Today, the Wheeling News-Register ignored one of the most important stories of the day, month, and year

Friday evening, the United States Supreme Court decisively rejected a Texas lawsuit that could have overturned Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential victory. Sometime between 6 PM and 7 PM last night, the first Associated Press article on the decision was sent to its subscribers:

BREAKING: The Supreme Court has rejected a Texas lawsuit to overturn Joe Biden's election victory, ending a desperate attempt to get legal issues rejected by state and federal judges before the nation’s highest court. https://t.co/Y9bd0l4DEP

— The Associated Press (@AP) December 11, 2020

Not surprisingly, today’s weekend edition of the Wheeling News-Register did not carry this or any subsequent AP story on this important Supreme Court decision. The paper, however, did carry some AP stories that were clearly not as important. For example, on page A6:

U.S. Attorney General Troubled By Mexican Limits on Agents

And my favorite, with an accompanying large picture of a UPS truck:

Retailers Urge Shoppers to Buy Early

I cannot have been the only Ogden reader not surprised that the paper did not carry the U. S. Supreme Court's important decision. Excuses? The paper cannot claim that the court's decision came too late in the day (it broke around 6 PM) since the paper had no problem publishing a front-page AP story on the coronavirus vaccine published much later in the evening. And while the local Ogden papers have filled their editorial page with undocumented attacks questioning Biden’s state victories, the papers have totally ignored the numerous court cases that the president has lost. Friday’s papers are good examples: Laura Hollis’ morning syndicated column (similar to last Friday's column) claimed widespread voter fraud while the afternoon paper’s editorial cartoon made a similar claim. Neither provided any evidence.

The changing Ogden editorial page

During the eight years of the Obama Administration, local readers were treated to near-daily doses of anti-Obama editorials. Since 2017, however, neither local Wheeling paper has ever criticized President Trump even when he did what they had regularly criticized Obama for doing. (See “executive overreach,” for starters.) Their rationale for editorially ignoring Trump and national politics, explained shortly after Trump’s election, was that the locals were now “community newspapers” more concerned with local rather national issues. The practical implication meant that local Wheeling readers got a regular dose of irrelevant Ohio editorials like Jefferson County waste dumps and actions by the Steubenville city council. With a Democratic president to attack, I think that will change. As a result, I expect to see the following editorials which are designed to cripple Biden’s effectiveness by eroding support for his administration:

• The deficit. Trump’s tax cuts for corporations and the rich ballooned the deficit. The locals praised the cuts and, like our local representative, David McKinley, even argued that they would pay for themselves. They didn’t and the government coronavirus relief programs have worsened it. Until now, the locals have ignored the deficit but watch how quickly it becomes an issue as Biden tries to deal with the damage the coronavirus crisis has done to millions of individuals and families.

• Health care. After years of complaining about Obamacare, Trump and the Republicans did nothing to fix it once they came to power and the Obamacare time bomb (set by the Republican AG’s) will go off next year if the Supreme Court calls the program unconstitutional. If that happens, the locals will cheer and blame Biden when Republicans stymie any attempt to fix it. (That 100,000+ West Virginians might lose health care coverage during a pandemic will not bother them.) If Obamacare hangs on, they’ll be against any attempt to improve it: it’s too costly, it’s socialized medicine, what about our freedoms, blah, blah, blah.

• Executive action. Unlike the editorials and local columns during the Obama presidency, the locals were totally silent as Trump often ignored Congress and acted by presidential decree. It looks as though Biden will act quickly on the coronavirus including executive actions. Those will not go unnoticed by our hypocritical papers.

• Presidential appointments. Look at the corruption in the Trump administration and compare it to Obama’s. There is no comparison. The locals ignored even the worst of Trump's appointments, but any Biden choice (especially if female) will need to resemble Caesar’s wife.

• Impeachment. My hunch is that the locals won’t call for it directly. Instead, they’ll simply argue that the Democrats impeached Trump for far less taking their cue from right wingers like the less-subtle Sean Hannity who said this yesterday:

how do you not impeach if it's Joe Biden one day? How do you not do it? It's a foreign --it's a family foreign crime syndicate.

What did I miss? Use the comment link below or if you’re a RSS subscriber, drop me a note and I’ll compile reader predictions into another post. (I won’t use your name.)