Whenever 2017 wants to stop being the political year from deepest hell, it has my permission to do so. I, mean, really. Come the fck on! From WCHS in West Virginia:

He is one of the most well-known figures in West Virginia and has continued to push for a full investigation of the Upper Big Branch mine explosion in 2010. Blankenship contends the Mine Safety and Health Administration caused the blast after it reduced the ventilation air flow through the mine. Blankenship has been a long-time critic of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. Manchin, a Democrat, is seeking re-election. In the Republican primary, Blankenship will square off against U.S. Rep. Evan Jenkins and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. In February, Blankenship’s petition for a rehearing of his appeal of his conviction was denied by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. In January, the court already had ruled that U.S. District Court in Charleston committed no reversible errors and denied Blankenship’s battle to get his conviction overturned. Blankenship served a one-year sentence at a California prison for conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards.

Look, I know that Alabama is preparing to send a creepy mall-stalking alleged pedophile to the Senate and all that, but this guy is Snidely Goddamn Whiplash. He got off virtually scot-free in his trial and he’s been a raving loon on the subject ever since.

In briefs filed earlier this year, Blankenship's attorneys said the jury pool in Charleston was biased against him, the prosecution was politically motivated and the trial controlled by rulings unfair to the defense. A defiant Don Blankenship declared himself an "American political prisoner" on his blog, blaming others for the 2010 mine explosion. The ex-Massey Energy CEO distributed 250,000 copies of the 67-page diatribe in booklet form.

In case you’ve forgotten what Blankenship is all about, you should refer back to Tim Murphy’s 2015 profile in Mother Jones.

Voluminous court records and government investigations show that he presided over a company that padded its profits by running some of the most dangerous workplaces in the country. Massey polluted the waterways that had sustained Blankenship’s forebears, rained coal dust on the schoolyards where his miners’ children played, and subjected the men he grew up with in southern West Virginia to unsafe working conditions. A mascot of the coal industry’s worst excesses, Blankenship pumped millions of dollars into West Virginia’s political system to promote an anti-regulatory agenda and curry favor with state lawmakers and officials. But Massey’s pursuit of profits at any cost ultimately proved to be Blankenship’s downfall. When, on April 5, 2010, an explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine killed 29 workers—the worst mining disaster in the United States in 40 years—prosecutors began slowly building a case against the powerful mogul.

He’s got a full year to cast himself as the innocent victim of the pointy-headed Washington bureaucrats who made the coal run out, and people will believe him. As Murphy points out, Blankenship’s money and influence remade West Virginia into just the kind of political entity that would buy that tale if Blankenship were to sell it well. Judge Roy Moore has made all things possible, I guess.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page.



Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io