Journalist Michael Hastings dies in L.A. car crash (Single car crash??)

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer

Originally posted by HomerinNC
reply to post by GrantedBail

 

This couldnt have been an accident, he jumps over a median an crashes into a tree?
This was an assassination.

Have you ever been involved in a medium or high-speed automobile accident? Have you ever had to clean up *after* one? I'm betting the answer to both questions is "no", because if you had, you'd know that it's not at all uncommon for cars to cross medians in loss-of-control situations. It's happened to me twice (once as driver, once as passenger), and during my time with the fire service, I helped clean up after more of them that I like to think about. Believe it or not, people die in non-conspiratorial car accidents every day.

Ahhh a member of the fire service... whatever that is.
If you were indeed part of a fire department then I can guarantee you have seen more than your share of accidents.
Of those accidents, I would wager maybe a handful in a thousand was a car fire due to a collision.
Would you agree?

It’s funny. Many posters that use to complain about the alleged stupidity and gullibility of the “sheeple”, now stress that everybody ought to believe that this occurrence – as well as dozens of similar “accidental” deaths of people who spoke out against corrupt government – were mere coincidences. Oh yes, we believe you, dear and wise masters. Let us be your stupid little sheeples.

reply to post by g146541


My car didn't catch on fire because the fuel pump kill switch cut the fuel flow when it rolled. Most car fires from collision are caused by the fuel line leaking onto hot engine or exposed wiring. I've been in insurance for a while and I've seen plenty of car fires from accidents. At least one a week sometimes more.

From looking at the photos only it's highly probable his fuel line split upon impact and was ignited by a broken headlight or an exposed wire under the hood. When you crash the electrical system doesn't shut off even if the engine does.

Originally posted by Archie
He was about to start work on an article about Barrett Brown, the investigative journalist (Salon, Vanity Fair amongst others), author and alleged mastermind behind Anonymous who is currently awaiting trial in prison for allegedly sharing data hacked from Stratfor according to a couple of journalists, hacker activists on Twitter today.

On December 4, 2012, Brown was indicted on an additional 12 federal charges stemming from the December 25, 2011 hack of Austin-based private intelligence company Stratfor. Data from the hack, allegedly committed by Jeremy Hammond, was shared by the hacker collective LulzSec with whistleblower site Wikileaks (main article: 2012 Stratfor email leak). In relation to the most serious of the Stratfor-related charges, Brown faces up to 15 years in federal prison. Brown transmitted said data by sharing a URL link to a zip file in an IRC chatroom. Numerous commentators on internet security issues expressed incredulity at the nature of the charges. He has entered a plea of not guilty to all twelve counts.

On January 23, 2013, a third indictment was filed against Brown on two counts of obstruction for concealing evidence during the March 6, 2012 FBI raid of his and his mother's homes. During a brief court hearing a week later, a judge found him mentally competent to stand trial, while Brown again pleaded not guilty to the latest charges. On May 1, 2013, it was announced that he had retained two attorneys, Charles Swift and Ahmed Ghappour to represent him in his legal cases.

More about Brown: en.wikipedia.org...

While this may have been a tragic accident, in light of Snowden and Hastings' future intentions with Barrett Brown, it's hard not to see this as being a warning from the FBI to Glenn Greenwald and any other investigative journalists who decide to publish whistleblowers' claims.

A lot of others are finding the circumstances of his death a little odd.

edit on 19-6-2013 by Archie because: .

My chat with Barrett Brown a long time ago gave me the feeling he had no control over anything to do with Anonymous. He was not a planner for them and had no targets of choice only what others handed him. And he was not involved in the hacking only reporting and getting the information out in as many ways as possible.

And people ever where posted links to the information hackers leaked. That is all he was doing. But he did make himself a target by saying he was a spokesman for Anonymous.

Wow, the level of biased B.S. in this thread is making my head spin... None of you are accident investigators and if any of you who are, you are not on the scene... Yet you are more then prepared to call anybody who refers to this as an accident as "sheeple" and such. The truth of the matter is, you don't know. Debating it is one thing, but putting down the ones who think this is just an accident, well, that's just infantile...

... By the way, jumping the median doesn't mean the car actually became airborne... It means the car crossed over the median... You don't have to be going that fast for a car to drive over a curb/median 6 inches high. This kind of accident happens quite a lot...

... I'm not saying that this man wasn't killed, I'm saying that none of know... To those who think they know it all and have it all figured out, first off, pull your head out of your ass... Second, educate us. The ones who don't understand... Don't belittle us... You just come across as an arrogant-self centered moron...

33 years old, so young. Texting while driving conspiracy theory:

You've heard about the government bragging how they put data bombs in their cyber warfare? (a masonic mind trap, the article about hacking backbones, but still take it for real)

Well they could have put a data bomb in his phone, that when he texts a certain phrase the military tracking network of satellites and antennas over all the phones (and somehow they track driver's license proximity to cars, if you forget your ID somewhere and decide to drive your car, military will track your latitude/longitude with suspicion) could have sent a disrupting signal to his car and he loses control of the vehicle.

Actually in a picture where the smoke is, it looks like a fuel line from tank to engine caught fire. The impact created a spark. But, it could have been rigged to make it look accidental, a device planted underneath the car.

I don't see skidmarks in a photo, so he could have died before he crashed.

Originally posted by Sankari
I've outlined just a few of the many problems with this scenario:

As you can see, there's no way this was a mere 'accident.' The official story doesn't add up!

I can't speak to any of this "evidence", but IF that IS his passport in the middle of the road, then my "spidey instinct" reminds of the convenient find of the 911 terrorists passports, in tact.

To all the would-be accident investigators who are flying off the handle with rushed judgements, how about waiting until there's more information before inventing yet another unfounded conspiracy meme?

The car jumped a shallow curb to hit the tree, which was at most 4 feet past the curb. It engulfed the car and tree in flames. The tree showed extensive burn marks. Civilian rescuers and witnesses were on the scene right away, but obvious there wasn't much they could do.



The car was a Mercedes C250 Coupe.
According to witnesses, debris from the crash was strewn several hundred feet down the road (could indicate speed was a factor in the crash).

In the video the one eye-witness says the car was doing 100 MPH before the crash.



Okay so I'm going to do my own bit of rushing to judgement - based on the statements of the Spanish speaking witness, the car was going "fast, fast, fast, like a 100", then he says it "hit, hit" and smacking his palms together - I think he is saying the car bottomed out several times on the road. Then the car swerved to hit the median and tree.

It's a c250 coupe which has a very low profile, along with it's low-profile tires - so we can assume it has low ground clearance to begin with. The car was going (allegedly) 100 MPH, and I think any experienced driver can tell you every little rise or dip in the road at that speed brings the risk of bottoming out, which in this case could cause the engine/oil pan to impact the pavement, or lower frame of the car to impact pavement, etc., which then could have caused the car to swerve. If the oil pan did impact it might have been enough to break the motor mounts, and if the engine itself did break free, that might have resulted in the fuel line rupturing.

Originally posted by 001ggg100
Wow, the level of biased B.S. in this thread is making my head spin... None of you are accident investigators and if any of you who are, you are not on the scene... Yet you are more then prepared to call anybody who refers to this as an accident as "sheeple" and such. The truth of the matter is, you don't know. Debating it is one thing, but putting down the ones who think this is just an accident, well, that's just infantile... ... By the way, jumping the median doesn't mean the car actually became airborne... It means the car crossed over the median... You don't have to be going that fast for a car to drive over a curb/median 6 inches high. This kind of accident happens quite a lot...... I'm not saying that this man wasn't killed, I'm saying that none of know... To those who think they know it all and have it all figured out, first off, pull your head out of your ass... Second, educate us. The ones who don't understand... Don't belittle us... You just come across as an arrogant-self centered moron...

Wow, the level of name calling and civility in your post:
- “... biased B.S. in this thread"
- “... infantile”
- “... pull your head out of your ass”
- “... You just come across as an arrogant-self centered moron...”

"Biased B.S. in this thread" ...? Really? Or rather the "biased B.S." in your own post?

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


The Mercedes C250 is a vehicle that is very easy to take past 100mph without even realizing it until you look at your speedometer. It's a very quiet and smooth riding car right into triple digits. If he had been a bit tired and his foot became heavy it's very possible he accidentally sped up and when he realized it and tried to slow down he lost control, possibly from going "oh sh**!" And hitting the brakes a little too hard, being as the C250 has ABS there wouldn't be any real skid marks from s hard brake but the car would have pulled to one side or the other causing him to over correct.

reply to post by EViLKoNCEPTz


Precisely. I grew up in a racing family and we always had a saying, "too much car for the driver". Could be the case here.

Michael Hastings' death was a great loss. We have so few true investigative journalists. He seemed fearless. I remember reading his amazing article about how the US Army was using a PsyOps Team to Manipulate Senators (McCain included) during their visits to Afghanistan. That article started me thinking how our entire legislative branch could be manipulated by PsyOps tactics.

From buzzfeed.com Missing Michael Hastings

Michael made people nervous — he made me nervous — with his jittery energy and what Tim Dickinson, in his obituary of Michael, called his “enthusiastic breaches of the conventions of access journalism.” (He also knew this about himself: When we started emailing, in January 2012, about his coming to work for BuzzFeed, he included this codicil: “I’d need a clause somewhere in the contract that says if BuzzFeed fires me for saying or writing something controversial or offensive on BuzzFeed or on Twitter or elsewhere, there will have to be some kind of severance payment. I have a demonstrated ability to really piss powerful people off, and I would need some kind of assurance that BuzzFeed has my back, 120 percent.”) That intense sense of responsibility was to his readers — “friends,” he typically began his tweets — not to his sources, and so he had no time for implied off-the-record agreements or of the clubbiness of the traveling press corps. It takes an enormous level of tolerance for awkward social situations to infuriate the small group of people with whom you are traveling, eating, and sleeping for weeks on end. He did that, mostly for good reasons, with the protection only of a pair of giant headphones.

Michael had made no secret of his lacerating views of much of the political press — his 2010 GQ article on the experience was filled with self-loathing, too, for having been part of the machine. (“Jacking off in a hotel room was not unlike the larger experience of campaign reporting.”) But he also couldn’t control his curiosity. When we began talking that January, he wrote that while “I have a pretty good gig … the pull of the campaign trail is always very real,” he had an instinct that we were doing something “fairly unique/hot/exciting.” And so he somehow persuaded his Rolling Stone editors to let him dive into the campaign for BuzzFeed, while persuading me to let him, somehow, amid the 96 pieces he wrote for us, to complete a powerful story about “America’s Last Prisoner of War” for Rolling Stone.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Yes indeed. The first time I tried to ride a motorcycle on my own, not on the back, my uncle let me use his Ducatti 955. I hit the throttle not realizing the little bit of gas I thought I was giving was a whole lot of go to the bike. It popped up out from under me and the bike and I waddled down the driveway right into the brick mailbox at the end of the driveway. You really have to know your vehicle when it's powerful. What wouldn't be that big of a deal in a normal car can be deadly in a high performance car.

Originally posted by HomerinNC
reply to post by GrantedBail

 

This couldnt have been an accident, he jumps over a median an crashes into a tree?
This was an assassination.

Could have been driving drunk. That possibility never occurred to you? Just saying.

I'd hate to break it to you - but even people who do important things to important people can die accidentally.

Originally posted by Rosinitiate
reply to post by wulff

 

Why does everyone seem to jump to drinking? Really? At 4:30am! I used to drink A LOT back in the day. Even after hours drinking I'd still be home before then. This guy was quite the accomplished peron with a great career ahead of him. To me, I would think at 4:30am he was probably heading off to work.

Maybe because of this:
In the last ten years, around 250,000 people died in alcohol related car accidents in the United States. Figures show that 16,000 people were killed in the year 2000, due to alcohol related accidents. In 2004, that figured climbed to 25,000. This means that 500 people die every week and 71 people die everyday in alcohol related car accidents.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com...

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
To all the would-be accident investigators who are flying off the handle with rushed judgements, how about waiting until there's more information before inventing yet another unfounded conspiracy meme?

The car jumped a shallow curb to hit the tree, which was at most 4 feet past the curb. It engulfed the car and tree in flames. The tree showed extensive burn marks. Civilian rescuers and witnesses were on the scene right away, but obvious there wasn't much they could do.

The car was a Mercedes C250 Coupe.
According to witnesses, debris from the crash was strewn several hundred feet down the road (could indicate speed was a factor in the crash).

In the video the one eye-witness says the car was doing 100 MPH before the crash.

edit on 19-6-2013 by Blackmarketeer because: (no reason given)

Okay so I'm going to do my own bit of rushing to judgement - based on the statements of the Spanish speaking witness, the car was going "fast, fast, fast, like a 100", then he says it "hit, hit" and smacking his palms together - I think he is saying the car bottomed out several times on the road. Then the car swerved to hit the median and tree.

It's a c250 coupe which has a very low profile, along with it's low-profile tires - so we can assume it has low ground clearance to begin with. The car was going (allegedly) 100 MPH, and I think any experienced driver can tell you every little rise or dip in the road at that speed brings the risk of bottoming out, which in this case could cause the engine/oil pan to impact the pavement, or lower frame of the car to impact pavement, etc., which then could have caused the car to swerve. If the oil pan did impact it might have been enough to break the motor mounts, and if the engine itself did break free, that might have resulted in the fuel line rupturing.

edit on 19-6-2013 by Blackmarketeer because: (no reason given)

Notice the photo of the burnt-out car does not match the video at all - different street, palm trees....

Which one, if any, are actually of Michael Hastings' car I wonder...

Good article here that breaks down the scene of the accident as it points to foul play:

jimstonefreelance.com...

One of my favorite appearances he made on national television:

reply to post by Foobler


That article only points to the authors ignorance as it relates to cars and accidents in general.

Here's Hastings ripping the drone policy:




And here's the last article he wrote:

www.buzzfeed.com...

Besides Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, most Democrats abandoned their civil liberty positions during the age of Obama. With a new leak investigation looming, the Democrat leadership are now being forced to confront all the secrets they’ve tried to hide.