Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Lurid A-1: GOP screwing middle class, priests doing boys

Gloria Crest, set on 5 acres, is one of the most impressive homes on Englewood's East Hill. A historical society plaque, below, says the Italianate Revival villa was built in 1926 for Stefan Poniatowski, a Polish count. 

Actress Gloria Swanson is supposed to have lived in the mansion, which was said to have been a gift from Joseph Kennedy, grandfather of John F. Kennedy, during a very public affair.


By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I voted for "Barack" twice and can't wait to vote for "Hillary," but you can bet I would never be caught dead voting for "Jeb," who is trying to hide his infamous last name (The Record's front page today).

No one who remembers the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and how George W. Bush brought the nation to the brink of a second Great Depression, would ever vote for his younger brother.

CNBC ranked Florida, where Jeb was governor from 1999 to 2007, as 30th among America's top states for business in 2013.

Jeb is said to have a similar platform to Governor Christie's, so let's count both of them out now (A-1).

In that CNBC business ranking, New Jersey was ranked 42nd among the 50 states.

What voters want

In a letter to the editor today, Paul Erickson of Little Falls faults Hillary Clinton for not offering "bold new ideas" (A-8).

But the voters who put Barack Obama into the White House for two terms don't want "new ideas." 

They want the same old expansion of voting rights; preservation of the middle class, Social Security and Medicare; immigration reform, equal wages for women, much more mass transit and other progressive programs.

And since everyone who voted for Barack will be voting for Hillary, her victory over conservatives like Christie, Bush and all of the other GOP candidates and wannabes is assured. 

GOP and priests

Next to Jeb's announcement on Page 1 -- tantamount a declaration of war against the middle class -- Editor Martin Gottlieb plays a story about the "scandal-plagued Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis," with its lurid images of another group of religious zealots -- Catholic qpriests -- abusing boys (A-1).

Below the fold on A-1, a story on how schools in New Jersey are faring as they face "their seventh year without an increase in state aid" doesn't mention Christie until deep on the continuation page (A-6).

Then, the GOP bully is quoted as saying New Jersey does not have more money for schools "because of the state's financial crisis."

No mention is made of the hundreds of millions in tax breaks for wealthy business that don't create jobs or his repeated veto of a tax surcharge on millionaires or his voodoo budget balancing.

Corrections

Six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, supervisor of the news and copy desks, continues to struggle with ensuring accurate identification of news subjects (A-2).

On Sunday's BL-5, Nurse Cedar Wang was identified as a doctor. 

The joke is on Wang, who I am sure is earning nothing near what an M.D. is pulling down or, for that matter, what the incompetent production editor is being paid.

On Saturday's L-6, Public Health Specialist Kimberly Birdsall was identified as a nurse.

Local news?

There is so little municipal news today two legislative stories appear on the front of Local (L-1).

Much of the section is filled with Law & Order stories, including a brief on the death of Nikolas Samouhos, 40, of Ridgefield Park in a collision in California.

Was Samouhos single, married, a father, son or grandson? Was he wearing his seat belt?

The reporter apparently ran out of room to say.

In L-3 today, it's refreshing to see an enterprise photo taken in a park on the Hudson River instead of the usual non-fatal accident, fender bender or collision.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Worst U.S. president backs N.J.'s worst governor

A rainy day in Hackensack.


By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Governor Christie continues to tell lies about his first term -- all of which are swallowed whole by The Record of Woodland Park -- so it's no surprise he sought the endorsement of former President George W. Bush.

W, you'll remember, told some whoppers of his own to get us into the ruinous war in Iraq (A-1).

Christie and Bush have other things in common besides being Republican and telling the Big Lie: 

The GOP bully's no-tax policies have wrecked the state economy (see L-7 today), and the inept Bush pushed the nation into the recession.

On Page 1 today, The Record quotes Christie telling the media at the Republican Goobers Association meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz., he will use a message of "bipartisanship" to get other GOP governors elected.

This allegedly is the same message he used to win a second term on Nov. 5, reports Staff Writer Melissa Hayes, who sounds like she is already on the aspiring president's payroll.

Governor Veto

Hayes makes no mention of all of those highly partisan vetoes Christie unleashed to undo progressive legislation passed by the state Legislature's majority Democrats -- from a tax surcharge on millionaires to a hike in the minimum wage.   

What was the point of Christie, now chairman of the goobers group, inviting Bush to lunch on Thursday? According to The Record's story, the ex-president said nothing quotable (A-1 and A-4).

Kelly still gazing

Columnist Mike Kelly is back with more on the media's obsession with reporting where everyone was when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated 50 years ago today.

In the past few weeks, The Record has been publishing readers' recollections, and ignoring the real question:

Will such conservatives as Tea Party fanatics, financed and armed by the trigger-happy National Rifle Association, ever try to take out another liberal president?

I notice two things about Kelly's Page 1 column: 

He's sticking with that dated thumbnail photo with his unflattering, shit-eating grin, and he continues to struggle as a writer, using "gazed" again for probably the thousandth time (fifth paragraph on A-1).

A special Margulies cartoon commissioned for the 50th anniversary of JFK's murder says more than the tired, tongue-tied Kelly could ever say (A-20).

More road hype

The Road Warrior continues to use exaggeration, distortion and hype to sell his silly column, as he does today on L-1.

He calls "distracted driving the single chief cause of highway crashes and deaths," when, in fact, speeding is the chief culprit.

Staff Writer John Cichowski, the addled reporter who writes the column, continues to give a pass to speeders, who also are most likely to get caught by the red-light cameras he demonizes.

In his last column on Wednesday, Cichowski wildly exaggerated the number of rush-hour drivers who get caught in the Route 4 east bottleneck, using the larger number of people who use the eastbound roadway day and night.

According to a concerned Hackensack reader:


"Road Warrior falsely indicated that 50,000 Manhattan-bound commuters experience traffic back-ups due to the reduction in traffic lanes from three to two on Route 4 in Teaneck.
"Road Warrior confused readers since there is a TOTAL of 50,000 Manhattan bound commuters during the entire day and night. Only a smaller portion of these commuters are affected by this traffic back-up around the times of the extended morning and afternoon rush hours.
"Road Warrior went on endlessly with his misleading analysis that the primary reason for this traffic congestion was due to Teaneck’s historical efforts to prevent commercial development on Route 4.
"The sole reason for this traffic congestion was that Teaneck's previous efforts for preservation of space prevented an additional third lane for eastbound Route 4."


For a blow-by-blow of all the flaws in the column, see the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior is suffering mental congestion

Crash diet?

In a historic first, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung didn't order dessert at The Original Mama Angelo's in North Arlington (BL-18).