Yesterday Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao was accompanied by two SUVs and up to six security personnel in an afternoon trip to a nail parlor. Chao was apparently preparing for the evening’s big fundraiser in Louisville, KY with Republican Presidential nominee John McCain.
Kentucky video blogger James Pence was on the scene, and put together this video of Chao and her entourage leaving the parlor.
We have lots of Elaine news from the last week, so kick back and check out what we have on our shady, shifty, shoddy Secretary of Labor.
Shady Appointees: Elaine lets appointee hide behind diplomatic immunity. Last month, Elaine met with the NAFTA council—the body that could waive diplomatic immunity for lobbyist and former official Mark Knouse. Knouse is the one whose numerous questionable expenses—nearly $10,000 in travel expenditures and about $1 million in shady contracts and vendor payments—forced him to resign. So did Elaine bring this to the NAFTA council? You guess.
Shoddy work: House votes to force Elaine to act. In April, we reported on a House hearing held because Elaine’s OSHA has failed to create comprehensive combustible dust regulations. Last week the House of Representatives got fed up, and voted to require OSHA to write safety standards for combustible dust in workplaces.
Federal regulators would have to come up with new ways to prevent combustible dust explosions in factories under legislation passed by the House… The bill now goes to the Senate, but the White House already has said President Bush would veto it. Despite worker deaths, Congressional votes, Elaine and her buddy President Bush still don’t seem to think combustible dust is a problem.
Yesterday we observed Equal Pay Day on April 22, which marks how far into each year a woman must work to earn as much as a man did in the previous year. As Mary Beth Maxwell wrote recently:
In 2007, women earned only 80 cents for every dollar a man earned. This pay gap was substantially greater for minorities, with African-American women making only 70 cents and Hispanic women making only 62 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts.
But Elaine and Mitch don’t see a problem: in 2006 Elaine claimed the pay gap had shrunk, when all that really happened was men’s wages fell, women didn’t gain. Under Elaine’s watch, the administration also tried to cut resources for the agency that gives women information about harassment, discrimination, family leave, and childcare.
Today, Mitch McConnell led the charge in the Senate that defeated the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a bill that would restore the law to its original intent and help ensure that women earn equal pay for equal work. Of course, Mitch got caught distorting the truth about the bill.
It is kinda funny that a female Labor Secretary would be so silent on the issue of equal pay. Then again, Elaine doesn’t have anything to worry about: her own pay has already been raised.
Ouch. After two separate government reports in ten days slammed Elaine Chao’s negligence on mine safety, her hometown paper decided to speak up. The paper is rightly furious: Elaine Chao’s negligence is inexcusable. (The editorial’s last sentence is the best.)
Why the delay? Yes, there’s a shortage of required equipment. But also, coal operators say they can’t get a straight answer from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration about what should be in their emergency response plans. But, the Government Accountability Office says enforcement of more than 350 citations written since 2006 by MSHA, for unsafe practices and conditions, varies widely.
What seems to be happening is that George W. Bush’s coal regulators, working under Labor Secretary Elaine Chao of Kentucky, are marking time until they get marching orders from the next administration.
If coal miners and their advocates, as opposed to coal industry givers, were part of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s re-election money machine, you might see some action.
Republicans like Big Coal. Their party took some $2 million from the mining industry in the 2006 election cycle alone. And Sen. McConnell objects to any suggestion that there’s something wrong with that.
Easy for Mr. McConnell and Ms. Chao to say. They don’t have to make a living in needlessly dangerous holes in the ground.
It’s time to say bye-bye to the last Bushie from the President’s years in Texas. Today Housing & Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson submitted his resignation, just weeks after two prominent Senators said he was unfit to lead:
Earlier this month, Dodd, Murray and other senators questioned Jackson closely about a federal lawsuit that accused him of using his public office to punish the Philadelphia Housing Authority after it refused to transfer a valuable property to one of the secretary’s business friends. Jackson refused in two Senate hearings to discuss his role in the matter.
Sketchy personal dealings? Enriching friends? Refusals to testify? AND cults of personality?
Do you know of any other Bush appointee who fits this bill? And when she’ll resign, too?
Now with my tongue out of my cheek, let me say that it would be very interesting to go through the $271 million in grants (87% of which were awarded *without* competition) from Elaine Chao’s Department of Labor. Of particular interest would be any cases in which the businesses could be matched up with anything here. Hypothetically, of course…
Check out this hilarious video from RoadblockRepublicans.com guest-starring Mitch and Elaine:
For the record, we’re not entirely convinced Elaine is sitting on the sidelines for Mitch’s Senate campaign. But still, you have to love this video.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Labor, Education and Pensions, chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), recently issued a report calling for the prosecution of Robert Murray, co-owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah where 9 people died in 2006 and one of Mitch McConnell’s political contributors.
You remember Murray - one of Mitch McConnell’s “five finest men in America.” Murray has a history of bullying MSHA so he can get his way. As the Salt Lake Tribune reported:
Most egregiously, the report alleged, Murray Energy was mining into what little was left of the south barrier pillar after being told directly by an MSHA inspector not to cut that coal. The company also violated its mining plan by taking several feet of coal out of the mine’s floor, elongating the pillars and making them extra vulnerable to failure.
Last week we reported that Elaine Chao shirked her responsibilities with a series of meetings that failed to address what really matters to America’s workers. After meeting with George W. Bush, Elaine addressed a group of Kentucky businesspeople in Washington, DC. Elaine Chao is married to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the Republican Senate leader who is up for re-election in November; Elaine isn’t from Kentucky, but does reside there with her husband.
We dug a little deeper, and found something curious. Elaine Chao spoke to four Kentucky business groups on four separate occasions in the last five months. Here’s her itinerary:
Elaine’s senior economist at the Labor Department, Jay Berman, yesterday advised lawmakers on Capitol Hill to amend last year’s increase in the minimum wage to exclude
Though one of America Samoa’s largest employers only pays workers an average of $3.60 an hour, Elaine Chao’s Department thinks that’s adequate – and even goes as far as arguing that increasing the minimum wage “would have damaging effects on the economies of
Except Berman later testified that a lack of available information “significantly impaired the department’s efforts to measure or to project the impacts of scheduled increases.” But then he went ahead and made conclusions about “damaging effects” anyway.
Sketchy, eh? Let’s take a look at Berman’s boss, who is yet another example of Elaine and hubby Sen. Mitch McConnell’s revolving door of employees. Berman is the senior economist to Elaine’s Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Labor. And who is the Assistant Secretary? Leon R. Sequeira, who used to be Mitch McConnell’s personal legal counsel. Mitch McConnell recently voted to abolish the federal minimum wage.
It’s always a family affair at the Department of Labor these days, isn’t it?
Back in October, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller called out the Department of Labor and Bob Murray of Murray Energy Corporation for refusing to aid the investigation into the deaths of nine men at Crandall Canyon Mine, and issued an ultimatum:
Let me be very clear: this committee will not be deterred from getting all of the information we need to do our independent investigation. We will not tolerate obstruction or delay by either the Department or by the company in pursuit of that information and this investigation.
He wasn’t kidding. The committee announced today that it issued subpoenas for two top officials at Murray Energy, including Mr. Bob Murray himself.
Murray has been confronted about safety problems at his mines before, and had some choice words about why he shouldn’t be held accountable. The Herald-Leader tells the story best:
Millionaire coal magnate Bob Murray knew the name to drop in September 2002, when Mine Safety Health Administration inspectors confronted him about safety problems at his mines: Sen. Mitch McConnell.
Murray, a large man with a fierce temper, is a huge donor to Republican senators. McConnell, R-Ky., rose through the ranks by raising money for those senators. And McConnell is married to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, whose agency oversees MSHA.
Shouting at a table full of MSHA officials at their district office in Morgantown, W.Va., Murray said: “Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and the last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss,” according to notes of the meeting.
Ahem. We’ll just let that speak for itself.
Under Elaine’s questionable 'leadership,' the Department of Labor has turned into an agency that screws America's workers and enables corporate giveaways.
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