From the Left

Where Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Nominee Harmeet Dhillon Stands on Civil Liberties

From the Left / ACLU / Mar 10, 2025

President Donald Trump has nominated Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney, media personality and Republican Party official, to lead the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. If confirmed, Dhillon will lead the division of the DOJ charged with upholding core civil rights and liberties in many aspects of American life.

Dhillon is known ...Read more

Let Facts Get in the Way of Performative Politics

From the Left / Clarence Page / Mar 10, 2025

My advice to congressional Democrats: If you’re going to embrace performative politics, be sure you give a good performance.

Instead, the Dems at President Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress looked like an angry and lonely clown car.

They looked the very portrait that they have become in Donald Trump’s second term: angry, ...Read more

DEI and Accessibility, Explained

From the Left / ACLU / Mar 03, 2025

Across the country, right-wing groups are working to dismantle long-standing anti-discrimination protections and statutory mandates by targeting what they broadly refer to as diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA). These attacks on DEIA are not new. Rather, they're part of a broader strategy to discredit DEIA and weaponize the ...Read more

Don’t Let 'Reverse Discrimination' Reverse Our National Progress

From the Left / Clarence Page / Mar 03, 2025

Marlean Ames of Akron, Ohio, is not gay or a member of a racial minority.

But, please, she points out, don’t hold that against her, as she alleges her employers have, as she takes her “reverse discrimination” case all the way to the Supreme Court.

I wish her well. As an African American male, I ...Read more

'Hope Is the Counter to Fear'

From the Left / ACLU / Feb 24, 2025

One of Daishi Miguel-Tanaka's earliest memories is walking into his first-grade class in California and being struck by how diverse the student body was.

"I saw kids of all shapes and colors holding their hands over their hearts (saying the pledge) under the American flag," Miguel-Tanaka recalls. "That was huge for me. I fell in love with ...Read more

Voter’s Remorse? Not Much, But Give It Time

From the Left / Clarence Page / Feb 24, 2025

Colorful billionaire and presidential adviser Elon Musk sparked quite a reaction at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington last week when he leaped around the stage waving a chainsaw.

“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. CHAINSAAAW!” he politics/fromtheleft/clarencepage/s-3609505">Read more

Trump's Attempt To Unilaterally Control State and Local Funding Is Dangerous, Dumb and Undemocratic

From the Left / ACLU / Feb 18, 2025

The Trump administration has not been subtle in its desire to use federal funding for political punishment. Whether threatening to cut off grants to sanctuary cities, block financial assistance to states that push back against the president's demands or to freeze all federal grants and loans for social services across the country, Trump and ...Read more

Welcome to the World of MAGA Machismo, Where Muscles Trump Brains

From the Left / Dick Polman / Nov 16, 2023

Ladies and gentleman, here is your United States Senate, then and now:

Sen. Daniel Webster on March 7, 1850: “It is fortunate that there is a Senate of the United States (with) a just sense of its own dignity, and its own high responsibilities, and a body to which the country looks with confidence for wise, moderate, patriotic, and healing ...Read more

A totally fixable budget impasse involving a potential presidential candidate

From the Left / John Micek / Jul 17, 2023

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Pennsylvania’s three-week-old budget impasse is the ultimate, binge-worthy summer drama.

There are great storylines, with real-world implications with fascinating characters in leading roles. And, like any addictive warm-weather series, the chances are pretty good that politics-watchers ...Read more

Trump and his lawyers think he can get away with anything. It's outlandish.

From the Left / Ruth Marcus / Oct 25, 2019

WASHINGTON -- "The king can do no wrong." That is the ancient legal maxim used to explain why a sovereign should not be held to account for misdeeds. President Trump and his lawyers are now making arguments that make this legal doctrine look wimpy. Their vision boils down to: The king can do whatever wrong he damn pleases, and there's nothing ...Read more