The Goat Rope

It doesn't look like former Massey CEO Don Blankenship did himself a lot of favors with his release of a 51 minute video about the Upper Big Branch mine disaster. Several participants in the film say they were misled. The most prominent of these is WV Senator Joe Manchin, who said "I believe that Don has blood on his hands. And I believe that justice will be done."

More telling, families and friends of miners killed at Upper Big Branch protested the film at the federal courthouse in Charleston on Wednesday. This was was also a way of stating that they want criminal prosecutions for the disaster to go all the way up the corporate chain.

All of which is to say that there is ample reason behind my campaign to change the state motto of West Virginia from "Mountaineers are always free" to "You can't make this **** up."