Journalist Michael Hastings is dead at 33

[stickdog99]

FBA

[Nordic]

One day in my old neighborhood in Santa Monica i saw a fellow in very official looking FBI garb jimmying open mailboxes to an apartment building down the street. Fwiw.

As far as Highland Ave southbound sourh of Melrose, it's a wide flat boulevard and you could drive pretty fast without tree roots, dips and bumps etc. this is from memory. It's a pretty nice smooth ride. B

[slimmouse]

When FBI are encountered, ideally one should ask what office they work out of. Get a phonebook and call the listed FBI number and verify that such persons exist and so on.

Do you have any advice for those who follow such procedure, only to find that the agents refuse to comply ?

[8bitagent]

Its important that we all understand what is happening as a result of such revelations, which even as I type are being first mentally processed and then emotionally calculated within the minds of so many thousands of people who are interested in "knowing", courtesy of places like this, along with who knows how many thousands of like minded blogs, message boards, radio shows, et cetera.

In short, more and more people will be as disappointed and justifiably angry with the way things are really going down as we are here at RI,

Most of these people will hopefully be shapeshifting their emotions of anger, fear and dissapointment into a steely emotional determination to stop all of this.

Dismantling any system that quite clearly abhorrs the humanitarian qualities that are there for all to see in Michael Hastings should be a pressing issue for us all.

To me this is a much bigger deal than Boston, just in the implications. I mean it's so in your face with this revelation of the method wink and nod. Just ferociously bizarre how the biggest defensive linemen
are the very same "liberal" journalists who should be on the forefront of investigating this story. They should all be ashamed. It's not even a "now let's be cautious and see how the investigation pans out"/"we need a thorough investigation". It's SHUT UP YOU STUPID CONSPIRACY TWATS, HASTINGS WOULD HATE YOU. God, the NPR Daily Kos tards are so frustrating some times.

Oh, also this reminds me a great deal of the case of Katherine Smith in Memphis back in 2002.

Can't find the link I used to have, but this one will suffice:

http://www.sptimes.com/2002/02/17/World ... s_fe.shtml

Very similar MO. Fiery car crash at night, no witnesses to speak of, body burned beyond recognition. In the Memphis case it turned out the woman had alreafy died and had been planted behind the wheel. I wouldn't be the least surprised if that was the case here. Too bad the LAPD can't exactly be counted on to do their damn job. How were they with that RFK murder again?

Don't forget Mark Fuhrman. An outstanding bunch of public servants, those.

I do recall Rodney King found dead in his pool 4444 days after the infamous incident.

Re: the (Katharine Smith) Memphis TN/Rocky/DMV scam/WTC sprinkler pass yarn, that is indeed yet another strange thread regarding 9/11.
I also recall one of Clinton's interns being gunned down in a "robbery" at a Star Bucks in a DC suburb...even though no money was taken.

[8bitagent]

FWiW, @1:43 of the vid:
Q: “You saw the sparks prior to him hitting anything? You just saw it at the bottom of the car?”
A: “Yes, plenty from the beginning, way before he crossed the light.”

THANK YOU Cenk/Young Turks. Geez. This is all we're asking. The rest of the leftgatekeepers don't want ANY questions. It's an open and shut "Accident" from a "stressed man".

From the youtube description:

There are still many questions and theories circling around what caused the tragic car crash that took esteemed journalist Michael Hastings' life. We don't have official word yet and are awaiting an official investigation. Some people witnessed the crash though, including Jose Rubalcava, who is the only man known to have witnessed the crash from beginning to end. He shares what he saw in the interview with Ana Kasparian, co-host of The Young Turks.

Once again, TYT being one of the few left leaning channels(like Democracy Now) not on the corporate take.

[justdrew]

When FBI are encountered, ideally one should ask what office they work out of. Get a phonebook and call the listed FBI number and verify that such persons exist and so on.

Do you have any advice for those who follow such procedure, only to find that the agents refuse to comply ?

get to a landline phone to jackout ASAP?

I don't know, at that point you'd have to assume you're dealing with criminals impersonating FBI, but they would also know you know, so it could get ugly. but you can't ever lie on the chance they might turn out to be real, so it's a bad situation to be in. Fake a seizure maybe? or a heart attack. These are probably the best ideas.

fake FBI does happen though, here's one for example:
http://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press-releases/2013/fbi-seeks-publics-help-regarding-an-investigation-into-a-man-impersonating-a-federal-agent

[8bitagent]

FYI engine/transmission ejection in some types of accidents IS an intentionally designed in safety feature of newer cars. So the engine block was not 'blown' away, the design allowed its' own kinetic energy to keep on going, yanking it out and through the vehicle. That's why I said back on page 2 or so, that the distance it traveled would give an indication of impact velocity.

It should also be noted that in May, a report came out on new luxury cars having trouble safely impacting front 'clipping' when just the hit comes in the outer 25-30% of the front. There's a link back on page 2 or so. the C250 was a particularly poor performer in this type of impact.

Also, it's entirely possible the 'FBI' questioning friends and associates were not in fact actually FBI men.

When FBI are encountered, ideally one should ask what office they work out of. Get a phonebook and call the listed FBI number and verify that such persons exist and so on.

To me it's not the engine or the impact, but why would Hastings be going at maximum speed? It's suicidal, sounds like he was going even beyond the speed of an impromptu fast and furious/wild notion of going fast for the thrill of it.
From the witness it sounds like if there is no foul play, he just went nuts. This was no accident either way. Unless...unless the car glitched and got put into stuck acceleration. No bomb needed.

[nashvillebrook]

sign at crash site...

[nashvillebrook]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la ... 9316.story

Michael Hastings researching Jill Kelley case before death

WASHINGTON – During the weeks before he was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, reporter Michael Hastings was researching a story about a privacy lawsuit brought by Florida socialite Jill Kelley against the Department of Defense and the FBI.

Hastings, 33, was scheduled to meet with a representative of Kelley next week in Los Angeles to discuss the case, according to a person close to Kelley. Hastings wrote for Rolling Stone and the website BuzzFeed.

Kelley alleges that military officials and the FBI leaked her name to the media to discredit her after she reported receiving a stream of emails that were traced to Paula Broadwell, a biographer of former CIA director David H. Petraeus, according to a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., on June 3.

Petraeus resigned from the CIA after publicly admitting that he and Broadwell had carried on an extramarital affair.

The story about Kelley, Broadwell and the Petraeus affair would have been consistent with topics that Hastings has focused on during his reporting career. His unvarnished 2010 Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, led to McChrystal’s resignation. The story described the disdain McChrystal’s staff showed for President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Since Hasting’s death early Tuesday, wild conspiracy theories have bloomed on the Internet implying that he was murdered by powerful forces wanting to silence him.

On Wednesday night, the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks inserted itself into the story, publishing a message on Twitter that Hasting had contacted a lawyer for the organization hours before his car smashed into a tree on North Highland Avenue in Los Angeles.

The message read: “Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.”

The crash is under investigation and there will be an official accident report after a toxicology test is completed in the coming weeks.

[nashvillebrook]

If you're on twitter, here's a person to follow -- @Rambobiggs -- he's the guy who released the email. Interesting feed.

[Elvis]

In that video above, is that the engine of the car on the curb across the street?

Across the street, down the block?

I guess a gas tank explosion could do that -- right?

No no no! It was one of them magic engines. They make them out of the same metal as magic bullets. You hit a tree sideways and the magical substitute laws of physics propel it 100 feet down the road.

good one

Those were my thoughts too, at first, but as more info comes out (and I only know what I've read in this thread) I think the scenario that best fits the 'facts' so far is the bump-in-the-road hypothesis. That could explain the car going airborn, as well as the sparks coming from under the car -- likely some piece from the underside (muffler e.g.) came loose and dragged on the asphalt, producing sprays of sparks. Justdrew has pointed out the engine-ejecting design which would explain the engine continuing by inertia on down the road.

If the bump-in-the-road hypothesis is correct, the question would be why he was driving so fast. Maybe either:

- He was losing a tail. He was probably being followed everywhere, and as part of getting "off grid" he needed to elude his followers. No cars were seen following him very shortly before the crash, but by then he might have already lost them and for good measure was simply putting extra distance between him and them. And under those circumstances, I couldn't blame him for being afraid to slow down at all until he was far way from them.

or,

- His car was sabotaged. For example the idea that someone tampered with the cruise control is very plausible to me.

or,

- He was just drunk, pissed off and out of control. No direct foul play involved. My money's pretty evenly on the the first two, but this one's not at all impossible, and makes me think of another possibility:

- His mind was sabotaged. Maybe someone slipped him something; does Jimson weed come in drops form?


Given that last message he sent out, I'd bet he was determined to get away from someone as fast as he could.

[DrEvil]

I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if this has been mentioned.

Hacking cars is perfectly possible and has been demonstrated:

Proof-of-Concept CarShark Software Hacks Car Computers, Shutting Down Brakes, Engines, and More

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010 ... e-and-more

Also, my uncle is a Mercedes fan, and he has had some very strange problems over the years, like the brakes suddenly not working after a software update, and the car refusing to go faster than 10mph.
The fix involved plugging in a laptop and patching/resetting the car's software.

[nashvillebrook]

from the article:

The research team wrote code that allows them to turn off the brakes in a moving car, change the speedometer reading, blast hot air or music on the radio, and lock passengers inside the car, PCWorld reports.

...

While hacking modern-day autos is nothing new, the team's work is meant to encourage the auto industry to highlight security as it develops new computer systems. As the researchers note, many computer systems were designed to increase security -- think anti-lock brakes. "It is not clear whether vehicle manufacturers have anticipated in their designs the possibility of an adversary," the paper says.

I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if this has been mentioned.

Hacking cars is perfectly possible and has been demonstrated:

Proof-of-Concept CarShark Software Hacks Car Computers, Shutting Down Brakes, Engines, and More

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010 ... e-and-more

Also, my uncle is a Mercedes fan, and he has had some very strange problems over the years, like the brakes suddenly not working after a software update, and the car refusing to go faster than 10mph.
The fix involved plugging in a laptop and patching/resetting the car's software.

[justdrew]

http://www.autosec.org/

so the basic thing here is the idiot car manufacturers have setup a completely insecure system.

it seems that this stuff is NOT accessible BY DEFAULT via wireless, however, it might be possible to get into the Controller Area Network from say, the onStar radio, maybe. Though I suspect some new cars have WiMax/WiFi built in to support in dash navigation and web access. Such a radio is likely plugged directly into the CAN.

Certainly it would be possible to access the car physically, and install a wireless system onto the computer access port, for later use. Such a device would be small, and hard to find in the wreckage.

Would love to know more about WHO is examining the wreckage, where the wreckage is, etc.

So...

ABDOC

Always Be Driving Old Cars

[Nordic]

FYI engine/transmission ejection in some types of accidents IS an intentionally designed in safety feature of newer cars. So the engine block was not 'blown' away, the design allowed its' own kinetic energy to keep on going, yanking it out and through the vehicle. That's why I said back on page 2 or so, that the distance it traveled would give an indication of impact velocity.

It should also be noted that in May, a report came out on new luxury cars having trouble safely impacting front 'clipping' when just the hit comes in the outer 25-30% of the front. There's a link back on page 2 or so. the C250 was a particularly poor performer in this type of impact.

Also, it's entirely possible the 'FBI' questioning friends and associates were not in fact actually FBI men.

When FBI are encountered, ideally one should ask what office they work out of. Get a phonebook and call the listed FBI number and verify that such persons exist and so on.

To me it's not the engine or the impact, but why would Hastings be going at maximum speed? It's suicidal, sounds like he was going even beyond the speed of an impromptu fast and furious/wild notion of going fast for the thrill of it.
From the witness it sounds like if there is no foul play, he just went nuts. This was no accident either way. Unless...unless the car glitched and got put into stuck acceleration. No bomb needed.

What part of:

Q: “You saw the sparks prior to him hitting anything? You just saw it at the bottom of the car?”
A: “Yes, plenty from the beginning, way before he crossed the light.”

... did you not understand?