Blankenship, D

on the board of CoC

POSTER?

SEE CORP BAD ACTOR SEE COAL MURRAY BLANKENSHIP KIA WORKERS

NO MERRI

see bak

see Massey

black lung: suffocate while alive

ELECT JUDGE RIVIERA

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===

kos 10 23

I know, its decesis. Doesnt really matter now anyway, it appears deceased either way.

Just caught an article by Reuters’ Andrew Chung about SCOTUS tossing out Donald Blankenship’s suit against several media outlets and reporters for defamation in a 2015 case where he accused both Fox AND MSNBC among others of mischaracterizing him as a “felon” though he was only convicted of a misdemeanor for responsibilty in an explosion that killed 29 of his employees in 2010 in his West VA mine while running to unseat Joe Manchin and served a year in prison for it, no doubt completely consoling the families of the 29 lost. He accused these outlets/reporters of derailing his campaign due to “actual malice,” a bar that must be met for a public figure to be able to hold a media outlet accountable for a case of defamation. That bar was set in 1964 with the seminal NY Times v. Sullivan case where a unanimous Supreme Court agreed that said bar needed to be pretty high in order to enforce the protections of a free and independent media enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution. Because OTHERWISE, any disgruntled multi-million dollar CEO/company with bottomless pockets and an army of corporate lawyers who got their employees killed would, on a whim, be able to sue any unfriendly media outlet who reported on it into OBLIVION. See: Donald Trump suing everybody that ever said anything bad/true about him.

but... Again enter Clarence Thomas, who in his statement about the court ditching Roe v Wade and other such previously decided interpretations of the 14th Amendment (Obergfell, eg, though he didnt mention the legalization of interracial marriage for some reason, weird) should come into question, because, you know, Originalism. The Framers weren’t contemplating The Gays. so, no. I guess they were contemplating AR-15s though. yup, no doubt. Mr. T opined, though not in an actual dissent, that should the appropriate case arise, the (unanimous) decision in Sullivan should be revisited because the high bar instituted by that case to protect media freedom is not enshrined in the constitution (word for word, i guess). Apparently recusing yourself from 1 obvious conflict of interest case before the court, FINALLY, after months of media scrutiny of your corruption, absolves you of, once again, doing away with stare decisis when its not jibing with your bogus originalist interpretation of what-ever-the-hell-Harlan-Crow and Leonard Leo need this week to help them undermine democracy.

He said, again, this should be an issue for the states and not federal government to decide. Really? HOW??? Its federal law. It’s in the Constitution. It’s the duty of the federal government to enforce. & How’d that whole Roe v Wade thing go, dude/ the states should decide? so now its ok that the state of Idaho just became a real-world Margaret Atwood book???

Look, John, Clarence, Brett, Amy, et al im sure it’d be nice to sue every media outlet out there that isn’t Fox or Breitbart for reporting on your blatant corruption, and thanks for not voting your (donor’s) conscience on this one. & Also way smart to throw the MSM a bone, SCOTUS. Nothing to see here! Look! We voted to keep one of your rights this time, so chill! It should be no problem when the 6 of us decide what and what not your rights are AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT regardless of what they were for the last 50 years.

It seems to me the Constitution is kind of like the bible. You can use it for good, and you can use it for bad, because almost any part of it can be selectively co-opted to suit your purposes. You can “Love thy neighbor as thy self,” or you can stone your wife for cheating on your ass. Its all in there and you can use it however you want. REASONABLE CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATION of foundational documents is the only way they can survive. This premise does however decimate “originalism” which is a pretty made up concept in the first place. If the “Founding Fathers” ever thought that was a reasonable approach they wouldn’t have created that whole AMENDMENT PROCESS in the first place. They didn’t foresee planes, trains & automobiles either, maybe we should see if the bible bans those too? They knew that society would change as radically as it did in their own lifetimes, and they engineered the document that would be the blueprint for this new country to be A LIVING DOCUMENT.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Big_Branch_Mine_disaster

Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010 roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) underground in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. Twenty-nine out of thirty-one miners at the site were killed.^[1] The coal dust explosion occurred at 3:27 pm.^[2] The accident was the worst in the United States since 1970, when 38 miners were killed at Finley Coal Company's No. 15 and 16 mines in Hyden, Kentucky.^[3][4][5] A state funded independent investigation later found Massey Energy directly responsible for the blast.^[6]

The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) released its final report on December 6, 2011, concluding that flagrant safety violations contributed to the explosion. It issued 369 citations at that time, assessing $10.8 million in penalties.^[7] Alpha Natural Resources, which had bought Massey Energy in 2011, settled its corporate criminal liabilities with the U.S. Attorney for $209 million.^[8] Investigation of possible personal criminal liability continues,^[8] with one former superintendent, Gary May, pleading guilty in March 2012, and "confess[ing] to conspiring to 'impede the [MSHA]'s enforcement efforts.'" In April 2012, coal producer Alpha Natural Resources Inc. (ANR), the owner of the mine at the time, said it will permanently close its Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.^[9][10]

Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was convicted in 2015 of a misdemeanor conspiring to willfully violate safety standards and was sentenced to one year in prison.^[11] He was found not guilty of charges of securities fraud and making false statements.^[12]

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Smith pulled up to another mine, which was also closed but had no guards in its weed-choked parking lot. This Solid Energy mine, along with the Rockhouse mine he drove by earlier, was operated byMassey Energy, now a defunct company with deadly mine disasters in its history and a CEO who went to prison for conspiracy to violate mine safety laws.

Smith got out and walked up to a rusted fence with a padlock. A ball cap shaded his face. Sunglasses hid his tears.

“It’s [been] eating at me for the last two years,” he said, “that I’m going to die over this. … Of all the things that could’ve killed me while I did work there, the rockfalls and all that stuff, I lived through all of that. And I find out years later I’m going to die over black lung. And it’s heartbreaking.”

Smith then mentioned his wife and two daughters and wondered what will happen to them when he’s gone. He wondered about the grandchildren he may never see. His voice breaking again, he talked about the excitement of being a young miner, about the hope and promise of good pay and good lives.

“We was all young and strong and stout and they took advantage of us. Every one of us is either crippled or dead. We was all young men,” he said, crying softly.

Back at his house in a narrow valley — a holler — in Canada, Ky., Smith pointed to a family cemetery on a knoll at the edge of the lawn he has so much difficulty mowing. It features a single gravestone with bright flowers and the names of his parents. Behind it, Smith told us, in the shade, is the burial plot he has picked out for himself. He’s 46 years old.

NPR’s Adelina Lancianese, Barbara Van Woerkom, Katie Lawrie and Cat Schuknecht; Elaine McMillion Sheldon of FRONTLINE; Benny Becker and Jeff Young of Ohio Valley ReSource; and Ellen Smith of Mine Safety and Health News contributed to this story.

==

https://www.propublica.org/article/don-blankenship-mitch-mcconnell-feud-the-senator-aided-the-mining-executive?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter

Before the Blankenship-McConnell Feud, the Senator Aided the Mining Executive

Mitch McConnell helped Don Blankenship’s company avoid dire regulatory consequences for a disastrous spill in 2000.

by Alec MacGillis May 7, 1:02 p.m. EDT

Don Blankenship, left, and Mitch McConnell (Spencer Platt/Getty Images, Alex Wong/Getty Images)

As the race for the West Virginia Republican Senate nomination hurtles toward Tuesday’s primary, candidate Don Blankenship, the former coal executive sentenced to a year in federal prison in connection with a 2010 mine explosion that killed 29 men, has unleashed blistering invective against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

He has taken to calling McConnell “Cocaine Mitch,” an allusion to drugs once found on a ship owned by the shipping company owned by Chao’s father, whom Blankenship calls a “wealthy China-person.” His ad hominem barrage, provoked by McConnell’s well-funded effort to deny Blankenship the nomination, culminated in an eye-popping TV ad in which Blankenship charged that McConnell has “created millions of jobs for China-people” and that McConnell’s “China family has given him tens of millions of dollars.” The ad pledged to “ditch Cocaine Mitch for the sake of the kids.”

What has gone overlooked amid this extraordinary clash, is that 18 years ago, both McConnell and Chao effectively sprang to the defense of Blankenship, sparing his company considerable cost and consequences for a disaster that unfolded in their home state of Kentucky in the middle of the night on Oct. 11, 2000. Here is how I described the episode in my 2014 biography of McConnell:

    Three hundred million gallons of coal slurry, the viscous mix of mud, coal waste, and chemicals left as a by-product from purifying coal, broke through the inadequate buffer that separated the 68-acre holding pond of the Martin County Coal Corporation’s Big Branch Refuse Impoundmentfrom the surrounding mine. The dark sludge poured through two miles of mine tunnels — a miner had left the area just moments earlier — before oozing out of a mountainside opening into the hilly landscape of eastern Kentucky. It found its way into two tributaries of the Big Sandy River — first Coldwater Creek, and then, after the pressure forced a break in the other side of the impoundment, into Wolf Creek — filling them ever higher until it overran embankments, spreading toward the homes lining the creek bottoms of Inez, the 500-person town that Lyndon Baines Johnson visited in 1964 to promote his War on Poverty, and covering their yards with a vast moat of goop that rose to six feet deep in places. Inez resident Mickey McCoy threw golf-ball-size rocks into the blackened creeks and watched as they refused to sink in the noxious pudding. “It was a slow-moving black smothering,” he says. There was no immediate effort by the company to alert the townspeople sleeping in the spill’s path — Abraham Lincoln “Linc” Chapman didn’t know about the sludge until he encountered it while heading up Coldwater Creek before daybreak to hunt deer. “It was a lot of chaos,” he says. “If you never saw a slurry spill it’s hard to describe it. It was like a lava flow coming down from the creek bed.”

The spill, which was vastly larger in scale than the oil spill from the Exxon Valdez, left a 70-mile path of destruction running all the way to the Ohio River, killing 1.6 million fish and countless wildlife that got stuck in the muck or drank from it, sweeping away roads and bridges, and contaminating the water systems of more than 27,000 people.

:{:{Major consequences loomed for the owner of the Martin County Coal Company: mining giant Massey Energy, which was led by Blankenship. Among the agencies that kicked into gear were the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which had issued recommendations about strengthening the holding pond walls in 1994 following a smaller spill.}:

A team of investigators from MSHA was on its way to alleging eight separate violations against Massey that could have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines and laid the legal basis for criminal charges of willful negligence.

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But in the midst of their work, the presidency fell to George W. Bushfollowing the Florida recount and Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore. “I don’t think I have ever felt better, including my own election victories, than the night of the Supreme Court decision,” McConnell said later.

The day of Bush’s inauguration, the head of the MSHA investigative team, Tony Oppegard, got a call from superiors alerting him that the Bush administration was declining to approve the six-month extension that had been arranged for him so he could finish the investigation. The person who replaced Oppegard, Tim Thompson, arrived in Kentucky and told Oppegard’s No. 2, Jack Spadaro, to scale back the investigation. The team had 30 people left to interview, but the new manager told them they had time for only six. “We were told, ‘Boys, you need to close out your investigation,’” Spadaro told me in an interview for the book. “We said, ‘No, we’re not done.’ He said, ‘You’re done.’”}:

MSHA, which is part of the Labor Department, was overseen by the secretary of labor: Chao, whom Bush nominated upon taking office. Chao, who had previously led the Peace Corps and United Way, turned to her husband’s associates to fill out her office. She hired as her chief of staff Steven Law, who had served six years as McConnell’s chief of staff (and went on to co-found the super PAC Crossroads GPS with Karl Rove.) She hired as her spokesman McConnell’s former spokesman. And the new director for MSHA, a former Utah coal operator named David Lauriski, hired as one of his top aides yet another former McConnell staffer, Andrew Rajec, who began attending many of the meetings of the Martin County investigators.

In my book, I described what happened next:

    Thompson pushed to have the case against Massey reduced to just two violations with a fine of $55,000 each, rather than the eight that Spadaro and his fellow investigators believed were justified. One day in April 2002, Thompson got a call from MSHA headquarters outside Washington, D.C., after which, with the investigators watching, he crossed out a section of the draft report that called MSHA to account for its lax oversight.

    That was enough for Spadaro. Seeing where things were heading, he tendered his resignation in a letter published in the local papers. ‘I do not believe that the accident investigation report, as it is being developed, will offer complete and objective analysis of the accident and its causes,” he wrote. As word of Spadaro’s protest spread, Elaine Chao dismissed it by telling a reporter, “It’s time to call off the MSHA food fight over the Martin County Coal Slurry investigation.”

Soon afterward, Spadaro became the target of an internal audit. When he was called to MSHA headquarters outside Washington, D.C., to be reprimanded, MSHA officials went into his office in West Virginia to confiscate his files and hard drive. They picked apart his family photos to search for incriminating evidence he might have tucked inside the frames. A few months later, he was fired. He challenged his termination and had it reduced to administrative leave, but when the agency then demoted him and ordered him to a post in Pittsburgh, he quit.

Meanwhile, the investigation sputtered to a close. In April 2002, MSHA cited Martin County Coal with just the two violations — and its case for those was so halfhearted that one was later dismissed by an administrative law judge and the other reduced to a mere $5,600 fine.

What was particularly striking about the light approach taken by Chao’s Labor Department was that it would have been easy for the Bush administration to use the disaster as a political weapon against its predecessors — to blame the disaster on the lax oversight by Bill Clinton’s MSHA. Taking a stronger stand on the spill would’ve been a way to stand up on behalf of the people of eastern Kentucky — her husband’s constituents.

But that also would’ve meant coming down hard on an industry that had, by 2000, swung firmly behind the Republican Party and McConnell in particular. Over McConnell’s career, his fifth-biggest source of campaign contributions was Peabody Energy, the largest coal company in the world. Between 1997 and 2000, when he led the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the coal industry gave $584,000 to the group, making it one of the group’s staunchest supporters.

And Massey? It hadn’t given the NRSC anything. That is, not until 2002, when the investigation was still pending. That year, it cut a $100,000 check to the group.

As Spadaro saw it, it was pretty plain what had happened: “It was Mitch McConnell who fired Jack Spadaro,” he told me. “I’ve been around a long time and I swear this was one of the most outrageous things I’ve ever seen. It was one of the most blatant circumventions of the law and it was all orchestrated by Mitch McConnell’s people.” (McConnell’s office did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Chao’s office or Blankenship’s campaign.)

Fast forward to 2018. Massey Energy no longer exists, having been subsumed by Alpha Natural Resources. West Virginia has become a stronghold of Trump country, not least because of his outspoken support for the coal industry — he won the state by a whopping 42 percentage points. Blankenship is seeking with his campaign to tap into the same iconoclastic fervor that drove Trump. But McConnell calculates that even in West Virginia, the party’s best odds for knocking off Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in November do not lie with someone who not long ago was behind bars in connection with the deaths of 29 West Virginians — and whose primary residence is a $2.4 million villa with palm trees and an infinity pool near Las Vegas.

And guess what one of the top targets has been for the barrage of attack ads against Blankenship by the McConnell-allied group, Mountain Families PAC? One 30-second spot in frequent circulation says Massey Energy pumped “toxic coal slurry” into local drinking water. The narrator asks, “Isn’t there enough toxic sludge in Washington?”

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trumpier than trump ~ non endorse? could win primary  by default?

https://www.alternet.org/ex-con-who-calls-black-people-negroes-skyrockets-top-west-virginia-poll-after-racist-campaign-ad

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/outlandish-gop-senate-candidate-launches-racist-attack-mitch-mcconnells-china

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/outlandish-gop-senate-candidate-launches-racist-attack-mitch-mcconnells-china

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http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/382030-gop-worries-blankenship-surge-will-cost-party-w-va-senate-seat

OMFG

W.VA. — A former coal CEO’s post-prison rise is scrambling the GOP battle to unseat Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin(W.Va.).

Don Blankenship, released from jail less than a year ago, now appears to be within striking distance of the party’s nomination.

Strategists — and even his primary opponents — acknowledge he’s managed to turn an expected showdown between Rep. Evan Jenkins(W.Va.) and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey into a three-way fight with roughly a month to go until the May 8 primary election.

“It is a weird little race right now, [but] it’s looking like a legitimate three-person race,” said a national GOP strategist who is monitoring the Senate fight.

Blankenship’s anti-establishment message is resonating in a state that has turned increasingly red. Recent internal polling from Morrisey and Jenkins place him in second place  — with first place varying based on the candidate releasing the polling.

....

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4/17

Let's be clear. American business is at risk of plunging into a race to the bottom—not only must Americans resist Trump directly, they must resist the culture of law-breaking and recklessness he is trying to trigger.

One of the most spectacular examples is only a few hundred miles from the White House, in Charleston, West Virginia. The state led the nation in mining deaths in 2016 and has already seen two deaths in 2017; but in spite of this grim history the coal industry has proposed the complete elimination of state health and safety regulations and inspections in the West Virginia coal mines. This in a state where, only a few months ago, a federal appellate court upheld a prison sentence for Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship for his role in a mining catastrophe that killed 29 miners in Massey's Upper Big Branch Mine, the direct result of poor enforcement of safety standards.

The West Virginia Gazette summed up the bill: "The heart of the legislation is a section that simply eliminates the ability of state mine safety office inspectors to issue notices of violation or levy fines for mine operators or coal companies for any safety hazards unless they can prove there is an 'imminent danger' of death or serious physical harm." If the coal industry has its way the much overblown Obama "War on Coal" will be replaced by a stealthy, Trump inspired "War on Coal Miners."

The coal industry has long enjoyed a reputation for callousness. But the new mood exemplified by President Trump has spread to companies that invest a lot of resources in portraying themselves as responsible, sustainable corporate citizens. Take Monsanto.

==

http://grist.org/climate-energy/in-west-virginia-even-prison-cant-keep-a-notorious-coal-baron-out-of-politics/

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

As CEO of Massey Energy, central Appalachia’s largest coal producer, Don Blankenship towered over West Virginia politics for more than a decade by spending millions to bolster Republican candidates and causes. That chapter came to an end in April, when Blankenship was sentenced to a year in prison for conspiring to commit mine safety violations in the period leading up to the deadly 2010 explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine. But even in absentia, he casts a long shadow over state politics. For evidence, look no further than the contentious Democratic primary for governor.

The campaign pits Jim Justice, a billionaire coal operator and high school basketball coach, against two opponents — state Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler, and Booth Goodwin, the former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Blankenship. Justice holds a double-digit lead in the polls and (not unlike another billionaire running for office this year) is spending much of his time arguing that his 10-figure net worth will insulate him from special interests. But when he was asked about the Blankenship conviction at a campaign stop earlier this month, he ripped into Goodwin for what he considered to be a sloppy, opportunistic prosecution.

“I think we spent an ungodly amount of money within our state to probably keep Booth Goodwin in the limelight and end up with a misdemeanor charge,” Justice told WOAY TV. “If that’s all we are going to end up with, why did we spend that much money to do that?”

Blankenship originally faced up to 30 years for making false statements to federal regulators, but he was convicted on only the least serious of three counts — the misdemeanor conspiracy charge. In Goodwin’s view (and in the minds of plenty of Blankenship’s critics), his light sentence is the product of weak mine safety laws, not lax prosecution. As he told the Charleston Gazette-Mail, “It is not our fault that violating laws designed to protect workers is punished less harshly than violations of laws designed to protect Wall Street.” (Nor was the Blankenship case a one-time gimmick — prior to that trial, Goodwin also secured the convictions of a handful of Blankenship’s subordinates at Massey.)

Goodwin fired back at Justice in a fundraising email to supporters. He referred to Blankenship as Justice’s “good friend,” alleging that Justice “took him as his personal guest to the 2012 Kentucky Derby two years after the horrific Upper Big Branch mine explosion,” and that he attended a gala that night with Blankenship, hosted by then-Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, “while the families of the UBB miners who were killed were still suffering their loss.” (A Beshear spokesperson told the Louisville Courier-Journal at the time that Blankenship attended Derby Day events as Justice’s guest, which Justice’s campaign denies.) For good measure, he noted that Justice, like Blankenship, had racked up a huge tab of mine safety violation fines, some $2 million of which had gone unpaid and were considered “delinquent” prior to the start of the campaign. (Justice began paying off the fines after an NPR investigation made the total bill public.)

On Monday, Goodwin’s campaign went after Justice again, releasing an ad based on the front-runner’s remarks about the Blankenship prosecution. In the spot, Judy Jones Petersen, the sister of a miner who died at UBB, speaks straight to the camera and suggests that the two coal operators have more in common than Justice would like to admit.

“I don’t really understand why Mr. Justice would step out against the integrity of this incredible prosecution team,” Petersen says. “He of all people as a coal mining operator should understand the plight of coal miners, but I think that unfortunately the plight that he understands best is the plight of Don Blankenship.”

...

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This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.*

In 2004, with his company facing a $50 million fraud judgment, Don Blankenship, then the CEO of coal giant Massey Energy, spent $3 million in a successful effort to elect a little-known attorney named Brent Benjamin to the West Virginia Supreme Court, where Blankenship planned to appeal the judgment. A few years later, Benjamin voted to overturn the $50 million verdict. It was such a perfect illustration of money’s corrupting influence that it inspired a John Grisham novel.

Twelve years later, Blankenship has been sentenced to a year in prison for conspiring to violate mine safety regulations in the lead-up to a deadly explosion at one of his company’s mines in 2010. But the legacy of his political activism in the state — where he poured millions of dollars into conservative candidates and causes — has not ebbed. As Benjamin runs for reelection for the first time on Tuesday, following a 12-year term, funds from Blankenship allies are again flooding the race. But this time, this outside money is working against Benjamin, whom Blankenship’s allies deem insufficiently conservative. And Benjamin, without the financial backing of the business community, has been forced to turn to the very public financing system that was established as a response to his initial Blankenship-funded election.

Benjamin’s 2004 race haunts this year’s contest.The state Supreme Court justice he challenged that year was a liberal stalwart named Warren McGraw. Blankenship anticipated he would lose his appeal unless he could change the makeup of the five-member court, so he spent about $3 million to elect McGraw’s Republican challenger, Benjamin, then a Charleston attorney. Much of that money was channeled through a nonprofit called And for the Sake of the Kids, which ran accusing McGraw of voting to set a child molester free. Blankenship also personally paid for ads supporting Benjamin, solicited money to help elect him, and sent out letters urging doctors to donate to Benjamin’s campaign on the grounds that he would help lower their malpractice premiums, according to court documents.

Benjamin won. When Blankenship’s case came before the state Supreme Court a few years later, Benjamin joined a 3-2 majority in support of Blankenship and Massey Energy, tossing out the $50 million judgment.

That wasn’t the end of the case. Hugh Caperton, the man who had sued Massey, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that Benjamin’s failure to recuse himself violated his right to a fair trial. The Supreme Court agreed with Caperton and sent the case back to West Virginia to be reheard with Benjamin recused. (Blankenship won again on the basis that the case should have been filed in the state of Virginia, where it is ongoing.)

Now, as he campaigns for reelection, Benjamin has found the dynamics that helped put him on the bench 12 years ago reversed. In 2004, Blankenship carried the torch for conservative causes in the state; today, Blankenship’s former personal aides continue his work to elect Republican legislators and pro-business justices. The difference is that Benjamin is no longer one of the candidates they favor.

“They’ve turned on him viciously,” says Tim Bailey, a prominent plaintiff’s lawyer who often challenges the coal companies in the state.

Operatives and allies once in Blankenship’s orbit are now actively working against Benjamin. Greg Thomas, whom Blankenship hired to run And for the Sake of the Kids, was until last year the executive director of a conservative legal advocacy group called West Virginia Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA). Last summer, CALA began raising questions about Benjamin’s record, highlighting cases where Benjamin joined the more liberal justices in favor of personal-injury plaintiffs and against the interest of businesses. When a conservative lawyer named Beth Walker announced that she would challenge Benjamin last June, CALA supported her. (CALA’s current executive director, Roman Stauffer, ran Walker’s first Supreme Court campaign in 2008, which she narrowly lost.) Thomas, who is now a Republican consultant, told the Charleston Gazette-Maillast year that Blankenship spent heavily on the 2004 race in order to unseat McGraw — not because he particularly liked Benjamin.

Walker was formerly a partner at one of the state’s top corporate law firms, Bowles Rice, which frequently represents coal companies and big business. Walker’s husband, Mike Walker, is a former executive at his family’s machinery company, which was a major contractor with coal companies. Walker Machinery donated $25,000 to And for the Sake of the Kids in 2004.

Leading conservative groups have rallied around Walker, using outside spending to flood the airwaves in the final weeks before Tuesday’s election. As of May 5, the Republican State Leadership Committee, which is active in judicial elections across the country, had spent nearly $750,000 on Walker’s behalf and another $1.9 million against her opponents. The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce has spent almost $270,000 to back Walker.

“Conservative business people, who are mostly Republicans, expected that after [Benjamin] got elected that he would rule their way all the time, and he hasn’t done that,” says Anthony Majestro, a personal-injury attorney who also represents Democrats running for office. “In a couple of high-profile cases, he voted, I think the business community would say, the wrong way. I think they saw a 12-year seat up for grabs and they handpicked somebody they think will vote their way all the time.”

One case cited by CALA, the conservative legal group, as evidence that Benjamin does not deserve reelection was a 2006 decision in which Benjamin joined the majority in ruling that an injured forklift operator in Virginia had the right to sue the product distributor in West Virginia. (The only dissenting justice was photographed vacationing with Blankenship in the French Riviera the same month the case was decided.) CALA also cites a case in which Benjamin joined a 3-2 majority in finding that individuals addicted to prescription drugs could sue the pharmacies that encouraged and profited from that addiction. CALA argued that the addicts shouldn’t be able to sue because they obtained or took the drugs illegally, and CALA’s executive director wrote last November that Benjamin “decided to enable criminals and their attorneys to profit from illegal behavior.”

“CALA and the people who support them care about stopping lawsuits,” says Majestro. “And so what their problem with Justice Benjamin was, is he didn’t go far enough.”

Without the support of the business community, Benjamin turned to the state’s public financing program to fund his reelection campaign — a program that was born as a reaction to the conspicuous circumstances of his 2004 election. “From a personal standpoint,” Benjamin explained to the West Virginia radio network Metro News, “I made the decision I could not judge cases and then know that my campaign committee was going to those very same people appearing in front of me, whether they be lawyers or clients of the lawyers, and asking for money.”

But it’s not easy to qualify for public financing in West Virginia. Benjamin needed to raise at least $35,000 from a minimum of 500 individual contributors from across the state. So an unlikely group helped secure Benjamin public financing: the trial attorneys and personal-injury lawyers who go up against the coal and business interests who backed Benjamin’s 2004 election.

In 2004, Majestro helped McGraw raise money in his race against Benjamin. This year, he went to work for Benjamin. “I helped qualify him for public financing, which is among the ironies of this,” he says. Majestro says he helped Benjamin raise about $20,000 in a few days from fellow plaintiff’s attorneys.

That the plaintiff’s bar decided to help out Benjamin is a testament to his record on the bench. “Most lawyers feel that he’s conservative but very fair,” says Bob Fitzsimmons, a well-known personal-injury lawyer in Wheeling. “A lot of the stuff that went on in that whole [2004] election gives an impression that I don’t necessarily ascribe to. I always have felt that he was a really good lawyer and a good person.” Bailey says that, considering who backed Benjamin in 2004, he turned out to be “a heck of a lot more fair than we assumed.”

A group run by plaintiff’s lawyers, Just Courts for West Virginia Political Action Committee, has spent more than $200,000 on an ad attacking Walker. It invokes Blankenship’s role in the 2004 election, portraying Walker — not Benjamin — as beholden to Blankenship. “In 2004, Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship spent $3 million to elect a Supreme Court justice,” the narrator says, not mentioning that that justice was Benjamin. “Before her first campaign, Beth Walker met with Blankenship and hired his operative to run it. Now, Blankenship’s operatives and executives are funding Walker’s current campaign.” The ad concludes, “Don’t let special corporate interests buy Beth Walker a seat on our Supreme Court.”

Benjamin and Walker aren’t the only candidates in the race. In 2014, Republicans took control of the West Virginia legislature for the first time in more than 80 years and moved quickly to pass several judicial reforms. Among them, the legislature made judicial elections nonpartisan — a longtime goal for Republicans, since Democrats still outnumber them in party registration — and eliminated primaries, instead setting the election on the day of the state’s primaries. The result is a system in which a candidate can win a 12-year Supreme Court term with a plurality of the vote in a low-turnout election.

This year, there are five candidates in the race, allowing a candidate with high name recognition to come out on top over a divided field. On Jan. 30, the deadline for candidates to file, a surprise entrant upended the race: Darrell McGraw, the 79-year-old brother of former Justice Warren McGraw, whom Benjamin unseated in 2004. Darrell McGraw is well known throughout the state. He already served as a state Supreme Court justice from 1976 to 1988, and then spent 20 years as the Democratic state attorney general. The 2014 judicial reforms, intended to help elect conservative justices, may instead hand the seat to one of the state’s most prominent liberals.

McGraw took the lead in an early poll — there have not been any recent polls — and became the main target of attack ads from outside Republican groups. The presidential primary election could also pose a problem for Walker and Benjamin. The fact that Donald Trump is now the de facto Republican nominee could dampen GOP turnout, while the Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is still drawing Democrats to the polls. (Trump reportedly told supporters on Thursday to stay home from the primary now that he is the presumptive nominee.) The Supreme Court hopefuls are also near the bottom of the ballots, which may run longer than 20 pages in some counties, and many voters may stop voting before they reach the end.

The number of twists and turns in this contest have made the outcome anyone’s guess. In the 12 long years since Benjamin was elected, alliances have been turned upside down, nonpartisan campaigns have replaced partisan ones, and a public financing system has emerged. But in other ways, not a lot has changed.

“If Don Blankenship drops $3 million into an election years ago with a shadow group called And for the Sake of the Kids,” says Bailey, the plaintiff’s attorney, “and [now] the Chamber and the Republican Party drop in $2 million on a nonpartisan, one-shot primary type deal, you tell me what improvement we’ve had.”

==

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/us/donald-blankenship-massey-energy-upper-big-branch-mine.html?_r=0

HARLESTON, W.Va. — Donald L. Blankenship, a titan of the nation’s coal industry whose approach to business was scrutinized and scorned after 29 workers were killed at the Upper Big Branch mine in 2010, was convicted Thursday of a federal charge of conspiring to violate mine safety standards,part of a case that emerged after the accident, the deadliest in mining in the United States in decades.

The verdict reached by a federal jury here made Mr. Blankenship, 65, the most prominent American coal executive ever to be convicted of a charge connected to the deaths of miners. He had been accused of conspiring to violate mine safety regulations, as well as of deceiving investors and regulators; prosecutors secured a conviction on only one of the three charges. Mr. Blankenship was acquitted of making false statements and securities fraud. He faces a maximum of one year in prison on the misdemeanor conspiracy charge.

RELATED COVERAGE

A coal conveyor at Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va., where 29 men died in a 2010 explosion.The People v. the Coal Baron JUNE 20, 2015

But the verdict was, by most measures, a defeat for the Justice Department, which had pursued a prosecution that could have led to a 30-year prison term. A lawyer for Mr. Blankenship, a former chief executive of the Massey Energy Company, said he intended to appeal the verdict. The trial began with jury selection on Oct. 1 and jurors started deliberations on Nov. 17 after the defense rested its case without presenting any witnesses.

“We are disappointed, but not as disappointed as we could have been,” said the lawyer, William W. Taylor III, the leader of Mr. Blankenship’s defense team. “I’m confident that we’ll prevail on appeal.”

Before Judge Irene C. Berger read the verdict aloud in a crowded courtroom, relatives of the dead miners sat in the front row, their arms sometimes trembling as they bowed their heads in silent prayer. When the judge announced, on the first count, the guilty verdict, one woman gasped.

Judge Berger allowed Mr. Blankenship to remain free on bond until his sentencing, expected next spring. A prosecutor, Steven R. Ruby, had asked that Mr. Blankenship be jailed or confined to his home until sentencing.

The jury of eight women and four men was not asked to decide directly whether Mr. Blankenship was guilty or not guilty in the deaths of the 29 miners at Upper Big Branch in 2010. Investigators said the deaths occurred after flammable gases that had been allowed to accumulate in the mine exploded.

==

People v. The Coal Baron

Posted on July 8 2015 by Bri Holmes

West Virginia — In 2010, a disastrous coal mine explosion at the Upper Big Branch facility claimed the lives of twenty-nine miners. An independent report investigating the blast found Massey Energy directly responsible for its neglect. Massey’s parent corporation agreed to criminal and civil penalties, but such recklessness deserves harsher penalties than a fine or a slap on the wrist.

The Report of the Governor’s Independent Investigation Panel (the “Report”) concerning the April 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine explosion and deaths describes in more than 100 pages how Massey repeatedly placed profits ahead of worker safety and compliance with the law, and has a long history of criminal and civil violations of law.

Driving Massey Energy’s aggressive growth and misconduct, is former CEO Don Blankenship. Blankenship’s “quasi-dictatorial management style as chief executive produced spectacular results for Massey.”During his tenure as CEO, Blankenship elevated Massey Energy from a modest business to a multi-billion dollar corporation, and the sixth-largest coal company in the country. Various accounts tell of Mr. Blankenship spending millions of dollars to thwart the efforts of politicians and judges that he saw as threats against his free-market and anti-regulatory views.

Federal prosecutors found the deadly explosion resulted from Massey cutting corners on important safety measures, and last November a grand jury indicted Blankenship on four criminal counts. The counts include conspiracy to violate mine safety standards and conspiracy to impede federal mine safety officials. If convicted, he could face up to 31 years in prison.

The people of West Virginia hailed the indictment as a major breakthrough.

Although the charges against Blankenship mark a shift in improving mine safety and accountability, Massey Energy got off easy.

:{:{Revoking Massey Energy’s corporate charter in Delaware:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}: is a way to hold the corporation accountable for its lethal neglect.}:

A corporation is an artificial entity. It exists only because we the people — represented by a state government — allot a charter. Just as we the people can grant that charter, we can also revoke it. Most major corporations in the U.S., including Massey Energy, are legally based in Delaware. To revoke a charter, the state of Delaware must take action.

In 2011, Free Speech For People, Appalachian Voices, and Rainforest Action Network delivered a petition with 35,000 signatures calling for Massey’s corporate charter to be revoked.

With increasing consequences of unrestrained multinational corporate power in America, corporate charter accountability is more important than ever. Individuals, like Don Blankenship must be brought to justice for their actions, but corporations should not be let off the hook.

To learn more about our initiative to revoke Massey’s corporate charter, click here.

Watch the video below to find out more about our Model Corporate Charter Revocation Act.

http://freespeechforpeople.org/people-v-the-coal-baron/

==

apr 2010

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/04/massey_energy_blankenship.html

(In Montcoal, W.Va., 25 coal miners are known to have been killed by an explosion that happened Monday afternoon. The fate of four others remains unknown. Here's a post that sheds some light on the political influence in the state of Don Blankenship, who heads the company that operates the mine where the tragedy happened.)

As deep as Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine goes into West Virginia's mountains, the company reaches even farther across the state. One measure: In 2004, Massey CEO Don Blankenship essentially bought a state supreme court seat.

:{:{}:

The case drew a line on how far money can go in judicial elections. It made Blankenship a poster child for advocates of tighter restrictions. And author John Grisham said on NBC-TV's *The Today Show* that it was a model for his 2008 novel The Appeal.Blankenship poured in $3 million, to unseat a justice he expected would rule against Massey in a lawsuit. It was so much money, his strategy backfired. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the newly elected state justice was too tainted by Blankenship's money to rule on the case.}:

The chronology:

In 1998, Hugh Caperton, president of Harman Coal Co, sued Massey. He alleged it had committed fraud and destroyed Harman. In 2002, Caperton won in trial court. The jury said Massey should pay Harman $50 million. Massey appealed.

In 2004, with the case headed to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, Blankenship was determined to oust a probable opponent, Democratic Justice Warren McGraw, in favor of a likely ally, Republican lawyer Brent Benjamin.

Blankenship financed an independent group, And For The Sake Of The Kids, which ran TV ads painting McGraw as a friend of liberal trial lawyers and a radical who was soft on sex offenders, including this one:[vid?]

Blankenship's $3 million was about 2 1/2 times as much as Benjamin's campaign spending, according to the non-partisan National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Benjamin — Blankenship's preferred candidate — was elected to a 12-year term. When the case reached the court, he opted not to recuse himself, and twice was the key vote in overturning the jury award.

The U.S. Supreme Court, not known these days for confining political money, treated Caperton v. Massey differently. In a 5-4 ruling, it reversed the West Virginia justices and told them to try again, without Benjamin participating.

Blankenship's money "had a significant and disproportionate influence on the outcome," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. "Just as no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, similar fears of bias can arise when — without the other parties' consent — a man chooses the judge in his own cause."

(Peter Overby covers the intersection of money and politics for NPR.)

==

http://grist.org/climate-energy/will-the-dark-lord-of-coal-country-finally-be-brought-to-justice/

A federal appeals court ruling has lifted the veil on months of legal jockeying in the upcoming criminal trial of West Virginia coal baron Donald Blankenship.

Blankenship, the former CEO of one-time coal giant Massey, allegedly conspired to systematically skirt safety regulations in the company’s mines, ultimately resulting in the April 5, 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va., that killed 29 miners.

The explosion was caused when a sparks from a longwall shearer ignited a pocket of methane, generating a fireball that caused a second, more deadly explosion when it traveled down the mine and hit a bunch of coal dust. That blast tore through two and a half miles of mine, killing 29 of 31 men working in the area. State and federal investigators blamed Massey and a culture of skirting mining safety regulations.

A grand jury** indicted Blankenship in November on four charges: conspiring to willfully commit routine violations of federal mine safety laws; conspiring to impede administration of the federal mine safety laws; making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the wake of the explosion; and securities fraud. If convicted, he faces 31 years in prison.

But documents made public for the first time Thursday suggest that Blankenship, who has famously avoided prosecution for past misdeeds, has no intention of serving that time. At the least, he’s going to put it off as long as possible.

The documents, released after media organizations challenged a court-instated gag order on the case, show a Blankenship defense team bent on throwing whatever obstacles it can — requesting delays, a venue change, an entirely new set of circuit judges, and the kitchen sink — into the prosecution’s way. Prosecutors filed responses to each, and the thrust and parry between the two sides demonstrates a months-long process of legal one-upsmanship that occasionally descended into snide digs from both sides.

One motion from the defense seeks to dismiss the four charges against Blankenship on the basis of “selective and vindictive prosecution.” Essentially, Blankenship’s lawyers claim that in the months following the Upper Big Branch explosion, the U.S. Attorney’s Office repeatedly told him he was not a target in its investigation. That changed, the defense claims, after Blankenship released a film called *, which accused the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration of forcing a subpar ventilation on the mine and blamed the explosion on the unexpected release of natural gas in the area. The defense claims charges against him came as a result of the film and therefore violate his First Amendment rights.

Federal prosecutors dismissed the claim that they’d charge Blankenship “because of a Youtube video” as “incredible,” citing a series of prior cases brought against Massey and its subsidiaries, including one case against a former Upper Big Branch employee who pleaded guilty to faking a foreman’s license during mine safety inspections and lying to inspectors (the employee was transferred from Upper Big Branch before the explosion).

If he must face trial, Blankenship’s defense team wants it to take place outside the Southern District of West Virginia. The motion to change venue still isn’t available, but the federal prosecutors’ response is. That response refers to a survey in Beckley, W.Va., where the trial is scheduled to take place, and a collection of news stories that Blankenship’s lawyers say proves he can’t get a fair trial. In response, prosecutors cite the case of Enron’s former CEO Jeffrey Skilling and argue that the defense’s claims “show less evidence of pre-trial prejudice than existed inSkilling [v. United States] where no venue change was required.”

If the trial must remain in Beckley, Blankenship’s lawyers seek the disqualification of all the judges within the Southern District of West Virginia. The reason? The district’s U.S. attorney, Booth Goodwin II — who, allege the lawyers, “committed serious misconduct both in deciding to prosecute Mr. Blankenship, a public figure in West Virginia, and in misrepresenting to the grand jury the law and the facts of the case” — is the son of a judge in the district. Blankenship’s lawyers therefore argue that other judges will be biased due to their presumed friendship with Goodwin’s father.

Prosecutors respond that imputing one judge’s conflict to every other judge on that court is “unprecedented” and ridiculous.

They are particularly ridiculous when you consider Blankenship’s history with the courts. And to understand that, it helps to know a little bit about the man himself.

The title of Blankenship’s website, “American Competitionist,” hints at his personality and motivations. Blankenship grew up dirt-poor in southern West Virginia, where his mother worked 80 to 90 hours a week running a gas station and convenience store. He studied accounting at Marshall University and worked for a decade before moving to the coal industry in 1982, when he was hired by a Massey subsidiary. He won his reputation waging a battle against the United Mine Workers to de-unionize a mine. Blankenship won the PR battle after the dispute turned violent.Many credit his victory as the beginning of a national downtown for the UMW that continues to this day.

As he rose through the ranks at Massey, Blankenship built a reputation as an aggressive capitalist, always looking to cut costs, squeeze competitors, and press his advantage by whatever means necessary.By 1992 he was named president and chair of the board for Massey, and by 2000 he became CEO.

Massey became the largest coal producer in Appalachia and the fourth largest in the U.S. Under Blankenship, the company aggressively pursued mountaintop removal, ripping apart landscapes to get at the coal buried beneath. As environmentalists squealed in protest, Blankenship labeled them “greeniacs” and began speaking out against them, helping innovate some of the talking points still used today by Appalachian politicians offended by the “war on coal.” Not coincidentally, Blankenship took an interest in Republican politics and helped start West Virginia’s tilt toward the GOP — a move that the aforementioned “war,” and President Obama’s unpopularity within the region, accelerated.

Blankenship’s strongarm tactics, however, didn’t win him notoriety as “The Dark Lord of Coal Country” until Hugh Caperton, who ran a small mining company, took Massey to court, alleging that it had twisted the law to force his company into bankruptcy. When the jury awarded Caperton $50 million, Blankenship’s legal team appealed the ruling to the West Virginia Supreme Court.

While the case straggled to its hearing, Blankenship took advantage of the fact that West Virginia elects its judges, spending $3 million to help a Republican challenger unseat a Democratic incumbent on the West Virginia Supreme Court, shifting its make-up in his favor. Despite Blankenship’s hefty investment, the newly elected judge declined to recuse himself and was part of a 3-2 majority that overturned the original jury decision. After photos emerged of another supreme court justice wining and dining with Blankenship on the French Riviera, the case was kicked up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which called for a redo. Despite that outcome, Blankenship somehow still won out, and Massey never did have to pay the $50 million originally awarded.

All of this created the impression that Blankenship was somehow above the law, especially in a state with an economy so reliant on coal. That impression was strengthened after the Upper Big Branch mine disaster, as four-and-a-half years passed with no legal repercussions for Blankenship. That ended with November’s indictment.

While prosecutors and the defense continue their fencing match in Blankenship’s criminal trial, he remains active in other court cases too. Last month, he sued Alpha Natural Resources, the company that bought out Massey in 2011 (but only after Blankenship retired as CEO the prior year). Blankenship’s suit alleges that Alpha agreed to pay for the cost of his legal defense in the criminal trial, only to renege on that promise in January.

That previous agreement led to one of the zingers filed by prosecutors in early December, when they noted that Blankenship “has been able to hire the crème de la crème of criminal defense counsel.”

We’ll see whether that crème de la crème of criminal defense teams can keep Blankenship from seeing the inside of a prison cell once his trial begins next month — if it’s not delayed further.

==

whoohoo, bit odd in war on coal bs rhet?

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AlterNet [1] / By Cliff Weathers [2]

CEO of Coal Mine Where 29 Workers Died Is Indicted

*November 14, 2014

Don Blankenship, the CEO of the Massey Energy coal mine that exploded and killed 29 workers in 2010 has been indicted on charges that he conspired to violate federal mine safety and health standards.

The indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury in Charleston, West Virginia, says that Blankenship hid safety violations at the West Virginia mine between January 2008 and April 2010, when the disaster took place. The suppressing of the safety violations impeded a federal mine safety investigation following the blast, the indictment alleges.

Blankenship can face 31 years in prison if convicted.

The four-count indictment [3], filed in U.S. District Court includes conspiracy to violate mandatory federal mine safety and health standards, conspiracy to impede federal mine safety standards, securities fraud, making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and impeding the post-explosion inquiry of federal mine safety investigators. Three of the charges are felonies and one is a misdemeanor.

“It’s an important day for many, many families in the Central Appalachian coal fields,” said Bruce Stanley, an attorney representing the widows of the miners who died in the blast. “For the first time in my memory, the CEO of a major coal producer is being held criminally accountable for the atrocious conduct that occurred on his watch.”

Calling Blankenship “as criminally culpable as any mass murderer,” labor and environmental activists have been calling for the former Massey CEO to face legal consequences since soon after the blast, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had actively defended him. Massey was a director of the Chamber of Commerce at the time.

The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster was the worst in the United States since 1970. The Mine Safety and Health Administration released its final report in December,  2011, which was that flagrant safety violations by Massey Energy contributed to a coal dust explosion. The MSHA issued 369 citations, assessing $10.8 million in federal penalties. Alpha Natural Resources, the company that acquired Massey in 2011 for $7.1 billion, later settled all corporate criminal liabilities for $209 million. Blankenship is not associated the current management.

Alpha Natural Resources announced that it would close the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2012.

*See more stories tagged with:

coal mining [5],

west virginia [6],

worker safety [7]

---

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/ceo-coal-mine-where-29-workers-died-indicted

Links:

[1] http://alternet.org

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/cliff-weathers

[3] http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20141113/GZ01/141119629#sthash.9VgARQ9v.dpuf

[4] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on CEO of Coal Mine Where 29 Workers Died Is Indicted

[5] http://www.alternet.org/tags/coal-mining

[6] http://www.alternet.org/tags/west-virginia

[7] http://www.alternet.org/tags/worker-safety

[8] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

==

 Wellpoint was one of the insurance companies that funneled $86 million to the Chamber last year. Other Chamber CEOs stand to benefit: JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon stands to gain about $1.1 million annually if the tax cuts are extended; Don Blankenship, former Chamber board member and (recently resigned) CEO of Massey Energy, stands to gain about three quarters of a million dollars each year that the Bush tax cuts are extended.28 It stands to reason that the Chamber is working hard to protect the CEOs of some

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 price of justice laurence leamer

pricejustice

12/18/2013

6k workers, 40 mil tons col /yr p 14  28 yrs at massey

suruvual of fittest = most productive

massey bought United, sub-cvo Wellmore had longterm contract to buy Harmon coal, but DB decidedd too $, Caperton wartne not to sue by DB, but won 50 mil$ Boone cty WV. before appeal, DB spent 3 mil $ to elect brent d benjamin jusge (1 of 39 states that elect) p 15 also japan ans swirzerland; $ 2x 8 yrs before n elections; big % 40% 15 DB #1 by far anywhere? 15

Ted O pal of scalia and chf just JRoberts 17; took cap case b/c of 4th wife lady booth demo?, image makeover 17

coal co's used cts to prevent miners from marching or even meeting in a church 35

100k miners kia, more than VN and Korea 35  1940 130k mineras, by 97 20K p 35

we spend a mil/mo on lawywers" cap offered to settle for 6 when owed 17m$, DB didled for mos, then walked, had to defult so ut of biz

took over M 1991, fired 12%, ended retirement rx for new hires 49

db born? 6 mi for matewan 1920, next eat 100 kia Blir Mtn

2000 fluor spun off massey, so no oversight

elliot spike maynard judge mingo

2000 massey spill 230 mil gal coal slurry in E kty 3 others too

made 200m$ 1999 to 1 mil loss 2001? 154  fines

db couldaffordto pay cap off, but had to win

sup ct appels WV progressive: starcher cherry bomb dad was to send to ref school but teachers got him 2nd chance, felt sorry of kid accused of molestation 205

USCoC war on judges 2003 100M$ 3 yrs 198 target McGraw (trial lawyers0

july 2004 DB meets  pol ops Gregory Alan Thomas,

WV maj dems and historically as liberal as Mass denied gore 5 votes, coal fired victory, looking for payback in mtntop 210

DB 527 "and for the Sake of the Kids' 212  davis set up? let child rapist go free to work in our school ads  Robin Jean Davis wrote both maj opinion anddissent/ 218  3m$ = 60% got 90% of vote; DB said he spend 4m$ to get starcher next time

maynard partied on riviera w/ 42 yo paraleglal

starcher wrote in jrnl decided now 75M caperton case in less 60secs; benj and maynard pals and robin kiss butt for her husb.

ted o intersted in recusal

syanley tied to nullify maynrd vote

nyt do sammuels taunted to scotus on recusal 304 kennedy, steven, souter gins and breyer rule w/345 kennedy swing vote

11/09 sup ct appeal w v rejected cap 3rd time, now 4-1

apr 5 2010 upper big branch, citeds 3K x since 95, twice on day of expl 356, rahall heard probs 2 mos before; bobby ray inman w/ DB for press conf (aslo ex head mine safety Suboleski appt by b2 357 inman attacked press.

Rawl Sales dumped 1.4 billion gal into mine shaft; pl got sick; DB ran pvt water supply 359

1972 slurry spill kia 118 ppl

dr thot meth b/c one tooth left, but water manganese 360

july 2010 db press conf rant marathon, bd fired/ quit dec 2010 10 mil salary, 40 mil retirement, 15 mil asorted 370 office and sec 5 yrs...1965 chevy pickup

competitonist www

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new book http://www.amazon.com/Price-Justice-Story-Greed-Corruption/dp/0805094717/ref=la_B000APIQUQ_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372024100&sr=1-1#reader_0805094717

The Price of Justice: A True Story of Greed a… by Laurence Leamer

Thunder on the Mountain: Death at Massey and the Dirty Secrets Behind Big Coal

Peter A. Galuszka (Author) http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250000211/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_sims_2#reader_1250000211

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2007

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future 

Jeff Goodell

==

Coal River

Michael Shnayerson http://www.amazon.com/dp/0374125147/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_sims_1#reader_0374125147

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forbes 2009 interview : http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/28/massey-coal-environment-business-washington-blankenship_print.html

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Don “Blank-Check” Blankenship has spent $5 million getting his coal cronies into the WV Supreme courts and state legislature, or at least trying to, as in the last election, 39 of the 40 candidates he funded lost. Blankenship’s company Massey has a history of union busting, safety violations and violating water pollution standards more than 4500 times over six years. Massey was recently subject to a 2.4 billion fine for said water violations, but only had to pay $20 million of that. Massey’s subsidiary in Martin County, Kentucky was responsible for the “biggest environmental disaster in the history of the southeast” when 250 million gallons of toxic sludge were released. Luckily, Blankenship has friends in high places, as he was recently documented vacationing in Monaco with WV Supreme Court Justice Spike Maynard.

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pals:

Coal Country

Coal Country premeired on The Discovery Network in the fall of 2009

Billionaire Jim Justice vows to allow water taken from Greenbriar Golf Resort, and food from their garden… if someone from the government would only come to pick it up.

I wanted to write in to this blog to tell about how billionaire Jim Justice is seen here telling everyone how lucky the locals are near the Greenbriar Golf resort, as utilities were restored quickly. And how his resort has plenty of water to give to the disaster efforts as well as food from their Greenbriar Garden. The only problem was that he needed the government to send trucks and make it happen. Let me ask you… what would  Ross Perot do? Organize a rescue mission maybe?

Now I don’t know if you might feel the same way I do, but given that people and children are starving without water in 100+ degree heat, if I had a billion dollars at my disposal, I’d probably have more to say about what I was personally going to do to help my home state of West Virginia. But, hey… golf has to go on no matter what. Right?

By the way: More on the PGA classic party going on in the midst of a food and water and gas shortage…: “People need to know the real story behind Jim Justice. Jim Justice and his buddyJoe Manchinworked out a deal so Jim Justice could buy the Greenbrier resort for a bargain price. Part of the deal involved a union strike when Governor Manchin had responsibility to respond to the demands of the striking workers. Manchin allowed the value of the resort to deteriorate so Justice could buy it at a bargain price. Justice sold his Bluestone coal company to the Russians around the same time. Now Jim Justice is hiding as a criminal coal operator with close ties to Don Blankenship as he puts on a show for the world at his Greenbrier Glassic PGA Tour Golf event.”

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BEAVER, W.Va. — Money – even a lot of it – is cold comfort to some relatives of the 29 men who died in the worst mining disaster in decades. They want justice, the kind that comes with a courtroom and a prison cell.

The families listened in shock Tuesday as federal prosecutors announced the biggest settlement in a U.S. coal mining disaster with the new owners of the Upper Big Branch mine. The former owner, Massey Energy, had been accused of putting profits ahead of safety, so Alpha Natural Resources agreed to pay nearly $210 million, with checks of $500,000 headed to the grieving families before Christmas.

Federal regulators explained how the deal wiped the slate clean for some 370 safety violations related to the April 5, 2010, explosion, the worst U.S. mine disaster in four decades. Though the Mine Safety and Health Administration also pledged to review its own handling of the mine, the words failed to placate. No criminal charges were announced.

"It was an act of murder," declared an angry Clay Mullins, whose brother Rex was among those killed. "They murdered 29 men, and I'm not satisfied one bit."

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possible loss of charter http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/09/massey-energy-beau-biden-revoke-corporate-charter_n_874358.html

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CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce.

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/massey-energy-don-blankenship-million-dolla

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Blankenship — whose $23.7 million annual compensation includes the use of the company jet and helicopter and a mansion with several servants — has made no effort to hide his “radical” philosophy of unfettered capitalism. He explained this philosophy most clearly in a 1986 documentary by Anne Lewis on his role :{crushing the union miners at Massey’s Blackberry Creek mine, saying that “everybody’s going to have to learn to accept” that the United States is ruled by the law of “survival of the fittest”:}:

http://climateprogress.org/2010/04/11/flashback-don-blankenship-warned-west-virginia-that-he-believes-in-survival-of-the-fittest/

 ------

CBS) A government whistle-blower says the Bush administration covered up the reasons for a toxic coal slurry spill in Appalachia that ranks among the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. [6]

Jack Spadaro tells Correspondent Bob Simon that political appointees in the Department of Labor whitewashed a report that said an energy company that had contributed to the Republican Party was responsible for the 300-million gallon spill.Simon's report will be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, April 4, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. Spadaro was until recently the head of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy and played a key role in investigating the spill, which was 25 times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska."It polluted 100 miles of streams, killing everything in the streams, all the way to the Ohio River," says Spadaro of the October 2000 spill that affected West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky."The Bush administration came in and the scope of our investigation was considerably shortened. I had never seen something so corrupt and lawless in my entire career...interference with a federal investigation of the most serious environmental disaster in the history of the Eastern United States."Spadaro says his investigation found Massey Energy, the owner of the impoundment containing the viscous and toxic liquid, knew the containment was weak, and in fact, had leaked once before. The company was going to be cited for serious violations that could have resulted in large fines and criminal charges, Spadaro says.

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 3/11 secuurity chief indighted http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/massey-energy-company

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dangerous to speculate on intention, but Blankenship seems to have more instrumental than ideological reasons for Tea party affiliation?  //koch vs scaife

forced to quit by board/fund that held stock

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massey #4

trips to riviera w. chief justice (eliot spike maynard)  brent benjamin 1st gop in decades

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I doubt anyone will face any criminal liability at all for the deaths of 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch mine, owned by Massey Energy and its dictatorial CEO, Don Blankenship. (Blankenship, if you’ll recall, spent more than $3 million of his own money to defeat a West Virginia Supreme Court justice who was expected to rule against his firm in a $50 million case, by accusing the justice of sympathizing with child molesters.) In the unlikely event someone at Massey is convicted of bribing mine-safety officials, it certainly won’t be Blankenship: no doubt he kept himself well insulated.

But at a Congressional hearing today, miners from Upper Big Branch testified that it was Massey policy to cover up mine safety violations and to fire workers who pointed them out. Of course, they couldn’t complain to their union: Blankenship had defeated all organizing attempts by the simple tactic of promising to shut down any mine where the workers voted to exercise their legal right – internationally recognized as a human right – to bargain collectively.

Last year Blankenship earned – or at least was paid – $17.8 million, which was somewhat more than the $12 million Massey had to pay in fines for mine-safety violations. That works out to more than $600,000 for each of the men who were killed due to the illegal practices of the company he runs.

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legal:

I’ll start with Rolling Stone’s description of Don Blankenship:

The country’s highest-paid coal executive, Blankenship is a villain ripped straight from the comic books: a jowly, mustache-sporting, union-busting coal baron who uses his fortune to bend politics to his will. He recently financed a $3.5 million campaign to oust a state Supreme Court justice who frequently ruled against his company, and he hung out on the French Riviera with another judge who was weighing an appeal by Massey. “Don Blankenship would actually be less powerful if he were in elected office,” Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia once observed. “He would be twice as accountable and half as feared.”

...

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/massey-energy-don-blankenship-million-dolla

Meet Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce. In this speech above, he denies climate change, derisively refers to Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and others as "greeniacs", and calls them all crazy. Watch the speech, you'll see. In his mind, "the greeniacs are taking over the world."

Massey Energy Company, Blankenship's highly successful strip-mining and mountaintop removal operation is the parent company of Performance Coal Co, where a tragic explosion occurred on April 5th. As of this writing, 25 miners have died and 4 more are still missing. Twenty-five families are without a loved one. Four more may discover they have lost someone they love too. 29 families in all, forever changed by one single, violent event in a coal mine. One single violent event in a coal mine run by a company so obsessed with profit it runs roughshod over employees' and neighbors' health and safety.

Here's something else about Don Blankenship and Massey Energy Company: Blankenship spent over $1 million dollars along with other US Chamber buddies like Verizon to sponsor last year's Labor Day Tea Party, also known as the "Friends of America Rally." Here's. Note how he makes it sound like he isn't one of the corporate enemies of America.

The Friends of America Rally featured such notables as Sean Hannity, Ted Nugent, and Hank Williams, Jr., and was graced by Blankenship himself going off on a diatribe that seemed strange at the time, but has come to be commonplace these days. It concerned President Obama, Democrats, and any one who doesn't salute God, coal, and apple pie. Oh, and we're also going to 'steal their jobs,' if Hannity is to be believed.

Blankenship and Massey Energy spend millions to defend unsafe workplaces

Even while coal dust settles on nearby schoolchildren, there are lessons to learn from this disaster about Massey Energy in general, and Don Blankenship in particular.

It seems that Performance Coal's safety record is spotty, at best. From the Mississippi Business Journal:

Massey ranks among the nation’s top five coal producers and is among the industry’s most profitable. It has a spotty safety record.

The federal mine safety administration fined Massey a then-record $1.5 million for 25 violations that inspectors concluded contributed to the deaths of two miners trapped in a fire in January 2006. The company later settled a lawsuit naming it, several subsidiaries and Chief Executive Don Blankenship as defendants. Aracoma Coal Co. later paid $2.5 million in fines after the company pleaded guilty to 10 criminal charges in the fire.

Massey and Blankenship also settled a lawsuit brought by the Manville Trust in 2007 with regard to workplace safety and environmental compliance.

The Manville Trust filed the case in July 2007 against company Chairman, CEO, and President Don Blankenship and certain other current and former officers and directors. The plaintiff sought several corporate governance reforms, specifically regarding environmental compliance and worker safety. Citing several incidents involving Massey Energy, including a major federal water pollution lawsuit, penalties for two coal miners' tragic deaths and other safety and environmental compliance problems, the lawsuit claimed that a "conscious failure" by the defendants to ensure compliance with federal and state regulations and other legal obligations posed a "substantial threat of monetary liability for violations."

Keep unions out, let teabaggers in

Don Blankenship inhabits a strange and bizarre world. In his world:

• It's fine for elementary school-age children to inhale coal dust while playing at school because Massey Coal "already pays millions of dollars in taxes each year".
• Blankenship truly believes that government regulation means "we all better learn to speak Chinese."
• He has absolutely no problem paying $3 million to elect state Supreme Court justice Brent Benjamin just ahead of a scheduled hearing of his appeal to overturn a large damage award for driving competitor Harman Mining Corporation into bankruptcy.
• Blankenship will spend millions to keep the Massey Energy's workforce non-union, is perfectly happy to discriminate against union workers even if it means being sued and losing, and might hate unions as much as he hates 'greeniacs'.

This is the same mine where the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently ruled that Spartan Mining illegally discriminated against 82 UMWA members by refusing to hire them because of their union membership status.

“This settlement highlights yet again the treacherous and backhanded manner Massey treated the miners who had worked at the Cannelton mine for decades,”UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said. “While it was discriminating against these experienced miners because of their age or union status, the company was at the same time publicly crying about the lack of experienced miners in the coalfields.

• “But it wasn’t that Massey couldn’t find experienced miners,” Roberts said. “They were there all along and wanted to work. It was that the company would rather break the law than allow its employees to have a strong voice at work and the tremendous benefits of a union contract.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish. An investment in experienced workers trained in state-of-the art safety measures combined with OSHA compliance and mine safety measures might have saved at least 25, and possibly 29 lives.

Instead Don Blankenship spent that money and more on a US Chamber of Commerce corporate-sponsored tea party to convince good, hard-working honest people to work against their best interests.

I hope those families take a large pound of flesh from him in return.

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http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2010/04/06/who-is-don-blankenship/

Don Blankenship is CEO of Massey Energy, the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine that exploded yesterday, killing at least 25 miners with four still missing in the mine. Blankenship is well known as a right-wing crackpot and global warming denier, but I want to paint just a brief picture with regard to this disaster. I’ll start with Rolling Stone’s description of Don Blankenship:

The country’s highest-paid coal executive, Blankenship is a villain ripped straight from the comic books: a jowly, mustache-sporting, union-busting coal baron who uses his fortune to bend politics to his will. He recently financed a $3.5 million campaign to oust a state Supreme Court justice who frequently ruled against his company, and he hung out on the French Riviera with another judge who was weighing an appeal by Massey. “Don Blankenship would actually be less powerful if he were in elected office,” Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia once observed. “He would be twice as accountable and half as feared.”

In late 2005, Blankenship issued a memo to company employees instructing supervisers to “ignore” any directive except to “run coal,” because “coal pays the bills.” That apparently included safety measures to protect the workers who help Blankenship “pay the bills.” This amazing graph from Brad Johnson at Think Progress shows that Blankenship’s employees got the memo. Violations skyrocketed at Massey mines, but most notably at the Upper Big Branch Mine as illustrated below.

Graph via Think Progress

Brad Johnson gives some more context to these numbers:

Massey is now contesting $1,128,833 in fines for safety violations at the deadly Upper Big Branch-South Mine, with a further $246,320 in delinquent fines:

Over $2.2 million in fines have been assessed against Massey’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine since 1995, with $791,327 paid. Massey is contesting $1,128,833 in fines. Massey’s delinquent fines total $246,320. [MSHA]

Massey is contesting $251,613 in fines for citations for Upper Big Branch-South Mine’s ventilation plan. [MSHA]

Not that that should phase Blankenship. Mike Lillis at Washington Independent finds a 2003 quote that shows just how little Blankenship cares for his own damn employees.

Over the two years through 2001 Massey was cited by West Virginia officials for violating regulations 501 times. Its three biggest rivals, mining twice as much coal in the state as Massey, were cited a collective 175 times. [CEO Don] Blankenship says Massey is unfairly targeted by regulators.

“We don’t pay much attention to the violation count,” he says.

Blankenship has a day of reckoning coming, or at least he better. As Jeff Biggers, author of several books on coal mining disasters, wrote at HuffPost this morning: “*All coal mining safety laws have been written in miners’ blood.”* One can only hope there’s an indictment for Blankenship written in the same blood that he spilled.

Oh, and for good measure, Attaturk finds this video that sums up the entirety of the mess that is Don Blankenship.

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Blankenship has called opponents of his coalocratic worldview “communists,” “atheists,” and “greeniacs.” In reality, dependence on coal breeds the same kind of economic instability and injustice seen in petrodictatorships. Fossil fuels, requiring capital-intensive extraction and rewarding centralized control of distribution, reward oligarchic power structures that are profoundly anti-democratic. Furthermore, when the costs of pollution are borne by society instead of the coal and oil corporations, the divide between the economic costs and benefits grows wider.

The coal-dominated economy of West Virginia is a troubling example of the cruelty of coalocracy. Despite $118 million in coal-mining annual income, West Virginia has the nation’s lowest median household income, worst educational services, worst social assistance, the highest population with disabilities, and nearly a quarter of West Virginia children in poverty. A recent study by West Virginia University found that the “human cost of the Appalachian coal mining economy outweighs its economic benefits”:

The coal industry generates a little more than $8 billion a year in economic benefits for the Appalachian region. But, they put the value of premature deaths attributable to the mining industry across the Appalachian coalfields at — by a most conservative estimate — $42 billion.

If Blankenship, who sits on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, also tweeted that a cap and trade system is a “Ponzi scheme.” If Blankenship truly believed in the power of the free market and cheap energy to lift up democracies, he would support closing coal pollution loopholes — putting a true value on the majesty and diversity of Appalachia’s mountains instead of blowing them up, and putting a price on the carbon pollution that is destabilizing our climate. Instead, he and his fellow right-wing coalocrats are the Charles Ponzis of the entire planet.

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/07/27/blankenship-coalocracy/

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Views

At a public speech to the Tug Valley Mining Institute on Nov 20, 2008, Blankenship called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Harry Reid and former Vice President Al Gore "crazies" and "greeniacs."^[25] In the same speech, he also stated, "I don't believe climate change is real."^[26] He associated President Jimmy Carter's support for energy conservation in the 1970s with communism: "Buy a smaller car? Conserve? I have spent quite a bit of time in Russia and China, and that's the first stage."

In a letter to the editor of the Charleston* (WV) *Gazette dated Oct. 30, 2009 Blankenship denied that climate change, or "global warming," existed, and stated: "Why should we trust a report by the United Nations? The United Nations includes countries like Venezuela, North Korea and Iran." ^[27]

At a 2009 Labor Day pro-coal rally in West Virginia,^[28] Blankenship expressed his true views on the role of the federal government and state authorities in ensuring miner safety:^[29]

"We also endure a Mine Safety and Health Administration that seeks power over coal miners versus improving their safety and their health. As someone who has overseen the mining of more coal than anyone else in the history of central Appalachia, I know that the safety and health of coal miners is my most important job. I don’t need Washington politicians to tell me that, and neither do you. But I also know — I also know Washington and state politicians have no idea how to improve miner safety. The very idea that they care more about coal miner safety than we do is as silly as global warming".

[] Controversy

[] Warren McGraw

Washington political journalist Michael Tomasky, himself a native West Virginian, claimed that Blankenship was "famous in West Virginia as the man who successfully bought himself a State Supreme Court Justice in 2004 and then tried to buy himself the state legislature, failing spectacularly at the latter effort."^[30] Tomasky wrote:

Michael Shnayerson, in his book Coal River (2008), reports that no such foundation was ever set up and that Blankenship's tactics didn't help other Republicans in the state. In 2006, the $3 million that he had provided to forty Republican challengers to Democratic state legislators brought just a single victory.^[31] Although Blankenship was the primary donor to "And For the Sake of Kids," other groups, including Doctors for Justice, contributed over $1 million to ASK. Another group, Citizens for Quality Health Care, which was funded in part by the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, spent over $350,000 to defeat McGraw. ^[32]. Meanwhile, several groups spent millions opposing Benjamin and supporting McGraw, including West Virginia Consumers for Justice and Hugh Caperton, CEO of Harmon Development Corporation.^[33]

[] Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.

*Main article: Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.

As of April of 2010, Massey had a $77 million case pending, Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co. in which a smaller coal mining company, Harman Mining, made allegations of contract interference on Massey's part.^[34] In November of 2008, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear Harman Mining's appeal of the case.^[35] Wal-Mart, PepsiCo, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Common Cause and Public Citizen all filed briefs in the case urging the Supreme Court to throw out the West Virginia Supreme Court's decision in favor of Massey. The corporations contended that Justice Brent Benjamin was biased in the case--specifically, in favor of Massey. Blankenship made approximately $3 million in independent expenditures against McGraw, the incumbent judge in the 2004 campaign for the West Va. Supreme Court, and only contributed $1000 to Benjamin's campaign. On June 9, 2009, The New York Times opined that the case involved "egregious ethical myopia" on the part of Justice Benjamin. ^[36] ^[37].

Following the decision, many legal scholars disagreed with the Supreme Court's decision: "If the U.S. Supreme Court rules that an 'appearance of impropriety' such as to require recusal by a judge may be determined by forces external to the judge's own conscience...it will place our system on a slippery slope that knows no boundaries." ^[38]

[] Photographer incident

On April 3, 2008, ABC News reported that Blankenship attacked an ABC News photographer at a Massey facility near Belfry, Kentucky as the photographer attempted to question Blankenship about photos published in the New York Times ^[20] showing Blankenship on vacation in Monaco with West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Elliott "Spike" Maynard. "If you're going to start taking pictures of me, you're liable to get shot!" Blankenship stated in the video.^[39]

Following the incident, Justice Maynard lost his bid for re-election to the West Virginia Supreme Court in the West Virginia primary election.^[40]

[] Upper Big Branch disaster

Main article: Upper Big Branch Mine disaster

On April 5, 2010, an explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch mine killed 29 miners. It was the worst U.S. coal mining disaster since 1970, when an explosion killed 38 in Hyden, Kentucky. In 2006, a fatal accident at Aracoma Alma (also owned by Massey Coal Co.) was one of the explosions prompting Congress to upgrade federal mine safety laws for the first time since 1977.^[41] As Blankenship came under increased scrutiny, a Business Week article said that he has a reputation for resistance to spending money, a willingness to litigate, and to personally go into mines to persuade workers to abandon union organizing efforts.^[42] On April 12, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the sole trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund which holds 303,550 shares of Massey stock worth about $14.1 million, called for Blankenship to resign immediately. "Massey's cavalier attitude toward risk and callous disregard for the safety of its employees has exacted a horrible cost on dozens of hard-working miners and their loved ones," DiNapoli said in a public statement reported by Reuters and others. "This tragedy was a failure both of risk management and effective board oversight. Blankenship must step down and make room for more responsible leadership at Massey."^[43] On April 22, Massey Energy's lead independent director Bobby R. Inman announced that "Blankenship has the full support and confidence of the Massey Energy Board of Directors."^[44] On April 25, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and state officials paid tribute to the 29 coal miners at a memorial service in Beckley, WV^[45]

[] Other

• A former employee of Blankenship, Deborah May, similarly filed a lawsuit which claimed that stress from personal abuse forced her to quit her job as Blankenship's personal maid in November of 2005. The lawsuit claimed that such comparatively minor mistakes as a wrong breakfast order from McDonald's, misplaced ice cream in the freezer, and an improperly hung jacket in the closet caused difficulties with Blankenship.^[46] In June 2008, West Virginia's top court ruled that May was entitled to unemployment benefits because "the unrefuted evidence" showed that Blankenship "physically grabbed" the maid, threw food after she brought back the wrong fast-food order, and tore a tie rack and coat hanger out of a closet after she forgot to leave the hanger out for his coat. "This shocking conduct" showed May was in effect fired because she felt compelled to quit, the justices said. They said the conduct was "reminiscent of slavery and is an affront to common decency.":^[47]

• In 2005, Blankenship wrote a memo to employees telling them that maximizing coal production was more important than spending time constructing things like support beams or ventilation shafts:^[48]

• In October 2006, Grist.org, Seattle-based environmental e-magazine, chose Blankenship as "the scariest polluter in the U.S."^[49]

[] References

1. ^ "Major U.S. Coal Producers". Energy Information Administration. September 18, 2009. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/acr/table10.html. Retrieved April 7, 2010. 
2. ^. YouTube. 2005-11-03.. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
3. ^ Berkes, Howard. "Massey CEO's Pay Soared As Mine Concerns Grew". NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126072828&ps=cprs. Retrieved 2010-04-23. 
4. ^ "The Massey mine disaster isn't just tragic, it's criminal". OregonLive.com. 2010-04-15. http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/04/the_massey_mine_disaster_isnt.html. Retrieved 2010-04-23. 
5. ^ Parker, Mario (2010-12-03). "Massey's Blankenship to Retire Dec. 30, Be Replaced by President Phillips". Bloomberg. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-03/massey-energy-says-don-blankenship-to-retire-as-chief-executive-dec-30.html. Retrieved 2010-12-03. 
6. ^ "Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition". Ohvec.org. http://www.ohvec.org/links/news/archive/2003/fair_use/01_07.html. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
7. ^ Deborah Solomon (2006-02-13). "A Coal CEO's Unusual Pastime: Firing Up West Virginia Politics". The Wall Street Journal, page A1. http://www.stopdown.net/gov%20W%20VA%20coal%20exec%20wsj.htm. Retrieved 2010-05-21. 
8. ^ "Blankenship to speak at energy symposium". The Herald Dispatch. 2008-10-23. http://www.herald-dispatch.com/business/x802979294/Blankenship-to-speak-at-energy-symposium. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
9. ^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-allbusiness1_8-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-allbusiness1_8-1) "ON THE RECORD: Don Blankenship, Massey's Don Blankenship talks candidly about his company and its future in southern West Virginia | North America > United States from". AllBusiness.com. 2002-09-23. http://www.allbusiness.com/environment-natural-resources/environmentalism/11428264-1.html. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
10. ^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-aicpa1_9-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-aicpa1_9-1) [1]^{[dead link]}
11. ^ "American Accounting Association - News Archive". Aaahq.org. http://aaahq.org/newsarc.cfm. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
12. ^ [2]^{[dead link]}
13. ^ http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=658508&symbol=MEE o http://www.wvec.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8E477907.html
14. ^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-businessweek1_13-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-businessweek1_13-1) Don L. Blankenship. "Don Blankenship: Executive Profile & Biography - BusinessWeek". Investing.businessweek.com. http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=658508&symbol=MEE. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
15. ^ "Horsehead Industries, Inc. - Company History". Fundinguniverse.com. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Horsehead-Industries-Inc-Company-History.html. Retrieved 2010-04-23. 
16. ^ http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=658508&symbol=MEE o http://www.uschamber.com/about/board/all.htm
17. ^ "Corporate Governance || Massey Energy". Phx.corporate-ir.net. http://phx.corporate-ir.net/preview/phoenix.zhtml?c=102864&p=irol-govBio&ID=140028. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
18. ^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-autogenerated1_17-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-autogenerated1_17-1) [3]^{[dead link]}
19. ^ http://www.blankenshipracing.com/
20. ^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-nytimes1_19-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-nytimes1_19-1) Liptak, Adam (2008-01-15). "Motion Ties W. Virginia Justice to Coal Executive". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/us/15court.html.:{ }:
21. ^ Liptak, Adam (2009-02-15). "Case May Alter Judge Elections Across Country". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/washington/15scotus.html?ref=washington.:{ }:
22. ^ "Don L. Blankenship Addresses the U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Caperton v. A.T. Massey...". Reuters. 2009-06-10. http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS159711+10-Jun-2009+PRN20090610. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
23. ^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-usatoday1_22-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-usatoday1_22-1) "Usatoday.Com". Usatoday.Com. 2009-03-02. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090303/editorial03_st.art.htm. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
24. ^ "Community || Massey Energy Company". Massey Energy. http://www.masseyenergyco.com/community/groups.shtml. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
25. ^. YouTube. 2008-12-10.. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
26. ^. YouTube. 2008-12-09. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEl7dF8N-ZU&e. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
27. ^ http://www.wvgazette.com/Opinion/Letters/200910290659
28. ^ "Friends of America Rally". Friends of America Rally. 2009-09-07. http://friendsofamericarally.com/. Retrieved 2010-04-23. 
29. ^ "Don Blankenship called safety regulators “as silly as global warming” « Climate Progress". Climateprogress.org. 2010-04-12. http://climateprogress.org/2010/04/12/don-blankenship-mine-safety-regulators-silly-global-warming/. Retrieved 2010-04-23. 
30. ^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-tomasky_29-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship#cite_ref-tomasky_29-1) Tomasky, Michael, “Night Comes to the Appalachians” New York Review of Books, Volume 55, Number 14; 25 September 2008.
31. ^ Shnayerson, Michael (2008), Coal River, New York, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
32. ^ Nyden, Paul (Jan. 7, 2005, Charleston Gazette), "Coal, Doctor's Groups Donated to Anti-McGraw Effort."
33. ^ O'Brien, John (West Virginia Record Jan. 24, 2008) "Caperton was Anti-Benjamin from the Start."
34. ^ http://wvgazette.com/News/200811080381
35. ^ US Supreme Court agrees to hear Massey Energy case | http://www.coaloutlook.com/Coal/News/6020386.xml
36. ^ "Honest Justice". The New York Times. 2009-06-09. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/opinion/09tue1.html.:{ }:
37. ^ [4]^{[dead link]}
38. ^ http://www.dailymail.com/Opinion/Commentary/200902090107
39. ^ "Coal Boss: If You Take Photos, 'You're Liable to Get Shot' - ABC News". Abcnews.go.com. 2008-04-03. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4582452&page=1. Retrieved 2010-04-06. 
40. ^ Urbina, Ian (2008-05-15). "West Virginia's Top Judge Loses His Re-election Bid". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/us/15judge.html?pagewanted=print.:{ }:
41. ^ "Churchgoers Honor 29 Dead Miners _ and Profession - ABC News". Abcnews.go.com. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=10343122. Retrieved 2010-04-23. 
42. ^ "Massey’s Blankenship Fought Regulators, Town, Maid as Coal CEO". BusinessWeek. 2010-04-10. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-10/massey-s-blankenship-fought-regulators-town-maid-as-coal-ceo.html. Retrieved 2010-04-23. 
43. ^ Steve James (2010-04-13). "Massey faces shareholder anger over mine disaster". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63C2Q920100413. Retrieved 2010-04-23. 
44. ^ Coal Boss Don Blankenship Has Full Support of Massey Energy Board
45. ^ Obama eulogizes 29 West Virginia miners -- 'Don't let this happen again'
46. ^ http://dailymail.com/News/Kanawha/200804010144
47. ^ Margaret Cronin Fisk, Brian K. Sullivan and Karen Freifeld. "Massey Energy: The Accountant of Coal". BusinessWeek. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_17/b4175048798671.htm. Retrieved 2010-04-15. 
48. ^ Investing Daily. "Massey Energy: A Dirty Coal Company". Investingdaily.com. http://www.investingdaily.com/id/17176/massey-energy-a-dirty-coal-company.html. Retrieved 2010-04-07. 
49. ^ "Massey Energy CEO is a really bad dude". Grist. http://www.grist.org/article/don-blankenship-seventh-scariest-person-in-america/. Retrieved 2010-04-07. 

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship"

Categories: 1950 births | Businesspeople in coal | Coal mining in the United States | Businesspeople from West Virginia | Living people | People from Mingo County, West Virginia | Massey Energy | West Virginia Republicans

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The Supreme Court talks about judicial bias. Kinda.

By Dahlia LithwickPosted Monday, June 8, 2009,

Sonia Sotomayor.

Today the Supreme Court decided the odd, Grisham-like story of Caperton v. Massey—finding that a justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court should have recused himself in an appeal involving a party who spent millions of dollars to put him on the bench. But lost in all the high-power judgery is this fascinating fact: Both the majority and the dissent are pretty worried about judicial bias, the appearance of judicial bias, confidence in the integrity of the judiciary, and what to do about public confidence in human-seeming judges. These are precisely the issues Judge Sonia Sotomayor has openly grappled with in her now-controversial speeches about race, gender, and judging. Indeed, if you read the opinion and the dissent in Caperton alongside Sotomayor's famous 2001 Berkeley speech, you can't help but see that she was merely giving voice to the same judicial anxieties aired by the justices today. So perhaps instead of accusing her of racism, bias, and generalized unfitness to judge, we should recognize that she, like her soon-to-be-colleagues at the Supreme Court, understands that talking about bias aloud is ultimately better than whispering about it from the shadows.

In his opinion for the five-judge majority today, Justice Anthony Kennedy—who was more or less born to author this opinion, touching as it does on Big Issues and Public Sensibilities—lays out the "extraordinary situation" in the case: In August 2002, a West Virginia jury returned a verdict finding A.T. Massey Coal Co. liable to the tune of $50 million for fraudulent misrepresentation, concealment, and tortious interference with contractual relations against Hugh Caperton and Harman Development Corp. While the appeal was still pending, Massey's CEO, Don Blankenship, spent $3 million of his own money to remove one state supreme court justice and seat another—his contributions amounting to more than two-thirds of all the funds raised. Brent Benjamin won the election, then refused to recuse himself from Blankenship's appeal, ultimately casting a vote in favor of Massey in a 3-2 verdict overturning the $50 million jury verdict.

Justice Benjamin insisted he did nothing wrong in refusing to remove himself from the case, having searched his own soul and motivations and determined that he had no "direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest in this case," and the Supreme Court today declined to second-guess him. The Supreme Court disagreed, however, that the test for recusal stops at the judge's own perceptions of his bias, recognizing that "there is a serious risk of actual bias—based on objective and reasonable perceptions—when a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case by raising funds or directing the judge's election campaign when the case was pending or imminent." The majority concluded that in this case, "Blankenship's campaign efforts had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing Justice Benjamin on the case." After today, "the probability of bias" is the new constitutional test....

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The Dark Lord of Coal Country

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-dark-lord-of-coal-country-20101129?print=true

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For the past two decades, Don Blankenship has been the undisputed king of coal in West Virginia. Other Big Coal CEOs who operate in Appalachia are business-school types who have offices in other states and leave the dirty work to their minions. Blankenship, by contrast, is a rich hillbilly who believes that God put coal in the ground so that he could mine it, and anyone — or any law — that stands in his way needs to be beaten down, bought off or tied up in court. Blankenship is hated, feared and respected, but nobody wants to tangle with him. "He's a throwback to the old coal barons of the 19th century," says Cecil Roberts, the head of the United Mine Workers of America, who has battled Blankenship for nearly 30 years.

From a strictly business point of view, it's hard to argue with Blankenship's success: He has taken a sleepy old coal company and built it into the most powerful economic and political machine in Appalachia. Massey Energy and its subsidiaries operate 56 mines in the region, employing nearly 6,000 workers and producing some 40 million tons of coal a year. Even after the disaster at Upper Big Branch hammered the company's stock, it's still worth about $4 billion. To the degree that West Virginia's future is tied to coal, it is also tied to Blankenship: His company owns more than a third of the remaining coal reserves in the region.

Blankenship has never hidden the fact that, when it comes to mining coal, he'll do whatever it takes to make a buck. "It's like a jungle, where a jungle is survival of the fittest," he told a documentary filmmaker in the 1980s. "Unions, communities, people — everybody's gonna have to learn to accept that in the United States you have a capitalist society, and that capitalism, from a business standpoint, is survival of the most productive."

In Blankenship's view, being productive means getting coal out of the ground as fast and cheap as possible, no matter the cost to workers or the environment.

"He has been hugely influential in the coal industry in Appalachia," says a rival coal executive. "He basically transformed a gentlemanly, Democratic, union-based industry, where deals were done on a handshake, into the aggressive, partisan industry that we know today." Blankenship helped popularize the style of mining known as mountaintop removal, in which the mountains are removed from the coal, rather than the coal from the mountains — a practice that has destroyed 2,000 miles of streams and damaged more than a million acres of forest. He has fought labor unions and federal regulators at every turn, exposing miners to dangerous conditions. And he has injected toxic coal slurry near underground aquifers, a practice that has allegedly sickened hundreds of residents. "All in all, Blankenship has probably caused more suffering than any other human being in Appalachia," says Roberts.

A right-wing Republican in a traditionally Democratic state, Blankenship has also used his wealth and influence to go after anyone who opposes him. "Unlike the old coal barons, who mostly shunned the limelight, Blankenship is a very flamboyant character," says Robert Rupp, professor of political science at West Virginia Wesleyan College. When it comes to politics, Blankenship doesn't waste time twisting arms: Massey spent less than $20,000 on federal lobbying last year and has contributed only $300,000 to federal candidates since 1990. Instead, he goes for a more direct bang for his buck. He spent more than $3 million electing a state Supreme Court judge who would provide a favorable verdict in a lawsuit, funneled nearly $1 million into advertising this year to improve coal's image, and served on the boards of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Mining Association, which has attacked the Obama administration for waging a "regulatory jihad" against coal.

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At the time, Appalachia's coal industry faced increasing competition from big Western mines and from natural gas, which is cheaper and cleaner. To cut costs, Blankenship started blowing up mountains to get at the coal, since blasting is cheaper than digging. He also used Massey's financial strength to buy up smaller coal companies that were having a rough time, often at fire-sale prices. "Blankenship is a master at recognizing and taking advantage of distressed assets," says Bruce Stanley, a lawyer who grew up in Mingo County not far from Blankenship. In 1997, hoping to sell more of a special type of premium-priced coal used in steelmaking, Blankenship set his sights on a small outfit called Harman Mining.

First, Blankenship bought the company that processed Harman's coal and broke its contract with the smaller firm. "I didn't know it at the time, but his goal was to replace my coal with cheaper, lower-quality coal from his own mine," says Hugh Caperton, who served as president of Harman. Then, after offering to buy out Harman, Blankenship used information he had obtained during the negotiations to buy up the coal reserves around Harman's mine, effectively making the company unattractive to other buyers. "His goal was to drive me into bankruptcy, so he could buy me for nothing," Caperton says.

Caperton lost a company he had spent 10 years building, and his 150 employees lost their jobs. Not long afterward, Blankenship stopped in to see his vanquished rival. "It was one of the strangest conversations I've ever had," Caperton recalls. "He just walked into my office, and if I would have had a couch, he would have laid down on it. He said, 'I don't understand why people don't like me anymore. In high school, I played ball. I was really popular.' " Then Blankenship abruptly stood up and left.

Despite Blankenship's power, Caperton decided to fight back. He sued Massey, arguing that the company had set out to destroy him. In 2002, a jury awarded Caperton $50 million in damages.

Blankenship was furious. "He took this fight personally," says Stanley, who represented Caperton in the case. "His whole persona is based on the idea that if you mess around with Don, he will take you to the wall." Massey appealed the verdict to the state's Supreme Court. But rather than trusting in the wisdom of the justice system, Blankenship tried to rig the outcome in his favor. In 2004, he spent $3 million — an enormous sum in West Virginia politics — to finance a political hit machine to take down Justice Warren McGraw, who was likely to serve as the swing vote in the court's decision. The group deployed every sleazy trick in the book, accusing McGraw of letting child rapists out of prison and putting them to work in local schools. The smear tactics worked: McGraw was defeated, replaced by an industry-friendly judge backed by Blankenship. In 2007, the court overturned the $50 million verdict against Blankenship by a vote of 3 to 2. His $3 million investment had saved him $47 million.

"Don didn't put $3 million into the election because he wanted a fair and balanced court system," says Robert Rupp, the political science professor. "He wanted to buy himself a favorable verdict."

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amazed it's not more $

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/19/3593884/blankenship-political-contributions/

A federal grand jury sent shockwaves throughout the country last week when it announced the indictment of Don Blankenship, former CEO of coal company Massey Energy, on four charges related to willful safety violations and cover-ups prior to the explosion at its Upper Big Branch mine in 2010, a disaster that killed 29 miners.

“This indictment is momentous,” a Charleston Gazette editorial declared.

In the intervening years since the disaster, Blankenship has sought to portray himself not as a symbol of corporate greed, but an honest entrepreneur, releasing a 51-minute video this year purporting that the explosion was due to a build-up of natural gas and characterizing Blankenship as a champion of the health and safety of miners.

The grand jury found otherwise. It singled out Blankenship himself for not only being aware of “hundreds of safety-law violations every year” but, worse, for the fact that he “fostered and participated in an understanding that perpetuated UBB’s practice of routine safety violations, in order to produce more coal, avoid the costs of following safety laws, and make more money.”

1. Blankenship, dubbed “The Dark Lord of Coal Country” in a 2010 Rolling Stone profile, has been an active political donor, both during his days at Massey and since stepping down in December 2010 (the company was acquired by Alpha Natural Resources in early 2011). His indictment on three felony charges and one misdemeanor raise serious questions about the candidates and committees who benefited from Blankenship’s largesse and whether they plan to return or donate those funds.

Andrew Beshear (D), son of Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D), is currently running for attorney general in the state and has garnered attention for the $1.48 million he has raised as the only declared candidate thus far, including $1,000 from Blankenship. When asked about the donation by the Lexington Herald-Leader last week, Beshear’s campaign said it would return the money.

In recent years, Blankenship’s largest contributions have been to committees working to elect Republican candidates to Congress: $30,400 each to the National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2010, and a combined $25,000 to the NRCC in 2012, according to a ThinkProgress analysis of Political MoneyLine data.

Neither the NRCC nor NRSC responded to multiple requests for comment regarding the contributions, but in 2010, Brian Walsh, the NRSC’s communications director, told OpenSecrets the committee had no plans to refund the contribution: “At this point in time the NRSC has no intention of returning the money. There is no reason to,” Walsh said.

At the state level, Blankenship gave $10,000 to the Republican Party of Kentucky in 2010, $10,000 to the West Virginia Republican Party in both 2010 and 2012, and $10,000 to the Kentucky State Democratic Central Executive Committee in 2012. None of the three state committees responded to multiple requests for comment by ThinkProgress.

Blankenship has donated to several individual candidates in recent years, as well. The only federal candidate to receive money from Blankenship in 2014 was Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who took $2,600. Blankenship and Inhofe are both fervent deniers of human-caused global warming and routinely disparage the EPA and any sort of government regulation, particularly those that relate to coal. Inhofe also received a combined $3,300 from Blankenship in 2008.

Learn how mild my views are vs. Sen Inhofe-Oklahoma. Unfortunate coal area Senators not pro-coal like Inhofe. See http://t.co/RNaQ9UFfdN

— Don Blankenship (@DonBlankenship) October 22, 2014

In 2012, Blankenship gave $2,500 to help elect Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) and Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI). Both have been clear about their desire to stop the EPA in its attempt to curb the carbon pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act, citing the common coal industry talking point that the Obama administration is waging a “war on coal.”

Several recipients of Blankenship’s 2010 federal contributions are still in office today. Rep. Todd Young (R-IN) received $2,400; Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) received $2,400; Rep. Robert Hurt (R-VA) received $2,400; Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) received $2,000; and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) received $1,000 from the coal baron.

And Mitch McConnell (R-KY), incoming Senate Majority Leader, has also accepted funds from Blankenship in the past: $1,000 each for his Senate campaigns in 1996 and 2002.

Campaign spokespeople for Inhofe, Walorski, Ribble, Young, McKinley, Hurt, Toomey, Portman and McConnell did not respond to multiple requests for comment by ThinkProgress.

These candidates for federal office receiving money from Don Blankenship are likely just scratching the surface of his political influence. He has given $18,700 to Massey Energy PACs, according to Political MoneyLine data, and Massey Energy in turn has given significant contributions to candidates and committees, such as $100,000 to the Texas Republican Party, $55,000 to disgraced former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell (R), and $40,000 to the Virginia Republican Party, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Massey’s contributions haven’t been limited to political candidates and committees either. “As the UBB disaster occurred, Blankenship’s Massey Energy gave $100,000 to the Competitive Enterprise Institute,a libertarian think tank that went on to defend Massey’s company and to push back against calls for better mine safety regulation,” the Republic Report noted last week.

Blankenship’s most unabashed exertion of his wealth for political influence came in 2004 when he “sought to reshape the politics of the West Virginia Supreme Court shortly before it took up Massey’s appeal of a fifty-million-dollar judgment for fraud and interfering with a contract,” the New Yorker recently recounted. Blankenship spent over $3 million on behalf of conservative candidate Brent Benjamin and to discredit progressive Justice Warren McGraw. The coal baron gave $2.2 million to his “And for the Sake of the Kids” PAC, according to Political MoneyLine, which then ran a series of hits on McGraw.

“The group deployed every sleazy trick in the book, accusing McGraw of letting child rapists out of prison and putting them to work in local schools. The smear tactics worked: McGraw was defeated, replaced by an industry-friendly judge backed by Blankenship,” the Rolling Stone profile recalled. “In 2007, the court overturned the $50 million verdict against Blankenship by a vote of 3 to 2. His $3 million investment had saved him $47 million.”

If Blankenship is convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 31 years in prison and while a judge has issued a sweeping gag order preventing anyone potentially involved in the case from speaking with the media, the details of the grand jury’s indictment offer a chilling glimpse into the coal baron’s tactics to intimidate workers, flout safety rules, and deliberately mislead investigators.

“Let me be clear: in my view, Don Blankenship, and the mines he once operated, treated miners and their safety with callousness and open disregard,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) in a statement. “As he goes to trial, he will be treated far fairer and with more dignity than he ever treated the miners he employed. And, frankly, it’s more than he deserves.”

Tags

• Coal
• Don Blankenship
• Massey Energy

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