Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby bks » Thu Jun 20, 2013 7:38 am

June 23 would have been three years since Commander Deathsquad was deposed, essentially by Hastings.

Does that qualify as a dish eaten sufficiently cold?
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Luther Blissett » Thu Jun 20, 2013 9:26 am

8bitagent » Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:40 pm wrote:I notice that even amongst the alternative to the mainstream left(your Greenwalds, Cenks, Scahills, etc) that even hinting at foul play in accidents/suicides/etc is taboo. But even amidst say, MSNBC and just the general news media it feels like a trip to the check out line at a grocery store. Your met with all these bullshit automated pleasantries, shitty garbage stories on the tabloid covers and rubber barrier bars to simulate the idea of
individual thought.

JackRiddler » Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:20 pm wrote:
luther blissett wrote:My girlfriend seems to think this is a warning shot, and possibly could be meant to chill Scahill since they were just physically in the same space just before the accident. I think that the atmosphere in America is kinetic if enough people were to be exposed to just the right combination of information post-PRISM. I just watched "Dirty Wars" last night right before finding out about Hastings' death and feel quite angry.


Chill Scahill? If they wanted to, they could have killed Scahill, right? I'd think, and again I suppose accident isn't ruled out, that the idea is to chill Hastings. Or get revenge for something pretty fucking obvious he put over on Commander Deathsquad himself.


I think you're quoting Luther Blassett...I can't even remember the last time I had a girlfriend:)

But Scahill is super high profile and red hot at the moment, so wouldnt that make him safe?


Yeah that was me. I think that this particular accident is not so taboo to speculate on. As a matter of fact, it seems surprisingly mainstream this time around.

I suppose they could kill Scahill, but in his AMA yesterday he was talking a lot about Hastings and saying that the accident needs to be thoroughly investigated.
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Hunter » Thu Jun 20, 2013 9:58 am

From Hastings' AMA last year when asked if he gets threats from his enemies:

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/commen ... zfeed_and/

He replied:

Yes. Every once and awhile, I'll get a death threat from someone--like, "if we don't like what you write, we'll hunt you down and kill you" kind of thing. But there's a more insidious response most of the time when you piss off the powerful. They come after your career, they try to come after your credibility. They do cocktail party whisper campaigns. They try to make you "controversial." Sadly, The Powers That Be are often aided by other journalists.

The Pentagon has launched three investigations into stories I've done over the past 18 months under the pretense of finding the wrongdoing we were exposing. But the investigations were really about creating a Pentagon approved official document to criticize journalism they don't like.
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Hunter » Thu Jun 20, 2013 10:02 am

Forgetting2 » Thu Jun 20, 2013 5:28 am wrote:When the guy said 'jackknife' I assumed he meant one end of the car lifted up; thus the image of a jackknife. Be interesting to find out what he meant with an interpreter. (It was the person who spoke spanish who said that, I believe?)

What he meant I think is FISH TAIL that is what a speeding out of control car does, only trailers jack knife.
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby elfismiles » Thu Jun 20, 2013 11:04 am

Ever since watching that darpa video about hacking car computers ... I'm leaning towards the "stuck accelerator" ... of course, I'd hope in such a situation I'd have the presence of mind to try the parking brake or some other slow-down mechanism but who the hell knows when yer under pressure.

justdrew » 20 Jun 2013 04:24 wrote:wouldn't hurt if someone could get over there in daylight and take some nice high res pics of the scene

would be nice if we could spot where the car mounted the curb

also the speed at impact should be fairly determinable from the distance the engine flew.

looks like no break skid marks, but need daylight shots to confirm.

"stuck accelerator" is another trick I can see the onboard computer pulling.
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Canadian_watcher » Thu Jun 20, 2013 11:14 am

yeah, stuck accelerator seems right to me, too (based on nothing but instinct, of course.)

about the emergency brake thing... I did that once. Never try it for fun!! I did a 360 on the road in front of my highschool. yikes! luckily nothing happened, no other cars were around, and no people. It was not the screeching tire, straight ahead smooth but quick stop I thought it would be whatsoever. (I was 18 years old, wtf did I know?)
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Jun 20, 2013 11:18 am

Is it possible to tamper with the sophisticated modern car electronics programmed to intervene by temporarily governing speed and even steering, either on the unit or by some exotic remote control?

By the way, "The Lone Gunmen" pilot episode strikes again.
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Hunter » Thu Jun 20, 2013 11:19 am

I still want to know what a non public complication is. Very strange language.
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Hunter » Thu Jun 20, 2013 11:20 am

JackRiddler » Thu Jun 20, 2013 11:18 am wrote:Can the sophisticated modern car electronics programmed to intervene by temporarily governing speed and even steering be tampered with, either on the unit or by some exotic remote control?

The on board software can be hacked for certain, it is a known fact they can shut cars down from a remote location so I would assume but I dont KNOW that they may be able to fuck with acceleration.

The newest cars actually GET SOFTWARE UPDATES sent to them just like on your computer so I would imagine a hacker could slip you a bad update or something? Follow me?
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Hunter » Thu Jun 20, 2013 11:46 am

BTW the name of what some of you are looking for is BOSTON BRAKES look it up.
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Hunter » Thu Jun 20, 2013 11:54 am

From The Operators, Hastings writes that as they drank and sang, several McChrystal staff members make subtle threats, saying:

"You're not going to fuck us, are you?" asks one staff member.

Hastings responds: "I'm going to write a story; some of the stuff you'll like, some of the stuff you probably won't like."

Another staffer then says: "We'll hunt you down and kill you if we don't like what you write."
:shock:
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby elfismiles » Thu Jun 20, 2013 12:01 pm

Thanks for the headsup Alchemy RE: "Boston Brakes"
https://www.google.com/search?q=BOSTON+BRAKES

Jack, yeah, that's what the DARPA lady says in that video, going so far as to say the system could be hacked by the playing of an encoded CD in the audio system (of some cars - who knows which ones).

CW - I've been in a old VW beetle when the driver decided to scare the bajeezus out of me and my fellow passengers back in my immediate post-high-school daze ... we were driving down a now abandoned (its become part of a park) road in the middle of the night and he suddenly pulls the E-Brake (and turned the wheel hard, I think) and we did a 360 ... all of us screaming bloody-murder! It was quite a rush - thankfully I didn't soil myself.

JackRiddler » 20 Jun 2013 15:18 wrote:Is it possible to tamper with the sophisticated modern car electronics programmed to intervene by temporarily governing speed and even steering, either on the unit or by some exotic remote control?

By the way, "The Lone Gunmen" pilot episode strikes again.
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Bruce Dazzling » Thu Jun 20, 2013 12:02 pm

And right on cue, Cenk Uygur's quotes are being used to cement the official narrative, just as I said they would here and here.

Oh, and good old Alex Jones is thrown in to further poison the well.

Michael Hastings, the FBI, and WikiLeaks: Death of Journalist Sparks Conspiracy Theories
By Joe Coscarelli
New York


The death of reporter Michael Hastings, best remembered for taking on General Stanley McChrystal and other powerful people, has been met with shock and grief in the journalistic community, especially from those fortunate enough to work alongside him. But one layer below the fond remembrances are a host of vague questions and inferences about the circumstances surrounding the 33-year-old BuzzFeed reporter's fiery solo car crash early Tuesday in Los Angeles. Bringing those suspicions to the forefront last night was WikiLeaks, never reticent to insert itself into a story, which teased, "Michael Hastings death has a very serious non-public complication. We will have more details later." And after three hours tweeted: "Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him."

"Yeah," BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith confirmed to Daily Intelligencer. "Before his death, Michael told a number of his friends and colleagues that he was concerned that he was under investigation."

But other, less reputable sources have taken the speculation much further. "Vince Foster-like murder plot emerging in Los Angeles? Did the Obama administration knock off a star reporter?" asked one blog early on Wednesday, adding to existing conspiratorial Twitter chatter. Another wrote, "Admit it, Michael Hastings’ Death is Weird and Scary." Hours before revelations about a potential FBI investigation, InfoWars, the Alex Jones website that serves as a catch-all conspiracy-theory clearing house, mentioned Hastings's death with an editor's note: "Journalists who mess with government and military power often die under mysterious circumstances." None had more than conjecture.

The circumstances are these: "Police said a vehicle was southbound on Highland about 4:20 a.m. when it lost control south of Melrose and smashed into a tree," the L.A. Times reported. Video purports to show Hastings's Mercedes-Benz running a red light at a high speed minutes before the crash. "It sounded like a bomb went off in the middle of the night," a witness told the local news. "I couldn't have written a scene like this for a movie, where the engine flies from the car." Photos and video from the aftermath show extreme wreckage, and as of yesterday, the coroner had not officially identified the body because it was too badly burned.

But an automotive writer also fed the doubters:

I’m here to state that I’ve seen dozens of cars hit walls and stuff at high speeds and the number of them that I have observed to eject their powertrains and immediately catch massive fire is, um, ah, zero. Modern cars are very good at not catching fire in accidents. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class, which is an evolutionary design from a company known for sweating the safety details over and above the Euro NCAP requirements, should be leading the pack in the not-catching-on-fire category. Nor is the C-Class known for sudden veering out of control into trees and whatnot.

The crash is under investigation and there will be an official accident report (a toxicology report could take weeks). Whatever its findings, they can likely coexist with Hastings's mind-set at the time and a potential government investigation without representing something more sinister.

"He was incredibly tense and very worried and was concerned that the government was looking in on his material," said Hastings's friend and Current TV host Cenk Uygur. "I don't know what his state of mind was at 4:30 in the morning, but I do know what his state of mind was in general, and it was a nervous wreck."
But Mother Jones editor Clara Jeffery put it plainly: "Ugh, the people posting Vince Foster style comments re Hastings death do a disservice to his no BS truth telling." Let's wait for the facts.
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Hunter » Thu Jun 20, 2013 12:08 pm

His view of the future from his reddit AMA:

I think as the empire declines over the next few decades, the fractures are likely to become more severe, the differences more pronounced. The federal government is going to become less powerful. One can imagine breakaway states and the like. It's kind of the sci-fi scenario, but one that seems like a possibility. I see the signs of this happening on my travels around the country already, with a real popularity for secessionist movements, from Texas to Vermont.
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Re: Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

Postby Hunter » Thu Jun 20, 2013 12:10 pm

I like the nice touch in the video of a perfectly intact beer bottle 15 feet from the crash, the engine and drive train flew 60 feet but that beer bottle sits there intact. It could have already been there but if not its a nice little prop perhaps.
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