Tag: disney

British man charged over mock Disneyland wedding to child had been investigated by BBC

The British paedophile charged in connection with organising a “mock wedding” to a child in Disneyland Paris is Jacky Jhaj, who was found guilty of sexual activity with two 15-year-olds in 2016, the BBC understands.

Jhaj, 39, has been charged in connection with organising the fake ceremony on Saturday, in which a nine-year-old Ukrainian girl was due to feature as his bride.

He was arrested when police were called on Saturday morning by an actor who said he had been hired by Jhaj to play the father of the bride.

The BBC has previously investigated how Jhaj was able to hire hundreds of children to act as his fawning fans at a fake film premiere in London’s Leicester Square in 2023.

Some of the children, who had been hired from casting agencies, were as young as six.

Teenage girls told the BBC that they had been asked to scream for him and try to touch him, without being told his real identity by the agencies.

Then in June last year, Jhaj was seen giving gifts to children outside dance auditions for another production – he was recognised by a parent who had seen the BBC article.

Two months later, and following the BBC’s further investigation, Jhaj was filmed posing naked in front of a mocked-up BBC News lorry in London which had been set on fire.

For the mock wedding at Disneyland Paris, which was to be filmed by Jhaj’s team, around 100 French extras had been recruited to take part.

The BBC understands that he appeared in front of a judge in Meaux, north-east of Paris, on Monday and was charged with fraud, breach of trust, money laundering, and identity theft and placed in pretrial detention.

Preliminary findings also stated that he had allegedly been “made-up professionally so that his face appeared totally different from his own”, according to the French prosecutor.

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Disney Refuses To Say If Man Who Posted Photos Of Women In Park Bathroom Will Be Banned

Aman dressed as a woman paraded photos of himself in 10 women’s bathrooms in Florida’s Disney World in a Tuesday Instagram post. The photos posted showed him ranking the different bathrooms on a scale of one to 10 and included other women in the background of the photos.

The man, going by the name Lilly Contino, thanked Disney for allowing him to use the women’s bathrooms, saying in his post, “Shoutout to @disneyparks for creating a safe space in the hellscape that is Florida.”

Despite the concern on the post’s comment section and on X, Disney has not taken any action to keep Contino out of the parks. When The Federalist reached out to Disney for comment, they did not respond. 

Under Florida Statute title XLVI Chapter 810 section 145, “for the amusement, entertainment…” it is a felony for anyone who “intentionally uses or intentionally installs an imaging device to secretly view, broadcast, or record a person without that person’s knowledge and consent who is dressing, undressing, or privately exposing the body, at a place and time when that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy.” 

Although Contino did not seemingly take photos of any private parts, he did take photos for entertainment reasons with women using the restroom in the background who would reasonably expect some privacy at Disney World. 

This isn’t the first time Contino has shared what some people would deem as private information to the public. The 32-year-old man posts content on Instagram about being a “trans girl on a mission”. His mission includes educating viewers on his transition process like Facial Feminization Surgery (FFS), a surgery that alters a face through sawing down the jaw bone, cutting the scalp to move the hairline lower, shaving the bone above the eye socket, and shaving down the Adam’s apple. His mission also includes taking photos in women’s bathrooms.

Despite Disney having “gender-neutral restrooms” called “companion restrooms,” Contino went into the women’s restrooms. Contino also said in a post documenting the experience that he “peed standing up,” an obvious sign that he’s probably in the wrong restroom. 

He continued to post about his “trans girl mission” in a video of him being “misgendered” at a Disney restaurant. He told the server he didn’t want the food he ordered anymore because the server said “yes sir” to him. 

Despite the server’s apology, Contino said “I don’t feel safe anymore.”

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ABC News Laying Off Staff and Completely Cutting Polling Outfit 538

The same media bloodbath that has gutted MSNBC and CNN since the 2024 election is now coming to ABC News.

The network is laying off staff and even completely cut ties to 538, the data and polling outfit created by Nate Silver, who left the network in 2023.

These recent moves came from parent company Disney, which is dealing with its own issues.

The Hill reported:

ABC News eliminating 538 amid layoffs

ABC News Group is eliminating its political arm, 538, which specializes in polling, surveys and data, amid wider layoffs at the Walt Disney parent company, according to information obtained by The Hill.

The layoffs are expected to impact 200 employees which represents under 6 percent of the staff at the company and Disney Entertainment Networks unit. Fifteen employees at 538 will be let go.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the reductions.

The move is a part of broader consolidation efforts that include changes to ABC’s on air programming, sources told The Hill.

The network’s “20/20” and “Nightline” shows are set to be merged into one broadcast segment while the “Good Morning America” production team will be shaved down into management overseen by one person, Simone Swink.

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PLOT TWIST: ABC News Rewards George Stephanopoulos With ‘Multi-Year Contract’ – Days After Trump Inflicted Humiliating Libel Loss

In a surprise move, ABC News has rewarded its anchor George Stephanopoulos with a new contract at the network.

The Los Angeles Times were the first to report that Stephanopoulos, 63, recently agreed to a “new multi-year contract to remain with the ABC News morning program, according to several people familiar with matter who were not authorized to comment publicly.”

No further details were provided about the terms of the contract, such as its length or the size of his pay package.

The Good Morning America host, who rose to political fame as a henchman of former President Bill Clinton, was sued by Donald Trump earlier this year after repeatedly claiming that he was “found liable for rape” by a Manhattan jury.

His statements were a reference to complaints made by a woman named E. Jean Carroll, who has alleged Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s. She has never provided any evidence for her claims.

The deal, which has not been formally announced, will put an end to speculation that Stephanopoulos may be axed by the network after he was the subject of a humiliating libel loss in which its parent company Disney agreed to pay out $15 million and $1 million to cover Trump’s legal fees.

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Gina Carano Scores Legal Victory as Judge Blocks Disney’s Appeal in Free Speech Battle

A California judge has ruled against Disney, denying its request to appeal a July decision that allows Gina Carano’s wrongful termination lawsuit to proceed. Additionally, the request to pause discovery during the appeal was also denied.

Gina Carano took to her social media platform, X, to announce the decision: “After the Judge DENIED Disney’s request to DISMISS my case, Disney requested permission to immediately appeal that decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and delay all discovery while that appeal takes place,” Carano posted. “Yesterday, October 16th, 2024, we learned that the Judge DENIED Disney’s unusual request.”

We obtained a copy of the order for you here.

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Disney slammed for selling $10 PBJ sandwich ‘kits’ to stranded guests during Hurricane Milton

Disney has been torn to shreds over a decision to sell peanut butter and jelly sandwich kits for $10 to guests who are stranded during Hurricane Milton.

The theme park closed down ahead of the storm’s arrival this week, but some resort guests found themselves stranded and forced to ride out the hurricane there.

On Wednesday, guests were afforded the opportunity to buy sandwich ‘kits’ for $10.

The kits included a jar of peanut butter, full loaf of bread and strawberry jam.

Initially, people  were impressed with Disney’s generosity, but upon seeing that the multi-billion dollar corporation was charging for the goodie bags, some of the goodwill turned.

‘I was thinking, oh how sweet! Then saw they were charging $10,’ one critic said in response to a TikTok video discussing the promotion.

‘My jaw literally dropped when I saw the $10,’ another added. 

Another noted that Disney ‘is a corporation’ which could ‘literally afford to just give these away.’ 

‘Disney will always make that magic money, honey,’ one said.

‘Considering how pricey the rooms are, I feel they could’ve covered that.’

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About that Secret Service Agents’ free trip to LGBTQ conference at Disneyworld …

We are in the middle of a hotly contested presidential election.  There have already been two attempted assassinations of Donald Trump. 

Reliable sources report Iran has sniper teams here to kill The Donald.  So what does the Secret Service do?  It sends needed agents to an all-expense paid LGBTQ conference at what Disney calls “The Most Magical Place on Earth.”

The Secret Service leadership finally admitted they did not assign the full complement of agents to Trump’s detail in Butler, Pennsylvania.  Only a few were fully trained Protective Detail agents. The rest of the squad came from the B-Team.  They usually spend their time chasing counterfeiters and credit card fraudsters.  The temps’ protection training was watching a two-hour video.  That’s less than a good movie and popcorn. 

The Service doesn’t have enough time or manpower to answer even the simplest questions the Congressional Committee asks. USSS leadership claims they don’t have enough money to complete their vital mission.  But they have the time, resources, and budget to solicit agents for the free four-day trip to what we Floridians call the Mouse House.

The story went public when the service’s DEI office sent a memo to every assistant director asking them to nominate candidates for this fun-in-the-sun trip to Orlando. 

Susan Crabtree of Real Clear Politics uncovered the details. She learned those assistant directors had to send a list of their preferred people to the Secret Service Office of Alternative Employment. 

You may want to stop here and think why the agency responsible for protecting the free world’s leaders needs something called “Alternative Employment,” but that’s up to you.  If I ran the Service, the employment qualifications would include good physical condition, great marksmanship, and a bad attitude, but that’s just me.  I wouldn’t concentrate on hiring agents who nap mano-mano or ladies in comfortable shoes.  

Disneyworld is a very logical place to hold this conference.  Disney’s objection to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bill prohibiting teachers from indoctrinating students about sexual choice in the early school years went national.  Mickey has even supported Gay Days for decades.  For one magical weekend every year, the LGBTQ crowd invades Fantasyland. Participants all wear bright red t-shirts so they can identify kindred spirits.  Disney avoids any problem of straights who arrive in a red shirt feeling accosted.  It offers them free any-color-but red shirts.

Disney can be very ingenious in other ways.  Seminars usually wrap no later than 5:00 p.m,, and there is plenty to do in the evening.  When Gay Days at Disney first began, the manager of the famous Mannequins Night Club called a senior Disney executive at 10:00 p.m.  The manager was very upset.  He asked, ‘Sir, we have men dancing with men!  The families with kids are all very distraught!  What do I do?  What do I do?”

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Disney Shamed into Retracting Phony ‘Steamboat Willie’ Copyright Claim After Film Enters Public Domain

The Disney Grooming Syndicate has been forced to back down from bullying a private citizen who legally used Steamboat Willie in a YouTube video.

YouTuber and voice actor Brock Baker published all eight minutes of Steamboat Willie on his popular YouTube channel (1.1 million subscribers). That alone would normally be considered a copyright violation. On top of that, Brock added his own audio to the classic cartoon that introduced Mickey and Minnie Mouse to the public in 1928.

But.

Steamboat Willie has been in the public domain since the beginning of the year, and Brock published his video a few days after that. Nevertheless, Disney still slapped him with two copyright claims. First, Disney filed a copyright claim on the cartoon itself. The result was that YouTube demonetized the video. After Disney backed off that, the Grooming Syndicate filed a second copyright claim for Steamboat Willie’s soundtrack — which is also in public domain. The whole thing is public domain. Nevertheless, Brock’s video got demonetized — until they earned enough negative media attention to reverse course.

In a way, you can see Disney’s point… The disgraced company is losing billions on its lousy streaming service and theatrical releases, so every dollar does count. But public domain is still public domain, and this bullying campaign is obviously meant to scare off anyone else who would dare do what Disney can no longer do: make money by entertaining the public.

This vile multinational corporation has enjoyed so much special treatment over the years with copyright protection and legislation, and it’s still harassing a private citizen on YouTube who is only guilty of having a few laughs about a cartoon that no longer enjoys copyright protection.

Overall, unless no one files for copyright protection, I’m opposed to the idea of public domain. As evil as Disney is, it is still in business, and its property should be protected for as long as it stands. That’s Good John’s thinking…

Bad John loves seeing Disney lose, fail, and drown in its own greed and perversions.

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Mickey Mouse Is Now In the Public Domain. Well, Sort Of.

The copyright on Mickey Mouse expires today, meaning The Walt Disney Company no longer has the exclusive rights to the character. Does this mean you can put Mickey in your own cartoon? Not exactly.

Under current law, works released between 1924 and 1978 are copyrighted for 95 years. As a result, the thousands of works copyrighted in 1928 enter the public domain today, meaning anyone can use or reprint them without permission. That includes books like D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and films like Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus. But the most high-profile addition is Steamboat Willie, the animated short that marked the debuts of both Mickey and his longtime paramour, Minnie.

The cartoon depicted Mickey Mouse working aboard a steamboat, making music, and vexing the boat’s captain, a large cat named Pete. The slapstick humor, anthropomorphized animals, and objects of later Disney works are present, although Mickey is much more mischievous—the antagonistic dynamic with a giant cat is more reminiscent of Tom & Jerry cartoons than the Mickey Mouse familiar to modern audiences.

The seven-minute film was revolutionary: It was the first cartoon to feature synchronized sound—rather than just a silent film with background music—and audiences loved it. Mickey Mouse spawned a franchise that over the following century would earn more than $80 billion and make Disney one of the most powerful media companies on the planet.

Losing out on its rodential cash cow would be a huge blow, and Disney jealously guarded its creation. When Steamboat Willie premiered in November 1928, U.S. law dictated that it would enter the public domain no later than 1984. But two different laws, one passed in 1976 and another in 1998, extended the maximum copyright term, each by twenty years. Each law passed after strenuous lobbying by Disney: The latter statute, the Copyright Term Extension Act, has been derisively referred to as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

Today’s expiration implies that Disney was either unable to secure another extension or unwilling to try. In recent years, Republican lawmakers have signaled their unwillingness to extend copyright law any further on Disney’s behalf. Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.) even introduced the Copyright Clause Restoration Act of 2022, which would cap copyright terms at a maximum of 56 years—notably, the same term in effect when Walt Disney first released Steamboat Willie.

But this doesn’t mean that Mickey is completely free. The copyright that expires today only applies to Mickey Mouse as he first appeared: rat-like and mischievous, with pupil-less eyes and no gloves. All other interpretations, introduced later—including the magnanimous Mickey who greets visitors to Disney theme parks dressed in a bow tie and tails, with white gloves and human-like eyes and facial features—remain under lock and key.

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DeSantis vs. Disney: Florida’s Fight Over Private Governance

On April 22, 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill dissolving the Reedy Creek Improvement District, ending perhaps the most successful experiment in private governance in U.S. history. The bill ended an arrangement that turned a swamp on the edges of Orlando into the home of Walt Disney World, one of the busiest tourist destinations on Earth. The governor’s victory is not yet final—while the district was formally dissolved earlier this year, Disney attorneys quickly outfoxed DeSantis, delegating many of the district’s powers back to the company. The company is now suing to reverse the change altogether.

For all the media sound and fury over the duel between the would-be president and the Mouse, experts seem to agree that Disney will retain most of its longstanding autonomy when all the lawsuits are through.

Whatever your views of the “Don’t Say Gay” law that kicked off the DeSantis-Disney feud, or of the increasingly regrettable quality of the live-action Disney feature film reboots of its animated classics, DeSantis’ attempt to dissolve the district is a blatant effort to bully a private company because he disapproved of its constitutionally protected speech. At best, it reveals DeSantis as a culture warrior rather than a small-government conservative. At worst, it exposes DeSantis as a politician willing to toss out the rule of law and free markets to score cheap political points, in the lead-up to a Republican presidential primary in which he’s struggling to meet expectations.

For the most frivolous reasons imaginable, the fate of “the happiest place on Earth” now hangs in the balance.

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