Well, Those Judges Don't Buy Themselves!

Compare this story:

Rescue workers began the precarious task Tuesday of removing explosive methane gas from the coal mine where at least 25 miners died the day before. The mine owner’s dismal safety record, along with several recent evacuations of the mine, left federal officials and miners suggesting that Monday’s explosion might have been preventable.
....
The Massey Energy Company, the biggest coal mining business in central Appalachia and the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine, has drawn sharp scrutiny and fines from regulators over its safety and environmental record.

With this one:

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider barring judges from hearing cases that involve their top campaign contributors, accepting an appeal that centers on $3 million spent by a Massey Energy Co. executive on a West Virginia judicial election.

The "Massey Energy Co. executive" in question is Don Blankenship. If you read through the first story, you will see that Blankenship's attitude towards the death of over two dozen miners in one of his mines can be summed up by those memorable words from Donald Rumsfeld: "Shit happens."

Now that's bad enough. But the icing on the cake was Blankenship's statement that if there is any fault to be found for the mine's operation, that fault rests with the government inspectors from the Mine Safety and Health Administration and the State of West Virginia, who did not order the mine to be closed:

“I think the fact that M.S.H.A., the state and our fire bosses and the best engineers that you can find were all in and around this mine, and all believed it to be safe in the circumstances it was in, speaks for itself as far as any suspicion that the mine was improperly operated.”

Blankenship and his company have a well-earned reputation for doing everything they can to gut governmental oversight, relying on their massive political bribes clout to stay in business. For him to now try and lay the blame for his company's history of blatantly disregarding the law and safety rules on the government for not shutting his mine down sets a new standard for blatant hypocrisy.