Over twenty five years ago Rapper Calvin (Snoop Dogg) Brodis was tried for murder in a case involving a gang affiliated stalker who was shot and killed by one of Brodis bodyguards. Around that time Snoop released a video which expressed some of these same issues called “Murder was the case”. Snoop was ultimately acquitted of all charges and released.
This year he released a new video which depicts a clownish Trump-like character who in the end has a gun “fired” at him that displays a flag with he word “Bang” on it when you pull the trigger in a song called “Lavender.”
Naturally this has driven the wingnuts even more batshit than usual.
Breitbart has been all over this.
Visuals for “Lavender,” a song that first appeared on BADBADNOTGOOD and Kaytranada’s IV, show a clown-faced President “Ronald Klump” holding a press conference where he announces a plan to “deport all dogs.”
“The ban that this motherf*cker tried to put up; him winning the presidency,” Snoop says is what inspired the concept of that part of the video, Billboard reports.
The dog deportation plan spurs Snoop Dogg and a gang of armed men to ambush the parody President Trump. Snoop points a gun at Trump’s head and pulls the trigger. A giant “BANG” flag pops out.
Also the Daily Beast.
While clearly poking fun at the president, “Lavender” (Nightfall Remix)—a reimagining of the original BADBADNOTGOOD track—is noticeably bereft of punchlines. The overblown Trump caricature isn’t amusing—are clowns ever funny? —so much as disturbing and deadly. No wonder the climax of the video finds Snoop aiming a gun at the over-contoured politician, marking a rare political stance from a rapper who’s recently resigned himself to hosting dinner parties with Martha Stewart on VH1. In a world where impeachment has become a mainstream fantasy, Snoop’s joining a growing group of celebrities overtly (and troublingly) flirting with the idea of mock-assassination.
It’s not really even a mock assassination — it’s a toy. Klump is shown alive and well in the very next scene, albiet tied in chains. What everyone seems to miss is the point of this "prank”, which is based on an earlier scene where police kill a unarmed motorist who — in this scenario — has a toy water pistol in his briefcase in a situation similar to the real life police killing of Philando Castile. Klump is kidnapped and put through this not-shooting in retaliation. It’s far more socially relevant and political than most of Snoop’s work which is generally playful, but does — somewhat clumsily — make an argument that sometime the goose deserves to be dipped in what the gander was forced to swallow.
Moving from the clumsy to the surreal as it happens, recent reports are that the FBI has indeed discovered that there was coordination between the Trump campaign and Russians in their multi-pronged assault on the Clinton campaign.
Washington (CNN)The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign, US officials told CNN.
This is partly what FBI Director James Comey was referring to when he made a bombshell announcement Monday before Congress that the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, according to one source.
The FBI is now reviewing that information, which includes human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings, according to those U.S. officials. The information is raising the suspicions of FBI counterintelligence investigators that the coordination may have taken place, though officials cautioned that the information was not conclusive and that the investigation is ongoing.
But hears what I found most interesting in the report.
Investigators continue to analyze the material and information from multiple sources for any possible indications of coordination, according to US officials. Director Comey in Monday's hearing refused to reveal what specifically the FBI was looking for or who they're focusing on.
US officials said the information was not drawn from the leaked dossier of unverified information compiled by a former British intelligence official compiled for Trump's political opponents, though the dossier also suggested coordination between Trump campaign associates and Russian operatives.
The information that the FBI is finding did not come from the Christopher Steele dossier and is being interdependently developed on it’s own. I find that a bit stunning. And then there’s the revelation that the FBI is also investigating Breitbart and InfoWars for their involvement in the disinformation and fake news campaign using the hacked info gathered by GRU and FSU under the direction of the Kremlin and Putin in a wide-ranging but and paid troll cyberwar against the U.S.
Former G.W. Bush ethics attorney Richard Painter argues this is a case of “Treason.”
And you know what one of the punishments for Treason is? Julius and Ethel Rosenburg could tell you if they weren't executed for sharing Atomic intel with the Soviet Union in 1953.
On this day in 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets, are executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Both refused to admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of their deaths, by the electric chair. The Rosenbergs were the first U.S. citizens to be convicted and executed for espionage during peacetime and their case remains controversial to this day.
It’s been along time since America executed anyone for espionage, so it’s more likely that it’ll go they way that former NSA analyst John Schindler reported that some of his current NSA sources who’ve already heard much of the SIGINT information the FBI is still sifting through.
“Now we go Nuclear, He’ll Die in Jail.”
A point that was made abundantly clear recently by Keith Olbermann.