DeSantis hands the mouse a big piece of cheese

Created
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 02:30
Updated
Wed, 03/05/2023 - 02:30
All Disney had to do was read Ron’s book to make their case: When the Walt Disney Co. went looking for evidence to feature in its new lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, its lawyers found much of what they needed in DeSantis’s own recently published memoir. Buried in Disney’s complaint against DeSantis is something surprising. Numerous quotes taken from “The Courage to be Free” appear to support the company’s central allegation: that the Republican governor improperly wielded state power to punish Disney’s speech criticizing his policies, violating the First Amendment. Memoirs by presidential aspirants often lay out a blueprint for their coming candidacies. DeSantis’s does, too. It boasts extensively about his war on Disney to advertise how he would marshal the powers of the presidency against so-called woke elites. Disney’s lawsuit cites exactly these passages. DeSantis — who signed a law taking control of Disney’s special self-governing district, and moved to nullify the company’s efforts to work around it — repeatedly flaunts the truth: These were retaliation against Disney for opposing his “don’t say gay” law limiting classroom discussion of sex and gender. -DeSantis’s book brags about his rapid mobilization of the state legislature to target Disney’s tax district. The same passage declares that this happened because of the company’s “support of indoctrinating young schoolchildren in woke gender identity politics.” That admits to retribution against speech opposing his legislation. -The book rips Disney for vowing to work to repeal the governor’s law, describing this as “a frontal assault” on it. That, too, is a description of political…