Back in 2001, Republican activist Linda Chavez was Bush’s first choice to serve as Secretary of Labor, looking out for the interests of working people nationwide. She ran into a little trouble when the White House learned that Chavez failed tell the Bush gang about housing a Guatemalan woman whom she hired illegally to clean her house, and then encouraged a neighbor not to talk about the cleaning woman to the FBI when agents asked questions during her background check. Oops.

But never fear, this was a temporary setback for Chavez, who has built a successful network of political action committees. The problem, as the WaPo reported in a fascinating front-page expose today, is that Chavez’s PACs don’t appear to do anything — except raise money.

In the years since she was forced to pull her nomination as Bush’s labor secretary after admitting payments to an illegal immigrant, Chavez and her immediate family members have used phone banks and direct-mail solicitations to raise tens of millions of dollars, founding several political action committees with bankable names: the Republican Issues Committee, the Latino Alliance, Stop Union Political Abuse and the Pro-Life Campaign Committee. Their solicitations promise direct action in the “fight to save unborn lives,” a vigorous struggle against “big labor bosses” and a crippling of “liberal politics in the country.”

That’s not where the bulk of the money wound up being spent, however.

Josh Marshall has more.

No, not your attitude. She really thinks you need to bathe more. I'm completely serious.

AFL-CIOblog:

High school gym, where listening to lectures on personal hygiene was part of the package. It's one thing for a gym teacher to tell a bunch of sweaty teenagers to hit the showers. But it's something quite different when the U.S. secretary of labor tells Parade magazine-a national weekly read by millions of Americans-the nation's workers need a bath if they want to keep their jobs.[..]

Chao told Parade it's not just the low-cost of foreign labor that is enticing many U.S. employers to ship jobs overseas-overseas workers dress and bathe better.

Beyond the cheaper cost of labor, U.S. employers say that many workers abroad simply have a better attitude toward work. "American employees must be punctual, dress appropriately and have good personal hygiene," says Chao.

Alex Bastani, AFGE Local 12 president,[..] noted that in 2004, Chao's Labor Department changed the rules on who qualifies for overtime pay and millions of workers were robbed of their rights to overtime pay. Just this year, she tried to outsource some 250 Department of Labor jobs but was unsuccessful.

Members of the AFGE Local 12 chapter will be at Department of Labor headquarters passing out the above-pictured bars of soap. And I would be remiss to not remind you who is Chao's (presumably clean-smelling) husband...

Mike's Blog Round Up

Confined Space: Five more miners dead. Richard Stickler's name should be withdrawn as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health. And it turns out that John Correll, Bush's nominee to head up the Office of Surface Mining at the Dept. Interior, was up to his neck in improper behavior while he was at the MSHA.

Pro and Conrad: The legendary editorial cartoonist, Paul Conrad. Info on a documentary film tribute, cartoon gallery, and more at a beautifully designed site.

Majikthise: Has some recommended reading for ya

Brilliant at Breakfast: Bush to teens saving for college: Go Cheney Yourselves

The Talent Show: The Decline of Western Civilizatio

Update:

Having problems uploading new stories...working on it...

Mike's Round Up

Confined Space: The Senate confirmed Edwin G. Foulke Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational and Health. Foulke comes from a law firm well known in union-busting circles, where he has spent most of his career representing management in workplace safety and health cases.

Recovering Liberal: DPW agreed to sell their U.S. port operations to an American company and that seemed to end the port problem. But did it? Of course not! When La Cosa Nostra Bush is involved in anything, the problems are never resolved in a simple manner....The idiots have taken over

Crooked Timber: Inequality and American democracy

Attytood: From "pre-emptive war" to "pro-active arrests"...NYC's thought police

The Revealer: Harken to the whining chorus of the perpetually oppressed Religious Right.  Apparently all their tax-exempt churches and their vast private properties aren't enough to heal the hurt. Despite enormous influence in all three branches of government, and having granted themselves, and their benefactors in the GOP, exclusive dominion over patriotism and the personal imprimatur of God, it seems they are forever on the receiving end of unfairness, discrimination, and mean-spirited abuse.

Attytood: From "pre-emptive war" to "pro-active arrests"...NYC's thought police

The Revealer: Harken to the whining chorus of the perpetually oppressed Religious Right. Apparently all their tax-exempt churches and their vast private properties aren't enough to heal the hurt. Despite enormous influence in all three branches of government, and having granted themselves, and their benefactors in the GOP, exclusive dominion over patriotism and the personal imprimatur of God, it seems they are forever on the receiving end of unfairness, discrimination, and mean-spirited abuse

Saturday Night Funnies

(thanks Lauren)-via Tapped: "We don't always remember to plug Prospect media appearances, but here's one you have to see. During a little late-night TV watching yesterday, I caught the highlights of the new buddy cop movie starring Conan O'Brien and Prospect co-founder and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich."

Download | play -WMP only

MotherJones:

The Labor Department reported today that the unemployment rate rose from 5.0 percent to 5.5 percent in May, the largest monthly spike in more than two decades. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao's explanation?

"Today's increase in the unemployment rate reflects the fact that unusually large numbers of students and graduates are entering the labor market."

That's right. It's because we procreated so much that we have such a high unemployment rate. Don't think about the jobs outsourced out of the country, the massive layoffs and the near extinction of a manufacturing base here in the U.S. It's because there's so many kids looking for a job.