Yesterday at the Epstein Survivors Press Conference in front of the US Capitol, one of the organizers, Congressman Ro Khanna, announced a moratorium on journalistic inquiry.
Everyone on the internet claims to be an “independent truth-seeker exposing what the MSM won’t touch.” They’re lying, and you’re dumb if you believe them. Almost all of them are defending a team, a donor class, or at minimum their social calendar. Michael Tracey is the rare exception — partly out of principle, partly because he reads the room like a blind man in a power outage.
He has no stable in-group, no institutional pipeline, and no instinct for self-preservation. His autonomy is so extreme it borders on a personality disorder. He skipped finishing school in the sense that he never learned the basic human skill of calibrating his tone to avoid making everyone around him furious. It’s the only reason he can do journalism this way. If you’re on a team and he happens to validate you today, relax — he’ll betray you next week without blinking.
He applies skepticism with the same dead-eyed intensity whether it helps you, hurts you, or gets him banned from another press list. Ask him “Do I look fat?” and you’ll get a level of blunt honesty usually reserved for hostile cross-examination. That’s why every faction hates him and yet quietly relies on him: he doesn’t outsource his moral reasoning to the group, because he’s incapable of belonging to one.
There are louder brands and more polished operators, but nobody else manages to offend every camp while still being analytically useful to all of them. Like it or not, there’s only one Michael Tracey.
The fact that the victims aren't saying even 1 name makes me believe that some of them might just be there for money and fame ( I'm sure some of them might be real victims)
I think it was just a feel-good anti-elite virtue signal one woman blurted out in the moment because Virginia was mentioned earlier, and a few went along with it but they had to drop it because they didn't really mean it
It's difficult to believe so many of us are falling for blatantly unfounded allegations, and "follow the money" doesn't occur to them.
I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I'm sorry - Ro and Tom are too smart to be this blind. They know how ridiculous this is, and are stuck playing the illusion.
Theoretically the judge’s instruction leaves room for the jury, if it wanted to, to place the handholding in a larger context with other evidence that may have been aired in that trial (I don’t know) of other “illegal sexual activity”. The jury could use the handholding as a sign, in other words, the tip of an iceberg, however plausible such an interpretation would be.
The judge was only telling the jury that it could not consider the handholding as character evidence suggesting something like, “we’ll if he did that then he probably did this too, because he’s that kind of person”. But as the judge said, the jury could consider the handholding if it believed it was “relevant” even if it was not illegal sexual activity.
So the idea that handholding is not illegal sexual activity does not necessarily absolve Epstein and Maxwell, depending on what the other evidence was at the trial and whether the jury could, based on that evidence and the handholding together, conclude that illegal sexual activity took place.
Keep it up Michael although I don’t know how you do it. There’s a lot of greed in this story which in my modest opinion probably has Epstein laughing from wherever he is! Thank you.
So Epstein was just an innocent dude, like Ghislaine and all the women who have reported their encounters with him are just vile money-grubbing sluts, right? You sound like the epitome of what the US stands for, namely, warmongering, immoral producers of weapons of mass destruction and war machines. Yes, people like you make me sick.
One thing almost nobody talks about: Epstein’s death created a media no-risk zone. Once the central figure is dead — and therefore legally incapable of suing — the normal evidentiary constraints evaporate. You can print innuendo, inflate claims, imply criminality, and attach the word “rape” to anything adjacent to his name, because there’s no plaintiff who can challenge you in court. Combine that with political incentive, NGO incentive, and the cultural appetite for moral theater, and you get exactly what we’re seeing now: a story with the lowest evidentiary standards in American public life, performed with the highest level of moral certainty. The incentives all run in one direction — and that’s why the narrative keeps inflating even while the facts stay frozen.
From the perspective of the Epstein-industrial complex, there’s only one real threat to the gold rush — the guy who keeps insisting on facts.
Thank you fur your unorthodox approach. Everyone else seems to completely lose their heads in this mass psychosis. Our society is periodically affected by a bout of mass meltdown. Just like during the peak of Me Too movement, it was enough for a “survivor” to accuse and cancel a man, and nobody bothered with fact gathering, the obsession with Epstein’s alleged sex crimes has reached an unhealthy hysterical pitch. If it is considered reprehensible even to question so-called survivors or want to know their names, time to dial it all down. Though I doubt this prolonged state of out of control frenzy is going away easily. And while gullible public is foaming at the mouth in anger at the abusers, victims and their attorneys are getting filthy rich, possibly even on our dime. Could it t be that political careers and incredible wealth are being built on a flimsy mythical foundation? On lies? Will we ever know?
Everyone (rightly) thinks that the man who took action in response to the internet allegations that Comet Pizza (Comet Ping Pong) concealed a Democratic pedophile ring was crazy. But as I read this piece, I can't help but think this is the same sort of weird conspiracy theory-- only this time given explicit credence by most of the press and elected officials. (To be clear, I'm not saying Epstein did not engage in inappropriate behavior, but the rest...)
Laudable journalism here, MT. Admire your tenacity in fronting-up to these type of events - more power to you! It’s a ‘survivor’ cult, so pesky questions like the ones you pose will be seen as harassment, at best, or ignored, at worst.
Have been free-loading for too long on your Substack, so have decided to pony-up for a sub - least I can do.
Starting to think the only woman with any credibility at all in this entire shitshow is Maxwell
You're doing the yeoman's work here Mike, keep it up
Everyone on the internet claims to be an “independent truth-seeker exposing what the MSM won’t touch.” They’re lying, and you’re dumb if you believe them. Almost all of them are defending a team, a donor class, or at minimum their social calendar. Michael Tracey is the rare exception — partly out of principle, partly because he reads the room like a blind man in a power outage.
He has no stable in-group, no institutional pipeline, and no instinct for self-preservation. His autonomy is so extreme it borders on a personality disorder. He skipped finishing school in the sense that he never learned the basic human skill of calibrating his tone to avoid making everyone around him furious. It’s the only reason he can do journalism this way. If you’re on a team and he happens to validate you today, relax — he’ll betray you next week without blinking.
He applies skepticism with the same dead-eyed intensity whether it helps you, hurts you, or gets him banned from another press list. Ask him “Do I look fat?” and you’ll get a level of blunt honesty usually reserved for hostile cross-examination. That’s why every faction hates him and yet quietly relies on him: he doesn’t outsource his moral reasoning to the group, because he’s incapable of belonging to one.
There are louder brands and more polished operators, but nobody else manages to offend every camp while still being analytically useful to all of them. Like it or not, there’s only one Michael Tracey.
The fact that the victims aren't saying even 1 name makes me believe that some of them might just be there for money and fame ( I'm sure some of them might be real victims)
I think it was just a feel-good anti-elite virtue signal one woman blurted out in the moment because Virginia was mentioned earlier, and a few went along with it but they had to drop it because they didn't really mean it
It's difficult to believe so many of us are falling for blatantly unfounded allegations, and "follow the money" doesn't occur to them.
I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I'm sorry - Ro and Tom are too smart to be this blind. They know how ridiculous this is, and are stuck playing the illusion.
Look up the Epstein Victims Compensation Fund. Settlements probably with NDA’s.
Hey Mike, anybody tell you yet today you suck?
It's so classic really, ought to be a fim
*film
Theoretically the judge’s instruction leaves room for the jury, if it wanted to, to place the handholding in a larger context with other evidence that may have been aired in that trial (I don’t know) of other “illegal sexual activity”. The jury could use the handholding as a sign, in other words, the tip of an iceberg, however plausible such an interpretation would be.
The judge was only telling the jury that it could not consider the handholding as character evidence suggesting something like, “we’ll if he did that then he probably did this too, because he’s that kind of person”. But as the judge said, the jury could consider the handholding if it believed it was “relevant” even if it was not illegal sexual activity.
So the idea that handholding is not illegal sexual activity does not necessarily absolve Epstein and Maxwell, depending on what the other evidence was at the trial and whether the jury could, based on that evidence and the handholding together, conclude that illegal sexual activity took place.
Keep it up Michael although I don’t know how you do it. There’s a lot of greed in this story which in my modest opinion probably has Epstein laughing from wherever he is! Thank you.
So Epstein was just an innocent dude, like Ghislaine and all the women who have reported their encounters with him are just vile money-grubbing sluts, right? You sound like the epitome of what the US stands for, namely, warmongering, immoral producers of weapons of mass destruction and war machines. Yes, people like you make me sick.
One thing almost nobody talks about: Epstein’s death created a media no-risk zone. Once the central figure is dead — and therefore legally incapable of suing — the normal evidentiary constraints evaporate. You can print innuendo, inflate claims, imply criminality, and attach the word “rape” to anything adjacent to his name, because there’s no plaintiff who can challenge you in court. Combine that with political incentive, NGO incentive, and the cultural appetite for moral theater, and you get exactly what we’re seeing now: a story with the lowest evidentiary standards in American public life, performed with the highest level of moral certainty. The incentives all run in one direction — and that’s why the narrative keeps inflating even while the facts stay frozen.
From the perspective of the Epstein-industrial complex, there’s only one real threat to the gold rush — the guy who keeps insisting on facts.
Thank you fur your unorthodox approach. Everyone else seems to completely lose their heads in this mass psychosis. Our society is periodically affected by a bout of mass meltdown. Just like during the peak of Me Too movement, it was enough for a “survivor” to accuse and cancel a man, and nobody bothered with fact gathering, the obsession with Epstein’s alleged sex crimes has reached an unhealthy hysterical pitch. If it is considered reprehensible even to question so-called survivors or want to know their names, time to dial it all down. Though I doubt this prolonged state of out of control frenzy is going away easily. And while gullible public is foaming at the mouth in anger at the abusers, victims and their attorneys are getting filthy rich, possibly even on our dime. Could it t be that political careers and incredible wealth are being built on a flimsy mythical foundation? On lies? Will we ever know?
Everyone (rightly) thinks that the man who took action in response to the internet allegations that Comet Pizza (Comet Ping Pong) concealed a Democratic pedophile ring was crazy. But as I read this piece, I can't help but think this is the same sort of weird conspiracy theory-- only this time given explicit credence by most of the press and elected officials. (To be clear, I'm not saying Epstein did not engage in inappropriate behavior, but the rest...)
How bizarre.
Laudable journalism here, MT. Admire your tenacity in fronting-up to these type of events - more power to you! It’s a ‘survivor’ cult, so pesky questions like the ones you pose will be seen as harassment, at best, or ignored, at worst.
Have been free-loading for too long on your Substack, so have decided to pony-up for a sub - least I can do.