Massey Energy's Blankenship: No shame, but plenty of blame

[BzaDem]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072303078.html

"If Don Blankenship had any sense of shame, he'd crawl into a mine and hide.

As CEO of Massey Energy, he has presided over a coal company that had thousands of violations in recent years, leading up to the April explosion that killed 29 of his miners. The company now faces a federal criminal investigation into what the government has called negligent and reckless practices.

But Blankenship must have no sense of shame, because he visited the National Press Club last week to complain about "knee-jerk political reactions" to mine deaths and to demand that the Obama administration lighten regulations on his dirty and dangerous company. "We need to let businesses function as businesses," an indignant Blankenship proclaimed. "Corporate business is what built America, in my opinion, and we need to let it thrive by, in a sense, leaving it alone."

The CEO was asked what he could have done to prevent the deadly explosion. "I probably should've sued MSHA" -- that's the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration -- "rather than waiting" until now, he said. In the future, he added, "you'll see not only coal companies but many companies resist the efforts of EPA and others that are impeding their ability to pursue their careers, or their happiness."

--snip--

"There's 42,000 people killed a year on the highways," the coal boss offered as a way to put his miners' deaths in perspective. He protested that clean-water restrictions are so tight that even Perrier wouldn't pass. Blankenship's advice to fellow CEOs: "You should push back on the government."

[Radical Activist]

1. One of the most vile pieces of scum to walk the planet.

Think about this. It may take decades, but eventually the oceans will recover from the BP still.

The mountains Blankenship blew up will NEVER be the same. The oldest mountains in the country. Gone. Permanently. That's the worst environmental disaster of the century.

[Petrushka]

2. K & R

:kick:

[Altoid_Cyclist]

3. All of the deaths that he has at least helped to cause, not to mention

the horrific environmental damage he and his kind have wreaked on the earth and yet he probably sleeps quite well at night.

I guess that sometimes it helps to have a reptilian brain and no soul. I apologize in advance to reptiles the world over.

This slimeball should be in prison and not walking around shooting off his inane thoughts.

What is the latest on investigations and/or prosecutions involving this piece of trash? Maybe another slap on the wrist at most. At least hit the prick in the nose with a rolled up newspaper!


This article gives a good summation of Blankenship:


http://www.theygaveusarepublic.com/diary/5422/meet-mr-mining-disaster-clara-bingham-the-daily-beast

From The Daily Beast:
Clara Bingham on a coal executive with a seeming disregard for worker safety.
If this doesn't convince you that the chickenshit CEOs who sit on their ultra padded asses on ultra padded swivel chairs in ultra swanky board rooms making life and death decisions for all of us will cheerfully kill you in large numbers in order to add a quarter a share to their stock price and simply chalk up the meaningless fines thereby incurred as a "normal" business expense, then I suppose nothing will and you might as well stop reading right now.

In Ms. Bingham's excellent piece we learn that the CEO of Massey Energy, one Don Blankenship, is little more than a mass murderer... if not in the eyes of the law, then in the eyes of any sane, rational human being. He's a prick... one of a caliber not seen often, even in the sacrosanct halls of Korporate Amerika. A bully and a toad totally devoid of even the smallest shred of humanity that belongs in some dark corner in the far reaches of the reptile house at your local zoo.

More: http://www.theygaveusarepublic.com/diary/5422/meet-mr-mining-disaster-clara-bingham-the-daily-beast

[Scurrilous]

4. K & R

:thumbsup:

[1776Forever]

5. I hope there is a special place in hell for people like Mr. Blankenship - just saying.......n/t