Yesterday, while DeSantis was pretending to be a statesman by flying around the world bothering people, Disney, Florida’s second biggest private employer— after Publix Super Markets— was filing a lawsuit against Governor Meatball, claiming that he waged a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” against it. AP reported this morning that “The lawsuit was filed in Tallahassee minutes after a Disney World oversight board appointed by DeSantis voted to void a deal that gave the company authority over design and construction decisions in its sprawling properties near Orlando. ‘Disney regrets that it has come to this,’ the case said. ‘But having exhausted efforts to seek a resolution, the Company is left with no choice but to file this lawsuit to protect its cast members, guests, and local development partners from a relentless campaign to weaponize government power against Disney in retaliation for expressing a political viewpoint unpopular with certain State officials.’ The legal filing is the latest salvo in a more than year-old feud between Disney and DeSantis that has engulfed the governor in criticism as he prepares to launch an expected presidential bid in the coming months.”
DeSantis’ war against Disney—as well as his other signature neo-fascist culture war positions— is popular among MAGA Republicans and unpopular among normal American voters. Although 44% of Republicans said they had a more favorable view of DeSantis because of the fight with Disney, 73% of respondents— including 82% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans— said they were less likely to support a political candidate who backs laws designed to punish a company for its political or cultural stances. And even 37% of Republicans agree with normal Americans who said DeSantis was punishing Disney for exercising free speech. Independents also leaned toward viewing DeSantis' actions as punitive. Overall, his support among Republican voters has been evaporating in contests against Trump.
DeSantis, who has framed himself as a Republican firebrand able to deftly implement his conservative agenda without drama, has dived headlong into the fray with the beloved company and major tourism driver, as business leaders and White House rivals bash his stance as a rejection of the small-government tenets of conservatism.
“We are unaware of any legal right that a company has to operate its own government or maintain special privileges not held by other businesses in the state,” said DeSantis spokeswoman Taryn Fenske. “This lawsuit is yet another unfortunate example of their hope to undermine the will of the Florida voters and operate outside the bounds of the law.”
The fight began last year after Disney, in the face of significant pressure, publicly opposed a state law that bans classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades, a policy critics call “Don’t Say Gay.”
As punishment, DeSantis took over Disney World’s self-governing district and appointed a new board of supervisors that would oversee municipal services in the sprawling theme parks. But before the new board came in, the company pushed though an 11th-hour agreement that stripped the new supervisors of much of their authority.
The DeSantis board on Wednesday said Disney’s move to retain control over their property was effectively unlawful and performed without proper public notice.
“Disney picked the fight with this board. We were not looking out for a fight,” said Martin Garcia, chair of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, before the vote, adding “bottom line, what our lawyers have told us, is factually and legally what they created is an absolute legal mess. It will not work.”
DeSantis has also vowed additional retribution, with proposals to enhance state oversight of the resort’s rides and monorail, as well as a suggestion to build a prison nearby. Also Wednesday, the Florida Senate passed a bill seeking to put those retributions in place and to undo agreements made by the Reedy Creek board before the state took it over. The House still needs to approve before it can move forward.
Disney has said all agreements made with the previous board were legal and approved in a public forum. Disney CEO Bob Iger has also said that any actions against the company that threaten jobs or expansion at its Florida resort was not only “anti-business” but “anti-Florida.”
The Disney lawsuit asks a federal judge to void the governor’s takeover of the theme park district, as well as the DeSantis oversight board’s actions, on the grounds that they were violations of company’s free speech rights.
“A targeted campaign of government retaliation— orchestrated at every step by Governor DeSantis as punishment for Disney’s protected speech— now threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights,” the lawsuit said.
Trump and Nikki Haley have weighed in on Meatball’s clumsy attempts to punish Disney but no one has summed up the DeSantis problem more elegantly than the Rude Pundit last week, who wrote that “There was never a chance in heaven or hell that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who looks like a 1980s shop teacher who gets off on breaking the birdhouses the kids make to prove ‘you can't build shit, you little pussy,’ was going to win the Republican nomination for president. I mean, put aside that Donald Trump owns the GOP no matter how much a few feckless fucks fail to pry it away from his tiny hands. DeSantis has all the personality of an angry Starbucks manager and all the charm of the least charming dung beetle. If you bottled DeSantis's vibe as a scent, it would be ‘old scrotum and expired Axe body spray.’ I mean, in Vegas terms, DeSantis is pissed off that the drunks at the buffet at the Tropicana aren't enjoying his terrible magic show while Trump is Siegfried and Roy rolled into one sparkly orange suit. Beyond personality, though, DeSantis has been repeatedly stepping on his dick, misreading this moment in American history. The retro right in this country think that it's time to turn back the clock on everything, on abortion rights, on multiculturalism, on gender identity, on our understanding of history. With a complicit legislature, DeSantis has embraced this as his agenda, and he preens and prances around the country, pretending that he's some great warrior when, really, he's just ‘that prick, you know, that prick from Florida.’”
You can't go around saying stupid shit like "We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die" like DeSantis did in South Carolina this week, a variation on shit he's been saying for months. It's one thing to use the garbage word "woke" to describe everything you don't like. It's something completely different to stand there and pretend that you are some mighty warrior against...who exactly? School teachers? Writers? Cultural theorists? It's one thing to be a simpering little bitch about racism or drag queens. It's another thing altogether when you steal the language that Winston Churchill used in rallying people to fight the Nazis, you know, the ones who actually threatened to bomb and kill their way to conquering England, and use it to show that you are so tough that you'll pass a law that bans books about same sex penguins from classrooms. It's not remotely comparable and you just look like a pussy-ass tool for implying it.
In everything that DeSantis does, he has paths laid out for him: the rational, walk away, sweep it under the rug, everyone will forget about it path or the biggest fucking asshole in the world path. DeSantis has never seen an issue where he doesn't walk that asshole path. He could have just let it go when the Disney corporation criticized the "Don't Say Gay" bill that prevented any discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity from K-3 classrooms. Nope. Motherfucker decided it was time to take a stand and attack Disney, one of the biggest employers in the state and, you know, fucking Disney. When Disney outmaneuvered DeSantis on the board that oversees the district Disney World is in, when DeSantis got pimp-slapped by a fucking cartoon mouse (with billions of dollars and the best legal team those billions can buy behind it), he didn't say, "Fuck it" and take the L. Nope again. He expanded "Don't Say 'Gay'" through 12th grade and threatened to do desperate shit like open a prison next to Disney. It's the kind of thing that can get other Republicans to say, "What the fuck are you doing?" to the governor, who got fucking married at Disney.
On abortion, on book bans, on concealed weapons, on academic free speech, and more, DeSantis is, yes, doing what he campaigned on, but it's fucking exhausting the Republicans in the state. The nation, especially young voters, look at Florida as if all you'll retch from the stink of sargassum, the seaweed that's smells like rotten eggs when it bakes in the sun, as it will when a giant patch of it lands on Florida's beaches soon. This is not to mention that Donald Trump is smacking around DeSantis with the sadistic glee of an abusive father whose son isn't wearing a suit to a baseball game. Jesus, that must be harsh, considering that DeSantis used his kids in a 2018 ad talking about how vigorously he sucked Trump's dick. And we oddly don't talk anymore about DeSantis kidnapping a bunch of migrants in Texas and flying them to Martha's Vineyard at taxpayer expense. He's just a fucking repulsive pit of pig shit.
unless trump is convicted of treason, he can still win. and don't pretend that trump will EVER go to prison for anything. you know that your democraps are pussies. they refused to charge nixon, reagan, HW and cheney for treason. The case against trump is open/shut/slam dunk. but nobody will ever be charged because democraps are such pussies who put their party and money far above the nation, their oath to protect the constitution, the people in the shithole... who don't matter at all.
The NY AG might get him for taxes or frauds; someone may get him for rapes; but he's never going to prison.
he'll be fuhrer unless he dies. he has many states ready to send fak…
As per the title of this piece, how come TFG, who attempted to overthrow the election in many ways, is able to still run for office? The Constitution clearly say this is NOT okay !! I am thinking the Constitution is unenforceable. Also, various statutes appear to be unenforceable.
What the hell Is going on?