Coal Warlord found in bed with West Virginia Judge. Crap.

I was less than thrilled to watch the story unfold of Coal Warlord Don Blankenship and WV Justice Elliot Maynard’s vacation in Monaco together just has Justice Maynard was deciding on a case against Don Blankenship and Massey, his mining company. Surprise boys and girls! The judge decided in old Donnie B’s favor.

Feel free to read the gory details yourself at the NY Times

Grist called Don Blankenship one of the “scariest Polluters” out there, and he’s earned it. Down in Mingo County, his mansion/fortress is perched on top of a clear-cut mountain overlooking his kingdom of blown up mountains, valley fills, break-your-heart poverty, and towns where the water runs black from the slurry injections he has authorized and covered up. You can see it for miles in every direction.

It’s another reason why West Virginia remains #1 on every list of things that suck, suicide, obesity, infant mortality, disability and why we need to Rise Up! Against corruption and stand for a clean just energy future. And if anyone wants to intern in West Virginia this summer fighting coal thuggery, let me know.

As a side note –which I was going to write a whole blog on but this crap came up instead–, our Governor Joe Manchin gave a second State of the State address to a coal convention last week. His plan for West Virginia’s Clean Energy Future is to build 5 Coal to Liquids Plants in West Virginia. Enough said.

About

Dana works on the national council of the Student Environmental Action Coalition in Charleston, WV Visit www.seac.org. She likes to make papier mache stuff with five year olds. She likes mountains that haven't been blown all to hell. She likes communities that fight back when their mountains have been blown all to hell. She doesn't like coal, or blowing up mountains. She especially doesn't like (not so) Clean Coal (no such thing) and thinks Carbon Sequestration is a bad deal for communities and kids. And really, who else matters?