Impeachment would be too good for evil Christie, Trump

"Twitter tirades" from cartoonist Adam Zyglis lampoons President-elect Donald J. Trump's 3 a.m. tweets.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Governor Christie is trying to buy off the Democrats who control the state Legislature so he can profit from a book deal before he leaves office in 2018, according to the front page of The Record's Sunday edition.

Don't expect a cut for taxpayers who were fleeced by a law firm that got more than $10 million to whitewash the GOP bully's role in the 2013 George Washington Bridge lane closures.

Since Christie took office in January 2010, he's executed more than 500 vetoes to thwart the will of the Democratic majority in Trenton.

Christie vetoed a phased-in hike in the minimum wage to $15 (1O), a tax surcharge on millionaires, stronger gun control and hundreds of other bills.

When the Bridgegate scandal derailed his White House campaign last February, Christie threw his support behind wacko racist Donald J. Trump.

That led The Star-Ledger and six Gannett-owned dailies in New Jersey to call for his resignation, but The Record of Woodland Park was the exception.

Now, even impeachment would be too good for the GOP bully, who somehow escaped being charged in the Bridgegate scandal.

Three of his former aides or associates were convicted.

Trump election

The same could be said for Trump, whose Electoral College victory sparked unprecedented protests after Nov. 8, and set the stage for a Women's March on Washington on Jan. 21, the day after the billionaire businessman is to be inaugurated.

California, Massachusetts and other states, as well as such big cities as New York and Chicago, are expected to file numerous lawsuits to stop Trump from changing policies on such issues as immigration, health care, climate change, abortion rights and gun control (11A).

Commentary

The Record hasn't commented on what many are calling Trump's illegitimate election, with Democrat Hillary Clinton receiving about 2.5 million more votes nationwide.

Two of the paper's columnists also have shifted gear:

Veteran Trenton reporter Charles Stile, one of Christie's biggest apologists before revelations in the Bridgegate trial, is now focusing on the November 2017 gubernatorial election (1A).

Staff Writer Mike Kelly wrote columns during the presidential campaign filled with interviews of laid-off factory workers, who were said to be among Trump's biggest supporters.

Kelly also continued to take pot shots at President Obama, even though he saved hundreds of thousands of auto industry jobs and brought the country back from the brink of a second Great Depression.

Today, Kelly inexplicably devotes his Sunday Opinion front column to David Wildstein, the Christie crony who was the chief government witness at the Bridgegate trial (1O).

Twitter, on the other hand, is filled day after day with attacks on Trump being unfit to take office:

"Trump hasn't drained the swamp," says filmmaker Michael Moore. "He IS the swamp."

"The Strongman" from cartoonist Adam Bagley.

Growing diversity

The major Page 1 story on North Jersey's growing diversity is saddled with an incomplete, hard-to-understand graphic (1A).

Looking at the front page, readers might be puzzled about why the graphic shows Bergen and Passaic counties, but the huge photo with the piece was taken in a Hudson County town, Secaucus.

Only when they turn to the continuation page (6A), do they see another graphic for Hudson and Morris counties.

Local news?

Gannett editors continue to trivialize local news, putting town coverage largely in the hands of reporters for North Jersey Media Group's weekly newspapers.

They are younger, less experienced and get lower pay than staffers for NJMG's dailies. Here are a few headlines from today's Local section:

"Developments to add students in Upper Saddle River"

"Carlstadt wants to limit
kitten and puppy sales"

"New assistant principal to join Cresskill district"

Best restaurants?

The Better Living cover story -- "Best Restaurants of 2016" -- reprints appraisals under the byline of Food Editor Esther Davidowitz.

But I don't see any credit given former critic Elisa Ung, who left the paper last month after nine years as a food writer and weekly restaurant reviewer (1BL).

The idiotic sub-headline: 

"This was a good year for eating out"

As you can tell from reading Ung's reviews, her twin obsessions with meat and dessert often blinded her to whether the food she recommended was naturally raised or grown, which might justify in part the outrageous prices many fine-dining restaurants charge.

Ung started a monthly review of informal, less expensive restaurants in 2015, but that likely was driven by then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg trying to cut her expense account, and disguising it as a service to readers. 

Her last weekly restaurant review ran in November, and she hasn't been replaced by another critic.

The Record has been running a series of "food crawl" pieces in place of weekly reviews. 

On Friday, Staff Writer Sophia F. Gottfried also took a look at fine dining and other options at Newark Liberty International Airport. 

North Jersey haves and have-nots

Image via Wikipedia

Dogs saved from house of horrors

The main headline on Page 1 of  The Record of Woodland Park today made me wonder, Who will save readers from Editor Frank "Castrato" Scandale's newspaper of horrors?

Sure, it's awful how an apparently deranged homeowner abused 26 dogs that lived amid garbage and feces. But is this front-page news? 

Just below this report on one of North Jersey's have-nots is another dog of a story that doesn't deserve to be on A-1: 

The sale of furnishings at the $14 million home of two haves, an ostentatious music mogul and a chubby ex-model. Staff Writer Evonne Coutros, usually excellent, wrote a lead paragraph that lands with a thud. A $2,000 pillow from a bed Versace slept on? Gee-whiz. Wow-wee. Can you believe that?

The third A-1 story -- on air safety in North Jersey and over the Hudson River -- buries a remarkable detail. It seems truckers use jamming equipment to prevent their employers from tracking their movements with GPS, and that has delayed testing of the nation's first satellite-navigation system at Newark Liberty airport (photo). Given the lack of detail, Staff Writer Tom Davis didn't think much of the problem. 

On the Op-Ed page (A-17), Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin oversteps his role in another partisan column -- this one blaming Democrats for not being able to override Governor Chistie's antiabortion veto of family planning funds.

Except for a police chase, there is no Hackensack news in Local today. Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado apparently missed or ignored a July 29 meeting of First Ward residents who complained  about the behavior of the homeless from the new county shelter a couple of blocks away. Read all about it in the weekly Hackensack Chronicle.

Maybe head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes told Alvarado she needed her beauty sleep and not to cover the neighborhood meeting. 

The L-1 story on sisters putting up for sale one of the last farms in Saddle River makes no mention of the state's farmland preservation program, though that money may have been among the funding cut by Governor Christie to avoid taxing millionaires like the Borgs.

Does anyone edit the restaurant reviews in Better Living? Judging from the first paragraph, Santorini Taverna in Fort Lee leaves its doors open on the hottest days. Who would want to eat there, even though it gets a good rating? Today is Food Editor Bill Pitcher's last day at The Record, but we may see more of his work in weeks ahead. One of his recent reviews noted he visited the restaurant two months earlier, and he hasn't given a firm date for Elisa Ung's return.

Restaurants from only 15 North Jersey towns are listed in the health inspections column today on Page 21 of Better Living. Bergen County alone has 70 towns.

Is naturally raised food so ho-hum?

Image via Wikipedia

 

Food Editor Bill Pitcher has been doing restaurant reviews in the absence of Elisa Ung. But in today's appraisal of Ho-Ho-Kus Inn & Tavern, he doesn't seem to give the place any points for serving naturally raised chicken, pork and beef, and wild fish.

The $1.5 million renovation, food and service draw only two and a half stars from Pitcher -- only a half star more than Ung gave Bahama Breeze, one of those awful, faux-Caribbean chain restaurants, on Route 23 in Wayne. That rating by Ung in The Record of Woodland Park has been haunting her and Pitcher, and diluting the ratings of other restaurants.

Restaurants that serve naturally raised food aren't so common in North Jersey that they should be treated like every other place.