rent a car, but many gun shops will sell you a deadly weapon at a much younger age.

More high school students have been killed since Trump took office than U.S. soldiers have died in the two wars in which we're still involved (Afghanistan and Iraq).

Those were the among the observations Friday night by guests on "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO.

Right to bear arms

We're living in a sick country when the nation's high court can rewrite the Second Amendment to extend the right to bear arms to individuals from a "well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state."

And then lazy journalists began referring to the "Second Amendment right to bear arms" when hysterical gun owners claim proponents of tighter background checks and other reforms want to "take our guns away."

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

Giving Trump unfiltered media platform to lie, then debunking him, doesn't work

Arizona Daily Star cartoonist David Fitzsimmons commenting on President Trump's tweets from the White House or Cuckoo's Nest.

In another Fitzsimmons cartoon, middle-class taxpayers are again holding their collective breath for the GOP-promised "trickle down" from the massive tax cuts for the rich enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Trump.

WASHINGTON POST FACT-CHECKS

 SCOOP BY NEW YORK TIMES

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: This post has been revised so the paragraphs on how the Russia probe began are easier to read on smartphones, and I've added links to previous commentary on President Trump.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

In a classic case of one-upmanship, The New York Times ran with a scoop, an exclusive golf-club interview of President Trump -- only to have The Washington Post label most of his claims "false or misleading."

Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt was so excited over landing the impromptu 30-minute interview on Thursday in West Palm Beach, Fla., he called his editors to tell them "I had just spent a half-hour alone with the president."

After the interview was published, Schmidt immediately came under fire from other news media.

They noted his minimal pushback as Trump made one preposterous claim after another, many of them lies or completely fabricated, especially about the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Esquire.com called the interview "the portrait of a man in cognitive decline," referring to Trump.

'No collusion'

Schmidt said Trump "did not demand an end to the Russia investigations swirling around his administration, but insisted 16 times that there has been 'no collusion' discovered by the inquiry." 

On Friday, The Washington Post's Fact Checker pored over the transcript of The Times interview, and highlighted Trump's many false claims, including this one:

"I think it's been proven that there is no collusion," the president said.

"Trump is entitled to his own opinion," The Post said, "but he sidesteps that the investigation has revealed that members of the Trump campaign interacted with Russians at least 31 times...."

The Post debunks many other false claims by Trump, including these:

"There was collusion with the Russians and the Democrats;" "I won because ... [Hillary Clinton] campaigned for the popular vote [and] I campaigned for the electoral vote;" "I'm the one that saved coal;" "we see drugs pouring into the country [so] we need the wall."

The bottom line

Although The Post's fact-checking was published only one day after The Times' interview, the damage already was done.

The pushback has to come from the very same reporter or reporters interviewing Trump, but few journalists are willing to risk being barred from news conferences or hearing the president's impromptu comments.

And few of their bosses have the balls to stand up to the illegitimate president, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and his other lying mouthpieces.

Or, the reporters can simply shut the president down instead of chasing exclusives; and the news media are under no compulsion to publish every idiotic tweet from the Liar-In-Chief. 

See:

'Trump drops dead and the nation rejoices'

Dem voters stop spread of Trump poison

How probe began

On Saturday, The Times reported for the first time how the Russia probe began:

"At an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy advisor the the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia's top diplomat in Britain:

"Russia had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to damage her campaign.

"Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night is unclear. But two months later, when leaked emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials."

The Record?

The front page of The Record, my local daily newspaper, is too busy recapping highlights of 2017 to pay much attention to Trump's chaotic presidency.

Today, a Page 1 headline asks, "How did our 17 newsmakers fare?"

One of them is Lieutenant Gov. Kim Guadagno, who was interviewed by Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi for another front-page story today.

Despite TV ads filled with lies and distortions -- and slanted reporting by Racioppi, who covers Governor Christie -- Guadagno lost the Nov. 7 election for governor to Democrat Phil Murphy.

Saturday's front page was dominated by another look back at 2017:

"Seven North Jersey moments

that shaped the year that was"  

"In New Jersey," Columnist Christopher Maag said in his opening paragraph, "2017 was a year for upstarts."

And in a shameless bow to an advertiser, Maag's third paragraph said:

"And who could forget northern New Jersey finally got a pair of Wegmans grocery stores."

On Friday's front page, Columnist Michael Kelly and other newsroom staffers shared "a behind-the-scenes look at stories that were most popular with our readers."  

Kelly thumped his chest over his interview with White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who helped Trump lie his way into the White House.

'Trump drops dead and the nation rejoices' is the headline I can't wait to write for real

In this cartoon from Pat Bagley of The Salt Lake Tribune, the people of Puerto Rico are still waiting for real relief, but GOP leaders rushed to approve a tax plan that is little more than a $1.5 trillion giveaway to the super rich, including all those big corporations that threatened to withhold millions of dollars in campaign funds.

Cartoonist Jimmy Margulies, formerly of The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper, says the GOP tax plan means smaller deductions for homes and bigger deductions for Trump Hotels.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: This post has been updated with a link to the "Mueller Baby" impeachment carol.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

New York billionaire, con man, racist and tax dodger Donald J. Trump has held the office of president of the United States for only 11 months, but I long ago tired of hearing his voice.

His tweets -- taking credit for a robust economy and stock market records -- are filled with lies.

They are painful to read, and have me wondering why the news media keep on quoting and analyzing them, and seeking reaction to every idiotic word.

I probably wrote thousands of headlines on the night copy desk of The Record, when that once-great local daily newspaper was headquartered in Hackensack.

But the headline I'm itching to write still eludes me:

"TRUMP DROPS DEAD

 AND THE NATION REJOICES"

You'd think all that low-quality McDonald's food and steaks and Diet Coke would have done in the 71-year-old moron by now.

Instead, it looks like Trump will be bounced from office by the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election or impeached by Congress when control swings to the Democrats after the November 2018 midterm elections.

Of course, the latter can only happen, if the tens of millions of Democrats who didn't bother to vote in November 2016 go to the polls next year.

See: 'Mueller Baby' impeachment carol

Cartoonist Dave Grandlund calls House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell liars after they claimed the tax overhaul would benefit "everyone ... even the middle class." But the pair were quoted endlessly by newspapers on the positive effects of the tax plan on the middle class, and their sound bites dominated TV news.

GOP tax overhaul

The tax overhaul pushed by the president and approved by Republicans in Congress was panned by the news media, including The New York Times:

"G.O.P Wins on

Tax Cuts, but

Faces a Brutal

Election Year"

News media, voter apathy

Let's hope that in 2018, we don't see the kind of voter apathy that sidelined millions of Democrats in the 2016 presidential election.

Voter apathy can be traced directly to the media, including TV and radio news, and newspapers big and small.

For more years than I care to remember, the media have been relentless in their political focus when covering elections. 

Everything is reported in terms of Republicans and Democrats, and reporters and editors seem unable to grasp the importance of exploring issues, and reporting what would be good for the country.

This is essentially "he said, she said" journalism that is of little help to readers.

Turnout falls

On Monday, a front-page story in The Record disclosed turnout in the Nov. 7 election for New Jersey governor "hit an all-time low" after steadily declining since 2001, even though more people have been registering to vote.

The Record has done a poor job of keeping up with Governor Christie's nearly 600 vetoes, but Monday's story reported that in 2015, the GOP bully vetoed a bill that would have made voting "more convenient."

The story didn't note that Christie and other Republicans are synonymous with voter suppression while Democrats want to widen voting.  

"Dubbed the Democracy Act, it would allow for early voting, including extended and weekend hours up to two weeks before a Tuesday election.

"Online, automatic and same-day voter registration. among other initiatives, were also proposed, under the bill sponsored by outgoing Assembly speaker Vincent Prieto," a Democrat.

The bill has been reintroduced, and action is expected after Democrat Phil Murphy takes office as governor on Jan. 16, replacing Christie, whose two terms of mean-spirited rule brought the state to its knees.

Dem voters stop spread of Trump poison; paper slants stories on N.J. governor-elect

This and other hair-swap photos of President Trump and Kim Jong Il are amusing, but do little to ease the tension from their war of words over North Korean missile tests.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

We witnessed a simple but powerful lesson in democracy this week when voters in Alabama chose Democrat Doug Jones for U.S. Senate over a Republican who promised to spread President Trump's poison.

Democrats haven't won a Senate seat in Alabama since 1992, CNN reported, adding:

"But the Alabama results also reflect trends in prior elections like the race for governor in Virginia this year that could bode well for Democrats in the upcoming 2018 mid-term elections, when control of the House of Representatives, and now the Senate, will be in play."

Turnout of Democratic voters rose, especially in rural counties in the state's agricultural "Black Belt," where African-Americans make up between 59% to 82% of registered voters, CNN said.

So, that's the key. 

When Democrats vote -- instead of giving in to apathy or GOP propaganda about Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton, as they did in the 2016 presidential election -- sexual predators, con men and liars like Trump are sent packing.

Write-in votes in the Alabama race totaled 22,780 -- 2,000 more than Jones' margin of victory.

The front page of the New York Daily News commented on losing Republican Roy Moore, who was shown in a photo riding a horse to his polling place:

'SCREW YOU & HORSE

 YOU RODE IN ON'

N.J. angle?

As clear as the News' headline was, a headline on a Page 1 column in The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper, is a puzzler:

"Booker wins, 

Christie loses in Alabama"

Readers' hoping to explore this so-called New Jersey angle today ran smack into several paragraphs of boring background:

"More than five years ago, Gov. Chris Christie and then-Newark Mayor Cory Booker teamed up as New Jersey's bipartisan bros...."

That's how Staff Writer Charles Stile began yet another political column, putting legions of readers immediately to sleep.

Counting lies

Op-Ed Columnist David Leonhardt of The New York Times reports President Obama "averaged a little more than two blatant, distinct falsehoods per year during his presidency. Trump is on pace for 124 a year."

See: Trump's Lies vs. Obama's

Gov.-elect Murphy

The Record's editors made a huge mistake when they assigned Dustin Racioppi, the Trenton reporter who covers Christie, to also cover the gubernatorial campaign that ended in victory for Democrat Phil Murphy on Nov. 7.

Racioppi gladly channeled Lieutenant Gov. Kim Guadagno, whose ads and tweets were filled with smears and lies, without bothering to seek rebuttal from the Murphy camp.

Racioppi v. Murphy

Now, Racioppi is covering the transition, as he did in a Page 1 story on Wednesday, claiming:

"Gov.-elect Phil Murphy plans to move ahead with a long and costly list of policy proposals once he takes office, despite identifying signs of greater financial instability in the month since winning the election."

On Tuesday, another reporter's front-page story had Murphy and the state's two U.S. senators "pleading ... for federal funding" for new train tunnels under the Hudson River, "seven years after Gov. Chris Christie put the brakes on what would have been the most expensive transit project in the country."

In his two terms in office, Christie brought New Jersey to its knees financially, and nearly destroyed NJ Transit, but in its stories on Murphy, The Record is treating the Christie years as the new normal.

And whatever happened to Trump's much ballyhooed $1 billion infrastructure plan?

#MeToo

More than half of The Record's front page on Monday related the powerful stories of "everyday women" in North Jersey who had been sexually assaulted or harassed by a building superintendent, grandfather, college professor and a minister.

How could the same newspaper, in its premier Sunday edition, also run a Page 1 column from so-called Road Warrior John Cichowski, lamenting missing, broken and upside-down road signs for the umpteenth time since he started writing the column more than 14 years ago?

President (Fake News) Trump apparently is winning a titanic battle with the media

Cartoonists Nate Beeler of The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio, above, and Daryl Cagle commenting on the news media's seemingly insatiable appetite for President Trump's tweets, most of which are filled with lies, exaggerations and empty boasts.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Almost every day in our long national nightmare, President Trump attacks or tries to dismantle another accomplishment of the Obama administration.

On Monday, Trump sharply reduced the size of two national monuments in Utah, hoping to open the land to more development.

Now, his commerce secretary is recommending three marine national monuments should be reopened to fishing.

Meanwhile, the Senate version of Trump's tax break for the super rich would end health insurance for 13 million Americans under the Affordable Care Act.

One estimate said Trump personally could save more than $1 billion, if the GOP tax plan becomes law.

Tweet storm

However, the news media haven't confronted Trump, and asked him whether he stands for anything except targeting the legacy of our first black president.

Instead, they parse or broadcast every single idiotic tweet from the Liar-In-Chief, even though, as far as I can tell, they have absolutely no obligation to do so.

In a letter to The Record, my local daily newspaper, Michael Konsevick of Vernon says of Trump's offensive tweets:

"The true danger of the ... Trump presidency is the tendency of much of the media to accept his aberrant and irrational behavior as somehow the new norm.

"Although he constantly harangues the mainstream media, Trump's free exposure through that same media helped him vanquish his many Republican opponents during the 2016 election cycle." 

Cartoonist Nate Beeler on Trump's controversial move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Fake news?

In the past year, Trump has tweeted about "fake news" more than 150 times, and on one day in September, he did so eight times, in apparent frustration over coverage of his administration's response to the hurricane devastating Puerto Rico, The New Yorker says.

"And, of course, Trump regularly invokes 'the fake-news, Russian-collusion story,' as he named it last summer," one of the dozen-plus times he has attacked coverage of the Russia investigation on Twitter, Steve Coll reports.

Trump boasted on Mike Huckabee's talk in show in October that "one of the greatest terms I've come up with is 'fake,'" Coll notes, but the phrase "fake news" has been around for more than a century.

Hackensack news?

Three cheers for Deputy Mayor Kathy Canestrino and Councilman Leo Battaglia, who voted against paying $775,000 to settle a lawsuit by former Hackensack City Clerk Debra Heck, a longtime political foe of the reformers elected in 2013 and again this year.

But the council OK'd the settlement in a 3-2 vote on Tuesday night, Staff Writer Rodrigo Torrejon of The Record says today (1L).

On Wednesday, Torrejon reported the City Council approved $142,382 in retirement payouts to Vincent Riotto, the former commander of a police narcotics unit whose misconduct led to the dismissal of eight criminal cases.

Pearl Harbor

In a Page 1 column today on the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Mike Kelly writes about a Maryland trucker who stopped at the Richard Stockton Service Plaza on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Outside a building with food concessions and restrooms, a plaque memorializes the 2,403 service members who died that day.

Is this any reason to write a front-page column that continues on 9A and 11A?

Kelly is so desperate to fill space, his column rambles all over the place:

"As he got out of his truck," Kelly writes of Ray Malone, "a wind blew across the parking lot and the smell of manure wafted off of a nearby farm."

How appropriate. Kelly has been churning out shit for more years than readers care to remember.

Restaurant review?

On Page 2 of Wednesday's Better Living section, an over-the-top appraisal of Trattoria Giotto is labeled "Restaurant Review," but it's missing a rating, prices, a telephone number or even the town where the Italian-American restaurant is located.

The writer is Joyce Venezia Suss, who has been stuffing her face on North Jersey Media Group's dime for many years.

On Twitter, @joycevsuss calls herself a "communicator extraordinaire."

What a joke. I'd call her a B.S. artist extraordinaire.

On the cover of the section, a four-course winemaker dinner at the Saddle River Inn is described in great detail, but the story doesn't say if or when it is being served, and how much it would cost.

Finally, the Better Living cover story on Wednesday urges Jewish readers to throw a latke-vodka party to celebrate Hanukkah. 

Throughout the paper, Gannett Co. editors have bylines appearing over a fictitious publication, "North Jersey Record."

Can't cancel

On NorthJersey.com, readers of The Record complain they've tried unsuccessfully to cancel their subscriptions:

"They have the worst customer service. All I want to do is cancel my subscription and on hold on phone for 30 minutes, then on hold for chat. Then they won't take cancellation over the chat but will take new subscriptions just horrible." -- Sharon Gorey Fanning