Massey incest

Mining CEO so insinuated in W. Va. politics that they can't find judges to hear his case

Posted by David Roberts at 11:53 AM on 20 Feb 2008

So, you may recall that loathsome mountaintop-removal mining outfit Massey was hit with a $50 million judgment a while back. They appealed it up to the W. Va. Supreme Court, which overturned it.

Later, it turned out that Massey CEO Don Blankenship (an evil bastard) had been photographed frolicking with one of the judges in Monte Carlo, accompanied by, um, female consorts.

So that judge dropped out of the case.

Now the WSJ brings word that another judge is recusing himself -- Justice Larry Starcher had criticized Massey and Blankenship publicly, so Blankenship bullied him off the case.

Said Starcher:

"As a judge I am limited in my public comments, but I do have a constitutional right -- and, in fact, a duty -- to speak out on matters affecting the administration of justice," Starcher wrote. "And let me be clear about this: I believe Mr. Blankenship's conduct does have an effect on the administration of justice, in that it has become a pernicious and evil influence on that administration."

...

"The simple fact of the matter is that the pernicious effects of Mr. Blankenship's bestowal of his personal wealth, political tactics and 'friendship' have created a cancer in the affairs of this court," Starcher wrote.

Starcher has filed a brief requesting that a third justice -- Brent Benjamin -- recuse himself now. Turns out Blankenship spent $3.5 million supporting Benjamin's re-election. Not that it biased him in any way.

This is what you get in a poor rural state with one huge employer that's insinuated himself in the entire government apparatus. It's incestuous in the extreme. Anybody see any chance of real justice coming out of this? Or even the possibility of finding legitimate judges?

For story: Massey incest
3 Comments | Post a Comment

Home of the Mountain King

Point of interest Ol Don has a playboy mansion on the top of a mountain in Eastern Ky. Right across the river from WVA. Lords high above the peons in the valley below. Ironically he has not done a montain top removal on this mountain, seems even coal barons don't s*#t their own nest. King of Mountain Top Removal with a castle on a mountain. You can see it when the leaves are off in winter for miles. The lights at night look like the space ship scene from Close Encounters of the Third kind. It probably takes most of the coal he mines to light the place. If its not the mother ship coming down to transport him and all the WVA judges he bought he may get busted back to living in a used mobile home on one of his strip jobs.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

by Pompey Road at 12:57 PM on 20 Feb 2008

West Virginia Mountain Mama

I remember John Denver's first sining about Country Roads. Maybe Dave can resurrect that for his Friday Music Blogging. I can't think of any set of images that so completely cancel each other.

Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains growin' like a breeze.

I never paid attention to this at all until I heard Jesse Johnson of the WV Mountain Party speak. He, and that whole party, deserve a lot of credit for trying to turn this into a political issue.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

by wesrolley at 1:33 PM on 20 Feb 2008
[ Parent ]

Almost Level West Virginia

Cool site, but you may not have heard the rivision of John Denver's song.

Take Me Home Country Roads
Revised

Almost level West Virginia
Cropped-ridge mountains strip job runoff-river
Life is odd there we don't have a tree
Mountain Top Removal Valley's filled with ease

Country roads take me home
To a place that's almost gone
West Virginia mountain mayhem
Take me home country roads

All my memories gather round her
Miner's lady stranger to polluted water
Dark and dusty, dust fills the sky
Mountain Top Removal, teardrops in my eye.

Country road take me home
To a place that's almost gone
West Virginia Mountain massacre
Take me home country roads

I can hear the Dozers in the morning it appalls me
The blasting reminds me of a war far away
Driven' down the road I get the feeling
That I should have stopped this yesterday, yesterday

Country roads take me home
To a place that's almost gone
West Virginia, mountains gone yea!
Take me home country Roads

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

by Pompey Road at 2:32 PM on 20 Feb 2008
[ Parent ]

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