A few weeks ago (?) former Trump lapdog Jared Kushner parachuted into Saudi Arabia hoping to pick up an investment in his new private equity firm. Here's a sample of his pitch deck, which was obtained by The Intercept:
I had a hard time picking out the most embarrassing slide from the deck and eventually just said the hell with it and went with this one. Even an idiot can see that this diagram says nothing, and the rest of them are like a set of parodies from SNL.
Needless to say, the Saudi money men aren't idiots and they had plenty of problems with Kushner's pitch:
Those objections included: “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management”; the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk”; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them “unsatisfactory in all aspects”; a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive”; and “public relations risks” from Mr. Kushner’s prior role as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump, according to minutes of the panel’s meeting last June 30.
But days later the full board of the $620 billion Public Investment Fund — led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler and a beneficiary of Mr. Kushner’s support when he worked as a White House adviser — overruled the panel.
This obvious payoff for Kushner's and Trump's loyalty to Saudi interests got a few days notice and then faded out.
Now let's switch to a couple of other warm weather environments: Southern California and Southern Florida. Walt Disney Company, headquartered in the liberal entertainment industry of Los Angeles and under pressure from its workers at Walt Disney World in Orlando, decided to publicly oppose Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill. There wasn't much to this: they didn't threaten to shut down their business or anything like that. They just issued a statement opposing the bill.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who sees a president every time he looks in the mirror, swore revenge. Like many companies in Florida, Disney enjoys self-governing status over the land on which Walt Disney World sits, called the Reedy Creek Improvement District. This is a convenience for Disney and also a convenience for the counties that surround the land, but no matter. DeSantis wanted to punish Disney by taking away their self-governing status, and so far he's gotten the Florida Senate to agree.
This is all bad enough. But what's really bad is that there are virtually no Republicans who seem to have a problem with either of these things. A $2 billion gift from the Saudis? Whatevs. Kushner deserves it for his 48 months of selfless public service.
And a Republican governor taking official state vengeance against a longtime corporate ally just because they opposed a bill of his? That's flat-out extortion, but once again, no one in the Republican Party seems to care much and media coverage is modest.
What's the deal here? Does no one care? Do they care but they can't figure out a good angle to fight back? Do Democrats think these scandals are losers that won't help them much? Or what?
Is this now just the routine Republican way of politics?
Regarding Disney, it's a combination of several things.
Their stance against Don't Say Gay is only the latest move by the leftists in charge of Disney. The stance may not have been active, but many Republicans consider it to be "the last straw".
It doesn't help that Don't Say Gay is targeted at Grade 3 and under, instead of restricting what happens in high schools or even middle schools. It's as if leftists don't want parents to have any control over the content YOUNG children are exposed to.
And yes, I know that the vast majority of these children aren't exposed to such stuff anyway, but there have been exceptional cases, and you can always depend on Republicans to overreact to that.
Back on topic, many of the Disney's recent stances are quite leftist. Disney has become an increasingly uncomfortable place to work for people whose political and religious views are not explicitly progressive. The political agenda in Disney's content is driving away conservatives, and even independents find it distasteful. The theme parks host gay pride activities from time to time - and there's a good argument to be had that such things are not appropriate in a children's theme park. They even changed their park greeting to remove any reference to gender. While I am disappointed in the virtue signaling, count on Republicans to take offense.
It doesn't help that Disney announced a pause in political donations. I can just see Ron DeSantis saying in private, "**** me? No, **** you!"
I'm all for removing any and all special statuses the government has granted to Disney, on the basis that other companies don't get these handouts, which makes this an example of "crony capitalism". It's unfortunate that, as usual, when Republicans do the right things, it's for the wrong reasons.
“other companies don't get these handouts”
Took me all of a minute of Googling to find out that 1,843 other entities have been granted ‘special tax district’ status by the state of Florida. See: https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/state/in-depth-understanding-special-districts-in-florida
So you found the one-percenters of the corporate world. Good job! You're still leaving out 99% of companies in Florida, and that doesn't touch on crony capitalism being done in other states.
1. the text of "don't say gay" specifically cites younger kids but it doesn't stop there. it requires any discussion of such sexual matters in any grade be at an age-appropriate level and allows parents to sue if they believe a teacher, a school has violated the law. what's age appropriate to one parent ain't to another. even if the teacher or school happens to win, they still have the time and expense of defending themselves. the intent clearly is to chill, not protect kids. and if you, like disney, oppose such a "reasonable" bill, you're branded a pedophile.
2. the state of florida in its infinite wisdom created reedy creek in 1967 but it wasn't until disney took a stance against desantis's culture war 55 years later that the legislature decided that the arrangement was fraught with abuse, and you don't have a problem with that? in other words, if disney had just kept its mouth shut on the law, if it had just played ball like a good little corporate puppet, kept pumping money to the right side, reedy creek would be just fine. if that ain't an abuse of power, the concept doesn't exist.
3. if you're unaware, homeowner insurance premiums in florida are going through the proverbial roof. you might have heard about a certain condo in surfside collapsing, and that other similar buildings might be in danger of doing the same. these are real problems. instead of dealing with them, desantis and the republican-led legislature spent the 60-day legislative session playing cultural warrior, passing anti-gay and anti-woke bills. but hey, ron wants to be the 47th president of the united states so we've got to fulfill right-wing fever dreams instead of dealing with matters that really affect everyday floridians.
1) I really don't want to defend Republican bills (I actually expect them to pull this sort of stuff), but there is still a discussion to be had about what should be considered age-appropriate and what shouldn't be. It's unfortunate that said discussion will take place in the courts.
2) My problem with reedy creek isn't about Disney engaging in the Culture War (granted, I don't like companies doing that sort of thing, but that's a different discussion). My problem with reedy creek, and any other similar corporations given government handouts, is: why are these companies given preferential treatment over others? How much money are they passing on to the politicians to get that preferential treatment, that your typical Subway franchisee (to use a loose example) couldn't ever dream of? Such activities create two classes of companies; just like The Constitution prohibits two classes of people in America anymore, this too is immoral and should be prohibited.
3) I am not at all surprised that the people in charge are neglecting their duties to pass bills like these. Gov Abbott in Tx is doing similar stuff, and for the same reason: it positions these people to become candidates for the Presidency. It's not about doing the right thing for these people - it's about power.
I am also in the camp that Disney (nor any other corporation) should not be getting preferential.treatment. That said, the problem with this is that it is still just targeting Disney, so it's still 'special' treatment in a sense. It also implies that if Disney would.just act 'right', the previous treatment could be restored. So this is not really getting to a true fair treatment that I would be for.
Exactly. It’s a step toward Putinism; using the power of the state to punish political opponents.
"Disney's contributions to the RPOF accounted for more than half of the company's donations in Florida during the first quarter of 2022."
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/515840-disney-donated-125k-to-florida-gop-at-sessions-start/
Those damn leftists.
Read the next sentence aafter the one that mentions K-3rd, the that applies to every age and grade.
As long as the material being taught to school children is factually accurate and comprehensible, there is no such thing as "age inappropriate".
Why should the Republicans give a sh*t? There are no consequences for what they do.
Exactly. The left is perpetually waiting from some magical referees to appear and make the case for them. Spoiler alert: There aren't any referees , and until we take it on ourselves to bang the drum every day and make everyone care about these things, they'll just keep getting worse.
It would be madness for Disney to respond publicly to this. The last thing they want is to get sucked into the Republican meme machine. Yet that doesn't mean they can do nothing about it. Their proxies can push all kinds of narratives:
- This would be a major tax increase on the counties involved as they now have to take on public works responsibilities for Disney property. That loses every GOP vote in Orlando.
- It's bad PR for Florida tourism. Maybe red state tourists don't care, but they already have warm weather in the winter. Northeastern and Canadian snowbirds will go to Baja and Puerto Rico instead of gun-loving Gilead.
- It's bad for the Chamber of Commerce's interests. They extort government; the government doesn't extort them. They're already worried about the wingnuts in the GOP. Now that the GOP is willing to threaten them over even minor issues, they're no longer useful idiots for the CoC's goals. That affects fund-raising and Midwestern votes.