A lawsuit filed be residents of Orange and Osceola counties against Gov. Ron DeSantis in the wake of the Governor’s battle with Disney has been struck down.
Chief United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida Cecilia Maria Altonaga Tuesday issued her order summarily dismissing the lawsuit, which challenged DeSantis after he stripped Reedy Creek, home to Disney’s theme park, of its special status.
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Disney is known as the “happiest place on Earth.” Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo could not disagree more.
Rufo, who has done extensive reporting on Critical Race Theory (CRT), launched the “Drop Disney” campaign against the company earlier this month over the company’s opposition to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, as well as its CRT trainings and promotion of gender ideology in children’s programming. Rufo’s goal is to instruct conservatives to “stop giving money to people who hate you,” and involves boycotting the company’s services and products.
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Corporations previously outspoken about hot-button social issues have stayed quiet on the likely overturning of Roe v. Wade after a dramatic fight between Disney and Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis over the company’s political activism.
Following the leak of a draft opinion indicating the Supreme Court is likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, Democrats are trying to ram through a bill legalizing third trimester abortions; however, corporations are largely staying out of the fray, following Disney’s disastrous battle with Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that ended with the company losing its special tax privileges.
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The Disney executive who helped the company develop its response to Florida’s parental rights bill has left his position after just three months on the job, according to media reports.
Geoff Morrell, who as corporate affairs chief led the company in its ill-fated response to the Florida bill that critics labeled “Don’t Say Gay,” called the job “not the right fit” in a letter to his team obtained by media outlets.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was a featured guest on Fox News’ Ingraham Angle hosted by Laura Ingraham and said his administration is working on additional legislation to address Disney’s tax status after the Florida Legislature repealed the 1960s-era law that established the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
The district allowed Disney to operate relatively autonomously with the ability to tax at its own rate, provide its own police, and supervise its own utilities. Florida Republicans have indicated that the repeal of the improvement district was long overdue.
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In what appears to be a racially-motivated attack, a member of the Florida House of Representatives attacked conservative commentator Candace Owens for her support of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
“He knows how to break the law, violate constitutional rights, lie and bully. There I fixed it for you @RealCandaceO You should be ashamed of what #DeSantisDestroysFlorida is doing to Black communities in Florida. But of course…get them coins girls,” said State Rep. Angie Nixon (D-District 14) on Twitter.
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation on Friday to strip Walt Disney World’s special status that granted the amusement park broad powers to self-govern.
The old agreement, which took place in 1967, has permitted the venue to work as a quasi-governmental agency and maintain the same authority as a county government.
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The Florida Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that strips away Disney’s special self-governing status after the company publicly opposed a parental rights bill that was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis late last month.
Disney released a scathing statement after the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill was officially signed into law.
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In what is being viewed as an escalation in the conflict between Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and The Walt Disney Company, the Florida governor has called a special legislative session to review a 1968 law – designed for the company – that allows it to govern itself.
According to a proclamation from the governor’s office, “it is necessary to review such independent special districts to ensure that they are appropriately serving the public interest,” and that it is “also necessary to consider whether such independent special districts should be subject to special law requirements of the Florida Constitution of 1968.”
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For nearly 70 years, families have traveled to Disney for vacation, not indoctrination.
Sadly, America’s preeminent entertainment company has joined a growing list of corporations bent on pushing woke ideologies.
For decades, Congress has unthinkingly supported these companies. Conservatives need to reassess whether Disney’s bottom line is worth protecting.
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Disney is reportedly assisting employees and their children with sex change and “gender affirmation” procedures through the company’s benefits program.
The company’s “benefits team” is reportedly offering resources and guides to employees transitioning to the opposite gender, as well as information for employees’ children who are transitioning, according to a video shared by Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo.
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The latest escalation in the feud between Governor DeSantis and the Walt Disney Company over the Parental Rights in Education bill involves the possibility of repealing a law that gives Disney special governing privileges.
The Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID) was formed in 1967 to serve the interests of Disney by a special Act of the Florida Legislature and subsequently validated by the Florida Supreme Court.
The arrangements allow Disney to shape the park environment without government oversight.
Richard Foglesong, a Rollins College professor, told the Washington Post that “It’s legal magic. The Reedy Creek government can regulate land use, provide police and fire services, license the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, build roads, lay sewer lines, construct waste-treatment plants, carry out flood projects–even build an airport or nuclear plant, all without local or state approval.”
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Walt Disney corporate employees were reportedly caught on camera discussing efforts to include more LGBT content in the company’s programming during company meetings discussing a Florida education bill, according to videos shared by Manhattan Institute senior fellow and activist Christopher Rufo.
A woman Rufo identified as Latoya Raveneau, an executive producer at Disney, reportedly boasted about injecting “queer” content into children’s shows and said the company made no effort to stop her during a meeting discussing Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, according to one of the leaked videos. The legislation, which bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, was signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Monday.
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Walt Disney world has officially condemned Florida’s new anti-grooming legislation, and says it will do its best to fight against the new law.
“Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law,” the company said in a Tuesday statement.
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Not long after signing the “Anti-Grooming” Parental Rights in Education bill into law on Monday, Governor DeSantis’ office fielded questions about concerns related to possible boycotts of Florida businesses.
The legislation, which bans educators from exposing students from kindergarten to third grade (5 to 8-year-olds) to detailed lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation, was dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
But among Americans, the proposal enjoyed broad support. One poll by Politico/Morning Consult found that 52 percent of respondents agreed that young children should not be taught the sophisticated concepts underpinning gender and sexual ideologies. Only 33 percent opposed the bill, while 15 percent said they had no opinion.
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A new poll of Democrat voters in Florida shows that a majority of Democrats support limits on teaching sexual orientation in schools as required by the Parental Rights in Education bill.
The poll was conducted from March 17-20 for Floridians for Economic Advancement, a political committee that has supported state legislative candidates from both parties.
The poll comes amid national protests against the Parental Rights in Education bill that critics have labeled the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The bill “prohibits a school district from encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”
The main focus of the poll was the Democrat gubernatorial primary. Those results indicated that shows 43% of likely Democratic Primary voters favor Charlie Crist, with 33% picking Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, and 15% liking state Sen. Annette Taddeo. Only about 8% of respondents started out unsure.
However, the poll also asked about a specific provision of the Parental Rights in Education bill.
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First it was Governor DeSantis blasting Disney, now Florida Democrats have decided to take a shot at the mega-corporation that employees over 60,000 Floridians.
The Florida Democratic Party said Tuesday that it is moving its major fundraising event from a Disney World venue due to pressure from the LGBTQ community. The event was initially scheduled to take place on June 18.
The move comes after the Florida Democratic Party’s LGBTQ caucus called on candidates to oppose the party’s gala at Disney amid the fallout from the controversial “Parental Rights” bill.
“Scheduling Leadership Blue at Disney during Pride Month this year is nothing but tone deaf. To put it another way: FDP — read the room,” Florida LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus President Stephen Gaskill said prior to decision to move the event.
In addition, Disney has been faced with employee staged walkouts and social media campaigns in response to the Florida legislation.
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During the 2022 legislative session Florida Republicans took actions to distance themselves from some of Florida’s biggest corporations – Governor DeSantis called out Disney, and the Florida Legislature let a corporate income tax break expire.
The publisher of floridapolitics.com, Peter Schorsch, tweeted that corporations “got (royally) screwed during Session.” This assessment goes against the traditional narrative that corporate political donations pad Republican campaign accounts and tax breaks and lax regulation follow.
The most public rebuke of corporate interests was on display during the controversy between Governor DeSantis and Disney CEO Bob Chapek as related to the Parental Rights in Education legislation. The controversy made headlines across the U.S. and put the two powerful executives in a very public battle.
A day after Chapek publicly condemned the bill that would ban classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity before fourth grade, DeSantis ripped Disney before a roomful of supporters. He called Disney a “Woke corporation” and criticized its business interests in China.”
But Chapek should not have been surprised by the DeSantis response.
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On the same day that Disney employees walked out in protest of Florida’s new anti-grooming bill, three employees of the children’s theme park were caught in a sex crime bust, and at least one was charged with a child sex crime.
Employees Ralph Leese, Wilakson Fidele and Xavier Jackson have been placed on unpaid leave, Disney told The Florida Capital Star, declining to comment further.
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The Walt Disney Company on Friday announced that it would suspend political donations in the state of Florida amid controversy over the state’s passage of a parental rights bill, one that critics have falsely claimed implements a “Don’t Say Gay” rule in education there.
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Disney’s streaming service pulled an episode of ‘The Simpsons” that mocked Chinese censorship of the Tiananmen Square Massacre from its Hong Kong platform, according to multiple reports.
The episode, titled “Goo Goo Gai Pan,” featured the Simpson family traveling to Beijing, where they walk past a plaque in Tiananmen Square, the site of the 1989 massacre, that read: “On this site, in 1989, nothing happened.” Homer Simpson also referred to former Chinese leader Mao Zedong as “a little angel that killed 50 million people” in the episode.
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The Lincoln Project is primarily known for 2 things: their young male grooming scandal, and neocons raising money from liberal elites.
Now, the Lincoln Project is running ads going after Trump and Republican donors as well as advertisers on conservative media, attempting to link them to causing COVID or the January 6th Capitol riot.
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A new report claims the Walt Disney Company is pushing “critical race theory” on its employees as part of an internal training program, teaching them “race consciousness” and other concepts to address “systemic racism” in the U.S.
Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo on Friday published what he says are a “trove of whistleblower documents” detailing a program titled “Reimagine Tomorrow.”
Rudo also provides in his report what he says are primary-source documents that appear to be pages of a training manual.
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Disney has announced that the beloved “National Treasure” film franchise will be rebooted into a TV series that will feature a young female DREAMer as its main character, as reported by Breitbart.
The new series will premiere on Disney’s exclusive streaming platform Disney+, with the show’s description declaring that the story will be told “from the point of view of Jess Morales, a twenty-year-old DREAMer who, with her diverse group of friends, sets off on the adventure of a lifetime to uncover her mysterious family history and recover lost treasure.”
“DREAMer” refers to the failed amnesty bill known as the DREAM Act, which Barack Obama tried to get passed through Congress while he was in office. When the bill could not garner bipartisan support to pass, he took the highly unconstitutional action of implementing most of the DREAM Act via executive order, which came to be known as the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” or DACA order. This order pledged to give blanket amnesty to illegal aliens who arrived in the United States as minors, and since the signing of the executive order, has become a legal and political football that has bounced from one court to another trying to determine its legality.
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Disney’s new streaming service, Disney+, has begun attaching formal disclaimers to many of its products at the start of each movie or TV show declaring that the content may be “offensive,” as reported by the New York Post.
Among these products is “The Muppets Show,” which begins with a disclaimer that the show features “negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now.” The disclaimer continues to say that “rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it, and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.”
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