Free Republic

Technical preparations for Russia's disconnection from the SWIFT interbank information system have begun. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba announced this on his Facebook page. “The official decision has not been drawn up yet, but technical preparations for the decision and implementation of this sanction have already begun. We pushed and pushed and we succeeded. The entire vertical of Ukrainian diplomacy worked for that - from the President of Ukraine to the attaché at the Ukrainian embassy,” Kuleba wrote. The Minister also thanked all the numerous people, in particular the Ukrainian diaspora, who put pressure on the...

Germany and Italy are now both reportedly ready to remove Russia from the SWIFT banking system. They were the only two known holdouts. If Russia loses access to SWIFT, the financial implosion of Russia will be, ahem, swift. Bring it on!— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) February 25, 2022

Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Cyprus are blocking Russia's disconnection from the international interbank system SWIFT as CNN reported. “Removing Russia from SWIFT would make it almost impossible for financial institutions to send money in or out of the country. This would seriously impact Russian businesses with foreign customers and could do real damage to the country's economy,” the message says. At the same time, high-ranking EU sources report that there is a split in the union amid the adoption of the issue. It is noted that such countries as Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Cyprus are against disconnecting Russia from the...

A global conflict between the great powers of the world is already "in full swing,” according to a senior Russian diplomat, and it's happening in cyberspace. "The war [in cyberspace] is underway and unfolding very intensively,” the Russian Foreign Ministry’s international information security director, Alexander Krutskikh, told a political science conference on Thursday. “The media rightly says that this [is] a Third World War, and what matters now is to calculate the damage and determine who will lose it in the end and what shape the world will eventually acquire as a result of this war.”... ...“No matter how hard...

Taylor Swift fans have bad blood with Scooter Braun, and one Democrat hopes this might help him become the next governor of Virginia. Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe has purchased a series of ads aimed at fans of Swift, tying his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, to the contentious sale of her master recordings, The Verge reports. In 2019, record executive Scooter Braun's company Ithaca Holdings purchased Swift's record label Big Machine Label Group, obtaining control of the singer's masters in a purchase she spoke out against and is controversial among her fans.

“If we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). God is light, and His children share His nature. First John 1:5 aptly describes God’s nature as “light” (truth and holiness). Because they partake of His nature (2 Peter 1:4), His children also walk in the light. It must be understood that we don’t become God’s children by walking in the light, but rather we walk in the light because we are His children. The Greek...

The album will have 15 songs and cost $9.99 for a digital copy of the record.

Mega pop star and Democratic Party activist Taylor Swift is attacking President Donald Trump over the U.S. Postal Service, claiming that the president is trying to cheat his way to victory in November by “dismantling” the beleaguered federal agency. “Trump’s calculated dismantling of USPS proves one thing clearly,” Swift tweeted Saturday. “He is WELL AWARE that we do not want him as our president. He’s chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power.” Trump’s calculated dismantling of USPS proves one thing clearly: He is WELL AWARE that we...

In an unexpected crossover feud, Taylor Swift called out the Soros family by name Thursday night, escalating a long-running feud with entertainment executive Scooter Braun. "I want to thank my fans for making me aware that my former record label is putting out an 'album' of live performances of mine tonight," Swift posted in a heated Instagram story post. "This recording is from a 2008 radio show performance I did when I was 18. Big Machine has listed the date as a 2017 release but they're actually releasing it tonight at midnight. I'm always honest with you guys about this...

Pop star Taylor Swift said the Soros Family is driven by “shameless greed in the time of coronavirus” over their role in the digital release of an unapproved album composed of a live radio show performance she did in 2008. The left-wing singer shredded Soros and power manager Scooter Braun in a lengthy Instagram message. “Hey Guys – I want to thank my fans for making me aware that my former record label is putting out an “album” of live performances of mine tonight. This recording is from a 2008 radio show performance I did when I was 18. Big...

Pop star Taylor Swift describes Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) as a “homophobic racist” and “Trump in a whig” in her newly released Netflix documentary Miss Americana. But Blackburn, perhaps anticipating the attacks, took the high ground this week and issued a statement in which she offers to work with the Grammy-winning singer. “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...

It was, to quote a certain Victorian author, the best of times and the worst of times at the Sundance Film Festival. Or, in the words of another one of history’s great scribes: “The players gonna play, play, play, play, play and the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.” Those, of course, are the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off.” And while the song isn’t featured in Swift’s documentary “Miss Americana” — most likely, as a result of a legal battle with Scooter Braun, who now owns the catalog of most of Swift’s hits — there was still...

The atrocious response from audiences and critics toward the feature adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats has no doubt upset execs at Universal and Working Title this weekend. 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. In an age when...

Kanye West tweeted a heavily marked-up bible verse on Sunday night, and fans could not help but notice he posted it right as Taylor Swift was winning the Artist of the Decade Award at the AMAs. The rapper has a complicated history with Swift and with award shows, but he is putting all of his focus and energy on his spirituality this days. Fans wondered what Sunday's selection was meant to say. West posted a picture of a bible page on Sunday night in the middle of the American Music Awards of 2019. The book was open to Daniel 3:27,...

Justice for Taylor Swift! Yeah, now that's a cause that your average working American can get behind. And it is also a cause taken up by presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren which has resulted in widespread mockery. Okay, the mockery hasn't quite reached the levels inspired by the reaction to her hyping of a DNA test last year that revealed that Warren is maybe 1/1024 Native American but it is up there. Warren tweeted her support for Swift in the multi-millionaire's contractual dispute with other millionaires that we should somehow care about as reported by Variety on Saturday in, "Elizabeth Warren Backs...

Pop superstar left-wing activist Taylor Swift has been accused of whipping up her fan base in a calculated way that is endangering the employees of her old recording label, which is currently embroiled in a bitter feud with the singer. Big Machine Records said that it was attempting to privately resolve its ongoing dispute when the singer decided on Thursday to air her grievances to her millions of social media followers. What followed is a war of words that has escalated to dramatic effect in less than a day. “Despite our persistent efforts to find a private and mutually satisfactory...

Taylor Swift will be heading to the Middle Kingdom to kick off the biggest shopping event in the world next month. The 29 year old singer has been confirmed to perform at Alibaba’s 11.11 Countdown Gala at Shanghai's Mercedes-Benz Arena on November 10, per Alizila. Swift will be joined by a number of Chinese performers such as G.E.M., Hua Chenyu, Kana Hanazawa, Ju Jingyi, Li Ronghao, Luo Yunxi, Jackson Yee, Zhang Jie and Zhang Yixing. The news of Swift's confirmation comes as the Chinese government has come under fire over the country banning South Park following an episode that was...

All three networks couldn’t stop gushing over pop star Taylor Swift’s liberal awakening on full display at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards. While accepting an award, the singer called on the White House to respond to a Change.org petition to pass the “equality act” a federal level law banning “discrimination” against transgender and gay people. ABC, NBC and CBS gave Swift the royalty treatment, praising her “powerful” and “intelligent” “transformation” embracing the left. On Good Morning America, correspondent T.J. Holmes was enthusiastic at how quickly the awards show turned political: “The VMAs started at 8:00 eastern live last night....

The Chinese state propaganda outlet Global Times cited the words of pop superstar Taylor Swift in an attack on President Donald Trump on Monday after she accused him of “gaslighting” his opponents into questioning their own love for the country. In a piece titled “Why Are the Chinese Brushing Aside Trump’s Tweets?” opinion writer Mu Lu tries to downplay Beijing’s reported concern at Trump’s warnings against China last week, when he ordered American companies to immediately leave China and move their production back to the United States. “The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United...

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris may have put the Taylor Swift block vote in jeopardy, thanks to holding a fundraiser at Swift archrival Scooter Braun’s home in Los Angeles on Saturday night. The Swifties recoiled at the news of the fundraiser at Braun’s Brentwood home. He’s been enmeshed in a feud with the singer over ownership of her back catalog, which he acquired by buying the Big Machine Record Group, which included her early albums. The singer’s fans have since demonized him, even though he insists he gave her opportunities to acquire the catalog. Braun is a longtime supporter of...