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      Germany hits back at Marco Rubio after he panned labeling of AfD as ‘extremist’

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      Germany’s foreign ministry has hit back at the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, following his criticism of Germany’s decision to label the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party as a “confirmed rightwing extremist group”.On Thursday, Rubio took to X and wrote: “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy – it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD – which took second in the recent election – but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.”Rubio went on to say: “Germany should reverse course.”In a response on X, the German foreign ministry pushed back against the US secretary of state, saying: “This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.”Germany’s response to Rubio comes after its domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), designated the AfD as a “confirmed rightwing extremist” force on Friday.The BfV’s decision marks a step up from its previous designation of the country’s anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin and largest opposition party as a “suspected” threat to Germany’s democratic order. According to the BfV, the AfD’s xenophobic stances based on an “ethnic-ancestry-based understanding” of German identity are “incompatible with the free democratic basic order” as indicated by the country’s constitution.The spy agency added that the AfD “aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to unconstitutional unequal treatment and thus to assign them a legally devalued status”.It also said: “This exclusionary understanding of the people is the starting point and ideological basis for ongoing agitation against certain individuals or groups of people, through which they are defamed and despised indiscriminately and irrational fears and rejection are stirred up.”During February’s general election in Germany which was rocked by extensive US interference including public votes of confidence by staunch AfD supporters such as Elon Musk and JD Vance, the AfD amassed approximately 21% of the vote, finishing second.The far-right party’s rise to popularity in Germany has come as a result of a broader wave of growing rightwing extremism across Europe.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt the same time, public figures in the US have openly made remarks or gestures that are sympathetic to nazism, despite the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on antisemitism across the country – a move which has been called into question by higher education institutions and Jewish senators who accuse Trump of targeting free speech.Musk, who had been given the designation of a “special government employee” by the Trump administration, made back-to-back apparent fascist salutes during the president’s inauguration rally earlier this year.Last month, during a Capitol Hill hearing that sought to explore supposed government censorship under Joe Biden, Republican representative Keith Self quoted Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister under Adolf Hitler.“A direct quote from Joseph Goebbels: ‘It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion,’ and I think that may be what we’re discussing here,” he said. More

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      Trump’s promised ‘golden age’ for the US economy is off to a chaotic start

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      Donald Trump promised to usher in a new “golden age” for the US economy – one with lower prices, more jobs and greater wealth. This week, his first quarter report card came in, and the new age is off to a chaotic start.Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank for the first time in three years during the first quarter, abruptly turning negative after a spell of robust growth as trade distortions and weaker consumer spending dampened activity.It took the US president all of 43 minutes to distance himself from the dismal reading, released on Wednesday morning.“Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang’,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform. “This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”By Trump’s telling, any bad numbers are the fault of Joe Biden – but this attribution does not extend to the good ones.March’s strong jobs report demonstrated how “the private sector is roaring back under President Donald J. Trump”, according to a statement issued by the White House. “IT’S ALREADY WORKING,” the president declared the day it was published.But April’s less buoyant jobs report, released on Friday, prompted a more tepid response. He wrote: “Just like I said, and we’re only in a TRANSITION STAGE, just getting started!!!”So which is it? Is the “golden age” of America well under way? Or will it take a while?Growth in the first three months of the year – no matter how much Trump wants to blame the 19 or so days he was not yet in office – was significantly challenged by the new administration’s plans to overhaul the world economy. US goods imports surged 41% as companies scrambled to pre-empt tariffs, while consumer spending on durable goods fell 3.4% as sentiment came under pressure.And the first quarter figures raised troubling questions about the second. Activity weakened largely as firms braced for the lion’s share of Trump’s tariffs, which he only unveiled in early April. How those firms, and their customers, ultimately respond to those tariffs – and the confusion around them – is widely expected to have a greater impact on growth.Trump’s erratic rollout of 10% tariffs on goods from much of the world, and 145% on China, “have altered the picture dramatically” since the end of the first quarter, Oliver Allen, senior US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, observed. “Any support to spending from pre-tariff purchases will unwind soon now that substantial new tariffs have been imposed.“Consumers’ spending will also be weighed down by a hit to confidence and real incomes from higher prices, while intense uncertainty will put the freeze on business investment, and exports – especially to China – will suffer.”It is too soon to say whether tariffs, which the administration insists will revitalize the US economy, will, in fact, set the stage for a recession: two consecutive quarters of contraction. On Trump’s watch, the landscape shifts rapidly from one day to the next, let alone during an entire quarter.Trump is right, to a point: most of his tariffs are not to blame for the stunning reversal of growth in the first quarter. The US only hiked duties on China and imposed its blanket 10% levy on many other countries last month, days into the second quarter.The foundations of a potential Trumpcession were not laid in the early months of the year by the tariffs themselves, but by his administration’s execution of them.From repeated jerks and jolts around sweeping duties on Canada and Mexico to announcing “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of nations which were ultimately imposed for less than a day, widespread confusion and uncertainty is now embedded into the world’s largest economy. Businesses inside it and out are not happy.Scott Bessent, Trump’s treasury secretary, has coined an interesting term for this playbook of threats, theatrics and social media broadsides. “President Trump creates what I would call ‘strategic uncertainty’ in the negotiations,” he told a press briefing on Tuesday. “As we start moving forward, announcing deals, then there will be certainty. But certainty is not necessarily a good thing in negotiating.”However useful Trump and his officials find “strategic uncertainty” during trade negotiations, it has different consequences for those paying bills they were repeatedly assured would swiftly fall, trying to grow a business in a market with leaders locked in a war of words with the White House, or planting a crop without knowing what the economic realities will be by the harvest.Trump returned to office after winning the backing of rural and lower-income voters in significant numbers last November. He needs to preserve his base if Republicans are to maintain power in Washington during his second term.Polling suggests these groups are concerned. A PBS News/NPR/Marist survey, published this week, found 48% of rural voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy. The same was true for 57% of voters with a household income of less than $50,000.As apprehension grows, the US president has sought to play down the risks. In one of the more peculiar moments in another bizarre week, he appeared to play down the threat of empty store shelves.“Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, y’know,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”China has “ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which – not all of it, but much of which – we don’t need”, he continued.It is typically up to the American consumer, not their president, to decide what they do and don’t need to buy. For a man whose fortune and image are built around conspicuous consumption, the comments seemed very off-brand. “Skimp on the Barbie” read the front page of the often Trump-friendly New York Post. It is still early days for Trump. But already the Biden “overhang” argument is wearing thin. It will be up to US voters, not their president, to deliver a verdict on his handling of the economy. More

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      Win for Maine as Trump officials agree to halt school funding freeze

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      The Trump administration has agreed not to freeze funds to Maine schools, a win for a state that was targeted by the president over its support of transgender rights.In a settlement disclosed on Friday, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said it would halt all efforts to withhold funds for a child nutrition program in Maine. The USDA had suspended those dollars after Maine officials said the state would not comply with Donald Trump’s demands that trans girls be barred from participating in girls’ sports.In February, when the president directly threatened to revoke funding from the state at a White House meeting with governors, Janet Mills, Maine’s Democratic governor, had responded, “We’ll see you in court,” in a widely shared exchange.Maine then sued the USDA last month to maintain its funding and agreed on Friday to drop its lawsuit in exchange for the restoration of funds.“It’s good to feel a victory like this,” the governor said a press conference, the Portland Press Herald reported. “I stood in the White House and when confronted by the president of the United States, I told him I’d see him in court. Well, we did see him in court, and we won.”The governor said USDA had frozen funds for a program that helps feed 172,000 children in the state, the paper reported.The USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The settlement says the USDA and Brooke Rollins, the secretary of agriculture, “agree to refrain from freezing, termination, or otherwise interfering with the state of Maine’s access to United States Department of Agriculture funds … based on alleged violations of Title IX without first following all legally required procedures”.The Trump administration had alleged that Maine’s policy of allowing transgender youth’s participation in sports violated Title IX, the federal anti-discrimination law.Maine’s attorneys argued that the child nutrition program received or was due to receive more than $1.8m for the current fiscal year. Prior year funds that were awarded but are currently inaccessible total more than $900,000, the lawsuit said. The complaint also said that the program was anticipating about $3m that is typically awarded every July for summer meal program sponsor administration and meal reimbursement.A federal judge had ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze funds last month after finding that Maine was likely to succeed in its legal challenge.Aaron Frey, the Maine attorney general, said in a statement on Friday: “It’s unfortunate that my office had to resort to federal court just to get USDA to comply with the law and its own regulations.“But we are pleased that the lawsuit has now been resolved and that Maine will continue to receive funds as directed by Congress to feed children and vulnerable adults.”The settlement does not affect another ongoing lawsuit filed by the Trump administration against the Maine department of education over its policy for trans athletes.Mills said Friday she was “confident” the state would also prevail in that case, the Portland Press Herald reported. The governor, who has said the dispute was about defending states’ rights, added: “These bullying tactics, we will not tolerate them.” More

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      One hundred days in, Donald Trump faces a problem: he can rage, but he can’t govern | Jonathan Freedland

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      He says it’s the “best 100-day start of any president in history”, but you can file that along with his boast about crowd sizes and his claim to have won the 2020 election. In truth, the first three months of Donald Trump’s second presidency have been calamitous on almost every measure. The single biggest achievement of those 100 days has been to serve as a warning of the perils of nationalist populism, which is effective in winning votes but disastrous when translated into reality. That warning applies across the democratic world – and is especially timely in Britain.Start with the numbers that matter most to Trump himself. A slew of polls appeared this week, but they all told the same story: that Trump’s approval ratings have collapsed, falling to the lowest level for a newly installed president in the postwar era. He has now edged ahead of his only rival for that title: himself. The previous low watermark for a president three months in was set by one Donald Trump in 2017.Back then, 42% of Americans approved of the way Trump was doing his job. The latest Ipsos survey for the Washington Post/ABC News has Trump at just 39%. This, remember, is meant to be the honeymoon period, yet Trump is 10 points behind where Joe Biden stood at this point, 30 points behind Barack Obama and 44 points behind Ronald Reagan. Remember: US presidents tend to get less, not more, popular as time goes on.Perhaps most significant is that Trump is weak even in those areas where he’s meant to be strong. Confidence in his ability to handle immigration has tumbled and the same is true, even more critically, of his management of the US economy. On the latter, just 37% back Trump, a depth he never plumbed during his first term, even as the economy seized up under Covid. For the first time since 2001, a majority of Americans believe their economic situation is getting worse.With good reason. Because the economic data is almost as troubling for Trump as his poll numbers. This week, official figures showed that the US economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter of the year, further fuelling fears of a recession. Trump wasted no time in blaming the shrinkage on Biden, who was in charge for just 20 days of the first three months of 2025, an argument only slightly weakened by the fact that the last quarter with Biden in charge saw growth of 2.4%.It’s a precipitous drop, and the cause of it is hardly mysterious. Economists agree that the culprit is Trump’s tariffs, which prompted a surge in imports, as companies scrambled to buy in goods from abroad before the president’s on-again-off-again levies kicked in. Because those imported goods and services are not produced in the US, they’re subtracted from the headline GDP figure. Hence the contraction. Meanwhile, the chaos and volatility unleashed by Trump’s tariff policy has dented consumer confidence, now down to its lowest level since the recession of 1990, leaving Americans hesitant to spend money amid so much uncertainty. Even though the latest job numbers look healthy, analysts say the underlying picture is alarming. As Bloomberg reports, “corporate investment plans and expectations for growth and jobs have all plummeted – and the key reason is Trump’s trade war.”Trump knows that the warnings from retail giants Walmart and Target, of empty shelves as supplies from heavily tariffed China dry up, have cut through. He addressed that anxiety this week, but in a way that should make even Trump’s admirers, those who usually praise his ability to connect with ordinary folk, worry that he’s losing his touch.Asked about potential shortages of toys at Christmas, Trump said, “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more.” Bit late in his career for Trump to don the saffron robes and preach a Zen flight from consumerist materialism. His two-toys remark – which strangely did not feature as one of his campaign pledges in 2024 – has already cast him as the Grinch set to ruin Christmas.“BE PATIENT!!!” he urges on his social media platform, as he insists that the vertiginous downward slide of the stock market either doesn’t matter or is all Biden’s fault. But the whiff of desperation is strong as Trump begins to see why the one idea he actually believes in and has believed in for decades – tariffs – is an object of near-universal contempt among economists. Yes, tariffs may have succeeded in persuading Apple to shift manufacturing away from China. But those jobs are not about to move to the US. Apple has announced instead that it will assemble its US-bound iPhones in India. Better restitch those red baseball caps with a revised slogan: make India great again.By now, you’ll recall, Trump was meant to have ended the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, indeed he promised to do that by 21 January. But after a brief ceasefire, Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has resumed, the Trump administration having apparently lost interest. As for Ukraine, Trump got to brag of a breakthrough this week, with an agreement that gives the US a stake in Ukraine’s mineral wealth. But it’s far from the deal he sought.The case he always made was that the US had to be reimbursed for the billions it had given Ukraine in military support under Biden – plucking the entirely bogus figure of $350bn out of the air. But this week’s arrangement includes no such payback. On the contrary, the deal is one Kyiv can look on with quiet satisfaction. It seems the Ukrainians could smell Trump’s need to have something to shout about in time for his 100th day, and they leveraged that eagerness to their advantage.As for his expansionist threats to gobble up Panama, Greenland and Canada, the only concrete result those have brought is defeat in Canada’s general election for the pro-Trump Conservatives and a back-from-the-dead success for the Liberal party that vowed to defy him. Such is Trump’s narcissism that he even boasted about that, citing it as evidence of how much he matters in the world. As he put it, just before Canadians voted: “You know, until I came along, the Conservative was leading by 25 points,” he mused. “I was disliked by enough of the Canadians that I’ve thrown the election into a close call.”The promise was that this second Trump term would be different, that the chaos and churn of Trump 1.0 would be gone. But on Thursday, we were back to the good old days, with the firing of his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, partly for his accidental admission of a journalist into a Signal group chat that discussed attack plans for Yemen, partly for advocating a tougher stance on Vladimir Putin, and partly for earning the hostility of far-right conspiracist Laura Loomer, who has the ear of the president.So it’s fair to say the 100 days have not gone as Trump would have wished. And thanks to those serial failures, you can see the first, small signs that his power to terrify is fading. Witness the handful of senate Republicans who voted with Democrats against his tariff policy. And note how the reliably rightwing editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is now a fierce critic, slamming Trump as a “bully” and denouncing tariffs as “the biggest economic policy mistake in decades”. For a few short hours, even Jeff Bezos seemed ready to take a stand, amid reports that Amazon was about to itemise the cost of tariffs to US customers, before the company backed down.Of course, none of this should be a surprise. Trump’s conman promises and delusional dreams of turning the clock back were always bound to fail. This is the nature of nationalist populism, whether it wears a red cap in Michigan or a turquoise rosette in Runcorn. It is expert at turning grievance, division and nostalgia into votes. But when it comes to governing, it will always fail. It offers an outlet for complaint – and has no answers at all.

      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist More

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      Woman in Florida deported to Cuba says she was forced to leave baby daughter

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      A mother deported to Cuba reportedly had to hand over her 17-month-old daughter to a lawyer while her husband, a US citizen, stood outside unable to say goodbye.Heidy Sánchez was told she was being detained for deportation to Cuba when she turned up at her scheduled Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) check-in appointment in Tampa, Florida, last week.She was told her child, who has health problems and is still breastfeeding, had to stay in the US but could visit her in Cuba, NBC reported.The Trump administration is embroiled in controversy for removing children who are US citizens from the United States with a parent when the adult is deported. In this case, the child was reportedly not allowed to leave with her mother even though it was what both parents said they wanted.The administration’s anti-immigration crackdown has put many people in a difficult position because they risk being summarily detained and deported when turning up for routine Ice check-ins. Many people have followed this process without issue for years, and do not have a criminal record – but failing to turn up can bring an order for forcible removal from the US.“They never gave me the option to take my daughter,” Sánchez told NBC.Sánchez’s husband, Carlos Valle, is a US citizen. Both parents separately told NBC that their daughter is now crying all the time and calling for her mother, while Sánchez struggles to get wifi service in Cuba to sing her daughter to sleep.Valle was not allowed into the room where Sánchez was being interviewed by Ice agents with their daughter, attorneys told NBC. When told she was being deported, she was denied the chance to see her husband or hand over their daughter to him, with a lawyer having to fulfil that role instead.Claudia Cañizares, a Miami-based attorney for the family, said she tried to prevent the deportation but was given “the runaround” by the authorities. The Florida Democratic congresswoman Kathy Castor has said she is lobbying the administration on the family’s behalf.Ice did not respond to a request for comment from NBC. The Guardian has submitted a request for comment. More

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      Pam Bondi turning DoJ into Trump’s ‘personal law firm’, top experts warn

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      Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has taken radical steps to target his political foes, back a harsh agenda against undocumented immigrants and help business allies – steps which underscore its politicization under the attorney general Pam Bondi and undermine the rule of law, say ex-prosecutors and legal experts.Some even say that the department has in effect become Trump’s “personal law firm”.Since taking office a second time, Trump has relied on staunch loyalist Bondi and an elite group of justice department lawyers to investigate critics from his first administration plus political opponents and curb prosecutions of US business bribery overseas.Ex-prosecutors point to how Bondi and the department’s top lawyers have halted some major prosecutions, fired or forced out lawyers who didn’t meet Maga litmus tests, and were instructed by Trump to investigate a key Democratic fundraising vehicle as examples of how Trump and Bondi have politicized the justice department.Critics note that once Bondi became attorney general, she issued a memo establishing a “weaponization working group”, which pushed a false narrative that investigations by a special counsel into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election and his improperly retaining classified documents were politically motivated.The transformation of the Department of Justice under Bondi has put a premium for staff on “personal loyalty” to Trump, say ex-prosecutors, which has damaged the rule of law and provoked multiple rebukes from courts and the resignations or firings of veteran prosecutors.“The steps Trump and Bondi have taken using DoJ to punish enemies and reward allies while firing those who object radically transforms and politicizes DoJ in a way that not even the worst who have gone before them ever contemplated,” the former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig said.“Trump’s transmuting DoJ into his personal law firm is, in effect, a rejection of the founding principle of the rule of law.”Other ex-prosecutors see the department marching in dangerous legal lockstep with Trump’s agenda and damaging its mission to protect the rule of law.“Bondi and DoJ lawyers have certainly tried to make personal loyalty to Trump the justice department’s guiding principle,” said the Columbia law professor and ex-federal prosecutor Daniel Richman.Critics note Bondi has also echoed Trump’s dangerous rhetorical blasts against judges who have ruled against his administration’s sweeping and haphazard drive to deport undocumented immigrants by labeling them “low-level leftist judges who are trying to dictate President Trump’s executive powers”.After the FBI arrested a Milwaukee judge for allegedly obstructing the arrest of an undocumented immigrant, Bondi went on Fox News to threaten other judges who may defy their agenda. “They’re deranged. I think some of these judges think they are beyond and above the law, and they are not. We will come after you and we will prosecute you,” she said.Hundreds of lawyers and staff in the justice department’s civil rights division are now leaving the storied unit as its focus has shifted to Trump priorities such as pursuing cases against elite universities and student protesters, while curbing some civil and voting rights cases it has traditionally pursued, say critics.Other actions by the department under Bondi, an ex-Florida attorney general who later worked on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial in 2020, and some elite justice department lawyers reflect its strong allegiance to Trump and have sparked strong criticism.They include an investigation of two officials, Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, who served in his first term and clashed with him for, respectively, not backing his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and for voicing strong concerns in a 2018 New York Times op ed about how Trump threatened democracy.In another radical move, Trump issued an executive order in April telling the justice department to investigate unverified allegations that ActBlue, a major Democratic online fundraising vehicle, had engaged in improper fundraising schemes.Trump also reportedly prodded the Department of Justice to drop a five-count criminal fraud prosecution of the New York mayor, Eric Adams, that the elite justice department southern district had worked on for months, as Trump was eager to secure public support from Adams for his immigration agenda in the city.Some actions also appear aimed at helping allied business interests. In April, the justice department abruptly closed a cryptocurrency unit that was launched in 2022 and had successfully prosecuted dangerous criminal schemes involving North Korean hackers and other fraudsters, but which had come under fire from cryptocurrency leaders who helped fund Trump’s campaign last year.Trump’s justice department also has paused for six months prosecuting businesses that have been charged with violating the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which bars paying bribes to win deals abroad.Other moves seem to reflect Trump’s enmity towards journalists who report critically about his administration. In a reversal of recent department policy, Bondi revoked journalists’ free-speech protections by greenlighting authorities to force journalists to reveal confidential sources in leak investigations. Meanwhile, Bondi also seems willing to protect political allies, such as when she declined to open an investigation into “Signalgate” despite extensive documentation that top national security officials had improperly shared classified information as an attack was imminent in Yemen against the Houthis.Ex-prosecutors say that Bondi and the justice department’s willingness to make personal loyalty to Trump paramount damages the rule of law.Critics note the justice department has been rebuked by federal courts for stonewalling court orders and questions about some of its deportation actions and for not bringing home a Maryland man originally from El Salvador who was sent to a notorious Salvadorian prison as a result of what Ice has called an “administrative error”.“Never in history has DoJ broken so defiantly from respecting, as it’s obligated to do, the decisions of federal courts,” said the former prosecutor Ty Cobb, who was a counsel in the White House during Trump’s first term. “This is a war that Trump and Bondi are waging against the rule of law.”Richman noted more broadly that “outside the immigration area, most of what Bondi has actually done so far, however, has been negative – like dropping the case against Mayor Adams and cases against FCPA defendants and firing prosecutors”.Richman added: “We will soon see how this administration fares when it actually seeks a result in court, even if it’s only defensive. As the proceedings in the recent Maryland deportation case highlighted, courts demand a candor and respect for law that the justice department’s leadership finds inconsistent with the loyalty it demands.”Some veteran prosecutors who quit the department after Trump and Bondi took office say that the pair’s first moves raised red flags that prompted their departures.“Bondi has made clear – before becoming attorney general, and since – that she wants the Department of Justice to support President Trump unconditionally,” said Mike Romano, who resigned from the department in late March.Before he quit, Romano spent almost four years working on the prosecutions of Trump allies who stormed Congress on 6 January 2021 in an effort to thwart Joe Biden’s certification by Congress.Romano said that the night Bondi was confirmed “she issued a memorandum to all justice department employees in which she threatened to fire employees who refuse to defend the Trump administration’s actions, advance its arguments or sign its briefs. She and her subordinates have made good on those threats by firing people and forcing them to resign.”Romano stressed that “some of my colleagues were fired, and others were demoted, because they prosecuted people who rioted at the Capitol. At the public integrity section, four of my managers resigned, in lieu of being fired, when they refused to sign a motion to dismiss the case against Mayor Adams. These actions send a clear message to people still at the department: if you want to keep your job, disagreement won’t be tolerated.”Similarly, Barbara McQuade, a former prosecutor for Michigan’s eastern district who now teaches law at the University of Michigan, warned that Bondi’s memo setting up a “weaponization working group” actually “weaponizes law enforcement and undermines public confidence in government” because it pushes a “false narrative” about the two investigations of Trump by the former special counsel Jack Smith.McQuade emphasized that “in fact federal grand juries returned indictments in both cases, meaning that they found probable cause that the crimes were committed. DoJ’s Principles of Federal Prosecution prohibit prosecutors from making charging decisions on the basis of partisan politics.”Pointing to a further symbol of the justice department’s politicization under Bondi, McQuade cited her statement that a federal judge “supported Tren de Aragua terrorists over the safety of Americans” and charged he “cannot be objective” because he issued a temporary restraining order blocking deportation of Venezuelan men to El Salvador without due process.“There is no evidence to suggest that the judge did anything other than apply the law to the case,” McQuade stressed. “He was applying the law to a highly suspect use of the Alien Enemies Act, a statute to be used during wartime.”Assessing Trump’s politicization of the Department of Justice, Rosenzweig said the department was betraying its historic mission to protect the rule of law.“DoJ isn’t just another department like agriculture or HHS. It has a unique place in the US government as the home of the ‘rule of law’ and the guardian of what makes America special,” he said.“Thomas Paine said: ‘In America, the law is king.’ Trump wants to make his word the law and himself the king.” More

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      Canada has long been seen as the cool cousin next door. Here’s the truth | Noel Ransome

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      Canada has been canonized – safely, predictably.It’s the great, grave story we’ve exported – retold in economic rankings, stitched into tourism ads, held up in classrooms and cable news panels. We’re the cooler, mellower cousin nextdoor. The country that has it figured out. Where healthcare is universal, democracy is calm and diversity is politely managed.This image has been shared like a TikTok meme for decades – forwarded, favourited, lightly interrogated. Over time, we’ve become more vibe than nation; contradictions, history and horrors flattened into brand energy. Place that flag in your Twitter bio, mention how “we’ll never become like America,” and you’ve bought into the sauce. You’re not the problem, you’re proof the problem lives somewhere else.This kind of deception has always been fundamental to our story. But we need only a glimpse at our neighbour’s constitutional preamble – “We the people of the United States” – to get a hint of the delusion. Canada’s constitutional language, by contrast, never used the populist “we”. From the start, there was no sweeping assertion of collective identity. Instead, the Constitution Act, 1867, opened with:
      Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland …
      Granted, Canada’s constitutional framework evolved. But from the beginning, the difference in language spoke to the shaping of our identity – through agreements, compromises, legal frameworks, not a people-centered vision. This historical nuance, while subtle, now echoes in modern politics.All that to say: times are spooky for the average Canadian forced to define and defend Canada’s sovereignty. Spooky in ways that can cause one to reflexively feed into a myth, rather than confront the truth of who we are. The gap between our negotiated past and our branded present has never been more plain. Our current leaders are no exception.To any Canadian progressive, it’s stating the obvious to say that Justin Trudeau, the figure most associated with Canada’s progressive identity, was more committed to feeding the myth than confronting it. With his well-timed, photogenic smile – post-blackface, naturally – Trudeau was the perfect mascot. Our self-image personified: tolerant, polished, unthreatening. But branding aside, his government sidestepped moral clarity at home – from pipeline expansions and broken promises to Indigenous communities, to a foreign policy on Gaza that rarely strayed from Washington’s script. In moments that demanded progressive definition, he was formless.It would have been naive to think many Canadians would take Donald Trump seriously when he half-jokingly suggested in November 2024 that Canada become the 51st state. After all, those words came from someone familiar to us – a man and a Maga movement forged in the belief that something sacred was always being stolen. The enemy, the fuel for his fervor, shifted with the news cycle: migrants, trans youth, teachers, climate scientists, Muslims, Black Americans, DEI initiatives, and the very idea of truth.But the speaker of those words wore the same jacket as Pierre Poilievre, who, just before Trump’s threat, was the undeniable favourite among Canadians to become the next prime minister.His rhetoric tapped into the same fears and scapegoating, presenting itself as the antidote to a broken system. Poilievre ticked off his own list of Trump-style grievances: DEI initiatives? “Garbage.” Trans women in women’s spaces? “No place at all.” Immigration policies? “Destroying” a system that requires caps over compassion to curb economic and social pressure. It’s as if he were part of the same tired flock – one that targets the marginalized while promising to fix what he claims is broken. The popular sentiments of a supposedly morally superior land.And this isn’t new. In 2008, as the country prepared to confront the brutal legacy of residential schools, Poilievre dismissed the moment sanctimoniously, arguing that Indigenous people needed to learn “the values of hard work” more than they needed compensation for past abuses. That’s who was in line to lead the country, as anointed by our polls.In the end, his opponent Mark Carney was victorious. But it should be clear that a shift toward the Liberal leader isn’t clarity about who we are, as much as it is a hedge against a man who seeks to claim us from afar.Carney is no antidote – just a bandage. Cutting ministries for gender equality and disability rights isn’t healing; it’s harm. His economic nationalism is safer than the far-right’s bluster, but it’s closer to US centrism than a remedy.As one union representing more than 80,000 educators put it, the move signals “an unwise change of direction” for a country where vulnerable groups are already living in fear. And while Carney served as an executive at Brookfield Asset Management, the company faced accusations of violating Indigenous rights.What Canadians and others need to confront is that the Trump machine wasn’t purely fueled by cultural resentment. It was powered, in no small part, by the United States’ historic desire to promote and believe the best of itself – even when the evidence said otherwise.For me, as a Black Canadian, home has rarely been the gentle myth so many sing about. Always polite and tolerant it wasn’t. I’ve seen just as much of the opposite: unmarked graves, flickers of grief, and then silence. I’ve seen headlines and acknowledgments of systematic racism turn to indifference: police brutality, missing Indigenous women, gone like breath during our winters. And yes, I’ve seen the Proud Boys, too. Their founder, Gavin McInnes? Canadian.Canada holds beauty, but it harbours moral rot just as much as the neighbour it claims to rise above. Myth-making can’t save us. If we want to hold onto our sovereignty in this moment, maybe it’s time we stop lying like them – to others, and most of all, to ourselves.

      Noel Ransome is a Toronto-based freelance writer More

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      The way universities can survive the Trump era? Band together in an alliance | David Kirp

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      Higher education is under attack from the person who inhabits the White House. Universities are being threatened with an array of punishments, including the cutoff of their federal contracts and grants, the loss of their nonprofit status and a tax on their endowment. The Trump administration is demanding a say in whom they admit, whom they hire and even what courses they teach.It’s a grim message – abandon your fundamental values, or else. The idea of an “existential moment” has become a cliche, but this situation warrants that grim description. Academic freedom, the lifeblood of higher education, is being threatened.How should these colleges and universities respond?Columbia University has learned the hard way that you can’t negotiate with an autocrat – give an inch and he’ll just come back for more. Harvard has been widely praised for saying “no” to Trump, and justifiably so. But Harvard couldn’t have done anything else. The demands were so outrageous that if the university had capitulated it might as well have closed its doors.The cutoff of $2.2bn in federal contracts and grants, as well as the threat to rescind the university’s tax-exempt status, will take a bite out of research, teaching and financial aid, if ultimately upheld by the courts. But Harvard is, far and away, the richest university in the world, with an endowment north of $50 billion. That’s larger than the gross domestic product of nearly 100 countries. With its deep pockets, it is uniquely situated to carry on, while its phalanx of best-in-the-nation lawyers do battle in the courtroom.Other schools in Trump’s sight include far less wealthy private universities like Northwestern, as well as flagship public universities like the University of California-Berkeley, which have a comparative pittance to draw on. If they say shut the door when Trump & Co. come calling, the consequences would doubtlessly be devastating. But the Columbia debacle shows that there is really no option.Universities compete on many fronts. They vie for contracts and grants, professors and students and endowment contributions. Because they fetishize prestige, they take aggressive action to boost their place in the US News pecking order.But in these desperate times such competition is a ruinous course. The only strategy with a prayer of succeeding is for universities – public and private, well-endowed and scraping by – to come together, making it crystal-clear that they won’t give in to assaults on academic freedom.That’s precisely what happened last week, when more than 200 college and university presidents signed a statement, issued by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, which forcefully condemns the federal government’s “political interference” and overreach” for “endangering higher education.”Stanford, Chicago and Dartmouth are among the top-ranking schools that didn’t sign on. Perhaps their presidents believe that “duck and cover” is their best strategy. As Columbia – which did sign – can tell them, good luck with that.Higher education has long rested on its laurels, confident that Americans appreciate its intrinsic value, but that hasn’t been true for years. The just-issued statement of principle should be coupled with a full-throated campaign to make their case—to demonstrate the importance of universities and colleges in preparing the coming generation to contribute to society as well as carrying out essential, cutting-edge research.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe AACU manifesto makes a great start, but more is needed to win this war. Well-off universities need to come to the aid of their financially weaker brethren, underwriting essential and expensive legal support, when the anti-university forces come calling.“Nato for higher education” – a mutual defense pact is a long-shot approach, but it might just convince the bully in the White House to back off. The tariff mess is just the latest example of how the Mister “Art of the Deal” turns tail when confronted with strong opposition.What’s more, colleges and universities have no viable option – to borrow a line from Benjamin Franklin, they can “hang together or hang separately.”

      David Kirp is professor emeritus at the University of California-Berkeley and the author of The College Dropout Scandal More