Republicans Are Openly Abusing Their Power And Somehow Getting Away With It

Republican Senator Josh Hawley has decided to get in on the corporation bashing, and he has introduced legislation to strip The Disney Corporation of their copyright protections for the character of Mickey Mouse. Hawley has made it clear, by literally saying out loud, that this is because Disney is a "woke" corporation and he wants to punish them for that. This is an abuse of power that could easily be illegal, but this is what passes for a normal day in politics now. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Find our merchandise at Teespring

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

Follow more of our stories at

Subscribe to our podcast

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley not that long ago was basically considered to be one of the front runners for the Republican nomination in 2024. He had made a name for himself, but then suddenly for about a year or so, been a little quiet, right? We haven't seen as much from Josh Hawley because there's so many other little nut jobs running around in the GOP. But in a desperate attempt to get himself back in the headlines this week, Josh Hawley announced in legislation he was introducing to strip woke Disney of their copyright protection for the character of Mickey Mouse. Now this copyright protection was expected to expire in 2024. Disney has actually come up against other deadlines where it was about to expire. Congress always extended it for them because hey, it's Disney. This is Mickey Mouse. It's their property. They should have the copyright protection. It shouldn't be in the public domain, Disney has argued.

And Josh Hawley's legislation would of course, strip Disney of these protections along with some other, you know, industries, companies, you could lose your copyrights too. But that's kind of collateral damage because Hawley has made it clear that this legislation, the sole purpose of it is to punish Disney for speaking out about Florida's don't say gay legislation. This is an abuse of power. This is the kind of thing that honestly 10 years ago would not have even been thinkable for a sitting member of Congress to introduce and if they did, it likely would've been the end of their political career. There was a time, no matter how crazy American politics was, where abuse of power was abuse of power. There is no legislative reason why this piece of legislation that Hawley has introduced needs to be enacted. Okay. That's the big thing we have to understand here. Was there a need for this legislation? Absolutely not. It is all about retaliation against Disney, which of course is an abuse of power. The dissolving of their special tax district down here in the state of Florida by Ron DeSantis, that was an abuse of power.

And now we just accept those things as, as the normal way of business for Republican politicians and that's insane. It's insane that we sit here and we talk about these things without addressing the fact that this party has become so extreme that they're now quite literally biting the hands that have fed them for decades. Disney was a solid Republican donor folks. Where they messed up of course was saying, hey, we received a ton of backlash for not speaking out about this legislation. So we're speaking out about it. Don't do it. You should get rid of it. There you go. There, that's our stance. We're Disney. And now all hell is raining upon them because of that. So I don't know what's gonna happen. Honestly, if Disney loses their copyright, I personally don't care. It does not affect my life at all. Honestly, it's not even gonna affect Disney that much either. But the abuse of power by these Republicans, as long as they continue to be successful, yes, that impacts my life. That impacts your life. That impacts the very future of this country if Republicans can abuse their positions to exact their revenge on anyone and anything that goes against what the Republicans want to do. That is what should terrify each and every one of us.