Disney sues DeSantis ‘within minutes’ of his latest act of retaliation

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Disney sues DeSantis ‘within minutes’ of his latest act of retaliation​

Hunter for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
Wednesday April 26, 2023 · 10:20 AM PDT


Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has really done it now. The Walt Disney Company has had enough of the Republican's drive to do real business damage against the global megacorporation for the sake of his fading presidential ambitions, and they're taking DeSantis to court over it. And Disney is infamous for its deep-pocketed legal battles.
In a newly filed lawsuit, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is suing Desantis and an array of Florida officials from the Florida Department of Economic Security, and Central Florida Tourism Oversight District for "a targeted campaign of government retaliation—orchestrated at every step by Governor DeSantis as punishment for Disney's protected speech."

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After the 2022 election, Republicansdeclare war on younger voters

Today’s action is the latest strike: At the Governor’s bidding, the State’s oversight board has purported to “void” publicly noticed and duly agreed development contracts, which had laid the foundation for billions of Disney’s investment dollars and thousands of jobs. This government action was patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional. But the Governor and his allies have made clear they do not care and will not stop. The Governor recently declared that his team would not only “void the development agreement”—just as they did today—but also planned “to look at things like taxes on the hotels,” “tolls on the roads,” “developing some of the property that the district owns” with “more amusement parks,” and even putting a “state prison” next to Walt Disney World. “Who knows? I just think the possibilities are endless,” he said.

[...]
Governor DeSantis and his allies paid no mind to the governing structure that facilitated Reedy Creek’s successful development until one year ago, when the Governor decided to target Disney. There is no room for disagreement about what happened here: Disney expressed its opinion on state legislation and was then punished by the State for doing so.

Disney has a very strong case. Even if the infamously litigious Mouse did not have an army of lawyers at its disposal, the DeSantis campaign to punish Disney for speaking up against DeSantis-promoted state culture wars (specifically, the state's new "Don't Say Gay" laws) was publicly broadcast and even bragged about. Dissolution of the Reedy Creek Improvement District was itself expressly framed as based on Republican displeasure with Disney’s speech.
Republican elected officials have threatened over and over to retaliate against American companies that speak out against their culture-war pronouncements, but it's difficult to imagine a target DeSantis could have chosen that would have been worse for him. The company is, rightly or wrongly, beloved. The company is a truly massive employer, both in Florida and elsewhere. It is so influential that the federal government has repeatedly rewritten copyright laws for the purpose of protecting the company's interest over that of the general public. The company has one of the most feared legal teams on the entire planet.
And the Walt Disney Company is, on this one, completely in the right.

Disney finds itself in this regrettable position because it expressed a viewpoint the Governor and his allies did not like. Disney wishes that things could have been resolved a different way. But Disney also knows that it is fortunate to have the resources to take a stand against the State’s retaliation—a stand smaller businesses and individuals might not be able to take when the State comes after them for expressing their own views. In America, the government cannot punish you for speaking your mind.

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The past week seems to have packed in a month’s worth of news. Markos and Kerry tackle it all, from Joe Biden’s big announcement to Tucker Carlson’s early retirement from Fox News.

 

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Ron DeSantis’ latest move against Disney BACKFIRES instantly​

12,770 views Apr 27, 2023
Disney sued Gov. Ron DeSantis just minutes after the expected the flailing governor's handpicked board declared a Disney-friendly deal null and void. Legal analyst Dina Doll reports.

Steve Rattner: DeSantis has taken on more than he can bite off with Disney​

 

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(Like it says above, Meatball Ron has taken on more than he can bite off with Disney

Disney Is Using Ron DeSantis' Memoir As Evidence In Their Lawsuit Against Him​

22,330 views May 8, 2023
Ron DeSantis wrote in his recently-published memoir that he had no choice but to go after Disney after they publicly spoke out against his "Don't Say Gay" legislation. And this passage is what Disney is using as concrete evidence that the governor targeted them for retaliation in their lawsuit against him. In fact, in the initial filing, Disney actually mentions the passage as justification for their lawsuit. DeSantis is getting screwed over by his own arrogance, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. You know, for the longest time I had said that Ron DeSantis worries me more than Donald Trump because Ron DeSantis, unlike Donald Trump, is actually competent, right? He's able to do the horrible things that he wants to do versus Donald Trump, who for the most part only talked about them but was never able to accomplish them. May have to take that statement back though, because after going through this lawsuit that Disney has filed against Ron DeSantis, I'm starting to believe this guy's not as competent as I was giving him credit for because as it turns out in this lawsuit that Disney has filed against Ron DeSantis, they specifically pulled passages from his own book and passages from an op-ed he wrote for the Wall Street Journal back in February to prove, to prove that he retaliated against them for speaking out about the don't say gay legislation. That's why he stripped them of their special tax district. And of course that is why they are suing him. So let me read these passages. And these aren't just passages again from his book. These are passages from his book that Disney mentioned in the lawsuit that they filed. Here it is in promising to work to repeal the bill, the company was pledging a frontal assault on a duly elected law, uh, enacted law of the state of Florida as a consequence of its disfavored speech and petitioning things got worse for Disney. The Disney complaint carefully lays out the DeSantis first Disney timeline, quoting the governor's literary musings on his efforts to rid the company of its special tax district. Quote, I needed to be sure that the legislature would be willing to tackle the potentially thorny issue involving the state's most powerful company. I asked the house speaker Chris Sprouse if he would be willing to do it, and Chris was interested. Okay, here's the deal. I told him we need to work on this in a very tight circle and there can be no leaks. We need the element of surprise. Nobody can see this coming. Yeah, that totally sounds like something you were doing just because you were tired of their special tax district, right? Oh, you are gonna be screwed over by your own words. So hard and I am so here for it. It gets even worse for Ron because as I mentioned, there was a February Wall Street Journal op-ed, where he said this, when corporations try to use their economic power to take advance, uh, to advance a woke agenda, they become political and not merely economic actors in such an environment. Reflex, uh, reflexively deferring two big business effectively surrenders the political battlefield to the militant left. Leaders must stand up and fight back when big corporations make the mistake as Disney did, of using their economic mite to advance a political agenda. We are making Florida the state where the economy flourishes because we are the state where woke goes to die. None of that is justification for the legislation that you passed, specifically attacking Disney and only attacking Disney. So that seems like a big problem because all of the words of yours that I just read, you know, aside, I know you used a lot of big words to try to sound smarter than you actually are. Um, to me that's kind of the smoking gun in this situation here, right? Nowhere do you talk about how horrible it is that Disney has this special district, how they have abused their power.