Don Blankenship Sentenced to One Year

Former coal CEO Don Blankenship sentenced to 1 year in prison https://t.co/2smwau2w4J pic.twitter.com/um2GPKiv67

— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) April 7, 2016

I think the salient point is that 29 people lost their lives because a CEO viewed his employees as an abstraction--work units, not human beings whose safety mattered. And one year in prison and a fine of $250,000 probably will not change that kind of mindset. Not for Blankenship, not for similar-minded people in the industry.

Climate Sunday: Don Blankenship Edition

Greetings and Happy Sunday to you all, and thanks for tuning in to my semi-regular environmental musings. This week's round-up is brought to us by Don Blankenship, who was recently told by a judge to shut his flapping yap up about how politically persecuted he was. It might very well be true that under the Obama Administration, investigators spent more time inspecting his mines and pointing out the very tragically wrong things that led to the deaths of miners at his mines. But this might have been for a lot of reasons, such as, the pattern emerging that Blankenship was awful, the Obama Administration being less likely to ignore these kinds of abuses, and, I don't know--the deaths of 29 miners in a preventable accident due to Blankenship's pathological management? (Not a big fan of Blankenship, this blogger right here.)

But this individual's beef with the government over what he considers to have been job-killing regulations versus what appear to have been employee-killing violations, sets the tone for this week's rumination on--what about the fossil fuel industries, anyway? For example, it looks like Exxon, who apparently knew enough about global warming science in the 1970s and 1980s to have considerable private information on it, basically "gamed" the Bush Administration to sow doubt and confusion. (Although don't let the big bad oil company take the total blame for that--the Bush Administration was very willing to be had. I mean, leave it to these pricks to have a "Safe Water Drinking Act" that lets frackers screw up drinking water however they want.)

But this conflict in knowing full well climate change was real, and also working to sow doubt, is pretty unnerving. They could only act like that if profits entirely outweighed any sense that they should be responsible corporate and global citizens, and exposes a real weakness of the capitalist system.

Don Blankenship Indicted Regarding Upper Big Branch Mine Violations

It's good to hear that Don Blankenship, who was CEO of Massey Energy when the Upper Big Branch Mine blast killed 29 workers, has been indicted for what really always looked to me like a criminal disregard for the lives of his employees. His poor ability to separate regard for  profit from duty to ensure mine safety seemed to me of a piece with a sense that employees were property--owned by the company. So why did it matter if some got killed here and there? He didn't just cost the company millions in fines and settlements--he's possibly cost himself his freedom.

Since the disaster never did cost him a place in the industry, maybe this is the message that was required that miners' safety matters.

Go Tell It on a Mountain, Brother Mitt.

Well, I for one am bowled over by some of the things Mitt Romney said today regarding coal--



Oh, wait--that was 2003.  See, in 2003, Governor Romney thought regulation of pollution-producing coal plants was a fine idea. Nowadays, though, maybe not so much:

“Your success and your hard work helps you and your families but it also helps America. I salute you,” he said. “I appreciate the work  you’re doing, and if I’m president of the United States I will do everything in my power to make sure you keep good jobs and good wages.” 

But much of the event was devoted to energy policy, an issue in which some of Obama’s stances have caused displeasure in the region, evident in signs nearby that said, “Save Eastern Ohio. Fire Obama," and GOP Senate candidate Josh Mandel’s remarks to the crowd. 

Mandel said that liberals, Obama and other Democrats “think coal is a four-letter word. I tell you this afternoon, for any of these folks trying to stand between us and affordable, reliable energy, we have four words for them: 'Over our dead bodies!'”

Now, the story at the link goes on to point out that employment in the coal industry has risen under the Obama Administration. He hasn't killed those jobs at all.

Now, I'm one of those liberals who is very skeptical of the safety and good sense of maintaining coal as an energy alternative. I don't think you can ever make it particularly clean, and I deplore the damage to the environment done in the name of eking out one of nature's dirtier fossil fuels--and I especially don't approve of an industry that often thinks so little of the workers who mine and produce their energy product but rewards the executives and owners of those energy companies with riches for risking the lives of others.

So, if former one-term governor Romney wants to criticize how the coal industry is treated in this country and ask questions about why, after all these years, we would maybe consider not relying on coal just so much, I would say--you feel free to ask those questions, because you know what? I do, too.  But I'd ask him to go holler those questions from a razed mountaintop while viewing the actual conditions of the people who do it--and think about how this industry should continue, if it does.  As cleanly and safely as possible? Or in such a way as profits Mitt's big donors, at the expense of the environment and the people who do get those mining jobs?

Don Blankenship has a new company. It is a coal company.

When I read this a short while ago, I was taken a little bit aback. See, it just seems to me that if you've run a business where your reputation as a polluter is notorious, where your employees have died from preventable incidents due to disregard for safety practices--and where a record settlement was just made regarding a horrific accident at your old company, maybe you should think about doing something that isn't operating coal mines.  Maybe your time is better served portioning out alms to widows and orphans, or setting up an endowment for respiratory disorders research, or maybe just staying retired. I don't know why folks do anything, sometimes. It just seems to me that if massive environmental disasters and mangled bodies were left in one's wake, why, one might just as well not go back into a business one did so poorly at--

Profitably.  But poorly, in any moral sense of the word. 

I am so grumpy at stupid, awful people.

I know. That isn't even a good, coherent blog topic, but last I checked, I'm not even a good, coherent blogger.

So I have to talk about the idiocy of Michael "Heckuva job!" Brown piping up his stupid nonsense today:




Um--three weeks ago, Obama totally said he was open to the idea of off-shore drilling. So, why would he be happy about this disaster happening so soon after he said that? And why would a responsible reaction to the disaster be seen as "pandering"?

You know, since someone called "Brownie" was a Bush-appointed crony who is generally thought to have been a disaster at his public job circa 4.5 years ago, and is only some kind of disaster recovery consultant today apparently on the basis that if people learn from mistakes they've made, then Brown knows everything--maybe a stiff shot of STFU is coming Brownie's way, 'kay?

Also a stupid, awful person--Don Blankenship. I really don't care for him. This story is so many quotes of stupid and awful.


Just quotes, guys:

"I think about how evil people can be and how misplaced their priorities can be and unfortunate it is that people that can reach the level of senator or president or representative or head of the union - how wrong they can be," Blankenship said. "But I've seen a lot of it over my time."

--Laird Blankenship, re: His Critics

Also wrong--miners, mine inspectors, the families of miners, people with common sense, the legal system and people who believe in regulations in general and mine regulation in particular. And they are all evil, too. Don't you forget it.

It's really sad, because Cecil has no more idea what happened at UBB than I do, and it's political agenda - he's, you know, it's almost like Goober or Barney on an 'Andy Griffith' running around, 'Citizen's arrest,' or something," Blankenship said.

Blankenship also criticized President Barack Obama for getting most of his advice from "the union element." He also said he hasn't had an opportunity to talk with Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va. Although he shook hands with Rahall at some point, Blankenship said he had not had discussions with him about "any of these outlandish statements." Blankenship did not specify the statements.

--His Lairdship, re: comments from United Mine Workers' President Cecil Roberts

Oh, that scruffy union element--those killjoys. Isn't it lucky that Massey didn't have that wretched union influence improving conditions in their mines? Because, who knows if actual precautions being taken couldn't have prevented a disacter? One can only wonder.


Also stupid and awful?

Dana Perino--because "Listen all y'all it's a sabotage!"



What? Um. Oh, and all of Fox and Friends for just sucking out loud to push the "response delayed" meme. Just--wow, way to push something unfounded to create a negative narrative that fits an anti-Obama agenda in a really nakedly hacktastic way, huh?

Two quick ones about the Massey mine disaster,

The first is a Tweet from a spokestool from ALEC,



(h/t to The Political Carnival.)

So, let me get this straight, a widow recently bereaved decides to sue a company that is notorious for safety violations and this goof says, "Oh, it's 'free money'."

Sorry, um, I'm counting the loss of a life-partner and breadwinner as a "price paid". I don't actually see that as "free". And I would bet that hardly anyone would choose a big payday at the risk of their beloved. That is simply cold-blooded. But that is very revealing in terms of the way some pro-corporate minds work. In his mental ledger, the death of the worker is more of a nuisance to his employer than to his spouse, since Massey now has to replace him and bother will all this paperwork--let alone deal with with some legal nonsense. Implied: "She should take whatever the going rate for dead husbands is and stop haggling!"




Another story is this piece on Don Blankenship from Businessweek that has one detail about his dealings with a former housekeeper that only reinforces my impression that he has an "ownership" mentality towards people in his employ.

Blankenship, his opponents and supporters agree, simply has to get his way. Nothing illustrates this better than his fight with a maid earning $8.86 an hour. In 2001, Deborah May started working for Mate Creek Security, a company "related to Massey Energy," according to court documents. When Mate Creek assigned her to work for Blankenship, according to the documents, May cleaned his three-story home, shopped, and did laundry. By 2005 she was also cleaning a bus, two cabins, and a mansion in Kentucky. She received one 30 cents hourly raise. After Blankenship said she would also have to care for a "German police dog," according to the documents, she quit.

In November 2005, May applied for unemployment benefits, saying she was forced to leave the job. The state denied her claim, concluding she quit for no reason. In June 2008, West Virginia's top court reversed the state's denial of benefits. Two of the court's justices said "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."

Perfectly disgraceful. But it does reveal a disrespect for persons, and a unique sense of his relationship to people "beneath" him.

Little Laird Blankenship and the WV Fiefdom

Just a quick call-out: Don Blankenship is a jerk. Unfortunately, he's a jerk who owns runs mines *as CEO of Massey Energy Corp, so he gets to be a powerful jerk who employs good, hardworking people, and suffers under the delusion that he owns them, just like he runs the mine. He looks at the bottom line and determines pretty much how many fines and wrongful deaths his business can get away with, versus the "increased productivity" of doing stuff with violations, which he sees as just a part of the coal business. Since those violations are safety violations, which means that failures to keep mines safe results in deaths, that means that Blankenship has accepted that sometimes, people have to die for his profits.

I just wanted to comment that this is the worst kind of feudalistic mindset. He couldn't be more abusive of his "lord of the manor" position if he decided to practice the droight de seigneur* over miners' wives.

I'd love to see this guy get some kind of comeuppance. He's already figured the toll of this latest disaster into his balance sheet.

*(Yes, I know the concept of the droight de seigneur isn't historically verified. Nonetheless, he's getting a "leg-over" financially, but people would probably get madder if it was physically, no?)

(*Yes, I know better, yet rhetoric overtook me. Actually, it's kind of worse because there's a corporate board that must like him this way. After all, he rose in the ranks of the company by ensuring the company was non-union.)