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The tragedy at the Upper Big Branch Mine has prompted lots of folks in the national media to take a close look at Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship for the first time, but I wrote my first post on Blankenship (”Massey Energy CEO is a really bad dude<\/a>”) in 2006, and Goodell wrote about Blankenship is his 2007 book Big Coal<\/a>, and so all I can say is: we told you so.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I consider myself a fair and balanced kind of journalist. I like to let both sides have their say. So in that spirit, let’s acknowledge up front that Blankenship may not, in fact, be a sociopath. Medically speaking. There’s been no clinical diagnosis.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That said … c’mon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I mean right? If there’s anything worse than dead-eyed disregard for human life, it’s dead-eyed disregard for human life delivered from beneath an almost aggressively unpleasant mustache.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My first and still best piece on Blankenship was written for a now-deceased magazine called Old Trout. Though the magazine didn’t headline it as such, in my mind it always bore a title which I thought really captured the nuances: “Don Blankenship is an evil bastard<\/a>.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My favorite Blankenship story is the one where he was caught canoodling in Monaco with a West Virginia Supreme Court justice and some, er, younger female companions … while Massey had a case before the court. And then Massey won! Later, when the canoodling became public, the court agreed to rehear the case<\/a>. Then the canoodling judge agreed to recuse himself from the case (he later lost his re-election bid<\/a>). Then another judge tried to get a third judge to recuse himself over ties to Blankenship (as in $3.5 million of campaign support), but then Blankenship bullied that judge off the case<\/a>. The one who took $3.5 million from Blankenship refused to leave<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then … wait for it … the court found Massey innocent again<\/a>. Shortly thereafter, in a Massey parking lot, Blankenship threatened an ABC camera man, saying, “If you’re going to start taking pictures of me, you’re liable to get shot.” I mean right?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled<\/a>, based on an appeal from Massey’s West Virginia case, that judges have to recuse themselves from cases in which participants are large campaign contributors. Now they’ll never be able to try Blankenship in West Virginia!)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n More recently Blankenship’s megalomania has driven him to become a kind of spokesman for climate skepticism and anti-regulatory ideology. He even took the ill-advised step of publicly debating Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a>, which was like watching the 1988 Tyson-Spinks fight<\/a>, but for an hour.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And now, only four years after a mine disaster for which Massey pled guilty to 10 criminal charges, only two years after a catastrophic Massey coal-ash spill<\/a>, Blankenship’s company has allowed more miners to die, through what appears to be gross negligence<\/a>. Sounds like Appalachians are sick of it<\/a>:<\/p>\n As the families of the miners waited on Tuesday, frustrations grew. State and mine officials were taking a long time to confirm the names of the dead, many of the miners said. Families also voiced frustration that they had learned about the disaster from news reports rather than from Massey officials.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Some of these tensions boiled over around 2 a.m. Tuesday when Mr. Blankenship arrived at the mine to announce the death toll to families who were gathered at the site. Escorted by at least a dozen state and other police officers, according to several witnesses, Mr. Blankenship prepared to address the crowd, but people yelled at him for caring more about profits than miners’ lives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After another Massey official informed the crowd of the new death toll, one miner threw a chair. A father and son stormed off screaming that they were quitting mining work. And several people yelled at Mr. Blankenship that he was to blame before he was escorted from the scene.<\/p>\n Even most banks won’t touch Massey<\/a> any more. Outside of West Virginia the company’s a pariah. But inside the state, they still dance to Blankenship’s tune, even as his lawlessness leaves more and more grieving families in its wake.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here’s some recent Blankenship coverage:<\/p>\n From Bloomberg: “Massey’s Blankenship Fought Regulators, Town, Maid<\/a>” (the maid story is classic) Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n Before the Massey mine disaster, there was Crandall Canyon<\/a><\/p>\n Coal barons to (finally) testify before Congress<\/a><\/p>\n Massey coal miner suspected safety problems might prove fatal<\/a><\/p>\n
\nFrom The Washington Post: “Massey Energy has litany of critics, violations<\/a>”
\nUnsurprisingly, unions hate Blankenship: “AFL-CIO rips company that owns site of deadly mine blast<\/a>”
\nMayor of Charleston, W.Va., says Blankenship is widely disliked within the coal industry<\/a>
\nBlankenship was one of Rolling Stone’s “Climate Killers<\/a>”
\nEven die-hard coal supporter Rep. Nick Rahall is chastising Blankenship<\/a>
\nNaturally the fact that decent people loathe Blankenship means that right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh<\/a> and Chris Stirewalt<\/a> love him
\nHere’s some Blankenship bashing<\/a> from back when he was sponsoring and speaking at teabag rallies<\/p>\n