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The U.S. Justice Department sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday, saying the Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.

The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office's defiance "unprecedented," and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and jail policies that discriminate against people with limited English skills

Arpaio had been given until Aug. 17 to hand over documents the federal government first asked for 15 months ago.

I can't believe the feds let him stall for 17 months. Arpaio has compiled a long record of notorious abuses, like this one:

During her second night behind bars, the bleeding started. On the morning of October 14, she felt contractions. Her hands and feet shackled, she was in labor and ushered into a paramedic's van by a detention officer who restrained her to the stretcher.

"That's not necessary," the paramedic told the officer.

"It's my job," the officer responded. The guard was a Latina.

She thought she would be released from the shackles once she arrived at the hospital, but she wasn't.

The officer chained her ankle to one leg of the hospital bed.

A nurse requested that she be freed to get a urine sample. But the officer suggested instead that her bed be dragged over to the bathroom.

Later she was changed from her jail uniform into a hospital gown.

"The officer chained me by the feet and the hands to the bed," she said. "And that's how my daughter was born."

Arpaio is slime. And while he remains obsessed with immigrants, his actual record is a disaster:

* Violent crime rates are up in Arpaio’s jurisdiction while they have fallen throughout the rest of Arizona.

* Arpaio has failed to serve over 40,000 felony warrants. Arpaio is suspected of misspending $50 million in taxpayer funds and has refused to turn over records for an investigation.

* Over 2,700 lawsuits have been filed against Arpaio and he’s been investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor.

* Evidence exists that Arpaio forced an undocumented mother to give birth while handcuffed to a bed.

And all of this for what? For a jihad against immigrants that is based on lies and fear mongering? When the governor of Arizona claims there are beheadings in the Arizona desert despite all evidence to the contrary, when McCain claims his state is a lawless haven for villainy and scum, and when busboys, maids, and landscapers are blamed for drug-related violence on the borders, you know immigrant bashers have lost their minds.

But what about all those jobs those immigrants are stealing from good Americans? Turns out they aren't.

Statistical analysis of state-level data shows that immigrants expand the economy’s productive capacity by stimulating investment and promoting specialization. This produces efficiency gains and boosts income per worker. At the same time, evidence is scant that immigrants diminish the employment opportunities of U.S.-born workers [...]

Over the long run, a net inflow of immigrants equal to 1% of employment increases income per worker by 0.6% to 0.9%. This implies that total immigration to the United States from 1990 to 2007 was associated with a 6.6% to 9.9% increase in real income per worker. That equals an increase of about $5,100 in the yearly income of the average U.S. worker in constant 2005 dollars. Such a gain equals 20% to 25% of the total real increase in average yearly income per worker registered in the United States between 1990 and 2007.

Anti-immigrant sentiment is ugly, it's immoral, its un-American, and its economically counterproductive. And maybe it's truly time for Arpaio to face justice.

Private employers hired more workers than expected in August, lifting hopes for the weak U.S. economy, but the nation’s unemployment rate rose for the first time in four months.

As Gaius Publius says, "Mission Accomplished."

According to a July report from the U.S. government’s Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, oil production in Iraq is currently about 2.4 million barrels per day. The goal, by 2017 is to produce 12 million barrels per day. That’s quite a leap, especially since average production levels have held steady for more than two years. It’s going to a take a lot of investment to expand production by 10 million barrels per day....

There’s a pile of oil money pouring into Iraq right now. Since last year, the Iraqi government has awarded 11 development deals to various consortia. BP and China National Petroleum Corp. are developing the enormous Rumaila field, which has a total proven reserves of about 18 billion barrels. Other companies winning awards include Royal Dutch Shell (working with ExxonMobil on one project and Malaysia’s Petronas on another), France’s Total SpA, Angola’s Sonangol, Italy’s Eni SpA, Russia’s Lukoil and China National Offshore Oil Corp. The signature bonuses to be paid by the consortia are anywhere from $100 million to $500 million.

More investment is on the way. Iraq’s oil ministry is planning to build four new refineries that will nearly double the country’s refining capacity. Oil services firms like Weatherford International and Schlumberger are expanding their operations in the country. Earlier this month Halliburton won a deal to drill 15 wells in the Basra province in southern Iraq, though the financial terms have not been disclosed.

Well, that's good news for Halliburton, as usual. It's probably not particularly good news for Iraqis hoping for an independent and non-corrupt government to emerge. It's revenue the fledgling country will desperately need for rebuilding, if it actually makes it to government coffers.

What two countries lead the world in energy consumption, energy production and greenhouse gas emissions? The United States and China. Can our two countries work together to help lead the world in a transition to clean energy? A recent announcement by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is an important step in that direction.

Yesterday, Secretary Chu announced that the University of Michigan and West Virginia University will each lead consortia under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center. The two consortia will receive $25 million in total funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for this work. These amounts will be matched by the grantees, for a total of $50 million in U.S. funding. The Chinese side will contribute an additional $50 million, for a total of $100 million for this innovative project.

read more

If you were one of those callous populists who failed to get all teary upon hearing of the financial plight of top CEOs during the economic downturn, you might want to have a good cry now.  Because the Institute for Policy Studies released its comprehensive 17th annual look at executive pay Wednesday, CEO Pay and the Great Recession.

IPS identified the 50 firms that laid off the most workers between November 2008 and April 2010 and compared them against 2009 compensation totals. Altogether, these companies chopped 531,363 jobs. Their CEOs averaged $12 million in compensation - salary, stock options, bonuses. That clocked in at 42 percent more than the average compensation for all CEOs on the Standard & Poor's 500. Ouch. As lead author Sarah Anderson said: “CEOs are squeezing workers to boost short-term profits and fatten their own paychecks.”

But the practice has many defenders who argue that it's tough to lay off thousands of workers, so CEOs deserve big compensation. All that stress, you know.

While the headlines lament that CEOs are hurting from the economic situation, the report's authors concluded otherwise:

Corporate executives, in reality, are not suffering at all. Their pay, to be sure, dipped on average in 2009 from 2008 levels, just as their pay in 2008, the first Great Recession year, dipped somewhat from 2007. But executive pay overall remains far above inflationadjusted levels of years past. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, CEO pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s, more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s, and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-20th century.

American workers, by contrast, are taking home less in real weekly wages than they took home in the 1970s. Back in those years, precious few top executives made over 30 times what their workers made. In 2009, we calculate in the 17th annual Executive Excess, CEOs of major U.S. corporations averaged 263 times the average compensation of American workers. CEOs are clearly not hurting.

Top pay, the institute said, went to Schering-Plough CEO Fred Hassan. He got paid $49.7 million in 2009, including a $33 million golden parachute that came his way when Merck bought the company. The merger resulted in 16,000 layoffs.

Johnson & Johnson CEO William Weldon collected $25.6 million, triple the average CEO compensation for big companies. That occurred at the same time the company was laying off 9,000 workers and embroiled in a scandalous drug recall.

Among the report's other findings:

• Most of the companies announced their mass layoffs even though they were showing profits.

• Only two of the 50 leading layoff companies reported paying corporate income tax in  2009 at the 35 percent statutory rate.

• Five of the 50 received major taxpayer bailouts.

• IPS included a "comprehensive analysis" of whether newly passed  laws, pending laws and proposed initiatives that haven't gotten much attention yet would actually curb excessive executive compensation in the future.

Total compensation for all 50 CEOs on the IPS list was $598 million. The institute said that would supply a year's worth of unemployment benefits for 37,759 workers, or a month's worth for the 531,363 workers these companies dumped.

It made no calculation for how many pitchforks those millions would buy.

(You need Calculated Risk. Click to enlarge.)

The numbers sloshing around in the American economy right now make better sense if you climb up on a ladder and see that it really is just sloshing -- back and forth, forth and back, a little gained, a little lost. Ezra Klein looks at today's unemployment report and says, "It's just stagnation: We're not falling back into the hole, but nor are we getting out of it."

In August, the economy either lost 54,000 jobs overall, or gained 67,000 private jobs while losing 114,000 temporary Census gigs -- pick your perspective. The government decided we'd lost fewer jobs in June and July than originally thought. And it's no matter, really, because we need to be gaining jobs at a clip of 200,000 a month to make up for the 7.6 million lost in the Great Recession.

Overall unemployment ticked up by 0.1 percent, to 9.6 percent, because more people reported they were hunting for work. The "shaddow" unemployment rate, which include people who've given up, rose to 16.7 percent. We've been stuck in this dumb and miserable range since May. And this time last year, unemployment also pinged in at 9.7 percent.

Whatever it is that President Obama is considering to jumpstart the economy, let's hope it's big enough this time around. The mess we're in is the same mess we've been in for months now, the same mess we're likely to stay in until our nation's leadership gets real enough to fix it.

Rachel teaches Jimmy to make a sazerac after the jump...

I was surprised to hear Minority Leader Mitch McConnell say he believes the Small Business Jobs Act currently before the Senate is “a little itty-bitty small business bill that no one thinks will have much of an impact on the economy.” In fact, I would encourage him to go on the road with me to places like Saratoga Springs, where I was just yesterday meeting with several small business owners, including Larry Levita.

Larry and his son Phillip are the owners of Plum Dandy, a frozen yogurt shop in Saratoga Springs' historic downtown.  A few months ago they received an SBA Recovery loan for $175,000 to open their shop, and with that they created 12 new jobs. Their loan was one of about 70,000 loans SBA has made with enhancements first provided in the Recovery Act in February 2009. Larry told me that things are going really well for them, and in fact they’re already thinking of opening a second location.

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Two positive things can be said about today's jobs report from the Labor Department. First, it was significantly better than the one for August 2009, and June and July 2010 were not as bad as had been previously calculated. The stock market apparently loves the report since many experts were predicting far worse.

There were 60,000 jobs created if you leave out the Census. Overall: 54,000 jobs lost, with 121,000 government layoffs, including 114,000 Census workers. Private-sector jobs created: 67,000. Unemployment rate: a rise to 9.6 percent. Unemployment plus underemployment: a rise to 16.7 percent. Number of Americans officially unemployed: 14.9 million. Number unemployed, underemployed and so in despair they've given up looking: perhaps 16 million. The employment-population ratio: up a tenth of a point to 58.5 percent.

During the first eight months of 2010, fewer new private-sector jobs (763,000) have been created than were lost in January 2009 alone. At the current rate of new job creation, it will be mid-2017 before as many Americans are working as was the case 32 months ago when the Great Recession began.

Click here for a larger image of this Calculated Risk graphic.

This marks the 16th month that the official unemployment rate has been above 9 percent. If it remains there for another three months, which seems more than likely, it will mark the longest stretch of joblessness above that level since the 1930s.

Meanwhile, policymakers argue over what will crank up an economy that, short of two years at the end of the 1990s, has failed to generate jobs at a "full employment" level of 4-5 percent for 40 years. That argument focuses on conventional measures - such as government-funded stimulus, shifting tax burdens, curtailing or expanding regulation and reforming trade policy. More radical measures, such as expanding the public sector of the economy European-style, are not on the table. Only the most left-wing politicians in a handful of safe districts would survive after suggesting this kind of approach, but even they haven't done so.

Given voters' traditional attitude toward the party in power during economic hard times, the jobs report is certain to add to a growing sense of foreboding about the upcoming elections among Democrats and their activist allies. The President will speak about the economy this morning at 10 a.m. EDT.

We really need private businesses to step up and begin to hire more aggressively for this recovery to really gain momentum," said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester ...

"The economy is in a bit of a lull and gauging how long we are stuck in this rut will determine if the Federal Reserve needs to step in," said Sweet.

Among the details:

• The labor force grew by 552,000.

• The change total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised from minus 221,000 to minus 175,000, and the change for July was revised from minus 131,000 to minus 54,000.

• The average workweek for production and non-supervisory workers remained to 34.2 hours.

• Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men was 9.8 percent, adult women 8.0 percent, teenagers 26.3 percent, whites 8.7 percent, blacks 16.3 percent, and Hispanics 12.0 percent

• Manufacturing employment fell by 27,000 jobs. Construction employment rose by 19,000 jobs. Average hourly earnings increased by 6 cents.

• Health care employment increased by 28,000.

• 42% of unemployed Americans were out of work for more than six months in August, down from 45% in July.

= = =

SilverOz has a diary on this subject here.

From the Greece riots to Charlie Crist's GOP exit, First Read nails down the top events shaping this midterm season.

Today’s employment report was better than expected. Private sector payrolls increased by 67,000 in August -- the eighth consecutive month of private sector job growth. This growth is consistent with other recent data reports indicating that the economy is continuing to recover, albeit at a somewhat slower pace than in the early spring. The rate of job growth, however, is not as large as needed to bring the unemployment rate down quickly. Indeed, the unemployment rate rose one-tenth of a percentage point to 9.6%, as more than half a million people joined the labor force. The President continues to work with his economic team and with Congress to identify measures that could help speed the recovery and put the economy on a path of steadily declining unemployment.

In addition to the rise in August, the estimates of private sector job growth for June and July were revised up by a total of 66,000. Since last December, private sector employment has risen by 763,000. Despite the rise in private sector employment, overall payroll employment fell by 54,000, as 114,000 temporary Census jobs were eliminated.

Private sector payrolls expanded in a number of sectors, including education and health services, construction, and temporary help services. Manufacturing employment fell 27,000 in August; much of this drop likely reflects the fact that manufacturing employment in July was elevated because General Motors chose to forgo its usual two-week shutdown. The manufacturing ISM Report on Business released on Wednesday indicated stronger employment growth in manufacturing in August than in July. State and local government payrolls declined by 10,000 in August, consistent with continuing budget difficulties in many states and localities.

In the household survey, the number of people employed rose by 290,000. But, because the labor force rose by 550,000, the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.6% (from 9.5% in July). The employment -to-population ratio also rose one-tenth of a percentage point (to 58.5%), indicating that in the household survey employment growth more than kept up with population growth. In addition, the number of workers who have been unemployed 27 weeks or longer declined sharply, from 6.57 million to 6.25 million.

Against the backdrop of some unsettling economic data in the past few weeks, today’s numbers are reassuring that growth and recovery are continuing. At the same time, the fact that the growth of private sector payrolls is below the level needed to keep up with normal growth of the labor force is obviously unacceptable. There are a number of step we could take to help increase private sector job growth and put the economy on a path of steadily declining unemployment. We will be working with Congress on these measures in the coming weeks.

There will likely be bumps in the road ahead. The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative. It is essential that we continue our efforts to move in the right direction and encourage robust job gains.

Christina Romer is the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers

Friday opinion. End of summer, and a hurricane to boot.

Earl (it could be worse) watch:

weatherdude has some great links and prep info.

WaPo on the 2008 fiscal crisis:

In testimony before the Congressionally appointed committee, Bernanke said that statutory gaps were an important contributor to the buildup of risk in the system but that even when regulators had the tools they needed to stem those risks, they did not use them well.

"Once a crisis occurs, timely and effective action by the government is critical to containing the severity of financial disruptions and their economic effects...However, the crisis revealed large gaps in the government's ability to respond quickly, effectively, and with minimum cost to taxpayers and the economy," Bernanke said.

Paul Krugman:

Next week, President Obama is scheduled to propose new measures to boost the economy. I hope they’re bold and substantive, since the Republicans will oppose him regardless — if he came out for motherhood, the G.O.P. would declare motherhood un-American. So he should put them on the spot for standing in the way of real action.

NY Times on polling NYers about Muslims:

Tolerance, however, isn’t the same as understanding, so it is appalling to see New Yorkers who could lead us all away from mosque madness, who should know better, playing to people’s worst instincts.

That includes Carl Paladino and Rick Lazio, Republicans running for governor who have disgraced their state with histrionics about the mosque being a terrorist triumph. And Rudolph Giuliani, who cloaks his opposition to the mosque as "sensitivity" to 9/11 families without acknowledging that this conflates all prayerful Muslims with terrorists, a despicable conclusion.

Republicans will do anything to get elected, including foster hate. It's not new, but neither is it pleasant to watch.

Michael Gerson:

A church in Florida is poised to commemorate an act of violence committed in the name of Islam, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, with an act of stupidity committed in the name of Christianity, the public burning of the Koran.

This threatened libricide proves little more than the existence of a few attention-seeking crackpots in a continental country -- the natural resource that makes cable news possible. But the Manhattan mosque controversy has exposed a broader, conservative Christian suspicion of mosques and Muslims.

Gerson's been very reasonable of late. The Bush people are looking downright moderate compared to this crowd.

Jonathan Capehart:

For all of Palin’s popularity within the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement, poll after poll shows that the American people don’t think she’s ready to be president of the United States. This was the case last February. Also last April. And now this week in the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll, 59 percent of those surveyed said Palin would not "have the ability to be an effective president." This chart from Pollster.com paints a picture of Palin’s ultimate problem.

Pollster.com:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If you thought her opening stammer in Wednesday's debate was the best part of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's performance, have we got video for you.

Her opponents and reporters decided to challenge Brewer about her claims that illegal immigration has led to headless bodies turning up in Arizona. What happens next is the kind of the moment that causes humans to look away, to close their eyes in empathy. Override that impulse, please. Because you need to see this. You really do.

(Ask the pelicans of Queen Bess Island what BP owes./Coast Guard photo)

If Congress keeps BP from drilling new wells in the Gulf of Mexico, the company says it may not be able to keep its much advertised committment to "make this right." Also, people should stop asking BP for more. From the New York Times:

[A]s state and federal officials, individuals and businesses continue to seek additional funds beyond the minimum fines and compensation that BP must pay under the law, the company has signaled its reluctance to cooperate unless it can continue to operate in the Gulf of Mexico.

For the record, BP says it will keep its commitments for a $20 billion fund for damages and fines, $100 million for rig workers idled by the moratorium (not so many, it turns out), and $500 million to research the effects of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The problem for BP is that if the federal government puts a crimp in production, BP will feel pain. Seriously, that's the problem. "If we are unable to keep those fields going, that is going to have a substantial impact on our cash flow," said BP America exec David Nagle tells the Times. That "makes it harder for us to fund things, fund these programs."

Nagle sounds like a kid who gets grounded and then complains to his parents that he's missing the fun on Saturday night. Yes, as the claims and penalties roll in, BP is going to feel pain. What's really wrong here is that BP won't feel nearly enough pain. The company has been among the world's most profitable for a long time. The latest Fortune 500 rankings show BP as the fourth largest corporation, with profits -- profits, not revenue -- of $16,578,000,000.

With $16.578 billion sloshing around, BP and its shareholders still cut corners as they went about the risky business of oil production. And now BP and its shareholders can use some of those billions to pay for what they've done.

A reminder that we serve at the pleasure of the planet.

What Steve Pearlstein thinks we should do with the money we get when the Bush tax cuts expire.

Fewer young voters call themselves Democrats than in 2008.

A fascinating glimpse at how the Amish deal with a member of their own sect accused of sex crimes.

Robert Reich on how to end the Great Recession.

What Gen. Stanley McChrystal learned from Rolling Stone Magazine: now you can learn it, too! (Oh, man, the Rolling Stone piece is not on the syllabus!)

Republican Jesse Kelly was still basking in the glow of his victory in an Arizona congressional primary when the Democratic congresswoman he's trying to unseat released a scathing TV ad branding him "a risk" who would gamble away people's retirement savings.

As the last of 30,000 U.S. reinforcements arrive in Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday got a firsthand look at operations in the dangerous south.

At Grist, Randy Rieland writes:

Ready for your morning bowl of crazy? Five years ago, Congress set aside millions of acres of public land in the Southwest for the development of solar farms. This was primo real estate for solar, considered one of the best spots in the world. So far not one solar panel has been erected.

Oh, you want us to build something? This discouraging news comes courtesy of the AP's Jason Dearen, whose investigation shows that the understaffed U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) focused almost all its time on approving oil and gas projects and leased the land on a first-come, first-served basis, often to outfits with little or no experience in actually building solar farms.

Case in point: Cogentrix Solar Services, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. Cogentrix had zero solar experience, but holds leases on nearly half the Nevada acreage for which applications have been filed. Another sickening stat: In the last five years, the BLM has approved more than 73,000 oil and gas leases on public land, but hasn't given final approval to one solar lease. Not a one. Writes Dearen:

BLM's solar leasing system ended up allowing developers to lay claim to prime sites -- many located in the deserts that span California, Nevada, and Arizona. All developers had to do was fill out an application, pay a fee and file development plans. But many were so vague that it was difficult for BLM to separate the serious projects from the speculative ones.

• • • • •

Green diary rescue appears Thursdays and Sundays. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it. The rescue begins below and continues in the jump.

• • • • •

Haole in Hawaii posted another photo diary of Hawai'i Underwater: "These photos were taken during a handful of dives over the past two weekends including a night dive last night at Pupukea Marine Reserve. I hope you enjoy your visit."

Deep Harm had looked at rotten eggs in Rodents, maggots and steaming piles of hypocrisy at egg farms:  "The inspectors found manure piles up to 8 feet high, holding doors open and giving wildlife access. "Wildlife" included live rodents, wild birds and a plague of flies, live and dead, including their larvae (maggots). 'Additional problems included overflowing manure pits, improper worker sanitation and wild birds [a potential source of avian influenza] roosting around feed bins,' reports The New York Times. The investigators also found salmonella bacteria in chicken feed and in barn and walkway areas, and in water used to wash eggs at a Hillandale facility.  It isn't clear, yet, which came first:  the salmonella or the egg."

Tonight's Diary Rescue comes to you courtesy of the hard work and diligence of the following Rescue Rangers: Louisiana1976, ItsJessMe, YatPundit, sunspark says and srkp23. dadanation is thought to have done double duty both rescuing and editing, but we all have our doubts...

thE rescueD diarieS

• Young diarist Earley Post tells us that regarding corporate influence in politics, "What if...?" iis the Wrong Question. (Louisiana 1976)
• amybdean graces us with an eloquent essay steeped in memory all the while looking towards the future: Labor Day’s Legacy: A More Inclusive America. (dadanation)
• Ojibwa keeps on teaching: Indians 101: The Tuscarora & the Iroquois League. (srkp23)
• faithfull brings to light a most unsettling reality in West Virginia due to Nike in Mountaintop Removal - JUST DO IT! (dadanation)
• americandad provides a Wisconsin congressman with a Wisconsin (and American) history lesson in May God smite us with Rep. Paul Ryan's "cancer"! (sunspark says)

thE usuaL suspectS

jotter has High Impact Diaries: September 1, 2010.

sardonyx brings us tonight's Top Comments: Blameless Edition.

thE requisitE disclaimeR

Please use this as an Open Thread as well as your chance to promote your favorite diaries of the day. Respectful engagement is most welcome here. Please keep in mind that each Diary Rescue's daily purview extends from 3pm PST yesterday to 3pm PST today

This week the President announced the end of America’s combat mission in Iraq and West Wing Week takes you there, on the ground, with an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the change of mission. We spent a week on the ground with our troops and civilians , some coming home, some staying for the next mission, training and supporting the Iraqis now that they have the lead in protecting their own country. West Wing Week proudly joins the President and countless others who have saluted our troops over the past week -- it's never too late for you to join in too.

Click here to see the video.

Wednesday, August 31, 2010

• The President addresses the nation on the end of the combat mission in Iraq from the Oval Office.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

• The President talks with the troops at Fort Bliss, Texas.

 Arun Chaudhary is the official White House videographer