Massey Denies It Prevented Miners From Attending Funerals

By GottaLaff

Earlier, I posted about Massey Energy refusing to allow time off for miners who wanted to attend their loved ones’ funerals.

They're denying it.

Massey spokesman Troy Andes:

“We know of no instances when miners were denied a request to attend a funeral.”

They know of no instances. Maybe someone simply forgot to tell them. Or they did this:

The Washington Independent also reminds us that even if this wasn't a Massey policy, it might have been enforced by subsidiaries who actually run the mines and have their own rules.

Massey Coal: No Time off for Miners to Attend Friends’ Funerals

By GottaLaff

A sign outside a West Virginia vigil for coal miners who lost their lives in the Upper Big Branch explosion on April 5 (EPA/ZUMApress.com)

If Massey's CEO, Don Blankenship, had been confronted by strong unions, things might have been different. Lives might have been saved, and this despicable turn of events might have been avoided.

Via the Washington Independent:

Massey Energy, the Virginia-based coal giant that runs the Upper Big Branch Mine, has denied time off for miners to attend their friends’ funerals; has rejected makeshift memorials outside the mine site; and, in at least one case, required a worker to go on shift even though the fate of a relative — one of the victims of the April 5 disaster — remained unknown at the time, according to some family members and other sources familiar with those episodes. In short, the company might be taking heat for putting profits and efficiency above its workers, but it doesn’t appear to have changed its tune in the wake of the worst mining tragedy in 40 years.

Remember the scene in Miracle on 34th Street, when Kris Kringle is talking to Alfred, the Macy janitor and Alfred laments...



That's all that matters to Massey: profit. Profit over lives. The very people who make him money are expendable. But dollars aren't.

“They told my husband, ‘You’ve got a job to do and you’re gonna do it,’” said the wife of one Massey miner, referring to the funerals he’s missed this month for friends who died in the blast. “What else are we gonna do?”

What else, indeed.

The culture of fear is everywhere. It's in politics, it's at gun rallies, at Tea Bagger protests, white supremacist gatherings, and now it's directed at those who lost loved ones:

“I guarantee it: Massey’s already told these guys, ‘Hey, don’t say nothin’. You’re not talking to no reporters. You’re not saying nothin’ about our safety record — or you won’t have a job,’” said Chuck Nelson, a former Massey miner who’s since become an environmental activist with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. “That’s the way they operate.”

That's the way they operate. There isn't a heart anywhere in Blankenship's body. He and Cheney should start a club.

Massey wouldn't even let a mourner hang a wreath at the entrance to the mine. Nice people skills, Don. Bully much?

“When we were all union, if there was something that came up, it wasn’t no problem at all to shut that mine down until everything was fixed.” said Nelson, who worked for nearly 20 years in union mines before Massey took over. “Non-union [workers], they ain’t got that right.”

Massey ain't got nothin' right.

H/t: hapkidogal

Coal Industry Front Group to Miner's Widow: "Everyone Wants Free Money!"

By GottaLaff

Marlene Griffith lost her husband, William Griffith, in the now infamous coal mine explosion in West Virginia. She is suing Massey Energy. The Griffiths were married nearly 33 years.

But before they could celebrate their anniversary, Massey's negligence created an unspeakably horrific nightmare that could have been prevented, one that Marlene will have to live and relive with forever.

Here is how Nathan Coffey responded. His Twitter page has since been deleted:


This would be the same Nathan Coffey who is the Public Affairs Coordinator of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). What's ALEC? Glad you asked, but you won't be:

ALEC, founded in 1973 by conservative activist Paul Weyrich, is a DC-based front group which helps state lawmakers craft corporate-friendly legislation. State-based schemes aimed at deregulation are often conceived and coordinated out of ALEC. It is funded by some of the biggest corporations in America, including Koch Industries, Wal-Mart, and AT&T, as well as by the coal industry.

Coffey was right about one thing. "Everyone" wants free money.

VIDEO: President Obama Orders Review of Mine Safety

By GottaLaff

While I work on an exclusive story, this should tide you over:

The President reports that in the wake of the West Virginia mining tragedy, he has ordered an investigation into the incident as well as a comprehensive review of mine safety regulations and inspections.

Must see VIDEO: They're mining graves

By GottaLaff

This video comes to us by way of my pal Micheal Stinson, aka Symbolman, who co-authored that snarky coloring book of snarky coloring books, Going Rouge. But this time around, he's not snarking.

35-60 graves "don't mean nothin' to them":

In 2006 Takebackthemedia interviewed Larry Gibson, the last holdout in an area in West Virginia being decimated by mountaintop removal techniques. He gave us a full tour and we filmed for 8 hours a variety of areas in the process of destruction, most chilling is this footage of a coal company MINING the Family CEMETERY in full sight of Larry's home. Judge this outrage for yourself. Hours of incredible footage available along with film makers for interviews. Contact symbolman@gmail.com

Talk about "unclean" coal. This gives "death panel" a whole new meaning.

Isn't it the "pro-life" party that supports mining like this? So once a loved one has passed away, they become meaningless and can be bulldozed into oblivion. Got it.

Please note: Micheal would love to finish the film, but he needs funding. If you are able to give him any assistance or advice in that regard, please contact him at the address above.

UPDATE: Micheal has more at DKos here. Please take a look.

Video- President Obama on WV Mine Tragedy and Justice Stevens

Environmentalists feel betrayed; EPA decides not to block new mountaintop mining

By GottaLaff

I've posted about this here and here. My hopes were up, but now, I am not happy at all:

With the election of President Obama, environmentalists had expected to see the end of the "Appalachian apocalypse," their name for exposing coal deposits by blowing the tops off whole mountains.

But in recent weeks, the administration has quietly made a decision to open the way for at least two dozen more mountaintop removals.

In a letter this month to a coal ally, Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), the Environmental Protection Agency said it would not block dozens of "surface mining" projects. The list included some controversial mountaintop mines.

The industry says the practice of using explosives to blast away a peak is safer and more efficient than traditional shaft mining. But critics say the process scars the landscape and dumps tons of waste -- some of it toxic -- into streams and valleys.

The administration's decision is not the final word on the projects or the future of mountaintop removal. But the letter, coupled with the light it sheds on relations between the mining industry and the Obama White House, has disappointed environmentalists. Some say they feel betrayed by a president they thought would end or sharply limit the practice.

I understand the politics behind this, but when things like this and this happen, I don't feel like being as understanding any more.

More details here

The ugly Bush stain: Interior Dept. Changes Rule to Remove Congress Veto edition

By GottaLaff

That putrid whiff of flatulence you smell? It's Bush... again:

'The revision of the rule eliminates all references to Congressional authority.' Interior Dept. Changes Rule to Remove Congress Veto

In another regulatory action in the waning days of the Bush dictatorship, the Interior Department on Thursday unveiled a new rule that challenges Congress’s authority to prevent mining planned on public lands. Congress has emergency power to stop mineral development, and has used it six times in the last 32 years. The most recent was in June, when it put a three-year moratorium on uranium mining on one million acres near the Grand Canyon. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has ignored that Congressional directive, saying it was procedurally flawed. The revision of the rule eliminates all references to Congressional authority.

Bush can have all the farewell, maudlin, revisionist interviews he wants, but nothing... nothing... will eliminate the stench he leaves behind after eight years of infecting this country with a rotting, decomposing morgue full of felons hell bent on vaporizing the Constitution.

IWRC* Palin may have violated law re: mining initiative

By GottaLaff

IWRC* Palin has so many scandals brewing, it's hard to believe she's not already vice president:

Palin's intervention in dispute may have violated law against state advocacy on ballot measures.

Alaska law forbids state officials from using state resources to advocate on ballot initiatives. [...]

Asked about the initiative at a news conference, she invoked "personal privilege" to give an opinion. "Let me take my governor's hat off for just a minute here and tell you, personally, Prop. 4 -- I vote no on that," she said. "I have all the confidence in the world that [the Department of Environmental Conservation] and our [Department of Natural Resources] have great, very stringent regulations and policies already in place. We're going to make sure that mines operate only safely, soundly." [...]

For Palin to intervene as she did, with a brief, seemingly off-the-cuff statement just days before the election, also showed a lack of serious engagement on complex and important issues, initiative supporters say. Palin, they say, was simply going on the word of officials in her administration that the existing regulations sufficed, without taking into account their possible biases: Her natural resources commissioner hails from the mining industry, and mining companies directly subsidize some regulators' salaries.

"She has this great faith that nothing will go wrong, which gave her a false sense of security, so she went off a little half-cocked" and spoke out, said Tim Bristol, Alaska program director for Trout Unlimited. [...]

Palin's comments rocked the contest. Within a day, the pro-mining coalition fighting the referendum had placed full-page ads with a picture of the governor and the word "NO." The initiative went down to defeat, with 57 percent of voters rejecting it.

Three days later, Palin was named Republican Sen. John McCain's running mate, throwing Alaska into a media frenzy. But the fallout has lingered from an episode that may stand as one of the most consequential in Palin's 21-month tenure. The state ethics panel is examining whether her comments violated the law against state advocacy on ballot measures; it had already ruled that a state Web site was improperly slanted toward mining interests.

TrooperGate, now this. Add in a dash of Couric and a pinch of Charlie Gibson and we have a pot of extra chunky Palin scandal stew. Serve that up with a smelly hunk of Gramm-pa McCain bad-judgment Limburger and voila! A toxic meal that would make even those of us with the strongest stomachs nauseous.

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"