Attorneys for the Walt Disney Company have filed a pair of legal memoranda opposing the motions to dismiss the complaint it filed against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the governor’s appointees to the board overseeing the special taxing district on Disney property, issuing a scathing condemnation of DeSantis’ “farcical” defenses of the scheme he conducted to punish the entertainment company for criticizing legislation he signed.

The two motions to dismiss Disney’s Second Amended Complaint were filed by DeSantis and Meredith Ivey as Acting Secretary of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity; and by the members of the “Central Florida Tourism Oversight District” (CFTOD), the renamed board who were all appointed by the governor.

Disney has responded to each of the motions in detail, thoroughly describing admissions from DeSantis’ own book and public statements about how he planned to target the company after it spoke out in opposition to the Parental Rights in Education bill (dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” bill by many of its critics) after it passed.

Unsurprisingly, Disney argues in these motions that RCID has provided “enormous public benefits” not just for the company, but to the park guests and the people of Florida by transforming the area into a “thriving tourism hub,” but DeSantis’ actions have caused Disney “concrete injuries” and “serious harms” that are “ongoing.”

Those harms include threatening to seize Disney’s land to build a prison or competing theme park, impose additional regulations on Disney’s monorail transportation system that are not imposed on other parks, actually enacting an unneeded (Disney has always maintained its property far above any government-imposed building code) code enforcement system that included fines subject to foreclosure (another way DeSantis’ puppet board could seize Disney’s land), taking away long-established benefits for firefighters at Disney, and moving to defund an $8 million annual budget for police protection on Disney property — yes, DeSantis’ hand-picked CFTOD board literally wants to defund the police.

Attorneys for the Walt Disney Company have filed a pair of legal memoranda opposing the motions to dismiss the complaint it filed against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the governor’s appointees to the board overseeing the special taxing district on Disney property, issuing a scathing condemnation of DeSantis’ “farcical” defenses of the scheme he conducted to punish the entertainment company for criticizing legislation he signed.

The two motions to dismiss Disney’s Second Amended Complaint were filed by DeSantis and Meredith Ivey as Acting Secretary of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity; and by the members of the “Central Florida Tourism Oversight District” (CFTOD), the renamed board who were all appointed by the governor.

Disney has responded to each of the motions in detail, thoroughly describing admissions from DeSantis’ own book and public statements about how he planned to target the company after it spoke out in opposition to the Parental Rights in Education bill (dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” bill by many of its critics) after it passed.

Unsurprisingly, Disney argues in these motions that RCID has provided “enormous public benefits” not just for the company, but to the park guests and the people of Florida by transforming the area into a “thriving tourism hub,” but DeSantis’ actions have caused Disney “concrete injuries” and “serious harms” that are “ongoing.”

Those harms include threatening to seize Disney’s land to build a prison or competing theme park, impose additional regulations on Disney’s monorail transportation system that are not imposed on other parks, actually enacting an unneeded (Disney has always maintained its property far above any government-imposed building code) code enforcement system that included fines subject to foreclosure (another way DeSantis’ puppet board could seize Disney’s land), taking away long-established benefits for firefighters at Disney, and moving to defund an $8 million annual budget for police protection on Disney property — yes, DeSantis’ hand-picked CFTOD board literally wants to defund the police.

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s wife took down the website for her company, Onward Christian Counseling Services, a day after HuffPost pointed to documents on the site that compared homosexuality to bestiality and incest.

HuffPost reported Friday that Kelly Johnson, the wife of the Louisiana Republican and newly elected speaker, is owner and CEO of Onward Christian Counseling Services, which promotes Bible-based pastoral counseling. Her website featured a link to its 2017 operating agreement, which lays out the company’s corporate bylaws ― and states that the business is grounded in the belief that sex is offensive to God if it is not between a man and a woman married to each other.

It specifically puts gay, bisexual and transgender people in the same category as people who have sex with animals or family members, citing all of them as examples of “sexual immorality.”.....

The new House speaker and his wife have long worked together in their political and business lives. In the early 1990s, they were the face of Louisiana’s new marriage covenant law when they went on national television to endorse it. In the past couple of years, they have co-hosted a podcast called “Truth Be Told,” where they discuss politics and social issues from a conservative Christian perspective. They’ve done 69 episodes so far.

It was against this backdrop that new House Speaker Mike Johnson sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, and fielded a question about those advocating new safeguards to prevent future slayings. The Louisiana Republican responded:

At the end of the day, the problem is the human heart. It’s not guns, it’s not the weapons. At the end of the day, we have to protect the right of the citizens to protect themselves, and that’s the Second Amendment. And that’s why our party stands so strongly for that. ... This is not the time to be talking about legislation. We’re in the middle of that crisis right now.

So, a few things.

First, the idea that the problem is “the human heart” and not firearms is belied by the experiences of pretty much every other country on the planet. There are billions of human hearts in nations around the globe, but mass shootings like these are only common in the United States. Unless the Louisiana Republican is prepared to argue that American hearts are somehow worse than other people’s hearts, this is not an argument to be taken seriously.

Second, it’s true that the crisis in Maine is still unfolding, and efforts to apprehend the suspected shooter are underway. But it’s also true that Johnson and his GOP colleagues will be no more interested in new safeguards after the immediate crisis has subsided than they are now.

Third, the idea that the United States has to choose between the status quo and the Second Amendment is plainly false. There are a great many potentially lifesaving safeguards that policymakers can create that would fall well within constitutional boundaries. It would simply take some political will — which among Republicans, does not appear to exist.