Free Republic

NEW YORK – Before his death in a fiery car crash, Michael Hastings was preparing to publish a major investigative piece tied to the undercover agent who is suspected of sanitizing President Obama’s passport records prior to the 2008 presidential election. The mystery has only deepened since the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office ruled that drugs in his system at the time of the June 18 crash, including amphetamines and marijuana, likely did not contribute to the crash. Hastings, 33 years old at the time of his death, wrote for Gentleman’s Quarterly, Rolling Stone and Buzzfeed, reporting on national security issues....

Award-winning journalist Michael Hastings told his neighbor that he was afraid to drive his Mercedes because he believed it had been tampered with, according to a LA Weekly report.

British MP accuses Israel of supplying weapons to al-Qaida in latest alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria. British MP and veteran anti-Israel activist George Galloway on Wednesday responded to the latest alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria, stating that if there has been any use of sarin gas, it was radical Islamist group al-Qaida, using gas supplied by Israel. The Respect Party MP for Bradford West, who is a longstanding supporter of Hezbollah and Hamas, stated: "If there has been use of chemical weapons, it was al-Qaida," asking, "Who gave al-Qaida chemical weapons?" Staring determined into the camera, Galloway stated:...

Telepathy could have been used to compel four young Turkish engineers to kill themselves, it's been suggested. That's one explanation of the deaths of four workers at the defence giant Aselsan contained in a report presented to the PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to reports. All four deaths, within the space of 14 months during 2006 and 2007, were initially recorded as suicides. The men had been undergoing psychological treatment before they died but doubts persisted from their sceptical families, reports newspaper Today's Zaman. And last year the Inspection Board of the Prime Ministry launched a fresh probe.

Ninety years ago today, on August 2, 1923, President Warren G. Harding died at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, California. It was sudden, shocking, and has been fodder for conspiracy theorists ever since. His wife, Florence—described derisively by some as “The Duchess”—didn’t allow an autopsy, so we’ll never know exactly what caused the demise of the 29th President of the United States. It might have been congestive heart failure, or food poisoning, or even something more sinister. Seen in retrospect, through the prism of the scandals associated with his White House tenure, Harding is usually ranked well toward the...

ReelzChannel is getting back into the Kennedy family business, and once again likely to make some waves. In November, the network that aired the Emmy-winning 2011 miniseries "The Kennedys" will debut "JFK: The Smoking Gun," a new documentary offering the theory that John F. Kennedy was killed, not by Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle, but by the friendly-fire bullet of an inexperienced Secret Service agent. "The only possible gun that could have been in that area is that Secret Service gun. So the finding is that it was an accidental discharge. Nobody's claiming anybody did anything wrong. But at the time,...

VIDEO footage from Pizzeria Mozza, which is located at Melrose and Highland, shows the final moments before journalist Michael Hastings' Mercedes Benz exploded into flames.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/transportation/cars/journalist-michael-hastings-body-cremated-authorities-against-familys

Today, Google celebrates the Roswell UFO crash of July 8, 1947 with an interactive cartoon.

This is a distasteful subject to write about. But Los Angeles talk radio is obsessed with the death of Michael Hastings and the insinuations that somehow he was killed by unknown forces attempting to silence him. Yesterday afternoon, I drove to the scene of the car crash. Several bouquets of flowers ringed a tree. I saw candles and notes. It's very sad. Trutherism (the catch-all term for instant conspiracies based on extreme mistrust and/or unfounded supposition) makes me angry. I would much rather have Hastings' life work be the subject of discussion and criticism than to hear L.A. radio jocks...

The writing-about-writing crowd is abuzz with discussion about the rather unusual death of Buzzfeed/RollingStone/Gawker writer Michael Hastings. Mr. Hastings, whose name is never mentioned in the press without the immediate mention that he was “the fearless journalist whose reporting brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal”, died in a single-car accident in Los Angeles yesterday morning. This in and of itself is not unusual, but the circumstances of the crash and its aftermath won’t do anything to quiet the conspiracy theorists who are already claiming that the military-industrial complex found a way to cap the guy. The definitive video...

Due to all the recent news about things that were formerly considered "tin foil hat" material that has been proven true. What other crazy junk that would be considered crazy just a decade ago that now you might think, gee that could very well be a plausible possibility.... With the NSA spying and the IRS intimidating people... They could tell me tomorrow that Obama talked to Gleep the Conquerer from Omicron Persei VIII and that we surrendered to them and I would just go "That sounds like something he would do"...

During their discussion, Mr. Beck raised an intriguing possibility: Was Chief Justice John Roberts blackmailed by the Obama regime into changing his ruling on Obamacare at the last minute? Given what he knows about the NSA, Mr. Binney couldn't rule such a thing out.

New Zealand Herald can't be posted to FR, but I think a link might be OK: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10889158

In the days following the bombings at the Boston Marathon, speculation online regarding the identity and motive of the unknown perpetrator or perpetrators was rampant. And once the Tsarnaev brothers were identified and the... --snip-- And that’s a problem. Because while believing George W. Bush helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks might make you feel in control, it doesn’t actually make you so. Earlier this year, Karen Douglas, a University of Kent psychologist, along with a student, published research in which they exposed people to conspiracy theories about climate change and the death of Princess Diana. Those who got information...

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was originally established to protect American citizens from the federal use of military troops to enforce and execute the laws of the land unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. Since then, for over a century, this task has fallen upon local and federal law enforcement. But with the War on Terror taking center stage in the United States for the last decade, elements within the government have been working tirelessly to expand the mission of the US military on the domestic front. First, they passed the Patriot Act, which gave the government...

"This apparent abduction by terrorists of our ambassador and then negotiated trade for the Blind Sheikh would have been the “October Surprise” that would have elevated President Obama’s flagging popularity and boosted his approval ratings for a re-election. A dramatic prisoner exchange that saved our ambassador’s life However, something went horribly wrong. A cunning and illegal bit of treachery by the Obama White House turned into something entirely different. Obama’s October surprise turned into a carnage orchestrated by the White House itself as the President, Leon Panetta, and CIA Director, David Petraeus watched via a UAV real-time feed as a...

Saw it last night. Couldn't make sense of certain aspects of it until I realized they're telling the 9/11 truther plot that Bush planned everything. (Spoilers ahead with plot details revealed)

Former Obama National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor has let loose on Twitter this morning, mocking the Benghazi hearing today as "amateur hour."Vietor also mocked the hearings as conspiracy theories on par with Area 51 and the moon landings conspiracy theories:Heard that Rep. Cummings asked Rep. Issa to include Thomas Pickering, cochair of ARB report in today's hearing, but Issa refused. #BenghaziWhy on earth would Issa refuse to let the cochair of an independent review board on #Benghazi testify at his hearing on the subject?Could it be that today's #Benghazi hearing has nothing to do with fact-finding but is just...

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and the subsequent capture of one and killing of the other suspect, a number of conspiracy theories have arisen (as they always do) . Let’s sift through some of the more prominent ones and do a gut/fact check.1. #FalseFlag Perhaps the first “official” conspiracy floated (largely by big-time conspiracy theory profiteer Alex Jones), some people believed that the attack was a “false flag.” This term in conspiracy theorist jargon means any situation where an attack is presumed orchestrated by a government or organization pretending to be someone or something else. Why this is the...