I hate being baited by news media going easy on Trump, 1%

A moving memorial to police officers and firefighters who lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks on America is hard to find. It is visible only to commuters heading for the 9th Avenue exit of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When is a reporter going to tell wacko GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump he has no concept of what the word "sacrifice" means?

And why did Staff Writer Jeff Pillets of The Record allow Bay Head property owner Thatcher Brown to get away with a ridiculous argument in a Page 1 story about protecting the shore?

Does it have anything to do with Trump and this guy Thatcher being members of the 1% (A-1, A-4 and A-6)?

It is no longer enough for TV and print reporters to act as conduits for moronic comments from Muslim hater Trump -- and bait readers in the process.

And The Record shouldn't quote a filthy rich summer resident of Bay Head slamming the state government, because if you turn to the continuation page, you find out the guy actually calls Pennsylvania home (A-6).

'I work very ... hard'

Compared to the sacrifice of a Muslim-American couple who lost their soldier son to a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004, Trump doesn't even know the meaning of the word.

The New York businessman claims he works "very, very hard," hired workers to put up "great structures" and presumably made millions in profits on them. 

How is that "sacrifice"?

Yet, not a single reporter has confronted the New York businessman with that simple question.

He's all wet

Now, let's turn to Thatcher Brown, a property owner who is fighting a state plan to erect 25-foot-high dunes to protect a 14-mile stretch of Ocean County shore from the kind of damage inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

"Why should I sign my property over to a government that can't even find the money to make basic road and bridge repairs," Brown told Pillets, and the reporter put the quote on today's front page.

That's a total non-sequitur -- one has absolutely nothing to do with the other -- and Pillets knows it.

First of all, New Jersey can and has found the money to fix roads and bridges from a tax on gasoline, but in recent years, Governor Christie and his predecessors have diverted a lot of that revenue to pay other expenses.

And now, Christie and Democrats in the state Legislature are at an impasse on enacting a package of tax cuts to ease the impact of raising the gas tax 23 cents a gallon.

Lawyers always win

And why is today's lead story focusing on the $4 million in legal fees the state has spent to battle recalcitrant homeowners?

Is there a suggestion fighting selfish homeowners like Brown to protect thousands of shore residents is worth only $2 million or $3 million in fees?

Pillets is a veteran reporter who knows the lawyers always win, so it's not clear why he is indulging in such cheap sensationalism.