Killer coal baron Don Blankenship, the Chairman and CEO of Massey Energy, mocked safety regulations at his coal mines until Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, WV, blew up, killing 29 miners in the worst US coal disaster in 40 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekByG12P178

It’s time for him to go to jail for his crimes.

<img src=‘http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Don_Blankenship_big.png’ align=right />Blankenship, a right-wing activist millionaire who sits on the boards of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Mining Association, used his company’s ties to the industry-dominated Bush administration to paper over Massey’s egregious environmental, health, and safety violations. Massey rewarded Republicans with massive donations after the company avoided paying billions in fines for a 2000 coal slurry disaster in Martin County, three times bigger than the Exxon Valdez. After both mine inspectors and Massey employees got the same message that it was more important to “run coal” than to follow safety rules, a deadly fire broke out in the Aracoma Alma mine in 2006, burning two men alive.

“Those miners died because Massey Energy cares more about a lump of coal than human lives,” United Mine Workers President Richard Trumka said. “There ought to be a special place in hell for people like Don Blankenship and the corporate bottom-feeders of our world. And I’ll tell you, I’d volunteer to mine the coal to make the fire hotter.”

“Their deaths should not be counted by Don Blankenship as the cost of doing business,” says Amy Goodman, “but, rather, should top his criminal indictment.”

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