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.

Christie's budget hits middle class, spares millionaires

First Student school-bus drivers taking a break this morning in the outlying parking lots of Bergen Town Center in Paramus, above and below. On Tuesday morning, a heavy set woman appeared to be sleeping in the driver's seat of one of the buses, her arms folded across her chest, her head down and her eyes closed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You've got to love the Trenton press corps, including The Record's reporters, for never challenging Governor Christie on balancing yet another state budget on the backs of the middle class (A-1).

The Woodland Park daily's lead story today delivers more bad news for long-suffering property tax payers as the GOP bully scrambles to balance a budget without asking millionaires to pay a little more.

And there is no sign Christie is cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks wasted on wealthy business owners who don't create jobs in a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

No reporter at Christie's news conference on Wednesday asked whether he will now agree to a tax surcharge to raise an estimated $1 billion from millionaires.

In fact, judging from The Record's story, no reporter challenged Christie on anything he said; they merely regurgitated his cockeyed reasoning for cutting state employee pension contributions by $1.57 billion, and postponing the small property tax rebate.

Maybe, none of these so-called journalists own a home in New Jersey or they see their role as stenographers.

Instead of any hard questioning, The Record brings us another long, boring Charles Stile column on the "politics" of Christie's decision to nominate Chief Justice Stuart Rabner for tenure (A-1).

A banana peel and what appeared to be part of a baked potato were left behind in a locker at 24 Hour Fitness in Paramus. As an indication of how poorly the gym is run, they were still inside the locker, with the door open, more than 30 minutes after an employee was informed.

Hospital news

In Local today, the lead story on The Valley Hospital in Ridgwood is more evidence of how The Record screwed Hackensack residents who objected to the many expansions of Hackensack University Medical Center, which owns hundreds of millions of dollars in tax exempt property.

In contrast to numerous stories on the Ridgewood hospital's plan to expand within the boundaries of its campus -- 

first unveiled in 2006 -- there were many fewer stories about HUMC's uncontrolled expansion in Hackensack.

Today's Local section contains two stories from Paterson (L-2); two large filler photos of minor accidents in Wyckoff (L-6) and Englewood (L-3), with captions that supply little real information, but nothing from Hackensack.

I didn't even see a reporter for The Record at Tuesday night's City Council meeting.

Deirdre Sykes must be back and running the local assignment desk again after a long absence.

Second look

Road Warrior John Cichowski's Sunday column on major construction projects contained the usual errors, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

For example, Cichowski confused the cost of repaving the New Jersey section of the Palisades Interstate Parkway in 1996 and this year ($7 million and $14.5 million, respectively).

He said it cost $14.5 million in 1996.

He also gave the wrong location for a new service road in Woodland Park. See:

Confused Road Warrior makes more errors

Editor Marty Gottlieb has defended Cichowski, despite these and hundreds of other errors the reporter has committed in the past decade, trying to fill the shoes of Jeff Page, the original commuting columnist.

These are the kinds of errors that would never be tolerated at a serious newspaper or go uncorrected, especially at The New York Times, where Gottlieb worked for many years.

His tolerance of repeated errors by the Road Warrior and the news and copy editors under six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton may go a long way toward explaining why Gottlieb is no longer at The Times.

Christie grows fat at our expense

Governor Christie won't tell the lie of "The Jersey Comeback" on Tuesday at the Republican National Convention in Florida.

It's all there in today's paper, but don't expect the editors of The Record to connect the dots and expose their favorite governor of all time.

Governor Christie has dropped all pretense of sparking "The Jersey Comeback" amid an unprecedented drop in middle-class incomes and concentration of wealth at the top, according to two of today's Page 1 stories.

To find out how the GOP bully feels about all of this just turn to the A-6 photo of an obese Christie laughing it up with Senate President Stephen Sweeney, who is about half of the governor's size.

High legal fees

In the only A-1 story not related to Christie, the editors give readers a rare glimpse of how lawyers always make out like champs in legal settlements -- this one for a former Little Leaguer from Wayne.

More than $4.7 million of the $14.3 million settlement will be going to lawyers for the man, who almost died when he was hit by a ball in 2006 and remains "nearly blind and in a wheelchair."

Bogota rules

In head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section, there are two major stories from Bogota (L-1 and L-2), but only one from Hackensack (L-2) -- the fourth straight day of coverage on legal fallout from Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa's years as police chief.

Staring out the windows of the Woodland Park newsroom, the assignment desk -- run by Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza -- appears to be at a loss on how to direct Hackensack reporter Stephanie Akin to cover anything but Zisa and the city's Police Department.

  

Related articles

• Christie's 'Jersey Comeback' goes belly up
• Christie to reporter: 'Are you stupid?'
• Business editors blow Christie -- again

 

Eye on The Record will return soon

 

Where's the banner headline?

Image by dougtone via Flickr

Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan should stick to her guns.

LOL

Did you read that preposterous statement from Governor Christie about public employee unions "trying to break the middle class"? Who does he think he's kidding -- besides Editor Francis Scandale?

Public employees are the middle class. Why is this nonsense only a brief on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park, and not under a banner headline to show what a fool Christie is?

"In New Jersey, we're not trying to break the unions; in New Jersey, the unions are trying to break the middle class," Christie said on a morning television show, where he was promoting his budget proposal to cut public employee benefits in return for higher property tax rebates (A-3).

The governor -- apparently with a straight face and unchallenged by his interviewers -- is trying to pit one segment of the middle class against another, so neither group notices how he kowtows to rich and powerful people like himself.

In another piece of fiction, he claimed "the main driver of property taxes in New Jersey are [public] employee costs," when he and every other public official knows those taxes are high because of the ruinously expensive home-rule system, including $200,000-a-year salaries for police chiefs.

Another ass slapper

Scandale felt a big part of A-1 today should be devoted, not to the governor's ridiculous statements, but to a large photo of an overpaid athlete who plays in New York. 

The editor who loves to put sports stories on the front page apparently is happy paying property taxes of about $18,000 a year on his Glen Rock home.

How else to explain the upbeat story leading A-1, emphasizing Christie's proposal for a tiny 1% increase in education aid? So Hackensack, which lost about $5 million in aid, would be getting chump change in 2012 -- $852,000 more.

Make college accountable

I disagree with the A-12 editorial opposing Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan's desire for veto power over decisions at Bergen Community College. 

She can start by getting college officials to come up with a calendar that has the same breaks as public schools. 

This week, public schools are closed for vacation, but the college is oblivious and holding classes, making family activities difficult, if not impossible.

How Christie caters to the rich

Image via Wikipedia

An editorial in The Star-Ledger today says Governor Christie has distorted facts to hide how he plans to shift the tax burden onto middle-class families. I wonder if we'll see this editorial in The Record of Woodland Park?


Meanwhile, the Democrats in the Legislature have advanced a new levy on people with income of more than $1 million a year. Presumably, those people include the Borgs.


The editorial unmasks Christie as just another Republican who is trying to help his wealthy friends and supporters from paying the higher taxes they surely can afford. Here is the link to the editorial as it appears on NJ.com:

Governor distorts facts

See earlier post, More rehashing of the news