Howie Carr: Alt-left media still cling to their Big (Russia) Lie – Boston Herald

When are The New York Times and the Washington Post going to give back their 2018 Pulitzer Prizes for their coverage of a hoax the Trump-Russian collusion which never occurred?

With every Friday-night document dump, it becomes more indisputable that this whole thing Russiagate, Spygate, Obamagate, whatever you want to call it was a complete fraud, a failed slow-motion coup detat against the president of the United States.

And yet the alt-left media still cling to their Big Lie, and the august awards that they gave one another for reporting Very Fake News. Their defense is they were just reporting what their sources told them. How were they to know it was utter nonsense?

Its the old George Costanza defense: Its not a lie if you believe it.

And boy, did all these Democrat operatives with press passes want to believe it. As the old-timers in the city room used to say, some stories are just too good to check out.

Heres the citation on the comrades Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting:

For deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nations understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign.

Only one problem: There were no connections, at least between the Russians and the Trump campaign.

So in the end, this whole thing was a monstrous scam, the biggest political and journalistic scandal in American history.

The Russians, however, were deeply involved with the Hillary Clinton campaign, through the so-called Steele dossier, which was bought and paid for by the Democrats, through two cutouts, a Deep State law firm and a Democrat dirty-tricks opposition research firm.

The latest egg-in-the-face for the elite media came, as it almost always does, on a Friday night. The Republicans in the Senate released a bunch of FBI documents from the witch hunt, one of which dealt with this Pulitzer Prize-worthy February 2017 effort from the Times:

Phone records and intercepted calls show that (Trump and his crew) had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.

Uh, actually, no. There was no such evidence, none whatsoever.

Everyone has known for years that this NYT bombshell, along with so many others across the alt-left media since 2016, was pure BS.

The crooked Comey said so under oath, the inspector general debunked it, as did the sainted special counsel Mueller.

But this time the Senate also declassified the notes of Peter Strzok, the rabid Trump-hating FBI paper-shuffler who has since been fired for breathtaking corruption.

Even Strzok dumped on the Times story: We are unaware of any Trump advisors engaging in conversations with Russian intelligence officials.

Remember, this was a guy who told his mistress that Hillary Clinton should win 100,000,000-to-nothing, that he could smell Trump supporters and that he had an insurance policy to stop Trump from becoming president.

Even Strzok knew the Times had lost its collective mind.

The Times, as it always does when busted for Very Fake News, had a spokesman issue this pro formal statement: We stand by our story.

Just as the Times stood by Walter Duranty, another Pulitzer Prize winner, a stooge of Stalin who reported that there was no famine in Ukraine, as millions died. Just as the Times stood by Herbert L. Matthews, who slobberingly reported that Fidel Castro was not a Communist, even as he turned Cuba into a Caribbean gulag.

The Times defense and that of the Post, CNN, NBC, ABC and all the rest is that they were just reporting what their sources told them.

Okay, lets use that logic, that you can feel free to print whatever your sources tell you. Your anonymous sources, which is even better, because if you have to, you can just plain make it up, like the columnists at the Globe.

Once theyve unmoored themselves from reporting the facts, whats to stop them from next deciding that theyre going to prove, say, Sasquatch lives, or that theyre going to finally locate Ponce de Leons Fountain of Youth?

The Rosetta Stone of the collusion hoax is the Steele dossier, compiled by a clownish Maxwell Smart-like spy who just lost a defamation case in the UK brought by two Russians he put into his bogus report.

Somebodys gotta go to prison for this. It was a conspiracy to overthrow the Republic. The FBI obstructed justice by using documents that they knew were made-up Hillary oppo research. Everyone knew it was crap, and yet they kept shoveling it, for three years, lying under oath.

Will the Deep States media accomplices give their Pulitzer Prizes back? Nah.

Sasquatch will be above the fold on the front page before these hacks admit that they tried to frame the president of the United States.

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Howie Carr: Alt-left media still cling to their Big (Russia) Lie - Boston Herald

What Is Alt-Left? Here’s What You Really Need to Know

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump launched a passionate defense of white supremacists who attended a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, arguing that there was blame to be found on both sides.

Trump, who made the remarks during a press conference that at times became hostile, attempted to shift some of the blame to what he called the alt-left. For many people, it was the first time theyd heard the phrase usedat least from someone of Trumps stature.

What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, the alt-right? Trump asked. Let me ask you this: What about the fact they came chargingthat they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do.

The idea of trying to create an alt-left to compare to the much-criticized alt-right likely makes sense from Trumps apparent perspective. It creates an equal foil to share the blame of the shocking violence in Charlottesville. But is there really such a thing as the alt-left?

Theres no such thing as the alt-left. To understand why, you first need to understandthe extremist movement within the Republican party.

The idea of the alt-right is largely credited to Richard Spencer, a white nationalist. The so-called alt-right became a force in the Republican Party and overwhelmingly supported Trump in his quest to be president. The term alt-right took hold in the late 2000s, shortly after President Barack Obama took office.

Heres what theSouthern Poverty Law Center, which has extensively tracked the movement over the years, defines the alt-right as:

The Alt-Right is a loose set of far-right ideologies at the core of which is a belief that white identity is under attack through policies prioritizing multiculturalism, political correctness and social justice, and must be preserved, usually through white-identified online communities and physical ethno-states.

The group found its identity on the internet and was cultivated websites such as neo-Nazi outlet the Daily Stormer and Breitbart News, the website formerly run by Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

READ MORE:

There is no equivalent organized movement on the left that espouses extremist views comparable to those held by members of the alt-right. Instead, the idea of the alt-left is frequently used by far-right Fox News pundit Sean Hannity to describe more radical liberals and Trump opponents.

Also, unlike the alt-right, alt-left wasnt coined by members of the movement, but rather, its used as an insult against people who oppose far-right ideologies.

Oren Segal, the director of the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism, told CNN that the idea of an alt-left is a made-up term.

While there are radical members of the left, the idea of an alt-left is incorrectly conflated with the antifa (anti-fascist) movementmembers of which have been seen at protests at Trumps inauguration and other events.

Antifa, which sits on the extreme far-left of the political spectrum, is a decentralized network of people from varying degrees of political leanings. Their goal is to oppose what they see as fascist elements in society, including the alt-right. Antifa activists have at times engaged in violence, which has made them a villain in the eyes of some right-leaning groups and a thorn in the heel of many Democrats, who do not want to be associated with their more provocative methods and do not appreciate the black cloud the group puts over otherwise peaceful protests.

Antifa does not hold cohesive political views beyond opposing fascism, which makes it far different from the alt-rights pro-white, bigoted platform.

Essentially, Trump is trying to create a foil for the alt-rightwhere many of his most vehement supporters have planted their flag.

By trying to create the idea of a just-as-radical side on the left, it lends credence to his argument that there is blame on both sides for the violence that erupted in Charlottesville. Also, its an easy way to charge up supporters.

On Tuesday night,Hannity backed up Trumps statements during his press conference by continuing to push the alt-left narrative,implying that the counterprotesters in Charlottesville were part of the alt-left.

The people that provoked this, yeah Ill agree, they were white supremacists, they are the ones who are most responsible, Hannity said. This brings out a morally justifiable anger in peoplepeople who are that ignorant. But it does not give these alt-left protesters, doesnt give people of good conscious even, the right to attack them, punch them, hit them, et cetera.

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Yes. The term has begun spreading among those who have spoken out in support of Trump or the alt-right. Here are some examples:

Given how powerful the term is in creating a false equivalency between the alt-right and fringe extremists on the far left, you can expect to hear much more about the alt-left in the future. Just remember: It doesnt really exist.

*First Published: Aug 16, 2017, 4:22 pm

Andrew Wyrich is the deputy tech editor at the Daily Dot. Andrew has written for USA Today, NorthJersey.com, and other newspapers and websites. His work has been recognized by the Society of the Silurians, Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE), and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

Originally posted here:

What Is Alt-Left? Here's What You Really Need to Know

What Is the ‘Alt-Left’? For Starters, Not a Thing | WIRED

Hours after a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, organized by white nationalists, turned deadly, President Donald Trump blamed "many sides" for the violence that transpired. Three days later, at an impromptu press conference at Trump Tower, the president doubled down on this message, condemning groups "on both sides" of the fighting. What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt-right? the president said.

Many people know the phrase alt-right, a term coined by white nationalist Richard Spencer to describe the white nationalist movement. But "alt-left" is a term that's recently floated around in various corners of the internet. It gained some popularity earlier this year, when violent riots erupted in Berkeley, California, during protests over an appearance by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley.

White nationalist David Duke defined the term after President Trump referenced it Tuesday.

Fox News' Sean Hannity and InfoWars' Paul Joseph Watson have also offered their own definitions.

Ultimately, the intent seems to be to frame alt-left as the opposite of alt-right and create a false equivalence between groups on the far ends of the right and left. But here's the thing: No left-wing group has ever called itself the alt-left. And the groups smeared by the alt-left label don't include anything like the heinousness of overt white supremacism that has increasingly defined the alt-right.

Originally posted here:

What Is the 'Alt-Left'? For Starters, Not a Thing | WIRED

Why the Alt-Left Is a Problem, Too | Vanity Fair

Internet clickbait promotes mental tooth decay, squirting syntheticcontroversy out of a can of Reddi-wip, but an article by Eileen Jones on January 9 went out of its way to swirl it on extra thick. HeadlinedAGAINST MERYL STREEP, the indictment declared, Meryl Streepsspeechifying at the Golden Globes was the worst thing to happen sinceTrumps election. Hoo-kay. If Donald Trump speaks Jerkish, accordingto retired novelist Philip Roth, Joness broadside was written inSnarkish: That I should live to see the day when Meryl Streepsspeechifying at a Hollywood awards show is admired as solemnly anddiscussed as fervently as Lincolns second inaugural address is apersonal nightmare. Lectured by Streep! And about how her and all herHollywood pals, decked out in everything that costs the earth andsparkles in the spotlight, are among the true victims of Donald TrumpsAmerican authoritarianism! Streeps chastising of Trump in heracceptance speech at the Golden Globes was derided as a sniffy displayof royal hauteur, as if her ladyship had gotten her blue sash in atwist. The way she condemned the performance of Donald Trump when hemocked disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, as if Trumpwere up for a rival Golden Globes Award and had disgraced the ScreenActors Guild, was truly righteous, wasnt it? Shes so classy, isntshe?

Such derision of liberal Hollywood pietiesJones ripped Streep forbeing the sweetheart of Hillary Clintons faux-feminist pantsuitnation is familiar gargle from right-wing hucksters such as radiohost Laura Ingraham, the author of Shut Up & Sing: How Elites fromHollywood, Politics, and the Media Are Subverting America. But heresthe twist: Eileen Jones is no righty coveting a rotation spot in the FoxNews greenroom. She teaches film at Berkeleyand you know what itslike at Berkeley, radical fervor springing from every hairfollicleand her Streep denunciation was published in Jacobin, whichbills itself as a leading voice of the American left, offeringsocialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture.Disillusionment with Obamas presidency, loathing of Hillary Clinton,disgust with identity politics, and a craving for a climacticreckoning that will clear the stage for a bold tomorrow have created akinship between the alt-right and an alt-left. Theyre not kissincousins, but they caterwaul some of the same tunes in different keys.

The alt-right receives the meatiest share of attention in the media, asit should. Its powerful, vicious, steeped in neo-Nazi ideology,nativist white supremacy, mens-rights misogyny, and Ayn Rand capitalistbermensch mythos, and it heralds a conquering hero in the White Housein President Donald J. Trump, while the former executive chairman of thevenereally right-wing Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, functions as despotwhisperer, trickling Iago-ish poison into Trumps receptive skull. Thealt-left cant match that for strength, malignancy, or tentacled reach,but its dude-bros and purity progressives exert a powerfulreality-distortion field online and foster factionalism on the lib-left.Its outlets include not only Jacobin but also the Intercept, one ofwhose co-founders is the inexhaustible Glenn Greenwald, lawyer, author,journalist, and crucial conduit for Edward Snowdens stolen N.S.A. datato The Guardian; Web sites such as Truthdig, Consortiumnews, and NakedCapitalism; and anomalous apostates such as Mickey Kaus, a formercontributor to liberal percolators of ideas and opinions such asWashington Monthly, the New Republic, Harpers, and Slate, who migratedsideways and down to the right-wing Daily Caller, did a temporary hitchas a columnist for the Breitbart bughouse in 2016, and serves as atweeting defender of Trumps proposed wall. Other busy beavers onTwitter include Michael Tracey, Freddie deBoer, Mark Ames, ConnorKilpatrick (a Jacobin contributor), Jeremy Scahill (journalist andIntercept co-founder), and similar fun guys. A Tumblr site devoted toTrumpian Leftism captures the intellectual flavor of theirtemperaments. One of the alt-lefts political darlings is Tulsi Gabbard,a progressive congresswoman from Hawaii who met with thenpresident-elect Donald Trump in Trump Tower and was rumored to be underconsideration for a Cabinet position, and its quixotic preacher-man andnoble leper is Cornel West, once an orator at every social-justiceconvocation who got so uncoiled by his rancorous contempt for Obama andcast adrift into the hazy fringes of the alt-leftsee Michael EricDysons definitive autopsy, The Ghost of Cornel West, the NewRepublic, April 19, 2015that in 2016 he supported the Green Partycandidacy of Jill Stein, that stellar mind.

VIDEO: Steve Bannon, the Shadow President

It was Jill Stein who said Hillary might be the greater evil in a Trumpmatchup (Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage,get us into more wars), a sentiment shared by actress Susan Sarandon,who told an interviewer she believed that Clinton was more dangerousthan Trump because she was more hawkish and better able to ram heragenda through Congress. In words I suspect Sarandon wishes she couldreel back, she discounted the threat level posed by a Trump presidency:Seriously, I am not worried about a wall being built . . . . He isnot going to get rid of every Muslim in this country. She speculatedon another occasion that a Trump win might hasten the revolution. Thelefts romance with revolution has always been a reality-blinder, thisthermodynamic belief that things need to get bad beyond the breakingpoint so that people will take the vape pens out of their mouths, riseup, and storm the Bastille. But the history of non-democracies andauthoritarian personality cults shows that things can stay bad and getworse for a long time, leaving unhealable wounds. Maos China, forexample. Putins tubercular Russia.

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Why the Alt-Left Is a Problem, Too | Vanity Fair

Netflix launches shuffle button that plays a random show for viewers who dont know what to watch – The Sun

NETFLIX has surprised some users with a 'shuffle' button that chooses something to watch for indecisive viewers.

Testing for this feature actually began last year and now it seems more users have been given a chance to try it.

Netflix told the New York Post that this surprise rollout was just a second round of testing for the feature.

Like with all tested features, we don't yet know if the 'Random Play' button will be considered popular and successful enough to be rolled out to all forms of Netflix.

Reports suggest the shuffle button is now showing up for both TV shows and films.

Previously, it was only said to be appearing as a 'Random Episode' button when users were already watching a TV series.

1

This feature would be very useful for fans of any TV series they've watched multiple times and want to watch again.

Or it could be used if you just want Netflix on in the background whilst you're doing other things.

It may even stop arguments about what film you should watch.

At the moment, the button is appearing for some Netflix users on Samsung and Fire TVs.

However, it's not said to be featured on Apple TV or via Amazon Firestick.

Netflix fans have taken to Twitter to applaud the feature and a lot of people who don't have it seem to wish they did.

Use Netflix on a computer or laptop? Try these useful shortcuts

Here are some handy keyboard shortcuts...

EXPENSIVE NITE INParents' anguish as Fortnite addict son spends $20,000 savings on Twitch

OUT OF THIS WORLDMind-blowing Nasa footage shows clearest EVER view of Mars surface

SEXY LEXYAmazon's Alexa getting users hot under the collar during lonely lockdown nights

I-SIGHTiPhone Photo Awards winners are so incredible they put your snaps to shame

BURNER PHONEHackers can now make phone chargers destroy your phone or set it on FIRE

CAR-AZY! Jaguar creates 'contactless screen' that knows where you'd press BEFORE you do it

In other news, Twitter has just experienced its largest and most dramatic hack.

Snapchat is testing anew explore featurethat could make it a lot more similar to TikTok.

And, WhatsApp users are beingwarned about modified versionsof the app that could leave them vulnerable to hackers.

How often do you watch Netflix? Let us know in the comments...

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

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Netflix launches shuffle button that plays a random show for viewers who dont know what to watch - The Sun

The Shot Heard Roundand Round and Roundthe World – The Dispatch

Howdy,

Like most Americans, I spent a lot of Fourth of July weekend taking pictures of my moms cats. But I did find the time to tweet.

One tweet in particular got a lot of attention:

Many of the responses were quite depressing. I have no serious problem with people saying I was being simplistic or glibits Twitter after all. Thats like complaining my diorama of the Battle of Waterloo using guinea pigs in period garb didnt capture all of the facets and nuance of the conflict: correct on the merits but a bit shabby given the limits of the medium.

Many Canadians and Brits of a certain stripe smugly claimed that they have all sorts of rights, too. So why make a big deal about the founding? Others pointed out that the American Revolution had more to do with taxation than inalienable rights, which has a much relevance to me as the pedantic noting that my guinea pigs aren't carrying the standard .70 caliber smoothbore flintlocks of the period.

But the complaints that bothered me the most were those that scoffed at the idea we should feel any gratitude toward the founding.

That said, Adam Gurri of Liberal Currents asks a fair question:

He is right. Which is why I wrote an entire book (now out in paperback!) dedicated to this very task.

So let me start with what I mean by gratitude: I mean gratitude.

We protect what we are grateful for. We are less inclined to do so for things for which we are ungrateful, or even resentful of. Of course, you can hate the founding and even America and still cherish the Bill of Rights. But you can see how such hatred, if given free rein, could lead you in the opposite direction. At the very minimum, championing ingratitude toward the founding cuts off one important source of support for the fruit of the founding.

In other areas of life, I dont think my claim would be very controversial. If you had good parents who worked hard to provide for you and teach you right from wrong, your gratitude for their sacrifices would be one of the benchmarks of how you define good character and decent decision making. Again, its not the only one. Right conduct can be deduced from other principles. But the fear that you are betraying something at the heart of what your parents expected of you is an important restraint on bad behavior.

If you worked your way up through a business or institution and became its leader, your sense of gratitude for what it has done for you and others would be one of the guideposts for managing it with integrity and aiming to pass it on in good order when you retire. Gratitude creates a sense of obligation. Ingratitude breeds a spiteful spirit and indifference. Im not a Christian, but I find it difficult to imagine a good Christian who would be ungrateful or indifferent to Jesuss death on the cross. The sacrifices of martyrs, not just for Christianity, but for any faith or righteous cause fortifies our sense of commitment to that cause. Sure, guilt plays a role, but guilt is often simply the word for knowing youre not living up to your obligations.

I suspect that if I wrote that no one should have a sense of gratitude for Martin Luther King Jr.s sacrifices, many of the same people would denounce me from the opposite direction.

Now, Im not arguing that one should feel personal gratitude to the founders who risked a traitors death when they signed the Declaration, the final words of which were, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. I have no problem with that argument, but I dont spend my days thinking, What Would John Adams Do?

My point is that we should feel grateful for the founding, because it was a massive advance for all of humanity.

The shot heard round the world.

I understand that race is the most important issueeven the only issuefor a lot of people today. But it wasnt then. The 1619 Project people can claim the American Revolution was intended to protect slavery all they like, it wont make it true. Similarly, people can dust off their Charles Beard and claim that the founders were nothing more than taxophobic landowners uninterested in real human liberty until theyre blue in the face.

But its worth remembering what people at the time thought of the American Revolution. In response to the Declaration, Austrian Empress Maria Theresa conveyed to George III her hearty desire to see the restoration of obedience and tranquility in every quarter of his dominions. Her son Joseph, a nominal co-ruler, told the British ambassador, "The cause in which England is engaged ... is the cause of all sovereigns who have a joint interest in the maintenance of due subordination ... in all the surrounding monarchies."

As Henry Fairlie recounted in The New Republic more than 30 years ago, the revolt in America horrified the despots of Europe: The rulers feared that their subjects would see the American action not as a rebellion against a rightful monarch in his own territoriesthere had been plenty of rebellions against European sovereignsbut as the proclamation of a revolutionary doctrine of universal application, as the Declaration indeed announced it to be. A. P. Bernstorff, the Danish foreign minister wrote to a friend, The public here is extremely occupied with the rebels [in America], not because they know the cause, but because the mania of independence in reality has infected all the spirits, and the poison has spread imperceptibly from the works of the philosophes all the way out to the village schools. I am grateful for the American founding. I am grateful for the Declaration of Independence. I am thankful that I was born in this country. I am grateful for the founders and their revolutionaryin every sensebreak with the past.

Fairlie quotes at length from newspapers and letters across the continent, demonstrating how the American cause was seen as one of universal appeal and a sharp break from the arbitrary rule of even enlightened despots. In England, public sentiment was obviously mixed, but many saw how the colonists were in fact fighting for the best traditions of English liberty (which is why Edmund Burke was always sympathetic to their cause). When the news of the Boston Tea Party reached England, Fairlie writes, the London Packet called such resistance lawful and even honorable against tyrannic measures. After Lexington and Concord the London Evening Post said that the prevailing toast in every company of true Englishmen is, 'Victory to the Americans, and re-establishment to the British Constitution.

All of the smug Twitter gadflies boasting that England and Canada have their liberties, no thanks to the American founders, have no idea that the American cause inspired Englishmen and their loyal colonists in Canada to recommit to those very liberties. As one Danish historian observed, the Declaration of Independence had a decisive impact on the course of events leading to the attainment in 1849 of Denmark's first democratic constitution.

The American founding did something profoundly radical. For thousands of years, every nation had some notion of heredity status, royalty, nobility, aristocracy. The Founders did away with that. By all means, we can condemn their decision not to carry that democratic logic all the way and end the institution of slavery. But cant we also be grateful for the enormous stride they took in the right direction?

Similarly, the Founders took the best parts of Englands traditions of liberty and codified them. They took mere cultural norms of liberty that previously had been in open conflict with other cultural norms of tyranny and said, These are our principles. They refined them, elevated them, and turned them into rights for all the world to emulate. Again, they fell short on the issue of slavery. As I keep saying, the choice the Founders faced at the Constitutional Convention wasnt between a Constitution without slavery or one with it, but a choice between a workable Constitution or no Constitution at all.

And it was the principles in that document, as well as the Declaration, that gave moral and intellectual force to the cause of abolition. Thats why Martin Luther King Jr. invoked the Declaration as a promissory note that was long overdue.

I am grateful to the Founders for that gift. I suspect King was as well, because it gave him the best ammunition possible to persuade white Americans that they were falling short on their own highest ideals. After all, if white Americans were as dedicated to white supremacy as so many radicals claim, they would not care about those ideals. True believers in white supremacy, whether were talking about Hitler or the idiot poltroons of the alt-right, recognize this fact better than the radicals of the new alt-left, which is why they disparage constitutionalists as paper worshippers, vellum supremacists, and parchment fetishists.

The founders are guilty of hypocrisy when it comes to slaverynot all of them, but enough of them. But that hypocrisy is a gift we should be grateful for. You can only be a hypocrite if you have ideals. If you believe in nothing other than your self-interest, its very difficult to be a hypocrite. But if you have ideals, noble and revolutionary ideals, its very easy to be a hypocrite because ideals are hard to live up to. But thats the great benefit of hypocrisy, it highlights where you are falling short. It would be nice if the Founders had been angels, but they were the first to concede they werent, which is why they set up a constitutional order designed to protect against the worst aspects of human nature. That constitutional order, and the principles that inform it, is the greatest weapon for justice and progress toward a more perfect union you could reasonably ask for in the 18th century. And it isor at least should bethe best tool for those grateful for our liberties and eager to live in a just society.

And despite its flaws, real or perceived, I think we should all be grateful for it.

Photograph of the Howard Chandler Christy painting The Signing of the Constitution of the United States, with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 by GraphicaArtis/Getty Images.

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The Shot Heard Roundand Round and Roundthe World - The Dispatch

The Rising Blood Tide of The Alt-Left & the Real Threat of Antifa – AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

The Rising Blood Tide of The Alt-Left & the Real Threat of Antifa

U.S.A. -(Ammoland.com)- Antifa violence is spreading across the country like a plague as politicians call for the defunding dismantling of police forces across the nation while doing nothing to control the choas.

Facebook is banning meme pages because they are concerned about people wearing Hawaiian shirts at a peaceful pro-Second Amendment rally in Virginia during VCDLs annual Lobby Day. Meanwhile, the terrorist group known as Antifa operates out in the open on social media platforms to recruit and cause havoc in big cities and small towns everywhere.

Under the guise of supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, Antifa has co-opted the death of George Floyd and taken to the streets to push their anarcho-communist agenda. They have burned down businesses, vandalized monuments, including those celebrating emancipation and an all-black civil war regiment, and looted stores.

In Seattle, Antifa, along with the John Brown Gun Club, took over six blocks and a park and deemed it Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). Under the leadership of local warlord and sound cloud rapper Raz Simone, the group changed the name to Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP). The Seattle police retreated from their precinct under the direction of the ultra-liberal Mayor Jenny Durkan.

The communist enclave in Seattle, filled with people who dont believe in walls, started setting up border checkpoints and blocked off streets. The all cops are bastards advocates set up their own police force, who almost immediately started shaking down local businesses for money and beating people. One of the leaders of this socialist paradise went as far as demanding white people give people of color $10 each.

The leaders set up segregated areas of CHAZ returning to the failed Democratic policies of the 60s that real civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King marched to end. Instead of being a crime-free zone, it became a rape zone. Anarchist Robert James allegedly raped a deaf woman in his tent. The leaders of CHAZ turned a blind eye to the sexual assault. Police had to wait until he left CHAZ to arrest him for the rape.

That wasnt the only crime in CHAZ. Police arrested former city council candidate Isaiah Willoughby for arson. He allegedly tried to burn down the police precinct headquarters. Oh, and the killings.

When patriots attend a rally like Lobby Day in Virginia, they come heavily armed. I am not going to dispute that fact, but these gun owners are also incredibly peaceful. Antifa in CHAZ seems to have a habit of shooting at each other. On June 20th, 2020, someone shot and killed a 19-year-old man within the socialist paradise. On the same day, someone murdered a 30-year-old African American man only a block away. Protestors locked arms to block police from responding to the two shootings.

These incidents werent the only shooting in CHAZ. Only one day later, someone shot a 17-year-old injuring him. Then a couple of days later, a shooter injured a couple of other people. On June 30th, two African American teens aged 16 and 14 were joyriding. CHAZ security opened fire on the vehicle, killing one teen and landing the other child in intensive care. Calls to Raz inquiring if his security force had body cams went unanswered.

Like every other experiment in socialism, CHAZ/CHOP failed. It would be easy just to dismiss the violence that happened in the occupied area as merely a Seattle thing, but unfortunately, it isnt limited to the Pacific Northwest. Antifa is a scourge to freedom and liberty, and their violence extends coast to coast.

Antifa violence even reached into sleepy Utah. Black Bloc member Jesse Keller Taggart was so incensed by an SUV driver trying to turn during a protest he opened fire on the car hitting the driver. The driver was able to get away, and doctors later treated him for a gunshot wound at a local hospital. Taggart would go on to use his gun to threaten another driver later in the same day. Police would eventually arrest Taggart for attempted murder along with a laundry list of other charges. Police arrested another Antifa follower for obstruction of justice for trying to help Taggart cover up his gun crimes.

One of Antifas favorite tools in their revolutionary bag of tricks is the Molotov cocktail. I could go on and on about Antifa violence with these improvised incendiary devices like the three self-professed Antifa women who threw a Molotov cocktail at a police car New York. I could talk about Antifa throwing a Molotov cocktail at a police station in Las Vegas, or I could speak about Antifa throwing a Molotov cocktail at police in Milwaukee, but I think the point is clear.

They are the violent ones, but the people who can successfully pass a background check and like to post memes on social media are the ones big media is targeting. The left controls the media with their cancel culture and boycotts. Media companies are terrified of being targeted by these far-left wing bullies, so they dont report on left-wing violence because they are afraid of being called racist. That is why news outlets sites brave enough to post an opinion piece like AmmoLand News need our support.

It is time to awaken the sleeping giant of the American patriots and fight back against the rising tide of the alt-left. Consequences be damned.

About John Crump

John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%'ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at http://www.crumpy.com.

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The Rising Blood Tide of The Alt-Left & the Real Threat of Antifa - AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

As shul reopens, can we make it more welcoming to Orthodox women? – Forward

The wigs in my wardrobe stand poised, like ballerinas backstage, curled on their mannequin heads.

Since New Yorks shutdown began in mid-March, I have not needed that armor, and the multiple roles they represent: the straight dark one is serious journalist; the wavy long one, Upper East Side rebbetzin. In normal times, these varied shades of human hair served as an announcement to the world: I am Orthodox, I am married, and I have stepped outside my house.

But in this pandemic, my wigs lay dormant. Instead, I have secretly enjoyed the cotton head scarves that let my mind breathe. I have also enjoyed the quiet of Shabbos at home an anomaly for our rabbinic family, where the Sabbath is the busiest day of the week. Ive grown to embrace the home, the private, over public spaces over my sheitel-wearing self.

The shift was much more painful for my rabbi-husband, and many other men in our lives, who are used to attending daily minyan. Their separation from shul was tearful, and it was indeed heart-breaking to see those darkened sanctuaries, those lonely Torah scrolls in the shuttered arks.

But for me, it was really quite simple to advocate for closing shul as part of flattening the coronavirus curve, because my spirituality long ago disconnected from those sanctuaries. I realize, now, that I had already gone through that painful separation from organized prayer, communal spirituality it happened when I became a mother.

The synagogue is no place for babies

In school, when they taught us girls about the different gender roles in what we called Torah Judaism, they would explain that men have more religious responsibilities because they need more of that structure, more of that spiritual work. That we women were naturally closer to God. Do you want to have to go to minyan three times a day? our rebbes would say with a laugh. Surely not! What a burden that would be! How lucky you are! Stay home.

I laughed along. Indeed, it was nice not to be beholden to the schedule of a synagogue, to determine my own prayer times wherever I was, I thought then.

But when I had my first child four years ago, my Yiddishkeit changed drastically. Actually, it seemed to drown somewhere in formula, piles of laundry, soggy Cheerios while my husband was religiously obligated to continue going to minyan three times a day.

How I wished to have an excuse to get out of the house, to escape the kitchen, to have the silence of the amidah, the soft swaying of others around me! How I yearned for social interaction with other adults, offline, outside mom-group chats and Shabbos menus. How I missed being that young woman at Kabbalas Shabbos whisper-praying in the mostly-empty womens section, the sky turning lavender behind the synagogue windows, the community members embracing one another, wishing each other a Gut Shabbes, exchanging jokes and news.

But my new reality had little room for synagogue. I did not want to leave my kids home with a babysitter on Shabbos, when I was already out of the house most of the week. If I did make it into the sanctuary, usually after a few kind preteens offered to watch my children while I sped through my prayers up on the high balcony, it was hard to focus.

Yes, I had prayed hard for children, and I am deeply grateful for these blessings, for their little hands and high-pitched voices and round cheeks. But no one prepared me for the reality that as they expanded my world, a part of me would also be lost.

How many times had I read in religious womens books rosy descriptions of frum motherhood, equating a womans domestic work (cooking, taking care of the house and children) as that of a priest in the Temple. You are all building your small temples! They cried. How fortunate you are! Before motherhood, I had found these notions romantic; afterwards, I chafed at them.

The home is the center of Judaism! Not the shul! I remind myself as I cook for Shabbos, every week, a mantra of sorts.

It took the coronavirus for me to realize the minuscule place that communal prayer takes up in my life now and how sad that is.

Post-pandemic, can shul be more welcoming?

Shortly before the pandemic, I found myself in the New Jersey town where I grew up for Shabbos. I needed a break from Manhattan, so I took the train with two little ones in tow and slept in my childhood bedroom and ate my mothers food. And thanks to my little sister, who took the kids I went back to my childhood shul.

I sat in the back, and could feel my youths prayers wash over me, as if I was sitting behind my younger self, head uncovered. I yearned for my girlish self, for whom synagogue played such a formative role.

What has been interesting about these months of quarantine is that they have thrown Orthodox men into traditionally Orthodox female experiences of Judaism, too. Of course many Orthodox mothers do go to shul, but it is generally not a priority. For many, its logistically difficult finding childcare, or a small or uncomfortable womens section, or nowhere to breastfeed a child. For some, its also ideologically uncomfortable, to feel that one is a spectator and not a participant. For many, they are just conditioned that way I have to get this Shabbos meal ready, set the table, theres just too much to do at home, shul isnt my thing.

But over these past few months, everything shifted. The public the minyan, the donning of the sheitel disappeared; it became all about the private, the prayer facing the living room wall, the soft headscarf. Suddenly, husbands and fathers were thrust into womens work including spiritual labor, that structureless service of God that is much harder than checking off your list that you attended minyan and night Torah classes, too.

As synagogues start to reopen my husband is leading services on weekday mornings, with strict distancing protocols and as we take our wigs out of our wardrobes, as we step back into life in a quasi-public sphere I pray that these months at home will have made more community members empathetic to the realities of many of the women in their lives, who often shoulder the bulk of domestic labor.

I hope they will now empathize with that vertigo that comes with being unmoored from regular Torah study, from the rhythm of communal prayer.

I hope that more religious men will now understand the angst of that mother sitting on the floor on Shabbos morning, building yet another MagnaTiles tower while pining for her once-beloved seat in shul and secretly resenting herself for not accepting this with a soft smile as her spiritual duty.

I hope Orthodox communities will be able to make space for the mothers in their midst, to prioritize womens participation and voices in the public squares of Judaism, too by offering childcare during popular prayer times, by securing an eruv that allows families to walk to shul with diaper bags and strollers, by ensuring that the womens section is reliable, accessible and comfortable.

If we dont we risk keeping our women in a perpetual, domestic quarantine.

Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt is the life editor at the Forward. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

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As shul reopens, can we make it more welcoming to Orthodox women? - Forward

End the Civil War Before It Starts: Vote Engel and Schleifer – The Jewish Press – JewishPress.com

Photo Credit: United States Congress / brandnewcongress.org

{Originally posted to the authors blog}

The tension in U.S. politics has grown progressively worse over the past few years. The center began to crumble several years ago when centrist Democrats felt like there was no room for them in a party lurching leftward (goodbye Evan Bayh (IN) and Joe Lieberman (CT)) and the moderate wing of the Republican party took a whipping with John McCains failed run for president in 2008. By 2016, outsiders began to take over each party, when Bernie Sanders (VT), an Independent on the far left extreme had a real shot at being the Democrats nominee, and a political novice who spent virtually his entire life as a Democrat named Donald Trump ran through the establishment Republican candidates.

The far left-wing of the Democratic Party was livid with the way Sanders was treated by the party establishment and even more that Trump became president. They organized themselves as Justice Democrats and pushed to elect socialists into congress and to rewrite the Democratic platform. They had success in 2018 with the election of a few of their favorites including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (nicknamed AOC) and three other women including Rashida Tlaib (MI), Ilhan Omar (MN) and Alyssa Pressley (MA), a group which became known as The Squad. These individuals would normally have only been found running on the Working Familys Party or the Green Party with no shot at winning a seat in a system dominated by two-parties. But they have pushed their way in and are transforming the Democratic Party in a very toxic way, much the way Trump has in the Republican party.

The Justice Democrats are targeting additional seats long held by centrist Democrats in 2020. Two are in lower New York State, including Eliot Engel (NY-16) and the seat vacated by retiring Nita Lowey (NY-17). Their candidates are every bit as extremist as the Squad but with more up-to-date woke initiatives, and will push jobs and people out of the region and add fuel to the budding civil war in the United States.

Adam Schleifer versus Mondaire Jones

There are eight Democrats running for Nita Loweys seat, and Jones is currently in the lead according to polls. His vision for America is more radical than AOC, Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, all of whom endorsed him. His goal is best described as give everything away for free and let corporations and the rich pay for it. The fact that the numbers dont add is irrelevant.

Behind Jones in the polls is Evelyn Farkas and Adam Schleifer. Voting for Farkas is equivalent to voting for former Secretary of State John Kerry (who endorsed her). She is well versed in foreign affairs but that doesnt mean she has good ideas or capabilities to effectuate good US policies. Adam Schleifer is tied with her for second. He is so mainstream that the New York Times refused to mention his name even while profiling the other seven candidates.

New York Times endorsement of all alt-left candidates, refuses to even mention Adam Schleifers name

If you want to avoid being represented by an even worse-AOC or a John Kerry-clone, vote for Schleifer.

Eliot Engel versus Jamaal Bowman

Like Jones, Jamal Bowman is endorsed by the alt-left fringe. His pedigree as a middle school principal makes him as qualified for congress as Trump was for the presidency.

His platform includes:

In the same breath as stating support for Irans nuclear weapons aspirations, he wrote that the US must stand up to this far-right authoritarian movement thats taking place across the world, not cozy up to them, whether thats in Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Brazil, India, Israel. Not Iran. Not North Korea. Not China or Venezuela. Israel.

New York voters have a chance to turn the tide against the growing cleft in America by rejecting the extremists running for office and push aggressively to get the vote out for Adam Schleifer (NY-17) and Eliot Engel (NY-16). Primary is June 23.

Adam Schleifer running for Congress

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End the Civil War Before It Starts: Vote Engel and Schleifer - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

Conservative Jews: Do you care about Israel? Then vote Trump out – Forward

We all have our personal metrics for the grimness of these times. Heres one of mine: Ive been finding Israeli news soothing.

Debates over whether and when to apply sovereignty over Palestinian territories, reports of covert electronic warfare with Iran, whispers of a possible fourth election within the next year. Ah, normalcy.

Normalcy has been thrown out (and in many cases through) the window here in the United States. Americans continue to gasp for breath in hospitals and choke on tear gas in city streets.

The state of New Jersey alone, which has roughly the same land area and population as Israel, has seen more than 10,000 COVID-19related deaths, about ten times the number of Israelis who lost their lives in the Second Intifada. Many of our largest cities, and even our leafy suburbs, are roiling with racial unrest.

Most American Jews have a clear address for this misery: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. About three-quarters of us voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and, its safe to say, will be reliable supporters for Joe Biden this fall. Yet that leaves around 25% or so of you wavering or still supporting Donald Trump presumably including some of you who live in Florida and thus wield awesome electoral power. If my Facebook newsfeed is any indication, many of you think youre showing, to use President Trumps own words, loyalty to Israel.

Im here to say youve got it all wrong.

Before I go any further, let me be clear: Im not about to judge those who think of Israel at the ballot box. As it happens, Im one of you. When I step into the voting booth, I consider a number of issues healthcare reform, fair treatment of immigrants and people of color, and environmental regulation, to name a few but I also want to know where candidates stand on ensuring Israels security and shielding it from disproportionate censure in the international community.

Note my wording, though: I did not say that I pick the candidate who says he or she likes Israel the most, or the one whose views on Israeli politics most closely match my own.

Over the last few decades, American pro-Israel circles have focused almost exclusively on attitudes. We wring our hands over who really gets Israel versus who is just saying the right things.

Barack Obama visits Sderot while campaigning? Not good enough. He doesnt love Israel. Senator Hillary Clinton legislates against incitement in Palestinian schools? OK, but we all remember she kissed Suha Arafat in 1999. Joe Biden calls out anti-Semitism on the left? Well, Trump has the Deal of the Century. Those on the J-street end of the spectrum have their own litmus test, selecting for candidates willing to apply American pressure on Israel to curtail its settlement project.

Yet to focus exclusively on politicians expressions of fealty toward Israel or the particulars of their Middle East policy is to ignore what actually makes the special relationship between the two countries special. To borrow another Trumpism, its that America is great.

Israel benefits from American greatness in many ways. Theres the hard power, namely the billions of dollars in the worlds best weaponry and the implicit promise of military backup. Theres also our soft power: Americas global leadership provides shielding from the biases of the international community and a counterweight to Russian and Iranian influence in its neighborhood; meanwhile, Americas massive economy, which most of the world depends upon in some way or another, protects Israel from boycotts.

Its worth remembering these core benefits have flowed to Israel even at times when the friendship has cooled. President Richard Nixon, an actual anti-Semite , sent weapons and materil during the Yom Kippur war. President Obama, definitely not an anti-Semite yet also not one, Ill admit, who likely cries while watching Paul Newman in Exodus, funded Iron Dome.

What weve never really seen is how the relationship would be impacted by a dramatic decline in American wealth and influence. Even before the latest crises, Trump was wantonly wrecking the infrastructure that has allowed America to be first among equals since the end of the Second World War. He has belittled NATO, distanced himself from western partners, torn up trade deals, and walked away from international agreements.

At times, Trumps lack of concern for the international community has worked in Israels favor. Even some liberal Zionists, including this one, cheered when he recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Yet his impetuousness just as easily blows the other way, such as with his sudden abandoning of Kurdish allies in northern Syria and his occasional willingness to meet with (and flatter) authoritarians in North Korea and Iran. The long-term result of these shortsighted shifts will be to force the international community to reduce its reliance on the United States.

At home, Trump has increased the budget deficit by hundreds of billions, most of which went to tax breaks for corporations and wealthy individuals like himself. Perhaps worst of all, he has, in hundreds of rallies and thousands of tweets, stoked the embers of racial discord in our country to the point that our diverse population presently seems incapable of collective action. A house divided against itself cannot stand; it certainly cannot project power abroad.

Historical precedent tells us that when great powers fall, the consequences are felt more severely by those who live in its outer provinces and protectorates. A pensioner in Englands midlands might bemoan Great Britains loss of Empire, but he still lives in a first-world democracy well defended against any foreign foe whod dare cross the Channel. His counterpart in Hong Kong, a subject of that Empire into the late 1990s, now faces a loss of basic rights. Similarly, even a weaker and poorer America will be able to protect itself and its citizens. But it may not have the will or the leverage to help its friends abroad.

In my unofficial, unpaid, and generally thankless role as Explainer of Israel to my progressive friends, I often rely on the concept of ein brera there is no choice. The countrys right-leaning politics, its asymmetric military operations in Gaza, and its skepticism of internationally-brokered peace agreements must be understood through the prism of being small and surrounded by more populous and more ruthless enemies. Being American (in particular a white American) has, in contrast, always been all about having choices.

Until now.

Now I say to my conservative friends, ein brera. You and I might disagree on the role of American government in our lives, about who should pay what in taxes, and whether our foreign policy should be in favor of or opposed to Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria. Yet from both a pro-Israel perspective, this election is about picking a leader of the free world who will ensure that we survive to argue another day.

David Zenlea is a Detroit-based editor with a degree in Jewish Studies from the University of Maryland. Hes written for Haaretz, Detroit Jewish News, Washingtonian magazine, and others.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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Conservative Jews: Do you care about Israel? Then vote Trump out - Forward

COVID-19 UPDATE: East Hampton Testing Site To Open May 15 – 27east.com

Friday, 8:30 p.m. : Testing Site To Open In East Hampton May 15

Working with East Hampton Village Deputy Mayor Barbara Borsack and the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation, East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc has arranged to launch a testing site in East Hampton. The Foundation will underwrite the program and Hudson River Health Care will undertake the diagnostic testing.

The program will be held Wednesdays and Fridays beginning May 15, by appointment. The drive up site will be situated in the Pantigo ball field parking lot. Tests will be available to those with COVID-19 symptoms or those who have been in contact with a COVID-19 positive patient, or workers deemed eligible for testing by New York State, including healthcare workers, first responders and essential employees who interact directly with the public. Visit the state health department website to view the full list of eligible workers.

Insurance will be accepted, but uninsured individuals may be tested for free. Bilingual staff will be on hand and the tests offered regardless of immigration status.

"The local availability of COVID-19 diagnostic testing will help us to stop the spread of the virus within our community and move us closer to a safe reopening of our economy," said Mr. Van Scoyoc. He noted that contact tracing, a Suffolk County program, will help identify community members exposed to coronavirus so they may quarantine.

In a statement announcing the testing, the supervisor expressed thanks to Ms. Borsack for her assistance, HRH Care's willingness to get the site up and running, and the Foundation's generosity in providing initial funding.

With Hamptons Health Society funding, a drive up testing site organized by Southampton Village Mayor Jesse Warren opened two weeks ago. It offers testing at the health clinic on Old Town Road on Tuesdays and Thursdays. An additional testing site will enable the region to achieve a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-recommended metric necessary for reopening. It calls for the capacity to test a minimum number of residents each day.

As antibody tests that detect whether a person has had coronavirus and recovered become more available, the East Hampton site may offer those as well.

Deputy Mayor Borsack is a member of the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation board and the Southampton Hospital Association board. She said she was pleased to work with the supervisor to facilitate the testing site.

Providing the initial funding, the Foundation will accept donations to continue the program. Visit easthamptonhealthcare.org to donate.

"As we continue to actively adapt our response to COVID-19, pop-up testing remains important for the added protection of patients and staff," said Anne Kauffman Nolon, CEO of HRHCare. "We will continue expanding our response to the pandemic until we prevail, for the sake of our patients and our communities."

Call 845-553-8030 to make an appointment for a test.

On the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, County Executive Steve Bellone reflected on World War II veterans, known as the Greatest Generation. Under normal circumstances, May 8 is a day to acknowledge the vets, to honor and thank them, he said, He called it the cruelest irony that mired in the midst of the COVID-19 battle, not only must the commemoration of the soldiers sacrifices be canceled, but also the virus attacks the Greatest Generation most ruthlessly and viciously. he reported that he raised a flag at Armed Force Plaza outside his office and later delivered it to the veterans home in Stony Brook.

Acknowledging that as the response has continued, colleagues at varied levels of government have refrained from engaging in the nonsense of politics. He pointed to County Comptroller John Kennedy, his opponent in the last election and reported how well they have worked together. Were all on the same team at the end of the day, he said, offering that its okay to have disagreements about policies, but theres no time for petty political disagreements.

The reporting system for hospitalizations is down, Mr. Bellone advised during his afternoon briefing on Friday. Overall, Suffolk reached an unfortunate milestone, topping the 40,000 mark in confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 40,460 confirmed cases countywide. The number includes 694 new cases in the previous 24 hours, as well as 3,961 individuals who tested positive for antibodies. Twenty one people died from COVID-19 from Thursday to Friday, bringing the total number of fatalities to 1,568. Testing in hot spot areas like Wyandanch and Brentwood have resulted in 38.7 percent positives, compared to the countywide percentage of 33 percent positive results from testing. In all, the county has administered 106, 755 tests as of May 7.

The local figures, posted just before noon Friday on the Suffolk County interactive map, report 867 cases across Southampton Town. Thats 15 cases for every 1000 people. East Hampton Towns 258 cases break down to just under 12 cases for every 1000 people.

Stony Brook Medicines ER field satellite in a Stony Brook University parking lot has closed to patients, but the equipment will remain in place should the need to reopen the site arise.

About 2,600 patients were triaged at the site, according to a Stony Brook Medicine press release, which stated that the closure comes as the number of patients visiting the site has continued to decline.

Stony Brook Medicine personnel who were working at the field satellite will return to Stony Brook University Hospital.

The drive-thru testing site at Stony Brook University will remain open by appointment only. To date, 27,515 patients have been tested for coronavirus there, according to Stony Brook Medicine.

Statewide, the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations is down to 8,196, Governor Andrew Cuomo announces at his daily briefing Friday in Poughkeepsie. The number of intubated patients is also down.

The number of new COVID hospitalizations per day is just about flat has been flat for a few days, Mr. Cuomo said. There were 604 in Thursdays three-day rolling average of new hospitalizations.

We would have hoped to see a steady sharp decline in those number, right? Mr. Cuomo said. We went up very quickly. ... We would have hoped that would have gone down very quickly. ... Its more flattening out.

There were 216 deaths in New York State Thursday attributed to COVID-19, 171 in hospitals and 45 in nursing homes. The death toll has been under 300 each day so far in May and appears to be on a downward trend, though the number has ticked up and down. Looking at the three-day rolling average, it is slowly declining.

Mr. Cuomo noted that doctors now suspect that COVID-19, which was thought to spare children, is responsible for youth becoming sick with what appears to be Kawasaki disease or toxic shock syndrome, which causes inflammation in their blood vessels.

There has been at least one fatality because of this and there may be others that are under investigation, Mr. Cuomo said.

The governor advised parents to seek medical attention for children who have had a fever for more than five days, difficulty feeding or too sick to drink fluids, severe abdominal pain, diarrhea or vomiting, change in skin color, trouble breathing or quick breathing, decreased amount or frequency of urine, or lethargy, irritability and confusion.

Adding reported figures from Tuesday and Wednesday, the coronavirus death toll across Suffolk County increased by 251 patients. The increase was largely a function of a new state reporting system that includes presumed COVID-19 positive patients, as well as those in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, County Executive Steve Bellone explained during his daily media briefing. From Tuesday to Wednesday, the number of fatalities surged from 1,296 to 1,522 due to the new reporting system. From Wednesday to Thursday another 25 fatalities were added, bringing the toll to 1,547.

Its likely, the county executive acknowledged, the number represented is under what the full amount will be. We wont know the toll until after this is over and we are looking back.

In all, there are 39,807 confirmed cases in Suffolk County. Of those, 3,531 have tested positive for antibodies.

Hospitalizations declined by 54 patients from Wednesday to Thursday, meaning the county is back on a downward trend. Hospital capacity is at 73 percent with intensive care admissions at 70 percent. Eighty-eight people have been discharged from Suffolk hospitals in the last 24 hours.

Turning to plans for the reopening of the county, Mr. Bellone demurred when asked to predict a date, stating instead that Governor Andrew Cuomo would be releasing new executive orders related to his phased reopening plan. In the interim, this afternoon the countys Business Recovery Unit will post a resource guide detailing guidance for reopening strategies. View it at suffolkcountyny.gov/bru.

Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday extended his moratorium on residential and commercial evictions for another 60 days. The moratorium will now remain in effect through August 20, preventing landlords from evicting tenants who are suffering hardships related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Cuomo also ordered a new ban on fees for late or missed payments, and he is allowing renters to use their security deposit as payment.

The moratorium was originally announced on March 20 and set to expire in June.

Mr. Cuomo acknowledged that the moratorium creates hardship for landlords, who will still have mortgages and utility bills to pay.

There is no doubt a trade-off between the tenant and the landlord, the governor said, adding that state help will be coming for the landlords.

In the meantime, he doesnt want to see tenants evicted through no fault of their own, he said.

Mr. Cuomo also revealed during his Thursday daily briefing that 27,000 employees at 25 downstate health care facilities have been tested for the antibody that indicates their immune systems have responded to the virus that causes COVID-19.

Among the general population on Long Island, 11.4 percent of people have the antibody, while 11.1 percent of health care workers have the antibody. In New York City, the numbers were 19.9 percent for the general population and 12.2 percent for health care workers.

Mr. Cuomo said the results underscore the important of wearing personal protective equipment such as gloves and masks and shows PPE is effective at slowing the spread of COVID-19.

The governor also offered an update on the $25 million Nourish New York Initiative, connecting upstate farmers who have produce they are struggling to sell with food banks struggling to feed families. He said nearly 50 food banks, soup kitchens and food pantries will receive support, more than 2,100 farms are participating and more than 20,000 households across the state will receive products through the initiative within the next week.

There were 231 deaths attributed to COVID-19 on Wednesday, 191 of which occurred in hospitals and 40 in nursing homes. The daily death toll has been essentially flat for the past four days. The number excludes at-home deaths.

The three-day rolling average of new COVID-19 hospitalizations was 607 on Wednesday, which was up six over the day before and the third day in a row that the number has been under 700. The net change in the total number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients was a decrease of 514, which brought the total below 9,000 since March 28.

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COVID-19 UPDATE: East Hampton Testing Site To Open May 15 - 27east.com

AltLeft Shuts Down Toronto Comedy Show Over Words ‘Free …

There was a Toronto comedy show labeled a celebration of 'free speech,' but the jokes on them! The AltLeft caused the club to cancel it.

His events description includes a disclaimer that If you're an ACTUAL NAZI or WHITE SUPREMACIST or anything of this sort you ARE NOT WELCOME.

The thing now is obviously Im against Nazis in every form, said Polishchuk, who is Jewish, but if you dont actually disavow them, maybe sometimes they think this is an event for them. I just didnt want there to be any, like, confusion about what this was.

This is the insane thing. Leftists, the AltLeft, AntiFa, the League of Extraordinary Doucheburgers... I don't care what we call them (seeBibi Netanyahus Son Weighs In: The AltLeft Scares Me More than Neo-NazisandBACK TO BERKELEY: Antifa Swarms Trump Supporters in Violent Attack). They decided anyone who supports free speech, or even says the words "free" and "speech" next to each other, is akin to Nazis and white supremacists. They honestly think you, the fine human being reading this post, are no better than people waving flags with swastikas on them.

Let's clear things up, and I realize this happened in Canada, but the attitude is the same:

Chanting about white power while wearing a Nazi uniform and draping yourself in the swastika? White supremacist Nazi scumbag.

Arguing about free speech and having a different opinion about Islamic terrorism, or another social issue while wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat? NOT THE SAME THING.

Listen to the event organizer. Is there anything about him the screamed MAGA to you? I'm willing to bet he agrees a lot more with the left on policy than he agrees with any of us here at LwC. But he said "free speech" so shut it down. SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN.

Incidentally, silencing and threatening violence against people saying things you don't like? Let's just say Hitler would be proud.

This is why we can't have nice things.

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AltLeft Shuts Down Toronto Comedy Show Over Words 'Free ...

Essential Mac keyboard shortcuts and key combinations – Macworld UK

Keyboard shortcuts are a brilliant time-saver; it's much easier to tap two or three keys at once than to go hunting through nested menus. But shortcuts depend on knowledge and muscle memory. You need to put in the time to learn them before you can benefit in the long run.

That's why we're here. This guide to the essential keyboard shortcuts for Mac users covers the most useful hotkey combinations that will save you time and stress.

You will find you need key combinations for a variety of reasons. In this article we will cover the key combinations for saving, copying and pasting, printing, closing a window, closing or hiding an app, and lots more. We'll also cover key combination you can use when booting or starting up a Mac. (If you are looking for the key combination to type characters like $@# read this).

The three most important keys on your Mac can be found to the left and right of the spacebar (for right- and left-handed use). Unfortunately these keys seem to cause more confusion than any others. So our shortcuts guide will begin by clearing up the mystery, and explaining what you can do with Fn, Ctrl, Alt and Cmd.

And if you're using a Mac keyboard with aPC, you'll probably need a bit of extra help.Have a look at How to use a Mac keyboard in Windows.

There is a great deal of confusion over what Apple refers to as the Option key. If you're using a UK keyboard, chances are this is called the Alt key so it's no wonder most people don't know where it is.

The Alt (aka Option) key can be found between Control and Command. It has an icon that looks like a slope and a dip with a line above it.

Chances are the first time you hear mention of Option/Alt you are following a tutorial and trying to fix something on your Mac. The Alt/Option key is the one you use if you wish to select a boot partition when starting the computer, you also press it when typing certain characters on your keyboard, such as # (Alt-3) or (Alt-4).

Here's an overview of the hidden characters that you can type using Alt (the keys might be a bit different if you aren't using a UK keyboard). We have a separate guide to how to type , #, @, and more special characters on a Mac here.

The Option key also enables you to enable the Save As option in Mac apps. Just press it when you click on the File menu and you'll see the new options.

You may be wondering whether you can use the Alt key, along with Ctrl and Delete, to shut down an unresponsive Mac - the famour Ctrl-Alt-Delete combo from the Windows PC. Force-quitting on a Mac is slightly different to on a PC: here's how to Force Quit on a Mac.

You can also use Alt/Option to do the following:

If you thought that the jumbling of Alt and Option was baffling, there's even more opportunity for confusion when it comes to the Command key. The Command key (cmd) has a legacy that leads to confusion - many older Mac users will refer to it as the Apple key, because in the past there used to be an Apple logo on it, but this logo stopped appearing a while ago when if was decided that there were a few too many Apple logos on Apple products.

The logo you will still find on this key looks like a squiggly square, or a four petalled flower. It was designed by Susan Kare for the original iMac (and based on the Scandinavian icon for place of interest).

The Command (cmd) key works in a similar way to the Control key on a PC. On a Mac you use the Command key where on a PC you would use Control (or Ctrl).

If you were wondering why Ctrl-B didn't make your text bold, chances are you were previously a PC user and didn't realise that Command is the new Control. You might find this useful: How to move from PC to Mac: Complete guide to switching to a Mac from a PC.

Here are a few of the key combinations that use Command:

There are even more shortcuts available if you add another key, such as Shift:

In the Finder you could try the following:

With the Command key doing the job on Mac that the Control key does on PC, you may be wondering why there's also aControl key on a Mac keyboard.

The most common use of Control is to mimic theright-click on a mouse or when using the mouse pad (since some Apple mice don't have the right click option).

There are many more uses for Control when used with other key combinations, for example:

You can also use the Control key to add a document or folder to the Dock. Go to the Finder and select the item you wish to add to the Dock (or search for it using Spotlight: Cmd-Space, or select it on your Desktop). Then press Control-Shift-Command-T.

There are a few other Apple specific keys(depending on your keyboard):

You can set other F keys to do Mission Control actions. Go to System Preferences > Mission Control and add unused F keys to do functions such as Show Desktop or Dashboard.

There are a few times where keyboard combinations enable you to troubleshoot problems with your Mac. For example, if you want to start your Mac in Safe Mode you need to know which key combination you need (press and hold the Shift key during start up - more here). Similarly, to access the Recovery mode you usually need to hold down hold cmd+R at start up - more here - there are actually multiple key combinations you can use).

Below we'll run through a few times when key combinations can be handy.

Read next: How to lock a Mac

Another handy key combo is the one that brings up the Application switcher. This is a handy way to move between different applications you have open.

If you find this sort of thing interesting, you can read definitions of more Apple-related tech terms in our Apple users' tech jargon dictionary.

Read the rest here:

Essential Mac keyboard shortcuts and key combinations - Macworld UK

Living in an Italy consumed by fear – The Spectator USA

This article is inThe Spectators April 2020 US edition.Subscribe here to get yours.

Ravenna, Italy

As I write, the whole of Italy is in quarantine and infected by the kind of panic I imagine an invaded people feels as it waits for the enemy to knock on the door.

I work from home and suppose I must be thankful at least for that. I have just heard the youngest of our six children, Giuseppe, who is four, ask Carla, his mother: Mamma, do you know why its called coronavirus? No, bello, I dont, tell me, she replied. Because its the king of tutti i virus! he crowed, which caused Carla to smother him with kisses. Bravissimo! Amore mio! Bravissimo! The word corona, in case you didnt know, is Italian for crown. Did he invent that himself I wonder? The whole episode brought a tear to my eye and a surge of impotent anger anger that such a beautiful human gesture, a mother kissing and hugging her small child, could perhaps prove fatal.

Headlines in online Italian newspapers that catch my eye include The virus remains in the air for 30 minutes and travels 4.5 meters, Checks on movement to be done via cell phone records and Government may order suspension of all loan repayments not that I have a loan, thank God.

The Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, announced the closure of Italy in a television address to the nation, saying: Our habits must change now, and Everyone must remain at home. We live near Ravenna, in the countryside a mile from the Adriatic coast, and our children rely on us to get in and out of the city a 10-minute drive away. Children seem less prone to catching the virus than any other age group, but we have convinced ourselves, I cannot remember quite why, that they can act as symptomless carriers.

Our eldest son, Francesco Winston, is 14 and already as tall as me. He is also stronger than me, though possibly he does not quite realize it yet, and keeps trying to go into Ravenna to see his friends storming off into the dark in search of a bus or something. But when yesterday Carla shouted at him Assassino! (Killer!), that seemed at long last to strike home. Little Giuseppe does not go to school, but this is the third week the five children who do two boys and three girls have been at home following the closure of schools and universities in our region, Emilia-Romagna, thanks to the high infection rate here (the second highest in Italy, though still a long way behind Lombardy). The children are supposed to do homework each day via a school internet site which at least two of them are unable to access, and no one at school (with which we can communicate only via email and telephone) has been able to solve the problem. Francesco Winston and the eldest, Caterina, 16, are also doing the odd lesson via streaming. It all seems slapdash, but it is better than nothing.

Right now, the death rate from coronavirus in Italy is more than 8 percent, which is a heck of a lot higher than the 2 percent death rate that experts talk about. The numbers of those infected in Italy are growing explosively and terrifyingly. On February, 21 there were just 17 cases. By the beginning of March, there were a total of 2,000 cases and fewer than 100 deaths. It is difficult to see how other European countries can avoid a similar catastrophe unless they take pretty drastic action, before their case numbers reach Italian levels.

Initially, Italys government took the extraordinary step of placing in quarantine the whole of Lombardy (whose capital is Milan, the financial engine room of Italy); two days later, the growth in cases forced it to extend the lockdown to the entire country.

According to the governments emergency quarantine decree, currently in force, no one can leave home without a valid motive. This includes work and necessity, such as buying food or taking the dog for a walk. This means no one can leave the province where they live unless they have an urgent reason. Holy Communion in church has been canceled, as have funeral and wedding ceremonies. Even Serie A soccer has been suspended. Most sports seem to be canceled. All public gatherings inside or out are banned. Nightclubs, cinemas, museums, galleries, theaters, swimming pools, gyms, you name it all closed.

Factories and offices remain open, as do supermarkets and shops, but the emergency decree insists that everyone must keep a distance of one meter apart in public places. That will be impossible in many restaurants. And impossible anyway to police. Bars must close at 6 p.m. The government a left-wing coalition of the alt-left Five Star and post-communist Democratic party has agreed with opposition parties that parliament should meet far less frequently and be attended by only half the MPs, to maintain the one-meter rule. Italys European Parliament president David Sassoli has self-isolated and will chair debates via computer. Numerous television shows are canceled.

Via WhatsApp, audios are circulating from nurses which tell me that the situation in many hospitals even in Emilia-Romagna is apocalyptic and far worse than is being admitted by the authorities, and that in Rimini, just 30 miles from me, the citys hospital is so overrun that it is turning new coronavirus patients away.

The big problem, apart from the fear and the panic, is the confusion. This is the governments fault. With regard to the travel ban, for example, one ground for exemption spelled out in the decree is comprovate esigenze lavorative proven work needs. What on earth does that mean? Which work qualifies and how such necessity can be proven are not spelled out. The decree also says that such grounds must be self-certified on a written form but who, then, is going to check whether someone is telling the truth, and how? The punishment for breach of the quarantine measures is up to three months in prison (automatically suspended, since it is less than two years) plus a derisory 206 fine. In the end, it will be up to the Italians themselves either to respect or ignore them.

Roberto Burioni, a leading virologist and medical professor, spelled this out in a dramatic plea to the nation in an interview in the newspaper La Stampa, in which he said every Italian must display virtuous behavior towards himself and towards the community and make big sacrifices because we have before us a dangerous enemy.

An enemy that is totally invisible.

This article is inThe Spectators April 2020 US edition.Subscribe here to get yours.

See the rest here:

Living in an Italy consumed by fear - The Spectator USA

Hungarian Press Roundup: Weeklies on the State of Emergency – Hungary Today

Weeklies and weekend editions of dailies ponder the economic and social implications of the coronavirus emergency, including discussion of the extension of the state of emergency.

Hungarian press roundup bybudapost.eu

In 168 ra, Pter Somfai suggests panic shopping is due to the lack of trust among Hungarians. The left-wing columnist suggests that the Hungarian government has not done a good job in reassuring the population. As for the broader implications of the epidemic, Somfai suspects that our lives will change for good, and we will need to rethink what we really value.

In Magyar Demokrata, Mikls Panyi, Vice-Director of the pro-government Centre for Fundamental Rights asserts that what he calls Hungarys economic and political immune system is relatively strong, which he believes will help the country get through the pandemic. The conservative analyst underlines that the economy is in a good shape, and the government enjoys broad support and strong democratic legitimacy. Public authorities and hospitals are prepared to handle the pandemic, he adds. He hopes that Hungarians will also keep strong and will not lose the optimism and calm which are essential to prevail in times of crises.

On Portfolio.hu, Lszl Szab and Viktor Zsiday call on the government to use their fiscal weapons to save the Hungarian economy. The two investment bankers calculate that it will cost hundreds of billions in Forints to help Hungarian entrepreneurs and defend jobs. The only way to avoid the loss of hundreds of thousands of workplaces is to use drastic means in addition to the announced loan repayment moratorium, Szab and Zsiday write. They believe that if the government and the National Bank act fast and announce a massive and unprecedented quantitative easing program, they can avoid the complete meltdown of the economy.

In Mandiner, Barnabs Heincz dismisses suggestions that the European Union will collapse as a result of the coronavirus emergency. Heincz admits that national governments can act faster in times of crisis, but this, he believes, does not mean that the European dream is over. The conservative pundit notes that the EU could only act if it was a highly centralized federation rather than a group of sovereign nation-states. Rather than giving up on the European Union, we should reform it and make it a proper union of nation-states, he suggests.

Neokohns Lszl Seres lambasts anti-globalist and anti-capitalist greens and leftists who cherish the virus for its implications for the environment. The libertarian pundit writes that the meltdown of production and a steep decline in the volume of international travel will lead to a massive recession and increase in poverty. He adds that modern medicine would also be unimaginable without capitalism. Rather than turning globalization back, one should use its achievements to fight the epidemic, Seres concludes.

In Magyar Narancs, Balzs Vradi writes that the virus emergency poses a huge dilemma for Hungarians, particularly liberals. He thinks that Hungarians have a low level of trust towards the government with good reason. The liberal analyst accuses the state of leaving citizens to fend for themselves in most major crises in the past two centuries. He also finds the Orbn government guilty of not spending enough on the health care system and of trying to blame the epidemic on migrants. Nonetheless, Vradi acknowledges, severe emergency situations can only be managed by a strong state. He thinks, therefore, that liberals should support all government policies that are in line with international practices, but protest if the government tries to impose measures beyond those widely applied in Western Europe.

In an interview with the same weekly, Lszl Majtnyi fears that the government will misuse the emergency to introduce unnecessary and restrictive measures and suspend the rule of law. The left-liberal constitutional lawyer contends that reasonable emergency measures, including the closure of schools and shops, could be implemented within the existing legal framework. The emergency regulations would grant unnecessary power to the police to curtail individual freedoms and would allow the government to use its power to silence critical opinions in the name of public safety.

Mrces Andrs Jmbor shares the same fears. The alt-left blogger acknowledges that the government needs extraordinary powers to manage the crisis, but warns against giving the government indefinite emergency powers. (The government proposes to extend the state of emergency indefinitely rather than extending it every 15 days. The bill needs a four-fifths majority to pass urgently.) Jmbor recalls that the so called migration emergency has been in place for five years. He also fears that emergency powers would allow the government to silence its critics. Jmbor believes that the government could implement all regulations necessary to combat the epidemic without allotting itself extraordinary powers for an unspecified period.

Abnormal times require extraordinary powers and measures, Mikls Sznth claims in Magyar Nemzet. The pro-government lawyer accuses the critics of the extension of the state of emergency of trying to use the crisis to create an even bigger panic. Sznth suspects that they fear for their globalist, anti-state vision which might lose its relevance as the government carries on with its crisis management policies to protect public interest.

Featured photo illustration byCsabaKrizsn/MTI

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Hungarian Press Roundup: Weeklies on the State of Emergency - Hungary Today

Netflix is testing cheap new mobile-only plan that costs just 2.40 a month – The Sun

NETFLIX is now trialling a cheap mobile-only plan in four countries around the world.

The bargain subscription works out at around $3 / 2.40, but is only available in select regions for now.

3

The cut-price plan was tested in India and Malaysia last year but is expected to roll out across the globe in the near future.

And it's now been launched in Thailand and the Philippines.

The plan is unusual for Netflix in that you can only watch shows on your mobile.

That means no Netflix on your smart telly or laptop a price you'll have to pay for such a cheap monthly fee.

3

At around 2.40, it's by far the cheapest plan that Netflix offers.

For comparison, UK customers pay a minimum of 5.99 a month for the basic plan though that lets you play shows on your telly, laptop and mobile.

The UK's priciest tier, which gives you HD content on up to four screens at once, now costs 11.99 a month following acontroversial price hikein May.

"We believe that our members may value the flexibility that comes from being able to pay for a few months at once," Netflix said.

Currently, the mobile-only and bundle tiers are only being trialled by Netflix.

So is there any hope for the plan coming to the UK or USA?

One industry insider told The Sun that Netflix's cheap new plan is targeted at emerging markets but that a UK launch couldn't be ruled out.

"The mobile only plan makes sense in markets where people rely on phones to connect with the world," said Paolo Pescatore, of PP Foresight, speaking to The Sun.

"Never rule out new price options to drive further uptake.

"Ultimately people still prefer to browse on their mobile devices and watch on the big screen, if possible.

"More so in high quality formats like 4K, HDR and eventually 8K."

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A spokesman recently told The Sun there are no plans to launch the tier outside of India at the moment, but did not rule out a broader launch in future.

For now, trials in India and other eastern regions will help the firm figure out if cheaper tiers are a good way to grow its massive user base.

The tech titan predicts that India the world's second most populous nation will be a key battleground in its fight to lure in more users from across the globe.

Use Netflix on a computer or laptop? Try these useful shortcuts

Here are some handy keyboard shortcuts...

VANISHING ACTWhatsApp creates secret self-deleting messages feature to wipe texts forever

A-MARS-ING!Mars has alien LIFE lurking at its icy poles, astronomers believe

FLU GOTTA BE KIDDING MECoronavirus conspiracies including claims it was 'made by CIA'

BUG OFFInstagram bans coronavirus filters including dangerous one that 'diagnoses'

EXIT STRATEGYScientists rank safest spots to flee to in deadly apocalyptic outbreak

NETFLIX AND BRILLSky customers can now get Netflix for free... and here's how

You can read more about Netflix's recent UK price hikehere.

Check out our guide tosecret Netflix codesthat unlock hidden TV series, genres and movie categories.

And use thisNetflix trickto make sure you see fewer rubbish films.

Do you think this plan should come to the UK? Let us know in the comments!

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

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Netflix is testing cheap new mobile-only plan that costs just 2.40 a month - The Sun

Howie Carr: Its time to wake up sleepy Joe Biden – Boston Herald

The next thing the Democrats have to do is get Bolshevik Bernie out of the race before Sunday, which is when the next debate is scheduled.

Sleepy Joe Biden has already been allowed to sit down (the debate is, after all, sponsored by CNN). But the condition that Joe finds himself in now, utterly incoherent, babbling, totally non compos mentis, it wouldnt be enough to wheel him on stage in an iron lung, with an oxygen mask on his face.

They have to cancel that Sunday night debate, dammit! The Deep State has to be saying to themselves, we dont care if we have to buy Breadline Bernie three summer camps on Lake Champlain to get him out of the fight this time, it has to be done!

The former vice president has become a one-man assembly line of gaffes. A few weeks ago, wed get a couple every weekend, and theyd spice up the Monday radio show.

You know, confusing Ohio and Iowa, California and Nevada, rhapsodizing about the beauty of Keene, Vermont.

But as the primaries and caucuses began, the pace intensified.

People of Nevada are watching, he said last month, and Im gonna be out there soon enough. But tonight, though, we just heard from the first two of the 50 states. Its important that Iowa and Nevada have spoken but look, its important we hear from Nevada and South Carolina.

And dont forget Nevada either, Mr. Vice President.

Now we get one or two new gaffes every day. My producer breaks in during the broadcast with the latest howler, like Monday when Biden said, Together I think we can win back the House, before remembering that the glorious victory had occurred 16 months earlier. Short-term memory is always the first thing to go, isnt it?

He also said something else that I spent part of Tuesday morning trying to transcribe. I finally got it, I think, although you cant get sure:

Look, they always say, Biden dismisses China. I dont di-di-dimiss China. But if we invest in ourselves, as they say in a little steel town where I come from, Claymont, Delaware, not a patch on our jeans. (Or was it team?)

But even as I kept trying to decipher the previous days mumbling, Biden was getting into it with a hardhat in Michigan. The guy was asking him about guns, and Slow Joe was babbling about AR-14s and he finally told him, Youre full of (bleep)!

But then, Joe has a problem with guns, I mean beyond the actual Second Amendment.

Who in Gods name needs a hundred rounds in a bullet in a gun you have?

Or, You cannot have 20, 30, 40 clips in a weapon.

On the alt-left networks, they call these gaffes. And the Democrat hacks say, well, he has gaffes but he doesnt lie. Although of course he does remember, just recently, how he was arrested with Nelson Mandela in Soweto oh never mind.

Ive been in debates. I debated Paul Ryan. I debated that woman who could see Russia. Okay?

Okay. In Iowa, he forgot Steve Lynchs name. On Super Tuesday, he introduced his wife as his sister, and vice versa. He called Julian Castro Julio. He thinks Beto ORourke is Latino.

Last weekend he called himself Joe OBiden Bama. He thinks hes running for the Senate, and that a Senate candidate in South Carolina is running for president. He even forgets the name of the man he used to call Barack America. Now he says it was President (long awkward pause) my boss.

President My Boss. Yes, those were the days, when President America picked him to head up the inauguration in January of 2012, actually 2013, no wait a minute, we elected in 2012, 2010 or 13.

Come on, you remember. It was back in the spring, late fall, early sum I mean late spring late winter early fall early anyway, you know what I mean.

We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created by the go you know, the thing

So you go ahead and stack spaghetti sauce at a store and and and a supermarket you control the guy or the woman who runs the runs runs the brings out the carts on on on a forklift

Its comedy gold, but now his handlers are desperately trying to keep his, ahem, remarks short. But that debate on Sunday night, good Lord, even on CNN, which has already tried to disembowel Bernie at least a couple of times.

The only question for the Biden campaign now is, How much, Bernie? How much do you want? And if you want to stay in this fight all the way to Milwaukee Bernie what are you, a lying dog-faced pony soldier?

Read the original here:

Howie Carr: Its time to wake up sleepy Joe Biden - Boston Herald

Life under lockdown: Italy is being consumed by panic – Spectator.co.uk

Ravenna

The whole of Italy is now in quarantine and infected by the kind of panic I imagine an invaded people feels as it waits for the enemy to knock on the door.

I work from home and suppose I must be thankful at least for that. I have just heard the youngest of our six children, Giuseppe, who is four, ask Carla, his mother: Mamma, do you know why its called coronavirus? No, bello, I dont, tell me she replied. Because its the king of tutti i virus! he crowed which caused Carla to smother him with kisses. Bravissimo! Amore mio! Bravissimo! The word corona, in case you didnt know, is Italian for crown. Did he invent that himself I wonder? The whole episode brought a tear to my eye and a surge of impotent anger anger that such a beautiful human gesture, a mother kissing and hugging her small child, could perhaps prove fatal.

Headlines in online Italian newspapers that catch my eye include The virus remains in the air for 30 minutes and travels 4.5 metres, Checks on movement to be done via mobile phone records and Government may order suspension of all loan repayments not that I have a loan, thank God.

The Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, announced the closure of Italy in a television address to the nation on Monday night, saying: Our habits must change now and Everyone must remain at home.

We live near Ravenna, in the countryside a mile from the Adriatic coast, and our children rely on us to get in and out of the city a ten-minute drive away. Children seem less prone to catch the virus than any other age group but we have convinced ourselves, I cannot remember quite why, that they can act as symptomless carriers.

Our eldest son, Francesco Winston, is 14 and already as tall as me. He is also stronger than me, though possibly he does not quite realise it yet, and keeps trying to go into Ravenna to see his friends storming off into the dark in search of a bus or something. But when yesterday Carla shouted at him Assassino! (Killer!), that seemed at long last to strike home.

Little Giuseppe does not go to school, but this is the third week the five children who do two boys and three girls have been at home following closure of schools and universities in our region, Emilia--Romagna, thanks to the high infection rate here (the second highest in Italy, though still a long way behind Lombardy). The children are supposed to do homework each day via a schools internet site which at least two of them are unable to access, and no one at school (with which we can communicate only via email and telephone) has been able to solve the problem. Francesco Winston and the eldest, Caterina, 16, are also doing the odd lesson via streaming. It all seems so slapdash but it is better than nothing.

As I write, there have been a total of 10,149 cases of coronavirus in Italy and of these 631 have died. That is a death rate of more than 6 per cent, which is a heck of a lot higher than the 2 per cent death rate that experts talk about. The numbers of those infected in Italy are now growing explosively and terrifyingly. Just a week ago there were a total of 2,000 cases and fewer than 100 deaths. On 21 February less than a month ago there were just 17 cases. It is difficult to see how other European countries such as Britain can avoid a similar catastrophe unless they take pretty drastic action right now, for several weeks, before their case numbers reach Italian levels. The most recent figures I saw (for Monday) showed just 373 cases in Britain but that is the number of cases Italy had on 25 February, just a couple of weeks ago.

Last weekend, Italys government took the extraordinary step of placing in quarantine the whole of Lombardy (whose capital is Milan, the financial engine room of Italy); two days later, the growth in cases forced it to extend the lockdown to the entire country.

According to the governments emergency quarantine decree, which will remain in force until 3 April, no one can leave home without a valid motive. These include work and necessity, such as buying food or taking the dog for a walk. This means no one can leave the province where they live unless they have an urgent reason. Holy Communion in church has been cancelled, as have funeral and wedding ceremonies. Even Serie A football has been suspended. Most sport seems to be cancelled. All public gatherings inside or out are banned. Discotheques, cinemas, museums, galleries, theatres, swimming pools, gyms, you name it all closed.

Factories and offices remain open, as do supermarkets and shops, but the emergency decree insists that everyone must keep a distance of one metre apart in public places. That will be impossible in many restaurants. And impossible anyway to police. Bars must close at 6 p.m. The government a left-wing coalition of alt-left 5 Star and post--communist Democratic Party has agreed with opposition parties that parliament should meet far less frequently and be attended by only half the MPs, to maintain the one-metre rule. Italys European Parliament president Davide Sassoli has self--isolated and will chair debates via computer. Numerous TV shows are cancelled.

Via WhatsApp, audios are circulating from nurses which tell me that the situation in many hospitals even in Emilia--Romagna is apocalyptic and far worse than is being admitted by the authorities, and that in Rimini, just 30 miles away from me, the citys hospital is so overrun that it is turning new coronavirus patients away.

The big problem apart from the fear and the panic is the confusion. This is the governments fault. With regard to the travel ban, for example, one ground for exemption spelled out in the decree is comprovate esigenze lavorative proven work needs. What on earth does that mean? Which work qualifies and how such necessity can be proven are not spelled out. The decree also says that such grounds must be self-certified on a written form but who, then, is going to check whether someone is telling the truth, and how? The punishment for breach of the quarantine measures is up to three months in prison (automatically suspended, since it is less than two years) plus a derisory 206 fine. In the end, it will be up to the Italians themselves either to respect or ignore them.

Roberto Burioni, a leading virologist and medical professor, spelled this out in a dramatic plea to the nation in an interview in Mondays La Stampa, in which he said every Italian must display virtuous behaviour towards himself and towards the community and make big sacrifices because we have before us a dangerous enemy.

An enemy that is totally invisible.

Read more:

Life under lockdown: Italy is being consumed by panic - Spectator.co.uk

The Death Throes of the Failed Sandernista Revolution – Real Context News

The formal war is ending, and tonight is almost certainly the last time Sanders can put up any serious resistance in a delegate-rich state. His Waterloo will be Michigan. The only real question is if Sanders surrenders gracefully like General Lee at Appomattox or pulls a Saddam Hussein and allows his forces to melt away in order to mount a vicious guerrilla campaign once the big formal battles are over.

By Brian E. Frydenborg(LinkedIn,Facebook,Twitter@bfry1981)March 10, 2020 (this was written, if not fully edited, before results came in tonight); see related articles: The Best Guide to Super Tuesday (no, seriously): Bidens Got This (and the Nomination), Democrats Look Disastrous, But Biden May Yet Save Them from Themselves Starting in South Carolina, Sandernista Political Terrorism II: Sanders Derangement Syndrome, the Liberal Tea Party, & How Nevada Riot Pretty Much Sums Up Team Bernie, and The Sandernista Political Revolution Handbook: A Matchup Game of Bernie Sanders Talking Points & Those of His Fans/Supporters

WASHINGTON AND ARLINGTONAs I have noted repeatedly before, the lack of self-awareness among Bernie Sanders and his Sandernista would-be-fellow revolutionaries is among the most irritating of their (many) irritating traits. In particular, at this stage in the quest for the Democratic Partys presidential nomination (or, as many Bernie Sanders supporters would think of it, the quest to hijack, destroy internally, and replace the Democratic Party with a democratic socialist party), one thing that strikes me This has been something has long bothered me, but as Bernieworld becomes increasingly unhinged, they act as if they have a monopoly on disappointment, frustration, anger, and rage within the left. They are indignant about how the media, other candidates, and other supporters talk about and frame them and their candidate, yet rarely pause to consider if, let alone acknowledge that, other candidates and their supporters have similar feelings directed at not just the media but back at Bernieworld (and, yes, the other major candidates, from Sen. Elizabeth Warren to former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, have made clear that Bernie bros are in a category all their own on the left). A group that in part lives off of their rage at what they term The Establishment and at any and all criticism directed their wayno matter how smallcannot seem to even fathom that they themselves may also cause offense, be unfair, should adjust how they speak and act towards others. In fact, the mere suggestion of this seems to send them into even more rage, with their best reaction usually righteous indignation.

As is the case regarding so much with Bernie Sanders, his supporters, and Sandersism, there is their talk and then there is the massive gap between talk and reality.

In 2016, his arguments were largely disproven by thedramatic way in which voters rejected their premises, with 3.7+ million more voterspreferring Clinton, and this was with 14 states (28% of all states) holdingcaucuses, undemocraticand unrepresentative abominations that greatly depress turnout and overrepresentthe enthusiastic and those without certain burdens (like having kids). The net political effect of these caucuses wasto dramatically inflate voting margins in Bernies favor, as Sanders blewClinton out of the water in 12 of those 14 caucus states and only lost relativelynarrowly in the other 2. To ram thispoint home, in 2 of these states that Sanders won (Nebraska and Washingtonstate) among the 12 of the caucuses he won, Clinton even won nonbindingprimaries (or normal votes) that had far greater turnout. Sanders, then, would have almost certainlyhave lose some caucus states he won if they were primaries (which happened in2020 with Minnesota and Maine ditching caucuses) and his margin woulddefinitely have been much lower even in the caucus states he won and incaucuses in general. In other words, the3.7-million-vote margin of victory for Clinton would have been significantlylarger with representative primaries and the gap between Clinton and Sanders wouldactually be larger with voters than the numbers we have from 2016 would suggest.

In 2016, Democratic turnout was dramatically lower (30.6 million) than in 2016 (37.1 million). Basically, Hillary Clintonone of the top faces of the Democratic Party for decadessoundly beat Sanders because Democrats liked her for president much more than Bernie, and the idea that brand new voters were going to join the Democratic Party to shift it dramatically to the left into democratic socialist territory, that Bernie was going to be the inspiration for this high turnout and new voters flies in this face of these considerations.. Especially with young people, that turnout did not happen. Instead, Democrats chose a far more traditional candidate (though revolutionary in her identity as far as her being a woman, the first major-party female nominee for president in American history) rather that an insurgent and a campaign that sought to overthrow the system as a whole. Democrats actually like the Democratic Party, and Clinton garnered close over 3.7 million more votes than Sanders even with the caucus factor diluting Clintons margins. So, while as a woman, Clinton could claim something of an outsider status, too, her politics were pretty institutional and mainstream in many ways and especially compared to Sanders. Clinton was also one of the top faces of the Democratic Party for decades and handily outperformed Bernie with Democrats, so the idea that the American left overall hates the Democratic Party, hates its Establishment figures like, say, Hillary, or Barack Obama, or Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or Whip Jim Clyburn, simply has no factual basis. Bernie campaigned against the Democratic Party itself as well as its leaders, but it turns out Democratic voters like them just fine. So the notion that Bernie Sanders himself is somehow going to drive historic turnoutwhen turnout was way down in 2016 from 2008 when when Sanders was one of two major contenders in a race in which Sanders got beat by some 3.7 million votes even with dramatically lower turnoutis patently absurd and has no logical or empirical basis to support it.

For the sake of argument, though, let us even pretend that the exact same arguments were not made in 2016, plainly for all to hear, and that they were not dramatically disproven in a Democratic nomination contest that underrepresented Clintons support in 28% of all state contests that held caucuses. Lets pretend we are in a brave new world (Sanders and his people like to make the claim that the electorate has dramatically changed in just the past few years) and look at how his political performance in contests so far in 2020 matches his claims; lets see how much his bark matches his bite.

Premise/Assumption: People were tired of the Democratic Party and the way it did things. Instead, they would choose a new, revolutionary campaign, one with which they could smash the Establishment.

Reality: There has so far only been one state where Bernie Sanders did not receive fewer votes than more proud-to-be-actual-Democrats Democrats combined: his home state of Vermont, the only state in 2020 thus far where he has received more than 50% of the vote. Despite the narrative that the alt-left progressive non-Democrat leftists would sell, the simple reality is that Democrats overall were happy with a number of candidates in the 2020 field and with the Party overall; Speaker Nancy Pelosi is popular with a vast majority of Democrats, too. Whats better than polls and approval ratings, thought, is votes, and with Sanders receiving less than 30% of the overall vote so far, voters have overwhelming preferred existing Democrats to those who want to smash the Democratic Party. In most states, Sanders has been in 20s, a few in the teens, and some in 30s as far as vote/caucus delegate percent-share, but in no states prior to today besides his home state of Vermont and Nevada has this threshold passed 37%. The American far-left loves Sanders, but, as I have pointed out before, this is a country where only six states have more liberals than conservatives. No, this is not a man building a broad movement that can succeed on a national level, just a fraction of a faction that can disrupt and destabilize the left but has little talent or ability beyond that.

Premise/assumption: Bernie Sanders is a generational transformational figure who will inspire turnout at historic, unprecedented levels; his claim to having this ability is the central premise to his argument of a.) how he can win the nomination, b.) how he can win the general election, and c.) somehow, without ever actually explaining it, how he will govern and how he will get his agenda passed amidst intense opposition (the oft-heard million of people in the streets phrase).

Reality: Even when Bernie won states in this 2020 cycleother than his own state of Vermontloud and proud members of the actual Democratic Party (Bernie is still an independent) got far more votes combined (yes, even in California), often dramatically more votes when combined. Where turnout is increasing, its increasing, generally, in states going strongly for Biden and dramatically so. So Bernie has failed to do the very thing he claimed he, uniquely, could do, while Biden actually did it, not with phantom progressives but with actual suburban swing voters that are the real key to elections. And youth turnout was typically low; there was no #BernieSurge. In every state contest so far, Sanders has received fewer votes (or state delegate percentages) than he did in 2016, and in most cases, the drop has been dramatic. Even in his home state of Vermont, Sander received an over 35% lower portion of the votes (50.7%) than he did in 2016 (86.1%). The truth, then, bears no resemblance whatsoever to the narrative being spun by Sanders and his surrogates for, no matter how you slice or dice it, Bernie Sanders, is less popular and is receiving less support than he was four years ago in every state that has voted thus far.

And there are states Bernie won in 2016Oklahoma, Maine, and Minnesotathat shifted decisively away from him in 2020. In terms of states he lost in 2016, yes, he won Nevada and seems to have won California, but in both those casesas in every case so farhe still performed worse than in 2016, and, in the case of California, significantly worse. In fact, as I noted before, Nevada was also a bit of a red herring in that, since it was a caucus, it overrepresented his support with nonwhites, just as caucuses overrepresent Bernies support in all groups, but the media and, it seems, the Bernie campaign, took the bait and thought Bernie just might have chipped into African-American support enough to topple Biden. In the end, non-caucus South Carolina put that nonsense to rest six feet under and then some.

How can we expect a candidate to mobilize a solid coalition to defeat Trump in November if he cant even get that supposed coalition out to get him the nomination first? How can we expect a candidate who claims to be able to mobilize millions of people in the streets to bring pressure to bear on opponents once he is president if the very people he is talking about stay home when he is in the fight of his life to win the nomination? How can we expect him to win when hes losing support compared to what he had in 2016?

The answer is: we cant.

Polls have been wrong before (but not usually), so Bernie might have a miracle and stay alive in theory (that would be a miracle) or at least in a cosmetic sense. But there are many recent polls that have Bernie being crushed tonight in just about every state or losing narrowly in territory like Washington state that should be favorable to him. And while, yes, the pollsters missed big in Michigan in 2016, theyre at least good enough to be on the lookout to avoid similar mistakes based on the same errors. But the fact is that, just like in 2016, even if Bernie does win Michigan, he still wont turn it around. He will still lose big in other states and the delegate gap for him will only grow; it is just a matter of how quickly that gap will grow.

Once this becomes obvious after tonight, will Bernie lose and bow out gracefully, or will he lose and lead (or at least not try to stop) a Sandernista terrorist insurgency against Biden and the Democratic Party as they try to marshal their strength against Trump? The fate of the general election may hinge on the answer to this question, but if 2016 is any indication, that will be bad news for Democrats, the country, and the world and good news for Trump, Putin, and selfish, nihilist anarchists

Bernie Sanders has fought for justice as he saw it his whole adult life. He has dedicated himself to trying to make the world a better place and fighting for many of the voiceless. He deserves credit for inspiring so many from such an underdog position back in 2015 when he first announced his presidential candidacy. But how you behave in defeat is often a defining aspect of how history passes judgement on your actions and a real revealer of character. Sanders was rightly called out for the way he went about losing in 2016, for dragging his feet and keeping up intense attacks on Clinton and the Democratic Party when it was clear he was not to be the nominee, substantively damaging Clinton in ways that helped Trump win the election, something I warned about throughout the 2016 election. This is truly the moment of truth for Bernie Sanders in twilight of his career. Will he be associated with unproductive, scorched-earth tactics that tore the left apart at the moment when Trump threatened the survival of the American republic as we know it? Or will Bernie understand, and move hard to make his followers understand, that some things are bigger than your movement and your passion?

The formal war is ending, and tonight is almost certainly the last time Sanders can put up any serious resistance in a delegate-rich state. His Waterloo will be Michigan. The only real question is if Sanders surrenders gracefully like General Lee at Appomattox or pulls a Saddam Hussein and allows his forces to melt away in order to mount a vicious guerrilla campaign once the big formal battles are over.

In the interest of full disclosure, Brian interned for Joe Biden from September-December, 2006.He is currently in no way professionally affiliated with the Biden 2020 campaign, nor is receiving any compensation from it nor the Democratic Party nor any related super-PACs, campaigns, or other political groups involved in the 2020 nominating contests and elections.

See related articles: The Best Guide to Super Tuesday (no, seriously): Bidens Got This (and the Nomination), Democrats Look Disastrous, But Biden May Yet Save Them from Themselves Starting in South Carolina, Sandernista Political Terrorism II: Sanders Derangement Syndrome, the Liberal Tea Party, & How Nevada Riot Pretty Much Sums Up Team Bernie, and The Sandernista Political Revolution Handbook: A Matchup Game of Bernie Sanders Talking Points & Those of His Fans/Supporters

2020 Brian E. Frydenborg all rights reserved, permission required for republication, attributed quotations welcome

Brian E. Frydenborg is an American freelance writer, academic, and consultant from the New York City area.You can follow and contact him on Twitter:@bfry1981. He also just recently authoredA Song of Gas and Politics: How UkraineIs at the Centerof Trump-Russia.

If you appreciate Brians unique content,you can support him and his work bydonating hereand, of course, please share the hell out of this article!!

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The Death Throes of the Failed Sandernista Revolution - Real Context News

Netflix trialling 2.99 cheapest ever plan but it only works on smartphones or tablets – The Sun

NETFLIX is reportedly testing out its cheapest price plan to date.

The only catch of the impressive deal is that it's just for smartphones and tablets so you wouldn't be able to use the plan on your laptop or TV.

2

According to reports, the package would likely cost around 2.99 a month if it came to the UK.

In comparison, the current Basic UK package costs 5.99 a month.

The Standard packaged is even more expensive again, now costing users a monthly fee of 8.99.

It's thought that the new plan could be targeting children or commuters who won't be siting in front of the TV when they watch popular Netflix shows like Stranger Things.

Netflix was trialling its cheapest plan in Malaysia, India and Indonesia by the end of last year.

We don't yet know if an equivalent plan will be coming to the US or UK but it may depend on the success of current trials.

Michael Pachter of investment firm Wedbush Securities told us: "They have a plan in India and announced two quarters ago that they would roll it out in regions with poor home Internet infrastructure, so I presume they meant Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, parts of South America, etc.

"I think its highly unlikely they would make those available in the US or UK, because we would merely switch to the lower priced plan and use Apple TV to show the programming on our home televisions."

Netflix said in a letter to shareholders: "In Q4, we launched a mobile-only plan in Malaysia and Indonesia (which we introduced to India in Q3 last year).

"Weve seen similar results with this plan driving incremental subscriber growth and improving retention.

"We expect the mobile-only plan to be revenue-positive which will allow us to further invest in content to be enjoyed by our members and continue to feed the virtuous cycle.

"We plan to continue to test adding this plan, as well as additional ideas in other countries around the world."

The cheap price may seem amazing but prospective customers also need to bear in mind that the plan also only offers standard definition viewing.

PP Foresight tech analyst Paolo Pescatore told us:"Despite all the euphoria around a mobile first strategy, you cant beat watching great storytelling on the TV.

"The move would make perfect sense in new emerging markets where people do not have a TV and rely on a mobile phone."

Use Netflix on a computer or laptop? Try these useful shortcuts

Here are some handy keyboard shortcuts...

SPACED OUT Mysterious object 500million light years away sends signals that hit Earth

FRESH APPLE Cheapest iPhone in years at just 399 'coming next month', insiders claim

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HELL'S SHELLS 'Mega turtles' TWICE as big as humans dating back 5million years found

In other news, Netflix has revealed which films it was told to remove from its library due to complaints from governments.

The streaming platform is finally giving you the option to stop TV show or movie trailers from automatically playing.

And, the BBC may give ever licence fee payera free TV streaming stick "to combat Netflix".

What's your favourite streaming service? Let us know in the comments...

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

Continued here:

Netflix trialling 2.99 cheapest ever plan but it only works on smartphones or tablets - The Sun