Above: Blankenship, looking a little too much like a Columbian lord.
Above: Escobar from an undated appearance on Talkline--Hoppy asks Pablo the tough questions.
Offroute said a long time ago to watch for Don Blankenship's increasing involvement in state politics. Well, it's like he's in the paper every day now, swinging his money around all Columbian drug lord like.
So now is a good time to ask--who the hell is this guy? I've known of him for years, but I don't really know much about him at all--other than that he'd mine his mother's grave if there was money to be made. So where's he from? Did he go to college? When, where, and what for? What's his story?
For the CEO of the biggest coal producer in West Virginia, he's not all that articulate. Which raises another somewhat tangential point: Massey lets on like they're the biggest thing going, when in reality, they're just big in West Virginia. Massey is small time compared to the likes of Arch, et al. I detect a bit of an inferiority complex.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Who the hell is Don Blankenship anyway?
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18 comments:
I think the Daily Mail very recently did a front page puff piece on him, and I actually think it might have been called "Who is Don Blankenship?" or something similar. I didn't read it. (It was while you were MIA, I think.)
Oh God. If you haven't read it, you must check out the interview in the new WV Inc magazine or visit http://www.wvinconline.com for the transcript (the pictures are what make the difference).
Ridiculous.
Aha! I knew it! Escobar didn't die in a hail of gunfire after all. Scoundrel is right here.
The Daily Mail piece made my gorge rise.
Thanks for the info. Like I said, Donnie's been turning up like a bad penny of late, yet remains an enigma...hmmm.
WVInc.: Is there anything that you want folks to know about you that they wouldn’t know?
Blankenship: I’m a good guy. I don’t use drugs. I don’t steal. I don’t harass people. I live my own life in privacy. I do what I believe in and anything I say I believe to be true.
Best interview question and answer... ever.
why is it that those local magazines like "WV Inc" always sound and look like a bad junior college publication? some nobody interviewing another nobody... probably all went out to a bath house for some ego-stroking afterwards!
Yay!
"WV Inc" has one of those blogs that people put up and then nobody ever posts... hahahaha
must be the same geniuses that started up "The Gazzbags"
Is it me or are there just too dang many blogs out there?
From the wvinconline.com "article":
"And that’s what we really meant by And For the Sake of the Kids. We didn’t mean Tony Arbaugh and pedophiles."
So ol' Don Blankenship and George Carenbauer and the rest really didn't care about the child molester who was released from prison--they really care about the kids!!!
What's shocking about that "article" is that all Donnie cares about is whatever's good for business. It's scary. Uh, Don, what's good for business isn't always good for the people.
It would be "good for business" if you could pay workers in Monopoly money, paid no taxes, could blast anywhere you wanted to and didn't have to reclaim the land.
And I'm sure that's EXACTLY what he would do if it weren't for the mean 'ol gubermunt.
I admire his rise from poverty, but damn, somewhere he picked up the rich man's "I've got mine, you get yours" mentality.
What a scary fucking asshole.
What amazes me is how he can answer two pages of questions and still say absolutely nothing (well, except that he plays basketball with welfare recipients - what a gent). Of course that's probably what will get him elected to office one day.
Why is it that Don Blankenshp always strikes that Paris Hiltonesque pose when being photographed?
Chuck,
I think it's the big wad o' cash that he keep in his left hip pocket that creates the offset that travels up the vertebrae to his neck and tilts the head to one side, creating the Hilton pose.
BTW, the story about the Massey slurry spill in a Logan Co. creek that I linked to last night is no longer operational. It seems that the numbers tell Don that it is much more profitable to feign clean-up efforts and use PR to bury the truth about Massey's rape and pillage under tons of valley fill than it is to maintain the company's holdings.
Another gem from that wvinconline.com "article" and Don Blankenship, Genius:
"You know, if you take for example, the mountain top removal issue, mountain top mining does less damage than urban construction because it is temporary and properly managed with proper drainage controls and so forth. It is something that is ugly during construction, but if you look at it 20 years from now you can hardly see it."
Boy, ol' Don sure is sharp, isn't he? He understands that mountaintop removal does nothing to streams (buried under hundreds of feet of rock), rock strata that used to be a mountain (it's there, just dumped into the valley, right?), or aquifers (wait--they're just totally destroyed, right?).
Go, Don, go!
I don't know if he is a wonderful guy but Massey Energy does provide a lot of good paying jobs with excellent benefits - including 90/10 insurance that the company pays 100% of the premium for. People who do not live in this area may not realize how important Massey is to the state, especially the rural area where it is hard to find employment. They treat their employees with respect and take care of them when they need something - that is something that is not only hard to find in WV but everywhere and Massey would not be what it is without Don Blankenship.
You know, I have to agree with Anonymous. I live in Belfry Ky. and I see that big ol' house he's made on top of a barren mountain every single day. I cringe at the thought of it, but I realize the importance of the coal company in my community. We live through coal, and it's just that simple. I know the environmental effects caused by MTR are tragic and laws should be upheld in order to protect the community members, wildlife, and vegetation .. but taking away our coal for profit would literally be like taking our lungs for oxygen.
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