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“Commentary By Adina Kutnicki by Adina Kutnicki AS patriots await the official (Allah-wash) report regarding Bergdahl's (military-related) status, there are certain facts which are indisputable. We will get to that. BUT intertwined with the upcoming Pentagon's evaluation - re the aforementioned deserter and traitor - underlies the "logic" behind trading him for top Taliban leaders. IN this regard, it begs the question: why would the leader of the free world trade any soldier, let alone one with "questionable" loyalty, for high value, prized terror leaders? Well, if one's leanings are Islamist-infused, the question becomes the logical inverse: why not? Not...

WASHINGTON Crazy is in the eye of the beholder. Texas singer-songwriter Willie Nelson wrote the signature love ballad “Crazy,” but it’s a loaded word in Congress, especially when used to describe the Lone Star State. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., found that out when he said Monday night at a Rules Committee hearing that Texas was a “crazy state” and Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, took it personally. The Texan demanded an apology, and not only didn’t he get it from the Floridian, but Hastings said Burgess could wait “until hell freezes over for me to say anything in an apology.” On...

WASHINGTON – During the weeks before he was killed in a car crash in Los Angeles, reporter Michael Hastings was researching a story about a privacy lawsuit brought by Florida socialite Jill Kelley against the Department of Defense and the FBI. Hastings, 33, was scheduled to meet with a representative of Kelley next week in Los Angeles to discuss the case, according to a person close to Kelley. Hastings wrote for Rolling Stone and the website BuzzFeed. Kelley alleges that military officials and the FBI leaked her name to the media to discredit her after she reported receiving a stream...

TODAY IN HISTORY Bayeux Tapestry – Battle of Hastings The Death of King Harold From British Battles.com: "The Battle of Hastings – 14 October 1066 Account: William, Duke of Normandy, launched his bloody and decisive invasion of Saxon England in 1066. In that year Edward the Confessor, King of England, died without heir, appointing by his will Harold Godwinsson, son of England’s most powerful nobleman, the Earl of Wessex, as his successor. Across the Channel, William of Normandy considered himself rightfully the next King of England, basing his claim on a promise by Edward the Confessor in the early...

Matt Boyle has this fascinating piece about the inner workings of the legislative battle this week over the border crisis. The bill pushed by the Republican leadership had a number of serious defects. The story recounted by Boyle is how a small group of activists and congressmen drove the immigration narrative, and ultimately the legislative outcome. Buried toward the end of Boyle’s piece is a disgraceful statement from Florida Representative Alcee Hastings (D): Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) decried the House GOP lawsuit as he addressed “all the white people in here” during the Rules Committee hearing — which was filled...

The mother and father sit at the kitchen table in their Idaho farmhouse, watching their son on YouTube plead for his life. The Taliban captured 26-year-old Bowe Bergdahl almost three years ago, on June 30th, 2009, and since that day, his parents, Jani and Bob, have had no contact with him. Like the rest of the world, their lone glimpses of Bowe – the only American prisoner of war left in either Iraq or Afghanistan – have come through a series of propaganda videos, filmed while he's been in captivity. Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/americas-last-prisoner-of-war-20120607#ixzz34APXclT2 Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone...

The platoon was, an American military official would assert years later, “raggedy.” On their tiny, remote base, in a restive sector of eastern Afghanistan at an increasingly violent time of the war, they were known to wear bandannas and cutoff T-shirts. Their crude observation post was inadequately secured, a military review later found. Their first platoon leader, and then their first platoon sergeant, were replaced relatively early in the deployment because of problems. But the unit — Second Platoon, Blackfoot Company in the First Battalion, 501st Regiment — might well have remained indistinguishable from scores of other Army platoons in...

< Snip > Hastings also spoke to several unnamed men in Bergdahl’s unit — soldiers who, we now know, had to sign a strict nondisclosure agreement forbidding them from discussing the soldier’s disappearance and search with anyone — let alone one of the top investigative journalists in the country. 'Michael and Matt both worked really, really hard on that story, and I know for a fact that they did it in a way that completely angered the US military and the US government.' But most controversially, Hastings’ piece revealed what has been the subject of much debate and vitriol over...

The late Michael Hastings wrote the definitive magazine profile of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for Rolling Stone in June 2012. Now that America's Last Prisoner of War has been released, in a prisoner exchange for five high-ranking Taliban officials, Hastings' piece continues to offer crucial context – about why Bergdahl volunteered for service in the first place, about how this intense, moral young man became so horrified by America's "good war" that he walked away from his unit's remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan in 2009, and about the abortive negotiations that could have secured Bergdahls release years ago. Here 13...

Yet another security researcher is demonstrating a better way to break into vehicle electronic systems, taking control from drivers in a way that could wreak havoc on the roads. While we aren't in imminent danger of wireless drive-by hacks on our cars, automakers must quickly take a more proactive role in discovering and plugging the holes in automotive computer networks before someone devises a practical exploit that requires no physical access to the car. Automakers remain secretive about their in-vehicle computer security, but as hackers find new ways into these rolling networks, automakers need to open up, acknowledge the risks,...

Paul Preston discusses the deaths of Breitbart, Hastings and Clancy.

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....

Three items on the continuing National Security Agency controversy: the information that came out this week, a prescient warning from a veteran British intelligence hand, and a prophecy from an interesting source. ... "A nation of sullen paranoids." Boy, is that it. This picks up on a point a friend, a veteran of Republican White Houses, said near the time the controversies were beginning. He told me of a sophisticated person he knew, experienced in journalism and the ways of government, who thought the U.S. government might have had the reporter Michael Hastings killed. He said, musingly, "The future is...

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.

<p>Hours before dying in a fiery car crash, Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings told his neighbor he believed his Mercedes had been tampered with, according to a report.</p> <p>Hastings’ neighbor Jordanna Thigpen says he knocked on her door after midnight and asked to borrow her Volvo because he was afraid to drive his own car.</p>

The family of journalist Michael Hastings was trying to get him into drug rehab at the time he died in a fiery Los Angeles car wreck, according to a coroner’s report released today.

Comcast's days are numbered as they choose to make themselves obsolete. (Video)

Journalist Michael Hastings, who was killed in a fiery Los Angeles crash in June, died of "traumatic injuries" as a result of the accident and had traces of drugs in his system, Los Angeles coroner's officials said Tuesday. Hastings, 33, died June 18 in a single-vehicle accident. His car burst into flames and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Coroner's officials said Hastings had traces of amphetamine in his system, consistent with possible intake of methamphetamine many hours before death, as well as marijuana. Neither were considered a factor in the crash, according to toxicology reports.

Aug. 13, 2013 6:27pm Jason Howerton Journalist Michael Hastings was investigating CIA Director John Brennan for an upcoming expose project prior to his tragic death in a car accident, the reporter’s wife, Elise Jordan, confirmed. XETV-TV reporter Kimberly Dvorak claims sources had told her the exact same thing. Additionally, an anonymous source recently provided the news station with “an alarming email” hacked from CIA contractor Strafor’s President Fred Burton. The email, which was posted on WikiLeaks, claimed that Brennan previously headed up the government’s effort to crackdown on investigative journalists. “Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning...

This week Elise Jordan, wife of famed journalist Michael Hastings, who recently died under suspicious circumstances, corroborated this reporter's sources that CIA Director, John Brennan was Hastings next exposé project (CNN clip). Last month a source provided San Diego 6 News with an alarming email hacked from super secret CIA contractor Stratfor’s President Fred Burton. The email (link here) was posted on WikiLeaks and alleged that then Obama counter-terrorism Czar Brennan, was in charge of the government's continued crackdown or witch-hunt on investigative journalists. After providing the Stratfor email to the CIA for comment, the spymaster's spokesperson responded in lightning...