It is NOT the Supreme Court’s job to make moral judgements. However, that right is in jeopardy following the shocking news that Roe v. Wade is in danger of being overturned. Caroline Johnson breaks it down on Rebel HQ.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and most Republicans in Florida won’t return hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash they received from the entertainment giant.
Disney has given the Republican Party of Florida $255,000 in checks since January 2021 as well as nearly $142,000 worth of in-kind donations that covered lodging, food and entertainment costs of visiting Disney parks. | Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vilified the Walt Disney Co. as “dishonest” and hypocritical. He pushed to strip it of a special tax status and punish its leaders for challenging his policies.
But DeSantis and most Republicans in Florida, where Disney operates its flagship theme park, won’t return hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash they received from the entertainment giant.
Most won’t even discuss it.
Disney and its affiliates have donated more than $2.3 million in Florida this election cycle, which includes money to elected officials, their political committees and committees run by one of the state’s main business groups. That total includes providing hotel rooms and theme park tickets as well as campaign checks. Money has flowed to individual legislators as well as political committees controlled by Republican and Democratic leaders.
But DeSantis and many state Republicans have refused to return campaign contributions to the California-based entertainment giant, which they have blasted over Disney’s opposition to a law that bans instruction of gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade. Late last month, DeSantis and the Legislature stripped the company of special privileges that allowed it to operate as its own municipal government in central Florida.
Disney has given the Republican Party of Florida $255,000 in checks since January 2021 as well as nearly $142,000 worth of in-kind donations that covered lodging, food and entertainment costs of visiting Disney parks. The party, however, declined to answer questions about whether it would return any donations.
DeSantis’ reelection campaign, which received through its political committee $50,000 from Disney in March 2021 as well as an additional $50,000 two years earlier, has not returned it even as the Republican governor regularly attacks the company. The campaign declined to comment on the donations received from Disney.
“They have gotten a free ride in this state for 50 years and I think they got arrogant,” DeSantis told more than 250 people earlier this week at a fundraising dinner for the Leon County Republican Party, where he was the keynote speaker. “They think they call the shots and I think they think the rest of us are just going to bow down and say, ‘OK, whatever you want.’ Not with this sheriff in town. That’s not going to happen.”
The amount of money given won’t make or break any candidate or elected official. But it highlights how the governor is willing to accept tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions while at the same time punishing the company, a move a state Democrat called “performative.”
The Republican sponsor of the bill that triggered the fight between DeSantis and Disney was one of a handful of Republicans in the state that returned contributions to Disney.
State Rep. Joe Harding (R-Williston), who sponsored the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, sent back more than $8,000 he had gotten from Disney. His bill — which opponents labeled “Don’t Say Gay” — has been called a broad attack against the LGBTQ community. Some say it could further marginalize some students and lead to bullying and even suicide.
“I can’t be aligned with a corporation taken over by the woke Leftist mob mentality coming out of California and other blue states,” Harding said in a statement. He was one of three Republicans who returned Disney’s money.
Harding shrugged off questions about Republicans holding on their donations from Disney.
“I did it simply on principle on my end, I don’t have an opinion positive or negative on other folks,” Harding said in a phone interview. “Those are decisions they made. For me, I felt it was something I needed to do. I never looked at it as creating a movement.”
Harding’s move to return the funds came days after the Florida Democratic Party abruptly scrapped plans to hold its biggest annual fundraiser at Disney World after the party’s LGBTQ caucus and other top Democrats threatened to boycott the event. Disney gave $138,881 to the Florida Democratic Party during this election cycle, of which $113,881 was in-kind contributions.
Disney in March announced it would pause making campaign donations in Florida amid a backlash over its jumbled response to Harding’s bill, though the company only publicly criticized the measure after it faced harsh criticism from employees and activists for not taking a stand. The company also said it hoped that the law was repealed or struck down by the courts. A federal lawsuit has already been filed by a group of LGBTQ advocates. It was Disney’s push to advocate for repeal of the law that raised the ire of DeSantis and other Republicans.
In his remarks to Republicans this week, DeSantis called “it one of the dumbest things any corporation has ever done.”
Records show that Disney gave the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign more than $380,000 in checks and in-kind donations in the past 15 months, including a check for $65,000 at the start of this year’s legislative session in January. That political committee, controlled by incoming Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and previously run by state Senate President Wilton Simpson, has not returned the funds.
The political committee helping Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody, who may have to defend the state if Disney sues over the law dissolving its special privileges, received $25,000 last year from Disney. Her reelection campaign also declined to comment.
Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, a Republican ally of DeSantis and whose political committee received a $10,000 check in February as well as $51,000 worth of lodging, travel and other expenses last September from the company, was one of the few who defended holding on to money from Disney.
“Those who contribute to [Patronis’] political committees are supporting his agenda to keep taxes low and our financial health strong,” said Melissa Stone, a spokesperson for his reelection campaign. “The CFO doesn’t expect to agree with any donor 100 percent of the time. As the father of two sons, CFO Patronis wholeheartedly supports the Governor and his efforts to protect parental rights in education — especially when it comes to protecting public school children in kindergarten through 3rd grade.”
State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando), however, said Republicans’ refusal to return Disney’s money highlights the theater of the situation.
“If Disney is so ‘woke’ and profits off communist China (as DeSantis has stated before) then why are Republicans not returning the millions they’ve received in ‘woke money?” Eskamani asked in a text message. “This is petty, punitive and performative politics — Florida Republicans are such good actors they should be hired by Disney.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) doubled down on Friday, warning that the state will not “subsidize” Disney’s “corporate speech” and vowing that the woke company “is not going to have its own government in Florida.” https://t.co/OTqrsyOqwx
Data on transgender students from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published Thursday. (CDC)
Nearly 2 percent of high school students in the United States identify as transgender, according to data published Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Other data show:
27 percent feel unsafe at school or traveling to or from campus.
35 percent are bullied at school.
35 percent attempt suicide.
Amit Paley, chief executive and executive director of the Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth, called the report’s findings “groundbreaking.”
“This is the first time we’ve had a federal government report of this magnitude showing that transgender youth exist in this country and in larger numbers than researchers had previously estimated,” he said in an interview. The report, he said, shows “the very real health risks” transgender youth face in school.
Paley said the Trump administration has moved to “erase the identity of transgender youth.” The administration has rolled back or frozen Obama-era anti-discrimination rules aimed at protecting the LGBTQ community in health, education and other areas.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed President Trump’s broad restrictions on transgender people serving in the military to go into effect while the policy is fought in lower courts. In 2017, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s first major policy act was to support Trump’s decision to rescind the guidance protecting the right of transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice.
The data published by the CDC comes from the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 10 states and nine large urban school districts. The survey is conducted biennially among a representative sample of U.S. high school students in the ninth through 12th grades. The findings were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, an epidemiological digest with public health information and recommendations sent to the CDC by state health departments.
In 2017, 10 states and nine urban school districts piloted a measure of transgender identity. The states were Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. The urban school districts included Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, the District, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Francisco and Broward County, Fla.
The CDC said it pooled data from the 19 sites to assess the prevalence of transgender identity and the relationship between transgender identity and violence victimization, substance use, suicide risk and sexual risk behaviors. Transgender students were more likely to report substance use, suicide risk and being victims of violence, and, although more likely to report some sexual risk behaviors, they were also more likely to be tested for HIV infection, the CDC said.
“These findings indicate a need for intervention efforts to improve health outcomes among transgender youths,” the report said.
Across the 19 sites, 94.4 percent of students responded, “No, I am not transgender”; 1.8 percent responded, “Yes, I am transgender”; 1.6 percent responded, “I am not sure if I am transgender”; and 2.1 percent responded “I do not know what this question is asking.”
It has been difficult for health experts to determine the percentages of young people who identify as transgender or gender-nonconforming, and estimates have varied in recent years depending on the survey.
A 2018 report in the journal Pediatrics used a statewide survey of nearly 81,000 Minnesota ninth- and 11th-graders and found that nearly 3 percent identified as transgender or gender-nonconforming, meaning they do not identify as the gender they were assigned at birth. The authors of the study said their findings could be used to estimate numbers in those grades across the country.
A 2017 study by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles estimated that about 150,000 youth aged 13 to 17, or 0.7 percent, identify as transgender, and 0.6 percent of U.S. adults identify as such.
The Florida residents say the state’s dissolution of the corporate giant’s private government — and its special tax status — will burden them with more than $1 billion in bond debt.
The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. (John Raoux/AP)
MIAMI (CN) — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis violated the rights of taxpayers when he signed a law removing Disney’s self-governing status, three residents claim in a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
In the 11-page complaint, Michael Foronda, Edward Foronda and Vivian Gorsky — all of whom live near the Walt Disney World theme park and resort — say the state’s actions will saddle them and other taxpayers with Disney’s bond debt estimated at more than $1 billion.
“Plaintiffs, who are property owners in the surrounding counties, fear that they will now have to assume the tax burden that Disney previously assumed under the special tax status,” the complaint states. “Their fear is well founded, and it is through this taxpayer lawsuit and mandamus action that they are able to protect their rights.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, names the Republican governor, Florida Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee and Florida Department of Revenue Director Jim Zingale as defendants. DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The GOP-controlled Florida Legislature voted to remove Disney’s self-governing status last month, following a battle over the corporation’s opposition to the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. DeSantis signed the bill, SB 4C, a few days later.
The law will dissolve independent special districts created before 1968, including the Reedy Creek Improvement District that contained Walt Disney World, in June 2023 unless a new agreement is reached.
The company lobbied for the special district more than 50 years ago so that it could act as a county government. Disney owns the roads and utilities in the 25,000-acre district and also operates a police force and fire department there.
Unless Disney and the state government reach another agreement, the special district will dissolve and all assets and liabilities will be transferred to local governments, according to the bill’s language. Disney would also lose the ability to construct new buildings or roads without local oversight and potentially cumbersome zoning restrictions.
The law is widely considered to be retaliation for Disney’s opposition to the state’s Parental Rights in Education law, known more commonly as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity topics from kindergarten through third grade. Disney heavily criticized the bill, which was signed into law by DeSantis in March, and vowed to end any political contributions to state lawmakers.
The federal lawsuit makes note of this, claiming DeSantis “intended to punish Disney for a First Amendment protected ground of free speech,” which “directly resulted in a violation of plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process of law.”
The plaintiffs also allege stripping Disney of its special status, and burdening residents with debt and some public safety responsibilities now paid for by the theme park, violates the Florida Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
Disney has so far stayed mum on the issue, though the Reedy Creek Improvement District did send a message to bondholders last week reminding them that the law establishing the special district mandates all debts must be paid before changing its status.
“In light of the state of Florida’s pledge to the district’s bondholders, Reedy Creek expects to explore its options while continuing its present operations, including levying and collecting its ad valorem taxes and collecting its utility revenues, paying debt service on its ad valorem tax bonds and utility revenue bonds, complying with its bond covenants and operating and maintaining its properties,” the statement reads.
The plaintiffs are represented by Miami-based attorney William Sanchez.
These insane republican campaign ads will make your head explode. With JD Vance, Josh Mandel and Dave White, all sounding incredibly racist while explaining how they are not racist. John Iadarola and Rayyvana break it down on The Damage Report.
“JD Vance, author and Republican Candidate for Senate in Ohio, has released a new campaign ad in which he asks “are you a racist?” and “do you hate Mexicans?” before blaming his mother’s addiction issues on immigrants. The Hillbilly Elegy author released the 30-second video on Tuesday. “The media calls us racist for wanting to build Trump’s wall. They censor us, but it doesn’t change the truth,” Mr Vance says in the video. “Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans, with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country,” he adds.”
Former secretary of defense for Donald Trump, Mark Esper, reveals Trump’s calls for violence against Black Lives Matter protests in his new memoir. John Iadarola and Francesca Fiorentini break it down on The Damage Report.
“As Black Lives Matter protesters swarmed outside the White House in 2020, then-president Donald Trump reportedly proposed a solution: “Just shoot them.” That’s according to Mr Trump’s secretary of defense at the time, Mark Esper, in his upcoming memoir, A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times, which comes out on 10 May. In the spring of 2020, as protests over the brutal police murder of George Floyd convulsed the country, Mr Esper says the former president grew increasingly furious at the demonstrators flooding the streets of the capital. “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” Mr Trump allegedly asked, according to an excerpt obtained by Axios.”
I would like to thank Nan for the link to this interesting story. It emphasizes what I had figured that the support for Russia comes from those who are waging the culture wars against the LGBTQ+ and those Christian Nationalist who want the nation ruled by their church doctrines. I want to point the article uses the term wokeism. I find the use of this term stupid in that it is not used by the left. It is useless. It may have been started by young college kids or people on social media but real liberals / progressives never used it. The right uses it as an insult and it means what ever they want it to mean, because they want it to be an insult. Don’t like broccoli today then broccoli is woke. I once heard a great explanation over what the term P.C. meant. It means. It means trying to be decent to other people and not hurting their feelings. Oh how evil a thing that is. Being decent to others, not hurting their feelings if possible, how dare you ask that. To me woke is the same idea. Again I have no idea of why the right pushes this woke thing, but to me it means just be a decent person, take care of others along with yourself, and leave things better than you found them if possible. Makes hating woke weird doesn’t it.
I also want to address this issue that there is an extreme leftist movement in the US. Maybe on college campuses. I don’t even think communes exist anymore. There is no extreme leftism in the US. There is a desire of progressives to copy the ideas of the more progressive advanced societies like the Scandinavian countries or even Canada to give the people some benefits of the GDP of the country. That is the extreme left in the US, stopping runaway unregulated capitalism that diverts all the countries wealth to the upper levels of wealthy people. That is what they do in Russia, give all the countries wealthy to the wealthy rulers so the public has to live more desperately in poverty every year. In other countries the government works for all people and everyone benefits. In the US and Russia the wealthy benefit and the rest of the people slowly sink into more poverty and despair. These are facts that you can look up on google. The best times in the US for all people economically were between 1950 to 1980 when the wealthy / large corporations paid the highest share of the costs of government and the government served the public. Those are facts. Many people in the US alive today can remember those times. Is that woke? If so bring back woke. Is that PC? If so bring back PC. But the right loves the tRump thug idea of never backing down, never making a mistake, calling everyone else names, being a bully, and ruling hard over everyone else. They constantly talk of Alpha males vs Beta males? Why? Because their idea of tough and great is the biggest meanest bully who hurts others to get their own way all the time. No one stands up to that bully or corrects them when they call black people names, call gays fagots, and laughs about making others please them, by force if need be. They would have adored my abusive brawling adoptive male parent, he was maga before maga was born. I prefer to be a decent human being. So call me woke I don’t take it as an insult to be a decent person.
One more point. The US never tried to establish liberal democracies anywhere. That is a falsehood that makes the US look better to itself. The rest of the world knew clearly what the US was doing. We were establishing governments where our US corporations / businesses could flourish and make large profits. We changed government not to help the people of those countries, but to help businesses make money. Look at the history of each US involvement of any country and you seen that US business first were blocked out and then after the US invaded or changed the government the US businesses were at the top of the list of new companies into the country. Look at Iraq, US oil companies rushed to get the oil field management contracts. Why is the US government against Venezuela? Because the government there wouldn’t let the US oil companies have their oil, instead nationalizing them for the people of the country. Why do you think the US turned on Castro when we were dealing with dictators all over the world? He threw out the large companies that owned the farmland and forced the people to work like slave labor to make sugar companies wealthy and companies stealing the wealth of other resources of the island. I hate this fake idea that the US was a benevolent loving country coming in to save the people. Look at our own people to see that is not true. The US was coming in to save the profits of big business.
Those who care about conservatism’s moral integrity should vehemently condemn the misguided Russophilia on the right
This column originally appeared exclusively for subscribers who are signed up for the NP Comment newsletter, NP Platformed.
Most of the western world is united in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but unfortunately, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been supported by many on the far right and the far left. While the far left has spent decades apologizing for foreign autocrats under the misguided belief that anything anti-American is inherently good, the far right’s infatuation with Russia is a newer and more unexpected development. Those who care about conservatism’s moral integrity should vehemently condemn this misguided Russophilia.
In the United States, far-right politicians, such as Republican representatives Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, have echoed Russian talking points, suggesting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a “thug” and that his government is filled with neo-Nazis.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump made several statements lauding Putin’s aggression towards Ukraine and initially called the invasion “smart.” To Trump’s credit, after photos of Ukrainian suffering reached the public, he shifted positions and condemned Russia’s invasion as a “holocaust,” though he continues to praise Putin and criticize NATO.
American far-right media figures have also parroted Kremlin propaganda. Conservative commentator Candace Owens has consistently promoted Putin’s narratives, such as the claim that Ukrainian nationhood is an illegitimate invention of the Soviet Union, which is historically inaccurate. Meanwhile, conservative media icon Tucker Carlson amplified a Russian conspiracy theory that the United States was operating secret bio labs in Ukraine.
In Canada, People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier has latched onto conspiracy theories that undermine support for Ukraine. He has implied, among other things, that Canada supports Ukraine because Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather may have been a Nazi sympathizer (I guess Bernier believes that political views are hereditary).
Russia obviously does not have the West’s best interests in mind, as Putin frequently argues that Russians must prevail in an existential battle against the United States and the European Union. Why, then, have so many western conservatives lost their moral compass and chosen to support a regime that actively opposes their own interests?
The main reasons seem to be the all-consuming viciousness of America’s culture wars and the delegitimization of neoconservative foreign policy.
Many on the far right are so narrowly focused on litigating cultural issues that they’re willing to make unethical alliances if it helps them vanquish wokeism. In the post-Soviet era, Russia has re-embraced Christianity and traditional values, which it has conspicuously positioned in opposition to the “degenerate” West. Russia’s cultural conservatism makes it a convenient ally against wokeism — “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a devastatingly relevant adage here.
Putin has cleverly exploited this and has explicitly drawn parallels between Russia and American anti-wokeism, claiming, for example, that western elites are trying to “cancel” Russia like they cancelled J.K. Rowling.
Many conservatives swallowed Putin’s bait and now gleefully align themselves with Russia, despite the fact that, in practically every other respect, Russia does not align with western values. There are now conservatives who ostensibly champion freedom, but defend a dictator who poisons political dissidents. We have conservatives who rally against out-of-touch elites, but romanticize Russia, a country that is ruled by an unaccountable oligarchy.
“Has Putin ever called me a racist?” asked Tucker Carlson, as if that single factor, which is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, absolves Russia of responsibility for its war crimes.
I consider myself a moderate conservative and think that wokeism is a problem that needs to be addressed. But I oppose wokeism because of its infringements on personal liberty, individualism and pluralism. When the far right looks to Russia as an ideal, a country where liberty is non-existent, I find it embarrassing and discrediting.
It’s the conservative equivalent of when moderate leftists feel mortified by their extremist counterparts who romanticize the Soviet Union and Maoist China. In both cases, ideologues lose the forest through the trees, wilfully blinding themselves to the obvious immorality of repressive regimes.
Not too long ago, conservative Russophilia would have been inconceivable. From the 1960s to the early 2010s, neoconservatism dominated right-wing politics. This strain of conservatism was confident in the supremacy of American values. It had faith in liberal democracy, which it aggressively promoted throughout the world through a highly interventionist foreign policy.
However, in the aftermath of the Cold War, neoconservatives became arrogant. The Bush era, with its endless entanglements in the Middle East, made it clear that imposing liberal democracy on unwilling nations was a recipe for disaster. Neoconservative foreign policy lost its moral credibility and collapsed under the weight of its own hubris.
This created an intellectual and political vacuum that was filled with Trumpist isolationism. Conservatism turned inward, towards domestic frictions, both economic and cultural. Foreign policy became an afterthought, and the less attention that was given to it, the more it could be subsumed by the demands of domestic politics.
So now we have an American conservatism that lacks a strong foreign policy vision — a diminished and pessimistic conservatism that doesn’t have faith in liberal democracy. Rather than asserting western excellence to the world, this brand of conservatism tethers itself to Russia, a hostile second-rate regional power. It’s a sad development to see — not only because of the immediate humanitarian costs that are abetted by Putin’s useful idiots, but also because conservatism should be bigger than this. We need a stronger conservative movement that has the integrity to stand against its enemies, rather than betray itself to score petty partisan victories.
As anyone reading above can see I do not really agree with the article. The article is trying to build a case that is not there. Basically the article is trying to blame the left for the right loving the strongman tactics of Putin. That is incorrect. The right loves tRump because he is a bully thug who is lower educated, never backs down, never pays a price for what he does, seems to make the rules instead of following them, is above the consequences for his actions / words. Who does that sound like? Putin. Who did tRump bow to, Putin. That is why the right loves Putin, he is above their cult lord. But now what about the rest of the Russia supporters? That was mentioned in the article but in my opinion glossed over. Bigotry and racism are the keys. Let’s look at racism first. What do the white supremacist love about Russia? It’s hegemony. It is mostly all white and minorities are really treated shitty. Look at pictures from Russia. You only see white people. Racist mention this all the time. They love it. Putin is their hero because they think he enforces that racism. Then there are the religious aspect / people. That is the bigotry part. Why do people like Brian Brown (who is a co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), and became In 2001, Brown became the executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, a socially conservative organization.) love Russia and travel there frequently? They adore what Putin did by turning to the Russian Orthodox Church which has become a vital pillar of support for Putin. The Christian Nationalist in the US look at what Putin has done in Russia as the blueprint on how to get their church in charge of the US. They love the Kremlin making LGBTQ+ illegal in Russia, these Christian nationalist love how Putin uses the state’s power to enforce the churches doctrines and dictates. They want that here, and now are copying those laws here with the don’t say gay laws, and the dictates trying to force doctors to practice medicine only on state approved church doctrines. It is a dangerous convergence of two hateful groups who want their way of life only over all others. It is scary but it seems they may make the US into Russia, they are well on their way to doing so.
