The New York Times reports this morning that “Wal-Mart Stores, the nation’s largest retailer, has agreed to pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it violated child labor laws…most of the 24 violations covered by the settlement involved workers under age 18 operating dangerous machinery, including cardboard balers and chain saws.”

The agreement with the Department of Labor was signed January 6, but was kept secret. Only when pressed yesterday by a journalist did the administration reveal a provision in the settlement “promises to give Wal-Mart 15 days’ notice before the Labor Department investigates any other ‘wage and hour’ accusations,” including violations of child labor law and failure to pay minimum wage or overtime.

Here is the Labor Department’s mission statement:

The Department of Labor fosters and promotes the welfare of the job seekers, wage earners, and retirees of the United States…In carrying out this mission, the Department administers a variety of Federal labor laws including those that guarantee workers’ rights to safe and healthful working conditions, a minimum hourly wage and overtime pay…

How, exactly, does giving Wal-Mart 15 days to cover-up labor law violations help achieve that goal?

[Ed. Note: Sam Seder, Janeane Garofolo and the Majority Report Team will be guest blogging this weekend on ThinkProgress.org from the HBO Comedy Festival in Aspen, CO.]

The Jeff Gannon Incident has certainly been enjoyable. For the few of you that may not yet have heard, Jeff Gannon was the fake name of the fake White House Correspondent for the fake news service Talon News. Talon News is an affiliate of a right-wing outfit called GOPUSA. Jeff Gannon’s real name is Jim Guckert. His role in the White House press room was to throw McClellan softballs, in addition to changing the subject when things got too hot. Questions like:

Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. Harry Reid was talking about soup lines. And Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there’s no crisis there. How are you going to work – you’ve said you are going to reach out to these people – how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?

This aroused the suspicion of several bloggers, and a few weeks later, we find out that he’s the owner of several pornographic web domains (MilitaryEscortsM4M.com; MilitaryEscorts.com) and posted a very buff semi-clad photo of himself on AOL.

As fun as all this is, the story transcends the details, or at least it should, if the liberal bloggers and media make the leap to stage two. Read more