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The World Socialist Web Site reports
Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was released from prison [May 10] after serving a one year sentence in connection with the April 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, which killed 29 coal miners. The Upper Big Branch blast was the worst US mine disaster in 40 years.
Blankenship served the first ten months of his sentence at the Taft Correctional Institution in Southern California. The facility, which houses many white collar criminals, boasts baseball diamonds and soccer fields along with tennis and racquetball courts. Blankenship was then moved to a halfway house for a month and spent the last month prior to his official release at his home in Las Vegas.
In tweets [that] Blankenship posted after his release, the millionaire coal boss showed no remorse for the deaths of 29 miners. He complained that at Taft he had to return to his room several times a day to be counted and could not choose what to watch on TV.
[...] In 2015, Blankenship was convicted on a single misdemeanor count of violating federal safety laws at the mine in Montcoal, West Virginia. The disaster occurred when a spark from a longwall machine ignited a pocket of methane gas, which, in turn, set off a massive coal dust explosion throughout the mine.
Multiple and grave safety violations occurred at the mine when Blankenship issued an order to "run coal", flouting regulations designed to prevent explosions. In an October 2005 memo to the company's deep mine superintendents, Blankenship outlined his priorities. "If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers, or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e., build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever), you need to ignore them and run coal", he wrote.
[...] Four investigations of the disaster found that bits on the longwall machine were broken and worn out, causing sparking. Water nozzles meant to keep the bits cool and prevent sparks were also broken. Proper ventilation to prevent the buildup of methane gas was lacking. Explosive coal dust was allowed to accumulate throughout the mine.
Previous: Massey CEO Indicted for Acts Resulting in Coal Mine Explosion that Killed 29
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:17AM (2 children)
Republican; All politians suck, ours suck less
Democrat: No only yours suck ours are fine
Based on the amount of disagree there appears to be a serious suspension of disbelief going on.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday May 16 2017, @03:20AM
Personally, I'd say the D's moral compass is spinning so they have a 1/360 chance of doing the right thing. The R's is weakly magnetized backwards so they have a slightly smaller chance of doing the right thing.
But it's still down to giant douche or turd sandwich.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday May 16 2017, @05:05PM
My observation has been the exact opposite of yours, where the right-wing are less willing to admit any faults by their side, but the left/centrists are more intellectually honest and admit both sides have serious issues (and yes, that "ours suck less"). The left are also more willing to openly criticize their own side, so you had lefties on lefty/centrist sites who criticized Obama during his second term over things like not closing Gitmo, and for over-reaching intelligence apparatus. Not to mention all the liberals openly refusing to vote for Hillary Clinton because of how Bernie Sanders was steamrolled by the DNC (even *after* Sanders endorsed Clinton as a bid to stop Trump), among other reasons.
Meanwhile there was no real effort by the right to distance itself from Trump once he was confirmed as the Republican candidate, as conservatives adopted a "win at all costs" mentality.