Massey Sues Mine Safety Regulator For Allegedly Violating Its Constitutional Rights

[mod mom]

Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster: Massey Sues Mine Safety Regulator For Allegedly Violating Its Constitutional Rights

Massey Energy Co. sued the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and three of its officials Tuesday, arguing that the agency wouldn't approve ventilation practices in its mines that Massey says would have benefited the safety and health of miners.

The company, which is being investigated by the MSHA following an April explosion that killed 29 miners at its Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, W.Va., said it couldn't challenge the MSHA's ventilation-plan requirements under federal mine law. Massey said that violated its constitutional rights.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/22/massey-mine-safety-lawsuit_n_621955.html

sounds crazy but watch them get some Republican Judge (w stock in the mining industry) to go along with it.

[Angry Dragon]

1. Is there anything in the Constitution granting

corporations constitutional rights??

[madrchsod]

2. yup.....supreme court has given them "human rights"

[pscot]

7. Roberts is working on that

right now.

[MisterP]

3. didn't Blankenship bankroll a WVa judge's campaign? nt

[Staph]

12. Blankenship is big in dirty politics.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Blankenship)

Washington political journalist Michael Tomasky, himself a native West Virginian, claimed that Blankenship was "famous in West Virginia as the man who successfully bought himself a State Supreme Court Justice in 2004 and then tried to buy himself the state legislature, failing spectacularly at the latter effort." Tomasky wrote:

“The Justice he succeeded in having replaced in 2004 was Warren McGraw. McGraw was up for reelection in 2004, and Blankenship wanted him out. That McGraw had sided with workers was not likely to stir much passionate opposition, so Blankenship found a case in which McGraw had been part of a 3–2 majority that had freed a mentally disturbed child molester who then went to work in a school. Blankenship established and funded an independent tax-deductible group called "And for the Sake of the Kids," which ran ads attacking McGraw's part in the decision. McGraw was defeated, and Brent Benjamin, the conservative candidate took his seat on the court. To demonstrate that his interest in the children was sincere, Blankenship had vowed that after the election, he would endow a foundation to help the state's needy children.”

Michael Shnayerson, in his book Coal River (2008), reports that no such foundation was ever set up and that Blankenship's tactics didn't help other Republicans in the state. In 2006, the $3 million that he had provided to forty Republican challengers to Democratic state legislators brought just a single victory. Although Blankenship was the primary donor to "And For the Sake of Kids," other groups, including Doctors for Justice, contributed over $1 million to ASK. Another group, Citizens for Quality Health Care, which was funded in part by the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, spent over $350,000 to defeat McGraw. Meanwhile, several groups spent millions opposing Benjamin and supporting McGraw, including West Virginia Consumers for Justice and Hugh Caperton, CEO of Harmon Development Corporation.

[Goldstein1984]

4. Miners are just disposable citizens

They die while working for the interests of the wealthy few.

Miners should give up mining and join the military. Then, instead, they would be...

Never mind. Same thing.

[Frustratedlady]

5. Would that be aka "small people" or "little people"?

I'm surprised to see them surface again. I figured they would allow them to shrink back into the shadows and it would be business as usual. I hope they sue their butts off.

[Goldstein1984]

8. I like to use the more general term, "peasants."

The many who pay the price for the decisions of the few who control the guns and the money.

[Scuba]

6. correct terminology is "disposable consumers"

[Goldstein1984]

9. I'd like to see us all stop all non-essential consumption for a week

Send a little shock wave through the system.

[Scuba]

10. That just might get some attention.

[Goldstein1984]

11. It's the only power we truly have anymore

The power to ultimately control production and consumption.

Of course, the system has been set up so that we can't strike or boycott without hurting ourselves, too. There's a threshold of suffering that we have to cross before we will collectively be willing to take action.

Class war is no different than any other kind of war--it's painful.

[hvn_nbr_2]

13. Supreme Court rules: methane in mines is corporate free speech.

It's a violation of the first amendment to silence Blankenfuck's methane-based speech.

Corollary ruling: Anyone who speaks against Blankenfuck is aiding and abetting terrorists.