TIMELINE
2015
Jan 2 2015: Publishes blog post about Sandy Hook victim (Pakistan conspiracy theory)
January 2015: Tracy notes in his 2017 deposition (Vol 1 pg 96) that this is the highest period of traffic to his blog. In doing so he also confirms that he was closely watching the traffic and what sort of articles drove it up best:
January 2015 podcasts:
January 25 2015 – Podcast episode on Myron May, consists of Tracy simply airing the videos the FSU shooter left behind, without even any real commentary, its just clips of May curated by Tracy. May talks about the phenomenon of “gang stalking” i.e. the internet’s name for the paranoid psychosis like what afflicted Tracy’s own mother before her suicide.
January 28 2015: Writes on Myron May at globalresearch
Note that Tracy also speaks about this case in his November 2020 video “Gangstalking Mom”, and how it tied in with his belief that his own mother was a victim of the phenomenon:
(ROUGH TRANSCRIPT)
“In late 2013, a young African American attorney, Myron May, opened fire outside the Florida State University library, injuring three people before he was shot dead by police. And so the popular adage goes, that dead men tell no tales But Mr. May left a 100-minute video-recorded testimony of the gangstalking harassment that he was a victim of.”
(Myron May clip plays, same footage that Tracy played on his podcast Jan 2015)
And there are the stories of thousands of other victims with similar experiences. The renowned black author Gloria Naylor wrote an entire book detailing the stalking harassment and electronic surveillance she says that she endured in the early to mid 1990’s – the same period when my mother claims to have been pursued
“As horrible as it was for me,” Naylor writes, “I couldn’t help thinking about the horror for other victims, to have to keep these things to yourself because no one will believe you. I knew how lonely that could be. I knew what it was like was to have dinner with friends, and to talk about everything but what weighed heaviest on your heart. To visit family members and force yourself to be cheerful, to protect them from sharing your pain.
Gang stalking and smear campaigns are in many ways, the opposite of each other, but seek to fulfill the same objectives. While gang-stalking attacks the psyche, emotional condition and overall behavior of the targeted individual, making them appear insane to their peers and family members, the smear campaign is waged to manipulate and redirect the emotions of the larger population against a specific target. Often through erroneous information.
I’ve often wondered what type of person would be involved in gang stalking. Trying to drive people into such an acute desperation that they would go so far as to take their own lives. Who oversees it? And how could they ever do what they day after day, week after week, as their livelihoods, without knowing how they’re ruining the entire lives of individuals and their families, which is the stated objective?
Now, with the declared COVID-19 global pandemic, the basic civil liberties and livelihoods of millions have been taken away. And entire populations have been, under penalty of law, imprisoned in our own homes through lockdown orders. Forced to cover our faces in public and remain apart from one another. All in the name of public health safety. We have become, in short, an entire population of targeted individuals, under perpetual scrutiny. Made to fear what the future holds, emotionally and menatally debilitated. Where despair is intended to be the new normal.
“ETHEL MARIE TRACY 1942-1995”
Feb 2015 podcasts
Feb 13 2015: Posts “Infowars Assailed by ‘Sandy Hook Parent’” covering the news that Alex Jones’ youtube channel had received a copyright strike from Sandy Hook parent Lenny Pozner. Nothing noteworthy beyond the quotation marks in the title.
Feb 28 2015 “Editor’s Note” includes email from reader sent to Tracy’s state email – Ben Garrison, antisemetism etc
https://web.archive.org/web/20150302140350/http://memoryholeblog.com/2015/02/28/editors-note/
March 2015 podcasts
March 12/14 2015: conference on conspiracy :
http://reason.com/blog/2015/03/18/whatisawattheconspiracytheoryconf
his take: http://www.globalresearch.ca/amongtheconspiracytheorytheorists/5436898
Tracy’s paper at the conference was described as having “looked at the implications of modern systems of surveillance for Karl Popper’s critique of conspiracy theories”
It appears that this conference was invite-only, sent to fifty scholars from different fields. At that conference, he contributed a paper, about “implications of modern systems of surveillance for Karl Popper’s critique of conspiracy theories.” So, it sounds like he was there in his professional role as an educator and scholar.
That info is from this article (link: http://reason.com/blog/2015/03/18/whatisawattheconspiracytheoryconf )
Here is the University of Miami’s document describing the conference:
This conference was organized by Joseph E. Uscinski, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. Inquiries can be directed to Professor Joseph Uscinski At [email protected]
Funding for this conference was generously provided by the University of Miami College of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Office, and the University of Miami Political Science Department.
The purpose of this conference is to bring together scholars from across disciplinary and geographic boundaries. While disciplinary specialization has served most academic pursuits well, it has not served the study of conspiracy theories. With a diverse set of scholars tackling issues related to conspiracy theories and conspiratorial beliefs, there is a growing tendency to talk past researchers in other disciplines.
Given the recent surge of academic attention to this topic, there exists an opportunity to share approaches, integrate methodologies, and communicate important findings.
This conference features more than fifty participants from nine countries, thirty five institutions, and fifteen disciplines. Indeed, the study of conspiracy theories is an international and interdisciplinary endeavor.
It includes a list of the papers presented. Here is how Tracy is listed in the schedule:
Paper: James Tracy, Florida Atlantic University “The Medium is the Con(spiracy)”
So he is listed by his institution. He is not there as a subject being studied, he’s there as Professor James Tracy.
In the “Reason” article, he acknowledges that his public/private roles are blurred:
Several sociologists came to Miami too, but they didn’t seem to form a tribe; instead they sounded individually like psychologists, political scientists, or philosophers, depending on the nature of their research. Other attendees didn’t fit easily into any of the categories. One was James Tracy, a communications professor at Florida Atlantic University, who attracted some notoriety last year when he expressed doubts about “whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place—at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described.” (When he presented his conference paper, which looked at the implications of modern systems of surveillance for Karl Popper’s critique of conspiracy theories, Tracy began by saying he was “not sure if I was invited as a colleague or a specimen.” )
There’s also this quote where Tracy, at the academic conference, appeared to have defended his conspiracy theorist activities:
When dozens of people gather to discuss conspiracy theories but can’t even agree on how to define them, you’re bound to see some clashes. An especially tart exchange came on the last day of the meeting, after Ted Goertzel praised the “pejorative use” of the phrase “conspiracy theory,” calling it “one of our accomplishments.” James Tracy, the Sandy Hook skeptic, piped up to complain that the term was being used to dismiss people making legitimate inquiries.
“Like who?” said Goertzel.
“Like me,” Tracy replied.
Then Tracy himself wrote the same thing (about not knowing if he was a colleague or specimen) on globalresearch:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/amongtheconspiracytheorytheorists/5436898
March 27 2015 appearance on Truth Jihad, talks about the conference
March 30, 2015: Harassing letter sent to Len Pozner
April 2015 podcasts:
May 2015 podcasts:
June 2015 podcasts:
June 3 2015 appearance on Truth Jihad
https://www.unz.com/audio/kbarrett_james-tracy-on-jade-helm-the-drift-towards-martial-law/
June 28 2015 appearance on Truth Jihad
https://www.unz.com/audio/kbarrett_james-tracy-interviews-kevin-barrett-on-charlie-hebdo-more/
July 2015 podcasts:
7-20-2015 Peter Klein episode: Klein notes how surprised he was that “a guy as busy as you has the time to chat with me for two hours after the show” and that “[Tracy] puts in the time!” (Court would later note that Tracy appeared to prioritized his conspiracy work over his FAU work)
August 2015 podcasts:
Summer 2015: Tracy has an exchange with FAU administration about informing them of his blog posts before publication (vol 1 pg 157)
Q. Did you go to the university and say, look, I’m going to write a blog where I’m going to suggest that Sandy Hook is a fraud.
A. Well, I never suggested. I never suggested that. That’s putting it in a nutshell that mischaracterizes what my remarks were. I wrote a great deal about that event and other events. But to reduce it to the notion that these things are fraud, I think, are to over-simplify things.
Q. Well, I’m trying to capture it.
A. Okay.
Q. And I hear ya. I understand. I’m not trying to spin it like that. What I am trying to do is get you to tell me that you didn’t go to the university and say this is my plan, this is what I’m going to do with Sandy Hook before you did it, right?
A. I was asked to, at one point. That was something that was brought up in our discussions concerning the disclaimer and the initial grievance between Coltman, Broadfield, myself, and at one meeting, I believe in summer of 2015, Linda Johnson was there too, who was the assistant or associate dean. And Coltman said, she wanted for — she wanted to have prior restraint. She wanted to — she suggested to me if there’s anything controversial that you might put on your blog, it would be good to let us know, to give5 us advance notice; to perhaps run it by us. And I thought this to be rather excessive, since it was a personal blog, and they acknowledged it was a personal blog.
Q. All right. So, here’s my point. How can you0 expect them to embrace what you’re doing or endorse what1 you’re doing or back what you’re doing if they’re not — if you’re not seeking their input as you’re doing it? It seems like you’re writing these personal views and blogs and things like that, and then things happen5 and you’re disappointed that the university isn’t backing your play.
LEO: Object to form.
THE WITNESS: Well, I don’t think it’s a matter of seeking their endorsement. I don’t — that’s not what I’m getting at. It’s rather to be there to guide, to guard free inquiry. And critical inquiry, and so forth.
(continues for several pages)
September 2015 podcasts:
September 2015 appearance on Truth Jihad
https://www.unz.com/audio/kbarrett_prof-james-tracy-discusses-academic-freedom-gladio-style-sho/
September 4 2015: a “heated exchange” over reporting policy among faculty at FAU, Tracy later tries and fails to get it included as an exhibit:
Tracy uploaded the audio to his website, and it was archived at:
He sent the audio to FAU colleagues on 9/16/2015:
He describes his perceived significance of this event on page 133 of vol 1 of his deposition:
Q. In your complaint, and I want to ask 22 you a few questions about the complaint. Paragraph of your complaint, this refers to Defendant Kelly. You allege that he supervised, facilitated, recommended and/or approved the discipline and termination, your termination, in retaliation for engaging in constitutionally protected speech. What evidence do you have to support that allegation?
A. Well, we know, for example, based upon testimony of previous deponents, as well as written documents, print documents, that President Kelly was at the September 4th, 2015, FAU Faculty Summit meeting, wherein he was lectured by two constitutional law professors, Timothy Lenz and Marshall DeRosa, concerning the unconstitutionality of the outside activities’ policy, the university’s outside activities’ policy and the way in which it was implemented and enforced on the faculty.
So, that certainly is one important instance of his knowledge. He was there with his one of his chief assistants, Gary Perry, the Provost of FAU, Diane Alperin, who was the Provost for personnel, and Dean Coltman, Defendant Coltman, who was the dean of my college. So, all these administrators had, I think, a fairly good knowledge and understanding of the likely unconstitutionality of the outside activities’ policy. And now we have the emails between President Kelly and his family members, where he is expressing his keen interest on the Sandy Hook parents, who he claims he never met, with his wife, Mrs. Kelly, and Caroline — or Kaitlyn, I believe he name is. And subsequent emails, and there must be eight to twelve sending emails concerning my termination to his wife and to family members, and explaining how, hopefully, things will be quiet now that I am out the door.
Q. Okay. Anything else that you can think of?
A. Well, he also did meet with the union defendants and upper level administration on November 30th, I believe, or December 1st. This was the same day that the so-called grievance committee met and voted not to act on my grievance concerning the November 10th, 2015, notice of discipline.
Q. Okay. Anything else?
A. Those are the things that immediately come to mind. We also know, I think that I was treated uniquely amongst my colleagues. We now have knowledge of the grievance affair between — that took place with Dr. Mark Cajura (phonetic). He got a five-day suspension without pay for killing exotic fish and endangering his students in a high-speed boat on the Atlantic Ocean. And that warranted a slap on the wrist, which was contested, I believe, successfully by the union.
September 19 2015: Posts to his blog “Florida Atlantic University Threatens to End Tenure” – here he again includes the audio of the 9/4/15 faculty senate meeting
Throughout October-November 2015: Tracy posts to his blog, promoting “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook”
Tracy describes how he came to participate in the book (deposition vol 1 pg 104)
October/November 2015 podcasts:
Fall 2015: Per Tracy’s complaint, this is when FAU changed its policies regarding reporting of outside activities:
This claim re: paternity leave would be badly damaged in the course of the 2017 trial:
October 2015 communication from Tracy to “Susan and Tim” – indicates that the change in reporting requirements were made specifically because Tracy refused to report his globalresearch work in January 2013.
Dear Susan and Tim,
I am sending along an email received today from my department chair concerning the “REPORT of OUTSIDE EMPLOYMENT or PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY for FAU EMPLOYEES.” Briefly, the chair’s email suggests that most of us shouldn’t worry about the form. This is misleading because the form itself suggests otherwise. While the chair states that such forms need to be completed only by those with “outside employment income,” the specific language of the form’s title and subheadings is unambiguous, with categories underneath the heading “PROPOSED EMPLOYMENT/ACTIVITY” distinguishing between “Employment,” “Other Professional Activity,” and “Other Compensated Activity.” Like the administration’s confusing policy on Article 5.3(d), it might be appropriate for the unit’s representatives to ask for clarification concerning the form, the information such a document seeks to collect, and to whom the policy actually applies.
For example, in my situation I have extracurricular writing ventures that the university has seen fit to publish on my faculty profile page (attached “… regular contributor to GlobalResearch.ca”) and “News” items on the SCMS website after I received Project Censored awards. At the same time, because my work generated controversy on two occasions, the administration forged a special agreement with me (also attached) indicating that such activity is non-professional and invoking Article 5.3(d). As you may know, in January 2013 I was directed by Coltman and Alperin to fill out such a form. Yet upon consulting Michael Moats I was informed that department chairpersons are in no position to tender such documents, and that the form was inappropriate to the matter at hand. I responded to Coltman accordingly. This was before the Outside Activity form in question was revised in 2014. Perhaps to illustrate my situation and other potential scenarios a bit more, I was recently asked to regularly contribute pieces to a major Russian news outlet’s opinion section for which I would be paid. Since money would be passing hands this surely would make filing such a form appropriate. (This is what in-unit faculty are being led to believe.) Yet the nature and extent of such work would be comparable to material I’ve already been producing on my own time without compensation—work that the university may or may not acknowledge, depending on exactly where one looks online. In either instance, what are the potential consequences for failing to report such activities? As with 5.3(d), one doesn’t know until disciplinary action is taken. There is no immediate need to respond. This is simply for your consideration and to have on the record. Thanks. Jim
October 2015: Tracy (per his complaint) is filling out paperwork when he encounters a checkbox “acknowledging [his] obligation to report outside activities.”
Also October 2015 (probably): Tracy turns 50 years old
October 22, 2015 (approx): Per deposition, Tracy has conversation at FAU library with Tim Lenz, formerly of the union that would be representing him:
A. I also spoke with Tim Lenz, I would say around October 22nd or so of 2015. We were at a function at the library, where we were speakers on a panel, and it involved scholarly publishing. And, beforehand, I had — I got there a bit early. I was on parental leave, but I saw him, and we had a chance to chat briefly –
Q. This is Mr. Lenz, you’re talking about?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay.
A. We had a chance to chat briefly, and he was aware of the e-mail that I sent on October 20th of 2015, because he said to me, it looks like they’re making it up as they go along.
And, he was talking about the outside activities policy, and we kind of chuckled about that, and I think we were more or less ushered in with the event where we discussed scholarly publishing.
So, it was just a very brief interaction, but I do recall that specifically, and I have a good deal of respect for Professor Lenz. He had served on the Board of Trustees as the Faculty Senate President. He had served in UFF, and he’s stepped in with the union to assist, for example, in training the Grievance Chair in 2014, when it was not really — nothing he necessarily had to do.
Q. Why didn’t Mr. Lenz, then, file a grievance for you?
A. He told me at the conclusion of our — towards the end of our discussion on the telephone in November of 2015, that he’s no longer involved in this process, and the reins had been passed to Doug McGetchin.
October 27 2015: Jim Fetzer and James Tracy defend the scholarship of Nobody Died at Sandy Hook in the comments section of Memory Hole Blog:
musings says:
October 27, 2015 at 1:11 PM
fogey – I agree with your premise. Part of the job of waking people up is to convince them you are educated enough to have read through the opposition’s propaganda and can thus dismiss it, that you are not just approaching it from the gut instinct, but that you have actually processed the information. If I hired a lawyer, I would want that person to be at least as educated as the opposing counsel.
Dismissing people as ignoramuses who have gotten all their opinions from tabloids, portraying them as lower class, has been effective in muzzling their opinions. If the reader is put off by the tone or the language of a piece which has been poorly edited (and left some arguments ambiguous because of lack of coherence), then the battle is lost before it is begun. My friends can thus go back to their New Yorker article about Sandy Hook and feel all is right with the world.
Remember Wolfgang Halbig’s initial letters to the Newtown officials that seemed poorly written and made one doubt his claims of expertise in school security?
jfetzer2012 says:
October 27, 2015 at 5:43 PM
OK, musings. What exactly are YOU talking about? I have reviewed the Prologue and can find nothing remotely objectionable about it, either with respect to content or grammar. If you are going to endorse a claim that I have already disputed, WHAT IS YOUR EVIDENCE? This comes across to me as a feeble attempt to discount a massive, detailed and powerful study of the Sandy Hook hoax WITHOUT EVEN READING IT. That, to me, is as offensive as it could possibly be. So what is your evidence?
James Tracy says:
October 27, 2015 at 7:27 PM
It should also be noted that the two previous volumes in this edited series, And I Suppose We Didn’t Go to the Moon Either? and White Rose Blooms in Wisconsin, were essentially flawless productions in terms of editing.
November 2015: Tracy contacts Zoeller again, for assistance with navigating the outside reporting form:
From deposition of Tracy:
November 13 2015: Terrorist attacks in Paris. Tracy posts truther articles denying it was real/as presented.
Mid-November 2015: Tracy testimony from 2017 where he talks about a Kevin Barrett project during this period (vol 2 pg 236) – note the court transcription gets the name wrong at one point, but the title of the book corresponds to a Kevin Barrett work that was indeed published:
November 2015: Tracy writes a blog post (not posted until 2016) in which he describes what would ultimately be his “last class” in academia, and the first time he overtly taught conspiracy theories (about 9/11)
This author recently taught an undergraduate media studies class where he chose to specifically address news coverage of September 11, 2001 and the broader history of false flag terrorism. This was the first time one specific historical incident was focused on throughout the term, and the overall approach involved cultivating students’ understandings and recollections of those events as the foundation of a working model that might demonstrate how such significant events and their re-presentation by corporate media and educational institutions actively hinder honest attempts to make sense of that tragic day, and thereby our present political location and historical moment.
Despite the academy’s progressive veneer, with few exceptions 9/11 and similar deep events are actively eschewed even by self-professed “radical” scholars, otherwise quick to take up questions of social and political power, particularly as they pertain to race, class, or gender. Taking their cue from public intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky,[1] they conclude that such questions interfere with analyses of ongoing “oppression,” not to mention potentially jeopardizing personal economic opportunities (i.e. accumulation of “cultural capital”) inevitably bound up in professional reputation. Unfortunately, this author’s experience suggests how such assumptions only tend to prolong and exacerbate the psychological trauma and detachment from historical reality many students still harbor as a direct result of 9/11.
On the first day of class students were given a brief informal survey to complete where they were asked about their experiences and understandings of September 11. Since most class participants were in their early-to-mid twenties, they were in early grade school years in 2001.
Upon vicariously witnessing the carefully coordinated “attacks” and their repercussions as children, the students recalled feeling shocked, confused, afraid, frustrated, and in some cases even angry that something like this could happen to their country, and in broad daylight no less. Some even knew of friends or relatives lost in the World Trade Center. The traumatic effects of those events were accentuated by observing the responses of their teachers and parents, who were likewise visibly shaken, in some cases reduced to tears.
Students were also asked what media venues they consulted for information and how they were educated on the 9/11 events. Almost without exception their main sources included K-12 instruction, what might be gleaned in a few years of “higher education” (most are college juniors or seniors), and conventional news outlets–particularly network news and cable news channels, made-for-television documentaries, and to a far lesser degree traditional print media.
A final question asked, “To the best of your knowledge, what exactly took place on September 11, 2001?” Students almost invariably repeated the same conspiracy theory concerning 9/11 that has been touted by federal government officials and corporate news media alike since that fateful day: Our country was attacked by Muslim extremists who hijacked planes and flew them in to New York’s World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon in Washington DC. In one rare exception, a student who took a previous class with the author expressed skepticism, noting possible intrigue in the terrorist acts.
The class proceeded to read and discuss Barrie Zwicker’s Towers of Deception: The Media Coverup of 9/11, and view several documentaries, including Massimo Mazzucco’s September 11: The New Pearl Harbor. As the term proceeded an almost uniform sense of cognitive dissonance, disbelief and denial among students turned to uncertainty, and eventually an acknowledgement that they had been compelled to accept as fact a carefully-crafted myth, one paving the way for the “war on terror” that has largely defined their lives and those of their loved ones. The myth has required massive government propaganda abetted by a “free press,” which to this day refuses to interrogate and bring to light the greatest mass murder of US citizens in the nation’s history.
November 22-November 30 2015: From deposition, Tracy says this is when he instructed Zoeller to file a grievance on his behalf.
Nov 24 2015: Tracy mentions an email between he and someone else, unclear what the context is (vol 2 pg 217):
December 10 2015: Lenny and Veronique op-ed re: Tracy. Note that this is the article that Tracy would go on to attribute as the reason for his firing.
December 10-13 2015: At some point during these three days, Tracy sends a response to the Sun-Sentinel, stating in part, “The Pozners, alas, are as phony as the drill itself and profiting handsomely from the fake death of their son.” As he later testified, he very quickly regretted sending it, claims it was actually written by Jim Fetzer (apparently sent to Tracy in an email describing it as a “MASSIVE RETALIATORY STRIKE”) and merely edited and sent by Tracy, and he sent a second, “tamer” response op-ed to the Sun-Sentinel. Explaining why he sent the vicious message once gain targeting the Pozners, he would say, “I was distraught.”
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/crime/2017/12/02/ex-fau-prof-on-trial/7780178007/
December 11, 2015: Tracy receives email from Coltman, per his testimony, that persuades him to disclose globalresearch.ca on his forms (note however that the link was posted on his faculty profile page in mid-2012). He bases this partly on his interactions with FAU administration in 2013, in the wake of his initial Sandy Hook “hoax” controversy”
(Deposition vol 2 pg 221)
December 14 2015: Sun-Sentinel publishes Tracy’s second, “tamer” response op-ed:
Three years ago, the public learned of the most significant mass shooting in recent U.S. history involving the deaths of 20 young school children and seven adults. As a father of three, I immediately empathized with the parents, reminding myself there was no real way to fathom the sense of loss such an experience must involve.
After several days of reflection, however, my instincts as a media historian and analyst took charge. In reviewing news coverage of the Sandy Hook School massacre, I began to recognize very unusual features in the alleged forensics, the emergency response and the overall way the event was being reported.
Commonplace emergency protocols were abandoned. There was no surge of EMTs into the building, no proper triage protocol employed or Med-Evac helicopters called. Parents were not even allowed to view and hold the bodies of their deceased children, and law enforcement oddly admonished those who questioned the official narrative online were subject to criminal prosecution.
The following day, Connecticut’s state coroner amazingly bumbled and guffawed through a 15-minute press conference, where it was anticipated he would provide an expert overview of the postmortem. His responses to reporters’ questions were so bizarre and incompetent I was awaiting an avalanche of lawsuits from victims families to be brought against the school district and State of Connecticut. On Dec. 28 one was filed, then quickly withdrawn.
The following October, the Sandy Hook School — among the greatest crime scenes in U.S. history — was demolished. When I chose to publicly share my analyses and suggest that the event was being inaccurately reported and seized upon by politicians to implement long-sought agendas, I was attacked and labelled a “conspiracy theorist.”
This media frenzy quickly developed into a campaign to embarrass my university employer into firing me. My continued research on this topic has developed into a scholarly project that the institution of tenure was intended to protect. But how could one ever dare propose such subject matter?
Beginning in the 1960s, women and racial minorities who secured a toehold in the academy used their tenure to address controversial topics that drew fire from conservative administrators and trustees. Unfortunately, this tradition of radical inquiry has evolved into a stultifying, almost Victorian, ethos of political correctness that often precludes honest exchange, sees oppression where none exists and makes tenure a charade. It also renders profane the idea of questioning the motives of America’s first black president and attorney general.
In the Dec. 10, 2015 online edition of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Leonid “Lenny” and Veronique Pozner mounted a vicious attack that sought to intimidate my employer into removing my tenure and depriving me of my livelihood because of the questions I’ve raised concerning the Sandy Hook event and unusually tenacious copyright claims.
Normally, an endeavor targeting an individual’s primary asset would take shape as a lawsuit where proper discovery and judicial procedures might be carried out. The recent 377-page volume of research on the Sandy Hook event complied by six professors (including myself) would constitute for the Pozners a tremendous burden of going forward. They have thus chosen the low road of playing upon the prejudices of decent, good-hearted yet often poorly-informed Americans. (This book is available online as a free PDF, and has been downloaded almost 10 million times since mid-November.)
Along these lines, in June 2014, I sent CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who similarly attacked me on national television for questioning the state-sanctioned Sandy Hook narrative, an open letter to join me in a trip to Newtown so that we could together reexamine the facts underlying the horrific tragedy he played a major part in covering. I emphasized that such a scoop could be tantamount to the next Watergate, and if he could satisfactorily put to rest my skepticism, I would seriously consider resigning my academic post.
To this day, my request has gone unanswered. Perhaps, like me, Mr. Cooper knows that Newtown and Connecticut officials have failed to fulfill a multitude of public records requests which would readily confirm the nightmare Cooper and his media colleagues related as fact three years ago.
In a geographically vast country, where imagery and emotion reign supreme, where fact is often replaced by unsubstantiated claims and hearsay, the eventual result will be a severe loss of our freedoms, perhaps outright tyranny, as de Tocqueville suggested following his tour of America almost two centuries ago.
Today, more than ever, citizens would be well-served to recognize that much of what they are left to witness via mass media requires serious interrogation, possible only through a consistent regimen of intellectual self-defense. This makes good reporters and worthwhile journalism. If that is an outmoded ideal and a skill that can no longer be practiced or taught to young adults, I stand guilty as charged.
December 15 2015: Tracy submits his chapters to Kevin Barrett for a book on the 11/13 Paris attacks.
December 16 2015: FAU announces they are moving to fire James Tracy
Tracy’s recollection of that interview with NBC (mistyped as MBC):
These points are eventually reinforced in the 2017 trial’s testimony and evidence (from decision not to grant new trial, April 2018):
The court also outlines why there was indeed a responsibility on Tracy’s part to report the outside activities:
December 17 2015: Sun-Sentinel publishes an op-ed from the Editorial Board, “Tenure be damned, Professor James Tracy embarrasses FAU”
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-editorial-tracy-gs1218-20151217-story.html
One of Tracy’s soon-to-be-former colleagues takes the opportunity to express what some of the faculty feel about the Sandy Hook denier:
“Tenure is not immunity,” we were told by Jeffrey S. Morton, Ph.D., a tenured FAU professor of International Law.
“His harassment of the parents of murdered children was vulgar, repulsive and an insult to the academic profession. Faculty concerned about the status of tenure should, in fact, be relieved that FAU began termination procedures,” Morton said in an email.
“While there are real reasons to protect tenure for academic research, Tracy’s “scholarship” makes a mockery of what academics do. His termination both holds Tracy accountable for his despicable behavior and reduces pressure on elected officials to end tenure.”
Also on December 17 2015, from deposition:
More, from pg 151 vol 1:
December 20 2015: Reposts episode of Fetzer’s “The Real Deal” show from the previous day, “Lenny Pozner Stalking James Tracy”
December 20 2015 (approx): Per Tracy in deposition, this is when he retains his own lawyer:
Dec 21 2015: A “Fellowship of the Minds” post (written by a conspiracy lunatic calling herself Dr. Eowyn, who is in fact another disgraced and retired academic, Maria Hsia Chang) claiming that Tracy’s university email account had been “hacked” and used to send a message to the National Institute for Mental Health, begging for help:
https://everydayconcerned.net/category/political-persecution/page/2/
On the morning of December 21, 2015, someone hacked into Tracy’s university email account and sent an email in his name, saying that he is “delusional,” to a federal government agency — the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which is a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which itself is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIMH conducts and supports research on the brain and disorders of mental health.
Below is the fraudulent email:
From: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, December 21, 2015 1:39 AM
Subject: Request Assistance/Information
I’m delusional and need help
Two days later on December 23, 2015, at 11:52 AM, NIMH’s Information Resource Center <[email protected]> replied to the fraudulent email, stating that they “are sorry to hear that you are experiencing delusions and understand your need for assistance.” Information on “Finding Treatment” was provided.
December 2015/January 2016 podcasts:
