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Brilliant how Heather pulled together the threads of seemingly independent stories. Oh how I wish more people read her. Even more, I wish she was on tv, or at the very least, the talking heads followed her lead. No wonder Biden doesn’t do well in the polls-- they never focus on his accomplishments and all he’s done to help average Americans. Instead, they talk about trump, MTG, et al. They continuously miss what’s important and I can no longer watch them.

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I've stopped watching too and rely on my favorite sub stack writers, WAPO , NPR and The Atlantic for my news. The final draw for me was when the cable news shows reported on the NRA convention and neglected to point out that there were no guns, backpacks or umbrellas allowed. Such hypocrisy needed to be pointed out and they all failed to do so. Heather is amazing.

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Exactly me, but I throw in BBC, Al Jazeera & Der Spiegel! No broadcast news whatsoever except in extreme circumstances (local disaster or triumph.)

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Actually, along with the above-mentioned news sources, I watch "Morning Joe" and "Deadline White House," at some point in the day, and they were clear about the raw and outrageous hypocrisy of the NRA's refusal to allow guns while setting up metal detectors throughout the conference. Reminds me of MAD Magazine: What, Me Worry?

Let's all think hard about what that says about the "gun laws" lobbying forces...and what it felt like, hearing Kristi Noem proudly share the story about her 2-year-old granddaughter's ownership of a rifle and some other weapon. The word "outrageous" doesn't cover it. The case for strong, very strong, gun laws grows exponentially. And the children shall lead us, unless Cleta Mitchell gets his way.

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I agree re the hypocrisy. (For clarity-Cleta is a female-you used the term"his".)

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Yikes! Thanks for correction, Barbara.

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And NPR, The New Republic, Talking Points Memo, the Intercept, the LA Times. I don't watch news on TV. Ugh, never.

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Ooh Thanks for reminding me; I’ve been wanting to do Talking Points for a while!

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And The Economist.

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And The Guardian...they provide another perspective and Margaret Sullivan writes periodic opinion pieces for them that are quite good. I hadn't thought about this shift in my information gathering methods, but it's true. Sadly, the Buffalo News is way down on the list, as well.

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I came here to add The Guardian. Thanks! :)

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Yes, I know someone who writes for it in the UK!

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Perhaps part of the NRA's price of admission was that the talking heads explicitly not say anything about guns not being allowed at the convention. Otherwise they won't be allowed in next time.

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Supreme Court allows no guns as well.

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Or Congress.

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Um, since the GOP took the House and immediately removed the metal detectors, it's possible, even likely that some of the fascist GOP reps are actually armed while on the house floor.

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A given

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They did that ?? Egads!

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Check out Pro Publica for top tier investigative journalism.

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Yes!

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I am finding that I really enjoy the Atlantic and eagerly await the daily arrival in my email. We do watch the local news and usually the NBC national news, but that's it. The rag here belongs to Gannett, but there are now some other sources for local news online. My am starts with Heather and all you good people posting. Fairly free of trolls too and when they show up, I ignore them. I have also gained a Facebook friend here who lives in Eugene and I enjoy her perspective. And I have exchanged a few emails with someone in the Boston area. I also read voraciously, my current book being God: an anatomy. Just started it and have already learned a lot about the ancient Levant.

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Like Heather, The Atlantic is indispensable.

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I like Substack, too, for its thoughtful community and its civility. Hooray!

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I’ll throw in ProPublica

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MSNBC reported that about the NRA convention.

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To me that fact is an acknowledgment of how unstable they consider gun owners to be. Talk about self condemnation!

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We can share her far and wide! She has at least two thousand followers! With a note to pay for the piece to read and comment on others views. We can be an army HERE!

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I frequently share her posts on Facebook. The more social media sites she's shared on the better.

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I share Dr. R’s letters on Facebook every single day.

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Me too. Add a bit of my own intro to pique interest

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Me too and I have people reading here and quoting her and passing the letter on to their friends.

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So do I.

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A quick Google search suggests she has about 350,000 substack followers, 1.4 million facebook followers, and 385,000 twitter followers. Many of us forward her messages, so the 'actual' numbers are considerably higher....

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So sorry; I got so excited, actually forgot my “likes” were always way over a million so excuse undercount please.

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Her subscribers far exceeds two thousand!

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Hey Jim,

Here's some math. According to Wiki, Heather may see an annual cash flow of roughly $1 million. That's two years ago. Which equals 20,000 paid subscribers + who knows how many who read her for free. I am going to take a wild (very wild) guess and suggest that her LFAA reaches well over 100,000 people a day.

Wiki:

"The newsletter became popular because of her calm voice, with straightforward explanations of the news of the day. As of December 2020, Richardson was "the most successful individual author of a paid publication on ... Substack" and on track to bring in a million dollars of revenue a year."

Of course, her wisdom and assessments are worth every penny she earns. More people should read her than watch MSM tools like Jake Tapper and Leslie Stahl.

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Top 10 substackers average $2M/year. $2M/($60) = 33,000 paid subscribers. She is #1 of those 10 so presumably makes more than $2M and has more than 33,000 paid subscribers. And many times more than that unsubscribed readers. More power to her.

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Go, Heather, go! also...GO! FIGHT! WIN! She is doing more to actually save our democracy by sharing her understanding of American history woven together with her vast knowlege of current events, and presented through impeccable writing. I give myself the gift of reading Dr. Richardson's LFAA first thing every morning. Then I share with friends, best gift ever.

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I'm happy to be one who is subscribed.

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She is right there on the top of my list but I've been listening to Thom Hartman for twenty years and watching him on Free Speech TV for several years. They both are the greatest.

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I just started getting Hartmann's newsletter. Powerful stuff!

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Compare that to the legions who watch Fox’s ‘Ministry of Propaganda” blather. Sanity is outgunned

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I share her posts on Facebook. The data shows she has more followers than you think!

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I share many of her posts on FB. Most of my FB friends are 10 or more years younger than I am, though, and sometimes I think they regard me like the Simpson's "old man yells at cloud" newspaper headline. :D

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over two years ago she had 350,000(!!) subscribers to this newsletter... I wonder how many she has now?!!

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Thankfully way more than 2k!

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That's because broadcast media in the US has become entertainment - or at the very least, it chases audiences by any means - and outrage sells a lot better than praise. Sad human trait, isn't it?

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After an hour on media, especially on video, it's hard to remember that most events of the day are mundane, and the reasons for most events are commonly boring and prosaic. And I've come to appreciate boredom like a oenologist savors wine.

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Much of the local broadcast news seems to be based on police radio calls. So many cuts to investigative journalism staff that it often appears stations just have one person follow the police radio and send a camera to the scene. They are ambulance chasers, tallying the day’s destruction. Just what we need.

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The truthful alternative to "Fox News".... Cox News. We all need this!

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Perfect!

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I like it!!

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May I use this when I post Heather's posts to my FB page, please?

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Please, please spread the word!

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Robert B. Hubbell reminds that we must not be complacent and to be vigilant and be positive. HCR reminds us to be vigilant and be hopeful as well. Thank you!

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Show those pictures to the executives of gun manufacturers!

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Show the pictures to all the legislators taking campaign funds from the nra and all the other weapons manufactures proxies!

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Tell them you can no longer watch them, and why.

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I can no longer watch them…indeed. The MSM, with few exceptions, has failed the country…

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They sure have. They didn’t learn from 2016.

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OMG, I've found my people in this comment thread. Wow!! It's SO good to know there are so many like-minded intelligent people here. As I read the threaded comments, it just kept getting better and better. You all just made my week!! Thank you.

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Trump v Biden, Biden wins again. I don't put much faith in those polls, have any of you readers of this substance been polled in the last 10 yrs?

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Polls tell us nothing. I was polled long ago and all of my answers were the same: “Because of the way you worded the question, if I answer yes I’m not giving you the truth and if I answer no I’m also not giving you the truth.” The pollster hung up on me.

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HCR writes hopefully of a new shift toward transparency and accountability. RFK, Jr.'s recent speech announcing his candidacy in opposition to Deep State Swamp Creature Joe Biden comes to mind.

Will this new shift extend toward examination of the evidence that Joe Biden stole the 2020 Democratic nomination from Bernie Sanders? The evidence consists, among other things, of a pattern of discrepancies between the official primary results and the exit polls, with the Massachusetts primary being the most egregious example.

There is a lot of behind-the-scenes evidence regarding the general topic of computerized election fraud in the U.S.A. A good place to start is the book "Votescam: The Stealing of America" from the 1990s, part of which is free here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=ZxpZCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT9&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

And then there was Bush v. Gore and the 2000 Florida election meltdown. That brought us the investigative reporting of British journalist Greg Palast:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/events/newsnight/1174115.stm

Of course Florida wasn't about computerized vote fraud, but it shoved the general issue of vote fraud in our faces.

And in 2004 we were introduced to the notorious oh-so-easily-hackable Republican Diebold voting machines:

https://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-spectre-still-haunts-ohio-elections

And see also:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2549684/back-door-flaws-found-in-diebold-e-voting-machines.html

And back then was when "Black Box Voting" was active. They're still around:

https://blackboxvoting.org/

Back then, it was always the Republicans who were being accused of computerized election fraud. One cliche was "Stay up at night past bedtime and wait for the computers reporting the results to crash, and then see how the numbers change."

In the 2008 Democratic primary season, I did just that. (I voted for Hillary in the primary, and for Obama in the general election.) It was the North Carolina primary, and it was a do-or-die moment for Hillary's campaign. The voting results started coming in, and it was close. And then, around 11:00 p.m., an announcement: The computers crashed and there wouldn't be any more updates for the time being. I smelled a big fat rat, and decided to stay up way past my bedtime to witness what happened.

It must have been around 3:00 in the morning when there was finally an update: Hillary's total was unchanged, but there was a big jump in Obama's total, putting the election out of reach for Hillary.

For a couple days, there was some speculation that Hillary was going to challenge the result, but she didn't, and the North Carolina Attorney General became the next governor, and North Carolina was chosen to host the next Democratic convention, thank you, thank you.

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I can see that you seem to be anxious for responses to your post this morning (since you have posted this same piece at least three times - see below).

Overall, yes, we have many, many issues with the voting process in this country. “Somebody stealing an election from somebody else” is just one issue.

Yes, everybody wants to WIN (and wants THEIR candidate to win.). Nobody likes to lose. It’s as much an “ego thing” as it is an ideological thing. Nobody likes or wants to be WRONG.

YES, there are “computer glitches” - real and “manmade.”

Am I surprised that there might be differences between “Exit Polls” and the Final Results or even Phone Surveys? NO!! C’mon, Jack….

Here is a list of Disturbing Things about voting in the US of A:

1.) Lack of Participation. Lordy, even in a Presidential Election, it is supposedly SURPRISING that 62% of the voting age population voted in 2020.

2.) Voting Rules and Procedures (eligibility, access, registration, methods, etc.) vary not only from state to state but also county to county. I recently moved and registered to vote at my new address only to discover (because of a jury summons) that I was still registered to vote at my old address and that it was MY RESPONSIBILITY to call my old county to have them remove me from the rolls. SAME STATE, no less. What? We can’t link up our computer systems?

3.) Election Day, Polling Places, Long Lines, I GOTTA GET TO WORK….

We can do better than this. Other countries have figured it out, but the Mass Confusion must be beneficial to some folks, huh?

And, I must tell you that I have a very busy day today, so if you respond to me and expect an immediate answer, it ain’t gonna happen.

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Paul, perhaps you make a point of scrolling through all the posts that everybody makes. There is no reason to think that everybody does the same. I replied with the same post to two or three different people, each of whom might not see my other posts. I saw fit to do that, and you are welcome to either respond to the content of what I posted (as you did) or leave me alone.

Regarding your response, it seems like a pooh-pooh dismissal of the problem of computer vote theft.

I hope that you are not a paid Biden shill. At least you don't come across as a Biden troll, unlike a few others around here.

p.s. I dont't expect or hope for a reply.

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John, I suggest you start your own Substack.

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HCR does an excellent job of massaging talking points. The place to counter the rampant dishonesty around here is ... right here.

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Yup, John, stay right here with HCR and her readers and continue to share your point-of-view. Questioning whether individuals are “paid Biden shills” and/or “Biden trolls” is not, however, a positive sign that you are sincerely wishing to discuss matters of importance to our Nation. In my response comment, I have tried to point out our places of agreement: Neither of us wants to live in a Nation that tolerates Voter Fraud. Both of us want a system of elections that are fair and available to EVERY eligible voter - that no citizen’s vote is stolen or denied. Correct?

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Nope, on the contrary, John, I believe every possible case of voter fraud should be thoroughly investigated and adjudicated as was done after the 2020 Presidential election. That should give us all a sense of security that voter fraud can be eliminated. That charges of election fraud are taken seriously is very important for a democracy. And I am glad that ex-President Trump was able to use the legal system that provided fair and open (transparent) access and decisions, which were made available to all Americans.

I’m less inclined to keep harping about elections that took place 10, 20, 30 years ago. Those candidates had the same court system in place to adjudicate their cases. If any particular candidate did not ask the courts to look into the matters you are bringing up - OK.

Trump brought over 60 suits to the court system and lost. So be it.

I’m sorry that you have seemed to interpret my original comments as “poo-pooing” voter fraud. That is very, very far from my view of this nation and of elections in general.

I’m sure that once you read this you will concur and will understand how united we are on this issue. See ya around, John.

(Yes, this has been a long day for this 77 year old dude. I’m helping my elderly sister pack up her house so she can move to a senior living facility.)

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John, to explain in detail the depths of your bullpucky:

Biden didn’t steal the 2020 nomination from Bernie. Biden beat Bernie fair and square.

James Collier, author of the Votescam book you reference, also wrote that the moon landing was a hoax.

Kerry lost Ohio legitimately. No voting machine hacking involved. It’s another conspiracy theory that won’t die.

Obama’s primary victory over Hillary in North Carolina was similarly legitimate, driven by Black voter turnout.

I’m not sure what your aim is - create fear and doubt by spreading unfounded conspiracies it seems. You seem cut from the same cloth as Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.

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Exactly! Saying so with solid evidence does make it true. Which you need to do.

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Others can think for themselves. But you're the kind of guy who makes people want to say things they know that others will agree with.

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Not YOU again!

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Report him (…report comment).

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I do..and have.

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We are still watching evening news (less and less) more as a comparison of what we know to be happening against what story is being told. We have a friend who who quit watching years ago and her mantra has been, "if it winds you up, but you have no to-do list when it's over, don't watch." There's wisdom in that approach, but it's also helpful for me to know not just what's happening, but how it's being messaged. My mom and I willl both watch a congressional hearing, compare notes, and come up with similar opinions. Then we part company, she watches her Fox heads, and the next day her impression of what happened is different. I first noticed this several years ago and it has been meaningful to me to help anchor the conversation. "What changed, Ma? Remember when we talked about this yesterday and had agreement?" It's been helpful. I am SO FRUSTRATED that Fox will not be forced to correct the record/ issue a retraction. Their viewers do not know that Fox Corp just, essentially, pled guilty to lying to them.

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I no longer watch TV, especially not cable "news."

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Narrative trumps evidence.

Perhaps a revival of muckraking will again reverse this. 🙏🏻

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Thank you, Ginni. I feel the same!

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??? Just watched some of Morning Joe this morning. They routinely identify the accomplishments of the Biden administration. They are however preaching to the choir.

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