The Mouse Roars

OK, here's the deal: a government does something. 

A private entity voices disapproval of what the government has done.

The government says the private entity needs to learn it's place and begins to attack that private entity.  

Now I've seen and read enough about the history of World War II and all the shit that lead up to it to recognize the kind of fuckery that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime would do to anyone who dared to speak out against Hitler and whatever he wanted to do.  

Except...

While the scenario at the start of this post did play out a lot to brutal and fatal effect in Nazi Germany, it is also happening right now in Florida. 

Florida's Republican led legislature passed a bill and Ron DeSantis signed it into law to make it illegal to discuss any thing relating to sexual or gender identity in school up to 3rd grade.

A couple of weeks ago, Florida Republicans expanded these restrictions through 12 grade. DeSantis gleefully signed on.  

It became known as the "Don't Say Gay" law. 

The CEO of the Walt Disney Corporation basically said "This law doesn't seem like a good idea."

DeSantis got all riled up, said Disney best learn to keep it's mouth shut about things and began a systematic attack on Disney's arrangement with the state of Florida to do business there. 

DeSantis began chipping away at the the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the area surround Disney World that gave the Disney corporation a special tax status.  Long story made short, Reedy Creek is Disney's own government within the state of Florida where Disney is responsible for a lot of basic government functions such as fire, police, water and garbage disposal. 

DeSantis wanted to shut Reedy Creek down which if he had been successful would have left Florida residents on the hook for millions of dollars in services that Disney was otherwise paying for.  

Not wanting to be the guy who would leacve Florida residents on the hook for millions of dollars in services that Disney was otherwise paying for, DeSantis realized it was not worth this much trouble taking on a company that happened to disagree with him and amiably decided that we can all agree to disagree, right?

FUCK NO! 

Deciding if he can't destroy the Reedy Creek Improvement District, Ron DeSantis figured he would control it by installing a group of snivelling sycophants on Reedy Creek's governing board. Before Ron could do that, the Reedy Creek board changed the rules that said no one else can take over Reedy Creek until the last living descendant of King Charles III has been dead for 20 years.  

Facing up to reality that he had been outplayed, DeSantis realized it was not worth this much trouble taking on a company that happened to disagree with him and amiably decided that we can all agree to disagree, right?

FUCK NO! 

Deciding if he can't destroy or control the Reedy Creek Improvement District, Ron DeSantis figured there is enough land around the district that Florida owns and he can fuck with Disney by installing toll roads that lead to the park or building prisons next door. 

Realizing that Ron DeSantis seems to really feel passionately about his and maybe, just maybe, it's not worth Disney's time to keep fighting, Disney said let's all be friends again and capitulated to whatever DeSantis wants, right?

OH HELL NO! 

Disney sued the motherfucker!  

Now Ron DeSantis will make the point that the whole Reedy Creek Improvement District is a questionable deal, that a private corporation should not have this kind of governmental power with oversight from the actual government. 

Or something like that.

And it might be a fair point.

BUT...

It's not a point that anyone in the governor's office or the state house thought about making for nearly 50 years until Disney expressed an opinion that the governor disagreed with. 

Disney's lawsuit asserts that DeSantis and his cronies are engaging in a campaign of government retaliation in violation of the company’s right to free speech after Disne's leadership spoke out against the Don’t Say Gay bill.  

While Ron DeSantis will claim it is within the normal pervue of the government to have oversight over the Reedy Creek Improvement District, he's going to have a little bit of trouble defending the notion that his interest in Disney is just part of normal day's work of governing. 

Working against Ron DeSantis is... Ron DeSantis.  

Virtually every speech and even his own god damn memoir makes it plain that he's taking these actions in retaliation for the company daring to speak out in opposition his Don't Say Gay bill.  

The house of Mickey Mouse has spent the better part of a year ducking and weaving, looking to undercut DeSantis's blunt, ham-fisted efforts to seek revenge for defying.  

Enough of playing cute. Now the Mouse roars with a law suit against Ron DeSantis and their lead witness is DeSantis himself.

Going up against the high powered lawyers of a multi-billion dollar corporation with a pretty strong record of winning lawsuits,  DeSantis realizes it's not worth this much trouble taking on a company that happened to disagree with him and amiably decided that we can all agree to disagree, right?

FUCK NO! 

DeSantis vows to fight and guess who's on the hook for his lawyers? Florida's taxpayers.