I know people are going to accuse me of “milking” what is now, amazingly, Day Five of this insane Jim Acosta / Substack Brawl journo-fracas, but if Jim is going to hop on his little video stream with the “gaslighting” queen herself, Tara Palmeri, and unleash a tornado of utter bullshit about me, I’m sorry, but I am journalistically and patriotically obliged to respond!
During the Salem Witch Trials, Thomas Brattle was the one who basically pushed back and said: "Hey, maybe this is all a bunch of bullshit?!" I really do think Epstein was just a man who liked to be touched by attractive young women (don't we all) who owned high-end resorts. And this whole thing just snowballed from greed, antisemitism, and hysteria. You're doing what's right, Michael.
Epstein was a sleaze who was running a notorious party and drug house for young women, and those young women were increasingly recruiting their minor friends to party there and probably fuck Epstein for the collective benefit of the girls
Epstein was probably doing literally nothing to prohibit minors from his houses
It’s really not inconceivable that Epstein had sex with minors without particularly targeting or trafficking them in any coherent sense, but we just really don’t know
Agreed except the drugs. Epstein was known to be harshly anti-drug, to the point he allegedly kicked women out for getting high. Also probably to maintain the impression that nobody was coerced into doing anything they didn't want to, and testimony from witnesses in his 2006 case reinforces this.
He had a variety of women come over, the ones who were under 18 he probably did know, if not right away he found out eventually.
May very well be - Palm Beach parents were complaining to police that their girls were accessing drugs at his house, though, but maybe they brought their own
My sister in a single parent, caring for two teen girls, while working full time as special ed teacher. One girl is in care. She had previously lived on the streets, where she engaged in a range of adult adjacent activities. She fled home to escape non SA related abuse.
Now that she's in a safe environment; her whereabouts continually monitored. Caregivers must adequately supervise kids & even teens. Some parents aren't able to provide this, so alternatives must be sought - quickly. In the right environment, this formerly abused teen has learned a love of the library, amateur theatre & other pro social activities. There's still a rocky road ahead for her...she cried the other day saying " I realise my mum never really loved me". This takes years to come to terms with. Maybe mum did love her but due to her own unresolved trauma, poverty & DV, she can't parent.
Research indicates that girls are more deeply impacted by family dysfunction, perhaps due to female relationality. Negative home life for girls, is a well established pathway to crime. I want feminism that cares about complexity, not just bad actors.
It's been a journey watching you and Matt Tiabbi (a great pairing that I'm hoping will age well) deal with all of this. The turning point for me was watching you destroy Russell Dobular from Due Dissidence with 100s of facts while he was left pointing to the picture of Prince Andrew and VG like it meant everything you were saying was false. I then watched him on a later episode saying you were definitely taking money from someone. It was some cowardly and pathetic shit ignoring every last thing of substance which seems repeated by all your current critics. I mean, you interview horribly and as soon as it's confrontational you don't listen and speak over people, which I really wish you wouldn't as every time its so obvious there's an undeniable weight of fact on your side that no one seems willing to address.
Yeah Michael, that's a lot of facts and research of primary materials, but..... PEDOs!!!!
"Due Dissidence" is just a typical YouTube peanut gallery, leeching off others for "content," and never producing anything original themselves. Boring. I accepted their invitation to talk Epstein for like three hours a few months ago, and that Russell guy couldn't even admit he falsely accused me of lying about Maria Farmer, which he incontrovertibly did, because he didn't know the most basic facts of what he was prattling on about. Zero standards, just ill-informed gossip punditry. Who wastes their time consuming this crap? Read a friggin' book.
Strange pair, those DD fellas. They do ramble on and on, agreeing with each other over and over again. And they seem quite smug for some reason that isn't readily apparent.
Interesting comment from someone called 'Retoxifier'. But no, Michael is very different. Different job altogether - Michael actually reports on things rather than just providing commentary. I have to admit I see value in show such Due Dissidence - if you're time poor with work and family etc, it can be helpful to have someone rounding up everything - and they can be funny, carefree and to a degree insightful. The issue with Due Dissidence is that they equated their popularity with the amount of content they produced. They ended up kicking out 16 plus hours of content every week and it was quite clear that they simply didn't have time to properly watch and read source material, let alone surrounding broader facts. They ended up simply repurposing other people's opinions. All a bit sad as I used to enjoy it. Watching them interview Michael was a wake up call, they were so poorly prepared, so out of their depth and they weren't interested in quizzing such a font of knowledge on the subject, they were only interested in being right. And they weren't. I feel blessed to be able to hear Michael - it's grounding, based in fact and yes, a little rough around the edges - but this article made me laugh my ass off because of that - the idea of those 2 throwing hands, amazing!!
Since you seem to be enjoying me so much -- maybe a little tooooo much -- I think it's time for you to bite the bullet and upgrade to paid subscription! C'mon, it's literally $5!
It's a fair point. I've always hoped I was a least supporting you tangentially via my long term Greenwald and then more recently Racket subscriptions, but as you clearly have no regard for fire safety around bridges, direct support does seem the correct course of action and has been taken. Thank you for all your impassioned and fearless work.
What I notice here is the language is loaded with emotion. Words like "deranged", "attacked" etc. These people are telling on themselves. They've lived such sheltered middle class lives, they have no idea. Haha I used to work as a counsellor in juvi aka youth detention centres...prison for minors. It might be a downward social comparison, but those kids have stories that contextualise & concretise deranged & attack
I'm not above calling people deranged, if they are in fact deranged, but what's notable about Tara and Jim here is *all they can do* is emote. They're not calling me "deranged" pursuant to a larger substantive, evidence-based, reasoned argument. They're calling me this stuff *in lieu* of any such rational argument.
Me neither, but as you say, words need to be properly qualified. To me, words like "attacked" mean some sort of physical altercation. Likewise deranged means mentally unsound ie not just someone who pisses me off. Weasel words. And this gets into serious issues with etymology. Feminists unhappy with "chairman" assume the word is about males, manus is Latin for hand, the chair that scribes. I want my feminism to make a difference in the real world, not fuck around with inane & illogical subject matter.
I stand corrected. Apparently chairman does indeed refer to the person occupying the position. Bottom line idgaf about words, I care about making a real difference in people's lives & addressing all forms of oppression & inequality
Nahh I do give af about words, but for me, they're not the battlefield of feminist concern. Nor is Epstein. Men are gonna do male shit. Even I objectify women because aesthetically, women's bodies are art.Can we think about addressing the underlying drivers of female inequality eg poverty, family dysfunction (which appears to have greater impacts on girls), violence, as in ACTUAL physical violence became women's bodies havd less violence capital compared to men, gender stratified labour markets. Lol maybe I can say, I don't care about words when Tara says them.
Haha yep, it's a class issue. The same dynamic of smug insiders vs. sincere/goofy outsider can be found in Toby Young's "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People".
This is fucking insane, I believe we were told by Tara , on X, that" Micheal Tracy is a mean and bad person " like she's fucking 8 years old . " To follow Jim Acosta, and herself instead of MT". Anyone who regularly follows MT will not trade in a real journalist for state approved ( propaganda spewer), washed out, dipshit, hacks. I would ONLY FOLLOW THEM if I get to push them off a 500 ft cliff . Tara Reade , she is a fucking clown that is a pathological liar. I don't think i have ever heard her say anything truthful, always a fucking victim. She will jump on anyones victim train to continue her bullshit, it's sad. Keep on doing what you're doing Micheal, these pathetic hacks are desperate for content so they invented some imaginary street fight. THE #1 RULE TO JIM ACOSTA'S FIGHT CLUB , IS ALWAYS TALK ABOUT HIS FIGHT CLUB. RULE #2 , NEVER ACTUALLY FIGHT ANYONE . Like fight club, its all in his fucking head.
It actually sounds like you may have a defamation case against some of these folks. In all seriousness. E.g. Tara Reade stating there are police reports of you "stalking" college women. Something that is 100% patently false yet spread as true and can be verified as false. That's defamation.
I would actually suggest you find a good defamation attorney to sort this out.
Acosta/Palmeri may be pros that are desperately using this for clicks/attention, but neither is being as careful as if they had a major media company checking them. Acosta is known for going outside acceptable behavior --e.g. when he used physical force against a White House intern and then denied, even when on tape. I doubt either he or Palmeri have carefully considered their words. It also sounds vaguely like a hit job; whomever is paying Acosta's bills may have targeted you for a character slander.
Sue if you can. Don't let them get away with slander and libel.
Do you know any insults that aren’t misogynist? You suggest that Acosta has been ‘emasculated’ because he’s no longer at CNN. Why use that word? The ONLY reason is because deep down you really hate women with the most rancid incel hatred possible.
You attack anyone who demands that men who rape women and children suffer any momentary inconvenience. You hate women so you only attack women and any man who treats women decently. You hate women so much that despite having two nieces already, you state that you only became an uncle when your sister had a son. What happened to you? What made you hate half the human race so much that you want rapists to go free?
You hate all men. I know,I know-women are as strong as men. Until you’re not. Then it’s please men-save us. We are only women. You are doing to Michael exactly what you claim he is doing
Please Karen, provide specific EVIDENCE that prove MTs misogyny? Seeking to clarify wholesale claims, questioning dogma isn't misogyny. Yes women in the Files were objectified, not by MT. questioning the discourse around Epstein doesn't make one a woman hater
The fact that he defends Epstein at all and refuses to acknowledge the power imbalance between Epstein and the young women he preyed on is enough. The fact that he blames the girls Epstein recruited for finding other girls instead of admitting that Epstein used his wealth to bully the girls into helping his pimp business. Mostly Tracey’s absolute refusal to condemn Larry Summers for sexually harassing a woman who came to him for professional advice. Tracey has not once in his life praised a woman for anything. He hates women. He’s as bad as an Elliot Rodger incel.
I heard MT say, to the effect "it's not a good idea for an adult male to be dealing with young girls". He's also saying, there's no evidence of the crime of rape, or of paedophilia as per DSM V definition. Yeah, I do think there was a power imbalance; maybe Michael could examine that more. He's not pretending to be sympathetic to feminist concerns, he's challenging monolithic hegemony in SA/ rape paedophilia discouse, which isn't evidence based. And which criminal law uses to oppress & harm in the name of justice.
“Pedophilia” isn’t a legal category, but any adult who has sexual contact with someone under whatever legal age — and almost all of them are set far, far too young — is a rapist.
Tracey needs to spend some time reading Kate Manne, Moira Donegan, or any number of feminists to learn just how harmful Epstein’s behavior is, and how harmful Tracey’s own behavior toward the Epstein survivors is. #MeToo did not go anywhere nearly far enough. Too many rapists and sex pests are walking around breathing free air after ruining the lives of millions of women.
"I'm sick and tired of bullies", say the real bullies.
Good to see that Jim has calmed down/"smugged up" enough to begin smearing the journalist he had cowardly (perhaps drunkenly?) challenged to "STEP OUTSIDE!" well after security had arrived.
Hilarious that they brought up the "highly suspicious" Piers Morgan clip, which is easily explained. And the size sticker on the pants. And the waffles at the Hampton Inn.
A major reason today's journalism is a mockery is due to class. These people behave worse than a stereotype of high school girls.
Yep, I'm sure Jim would usually try to posture as some kind of "Man of the People," but the little "Waffle" quip clearly derives from him looking down his nose on me as someone for whom it would not be economically practical to stay at a $800/night luxury hotel.
Keep fighting the good fight
During the Salem Witch Trials, Thomas Brattle was the one who basically pushed back and said: "Hey, maybe this is all a bunch of bullshit?!" I really do think Epstein was just a man who liked to be touched by attractive young women (don't we all) who owned high-end resorts. And this whole thing just snowballed from greed, antisemitism, and hysteria. You're doing what's right, Michael.
Epstein was a sleaze who was running a notorious party and drug house for young women, and those young women were increasingly recruiting their minor friends to party there and probably fuck Epstein for the collective benefit of the girls
Epstein was probably doing literally nothing to prohibit minors from his houses
It’s really not inconceivable that Epstein had sex with minors without particularly targeting or trafficking them in any coherent sense, but we just really don’t know
Agreed except the drugs. Epstein was known to be harshly anti-drug, to the point he allegedly kicked women out for getting high. Also probably to maintain the impression that nobody was coerced into doing anything they didn't want to, and testimony from witnesses in his 2006 case reinforces this.
He had a variety of women come over, the ones who were under 18 he probably did know, if not right away he found out eventually.
May very well be - Palm Beach parents were complaining to police that their girls were accessing drugs at his house, though, but maybe they brought their own
My sister in a single parent, caring for two teen girls, while working full time as special ed teacher. One girl is in care. She had previously lived on the streets, where she engaged in a range of adult adjacent activities. She fled home to escape non SA related abuse.
Now that she's in a safe environment; her whereabouts continually monitored. Caregivers must adequately supervise kids & even teens. Some parents aren't able to provide this, so alternatives must be sought - quickly. In the right environment, this formerly abused teen has learned a love of the library, amateur theatre & other pro social activities. There's still a rocky road ahead for her...she cried the other day saying " I realise my mum never really loved me". This takes years to come to terms with. Maybe mum did love her but due to her own unresolved trauma, poverty & DV, she can't parent.
Research indicates that girls are more deeply impacted by family dysfunction, perhaps due to female relationality. Negative home life for girls, is a well established pathway to crime. I want feminism that cares about complexity, not just bad actors.
It's been a journey watching you and Matt Tiabbi (a great pairing that I'm hoping will age well) deal with all of this. The turning point for me was watching you destroy Russell Dobular from Due Dissidence with 100s of facts while he was left pointing to the picture of Prince Andrew and VG like it meant everything you were saying was false. I then watched him on a later episode saying you were definitely taking money from someone. It was some cowardly and pathetic shit ignoring every last thing of substance which seems repeated by all your current critics. I mean, you interview horribly and as soon as it's confrontational you don't listen and speak over people, which I really wish you wouldn't as every time its so obvious there's an undeniable weight of fact on your side that no one seems willing to address.
Yeah Michael, that's a lot of facts and research of primary materials, but..... PEDOs!!!!
"Due Dissidence" is just a typical YouTube peanut gallery, leeching off others for "content," and never producing anything original themselves. Boring. I accepted their invitation to talk Epstein for like three hours a few months ago, and that Russell guy couldn't even admit he falsely accused me of lying about Maria Farmer, which he incontrovertibly did, because he didn't know the most basic facts of what he was prattling on about. Zero standards, just ill-informed gossip punditry. Who wastes their time consuming this crap? Read a friggin' book.
Strange pair, those DD fellas. They do ramble on and on, agreeing with each other over and over again. And they seem quite smug for some reason that isn't readily apparent.
Interesting comment from someone called 'Retoxifier'. But no, Michael is very different. Different job altogether - Michael actually reports on things rather than just providing commentary. I have to admit I see value in show such Due Dissidence - if you're time poor with work and family etc, it can be helpful to have someone rounding up everything - and they can be funny, carefree and to a degree insightful. The issue with Due Dissidence is that they equated their popularity with the amount of content they produced. They ended up kicking out 16 plus hours of content every week and it was quite clear that they simply didn't have time to properly watch and read source material, let alone surrounding broader facts. They ended up simply repurposing other people's opinions. All a bit sad as I used to enjoy it. Watching them interview Michael was a wake up call, they were so poorly prepared, so out of their depth and they weren't interested in quizzing such a font of knowledge on the subject, they were only interested in being right. And they weren't. I feel blessed to be able to hear Michael - it's grounding, based in fact and yes, a little rough around the edges - but this article made me laugh my ass off because of that - the idea of those 2 throwing hands, amazing!!
Since you seem to be enjoying me so much -- maybe a little tooooo much -- I think it's time for you to bite the bullet and upgrade to paid subscription! C'mon, it's literally $5!
It's a fair point. I've always hoped I was a least supporting you tangentially via my long term Greenwald and then more recently Racket subscriptions, but as you clearly have no regard for fire safety around bridges, direct support does seem the correct course of action and has been taken. Thank you for all your impassioned and fearless work.
Sorry man it’s too painful to watch
I feel u
MT the G.O.A.T.
What I notice here is the language is loaded with emotion. Words like "deranged", "attacked" etc. These people are telling on themselves. They've lived such sheltered middle class lives, they have no idea. Haha I used to work as a counsellor in juvi aka youth detention centres...prison for minors. It might be a downward social comparison, but those kids have stories that contextualise & concretise deranged & attack
I'm not above calling people deranged, if they are in fact deranged, but what's notable about Tara and Jim here is *all they can do* is emote. They're not calling me "deranged" pursuant to a larger substantive, evidence-based, reasoned argument. They're calling me this stuff *in lieu* of any such rational argument.
Me neither, but as you say, words need to be properly qualified. To me, words like "attacked" mean some sort of physical altercation. Likewise deranged means mentally unsound ie not just someone who pisses me off. Weasel words. And this gets into serious issues with etymology. Feminists unhappy with "chairman" assume the word is about males, manus is Latin for hand, the chair that scribes. I want my feminism to make a difference in the real world, not fuck around with inane & illogical subject matter.
I stand corrected. Apparently chairman does indeed refer to the person occupying the position. Bottom line idgaf about words, I care about making a real difference in people's lives & addressing all forms of oppression & inequality
Nahh I do give af about words, but for me, they're not the battlefield of feminist concern. Nor is Epstein. Men are gonna do male shit. Even I objectify women because aesthetically, women's bodies are art.Can we think about addressing the underlying drivers of female inequality eg poverty, family dysfunction (which appears to have greater impacts on girls), violence, as in ACTUAL physical violence became women's bodies havd less violence capital compared to men, gender stratified labour markets. Lol maybe I can say, I don't care about words when Tara says them.
Anyone who can't see through Jim and Tara is beyond help.
Haha yep, it's a class issue. The same dynamic of smug insiders vs. sincere/goofy outsider can be found in Toby Young's "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People".
Yes, the psychology is: Deny, Accuse, Attack. We're seeing it everywhere out of the mouths of politicians and "journalists."
It's The Feelz versus The Facts.
Journalism is supposed to be about The Facts.
This is fucking insane, I believe we were told by Tara , on X, that" Micheal Tracy is a mean and bad person " like she's fucking 8 years old . " To follow Jim Acosta, and herself instead of MT". Anyone who regularly follows MT will not trade in a real journalist for state approved ( propaganda spewer), washed out, dipshit, hacks. I would ONLY FOLLOW THEM if I get to push them off a 500 ft cliff . Tara Reade , she is a fucking clown that is a pathological liar. I don't think i have ever heard her say anything truthful, always a fucking victim. She will jump on anyones victim train to continue her bullshit, it's sad. Keep on doing what you're doing Micheal, these pathetic hacks are desperate for content so they invented some imaginary street fight. THE #1 RULE TO JIM ACOSTA'S FIGHT CLUB , IS ALWAYS TALK ABOUT HIS FIGHT CLUB. RULE #2 , NEVER ACTUALLY FIGHT ANYONE . Like fight club, its all in his fucking head.
It actually sounds like you may have a defamation case against some of these folks. In all seriousness. E.g. Tara Reade stating there are police reports of you "stalking" college women. Something that is 100% patently false yet spread as true and can be verified as false. That's defamation.
I would actually suggest you find a good defamation attorney to sort this out.
Acosta/Palmeri may be pros that are desperately using this for clicks/attention, but neither is being as careful as if they had a major media company checking them. Acosta is known for going outside acceptable behavior --e.g. when he used physical force against a White House intern and then denied, even when on tape. I doubt either he or Palmeri have carefully considered their words. It also sounds vaguely like a hit job; whomever is paying Acosta's bills may have targeted you for a character slander.
Sue if you can. Don't let them get away with slander and libel.
Jim Acosta is a nitwitted dullard. He is irrelevant. The only interesting thing about him is your mockery.
Please do your best to ignore him and keep digging into the real stories. Since this clearly drives him nuts this is also your best line of attack.
I’ll take your word for it. I can’t stomach watching or listening to these two scum bags.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Tracey. You know you’re over the target when you’re taking a lot of flak.
Do you know any insults that aren’t misogynist? You suggest that Acosta has been ‘emasculated’ because he’s no longer at CNN. Why use that word? The ONLY reason is because deep down you really hate women with the most rancid incel hatred possible.
You attack anyone who demands that men who rape women and children suffer any momentary inconvenience. You hate women so you only attack women and any man who treats women decently. You hate women so much that despite having two nieces already, you state that you only became an uncle when your sister had a son. What happened to you? What made you hate half the human race so much that you want rapists to go free?
You hate all men. I know,I know-women are as strong as men. Until you’re not. Then it’s please men-save us. We are only women. You are doing to Michael exactly what you claim he is doing
I certainly hate YOU.
I know you do KAREN
Your parents named you appropriately
You can’t refute any of my points, can you? Michael Tracey HATES each and every woman on Earth.
I'm pretty sure Michael Tracey doesn't hate *me*.
On what evidence do you base that conclusion?
I don't throw abusive language or baseless accusations at him, and any responses he's made to my comments have always been reasonable.
We could ask him.
Please Karen, provide specific EVIDENCE that prove MTs misogyny? Seeking to clarify wholesale claims, questioning dogma isn't misogyny. Yes women in the Files were objectified, not by MT. questioning the discourse around Epstein doesn't make one a woman hater
The fact that he defends Epstein at all and refuses to acknowledge the power imbalance between Epstein and the young women he preyed on is enough. The fact that he blames the girls Epstein recruited for finding other girls instead of admitting that Epstein used his wealth to bully the girls into helping his pimp business. Mostly Tracey’s absolute refusal to condemn Larry Summers for sexually harassing a woman who came to him for professional advice. Tracey has not once in his life praised a woman for anything. He hates women. He’s as bad as an Elliot Rodger incel.
I heard MT say, to the effect "it's not a good idea for an adult male to be dealing with young girls". He's also saying, there's no evidence of the crime of rape, or of paedophilia as per DSM V definition. Yeah, I do think there was a power imbalance; maybe Michael could examine that more. He's not pretending to be sympathetic to feminist concerns, he's challenging monolithic hegemony in SA/ rape paedophilia discouse, which isn't evidence based. And which criminal law uses to oppress & harm in the name of justice.
“Pedophilia” isn’t a legal category, but any adult who has sexual contact with someone under whatever legal age — and almost all of them are set far, far too young — is a rapist.
Tracey needs to spend some time reading Kate Manne, Moira Donegan, or any number of feminists to learn just how harmful Epstein’s behavior is, and how harmful Tracey’s own behavior toward the Epstein survivors is. #MeToo did not go anywhere nearly far enough. Too many rapists and sex pests are walking around breathing free air after ruining the lives of millions of women.
It's a wannabe nazi, mamma's basement incel
"All the girls are mean to me! Waa, waaah!" 😭😭
https://substack.com/@islefan/reads
I’m sorry I didn’t respond but I don’t know your pronouns
"I heard he's, like, a STALKER..."
"Wow! Oh my gawd"
"Total stalkerazzi!"
"Ewwww, barf-er-ama! Oh my gawd, oh my gawd, oh my gawd!"
"I know, right?!? Gag me with a spoon!"
Valley Girl, she's a Valley girl........
The journalism is astoundingly awesome, is it not?
:Acosta and Palmeri are insufferable.
Among other things........
They are a couple of dumb fucks
"I'm sick and tired of bullies", say the real bullies.
Good to see that Jim has calmed down/"smugged up" enough to begin smearing the journalist he had cowardly (perhaps drunkenly?) challenged to "STEP OUTSIDE!" well after security had arrived.
Hilarious that they brought up the "highly suspicious" Piers Morgan clip, which is easily explained. And the size sticker on the pants. And the waffles at the Hampton Inn.
A major reason today's journalism is a mockery is due to class. These people behave worse than a stereotype of high school girls.
Yep, I'm sure Jim would usually try to posture as some kind of "Man of the People," but the little "Waffle" quip clearly derives from him looking down his nose on me as someone for whom it would not be economically practical to stay at a $800/night luxury hotel.