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Anonymous LAPD officials say there appears to be no foul play. It seems pretty miraculous that a police department could come to that conclusion in just a couple of days, especially when they say they are still trying to "determine if the car had a mechanical problem". It would be interesting to hear what Mercedes thought about that. FBI came out with a statement saying that he was never under investigation. Also it couldn't have been the CIA because the CIA, even though NYPD has a CIA-on-the-Hudson branch, is not allowed, by law, to operate on US soil.
The article reports that the story he was writing involved Jill Kelley, who after being in the news every day during the Petraeus affair, disappeared from the media landscape. Others have been reporting that he was working on a John Brennan story. I think it was Scahill who said he was working on some big stories. There's no reason why the Jill Kelley story and the John Brennan story could not have been the same one and in fact it's kind of likely, though he's a treasure trove of stories about other things too when Brennan is the subject because he's a busy man with a long career.
FBI says journalist Michael Hastings was not under investigation
LAPD also says no foul play appears to have been involved in the one-vehicle crash that killed Hastings. The reporter was known for an article leading to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation.
The bureau responded in a statement: "At no time was journalist Michael Hastings ever under investigation by the FBI."
The FBI's statement comes as officials with the Los Angeles Police Department said there appears to be no foul play in the one-vehicle accident that killed the 33-year-old early Tuesday morning in Los Angeles.
The Epitomy of moral rectitude
“If John Brennan is the last guy in the room with the president, I’m comfortable, because Brennan is a person of genuine moral rectitude,” Mr. Koh said. “It’s as though you had a priest with extremely strong moral values who was suddenly charged with leading a war.” - See more at: http://www.emptywheel.net/...
I wonder if the LAPD talked to this guy who blogs about cars (blog name ironically is "The Truth About Cars") when they determined that they should look into the possibility of whether the new Mercedes had mechanical problems. The guy doesn't appear to be a fan of journalists, and is exceedingly callous, but makes some interesting observations. Within a day, a number of people, many of them corporate media types, were screaming "truthers!" and "conspiracy theorists!" about the speculations because there could not possibly be any foul play and no one should ever even wonder about such things and should leave all of that to the officials at the squeaky clean LAPD. Nevermind that the victim of the crash is best known for taking down an infamous four star general or that his most current investigative work involved another four star general and the director of the CIA. Nothing to see here. Put away your tinfoil hats you truthers. I mean, look at the name of that blog. The
Truth about cars? The rest of it is a bunch of bunk from some punk ass kids at Reddit and of course if the usual suspects sprinkling and fertilizing the CT circuit haven't hypothesized on it yet, I'm sure they'll be jumping in soon.
And frankly, this kind of CT speculating is just not fair to John Brennan. He's waited all his life for this vaunted position and he almost had it secured in 2008 but some otherpunk ass blogger/journalist messed that up, insinuating that he was a high level CIA offical during a time when the CIA was designing and implementing a torture program and committing war crimes. #3 guys don't know every little thing that's going on at the agency, after all, and John Brennan didn't have anything to do with it and didn't know anything about it.
Article from Car Blog
It features everything you’d want in a crash story, including:
The ejected motor and transmission (seen above)
Video of the car burning with the fury of a thousand suns
A man holding a goat in his arms and stroking it to keep calm as someone else discusses the incident
The mention of Mercedes-Benz
But I’m not here to speak ill of the dead. I’m here to state that I’ve seen dozens of cars hit walls and stuff at high speeds and the number of them that I have observed to eject their powertrains and immediately catch massive fire is, um, ah, zero. Modern cars are very good at not catching fire in accidents. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class, which is an evolutionary design from a company known for sweating the safety details over and above the Euro NCAP requirements, should be leading the pack in the not-catching-on-fire category.
Nor is the C-Class known for sudden veering out of control into trees and whatnot.
Classy.
NYT Pays Tribute to Hastings by Attacking Him After Death
When a journalist dies, how can you tell if they've had a career that's upheld the proudest journalistic traditions of challenging the powerful and fearlessly exposing the truth?
The New York Times will attempt to piss on that career in the journalist's obituary.
[...]
So Michael Hastings is in excellent company when his New York Times obituary (6/19/13) went out of its way to discredit the reporter's best-known story:
An inquiry into the article by the Defense Department inspector general the next year found "insufficient" evidence of wrongdoing by the general, his military aides and civilian advisers.
The inspector general's report also questioned the accuracy of some aspects of the article, which was repeatedly defended by Mr. Hastings and Rolling Stone.
HuffPo publishes both Hastings' wife's letter to the NYT and their response for those who are interested in reading them.
Michael Hastings' Wife Obliterates New York Times For Dismissive Obituary
That said, it’s unclear whether the Times' reaction to Hastings' story is rooted in professional jealousy or a knee-jerk defense of the establishment. The inspector general's report said it could not confirm some elements of Hastings' reporting, but that was to be expected. Hastings quotes the general and his aides making disparaging remarks about their civilian superiors. Such people would be unlikely to acknowledge having said such things, especially considering that Hastings allowed some of them to remain nameless.
Jordan did not take kindly to the Times’ remembrance, and in an email to Times' editor Jill Abramson, asked the paper correct its report before printing it in the morning paper. Abramson sent the note to Bill McDonald, obituaries editor, who rejected the request. Both emails were provided to The Huffington Post:
[...]
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