News & Commentary

Given the poverty crisis plaguing California, I was excited to have the opportunity recently to attend a Community Legislative Briefing hosted by The California Partnership -- of which the ACLU of Southern California is a proud member -- a diverse coalition of health, human service, labor, low income, immigrant rights and civil rights community-based organizations that have come together to fight poverty in our state.

Earlier this week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the economic effects of comprehensive immigration reform. The report demonstrates that not only does immigration reform pay for itself, but it also gives a much needed boost to our economy.

By Michael Kaufman, Staff Attorney A Democratic consultant ignited a firestorm several months ago when she questioned whether Ann Romney – who had tweeted that raising five children had been “hard work” – had “actually worked a day in her life.” Commentators from both sides of the aisle roundly criticized the consultant. The message was clear: taking care of a family is real work, and our society should value domestic work as much as paycheck-earning employment.

Clas

Los Angelenos may be the most auto-obsessed people on the planet (see Carmaggedon), but most of the time we turn a blind eye toward the people who actually clean our cars—and their routinely terrible working conditions.

“I wish sometimes that I had died in Iraq. So that my life would have meant something.” Robert Rissman is a 22-year old Iraq combat veteran who returned from Iraq with undiagnosed PTSD. As Robert struggled to cope with his disability, he became one of 8,000 homeless veterans living on the streets of Los Angeles.

This week’s Time magazine cover shows five young American veterans: one is a published author, another is a Rhodes scholar.  Notably absent from the cover is any one of the 8,000 American homeless veterans living on the streets of Los Angeles today.