Today, civil and labor rights activist and senatorial candidate Randy Parraz (D-AZ) served Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio with a civil lawsuit. In the suit, which was filed earlier this month, Parraz claims that he was wrongfully arrested by the sheriff’s deputies in 2008. Arpaio’s spokesman has indicated that “the sheriff’s office doesn’t comment on pending lawsuits.” However, a press release issued by Parraz’s campaign for Senate provides more details:

Two years ago, in the spring of 2008, Parraz helped launch Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability to expose Sheriff Arpaio’s abuses of power, including racial profiling. Parraz led a delegation of about a hundred MCSA members before the Board of Supervisors demanding they address Sheriff Joe’s actions. [...]

On September 29, 2008, Mr. Parraz spoke up at a Board of Supervisors meeting without being recognized by the Supervisor Board Chairman Andrew Kunasek. His six second statement was in regard to the request that the Board of Supervisors place certain issues on their agenda for public consideration. Following the event, in a clear attempt to intimidate the Maricopa citizens’ group, Arpaio’s Sheriff Deputies arrested Parraz because of the views he expressed and his leadership role within the community. The arrest was video taped.

Parraz’s complaint will join the hundreds of lawsuits that are already collecting dust on Arpaio’s desk. It also echoes the abuse of power allegations that that triggered an FBI investigation that is currently ongoing. Apparently, several well-known Arizona public figures other than Parraz who were also critical of Arpaio were paid “unwelcome visits” by Arpaio’s officials. The victims have accused Arpaio of “using his position to settle political vendettas.”

Perhaps coincidentally, the Washington Post reported today that Arpaio may soon face yet another lawsuit — from the Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ, which is investigating allegations of civil rights abuses on behalf of Arpaio’s deputies, claims that his officials are refusing to cooperate with federal agents. As a result, the DOJ is threatening to sue the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office “to compel access to the requested documents, facilities, and personnel.”

Randy Parraz is the only Latino Democratic candidate for US Senate in the entire nation.

This afternoon, Ted Olson — whose wife died in the September 11th attacks — distanced himself from other conservatives and told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that he did not oppose the building of a mosque near ground zero. “It may not make me popular with some people, but I think probably the President was right about this,” he began:

OLSON: I do believe that people of all religions have a right to build edifices or structures, places of religious worship or study where the community allows them to do it under zoning laws and that sort of thing. And that we don’t want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith. And I don’t think it should be a political issue. It shouldn’t be a Republican or Democrat issue either. I believe Governor Christie from New Jersey said it as well, that this should not be in that political partisan marketplace.

Watch it:

On Proposition 8, Olson said that he expected the ninth circuit court of appeals to stay Judge Walker’s decision and “keep everything as it is until we get a chance to decide this case on the merits.” “We will argue that case in early December. That’s where we are anxious to get a decision promptly,” he said.

Olson also argued that fighting for marriage was consistent with conservative values. “What could be, at the end of the day, more conservative than two loving people, that want to get married, that want to build a family, that want to be part of our neighborhoods and community — that is a conservative value.”

Charles Levinson reports in the Wall Street Journal that, despite tensions between the U.S. and Israel over settlements and the peace process, “military commanders from the two countries have dramatically stepped up cooperation”:

U.S. military aid to Israel has increased markedly this year. Top-ranking U.S. and Israeli soldiers have shuttled between Tel Aviv and Washington with unusual frequency in recent months. A series of joint military exercises in Israel over the past months has included a record number of American troops. [...]

The military cooperation began to intensify even as diplomatic relations between Washington and Israel frayed. The effort stems from policy directives the White House gave the Pentagon early in Mr. Obama’s presidency to “deepen and expand the quantity and intensity of cooperation to the fullest extent,” according to a senior administration official.

Asked for comment via email, American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spokesman Josh Block said “Clearly the Obama administration remains deeply committed to the U.S.-Israel alliance, and supporting aid to Israel and deepening our military cooperation is just one aspect of that.”

All of this tracks with what I heard when I visited Israel in June. As I wrote with David Halperin in Foreign Policy shortly after, “Notwithstanding the incessant neoconservative drumbeat that Obama is ‘selling Israel out,’ there was consensus among the Israeli officials with whom we spoke that military cooperation and intelligence sharing between the US and Israel is robust.” We found this to be especially true in regard to intelligence cooperation between the U.S. and Israel on the Iranian nuclear issue, which one official acknowledged is “even better than under President Bush.”

What, then, to make of claims from some on the right like Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), who recently told The Hill “I believe the Obama administration is the most anti-Israel administration in the modern history of the state of Israel.” Or from the Emergency Committee for Israel, whose director Noah Pollak bemoaned “the hostility of the Obama administration to the traditional closeness of the two nations”? Are they simply arguing in bad faith, and trying to raise money off the false perception that President Obama is abandoning Israel?

Or is it just that, for the extreme right, in the words of Elliott Abrams, the considerable support that the Obama administration continues to extend to Israel is just “not good enough” — the only acceptable “pro-Israel” position is to march lockstep with what Bibi Netanyahu wants, even when it undermines U.S. credibility and hampers U.S.’s ability to achieve its goals in the region?

Last year, around this time, American Apparel Inc. — the largest clothing manufacturer in the United States — was informed by federal immigration agents that 1,600 of its 5,600 factory employees might be working illegally. Unable to prove otherwise, the company was forced to lay off more than a quarter of its factory work force in Los Angeles. Today, the company announced that it “expected another quarterly loss and warned that it was again close to breaching a loan covenant,” in other words, bankruptcy. The New York Daily News reports:

The retailer is in talks to obtain new financing to shore up its struggling operations, which have been hit by slackening demand for its hipster fashions, as well as an immigration crackdown last year that forced the company to dismiss 1,500 undocumented workers at its factory in Los Angeles. [...]

Last year’s immigration crackdown was a startling slap in the face for American Apparel, which for years has lobbied for immigrant workers’ rights in its “Legalize L.A.” campaign. “If it weren’t for the immigration bust by the Obama administration, the company would have been OK this year,” according to a source close to American Apparel.

American Apparel has long advocated for immigration reform, “running ads, putting up billboards and selling T-shirts that read ‘Legalize L.A.: Immigration Reform Now,’ with 100 percent of its net proceeds from the shirts going to Los Angeles-based immigrant rights groups.” However, in the absence of immigration reform, there has been a shift away from workplace immigration raids and towards a crackdown on employers. The thinking is that immigration officials are targeting “unscrupulous” employers who exploit immigrant labor or who deprive hardworking Americans of jobs they want — however, that isn’t always the case.

American Apparel hasn’t been free of controversy when it comes to their human resources practices in its retail stores. However, at the company’s L.A.-based factory — where most of American Apparel’s immigrant employees work — workers are far from exploited. In fact, the company has built its “sweatshop free” brand on it. American Apparel pays its workers $10 to $12 an hour, well above minimum wage, and provides health benefits and guaranteed year-round employment. The company also claims to “offer parking, subsidized public transport, subsidized lunches, free onsite massages, a bike lending program, a program of paid days off, ESL classes and much more.”

It’s also not clear that U.S. citizen workers were lining up at American Apparel doors one they heard they were hiring. However, it is obvious that the audit devastated both the company and the workers who were let go. The company’s founder and chief executive, Dov Charney, wrote, “Because of a broken system, we were forced to let go of many factory workers — people who have been part of our family for nearly 10 years — and the country seems further from addressing this issue than ever.” The fired workers were even worse off as they struggled to make ends meet in a terrible economy.

Watch a video on the “personal and political ramifications” of American Apparel’s ICE audit:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D-CA) called the terminations “devastating” and his office publicly asked the federal government “to focus on employers that exploit and abuse their workers.” Ultimately, Villaraigosa hits the nail on the head. Rather than crippling one of the few clothing manufacturers left in the U.S. — one that pays its workers a decent wage and has dedicated a portion of its profits to advocating for immigration reform — perhaps the focus in the absence of major reform should be on punishing those employers who make a profit by exploiting immigrant workers via the strengthening of our nation’s labor laws.