When the shouting is all over, readers will fight over scraps

Around 10:30 this morning, a steady stream of voters entered and left the polling place at the Fairmount School in Hackensack, above and below. Long waits were reported elsewhere, including at the middle school in Teaneck and in Jersey City.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The presidential election and the Bridgegate trial have been godsends to The Record's editors, allowing them to fill gaping holes in the paper.

When those distractions are over, Bergen County readers will once again face the reality of a thin local-news section, where many of the stories are about Paterson and other Passaic County communities.

And in a week, the Gannett Co. is expected to let go more than 200 employees at North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, Herald News, 50 weekly papers and NorthJersey.com.

The New Jersey/Nation page today is mostly devoted to more of Governor Christie's lame denials of any role in or knowledge of the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closures (A-3).

The other New Jersey news on that page is hardly news: 

After two of his former aides were found guilty in the Bridgegate scandal on Friday, Christie's approval rating in the state hit a record low, falling to 20 percent in a Rutgers-Eagleton Survey released Monday.

Local news?

Readers in Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and many other towns won't find any municipal news in Local today.

On L-6, a photo caption says Robert Popp is "laying flowers on the Route 46 bridge between Little Ferry and Ridgefield Park, where his sister was run down in 1969."

But the column with the photo contradicts the caption, and also contradicts itself:

Staff Writer John Cichowski, aka Road Warrior, reports Popp has visited the bridge 47 times and "without fail" ... "lays a spray of flowers ... on the span ... where his 15-year-old sister, Gloria, was run down and killed by a hit-and-run driver on Nov. 7, 1969," when no guardrails protected pedestrians using the sidewalk (L-1).

Popp didn't place the bouquet on the sidewalk, the demented Cichowski says much later. He "tossed this one" into the Hackensack River (L-6).

A story about a West Milford volunteer firefighter said the 79-year-old man died in a fall off of a ladder on Sunday, suggesting the news dispatch was brought to Woodland Park on foot (L-3).

Ung leaving

According to the Boozy Burbs website, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's last celebration of gluttony will run this Friday.

"According to Ung, she did not reapply for her position as part of the shakeup brought on by Gannett's purchase of The Record this year."

Ung has been "covering food and dining for 9 years," according to the website, although to many readers it seems much, much longer.

Idiotic headline caps repetitious Bridgegate trial coverage

From Blue Jersey.com, where the motto is, "All the news that slips from print."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In covering the long Bridgegate trial and especially in providing a peak inside the emotional jury deliberations, The Record's reporters deserve an "A" for effort.

But who are the moronic editors responsible for writing and approving today's Page 1 banner headline?

"Time to pay the toll"

Even the over line -- TWO MORE GUILTY IN BRIDGEGATE SCANDAL -- stopped readers who have been following the case for years.

Then, they realized the reference was to former Port Authority executive David Wildstein, the government's star witness, who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy 18 months ago, and testified against defendants Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni, who were found guilty on Friday (A-1).

February sentencing

With sentencing set for Feb. 21, followed by appeals that could delay any prison time for up to 2 years, what could today's ridiculous headline possibly be referring to?

Instead of crafting a headline that has readers' eyes rolling, the editors should have assigned a reporter to look into federal sentencing guidelines, and answer a question many are asking:

Does U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton have to send Kelly, 44, a mother of four and Governor Christie's former deputy chief of staff, to prison or can she place her on probation and order her to pay a fine and perform community service?

Today's front page is dominated by a large photo of Kelly "sobbing on the shoulder of her lawyer, Michael Critchley, who promised to appeal her conviction" (A-1).

Missing angle

Despite the incredibly repetitious coverage that began several days before jury selection in September and continues today, one angle that no one at The Record has covered is whether legal fees have bankrupted Kelly and Baroni, and who will bankroll the long appeals process.

On Thursday, WNYC-FM reported the law firm that issued a taxpayer-funded whitewash of Christie's role in the George Washington Bridge lane closures in September 2013 submitted legal bills for nearly every day of the trial -- said to total nearly $1 million.

The report also noted 28 attorneys at the Gibson Dunn & Crutcher law firm contributed to Christie's doomed presidential campaign.

The firm's bills from January 2014, when the scandal broke, through the beginning of October bring the total cost for Gibson Dunn and a digital forensic subcontractor to nearly $11.3 million, the public radio station reported.

When legal fees at the Port Authority, Fort Lee, the state Legislature and for state employees subpoenaed in the matter are included, taxpayers and toll payers are on the hook, so far, for $14.6 million, Matt Katz of WNYC-FM reported.

'Christie's criminals'

Today's editorial -- "Christie's criminals" -- notes four of the governor's top aides "are now guilty of federal crimes" (A-11).

"As a gubernatorial candidate in 2009, Chris Christie promised he would run an ethical administration.... We question how he can continue in elected office. We question how the people of New Jersey can have any faith is his appointees and staff."

Yet, the Woodland Park daily's editorial board remains alone among major New Jersey newspapers by not calling on Christie to resign, as The Star-Ledger and six others did when he endorsed wacko racist Donald J. Trump's White House run in February.

Overfed critic

Who does Staff Writer Elisa Ung, the paper's chief restaurant critic, have in mind when she raves that the banana split tart ($9) served at City Perch, an expensive new restaurant in Fort Lee, "will blow you away"?

"It's dressed up too much here, but dig past the chocolate pearls, sauces and enormous sprinkle cookie on top and you'll find a sublime banana tart atop a Linzer cookie ...," the food archaeologist moans with pleasure.

"Blow you away"? 

"Kill you" might be closer to the truth. 

Ignores readers

After more than a decade of reviewing restaurants for The Record's print edition, this dessert-obsessed reporter on an expense account apparently doesn't realize or simply ignores that most of her readers are older -- much older.

She could care less they are watching their weight, their cholesterol, their blood pressure; and their intake of salt, sugar and artery clogging food.

In her lukewarm review, many of the City Perch dishes she liked contain land mines for her older audience:

Cornbread "gilded" with whipped goat cheese, a kale salad with "crispy bits" of Genoa salami and ricotta, a waffle topped with creme fraiche, a $14 hamburger made from mystery ground beef, and a pizza with three cheese and a fontina bechamel.

Bridgegate trial editors forgot to read U.S. Courts handbook

In summing up the government's case at the Bridgegate trial on Friday, a prosecutor called defendants Bridget Anne Kelly, left, and Bill Baroni "loyal lieutenants" of Governor Christie (Credit: Bryan Thomas/Getty Images).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's flawed coverage of the Bridgegate trial in Newark is lurching toward its conclusion next week, when federal jurors are expected to begin their secret deliberations and deliver a verdict.

In reporting on Friday's closing arguments, the main Page 1 headline today presents the defense case first, and is missing a question mark:

"Political
dupes
or loyal
soldiers"

In fact, a federal prosecutor went first, and spent four hours laying out evidence the defendants "shared an intense commitment to the political success of Governor Christie."

"They saw themselves as his loyal lieutenants who were free to use their government jobs to launch political attacks ...," notably the George Washington Bridge lane closures in September 2013, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Cortes said (A-1).

Defendants Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, and Bill Baroni, the governor's former top executive appointee at the Port Authority, "never attempted to separate politics from their jobs in public service," Cortes told the jury.

Defense attorney Michael Baldassare called Baroni's accuser and former subordinate David Wildstein "a serial liar." Kelly's attorney is set to sum up on Monday.

Uncorrected error

In today's Bridgegate trial story, Staff Writer Paul Berger steers clear of a major error on Friday, when The Record reported the judge has already instructed the jury on the law, even though that is the last step before they start their deliberations.

And no correction appears on A-2 today.

The two reporters who have been covering the trial, Berger and Dustin Racioppi, and their editors apparently forgot to read the "Handbook for Trial Jurors Serving in the United States District Courts," which lays out how a federal criminal trial proceeds.

Page 8 notes the judge's instructions or "the charge to the jury" comes after closing arguments, not before.

"The charge ... is much more than a statement of the rules of law. Sometimes it may contain a summary of the facts or some of the facts.

"The judge may point out and may also explain basic facts in dispute, and facts that do not actually matter in the case."

Bad news for Christie

At least three witnesses testified under oath that Christie knew about the lane closures in Fort Lee, despite his repeated denials.

But that's not why he looks so unhappy in a Page 1 photo today from a Seaside Heights bar, where people who are not back in their homes four years after Superstorm Sandy rained on his progress report.

3-star crap

Staff Writer Elisa Ung continues to lose credibility as a restaurant critic with her rave review of the low-quality smoked pork and artery clogging desserts served at an out-of-state restaurant, Fink's BBQ and Cheesesteak Roadhouse (BL-14 on Friday).

Absent any information to the contrary, readers can only assume the worst, that the pork, meat and poultry served there are raised under horrific conditions and pumped full of antibiotics, which are harmful to humans.

Christie pushing back against ex-aide on trial in GWB case

"Saturday Night Live" lampooned the third and final debate between Democrat Hillary Clinton and wacko racist Donald J. Trump, above and below. When Alex Baldwin's Trump used the phrase "bad hombres," Kate McKinnon's Clinton declared she had won "Trump Bingo" ("rapists," "Miss Piggy," "They're all living in hell" and "If she wasn't my daughter").

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If I didn't know better, I'd think reporters and columnists at The Record are taking sides in the trial of Governor Christie's ex-aides in the Bridgegate scandal. 

Today's lead story by Dustin Racioppi reports the Intergovernmental Affairs department (IGA) "did not become politicized until" right-hand man Bill Stepien left "and turned over duties to Bridget Anne Kelly" (A-1).

Kelly is on trial in Newark federal court, accused of working with Port Authority officials to block access to the George Washington Bridge as political retribution against Fort Lee's Democratic mayor, who refused to back the GOP bully's reelection in 2013.

That clashes with her testimony, including her claim that her email to David Wildstein, Christie's Port Authority crony -- "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" -- wasn't an "order."

Tarring Kelly

Until today, Bridget Kelly enjoyed several days of being portrayed in flattering terms by Columnist Mike Kelly, who profiled her and then wrote a long piece commenting on her Friday testimony, which he called "her side of the story."

But Racioppi quotes a former head of the state Ethics Commission suggesting an investigation into whether the IGA under Bridget Kelly "conducted political activity during state time, using state resources, using state employees to do it" (A-6).

It's also troubling that Racioppi refers several times to an "investigation" commissioned by Christie that eventually cost taxpayers more than $10 million -- the lead lawyer, Randy Mastro, was charging $650 an hour.

That report was widely viewed as a whitewash of the governor's role in the George Washington Bridge scandal -- confirmed by Kelly and other witnesses who said the governor knew of the lane closures in Fort Lee as they occurred.

As an example of how today's piece amounts to major push-back by Christie, Racioppi quotes Mastro's report as claiming IGA "functioned very effectively during the first three years of the governor's first term, both in terms of responsiveness and non-partisanship" (A-6).

"But, then, during the governor's reelection year, under [Bridget] Kelly's stewardship, there was aberrational behavior at Kelly's direction," Mastro claimed.

Editors should be calling on Trump to admit his mistakes

From cartoonist Jeff Darcy of The Cleveland Plain Dealer (cleveland.com).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Amid new revelations about GOP presidential hopeful Donald J. Trump's groping, The Record's front page focuses instead on spousal abuse by an obscure athlete.

Trump has succeeded in distracting the news media with his pledge to accept the outcome of the Nov. 8 election -- but only if he wins (A-1 and A-8).

The New York Times calls the wacko racist billionaire an "enemy of democracy," and Op-Ed Columnist Dave Leonhardt declares:

"Trump has adopted the language of despots -- lie-filled accusations meant to delegitimize both his opponent and the country's entire democratic system of governance."

Contrast that with The Record's wishy-washy editorial on Trump and the integrity of the election (A-18).

Meanwhile, Karena Virginia, 45, of Monmouth County became the 10th woman to publicly accuse the GOP groper of unwanted physical contact -- saying he grabbed her arm and touched her breast during a chance encounter at the 1998 U.S. Open (A-7).

Sports lead

Leading the paper with a sports story is always wrong, but it's especially bad journalism now, when the nation is facing the possibility of seeing a sociopath and sexual abuser of women elected president.

Tara Sullivan's column -- "Giants need to admit their mistakes" -- even knocked the Bridgegate trial off Page 1.

Informal dining

Check your gas tank and make sure you bring your cholesterol-lowering pills with you, if you intend to visit Sette, a wood-fired pizzeria in Totowa recommended by Staff Writer Elisa Ung (BL-14).

Ung, the paper's chief restaurant reviewer, advises readers not to miss the cannoli pizza.

Trump's anti-women, anti-black rhetoric will never prevail

On Wednesday night in Las Vegas, GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump showed how truly ugly he is during the third and final debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton, who was the clear winner, above and below, though you won't see that reflected in The Record's Page 1 coverage today.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In anti-women and anti-black comments on Wednesday night, GOP White House hopeful Donald J. Trump again showed he is a truly ugly, unapologetic male chauvinist pig.

His attacks during the final presidential debate ranged from calling Democrat Hillary Clinton a "nasty women" to pledging to appoint right-to-life justices to the Supreme Court to denying reports from women that he groped and kissed them against their will.

In a parting shot designed to appeal to his racist supporters, the wacko billionaire claimed electing Clinton would be the same as returning our first black president to office. 

Today's coverage

Clinton said Trump "thinks belitlling women makes him bigger" (A-4).

"He goes after their dignity, their self-worth," she said.

His "trickle-down economics on steroids," as Clinton called it; his getting away with not paying federal taxes; his business losses of nearly a billion dollars in one year -- all show his economic plan is a sham.

"We have undocumented immigrants paying more in taxes than a billionaire," Clinton said (A-1).

Kelly on Kelly

Columnist Mike Kelly appears to have set a record with his Page 1 profile of Bridget Anne Kelly, Governor Christie's former deputy chief of staff and a defendant in the Bridgegate trial.

This is not only more than he has written about any one person, but it certainly eclipses anything the editors have published about Clinton's long public service and her policy positions in the presidential campaign (A-1 and A-6).

Kelly's largely sympathetic portrait of the defendant, who grew up in Ramsey, clashes with her being portrayed as a central figure in the George Washington Bridge lane closures to punish Fort Lee's Democratic mayor for not endorsing the reelection of Christie.

No one knows how Bridget Kelly, who is scheduled to testify before a federal jury, will try to explain away her infamous email to Christie crony David Wildstein at the Port Authority:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Zisa editorial

An editorial claims Hackensack taxpayers will have to shoulder a $3 million payment to former Police Chief Ken Zisa because of the "mistakes of their city fathers" (A-10).

One so-called mistake was not having Zisa's back pay "accumulating in an account," but the editorial doesn't list any others.

Although all of the charges in a Bergen County grand injury indictment against Zisa have been dropped, the editorial neglects to mention no court or jury has ever said the former chief didn't commit a crime.

Stale news

The front page on Wednesday carried a stale headline.

"Hackensack plans

 $3M payment to Zisa" 

Eye on The Record already reported the payment on Oct. 5, and the Woodland Park daily's John Seasly followed with his own report two days later.

The news is that the City Council on Tuesday night proposed a $3 million appropriation raised through selling bonds "to fulfill a court-mandated payment" to Zisa (A-1 on Wednesday).

Seasly continues to ignore plans by Zisa and other members of his family's political dynasty, which ruled Hackensack for decades, to run a slate and try to regain power in next May's municipal election.

Zisa allies have long controlled the city's Board of Education.

Christie critic

Staff Writer John Cichowski is the latest staffer to pile on Christie since the fatal Hoboken train crash, revelations in the Bridgegate trial, and the biggest bugs up the veteran reporter's ass -- computer breakdowns and long lines at Motor Vehicle Commission offices.

His Road Warrior column on L-1 today breaks years of silent acquiescing to Christie's anti-mass transit policies, and refusal to raise the gas tax to pay for road and rail improvements.

Cichowski even blames Christie for rising traffic deaths this year "after three decades of decline" (L-2).

Columns such as Cichowski's ring hollow in view of The Record being the only major daily paper in the state that didn't call for the GOP thug to resign after he endorsed Trump.

Whole Foods

On Wednesday, retailing reporter Joan Verdon was incorrect in saying the new Closter Whole Foods "will have features not found in other stores, including a juice bar and coffee stand."

The Whole Foods in Paramus has both.

She also omitted mentioning that Costco Wholesale has expanded its organic and natural-food selection far more than the Whole Foods competitors she lists: Fairway, Trader Joe's, Walmart and Target.

Editors equating Trump sexual assaults with Clinton emails

These cartoons appear on Cagel.com. This one is from Alen Lauzan, a cartoonist who lives in Chile.

This one is from Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Associated Press -- a cooperative news and information service owned by 1,400 U.S. daily newspapers -- has always been known for one thing: Speed.

Accuracy, perspective, knowledge of issues -- not so much. 

So it's no surprise The AP story leading The Record today equates the scandal over GOP wacko Donald J. Trump's sex assaults with Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails (A-1).

What is a surprise is that the Gannett-owned daily continues to rely on The AP -- also known as The Associated Mess --for coverage of the presidential race instead of using stories from The Washington Post or its own USA Today.

"With Election Day four weeks away," today's AP story begins, "both presidential candidates [on Tuesday] dealt with their own troublesome issues:

"Donald Trump in a pitched battle with his own party as his candidacy nears collapse, and Hillary Clinton grappling with leaks about her long-criticized private email server."

"Troublesome issue" hardly comes close to describing the disgust over Trump's predatory attitude toward every woman who comes within reach.

And "troublesome issue" doesn't do justice to Trump's endless lies -- and lies about his lies -- in the first two debates.

Today's AP story shows the danger of the generalized lead loved by all wire service reporters.

Governor Christie

Get a load of the photo of Governor Christie leaving his state police helicopter on Tuesday, when he attended a Trump fundraiser in Ridgewood (A-7).

Christie, who is sticking by the GOP presidential predator, looks rumpled, overweight and stressed out over always having to defend Trump.

Breaking four days of silence, the GOP thug said he is "embarrassed" by Trump's "vile language," but won't withdraw his support from his fellow racist, State House Bureau reporter Dustin Racioppi says.

Christie also has been beaten up by continuing revelations in the Bridgegate trial (A-1), including testimony he knew about the retaliatory George Washington Bridge lane closures as they were happening in September 2013.

"I'm the fucking Governor of this state," he told a Monmouth County freeholder who described Christie as a "fat fuck," according to other testimony.

Hilarious.

Wrong-way Cichowski

Today's Road Warrior column speculates on whether gas selling for $2.25 a gallon will discourage people from driving and cut traffic deaths (L-1).

That's ridiculous. 

Staff Writer John Cichowski doesn't even mention drivers may switch to more efficient cars to negate the 23-cents-a-gallon hike, which he says will take effect on Nov. 1.

For example, most minivans have more cargo space than 7-passenger SUVs, and get better gas mileage.

Commuters, tree huggers applauding big gasoline-tax hike

North Dean Street in Englewood on a drizzly Friday afternoon. Drivers of hybrid and all-electric cars pay no attention to the price of gasoline, and won't flinch when the state's motor fuels tax goes up by 23 cents a gallon as early as next week.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Governor Christie insisted on cutting taxes for the wealthy before he agreed to a 23-cents-per-gallon hike in the gas tax to fund road and rail improvements.

In the past few years, Christie has vetoed or threatened to veto raising the gas tax for the first time since 1988, as well as put the kibosh on a tax surcharge on millionaires.

It's no surprise that "most New Jersey residents oppose an increase in the gas tax," as The Record reports today, given the crushing burden of property taxes and Christie's failure to lower them (A-7).

But while most drivers are cursing the gas-tax hike, they reserve the right to sound off about the lousy roads they are stuck with and to offer no other solution.

Drivers of hybrid and all-electric cars just shrug at higher prices for gasoline, hoping the new tax will slow the sale of gas-guzzling SUVs and cut deaths from auto emissions. 

No compromise

The GOP thug dominates this week's other big stories:

The crash of an NJ Transit train in Hoboken, and continuing testimony by the government's star witness in the Bridgegate trial -- Christie crony and confidant David Wildstein (A-1, A-6, A-7, L-1 and L-6).

Today, The Record's bumbling editors finally publish two stories that should have been in the paper on Friday, the day after a Bergen County train failed to slow, crashed into the platform and nearly broke through the waiting-room wall at the historic Hoboken Terminal.

The first is a profile of Fabiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, a Hoboken wife and mother who was killed on a platform by falling debris (A-1).

The second details how Christie slashed state aid to NJ Transit, forcing fare hikes, service cuts and the cancellation of work on an automatic braking system that could have prevented Thursday morning's tragedy.

Minimum wage

In addition to repeatedly vetoing higher taxes on millionaires, Christie killed a bill that would have raised the minimum wage in New Jersey to $15 an hour by 2021.

Today, The Record reports the state minimum will rise to $8.44 and hour from $8.38, "based on a small uptick in the consumer price index" (A-8).

Local news?

Four reporters were assigned to cover the delays faced by NJ Transit commuters whose trains only went as far as Secaucus on Friday (L-1).

And on L-6, Road Warrior John Cichowski wastes commuters' time by covering a public-relations tour by Dennis Martin, the interim executive director of NJ Transit.  

In the 13 years Cichowski has written the Road Warrior column, he has largely ignored mass transit commuters in favor of drivers.

Christie's mouthpiece cursed probing Bridgegate reporters

Commuters on stretchers this morning after an NJ Transit train on the Pascack Valley Line failed to stop in the Hoboken Terminal and jumped the platform, below. TV stations reported at least one person died and more than 100 were injured in the crash, which brought down a canopy over the tracks. Witnesses reported seeing the engineer slumped over the controls. Both photos are from Getty Images.

The train was described as a "pusher" -- with a diesel engine being operated by an engineer at the rear of passenger cars.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Add another one of Governor Christie's closest aides to the list of those who knew a "partisan plot was behind the George Washington Bridge traffic jams" in Fort Lee, according to a Page 1 story in The Record today.

In Bridgegate trial testimony on Wednesday, star prosecution witness David Wildstein, the crony Christie appointed to a powerful post at the Port Authority, fingered Michael Drewniak, a former Star-Ledger reporter who served as the governor's chief spokesman.

Wildstein, who has pleaded guilty in the lane closures, testified he met with Drewniak on Dec. 4, 2013, and told him "specifically, this was political retaliation" against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich "for not endorsing Governor Christie's [re-election] campaign" (A-6).

Wildstein and Bill Baroni, another former Port Authority official who is one of the defendants, asked Drewniak to respond to a Star-Ledger reporter looking into the controversy.

The former reporter "used an expletive" [likely the F-word] and called the reporter a "mutt" [as in "F-ing mutt"], The Record reported on Jan. 16, 2014.

He used the same expletive in response to a request for comment from a Star-Ledger editorial writer:

"[Expletive] him and the S-L [Star-Ledger]," Drewniak wrote in an email.

In May 2014, Drewniak testified before a legislative panel investigating the lane closures, insisting Wildstein said he was responsible for the traffic gridlock, but that the cause was a "traffic study."   

For his loyalty to Christie, Drewniak was given a cushy $147,400-a-year job at NJ Transit on April 1, 2015 -- an April Fool's joke on taxpayers.

He was being paid $134,000 a year as the governor's press secretary.

Time to poll Americans on who we trust in the news media

In his first debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton, GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump didn't mention the wall he wants Mexico to build on the U.S. border. This cartoon is from Christo Komarnitski in Bulgaria.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

"Clinton and Trump

come out swinging"

Is this trite, non-committal Page 1 headline the best The Record's editors can do today to describe the first presidential debate?

With the names changed, this same headline probably has run every time presidential candidates engaged in their first televised confrontation.

Democrat Hillary Clinton looked and sounded far more presidential than Trump, the wacko racist who didn't prepare for the debate and at times did a good imitation of a blithering idiot.

On NYTimes.com, David Leonhardt, an OpEd columnist, listed 26 lies Trump told during the debate -- from the loan his father once gave him to "birtherism" to calling women "pigs."

Then, Leonhardt asks, "So ... who won the debate?"

The Times has already endorsed Clinton for president, leaving readers of The Record wondering when the editorial board of the Woodland Park daily is finally going to take sides.

"Our endorsement is rooted in respect for her intellect, experience and courage," The Times said on Sunday.

A recent Record editorial claimed Americans don't trust either presidential candidate, but no one has polled readers on whether they trust the paper's editorial board, which didn't call on Christie to resign after endorsing Trump in February, as did seven other dailies.

A 'Cichowski'

A second blithering idiot appears on A-1 today --Road Warrior John Cichowski, who slams David Wildstein, the former Port Authority executive who pleaded guilty and is testifying as the chief prosecution witness in the Bridgegate trial.

Cichowski's column is one of two pieces that attack Wildstein's credibility (A-1 and A-4).

As usual, Cichowski's column is padded with so much nonsense you have to wonder why the editors ran it at all.

"The governor's childhood chum explained the makings of something so bizarre [conspiring with other officials to cause a traffic jam] that it might some day be called a 'Wildstein'" (A-1).

Well, there are a few 'Cichowskis' in the column -- stuff he completely makes up -- like reporting for the first time that closure of two upper-level access lanes to the George Washington Bridge from Sept. 9 to 13, 2013, "paralyzed Fort Lee and several other towns." 

A second "Cichowski" is noting "the world's busiest bridge ... links America's biggest city to New Jersey's biggest county."

Oh, that's why they built it.

Can readers trust anything they read in the Road Warrior column, which Cichowski has mishandled for all of the 13 years he's been doing it?

Shuber told?

On Monday, Wildstein testified he alerted Pat Shuber, a Port Authority commissioner, to the plan to create gridlock in Fort Lee in 2013 to punish the borough's Democratic mayor for not endorsing Governor Christie's reelection.

Wildstein said Shuber, who was appointed by Christie, "understood," but an attorney for the former Bergen County executive denies the conversation ever took place.

Abused seniors

Staff Writer Colleen Diskin, the closest thing the paper has to a reporter who covers the elderly, today describes a Bergen County nursing home with a free room for any abused senior -- "a temporary place to stay to get away from exploitative, neglectful or violent circumstances" (A-1).

What about the majority of Bergen seniors, who travel, dine out frequently, go to Broadway shows and subscribe to The Record?

When is Diskin going to pay any attention to them? 

Local news?

The Local front today reports on a major endorsement for Josh Gottheimer, the Democrat trying to unseat Rep. Scott Garrett in the 5th Congressional District (L-1).

Gottheimer has repeatedly attacked Garrett as a Tea Party radical, but that identification doesn't appear anywhere in the story on retired Gen. Wesley Clark's appearance at a campaign event for the former Microsoft executive.

A second story reports Teaneck Councilman Mark Schwartz, a Democrat who is Jewish, is endorsing Garrett, claiming the congressman is "one of the best friends Israel has" (L-1).

Four major stories about Paterson appear in a local-news section that has little news about the 70 towns in Bergen County.