Please stop to consider whether the candidate you are considering voting for is backed by Don Blankenship.

Don Blankenship–who does not even LIVE in West Virginia–is spending almost $2 million dollars in this election, to try to get the state to election Republican candidates of HIS choice. In case you have forgotten, it is Blankenship’s negative campaigning that elected a nobody–Brent Benjamin–to the State Supreme court.

Now he wants to try to control the state legislature.

For those of you who aren’t from West Virginia (or for some reason aren’t paying attention.) Blankenship runs Massey energy, a non-union coal company. On Jan 19 2006 a coal fire killed 2 miners Massey’s Aracoma Alma mine.

A report by state investigators states that Massey was at fault for the accident, through their missing or broken safety equipment.

Essentially, Don Blankenship has repeatedly placed profit over the safety of the men and women who work in his mines, refuses to allow unions into his mines, and ignores the comments and complaints of the miners (as they don’t have the power of a union to back-up those complaints and requests).

And now, through his hand-picked Republican candidates, he also wants to gain control of the government in West Virginia.

Please vote on Tuesday, and make sure that to send a message to this out of state robber baron: West Virginia belongs to us, and we will not be bought.

Aracoma Mine Accident Report (West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health Safety and Training)

State faults Massey for Aracoma fire (Charleston Daily Mail)
Massey’s Aracoma Alma #1 mine “set up to be a death trap,” UMWA President Roberts says (UMWA Press Release)
Report details fatal mine fire: # Missing walls, disabled sprinklers among findings on Aracoma accident (Charleston Gazette Mail)

If you want to know how Don Blankenship really feels about the state, consider the following:

Between 1/1/2000 and 12/2/2005 WVDEP issued 4,268 citations to Massey operations while the larger companies, Arch Coal and Peabody earned received only 732 and 355 citations respectively.

“You talk about the silo near the Marsh Fork School as if it were a negative. You should know that the silo (picture), if anything, is an improvement for the school” –Don Blankenship

For the sake of the kids indeed.