Daily Archives: February 5, 2022

Liz Cheney Marks The Last Stand Of The Ancien Regime Republicans – The Federalist

Posted: February 5, 2022 at 5:20 am

If it were taking place 20 years ago, it would have been one of the top events on the calendar for Republicans. Once upon a time, a fundraiser sponsored by former Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne, with appearances by Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, Cheneys faithful aide Scooter Libby, former Solicitor General Ted Olson, columnist Mona Charen, and a large number of wealthy donors, and hosted by veteran GOP heavy-hitter Bobbie Kilberg and her lawyer husband Bill at their Virginia home, would have been the sort of thing that anyone in the world of GOP officeholders, consultants, and fundraisers would have wanted to attend.

But the March 14 shindig is taking place in 2022, not 2002. That makes the list of sponsors and guests the political equivalent of a baseball Old-Timers Game in which the stars of the past gather to put on their old uniforms and entertain their fans with an inning or two in which they pretend to be their former selves.

But the event in question is not an exercise in nostalgia. Its a fundraiser for Rep. Liz Cheneys re-election campaign. Although the people listed as sponsors may be political has-beens or are now utterly marginal to the Republican Party, their money is still green and Cheney needs every cent she can raise from her familys old friends.

Cheney is facing the fight of her political life as she attempts to fend off a primary challenge for renomination to her at-large House seat from Harriet Hageman, the lawyer and conservative activist who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Hageman has raised more than $1 million for her campaign to date and has benefited from fundraisers hosted by billionaire Paypal founder Peter Thiel.

Moreover, the party apparatus in Wyoming, which once might have shown any member of the Cheney family great deference, has abandoned her. She was censured by the state GOP for voting to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. In November, Wyoming Republicans voted to no longer recognize her as a member of the party. That came after Cheney assumed a leadership role in House Speaker Nancy Pelosis Jan. 6 Committee despite the fact that the Democrats refused to allow the Republican conference to name, as was their right, their own members.

Cheney has essentially burned her bridges to the party she grew up in by falsely claiming to be the ranking member of the committee and enthusiastically participating in its fishing expedition that seeks to drag in for questioning a wide array of former Trump administration officials, conservative media figures, and even Republican House colleagues who had nothing to do with the riot. Indeed, there is a growing movement to oust her from the Republican conference, although House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy would probably prefer to avoid a purge and let Wyomings Republican voters deal with Cheney in the August primary.

Cheney, who has seemed to grow angrier at her party with each month for its refusal to play along with the notion that Jan. 6 was an insurrection that threatened American democracy, is not going down without a fight. And she can count on other GOP celebrities from the past, such as former President George W. Bush and former House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan, to assist her with fundraising.

But the idea that the 2002 GOP All-Star team can compete against contemporary Republicans with voters who have long since repudiated their partys ancien regime is an absurd strategy.

The race is being spun by the liberal mainstream media as a case of a brave, principled conservative standing up against an army of GOP zombies who have sold their souls to Trump. But as in the rest of the country, Wyoming conservatives understand that Trumps populist defense of the working and middle class is a better fit for the party than one that seemed more in line with the interests of Wall Street.

They think the Bushes exploited them while Trump fought for them. To the surprise of many, Trump wound up leading the most successful conservative administration in memory until it was brought down by a pandemic unleashed by China and a mainstream media/Big Tech alliance aimed at silencing the truth about Biden family corruption.

Republicans understand that Cheneys acceptance of Democrats branding of not just the Capitol rioters or even Trump but all Republican voters as insurrectionist traitors targets them and their beliefs. Even if they arent still questioning the 2020 presidential election results, most Republicans seem to comprehend that the real threats to democracy are the McCarthyite tactics of the Jan. 6 Committee that Cheney is helping to lead and her Democratic allies attempts to silence dissent on the Internet.

That Cheneys fundraiser is being held in Virginia is something Hageman wont fail to play up. A Jan. 6 Committee advisor also recently dropped his name from the host line-up.

Cheney lived most of her life in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., before returning to her familys home state to pursue a political career. She first attempted to muscle Mike Enzi out of his Senate seat leading up to the 2014 elections. But when he refused to roll over, she backed down and settled for Wyomings sole seat in the House in 2016.

When Enzi retired in 2020, she flirted with another chance at joining the Senate, but was outmaneuvered by Cynthia Lummis. Still, by then Cheney was on a fast track to House GOP leadership, using her famous name to parachute into the partys number three position chair of the House Republican Conference after only one term. That put her in line to be a future speaker of the House.

But like many other members of the old GOP elite, Trumps ascendancy was too bitter a pill for her to swallow. While her voting record remained generally conservative, she seized on the Jan. 6 riot to go all in on impeachment and then in trafficking in conspiracy theories about the riot aimed at burning down the party for the sin of letting Trump lead it.

That makes the Wyoming primary more a referendum on the Republican past which she represents than about the relative merits of Cheney or Hageman. Although her family name still counts for something, her claim that she and the remnant of Never Trump allies backing her are the only legitimate standard-bearers for conservative values is not a viable political strategy in Wyoming or anywhere else. GOP voters have long since moved on from the Bushes and their family retainers even as the liberal media is now finally treating the former president and Cheneys father with some respect, if only as a way to further attack Trump.

Thats why the Cheney re-election campaign is so rooted in the partys past and her events have taken on the aspect of an ancien regime banquet in which pretenders to a throne lost in the past make-believe that they are about to return to power. Theyre in for a rude awakening in August.

Jonathan S. Tobin is a senior contributor to The Federalist, editor in chief of JNS.org, and a columnist for the New York Post. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin.

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Liz Cheney Marks The Last Stand Of The Ancien Regime Republicans - The Federalist

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Donald Trump ‘Is Wrong’ on Authority to Overturn Election, Says Pence – The New York Times

Posted: at 5:20 am

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday offered his most forceful rebuke of Donald J. Trump, saying the former president is wrong that Mr. Pence had the legal authority to change the results of the 2020 election and that the Republican Party must accept the outcome and look toward the future.

Speaking to a gathering of conservatives near Orlando, Fla., the former vice president said he understands the disappointment so many feel about the last election but repudiated Mr. Trumps false claims that Mr. Pence could reject the Electoral College results and alter the outcome last year.

President Trump is wrong, said Mr. Pence, in his remarks before the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization. I had no right to overturn the election.

The comments marked the strongest rejection of Mr. Trumps efforts to overturn the 2020 election by his former vice president. Mr. Pence refused to give in on Jan. 6 to Mr. Trumps pressure campaign to change the results. Since then, he has remained relatively quiet about that decision, largely declining to directly attack Mr. Trump or assign him any blame for inciting the deadly siege on the Capitol. In public appearances last year, Mr. Pence defended his role in resisting Mr. Trump but did not go further than saying that the two men will never see eye to eye about that day.

But tensions between them have been rising in recent days. As Mr. Pence positions himself for a possible presidential bid in 2024, Mr. Trump has pushed more intensely a false narrative aimed at blaming his former vice president for failing to stop President Biden from taking office.

Mr. Pence cast his opposition on Friday as larger than the immediate political moment, implying that the false claims pushed by Mr. Trump and his followers threatened to undermine American democracy.

The truth is theres more at stake than our party or our political fortunes, he said. If we lose faith in the Constitution, we wont just lose elections well lose our country.

In a speech that largely focused on attacking the policies and record of the Biden administration, Mr. Pence described Jan. 6 as a dark day in Washington. Such a description runs counter to an attempt by some on the right to rewrite history by describing the siege as a peaceful rally and by calling the rioters political prisoners. And he urged Mr. Trump and his party to accept the results of the last election.

Whatever the future holds, I know we did our duty that day, Mr. Pence said. I believe the time has come to focus on the future.

But Mr. Pence stopped short of completely breaking with the right-wing base that remains deeply influenced by Mr. Trump.

Mr. Pence did not explicitly say that Mr. Trump lost the election and he declined to address the false claims of election fraud still being pushed by the former president and his supporters. The carefully constructed wording of his rebuke shows an effort by Mr. Pence to defend his own actions on Jan. 6, while not completely alienating a Republican base that remains animated by conspiracy theories of a stolen election. Their support could be crucial in any 2024 primary contest.

His comments came just hours after the Republican Party voted to censure two Republican lawmakers for taking part in the House investigation of the Jan. 6 attack. The lawmakers, Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, were censured for participating in what the partys resolution described as the persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.

In a rambling statement issued Friday evening, Mr. Trump refrained from sharply attacking Mr. Pence. But he described Mr. Pence as being an automatic conveyor belt on Jan. 6 to get Biden elected President as quickly as possible. And he also did not back down from his assertion that Mr. Pence had the authority to change the results.

Mr. Trump added, I was right and everyone knows it. If there is fraud or large scale irregularities, it would have been appropriate to send those votes back to the legislatures to figure it out.

Legal scholars and officials from both parties say the vice president does not have the power to overturn elections. Mr. Pence agrees with that interpretation of the law: In a letter to Congress sent the morning of the Capitol attack, Mr. Pence rejected the presidents claims, writing that the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump falsely claimed that Mr. Pence could have overturned the election in a statement denouncing a bipartisan push to rewrite the Electoral Count Act of 1887. The former president and his allies misinterpreted that century-old law in their failed bid to persuade Mr. Pence to throw out legitimate election results. And on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that the congressional committee investigating the role of his administration in the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol should instead examine why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval.

Mr. Trumps attempts to influence his vice president have become a focus of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, with some members seeing the participation of Mr. Pences team as vital to deciding whether it has sufficient evidence to make a criminal referral of Mr. Trump to the Justice Department. Two of Mr. Pences aides testified privately before the committee this week and Mr. Pences lawyer and the panel have been talking informally about whether the former vice president would be willing to speak to investigators.

The Justice Department has also been examining the ways in which Mr. Trumps attacks on Mr. Pence influenced the mob. In recent plea negotiations in some Jan. 6 cases, prosecutors have asked defense lawyers whether their clients would admit in sworn statements that they stormed the Capitol believing that Mr. Trump wanted them to stop Mr. Pence from certifying the election.

As the attackers raided the Capitol that day, some chanted Hang Mike Pence. Mr. Trump initially brushed aside calls from aides and allies to call them off. Since then, Mr. Trump has defended the chants as understandable because, as he said in an interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News, the people were very angry about the election.

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Donald Trump 'Is Wrong' on Authority to Overturn Election, Says Pence - The New York Times

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Media’s Smear Of NYT’s Leonhardt Reminds Us Why They Can’t Be Trusted – The Federalist

Posted: at 5:20 am

New York Times liberal David Leonhardt has had plenty of dumb things to say about the pandemic.

Exhibit A, this remark he made back in October on CNN: When people quit or get fired because they wont take the vaccine, I would think of that there is some really good news there.

A month before that, he said Republicans were rejecting vaccines at a higher rate than Democrats, in large part because conservatives had grown hostile to science. Then he acknowledged in a subsequent column that health officials were deliberately withholding information from the public, as happened with masks, and said their refusal to acknowledge uncertainty can undermine officials credibility. (When conservatives doubt what their leaders are telling them, its because theyre hostile to science. When Leonhardt does it, hes just being a skeptical journalist!)

In June 2020, he made the arrogant declaration that We know how to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and pointed to South Korea as a sterling example of one of those countries that had avoided outbreaks or beaten them back. A few months later, the deputy commissioner of the nations health department would say, We are facing our biggest ever coronavirus crisis because the current wave is neither temporary nor regional, but steady and nationwide. We dont have one central cluster that we can shut down with a focused testing and isolating campaign

And so, Leonhardt doesnt get any credit for his Johnny-come-lately attitude about how Democrat and media-championed restrictions on the economy, social life, and schools have severely retarded this country. Plenty of people knew that was the case from the beginning and when they said so aloud, elitist dummies like Leonhardt denounced them as reckless science deniers hellbent on ushering more spread of a deadly virus.

But its wild anyway that, for becoming more vocal lately about the harm Democrats have done to children and the economy with their beloved lockdowns, Politico decided it was time to let a bunch of miserable liberals trash him. And do it anonymously!

Reporter Joanne Kenen wrote last week that she had viewed a letter sent to the Times from a group of prominent pandemic experts who called Leonhardts Covid analysis irresponsible and dangerous. Who were these so-called prominent experts? We dont get to know. Kenen said when she got ahold of the letter, it came with the full list of signatures withheld.

How, then, does she know any of the names are prominent? Moreoever, how does she know theyre experts at all? Maybe we shouldnt ask. We wouldnt want to seem hostile to science.

But Kenen even declined to identify someone she interviewed directly and who said that the majority of Leonhardts opinion pieces downplay risk, downplay prevention. This assessment, according to Kenen, came from a physician at a prestigious academic medical center. If thats true, and were talking about a matter of life and death, and that a prominent writer is misleading millions of people about the risk to their health, there is literally no reason for a doctor to hide his name when making such a milquetoast accusation. And there is literally no reason for a reporter like Kenen to allow it other than that shes simply crap-stirring and continuing to feed the alarmism that invites Democrats to continue hyping up their control-freak restrictions.

These people swear that theyre not enjoying the pandemic, that everyone wants to be done with it. No, they dont.

Leonhardt isnt a sympathetic victim in this smear campaign. But hes a useful reminder that the people were told incessantly by the national media to listen to and trust are in no way forthcoming or honest.

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Media's Smear Of NYT's Leonhardt Reminds Us Why They Can't Be Trusted - The Federalist

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Trump is wrong: Pence says he had no right to overturn 2020 election – FOX31 Denver

Posted: at 5:20 am

FILE Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Nov. 30, 2021. Pence said Friday in a speech in Florida that the former president is simply wrong when he says Pence had the right to unilaterally overturn the election. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday directly rebutted Donald Trumps false claims that Pence somehow could have overturned the results of the 2020 election, saying that the former president was simply wrong.

In a speech to the conservative Federalist Society in Florida, Pence addressed Trumps intensifying efforts this week to advance the false narrative that he could have done something to prevent Joe Biden from taking office.

President Trump is wrong, Pence said. I had no right to overturn the election.

While Pence in the past has defended his actions on Jan. 6 and said that he and Trump willlikely never see eye to eyeon what happened that day, the remarks Friday marked his most forceful rebuttal of Trump to date. And they come as Pence has been laying the groundwork for a potential run for president in 2024, which could put him in direct competition with his former boss, who has also been teasing a comeback run.

In a statement Tuesday, Trump said the committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol should instead probe why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval. And on Sunday, he blasted Pence, falsely declaring that he could have overturned the Election!

Vice presidents play only a ceremonial role in the the counting of Electoral College votes, and any attempt to interfere in the count would have represented a profound break from precedent and democratic norms.

Pence, in his remarks Friday, described Jan. 6, 2021, as a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol.

Pence was inside the building, presiding over the joint session of Congress to certify the presidential election, when a mob of Trumps supporters violently smashed inside, assaulting police officers and hunting down lawmakers. Pence, who had released a statement earlier that day to make clear he had no authority to overturn the will of the voters, was rushed to safety as some rioters chanted Hang Mike Pence!

Pence framed his actions that day as in line with his duty as a constitutional conservative.

The American people must know that we will always keep our oath to the Constitution, even when it would be politically expedient to do otherwise, he told the group Friday. He noted that, under Article II Section One of the Constitution, elections are conducted at the state level, not by Congress and that the only role of Congress with respect to the Electoral College is to open and count votes submitted and certified by the states. No more, no less.

Frankly there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president, he added. Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.

Pence also acknowledged the lingering anger among many in Trumps base. But, he said: The truth is, theres more at stake than our party or political fortunes. Men and women, if we lose faith in the Constitution, we wont just lose elections well lose our country.

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Trump is wrong: Pence says he had no right to overturn 2020 election - FOX31 Denver

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Fake news article says New Zealand planning to put COVID vaccines in water supply – Dunya News

Posted: at 5:20 am

Published On 04 February,202201:36 pm

Fake news article says New Zealand planning to put COVID vaccines in the water supply

(Reuters) - Social media users have been sharing a fake article that wrongly says New Zealands government is planning to introduce COVID-19 vaccinations into the water supply.

The false text has been mocked up to look like it was published by the New Zealand Herald. No such article or social media post was published by the outlet.

The headline of the fake image reads: Leaked emails expose Governments [sic] underhanded vaccine plan.

The falsified screenshot shows the headline along with a caption that reads: The emails between Government officials and multiple local councils appear to discuss the possibility of introducing the covid vaccine into city water supplies in areas where the vaccination rates havent reached 90%. Prime minister Jac...

One user shared the screenshot on Twitter and said: Is this a joke? (here).

Another said: if people dont cut the head of the snake theyll be adding mRNA to the tap water... and then the food... (here).

One person who shared the screenshot on Instagram wrote: This is actually criminal!!!

The New Zealand Herald confirmed that it did not publish the report. No such post - or story - was ever produced by the NZ Herald, Shayne Currie, Managing Editor of the NZ Herald, told Reuters.

Reuters has not been able to find the story in any other outlets.

Reuters previously addressed digitally altered headlines shared online (here), (here), (here).

VERDICT

Altered. The NZ Herald did not publish an article reporting on a government plan to introduce the COVID-19 vaccine into water supplies. An image circulating on social media is false and digitally altered.

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A new local musical shows the only thing haunting Sarah Winchester was fake news – KJZZ

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Jill Ryan/KJZZ

Lindsay Newhard, who plays Mayme Brown, rehearses the new musical Fair Game at the Holland Center on Jan. 29, 2022.

A new musical is appearing for the first time on a north Scottsdale stage Feb. 11-13, and its all about fake news and its consequences.

At the plays center are the rumors that have inflated the legend of Sarah Winchester and her mysterious mansion in San Jose, California.

Sarah Winchester is a name now synonymous with the horror genre. She was the widowed heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune born in the 19th century. She built a mansion in San Jose that is rumored to be supernaturally motivated. That mansion is currently a tourist attraction.

In 2015, Andrea Markowitz, the playwright, composer and lyricist behind Fair Game: Or the Importance of Being Honest, heard this story and was inspired.

I thought, wow, this woman whos filled with such grief that she has to express herself through building a home. I'd love to explore how she did that and why she did that, Markowitz said.

Jill Ryan/KJZZ

Bill Paynter plays Sigmund Freud in Fair Game.

But months into her research, as she kept finding increasingly more supernatural spins on the story, this Arizona resident ran into a problem after she found a biography by historian Mary Jo Ignoffo.

She pieced together the true story of Sarah Winchester, which has nothing to do with ghosts and being haunted and feeling guilty about the Winchester rifle murdering all of these people, Markowitz said. So my original idea for a play was completely gone because once I read this, I became so incensed. She turned out to be this wonderful, brilliant, good woman and how her name has been defiled for more than a century now.

So she refocused, interested in figuring out how Sarahs story could have gotten so sensationalized. She found five individuals who became characters in her musical, who either perpetuated the haunting of Sarah Winchester or sensationalized the rumors.

Referring to those five characters: All of the other characters are real life characters who had their own lives, that I researched very meticulously and [in] bringing them to life, I tried to portray them as honestly and empathetically as I could," Markowitz said.

Jumping off of that biography, Markowitz says her research included reading hundreds of newspaper articles and speaking with a great great niece of Sarah Winchester.

Jill Ryan/KJZZ

Cindy Campbell and Alex Martinez play journalists in Fair Game.

Fair Game is Markowitzs first musical, and she has only been a playwright since 2013, but she is award-winning.

Terry Temple is the managing director at Desert Foothills Theatre, where the musical is appearing at the Holland Center.

Its a funny, original, quirky little musical that she's put together, very clever, Temple said.

Temple compares it to a famous musical.

Its the other side of the coin. I've referred to it sometimes as what the musical Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz. Just telling that other side of the story, Temple said.

The show, Temple says, was actually scheduled to first appear in 2020.

And we all know what happened then: COVID hit and it blew up. So we rescheduled it for early in the Spring of 2021 and we had the surge, Temple said.

But now rehearsals are underway, and an audience at a January charity event got to preview a few songs.

Jill Ryan/KJZZ

(From left) Cindy Campbell, Oakley Rinehard and Alex Martinez, who play journalists, performing select songs for a charity event.

First time in costume, the cast performed on stage in steampunk attire. Sallyann A. Martinez, the director of the show, talks about her costume decision.

When I read the script, I could just see what was on stage. And to me, what was on stage was larger than life characters. And so those larger than life characters to me have big hats and coat and tails and you know, gears, Martinez said.

Also a choice: not a lot of choreography.

When some people think of musicals they imagine huge choreographed numbers, but Martinez wants to keep it more reserved.

I really want people to focus on the words of those songs because they have so much content in there, Martinez said.

And the songs are important. Music Director Kent Campbell says they move along the plot of the show.

Fair game will be talking about some of the news outlets at the time that were not very fairly reporting on Sarah Winchester, and you'll learn a lot about how that manifests itself, Campbell said.

San Jose Public Library

An article written by Ruth Amet, who according to historian Mary Jo Ignoffo, sparked local curiosity into a firestorm of visitors to the house. Amet is one of the characters in the musical based on a real person.

So what was the truth that Markowitz found about Sarah Winchesters mansion, which, according to the attractions website, currently has 160 rooms, 47 stairways and fireplaces and more? It was her hobby house.

She was just concerned with creating something different and new and seeing how it worked out. And sometimes she would rip out what she did if she didnt like the way it turned out. And sometimes she would just leave it and move on, Markowitz said.

Sarah Winchester, herself, actually never makes an appearance in the play.

Even though its her story, its not about her. I didnt want to exploit her anymore, Markowitz said.

She says the goal for this musical is to correct the perception of Sarah Winchester one audience at a time.

The following article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury Herald on May 27, 1923.

by RUTH F. AMET

RECENTLY The Winchester Place has been leased by an amusement company. Invited to go through the Winchester house about which so much has been surmises and written I went. Theres nothing so very strange about the exterior even to the person who knows something about history. True, it resembles an Irishman with the slant eyes of an Oriental, a Roman nose and a firm Scotch chin, the whole topped off with an English monocle. That is to say, it is incongruous as to architectural features. Rose of New England shutters establish its only claim to symmetry. In fact it looks a good deal like a half size vendom hotel gone Cubist. From the outside it does not appear very large. But it is large, containing more than 100 rooms.

From the moment of the turning of the key in the lock expectancy mounted. The door, as Anna Catherine Green would say, swung slowly open. We entered a cement-floored apartment with similar apartments opening off it. What were they? Store-rooms, I suppose. Any number of them. One for jelly and one for Joann and one for Candice Sparagas, and still another for the Hound of the Baskervilles perhaps. I really didnt look to see. Thats the whole difficulty in writing the story. There were so many suppositions I neglected to verify, not knowing and the time that the tour would be ordered into newsprint. Otherwise I shouldve been most thorough, ascertaining, for example, whether Poes horrific Black Cat didnt lurk at the end of a certain shadow a little passage. One would need only penetrate to the point where coal-fire eyes gleam out of the darkness. Someone should have let me know. All I can say now is that I strongly suspect these things to be so.

Rooms, it must be said from the start, seem mostly to have been rather than to be. Unfurnished, and mainly undecorated, with even the wall surface stripped from them, they are nevertheless teeming with atmosphere for those who would a-ghosting go. In the short time the house has been closed it does not seem possible that so much should have deteriorated. As a matter of fact it probably hasnt. Entire suites of room they have been closed off for years and the best haunted castle fashion. A speaking tube that we touched fell off.Where does it go, I asked, my two partners in mystery laughing. Down, said they. True enough, the tubes certainly went down. Down where we couldnt discover. We were tempted to speak into the mouthpiece. But the thought of hearing Dr. Jekyll his back: Ill be with you in a minute decided us against it. When three are company why risk a crowd?

So unbelievable, so amazing in every respect did we find the Winchester house that we didnt follow any system of exploration. We raced upstairs and downstairs as the vista ahead held out the most lure. How could you count these rooms? asked the Partners in Mystery together. I dont know, I replied bewildered, unless you chalked A cross on the door of each room visited. For theres no apparent plan, no fixed arrangement of any sort in this house. We found a laundry equipped with some six or eight stationary tubs way up in the center of the second floor. We found kitchens and butlers pantries in the most surprising places. Faucets and fixtures were queer, old-fashioned perhaps, but strangely out of place in a home of wealth under constant process of alteration. Bathtubs were lined with tin. Not a single gold bathtub, like Desnoyers of Four Horsemen fame, anywhere. In fact rich effect is conspicuously lacking. There than whispers of a White Satin Room. I was high in hope of coming suddenly on just such another apartment as Dickens described in Great Expectations with the cobwebby wedding cake and all the other bridal furnishings. But of that later. Everything in this house is more like a book than anything else. It is another case of truth being stranger than fiction.

Take the laundry tubs. Laundry tubs are not strange in themselves. Yet laundry tubs in juxtaposition to a suite of drawing rooms or at least a little odd. Anything that is not quite natural makes one feel a little queer. The the laundry tubs started the queerness. It was something to go on and it went fast. Our progress was frequently blocked by a locked door. Sometimes we found the key in the lock and turned it. Often such a door will not open, being locked on the other side. A little queerness added here doors that would not open. Not so queer as it might be if not that we already stood in strange rooms. But first you must hear how we left the cement-floored entrance.

We chose a peculiar stairway. Steps were so shallow as to hardly necessitate lifting the foot. Get the width of the steps was too great to permit more than one being taken at a time. Inch by inch we went up. After toiling arduously we were apparently a little higher. We turned corners and kept going step, step, step. Still little altitude gained. After repeating this process many times we finally reached the second floor, a level not many feet higher than the point from which we started. Yet it seemed as if we traveled far enough to reach Tower of London heights. Quite a queer feeling. Yes, it was.

We were very much disappointed for the first few moments there after. Rooms were so bare. Without furnishings, without even wallpaper, they were just rooms. Soon they begin to take on personality. Indistinct, difficult to define, but personality nevertheless. Perhaps if I went through them again I could better account for this spectral quality. Perhaps Id be no better off than at present and could only repeat they make you feel queer. At any rate it is weird indeed to feel queer because of a house. It is the feeling that underlies the most successful mystery fiction. There is no mystery to equal the house that isnt quite right. Doesnt it make you prickle just think of it a house where there is something you cant understand, something that makes people uncomfortable, makes dogs uneasy, makes you shiver a little each time you recall it?

We passed from room to room. Once in a while we separated. But not for long. If, in eagerness to glimpse, I found myself alone, I didnt linger there. Id read too many mystery stories to be enthusiastic about being away from the others. I know too well the architectural haunts of certain celebrities of supernatural circles. From Mary Roberts Rinehardt, for one. I have learned what queer things happen on stairways circular stairways. Saying that I didnt mind the room I was in, nor any particular room that I was in any time, again someone explains this strange house. One doesnt mind them. Oh no not them. But the feeling is pretty close to the surface all the time that you might suddenly come upon a room that you would MIND. Not the third be anything in it at first class to horrify No-o-o-o-h. But just a room youd rather be out of. If you know what I mean.

Again and again we found ourselves in rooms where we could peer through windows into other rooms. Windows with glass in them and not only glass but screens. Fancy heavily screened windows between two rooms. Imagine being in one of those rooms and hearing a slight sound in the other. That would be the window. Youd simply have to look and see what it was made the sound. Better perhaps Im leaving it to the imagination. Sounds are so often a mouse. But where Ignorance is bliss certainly such a window would ruin everything. More certain still, no one raisin Sherlock Holmes could live in that house. Their imagination we get the best of them if nothing else did.

Almost stranger than anything else about this house is its faked air of a thousand and one conveniences. You sense it all at once. Here is a house where someone lived who believed in going way beyond modernitys latest device. And yet nothing could be more inconvenient than the same house. You feel that whoever put certain fixtures in did so only after trying others and finding that there was still some disconvenience to be gained by changing. The impossible closets for clothes! At least I suppose they were for clothes though many naturally suggested special nooks for those misty beings, who remain in concealment except for certain jolly little midnight escapades. One shallow affair, that particularly impressed, was built so it all but filled a narrow passage. The average sized person would have to squeeze with bated breath some three or four feet through this narrow space to reach the door opening into the closet. How youd get it open when you reached it I cant imagine, unless it opened in. I didnt try it at the time, it occurring to me about then that here was the individual wardrobe of De Maupassants phantom lady who might at any moment emerge combing her long, icy hair. Why precipitate matters by going in?

Perhaps none of these things sound so very strange. But coming again and again on these ear wreck syloble built in conveniences our feeling of queness defend. We often laughed, then quite as quickly ceased, caught by the unnaturalness of the place. The house is like a problem in mathematics with faulty figures cropping up again and again confusing you until you cant be sure whether to into are four or five. Inaccuracy a bounds in this house. As architecture, it is untrue, proper and a logical. As stands now str to ng, is be one to that as futurist affairs seven legged chairs and lightening jagged hangings and things like that there would be a little conspicuous or it not for doors where doors are not needed, windows where windows are simply incredible, and, yes trap doors. One room we went into seems to have a floor entirely made of trap doors. Trap-size squares were marketly divided and felt like thin ice under foot. One of our party of three stops to examine something on the wall.

Dont press anything, I warned him. Touch the right spring and well all shoot through to the seller. Mystery reading again! Thats what it does to you. But anytime I saw either of those two men fussing with speaker tubes or wall fixtures I had the same feeling of apprehension. Press the right thing in the trick would be turned. Either walls are closing in on us or the floor would go out from under us or SOMETHING. I was so insistent about this they became impressed. But you see they were already pretty well imbued with the queer feeling.

The Winchester house is after all mostly feeling. There is something of the awful house of Usher about it. Yes, really. Not outside. No fog or other atmospheric density envelops it. Rather I was flooded with California sunshine and the air was sweet with honeysuckle and roses. But inside well, inside it is an ideal place for Carolyn Wells to give a house party. Meredith Nicholsons House of 1000 Candles was never so strange as this house of 1000 windows and doors and airy stairways. Indeed, if there is one thing stranger than another, it is the stairways. They are everywhere. You go to the second floor. But you cant stay there and make connections. Very soon you apparently come to the end of the second floor. There are stairs leading down. Not the ones who came up. Oh, no. You never use the same stairs twice. You go down. Almost beside the descending stairway you find another leading up. If youre up. There you are again on the second floor. But not the same second floor. Its bewildering. How many times I went up I dont know. One has to hurry on the stairs because of what Mrs. Rinehart has said. Under the circumstances one forgets to count. Sometimes we took the stairs to the third-floor. In this way we often missed first and second floor sections.

One of our party had been in the house the day before. Before we started he told us of a Turkish bath he had found next to a kitchen and a servants sweet. Once the smoke curls evaporated from the soup, improvised he, the cook Would it make a flying leap for his Turkish steam room, in this way perpetually warding off pneumonia. We kept looking for that child room. We encountered similar service wings but none with a Turkish bath. Perhaps it isnt always there. This was in the height of fire to those unfamiliar with what happens in the Gray room, Red room, Missing Millionaire room tales. At any rate, the young man, who by the way I had never heard of Barries Mary Rose, believed we missed it.

One of the less inconvenient conveniences which we found a good many times was a type of built-in cabinet containing complete fire-fighting apparatus. On one of the upper floors we discovered ponderous chests with drawers that rolled in and out on some sort of ball bearing system. Our queer little nook over a glass skylight had shelves on opposite sides. There were little upper doors that open and shut, heavily screened of course. We opened them and experimented. How to reach into the linen closet, as we called it, and stack or unstack the shelves, without putting one or two feet through the skylight was a nice little problem in relativity.

And speaking of skylights, There are many of them. One that greatly amused us was a large affair built up in dome shape. It occupied a court some feet in width. Opening on the skylight from every direction was a door. Between doors were diamond shaped apertures which one can look through. You come up on the first door, unlock and open it. There is a heavy screen door in addition. You unlock and open that. There in front of you is a Glassfield area. Across, you see another door, also carefully screened. Opposite sides, more doors, more screens. This is one of the things that make you laugh. All these care devoted to instant egress and nowhere to go. All these little window-places to look through, providing one isnt rash and plunge is there a door, and nothing to say except that it will be well to look before you leap. Yes, one laughs and then that queer feeling.

There are other second and third floor doors that open on to nothing. They remind of a certain Buster Keaton comedy in which unwelcome guests were invariably taken to the upper floors to see the sunset. A door was opened, the guest gazing raptly skywards stepped out, or rather off. And that was that. It is little things like this that teach one to step softly in the Winchester house and above all things not to put the right foot forward until the left foot and a couple of hands have firm hold on something substantial.

Besides all the stairways, including the very wide, shallow staircase, first described, and a very narrow, steep flight of steps, there are four or five elevators in the house. At least I think that is all, but we may have missed some. Then, there are fireplaces galore. One particular sequence of rooms nearly convulsed us at first. Each of these rooms were small. Each had a fireplace. All were en suite. Another place for the cook to toast himself when the soup is cold and Turkish steam is off, we decided. But here, as everywhere, we stopped laughing abruptly and hurried on. Mystery story stuff! All right. The impassive and unimpressionable might indeed find these things merely freakish. But to the imaginative this old house is brimful of drama.

In some of the rooms it seem to me there was a mimicry and mock. It was deliberately intended to build a mystery house, I assured myself. But afterwords I was not so sure when we commenced in earnest to search for the White Satin Room. Once I went up to the fourth floor to find the top of the stairs sealed. Did the stairs lead to the White Satin Room? Those with me thought perhaps an entire section has been boarded up because of unsafe flooring. Well, perhaps. But how can we be sure? It is more interesting, at least, to believe that the white satin room, its brocaded walls intact, lines behind that sealed door, that it too has been dismantled and is no longer to be identified.

In this old house every sort of heating system is represented in a widely scattered way. We saw isolated steam radiators, occasional furnace registers in the floor, and ennumable fireplaces, while tile platforms and chimney apertures showed where stoves had been used. In one of the kitchens we found a charcoal broiler. In another, which we decided was the last one used, stood a gas range.

Later we even went into the cellar. We went, but I didnt stay. It was pitch black, and wed nothing but matches. Passages were long and twisting and a box of matches wont last forever. Besides, the cellar door was the flop down kind. A famous place to be shot in! I ceased a broccoli to follow the flickering match on this happy thoughts and shot back to the door to find it still holding open and escape possible. Escape, you might ask, from what? It is not for me to say, except that it was something particularly scarifying. As a matter of fact, we all escaped, even the daring torchbearer.

Perhaps in this penny-dreadful description I have not pictured the house after all. It is a perhaps house. Theres very little to go on. The late owner, Mrs. Sara P. Winchester, wife of William Wirt Winchester, and daughter-in-law of a manufacturer of the Winchester rifle, built it and continually tore down and built up additional rooms through a long period of years. She was an extremely wealthy woman and gratify her architectural winds. This fact again baffles. For outside of some exceedingly beautiful windows and the inlet floors and heavy chandeliers of a few rooms there is a little material of expensiveness to be found. window-shutters amusingly opening shot from within by a patent device. Perhaps there was a shutter servant who divided his attention between these and a ouija board.

Because there is a profound charm in mystery, I, for one, would tremendously like to give a Halloween party in this old home. First, each guess would be given a lighted candle. Then they would be started off in foursomes given intervals Allah golf tournaments. And would their hostess play Alice Through the Looking Glass again?

No, Not again. She would be, I should say, outside with the night watchman and possibly a police dog or two.

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A new local musical shows the only thing haunting Sarah Winchester was fake news - KJZZ

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The January Jobs Report Is "Fake News," Here’s Why – Unseen Opportunity

Posted: at 5:20 am

Stocks were down this morning amid a big January jobs report beat. Yields jumped, too, in response to last months far better than expected payrolls data. 467,000 jobs were added in January according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), surpassing the 150,000 payroll estimate with ease as unemployment climbed to 4% from 3.9%. The BLS also adjusted Decembers payroll gain from 199,000 to 510,000 and Novembers total jobs added from 249,000 to 647,000.

It was a huge shock to Wall Street analysts, many of whom were predicting a major jobs contraction. Even the White House warned last week that the numbers would come in low due to the Omicron variant.

Instead, US labor roared.

Or did it?

While the headline print was impressive, a deeper dive into the January jobs report showed what truly drove the 465,000 payroll gain:

A massive, unprecedented seasonal adjustment by the BLS.

Unadjusted, payrolls actually fell in January (as they often do). Historically speaking, many holiday-related jobs are no longer needed as the economy transitions from December to January. The BLS uses seasonal adjustments to account for the resulting reduction in employment.

And while theres usually a significant tick lower that needs to be adjusted for in January, last months post-Christmas drop was a doozy. 2.8 million jobs were lost in January (unadjusted), meaning that the BLS adjusted last months jobs number higher by over 3.2 million payrolls (to reflect a 467,000 payroll gain), which included adjustments for seasonality, Covid, and population the last of which is done every January each year. The seasonal adjustment alone totaled 309,000 jobs, the most ever for the month of January.

But they didnt stop there. The BLS also revised lower the jobs data from March-July by removing 1.061 million payrolls. August-December saw an upward revision of 817,000 jobs.

This calls into question virtually every jobs report released in 2021. Januarys report, however, was truly special. As we just mentioned, there had never been a January seasonal adjustment of this magnitude. The population adjustment was huge, too.

Last month, the BLS issued a +1.471 million payroll adjustment (blue oval) due to population control alone. Januarys Household Survey, from which the national unemployment rate is derived, showed a real 272,000 monthly payroll reduction (red circle). The BLS adjusted that number higher by 1.471 million (again, due to population control), leading to a net gain of 1.199 million payrolls (orange oval).

This is all data included in the January jobs report. Its not compiled by outside analysts or Wall Street banks. Its the governments official tally.

What this means is that, as we had suggested several times last year, the market was trading on misleading jobs data for months. The BLSs seasonal adjustments of 2021 were way behind what they actually should have been, and now, theyre playing catchup by over-adjusting in the opposite direction.

This also suggests that Januarys jobs data is as good as it will get in 2022. Everything from here will see adjustments to the downside. Februarys jobs report is likely to include a significant downward revision to Januarys tally.

Investors took this mornings report as a sign that the Fed would stay on course with its plan to hike rates in March. And theyre right; todays data did little to dislodge the Feds current position. But not because of the massive payrolls beat, which was really the result of some truly staggering adjustments.

What should really incentivize the Fed to keep the pedal to the metal were Januarys hourly earnings, which rose 0.7% month-over-month (vs. 0.5% expected) and 5.7% year-over-year, crushing the +5.2% consensus estimate. Thats the fastest annual increase in hourly wages since May 2020 when the US was beginning to reopen after months of economy-strangling lockdowns.

This surge in wages will only add to inflation moving forward, which the Fed fears far more than any additional labor gains for the US economy. After all, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that the US already reached full employment several months ago. Jobs have little bearing on monetary policy now as a result.

So, the market got it right this morning in thinking that the Fed is still on track to hike rates in March. They were accidentally right, of course, in that they probably used the wrong data payrolls instead of hourly wages to justify their reaction. But their conclusion was correct all the same.

That could threaten the markets ongoing bullish bounce, which now dangles within range of a retracement to the recent lows. That hasnt happened yet, but it certainly could as March draws closer with each passing day and rate hike-driven fears continue to mount, encouraged further by juiced-up BLS reports.

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The January Jobs Report Is "Fake News," Here's Why - Unseen Opportunity

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Lallantop, Live Hindustan and others spread fake news claiming UP cabinet ministers PRO had shot at Asaduddin Owaisis car – OpIndia

Posted: at 5:20 am

Liberal media have fallen flat on the face yet again when they presented a cabinet ministers PRO as the one who had shot at Asaduddin Owaisis car. After realizing this blunder, some of the media portals have apologized for the same. Lallantop from the India Today group and Live Hindustan were among the media houses that had published the fake reports.

AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi was attacked on Thursday while returning from Meerut where he had been for election campaigning. As the news of arresting the alleged culprits emerged, some news portals hurried to reveal the identity of the accused with an eagerness to find the BJP connections they might have. The accused have been identified as Sachin Pandit and Shubham. Sachin Pandit lives in Badalpur area of greater Noida.

Rushing to publish the news on Sachin Pandit and his background and his alleged connections with the top BJP leaders including the Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, some portals went on to publish the photographs of a different person with UP CM Yogi Adityanath, to show that the attacker is close with top BJP leaders. However, the photographs they use features Nitesh Singh Tomar, who happens to be the PRO of Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, the cabinet minister for Panchayat Raj in the Uttar Pradesh government.

Nitesh Singh Tomar has tweeted the screenshots of the denigrating news reports published by these websites and has urged the Uttar Pradesh police to take action against the same. He has said I am Nitesh Singh Tomar, PRO of cabinet minister Shri Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary. A malicious attempt is being made to malign my image by circulating my photo in the name of Sachin Hindu. I condemn those who do this in election times. UP Police, please take action against those who do this.

With this tweet attached are the screenshots of various news websites including the Lallantop and the Live Hindustan.

After Nitesh Singh Tomar tweeted this and tagged UP police in his tweet, the Lallantop website edited the news report adding an apology in the end. The Lallantop has written in its apology Sachin Pandit has shared a picture of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on his Facebook account. In this, CM Yogi is seen honouring a young man. Some users on social media have shared this picture by calling this young man Sachin Pandit. Whereas the young man seen in that picture is not Sachin Pandit. Even in this news of The Lallantop, the young man who was earlier seen with Yogi was told as Sachin Pandit, for which we are sorry.

Reading such misleading news on these websites, journalists came forward to peddle their own anti-BJP agenda. Pankaj Chaturvedi had posted in his tweet This is Sachin Hindu who shot at Owaisis vehicle right in front of the CCTV camera. Are you now getting why the same people have made this picture viral? Polarization is the only way left for them to return to power.

However, Pankaj Chaturvedi has later deleted the tweet without any open apology.

As per the Facebook account of actual accused Sachin Hindu, he is also a BJP supporter, however, it is not confirmed whether he is a member of the party or not.

While it is true that Sachin Hindu had posted two photographs of Nitesh Singh Tomar with Yogi Adityanath, the argument that media houses mistook Tomar for Sachin for that reason is doubtful. Because, if the media houses found the photo on Sachins Facebook account, they also must have come across Sachins actual photos, and Sachin and Nitesh Tomar do not look similar to mistake the one for another. Moreover, photographs of Sachin after his arrest has also been published, and therefore it is not believable that the media houses mistakenly assumed Nitesh Tomar to be Sachin Hindu.

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Lallantop, Live Hindustan and others spread fake news claiming UP cabinet ministers PRO had shot at Asaduddin Owaisis car - OpIndia

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Exclusive: Ali Asgar shocked to hear Sunil Grover suffer a heart attack, says, I thought it was fake news – Hindustan Times

Posted: at 5:20 am

Actor Ali Asgar thought the reports of comedian and colleague Sunil Grover suffering heart attack were fake. In an exclusive chat he talks about not being in touch with the actor.

Actor Ali Asgar was extremely stunned when he got to know about colleague and comedian Sunil Grovers heart attack. Grover was discharged on Thursday after going through bypass surgery. It was extremely shocking. At his age, he is pretty fit and active, so it was scary at the same time, says Asgar.

Asgar was so taken aback by the news that says, I thought it was fake news. I really thought there was something fishy initially. (Even) When he was out of the hospital, I thought there must be something wrong; its a human body. I was still not convinced it was a heart attack. But when I got to know that it was a heart attack, Asgar pauses and continues: He is somebody who makes everyone laugh, this shouldnt happen to him. Everyones prayers are with him. I feel he will be more careful. I think kaam ke chakkar mein wo over busy hogaya hoga.

While the two have been a part of a few comedy shows, Asgar discloses that he was not in touch with him. However, he mentions speaking to his manager. I enquired about his health and asked him (the manager) whenever he (Grover) is fine to let me know. Right now, he needs rest. But I will get in touch with him and meet him, he ends.

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Exclusive: Ali Asgar shocked to hear Sunil Grover suffer a heart attack, says, I thought it was fake news - Hindustan Times

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Southland Casino will be holding weekly job fairs for the next month – WATN – Local 24

Posted: at 5:18 am

WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. Southland Casino is looking for people for their new casino complex that is opening in the Spring. They will hold weekly job fairs through March 9th and will be immediately hiring for part-time and full-time positions.

Qualifying hires will receive on-the-spot offers given the required licenses can be received.

This is an excellent opportunity to begin your career and be part of an exciting gaming and hospitality operation, said David Wolf, Southland president and general manager. We anticipate opening our new casino complex this spring and the 21-story hotel in the fall of 2022. We encourage everyone in the Mid-South to come and apply for positions in this growing business.

Kevin Goewey, Southland food and beverage director, said: With five new restaurants, including a new upscale Steakhouse & Buffet, and three new bars opening shortly, we want to hire and onboard all of the new positions now. Southland tipped positions start at $10 an hour, and non-tipped positions start at $15, which is significantly more than what other food and beverage establishments offer in this market.

The fairs will be every Wednesday through March 9, 2022 from 10am-4pm at the Southland Casino Racing Kennel Club (located on the 2nd floor racing mezzanine).

Masks will be required for everyone attending and applicants must have two legal forms of identification. Hiring offers will be made at the fair, so it is requested that applicants apply before they attend.

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Southland Casino will be holding weekly job fairs for the next month - WATN - Local 24

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