It is our sad duty to inform you that Daniel Hopsicker has passed. He left us around noon on August 22, 2023. May he R.I.P.
The world has seldom seen such courage, tenacity and humor all rolled up together. I have been honored to be able to call him my friend. We met during the wild hopeful early years of the Internet, on an email list called CIA-Drugs, as time progressed the list became more raucous, and “Bob” our moderator and host soon became embroiled and it imploded. Both Daniel and I separately started a new CIA-Drugs list. We soon joined forces…
Daniel was a journalist, I was a spook-brat, whose father talked a bit. We put together a CIA-Drugs Symposium in June 2000, and we met face-to-face. Daniel talked about a book that he had with an agent in New York. After the conference he found out that New York wasn’t going to publish it, and made it be known. I told him: I’d been told we could make a book on our computers and that a friend of mine had made a book for his wife, so we should do that. Daniel came out and we made Barry and the ‘Boys’: the Mob and America’s Secret History. And I learn so much more about him…
I am going to miss him sooooo much. Daniel could tell a story like nobody else … and he had sooooo many of them. Daniel had tenacity like very few and the courage of a “bull in a china shop” – which he could be. But he was also one of the most sweetest and caring person I knew. That is what drove him – the connected got away while our prisons filled…
Daniel you will be missed BUT NOT FORGOTTEN!!!!!
Love,
Kris Millegan … and many more…
Rest in peace
What kind of country are we living in, when Hopsicker’s death isn’t noted by any mainstream media, and hardly anybody bothered to share their loss by posting a comment?
Daniel was really a special kind of reporter. He kind of fell into covering The Deep State and must have been heartily entertained far beyond anything fame, fortune, or accolades could deliver.
Well, someone or group will have to carry on. The story isn’t over yet. The Deep State keeps lying, stealing, and racketeering.
I’m already missing Hopsicker’s presence in this world. It’s not the same any more.
It was David Thrussell’s, “The Lucky Country: A Subterranean State” from a special issue of “New Dawn” magazine back in 2015, which first brought my attention to Daniel Hopsicker’s outstanding investigative journalism. From then on I’d regularly check in on his blog for his take on what was making news in both the US and internationally. I was already aware of Mena and had done a deep dive on it during the “golden years” of the internet as the “Boys on the Tracks” case would forever resonate with me ever since watching an early episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” about it as a teenager back in the ’80s. Like others, however, I sought to obtain a copy of his “Barry & ‘the Boys,'” but the exorbitant cost of a second hand copy along with the associated shipping costs made it virtually impossible for one like me living in the land “down under” from obtaining a copy. Until, that is, the good Lord above would allow in early 2020, shortly before the Covid pandemic would envelope the entire globe, for me to get in touch with Daniel and request if a copy of his classic work be sent to my rellies in Canada who’d then forward it onto me. Although I ended up paying shipping twice (even three times if you count the shipping from Canada to Australia) due to the book being wrongly returned to sender after a mix up at my cousin’s complex I still considered it well worth it! And while I’m sure the imbroglio was a source of annoyance to Daniel, I’d forever remain a fan and be eternally grateful for all the trouble he went through especially when the book finally arrived and having it in my hands I saw he’d even autographed it to boot! May you sleep the sleep of the righteous in Christ dear Daniel and to all his family, friends and fans I send my deepest commiserations. May God assuage your grief and may you find comfort in the cherished memories of the loved and lost. Sleep well my friend, sleep well!
Just listened to Daniel on the Opperman Report, have followed his work for many a year. He was fearless and an inspiration to many on how to how power to account.
Let’s hope his work can inspire a new set of young journalists who can carry on his amazing work. RIP Daniel you did well.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-opperman-report/id975926302?i=1000625855460
We are all poorer for the loss of Daniel. I hope his work will be kept alive somehow, perhaps as an online archive, so those of us who have looked to him for so long can enjoy his work and so new people can discover the amazing breadth, depth and most of all humanity in his words.