News that I missed, courtesy of The Babylon Bee:
Florida legislature has revoked Disney’s self-governing status which means that some bold new changes are on the way. Disneyland in California will remain a popular site for human trafficking but the Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL is going to experience a dramatic overhaul.
Take a look at these exciting changes on the way:
1) The Hall of Presidents will just have 46 animatronic Donald Trumps: They are the greatest robots, maybe ever. Everyone says so.
2) Chip and Dale will now reside in separate trees: We can’t let our children be corrupted by cartoon characters having too close of a relationship.
3) Avatar land will be turned into an IP someone actually cares about like Krull: Wield a sentient weapon and save the world!
4) Only the original Star Wars trilogy may be spoken of: The prequel trilogy is too perfect to corrupt with human speech.
5) The only country featured in Epcot will be AMERICA: America is like a highlight reel of all the best countries anyway.
6) All Disney princesses to be replaced with Melania Trump: Finally, real diversity!
7) Weird Disney adults who come without kids will be banned: Yessss!!!
8) Human trafficking is strongly discouraged: And no more kids on leashes, you weirdos!
9) It’s A Small World attraction to be dismantled by tactical nuke: The area will be sealed off for thirty years.
Go here to read the rest.
Some conservatives are dismayed that the House of Mouse is coming under attack by the GOP in Florida. My thoughts:
I have always been a free market conservative, and as much as possible I believe in the separation of Business and State.
I have never been enamored of large corporations that constantly meddle in politics.
Special legislative favors for favored individual corporations have always struck me as bad public policy and probably unconstitutional under Equal Protection analysis.
If corporations seek to play an active role in politics and become overtly partisan, they should not be shocked when legislative favors previously granted to them are rescinded by their political foes. If you want to fight a bull, the horns go with the game.
If I were a Disney stockholder I would be on fire that the value of my stocks was jeopardized because the management of Disney was playing woke political games.
The perception that the Republican party is the mouthpiece for large corporations is dying. The Democrats are welcome to that title.
“The Most Magical Place on Earth” is playing the most stupid game on earth.
While it is obviously not possible to completely separate business and politics given our regulatory system, they need not be in bed together either. There was a reason to offer Disney a break in the beginning as Florida would have been hard pressed to support the required infrastructure by itself. Six decades ago, Florida was not the economic powerhouse it is today. Times change and so do circumstances for the involved parties. It is probably past time to revisit the arrangement for a needed update.
And right on cue, the person responsible for a good chunk of the awful legal advice given to Donald Trump when he was POTUS has chimed in with the retards at National Review. Jenna Ellis huffs and puffs that the revocation of Disney’s special privileges is…a First Amendment violation. Some ultra-libertarian types over at Instapundit are making the same argument, usually citing the Citizens United case. I have asked one of them repeatedly what the specific legal theory would be, and after 24 hours have yet to receive an answer. Perhaps he is doing his research. Don, FOS, other lawyers who frequent this blog, please correct me if I wrong, but I just don’t see any whisper of a 1A violation here. Disney is not being prohibited from engaging in political action. They are simply being forced to operate on the same economic and state regulatory basis as every other Florida business. Yes, the catalyst was their broadside against DeSantis and the Legislature, but the “retaliation” in no way suppresses their right to speak out as a corporation.
The First Amendment in no way prevents consequences from speech. This is not the State attempting to prevent Disney from speaking out or mandating speech by them as in the cake cases. Jenna Ellis is a joke. She is an incompetent associate, at best, masquerading as a legal expert. Trump has a bad habit of surrounding himself with people who will tell him what he wants to hear and he has always had a weakness for photogenic young women willing to perform this function. Her role in the post election legal debacle for Trump should mandate that any legal opinion from her be met with derisive laughter.
I’ve heard that a major influence in giving Disney a special status was that Walt Disney originally intended for EPCOT to be an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow which would have been a futuristic city. This got derailed by Walt Disney’s death.
If I’m not mistaken, the copyrights on the principal Disney characters would have begun to expire in 2003, but have been extended by special favors enacted by the U.S. Congress (just the sort of thing Bitc* McConnell, among others, luhvs to do). Time to return Disney and everyone else to the common-and-garden time limit.