Today the LA Coroner confirmed that the body in the wreckage of the Tuesday early morning crash was Michael Hastings. The FBI assisted in the identification by providing Hastings’ fingerprints. The FBI also denied that there was an open FBI investigation of Hastings which is contrary to what WikiLeaks attorney Jennifer Robinson claims Hastings told her hours before he died.
As a correspondent during conflict in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Michael Hastings demonstrated a level of fearlessness and focus on getting to truth. His Rolling Stone article on Gen. Stanley McCrystal, The Runaway General, made him a few friends and enemies. Hastings demonstrated solid but not fully developed journalistic chops in that piece. I for one had looked forward to reading more and better from him in the future. Sadly that is not to be.
The LA Times is reporting that prior to his death, Hastings was working on a story concerning the Jill Kelley lawsuit. Not difficult to appreciate that the woman that initiated the chain of events that took down Gen. Petraeus would intrigue Hastings. There’s more to that story than what is currently known, but how much more and how much of it can be obtained are questions for anyone that attempts to pick up from where Hastings left off. Or like questions concerning the accident that killed him, it might be case closed.
— A bit of tinfoil just because I like to briefly wear that hat every once in a while —
There isn’t much that’s curious about Hastings’ accident or stretches the bounds of reasonable interpretations. Fast car, no traffic, young male driver either distracted or impaired by drugs or alcohol. Sad but all too common.
The eye- and ear-witness reports are easy to dismiss because such reports are rarely accurate. More so when events happen more quickly than can be processed. The person that said it sounded “like a bomb exploded” should be discounted or considered as an expected sound when a fire quickly ignites in a car.
Time of accident. Roughly 4:15 am. No reason to speculate that Hastings wasn’t frequently up and about at that time.
Engine and tranny thrown hundreds of feet. Not good for the rep of Mercedes, but an anomaly when car traveling at high speed slams into a brick wall? The base trunks of thick old palm trees don’t bend.
How fast was Hastings driving? Check it out in this LoudLab News webcam. (This video may be misleading as it doesn’t include the moment when the light turned green for the Santa Monica traffic. Prudent drivers in LA know not to proceed for about five seconds after getting a green light. If the captured vehicle, reported to be Hastings,’ was within that five second window, increased speed wouldn’t have been required to catch the next light at Melrose. If outside the window, faster at the time of the crash would be likely.) Crazy fast given LA road maintenance and short distance between signal lights on Highland. And no appearance of a car following Hastings.
Cars don’t ignite easily, but it happens. Apparently either too quickly or Hastings was too incapacitated or trapped to get out. (The Loudlab News video of the crash site begins four or five minutes after the accident.) A disturbingly intense vehicle fire, but a forensic analysis will pinpoint one or more causes — they always do. (The response time from the local resident with the garden hose was quick.)
Nothing to see. Move along. Okay one oddity. What was that LoudLabs News vehicle with its webcam turned on doing sitting on Santa Monica Ave and Highland at four in the morning? Of all the heavily traveled corners in LA, why this one? Dumb luck? (Not unprecedented for news crews.) And who and what is LoudLabs News? Probably nothing but a stray random “dot,” then again maybe a thread.
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In BooMan’s diary, the actors were mentioned when talking about Pat Tillman, how sad …
Probably should have linked to Taibbi’s and Ben Smith’s remembrances of Hastings as I appreciated both very much.
Don’t know what Booman diary you’re referring to, but iirc there were several people digging at and questioning the story of Pat Tillman’s death. Hope they got it right that it was only a combination of combat field incompetence and rah-rah propaganda. Not nearly as dark and damning of McCrystal as I allowed myself to consider.
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Don’t know what to make of those alleged comments by Hastings. But am mindful that we only know the public part of Hastings. A profile seemingly inconsistent with paranoid thoughts, but no less so than his marrying a former speechwriter for Condeleeza Rice and NSA spokesperson. Amongst those that knew him, his driving and drug habits were probably well known.
Neither of those two Mercedes crashes and fires are all that similar to Hastings accident and not mysterious at all. With more information and evidence, it’s likely that there is nothing mysterious of Hastings crash either — Mercedes may have the best vested interest in piecing it together.
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Hastings Just Sent Email That He Was Going Into Hiding Before His Death: LA Times
Getting more and more difficult to sustain the “accident” narrative, isn’t it?
Wonder what “go off the radar for a bit” meant.
Even the text of Hastings’ alleged e-mail seems odd:
Why the quotes around close friends and associates? Why not correct the “GQ” instead of adding the “er HQ” correction? Why not end that sentence with “interview?”
I shared the two videos with a Mercedes owner (who is generally politically apathetic and had never heard of Hastings) and did nothing more than explain the time frame and location of the incident. This person had two quick responses: 1) the car’s brakes had been disabled and 2) only a bomb blast could have sent the engine flying and engulfed the car in the intense fire. Was told to go look at Princess Diana’s accident — front and rear ends slammed into the concrete tunnel wall, engine didn’t fly off, and there was no fire.
Richard Clarke, former National Security Council advisor, just poured a heap of fuel on the CT fire. The crash was consistent with a cyberattack or something to that effect.
This was the same Richard Clarke who was warning about al Quaeda before 9/11.
Wonder who’s team in the intelligence community he plays on.
Is Clarke on anyone’s team?
Do find it bizarre that questions into Hastings’ death are being asked only by those that think Breitbart was offed. Maybe because they haven’t been cowed into being silent when an event doesn’t add up to the official narrative. Their failing is that for them it’s always some government plot, and usually a non-military one. That crowd would seem not to have any empathy for Hastings — more likely to cheer his death.