With Trump, Americans must renew struggle for equality

From Jimmy Margulies, the Sunday cartoonist at The Record of Woodland Park.

In "Half the nation was shocked" by cartoonist Daryl Cagle, the losers on Nov. 8 are all people of color. They have the most to fear from the policies of Donald J. Trump, who will be sworn in as president of the United States in 23 days.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

With billionaire Donald J. Trump poised to take the oath of office in only 23 days, millions of Americans are worrying about losing freedoms they have taken for granted.

They also worry about a nuclear war, accelerated climate change and trade battles with other countries.

And many of us fear Trump will eclipse George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan as the worst president in the history of the republic.

Christie focus

At The Record, editors have been focusing on their nasty fight with Governor Christie over a book deal and his bid to end payment of millions of dollars for legal notices published in newspapers.

Today, the lead Page 1 story recalls the morning of Aug. 13, 2013, when Christie appeared at a groundbreaking ceremony for renovation of a PATH station.

Most readers are clueless about why the story by Dustin Racioppi is on the front page or just what point the Trenton reporter is trying to make.

Racioppi says details of how the governor's appearance at the groundbreaking was stage managed by his staff were obtained "through a public records lawsuit by The Record" (1A).

And on Tuesday's front page, another Racioppi story reported judges ordered state officials to pay attorneys for The Record and others who won such lawsuits more than $900,000 in fees. 

'Group of the day'

Today's front-page feature on an 8-year-old transgender boy from Secaucus who was barred from a Cub Scout pack is a departure from recent "group of the day" features.

However, a related story on 8A compares Joe Maldonado's struggle with the former plight of "gay scouts and gay Scouting leaders."

On Tuesday's 1A, so-called Dreamers were the "group of the day" -- 23,500 illegal immigrants in New Jersey who may lose protection from deportation when Trump takes office.

On Monday, the front page focused on "faith groups" -- churches, synagogues and mosques that are helping refugees to settle in New Jersey, despite opposition from both Trump and Christie.

From frying pan ...

No one at The Record seemed to question moving a family of four refugees from Afghanistan into an apartment in Paterson, parts of which are more dangerous than their native country.

Sunday's Page 1 focused on wealthy suburbanites who volunteer to feed the homeless at soup kitchens.

On Saturday, the focus was on knitters; last
Friday, it was holocaust survivors; and on Dec. 18, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn did a takeout on women who undergo medically unnecessary cesarean sections.

Washburn reported Hackensack University Medical Center performed more of the risky C-sections than any other hospital in the state.

The story was a departure from The Record's usual policy of showering praise on doctors and administrators at the medical complex.

Christie's mean GOP spirit is looming over the front page

Governor Christie at the Republican National Convention, where he said he has been wacko racist Donald J. Trump's friend for 14 years.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Page 1 today, The Record's chief medical writer again lets Governor Christie off the hook for trying to sabotage President Obama's health-care law in New Jersey.

And today's centerpiece on a young woman -- the first in her family to attend college -- is another in an occasional series, Muslims are Just Like You and Me, the paper has been running since Christie sought to bar all Syrian refugees from New Jersey (A-1).

I can't recall the last time Staff Writer Lindy Washburn included background information on how Christie refused to set up a health-care exchange in New Jersey when the federal Affordable Care Act took effect a few years ago (A-1).

That meant tens of thousands of residents, along with consumers in more than 30 other states with Republican governors, were thrown onto the overburdened federal exchange.

Next year, the number of New Jersey insurers will dwindle to two from five in 2016, Washburn reports, further limiting choice and raising premiums.

Local news?

A radical proposal to move the start time to "as late as 8:30" at Tenafly High School merits a front-page brief and a full story on the Local front today (L-1).

A story about Tenafly's school board appears on L-5.

Hackensack readers are racking their brains for the last time they saw a story about their schools or school board.

Apparently, Staff Writer John Seasly, who covers the city, is stretched thin just attending City Council meetings.

Today, Seasly reports the council hired Ted Ehrenburg as city manager to replace David Troast at the end of the month (L-5).

Ehrenburg, 59, of Hackettstown, a former police chief and business administrator, will be paid $170,000 a year.

Obits, crash photos

Eight days of coverage marking the 15th anniversary of 9/11 -- ending on Monday -- sucked the energy out of the Woodland Park newsroom, judging from all the filler in the local-news section today.

A pair of rollover crash photos on L-3 from ambulance-chasing Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi have readers saying gee whiz.

A third crash photo from the talented photographer plugs a hole on L-6.

Half of L-5 is taken up by obituaries of Sam Iacobellis, an obscure aerospace engineer, and Stanley Sheinbaum, the "liberal lion of Los Angeles." 

Readers' eyes rolling at the me generation of columnists

Although The Record and North Jersey Media Group left 150 River St. in Hackensack in 2009, the Borg family have made the property pay by charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for parking spaces leased to Bergen County during the construction of a new courthouse and to Hackensack University Medical Center.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers of The Record's Sunday edition are puzzling over the restaurant reviewer's rant about customers who wear too much cologne or perfume.

And those in search of local news can only wonder whether Road Warrior John Cichowski's column about drivers in European cities is his clever way of trying to write off his vacation on his income taxes.

I promise. 

I tried to get into the Page 1 feature story about the Paramus woman who spent 25 years searching for her Canadian birth mother, but it is just too long (A-1).

The top of the front page carries yet another story about the kindness of Gander, Newfoundland, to airline passengers diverted on 9/11 (A-1).

Staff Writer Lindy Washburn, who wrote today's story, actually was sent to Gander only days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America to pretty much write the same account that appears today.

So, that makes two stories with Canadian ties on today's front page.

Is anybody reading the other Page 1 stories -- another Charles Stile column on politics and the 2017 election for governor, or the annual end-of-season assessment of the health of the Jersey shore economy (A-1)?

Ung's rant

Few people live as high on the hog as Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung, who has been eating out morning, noon and night on a Record expense account for more than a decade.

So, excuse me if I don't get the point of her Sunday column, The Corner Table, or the problem of servers and customers wearing too much perfume or cologne (Better Living front).

She claims those scents prevent her from tasting the food she is evaluating, but readers can only hope she focuses more on the basics.

On Friday, she awarded 3 stars (Excellent) to From Scratch, a small cafe and market in Ridgewood, despite shockingly high prices, unprofessional service and cramped seating.

For example, she loved a bronzino fillet served with an eggplant-tomato gratin, even though at $30, you'd pay more than at restaurants serving the whole fish.

Mind on vacation

Staff Writer John Cichowski is back from a vacation with the breathless news that drivers in small European cities are more polite and don't lean on their horns, as we do in New Jersey (Road Warrior on L-1).

Of course, he could make the same observation in downtown San Francisco during the rush hour.

But as an opinion columnist, Cichowski fails to provide any leadership in the impasse over funding the Transportation Trust Fund, and for that reason, he is of absolutely no use to North Jersey commuters.

To sell house without driveway, reporter exaggerates its size

Paterson's South Paterson neighborhood of Middle Eastern restaurants, bakeries and coffee houses continues to show signs of renewal, including a mobile telephone store and a three-story commercial building under construction at Main and Gould streets. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A Page 1 story in The Record today raises troubling questions about an error-prone reporter who has blurred the lines between journalism and real estate promotion.

And in Local, the Woodland Park daily reports for the first time that a Hackensack University Medical Center doctor played a key role in landing a Fox News interview with the mother of the first New Jersey-born baby affected by the Zika virus.

After the interview was aired and The Record's reckless editors published a Page 1 photo of the deformed baby, the woman is asking for privacy (L-2).

Property grows

In today's follow-up to his first front-page column, error-prone reporter John Cichowski grossly inflates the size of a Midland Park property that has proven to be a hard sell, because it has no driveway and overnight parking is supposedly "banned."

On A-8 today, Cichowski, also known as the Road Warrior, reports town officials "appeared unmoved when [owner Ken] Klabouch noted his 12,000-square-foot property was the only lot in the borough too small to accommodate a driveway" (italics added).

That's four times the size Chichowski cited in his original column on Tuesday, when he reported Klabouch's lot "measures slightly less than 3,000 feet."

The house itself is "1,200 square feet," he said on Tuesday.

Six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton completely missed today's wild exaggeration, as did all of the news, layout and copy editors under her supervision.

The embarrassing "12,000-square-foot" screw-up also appears on North Jersey.com, The Record's Web site.

Provide plate number

More troubling is that Cichowski has ignored the custom and practice in most towns, where residents and renters can call police with the license-plate number of a guest, and get permission for overnight street parking.

I called Midland Park police on Wednesday and confirmed this also is the practice in the borough -- for guests as well as homeowners who park on the street overnight.

Zika baby

On L-2 today, The Record reports Dr. Manny Alvarez played a pivotal role in landing an interview at the bedside of a Honduran woman who contracted the Zika virus and gave birth to a deformed girl on Wednesday at Hackensack University Medical Center.

But for the first time, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn reports the woman is Alvarez' patient. 

The doctor is "chairman of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive health" at the medical center, as well as "senior managing editor" at Fox Health News.

In today's story, Editor Deirdre Sykes appears to justify why The Record invaded the unnamed baby's privacy by publishing her photo on Thursday's front page.

"Labeled an 'exclusive,' it [the Fox News interview] included a video of the baby in a hospital bassinet" (L-2).

Heart-attack food

Readers are wondering why Elisa Ung's review of American Cut Bar and Grill is far more subdued than two elaborately promotional articles The Record published in the months before the expensive steakhouse opened in Englewood Cliffs.

Today, Ung says the service reminds her of  "a family chain," not "a fine-dining restaurant" (BL-14).

She gives the steakhouse -- which advertises in Friday's Better Living tabloid -- 2.5 stars out of a possible 4 stars.

Photos with her review show only heart-attack inducing food -- a steak burger, biscuits with cream cheese, hanger steak and a sundae -- but none of the fish and salads promised "for the ladies" by the celebrity chef owner in a December interview with Food Editor Esther Davidowitz.

Ung sampled the "prime dry-aged porterhouse for two" ($115), but doesn't tell readers whether the beef was naturally raised on grass.

"Prime" only tells readers its the fattiest cut of beef among USDA grades: Prime, Choice and Select.

After noting entrees cost up to $54, Ung says American Cut isn't appropriate for "anyone on a budget."

She must think her readers are dolts.

Hackensack now free to sue hospital that shifts tax burden

Two views of a home being built on North Woodland Street and Booth Avenue in Englewood, above and below, where city officials gave property owner Nader Bolour a permit to remove 109 trees as long as he plants 273 new trees, The Record reported in December 2014.

Bolour, a native of Iran, is owner of the Doris Leslie Blau Gallery of antique carpets and custom-designed rugs in Manhattan.

Editor's note: Subscribers received an e-mail from The Record that "a production issue" may delay delivery of today's paper. This post is based on a story that appears on the paper's Web site.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack and other towns "may try to levy property taxes against non-profit hospitals now that Governor Christie has vetoed legislation" that would require them to pay a relatively small community service fee, The Record says.

Hackensack University Medical Center and other non-profits that claim exemption from property taxes shift the burden unfairly onto homeowners and businesses -- a story the Woodland Park daily has ignored for years.

Hackensack's assessor has successfully taxed $139 million in HUMC property, yielding about $4,877,000 a year.

But the main hospital complex, an additional $257 million in property that is tax exempt, would yield more than $10 million in revenue for the city, and likely halt the annual increase on other tax payers.

Under the proposed state law, HUMC would have paid the city $690,762 a year -- essentially chump change.

Christie veto

Christie vetoed a bill proposed after "last summer's Tax Court decision that invalidated the property tax exemption enjoyed by non-profit Morristown Medical Center," Washburn reports.

The hospital's parent company, Atlantic Health System, eventually settled, The Record says, "agreeing to pay $15.5 million to satisfy back taxes and interest, and will make future payments of about $1 million a year as tax on the for-profit part of its operation."

Washburn's story makes no reference to HUMC, the biggest non-profit hospital in North Jersey.

Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck, Ridgewood, Wayne and Paterson now are free to repeat Morristown's successful challenge to the non-profit status of the hospital in their community. 

Departing editor didn't ease crisis at our local daily paper

Editor Martin Gottlieb of The Record in the Woodland Park newsroom. Reporter Lindy Washburn, the paper's chief medical writer, is at left in this photo by Staff  Photographer Carmine Galasso.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's news story on the retirement of Editor Martin Gottlieb of The Record comes at a time of crisis -- a troubled period at the Woodland Park daily the veteran journalist did little to ease.

The Record's local news content, and the quality of editing and reporting, have declined dramatically since Publisher Stephen A. Borg ordered a major downsizing in 2008, and moved North Jersey Media Group and its flagship paper out of Hackensack in 2009.

Gottlieb, who took over the newsroom in January 2012, inherited several lazy, incompetent editors, but never cleaned house.

They include Deirdre Sykes, head of the local assignment desk; Assistant Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, Projects Editor Tim Nostrand; and Production Editor Liz Houlton, who has missed hundreds of errors, typos and bad headlines.

Gottlieb also did nothing to curb several veteran columnists, including Charles Stile, Mike Kelly, John Cichowski and Bill Ervolino, printing everything they wrote, no matter how pathetic.

Local news?

Today's Local front story on Gottlieb lists as his main accomplishments:

"Leadership of The Record's coverage of the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal," and becoming "a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in local reporting for a series examining the spread of heroin in the suburbs" (L-1 and L-6).

But his hands-on editing resulted in stories, especially those on Page 1, becoming longer and less accessible to readers.

And the front page showed a far greater emphasis on national and international news.

All of that came at the expense of covering municipal news in Bergen County, especially in Hackensack, where the Borg publishing family prospered for more than 110 years. 

Today, for example, Staff Writer Todd South is reporting on a Nov. 24 incident for the first time:

Hackensack Board of Education Attorney Richard Salkin has been charged with harassment for allegedly threatening Health Department Registrar Maria Tartaglione (L-1).

'Drop dead'

Salkin was applying for a license to marry former City Clerk Debra Heck, but was told by the registrar "she could not provide the certificate because errors had been crossed out in the license form he provided and corrected in pen," South says.

"You're a piece of shit, drop dead," Salkin allegedly shouted, Tartaglione complained, according to The Bergen Dispatch, which reported the incident on its Web site on Nov. 30. "Do you want me to bury you?"

South, with the approval of his editors, has managed to avoid reporting on the city's Board of Education; the school budget, which this year exceeds the city's own; or anything else to do with the schools.

The board approved a new contract with the Hackensack teachers union on Nov. 12, but that wasn't reported until Friday, when the Hackensack Chronicle carried the nearly month-old news.

Another screw-up

Today's local-news section again shows Sykes' and Sforza's desperation to fill space, with long wire-service obituaries on an obscure Native American activist and an even more obscure crossword puzzle champ (L-6).

Page A-2 carries Houlton's correction of a Road Warrior column last Sunday, in which Cichowski tried to drum up business for a volunteer ride service for seniors.

Unfortunately, the addled, error-prone reporter published the wrong telephone number, and none of the editors who looked at his story actually dialed the number to see if it was correct.

1971 to 2016

Gottlieb, 67, began his journalism career in 1971 as a municipal reporter covering Bergen County towns for The Record.

Then, he worked as a reporter or editor at the Daily News, The New York Times and the Village Voice before returning to the Daily News and The Times, the latter in 1995, working there until he was named editor of The Record in January 2012.

Today's story says he will leave The Record in January, four years after he arrived, basically his way of cruising into retirement.

His departure from The Times, where he was global editions editor from 2008 to 2011, has never been explained.

Joe Ferriero's legacy of greed still is infecting Hackensack

Hackensack Democratic Party Chairwoman Lynne Hurwitz, back to camera, conferring with Board of Education Attorney Richard Salkin before a June meeting of the City Council. Seated at right is husband Howard Hurwitz, executive director of the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority, where he is paid more than $136,000 a year.

Editor's note: The editor of Eye on The Record is a lifelong Democrat.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

We don't have Joe Ferriero to worry about anymore.

The once-powerful leader of the Bergen County Democratic Party (1998-2009) has been given 60 days to surrender and start serving a 35-month federal prison sentence, according to Page 1 of The Record.

As one indicator of how slow justice is, Ferriero was convicted way back in April of what U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman calls "running a local political organization as a criminal enterprise" (A-1).

"He used his power and position to enrich himself through a racketeering operation fueled by influence peddling, bribes and kickbacks," Fishman said on Friday.

See Comments section below on a major factual contradiction in today's Ferriero coverage.

Hackensack yoke

No other Democrats were involved, but in Hackensack, residents still are recovering from being ruled by the Zisas and the powerful figure behind their political dynasty, city Democratic Chairwoman Lynne Hurwitz.

A number of Zisa family allies still run the free-spending Board of Education, which approved a 2015 budget that exceeded the city's own.

Here are links to two reports on Hurwitz's influence in Hackensack, where a slate she backed in the May 2013 municipal election was defeated by reformers:

Key strategist in Hackensack

Is Lynne Hurwitz backing Hackensack slate?


Taxing hospitals

So many stories in The Record sound more like public relations than news, such as the lead story on the Local front today:

Staff Writer Lindy Washburn rewrote a press release from the New Jersey Hospital Association, claiming non-profit hospitals employ people who contribute "more than $1.4 billion to local and state tax revenues" (L-1).

So what?

Hackensack University Medical Center and other non-profit hospitals don't pay property taxes, shifting the burden onto homeowners and owners of commercial property. 

None of the taxes paid by their employees eases the property tax burden in Hackensack, which is saddled by two other big non-profits, Bergen County and Fairleigh Dickinson University.

The rest of Local today is dominated by Law & Order news, including a gee-whiz photo of a small SUV that tried to drive through the basement window of a Garfield school, injuring two teachers (L-1).

Christie's racism toward Obama is hurting medical reform

At the Great Falls, now part of a national park, the historic industrial city of Paterson says, Hear me roar.

The hydroelectric plant at the base of the falls still provides power to the city.

Mary Ellen Kramer Park is a new section with picnic tables and benches. Although it hasn't opened officially, visitors who find a break in the cyclone fence are leaving their mark, above.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Governor Christie did his best to sabotage the roll-out of President Obama's Affordable Care Act by blocking a health-care exchange in New Jersey.

Now, in a series of stories on surprise medical bills, The Record still hasn't told readers where the GOP bully stands on reform efforts, which have succeeded in other states but not here (A-1).

Deep on the continuation page today, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn reports:

"New York has the most comprehensive law, an accomplishment made possible in part because Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state insurance regulators pushed for action...." (A-6).

Any reader who got that far might be asking themselves, What about Christie? But his name doesn't appear in the overly long story.

And even though most experts are dismissing Christie's chances in the scramble for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, political Columnist Charles Stile continues to polish the governor's image of being all-powerful in the Garden State (A-1).

As an antidote, see Margulies' Sunday cartoon on our part-time governor (O-2).

Another correction

On A-2, The Record corrects a Saturday story on the Cresskill family mourning Youngrok Lee, a 13-year-old killed by a tractor-trailer while he was riding his bike to school on Wednesday mother.

A photo showed his grieving mother and a banner hanging on the boy's door.

"In bold, black Korean letters, it says, 'Look forward and go higher,'" Staff Writer Mary Diduch reported.

Except the characters are Chinese, today's correction says.

The boy's name previously was given as Young Rok Lee, even on Saturday's front page, and there was no explanation why Saturday's L-1 story and today's correction calls him "Youngrok Lee."

Deadly week?

Saturday's front page was dominated by a story, graphic and photos appearing under this over line:

"DEADLY WEEK AROUND NORTH JERSEY"

The headline was clunky:

"Spate of tragic endings"

The story reported a number of accidental and violent deaths in 10 days, including two teens killed in traffic accidents, two bodies found on the Palisades, a Hackensack man shot by police and an off-duty state trooper killed in a one-car accident.

But the round-up appeared designed to justify Editor Martin Gottlieb's frequent reliance on sensational crime and court news on Page 1 to sell newspapers.

And it served to obscure the laziness and incompetence of local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, who seem unable to fill their section with legitimate municipal news (see Saturday's and today's Local sections).

Of course, every week is "deadly" in North Jersey, if you count heart disease, dementia, obesity and other causes the editors largely ignore year-round.

In the kitchen

Staff Writer Elisa Ung, who can't resist sampling artery clogging desserts for her weekly restaurant reviews, today brings us a long column on a celebrity pastry chef (BL-1).

That shuts out readers who would like to see The Corner Table column tackle the broken tipping system, restaurant owners who charge high prices for low-quality food and other consumer issues.

Self-serve gasoline could be bad for air quality in N.J.

This two-pump gas station on Sylvan Avenue in Englewood Cliffs will probably never convert to self-service, even if the law is changed to allow it.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front-page story on a proposal to allow self-serve gas stations in New Jersey raises a lot of questions about prices that are never answered.

The story claims drivers pay a "full-service premium ... at the pump" estimated "at 8 cents to 18 cents a gallon," but doesn't say whether prices will be cut, if self-serve is approved (A-6).

Nor does The Record say how much the gasoline tax might be raised, and whether the net effect will be lower prices at the pump.

Cutting gasoline prices would transform a quality of life report into an environmental story, if lower prices encourage more driving and discourage the purchase of hybrids and other fuel-efficient cars.

Of course, the New Jersey Gasoline C-Store Automotive Association probably wouldn't pass along labor savings to the consumer.

Members of the owners group have been charged with numerous wage violations.

Confusing numbers

At one point, the story reports self-serve pumps "would mean the loss of hundreds of part-time jobs," but a few paragraphs later notes gas stations employ about 5,000 attendants who pump gas, most of them part time (A-6).

Today's lead story on A-1 reports air pollution is getting worse in New Jersey. 

A proposal that might lead to lower gas prices and encourage more driving certainly isn't welcome in the Garden State, where mass transit is already operating at capacity.

Letterman effect

If the page proofer, news and copy editors, and other members of the newsroom production staff are still watching David Letterman, readers might finally have an explanation for the dramatic spike in errors in recent years (BL-1).

Letterman's "Late Show" was a fixture in the newsroom before the Borg family's North Jersey Media Group abandoned Hackensack in 2009.

Even more significant, moving the printing of The Record to Rockaway Township from Hackensack a couple of years earlier apparently ended the tradition of checking the first copies for errors, stopping the presses and fixing them.

Six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton has done a miserable job of ensuring accurate headlines, and all editing seems to have ended, allowing reporters and columnists to write on and on, and spin fiction if they want.

All this coverage -- today and Sunday -- of Letterman's final show on Wednesday is a waste of space. 

After I left the paper, I never watched the comedian again.

Second looks

Take a look at the corrections on Saturday's A-2 for examples of what a crappy job Houlton and the news and copy editors under her are doing.

One headline "gave the incorrect town in which seven people face prostitution-related charges."

Another correction fixed the misspelling of a Bergen County official's name, but also gave the name of his agency incorrectly.

Adam Strobel was identified as "division director for open space." The division isn't named.

The Strobel correction noted the "impact" of raising the open-space tax also was wrong in a story on Friday's L-6.

Death Valley

Sunday's Travel section cover story on California's Death Valley National Park was beautifully written by Staff Writer Lindy Washburn, the paper's chief medical reporter.

Her description of the landscape and "a silence as immense as any on earth" makes me want to visit even more than I did before (T-1).

Letting Christie off the hook on pathetic Sandy recovery

We may pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation, but we still are burdened with an antiquated road system that causes traffic congestion, worsens air pollution and erodes productivity. The infamous Teaneck Bottleneck on Route 4, which narrows to two lanes from three, above, pleases preservationists, but delays tens of thousands of  motorists every day. The Record's editors could care less.

BY VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You can search The Record's lead story in vain today for any mention of -- or comment from -- Governor Christie on the pathetic recovery from Superstorm Sandy in October 2012.

I guess Staff Writer Kim Lueddeke and her assignment editor didn't bother trying to locate the GOP bully, who has turned his back on New Jersey as he seeks conservative support for a White House run (A-1).

But Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson knocks himself out trying to measure whether Bridgegate has made Christie less popular than the state's indicted senior senator, Bob Menendez, a Democrat (A-1).

They're both bums, and Jackson is just wasting our time. Look at the idiotic thumbnail photo that runs with his NJ/DC column -- it's almost as silly as Columnist Mike Kelly's shit-eating grin.

Surprise bills

In her Page 1 story today, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn fails to mention a simple solution to surprise medical bills from providers who don't accept your insurance:

Refuse to pay the bill or negotiate a much lower payment.

Is Christie out?

Check out Tom Moran, a member of The Star-Ledger Editorial Board, on why Christie may quit the presidential race.

Moran is a former Record reporter who is married to Mary Jo Layton, a senior writer at the Woodland Park daily.

See: Why Christie may quit

Eye on The Record

will return later this week

Big-name lawyer, gazillions in fees couldn't save Ferriero

The redevelopment of Hackensack's Main Street is underway.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Former Democratic power broker Joe Ferriero is himself a lawyer so perhaps it is fitting he has been exploited so thoroughly by his fellow attorneys.

Look at the convicted racketeer in the photo on the front page of The Record today: 

Ferriero has gained a lot of weight from the stress of fighting federal charges for the last eight years or so, but he blew so much money on defense attorneys he can't even afford to buy a new suit that fits him (A-1).

And the legal bills didn't end with his conviction in Newark federal court on Thursday.

Kelly curse

None other than Columnist Mike Kelly reports that the losing defense lawyer, Michael Baldassare, "promises that Ferriero ... will be vindicated when he appeals and is found to have done nothing wrong" (A-8).

What a joke. Done nothing wrong? Kelly should be fired for even quoting the self-promoting lawyer spouting such nonsense.

The real crime is that reporters endow Baldassare and other big-name defense lawyers with nearly magical powers to save a client like Ferriero, who was convicted on most of the federal charges he faced, including racketeering, wire fraud and bribery (A-1).

Nowhere in the two news stories or column on Ferriero will you find anything reporting just how much the former Bergen County Democratic Organization chairman spent on his defense -- is it tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars -- all in vain.

Ill-gotten gains

It's likely Ferriero, who was convicted of using his power and position to "line his pockets," as U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman put it, already has gone through all of his ill-gotten gains and is spending personal funds (A-8).

If the party organization Ferriero presided over in Bergen County was corrupt, he ended up being exploited by an equally corrupt legal system that denies access to the courts to anyone who isn't wealthy.

A defense attorney like Baldassare, if paid enough money, can keep the Ferriero conviction and coming sentence on appeal for as long as two years, meaning this racketeer isn't going to prison anytime soon.

Editors wanted

The Record's amateurish editing bites readers again today with Staff Writer Lindy Washburn's story on the dramatic rise in the use of electronic cigarettes by high school and middle school students (A-1).

The second paragraph is filled with so many confusing numbers that it stops readers dead.

The third paragraph should have followed the lead paragraph, and all of those numbers could have been left for much later.

Also, the reporter and editors assume readers who might not turn to the continuation page are familiar with electronic cigarettes and whether they contain nicotine or other harmful ingredients.

Local news?

The big local news today is that Ringwood and Ford Motor Co. continue to take the cheap way out of protecting residents from contaminated soil linked to dumping 40 years ago (L-1).

The Record launched an investigation and published a series, "Toxic Legacy," tracing the pollution to paint sludge from Ford's Mahwah plant, where more than 6 million cars and trucks were produced.

The residents sickened over the years are mixed race, and don't have much pull with the Woodland Park daily, officials in Ringwood or Ford.

Liar, liar

A photo from Governor Christie's "town-hall-style event" in Hasbrouck Heights should have been on Page 1 today.

Dan Buckley of Lodi is shown with a large sign, "LIAR LIAR," and a photo-drawing of the GOP bully with his pants on fire (L-6).

Editor Martin Gottlieb still gives a pass to the worst governor in New Jersey history.

Christie's poor job-creation performance is reported on B-1 today.

Sugar high

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung is so enthralled with the souffles and the "tempting" sweets and pastries at Tisha's Main Ingredient in Westwood she gave the Asian fusion restaurant a Good to Excellent rating (BL-16).

But diabetics and others hoping to restrict their intake of sugary food should probably eat elsewhere.