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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Annie, my dog and proof-reader, missed another one. "throne" not "thrown."

I'm sure there's many more Annie missed with this long story.

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wilson's avatar

Is Annie a Border Collie ? If she is a Border Collie that would surprise me. Maggie, our Border Collie, would never make that mistake.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Cutting Room Floor Text # 2:

A sample of how much different Substack authors are making from their newsletters:

Jim Acosta - $80/year or $8/month

Paul Krugman - $70/year or $7/month

Robert Reich - $50/year or $5/month

The Contrarian - $70/year or $7/month

Heather Cox Richardson - $50/year or $5/month

Katelyn Jetilina (Your local epidemiologist) - $50/year or $5/month

The Free Press - $80/year or $8/month

Alex Berenson - $60/year or $6/month (Alex is currently offering discounted subs)

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The Memory Department's avatar

Of note, Jeff Childers charges $500/yr or $50/mo. I absolutely adore that man, look forward to his newsletter every day except Sunday (since I'm an unpaid subscriber I miss out on Sunday).

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annademo's avatar

I can't afford that rate but I do make it a point to send a donation to him every year. It's not $500 but it's not chump change. either...

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Fred Richmond's avatar

The first 6 not worth the energy to pixel their tripe.

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SaHiB's avatar

I dumped Alex Berenson when he went full-bore kill all the Russians.

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annademo's avatar

I did so when he went anti-ivermectin.

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SaHiB's avatar

He did that, too? Before, or after, the SMO?

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annademo's avatar

I don't remember when but as I recall, it was a podcast and he was criticizing Dr. Malone and saying negative things about ivermectin.

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Hesperado's avatar

I got fed up with Alex long ago -- when I began to notice he was talking out of two sides of his gob about Covid, effectively motivated by an anxiety not to be one of those "kooky conspiracy theorists". This began as early as 2020, and I ended up writing a lot of critical posting on my blog The Daily Decaf about it -- example:

https://thedailyjihadwatchcafe.blogspot.com/2020/10/

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John Sutton's avatar

I dumped him IMMEDIATELY when he openly mocked a seriously vax injured nurse who shared her story on X. The guy is a pig.

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Science is Political 2.0's avatar

I didn't know that.

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Boris Doyle's avatar

It just shows to me that anti-Trump AI writing pays well

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Samwise's avatar

If Richardson doesn’t auto-generate her stories somehow, she has certainly has it down to a precise formula: regurgitate and paraphrase the main MSM talking points of the day, and then load up an extra dose of TDS. Over and over.

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FoxyHeterodoxy (Debra C)'s avatar

So many of my friends take her seriously, but most sources she cite are dubious MSM players like NYT, WaPo, The Guardian and Politico. Her sources are why I cannot take her too seriously—though she is clearly a formidable player.

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Boris Doyle's avatar

Have a read of my ficticious stories.

None are AI written

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Samwise's avatar

I will check them out!

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Science is Political 2.0's avatar

LOL. well I need to go.. I was not even aware of many issues.. I jut hang around my little space on line. I should review my subscriptions and will.. my son is coming over now. and Time W/ HIM IS MORE IMPORTANT TO ME then a couple bucks on line.. not that I am not a good steward will check it out when I get time: the most precious commodity we have.

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Boris Doyle's avatar

A winning formula

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Samwise's avatar

If I had no self respect I’d try to hop aboard the gravy train by starting a TDS newsletter myself.

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Boris Doyle's avatar

Just write some shit, mention Trump's name and how awful he is.

Money flows in

Then at the end of his four years thank all the lefties for funding your lifestyle.

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Sumotoad's avatar

I recall a certain journalist from Alabama (Roll Tide) who said flat out “All media are captured”. Substack’s behavior is in line with that statement. The writers aren’t real, the subscribers aren’t real— it’s just another money laundry for those who obey. You do you, Bill. I’m sticking with you.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

I'm glad my constant reptition of that maxim ("All important truth-seeking organizations are completely captured") has stuck with some of my readers!

Et tu, Substack?

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Sumotoad's avatar

I’m just here to watch the show. Not a content creator at all, just a beat-up pharmacist who has been telling anyone who’ll listen to Keep Calm and Wash Your Hands

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Craig's avatar

Totally agree--these numbers aren't real. But the throttling of smaller accounts might be.

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SteelJ's avatar

I find these numbers fishy too. Viewership of legacy and left-leaning media has been tanking for a good while. Liberal talk radio has never gotten any listeners. But the very same propagandists get on substack and the audience goes through the roof? Does not compute. I agree, the subscriptions might be real (or not), but the subscribers are not.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Rtr.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

First piece of cutting room floor text:

From a story on Jim Acosta coming to Substack, I pasted this tidbit. This is when Substack seems to have gone hard for the TDS market:

"Substack says it had its biggest week during the 2024 presidential election, with an 82 percent (increase) in paid subscriptions and a 25 percent increase in app activity. All of that was by design."

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whiskeys's avatar

Hmmmm....could you talk about Real ID and why it's wrong (biometrics!), and possibly unconstituional (Ihre papieren, bitte?), and why Trump is a globalist, he just sells it better,

Hey, it's just a thought!

I do hope things get better, you deserve it, Bill.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Yes I need to do something on real id … Tx for the support!

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Messenger17's avatar

They are NOT liberal, in any genuine sense. They are leftist totalitarians: more akin to Castro than RFK Jr, his dad and uncle, and our nation's very founders, all shining examples of authentic liberalism.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Good point. Thanks. Some of the fiercest and most effective "Covid contrarians" are people who self-identified, and maybe still do, as "classical liberals."

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Reader East of Albuquerque's avatar

Yep, "liberal" can mean wildly different things to different people. As far as I could tell, for my dad, "liberal" meant wussy namby-pamby milquetoast commie busy-body anti-American idiots [and go ahead, if you've got 'em handy, insert a couple more nasty adjectives]. LOL that was back a while now. He didn't make it to covid times.

For me, when I hear / read the word "liberal" I try to understand what the person using the word actually means. So Bill, I get you— or at least, I think I do.

When I use the word "liberal" myself I'd be talking about authentic liberalism— and specifically, the second definition of the noun "liberal" in Webster's:

"2— a supporter of a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise: classical liberals emphasized the right of the individual to make decisions, even if the results dismayed their neighbors or injured themselves."

However, I rarely find myself speaking to someone to would understand "liberal" that way, so generally speaking, I stay away from using the word "liberal" at all.

Most of the people I once knew as authentic liberals as per 2nd definition of the noun have turned into TDS spewing fascists. And they're so out of their minds, they imagine that I agree with them.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

I also use “narrative protectors” and “globalists” or “statists””.”

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wilson's avatar

the left has somehow co opted the term liberal. They are as far from Jeffersonian liberalism as possible. They are like pol pot, marx, lenin and stalin claiming to be liberals.

leftists are definitely not about individual rights, civil liberties and free enterprise. They are the hivemind and will kill you if you disagree with them.

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Messenger17's avatar

Extreme solipsism is another characteristic I've observed in the left, even prior to COVID. Same with the term "progressive". I consider myself authentically pprogressive, and regard that sort of staism anything but.

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Usamnesia's avatar

This is so on point! Just know at the end of the day the overlords are playing us so well. Just keep moving the sheep from one fear pasture to another

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SaHiB's avatar

Abe Lincoln was an extreme statist totalitarian.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

Don't tell anyone. I still think the Southern states should have been able to secede if they wanted to.

I guess the lesson is you can check-in, but you can never check-out.

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Fred Jewett's avatar

Margaret Thatcher famously quipped "You can vote in socialism but you have to SHOOT your way out!"

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wilson's avatar

the original states that signed the Constitution, all had clauses in their own constitutions that reserved the right to secede from the union. Or at least some did IIRC

When Texas became a state they also had a provision in the state constitution that reserved the right to secede.

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Messenger17's avatar

There were no idications the Union would have went to war, had the Confederacy not attacked first.

For their part, the Confederacy would have been wise to have thanked the US for defeding the coastline at their own expense; and likewise, the Unisaid: here, defend your own coast, we'll give you this fort for free, to arm and defend as you please. Ah, the deadly sin of pride.

Had the Confederacy and Union not gone to war, it is interesting to contemplate how long slavery would have persisted after being outlawed, at least in terms of the letter of the law, everywhere else in the "western" world.

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SaHiB's avatar

Extorting tribute is an attack.

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Messenger17's avatar

I haven't the time to waste arguing with oine who is so wed to their point iof view they resort to firehosing. That's what leftist vax apologists do. Adios, and please chill a bit.

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SaHiB's avatar

Back atcha. I suggest you take your own advice. Enjoy your Lincoln Day Dinner!

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Messenger17's avatar

OK, I edited Lincoln out to sparpen the point, and grant he did *a few* totalitatrian things such as suspending habeous corpus for some during the war. But his overaching point of view was a then very liberal position, emphasizing opportunity for all. Opposition to slavery was a very liberal notion at the time in the US, so much that Lincoln tread very carefully in his steps and did not present himself as an abolitionist, that being so fringe when he was first elected.

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SaHiB's avatar

Why he tried to preserve slavery forever inviolate.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

I'm not sure why I went ahead and published this story. Since I published my last story on Substack, I lost four paid subscribers (four in 24 hours actually).

I'd been averaging about 4,500 "page views" with articles. The story on Substack's founders was only read by 3,700 people. And it was largely a nice story about those guys. I think some of my Reader Comments might not have gone over well with anyone monitoring my site.

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Cheryl's avatar

I can’t help but wonder if Substack is allowing itself to be used as an Act-Blue-style money laundering operation. It would be interesting (but probably impossible) to know about all of these new subscribers.

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New Scott's avatar

Surely Substack gets a percentage of every paid subscriber, however small. Sort of a”you can do your laundry here” while holding out their hand.

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Nicole Hansen's avatar

CNN did better when Trump was President and their ratings fell when he was out of office. I think people who have an ax to grind about Trump want a place to commiserate and these new liberal Substack authors offers them that.

It was the same for us when the left was forcing closures and terrible vaccines on people, we found our support group here on Substack.

That season is fading away as we are no longer held in bondage by bad government decisions and people are on to the next thing.

There is still a place for people to consider thinking about the shots and their ramifications especially when new studies come out but it's not in the forefront of their minds like before.

Also Twittter opened up again for free speech so many people have gone back there since the reach can be further. Some of the left have departed Twitter in defiance of Elon Musk and so they could be finding a home on Substack just like we did when we were kicked off for opposing views . (Good for Substack to have all the contrarians on one side or the other.)

People on the left tend to pay more with their finances--as politics are their god. They don't seem to have churches to tithe to. It is possible that some of these people are also have benefactors who are raising up their subscriber levels.

I think you will need a new thing too, something that is on the forefront of people's minds. Alex Berenson has added entertaining articles about politics and current events to keep things interesting. That might be an idea for you but you also have local events that people in your community are interested in that might fit your strengths as well.

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Swinking's avatar

Twitter is not a free speech platform. That is a false hood pushed by Elon's PR machine. I wrote one tweet ( lightly critising X/Twitter's censorship policy "freedom of speech not freedom of reach") and was banned. One flimsy tweet. Pretty telling if you ask me. I use the TDS term (Trump Derangement Syndrome for anyone whose been living under a quarry) to describe both the (il)liberal Trump haters as well as those who believe Trump is saving the US (and the world) from the NWO / OWG hell machine when in reality he is carrying out his role of destroying the US and building at speed the elite's long-awaited New World Order technocratic stranglehold with far greater focus and efficiency than his predecessor/ frenemy's administration could dream of as that admin. was too addled and atomised to tackle the trickier barriers to imposing this worst possible dystopian nightmare on We, The People. There are no good guys in the top job.

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Dave Scrimshaw's avatar

Because...many of us who opine (you can call it writing if you wish) are followers of Christ - and this world is not friendly to such as myself. Also, conservatism implies you are trying to "conserve" or hold onto an idea (most likely related to serving the Most High) and that makes "conservative" anything suspect.

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Michael Swartz's avatar

"Democrat stenographer Heather Cox Richardson." FIFY.

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KD's avatar

I guess the strategy changed from trying to shut down Substack to flooding it with the opposite information.

This is a common tactic, if you can't hide the truth, then bury it in a bunch of nonsense. They do the same to YouTube, articles, books, etc. Seems to always work, since the average person seems to be not capable of distinguishing between the real and the fabricated information.

I'm also not surprised about these subscriber numbers. Those contrarian folks don't have a mind on their own. They have to go to a central place to "download" their instructions about what to think, what to say, what not to say and how to act.

These folks remind me of the robots in the movie iRobot with Will Smith. If you have not seen the movie, I highly recommend it.

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ArnoldF's avatar

Both side are in hardened positions. Honestly fear for the long-term trajectory of the nation—a truncated nation can only hang on together so long before being totally split into warring pieces. Look at the historic Hebrew Israel being split apart. At times they were barely functional together as a nation and wound up fighting each other in near civil wars several times until their exile. God did restore them though.

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CherylBray's avatar

As others have mentioned, those newer subscription numbers may not be organic. Polls and votes were manipulated. Why not subscriptions?

A reference point that sounds crazy but is indicative of what can be done today.

There is a new biometric tracking health start up out of Silicon Valley. I won’t mention their name but the founder and board members are very well known.

The business model is subscription like Substack. There is a $400 start up fee with $199/mos subscription. The company revenues were fairly flat for years but then suddenly over a short period of, increased a lot.

It was just reported that a high percentage (maybe 80%) of the new membership numbers are out of Mexico. Not impossible but certainly very unlikely for this type of business. It is certainly suspicious.

Can bot farms buy subscriptions? Can Act Blue make it look like people are donating to certain candidates when they are not?

Although the party out of office generally experiences more media growth as the opposition party, we also have confirmed information that the Democratic Party is losing strength, not gaining.

It would require technical forensic analysis to discover what is really going on. Apparently finding out the geographical location of emails coming from concentrated locations can indicate the presence of bot farms.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

I think something like this could be going on. It's boosting the numbers (and perhaps income) of those who are playing ball and suppressing the reach and income of those who might be perceived as a threat or whose writing is hitting too close to some vulnerable targets.

Why wouldn't they do this? Do we think they are too morally upstanding to refrain from launching or engaging in such operations?

We should never underestimate how ruthless and crooked these people and organizations might be.

FWIW, they have everything to lose if they don't block or suppress the influence of the people who are onto them.

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CherylBray's avatar

Precisely. Given what we know they have done in the past, what makes us think they’re stopping now?

Of course they’re adapting and fighting back, always trying to make their agenda appear organic via paid protesters, inaccurate polls and MSM articles, bizarre Act Blue donations.

Manipulating Sub-stack subscriptions is right out of their play book.

You may want to write a Substack chain post on X and see if you get info or support. No accusations, just Socratic questions. Perhaps one of Elons tech guys (given his interest in Substack) OR Data Republican might be able to research this further.

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Bill Rice, Jr.'s avatar

I don't have any presence on X and when I did once make a few tweets, nobody saw them or responded to them. I don't think I knew how to build or leverage that audience. I also don't use Substack's "Notes," which I need to learn to do.

"Manipulating Sub-stack subscriptions is right out of their play book."

Triple Bingo on that observation, Cheryl.

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CherylBray's avatar

Ok then go ahead and do it here on Substack using Notes.

Very simple to do. Just make a new more concise, edited post highlighting the imbalance in the new subscriber data, pose several reasons why this might occur, then check the box, add to notes. Tag the Substack authors most likely to be interested in this topic.

Or you can also just use the posts you’ve already written and select “add to Notes”. You can link to longer posts inside a shorter notes post.

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Anna Marie's avatar

Keep keepin' on, Bill Rice Jr.

I'm sure the leftists cheat at everything, including using AI to boost likes & subscribers, paid or not.

Not everyone is seeking the truth. But the truth is no less prized in the final outcome.

Many like myself cannot afford to pay for every article so worth reading. I hope others who are able, will become paid subscribers for you & other honest writers.

No matter the numbers or how dominant the left appears to be in these times, they don't win in the end. God will have the last word. The majority in this world is running for the wide gate. Everyone has to choose for themselves. Fret not for the "success" of evildoers. It will be short lived.

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wilson's avatar

substack is no different than anything else of value, whatever the communists can corrupt and capture they will do that.

In this case they are trying to turn substack into a propaganda organ.

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whiskeys's avatar

Because goodness knows, we don't have enough propaganda!

Why? Will anyone tell me why?

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wilson's avatar

are you asking why is there propaganda?

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whiskeys's avatar

Ummm...because it makes the wrong people powerful? And tries to make us think it's right and do what they want? Cf, covid?

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wilson's avatar

compare to covid. You can move the masses in any direction you want.

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Buffalo_Ken's avatar

Oh well if so tis just the beginning of the demise of Substack - but it still have some honeycombs of value and will for awhile - then transition to the next "up and coming" place after getting "let down by substack....becoming subsumed....to mam??? Who knows - who cares - lemming fall of cliffs!

~

Regards,

BK

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