I feel like when there is financial malfeasance, we find enough cases of it in the wild to document that it has really happened. Whether it's Enron, or stories of lobbyists and politicians acting in self interest in ways that break the law, or even just municipal officials embezzling, we have known cases of that. So if you ever have the feeling that big financial transactions might be ethically questionable, you can at least know that such things have happened in the wild.
I think the same is true of war crimes in wars - enough of the worst type of things have really happened, and been documented, so there's nothing on the face of it that is outlandish if you heard a new report of such a thing.
But how about deaths in suspicious circumstances like this one? Is there a historical record of these kinds of things being carried out, especially in the western world, in circumstances where the motive is corporate self-interest? What's the most clear cut case we have of something falling in that falls into (for lack of a better term) the Michael Clayton category?
Ah, WaPo debunked Gary's accurate critique of the CIA, rendering the whole thing a conspiracy theory. I expect nothing less of the CIA but seriously, is WaPo anything more than a blight on journalism?
if Boeing wasn't a major defense contractor -- then yeah. you could easily say suicide. but since they're in bed with 3 letter agencies.
it becomes a whole different game altogether. since there's a 3 letter agency that has nailed the assassination game to a T. whether on home soil or abroad.
At the nexus of defense contractors, arms brokers, intelligence and private military contractors, there exist the kind of men who have spent many years doing dirty deeds for various masters, and have no scruples if the pay is right. They have access to the resources, knowledge and connections required to kill someone and not get caught. They operate in a deniable manner, free of the paper trails and accountability of any government entity, but still operate at the same level. These men would be eminently accessible with only one or two degrees of separation for an executive of a defense contractor
Most killers-for-hire are undercover cops. But Boeing wouldn't be hiring a guy off of rent-a-hitman.com, they have access to groups like Blackwater who literally murder people for the government as a business. They could just ask for whoever did Epstein or Seth Rich (allegedly.)
I highly doubt that some suit at Boeing picked up the phone and asked the DoD for a reference. It's not how these things go, and it's much more dumb in real life.
This application of "base rates thinking" was helpful for me - a bit out of left field, I'm aware of the concept and use it sometimes but wouldn't have thought to do so here. Thanks!
Perhaps the death of Jeffrey Epstein shows that this sort of thing does happen in the West. I know the case is not of the same kind, but the perpetrator was very likely a corporate type trying to protect their reputation, which is at least close.
>Baden issued a report stating that Epstein's neck injuries were much more consistent with "homicidal strangulation" than suicide
>Baden also said that the wound was much thinner than the strip of bedsheet, and although there was blood on Epstein's neck, it was absent on the bed-sheet ligature.
which has photos of his neck and it does look he was strangled by something very much narrower than the bed sheets. I'm reminded a bit of the movie The Act of Killing where one of the former government guys explained how they killed hundreds of people by strangulation with a wire. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Act_of_Killing)
I'd say on balance of probability Epstein was murdered but the Boeing guy is quite likely a suicide. Maybe he made the statements about if he dies it's not suicide as a way of getting at Boeing?
Right, there's a lot of stuff relating to the circumstances that certainly suggestive, and I wouldn't fault anyone for holding presumptions entertaining the possibility of undiscovered details.
But that said, it's still important to keep it clear dividing line between what we think and what we know for sure.
> is there anything in the Epstein case to indicate foul play
We have no evidence. It is more that Epstein knew a lot of bad things about some of the most powerful people in the country. It makes sense that they would have wanted him killed, or even that they would have wanted to fake his death to make the court case go away. People who would kill to save themselves would be just as likely to kill a drifter and give that body to the coroner, along with very clear threats to stay quiet.
Of course we have no evidence, we can only speculate. But this is exactly the kind of thing people at these power levels will do, as we know often people at this level will kill thousands of people if it suits them.
Might be a good idea to make these kinds of statements in a more public manner on the socials. @ing the company your commenting against as well as any local police, FBI, or other pertinent TLAs. Let the opposition know they are no longer operating in the shadows. Of course the TLAs won't actively do anything about it proactively, but maybe it'll give more credence than the grieving friend's say-so later??? Have it in writing notarized, and on display in the video you post. This isn't a Grisham novel from the 90s. It's much easier to document things today.
I don't know about the game theory of the whole thing.
If a group does want to murder a whistleblower, they presumably want to do it for two reasons:
- To prevent them from testifying further
- To scare other potential whistleblowers into not testifying
A public statement of "if something happens to me it wasn't suicide!" is certainly not evidence enough. But it's a strong hint...which is actually the most favorable outcome to the murdering org, since it maximizes the chilling effect of the murder.
The problem is that even then you'll be able to get people to dismiss it with a "well, but he was mentally disturbed enough to lie about what we did, so clearly he just wanted to get one last dig in when he committed suicide". In other words, I don't think it'd be any significant deterrent to anyone prepared to call in a hit - anyone ready to do that would already have accepted that it will look dodgy and be prepared to counter it by smearing you.
If you want to deter a hit in a situation like that, I think the only way to do that is to ensure you have very significant additional data (or at least convincingly imply you do) and make it clear they'll be released if you "commit suicide".
On one side I agree with you, on the other, such statements are far from conclusive proof of anything.
Let's make a small mental exercise:
- you end up being a whistleblower against your company
- every of your former friends hates you, your family isn't super supportive either for what you caused to the rest of the family (in reputation, attention, possibly financially)
- you decide to end it
- you leave such statements before ending it to clear your name / further punish the company
I am not saying that this has happened, but people can have millions of motivations and victims being vengeful or lying is actually a surprisingly common phenomenon even though they may really be the victims of the whole situation.
Ah yes, people hate it when people call out corruption that results in the planes they fly to kill people!
>your family isn't super supportive either for what you caused to the rest of the family (in reputation, attention, possibly financially)
Again, I agree their neighbors and friends must have been super pissed when he called out Boeing for building dangerous planes that can kill people! Nothing makes regular people more upset when you put integrity over the profits of some corporation!
And I am sure the family were super pissed when pursuing a civil lawsuit that would benefit them. I am sure they were so upset about the negative repercussions to Boeing!
I guess we can all agree that he killed himself for the benefit of friends and family something that you always hear when a father kills himself! /s
> Ah yes, people hate it when people call out corruption that results in the planes they fly to kill people!
I obviously referred to former coworkers whose livelihood is on the table. Whether you believe it or not, whistleblowing isn't seen favorably from those that still work there. If it was, they would've been themselves.
> Nothing makes regular people more upset when you put integrity over the profits of some corporation!
If you're the wife/child and your own life is dragged by your father losing his job and being dragged in lawsuits, while you're the butt of the mouth of everyone you know may not be an enjoyable experience.
Anyway, mine was a mental exercise to show one of the possibilities, I guess this kind of thinking of different situations is not the strength of people that see the world in black and white.
actually, most people prefer the ignorance is bliss style of life like flamingos with their heads in the sand. your coming around and making me think about things really puts a damper in my plans, and quite honestly, it makes my head hurt. from now on, i'm no longer going to add you to my invite list just to avoid you telling me more things as well as no longer accepting your invites. i will change your contact in my device to include "ostracized" so i don't forget /s
yes. it's a rather common three letter acronym used as an all encompassing way to refer to government agencies commonly known by their own three letter acronyms: FBI, CIA, NSA, DoD, DoJ, ATF, CDC etc
Richard Clarke's assessment seemed to carry the weight of truth. But only to a point. Just enough to engage the suspicions of family and friends, but no more.
But people _do_ die when exposing corruption of the rich. Such as Daphne Caruana Galizia and Ján Kuciak for the Panama papers. Would you call their deaths "hollywood films"?
And it'd be natural to think killers would try to hide their traces, such that most such deaths would look like an accident or suicide.
I am more skeptical of the perfect staging to make it look like a suicide theory.
Both of those killings were in pseudo-mafioso states. Both were also immediately recognized as murder. State-sanctioned murder of your own citizens on your own soil is a lot less commmon in a country like the US, although there are well as Mafia and organized crime murders. But I think successful staging as a suicide is uncommon outside of Hollywood and repressive governments.
Just a correction, Kuciak wasn't killed for Panama Papers, but regular investigative journalism into the corruption of the rich (your point still stands).
"According to several Western European researchers, the operation involved the use of assassination, psychological warfare, and false flag operations to delegitimize left-wing parties in Western European countries, and even went so far as to support anti-communist militias and right-wing terrorism as they tortured communists and assassinated them"
Opened a whole box of pandora for me. So I rather think there is much more dark shit going on, than what makes the news, we just see the tip of the iceberg. And not just about the big players. Probably also common people have way more corpses in their basements, than what you would expect, if you grew up in a safe space.
Edit: about Lucona, the wiki page reads quite boring, but the book by the private detective who uncovered it, is quite informative. Casual mentioned details, like that there is a court of the organized crime in london where they settle their cases. Or that the insurance company, who initially hired him to investigate, offered him money in the end, to stop investigating, as he was uncovering up too much dirt.
Definitely stuff going on that does not make the news, but a lot of people also just commit suicide, swear to their friends and family they wont, and do it anyways.
But there is a world of difference between doing this as a small business owner vs. a massive publicly traded company.
And yet murders happen everyday for dubious reasons. If some party has big incentives in a death then it is a moral duty to suspect that party first. Suicide is a special case (suicide rates are not far from murder rates), it is not the default one. The burden should not be on the family to prove it was not suicide, but on the party who has big to gain it was not them.
The man warned he's not going to commit suicide in case something happens to him and your immediate conclusion is that it was suicide.
Interesting line of logic, I have to admit.
Also - many, many people commit suicide after saying they never will. if he was shot with his own gun, i think that is much more likely than any other alternative.
yeah the other issue with these things are that they are unlimited statements and indefinite in length
"look this person wrote on twitter 2 years ago that it won't be suicide"
hm.
a solution I imagined for this was some sort of point cloud emitting off of everyone's body, so we would have a point cloud based rendering of what happened near someone, could reveal a lot about human interactions
While I can't see "Boeing" (as a whole command structure) can be blamed for his death I do see the possibility of some corrupt person in a high position fearing what he had on him personally and ordered a strike against him.
What stands out to me is, that the executive person ordering it, Steve Wymer, was not charged at all, despite making very plain statements:
"Wymer texted Baugh that Ina Steiner was a "biased troll who needs to be BURNED DOWN"; that he wanted "to see ashes"; and that Baugh should do "whatever it takes.""
I would imagine the same will happen here(if it was murder). Some pawns get executed, who "missunderstood their orders".
Mafia bosses seems to operate like this as well. They don't give plain orders to kill someone. But their underlings know what is expected of them, by a certain nod or comment.
It's always hard for that lone wolf to know if it's just a dog whistle or a true call to action. But I'm sure that's exactly the way it's intended to allow for plausible deniability. "I never meant for someone to take me seriously. I was just venting. Locker room talk."
My point is that “oh, that's a nazi dog whistle” has been so overused that people have now come to associate the term with “signal that people think signifies something to another group, but which doesn't”.
That's the difference between a good and a bad employee. Or rather, the good employee delivers results, (does not get caught) and the boss asks no questions regarding the details.
I do wonder what happened there. CEO texts the chief communications officer that someone posting online needs to be taken down, chief communication officer takes that literally and relays the order to the head of security?
Well, how do you take down some blog, if there is no legal base for it, because all the content was obvious legal?
If there would have been a legal angle, they would have send out lawyers letters instead. That was apparently not an option, so crime was the only way to go. And that no one at the top gets prosecuted for this, is quite disappointing.
File fake DMCA claim with the hosting company, drop of if challenged, file and cease and desist with the ISP threatening vaguely and claim it has slanderous/lible and your willing to sue and they will often take it down, buy a few bitcoin run them through a tumbler to anonymize them and pay a bot farm to ddos the site until your host drops you to make it go away.
Actually....he did contact the legal department too.
Court documents show eBay's Chief Legal Officer Marie Oh Huber was copied on the infamous Whatever It Takes email from Chief Communications Officer Steve Wymer wherein he referred to the twitter user Fidomaster/unsuckeBay (a frequent commenter and source for the blog) and the owners of the blog and said:
"I am utterly vexed by this! This twitter account dominates our social narrative with his CONSTANT obsession with trolling us. It's more than annoying, it's very damaging. There are a few people (this guy and the eComercebytes gal) infatuated with eBay who have seemingly dedicated their lives to erroneously trashing us as a way to build their own brand - or even build a business. It's genuinely unfair and causes tremendous damage because we look bad fighting back in public and standing up for ourselves. If we could engage, I'd welcome the fight and we have a lot of facts and truth to win with. But, instead we take shots broadside and sit on our powder. This issue gives me ulcers, harms employee moral, and trickles into everything about our brand. I genuinely believe these people are acting out of malice and ANYTHING we can do to solve it should be explored. Somewhere, at some point, someone chose to let this slide. It has grown to a point that is absolutely unacceptable. It's the "blind eye toward graffiti that turns into mayhem" syndrome and I'm sick about it. Whatever. It. Takes."
Oh Huber also engaged in multiple emails back and forth on the topic of Fidomaster/UnsuckeBay in particular as both her and Wymer had attempted to get Twitter to "kill" the account but had been unable to do so because, as mentioned above, there was not a strong legal basis for it.
And in fact at one point when Security Director Jim Baugh said he was investigating to try to identify the person behind the account and was making progress, Oh Huber replied with a smiley emoji and said "Thanks Jim, in light of this, I'll hold off on sending any letter."
Baugh's investigation included creating a fake Twitter account pretending to be an ex-eBay employee who engaged with Fidomaster/unsuckeBay to try to find some "connection" to EcommerceBytes and when that didn't work, part of the plan for escalating to all the crazy deliveries, online harassment and doxing, and in person stalking was a "White Knight Strategy" he hoped could convince the Steiners to "out" Fidomaster/unsuckeBay.
Per Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth B. Kosto:
"The campaign targeted victims one and two for their roles in publishing a newsletter that reported on issues of interest to eBay sellers. Senior executives at eBay were frustrated with the newsletter's tone and content and with the tone and content of comments that appeared underneath the newsletter's articles online.
The harassment campaign arose from communications between those senior executives and Mr. Baugh, who was at that time eBay's senior security employee. Mr. Baugh intended for the harassment and intimidation to distract the victims from publishing the newsletter, to change the newsletter's coverage of eBay, and ultimately to enable eBay to contact the victims to offer assistance with the harassment, what the government has called a White Knight strategy.
The White Knight strategy would earn goodwill with the victims, such that they might help eBay learn the identity of Fidomaster, an anonymous online persona who frequently posted negative comments about eBay underneath the newsletter's articles, and thereby allow eBay to discredit both Fidomaster and the victims."
Inexplicably, not only did Oh Huber keep her job after all this, but the entire security department at eBay was moved from Global Ops to Legal after their "internal investigation" into the scandal, putting it under her purview going forward.
Oh Huber has not been named in either the criminal or civil cases in this matter, but last week she did announce she was stepping down to "pursue a new chapter in her career, while exploring personal interests and passions" - which may or may not be related to the $3 Million fine and 3 years of compliance monitoring eBay will undergo as part of a deal they recently struck with the DOJ to try to avoid further criminal prosecution for the company or to the fact that discovery is moving forward in the civil case and more emails or other internal documents could soon become part of the public record.
I’m hoping that means that she didn’t know what Jim Baugh was up to and that putting security under legal was intended to rein them in. Call me naïve but I can’t imagine that the eBay board is happy that this happened, though I do find it ridiculous that the CEO and other executives involved weren’t fired. There should be legal penalties preventing someone from leading a major corporation after being responsible for something like this. Attorneys can be disbarred so why not CEOs?
I could certainly believe Boeing would do something like that before I'd ever imagine eBay would, yet eBay did what they did.
The stakes are MUCH higher for Boeing, and we already know quite well that Boeing decided to put many human lives at risk to save money, and that's already resulted in many deaths. And they have a long history of making products designed specifically for killing humans.
I could never imagine eBay doing this in 2019. 2 bloggers really got a CEO this hot and bothered? Were they really causing that much of a hit to ebay's sales or rep?
This sounds like one of those early 2000's trolling moments before such commentary conformed into a blob on modern social media. But given the rest of the events of the '20's I shouldn't be that surprised.
Karen Silkwood died under very suspicious circumstances. She had documents that described Kerr-McGee lax safety at a plutonium fuel plant, that went missing after her car was found with damage to rear in an ostensibly single car front end fatal accident, along with a cocktail of illegal drugs.
Boing is so entrenched with defence contractors that any one of them could have killed him to preserve existing contracts to be canned do to some "deep restructuring" due to the trial.
I really wish Boeing defense got spun off, them being under the same leadership is a threat to national security. The infection is only growing as they continue to share leadership.
Could the union elect/nominate new leadership, or are they corrupt these days as well?
Curiously, the Boeing branch that works for defense comes from the McDonell-Douglas buy: pre-merge Boeing main bussiness was comercial airplanes, MD was focused on military contracts. And arguably, all the current Boeing problems come from that buy/merge.
Boeing is also deeply entwined with state/political entities with a strong vested interest in preserving the status quo who may not be squeamish about direct action.
Against the general backdrop of Boeing’s woes, suiciding a whistleblower is low-hanging fruit.
Contrary to popular belief, there is not a readily and highly available supply of assassins and hitmen in the world.
The problem with this whole "he totally didn't kill himself" thing is...okay, so how did they kill him? Because you can't just put a gun in the hand of an unwilling person and force them to shoot themselves without leaving evidence.
While the CIA have done a variety of coup like overseas operations I think they'd be reluctant to kill people to meddle with a domestic factory safety hearing.
I think you heavily under estimate what normal people motivated by money are capable of doing.
In my friends highschool, some businesses guy was paying highschool kids (16 - 17 ish) to strangle car owners and steal their cars. They were later caught.
Also, watch or read Killers of The Flowers Moon.
The problem with planned murder is that it is all hidden, and the details are fuzzy. So there is alot of reasonable doubt.
But trust me, there is alot do planned killing going on out there.
> normal people motivated by money… strangle car owners and steal their cars…
Those are not in any way normal people. If someone makes it to 16-17 y/o without acquiring that fundamental moral lesson, I would not characterize them as normal, whatever the cause of that failure.
"Normal" means common here, and the fact that common people happily commit heinous acts is nothing new. E.g. the holocaust was comitted by "normal" people.
Moral grandstanding won't change the fact that civilization is rather thinly veiling the violent ape in most of us
>Moral grandstanding won't change the fact that civilization is rather thinly veiling the violent ape in most of us
I don’t think civilization is a panacea here.
To my mind, civilization is not exactly a strict synonym of peaceful generous enlightened humanism. Of course as a phenomenon it can encompass this kind of behavior, but just as well as it can help foster genocides, war and torture.
Holocaust didn’t happen despite civilized minds, it happened specifically through a civilizational scheme.
Back in Finland I saw an incredible play: https://www.tinfo.fi/en/NPfF-Plays/48/I-Am-Adolf-Eichmann - the utter banality of the thing, how the convicted mastermind behind the genocide was "merely solving ongoing logistical problems". And how the trial turned into a massive media circus, likely letting a number of equally culpable war criminals off the hook.
About 3% of the male population has Antisocial Personality Disorder (ie, sociopathy). That could be described as normal - we're talking 1 person in 33. You'd probably meet one at a party. Nature no doubt builds some people to be killers.
Now most of them aren't going to kill anyone because that would be dumb. But that is a pretty decent pool of people who would consider the idea for money.
3% strikes me as a pretty extreme minority, which makes it seem like the opposite of ‘normal.’ They might be more common than most people think (IE, 1 in 33), but that isn’t something that makes them normal.
No but do you know what your average medical examiner makes? Professional hitmen might be rare af but bribing or otherwise pressuring local officials is pretty pedestrian.
As a fellow Norwegian now living in the UK: That term is so archaic and unusual in English that odds are quite a few people won't know it at all (In 24 years in the UK I don't think I've ever heard it used)
For the non-Norwegians: "Torpedo" in Norwegian has adopted the 1920s US slang for a hit man / hired gun, and in Norwegian it's in common, contemporary use, though more often for threats and violence than outright murder.
Okay that was making me think of the guy who had intimate relations with unexploded WWII artillery shell a few years ago (https://www.businessinsider.com/france-man-had-wwi-shell-lod...) and wondering how a that would work physically considering the size of a torpedo, and how it related to hitmen. Thing are much clearer now.
This is just a bunch of conspiracy theories. As in, a list of various government factions conspiring on various assassination campaigns. It's a good theory mind you. I would love to see evidence for the opposing theory.
But people with well-developed career instincts might not want to look. I think you overestimate how much the regular policeman, coroner etc. cares about truth for its own sake. Do you really want to pick a fight with Boeing?
It's very easy to play Nelson and turn the blind eye. Making up a coherent narrative in a lie is hard. But the lie "I didn't notice anything suspect" is very safe.
They can tell whether you fired A gun, not necessarily that you fired that specific gun into your specific body. It's circumstantial evidence at best.
Better evidence would be signs of a struggle or calculating bullet velocity to see if it came from the gun in that position. However, there are ways of doing this without actually causing a struggle. Wait for them to go to sleep; you could even give them some melatonin or something to make them drowsy. If it's in a car, put some nitrogen canisters on the A/C intake to make them pass out.
If it is nefarious, there will be evidence somewhere. Whether you care to look for that evidence, know where to look for it or have the technology to find it ... that's another matter altogether.
I think you got my point backwards. If you are found with a gunshot wound in your head, holding a gun, but you don't have gunpowder residue on your hand, it's pretty safe to say you didn't shoot yourself.
Of course there are ways to get around that but the killer has to actually perform that workaround.
I got your point, but I was making that point that even then, it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe they went to a shooting range that afternoon. Maybe the killer does something to ensure the residue is there. Maybe the killer manipulates them in their sleep. Who knows.
No you still don't seem to get the point. I'm saying the *absence* of gunpowder residue means something, I'm not saying the presence of it means anything.
withinboredom seems to be making the similar but tangential point that, in the same way that absence of gunpowder is evidence [of something] while presence of gunpowder isn't evidence of anything, it's possible to demonstrate that a death was not by suicide, but it isn't possible to demonstrate that a death was by suicide. Same idea, but reversing "which part of the sentence is the variable".
I'm not "keeping explaining." I made a counter-point, and you redirected me to your point; I acknowledged that I got your point and explained I was making a counter-point, and you reiterated your point. I upvoted your final reiteration to ack that the conversation was over.
I'm not a trained killer, but I have watched some movies. To account for residue, just place the firearm in the corpse's hand, point in a random upward trajectory and pull back on the dead person's trigger finger. Optionally, replace the spent bullet in the gun's magazine.
I feel you would have come up with this same solution had you needed to.
It is far, far easier to just carry a small phial or swab of cordite residues and copper fines that you then apply to the back of the hand between thumb and forefinger, where swabs are taken. No screwing around.
There is a case where a woman "stabbed her self" 17 or so times, including in the back of the head and it was ruled a "suicide"
It does not take much for a motivated medical examiner to rule a death a suicide, their are plenty of examples where clearly not suicide was been rule suicide in history.
Then there is always the movie "The Shooter" where they had an arm contraption purpose built to force someone to "commit suicide", The device itself is plausible
Citation needed for your first statement, certainly doesn’t rhyme true with what I hear in the UK.
As for mocking suicide… I think you’d have to talk to a professional about what they do it. Given David Kelly, Epstein, and many other high profile cases, it does seem to be as difficult as you imagine.
The more "interesting" case in the UK was GCHQ analyst seconded to the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6) who supposedly killed himself by stuffing himself in a bag padlocked from outside, placed in a bathtub, and suffocating himself in a Security Service safe house.
The inquest concluded his death was "unnatural and likely to have been criminally mediated" though with to little evidence to outright state it was an unlawful killing. The police eventually decided he'd likely locked himself in, despite the lack of fingerprints on both the bath and the padlock having made it a rather extraordinary feat for him to get into the bag and lock the padlock.
Which to me goes to show that whether or not you get away with faking a suicide likely has relatively little to do with how well - or plausible - you fake the suicide vs. how well you sufficiently prevent a link to yourself and the power you have to prevent a proper investigation.
At least in the case of David Kelly the circumstances were plausible.
Part of the issue is that many defense contractors are sucked into the idea that they're doing something for the 'greater good', and the moment people en masse enter that thoughtspace, it's actually pretty easy to get them to commit terrible deeds.
Maybe the authorities do know and it's simply not published/released? After all, assuming he shot himself and the gun is right there, it seems fairly reasonable to tentatively presume it's self inflicted.
Assuming he shot himself, yes, it would generally follow that it's self inflicted.
I'm unable to think of anyway in which someone can shoot themselves and not have it described as "self inflicted", even an accidental self shooting would be described by some in either form.
However, in general, with a gunshot wound and and a gun discarded right there some people might not assume that it was self inflicted and perhaps check for handedness, gunshot angle, residue, etc. before leaping to any premature assumptions or conclusions.
That wouldn't matter. If they really want to send a message, you get suicided with two shots to the back of the head. Having the entire media apparatus complicit in gaslighting the public into accepting absurdity is all part of the demonstration of power and demoralisation ritual.
So which one is it? So far as I can tell he didn't get "suicided with two shots to the back of the head", but despite that you still think the media is complicit in "demonstration of power and demoralisation ritual"?
Yes we all know the authorities do a terrible job of actual investigation instead jumping to assumption, speculation, and "gut" of their "experience" to intuit the "truth" of the matter with out any logic or reason..
Presuming and Assuming when it comes to a death investigation is often the start of how innocent people go to jail
SO if you really feel this way you say this to every reporter you see. You write it down and give it to your lawyer. Your wife. Your kids. You put copies in the safety deposit box. You give notarized copies to every 3rd homeless person you meet.
This is a poor take. People don't find themselves in this situation normally and we should not be expecting them to have TV-murder-mystery style hypervigilance.
Most people do not like to be drama queens, that might also be a possible reason, he did not shouted it out to the world.
Also, it is of course possible, to plan suicide and still tell people it won't be suicide. We all lack the details here. But since Boeing is involved with military and intelligence work who do not like traitors(whistleblowers) in general and have the expertise in covert murder, I think murder is a valid theory that should be really investigated by a neutral agency.
But murders do exist and happen everyday. What makes it ridiculous here? People take the bad decision of killing another one for way less than that everyday.
It depends a lot upon how certain he was of the risk. He might have said it to a friend as an expression of anxiety or fear, not recognizing how pressing the threat really was. A lingering worry might not motivate someone to be diligent about a post-assassination alibi.
I would think that you are implicitly stating your want to live by the fact you are alive.
Also - would all that really move the needle? Surely the only way is 24/7 surveillance. Even then I'm sure there are remote methods of execution that seem natural...
I think they are stating that unless explicit proof leads you to conclude it could have only been suicide, you should implicitly expect it to be murder.
I mean he could just not have expected to be murdered?
If you're a whistleblower and truly expect there to be a high chance you get suicided, sure, you tell as many people as possible, but if it's not something you think is likely to happen, just telling one friend seems reasonable.
Whenever people say about someone “they would never kill themselves” it reminds me of a deeply disturbing depression episode I had, thankfully only once, that lasted about 8 hours. It was the blackest morass of misery, I couldn’t bear to be in my own skin. After experiencing that I came to understand how people can do it, and the sudden onset also made me understand how inexplicable it can be.
2. What's the baseline rate of suicides we should expect for people in high stress positions, like being a whistleblower? How many people could plausibly be categorized as "whistleblowers"?
I knew this would come up, but couldn't think of specifics other than I've seen it go by on social media seemingly yearly.
I vividly remember one two or three years ago, of an Asian man I think in NYC who kept videoing the police calling them corrupt, telling the world if he died it was the police. Well, he died. The police said it wasn't the police. Sadly, I can't find this Googling.
I'd say it's happened enough to become a meme. When people post controversial things about big companies or politicians, people will reply telling them to make a video to say they aren't suicidal.
* Well some people aren't happy with my handwavy answer, so here are a few
I'd like to think I'm not a complete moron here(hopefully), and realize 'I saw it on social media' is a rather poor source.
I'm referring to ones with real news articles and real videos. The only reason I mentioned it is because news sites rarely even report such info, and definitely don't show the videos.
I'm not much for conspiracies, so my initial question was genuine. Are most or all of these people mentally ill and trying to scapegoat their enemy before offing themselves? It feels weird that it happens enough I was able to reference 4 other recent cases with 15 minutes of effort.
I can't speak to individual cases, it's usually impossible to determine from a news article. But realistically speaking, how many actual proven targeted assassinations of a white collar nature (ie whistleblowers) have happened in the US in the last 50 years? I think the answer is 0. The number of people who have antagonized big businesses or government and then died is pretty high, but also, everyone dies. Accusations of assassination are, in and of themselves, frequent weapons of dissenters. You can look at the cases of Vince Foster and Seth Rich as people whose deaths were deliberately exploited for political conspiracy mongering.
Reread your statement there. "Almost everyone"? Who? As far as we know it was literally nobody. The notion that he has compromising material has been insinuated by people with no first hand knowledge. And if he did, where was it? Where did it go? Why didn't he use it before he got arrested? Who knew he had it? Who knew Ghislaine Maxwell didn't have it and left her alone this whole time? How did they know that sending their elite assassination squad past all the cameras (almost every camera was working) in a federal prison to fake his suicide would ensure the material would never be found? Did anyone even do anything compromising that could have been recorded? We don't know have any proof of any of it.
EDIT: Not saying that I believe it or care, but even wiki mentions it. Thought it would fit the other mentions...
> McAfee's death ignited speculation and conspiracy theories about the possibility that he was murdered. Such speculation was particularly fueled by a 2019 post McAfee made on Twitter that read, in part, “If I suicide myself, I didn't. I was whackd [sic].”[133]
> Several times, McAfee claimed if he were ever found dead by hanging, it would mean he was murdered.[137] The day after his death, his lawyer told reporters that while he regularly maintained contact with McAfee in prison, there were no signs of suicidal intent.[138] McAfee's widow reaffirmed this position in her first public remarks since her husband's death, and also called for a "thorough" investigation.[139][140]
In this case there's at least the motive for Boeing to kill him. But in McAfee's case what's the motive for killing him? It seems like the only one going after him was the US (for tax evasion charges). He was already going to be extradited. Why kill him at that point?
We don't know. But I can imagine that when the rich American that comes into your country and has very young girls as his girlfriends ends up in jail, and you're a local and get very involved with that situation, that there's going to be a lot of drama. maybe one of those girls was your lover or is your sister. and then there's drug business happening. the guy ends up in jail, which means he gets to go home to America and never face consequences for what he did to your family? It's not hard to imagine why he was murdered. we'll never know the true story but whatever it is, I'm sure it's a good one.
> I've collected files on corruption in governments. For the first time, I'm naming names and specifics. I'll begin with a corrupt CIA agent and two Bahamian officials. Coming today. If I'm arrested or disappear, 31+ terrabytes of incriminating data will be released to the press.
There's another "easy" answer: friends and family of the deceased make up these claims, because they want to ensure a thorough investigation of any potential homicide to put their suspicions to rest and so make it look as suspicious and scandalous as possible in the public eye.
It is the way of the world. Television, magazines, social media, etc do their best to conceal it, but it is always there in the background. It boils down to power. Boeing can make fighter jets, I can't. This is where the socialists err. "If we just take their money!" They'll make it all back within the year. "If we just had a law!" They'll buy legislators, bribe judges & law enforcement. If that doesn't work, they'll kill people. The public will clutch its pearls over this, for a while anyway, then promptly forget.
The only solution is to remember and to retaliate on an individual basis (stop the wars, don't fly, shun execs, boycotts). And not just until they relent, because they are machines, and have no conscience. Do this until they hit the pink sheet, and then keep doing it.
The power is still there, as is the abuse. It just belongs to the government at that point. If anything, it is even worse then, since before we nominally had two entities with slightly different aims, and potential for a clash. Once it is all under the same umbrella, there is no longer even the appearance of checks-and-balances.
> This happens way too often, and I'm genuinely curious why.
It's probably what you're paying attention to.
There are lots of shocking occurrences that most people don't notice. Or don't want to notice. Death is among the things we'd rather not think about. Unseemly death more so.
Consider how many US military deaths are suicide every year.
I am incredibly skeptical of the hypothesis that this might be a murder. Asking a few key questions makes it clear how dubious it is:
Most importantly, who's gun was it? If it was someone else's gun, sure, it's a murder, but I think we'll find that the gun was Barnett's. And if so, we have to ask, how did the murderer manage to kill Barnett with his own gun?
How did the killer get into the truck? We can assume the killer had to be in the truck, since the alternative (killing Barnett elsewhere and dragging the body through a Holiday Inn parking lot into the driver's seat) is absurd. Did they get lucky and try the door, finding it to be open? If so, wouldn't there be signs of a struggle when a stranger enters your vehicle? Or did they get in because they know Barnett, and he let them in (in which case, they won't have an alibi)?
Why commit a murder in a public location? I won't be surprised if the Holiday Inn parking lot was being surveilled.
The fact that the gun was found in his hand, and the timing of the murder, do seem like pretty big coincidences. But I think it's easier to chalk these up to coincidences than it is to answer the above questions. Additionally, per his Wikipedia page, he suffered from PTSD and anxiety attacks. These don't guarantee that he's suicidal, but it's not the picture of perfect mental health either.
I'm very interested if anyone thinks they have a good explanation of how this could have taken place as a murder.
Parking lots have cameras. If this was a suicide I’m confident they will find the footage. If it mysteriously disappears or the cameras at the Holiday Inn “malfunctioned” there will be little doubt as to what really happened. The fact that his friends and family are not intimidated makes it a lot more likely we will get the truth whatever it is.
The Epstein deduction. If something is monitorer 24/7 but not the exact time a “suicide” happens, you can be confident a suicide did in fact not happen.
I’m skeptical too and I’m glad that rank speculation is being deranked well below FP.
But someone else wondered if it’s almost worse than murder that even successful whistleblowing can lead to experiences so awful you want to kill yourself. Like “Boeing won’t kill you, they’ll make your life so terrible that you’ll do it for them”.
I don’t think thats a completely reasonable interpretation either — but if we as a society value valid whistleblowing, what can we provide whistleblowers to help them navigate these incredibly difficult times? (financially, emotionally, socially, and spiritually)
That said, if the cameras were off or not covering where the truck parked, I don’t think it would be very complicated for a highly paid individual to steal someone’s non daily-carry gun from their home or hotel room and walk up to their window when they get in their truck, shoot them at point blank, and wipe some gunpowder residue on their hand.
I just don’t think it’s responsible to posit this as the clear reality. We don’t know what happened, and HN has been terribly wrong about the details of various recent high profile deaths - Tony Hsieh and Bob Lee. This type of speculation always causes more pain for the families and is almost always wrong-headed.
There would be revolution in the streets tomorrow if the average person understood where money comes from and how it works. Once a group of people is wired into the free money pipeline they will do ANYTHING to make sure their supply is not cut off.
The USA has been printing and giving away free money for 30+ years now. The recipients of those funds have proven again and again, they will and do commit heinous crimes to maintain their position.
1) The legislature - Law makers have been captured through campaign contributions. In MOST cases a law maker has no say in how they vote, they are told by their campaign managers.
2) The judicial - Similarly judges tend to run for their seat every 4 years. In family court any divorce attorney worth their salt is donating the maximum amount to every judge every time they run. Then when they are in front of the judge in court just a thumbs up and a nod is enough to remind the judge who REALLY got them elected.
3) Corporations are DONE paying taxes and have been for a long time. Successful corporations have figured out how to siphon money from not only their customers but their employees and the federal government as well.
4) The money supply and system in general is fucked beyond repair and anyone willing or able to point that out is going to be on the "kill list".
Everybody understands that corporations use cartels to do their dirty work, right? Go work high level at an international commodities company and you’ll find that doing business with “the underworld” is required and that comes with connections to other capabilities
I often see people say corporations arent as big of a problem compared to government because government has the ability to arrest and kill people.
The idea that corporations are some gentle thing that don’t have murderous coercive capacities is beyond outdated
Go and look at how corporations have co-opted local police forces to protect their businesses as the first order requirement of the police force. Best Buy, Walmart etc all have hired “off duty” cops for decades.
The goal of the existing global economic and political structure is to protect business - full stop.
There is also another thing that comes into play: rich people go to rich places and come into contact with other rich people. Not all those rich people are honest business men, so to speak. So connections into shady things is not that difficult if you hang around in those social circles.
Walmart is way too careful for any of that so they’re not playing in those realms.
The point you should take away is that there is no actual distinction between the coercive capabilities of corporations and those of the state or in absence of a state, the ruling landlord/gang/dictator
Smedley Butler wrote about this in detail in the 1930s (1)
This is well documented in the Banana wars
States are, and have always been, the corrcion arm of the largest employer in a sovereign territory
The entire purpose of my post is to demonstrate how mundane and common these kinds of murders are
When a Putin defector falls out of a window nobody questions why - they understand that it’s connected. Why? It has happened enough times that the likelihood of coincidental tragedy and aggression toward the existing economic power structure (irrespective of what it is) are too high to be non-causally influenced.
There’s also this false sense of “that kind of stuff only happens in corrupt/backward/non-advanced/… cultures, not our culture of justice and virtue” which is just demonstrably and statistically wrong
US funded and headquartered corporations don’t dominate the world cause they are that great and make the best product at the best price. It’s cause they are the most ruthless
The idea that Google engineered the murder of the wife of a whistleblower (who had already testified) by staging a fake traffic accident in the rain is ridiculous and nonsensical.
Every single person in the previous thread who ridiculed others for saying that suicide was _not_ the most likely explanation needs a serious re-evaluation of their priors.
Stress and pressure can lead to performing actions that you thought you couldn't do. They don't specify how early this event took place but mentions that deposition was yet to take place. So a lot could have changed after that as there's kind of no turning back.
also everyone saying they wouldn’t avoid certain planes and there is so much redundancy that little simple non-aviation folks shouldn’t worry themselves.
We’ve got a fishy death, no documentation on the door plug, and more incidents.
The OP link https://abcnews4.com/news/local/if-anything-happens-its-not-... has two different cookie consent banners on top of each other and on iPhone using Safari I can’t scroll down to click any buttons to dismiss the banners which cover the screen.
Thats an easy signal from the page to me that they really dont want me to read their content, so I just dont. There is 0 need for a cookie for me reading an article, so 0 need for a cookie disclaimer/consent box.
Reading the comments here is now making me even more skeptical about society.
It really looks like;
It is a waste of time to take risk yourself and expose unethical practices conducted by the powerful.
Because,
A) The masses don't really care (I expected riots and protest).
B) You may mysteriously die.
C) Your death instead of sparking an outrage will mostly be labeled a "conspiracy theory".
Given these three items, I can very confidently predict this in the future.
0. We shall have less exposés.
1. Corporations and other powerful entities will engage in more unethical behaviour.
Due to majority of worker being spinless and complicit to corner cutting and other unethical practices.
2. Powerful entities will know they can get away with evil if they leave enough blanks in the engagement.
Since the masses will label these as conspiracy theories. And they will be stuck in these academic "plausible deniability" kind of foggy minds.
With this, I expect powerful entities to get away with more evil deeds.
In a crowd of a hundred, 50 percent of the wealth, 90 percent of the imagination, and 100 percent of the intellectual courage will reside in a single person—not necessarily the same one.
> Due to majority of worker being spinless and complicit to corner cutting and other unethical practices.
I think companies that might end up doing that kind of stuff first off cultivate that culture. Either in their entire company, or with the people who are going to engage with criminal activities. Security people, upper management, ... Like in the ebay case linked above
I’m disappointed that so many people immediately jump to conspiracy instead of more common/likely conclusions.
He already gave his deposition. And the information is on the record. It was also him suing Boeing, he was not a witness for the government or some other party in these proceedings.
I’m 100% supportive of a thorough investigation.
I’m 100% against running with the idea that this man was murdered without any evidence of it.
He was killed between pre-trial deposition interviews pertaining to a trial that is still upcoming.[1] One might speculate he was killed immediately after it was confirmed in a deposition that he had knowledge damaging to Boeing, and he intended to testify in that upcoming trial.
He may have been killed not because his own testimony was a threat to Boeing, but rather to make other presently unknown potential whistleblowers think twice and decide to never come forward in the first place. Sending an implied threat to Boeing employees.
For instance, any Boeing/Spirit employees who might be thinking about going to the FAA with information about who in management knew about and okayed the plug door "opening" scheme. Boeing surely wants the investigations to conclude that this is something no more than a few workers did of their own initiative and successfully hid from management, but that's probably not true.
IANAL. However: SC civil law Rule 32 USE OF DEPOSITIONS IN COURT PROCEEDINGS:
(a)(3) The deposition of a witness, whether or not a party, may be used by any party for any purpose if the court finds:
(A) that the witness is dead; or
etc...
This aligns very closely with the Federal rule on the same:
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 32. Using Depositions in Court Proceedings
(4) Unavailable Witness.
A party may use for any purpose the deposition of a witness, whether or not a party, if the court finds:
(A) that the witness is dead;
etc...
I can't tell which jurisdiction applies here because the news stories on the case itself are all hot garbage, I'm not trying that hard and IANAL, but my guess is it's the latter. Either way, the deposition(s) will likely get in.
Now, anything can happen, but it's hard to imagine Boeing or whomever, knowing that the deposition(s) is likely admissible in the event of the death of Barnett, would then assassinate him.
The cynic in me wonders if Barnett had recently learned his case was about to fall through for some reason we haven't learned of yet.
He only made it through the first day of his deposition, he still had another day to go. Anything he was going to say on day 2 is now in the wind. They might also be able to have the deposition thrown out if Boeing wasn't there or had requested a different date (though that would have obviously terrible optics).
My guess is that he was killed, but I don't have a guess whether it was some kind of plot by a higher up at Boeing, a rogue Boeing employee, or some random wackjob that's not involved otherwise. Boeing higher ups have motive, but it does feel too sloppy for a planned hit by a defense contractor. Surely they would have some CIA/FBI contacts who could give them a better plan than a mysterious mid-deposition "suicide". Surely they could rig a car to crash or something that looks more accidental.
Yeah, which actually makes him more dangerous to the company. Because all he needs to subpoena and unearth shit in discovery is a preponderance of evidence, not beyond a reasonable doubt. Anything found in that civil trial would be admissible evidence to any criminal charges brought by the Feds.
Which, surprise! Has recently been announced to have been opened!
I believe his successor could take over the case. From the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, rule 32:
(8) Deposition Taken in an Earlier Action. A deposition lawfully taken and, if required, filed in any federal- or state-court action may be used in a later action involving the same subject matter between the same parties, or their representatives or successors in interest, to the same extent as if taken in the later action. A deposition previously taken may also be used as allowed by the Federal Rules of Evidence.
More specifically, his case was against Boeing for allegedly retaliating against him for being a whistleblower. He was a quality control manager.
So the FAA is crawling up Boeing's ass about poor quality control and lacking a safe and responsible culture, meanwhile a _former quality control manager_ is testifying about how they tried to tell Boeing about systemic quality issues and were retaliated against.
You really don't think Boeing has a vested interested in not being found liable for retaliating against quality control whistleblowers, _while being investigated for having quality control so poor people nearly died_?
If they lose this case, the FAA is going to notice, and they're going to be pissed. It's one thing to be negligent, Boeing could probably paper over that with the FAA and some small regulatory changes because they're defense contractor and vital to national security. It is another thing entirely to not only be aware of the problems due to whistleblowers but to both ignore the issues and attempt to silence the whistleblowers.
We're talking about a clusterfuck of proportions most of us can only have nightmares about. Boeing would spend the next 50 years with the FAA's hand jammed so far up their ass Kermit would feel bad for them. I wouldn't be surprised to see the SEC filing indictments for securities fraud for not disclosing known, material defects in their planes.
Even worse than that, Boeing really only has its "national security" shield in the US. I would expect Asian and especially European (because Airbus) regulators to take an exceptionally dim view of Boeing losing this lawsuit.
It's also very bad news for Boeing on any other wrongful death or injury lawsuits against them if there's a court case setting precedent that at best, Boeing retaliates against their whistleblowers, and at worst ignores them and retaliates against them. Other civil cases would be able to use the judgement against Boeing as evidence that they concretely retaliate against whistleblowers, and Boeing would be unable to challenge that assertion (you can't re-litigate the outcome of case A in case B, whatever was decided in case A is treated as fact).
Having a judgement against Boeing for retaliating against whistleblowers sounds like a great start to a wrongful injury/death claim based on negligence for anyone that got hurt on a Boeing plane. Boeing wouldn't be able to challenge that they retaliated against whistleblowers, so they would either have to claim that retaliating against whistleblowers isn't negligent (good luck with that) or that their negligence in retaliating did not contribute to that accident (again, good luck).
The importance of this case is almost entirely in second-order effects. I doubt Boeing cares about paying out a couple hundred thousand to Barnett for retaliating, they care about getting regulators off their backs and not losing every civil case filed against them for the next decade.
> You really don't think Boeing has a vested interested in not being found liable for retaliating against quality control whistleblowers, _while being investigated for having quality control so poor people nearly died_?
I never suggested otherwise. Having a vested interest does not indicate murder, motive sure.
> If they lose this case, the FAA is going to notice, and they're going to be pissed. It's one thing to be negligent, Boeing could probably paper over that with the FAA and some small regulatory changes because they're defense contractor and vital to national security. It is another thing entirely to not only be aware of the problems due to whistleblowers but to both ignore the issues and attempt to silence the whistleblowers.
The FAA already started an investigation years ago when he first made the claims they are being sued for retaliating against.
> We're talking about a clusterfuck of proportions most of us can only have nightmares about. Boeing would spend the next 50 years with the FAA's hand jammed so far up their ass Kermit would feel bad for them. I wouldn't be surprised to see the SEC filing indictments for securities fraud for not disclosing known, material defects in their planes.
Yeah, as if the widely publicized major incidents weren’t enough already.
You may very well be right, but you may also very well be letting your imagination get far ahead of the facts.
I believe in certain cases, a judge may allow the deposition to be entered into evidence in the trial. The time to disappear someone is before their testimony is recorded.
I'm not saying one thing or another happened, I don't know. But surely we know enough about suicide to not use 'he seemed so happy and full of life' to support a murder argument.
If it was an assassination, this is some Michael Clayton level stuff.
My dad once worked for a pet supply company, I don't remember his exact title but he reported to the owner. He was introduced to an individual that worked for the mob, only went by his first name, and was introduced as the guy who can take care of whatever is needed.
He heard later (obviously hearsay at that point) that Big Mike had indeed killed a guy that was causing problems for the owner. There's no way of knowing for sure obviously, but my dad's read on both Big Mike and the story was that it was absolutely true.
If a small pet supply company has connections to clean up a mess, as it were, I can only assume a company the size of Boeing could as well.
Definitely not a Boeing apologist, but as a paramedic, I'd take this with a grain of salt, too.
I have been on calls for a non-trivial number of patients who've sworn black and blue that they're "no longer suicidal", "no longer a threat", "if anything happens to me, it wasn't suicide" who, you guessed it, went on to attempt or commit suicide in very short order.
Its very telling that the major corporate news site chose to frame it as suicide “after” testifying when in fact he was found dead just hours before he was scheduled to give more testimony. They just as easily could have said he was found dead before scheduled testimony.
If testifying in court is stressful enough to cause suicide, it seems pointless to wait until you are almost finished to do it. The message other whistle blowers will get is that people who blow the whistle on corporate America will be found dead in their cars one way or the other.
It was only the first part, he hadn't really given much yet.
Killing him after the first part tells everyone else that if they're thinking of doing the same they'll be killed, if they had "suicided" him before people could have though he did actually killed himself.
I would think that if you were concerned about this sort of thing and proving it wasn't suicide, you would have some sort of measures in place - hidden video, hidden audio, trace powders, etc.
Will a gun protect you when your car accelerates to 150 mph directly into a tree? A couple micrograms of toxin being sprinkled into your coffee? The CIA had a heart attack gun 50 years ago. Not difficult to imagine the capabilities they have today.
Nope, but it would probably help in the instance here, where I guess according to you, Boeing assassins broke into his home, and forced him to commit suicide with a gun(or, killed him with their own gun and staged it perfectly to look like a suicide).
Bro, where do you get your food? Do you grow it in your house? Where do you get your water from? Hell, where do you get your air from? How do you think getting a security system fixes it?
A security system wouldn't necessarily stop Boeing assassins from breaking into your home, killing you, and making it look like a suicide, but it certainly would increase the chances that they were caught, or at least increase the chances that police would consider it a homicide instead of a suicide.
Why? A completely unvetted “family friend” who won’t even give a last name provides a salacious quote that’s completely unverifiable. A niece, known to be related and with a name and address offers a counterpoint. It’s ok to be skeptical.
Things like: What did the note say? Where did the gun come from? Is there any CCTV video from the hotel and garage? still need to be investigated by the police.
It is possible that he was stressed, depressed, and expected to have his reputation (and life) destroyed by scorched earth lawyers for Boeing.
What I'm realizing now is that I needed to do some educating as part of that comment - I'm surprised that so many people are interpreting those statements from the family as evidence of suicidal feelings, ideation, and planning.
Because being stressed in that situation is expected and isn't in any way a counter claim, yet was offered like it was.
You calling it a counterpoint is actually my point - it in no way is. Being skeptical is good but that isn't skepticism its the gullibility of the cynic
> Feels kind of gross to include the nieces observation that he had been stressed as some kind of counterpoint to the statement in the title.
You're grossly misrepresenting what the nieces actually said.
The article is quite unequivocal: the quote in the article is literally "stressed and depressed".
Why did you opted to omit the reference to depression? Do you think direct statements from his family should be ignored but your personal baseless assertions should take center stage?
In addition to that, here's what his own brother had to say about the apparent suicide:
> “He was suffering from PTSD and anxiety attacks as a result of being subjected to the hostile work environment at Boeing, which we believe led to his death,” the brother said.
That is not evidence. This is actually my problem - the lot of you treating that tidbit as if it was indicative of an actual suicide are only doing so because it was offered as it, which has more to do with sentence structure than your reasoning faculties.
Many people become wealthy because of their willingness to engage in criminal behavior, but once they make it they want to be seen as legitimate business people. They go to great lengths to launder both their money and reputation. Their money, willingness to engage in criminal behavior, and the other malintents they picked up along the way make them particularly dangerous to expose.
> Webb is best known for his "Dark Alliance" series, which appeared in The Mercury News in 1996. The series examined the origins of the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles and claimed that members of the anti-communist Contra rebels in Nicaragua had played a major role in creating the trade, using cocaine profits to finance their fight against the government in Nicaragua. It also stated that the Contras may have acted with the knowledge and protection of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The series provoked outrage, particularly in the Los Angeles African-American community, and led to four major investigations of its charges.
> Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. His death was ruled a suicide.
Honestly, if I was going to off myself and I was in a semi-newsworthy situation I'd tell everyone I knew if I die it's not suicide... just to mess with everyone.
Managing complexity is complex. I can't imagine how complicated building an airplane is. If the top people are not being retained, then problems will follow. Sometimes it's just one genius (Von Braun) that moves an entire field forward.
Snitches get stitches is as true in the boardroom as it is on the streets. Y'all just haven't seen the wrath of a psychopathic type with something to lose scorned.
Perceived betrayal starts wars, divides families, and gets people killed. We're talking killing 1 guy to prevent or forestall millions to billions in damages, and years in prison for very rich, high profile, powerful people with stakes in one of the biggest money printers in the U.S.
If you think there aren't people who'd gladly make that trade through a proxy that'd whack somebody for a cool 100,000 in a Cayman island or virgin island bank somewhere, taxed and covered by a faked up janitorial contract for a real, yet infrequently occupied warehouse somewhere, you're only deluding yourselves.
You'd qualify as, what's the phrase? "Disney adults."
Doesn't mean the whistleblowing wasn't worth doing. Give 'em hell Barnett.
This is kind of mind-blowing to me. First case in my lifetime where a US corporation appears to have murdered someone for political reasons. Has this happened before? I assume it has but it's very rare.
Not a US corporation but when it came to light that French defense contractor Thomson-CSF (now Thales) had bribed Taiwan official to award them a defense contract, no less than six whistleblowers died, three of them defenestrated; most famously Thierry Imbot, who fell from the fourth story closing his window shutters on a windy evening, supposedly the night before he was to meet a journalist.
He was shot and there aren't any double blind studies that prove that police are capable of reliably distinguishing self inflicted wounds from non-self inflicted wounds.
Yes, the point is that unless they actually take the time to do something like that, you might see that the victim has no residue on their hand and could not have shot themselves.
> The article we're commenting on, where a friend attests he was told explicitly that any "suicide" is fowl play.
Isn't there obvious reporting bias here? People typically don't go around saying "btw I'm going to kill myself, if that happens assume it's not foul play", so it shouldn't be too surprising that people kill themselves even though they said they wouldn't. Moreover people who actually tell people they're going to kill themselves likely will receive intervention (eg. suicide watch/hospitalization), which further drives up the relative rate of people committing suicide "unexpectedly".
If you dismiss all the evidence "supporting this theory" (your words) then obviously you wouldn't find anything that supports it.
Evidence does not have to be perfect. Even biased evidence should update your priors. There is evidence supporting this theory. It doesn't mean it is definitely true.
> If you dismiss all the evidence "supporting this theory" (your words) then obviously you wouldn't find anything that supports it.
Right, and the converse is you accepting any evidence that vaguely conforms to the narrative of "he got killed by boeing", regardless of how shaky it is.
>Evidence does not have to be perfect. Even biased evidence should update your priors. There is evidence supporting this theory. It doesn't mean it is definitely true.
This feels like a motte and bailey. You claim that we should update our priors even based on biased evidence, but I never claimed otherwise. My previous comment merely pointed out the issues with taking statements like "if anything happens don't assume it's a suicide" at face value. Moreover the comment I was replying to wasn't merely claiming that we should update our priors, it was that the evidence in question was "plenty, together with the obvious motive, to form an opinion". That's a much stronger claim.
> Right, and the converse is you accepting any evidence that
I literally said one must update their priors, not just "accepting" it. Or maybe updating priors is a form of "acceptance", but now you claim it isn't a problem:
> You claim that we should update our priors even based on biased evidence, but I never claimed otherwise
The comment you replied to just answered your question: "is there anything supporting this theory". Presumably everyone here knows basic Bayesian probability, or at least knows how to weigh supporting evidence without just blindly accepting it. Claiming otherwise seems to be rather uncharitable interpretation of the comment you replied to.
> Sure, it's nowhere near "beyond a reasonable doubt"
To the extent that I do not think it would even be admissible in court in many (all?) states. Hearsay, not under oath, not cross-examinable. Just as possible she misunderstood the dark joke of an obviously suicidal and self-reflective man as people like you and me at Boeing literally arranged to have someone killed lmao.
I can basically only think of more plausible explanations: coincidental victim of murder, suicidal due to stress of whistle-blowing, witness misheard, witness misunderstood, witness made it up…
I can really hear the bottom of the barrel being scraped around here lately.
It doesn't benefit Boeing because of all of this brainless conspiracy thinking, and his allegations over the past 5 years had nothing to do with the current 737 MAX stuff. It was all 787 related which by all reports has been a successful, safe aircraft. The horse has been out of the barn, his words were reported in the NYTimes years ago. Assassinating him now had no upside for Boeing and large downside because of all this predictable inane speculation.
It's far more likely that he simply changed his mind after making the statement attributed to him than it is Boeing would arrange for him to be murdered five years after the fact.
Not "Boeing" in its official capacity, but it has a lot of executives and shareholders, only one of which needs to have the hubris to think they can get away with it. That seems a lot more likely.
Yes with their stock at a near record low for the decade, now is certainly the time for Boeing's largest shareholders (Vanguard and Blackrock) to take decisive action by inexplicably murdering someone five years too late to make a difference, and who - if left alive - could have potentially been the single most effective means for the shareholders to take revenge on the executives responsible for the company's demise. Jesus christ.
You're not responding in good faith. It just takes one person--one out of thousands of people--who is thinking criminally instead of rationally. Of course it's not going to be "Vanguard" (again not a person!) But it might very well be a low-level VP who thinks they will go to jail if this person is allowed to testify.
And so statistically this seems a lot more likely than this otherwise stable person committing suicide for no reason and after having an explicit discussion with their family about it.
In criminal law this sort of nonsense is explicitly inadmissible in court. It's why during the OJ Simpson criminal trial it was not possible for the defense to do anything more than point out inconsistencies with the chain of evidence: they could not say that it pointed to or was in any way evidence of a conspiracy. (In other words: you can't just say "it could be something else" because that's facile, easy to do, and has no means of disproof. So fucking prove it would be a useful rule to adopt.)
Anyway, I'll be more charitable since this isn't court and you aren't a lawyer, but the substance of my point remains: even the circumstantial evidence does not appear to support murder. Certainly if it were murder it would be revenge, given that the whistle was blown five years ago, and the whistleblower will have provided sworn affidavits and is unlikely to be the difference between conviction and freedom for any individual.
Moreover your insinuation of "a low-level VP" worrying about the testimony seems be totally euphemistic. Do you have any evidence that any one individual or number of individuals might be facing jail time as a result of the whistleblower's testimony, and could somehow avoid it without their direct testimony under cross-examination?
I'm glad you've moved away from the insinuation that it might be a shareholder somehow taking it out on the guy for no reason, at least. Now you have all of your work ahead of you to explain how and why a Boeing executive would be motivated to murder someone five years after the fact when the damage is very probably already done.
> And so statistically
Suspect what you're about to say is going to be nothing to do with statistics
> this seems a lot more likely than this otherwise stable person
Just so we're clear, you think that this…
"A Boeing executive committed or arranged a premeditated murder in public in broad daylight, five years after the fact, and made it look like suicide."
…is more probable than this…
"A whistleblower killed himself."
Let's simplify it a bit: given 100 cases of whistleblowing, do you think you would see greater incidence of murder/violence perpetrated on the whistleblower, or greater incidence of the whistleblowers experiencing meaningfully deterioration of mental health?
What about this one[^1]? Murder as well? What about Ian Gibbons? Elizabeth Holmes presumably killed him?
I did say "appears," but this is some Epstein levels of "coincidence." I'm not really a conspiracy-theory type, but I mean c'mon. Does anyone believe that Epstein killed himself?
Yes, I do. Like you, I found the circumstances of Epstein's death incredibly suspicious and thought it was a murder. But the more information that has come out, the more it looks like it was a typical prison suicide. [The latest AP article](https://apnews.com/article/jeffrey-epstein-jail-suicide-pris...) is pretty good.
>Two weeks before ending his life, Jeffrey Epstein sat in the corner of his Manhattan jail cell with his hands over his ears, desperate to muffle the sound of a toilet that wouldn’t stop running.
If you believe Epstein was murdered you are in a tiny, tiny, tiny minority of very gullible or very simple minded people. Upon a cursory review of both the facts of the matter and the very best arguments conspiracists can copy and paste, it is self-evident that he killed himself.
> And the cameras just happened to be out of order when he chose to kill himself of course.
I know you think this is really brilliant invective, but it just reveals that you don't know what you're talking about.
Epstein was being monitored by guards and cameras in part because he had already tried to kill himself once. (I suppose you don't dispute that?)
The cameras you're referring to are the specific cameras with his cell door in their FOV. MCC New York had a history of such lapses, and the cameras were seized and analysed by the FBI. No evidence was found of anything other than the US prison system being shitty.
But more importantly there were functioning cameras showing the entrance to Epstein's block from the accessible communal area an assassin would have used for entrance/egress. From the DOJ report:
> Thus, anyone entering or attempting to enter Epstein’s SHU tier from the SHU common area would have been picked up by that video camera.
And would make the two guards who admitted falsifying reports… the worst patsies in history? And presumably the FBI and DOJ are in on it too? And the camera footage showing nobody entered his block is fake too?
It's so achingly dumb. HN has a really awful conspiratorial leaning these days, it's completely baffling to me.
> And would make the two guards who admitted falsifying reports… the worst patsies in history?
Maybe in 5 or 10 years, they get paid off. History teaches that truth isn't available immediately or at the time. The world is a rough place and I can wait to be convinced. As patsies, they are possibly the best, given the outcome today.
> And presumably the FBI and DOJ are in on it too?
Now you're just reaching.
> It's so achingly dumb.
Ah, the sideways name calling. Good luck with that.
I will be explicit: if, after reading the DOJ report and reviewing the facts of the case, you believe that Epstein was murdered, then your critical thinking is sub-normal. An average police officer would grok this.
If a powerful individual had:
1. Much to lose in the event of Epstein cooperating (he wasn't), and,
2. The means to arrange a complex assassination (in a prison, in solitary confinement, and -- I repeat that this is a matter of fact for which you have zero repudiation -- without being seen by the security cameras which were active and monitoring the entrance to Epstein's block from the communal entrance), and,
3. The public knowledge that Epstein had weeks earlier attempted to commit suicide (I literally cannot believe I'm having to enumerate this)…
… why wouldn't you simply pressure Epstein to commit suicide and obviate the insane risk of detection or mishap in a scheme to murder him that would, at a minimum, require either the cooperation of multiple heretofore uncontrolled/unknown operatives within the prison, in addition to the brokering and lifting being done by a proxy (i.e.: at least 3 people, probably closer to 5-10, all of whom would be highly brittle points of failure both during and after the operation)?
Or find a way to provide him with the mysterious extra bed sheets[^1] if he were intending on doing it anyway? You know, perhaps on an unmonitored telephone call[^2] made to his "mother" (dead for years) immediately prior to the suicide?
Sorry, but yes you are dumb if you think Epstein was murdered in prison. You are knowingly taking a position unsupported by fact, considered and rejected by thousands of more qualified investigators from across the judiciary, and the best you can appear to do is accuse me of not being gentle in my treatment of your utterly inane conjecture.
You are leaping to the most exciting conclusion and rejecting the myriad simpler ones supported by the overwhelming evidence. Each of the following is inescapably a simpler and more likely explanation for his death than him being murdered:
1) He succeeded in his second attempt at suicide due to deteriorated mental health,
2) He succeeded in his second attempt at suicide due to his fear of being mistreated or murdered by an inmate (he's a pedophile in prison etc.),
3) He succeeded in his second attempt at suicide due to his fear of being murdered by a guard in the employ of people he might betray,
4) He succeeded in his second attempt at suicide due to his fear of loved ones being murdered at the behest of people he might betray,
5) He succeeded in his second attempt at suicide due to being provided the means by guards operating at the behest of people he might betray,
6) He succeeded in his second attempt at suicide due to befriending a guard who took pity on him or to whom he promised or arranged financial reward himself (yes, it's more likely Epstein was motivated to essentially pay for his own suicide than someone murdered him in his prison cell, sigh),
7) He succeeded in his second attempt at suicide because he was pressured by external forces capable of harming those he loved.
It's just staggering that you cannot evaluate this properly. I don't want to be unkind, I'm sure you're very smart and a lovely person, but I would encourage you to discuss this with any lawyer, prosecutor, or investigator you might have access to and go through the facts line by line. You should absolutely be alarmed that you are out of step with so many informed individuals on this, even before considering people like me who are simply 50th percentile with logic.
> It's easy when your world view hinges on the fact that responsible adults are running the world.
Or when you look at the reams of evidence supporting a verdict of suicide and the other side has conspiratorial non-arguments like this.
If any of you get selected for jury duty I would encourage you to please show an adult this thread so you can be recused on grounds of mental incapacity.
I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, but it does not seem accurate to categorize this as a fringe theory. According to a Insider poll conducted in 2019, over 40% of respondents thought that he was killed and less than 20% were convinced that he committed suicide. I also think it is inaccurate to categorize the issue as having sharp clarity in either direction as you are doing.
Sorry but lol at Insider being your source for robust polling of the American zeitgeist. In 2019 Certus put the figure of Americans believing he was murdered at 35%, with the remainder believing it to be suicide or "don't know".
"Don't know" is the critical thing here: there aren't too many more crazy conspiracists who could be shown the overwhelming evidence of suicide and conclude that it was murder.
And, of course, irrespective: literally any thinking person who can read the DOJ report will immediately conclude that it's suicide. It's just inarguable (hence the arguments in this thread being mainly "b-b-b-b-but shadowy cabal of powerful people!!!1" and not anything to do with, for example, Epstein already having attempted suicide once, or the camera footage showing nobody entering his block, etc.
I used it as an example of polling, as I thought it was merely an interesting poll result, but I never said I had any given opinion of the source. I looked up the Certus Insights poll you've mentioned, which also had interesting results. The results were that 37% believed it was likely suicide and 35% believed it was likely murder. That is a 51.3% vs 48.6% split for those who did not respond that they were unsure. These two figures are quite close. To add to that, the Certus poll found that over 30% each of Democrats, Independents and Republicans believed it to be murder. That is not a tiny fringe as you claimed it to be.
As an aside, I don't believe that most of the 1/3 of each party's members that were polled think that there is some sort of "dark cabal". That is just you baselessly projecting, just as was your unnecessary projection of opinion of using an Insider poll.
It isn't interesting or useful because conspiracists fail to interpret "don't know" or "unsure" appropriately given the context of polling. It doesn't mean "I have reviewed the facts and I am undecided".
> Certus poll found that over 30% each of Democrats, Independents and Republicans believed it to be murder.
I believe the Certus poll found that of those who believed him to be murdered, that was the split along political lines.
> That is not a tiny fringe as you claimed it to be.
Three in ten is a tiny minority – winning a vote with 70% would be considered a landslide – but you're right it's a scarily high number of loudmouthed imbeciles.
The good news is that you don't have to worry! Adults are in charge! Hundreds of thousands of smart, capable people are employed to investigate things like this, and will cheerfully tell you that it's far more likely that the unmonitored and illicit phone call made by Epstein directly before his suicide was him being told to have another go or risk the lives of friends or loved ones. (What with that being fucking orders of magnitude easier to do than having a hitman break into solitary confinement in a prison.)
> just as was your unnecessary projection of opinion of using an Insider poll.
Business Insider is right up there with Yahoo Answers for robust, disinterested polling data.
The sentence that you snarkily attempted a grammatical correction on, does not contain a grammatical mistake. Considering the text of your comments contained in this exchange, with the sparse attempts at employing correct grammar, I'd recommend against attempts at grammatical correction like this in the future.
Since it is not clear that English is your first language due to your poor grasp of my comment, the sentence in question contains "it" in reference to the circumstance of the death, as an object of the verb "believed", not the person of Epstein. The phrase "it was murder" is a complement to the verb "believed", meaning that subject of "Democrats, Independents and Republicans", had an belief that what occurred (it) was murder.
Also, the percentages I mentioned, which were cited in the linked page, do not represent the split along political lines, but represent a separate percentage for each, as I said. Since you also don't seem to recall elementary arithmetic, 40% + 32% + 33% = 105%, not 100%.
How is it self-evident? I agree that evidence of a murder is not conclusive but evidence of a suicide is virtually nonexistent. What facts in this case are consistent with suicide but not with murder?
2. Source? Was this footage ever published? It also doesn't rule out someone inside the prison killing him which is much easier to arrange.
3. The article you linked doesn't confirm the video exists. It says that some officials said it existed but then it wasn't found when searched for. And in any case first suicide attempt is not inconsistent with murder.
4. Current and past New York City's Chief Medical Examiners were both present during the autopsy and strongly disagree over the results.
> Now you go. Tell me what evidence you have of murder. Address all of my points. Read the DOJ report.
Read my original message again. I'm not saying there is a solid evidence of murder. I'm saying there's no solid evidence of suicide that would rule out murder, so you can't say that "suicide is self-evident".
I don't know anyone who doesn't believe he was killed. It's a narrative of the popular culture. eg Clinton's bj in the whitehouse or Xi Ping disappearing people or any organization that does an internal audit to find no wrongdoing.
It is fundamental to this discussion that the narrative you describe is fringe (credible polling puts it at around 30% uptake) and directly contradicted by both the evidence and conclusions reached by the institutions required to evaluate said evidence (DOJ, FBI).
It is a narrative in the same way as flat earthism or QAnon are narratives. We should be careful to not imply equivalence ("both sides"-ing) to the situation: there is reality, and then there is a group of people who either do not possess the facts (many people in this thread, for example), or are unfortunately not capable of grasping them for whatever reason.
> Clinton's BJ was in popular culture before the conviction.
Clinton was credibly and publicly accused by an individual, and had a long history of such accusations.
> Pointing to a legal case is moving the goalpost.
My point is that there is no equivalence between Clinton and Epstein, but I don't think you were drawing any really, you were just saying (I think?) that they were both narratives that took hold prior to the facts being established and conclusions reached.
> It is not and does not.
Just sit down and try to write the narrative of what happened and you might see what I mean:
1. Was it the guards, or a professional assassin?
2. If guards: how were they identified? Who put them on the right shift at the right time? Who else helped? How did the benefactor of the scheme know that the guards wouldn't grass on the approach? How did the benefactor of the scheme find the guards and approach them? When the guards walked into the room, how did they restrain Epstein without injuring him or leaving behind any DNA evidence? Did they tie the bedsheets together before or after the murder? How would they be remunerated given the scrutiny on them and their associates from the FBI? Why would they admit to falsifying logs and draw more attention to themselves rather than engineering an excuse less likely to draw huge scrutiny?
3. If professional assassin: how did they get in without being seen on the security cameras monitoring the single point of entrance/egress from Epstein's block? How did they get into the prison through multiple layers of security? Were the guards also paid off? How did the assassin restrain him without injuring him or themselves? Why would you go to the trouble of infiltrating a prison - which is after all an axiomatically hard thing to do – when the guy had already tried to hang himself weeks earlier?
4. General: why do you discount the conclusions of the DOJ psychologist who reviewed Epstein's prison records and evaluations and concluded that it was suicide? Why would a shadowy figure trying to kill Epstein not simply pressure him from the outside by threatening his family (given that they apparently have the capacity to infiltrate a prison facility utterly unnoticed)? Why would you conclude that Epstein's first suicide attempt was sincere but his second was not? Why would you leave it until after he was suicidal and by all accounts uncooperative with the authorities to kill him rather than killing him at a time when it was both easier to achieve and less clear that he would not cooperate? Why do you think the FBI found no cause for suspicion in the testimony of the guards, if you think they did it or were in the loop?
People who spout conspiratorial nonsense with conviction and a poor grasp of the facts / ability to reason are the very reason conspiracy theories propagate. You might be a brilliant mind in other areas, but you should know that to the 70% of the population who do not believe that Epstein was murdered, you are in broadly the same bucket as someone who believes they saw Elvis alive in Hawaii a few weeks ago.
may be she just knew less incriminating shit. Could also be that one death as an example, to keep her in line from saying anything too incriminating (against somebody who's capable of orchestrating a prison "suicide").
Not in your lifetime but wasn’t Jefferson murdered by the banks for wanting to ban interest on the dollar? Same for President Jackson, he was shot but not killed for the same reason.
There's mounting evidence that someone could had dismissed safety to get more profits, and then some planes fell off the sky. That could escalate to involuntary manslaughter quickly.
It's pretty brutal if nobody cares about the optics of this anymore, just kill off whoever is inconvenient. I guess after Epstein's "two cameras malfunction" nobody cares about any public backlash and there is "normal day in Russia" to be inspired from...
It is appalling that as many details as possible are immediately leaked (or were they outright released by the police) about it being a suicide: gunshot to head in a remote location, "there is a note", "family said he had PTSD and was under stress".
A major whistleblower dies in any non-natural manner should be a major investigation by the highest levels of the FBI, not immediately handled and released by the podunk no-resource local police that don't want to touch the case with a ten-foot pole.
That's what is most galling. The media and police work in lockstep to immediately brand it a suicide. The only headline should be "Boeing whistleblower found dead, FBI is investigating".
What public backlash? It seems people here are content to call those who suspect Epstein suicide "very gullible"...
It's interesting how the English language labels people "conspiracy theorists", like how the totally batshit crazy ones gets lumped together with those that actually seem to be suspect.
It's not the "English language", the term "conspiracy theorist" was literally invented by the CIA to smear people who alleged the CIA was conspiring against the public.
The term "conspiracy theory" is itself the subject of a conspiracy theory, which posits that the term was popularized by the CIA in order to discredit conspiratorial believers, particularly critics of the Warren Commission, by making them a target of ridicule.
[..]
The idea that the CIA was responsible for popularising the term "conspiracy theory" was analyzed by Michael Butter, a Professor of American Literary and Cultural History at the University of Tübingen.
Considering how many deaths Boeing are responsible for through their blatant ineptitude, I wonder how far a stretch it would be that this one was indeed intended.
Ok there are conspiracy theories, making claims about things that are unlikely. And then there is the key witness that dies in a parking lot by gunshot wound the day before he is to testify on the case he spent decades building. And then there is his friends who swears that he wouldn’t commit suicide.
Call me crazy all you want, but murder is the most probable theory here.
The money interests are massive. People kill for tens of thousands of dollars. We’re talking millions of dollars here.
The "case" in question is a defamation suit he initiated against Boeing. This has nothing to do with the recent 737 MAX incidents, and the 787 issues he did whistleblow on was litigated to death years ago.
Yeah a single employee's testimony against an aircraft, the 787, that has safely flying every day since then, does not have that effect. Especially when all of that Barnett testified on years ago.
Boeing does not make $7B from the 787.
If you want to take someone out, make it a 737 MAX whistleblower.
How could Boeing make sure to limit the amount of whistleblowers on the 737 MAX case? Killing former whistleblowers is a great way to send a message to everyone considering the option right now.
A. Most people dismiss an actual conspiracy to murder a whistleblower witness as a conspiracy theory automatically. Such a cliché seems possible. Remember, Boeing is run by MD dickhead bros who traded in camel fucking magazine covers.
B. He wanted additional scrutiny on Boeing, and was willing to die for it.
C. Friend is seeking attention.
It will require honest and diligent investigation to be sure it was truly suicide because none of us know from afar. C seems most likely.
Option 0: people tend to be blindsided when someone in their life suffering from depression kills themselves. This is because if you see it coming, usually you go all out to intervene. It is ridiculously common for people to report that someone who seemed like they enduring mental hardship "was doing better" in the days before their suicide.
I'm finding the immediate "it was an an assassination" rhetoric gross and unproductive here, because what it's dismissing is a very real problem: becoming a whistleblower tends to ruin people's lives between the media scrutiny, the legal scrutiny, the career jeopardy and being in and out of court rooms. Marriages breakdown, and people get depressed or develop substance problems.
"He was assassinated" is just casually ignoring the fact that Boeing can kill this man dead completely legally through the normal shitshow which is the legal wringer whistleblowers get put through.
Duh. I mentioned A to dismiss it rather than invite inevitable conspiracy theories.
His lawyers came out almost immediately claiming he seemed in good spirits. Perhaps this was a superficial assessment or he was hiding his true feelings.
Like I said, wait until the investigation is complete because we don't know. It seems like the friend and media are grabbing attention rather than doing anything constructive.
Maybe he was killed by the agents of whoever. I have no non-public knowledge about this.
On the other hand, if you were obsessed with some conspiracy theory, were feeling suicidal, and wanted to create maximum effect with your death ... "it's not suicide" is exactly what you'd say.
Because in Russia it is an open message to the public 'don't mess with the KGB or we kill you and maybe your children'. Everybody knows and understands who is the sender and the message. Classic mafia move of intimidation. It is a message to the living.
In the Western World the secret services kill to silence people, not to broadcast messages to the public.
Quite the opposite PR strategy.
And when powerful people want to show off their power it tends to be less fatal and more drag-through-the-mud style tactics. Like what happened to Julian Assange. Killing him was an option on the table as far as I recall, but it wasn't what they ended up doing.
Although that being said, I wouldn't rule this out as being organised by Boeing's management or a major shareholder or something. It is a company in the military-industrial complex.
Julian Assange has invalidated so much about modern America for me. Even when I think I should sort of trust the US government, his name seems to echo through my mind and I think, nahhhh, too much hypocrisy.
If the US government pardoned him they’d be doing themselves a massive favor.
Do you have a source for this? I recall he asked for intel on both parties, but ended up getting it only for one. The conundrum then became releasing only the one, or release nothing.
Should have given him protection, quite bad for the USA that they cannot let the truth succeed in this case. In the long term there is no cheating about safety possible anyhow.
> Killing him was an option on the table as far as I recall, but it wasn't what they ended up doing.
Because this time wasn't about silencing him (too late for that), but making an example. And for this, a blatant enough assassination would likely tarnish the image the US government wants to project too much. Going through the courts, making a show of "due process", now that's looking pretty good: "hey journalists, we can't kill you if you babble too much, but we can make you wish we did, and since it's all legal good luck about rousing public opinion about it".
I don't know. He never talked about a captivity switch.
Perhaps he is an object lesson that one should create a "switch escalator".
Perhaps a dead man's switch used in captivity could also potentially make captivity worse and remove what last remnants of hope he has. I suspect if he pulled the switch now then a lot of the sympathy he got for exposing a war crime might go out the window.
The purpose of a dead-man switch is that an action automatically happens, if a person cannot trigger that action themselves anymore. This is not required in any kind of normal captivity, where the captured still can talk to lawyers and other visitors. So, frankly, if Assange is not using the leverage (using in the sense of using it as a threat) my best explanation so far is that he does not have any (at least not anything substantial enough). But I am open to be convinced otherwise.
There are still lots of angry articles about how it will PUT LIVES AT RISK if it is unencrypted.
The powers that be appear to be walking a tightrope between not exposing their own assets and trying to make an example out of people who expose war crimes while trying not to put lives at risk.
Think this comment is a bit too naive on the western side.
There are some high profile cases were the west (or the deep state) very clearly went "full Russian" on some figures to send a "don't mess with us" message.
David Kelly and Epstein come to mind. As also noted in this thread Assange is arguably being given a fate worse than death, rotting in a dungeon an example to terrify whistleblowers around the world.
Granted, it is only used much more sparingly than the KGB, but it is there.
Everyone with career sense in Russia will deny that, of course. They probably even believe it, in the sense that they're so indifferent to the truth of the matter that they don't even feel they are lying when they say the window-jumper was just a suicide and accusing FSB is preposterous.
Maybe you'll find a few who will say, off the record, that of course it wasn't a suicide.
But those people aren't rare in the US either! Feds are just as "paranoid" as the rest of in these matters.
Exactly. People need to understand that the murding methods in the West are just so much more civilised and polite, otherwise they just might commit suicide
I think also in the west you can’t be as blatant. There are checks and balances. Every murder invites journalistic investigation, so plausible deniability is important should things get out of hand.
Just speculating here but isn’t jumping out a window in Russia usually an implication it was ordered by the Russian state (ex: FSB) while in the US a framed suicides are assumed to be done by numerous non-associated actors. So in one place a single entity is responsible and in another it’s multiple entities.
It doesn’t seem surprising to me that there would be an affinity towards a particular method within entities.
Or a poisoning with a ludicrously rare poison, a strange car crash, a plane falling out the sky, dying at a gulag when you were fine a few days earlier etc etc.
It’s a very unsafe place when you don’t toe the line.
> It’s a very unsafe place when you don’t toe the line.
This one seems less like "it's a very unsafe place" and more like Prigozhin was trying to be killed. He went into open armed rebellion and negotiated a deal where he was exiled to Belarus. Then he went back to Russia, where he experienced a fatal plane crash. He would have to have been a total idiot not to see that coming.† What happened?
† My favorite story in this general vein is what happened with the Mitanni king Tushratta, whose brother the king was killed by a usurper when Tushratta was young. Tushratta inherited the throne, and the usurper, Tuhi, held power as regent until Tushratta came of age.
At which point Tushratta had Tuhi and his coconspirators executed. This was 3400 years ago, but somehow I suspect that even then this wouldn't have been hard to predict.
> He would have to have been a total idiot not to see that coming
The confusing bit for me is why did it go on for so long? It’s one thing to kill him, but seemingly letting him back into Putin’s circle before killing him is surprising. I hope to hear the story one day.
Russian ballistic missiles just hit residential area in Odessa, killing at least 16 and injuring 70. It was a double-tap attack. The second missile hit the same place 15 minutes later to kill first responders that had arrived: one paramedic and one firefighter died on the scene.
That's 2 civilians as contrasted to 118 from a massacre that is part of a genocide fully endorsed (using its veto power at the UN) and supported (with weapons deliveries) by the United States:
It's tongue in cheek, we kill in many different ways.
Drowning related however, the most known is this one (even got a wiki page, so it's really well known!) en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boulin
But Choukri Ghanem also managed to drown himself in Vienna.
A related death was Albichari, a 37 yo dying of diabetes, and 6 years later, Bechir Saleh assassination attempt by a commando (with his bodyguard crew saving him), so the DGSE clearly have multiple ways of doing business.
Small nitpick, if (which is very likely to me but unfortunately hasn't been proven) Robert Boulin has been murdered, it's definitely not by the DGSE or it predecessor, as they operate outside of France.
If you agree is that it's not a suicide, opinions differ on whether it's government team that did it or the "SAC", a paramilitary group linked to the then ruling party, not an official secret service
True, true, it probably wasn't secret services (interestingly, they were busy preparing an operation against Khadafi in Lybia around that time, that they did not execute according to Pierre Marion, ex DGSE director), and Mitterand wasn't keen on assassinations before 81, so i don't think it was on his orders, weirdly.
But i've read that recently "https://www.amazon.fr/tueurs-R%C3%A9publique-Assassinats-op%..." and now i have to jump in when people talk about political assassination, even though i know almost nothing about the subject, and everything i know is so thin it should be disregarded anyway. As the memory fade, i will stop doing that. Sorry :/
> “It could also have been someone who bought a ton of Boeing calls”
Now I’m imagining a show set in Greenwich, Connecticut, where a gentle white-haired family man trades options during the day and manages assassinations after the kids go to bed. “The Americans” meets “The Big Short”?
Ever since my friend’s father (a police officer reviled for lacking the requisite appetite for corruption) “committed suicide” I’ve been a little more than a little skeptical about convenient suicides.
I was one of the first on the scene. The passenger window of his car was shattered, all of the glass on the inside of the car. No blood on the glass. The car was still in drive and had driven itself off the road. A gun was found on the floor under the seat, a gun that was unknown to family members.
Ruled a suicide and multiple attempts to open an investigation all the way up to the federal level were ignored, and his son received numerous, documented death threats warning him to stop perusing an investigation.
The USA is just another banana republic, only with a higher price of admission to the table.
I think most people know that these kind of “suicides” or “accidental falls” from hotel balconies are not suicides, yet we all know we are powerless to root out this level of imbedded corruption.
What most people fail to understand is that it isn’t so much the work of corrupt politicians or shadowy crime bosses, but more often is rooted in the C-Suite. Since criminal and sociopathic characteristics are often rewarded at the executive level , it should be no surprise that crime and corporate governance are frequently intermingled.
saying "a black man did it" is being used in America as the same sort of explanation for a death as "fell out of an apartment window"in Russia. its racist as hell, but it's a plausible cover story over what really happened.
If you had a point that you expressed without rambling anger, you might have a place. Go somewhere else if you want to express yourself like that, plenty of other places for that kind of attitude.
I need to save up $350,000k for my kid's college before he heads off to keep him from having any loans, that means people with two kids who fully fund college for their kids will have $700k in assets just in college savings[1].
Saving for retirement takes 3-4 million.
1 million was a lot of money back when I was a kid in the 90s, now not so much.
No. If you’re concerned that you might get murdered, and want to make it clear that you have no intention of killing yourself, telling your one friend about it in a conversation in the midst of moving a sofa with no records to prove it whatsoever is the worst possible way of doing it.
Tweet it, send it in a message, leave a note in your home. But, “hey push that side, and let’s lift this in 3..2…. oh by the way I have no intention of killing myself… 1… go! There you go”. No. That doesn’t check out. Even if that conversation actually took place, it’s not helpful at all because it’s so easy to dismiss as hearsay. That’s actually a curse you put on your friend if it really happened.
EDIT: Apparently, the aforementioned help in the article was being a pallbearer at the friend’s father’s funeral. That turns out to be a less and less proper conversation for the occasion.
While evaluation of someone's behaviour to work out the truth is a valid endeavour, I find people have a tendency – and I notice it often in our community – to expect perfect rationality in humans at all times. I guess as it makes it easier to criticise them.
People who are stressed, sick, anxious, depressed etc often operate more on emotion and in aa reactive way rather than with foresight, clarity and rationality.
I mean, yes, but when we take irrationality into account, we can't discount the irrationality of saying "if it's suicide, it's not me" to a friend, and then committing suicide right after.
My point isn't about what he supposedly did made sense or not, but what he did was completely useless if true, and even debating it is useless now because of the way it was done. That's why I mentioned how he cursed his friend with that.
So you’ve never made a comment about something in passing that turned out to be true?
Completely reasonable for this to be said in conversation with a friend but not taken seriously enough to write it down.
I think the same is true of war crimes in wars - enough of the worst type of things have really happened, and been documented, so there's nothing on the face of it that is outlandish if you heard a new report of such a thing.
But how about deaths in suspicious circumstances like this one? Is there a historical record of these kinds of things being carried out, especially in the western world, in circumstances where the motive is corporate self-interest? What's the most clear cut case we have of something falling in that falls into (for lack of a better term) the Michael Clayton category?