<A Christian minister has accused House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) of doing the work of the devil by “creating division through fear.”

In a scathing op-ed for Salon, Nathaniel Manderson said evangelical Christians have long “pointed to the devil outside in the world” but that “the devil is the one doing the pointing.”

Mike Johnson says God will punish “depraved” U.S. because more teens identify as LGBTQ+ “God is mocked openly in the public square,” he said this past Sunday.

Before turning to Johnson specifically, Manderson expounds on what he sees as the overall evil of the evangelical viewpoint. He also establishes his wholehearted belief (and fear of) the devil, while at the same time acknowledging that “it’s embarrassing” and that “I understand, intellectually, how stupid this fear is.”

Manderson said he sees the devil “much more at home within the evangelical movement than in most liberal causes,” despite what Christian extremists would have their followers believe. “It is well understood in Christian history that the best place to disrupt goodness is through the church itself,” he wrote. “Consider the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the history of American slavery, the attempted genocide against Native Americans and the oppression of women. All these evils are or were firmly backed by biblical theology — at least, as many Christians understand it — and, in my opinion, are all fully endorsed by the devil himself.”

“This is now true of the evangelical political movement, which I believe is led by the devil and his followers.”

He explained that Johnson is advancing the “evangelical agenda,” which involves supporting Donald Trump and “ignoring the needs of the poor, the sick and immigrants from foreign lands.”

Manderson emphasized his belief that progressive causes are really not of concern to the devil: “If the devil is real I am pretty sure he doesn’t care about same-sex marriage, taxes on the wealthy, building a wall along the Mexican border, denying health insurance to poor and working-class people or even abortion. The devil isn’t about issues. He wants to control and mislead people and get them to do evil things.”

And in this case, Manderson believes the devil is controlling and misleading Johnson and the evangelicals. He even says Trump himself “should be enough evidence the devil is real.” He added that “people who loudly claim to be pure and good,” people like Johnson, are more likely to be evil.

“Jesus gave his sternest warnings against the religious hypocrites of his day — those who misuse the word of God to oppress or subjugate people and restrict their rights,” he continued. “Jesus knew, as we must know too, that the real evil, the genuine devil, is often found in the pulpit. The devil has many followers. He sells many books. He runs for president. He misleads God’s people.”

Johnson, who once worked for the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, has previously said that same-sex marriage will lead to “chaos and sexual anarchy” and “place our entire democratic system in jeopardy by eroding its foundation.”

He claimed legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to “pedophiles” seeking legal protections for having sex with kids and people trying to marry their pets. He has also said, “Homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural… ultimately harmful and costly for everyone.”

More recently, as a member of Congress, Johnson introduced a federal version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, falsely accused President Joe Biden of breaking federal law by displaying the Progress Pride flag outside the White House, and claimed that parents do not have the right to provide their children with access to gender-affirming healthcare.

Johnson still sits on the board of a conservative Christian publishing company that says MPOX is the “appropriate penalty” for being gay. His wife, Kelly, runs a Christian counseling service that compared LGBTQ+ identities to bestiality on its website. In an October 3 call with the World Prayer Network, Johnson said that America is “dark and depraved” because there are too many LGBTQ+ people.>

<Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida needs to find a way to quickly and quietly get out of the Disney quagmire he created by undoing the old Reedy Creek district that Disney controlled and replacing it with the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District that the governor controls. Recent accusations of a sexual nature involving one of his appointees, Bridget Ziegler, and her husband, Florida GOP chair Chris Ziegler, are causing DeSantis some embarrassment. But as bad as Ziegler’s troubles may be, they are just the most recent in a long list of problems DeSantis and the board have faced in trying to challenge the way Disney does business in Florida.

By now most people following either the Walt Disney Company or DeSantis, a GOP presidential candidate, know about the kerfuffle playing out in Central Florida. The fight centers around how much control Disney has over its resort, Walt Disney World. In 2022, then-Chairman of Disney Bob Chapek, feeling pressure from Disney employees, came out against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, or what critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. In what some saw as retaliation, DeSantis subsequently convinced the state legislature to undo the special Reedy Creek district that Disney World occupied.

Reedy Creek — more properly, the Reedy Creek Improvement District — was a neat trick that the Walt Disney Company negotiated in 1966 to gain complete political control over the area where Disney World sits. Not exactly a “great moment in democracy,” Disney was allowed to run a government that oversaw zoning, fire and police, and other government functions in the area where Disney World is located. The company could control who could run for and sit on the district’s oversight board.

This arrangement served Disney well, and the huge tax revenues that Disney brings to Florida — over $1 billion in 2022 — made it easier for the state of Florida to accept this little bit of political trickery. But if we’re being honest here, Disney’s Reedy Creek district was a classic example of corporate political overreach.

So, DeSantis’s decision to dismantle the district and replace it with one state-controlled was met with some ambivalence. Sure, Disney had too much political power over its own affairs, but the move also felt like a clear case of retaliation against a company just because it had disagreed with the governor.

We are now about a year out from the start of all of this and almost nothing has gone well for DeSantis or the state of Florida. The Florida legislature quickly passed a bill terminating all agreements similar to the Reedy Creek district that had been approved before 1968.

Conveniently, Reedy Creek was the only one that met this date criteria [sic]. Disney did try to outmaneuver the new law by setting up a long-term (very long-term) agreement that the old board approved of as it left, and that the new board had little power to change. A series of still-in-process lawsuits between Florida and Disney followed....>

<....The new board, which was surprised to find a recently passed comprehensive agreement blocking most of their ability to govern the district, was appointed by DeSantis under the new law. DeSantis made appointments to the oversight board that appear to be political. Looking at the five-member board, some of the new members evidently were chosen either as part of political back-scratching by DeSantis or as a thumb in the eye at Disney. All five of the appointees have political connections to DeSantis.

The first problematic board member was Michael Sasso, who resigned from the board just four months into his term. Sasso never explained why he resigned, but DeSantis appointed Sasso’s wife, Meredith Sasso, to the Florida Supreme Court just before the resignation. The Sassos and DeSantis have a long history of traveling in the same circles. Having the chair abruptly resign four months in portended the trouble ahead.

Other board members have generally kept a lower profile, although none seemed to have any previous experience in working with a multibillion-dollar resort. Ron Peri runs The Gathering, a Christian ministry aimed solely at men. Martin Garcia, now the board chair, was a large donor to the DeSantis campaign.

This brings us to the most recent troubles, the very public flameout of board member Bridget Ziegler. On Dec. 6, Ziegler missed a meeting of the board. Ziegler is the veritable thumb in Disney’s eye. She helped found Moms for Liberty, the organization that was instrumental in getting the Parental Rights in Education Act through the Florida legislature, the very “Don’t Say Gay” law that Disney objected to in the first place. Subtle, DeSantis is not.

Missing a meeting is typically not a huge deal, but Ziegler’s absence happened after a woman accused Ziegler’s husband of rape, which he has denied; Ziegler has acknowledged that the woman alleging misconduct was once involved with Ziegler and her husband in an affair. Generally, this unfolding scandal is not a great look for DeSantis if he is trying to embarrass Disney.

So, to summarize the short — but by no means exhaustive — details: Since DeSantis decided to take on Disney, the largest private employer in Florida, he has incurred several lawsuits from Disney; the state has itself started several lawsuits against Disney; the state has been out-maneuvered by Disney despite undoing Disney’s political advantage in the district; the new board had one chair resign for unknown reasons, and a second board member is now swept up in a tawdry, unfolding scandal. I have not even mentioned the problems with employees, including firefighters and law enforcement, in the district, the potential for Florida taxpayers to end up paying for the old district’s debt, or other issues involving the new board.

It is clear that, at this point, DeSantis needs to move on. Whatever bounce he might have gotten in public opinion polls from taking on a “woke” Disney has evaporated and the more time that passes, the worse the situation seems to get.>

<For months, Democrats hounded Sen. Tommy Tuberville to drop his blanket hold on hundreds of senior military promotions over the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy. In November, Tuberville’s fellow Republicans joined in.

The Alabama Republican wouldn’t budge. Then a member of his own party threatened to whip votes against him.

During a closed-door Senate Republican lunch on Nov. 28, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) gave a fiery 10-minute speech, the latest in a series of attempts to get Tuberville to relent. In remarks that haven’t been previously reported, Sullivan announced that he had exhausted all of his options and that it was time to join Democrats in a vote to undo the blanket holds.

Sullivan, a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, leaned on his status as the Senate’s only serving military officer. He warned that an exodus of military officers was coming if the nominees weren’t confirmed before the end of the year. If that happened, they would have to be renominated.

“One [commanding officer] I know personally told me: ‘I’m apolitical but one group of elected officials always had our backs — Republican senators. Now you guys hate us — the world has been turned upside down,’” Sullivan said, according to remarks obtained by POLITICO.

At that point, it had been more than seven months without a breakthrough despite the opposition of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other senior Republicans to Tuberville’s hardball tactics. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was playing hardball too, refusing to hold individual votes on nominees — until he was forced to — and repeatedly arguing this was a problem for Republicans to fix.

The standoff, which centered on a Defense Department policy to reimburse and provide leave for service members who need to travel to receive abortions, largely ended this week when Tuberville abandoned most of his holds and allowed their immediate confirmations.

This account is based on more than a dozen interviews with senators and aides closely involved in or tracking the dispute.

While Sullivan was among the most visible and forceful of his GOP colleagues, a bloc of Republican senators — including several military veterans — had been actively plotting a way to end the blockade.

Senate Republicans were caught between Tuberville’s hold and a resolution by Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to undo it. The resolution would have allowed all but a few of the stalled military promotions — which Tuberville was holding up in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy — to be approved in one big bloc. Reed’s measure would need nine or 10 Republicans.

At the Nov. 28 meeting, Sullivan announced he’d back the Democratic-led resolution, urging other Republican colleagues to join him.

“Like being pro-life, this is a core principle that distinguishes Republicans from Democrats,” he told senators. “For that reason, if we’re forced to take this vote on the Reed [resolution], a number of us will feel compelled to support it. My hope is that instead of a vote of nine or 10 of us, that this could be a vote of 30 or 40.”

Tuberville, known throughout his conference as “Coach,” after his college football days, said in response at the conference meeting: “Listen, everyone. I got y’all into this mess. I’m gonna get you out.”

After the meeting, he gave the first public hints that he might relent. Then on Tuesday, he announced he was backing off his hold of nominees for three-star posts and below — the solution Sullivan proposed to him.

Tuberville told reporters he decided to back down when he saw he had no recourse through the annual defense authorization bill, which was in negotiations, and that Democrats had enough Republican votes to pass the Reed resolution.

Sullivan hadn’t acted alone. Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and retired National Guard officer who served in Iraq, was among the senators pressing him privately to find an off-ramp.

“Dan and I had worked with Coach for a very long time — months and months — and we were just racking our brains trying to offer him different off-ramps,” Ernst said in an interview. “We're all very pro-life. But we just wanted for these [nominations] to move.”

Ernst, who said there was no bad blood between her and Tuberville after the dispute, said she spoke up during weekly GOP lunches “many times” over many months on the holds.

This fall, Sullivan raised the matter at every Republican lunch, to a degree some colleagues, Sullivan admits, thought it was grating or even counterproductive. While he says he never enjoyed putting a colleague on the spot, pointing to the impact on readiness amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war against Hamas had to be done — and it was working, he argues....>

<....“I think in the fall, when we started to bring it up in the conference, a lot, starting in October, it did raise the issue with a number of senators who were like, ‘whoa,’” Sullivan said in an interview after the hold was lifted. “It was the combo of readiness and the very dangerous world that we're in right now.”

Plus, there was the role played by Reed and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who crafted the resolution allowing senators to sidestep the regular process, giving Sullivan and others a stick if Tuberville didn’t take their carrot.

Reed, an Army veteran himself, said the dam began to break when five Republicans confronted Tuberville on the Senate floor. All but Utah Sen. Mitt Romney are veterans: Ernst, Sullivan, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who served in the Air Force as a lawyer, and Sen. Todd Young of Indiana, who served as a Marine officer.

Tuberville objected to confirmation and blocked each one of them. The pattern repeated itself several weeks later when the Alabama Republican and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) objected into the wee hours of the morning to again prevent the confirmation of promotions.

“I think Sen. Sullivan did a remarkable job of reminding everyone in the [Republican] caucus of their duties to military personnel,” Reed said in an interview. “They're men and women who risk their lives constantly and they’re not just political chits.”

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who was working to gather Republican supporters for Reed’s resolution, likewise credited that group. Early on, Kelly held several private conversations with Tuberville to explain, from Kelly’s perspective as a 25-year Navy veteran, the damage Tuberville was doing to national security and to the careers and families of service members.

“And that didn't work,” Kelly said in an interview. “The thing that obviously worked was the political pressure from his own colleagues, just their strategy of putting this pressure on him is what got it done.”

Tuberville talked about that pressure in Senate floor remarks on Wednesday, and indicated repeatedly this week that he had no regrets about his gambit.

“Unfortunately, last month, even some of my Republican colleagues attacked me — and attacked me personally — here on this floor," he said. "They are currently in the military, and they were standing up for their colleagues, which is fine. But I can stand and we all can stand for the life of the unborn and for our military. You can do both.”

Multiple lawmakers described the months of fierce and emotional internal GOP discussions before the breakthrough, characterizing the dispute as one over strategy rather than disagreement over opposition to the Pentagon abortion policy.

However, senators are wary as to whether Tuberville has set a troubling precedent for other members to hold up nominations without a credible path toward success amid their policy disagreements with any administration.

“There was no endgame. There's no strategy,” Romney said in an interview. “It was not a plan that thought about how to actually succeed.”>

Ya died alone on that hill, Tommy Tubesteak--see ya, hate ta be ya!!

<Former President Trump's allies in Congress are pushing a series of bills that reflect part of his 2025 agenda, including plans to crack down on mask mandates, affirmative action and who can become a U.S. citizen.

The proposals also reflect Trump's influence on Congress' GOP caucus — despite losing the 2020 election, his not-so-stellar record endorsing other Republicans, and the prospect of facing four felony trials as he runs for president next year.

Trump's been endorsed by at least 83 House Republicans and 16 GOP senators for the 2024 election, when Republicans will try to take over the Senate while Democrats will seek to regain control of the House.

Zoom in: Sen. J.D. Vance's (R-Ohio), one of Trump's most loyal backers in Congress, introduced a bill over the summer to bar the Department of Transportation from enforcing mask mandates, a popular cause in Trumpworld.

The bill, an echo of conservative criticisms of pandemic-era restrictions, passed the Senate with votes from 10 Democrats. Trump has promised to "use every available authority to cut federal funding to any school, college, airline or public transportation system" imposing a mask or vaccine mandate.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Vance this week introduced a bill to create a federal office to investigate any claims of colleges using affirmative action in admissions — essentially an agency to police a Supreme Court ruling this year that Trump and other Republicans cheered.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), another Trump loyalist, has joined Vance in proposing bills that would make gender-affirming care for minors a felony, another priority on the far right's social agenda.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), meanwhile, introduced legislation to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants after Trump vowed to sign an executive order to do the same on his first day back in office day.

Vance also introduced a bill to eliminate EV subsidies shortly after Trump railed against them at an auto plant in Detroit.

The intrigue: Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Greene have put forward a pair of legally dubious bills that would aim to "expunge" Trump's two impeachments — an idea Trump talks about frequently and would favor, people familiar with his thinking tell Axios.

Legal analysts largely agree, though, that Congress has no such authority.

Between the lines: One of the biggest issues Trump had as president was a lack of ideological allies in the Senate even though it was controlled by the GOP, a person close to Trump's campaign tells Axios.

If Trump were to win a second term, he'd hope for another GOP majority in the Senate and count on Vance and a few other like-minded Republicans senators such as Eric Schmitt (Missouri), Tommy Tuberville (Alabama) and Roger Marshall (Kansas) to be "bulldogs" for his policies, the source close to the campaign tells Axios.

In the House, Trump enjoys a close relationship with new Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). During Trump's first impeachment hearings, Johnson, then a member of the House Judiciary Committee, defended the president on TV.

Reality check: In today's Democrat-controlled Senate — and as long as both chambers of Congress aren't under total GOP control — the vast majority of the legislation proposed by Trump allies has no chance becoming law.>

For the record, it is well known that perfidious is the full-fledged pervert and proud of it as so many of his lurid posts repeatedly show.>

Yet you have nothing to say when your bosom buddy from <mASSachusetts> posts of homoerotic imagery.

Don't like to hear the truth? Don't read my posts.

<Former President Donald Trump spoke on Saturday night to some of his most staunch conservative supporters, filling a speech at the New York Young Republican Club's annual gala with praise for his political allies on the far right and doubling down on his controversial comment that he'd only be a "dictator" if reelected on "Day 1."

He also bragged about his ability to win the 2016 election after the release of a video from behind the scenes of "Access Hollywood" years earlier, where he was seen making lewd and vulgar statements about women.

Trump spotlighting the "Access Hollywood" tape -- an infamous episode late in his 2016 campaign that fueled widespread condemnation and calls for him end his campaign -- started out on Saturday as a seemingly off-the-cuff remark.

In his speech, he mentioned "the biggest inescapable" situation he endured in politics and then shared more details, making it clear he was talking about the "Access Hollywood" video.

In that notorious clip, he had said, "You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful [women] -- I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. ... And when you’re a star they let you do it."

"Grab them by the p----," Trump said in the video. "You can do anything."

He later tried to play that down as "locker room talk," including during one of the 2016 debates, but his defense only fueled some other notable Republicans to call for him to step aside.

Trump on Saturday described how all of his political advisers, except Steve Bannon, encouraged him to drop out of the 2016 race after the video resurfaced. Trump claimed that an unnamed general told him the "locker room talk" explanation he gave was the "bravest thing I've ever seen" over witnessing people die on the battlefield.

"It was an incredible campaign and we won and nobody thought we could win," Trump said.

The unusual rehashing of the "Access Hollywood" video -- which has not been in the headlines for years -- is the latest example of how Trump continues to brush aside scandal while remaining popular with the Republican base.

Trump is campaigning for the White House for a third time while facing numerous legal battles, including four sets of criminal charges. He denies all wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to all of his charges.

In Saturday's speech, he claimed it was another example of his opponents attempting to stop his political rise -- an accusation prosecutors have rejected.

"Our mission in this race is to win a historic and powerful mandate to take back our nation from the shadow government of corrupt alliances," he said.

He also continued focusing on a theme of retribution and retaliation, seemingly threatening President Joe Biden.

He has said that as president, he would appoint a special prosecutor "to go after" Biden and Biden's family, whom he blamed for the destruction of the country.

"They've opened up a Pandora's box and I only can say to Joe is: Be very careful what you wish for," Trump said Saturday....>

<....In front of a friendly crowd, he joked about his comments from a town hall with Fox News' Sean Hannity last week where he said he wasn't going to be a dictator if reelected "other than Day 1," when he would focus on the border and drilling.

That statement raised new alarms about whether Trump would abuse his power as president, something he did not rule out when questioned by Hannity.

"You know why I wanted to be a dictator, because I want a wall. Right? I want a wall and I want to drill, drill, drill," Trump said on Saturday to "build the wall" chants.

The club's gala is known for making headlines with its speeches and a room full of guests with their own controversies.

Saturday's event honored figures like Bannon, who was sentenced last year after being convicted of contempt of Congress.

Bannon has had an off-and-on relationship to Trump, including serving briefly as a senior White House strategist in 2017. Trump pardoned him in early 2021 after Bannon was accused of money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud by federal prosecutors. Bannon has pleaded not guilty to similar charges filed by prosecutors in New York City.

Other guests on Saturday included former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is charged with Trump in a Georgia election subversion indictment (Giuliani has pleaded not guilty); and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, who was previously censured and removed from committees after posting a graphic anime clip featuring violence against New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

At one point during the gala, host Alex Stein tried to make a punchline out of stereotyping the Black and Hispanic community as criminals and gang members, saying it would be "good if Donald Trump went to jail" because it would help him earn the support from those communities.

Stein then repeated the joke later in the night when Trump was in the room.

"Once President Trump is back in office, we won't be playing nice anymore. It will be a time for retribution," the club's president, Gavin Wax, said in his own remarks. "After baseless years of investigations and government lies and media lies against this man, now it is time to turn the tables on these actual crooks and lock them up for a change.">

Remember, <stalker>: love the sin but hate the sinner, except here, where you embrace that great doer of misdeeds into the bargain.

Capisce?

<Former President Donald Trump was recently trolled on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) after his speech went viral where he mentioned ExxonMobil moving to Dallas while discussing corporations leaving the US surfaces.

Notably, according to the most recent poll for the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden by 4 points, indicating possible difficulties for Democrats.

Donald Trump's statement on Exxon Mobil moving to Texas

While headlining the NYYRC 111th Annual Gala, Donald Trump said, "Everybody knows she was the one who sued Exxon Mobil in 2019. Letitia James, in a much-watched legal battle, the result was that Exxon Mobil moved out of New York. How do you think that's a good idea?"

He added, "Exxon Mobil, one of the biggest companies in the world, left NY and they went to Dallas. Great job Letitia. And that's what's happening right now. Businesses are fleeing our country. Businesses are leaving this whole horrible system. They're leaving the States, they're leaving our country. Our country has changed so radically. Its business is unfriendly and they are going to other places."

Internet trolls Donald Trump

Many internet users trolled Donald Trump for his statement on Exxon Mobil. A user commented, "Trump confused again, thinks Dallas is in a foreign country. His decline is evident" while one added, "Does he know that Dallas is in Texas and that Texas is in our country??"

Another user said, "Imagine voting for this guy, and being proud of it" whereas one added, "To be fair, Texas does believe it's its own country." Another person said, "Technically it's true since Texas acts more like Saudi Arabia".

A user also mentioned, "Is he running a shopping network now. what is with the ads on the side of these posts. he is really desperate for cash.">

<Florida Senator Rick Scott has called for an investigation into garlic imported from China, saying that production methods mean the food could pose a national security risk.

"There is a severe public health concern over the quality and safety of garlic grown in foreign countries—most notably, garlic grown in Communist China," the senator said in a letter to the Department of Commerce on Wednesday.

Scott urged the department to open an investigation into the security risk posed by all forms of Chinese-imported garlic.

"Whole or separated into constituent cloves, whether or not peeled, chilled, fresh, frozen, provisionally preserved or packed in water or other neutral substance," Scott wrote.

Citing cooking blogs, home magazines, YouTube videos, and documentaries, he claimed that it was "well-documented" that garlic from China was fertilized with "human feces" and was grown in sewage.

He also said that garlic was sometimes bleached to make it appear whiter and more appealing to US consumers.

Scott also noted concerns over the imports' effects on domestic industries, saying that it could lead to unemployment, decreased public revenue, and loss of investment.

A 2017 report from the McGill University Office for Science and Society said that there was no hard evidence showing that sewage was used as fertilizer in China.

"In any case, there is no problem with this, human waste is as effective a fertilizer as is animal waste," the report says.

"The skin on garlic bulbs is effective at preventing penetration into the bulb," it adds.

This year, researchers from Swiss agricultural research firm Agroscope also found that fertilizers made from human feces were as safe and effective as traditional ones after carrying out tests on cabbages, the New Scientist reported.

"The products derived from recycling human urine and feces are viable and safe nitrogen fertilizers for cabbage cultivation," Agroscope's Franziska Häfner said, per the report. "They gave similar yields as a conventional fertilizer product, and did not show any risk regarding transmission of pathogens or pharmaceuticals.">

<Like the malicious, boastful schoolboy he will forever be, Donald Trump smirkingly twists apt descriptions of himself and his often cartoonishly deranged acts against those who point out his transgressions. And as in a game of Follow the Leader, his fellow Republicans continue to project their own psychopathies on the truth-tellers.

Thus the all-too-accurate pejorative "Trump crime family," describing decades of phony charitable and educational scams, purposeful misstatements of property values and massive grifting during the White House years, becomes mock-outraged references to the “Biden Crime Family.”

Call one of his ravings sent out in the wee hours on his social media platform Truth Central deranged, and he’ll latch onto that word to use as invective against his political opponents.

As Salon’s Heather Digby Parton recently noted, Trump is even trying to turn the tables on the increasing number of historians, journalists and politicians who warn that the former grifter in chief is an obvious threat to the continuation of our democracy. Yes, the twice-impeached ex-president who lies about and despises the free press and talks about suspending the Constitution now regularly claims that he is somehow protecting all of us from “Joe Biden’s war on democracy.”

As it turns out, Trump’s exhortation to insurrection, “Fight like hell or you won’t have a country,” turned out to be a warning to all non-faux patriots, the great majority of Americans, who now are now forced to be conservative, whatever else they may be —conservative about preserving the Constitution, political norms, the rule of law and freedom of the press — because no one else seems willing to do that any longer.

That the 77-year-old former president who is still attempting to overturn the 2020 election simply makes use of the “I know you are, but what am I?” taunt of a pre-teen is laughable (Parton calls it “his latest tribute to the late great Pee-wee Herman”) and also repugnant, because he’s supposed to be an adult. But, like all con men and authoritarians, who are also essentially swindlers, he knows that if you repeat something often enough, an amazing number of people will come to believe it.

Or they’ll believe it because they just want to believe it. As Paul Simon long ago wrote in the classic “The Boxer”: “A man hears what he wants to hear/ and disregards the rest.”

If Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels were here today to witness such rhetoric, he’d no doubt applaud how well it is following form. He might even burst into laughter in delight at how amazingly successful it has been in the United States.

As Rachel Maddow (who likely doesn’t enjoy talking about it, but can tell you a bit about the history of American Nazis) recently noted, Trump uses terms like "fascist" against his critics because, as always, his mission is to obfuscate the truth. As she recently remarked: “He knows he’s going to get called a fascist for talking this way. And he’s calling all of his opponents fascists, too, trying to rob that word of its meaning.”

I thought Maddow’s use of "rob" was well chosen; much of the endless Trumpian grifting involves begging and then misusing money from supporters who, in many cases, can't really afford to donate to his campaign. But if you’re going to be a successful grifter, you cannot concern yourself about those you hurt. Much better have no conscience at all.

This brings me to "Trump Derangement Syndrome," a term that has been in use so long that these days people often just go with the acronym. Trump just used it to hit back at former congresswoman Liz Cheney, who recently published a book, "Oath and Honor," aimed at warning about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.

Trump and his supporters borrowed the term to dismiss their critics for “reflexively” opposing everything Trump puts forward. You know, all his great ideas and well-thought-out plans for protecting the public, boosting the economy, enhancing our leadership on the world stage and bolstering our democracy.

I recently found myself in an email exchange with someone who had taken offense to a recent opinion article of mine about the Biden economy. After I responded, he became reasonably civil, and I was beginning to enjoy the exchange. But his parting shot — skillfully glancing, not direct — was “TDS is real,” which, of course, implied I was suffering from anti-Trump psychosis and might need to seek counseling.

Coming on the jackbooted heels of Trump’s use of Hitler’s term "vermin" to describing the large majority of the U.S. population who aren't members of his weird, violence-seeking cult — which includes many Republicans and actual Christians — I wondered whether something similar had been used by Nazi propagandists against those who criticized Hitler.....>

<....There's no question the Nazis used derisive language to push back on their critics, especially against Jews, socialists, intellectuals, artists and others who could not be expected to fall in line. But critics of the Nazis didn't have much time to voice objections to what they saw happening after Hitler came to power during a declared state of emergency, before he ordered his stormtroopers to start arresting or simply killing those who opposed him. Had the Nazis needed to twist the truth with their critics, maybe they'd have come up with something like Hitler-Hysterie Syndrom, shifting the blame to those who were paying attention. Even the German conservatives and major capitalists who thought they could control Hitler found that they could not, much like the "moderate" old guard in the Republican Party.

In this era of the Trump cult, all of this sounds familiar to many Americans, and more than a little terrifying. Trump has actively encouraged followers to commit acts of violence since his first campaign began in 2015. Now his campaign spokespeople say that his critics will be “crushed.” Is it a form of psychosis to be unhappy with that prospect? Was it deranged to be perplexed or horrified by his chaotic and damaging reaction to the pandemic?

In an early comment on the right’s use of of the term, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik observed that TDS was a reasonable reaction to Trump because of his “appetite” to prove his authority through violent means:

With Trump, it is perfectly clear that he only has a series of episodic wounds and reactions — it’s all fears and fits. If he were the governor of a state, or the leader of a much smaller country, we could already begin to discount the more vivid fears with which his ascent to power was met. The problem is that he is the President of the United States, and that the one appetite that he does have is for announcing his authority through violence, a thing capable of an unimaginable resonance and devastation. That’s the only Trump Syndrome we ought to worry about, and it can become deranged.

As a New Yorker, Gopnik no doubt knew all one needs to know about Donald Trump (which, truly, isn't much: "blustering con man" gets you much of the way there) and his long history of being “a user of users,” as the late Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett worked hard to detail and explain.

Modern-day white nationalists like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller have barely changed the Nazi approach at all: disparaging immigrants, trashing the free press, dehumanizing political opponents, normalizing calls for violence against perceived enemies. There’s a way to do this sort of horror, and Trump and his gang of angry misfits regularly crib from some of the most abominable people the world has ever known.

As Timothy Snyder, the Yale historian and author of "On Tyranny," wrote in a New York Times op-ed about Hitler: “The form of his propaganda was inextricable from its content: the fictionalization of a globalized world into simple slogans, to be repeated until an enemy thus defined was exterminated.”

Trump is a man of simple slogans, of schoolyard putdowns. He’s the type of person who tries to “own” others by giving them a nickname. Hitler depended on the simple slogans of propaganda, repeated endlessly, and had this to say about the public's susceptibility to the "Big Lie":>

<.....It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think there may be some other explanation.

Trump himself, with his tirades against the free press, his violent fantasies about his political opponents and his eagerness to dehumanize anyone who opposes or criticizes him, is highly adept at delivering propaganda. He’s good at it and often renders it “entertaining,” which makes all that hate go down easy. As many writers have noted over the years, Trump appeals to people who aren't particularly interested in politics or policies, but who are pleased to have their prejudices supported and enjoy the show of Trumpian invective directed against anyone who might find their views deplorable.

Godwin’s Law (apparently formulated 1991) states that once you compare someone to Hitler or the Nazis, the argument is over. But Mike Godwin himself, in a 2018 opinion essay for the Los Angeles Times, tried to clarify what he meant:

GL is about remembering history well enough to draw parallels — sometimes with Hitler or with Nazis, sure — that are deeply considered. That matter. Sometimes those comparisons are going to be appropriate, and on those occasions GL should function less as a conversation ender and more as a conversation starter.

In the case of Donald J. Trump, the comparisons have long been more than appropriate — now he’s daring us not to make the comparisons. Mob-speak style, he'll disclaim it with a wink and a smirk, but you know he takes it as a compliment — and his followers love when he says such un-American (and un-Christian) things as his recent statement that immigration is "poisoning the blood of our country."

According to many who know him well, including his psychologist niece, Mary Trump, our most recent ex-president is a highly disturbed and dangerous person. But most of us already understand that America can “stand back and stand by” for the end of democracy if this man re-enters the White House.

As for the true nature of TDS, I received an email from someone calling himself “Hang Obama” responding to my commentary on Joe Biden’s management of the economy, which has managed to fend avert the long-anticipated recession. The subject line of this person's email was “Lying k!k3,” and this was what it said: “The day of retribution will descend upon you usurping jews [sic] like a flock of brave hama$ (funded by bibi) freedom fighters.”

Technically speaking, I’m a Christian. A Presbyterian, as it happens, with friends of various religious faiths or none at all. But there it is, TDS in action. You can hear it at Trump's rallies — in the unnerving cheers and raucous laughter of his fervent followers as they respond to his increasingly deranged ravings, still playing that invisible accordion behind the podium.

We can apply the diagnosis of TDS to the man-child himself or his followers, but not those of us over here in the reality-based community. If we react reflexively to Trump, it's because he lies reflexively, claiming that he's got good ideas and is the man for the job. He’s proven, time and again, that he’s not the man for any job. Now he increasingly speaks of himself in divine terms, which as many experts agree is terrifying, whether it represents genuine delusion or just another cunning maneuver to draw his cult members in even deeper.

Applied to those who see him for who he is, TDS was always a psychological projection. But it is real — and it's a clear and present danger.>

<[Event "BCC Thursday Swiss"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1985.12.05"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "4.1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Lukowiak, William"]
[Black "Shaw, Alan"]
[ECO "C46"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bc4 Nxe4 5.Nxe4 d5 6.Bd3 dxe4 7.Bxe4 Bd6 8.0-0 0-0 9.d3 Ne7 10.d4 f5 11.Bd3 e4 12. Bc4+ Kh8 13.Ng5 Qe8 14.f3 h6 15.fxe4 hxg5 16.e5 Bb4 17.c3 Ba5 18.Bxg5 Ng8 19.Rf4 Nh6 20.Rh4 Qg6 21.Qd2 Kh7 22.d5 Bb6+ 23.Kh1 f4 24.Bxf4 Bf5 25.Be2 Be4 26.Bh5 Qf5 27.Rf1 g5 28.Bg4 Qxe5 29.Rh5 Rxf4 30.Rxf4 Qxf4 31.Qxf4 gxf4 32.Be6 f3 0-1>

<[Event "New England Open"] [Site "Fitchburg Mass"]
[Date "1985.09.01"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "3.10"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Young, Jack"]
[ECO "A88"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Close of Fall Open"] [Site "Billerica, Mass"]
[Date "1985.10.20"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "3"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Boudrot, Ed"]
[Black "Shaw, Alan"]
[ECO "E12"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Close of Fall Open"] [Site "Billerica, Mass"]
[Date "1985.10.20"]
[EventDate "1985"]
[Round "4.1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Curdo, John"]
[ECO "B32"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Boston Met League Playoff"] [Site "Boston Mass"]
[Date "1988.04.29"]
[EventDate "1988"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Cassuto, Lenny"]
[Black "Cherniack, Alex"]
[ECO "A21"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "22nd World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1994.??.??"]
[EventDate "1994"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Griego, David"]
[Black "Arbakov, Valentin"]
[ECO "A57"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "22nd World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1994.??.??"]
[EventDate "1994"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Gruenfeld, Yehuda"]
[Black "Griego, David"]
[ECO "B33"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<Ron DeSantis rattled corporate America by making Walt Disney Co. a target of his conservative culture wars. Now, the Florida governor’s campaign to rid the state of Chinese influence is fueling a forceful backlash from big-name investors.

A group that represents companies including Blackstone Inc., Steve Ross’s Related Cos. and Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital wants to roll back a law that went into effect in July that bans most Chinese investment in real estate in Florida. Other developers, including home builder Lennar Corp., also are pushing back on the statute. Lobbyists are pressing state lawmakers to pass legislation early next year to relax the restrictions, people involved in the process say.

DeSantis, whose bid for the Republican nomination for president is struggling, has made getting tough on China part of his campaign to woo conservative voters. The Foreign Countries of Concern law, he says, blocks agents of China’s communist regime from buying property near US military bases to use for spying.

Yet the law also bans most Chinese capital from being used to fund projects in Florida, choking off a relatively cheap source of financing for an engine of the state’s economy at a time of high interest rates and distress in commercial real estate. Firms with Chinese investors are barred from taking even small, non-controlling stakes in real estate deals under the statute.

“The law is far-reaching, very, very confusing, and the unintended consequences would be very, very detrimental,” said John Fish, chairman of the Real Estate Roundtable, a lobbying group for dozens of America’s biggest real estate investors, including Citigroup Inc., Blackstone, Related, Starwood and Wells Fargo & Co.

Wells Fargo declined to comment. Citigroup, Blackstone, Related and Starwood didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this year, Ken Griffin, the founder of the Citadel financial empire and Florida’s second-richest person after Jeff Bezos, was able to win some changes to the legislation — which places restrictions on China, Venezuela and five other “countries of concern” — before it was enacted. Griffin’s lobbyists managed to loosen some of the curbs on home purchases by Chinese nationals.

The continuing coordinated pushback by companies involved in buying and selling property suggests the law is having a significant negative impact on an industry that is a vast source of jobs and wealth for Floridians. Real estate accounts for 17% of Florida’s gross domestic product, about $244 billion, and generates almost a fifth of its tax revenue, according to the latest Federal Reserve data.

Delayed Projects

Funding from China has long helped bankroll big projects throughout the state, but in recent months some of that money is drying up amid concern about running afoul of DeSantis’s law.

Developers like Lennar and DR Horton Inc. commonly use limited partnerships to pool funds from investors and buy land to build homes or commercial properties. As a result of the law’s restrictions on Chinese investment, however, Lennar has had to delay at least two development projects in Florida, according to people familiar with the builders’ plans.

Representatives for Miami-based Lennar declined to comment.

“The new law has served as a significant impediment to further investment,” the Real Estate Roundtable wrote in a Sept. 5 letter to the DeSantis-appointed Florida Real Estate Commission, adding that it stands to “limit the freedom of Florida’s future growth.”

There are signs that the lobbying effort is having some success, according to seven people involved in it. The Florida Commerce Department, led by DeSantis Chief of Staff Alex Kelly, proposed rules in September that would open the door for investors from any of the countries of concern to take stakes of as much as 25% in funds that own property as long as they don’t have operating control. But the changes have yet to be adopted and lawyers following the rulemaking process say they still have unanswered questions.

The Department of Commerce didn’t respond to requests for comment about the issues the business community has raised, and didn’t provide a timeline for when the regulations would be formally adopted.

Representatives from the governor’s office and DeSantis’s presidential campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment....>

<.....Clashing With Business

The pushback amplifies how some of DeSantis’s signature policies clash with big business, once a vital Republican constituency. His fight with Disney over a law that limits public-school teaching about gender identity alienated wealthy donors who once saw him as an alternative to former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. DeSantis’s administration also targeted BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, for promoting environmental, social and governance principles.

Billionaire developer Jorge Perez, the 74-year-old CEO of Related Group known as Miami’s condo king, said he’s “totally against” DeSantis’s restrictions on foreign investment in Florida real estate. “I mean, this is something that should not be so politicized,” Perez said in an interview.

More than two dozen states have either passed or proposed limits on Chinese property ownership, but Florida’s law is one of the most restrictive. The American Civil Liberties Union has challenged the law as discriminatory on behalf of a group of Chinese immigrants, and the US Department of Justice has said it’s unconstitutional. The law has complicated the buying and selling of homes by individuals, on top of its effects on investors and builders.

Major real estate investors are worried about repercussions. Executives at Carlyle Group are concerned that the law will hurt its ability to raise money from investors from China in the future, people familiar with the firm’s thinking said. Representatives for Carlyle Group declined to comment.

Since 2018, Griffin had tapped into his $36 billion fortune to become one of DeSantis’s biggest donors, yet ties between the two men have strained. Griffin didn’t donate to DeSantis’ presidential campaign. And, as DeSantis lost ground in the polls, Griffin and other business leaders, like JPMorgan Chase CEO James Dimon, have hinted at shifting their support to former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Trump meanwhile has maintained a double-digit lead.

Off Limits

Griffin saw Florida’s anti-China law as an affront, as it would have barred Chinese citizens from buying property within 20 miles (32 kilometers) of military facilities or infrastructure such as ports or power substations. That would have put almost all of South Florida, where Griffin moved his business from Illinois, off limits.

Lobbyists for Citadel, which has a large number of employees from China, convinced lawmakers to narrow the restrictions for those with work permits, Bloomberg reported in August.

Related’s Perez, who has built dozens of buildings in Miami and beyond over four decades, said banks and investors from China and Venezuela have been an important source of funding. But he said he always called the shots.

“It’s not like I’m getting foreigners that are going to control what I build, or not,” Perez said. “These are limited partners.”

DeSantis’s law, he said, goes too far.

“It’s really making something out of nothing,” said Perez. “Investment should flow freely.”>

<The hunt for yield has pushed private equity firms and professional investors into new segments of the real estate market.

In recent years, sophisticated investors have snapped up multi-family units and single-family homes. Now, corporate landlords are targeting the most cost-effective segment of the real estate market: mobile home parks.

The most affordable U.S. housing option

Manufactured homes or mobile homes are considered the most affordable non-subsidized housing option in America. That’s because the owners own only the prefabricated unit and not the land under the home. The land is usually leased from the landlord of a trailer park.

The average monthly rent for a mobile home in 2021 was $593. That’s significantly lower than the average one-bedroom condo rental rate of $1,450. The mobile park rental also often includes utilities and insurance.

Rents typically rise 4% to 6% annually, and renters have the flexibility to move their housing unit to another park. These factors make the manufactured home highly attractive to low-income households.

As of 2020, nearly 22 million Americans lived in mobile homes. That’s 6.7% of the total population, or about one in 15 people across the country.

However, the economic inefficiencies that make these manufactured homes affordable also make them attractive to professional investors.

Investing in mobile home parks

Factors such as below-market rents and disrepair make mobile home parks attractive for investors seeking to add value. The typical mobile home park lot costs $10,000, which means 80 lots would be worth $800,000 on average.

Put simply, the entry price for these parks is much lower than multi-family apartments and condo buildings across the country.

Professional investors can also raise rents significantly to improve the valuation of the property. Attracting tenants with higher incomes or improving the park’s amenities and infrastructure are other value-add strategies that make this asset class appealing.

The fact that moving a typical mobile home costs between $3,000 to $10,000 also means that most tenants are unable to afford the move. This gives landlords immense pricing power.

Meanwhile, the yield is much higher. The capitalization rate (the ratio of net operating income to market price) could be as high as 9%, according to real estate partners Dave Reynolds and Frank Rolfe, who together are the fifth-largest owner of mobile home parks in the U.S.

The largest mobile park landlord is real estate veteran Sam Zell. Zell’s Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS) owns 165,000 units across the country, and the asset is a key element of his $5.2 billion fortune.

In recent years, larger investors such as Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and private equity firms such as The Carlyle Group, Brookfield, Blackstone and Apollo have also added exposure to this asset class.

Even Warren Buffett is involved. His firm’s subsidiary, Clayton Homes, is the largest manufacturer of mobile homes in the U.S., and also operates two of the biggest mobile home lenders, 21st Mortgage Corp. and Vanderbilt Mortgage.

You can invest, too

Retail investors looking for exposure to mobile home parks have plenty of options.

Acquiring a park is, perhaps, the most straightforward way to access this asset class. However, publicly listed stocks and real estate investment trusts offer exposure, too.

Sam Zell’s Equity LifeStyle Properties is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker ELS. Sun Communities Inc. (SUI) owns 146,000 units across the U.S. and some in Canada, while Legacy Housing Corp. (LEGH) builds, sells and finances manufactured homes.

Plus, mobile homes aren't the only accessible option for someone eager to get into commercial real estate.>

<Elon Musk used to be a car guy—an eccentric visionary, sort of quirky and absurd, but mostly entertaining. For some reason, a key group of people in and around Silicon Valley took him seriously, but he rarely exhibited the kind of depth or power that would concern anyone outside his core businesses.

Now Musk is a media mogul whose decisions cost lives and affect the world. He seems more absurd than ever, yet we can no longer afford to dismiss or ridicule him.

Musk is not a media mogul because he owns Twitter—now called X after Musk’s favorite letter. On the day he bought it in 2022, the platform had hardly ever cracked the top 10 most-used social media services in the world and was never able to make a significant profit. Yet Musk believed it was worth $44 billion.

Since then, Musk has clumsily and angrily dismantled the service, which once hosted many influential conversations among elites and served as a site for activism like #BlackLivesMatter and as an early-warning system that could flag breaking news and emergencies. For all the limitations and virtues of pre-Musk Twitter, almost none of its value remains after he drove away its most talented staff and the most valuable advertisers.

Musk is also not a media mogul because of his appeal to a corps of angry young men who wish that they, too, could sire progeny in the double digits without commitment or consequence and command the attention of a fawning and gullible business and celebrity press.

No, Musk is a central figure in the 21st century because he exercises an unusual new form of power over one of the most important resources in the communications ecosystem: satellite Internet connectivity. He can turn the digital tap on and off at will for millions of people. He can monitor the nature of Internet activity in sensitive places around the world if he chooses to—and has begun experimenting with that power in a host of troubling ways. And no one seems willing or able to hold him accountable.

Musk’s media power flows mainly from an early side project in his privately owned (but largely publicly funded) rocket-and-satellite company, SpaceX. That project, Starlink, fills a wide gap in online access for much of the world.

We’ve seen a sobering real-time demonstration of Starlink’s power and reach over the past few years, especially in Ukraine. Since the war began in February 2022, Starlink has been a crucial service for both civilians and the military. Musk had agreed to load up the skies over Ukraine with satellites at Starlink’s expense, while NATO governments and private donors supplied most of the receivers on the ground. But by failing to engage seriously with the nature and course of the conflict, Musk has generated some dangerous situations—most notably when he refused to extend Internet service beyond Starlink’s geofence limits into the Russian-occupied territories, stating that he wanted to avoid participating “in a major act of war and conflict escalation.” As Russia has illegally been taking pieces of Ukraine since 2014, this was a de facto acceptance of Russian claims to these territories, such as Crimea and the Donbas, without regard for Ukrainian sovereignty, human rights concerns, or international law.

This is a dangerous, unaccountable move to privatize the basic foundations of global conflict. Past media moguls like William Randolph Hearst have hyped up wars and helped change maps, and financiers like J.P. Morgan propped up major powers during two world wars. But none of these first-wave media-and-money barons possessed, as Musk does, the direct capacity to shape the outcome of a major war on the basis of nothing more than personal caprice.

The geofence scandal underscores a deeply worrying development: Musk’s unparalleled control over global communications can serve as a tipping point in global conflicts. His mood swings can influence how an entire sovereign nation manages its digital life, how its government and businesses operate, and how its media systems work....>