...or just an awful coincidence?

Hours before dying in a fiery car crash, award-winning journalist Michael Hastings sent an email to his colleagues, warning that federal authorities were interviewing his friends and that he needed to go "off the rada[r]" for a bit.

The email was sent around 1 p.m. on Monday, June 17. At 4:20 a.m. the following morning, Hastings died when his Mercedes, traveling at high speeds, smashed into a tree and caught on fire. He was 33.

Hastings sent the email to staff at BuzzFeed, where he was employed, but also blind-copied a friend, Staff Sgt. Joseph Biggs, on the message. Biggs, who Hastings met in 2008 when he was embedded in his unit in Afghanistan, forwarded the email to KTLA, who posted it online on Saturday.

Here's the email, with the recipients' names redacted -

Subject: FBI Investigation, re: NSA

Hey (redacted names) -- the Feds are interviewing my "close friends and associates." Perhaps if the authorities arrive "BuzzFeed GQ," er HQ, may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues.

Also: I'm onto a big story, and need to go off the rada[r] for a bit.

All the best, and hope to see you all soon.

Michael

Hmmm its hard to make a judgement call with so little actual info to go on.

Are there any reports of suspicious circumstances? Witnesses to the crash? Other vehicles in the area at the time of the crash? Have Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith got alibis?

(06-23-2013, 01:18 PM)Cynical Ninja Wrote: Have Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith got alibis?

I'll see what else I can dig up.

"Michael Hastings' death cuts short a life dedicated to speaking truth to power. He believed that journalists must be more than bystanders; he was a truthteller, a charming provocateur and a relentless seeker of decency in a nasty world," said David Rosenthal, president of The Blue Rider Press.

^^^^^Today that may be enough to get you killed.

(06-23-2013, 01:20 PM)Duchess Wrote:

I'll see what else I can dig up.[/i][/size]

Yeah you do that.

Some people do die in conspicuously suspicious circumstances, look at Lady Di that kicked up a conspiracy shitstorm that is still being debated today.

Well, the Feds say this accident doesn't bear investigating, it's nothing more than a tragedy while others are calling it an assassination. Meh, so much lying anymore about so many things. I don't know who is telling the truth and I don't suppose it's worth spending my Sunday thinking about it, at the end of the day I still won't know who to believe.

What's the evidence or theories put forward by the people claiming it was an assassination?

(06-23-2013, 01:51 PM)Cynical Ninja Wrote: What's the evidence or theories put forward by the people claiming it was an assassination?

Here's an example in one of the articles I found -

Skeptics of the official narrative have highlighted eyewitness accounts which state that Hastings’ Mercedes “exploded”.

Images of the vehicle appear to show more damage to the rear, around the area of the fuel tank, than the front, leading to speculation that a car bomb which ignited the fuel could have been responsible for the incident.

“No matter how you slice this particular pie, a Mercedes is not just going to explode into flames without a little assistance,” writes freelance journalist Jim Stone. “Car fires in new cars happen for three main reasons — running the engine out of oil, or running the engine out of coolant, or after an absolutely huge car mangling accident, having the hot side of the battery short out against the frame before it reaches the fuse panel. And for all 3 of those normal reasons, which account for virtually all car fires in modern cars, the fire would have started in the engine compartment, progressed slowly, and scorched the hell out of the paint before ever reaching the gas tank. That clean paint is the be all tell all, Michael Hastings was murdered, and the rest is detail.”

The car exploded before it hit the tree?

If there was a bomb somewhere in the car surely there would be physical forensic evidence to support this?

Although in these kind of conspiracies EVERYBODY is in on it including the desk jockey who took the initial report of the crash all the EMTs and police and forensic staff all the way up to and including the Muslim nigger in The Whitehouse and his Illuminati overlords.

I can't find it from my phone but there's a dash cam video out there that appears to show his car minutes before the crash speeding through an intersection and running a red light. It doesn't show anyone in pursuit. The person who posted it thought it would put some of the conspiracy theories to rest but he said some people are claiming it supports the assassination theory.

Maybe one of you at a computer can find/post the damn thing.

User, There are a few views

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bscyDVudRnU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LSY3wVuA...=endscreen

The Young Turks Newscaster followup:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoyuXzM059Q

Is there any footage showing the car exploding “before” it hit the tree?

I'm not exactly holding my breath in anticipation but you never know.

(06-23-2013, 02:21 PM)Cynical Ninja Wrote: Is there any footage showing the car exploding “before” it hit the tree?

I'm looking, OP but I'm only finding video of the car already engulfed in flames.

I bet his apartment has been ransacked and his computer swiped by now. Chicago politics. For the good of the country.

(06-23-2013, 02:26 PM)Duchess Wrote: I'm looking, OP but I'm only finding video of the car already engulfed in flames.[/i][/size]

Is it engulfed in flames while stationary after hitting the tree?

(06-23-2013, 02:43 PM)Cynical Ninja Wrote: Is it engulfed in flames while stationary after hitting the tree?

Yes, it is. Fully.

Here's some more of what I've been reading -

The questions surrounding the precise nature of the “accident” that killed Hastings are given more weight by the fact that the journalist had made enemies within both the FBI and the CIA.

“Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him,” the official Wikileaks Twitter account announced yesterday.

Hastings “had the Central Intelligence Agency in his sights” and was set to release an article exposing the agency, according to L.A. Weekly.

The Obama administration and the Justice Department have openly claimed the authority to assassinate American citizens anywhere in the world if they are deemed a national security threat. A number of American citizens have already been killed as a result of this policy. Is it really that crazy to suggest that Michael Hastings was merely the latest victim of this doctrine?

The New York Daily News highlights the fact that Hastings had received multiple death threats before his demise.

Following his role in bringing down Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, Hastings was told by a McChrystal staffer, “We’ll hunt you down and kill you if we don’t like what you write.”

“Whenever I’d been reporting around groups of dudes whose job it was to kill people, one of them would usually mention that they were going to kill me,” said Hastings.

Hastings was renowned for being “only interested in writing stories someone didn’t want him to write — often his subjects,” according to Buzzflash editor Ben Smith, adding, “He knew that there are certain truths that nobody has an interest in speaking, ones that will make you both your subjects and their enemies uncomfortable. They’re stories that don’t get told because nobody in power has much of an interest in telling them.”

The fact that Hastings had made a plethora of enemies as a result of his hard-hitting investigative journalism has prompted a deluge of online comment speculating that the writer’s “car crash” was no accident.

“Hastings’ wreck might make sense on the freeway, but I doubt he’d be dumb enough to go 100 mph on Highland. He’s not some dumb college kid,” said one commenter on a local news site.

“A warning to other journalists to not dig too deep,” another Reddit user wrote. “Stick with the party line if you want a long, happy life.”

(06-23-2013, 02:33 PM)Maggot Wrote: I bet his apartment has been ransacked and his computer swiped by now. Chicago politics. For the good of the country.

I'm telling Barry what you said, like Darth Vader once said “I find your lack of faith...disturbing”

The U.S. mail is probably the most secure method of getting your story out without getting found. If Hastings was smart he would have mailed his discovery to the ones he trusted. Give it a few days.

(06-23-2013, 02:45 PM)Cynical Ninja Wrote:

(06-23-2013, 02:33 PM)Maggot Wrote: I bet his apartment has been ransacked and his computer swiped by now. Chicago politics. For the good of the country.

I'm telling Barry what you said, like Darth Vader once said “I find your lack of faith...disturbing”

No shit! The documentation of the days of his Pakistan "journey" are safe in a secluded region of the white mountains. I hope his toothache is better.