DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus DeSantis Attack On disney Continues

DeSantis floats building prison on land next to Disney World

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Monday that the state might consider building a prison or potentially another amusement park next to land owned by Disney amid his administration’s ongoing feud with the entertainment giant.

The governor’s clash with Disney started when the company came out against his education plan that limits the instruction of gender identity and sexuality in public schools. In response, DeSantis signed a bill that dissolved the private government that oversaw Walt Disney World in the state.

But outgoing Disney-friendly members of the board that oversees the district approved an agreement with the company that gave it developmental authority over its theme park. New board members handpicked by DeSantis said the agreement stripped them of their ability to oversee the park’s development.

Now DeSantis, who is weighing a 2024 presidential campaign, is publicly floating how to respond.

“If you look at this whole special district, Walt Disney Corporation obviously owns a lot of it, but the district owns other land,” he said at the press conference. “Now people are like, what should we do with this land? People have said: Maybe create a state park, maybe try to do more amusement parks. Someone even said maybe you need another state prison. Who knows?”

DeSantis said that while he was not actively considering what to do with the land before, the ability to build state projects on the land would be analyzed going forward.

“I just think that the possibilities are endless,” he said. “So that is now gonna be analyzed to see what would make the most sense. And that wasn’t necessarily even on the radar.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-...hq5cT-gcuzzZLda5y6WVly13wO_KG1pC_KvSpXoU

He should take a long walk in the Everglades.

They should put a garbage dump next to it.

Because they disagreed with the governor?

Because disney is a greedy, entitled, garbage ass company.

So do you feel the same way about oil companies, pharmaceutical companies and all of the greedy corporations in America?

So do you do whatabouts in every thread?

I was simply curious whether you shared that view of all corporations who fit your description of Disney or not. If you view every such corporation the same way as you do Disney then your reasoning is quite understandable. If not, the reasons you have targeted Disney and not others who fit that description seems questionable. Tagging something as a "whatabout" is a typical response to avoid answering pertinent questions however.

It's either a stand you take against all such corporations or your reasoning for targeting Disney in particular goes deeper than the reasoning you posted.

It's your choice whether you wish to travel down the road of hyperbole to avoid an honest discussion about it however.

It's a typical response, because it's what you do in every thread. You have a difficult time dealing with the responses given to you so you deflect and whatabout. This thread is about disney. So, I'm staying on topic. I have to work, so that's all I have to say. Enjoy being wrong.

So you are unwilling to state that you feel this way about all corporations who fit this description.... ....but are quite willing to use that as an excuse to attack Disney.

And then you blame me for it. Thanks for playing.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand you still can't take ownership for what you say.

It's always someone else's fault, you are just trying to mind your own little business and someone comes along and just puts words right into your little mouth. It is so sad.

That's a very valid question.

I think all companies are out to maximize profits. Some like the pharmaceuticals gouge when they can. They have invented ways to continually extend patents which is in no-one's interest - you only have to look at the price of insulin here in the USA versus the ROTW to know we are being bent over and abused. Oil companies, tobaccos companies and others have lobbyists trying to protect their profits and niche markets. I don't know what Disney has done so wrong to be labeled greedy and entitled. Orlando would be pretty much a big fat nothing burger without what Disney carved out, they employ a lot of people... I don't know that they are any greedier or more garbage than any other company out to make a profit. I'm not a fan or a hater.

Desantis on the other hand is showing himself to be a petulant child with all this brouhaha about Disney and his moves to try to control it and re-write the way that Disney agreed to run itself when it bought the land and agreed the terms back in the day.

That’s called Orlando.

Truth is hard to handle. for you anyway. Disney and the Mouse are kicking the Governors butt..

I had researched this once... but it was a while ago so I may get the actual numbers wrong.

Disney employs roughly 80,000 in Florida. Supporting businesses employ another large number like 80,000.

You and the governor want to damage a major employer in the State of Florida over a made up problem that disney respectfully disagreed with.


I think I read that North Carolina is courting Disney to move there from Florida. Now I doubt they do that because Politicians come and go and eventually, Florida will get a governor that actually understands Disneys value to the state..

You can do and think as you wish, but I'd think that if you wanna talk about greed, you gotta add big Pharma, Oil companies,, hell, energy related industries as a whole. You are doing that... you are going on and on about the Mouse. Good luck winning that battle...

Seems more like the attack on DeSantis continues.

Of course you’d see it that way. Defend the bully.

She has refused to do exactly that. This entire story is about how people, in this case DeSantis, use their political views as cause to attack businesses. In the case of DeSantis, he holds a lot of power to do so. Therefore it's only logical to explore why others who share that view about Disney are also politically motivated. Some people do not like any and all corporations that fit what Eve claims is her reasoning for her disdain of Disney. That would make their stand here understandable. Yet when asked if she feels that way about other corporations that fall into that same category she has decided to make it seem wrong to ask or somehow not part of the subject matter which of course it very much is the very heart of the issue.

People have seen and understand your tactics. It's exactly the way I've stated it is and your attempt to derail that isn't going to work here.

What has Disney done to DeSantis other than disagree with his don't say gay bill? Do you think it's somehow wrong to point out the ways DeSantis has attempted to target Disney in response to that? Maybe if he would stop attacking Disney people wouldn't be reporting about it?

You see, when people of power use that power to attack and go after private business it's newsworthy. You always talk about communism and socialism but never seem to address authoritarianism.

Thanks for you insight on the topic.

Pit and the Whatabouts.....they're here all week!

[DELETE]

Only this wasn't a whatabout and you know it. But keep trying. It's not going to change anything. Some people simply don't like businesses who have some different political beliefs. And those wishing to avoid that topic like the plague try to blame the person who brought it up rather than address the issue. You show who you are.

Ask yourself, who started it? DeSantis did... Disney disagreed with his take on things. He is now retaliating against Florida's largest employer because it disagrees with him.

But hey, saying Desantis is being attacked is just another in a long line of BS that republicans are peddling. Oh woe is me garbage. cry babies....

He should be in jail. Any left wing politician that has done what he has would be. Yeah whatabout his BS. Bring it on whatabout you? Whatever it’s BS you all protect the deplorable ones.

Hey deplorable Goper……..

Why do Goper’s hate parents and their children who simply want to have fun at a Disney resort?

Because someone might be gay. Duh.

I disagree.

It's because they accept that someone might be gay and they don't care.

LOL...I don't think you are an idiot, but you say some pretty idiotic things.

This post is dripping with irony.

Ron DeSantis loses again to Disney

The Florida governor’s fight with Disney has become a political liability. But he can’t afford to retreat.

Florida Republican Gov. DeSantis has been foiled by Disney once again.

The new board DeSantis appointed to oversee the company’s Orlando theme parks has discovered a new wrinkle in its plans. The board’s chairman said Wednesday that another “11th hour agreement” was signed before the board took over that allows Disney to set its own utility rates for its resorts through 2032. By that time, DeSantis, who is term-limited and cannot run for reelection in 2026, will be long gone.

It’s the latest development in the ever-expanding culture war between DeSantis and Disney executives, who angered the governor last year after they publicly opposed his “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prevents teachers from talking about LGBTQ+ issues or people. That fight escalated last month when it came to light that Disney had managed to quietly disenfranchise the new board without DeSantis’s allies taking notice, and has continued as the governor tries to clamp down on the company in retaliation.

DeSantis’s efforts to punish Disney for being “woke” have become a political headache, with his potential 2024 Republican presidential primary opponents, including former President Donald Trump and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, using it to go on the attack. But at this point, DeSantis is probably in too deep to retreat.

“Once you pick a fight with a bully, even though it starts to get troubling, you probably need to finish it,” said Robert Cahaly, senior strategist and pollster at the Trafalgar Group and a former Republican political consultant. “He needs to be able to say, ‘I did everything I could do. I didn’t quit because it got hot.’”

DeSantis has been trying to redeem himself in a public relations battle that he has so far been losing. Earlier this week, he announced new legislation to require additional inspections at Disney theme park rides and its monorail connecting its hotels and theme parks. He also suggested the new state board could convert land in and around the Orlando theme parks into a state park, a competing amusement park, or a state prison — and that the board should investigate raising taxes on Disney.

Meanwhile, Disney has been planning its first event to celebrate Pride Month at its California theme park, complete with themed entertainment and specialty menu items, in a return to the issue that first drew the governor’s ire. It follows the revelation last month that Disney lawyers schemed to strip the new board, appointed with DeSantis loyalists, of most of its governing powers.

DeSantis’s efforts to strike back might be enough to appease Republicans, who are highly animated against so-called “woke corporations” that embrace progressive racial and social justice policies. Cahaly said that Trafalgar’s polls have found most Republicans say they would be less likely to do business with such companies and less likely to buy their products, as evidenced by the recent conservative boycott of Bud Light.

“They don’t want corporations to be conservative,” Cahaly said. “They just want them to be nonpartisan and to stay out of politics.”

But DeSantis’s political opponents still see his feud with Disney as a vulnerability. “I don’t think Ron DeSantis is a conservative, based on his actions towards Disney,” said Christie, who is expected to make a decision in the coming weeks on whether to run, in an interview with Semafor Tuesday. Trump wrote in a post on his social network Truth Social that DeSantis is being “absolutely destroyed by Disney” and suggested that the company would be justified in leaving Florida.

Together with DeSantis’s drop in the polls, speculation in GOP circles that he may have waited too long to formally announce a 2024 run, and that even Florida Republicans are endorsing Trump over their governor, the continued tit-for-tat with Disney may stunt DeSantis’s presidential candidacy before it has even formally begun.

DeSantis has made his fight with Disney a pillar of his political identity

A key part of DeSantis’s pitch for the presidency is his willingness to take on so-called “woke” corporations, with Disney as the primary example. Being seen as having been defeated by such a corporation would weaken his candidacy. And it could boost other Republican candidates with more experience using anti-woke rhetoric to their advantage, like right-wing activist Vivek Ramaswamy, who kicked off his campaign in February and has been dubbed “the CEO of Anti-Woke, Inc.” by the New Yorker.

The governor’s battle with Disney is the subject of an entire chapter titled “The Magic Kingdom of Woke Corporatism” in DeSantis’s latest book, The Courage to Be Free. He writes about how he got married at Disney World, something he says was really his wife’s idea, not knowing that he would later be “squaring off against Disney in a political battle that would reverberate across the nation.”

DeSantis describes corporations like Disney as caving to the “woke gender theory” being pushed by the media by taking a stand on issues such as equal rights for LGBTQ+ Americans that he thinks they shouldn’t get involved in. And he writes about how he orchestrated a surprise session to eliminate Disney’s special tax status, which had allowed it to develop and maintain its properties in Orlando with relative independence — the “Florida equivalent of the shot heard ‘round the world.”

“Leaders must be willing to stand up and fight back when big corporations make the mistake, as Disney did, of using their economic might to advance a political agenda,” DeSantis writes.

That coup, of course, crumbled, with Disney turning the loss of its status into a win for the company. DeSantis claimed Tuesday that Disney has tried to “circumvent … the will of the people” in undermining the new board of the company’s special tax district. And his oversight board will reportedly soon unveil its plans to strip Disney of the powers it recently granted itself.

But it’s not clear that Florida voters ever really wanted DeSantis to take on Disney. The governor may have won reelection by nearly 20 percentage points and ushered in a red wave in Florida in 2022. But Disney, the state’s largest employer, still proved more popular than him across multiple polls in the last year.

Still, it’s consistent with DeSantis’s attempts to position himself as a leader in culture war battles including the one with Disney, but also on restricting abortion access and loosening gun restrictions.

“If he’s going to come across as a social issue warrior, he can’t give up a social issue fight,” Cahaly said.

https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/4...fJBuAESLBA2QrbriyM99TFoJIFTdIWj-bwx84Qpg

North Carolina state senator wants Disney World to move to the Tar Heel State

“I welcome The Walt Disney Company and all other businesses seeking refuge from the culture war madness currently gripping the great state of Florida."

by Steve Doyle | Apr. 20, 2023

GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) – If Walt Disney World needs a place to land after a fallout with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, North Carolina State Sen. Michael Garrett has an idea: Come on up to the Tar Heel State.

Garrett, a Democrat from Guilford County, has filed Senate Bill 594, the “Mickey’s Freedom Restoration Act,” to give Disney a place to move the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT Center, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom and all those other parks, hotels and golf courses.

DeSantis (R) has been feuding with Disney after the company opposed his so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation and then usurped his legislative move to take over the special taxing district that was created for the company in the 1960s.

DeSantis has promised to fight the legal maneuver, which saw Disney upend the board of special interests he had appointed to oversee that taxing district, essentially ensuring control while lawmakers were making their move. He has vowed there will be legal challenges, new laws, toll roads, withdrawal of some special exceptions, and this week talked about building more theme parks and a state prison next to Disney.

The company is among Florida’s largest private employers and most significant taxpayers, generating an estimated $75.2 billion in annual impact, Fortune reported. DeSantis’ actions have been criticized by some fellow Republicans.

Now Garrett, along with Sen. Chad Chaudhuri (D-Wake), the Senate minority whip, and Sydney Batch (D-Wake), who with Garrett are deputy Democratic caucus leaders, wants to study a plan to lure Disney to North Carolina and is asking for $750,000 starting in July to do so.

“North Carolina is a great place to do business,” Garrett said in a news release. “Politicians who put their state’s economy at risk to boost their own selfish political ambitions are a liability.

“In North Carolina, we’ve learned this lesson the hard way. When HB2, the so-called ‘bathroom bill’ passed, other states capitalized on our state’s disgraceful misstep.

“I welcome The Walt Disney Company and all other businesses seeking refuge from the culture war madness currently gripping the great state of Florida.”

Garrett, the father of two small children and resident of Greensboro, said in a text message that he is “trying to make Disney World more accessible and affordable to North Carolina families.”

He added that the bill would establish “a commission to identify sites, infrastructure investments and incentive packages that would be needed … similar to the process we use to identify megasites.”

“We haven’t spoke to Disney yet. They were just notified today of the legislation,” Garrett said.

Disney covers about 43 square miles in Central Florida, which is about the same size as the city of San Francisco. Through its Reedy Creek District, which includes two small municipalities, Disney controls public safety, roads, utilities and other expenses generally provided to cities and counties.

Central Florida — principally Orlando — also is home to more than 145,000 hotel rooms (second only to Las Vegas), and Disney is currently the largest attraction in the state.

https://thehill.com/changing-americ...ney-world-to-move-to-the-tar-heel-state/

When one stops to think about this from a big picture standpoint, it would make sense for another state to not only try to lure Disney there, but to also give them a huge financial incentive package to do so. I abhor corporate welfare on a personal level. Especially when the return on investment doesn't seem to line up with the investment made by a city or state. But when one looks at it, if other such corporations deserve such a handout, Disney most certainly does.

Disney averages 57,000 visitors a day. Universal Studios, another Disney owned theme park had 5.5 million visitors in 2021. Seaworld, another Disney property had over three million visitors in 2021. When one considers that entire families center their entire vacations around making the trip to Disney World, Seaworld and Universal Studios, they aren't just coming there for a single event and the vast majority of those visitors are traveling there for extended stays.

We see communities pay for baseball stadiums, football stadiums and other such complexes that pale in comparison to the tax dollars and daily business generated by a corporation like Disney. So if you're going to give a hand out to a multi billion dollar corporation, what better way to get a huge return on your investment than with a corporation like Disney?

Lol I really don’t think NC can supply enough hospitality and employees, not to mention the winter weather. Worth the threat though. DeStupid may change his tune.

NC already has Carowinds. They don't need another theme park.

Are you trying to say that Carowinds in any way rivals the billions of dollars that Disney does in regards to being a family destination place and the business it draws from outside the state? I hope not because I've never even heard of that place.

Lol Carowinds would be, Tom Sawyer’s island in a Disney park.

All kidding aside. There could be huge potential in a Disney seaside resort & port for their cruise ships.

Silly discussion anyway. NEVER will Disney spend 50-75 billion dollars to move 45 square miles of parks and entertainment to another state. Empty threat at best.

No. Now I see why people need to use purple. Sheesh you'd think it was obvious.

NC really only has half a Carowinds anyway.

Moving all their cruise ships a few hundred miles to the north to a beach golf resort & port in NC would cost Florida millions maybe billions in lost revenue. And then Disney could just ride out the DeStupid vs Disney storm in Florida to see what happens.