Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

[barracuda]

Do you think it's fair to describe assassinations, including those conducted covertly and with the intent for the assassins not to be known or take credit, as an activity within the purview of McChrystal's former commands?

Oh sure. But I doubt he'd be getting his own hands dirty on the thing.

Also:

http://rt.com/usa/sent-death-email-hastings-172/

One week after his death, speculations continue to surround Hastings’ death. The other recipients of the email obtained by Higgs have yet to address the correspondence, but the soldier said it’s unlikely because others are worried of what will happen next.

“The reason I released the email is because those people were too scared. I'm not,” Higgs tweeted over the weekend.

“I won't let a man die in vein [sic] because I'm too scared of what will happen to me. If I sent that email to Mike he wouldn't rest,” Higgs wrote, “He would fight.”

On the eve of Hastings’ funeral this Monday in Vermont, Higgs said the deceased journalist’s wife thanked him for releasing the email.

“She's vowing to take down whoever did this. She's a fighter,” he wrote.

The Los Angeles Police Department says they do not suspect foul play in Hastings’ death, and the FBI said he was not the target of an investigation.

Appearing on Fox News on Monday, Ali Gharib, a journalist and friend of Hastings, said “I don’t think he was a reckless a person.”

“That doesn’t mean he might not have been driving excessively fast,” added Gharib, who said it wouldn’t be “a wild situation” to imagine Hastings driving quickly through Los Angeles late last week.

[dbcooper41]

some may find this interesting.

http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-oakland2010.pdf

a hack doesn't look very difficult at all. iirc i suggested it several years back as an explanation for the runaway toyotas.

and i'm not sure if this was already mentioned but the justin bieber excuse cited early on in this post as an excuse for the loudlab car being present is absurd.
the bieber "hit and run" occured almost 5 hours before this event. no way some freelancer was cruising around due to that.

[barracuda]

But, for all his take-no-prisoners bravado, in my all-too-brief encounters with Hastings he was more thoughtful than he let on in public. After I wrote critically about his McChrystal profile, he reached out to offer a kind word and invite me to drinks, a small gesture but one that few writers – perhaps myself included – would have been generous and unguarded enough to make to a critic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wor ... -hastings/

Last winter, Michael Hastings emailed me asking me out for beer. I was beyond shocked—Hastings was a hero of mine for taking down Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his Rolling Stone classic “The Runaway General”. Why in the world a famous war reporter like Hastings would want to get beer with a lowly labor reporter like myself was beyond me, but he did. Somehow, through the miracle of Twitter, Hastings had become a fan of my work on organized labor.

Hastings and I got pretty drunk that night and I remember he told me that he felt there were only two ways to be successful as a reporter: either suck up to your sources, or be feared. Hastings told me he always preferred to be feared.

http://inthesetimes.com/ittlist/entry/1 ... _the_deal/

[jfshade]

Does anyone know where Barret Brown is imprisoned? I was thinking of writing him a letter, first to let him know we here at RI are talking about his case and supporting him in any way we can and also to ask him if he has any ideas about what may have happened to Hastings. I will google around and see if I can find him, I am sure he has to be in a federal pen since it was the FBI that went after him and hacking generally is a federal offense, and if he is in a federal prison he is allowed access to a computer but it only has an email client on it and they have to pay 25 cents a minute out of their prison account to use it to send emails. So if you contact a federal prisoner you can ask them to add you to their email list and then they would be able to get your emails but they can use the computer everyday I think its a once a week thing and like I said, it isnt cheap them for at 25 cents a minute when most of them dont even make 25 cents a day at their prison jobs. But my understanding is that all federal prisoners are allowed to send emails, even ones that are convicted of computer crimes. So if anyone has this information about Barret Brown or finds it before I do, please post it, I think I would like to make contact with him and perhaps find a journalist that would be willing to pick up where Hastings left off wrt the story he was working on about Brown before he did, my understanding is that Hastings met with Brown at the prison, on June 3rd.


Thanks in advance for any info anyone has or finds along these lines.

According to this piece, he's at the Mansfield Law Enforcement Center in Mansfield, TX.
Contact info

[barracuda]

[Iamwhomiam]

There's no conclusive proof this was anything but an unfortunate accident. McCrystal's men could have done this on their own, though without his knowledge.

His car was equipped with a four wheel drive system equipped with stability control. When someone reported the car had jackknifed they meant it veered sharply to the left, crossing traffic.

Stability control should prevent such a thing from happening, but it too could be remotely controlled to force all power to one particular wheel, the left front.

Also, This car suffers from 'understeer' the opposite of 'oversteer.' With oversteer, such an abrupt left would be much more likely and more unlikely to occur in a car with understeer.

It would be possible to override the vehicle's built-in safety systems and remotely control its stability and drive systems including its cruise or speed control.

For some reason, I'm looking in Mrs. Kelley's direction for "something big." Just a feeling.

[82_28]

There is nothing conclusive other than what has so far been concluded and that is:

A: Assassination
A(a) Hacked computer systems
A(b) Incendiary physically installed
B: Unfortunate mistake
B(a) Computer malfunction

Unfortunately, this goes beyond what we think might have happened and what did happen. The reasons for what we think might have happened are open for discussion and they must remain that way. What DID happen is what happened. And not only was it unfortunate and tragic, it still happened to an up and coming luminary of what we understand to be a muckraker and opinionated needler of power who appeared to be on "our" side.

So the loss of Hastings is no good no matter which way you slice it. But, if the death of Hastings and the way he went out is meant to be a message or can be spun into a message, the subliminal undercurrent remains nonetheless -- hence, us here today still mulling it over. The subliminal undercurrent will not go away and this was the point. It cannot go away. If it went away, there would be left a vacuum to be filled. The death of Michael Hastings maintains the integrity of the vacuum -- one way or the other.

[Forgetting2]

But, for all his take-no-prisoners bravado, in my all-too-brief encounters with Hastings he was more thoughtful than he let on in public. After I wrote critically about his McChrystal profile, he reached out to offer a kind word and invite me to drinks, a small gesture but one that few writers – perhaps myself included – would have been generous and unguarded enough to make to a critic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wor ... -hastings/

Last winter, Michael Hastings emailed me asking me out for beer. I was beyond shocked—Hastings was a hero of mine for taking down Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his Rolling Stone classic “The Runaway General”. Why in the world a famous war reporter like Hastings would want to get beer with a lowly labor reporter like myself was beyond me, but he did. Somehow, through the miracle of Twitter, Hastings had become a fan of my work on organized labor.

Hastings and I got pretty drunk that night and I remember he told me that he felt there were only two ways to be successful as a reporter: either suck up to your sources, or be feared. Hastings told me he always preferred to be feared.

http://inthesetimes.com/ittlist/entry/1 ... _the_deal/

According to these fellas, Hastings was quite casual about drinking with critics and getting drunk with strangers. I guess that means he only wouldn't drink with friends and people he knows well. Probably had a hooker (one that he didn't know very well) in the car with him to help pop a vein. Seriously though, it would be interesting to find out more about these two sources.

On edit: Should add that the people he's chosen to reveal his 'sobriety as sham' are journalists, who of course would never betray that confidence.

[Hunter]

it's too bad the thing is focused on batting down "government agents" as the culprit. That should not even be the main focus of suspicion. There are individuals who have motive and likely means.

Our own Jason Torchinsky did a thorough debunking of why this is so unlikely, including how modern cars' internal networks aren't normally equipped to receive wireless instructions and how it's absurd to think that mechanical systems can somehow be easily overridden by a remote signal

I long ago stipulated that most likely they would have had to gain access to the car and install a wireless interface to the computer port.

Revenge is the motive, and we already have a threat to "hunt down and kill" on record.

trying to make this about 'da gubamint did it' is a distraction.

but hell, it's not as though we can trust the LAPD to conduct and investigation worth a damn.

I think this guy is talking about normal technology and failing to consider that we may be dealing with people who have access to stuff that nobody else know about yet and which allows them to hack in to a car. I also think your suggestion of them putting something on the car that would enable it to then receive wireless commands is something to seriously consider but from my POV I think we are dealing with an organization that has access to more sophisticated technology than our reviewers and debunkers even know exist and the organizations that would have such technology are few, namely military, which would support your McChrystal suggestion, or NSA/CIA which is is what I am leaning towards. In a any case I have read extensively every link posted in this thread about hacking cars, and there is a lot there to read and I am convinced it is possible and that is what happened to Hastings, for me, its case closed on that front and I am now focusing more on the who and why and also trying to contact various people through email who knew him to see where his notes might be and how we can find out what he was working on and who may be the best person to try and pick up where he left off.





BTW thanks for that link CUDA good stuff in those comments, interesting from both sides.

[Forgetting2]

The young turks video is very good. Gracias.

[Hunter]

But, for all his take-no-prisoners bravado, in my all-too-brief encounters with Hastings he was more thoughtful than he let on in public. After I wrote critically about his McChrystal profile, he reached out to offer a kind word and invite me to drinks, a small gesture but one that few writers – perhaps myself included – would have been generous and unguarded enough to make to a critic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wor ... -hastings/

Last winter, Michael Hastings emailed me asking me out for beer. I was beyond shocked—Hastings was a hero of mine for taking down Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his Rolling Stone classic “The Runaway General”. Why in the world a famous war reporter like Hastings would want to get beer with a lowly labor reporter like myself was beyond me, but he did. Somehow, through the miracle of Twitter, Hastings had become a fan of my work on organized labor.

Hastings and I got pretty drunk that night and I remember he told me that he felt there were only two ways to be successful as a reporter: either suck up to your sources, or be feared. Hastings told me he always preferred to be feared.

http://inthesetimes.com/ittlist/entry/1 ... _the_deal/

According to these fellas, Hastings was quite casual about drinking with critics and getting drunk with strangers. I guess that means he only wouldn't drink with friends and people he knows well. Probably had a hooker (one that he didn't know very well) in the car with him to help pop a vein. Seriously though, it would be interesting to find out more about these two sources.

On edit: Should add that the people he's chosen to reveal his 'sobriety as sham' are journalists, who of course would never betray that confidence.

All I can tell you is that in his books he makes it VERY CLEAR that his sobriety is very important to him, a big part of his life and identity, he mentions several times that it doesnt effect his career because he still goes out with sources or colleagues and simply drinks non alcoholic beers.

So I really dont understand what the fuck these guys are talking about, maybe its true or maybe they have been paid off and are the early warning signs of the tsunami that is about to hit when the tox screen comes back and shows that he was pumped full of bath salts or some shit, who the fuck knows anymore what to believe. Shaking my head.

[justdrew]

well if he was ordering and getting NA beer while his 'critics' he invited out get the real stuff, that would be a good way to learn things, and it's not so hard to seem drunk to a drunk you've been drinking with. So, could have been a handy trick.

[Forgetting2]

All I can tell you is that in his books he makes it VERY CLEAR that his sobriety is very important to him, a big part of his life and identity, he mentions several times that it doesnt effect his career because he still goes out with sources or colleagues and simply drinks non alcoholic beers.

So I really dont understand what the fuck these guys are talking about, maybe its true or maybe they have been paid off and are the early warning signs of the tsunami that is about to hit when the tox screen comes back and shows that he was pumped full of bath salts or some shit, who the fuck knows anymore what to believe. Shaking my head.

Yeah, I was thinking that's a possibility that these are plants.

[Forgetting2]

well if he was ordering and getting NA beer while his 'critics' he invited out get the real stuff, that would be a good way to learn things, and it's not so hard to seem drunk to a drunk you've been drinking with. So, could have been a handy trick.

Could be. But the one article with the guy he's just met clearly says, 'Hastings and I got pretty drunk that night.' It sticks out as an unnecessary throwaway to the story, unlike say, "after getting drunk, Hastings loosened up and gave up his real feelings about..." The revelation that is in there isn't anything you wouldn't expect from Hastings.

[Hunter]

Seriously does it make any sense at all that he would preach sobriety in his books so openly and then invite his CRITICS, not friends mind you, not colleagues mind you, but his CRITICS, invite his critics out and get hammered with them ensuring that said critics are proven right that you are a fucking tool and a liar and a complete fake?

How much fucking sense does that make?


Honest question is anyone else finding it increasingly difficult to know what the fuck to believe anymore, its like today you read something and you are like ok that makes great sense, then tomorrow its something totally different and it also sort of make sense and youre left with this hollow and awful feeling that you simply cant find the truth about anything anymore and you exist in this perpetual state of limbo never knowing exactly what the fuck it is that is going on around you?

I dont recall it ever being this hard to just fucking know what to believe anymore, its gotten worse and I am not just being grumpy, I am serious, everyday I go through this with everything and I tell myself, what the fuck am I supposed to believe anymore, is everything a lie, is there such a thing as truth anymore or have we effectively fucked the world up so bad that truth is buried so far up all our asses that we will never again experience such a thing and will be forced to continuously live the lies that are fed to us from the left and from the right jumping back and forth almost minute to minute as the spin and narrative changes and changes, back and forth back and forth.



Fucking madness...