Missouri newspaper attacks Josh Hawley for lacking principles and wasting time on law that will never pass

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has launched his own attack against Disney by targeting U.S. copyright laws that would cause serious problems across the American and international legal systems, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote in an editorial column.

The new legislation proposed by Hawley would pull all copyright and patents out from under companies just 56 years after they were created. It would also work retroactively, Hawley's law says. The way it works now, there is a creator gets the patent and copyright for their lifetime and then 70 years after. So, the Hawley law would considerably reduce that, which would violate the U.S.'s international agreements and treaties.

"There is fodder there for legitimate debate, but Hawley confirms this isn’t that debate in two ways: first, by specifying in the first line of his press release announcing the legislation that it is aimed at 'woke corporations like Disney,' and, secondly, by making the provisions of the bill retroactive on the biggest companies (including Disney), immediately taking away currently owned copyrights with no due process," the editorial reads. "Legal experts say this would be tantamount to the government yanking away a private entity’s real estate or other property based on a law that wasn’t in effect when the company obtained the property. As Yale Law grad Hawley surely knows, it doesn’t work that way."

The Post-Dispatch argues that Hawley is well aware that the law is absurd and would never be passed, but he's not looking to pass actual laws, he's trying to promote himself. They even think that the Disney bashing is about going up against Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Read the full editorial at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.