• Elon Musk again came out in support of Germany's far-right party, Alternative for Germany.
• In an op-ed in a German newspaper, Musk praised the party's stance on immigration and regulation.
• Germany is holding elections in February.

Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO and advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, has reaffirmed his support for Germany's far-right party.

In an op-ed for a major German newspaper, Musk called the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, the "last spark of hope for this country." He praised its stances on immigration and government regulation, among others.

"The AfD advocates a controlled immigration policy that gives priority to integration and the preservation of German culture and security. This is not about xenophobia, but about ensuring that Germany does not lose its identity in the pursuit of globalization," Musk wrote. "A nation must preserve its core values and cultural heritage to remain strong and united."

The Welt am Sonntag newspaper published the op-ed on Saturday alongside an opposing op-ed written by Welt's editor in chief for television. The newspaper's opinion editor resigned in response, citing the publication of Musk's piece. Welt am Sonntag and Business Insider are both owned by Axel Springer SE.

Germany is holding elections in February after Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence earlier this month, paving the way for snap elections. Long a fringe political party, the AfD has been gaining popularity in Germany with its anti-immigration platform.

Musk said in his opinion piece that the party "resonates with many Germans who feel their concerns are being ignored by the establishment," adding that the "portrayal of the AfD as right-wing extremist is clearly false."

He also praised the party for supporting tax cuts and economic deregulation, and he called for a more balanced energy approach that includes nuclear energy.

Tesla has a major gigafactory in Berlin that manufactures battery cells and Model Y cars.

"As someone who has made significant investments in Germany's industrial and technological landscape, I believe I have the right to speak openly about his political orientation," Musk wrote.

After publishing the op-ed, Musk reposted a series of comments on X, his social media platform, that also praised AfD. One post accused Europe and the United States of overusing the label "far-right."

Last week, Musk called Scholz an "incompetent fool," adding that the chancellor should resign following an attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg that left five people dead. Musk shared a post on X suggesting that the attack was a result of immigration. Police identified the suspect in custody as a Saudi citizen who sought political asylum in Germany.

"We have freedom of opinion — it also goes for multibillionaires, but freedom of opinion also means that you can say things that aren't right and don't contain good political advice," Scholz said in response, according to the Associated Press.

Editor's Note: Business Insider is owned by Axel Springer, which also owns the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

• I loved going to Disney World as a kid, experiencing the freedom of the parks.
• Now that I bring my kids, we feel bogged down by apps, crowds, and restrictions.
• My kids don't know what they're missing, but the parks have changed so much for me.

Visiting Disney World was an annual experience of my youth. For decades, my family would spend a long October weekend at the Fort Wilderness camping resort. We'd run around the parks and skip through the numerous resorts and restaurants sprinkled throughout the Lake Buena Vista campus.

The Disney parks somehow felt futuristic and cutting-edge while also being nostalgic and magical. The trips made such an impression that I still find myself every September doing house chores with the animated "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" playing in the background or watching YouTube videos of park workers setting up the fall decorations.

So when my wife and I started taking our boys to the parks, I fell into the nostalgia trap of hoping their experiences would be just like mine. Time and economics had other plans.

A Disney trip requires too much planning now

I never appreciated the high level of planning it takes to visit a theme park until I became a parent. Ride line length and bad weather were my only concerns as a kid — with some minor concerns about food.

But as a parent, I find myself overwhelmed by the sheer number of pre-visit requirements.

When you take pride in your theme park survival knowledge, nothing will humble you faster than trying to navigate the Dos and Don'ts of visiting a Disney park in the 21^st century. Visiting a park these days requires weeks of planning, constant communication with everyone traveling in your group, and downloading phone apps just to enjoy certain parts of the park.

Further complications include things like Lightning Lane passes, blackout dates, rope drops, ride reservations, and premium annual passes — all things I never had to think about that have since become standard operating procedures for park visits.

My favorite part of visiting the Magic Kingdom used to be seeing the castle once I got through the front gate. Now, it's the bar stool at the resort because it doesn't require a reservation (yet).

I wish my kids get to be more free at the parks like I was

In addition to the annual October visits, I frequently visited the parks through school field trips or group events like Grad Nite. I have memories of racing through the parks with my friends, sprinting from ride to attraction with minimal crowds to slow us down, feeling like those feral kids from "Pinocchio" before they got turned into donkeys.

The sheer volume of the Disney park crowds these days makes that notion impossible. Our boys have fewer opportunities to behave like wild, unaccompanied minors.

This reality doesn't bother me too much, especially since I get the feeling park security would be less tolerant of unaccompanied minors than when I was a kid.

Thankfully, my kids don't care

Of course, none of these differences mean anything to my kids. I have no idea how they really feel about visiting the parks, but I know they enjoy it, and I'm getting better at letting them have their own life experiences without comparing them to mine.

That's fine because those comparisons didn't matter to me as a kid, either. Historians refer to the 1970s and 1980s as Disney's Dark Age, the years when the company produced some of its darkest films and the parks were not the IP-heavy juggernauts of today. But that didn't matter to a late-stage Generation X kid who watched "Robin Hood" and "Winnie the Pooh" until the VCR ate the tapes.

Visiting the parks felt like stepping into a pocket dimension where all the lands and characters showcased by Disney could be seen and touched. The Disney I experienced was the correct Disney, just as the Disney my boys currently experience is also the correct Disney.

Plus, I can feel them rolling their eyes whenever we talk about how much the parks have changed since we were kids.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) warned his Republican colleagues on Sunday about potentially removing House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) from his post when the 119th Congress is sworn in this week.

Why it matters: With a slim GOP majority in the House, Johnson can only afford to lose one vote among Republicans when the House votes on its new leader, and a battle over who that will be could delay other aspects of Congress — including certifying President-elect Trump's win.

What they're saying: "The fact is that Mike Johnson inherited a disaster when Matt Gaetz and several of my colleagues teamed up with 208 Democrats to remove Kevin McCarthy, which will go down as the single stupidest thing I've ever seen in politics," Lawler said Sunday on ABC News' "This Week."

• "Removing Mike Johnson would equally be as stupid. The fact is that these folks are playing with fire. And if they think they're somehow going to get a more conservative speaker, they're kidding themselves," Lawler said.

Zoom out: Johnson's odds of keeping the gavel grew slimmer after Trump torpedoed the stopgap spending bill and Congress spent the Friday before Christmas working to fend off a government shutdown.

• The bill that eventually passed didn't include a debt ceiling increase, a key demand from Trump and several MAGA allies.
• Following the bill's passage, several Republicans have openly voiced their opposition to Johnson continuing to lead the House, with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) saying he won't vote for him.
• Others, including Reps. Scott Perry (R.Pa.) and Andy Harris (R-Md.), have said they're undecided on how they'll vote.

Driving the news: "Mike Johnson is arguably the most conservative speaker that's ever been elected to the office," Lawler said before praising the job Johnson has done "despite the best efforts of some of these same people" who now want him ousted.

• "I'm not going to bend to their will," Lawler said of those pushing to remove Johnson. "So, if they think somehow that they are going to end up in a stronger position by removing Mike Johnson, they're not."

Lawler also cautioned that Congress has a "lot of work to do on behalf of the American people" and a House Speaker battle would delay the start of that.

• "We can't get anything done unless we have a speaker, including certifying President Trump's election on January 6th. So, to waste time over a nonsensical intramural food fight is a joke," he said.

President-elect Trump is set to return to the White House in a few weeks, but Connecticut Gov. Chris Sununu said Sunday that he hasn't permanently altered the GOP.

Driving the news: Fractures have formed among Trump allies and members of the Republican Party as they engage in battles over H-1B visas and the future of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), prompting conversations about the extent of the president-elect's hold on the party.

What they're saying: "Trump is Trump. There's no Trump-lite. There's no Trump 2.0 coming up. I always say that Trump is who he is, and because he's built up himself in the American psyche for 40 years," Sununu said on CNN's "State of the Union."

• When asked if the president-elect had permanently marked the GOP, the governor said no, but said Republicans are now more "hardcore" conservatives than the traditional conservatism of the past.
• Trump "brings a different style to it, which I have a lot of issues with at times, to be sure," Sununu said.
• "Fundamentally on principle," the GOP hasn't changed from its ideology, he said.

Zoom out: Sununu, who will leave office on January 2 after four terms, supported Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP primary, said Sunday that the president-elect wasn't "my first choice and not my second or third or fourth choice."

• But "he won the primary. He won the nomination. And he won the vote handily of the American people," he said.
• "He's got to come through, right? At this point, it's about delivering. I think this term will be fundamentally different than the first term for a variety of reasons," Sununu said. "He's not in his fifth year as president. He's kind of in his ninth, if you will, especially as leader of the party and the voice of the party."