Don Blankenship Murders Twenty-Nine Employees, Gets One Whole Year in Jail

That comes out to about twelve or thirteen days in jail for the deaths of each one of those expendable employees.  Where are all those Law and Order bots when we need them?

America’s Most Effective Weapon Against Iran

Would you believe — a strong carbon cap.

Iran would lose $100 million per day if only the United States would impose a strong cap on carbon. Iran has the world’s second largest oil reserves. Their oil production is worth $120 billion per year.

If we can reduce global warming pollution by 80% by the year 2050, Iran will have lost $1.8 trillion in oil revenue by that date. That’s over $100 million a day.

The same effect — in much smaller dollar amounts of course — would apply to that commie America-hating regime in Venezuela.

If any conservatives were to stumble on the above linked article, their reactions would fall into one of two categories: “Uhh, too many big words. What’s it mean?” or “NOOOOO!!!!!”

So, are there any Democratic spin doctors out there who could take this and run with it? If the Democrats had anybody one tenth as shrewd as Karl Rove or Lee Atwater, America would be bombarded 24/7 with “You’re either in favor of a carbon cap or you’re with the terrorists!” Etc.

Just a thought.

And speaking of “just a thought” — Massey Energy owns that coal mine in West Virginia where scores of people have been killed. And this accident is only about the umpteenth tragedy to occur in one of Massey Energy’s mines. Now, I don’t suppose there’s any sort of connection here, but Massey Energy has also been spending jillions of dollars to defeat any and all efforts at curbing pollution and promoting renewable energy sources.

Now — going waaay out on a limb here — if Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, had spent just a teensy weensy bit less money trying to squelch clean energy legislation, and a tiny bit more money to upgrade the safety of his mines…

Oh well, anyway…

UPDATE: Please check out this one-minute video. (Hat Tip to TomCat, who provided this link in the comment section.)

This is a very powerful message put out by VoteVets.org and Operation Free, telling us pointblank how our oil addiction is sending billions of dollars to Iran. Clean energy legislation is our only way out of this stranglehold.

I hope you'll link to this video and/or forward it to your friends. This message needs to get out there.

Lawsuit Over Coal Mining Fatalities

In January 2006, twelve coal miners were killed by a methane explosion in West Virginia. Seventeen days later, two more miners died in a conveyor belt fire at another West Virginia coal mine.

And now a lawsuit has been filed. Well, a lawsuit can be a necessary evil. Mining executives have a tremendous amount of political clout compared to their employees. Sometimes a court of law is the only place where these David and Goliath situations can be resolved fairly.

Hopefully when the court — wait, what the…oh. [sigh]... It seems the owner of these two coal mines is the one filing the lawsuit. He's suing the West Virginia Democratic Party and party chairman Nick Casey because they ran a TV ad that “defamed” his pristine character. WTF??? Talk about Goliath hitting David with a slingshot.

Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Co., spent $3.6 million targeting Democratic candidates in 2006. The Democratic Party ran an ad titled “Not For Sale” and this ad supposedly portrayed Blankenship as being not terribly broken up over the deaths that occurred in his mines.

And now the poor offended mining CEO is suing for compensatory damages, punitive damages and a public apology.

Republicans are always saying we have too many lawsuits; too much litigation. Undoubtedly they're just furious about this frivolous lawsuit taking up the court’s valuable time. Right???