Today’s editorial, “Budget Battle Underway,"tells its West Virginia readers about the ongoing fight over the Ohio budget. (Of course, there was no attempt to make this relevant for WV readers.) Upon closer examination, the editorial appears to be a shortened version of one published in the Marietta Times on June 9. It begins:

With Ohio’s budget in the hands of the state Senate, the slashing and fidgeting has begun.

Yeah, right, except that the “slashing and fidgeting” has ended. As any search engine will tell you, the Ohio legislature passed the budget last Friday and Governor Mike DeWine signed it yesterday. (See here, for instance.) How pathetic – it took me less than 5 minutes to find that the budget had been passed and signed. Does the Intelligencer care about relevance for its readership? Of course not. (The editorial did take up space, however.)

The other editorial, “Health Care Hiring A Real Challenge,” is a month-old editorial originally published in the Parkersburg News and Sentinel.

Yesterday’s long editorial, “Freedom Is Key To Independence,” is a recycled editorial that was most likely first published in 2019 and my search engine suggests numerous re-publishings. The Intelligencer, for example, also used it last July 4.

Additionally, both of Monday’s editorial on safe driving and celebrating the Fourth safely are recycled.

Finally, here is today’s editorial page cartoon by Michael Ramirez.

Michael Ramirez - Political Cartoons Daily https://t.co/bWUlBvcJtX

— David Smith (@Sm97536886David) July 5, 2023

The cartoonist suggests that Biden’s attempt to forgive college debt was equivalent to driving through the U.S. Constitution. Of course, the Intelligencer has never criticized Donald Trump for trying to overthrow an election, leading an insurrection, or trying to get a Georgia election official to change election results. But today, it publishes a cartoon suggesting that President Biden has plowed through the country’s most sacred document. Yes, “pathetic” applies here, too.