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."

U.S. court affirms conviction, 35-month sentence for Bergen's ex-Democratic boss

Attorney Joseph Ferriero, 60, was the powerful chairman of the Bergen County Democratic Organization from 1998-2009 (Photo by Amy Newman of The Record).

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

A federal appeals court has upheld the 35-month prison sentence imposed on onetime Democratic boss Joseph Ferriero, who was found guilty in 2015 of bribery, fraud and racketeering charges.

During the seven-week trial, federal prosecutors told jurors Ferriero used his position to "line his pockets."

"Ferriero pushed Democratic officials from Bergen County towns to contract with C3 [Holdings LLC, a software company], and four of the localities on his list eventually did so," Judge Anthony J. Scirica wrote for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

"He was paid thousands of dollars based on those four contracts in checks listing out which payments corresponded to which town," the opinion said.

"But none of the local Democratic officials to whom Ferriero recommended C3 were aware he stood to profit," Scirica wrote.

In his appeal, Ferriero claimed there was insufficient evidence to convict him of bribery or fraud, and argued the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to toss out former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's bribery conviction also cleared him.

But the three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit found that the evidence was sufficient, adding, "Nothing in McDonnell changes the outcome for Ferriero in this case."

The opinion is expected to mean trouble for U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who has cited the McDonnell decision in trying to obtain dismissal of federal corruption charges pending against him.

FBI, NSA say Obama wiretapping is just another BIG LIE from President Trump

Cartoonist Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News is referring to proposed Republican cuts to the Public Broadcasting System, left, and the endless stream of falsehoods and baseless nonsense from President Trump.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Trump administration is singing "Gloomy Monday" after FBI and NSA officials testified there is no evidence that Barack Obama wiretapped Donald J. Trump's campaign headquarters before the election.

In effect, intelligence officials liken President Trump's tweets to so much bird poop.

As the president's approval rating hits a new low, Page 1 of The Record runs down all the bad news for the Liar-In-Chief:

"The FBI and Justice Department do not believe Obama wiretapped Trump.

"The FBI is investigating whether Russia interrfered with the 2016 election.

"The FBI is also looking into links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

"The U.S. did not seek help from the British to conduct surveillance" (1A).

According to the The New York Times' opinion page today:

"He lies the way no American politician has lied before. The occasional untruths that other recent presidents have spoken — often unwittingly — do not compare with the frequency, intensity and deliberateness with which Donald Trump offers falsehoods.

"Monday brought the remarkable spectacle of the director of the F.B.I., James Comey, calling out the president of the United States for being untruthful. Even more remarkable, Comey acknowledged that the F.B.I. was investigating possible collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government."

Front page

The rest of The Record's front page is a waste.

Readers wonder why Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson is reporting for the umpteenth time that Sen. Bob Menendez "expects to be vindicated of corruption charges when he goes on trial in September" (1A).

After all, Jackson has no independent knowledge of the evidence against the senior New Jersey senator; he's just parroting a defense attorney who is paid hundreds of dollars a hour to say just that, as long as he can fool gullible reporters like Jackson to quote him.

Menendez, a Democrat, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he took $1 million in bribes in return for using his office to benefit his long-time friend, Florida eye specialist Salomon Melgen.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Menendez's bid to overturn the indictment.

Melgen is on trial in a Florida federal court for allegedly bilking Medicare out of as much as $105 million.

Dog of a story

I'm for keeping animal stories off of Page 1, such as today's piece on Rocco, a dog that calms seniors with dementia.

Human news is far more important.

Today's story is by Jay Levin, the local obituary writer who is one of the 141 North Jersey Media Group employees Gannett is laying off this week.

Levin also was assigned to an "aging beat."

On Monday, most of The Record's front page was taken up by two large photos of a Teaneck father and his son, who were both ordained as rabbis.

But that was just a teaser for the actual story and a third photo, which appeared on the Local news front.

Many readers are wondering whether the Reinsteins got so much attention and space, because Gannett editors were desperate to fill huge holes in their news pages as more and more newsroom employees are let go.

In The Record, the Trump of eye doctors; Hackensack school plan soars to $109M

These photos of a buff Barack Obama and an out-of-shape -- dare I say fat -- President Trump have appeared on Twitter and elsewhere as the debate over the GOP's proposed American Health Care Act intensifies.

Obama's health care law was called the Affordable Care Act, but the GOP plan doesn't appear to be promising affordable health insurance to the vast majority of Americans.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In her opening statement, a federal prosecutor told a Florida jury that defendant Salomon Melgen "lied to Medicare for money."

Melgen -- a prominent eye doctor tied to the alleged corruption of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. -- is on trial on charges he stole millions of dollars from Medicare between 2008 and 2013.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolyn Bell said Melgen lied about his patient's diagnoses, the tests he ran and their prognoses to enrich himself to the tune of $72,000 per patient annually, according to a story in The Record today (3A).

Referring to Melgen, Bell used the word "lied" or a variation about two dozen times, The Associated Press reported, reminding many Record readers of President Trump's 2016 campaign and his first months in office.

Shocking news

Meanwhile, NorthJersey.com is reporting the Hackensack Board of Education has proposed a $109 million sending plan for the 2017-18 school year -- about $5 million more than last year.

"The district's spending plan is up about 7.5 percent," Staff Writer Rodrigo Torrejon reported. "The budget is supported by an $81.2 million [tax] levy, which is up about $2 million, or 2.5 percent, from last year."

"The budget was approved without comment during a special meeting Tuesday night," Torrejon wrote on Wednesday, but he didn't mention voters will get their chance to says "yes" or "no" to the tax levy at the April 25 school election.

More than 44% of each Hackensack resident's property taxes go to support the schools, and this would be the second significant increase in the school budget in the last two years.

Nor did the reporter mention board Vice President Lara Rodriguez is a candidate for City Council on a slate backed by former four-term mayor Jack Zisa and former Police Chief and state Assemblyman Ken Zisa.

The municipal election will be held on May 9, and if the Zisa-backed Rodriguez slate wins, taxpayers might be seeing the same kind of hikes in municipal taxes instead of the tax cuts delivered by the current City Council.

See: Hackensack United for Zisa on Facebook