Despite Christie, justice in New Jersey seems assured

Cross traffic is rare at this red light in the middle of nowhere. Stop signs would work fine. Welcome to the Bergen Town Center in Paramus. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You have to read between the lines of today's lead Page 1 story in The Record to find out Democrats have put the kibosh on Governor Christie's evil plan to remake the state Supreme Court in his own conservative image.

The A-1 headline is awkward and the story is poorly edited, making readers wait until the continuation page for the real news:

"For years, Governor Christie has railed against [Chief Justice Stewart] Rabner and the court he heads, both in New Jersey and at appearances across the country, calling the justices activists and decrying their decisions that disagreed with his" (A-6).

"Their decisions that disagreed with his"? Sheesh. And in the photo caption on A-6, the sitting chief justice is referred to as a "nominee."

Rabner, 53, who was questioned by lawmakers on Monday, appears assured of renomination and tenure until 2030.

Right after he took office in 2010, the mean-spirited Christie got rid of the only African-American on the high court, then set out to eliminate affordable housing and state aid to the state's poorest school districts.

The GOP bully also put forward several turkeys as his own conservative nominees for the high court, but most of them were rejected.

A progressive court

Imagine a high court that catered to Christie's wealthy supporters, and followed the governor's mean-spirited agenda to eliminate all social programs and taxes on the rich. 

That's what we avoid with Rabner at the helm of a progressive court that for many decades has been at the forefront on product liability, housing for low- and moderate-income residents and other important issues.

Unintended hilarity

Again on the front page, would you look at the stark contrast between the photos of aging TV columnist Ginny Rohan and the preening Kardashians, bimbos who probably have spent millions on plastic surgery (A-1).

Rohan's column is silly. Why waste all this prime space on the supposed impact of the two-decade-old O.J. Simpson case on TV reality shows?

That distracts from the sad fact that most TV --including CNN and other news reports -- is just crap. Why doesn't Rohan try to explain that?

50% error rate?

As usual, today's Road Warrior column is filled with numbers, but many of them are probably wrong, given Staff Writer John Cichowski's advancing Alzheimer's disease (L-1).

Is his error rate 50% or higher? With no editing or fact-checking of his column, it's anybody guess.

In his Road Warrior column last Friday, Cichowski said the replacement of upper-level road decking on the George Washington Bridge would take a "few weeks," contradicting a front-page story on the same day that reported the duration of the work as 12 weeks or a few months (Friday's A-9).

"The Road Warrior confuses the hell out of everyone by reporting that the upper-level lanes will be closed overnight for this work, when, in fact, one lane will always remain open in one direction and all four lanes will remain open in the other direction," according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

Cichowski also describes the road surface as "slabs of steel decking." That's also wrong.

"The steel deck panels support slabs of pavement," according to the Bloopers editor

See:

Disoriented Road Warrior can't find GWB

Christie shares front page with bimbos

The lack of Hackensack news has skeletons turning over in their
 graves at The Church on The Green, across from the courthouse.

Did interim Editor Doug Clancy's masturbatory fantasies lead to today's Page 1 play for the Kardashian bimbos at a book-signing in Ridgewood?


Which moron at the Wednesday afternoon news meeting promoted the non-event for the front page? Did Publisher Stephen A. Borg make a cameo appearance to push for the consumer-friendly story?


Did Borg, Clancy and the other male editors form a masturbation circle to decide what went out front today?


Bimbos on parade


The Record has given an inordinate amount of space to the so-called Real Housewives of New Jersey and the Kardashian Sisters -- as if frumpy head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and rag-wearing Production Editor Liz Houlton are living vicariously through them.


Staff Writer Sachi Fujimori is really a letdown this time, waiting until her penultimate paragraph on A-8 to tell readers the spoiled Kardashian brats left "half the crowd standing in the rain, and some of them empty-handed."


The Kardashian farce is sandwiched between two A-1 stories dominated by Governor Christie.


Empty rhetoric


Why did Christie wait a full day after The Record's expose on bloated Port Authority executive pay to blast the agency's former executive director, Christopher O. Ward, for "awful leadership" and "secret deals ... to reward his cronies."


And why is the The Record just now reporting more than $2 million in extra bi-state agency salary payouts in the past two fiscal years -- months after such a disclosure could have helped trim the scandalous Hudson River toll and fare hikes? 


School daze


The Christie plan to help the state's failing schools also is on A-1, but it's below the fold and plays third fiddle to the Kardashian bimbos and suspended high school football players in Wayne, where Clancy lives.


An A-3 story blames the weather and economy for a shortfall in state revenue collection -- not Christie's veto of a tax surcharge on millionaires or his refusal to raise the low gas tax to fund road and mass transit improvements.


Focus on local


Take a look at the front of Local, if you suspected Sykes was hiding Hackensack news under her tent dresses.


Staff Writer Stephanie Akin's assignment editor had her attending early morning "kettlebell lifting" workouts by city firemen, breathing in all that perspiration and then writing a really long story that runs with two big photos (L-1 and L-2).


A second Hackensack story appears on L-3, reporting a judge has rejected a motion to dismiss criminal charges against suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa. 


Routine motions in the Zisa case are no substitute for Hackensack news. Surely, there must be more going on in the city, given that these are the first stories about Hackensack in nearly two weeks.


In contrast, three stories about Englewood appear today on L-1, L-2 and L-3. 


On days like this, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes is putting other municipal reporters to shame, though many city residents would like to see her tackle bigger issues, including the city's segregated schools and how downtown is faring during the recession.


Sykes also thought the third story this week promoting the revived Xanadu entertainment and retail project in the Meadowlands was important enough for L-1. 


Staff Writer John Brennan had been itching to write Xanadu's obituary, but now that a new developer has taken over and a huge tax break is in the works, Borg apparently ordered the former sports reporter to do all he can to promote the project and help bring in tens of thousands of dollars in new advertising revenue.


Scandale's English


As his LinkedIn page clearly shows, former Editor Francis "Frank" Scandale can't write a sentence in English, even when exaggerating his own accomplishments. (See previous post, The bullshit artist breaks his silence.) 


But as a friend at the gym pointed out, he was being paid more than $200,000 a year to be an "editor," not a "writer."


Of course, he couldn't edit for shit, either.