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To say the partnership between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Harper Collins publishing company is a queer relationship would be an understatement.
It turns out, if you're Ron DeSantis, you don't go broke when you go woke!
Investigations by this reporter into the book deal of Governor Ron DeSantis has revealed that the Florida Governor, who bills himself as the biggest culture warrior and parental rights champion in the State of Florida, is making millions of dollars in the form of book sales from Harper Collins publishing company, which profits from selling and promoting LGBTQ and other woke books that Governor DeSantis’s administration has supported banning in the state of Florida. Or so he says…
As I have previously reported, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis launched his new book, “The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint For America’s Revival” on February 28th, 2023 through a book deal with Harper Collins, a publishing company owned by Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate, NewsCorp. The book deal is reported to be over $2 million, and is rumored to be closer to $8 million by sources within the publishing industry.
How did Governor DeSantis score a multi-million dollar book deal? Originally, his book deal was orchestrated for $2 million via Simon and Schuster. However, Rupert Murdoch, who owns News Corp and Fox News, reportedly poached the book deal from Simon and Schuster for his own company, Harper Collins, which is a subsidiary of News Corporation. Given that the deal with Simon and Schuster was already agreed upon, DeSantis, who needed to give the public an explanation regarding his change in publishing companies, claimed he pulled out of the deal with Simon and Schuster after realizing Simon and Schuster is owned by Paramount, which is the parent company of CBS News’s 60 Minutes.
Governor DeSantis has a longstanding feud and grudge against 60 Minutes because he claims they published false reports about his deployment of the COVID-19 vaccines in Florida. In you recall, Governor DeSantis took great pride in getting Floridians vaccinated, and hosted press conferences where he said he personally signed for the vaccines from Fed Ex. DeSantis has accused CBS of reporting that he only prioritized giving the first batches of the COVID vaccine to his donors, and Floridians who live in wealthy communities. DeSantis denies this accusation.
You may be wondering….ok, whats’s the big deal if he switched publishing companies?
Well, what Governor DeSantis and Harper Collins don’t want you to know is that as he continues to make millions from his partnership with Harper Collins off a book in which he brags about combatting corporate wokeism, restoring parental rights, and creating what he calls “curriculum transparency legislation” in Florida to “Guarantee parents the right to inspect the materials being used in their kids’s schools” (introduction xviii), he recently signed a book deal with a company that is promoting and selling the very same LGBTQ books that Florida has removed from public schools under his Governorship!
This is an astounding act of hypocrisy from both Governor DeSantis and Harper Collins. DeSantis axed his original book deal with Simon and Schuster over what was described as conflicting political messages from their parent company. However, while he bloviates on Fox News (also owned by Rupert Murdoch and tied to Harper Collins) about how he’s leading the fight in the culture war, what he’s actually doing is enriching himself with a publishing company that is publishing the very same books he claims to be fighting to remove from public schools in Florida under the guise of “parental rights”.
In the introduction of his book on page xviii, DeSantis writes,
“Our mantra in Florida has been education, not indoctrination. Florida was one of the first states to enact a Parent’s Bill of Rights, which enshrined into law substantive protections for the role parents play in education, as well as curriculum transparency legislation guaranteeing parents the right to inspect the materials being used in their kid’s schools. We prohibited the teaching of toxic racial ideologies and protected against the sexualization of children. That these measures would even be necessary is proof of how far the modern school system has drifted from the core mission of education.”
When DeSantis cracked down on books being taught in the Florida public school system, books which he argued are sexual and racist in nature, he received national blowback and was accused of “book banning” and “censorship”. In his newly published book, as seen from the above excerpt, DeSantis is proud of his record of banning books and allowing for parents to help suggest which books and materials should be banned from the public school system.
There is nothing wrong with parental rights. But, there is something wrong with political flip flopping for the sake of personal enrichment and deceiving the voters.
Although Harper Collins has since deleted these images from the front page of their website, even though you can still find them on other pages, my investigation has uncovered that Harper Collins has an active campaign to combat state efforts that are banning books from public schools and libraries. Harper Collins feels so strongly about opposing book banning efforts akin to what DeSantis is promoting in the state of Florida, that they are featuring, promoting, and selling some of the most banned books in America on their official website.
On their website under a title that reads “Harper Collins Children’s Books. BANNED. #ReadBannedBooks and celebrate your #FReadom to read!”, a list of some of the most popular banned books are listed, with hyperlinks directing readers where to buy the books.
Two of the first four books featured on the front page of the list, including, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, as well as “The Poet X” by Elizabeth Acevedo are both banned in the state of Florida, according to PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans, national compilation and documentation of book bans in all 50 states.
Adding insult to injury, and further exposing DeSantis as a major hypocrite, in a press conference on March 8, 2023, DeSantis and his staff began their press conference by playing a video that showed sexually explicit content from books found in Florida public schools, including excerpts from a book called Gender Queer, which I have reported on in the past and ran national TV ads exposing during the 2022 midterm election season following my primary election as a federal candidate for US Congress in Florida’s 11th District.
The press conference where this video was played was titled, “Exposing The Book Ban Hoax”. It was also published by the Florida Department of Education, and was hosted to counter claims made against the Governor and his decision to have certain books removed from schools. At the bottom of a blue and yellow graphic published by Governor DeSantis’s office, titled, “Myths vs Facts: BOOK BAN HOAX”, it reads,
“FACT: Florida has taken a stand against pornography and sexual material in the classroom. HB 1557 and HB 1467 further solidify Florida’s commitment to ensuring that content available in our schools is appropriate for students.
Statute 847.012 has been in law for many years and carries a felony penalty for the distribution of pornographic material to children.”
Underneath the video that was posted to Twitter by Taryn Fenske, who serves as the Executive Communications Director in the office for Governor DeSantis, Christina Pushaw, a registered foreign agent who served as the Rapid Response Director for Governor DeSantis’s 2022 re-election campaign and has been reportedly helping DeSantis recruit influencers to support his 2024 Presidential campaign, tweeted, “Wow! Local news stations carrying @GovRonDeSantis press conference had to cut their feeds because the material was too inappropriate but it’s okay for children to read it at school??? Sick.”
DeSantis and his staff are opposed to the teaching of the Gender Queer book in Florida public schools. I agree that this book shouldn’t be taught to children, because it is highly sexual and pornographic. However, while Governor DeSantis is having press conferences and bloviating on Fox News about how he’s fighting the culture war and fighting for parental rights by banning books like Gender Queer from Florida public schools, he seems to have no problem signing a multi-million dollar book and cashing checks from a WOKE publishing company that opposes the ban on Gender Queer and other LGBTQ and racially antagonistic books being taught to American school children.
On the official Harper Collins Website, an image featuring what they claim are “the 10 most challenged books of 2021” shows Gender Queer as the number one book. Above the image of Gender Queer, a statement from Harper Collins Children’s School and Library reads “We stand in support of our authors and illustrators. We stand in support of teachers and librarians. We stand against censorship.”
The fact that this was published before Governor DeSantis signed his book deal with Harper Collins shows that DeSantis went through with the Harper Collins book deal even though Harper Collins is promoting, marketing, and making a massive profit off of various woke children’s books, including sexually explicit LGBTQ books banned in the state of Florida at Governor DeSantis’s request.
This is yet further evidence that Governor DeSantis’s will talk a big talk, but he doesn’t walk the walk…especially if it means hopping in bed with Rupert Murdoch’s publishing company to sign a queer book deal.
In another statement on Harper Collins’ website on a page dedicated to promoting and marketing banned LGBTQ children’s books, they said,
“HARPER COLLINS STANDS AGAINST CENSORSHIP
Books harness the power of literature to develop empathy and understanding and should reflect the diversity pf the world we live in. We know inclusive literature by diverse creators is essential for young people to understand themselves and others. We stand against challenges that would deny readers access to important works, including books by BIPOC (bisexual persons of color) and LGBTQIA+ creators.”
As Governor DeSantis continues to tour the nation on his shadow, 2024 GOP Presidential campaign that is being disguised as a “book tour”, and has even been admitted as being such on Fox News (also owned by Rupert Murdoch who owns Harper Collins) by Governor DeSantis’s own campaign advisor, Karl Rove, he continues to falsely describe himself as wokeism’s worst nightmare, a fighter for parental rights, and the nation’s most feared culture warrior. It is evident that DeSantis’s greatest skillset is manufacturing and profiting off of the controversy that he and his PR team (which includes his wife Jill, who goes by her middle name “Casey”) create in an effort to compensate for the Governor’s mirage of morality.
Despite DeSantis’s statement that “Florida is where woke goes to die”, and the claims in his book that the sexualization of children will not be tolerated in Florida, DeSantis’s book deal with Harper Collins proves that even the most astroturfed GOP Presidential candidate in our country has a price he is willing to accept to sell your kids out to the highest woke bidder.
Woke culture is alive and well in the Sunshine State, and in can be found in the pockets of Governor Ron DeSantis.
I reached out to both Harper Collins and Governor DeSantis’s offices via phone and email for a request for comment. They declined to comment.
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Unbelievable! It’s my county in Florida that first made the news of the garbage in our schools.
Laura you’re a pitt bull! I love how you expose these people. Politicians are the scum of the earth. You can’t trust any of them. Keep up the good work!