Britain's anti-immigrant vote shows Trump-like dark side

Wacko racist Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, commenting on the Brexit vote during a visit to Scotland on Friday. (Credit: Jane Barlow/Press Association)

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In a state as diverse as New Jersey, a newspaper editor who ignores the dark side of Britain's vote to exit the European Union could be called a fool.

Both stories leading The Record's front page today focus on the so-called financial impact in Britain's former colony, even though Staff Writer Richard Newman says "it may take two years or more for the change to take place" (A-1 and A-6)

A third story focuses on "companies doing business with Britain" (A-10).

Doesn't Editor Deirdre Sykes know tens of millions of people in this nation of immigrants -- including those who live in North Jersey -- are horrified by a country that votes against immigration? 

In fact, Britons seeking to "control their borders" was the focus of coverage on Friday's CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley.

And on HBO, satirist Bill Maher said 52% of Britons affirmed "Pride and Prejudice" over "Sense and Sensibilty."

Trump in Scotland

Wacko racist Donald J. Trump, the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, caused a stir on Friday when he tweeted:

"Just arrived in Scotland.... They took their country back, just like we will take America back."

That was met with a barrage of profanity directed at the billionaire businessman, who is despised in Scotland, his mother's homeland, which voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU.

I can't find any mention in The Record today of Trump putting both feet in his mouth in Scotland.

Of course, at home he is campaigning against Muslims, Mexicans and other immigrants in his futile quest for the White House.

Maybe the moron will try to run for British prime minister.

Trump and Christie

Saturday's front page reported Trump is considering Governor Christie for vice president or another job, in the unlikely event he wins the presidency.

The Record is the only major daily in the state that didn't call for the GOP bully to resign after ending his own doomed bid for the White House and endorsing Trump.

After the terror attacks in Paris last November, Christie sought unsuccessfully to bar Syrian immigrants, even children, from entering the United States, including New Jersey.

Since then, The Record's editors have published two or three Syrian refugee success stories, such as today's glowing portrait of night shift baker Hussam Al Roustom (L-2).

Local news?

Sykes continues to focus on two former Don Bosco Prep athletes killed in a highway crash this week while ignoring Ioannis Kapantais, 69, of Park Ridge who was struck by a car and fatally injured while walking on a sidewalk last Sunday night (A-1).

No death notice or obituary for Kapantais has appeared in the Woodland Park daily, which today publishes long wire-service obituaries of obscure musicians to plug holes in another thin municipal news report (L-6). 

Criminal cases

The Local front is dominated by charges against five people in the November 2014 sexual assault of a female Ramapo College student after a frat party (L-1).

A second story reports a four-year prison sentence for Donald DeWitt, 65, a former Bergen County Academies teacher who had sex with a teenage student.

Also on L-1 today is yet another story promoting the wonders performed at Hackensack University Medical Center.

Glowing stories about the partially tax-exempt hospital are more numerous than municipal news from Hackensack, which continues to be neglected by Sykes and her minions. 

Let's hope minority judge was packing heat

Image via Wikipedia

Did Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor need a visa to visit New Jersey?

On her trip to New Jersey, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor must have brought a couple of bodyguards with her to ward off any attempt by Governor Christie to bounce the minority woman off the U.S. Supreme Court.

With all due respect, does her trite advice to Ramapo College graduates really deserve Page 1 play in The Record of Woodland Park today -- or did Editor Francis Scandale and his staff skip out Friday for a long weekend?

Is the college's president a quick-change artist? The A-1 and A-6 photos show Sotomayor with two different men -- one clean-shaven, one bearded -- but both captions identify him as Ramapo President Peter Mercer (he's the one on the front).

And don't you hate it when a photo shows someone laughing and doesn't explain why, as in the A-1 photos today and Friday? 

Contempt of court

Talk about justice delayed. Look at that contemptuous businessman in the photo at the bottom of A-1. He's defied attempts to clean up his Wayne dump site for more than 25 years. 

This is the kind of failure -- of government, the courts and the media -- that should lead the paper, not commencement speeches.

 Local yokels

A letter to the editor from Katherine Restaino Dick of Teaneck praises recently departed dress shop owner Lois Schulman, a merchant who cared about Cedar Lane and her customers (A-13).

The letter makes you wonder why The Record's municipal staff hasn't reported anything about Cedar Lane for several years.

In a story on "sexual enhancement" pills sold under the brand name Erection MD, Staff Writer Kibret Markos actually uses the phrase "without any hard evidence" (L-1).

Poor prospect for news

If you live in one of those Prospect Avenue high-rises in Hackensack, the only way to get coverage is to make sure your parking garage collapses (L-3).

Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado has completely ignored all the noise generated by ambulance sirens since Hackensack University Medical Center took over the service from the city Fire Department a couple of years ago.

Nor has she ever reported on the plight of high-rise residents who can't use their terraces in good weather, because of noise from business jets that seem to scrape rooftops as they head for Teterboro Airport.

Thanks goes out to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions, including Dan Sforza and Rich Whitby, for another great Local section.

 

You call this local news, Deirdre?

Half of the Local news section today is covered with a story and photos of a new spiritual center at Ramapo College in Mahwah -- the latest example of what head Assignment Editor Deirdre "F.U. Hackensack" Sykes uses as filler to replace local news her staff doesn't file. 


Gee-whiz, would you look at that wild design. But it's not open to the public, so readers in Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and lots of other towns Sykes ignores can't even go there and pray for better coverage of what local officials are doing or not doing.

This has been going on for a couple of years now, and one could argue the lack of scrutiny can lead to what we have seen on the front page of The Record of Woodland Park the past two days: another federal trial of a petty potentate who runs one of Bergen County's 70 towns. Why is this on Page 1?

Haven't we read this story a hundred times before? 

Ridgefield Mayor Anthony R. Suarez meets with a developer at a restaurant, when the former knows he should be meeting the developer nowhere else but in town hall. 

Even when it's a great Turkish place like Beyti Kabob, that's one strike against the mayor.

Today, we get a report on the informant's testimony, envelopes stuffed with cash, the go-between or bag man, transfers of money in a parking lot and protestations of innocence. 

How routine, how predictable, how boring. 

Doesn't Editor Francis Scandale realize he's been working in New Jersey for nearly a decade or does he still talk about what he did in Denver, what he did at Reuters?

How about a story on how the home-rule system fosters corruption? 

Hey, Desk Warrior John Cichowski, when is the last time you noticed the weather? Today, his L-1 column, which is supposed to explore all aspects of commuting, is about the dangers of driving with flip-flops.

What would The Record do if it couldn't fill its columns with wire service stories or contributions from The Star-Ledger and Daily News? Unfortunately, they dilute the paper's local flavor.

You can see that today on the front of Business (L-7), where the major story is about foreigners buying Miami real estate for cash (they sound like money launderers), and inside Better Living, where the major "food" story on F-2 is about a globe-trotting wine maker from France, not one of New Jersey's wineries.


Does Publisher Greedy Stevie Borg even read the paper? 

Or does he make the short hop from his Tenafly mansion to the Englewood wine bar he and his big sister have invested in, sip an old Bordeaux and tell himself how great life is?