Surely you remember Don Blankenship, former CEO of Massey Energy. Under his leadership at Massey, while skirting government regulations, 29 coal miners died at his Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia in March 2010. Over a three-month period prior to the deaths, Blankenship sold $21.24 million in Massey stock then retired in December 2010. Shortly afterwards Massey was sold to Alpha Natural Resources. Now Blankenship is getting back into the coal mining business.Last month Bloomberg reported that Blankenship has filed the necessary paperwork to form a new Kentucky coal mine company; McCoy Coal Group Inc. of Belfry, Kentucky (Notice he’s not using his name). On the filings he is listed as the president of McCoy. So I guess Blankenship isn’t finished with killing working Americans
If you don’t remember Blankenship from Massey Energy, you may remember him as a hero of the tea party after he donated $1 million to the group. Then he showed up to give a speech in his “red, white and blue uniform” at a Friends of America Labor Day rally — which he sponsored.
Blankenship showed little remorse for those who died at the Upper Big Branch mine nor their families. He insisted the reaction to their deaths was a “knee-jerk political reaction”, and that the Mine Safety and Health Administration was the cause of the “accident”. He scolded President Obama for the regulations he was ignoring. How arrogant and callus can one get?
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