Disgraced Coal Baron Don Blankenship Is Running for Senate in West Virginia

[blue-wave]

Source: Mother Jones

Don Blankenship is running for Senate. Yes, the Don Blankenship. On Wednesday West Virginia station WCHS reported that the former Massey Energy CEO, fresh off a one-year stint in a federal prison for conspiring to commit mine-safety violations in the run-up to the deadliest mining disaster in decades, has filed paperwork to run in next year’s Republican Senate primary. He’ll join a crowded field, including US Rep. Evan Jenkins and state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, in the race to take on incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

Blankenship was a towering figure in state and national politics until quite recently. He turned Massey into one of the nation’s largest coal producers by busting unions, strong-arming smaller operators, and flouting a raft of federal environmental and safety regulations. And he took that same approach honed in Mingo County to Charleston with great success.

Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/11/disgraced-coal-baron-don-blankenship-is-running-for-senate-in-west-virginia/#

[bucolic_frolic]

1. George W. Bush told us this was coming

The Ownership Society. They own YOU!

[marble falls]

2. Sen Manchin is no liberal himself. But Blankenship is literally a walking disaster....

I'd support Manchin if only for the reason that the poor people WVA do not deserve the souless mass that convicted criminal Don Blankenship is.

[titaniumsalute]

3. So why would any WV vote for him? Seems like he is poison to them

[sandensea]

4. Alas, the power of right-wing media brainwashing.

I wouldn't count Disaster Don out for a minute.

[elleng]

6. Yes, the all-powerful repug brainwashing.

[sandensea]

7. Not all-powerful - but more than enough, unfortunately.

Lewis Powell, that slimy little lizard, knew what he was doing.

[pangaia]

5. Somebody convicted of a crime in Alabama

and a number of other states may be ineligible to VOTE !
But, thus turkey turd can be a Senator.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

8. He gave the announcement to WCHS, a Sinclair Broadcasting affiliate, as an exclusive

Blankenship has been heavily advertising on WCHS with nonstop barrage of ads, trying to rewrite history of the UBB disaster and make himself, a convicted criminal, out to be innocent, while blaming it all on Obama (yes, I realize that makes zero sense, but it's his argument.)

The WCHS/Sinclair piece announcing his run was a total puff piece, leading off with the narrative of the ads and claiming that all Don wants is a "full investigation" (one already took place), while not even mentioning the prison sentence and conviction until the very end of the segment.

It was a total regurgitation of the Blankenship ad message. Money talks.

[Hortensis]

10. Wow. Well, the people who rewrote the laws so

if caught worst case he'd only spend a year in prison are running the executive branch. Wouldn't you love to know what Blankenship presumably knows about plans to steal elections for people like him in 2018?