Continuing her mission as a newly empowered feminist icon this side of Beyonce, pop star Taylor Swift released a new music video on Thursday for her song &#8220;The Man&#8221; in which she imagines a world where she could be a narcissistic playboy businessman who freely indulges in the ungodly sin of manspreading on the subway without any consequence whatsoever. Take a look:
<iframe title="Taylor Swift - The Man (Official Video)" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AqAJLh9wuZ0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
In the four-minute video, Taylor Swift (thanks to some uncanny makeup effects) transforms into a successful businessman who sleeps with hot women without consequence, yells at subordinates while taking phone calls on his yacht, and even urinates on a subway station wall. At one point, Taylor Swift&#8217;s man throws a temper-tantrum on the tennis court, echoing the cries of double-standard misogyny that feminists elicited when Serena Williams raged at a referee for censuring her. Throughout all this so-on-the-nose-it-borderlines-on-self-parody imagery, Taylor Swift sings about the alleged blissful life she would experience if she were &#8220;The Man.&#8221; Lyrics below:
<div class="bbVIQb">
<blockquote>
<div class="ujudUb">I would be complex 
I would be cool 
They&#8217;d say I played the field before 
I found someone to commit to 
And that would be okay 
For me to do 
Every conquest I had made 
Would make me more of a boss to you</div>
<div></div>
<div class="ujudUb">I&#8217;d be a fearless leader 
I&#8217;d be an alpha type 
When everyone believes ya 
What&#8217;s that like?</div>
<div></div>
<div class="ujudUb">I&#8217;m so sick of running 
As fast as I can 
Wondering if I&#8217;d get there quicker 
If I was a man 
And I&#8217;m so sick of them 
Coming at me again 
&#8216;Cause if I was a man 
Then I&#8217;d be the man 
I&#8217;d be the man 
I&#8217;d be the man</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="bbVIQb">
<blockquote>
<div class="ujudUb u7wWjf" data-mh="-1">They&#8217;d say I hustled 
Put in the work 
They wouldn&#8217;t shake their heads 
And question how much of this I deserve 
What I was wearing, if I was rude 
Could all be separated from my good ideas and power moves 
And we would toast to me, oh, let the players play 
I&#8217;d be just like Leo, in Saint-Tropez</div>
<div data-mh="-1"></div>
<div class="ujudUb xpdxpnd" data-mh="218" data-mhc="1">I&#8217;m so sick of running 
As fast as I can 
Wondering if I&#8217;d get there quicker 
If I was a man 
And I&#8217;m so sick of them 
Coming at me again 
&#8216;Cause if I was a man 
Then I&#8217;d be the man 
I&#8217;d be the man 
I&#8217;d be the man</div>
<div data-mh="218" data-mhc="1"></div>
<div class="ujudUb xpdxpnd" data-mh="87" data-mhc="1">What&#8217;s it like to brag about raking in dollars 
And getting bitches and models? 
And it&#8217;s all good if you&#8217;re bad 
And it&#8217;s okay if you&#8217;re mad</div>
<div data-mh="87" data-mhc="1"></div>
<div class="ujudUb xpdxpnd" data-mh="87" data-mhc="1">If I was out flashin&#8217; my dollas 
I&#8217;d be a bitch, not a baller 
They&#8217;d paint me out to be bad 
So it&#8217;s okay that I&#8217;m mad</div>
<div data-mh="87" data-mhc="1">I&#8217;m so sick of running 
As fast as I can (as fast as I can) 
Wondering if I&#8217;d get there quicker 
If I was a man (hey!)</div>
<div data-mh="87" data-mhc="1"></div>
<div data-mh="87" data-mhc="1">And I&#8217;m so sick of them 
Coming at me again (coming at me again!) 
&#8216;Cause if I was a man (if I was man) 
Then I&#8217;d be the man 
I&#8217;d be the man 
I&#8217;d be the man (oh) 
I&#8217;d be the man (yeah) 
I&#8217;d be the man (I&#8217;d be the man)</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
The released music video comes shortly after the arrival of Taylor Swift&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/true-class-sen-marsha-blackburn-praises-taylor-swift-after-singer-bashes-her-in-netflix-documentary">Netflix documentary</a>, which chronicles her rise from being a simple pop star to an ultra-woke Democratic Party activist that supports abortion and denounces Republicans as homophobes.
<div data-mh="175" data-mhc="1"></div>

77th Annual Golden Globe Awards &#8211; Arrivals

WATCH: Taylor Swift Is A Whining Feminist Man-Basher In Latest Music Video ‘The Man’

Feminism

Taylor Swift

Increasingly political popstar Taylor Swift&#8217;s new film &#8220;Miss Americana&#8221; is a &#8220;feminist documentary disaster,&#8221; says conservative comedian and podcast host Steven Crowder. But rather than being annoyed with the recently &#8220;woke&#8221; Swift declaring various feminist talking points throughout the film, Crowder says he actually feels genuinely &#8220;sad&#8221; for the singer — because she seems to believe that her newly adopted worldview, &#8220;fed to her&#8221; by the Left, is going to create something positive for her, when all it&#8217;s going to do is &#8220;destroy.&#8221;
Crowder devoted some of his podcast &#8220;Louder with Crowder&#8221; Monday to providing his reaction to the new Swift-focused Netflix film and, as usual, didn&#8217;t candy-coat his criticism.
&#8220;The only way to redemption is through faith, family and freedom, and most of all truth — not lies based on the emoting of your perceived truth, &#8216;my truth.&#8217; No, there is the truth,&#8221; Crowder says as an overview of his response to Swift&#8217;s new film (video below). &#8220;The idea that the Left feeds you, Taylor Swift, or people of your ilk, they&#8217;re not going to help. They don&#8217;t help, they don&#8217;t create. They only destroy.&#8221;
&#8220;I watched this film and I felt really sad for Taylor Swift,&#8221; says Crowder. &#8220;This is clearly someone who just discovered &#8216;woke&#8217; ideology — but any kind of ideology — and assumes that nobody else has known about this. The fact is other people have looked into this, have studied this, have debated this for decades, and, Taylor Swift, you just didn&#8217;t care&#8230; So it really is kind of sad to see somebody who&#8217;s been so misinformed who now fancies themself the arbiter of truth and of women&#8217;s rights.&#8221;
&#8220;What bothered me: there were so many thoughtless answers that were stated by Taylor Swift in the absolute, which is really indicative of someone who is green and figuring out their worldview,&#8221; says Crowder, &#8220;which is somewhat scary because this person has an unbelievable sphere of influence.&#8221;
As the first example of his central point about the film, Crowder cues up a moment where Swift says, &#8220;I&#8217;m trying to be as educated as possible on how to respect people, on how to deprogram the misogyny in my own brain&#8230; Toss it out, reject it and resist it. Like, there is no such thing as a slut, there is no such thing as a b*tch&#8230;.&#8221;
&#8220;Is there such a thing as an a**hole?&#8221; asks Crowder in response. &#8220;What about someone who has sex with a lot of different people for, I don&#8217;t know, money or to advance their career? &#8230; To say that it&#8217;s a figment of your imagination — have you ever been through a drive-thru?&#8221;
&#8220;It sounds really introspective — &#8216;there&#8217;s no such thing as a slut, there&#8217;s no such thing as a b*tch&#8217; — but we don&#8217;t apply that to men,&#8221; he added, &#8220;because we also saw in this film where they refer to men as, I don&#8217;t if she did, as pricks or as a**holes or rubes. And by the way, I accept that some guys are and some women are.&#8221; That doesn&#8217;t mean that &#8220;defines them in their entirety,&#8221; notes Crowder, it&#8217;s just acknowledging the reality that people can act badly.
Video below via &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=141&amp;v=_tMFVLZQp98&amp;feature=emb_logo">Louder with Crowder</a>&#8220;:
<iframe title="REVIEW: Taylor Swift&#039;s Feminist Documentary Disaster! | Louder with Crowder" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_tMFVLZQp98?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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WATCH: Taylor Swift Says ‘There’s No Such Thing As A B****’; Steven Crowder Has A Few Questions

Steven Crowder

In response to pop star Taylor Swift bashing her in the documentary &#8220;Miss Americana,&#8221; which chronicles the singer&#8217;s ascent into political activism, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) took the high road by praising Swift for the issues they have in common — namely, protecting artists from censorship and theft.
&#8220;Having apparently gotten wind of her unflattering appearance in the film, Blackburn took time out from the president’s impeachment trial to issue a conciliatory statement Thursday, suggesting that she and Swift could find some common ground despite their monumental differences on social issues,&#8221; reports <a href="https://variety.com/2020/music/news/senator-marsha-blackburn-issues-statement-taylor-swift-documentary-miss-americana-1203487711/">Variety</a>.
Referring to Swift as an &#8220;exceptionally gifted artist,&#8221; Blackburn hailed Taylor Swift for helping to influence legislation that protects artists from &#8220;censorship, copyright theft, and profiteering.&#8221;
“Taylor is an exceptionally gifted artist and songwriter, and Nashville is fortunate to be the center of her creative universe,” said Blackburn’s statement. “While there are policy issues on which we may always disagree, we do agree on the need to throw the entertainment community’s collective influence behind legislation protecting songwriters, musicians, and artists from censorship, copyright theft, and profiteering. The Music Modernization Act was a huge win for creators, and the BOTS Act for fans. Growing support behind the AM-FM Act will close loopholes blocking compensation for radio play. I welcome any further opportunities to work with Tennessee’s and the nation’s creative communities to protect intellectual property and ensure appropriate compensation for their creations. On that note, I wish Taylor the best — she’s earned it.”
In many ways, Marsha Blackburn&#8217;s run for the Senate prompted Taylor Swift&#8217;s political activism after she remained silent during the 2016 election, angering leftists everywhere at the time. The documentary chronicles her eventual decision to start endorsing Democratic candidates for office — specifically, over the GOP&#8217;s support of what she referred to as the &#8220;slate of hate bills&#8221; in her home state, which would, among other things, allow religious adoption agencies to prefer children go to married heterosexual couples over same-sex couples.
“Companion bills HB 1151 and SB 1297 expand the state’s indecent exposure law to apply &#8216;in a restroom, locker room, dressing room, or shower, any of which are designated for single-sex, multi-person use, and the person is a member of the opposite sex than the sex designated for use,&#8217;” reported <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/slate-hate-advocates-decry-anti-lgbtq-bills-introduced-tennessee-n979116">NBC News </a>in 2019. “Advocates say that since transgender Tennesseans cannot legally change their sex on legal documents, this bill unfairly targets them for criminal prosecution.”
Speaking with Variety, Swift said she was &#8220;really upset&#8221; with the way Tennessee was going regarding social issues and wanted to use her influence to shift its direction. In an Instagram post way back in 2018, Swift characterized Marsha Blackburn as an enemy of &#8220;human rights&#8221; while speaking of the &#8220;systemic racism&#8221; that people of color experience in this country.
“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/f-that-i-dont-care-taylor-swift-gets-political-in-new-doc-dunks-on-trump">she wrote</a>. “I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love.”

blackswift

True Class: Sen. Marsha Blackburn Praises Taylor Swift After Singer Bashes Her In Netflix Documentary

Marsha Blackburn

Netflix

Multi-platinum recording artist (and, now, high-profile political activist) Taylor Swift reportedly canceled a planned but un-announced performance at Sunday night&#8217;s Grammy Awards, <a href="https://variety.com/2020/music/news/taylor-swift-exits-planned-unannounced-grammy-performance-1203478940/">Variety magazine reports</a>, possibly in response to allegations that the Recording Academy, which runs the Grammy Awards, was engaged in &#8220;fixing&#8221; the nominations process, and tolerated a culture of sexual harassment and discrimination against female employees.
Ousted Recording Academy President and CEO Deborah Dugan is behind the allegations, telling a series of morning shows this week that the Grammy nominations process is &#8220;fixed,&#8221; and that former Grammy head, Neil Portnow, among others, actively resisted diversifying the pool of Grammy nominees, effectively shutting out female musicians and musicians of color, <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a30647659/deborah-dugan-grammys-controversy/">according to Harper&#8217;s Bazaar</a>.
In a bombshell report filed with California&#8217;s Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) after her firing, Dugan is said to have alleged that Portnow raped a female recording artist and that Recording Academy general counsel Joel Katz sexually harassed her during her time at the Academy. Both Portnow and Katz deny the allegations.
&#8220;Dugan mentions in her claims that memorable artists such as Beyoncé, Kanye West, Mariah Carey, and Frank Ocean were snubbed in previous years, and that the biggest awards tend to go to rock, country, and pop artists. She then outlined how the Grammy voting process is allegedly tainted,&#8221; Harper&#8217;s reported last week. &#8220;[A]ccording to her complaint, the board uses the [nomination] committees to promote artists they have relationships with, and &#8216;manipulates the nominations process&#8217; to include songs that Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich wants performed during the ceremony. The board has even given nominations to submissions that weren&#8217;t in the top 20 list at all, per the filing. This year, that happened with 30 nominees.&#8221;
The Recording Academy denies that there is any &#8220;fixing&#8221; involved with Grammy nominations, and that performances often come from the slate of nominees, not the other way around.
&#8220;It is the goal of the Recording Academy to ensure the GRAMMY Awards process is led in a fair and ethical manner and that voting members make their choices based solely on the artistic excellence and technical merits of eligible recordings,&#8221; the Academy said in a statement.
They called Dugan&#8217;s accusations, &#8220;spurious.&#8221;
Dugan&#8217;s allegations of sexual impropriety are shocking. She says Katz propositioned her during what was supposed to be a &#8220;work dinner.&#8221;
“Starting with calling me &#8216;babe&#8217; and telling me how attractive I was and how pretty I was, and then the evening went on to a kiss and him trying to kiss me and all the way through I felt like I was being tested &#8230; I feel that was a power-setting move as soon as I was coming onto the committee,&#8221; she told Good Morning America in an appearance this week.
Katz responded through his attorney: “Ms. Dugan&#8217;s allegations of harassment and her description of a dinner at the steakhouse in the Ritz Carlton, Laguna Niguel are false and Mr. Katz categorically and emphatically denies her version of that evening.&#8221;
Swift may have shied away because of the sexual harassment allegations, though, regardless of their veracity. Variety notes that &#8220;multiple sources&#8221; confirmed Swift to be a surprise performer Sunday night, and that the Recording Academy even went so far as to save her a seat in the audience, before the recording artist and 10-time Grammy Award winner ultimately decided not to attend or perform.
&#8220;There has been speculation that Swift might perform a song from her new Lover album titled &#8216;The Man,&#8217; which takes on sexism,&#8221; country music news site, Taste of Country, reported, adding that Swift&#8217;s reasons for pulling out remain a mystery.
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Deborah Dugan

Grammys Under Fire: Taylor Swift Cancels Surprise Performance Amid Awards Rigging, Sexual Harassment Allegations

Grammys

In her new documentary set for release on Friday via Netflix, pop star Taylor Swift gives an inside look into why she chose to publicly advocate for left-wing politicians and policies in her late 20s, before the 2018 midterm elections.
According to a report from <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/taylor-swift-dunks-on-trump-in-netflix-doc-miss-americana-says-fuck-that-i-dont-care?ref=scroll">The Daily Beast</a>, Swift apparently &#8220;dunks&#8221; on President Donald Trump. In a &#8220;pivotal&#8221; moment in the doc, &#8220;Miss Americana,&#8221; Swift rejects any potential blowback from President Trump before pressing send on an Instagram post endorsing Democrat Phil Bredesen over GOP incumbent Marsha Blackburn for a U.S. Senate race in Tennessee. &#8220;F*** that, I don&#8217;t care,&#8221; the &#8220;Lover&#8221; singer tells her worried mother and publicist.
<div class="teadsDiv StoryAdSlot--in-feature-story StoryAdSlot">
Taylor Swift, her mother Andrea Swift, and her publicist &#8220;are nervously slurping white wine and practically shaking as they discuss the final considerations before pressing send&#8221; on the political Instagram post, The Daily Beast outlines, &#8220;the equivalent of pushing the nuclear button for a pop star who had strategically and steadfastly remained silent on politics.&#8221;
&#8220;One of the last things Swift’s publicist warns her about is that Donald Trump could come after her,&#8221; the report said.
“F*** that,” Swift responds in the scene. “I don’t care.”
</div>
Swift&#8217;s Instagram post against Blackburn condemned the Republican for her &#8220;appalling&#8221; and &#8220;terrifying&#8221; voting record. Moreover, in the doc, the pop singer reportedly calls Blackburn &#8220;Trump in a wig.&#8221;
“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” the singer/songwriter wrote in the famed social media post. “I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love.”
She continued, “Running for Senate in the state of Tennessee is a woman named Marsha Blackburn. As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values. I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives.”
President Trump did indeed respond to Swift&#8217;s political move, but in lighthearted fashion.
&#8220;Asked about her comments on the White House’s South Lawn on Monday, Trump said he believes Blackburn is &#8216;doing a very good job in Tennessee&#8217; and suspects that Swift doesn’t know much about her,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-responds-taylor-swift-getting-political-james-barrett">The Daily Wire</a> reported at the time.
“I’m sure Taylor Swift has nothing – or doesn’t know anything about her,” the president said, adding, “Let’s say that I like Taylor’s music about 25% less now, okay?”

‘F*** That, I Don’t Care’: Taylor Swift Gets Political In New Doc, ‘Dunks’ On Trump

Donald Trump

Amid brutal reviews from critics and a &#8220;rotten&#8221; response from viewers, the new filmic adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber&#8217;s famous musical &#8220;Cats&#8221; is performing miserably in theaters. In a recently published interview, the film&#8217;s star, singer Taylor Swift, explains why she decided to take on the role, and in the process provides a glimpse of her apparent suspicions that the film might bomb. She also offers some bizarre details about how she had to prepare for the film.
Review aggregating site <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cats_2019">Rotten Tomatoes</a> gives &#8220;Cats&#8221; a horrific 17% on its Tomatometer, which measures critics&#8217; responses, and a  sub-par 59% audience score. &#8220;Despite its fur-midable cast, this Cats adaptation is a clawful mistake that will leave most viewers begging to be put out of their mew-sery,&#8221; the site warns in its summary of critics&#8217; response.
Many would-be viewers apparently took the warning to heart. <a href="https://deadline.com/2019/12/cats-bombs-at-the-box-office-reasons-why-1202813693/">Deadline</a> provides a summary of the stunningly bad box office numbers from the film&#8217;s opening weekend: &#8220;The movie wound up opening below its $10M-$15M projections to $6.5M, and while you can’t expect much business-wise from adult-skewing movies outside of Star Wars before Christmas Day, the audience PostTrak exits of 2 Stars and a C+ CinemaScore indicate a significantly less than Greatest Showman or Mary Poppins Returns box office future (those two holiday films scored A and A- CinemaScores) for the Tom Hooper directed musical.&#8221;
In an interview with <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/taylor-swift-cats-movie-beautiful-ghosts-digital-fur-tom-hooper-1203449943/">Variety</a> published Friday, after early reviews had already <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/is-taylor-swift-starring-cats-really-as-awful-as-it-looks-reviews-its-far-far-worse">ravaged</a> the film, Swift explained why she took the role, and appeared to signal that she suspected it might tank.
&#8220;You have to dislocate the end result with your experience and you have to commit to doing it only based on what you think the experience will be and if the experience will teach you things that enrich your life,&#8221; said Swift. &#8220;So that’s exactly what I thought this would be, which is getting to work with the best dancers and performers in the world, getting to perform live on set, getting to work with one of the best directors out there, the most amazing producers and team of Andrew Lloyd Webber and [choreographer] Andy Blankenbuehler. What more could I possibly ask for in an experience? And so that was what made me immediately commit.&#8221;
She also described what was involved in preparing for the role, including having to go to &#8220;cat school.&#8221;
&#8220;We would literally do hours on end of barefoot crawling on the floor, hissing at each other,&#8221; said the singer and songwriter. &#8220;We learned about cat instincts and the way they carry themselves and the way that they process information, the way they see the world, the way they move.&#8221;
&#8220;What’s strange is from the very beginning of the whole process, everyone on the director/choreography side of it had decided that we weren’t going to be crawling all the time and we weren’t going to be walking all the time,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;We were going to be hybrids in both our appearance and our behavior and movement. Which was so funny because you’d walk on set one day and they’d be like, &#8216;Oh we have to redo the choreography! It’s a little too human today. We need to make it more cat today.&#8217; Or they’d be like, &#8216;It’s a little too cat and not enough dance, so we need to dial back the cat and make it more dance.'&#8221;
The star added that &#8220;regardless of what the end result is, there’s just never been a movie made like this, which is why it was so fun to be a part of.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/critics-rip-rise-of-skywalker-but-what-do-fans-think">Critics Rip ‘Rise Of Skywalker,’ But What Do Fans Think? Here’s What Viewers Are Saying.</a>

Taylor Swift Explains Why She Committed To Box Office Disaster ‘Cats,’ Describes Going To ‘Cat School’

Hollywood

Taylor Swift is experiencing even more than her usual degree of media coverage these days. Along with being engaged in an ugly, ongoing public feud with producers that control the rights to her old songs, the popular performer is starring in a new film: an adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber&#8217;s famous broadway hit &#8220;Cats&#8221; — trailers for which have gone viral for all the wrong reasons.
With the upcoming film&#8217;s trailers still thoroughly creeping out would-be viewers, some critics have gotten a chance to see the film in advance — and the early reactions are downright brutal. Reviewers for Variety and The Hollywood Reporter absolutely savage the film. The degree of scorn for the film is so great, that one outlet has even tried to figure out what exactly is fueling the hatred for this potentially epic box office bomb.
Variety&#8217;s <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/cats-review-taylor-swift-jennifer-hudson-1203447544/">Peter Debruge</a> predicts that &#8220;nine may not be enough lives for some of the stars to live down their involvement in this poorly conceived and executed adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical.&#8221;
Debruge slams Director Tom Hooper&#8217;s (&#8220;The King&#8217;s Speech&#8221;) film as an &#8220;outlandishly tacky interpretation&#8221; which he predicts will likely end up being &#8220;one of those once-in-a-blue-moon embarrassments that mars the résumés of great actors (poor Idris Elba, already scarred enough as the villainous Macavity) and trips up the careers of promising newcomers (like ballerina Francesca Hayward, whose wide-eyed, mouth-agape Victoria displays one expression for the entire movie).&#8221;
<blockquote>From the moment a teaser trailer hit the web last summer, the studio has been reeling from the ridicule, seemingly blindsided by harsh attacks on the character designs, the visual effects and the very notion of adapting the hit show. Truth be told, it should have anticipated the backlash. None of it would have mattered if the movie were halfway decent. Sadly, this uneven eyesore turns out to be every bit the Jellicle catastrophe the haters anticipated, a half-digested hairball of a movie in which Hooper spends too much energy worrying about whether the technology is ready to accommodate his vision and not enough focusing on what millions love about the musical in the first place.</blockquote>
In a review for The Hollywood Reporter, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/cats-review-1263550">David Rooney</a> declares the film &#8220;cat-tastrophic,&#8221; the &#8220;major misjudgment&#8221; of which is in its &#8220;central visual concept&#8221;:
<blockquote>This Universal release from Working Title and Amblin is hobbled by a major misjudgment in its central visual concept. Once the idea of making Cats as an animated feature was rejected, there presumably were multiple tests to figure out a digital approach to rendering the pusses onscreen. It&#8217;s almost unfathomable that this one made it through all the preliminary production meetings without someone sensibly calling a halt to the process by saying, &#8220;Wait a minute, those kitties are damn creepy!&#8221; And let&#8217;s not even get started on the tiny mice with human faces, or the dancing cockroaches, yes, which also serve as crunchy snacks for Rebel Wilson&#8217;s Jennyanydots, a zaftig cat with showbiz aspirations who milks strained laughs from countless chunky-girl pratfalls.</blockquote>
Both reviewers stress that it&#8217;s not just the look of the characters, it&#8217;s also the strained performances and the lack of musical magic in the film that dooms the film.
The overwhelmingly negative response to &#8220;Cats&#8221; from would-be viewers has been so severe that <a href="https://screenrant.com/cats-movie-backlash-explained/">Screenrant</a> recently felt compelled to unpack the convergence of elements inspiring such a reaction. &#8220;All movies receive varying degrees of criticism, but it&#8217;s rare for any title to receive the level of pre-release scorn Cats has drummed up,&#8221; the outlet noted Wednesday. &#8220;It begs the question of why exactly this musical has become such a go-to punching bag for people all over the world.&#8221;
Among the reasons for viewers&#8217; universal recoil floated by Screenrant is the &#8220;abjectly unnerving&#8221; look of the cat people. &#8220;Putting recognizably human faces onto humanoid CGI cat bodies creates a sense of visual dissonance that&#8217;s distracting rather than helping to immerse prospective viewers into this unique universe of singing-and-dancing kitties.&#8221;
Another problem, the outlet suggests, is its overly star-studded cast, that &#8220;remind[s] one of the casting choices found in DreamWorks Animation movies like Shark Tale or Monsters vs. Aliens where it&#8217;s just a bunch of celebrity voice-overs shoved into one movie regardless of whether or not they actually fit their characters.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/star-wars-producer-jj-abrams-comment-about-last-jedi-causes-meltdown">Star Wars Producer JJ Abrams’ Comment About ‘Last Jedi’ Causes Meltdown</a>

Is Taylor Swift-starring ‘Cats’ Really As Awful As It Looks? Reviews: It’s Far, Far Worse.

Pop icon and multimillionaire Taylor Swift framed herself as a victim on Twitter on Wednesday, suggesting that she is discriminated against for being a female.
&#8220;When you’re pretttttty sure that if you were a man, you’d be the man,&#8221; the singer captioned a photo of herself in a men&#8217;s white button-down shirt.
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When you’re pretttttty sure that if you were a man, you’d be the man 💅 📷: Sami Drasin <a href="https://t.co/rjJesldpEQ">pic.twitter.com/rjJesldpEQ</a>
&mdash; Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) <a href="https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/1204897750476840960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The post piggybacks off recent refrains from Ms. Swift. For example, on the musician&#8217;s latest album &#8220;Lover,&#8221; Swift includes a feminist song called &#8220;The Man.&#8221;
&#8220;&#8216;The Man,&#8217; touches on similar feminist themes,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/08/taylor-swift-says-this-was-the-moment-she-woke-up-to-sexism-in-the-music-industry.html">CNBC News</a> reported in August. &#8220;In the song, Swift imagines how society would view her if she were a man. She revealed a preview of the lyrics in the Vogue interview: &#8216;I’d be a fearless leader. I’d be an alpha type. When everyone believes ya: What’s that like?'&#8221;
During an interview featured in <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/taylor-swift-cover-september-2019">Vogue</a> magazine&#8217;s September issue, Swift complained about sexism she&#8217;s  faced in the music business.
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“I would hear people talk about sexism in the music industry, and I’d be like, I don’t see it. I don’t understand,” recalled the songwriter. “Then I realized that was because I was a kid. Men in the industry saw me as a kid. I was a lanky, scrawny, overexcited young girl who reminded them more of their little niece or their daughter than a successful woman in business or a colleague.”
“It’s fine to infantilize a girl’s success and say, How cute that she’s having some hit songs,” Swift continued. “But the second it becomes formidable? As soon as I started playing stadiums — when I started to look like a woman — that wasn’t as cool anymore.”
The &#8220;Lover&#8221; singer also complained about catching flak for writing love songs based on her personal experiences — which, again, she chalked up to sexism:
&#8220;Swift also called out the double standards for men and women writing songs about love. She says she’s been judged for using her relationships — often with other celebrities — as inspiration for her songs. Swift countered these criticisms, saying, &#8216;Find me a time when they say that about a male artist: Be careful, girl, he’ll use his experience with you to get — God forbid — inspiration to make art,'&#8221; CNBC reported.
On Thursday night, the entertainer used her acceptance speech for Billboard&#8217;s &#8220;Woman of the Decade&#8221; award to call out so-called &#8220;toxic male privilege.&#8221;
“The definition of the &#8216;toxic male privilege&#8217; in this industry is people saying ‘but he’s always been nice to me’ when I’m raising valid concerns about artists and their right to own their music,&#8221; Swift <a href="https://www.stereogum.com/2067884/taylor-swift-scooter-braun-billboard-woman-of-the-year/news/?utm_source=t.co&amp;utm_medium=referral">said</a> of her former producer Scooter Braun. “And of course he’s nice to you. If you’re in this room, you have something he needs.”
Swift has been in a very public and ongoing feud with Braun and former producer Scott Borchetta. The singer recently accused Braun and Borchetta &#8220;of saying she couldn’t perform any of her old hits and &#8216;basically&#8217; telling her she should just &#8216;be a good little girl and shut up&#8217; — or be &#8216;punished,'&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/taylor-swifts-message-to-fans-results-in-threats-to-producers-shut-down-office">The Daily Wire</a> reported, last month. &#8220;In response to the alleged bullying, Swift urged her fans to let the producers &#8216;know how you feel about this.'&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/taylor-swifts-message-to-fans-results-in-threats-to-producers-shut-down-office">Taylor Swift’s Message To Fans Results In ‘Threats’ To Producers, ‘Shut Down’ Office</a>
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Taylor Swift: I’d Be ‘The Man’ If I Were A Man

Famed singer Taylor Swift, who uses her fame to promote left-wing activism and Democratic politicians, took a shot at billionaire Democrat mega-donor George Soros this week while accepting an award, saying that he was behind an effort to take the intellectual property rights to essentially everything she has created in her professional career.
Swift&#8217;s attack comes as she battles music executive Scooter Braun, who she says was bankrolled by Soros and others when Braun bought the rights to her music.
&#8220;In November, Braun blocked the singer from performing a medley of her hits at the American Music Awards,&#8221; The Washington Free Beacon <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/taylor-swift-calls-out-george-soros-in-award-speech/">reported</a>. &#8220;Like Soros, Braun is a major Democratic donor with a history of backing liberal causes. Braun and actor George Clooney backed the ostensibly student-led 2018 March For Our Lives rally for gun control in Washington, D.C.&#8221;
&#8220;We now find ourselves fully immersed in a vast frontier that wasn&#8217;t around last decade and that is the streaming world,&#8221; Swift said as she accepted the Woman of the Decade award during Billboard’s 2019 Women in Music event. &#8220;I&#8217;ve spoken out in the past about the future of revenue flow for creators and the songwriters and producers who are being left behind due to these rapid shifts and changes.&#8221;
&#8220;I still don&#8217;t think that record contracts or producers agreements have fully caught up and I hope that in the next decade we can keep searching for the right solution for producers, songwriters, and creators, don&#8217;t you?&#8221; Swift continued. &#8220;Lately there&#8217;s been a new shift that has affected me personally and that I feel is a potentially harmful force in our industry and as your resident loud person I feel the need to bring it up and that is the unregulated world of private equity coming in and buying up our music as if it is real estate, as if it&#8217;s an app or a shoe line.&#8221;
Swift continued, &#8220;This just happened to me without my approval, consultation, or consent. after I was denied the chance to purchase my music outright, my entire catalog was sold to Scooter Braun&#8217;s Ithaca Holdings in a deal that I&#8217;m told was funded by the Soros family, 23 Capital, and The Carlyle Group.&#8221;
WATCH:
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Last night Taylor Swift revealed in her Billboard “Woman of The Decade” speech that billionaire Dem donor George Soros funded the deal to buy the rights to her music. <a href="https://t.co/RoHe8abHv6">pic.twitter.com/RoHe8abHv6</a>
&mdash; Alex Clark 💖🇺🇸 (@yoalexrapz) <a href="https://twitter.com/yoalexrapz/status/1205377467080269824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Yet to this day, none of these investors have ever bothered to contact me or my team directly, to perform their due diligence on their investment, on their investment in me, to ask how I might feel about the new owner of my art, the music I wrote, the videos I created, photos of me, my handwriting, my album designs,&#8221; Swift concluded in her remarks about the subject. &#8220;And of course, Scooter never contacted me or my team to discuss it prior to the sale or even when it was announced.&#8221;
Swift has promoted Democratic politicians during elections and has endorsed far-left activist groups like March For Our Lives, which advocates for restricting Americans&#8217; constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Swift wanted to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election but decided not to because she did not think that her endorsement would be helpful.
The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/459141-the-evolution-of-taylor-swifts-political-activism">added</a>, &#8220;Swift charged ahead by sharing her political views in 2019, writing in an essay for Elle magazine that she is now &#8216;finding [her] voice in terms of politics&#8217; and wants to &#8216;do more to help&#8217; ahead of the 2020 presidential election.&#8221;

Taylor Swift George Soros

Taylor Swift Blasts George Soros For Exploiting Her Music Without Her ‘Consent’

George Soros

Music

With superstar singer and songwriter Taylor Swift escalating her public feud with him and alleged &#8220;death threats&#8221; from her supporters, Scooter Braun, whose company Ithaca Holdings bought Swift&#8217;s former record label, Big Machine Label Group, has finally broken his silence on Swift and her claims that she&#8217;s being bullied by Braun and BMLG co-founder Scott Borchetta.
Tension between Swift, Braun and Borchetta took an allegedly &#8220;threatening&#8221; turn last week after Swift took to social media to urge her fans to &#8220;let Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun know how you feel&#8221; about what she described as unfair restrictions placed on the performance of her songs produced by BMLG and alleged bullying behavior by the men.
As reported by <a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/11/17/the-scooter-braun-taylor-swift-feud-just-took-a-wild-turn/" rel="noopener">Page Six</a>, Braun&#8217;s Nashville office was forced to shut down Friday &#8220;following threats allegedly sparked by Taylor Swift’s claim she was being bullied and barred from performing her old hits.&#8221; The &#8220;threats,&#8221; which Page Six notes were not reported to Nashville authorities, followed Swift posting a lengthy message to her fans on social media Thursday accusing the two men of forbidding her from performing her old songs at the American Music Awards and Borchetta telling her to &#8220;stop talking about him and Scooter Braun.&#8221;
&#8220;Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you’ll be punished,” Swift wrote in the letter to fans (full letter below).
For the first time publicly, Braun addressed the increasingly bitter battle between BMLG and Swift, which he said has gotten &#8220;out of hand,&#8221; resulting in &#8220;death threats&#8221; and &#8220;offices being closed.&#8221; Though he refused to go into specifics about her complaints, Braun condemned the practice of airing grievances publicly that should be addressed privately and choosing to be &#8220;politically correct&#8221; over trying to achieve &#8220;conflict resolution.&#8221;
&#8220;I haven’t talked about this in six months. Not once. I haven’t made a statement about it,&#8221; Braun said during a Q&amp;A at the 2019 Entertainment Industry Conference Thursday, as reported by <a href="https://variety.com/2019/music/news/scooter-braun-breaks-silence-taylor-swift-bad-guy-1203412278/">Variety</a>. &#8220;When there’s a lot of things being said and a lot of different opinions, yet the principals haven’t had a chance to speak to each other, there’s a lot of confusion. I’m not going to go into details here, because it’s just not my style. I just think we live in a time of toxic division, and of people thinking that social media is the appropriate place to air out on each other and not have conversations. And I don’t like politicians doing it. I don’t like anybody doing it, and if that means that I’ve got to be the bad guy longer, I’ll be the bad guy longer, but I’m not going to participate.&#8221;
Saying he believes people are &#8220;fundamentally good,&#8221; Braun suggested that what has gone wrong between Swift and BMLG comes down to &#8220;miscommunication.&#8221; He said that he&#8217;s been urging more communication — privately not via social media — between the two sides for six months, &#8220;but when it gets to a place where there’s death threats and there’s offices being called and people being threatened…  it’s gotten out of hand.&#8221;
&#8220;I think there are a lot of real problems in the world, and I think that these problems that are being discussed can be discussed behind closed doors and figured out pretty easily, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for six months,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And it’s hard, because I can handle it pretty easily, but when it gets to a place where there’s death threats and there’s offices being called and people being threatened…  it’s gotten out of hand. And I think people need to come together and have a conversation, because that’s not what we got in this industry for.&#8221;
&#8220;The truth is, I have no ill will for anybody,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And the moment people want to have a conversation with me, I’m ready to have that conversation, and I’m not going to add to the narrative. I disagree with it, but I’m not going to add to the narrative. I just want to fix things and set a better example for people.&#8221;
He then took his comments to a &#8220;grander scale,&#8221; referencing political discourse in the country. &#8220;Right now we’re in a scary time where people say things and then people might not be in the right mindset and do really horrible things,&#8221; said Braun. &#8220;And we’re inciting all of this by continuing these arguments in public. We just need to go behind closed doors and see if we can have a conversation. And if we’re not having conversations, then I don’t think we’re going to find resolution.&#8221;
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He also took a shot at political correctness: &#8220;I know this is going to be the most controversial thing I say. I don’t know where we got messed up along the way that we decided being politically correct is more important than having conflict resolution.&#8221;
Below is an excerpt of Swift&#8217;s letter to fans last week that allegedly resulted in the &#8220;death threats&#8221;:
<blockquote>Guys, it’s been announced recently that the American Music Awards will be honoring me with the Artist of the Decade Award at this year’s ceremony. I’ve been planning to perform a medley of my hits throughout the decade on the show. Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun have now said that I’m not allowed to perform my old songs on television because they claim that would be re-recording my music before I’m allowed to next year. Additionally — and this isn’t the way I had planned on telling you this news — Netflix has created a documentary about my life for the past few years. Scott and Scooter have declined the use of my older music or performance footage for this project, even though there is no mention of either of them or Big Machine Records anywhere in the film.
Scott Borchetta told my team that they’ll allow me to use my music only if I do these things: If I agree not to re-record copycat versions of my songs next year (which is something I’m legally allowed to do and looking forward to) and also told me that I need to stop talking about him and Scooter Braun.
I feel very strongly that sharing what is happening to me could change the awareness level for other artists and potentially help them to avoid sharing a similar fate. The message being sent to me is very clear. Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you’ll be punished.
This is WRONG. Neither of these men had a hand in writing those songs. They did nothing to create the relationship I have with my fans. So this is where I am asking for your help.
Please let Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun know how you feel about this. Scooter also manages several artists who I really believe care about other artists and their work. Please ask them for help with this — I ‘m hoping they can talk some sense into the men who are exercising tyrannical control over someone who just wants to play the music she wrote.</blockquote>
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Don’t know what else to do <a href="https://t.co/1uBrXwviTS">pic.twitter.com/1uBrXwviTS</a>
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) <a href="https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/1195123215657508867?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
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After Alleged ‘Death Threats’ From Taylor Swift Fans, Scooter Braun Breaks Silence On Feud

The public feud between Taylor Swift and her former producers reportedly took a &#8220;threatening&#8221; turn Friday after Swift accused Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta of saying she couldn&#8217;t perform any of her old hits and &#8220;basically&#8221; telling her she should just &#8220;be a good little girl and shut up&#8221; — or be &#8220;punished.&#8221; In response to the alleged bullying, Swift urged her fans to let the producers &#8220;know how you feel about this.&#8221;
According to <a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/11/17/the-scooter-braun-taylor-swift-feud-just-took-a-wild-turn/">Page Six</a>, Braun was forced to shut down his office in Nashville Friday &#8220;following threats allegedly sparked by Taylor Swift’s claim she was being bullied and barred from performing her old hits.&#8221;
&#8220;Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings, was deluged with calls after Swift alleged that he and Big Machine Label Group co-founder Scott Borchetta were preventing her from performing her hits at the American Music Awards, and refused to permit her music to be used in a Netflix doc,&#8221; Page Six&#8217;s Emily Smith reports. Nashville Police said no threats were reported, Smith notes.
The alleged &#8220;threats&#8221; followed Swift posting a letter on social media Thursday accusing Braun and Borchetta of saying she cannot perform her old songs at the American Music Awards &#8220;because they claim that would be re-recording my music before I’m allowed to next year.&#8221;
She also alleges that Borchetta has told her to stop talking about him and Braun in public. &#8220;Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you&#8217;ll be punished,&#8221; she writes. The letter reads in part:
<blockquote>Guys, it’s been announced recently that the American Music Awards will be honoring me with the Artist of the Decade Award at this year’s ceremony. I’ve been planning to perform a medley of my hits throughout the decade on the show. Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun have now said that I’m not allowed to perform my old songs on television because they claim that would be re-recording my music before I’m allowed to next year. Additionally — and this isn&#8217;t the way I had planned on telling you this news — Netflix has created a documentary about my life for the past few years. Scott and Scooter have declined the use of my older music or performance footage for this project, even though there is no mention of either of them or Big Machine Records anywhere in the film.
Scott Borchetta told my team that they&#8217;ll allow me to use my music only if I do these things: If I agree not to re-record copycat versions of my songs next year (which is something I&#8217;m legally allowed to do and looking forward to) and also told me that I need to stop talking about him and Scooter Braun.
I feel very strongly that sharing what is happening to me could change the awareness level for other artists and potentially help them to avoid sharing a similar fate. The message being sent to me is very clear. Basically, be a good little girl and shut up. Or you&#8217;ll be punished.
This is WRONG. Neither of these men had a hand in writing those songs. They did nothing to create the relationship I have with my fans. So this is where I am asking for your help.
Please let Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun know how you feel about this. Scooter also manages several artists who I really believe care about other artists and their work. Please ask them for help with this — I &#8216;m hoping they can talk some sense into the men who are exercising tyrannical control over someone who just wants to play the music she wrote.</blockquote>
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Don’t know what else to do <a href="https://t.co/1uBrXwviTS">pic.twitter.com/1uBrXwviTS</a>
&mdash; Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) <a href="https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/1195123215657508867?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
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In response, Big Machine Label Group issued a <a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/11/15/scooter-braun-scott-borchetta-slam-taylor-swifts-claims-about-amas/">statement</a> to Page Six Friday expressing &#8220;shock&#8221; at Swift&#8217;s claims and asserting that &#8220;at no point did we say Taylor could not perform on the AMAs or block her Netflix special.&#8221;
&#8220;As Taylor Swift’s partner for over a decade, we were shocked to see her tumblr statements yesterday based on false information. At no point did we say Taylor could not perform on the AMAs or block her Netflix special. In fact, we do not have the right to keep her from performing live anywhere,&#8221; the group told the outlet. &#8220;Since Taylor’s decision to leave Big Machine last fall, we have continued to honor all of her requests to license her catalog to third parties as she promotes her current record in which we do not financially participate.&#8221;
&#8220;Despite our persistent efforts to find a private and mutually satisfactory solution, Taylor made a unilateral decision . . . to enlist her fan base in a calculated manner that greatly affects the safety of our employees and their families,&#8221;  the group told Page Six.
But Swift&#8217;s team insists that Borchetta &#8220;flatly denied the request for both the AMAs and Netflix.&#8221;
A source told Page Six that Braun &#8220;has repeatedly reached out to Swift since June to meet in person and broker a partnership, but she has ignored him.&#8221;
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly listed Braun as one of the co-founders of BMLG.

Taylor Swift’s Message To Fans Results In ‘Threats’ To Producers, ‘Shut Down’ Office

Pop icon Taylor Swift has canceled her scheduled performance at the 2019 Melbourne Cup after animal rights activists accused her of &#8220;endorsing animal abuse.&#8221;
&#8220;The controversial horse racing event in Australia announced the Grammy winner, 29, would be headlining in early September but revealed on Saturday she pulled out,&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-cancels-melbourne-cup">Fox News</a>. &#8220;Six horses have died while racing in the Melbourne Cup, including an Irish racehorse that was euthanized on the racetrack last year after breaking its shoulder.&#8221;
In a statement, Mushroom Events, which organizes the Melbourne Cup, said that changes in Swift&#8217;s &#8220;Asian promo schedule&#8221; resulted in the cancelation. &#8220;Regrettably, Taylor is no longer able to make it to this year’s Melbourne Cup. Changes to her Asian promo schedule have made it logistically impossible for her to be here. To all of Taylor’s fans, we hope to see Taylor in Australia in 2020,&#8221; said Michael Gudinski.
Neil Wilson, CEO of Victoria Racing Club (VRC), said Swift&#8217;s cancelation is &#8220;disappointing.&#8221;
&#8220;The VRC has learned that Taylor Swift is now unable to make the trip to Australia and therefore cannot be with us on Melbourne Cup Day. Obviously, this is disappointing for everyone,&#8221; said Wilson. &#8220;We understand how important the pre-Cup entertainment is and we look forward to providing an update shortly.&#8221;
Taylor Swift has given no statement on the matter.
Shortly after the Melbourne Cup announced Swift&#8217;s name, the animal rights group Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses immediately <a href="https://www.change.org/p/taylor-swift-ask-taylor-swift-to-say-nuptothecup?recruiter=42154035&amp;utm_source=share_petition&amp;utm_medium=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_abi&amp;recruited_by_id=8da05220-0aa9-0130-5b2c-4040d2fbfbbf&amp;share_bandit_exp=abi-17805007-en-AU&amp;share_bandit_var=v1">launched a petition</a> asking people to &#8220;sign &amp; share&#8221; so that she would cancel her performance:
<blockquote>It seems Taylor Swift is either completely unaware of the cruel reality of horse racing or she has put money before compassion by agreeing to perform at the 2019 Melbourne Cup.
This is an event where at least 6 horses have been KILLED over the past 6 years. With such huge success already, she could easily afford to not only say NO, but use the opportunity to help the horses by speaking up against animal cruelty.
The day is becoming widely regarded as a national disgrace, with #NupToTheCup last year trending all day on Twitter.
One horse is killed on Australian racetracks every three days. Thousands who are fortunate enough to survive being beaten with a whip and pushed well beyond their limits on the track are slaughtered when no longer profitable. Many don&#8217;t even make it to the track, killed as foals for simply not having the desired attributes.
Taylor Swift is endorsing animal abuse by performing at this event where horses are being killed for gambling profits and entertainment. If she cares at all about other animals the way she appears to care about cats, she will cancel her show and use her voice to make a strong statement that animal abuse is unacceptable and say #NupToTheCup.</blockquote>
After news of the cancelation broke, the Coalition praised the Swift&#8217;s decision in a post on Facebook Saturday.
&#8220;THANK YOU TAYLOR! We are absolutely delighted with the news,&#8221; said the post. &#8220;The pressure on Taylor Swift to cancel her performance was significant. Her fans did not want to see her supporting animal abuse. Whilst the reason being used by the racing industry is a scheduling mix up, it appears to us that she has responded to those calls.&#8221;
&#8220;We will be keeping a close eye out for whether another artist is announced to perform at the day which is widely becoming known as a national disgrace,&#8221; the post continued. &#8220;No one should be supporting this event which depends on the abuse and suffering of horses.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Please Sign &amp; Share<a href="https://twitter.com/taylorswift13?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@taylorswift13</a>, please cancel your Melbourne Cup performance and instead use your voice to take a stand against animal abuse and say <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NupToTheCup?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NupToTheCup</a> <a href="https://t.co/oKDtqiwkYt">https://t.co/oKDtqiwkYt</a>
— Horse Racing Kills (@hrseracingkills) <a href="https://twitter.com/hrseracingkills/status/1172058929146163200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Taylor Swift Cancels Australian Horse Racing Concert Following Criticism From Animal Rights Activists

Pop icon Taylor Swift has made a complete 180-degree shift from being the formerly singular apolitical voice in an industry overrun with left-wing activists to being a full-blown woke-scold.
Speaking with <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/taylor-swift-rolling-stone-interview-880794/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Rolling Stone</a> magazine, Swift said that she is now entirely committed to &#8220;helping Democrats&#8221; defeat President Trump come 2020.
&#8220;I keep trying to learn as much as I can about politics, and it’s become something I’m now obsessed with, whereas before, I was living in this sort of political ambivalence because the person I voted for had always won,&#8221; Swift said. &#8220;I think a lot of people are like me, where they just didn’t really know that this could happen. But I’m just focused on the 2020 election. I’m really focused on it. I’m really focused on how I can help and not hinder. Because I also don’t want it to backfire again, because I do feel that the celebrity involvement with Hillary’s campaign was used against her in a lot of ways.”
Swift said that Democrats need to start thinking more like a team and quit the purity tests that can prevent more electable candidates from becoming the party&#8217;s nominees.
&#8220;I do think, as a party, we need to be more of a team,&#8221; Swift said. &#8220;With Republicans, if you’re wearing that red hat, you’re one of them. And if we’re going to do anything to change what’s happening, we need to stick together. We need to stop dissecting why someone’s on our side or if they’re on our side in the right way or if they phrased it correctly. We need to not have the right kind of Democrat and the wrong kind of Democrat. We need to just be like, &#8216;You’re a Democrat? Sick. Get in the car. We’re going to the mall.'&#8221;
The &#8220;Shake It Off&#8221; singer&#8217;s evolution into a full-throated Democratic activist comes after leftists criticized her for not speaking out in Hillary&#8217;s favor during the 2016 election, arguing she had a duty to help defeat President Trump.
&#8220;If Taylor thinks that her public fallout with Kimye was the most damning public relations nightmare she endured last year, then she should probably expand her news diet,&#8221; wrote Marie Claire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/23566/feminists-are-still-angry-taylor-swift-never-emily-zanotti">magazine at the time</a>. &#8220;Fall of 2016 saw a slew of celebrities become outspokenly involved in the political process, as they should have &#8230; Whether she likes it or not, Taylor&#8217;s politics (or her perceived political apathy) are a part of her reputation, and a song addressing or at least acknowledging that (even if the song did not address her personal politics) would have been welcome.&#8221;
Since then, Swift has adopted a radical leftist persona on every issue sacred to the Democratic Party, including abortion, which she recently told The Guardian <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50988/taylor-swift-admits-she-obviously-supports-paul-bois">she &#8220;obviously&#8221; supports</a>.
As to why she remained out of politics during the 2016 election, Swift told The Guardian that she experienced a tremendous amount of family drama that year, forcing her to keep a lower profile in order to maintain her mental health.
&#8220;I was just trying to protect my mental health — not read the news very much, go cast my vote, tell people to vote. I just knew what I could handle and I knew what I couldn&#8217;t. I was literally about to break,&#8221; she said, adding that she felt &#8220;really remorseful for not saying anything.&#8221;

taylorswift.jpg

Taylor Swift Is Now ‘Really Focused’ On Beating Republicans

2020 Election

Democratic Party

Leftism

Progressivism

At the MTV Video Music Awards on August 26, Taylor Swift won the video of the year award for her latest song &#8220;You Need to Calm Down.&#8221; It&#8217;s a song that trashes anyone still dissenting from the LGBTQ agenda and begs them to &#8220;control your urges to scream about all the people you hate / &#8216;Cause shade never made anybody less gay.&#8221;
The network news shows gushed over her leftist activism and the &#8220;Taylor Effect&#8221; they expect it to provide. ABC&#8217;s George Stephanopoulos said, &#8220;she&#8217;s doing it the way she does her music &#8230; with intent and with intelligence.&#8221;
What is Swift&#8217;s political agenda here? She&#8217;s pushing a bill called the Equality Act, sponsored by gay Congressman David Cicilline and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). As she sang her song about the haters, MTV put the words &#8220;EQUALITY ACT&#8221; in huge bold letters above her.
Swift lobbied her MTV fans in her acceptance speech. &#8220;You voting for this video means that you want a world where we are all treated equally under the law, regardless of who we love, regardless of how we identify,&#8221; she assured, and they fawned all over her.
In her Change.org petition, which she boasted has more than half a million signatures, Swift argued, &#8220;Our country&#8217;s lack of protection for its own citizens ensures that LGBTQ people must live in fear that their lives could be turned upside down by an employer or landlord who is homophobic or transphobic. The fact that, legally, some people are completely at the mercy of the hatred and bigotry of others is disgusting and unacceptable.&#8221;
That&#8217;s flat-out wrong. The so-called &#8220;Equality Act&#8221; enables anti-religious hatred and bigotry. The law would insert &#8220;sexual orientation and gender identity&#8221; into the Civil Rights Act and expand the definition of &#8220;public accommodations.&#8221; The bill amends &#8220;stadium&#8221; and inserts &#8220;stadium or other place of or establishment that provides exhibition, entertainment, recreation, exercise, amusement, public gathering, or public display.&#8221;
Then the laundry list unfolds, as they add &#8220;any establishment that provides a good, service, or program, including a store, shopping center, online retailer or service provider, salon, bank, gas station, food bank, service or care center, shelter, travel agency, or funeral parlor, or establishment that provides health care, accounting, or legal services.&#8221; There&#8217;s even more, including, &#8220;any train service, bus service, car service, taxi service, airline service, station, depot, or other place of or establishment that provides transportation service.&#8221;
The Family Research Council warns that you can expect that over-broad definition of &#8220;a good, service, or program&#8221; to apply to churches, religious private schools and nonprofit social-service groups. It also warns that &#8220;attorneys will likely be required to represent homosexuals in dissolving their same-sex &#8216;marriages,&#8217; Christian schools will likely be required to offer transgendered students the bathroom of their choice, and Christian homeless shelters will likely be required to accommodate same-sex couples.&#8221;
The bill explicitly sets out to guarantee that religion cannot be used as a defense: &#8220;The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 &#8230; shall not provide a claim concerning, or a defense to a claim under, a covered title, or provide a basis for challenging the application or enforcement of a covered title.&#8221;
The LGBTQ orthodoxy shreds dissent. There is no debate allowed. There are &#8220;allies&#8221; like Taylor Swift, and there are &#8220;hateful&#8221; people who must be punished. This oppressive regime started in Hollywood and aspires to end in every corner where people still cling to their Bibles and their guns — their other cause.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

BOZELL & GRAHAM: Networks Endorse Taylor Swift’s ‘Equality’ Lobbying

LGBT

Transgender

On Monday night at the VMA awards, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, who has decided to go political after publicly stating she regrets her non-involvement in the 2016 election, slammed the Trump administration for supposedly ignoring the &#8220;Equality Act&#8221; petition, stating that it has &#8220;five times the amount that it would need to warrant a response from the White House. &#8221;
Swift won the award for the best video of the year for her song &#8220;You Need to Calm Down&#8221; video. Accepting the award, which was voted on by fans, she said, &#8220;I first want to say thank you to the fans because in this video several points were made, so you voting for this video means that you want a world where we&#8217;re all treated equally under the law regardless of who we love or how we identify.&#8221; She added, &#8220;I want to thank everyone that signed that petition because it now has half a million signatures, which is five times the amount that it would need to warrant a response from the White House,&#8221; glancing purposefully at her watch, as <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/taylor-swift-accepts-video-year-award-at-2019-mtv-vmas-1232972">The Hollywood Reporter</a> noted.
The video of the song also won the &#8220;Video for Good&#8221; award for songs that have raised awareness.
Swift recently spoke to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/aug/23/taylor-swift-trump-thinks-his-presidency-autocracy">The Guardian</a> about President Trump’s administration, saying, &#8220;We’re a democracy – at least, we’re supposed to be – where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate. I really think that he thinks this is an autocracy.&#8221;
The VMAs also featured a moment when actor John Travolta, presenting the Video of the Year award to Swift, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7397585/John-Travolta-mistakes-Drag-Races-Jade-Jolie-Taylor-Swift-dropping-F-bomb-MTV-VMAs.html">mistakenly took drag queen Jade Jolie for Swift</a> and started to present Jolie the trophy. The Daily Mail reported, &#8220;The RuPaul&#8217;s Drag Race alum looked obviously stunned momentarily and flashed a big ‘surprise&#8217; smile and went in for a hug, which by that time Travolta had realized his mistake and gave a &#8216;whoops&#8217; tap on the shoulder.&#8221;
The Daily Mail noted of Swift’s &#8220;You Need To Calm Down&#8221; video, &#8220;In the video, seven drag queens do their best to impersonate famous artists like Cardi B and Beyonce while they wait for one of them to be crowned by RuPaul. Fittingly, Jolie played the drag queen version of Swift.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48581/taylor-swifts-pro-pride-video-gets-ripped-shreds-james-barrett">The Daily Wire</a> reported in June, Swift’s &#8220;You Need To Calm Down&#8221; video prompted backlash from critics on both sides of the political aisle. <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/music/a28067315/taylor-swift-you-need-to-calm-down-video-stereotypes/">Cosmopolitan</a> snapped, &#8220;About halfway through the video, we are introduced to the anti-LGBTQ+ crowd protesting Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Justin Mikita’s fake wedding. Of course, they’re portrayed with about as much nuance as the lyrics of the song.&#8221;
<a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/18/taylor-swifts-need-calm-breathtakingly-elitist/">The Federalist</a> commented:
<blockquote>To illustrate her LGBT pride anthem, Swift assembled the glitterati, casting them as the heroes of a utopian trailer park where her feud with Katy Perry ends, and ugly gay marriage protesters meet their match in a fabulous show of celebrity force. The set, of course, almost certainly cost more than what many people who make such places their home earn in a year. &#8220;Love letters only,&#8221; reads the side of one lily white mailbox in Swift World. (Where do the bills go?) Her creativity mysteriously lapsed when it came time to cast the protesters, who look like they should be playing banjos in &#8220;Deliverance&#8221;: toothless, badly dressed, holding misspelled signs.</blockquote>

Taylor Swift Rips White House At VMA Awards

Trump Administration

Pop icon Taylor Swift says she &#8220;obviously&#8221; supports abortion and now regrets remaining apolitical throughout the 2016 election.
Speaking with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/aug/23/taylor-swift-trump-thinks-his-presidency-autocracy">The Guardian</a>, the 29-year-old singer said that she &#8220;just can&#8217;t believe&#8221; her home state of Tennessee would ever consider protecting unborn babies in the womb.
&#8220;Obviously, I&#8217;m pro-choice,&#8221; Swift told the outlet. &#8220;I just can’t believe this is happening.&#8221;
Taylor Swift was referring to Tennessee now considering an all-out ban on the practice of abortion in the state. The bill passed the State House back in March and has been amended since to include even stricter penalties for those who obtain abortions illegally.
&#8220;Earlier this summer it was amended into an <a href="http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/111/Amend/SA0277.pdf">even bolder proposal</a>: banning virtually all abortions by defining &#8216;viability&#8217; to mean &#8216;that a male human sperm has penetrated the zona pellucida of the female ovum, which includes, but is not limited to, serial human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) determinations or the detection of a heartbeat in an unborn child,'&#8221; <a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/national-right-to-life-testifies-against-tennessee-bill-to-ban-all-abortions">LifeSiteNews</a> said of the bill. &#8220;Starting effectively at conception, the bill would make committing an abortion a Class C felony and revoke a violator&#8217;s medical license in all cases except to prevent the &#8216;death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.'&#8221;
In the same interview with The Guardian, Swift lamented how American values have been twisted in the age of President Trump, likening his reign to an autocracy.
&#8220;We&#8217;re a democracy — at least, we&#8217;re supposed to be — where you&#8217;re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate. I really think that he thinks this is an autocracy,&#8221; she said.
Taylor Swift managed to stay largely apolitical throughout her career, but that all changed when feminists began to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/23566/feminists-are-still-angry-taylor-swift-never-emily-zanotti">publicly chastise her</a> for not endorsing Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.
&#8220;If Taylor thinks that her public fallout with Kimye was the most damning public relations nightmare she endured last year, then she should probably expand her news diet,&#8221; wrote Marie Claire magazine at the time. &#8220;Fall of 2016 saw a slew of celebrities become outspokenly involved in the political process, as they should have &#8230; Whether she likes it or not, Taylor&#8217;s politics (or her perceived political apathy) are a part of her reputation, and a song addressing or at least acknowledging that (even if the song did not address her personal politics) would have been welcome.&#8221;
In the fall of 2018, Swift took the criticism to heart by opposing Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) during the midterm elections, choosing to endorse her male opponent, which was followed by her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45771/taylor-swift-donates-113k-lgbtq-advocacy-group-paul-bois">donating </a>$113k to fight for LGBTQ equality.
As to why she remained out of politics during the 2016 election, Swift told The Guardian that she experienced a tremendous amount of family drama that year, forcing her to keep a low-profile in order to maintain her mental health.
&#8220;I was just trying to protect my mental health — not read the news very much, go cast my vote, tell people to vote. I just knew what I could handle and I knew what I couldn&#8217;t. I was literally about to break,&#8221; she said, adding that she felt &#8220;really remorseful for not saying anything.&#8221;
Swift assured her fans that she will be actively engaged in the fight to overthrow President Trump during the 2020 elections.

Taylor Swift Admits She ‘Obviously’ Supports Abortion

Abortion

Scott Swift, the father of country-turned-pop superstar Taylor Swift, apparently has conservative views — and that might have been a problem for the newly Woke entertainer.
According to a report from <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7381421/Taylor-Swifts-father-deletes-private-Facebook-account.html">The Daily Mail</a>, Ms. Swift shared a humorous post from her father&#8217;s Facebook page to her Tumblr account. But once fans stormed Scott&#8217;s page and learned of his *gasp* conservative views, the Tumblr post was deleted, and soon after that, Mr. Swift&#8217;s Facebook page was deactivated.
Some of the posts and re-posts from Scott, according to The Daily Mail, expressed support for police officers, knocked presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), praised the late First Lady Nancy Reagan, and critiqued illegal immigration and entitlements.
One post, emblazoned with “Blue Lives Matter,” showed a young woman and a child allegedly left behind after a police officer was killed on the job. &#8220;Share this to show that police are people too. Stop the violence against America&#8217;s heroes in blue,&#8221; the meme read.
Another shared post featured a photo of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with text that read, &#8220;I no longer recognize this person as a senator. Share if you don&#8217;t either.&#8221;
&#8220;So sad to hear of the passing of Nancy Reagan,&#8221; a status allegedly published by Mr. Swift in March 2016 said. &#8220;Thought the world of those two wonderful people. Golden Years.&#8221;
The meme concerning illegal immigration and entitlements read as follows, according to The Daily Mail:
<blockquote>“The IRS has returned my tax return to me this year after I apparently answered one of the questions incorrectly&#8230; In response to the question, &#8216;Do you have anyone dependent on you?&#8217; I wrote: &#8216;9.5 million illegal immigrants, 1.1 million crack heads, 3.4 million unemployable scroungers, 80,000 criminals in over 85 prisons plus 650 idiots in Washington&#8217;. The IRS stated the answer I gave was ‘unacceptable!'&#8221;</blockquote>
The initial post allegedly shared and then deleted by Ms. Swift was a joke her father made about gaining &#8220;steps&#8221; on his tracker by placing it in the dryer on cool.
&#8220;This man must be stopped,&#8221; the 29-year-old jokingly captioned the post, adding &#8220;parents on the loose&#8221; and &#8220;no more guitar picks for him&#8221; hashtags.
Swift shed her no-politics stance in 2018, coming out to oppose Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn. &#8220;Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. These are not MY Tennessee values,&#8221; Swift <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/36999/msm-when-taylor-swift-comes-out-brave-role-model-joseph-curl">wrote</a> in an Instagram post. &#8220;I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country.&#8221;
The pop princess&#8217; latest album is packed with &#8220;political undertones,&#8221; too. In June, Swift dropped a pro-LGBT video for her hit song &#8220;You Need to Calm Down,&#8221; which essentially tells conservatives engaged in the culture war to shut up. The flamboyant and elitist video, however, received <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48581/taylor-swifts-pro-pride-video-gets-ripped-shreds-james-barrett">fierce criticism</a> from both the Left and Right. &#8220;So [Taylor Swift&#8217;s] new song/video is calming down and not throwing shade yet she stereotypes the protesters&#8230;guess calming down only applies if you agree with her views,&#8221; one unhappy commenter said of the video, as highlighted by left-wing feminist magazine <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/music/a28067315/taylor-swift-you-need-to-calm-down-video-stereotypes/">Cosmopolitan</a>.

Taylor Swift and Scott Swift

Taylor Swift’s Father Allegedly Deactivates Facebook Page After Reportedly Conservative Views Exposed

Forever putting her neutral persona behind her, pop icon Taylor Swift went full social justice warrior at the 2019 Teen Choice Awards on Sunday when she delivered a politically-laced speech while accepting the first Icon Award.
According to <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-uses-teen-choice-icon-award-speech-to-urge-fans-to-stand-up-for-gender-equality-040141869.html">Yahoo News</a>, Swift began her speech by praising U.S. women&#8217;s soccer team player Alex Morgan for standing up for gender equality.
&#8220;First I want to talk about Alex Morgan,&#8221; said Swift. &#8220;The fact that she&#8217;s here presenting this to me is such an honor. Not only winning the World Cup with her amazing teammates, right? But while they were winning the World Cup, they were also taking a historic stand in terms of gender equality, gender pay gaps. Please, please, please support her and her teammates because this isn&#8217;t over yet. It&#8217;s not resolved.&#8221;
&#8220;Get online, talk about it, let people know how you feel about it because what happened to them is unfair,&#8221; Swift continued. &#8220;It&#8217;s happening everywhere, and they are heroes and icons for standing up.&#8221;
Swift made this claim about the gender pay gap between the male and female soccer teams, but a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50053/us-soccer-releases-fact-sheet-showing-womens-team-ashe-schow">recent report</a> from The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ashe Schow showed that the women players were, in fact, over-paid despite losing millions of dollars:
<blockquote>Now USSF President Carlos Cordeiro is pushing back. He wrote an open letter explaining that he directed U.S. Soccer staff to conduct &#8220;an extensive analysis of the past 10 years of U.S. Soccer&#8217;s financials.&#8221; He said the analysis was &#8220;reviewed by an independent accounting firm.&#8221; The analysis showed that the women&#8217;s team was paid more than the men&#8217;s team.
The fact sheet includes bulleted information about the different pay structures for the men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s teams. USSF claimed that it paid &#8220;women $34.1 million in salaries and game bonuses and we paid our men $26.4 million — not counting the significant additional value of various benefits that our women’s players receive but which our men do not.&#8221;
For example, the women&#8217;s team has a guaranteed salary thanks to their collective bargaining agreement with USSF. They receive a base salary of $100,000 each year and an additional salary of $67,500 to $72,500 for playing in the National Women&#8217;s Soccer League. Male soccer players do not have such an agreement.</blockquote>
Not all of Swift&#8217;s speech focused on fact-free talking points about gender pay gaps. At one point, she told teens to embrace mistakes and embarrassment, advising them to have grace for themselves.
&#8220;One thing I wish I would have known when I was a teen is that mistakes are inevitable,&#8221; said Swift. &#8220;I think sometimes you think if you try hard enough to make every decision perfectly, you think you can possibly ace life and never make any mistakes but, it is normal to make mistakes. I just want you to know that if you are out there and you are being really hard on yourself right now for something that has happened, or messing up, or feeling embarrassed, it&#8217;s normal. That&#8217;s what&#8217;s going to happen to you in life. No one gets through unscathed. We&#8217;re all going to have a few scratches on us.&#8221;
Taylor Swift has managed to stay largely apolitical throughout her career, but that all changed when feminists began to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/23566/feminists-are-still-angry-taylor-swift-never-emily-zanotti">publicly chastise her</a> for not endorsing Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.
&#8220;If Taylor thinks that her public fallout with Kimye was the most damning public relations nightmare she endured last year, then she should probably expand her news diet,&#8221; wrote Marie Claire magazine. &#8220;Fall of 2016 saw a slew of celebrities become outspokenly involved in the political process, as they should have &#8230; Whether she likes it or not, Taylor&#8217;s politics (or her perceived political apathy) are a part of her reputation, and a song addressing or at least acknowledging that (even if the song did not address her personal politics) would have been welcome.&#8221;
In the fall of 2018, Swift took the criticism to heart by opposing Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) during the midterm elections, choosing to endorse her male opponent, which was followed by her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45771/taylor-swift-donates-113k-lgbtq-advocacy-group-paul-bois">donating </a>$113k to fight for LGBTQ equality.
Last week, another music icon, Kid Rock, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/50474/kid-rock-slams-taylor-swift-wants-be-democrat-ryan-saavedra">said </a>that Taylor Swift became overtly political because she wanted to start acting more in movies.

Taylor Swift Goes Full SJW At Teen Choice Awards

On Friday, Kid Rock slammed Taylor Swift on Twitter over her decision to inject more politics into her music in a seeming attempt to help Democrats ahead of the 2020 elections.
Kid Rock&#8217;s comments about Swift, which included a crude remark, came after Swift explained to leftist magazine Vogue why she was not politically active in 2016.
Kid Rock tweeted, &#8220;Taylor Swift wants to be a democrat because she wants to be in movies….period. And it looks like she will suck the door knob off Hollyweird to get there. Oldest move in the book. Good luck girl. -Kid Rock&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Taylor Swift wants to be a democrat because she wants to be in movies….period. And it looks like she will suck the door knob off Hollyweird to get there. Oldest move in the book. Good luck girl.
-Kid Rock
— Kid Rock (@KidRock) <a href="https://twitter.com/KidRock/status/1159850492874375168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Swift revealed that she was not politically active in 2016 because she was worried that she would harm then-Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
&#8220;Unfortunately in the 2016 election you had a political opponent who was weaponizing the idea of the celebrity endorsement,&#8221; Swift said, speaking of Trump. &#8220;He was going around saying, &#8216;I&#8217;m a man of the people. I&#8217;m for you. I care about you.&#8217; I just knew I wasn&#8217;t going to help.&#8221;
According to Fox News, Swift noted that her reputation at that time was not good, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-hillary-clinton-politics">saying</a>, &#8220;Also, you know, the summer before that election, all people were saying was, &#8216;She&#8217;s calculated. She&#8217;s manipulative. She&#8217;s not what she seems. She&#8217;s a snake. She&#8217;s a liar.&#8217; These are the same exact insults people were hurling at Hillary. Would I be an endorsement or would I be a liability? &#8216;Look, snakes of a feather flock together. Look, the two lying women. The two nasty women.&#8217; Literally millions of people were telling me to disappear. So I disappeared. In many senses.&#8221;
In May, Swift acknowledged that her music is becoming more political and that she is trying to promote an agenda.
&#8220;I definitely think there are political undertones in the new music I made,&#8221; Swift <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-political-undertones-2020-election">said</a>. &#8220;I’m not planning to stop encouraging young people to vote and to try to get them to talk about what&#8217;s going on in our country. I think that&#8217;s one of the most important things I could do.&#8221;

Celebrities At The Brickyard 400

Kid Rock Slams Taylor Swift: ‘Wants To Be A Democrat Because She Wants To Be In Movies’

Hillary Clinton

Kid Rock

Taylor Swift laid out a series of accusations Sunday after the former manager of Kanye West purchased the rights to all of her past albums for $300 million.
Swift, who has been in the headlines for more than her music increasingly over the last year, posted a <a href="https://taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/185958366550/for-years-i-asked-pleaded-for-a-chance-to-own-my">statement</a> on Tumblr Sunday slamming Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta for selling the rights to all six of her past albums to Scooter Braun, Kanye&#8217;s former manager. Braun, she alleged, was involved in &#8220;incessant, manipulative bullying&#8221; of her &#8220;for years,&#8221; with the help of West and Kardashian.
&#8220;Some fun facts about today’s news: I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world,&#8221; she writes in a &#8220;sad and grossed out&#8221; post on Tumblr Sunday. &#8220;All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years. Like when Kim Kardashian orchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it. (See photo) Or when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked.&#8221;
&#8220;Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy,&#8221; she continues. &#8220;Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.&#8221;
Swift&#8217;s &#8220;revenge porn&#8221; accusation is a reference to Kanye&#8217;s &#8220;Famous&#8221; video in which West appears to be lying in bed with several nude celebrities, including what appears to be a fully naked Swift lying next to him. A few months ago, Swift <a href="https://stylecaster.com/taylor-swift-kanye-west-shade-revenge-porn/">liked</a> a post by one of her fans calling the &#8220;Famous&#8221; video &#8220;straight up revenge porn&#8221;: &#8220;The [&#8216;Famous&#8217;] music video was straight up revenge porn. not to mention putting abuse victims next to their abusers and celebrating sexual assaulters. it was disgusting and he doesn’t get enough crap for it.&#8221; (<a href="https://youtu.be/p7FCgw_GlWc">Here&#8217;s the video; warning: NSFW</a>.)
As <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-kanye-west-scooter-braun-scott-borchetta-bullying">Fox News</a> notes, Swift&#8217;s accusation against Kardashian is a reference to her &#8220;<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/08/25/taylor-swifts-celebrity-feud-history-from-kanye-west-to-katy-perry-and-beyond.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">infamous recording</a> of Swift and West&#8217;s &#8216;snippet&#8217; of a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-goes-on-defensive-once-again-over-famous-song" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">phone call</a> in which [Swift] appeared to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/taylor-swift-bothered-by-misogynistic-kanye-west-lyrics-about-having-sex-with-her" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">give her blessing</a> to the lyrics to his song &#8216;Famous.'&#8221; After Swift publicly denied giving West permission to use her name in the song, Kardashian posted the &#8220;snippet&#8221; on Snapchat.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48581/taylor-swifts-pro-pride-video-gets-ripped-shreds-james-barrett">Taylor Swift&#8217;s Pro-Pride Video Gets Ripped To Shreds By Left And Right</a>
In 2018, Swift <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-record-deal-republic-records-umg-757711/">signed</a> with Republic Records, which she praises in her post for believing &#8220;I should own anything I create.&#8221;
Below is Swift&#8217;s full <a href="https://taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/185958366550/for-years-i-asked-pleaded-for-a-chance-to-own-my">post</a> about Braun on Tumblr:
<blockquote>For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in. I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums.
Some fun facts about today’s news: I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world. All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years.
Like when Kim Kardashian orchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it. (See photo) Or when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked. Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.
This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value’, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it.
When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.
Thankfully, I am now signed to a label that believes I should own anything I create. Thankfully, I left my past in Scott’s hands and not my future. And hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation. You deserve to own the art you make.
I will always be proud of my past work. But for a healthier option, Lover will be out August 23.
Sad and grossed out,
Taylor</blockquote>
Update: Borchetta responded to Swift&#8217;s statement in a lengthy statement of his own, along with some communications and contract documents, in which he maintains that &#8220;Taylor had every chance in the world to own not just her master recordings, but every video, photograph, everything associated to her career. She chose to leave.&#8221; <a href="https://www.bigmachinelabelgroup.com/news/so-its-time-some-truth">Read the full statement here</a>.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47757/taylor-swift-says-question-about-motherhood-sexist-amanda-prestigiacomo">Taylor Swift Deems Question About Motherhood Sexist, Refuses To Answer</a>

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