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Who Killed Michael Hastings? · Conspiracy! The Show

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Winter Insurance, Get a true.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: I'm a check out one Insurance.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Get at your fingers, wait the room. Hey, everybody, welcome
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: to Conspiracy the Show. I'm your host, Dadam Todd Brown
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: joining me as co host this week, my favorite co
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: host of all no co hosts. But I do have
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a couple of guests. Case in point, she was just
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: on an episode recently, Jessica Singers here. Hello, Jessica, how's
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: it going.
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  Speaker 2: It's going swell, It's going swell.
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  Speaker 3: My kafine is finally kicked in and I'm happy to
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  Speaker 3: be here finally.
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  Speaker 2: It took a minute this morning.
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  Speaker 1: That's why we're recording so late in the afternoon.
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  Speaker 2: I wanted to thank you so much.
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  Speaker 1: Also joining us Heather Marolis here.
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  Speaker 4: Hello, how's it going pretty well? Things are going fine.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: Good for me considering the pod.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: It can only go up from here getting hit by
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  Speaker 1: a car.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, and I'm doing well. Things are fine.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so thank you both for doing the pod today.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: We are talking about some shit. I have wanted to
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  Speaker 1: cover this for a long time and we just I
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: allude to it all the time on the pod, and
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: we've never done a full episode about this. We are
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: talking about the death of investigative journalist Michael Hastings, which
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: happened in twenty thirteen. It seems like a pretty cut
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and dry thing. He was just in a car accident
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  Speaker 1: and died. Or is it that cut and dry? I
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  Speaker 1: don't know. That's goddamn find out. Did either of you
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  Speaker 1: have any prior knowledge of this?
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: Yep? I think about it every time I drive down Highland.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: Every time I drive down Highland, I think about Michael Heinstigs.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: I can say, you know, it's a really busy street
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: and it happened in the middle of the night, but
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: I still think about and I we'll talk about it,
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: But like, I still think about the mechanics of that
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: accident and how insane it is that the engine was
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: so far away from the actual car. Yeah, it happened.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of weird details to it. I also
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: find the part where it happened on a very straight stress.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: It's a very straight street, very straight, and there's lots
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: of curvy roads in LA, but that one straight.
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  Speaker 1: So for people who are unfamiliar, let's just talk a
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: little bit about Michael Hasting's background. He was an American
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: journalist who worked for Rolling Stone and BuzzFeed just a sidebar.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: BuzzFeed is massively underrated as a media outlet, and the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: thing that people make fun of them for the most
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: is just brilliant business model shit. Those list articles are
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: why they could pay people like Michael Hastings to write
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the articles he wrote at BuzzFeed. That was absolutely their
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: business model, and it was one fucking brilliant He initially
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: gained attention for covering the war in Iraq in the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: two thousands for Newsweek, which is another interesting outlet. They
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: are clearly not under the thumb of the American government,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and you can tell by the shit they report that
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: other outlets end up not reporting. It's very interesting. They're
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the only outlet that reported I've said this a million
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: times on the network of basically undercover operatives that the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Department of Defense has been cultivating in the United States
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: for the past fifteen years or so. There's more of
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: them than there are undercover CIA operatives, and that should
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: be such a huge story, and only Newsweek covered it.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Pretty fucking crazy. We probably know some of those people
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: like their job is to just go out into like
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: inties and movements and groups and just be there and
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: report back to the government. I guarantee you there's some
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: fucking la comics involved in bullshit. No way, there's not.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah. Hastings he worked for Newsweek. He covered the
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  Speaker 1: war in Iraq in the two thousands, but it was
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: twenty ten when he really started making waves with the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: US government. That's the year he published a profile of
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: General Stanley McCrystal called the Runaway General. Did either of
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  Speaker 1: you read this article?
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I read the whole book.
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  Speaker 3: I listened to almost all of it because I started
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  Speaker 3: a little too late.
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  Speaker 2: People call listening to reddit now, right, So I read
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: most of it. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: How crazy is it that this got him fired? I
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: get that he was making jokes about his boss, but
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  Speaker 1: I feel like in two k twenty four, this would
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  Speaker 1: be a fucking whip on the radar.
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  Speaker 4: No, it wouldn't have done anything. It's really interesting to
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: think about in you know, past context.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, how quick things like change like that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's interesting to think about the administration it
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: was happening under, which is the Obama administration. This guy
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: was probably the most vocal opponent in the United States
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: of the president, who is possibly best known for drone
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: striking an American citizen to death.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: Well, people are talking about that now way more. I
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: hear people talk about the drone strikes. He's a war
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: criminal confederate there. Nobody talked about that when it was
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  Speaker 4: happening because nobody, I guess nobody knew or didn't want
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: to acknowledge it.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: I think people just didn't want to acknowledge it more
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: so we wanted to be like or like, not look
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: into it as much, I guess because we're like, but
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: he's good.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: And I do think a big part of it one,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: there was just a point there where and this I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: feel like just kind of ended with Biden, like in
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: the last six months or so, but there was a
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  Speaker 1: point there where if you just criticized the Democrat, Democrats
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: would be like, oh, so you're a Republican now, huh.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And I feel like that kind of started with Obama
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: because Republicans definitely that's a dividing line for them. Once
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Obama got elected, for some reason, Republicans went fucking crazy.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Don't know what it was about Obama?
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I mean, to me, that's why Trump won.
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  Speaker 4: It was like this total backlash of like, Okay, you
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: elected that guy, We're getting this guy in here, and
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: it's been nonsense ever since, like unbelievable.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you look throughout the world where countries
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: have elected people like Trump, it's a lot of times
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: followed by that. It's followed by about eight to ten
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: years of really liberal times where this seething undercurrent of
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the country feels like they're not being represented anymore because
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: it woke now, right, Yeah, I think that had a
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  Speaker 1: lot to do with Trump getting elected. I think you
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  Speaker 1: cannot discount the fact that Obama was our first black president.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, that's definitely part of it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I kind of thought that was implied in
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: our conversation, the whole Maga thing.
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  Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, I mean Democrats not wanting to
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  Speaker 1: criticize Obama.
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  Speaker 4: Oh okay, yeah, that's true.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's on both sides. I think he
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  Speaker 3: was played with, like we played with him with kid
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  Speaker 3: gloves kind of on the Democratic side because we're like,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: don't want to mess up having more not old white
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  Speaker 3: men in office.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, this article parkens back to a different time
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: when you could lose your job in the military just
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: for making fun of someone in a Rolling Stone article.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's basically what happened with this article. Stanley
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: McCrystal got fired very shortly after it came out, and
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  Speaker 1: Obama was like, it's not because of the Rolling Stone article.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Shut the fuck up. Yes it was. Everyone knows it was.
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  Speaker 1: And he just in the article, if you read it,
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  Speaker 1: he just repeatedly criticizes Obama and Biden, makes fun of him,
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  Speaker 1: calls them names, and he had to see this coming, right.
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  Speaker 1: Did he think this reporter was just not gonna put
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  Speaker 1: any of that in the.
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  Speaker 4: Article, not writing it down. I don't know. Maybe, I
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  Speaker 4: don't know.
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  Speaker 2: If he thinks about stuff like that, probably not, just plainly.
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  Speaker 3: He just like from other things he said, he doesn't
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  Speaker 3: seem like he's like thinking.
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  Speaker 4: You know, they talk about how he allegedly sleeps four
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: hours a night and eats one meal a day, like
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  Speaker 4: his brain might be atrophied.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, he has no room. He has no room. It's
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: focusing on like staying awake and saying.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and that even that ties into like Alzheimer's
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: and ship there's a process that happens in your brain
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  Speaker 1: that clears those plaques out that cause Alzheimer's. But you
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: have to sleep a certain amount of time. Oh, really
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  Speaker 1: to happen.
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  Speaker 2: Well, that's interesting.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, he's probably just riddled with dementia by this
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: point too, and things it's okay to tell a Rolling
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Stone reporter in regards to a dinner he had to
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  Speaker 1: attend with a French minister quote it's fucking gay.
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  Speaker 3: It was so funny choosing to have my laptop read
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  Speaker 3: this article to me. There were some really funny things.
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  Speaker 3: And then when he would like call things Gucci or
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  Speaker 3: like hers or like because I wouldn't be looking at
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  Speaker 3: the screen so I wouldn't see it coming.
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  Speaker 2: And then I just hear these things and I'm like,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: is this does he know he's funny?
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  Speaker 4: The mention of him loving the movie Talladaga Nights, I
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  Speaker 4: thought that was really interesting. And then also the bit
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: about his wife, I think it gets cute and funny
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  Speaker 4: that he took her to Jack in the Box or
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: something on their anniversary.
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  Speaker 3: No, she was already dressed up, like he had her
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  Speaker 3: dress up and then took her to Jack in the
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  Speaker 3: Box and she's like, isn't that funny? And it's like,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: that's awful, that's actually awful.
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  Speaker 4: I kind of feel bad for her.
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  Speaker 3: Unless it was like because we met at a jack.
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  Speaker 1: In talk about being ahead of his time, though. How
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: many Instagram videos have you seen where it's the caption
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  Speaker 1: is taking my girlfriend to an exclusive club for dinner,
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  Speaker 1: and then they cut to them eating Costco hot dogs
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  Speaker 1: and she's looking all mad. He should have put it
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  Speaker 1: on video. He would have kept his job. Share that
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  Speaker 1: shit on social media.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Should have fined it. Was it in the time of.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: Vine, Yeah, I think Wine was probably. Yeah, just a
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: six second clip of you pissing off your wife goes viral,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: you keep your job. So yeah, I don't think this
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: kind of scandal would get someone fired today. I also
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: don't know that any outlet, maybe Rolling Stone would They
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: might be the exception, but I don't know that any
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: outlets would write an article like this anymore because mainstream
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: outlets are so reliant on the government and access to
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the government for their reporting, which I cannot stress enough
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: is not the way it should work. But I don't
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: think a lot of major outlets would want to risk
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: their relationship with the government by writing something like this,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: unless it was Trump, then that's fine because it's not
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: going to matter, Like when The New York Times did
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: that big expose of the Trump family shielding their money
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: from taxes by giving it to their kids through like
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: various gifts and things. It didn't matter, nothing happened. But
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: he eventually turned this reporting into a book called The
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Operators that included even more scandalous quotes about McCrystal and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: his team. But there's a really interesting part in this
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: book that people pointed to after Michael Hastings died, where
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: he's at a party with a bunch of Stanley mccrystal's staff.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Everyone's drunk, and at one point one of them turns
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  Speaker 1: to Michael Hastings and says, you're not going to fuck us,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: are you, At which point another staffer chimes in and says,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: we'll hunt you down and kill you if we don't
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: like what you write. And Michael Hastings chalked that up
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: to drunk jokes in the book, But were they So
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say something.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: I think we were just face reacting in an audio medium,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: agreeing with you. I agree, Yeah, I think we were
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: both just like, yeah, that was probably a lot scarier
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: than a drunken he moment.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I already mentioned a little. Hastings was super
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: duper vocal about the Obama administration, and I know that
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: would make a lot of listeners tend to think, oh, well,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: he's like a right winger. Yeah.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: No.
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  Speaker 1: What he didn't like about Obama was Obama campaigned, in
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: large part on ending all of the crazy warshit George W.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Bush was doing, including promising to shut down Guantanamo, which
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: he never did. But then when he got in office,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: it was the exact opposite. He didn't do anything to
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: scale any of the warship back. He just kind of
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: expanded it by introducing this drone program into the mix.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: If that was like a more ethical way to fight
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: wars and I don't know about that. He also took
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: issue with the Obama administration spying on journalists. He in
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: May twenty thirteen, went on a podcast and in response
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: to a question about the drone strike program that started
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: under Obama, he said, quote Obama enshrines killing people and
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: spying on journalists as the two major tenets of his
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: national security state. End quote. I think he would in
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: today's political climate. I think this guy would get labeled
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: a right winger for saying stuff like this, even though
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: he's just making valid criticisms of Obama's performance in office.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: But I don't know that people would take it that
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: way today. I'm surprised they did back then. I don't think.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I think even back then people were probably like, oh,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: so you're a right winger. He also called an MSNBC
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: contributor named Perry Bacon a quote stenographer for the White House. Yeah,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I wonder what Perry Bacon said in response. But that's
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the problem. Now almost every journalist is a stenographer for
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the White House. Again, except when Trump's in office, but
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: even then kind of so. Shortly after Obama's reelection, Hastings
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: published an e book called Panic twenty twelve, The Sublime
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and Terrifying Inside Story of Obama's final Campaign, and in
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: February twenty twelve, he partnered up with Wiki Leaks fucking
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: uh oh and published another Rolling Stone article that detailed
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the Department of Homeland Securities efforts to monitor the Occupy
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Wall Street movement. Remember that shit, I didn't do anything.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: I remember that. It was many years, wasn't it, Like,
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: I don't know how many years that was.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: It lasted a while. I moved to New York briefly
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: in late twenty eleven, and it was still kind of
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: going then.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: I believe Wait a second, why does the WIKIASA, it
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: only lasted fifty nine days. Are we having of Mendela
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: effect moment?
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Oh it could be. Yeah, maybe it wasn't yet.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: I think there were some people who were there for years.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Probably well they might have just been homeless though.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: People who were like voluntarily living in a tent or something.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I was in college. I don't have a lot of memories.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't remember how long it lasted. Fifty nine
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: days sounds more right than years.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: That's what it says. But it says for the wider
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: movement see occupy movement, and that says it was from
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: twenty eleven to twenty sixteen. Okay, Occupy movement was an
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: international populist socio political movement that expressed opposition to social
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: and economic inequality. And that was September twenty eleventh November
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: twenty sixteen. So maybe that's what I'm thinking of.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably, same bit different.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Hastings was also the first person to cover the story
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: of Bowie berg Doll, was an Americans who basically deserted
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the military in Afghanistan and ended up being a prisoner
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: of war, and in his profile of berg Doll, Hastings
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: suggested that there were some people within the Department of
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Defense who did not want him to be returned because
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: of the things he knew about what we were doing
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. But he was eventually freed in twenty fourteen
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and immediately faced charges of desertion from the military sidebar
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Bowie Bergdahal was the subject of season two of the
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: serial podcast, which I've still never listened to.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, I didn't either. I looked to the first season.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't listen to the first season.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I don't think it surprises anybody that I haven't listened
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: to Cereal.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Are you not a big true crime person.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: I'll watch like documentaries. If I'm gonna learn about stuff
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: like that, I'm gonna watch it.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna listen to it.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Curiel. I think the biggest impact it had on
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: the world was for a while there, everyone decided their
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: shit needed to be a series. And when I say everyone,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I mean people running comedy shows like there. I would
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: see comedy shows where it was like Volume three, season
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: episode six.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: It's like, shut the absolute.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: What is wrong with you? You are doing a goddamn
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: comedy show. No one has volumes of your comedy show
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: at a home on their shelves. Fucking weirdos. God, comics
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: are weird.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: They are Jesus.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: So.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: The last article Hastings published was a BuzzFeed piece called
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: why Democrats loved the Spy on Americans? And it came
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: out right after Was it Glenn? Is it Glenn Greenwald?
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Is that his name?
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: Who?
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Who? I think is probably a good example of the
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: path Michael Hastings's career might have taken had he not
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: tragically died in Hancock Park, because Glenn Greenwald is also
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: an investigative journalist, and you'll hear a lot of people
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: on the left now who are like, man, fuck that guy.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: And I don't know exactly why, but I feel like
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: there was a pretty strong effort to discredit him and
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: make him look like a bad person when he's one
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: of the most vocal opponents of the American government and
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: one of the most honest opponents of the American government.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: He doesn't criticize the American government from a oh, I'm
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: a Republican, I'm a Democrat kind of position. It's more
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: a I'm questioning the government, which that is getting more
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: and more rare these days. Yeah, I think Glenn Greenwald
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: lives in like fucking Venezuela now Brazil, Brazil.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: Well, because didn't his husband get cancer and didn't he
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: pass away? Could be I think I think he died
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: and Glenn is there with their children.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: M No, that's a bummer.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: If I'm not mistake.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: At least he didn't get his car hacked.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: He did not get his car hacked.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: No, And after Greenwald reported on all that, that's when
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Hastings wrote this article about why Democrats loved to spy
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: on Americans, and it was all about how Democrats and
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: this is all true in two thousand and six and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, both one of the things they
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: campaigned really hard on was, well, check out how the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Bush administration is spying on you. Don't you want all
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: that to go away. We're the good guys. We're gonna
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: get rid of all that. And they did not. They
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: dramatically expanded spying on Americans under the Obama administration. And
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: that was one of Michael Hastings's big sticking points with Obama.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: So now let's talk about his death. He was killed
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: on June eighteenth, twenty thirteen, approximately four to twenty five
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: am in a single vehicle car crash in the Hancock
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Is this close to where
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: you live, Heather?
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: No, but I it's a street sometimes I tick to work.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: I'm on it frequently. It's a popper street, very street.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I take Highland to work every day. Yeah.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Witnesses said his car was traveling at a high rate
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: of speed, so much so that it was creating sparks
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and flames before crashing into a palm tree, and surveillance
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: video from around the scene seems to confirm those reports.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Heather already mentioned this. The car's engine was ejected and
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: it was like fifty to sixty yards from the crash site.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: Why that's so sketchy, I mean to me, it just
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: it sounds like a bomb, like a pile type thing.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like something exploded because I've seen I mean,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess if there's a skeptic out
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: there who wants to dig into it, find me a
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: bunch of pictures of car accidents where the engine flew
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: fit to sixty yards away, Especially if you're hitting a tree,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: it seems like you hit it head on. Wouldn't the engine.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: Just like get crushed in it.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, even just like one other example.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: Know you said like many other examples, but they're like
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: one or two.
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think I think maybe it could happen
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: in like a Formula one crash where there's sure where
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: they're driving so fast that like, yeah, debris can like
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: fly crazy distances.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: But okay, one other residential cash Yeah, a regular car
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: accident like this to me, this it makes no sense.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: No, I agree with that. And his body was burned
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: beyond recognition. Very convenient, and very shortly after crash, the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: LAPD swooped into assure the world there was no evidence
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: of foul play.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Oh thank god.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, since when do we not trust the LAPD?
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: You know, have they lied before?
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. I don't think they have ever
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: lied about anything. And that's ever one. That's why I
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: trust them inherently. Are you hearing this, LAPD? If you
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: ever pull me over, just know Adam Todd Brown trusts
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: you inherently. So I feel like any situation like this
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: is very complicated. You see this with Gary Webb also,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: who is the journalist who broke the story about the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: CIA selling crack in the United States. He eventually committed suicide,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and it's one of the weirdest suicides ever ever because
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: he shot himself twice in the head.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: Wait what I never heard about both?
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, how the first shot went through his cheek
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and then the second shot killed him. I think he
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: was trying to make it look like the CIA killed
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: him when he shot himself the first time, because the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: CIA wouldn't miss. They're not gonna fucking miss shooting someone
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: in the head. And what's really complicated about it is
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: his entire family swear he committed suicide. And the other
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: thing that makes me think, unlike Michael Hastings, that Gary
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Webb wasn't killed by the government. By the time he
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: committed suicide, the government had killed him. He was still alive.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: But he had no fucking career, he had no money,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: he was living with his mom. The night he committed suicide,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: his motorcycle got stolen and that was like his last
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: goddamn worldly possession. So I think he killed himself, and
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I think that first shot might have been oh well,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: if there's two shots, they'll think the CIA did it
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and that'll put some stink on them forever. But I
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: don't think the CIA had reason to kill Gary Webb
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: by that point. Michael Hastings, on the other hand, I
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: absolutely think they had reason to kill him. But you
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: see the same thing where his family and his friends
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: are like, I don't know, he was pretty depressed at
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the time, and he was acting pretty weird.
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: Did he have a mental health diagnosis of anything outther
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: than depression? Was he bipolar or anything like that.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I haven't read anything where he was specifically diagnosed with that,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: but there is a quote from his brother. His brother
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: was apparently in LA at the time Michael Hastings died
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: because he was trying to orchestrate a intervention of some sort,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and he thought Michael Hastings was having a drug induced
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: manic episode at the time he died. And I get that,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: But also, wouldn't that make it the perfect time for
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the government to swoop in and kill him in a
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: way that looked like it could maybe have been suicide?
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I know that. Would they go well together in
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: like a gross way? Yeah, like to time that?
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if I believe this, but there's
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: a theory out there about Jimmy Hoffa that suggests this
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: serial killer named Edward James Edwards, Edward James, or Edward
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Ray Edward Wayne Edwards. And it's actually Edward Wayne Edwards's
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: son who suggests that Edward Wayne Edwards might have killed
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Hoffa because Edward Wayne Edwards w as a serial killer.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: He was a serial killer of opportunity where he would
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: just oh, if I can commit this murder and fucking
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: get away with it, I'm going to do it. He
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: was in Jimmy Hoffa's inner circle at the time Jimmy
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Hoffa died, and he witnessed this big fight that Jimmy
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Hoffa had with one of his associates right before he died,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and Edward Wayne Edward's son thinks, Oh, I think he
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: saw that fight and knew if he killed Jimmy Hoffa
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: in that moment, they would blame it on that guy
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: he had the fight with. And this could have been
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the CIA acting in that way. Yeah, because he was
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: also emailing his friends and family and telling them the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: FBI was going to be talking to them, and everyone
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: talked about how weird he was acting, how he was
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: agitated and paranoid.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Well, and if they're hacking his car, they're hacking his email,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Sorry to interrupt you.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, absolutely, And the idea that he was agitated
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and paranoid. I mean, this is a corny thing to
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: quote in this moment, but there's a line from a
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Nirvana song that says, just because you're paranoid, don't mean
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: they're not after you. And it seems like they were
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: after this guy when he was paranoid about the government
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: being after him.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: Wait, did his brother say what drug if he was doing? Like,
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: was he doing coke? But my question was he doing cocaine?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: They found weed and amphetamines in his systances.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: Okay, well, I mean amphetamines and cocaine, Nick, you really paranoid?
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: I think he had a reason to be paranoid, but
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: that it got turned up even higher by that.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not going to make it better.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Math is not the drug to do when you're
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: afraid the government is following you.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's how you think faster and you get
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: ahead of them. And I'm just kidding.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: But also that paranoia, a lot of it turned out
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: to not be unwarranted. In the days before he died,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: he started, like I said, emailing friends and colleagues to
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: tell them the FBI might be knocking on their door
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: to ask questions. The FBI, after he died, denied that
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: they were surveilling Michael Hastings or that they had any
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: files on him, to which the rest of the world
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: replied fucking yeah right. And of course it later came
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: out the FBI absolutely was surveilling Michael Hastings. They had
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: file on him. There was a Freedom of Information Act
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: request that was filed. The FBI tried to ignore it,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: and these two journalists took them to court to get
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Michael Hastings' files. So we know the FBI lied about
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: whether they were following this guy and one of I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: think the most interesting detail, and I think the detail
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that points to this not being an accident, is around
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: twelve thirty am the morning he died, Michael Hastings went
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: to his neighbor's house, a woman named Jordana Figpen, and
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: asked if he could borrow her car because he was
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: afraid to drive his own car. He said it car
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: had been tampered with. That's huge, that's so huge, that's funny.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: It's so significant, like literally less than four hours before
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: his car killed him.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: This is a quote from her. She just said he
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: was scared and he wanted to leave town end quote,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: but she didn't give him a car because she said
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: her car had mechanical issues.
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: Probably didn't have a car bomb in.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He was like, do you want to trade cars?
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: And she was like no, I don't want to die.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It was like, come on, it's a Mercedes.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: I don't know. And now I just like wonder what
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: they actually did because I feel like when there have
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: been you know, like in movies sometimes they'll have like
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: you know, somebody goes into a car and they turn
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: the ignition that the car just blows up, right then, yeah,
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: Like is that a real thing they've done in real life?
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Like Godfather's style?
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like Godfather or like it was the Pelican Brief,
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: the Pelican Brief where like they they are thinking about
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: turning the ignition, they're like, wait, no, they don't do it.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: When when you say have they done it? Do you
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: mean the American government or has that?
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: But the government or like somebody trying to kill somebody?
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: Like is that an accurate? Like is that's how they
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: portrayed in the movies? Is that as soon as you
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: turn on the ignition, the car blows up? But is
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: that realistic?
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: I think so that would that seems like it would
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: be an obvious way to trigger an explosive.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe too obvious this time.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: Well that's what I'm wondering, Like, how would the mechanics
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: of this particularly work. So like he was driving and
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: then what happened exactly?
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is maybe had to like hit a
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: certain speed.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: So just the fact that he showed up asking to
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: borrow that car tells me at least he didn't kill himself.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: He didn't like intentionally drive his car into this tree.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Because if you're planning to just kill yourself, why like
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: you would just get in your car that you thought
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: was tampered with and let the government have their fucking
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: way with you, which seems like is exactly what happened.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: But that makes me think he did not commit suicide. Also,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: at the time of the death, he was working on
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: a profile of then CIA director John Brennan and his
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: role in an Obama administration effort to crack down on
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: investigative journalists.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: So he had.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Already taken down a fucking military general with one of
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: his profiles, and he was not only working on this
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: story about CIA director John Brennan. He told people he
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: needed to go off the grid for a few days
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to work on it because he was concerned about being
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: followed by the government. So that is all weird. And
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: then there's this shortly after he died, former US intelligence
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: official Richard Clark revealed that the technology to allow someone
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to hat a car existed and that the crash was
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: consistent with a cyber attack. This is kind of a
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: long quote here goes there is reason to believe that
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: intelligence agencies for major powers, including the United States, know
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: how to remotely seese control of a car. What has
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: been revealed as a result of some research at universities
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: is that it's relatively easy to hack your way into
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the control system of a car and to do such
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: things as cause acceleration when the driver doesn't want acceleration,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: to throw on the brakes when the driver doesn't want
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the brakes on, to launch an airbag. You can do
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: some really highly destructive things now through hacking a car,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: and it's not that hard. So if there were a
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: cyber attack on the car, and I'm not saying there was,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I think whoever did it would probably get away with it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: End quote. That's Richard Clark and damn, I remember hearing
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: about that and it sounds crazy, and people treated it
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: like it was a crazy suggestion. But I feel like
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: you don't even have to think about it that long
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: to realize it's not crazy. You're just talking about hacking
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: a computer. So what if it's in a car, Like
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: people hack baby monitors, they hack fucking surveillance systems. If
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: it's a computer, you can fucking hack it. Yeah, So
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: for years that was just a thing that had been suggested,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: but everyone treated it like science fiction type shit. But
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, WikiLeaks released a bunch of CIA documents,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: and among them was proof that the CIA's Center for
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Cyber Intelligence had been exploring methods to hack into vehicle
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: systems since at least twenty fourteen. But the fact that
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Richard Clark gave that quote in twenty thirteen makes me
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: think the intelligence community knew about this shit way before
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. And one of the documents was meeting notes
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: that showed the CIA has a division called the Embedded
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Development Branch that was discussing a list of targets that
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: could be hacked, and it included vehicle systems, which was
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: referring to computer systems that started being built into cars
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: in the two thousands, and it mentions one specifically called
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: qn X, which at that point in history was in
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: use in more than fifty million vehicles across at least
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: fourteen different brands, accounting for fifty percent of the market
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: share for modern cars.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: That was part of my question is what year vehicles
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: is this end? Because I think my car is so
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: old that no one can hack it and I'm safe.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: So in case I have an enemy, I.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Mean, my car can get hacked by a fucking USB.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: You can break into a Hundie with a USB port.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: So oh I heard about that.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: I use an old school thing on my wheel because
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: you can lock and fuck do.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: You use the club?
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: I use a club.
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: Wow. I love seeing an old school club out there.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: It is what the Hyundai dealership and my local mechanic
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: have been like.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you just got to use a club.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four, Okay.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: This QNX computer system that is mounted in a bunch
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: of cars. It's normally tied to Bluetooth and Wi Fi
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and things like that. It's described as an entertainment system,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: but it can also be used for things like accelerating
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and breaking, and this was one of the systems that
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: in this WikiLeaks document the CIA talked about maybe having
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: access to being able to hack. And what's worse is
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: it doesn't just run cars. There's like trains that use
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: this program, buses, There's so many things that if an
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: intelligence outfit got the means to hack it, they could
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: cause a lot of fucking destruction without people really ever
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: knowing what happened. And for the record, Hastings was driving
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: a Mercedes when he crashed, and those do use the
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: QNX system. Only problem here is a CIA memo is
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: dated twenty fourteen and Hastings died in twenty thirteen.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Oh well, then I couldn't have been them.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, couldn't possibly have been. See my first thought when
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: I realized that discrepancy was, oh, maybe the CIA just
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: planted this document.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: But if they just did an ADOBEU at it, they
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: just deleted the free and A four or something.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me because then if anyone came asking,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: they could be like, what, we didn't kill that guy.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: We didn't even start looking into this stuff until twenty fourteen.
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: That seems so impossible to believe because they've been killing
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: people for decades. What are they talking about.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing. The CIA, I mean, this government,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: we have a pretty long track record of killing people.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: It's just whether you want to believe the government did
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: it or not. But I'm sorry, it's twenty twenty four.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: There can't possibly be anyone out there who still thinks
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: that string of assassinations in the sixties was just all
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: lone nuts, right, Yeah.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: I do think there's people that still think that.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Oh I think there are Yeah, absolutely.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, I thought you were saying that no one thinks
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: that anymore. I'm like, oh, no, there's definitely.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I just can't imagine thinking that.
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: No, well, I mean that they were pasted to some
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: of them, you know.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I think James Lway definitely didn't kill MLK,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: but so does his family and a jury in a
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: civil trial. But also even with that discrepancy, who says
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: it was the CIA who did this? I feel like,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: and I know I'm guilty of this. I just say
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: CIA when I mean American intelligence. But the CIA is
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: busy toppling foreign governments. This could have been fucking naval intelligence,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: could have been the FBI could have been the fucking
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Postal Inspection Service, It could have been so many of
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: the I think eighteen intelligence agencies we have in the
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: United States. So if the CIA was just looking into
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: this in twenty fourteen, it could have been them being like,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: do you hear what fucking naval intelligence did to Michael Hastings.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: We got to figure out how to do that shit.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: That's crazy because we know these agencies don't talk. That's
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: fucking how nine to eleven happened. The FBI and the
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: CIA were just like keeping information to themselves because they're
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: so competitive.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: They're almost competing with one another. Yeah.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So if the CIA just started looking into this
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, I wouldn't be surprised if it was
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: because of Michael Hastings and they were like, who did that?
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: We need that shit. So this doesn't do anything to
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: make me feel like Michael Hastings wasn't murdered by the government.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: It just makes me think maybe it wasn't the CIA,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: because the CIA isn't supposed to operate in the United
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: States anyway, which we don't need them to we have
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: so many other intelligence agencies. But whatever the case, it
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: seems like hacking a car isn't impossible, and again, it's
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: just a computer. You can hack a computer, you can
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: hack car, you can hack the computer in a car.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: And the fact that Michael Hastings, I wish he would
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: have went into detail when he told his neighbor that
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: his car was being tampered with. I wish he would
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: have told her exactly what was happening, because I wonder
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: if he was having issues with like it accelerating when
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: it shouldn't have or breaking when it shouldn't have, because then, yeah,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: I'd be fucking terrified if I was him and that
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: shit was happening. But last thing I want to talk about.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: It's probably not all that surprising that this story involves
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: a few figures who've gone on to be involved with
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: right wing outfits like Proud Boys or QAnon. And one
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: of the emails, this is really fucking interesting to me.
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: One of the emails Hastings sent the day before he
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: died was to a guy named Joe Briggs, who at
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: the time was just a military guy. I think he
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: was in Afghanistan and Hastings talked to him for his
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: coverage on Afghanistan or Iraq. One of the two, but
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: since then he is a member of the Proud Boys
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: who has been indicted in relation to the January sixth insurrection.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: He is a family friend of the Flynns, meaning Michael Flynn,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: you went on enthusiast who kind of sort of helped
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: orchestrate January sixth, and Charles Flynn, one of Michael Flynn's brothers.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Both of them were in Afghanistan when Hastings published this
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: article and got their boss, Stanley McCrystal fired. Charles Flynn
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: was head of intelligence in Afghanistan when that happened. And
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: now fast forward to twenty twenty three, someone tweeted at
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Joseph Flynn, who was Michael Flynn and Charles Flynn's brother,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: about all of these weird connections between Joe Biggs and
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: the Flynn family and Michael Hastings. And instead of just
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: ignoring that tweet or just replying and saying nope, we
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: didn't have anything to do with it, Joseph Flynn first replied,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Michael h had some problems with his car that night,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: too bad, so sad, Which what do you mean by
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: problems with his car? That has never been said. It's
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: only been said that he had a car accident. He
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: was driving too fast and he spun out. Did he
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: have with his car? He also added, well, it's true
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: very said how that accident happened. He was a relatively
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: young guy. Again, what the fuck do you mean by
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: how that accident happened? What would he know about how
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: that accident happened? And again, he could just be trolling
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: or whatever, but that would be a very tricky thing
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: to troll people over.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: It's a very cocky troll if it's a troll. Yeah,
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: it's like he feels like he can't be untouchable if
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: you can say things like that, which.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he is. Like, if this was a government
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: initiative to kill Michael Hastings, no one's gonna fucking go
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: to jail for it. So I don't know. Maybe Michael
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Flynn killed Michael Hastings. Maybe he was the one who
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: was behind.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: It, or he's just in support of it.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean either way, Michael Flynn Charles Flynn were
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: both in Afghanistan working under Stanley McCrystal when Michael Hastings
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: wrote this article that got Crystal fired. Joe Biggs is
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: one of the last people Michael Hastings contact before he died.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: That's when he was like reaching out and telling people
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: the FBI might be knocking on your door. And I'm
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: working on this big story about the director of the CIA.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: So who knows who Joe Biggs went and told after
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: that and what happened from there. But it seems like
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: the Flynns fucking know something about what happened to Michael Hastings.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: And we'll link to all this ship so people can
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: read it for yourself. The tweets from Joseph Flynn, if
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: you can believe it. His account has since been suspended.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Uh oh yeah to an article that has screenshots I've
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: before too. You know, was it because you killed Michael Hastings.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: That's that's why.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: If you haven't been suspended from Twitter, are you even
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: living exactly?
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: Thank you?
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I know I support it. I don't know what happened,
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: but I'm sure I support it.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: No, I always. I always just get in trouble what
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: I'm fighting, Like misogynists online. They're like, you were you
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: were mean to a man. You were mean to a
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: man your.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Band I mean, in their defense, don't be mean to men,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: you know? Okay, geez, I'll try not to men ever
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: done that.
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: They've done some stuff.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: So what do we think was Michael Hastings murdered?
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was crazier if he wasn't at this.
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: Point, yeah, no, if he wasn't murdered, then this seems
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: to be like steady well whatever model, they don't need
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: to be a Mercedes recall, why didn't they do that?
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: Not?
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: Like I mean, it makes no.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: That's a great point.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I never did hear any of that follow up.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: Aren't they able to test debris from an explosion for
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: C four and like other explosive type stuff.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, But when you say they, it has to be
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: a government agency that's willing to do.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: The government agency like the NTSB or something.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: They are not neutral, right, I think that's kind of
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: an oxymoron to say a neutral government agency.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: That's the agency that investigates accidents. Yeah, they weren't involved
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: at all.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Well, NTSB is like airline and no, I.
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: Know, usually it's like playing crashes and so they will
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: investigat a traffic accident if it's big enough, like they
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: investigated the Do you remember the limousine crash in upstate
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: New York? Oh, yeah, for like twenty people.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: See, that's the thing I think they investigate when it's like, yeah,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: a vehicle that's carrying people.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Sure carrying more than one person, more than probably like
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: three people or whatever.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I did a bunch of episodes about the death
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: of Paul Wellstone. He was the only Senator who openly
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: opposed the war in Iraq. He was the main opponent
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: to George W. Bush's foreign policy. He died in a
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: plane crash that is highly suspicious, and I did I
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: think three or four episodes about it. There's a good
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: book out there called The Murder or the Assassination of
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Paul Wellstone, but it's very hard to find now, but
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: they make a pretty good case that he was killed
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: in a plane crash that was caused deliberately. And part
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: of that conspiracy involves the NTSB showing up and being like, Yep,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: nothing to see here and don't worry about it, and
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: people are like, there's shit to see there. We know
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: you're fucking lying. So yeah, I don't know. If the
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: NTSB showed up, I wouldn't trust them to tell the
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: truth about what happened here. And yeah, it would be
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: an easy thing to test for but when the LAPD
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: swoops in and goes, Nope, no foul play.
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: I they to get rid of the debris.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a thing you see in a lot of conspiracies,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: is if the police show up and decide it's nothing.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of times where it ends. That's the
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: case with Kurt Cobain, where it was just a beat
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: cop who was like, oh, this looks like suicide and
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Seattle pet was like, all right, I guess we won't investigate.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Then it's like, damn, I think you should have investigated.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: But that ship is sailed. So yeah, I think Michael
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Hastings was murdered by yeah, the government, And I don't
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: think he was the first to be murdered by the government.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: This shit isn't new. They've been doing that for a
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: long time by this point, and I think that's our episode.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Do we have any final thoughts? I'm sorry there's no
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: real resolution to this other than the latest update being
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Joseph Flynn putting out shady tweets about what might or
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: might not have happened.
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: Now, I'm going to continue to think about this every
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: six months for the rest of my life, like every
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: six months of like Michael Hastings. What happened there? I
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: talked to all my coworkers about this. I was like,
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: do you remember Michael Haystings? What are you talking about? Like,
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: you know the guy who died in that weird corcrup.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does seem like it's pretty much a forgotten
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: moment in history now, like we've just moved on. It
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: happened under Obama, so everyone associates government malfeasance with Republicans
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: unless you're a Republican.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it happened when I was very much not paying
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: attention to the news, like around that time.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: So now think about it all the time. Yeah, but yeah,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: that's crazy.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a crazy fucking story.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: Also, who's tweeting in twenty twenty three and I'm just kidding.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: Nazis unfortunately I am. Yeah.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you for being on the other side.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: So I have some sort of some sort of be
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: able to fight against.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: I gave up.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't do Twitter. So I think that's our episode.
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: We did it. We did it. We did it, meaning
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: we killed Michael Haysey.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: We did it.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: We solved it, We.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Solved we have solved the case. I assume Obama is
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: going down tomorrow as soon as this episode comes out.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Thanks Obama, and thank you too for doing the podcast.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: What do we have to Plug? This seems like a
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: great time to plug. I would like people to listen
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: to my solo podcast in Broad Daylight, which will be
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: back this week or next. I this is tax time
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: for me, so that's been very busy, but it'll be
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: back very soon. You can listen to it wherever podcasts
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: are at, or watch it on YouTube Adam Todd Brown Comedy,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: and follow me on Instagram. I guess Adam Todd Brown
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Todd with one D Jessica. What do you got to plug?
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, you know the usual.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: I changed my Instagram handle because apparently it was hard
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: to read, So now it's jess period. I period can't
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: period singer because it was jess I can't singer, and
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: everyone thought it was Jessica and t singer. So's that's
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: obviously very interesting and I should keep talking about it.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: But yeah, follow me and I'll be performing around Heather.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: Yes. When is this being released?
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: I don't know?
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: Oh, okay, well you know if it's too late. If
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: it's too late, I so October thirteenth. I'm doing stand
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: up comedy at Chatterbox Comedy Night, and then the week
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: after that, I'm going to be in San Francisco. I
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: should be I should be on the Punchline Showcase that
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: night of the twentieth. But listen, sometimes you don't work
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: out and show business and that's okay. So I might
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: be on I might not. You know, somebody needs to
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: go back to the atop. Okay. So I am also
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: on Twitter and Instagram at fixed Air Heather, but on
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: TikTok I'm at Unruly Maruli, which I'm posting more on
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: TikTok now because fun, that's what you're supposed to do,
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: and I'm obeying. I'm obeying the show business gods by
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: doing a TikTok Okay, I do not.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: I was just gonna say, I'm on like a weird, crazy,
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: drunken stoner thing on October thirtieth.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Come check out whatever that is. It's from like four
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: pm to midnight. I don't know when. I'm on.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Four pm to midnight Tennis, and.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: Then I'm on Secondhand Sundays, which is I'm on weed
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: shows this month.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Come, no one's listening anymore. Let's get out of here,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: say goodbye, well, no one's listening. Bye, Heather Say goodbye.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: Goodbye, and ri I P.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: Michael Hastings, Goodbye, everybody, We love you. Cotting Att