The Wheeling Intelligencer continues to carry fake news about the presidential election
The editorial cartoon in this morning’s Wheeling Intelligencer:
Gary Varvel cartoon, November 12, 2020 https://t.co/cAAUeZqnkw pic.twitter.com/4GcH58vSpt
— Toronto Sun (@TheTorontoSun) November 12, 2020
Is there any evidence that dead people voted?
I could find no evidence of even one such occurrence. On Tuesday, the Associated Press, which the Intelligencer subscribes to, published the following:
There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Yet falsehoods about dead people voting and ballots being thrown out by poll workers are still thriving on social media, report by @AmandaSeitz, @DavidKlepper and @BarbaraOrtutay. https://t.co/DXVSdgHdF9
— AP Fact Check (@APFactCheck) November 10, 2020
The above AP article did not appear locally. (See also USA Today, CNN and another AP article for additional analysis.)
It should also be noted that even agencies in Trump’s administration have admitted as much:
The Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council—a consortium of election administrators and federal agencies overseeing election security—refute the widespread claims of voter fraud by the president and right-wing conspiracists in a statement. https://t.co/wH90ZQcBZ0
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 12, 2020
For syndicated columnist Laura Hollis, it's all Biden and media propaganda
Today's Intelligencer editorial page also features a long article by syndicated columnist Laura Hollis who tells us that we’re in the middle of a propaganda war. In her column, Hollis rounds up the usual suspects as she explains to us the propaganda emanating from Joe Biden and in particular, the media. Biden because he calls himself “president elect” (How dare he! I checked and Trump did it much sooner in 2016) and the media because they carried polls that did not show a closer race and because they dared to call states after voting had closed. I found it interesting that Hollis complains that California was called too quickly for Biden but says nothing about West Virginia being called for Trump very soon after its polls were closed. She’s especially hard on Fox News for calling Arizona before the other networks did. Her column doesn’t quite explain how a network calling an election after voting has closed is “propaganda” nor does she acknowledge that none of the networks made a mistake in calling these elections. It's a long column that doesn't prove its thesis.
Near the end of her long column, Hollis tells us:
In a bitterly ironic twist, a huge majority of the nearly 72 million Americans who voted for Trump already believe that that fraud has irreparably compromised the election. According to a poll released earlier this week, 70% of Republicans do not believe that this election was free or fair.
Doesn't Hollis see her own role in this perception? Following Trump’s lead, she and the rightwing media have done nothing but discredit the mainstream media that have attempted to give us a balanced picture. For an obvious example, one doesn't need to go much beyond the last ten days of the Intelligencer's editorial page to see why Republicans distrust the election results.
As I was finishing this post, our President tweeted:
700,000 ballots were not allowed to be viewed in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh which means, based on our great Constitution, we win the State of Pennsylvania!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 14, 2020
I guess I'm part of the propaganda if I say "bullshit, Mr. President."