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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 Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 16 2017, @02:14PM (1 child)
So the Democrats sell us out to a slightly different set of corrupt evil sociopaths than Republicans do? That's a difference without a distinction.
I'm gonna propose a novel idea here: government should serve the voters who pay its salaries. Period.
Corporations and evil oligarchs can stand way the fuck in the back of the line after children, women, men, and so on all the way back to hippies, chickens, and three-legged dogs. Then they can get somebody's ear, but not before.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:22PM
No, there is a distinction. Before, with the health care "plan" that Republicans favor, if you make less than $50k, and your job doesn't give you health insurance, you simply go without. Now, with the plan that Democrats managed to get passed, you can afford a subsidized insurance plan, though this screws over the 6-figure earners by making their premiums higher. If you're lower middle class, voting Republican is simply stupid and voting against your economic interests. Yes, they're all corrupt sociopaths, but with one party, at least you can get insurance coverage and get treatment when you get sick or have cancer, with the other party you're just fucked.
I'm gonna propose a novel idea here: government should serve the voters who pay its salaries. Period.
Sounds great. Let me know when you have a concrete plan on how to achieve that. It'll probably happen about the time you also figure out how to solve world hunger, eliminate aging, make working cold fusion power, and colonize the solar system.