Real TV: Bereaved Son of Miner Confronts WV Governor

Today Show/NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Today Show/NewsBusters ping.

[imintrouble]

Oh please....all we need is to hear Katie waxing poetic...

This disaster was covered hours earlier.... by real news people.

[DainBramage]

The union is not the answer. These men were most likely

making more per hour there because they were not unionized.

[Fury]

Mark my words, this tragedy will be used for political hay. President Bush will be directly named as being responsible for this.

[Tennessee_Bob]

A better question is why MSHA allowed the mine to stay open.

[Steamburg]

The bodies aren't even cold and the politics has become the lead story. What a wonderful liberal world we live in.

[The G Man]

Huh? Why is it the Governor's fault?

[Jaxter]

"Bennett decried the absence of the United Mine Workers to protect the men in the non-union Sago mine."

The regulations for a non-union mine are exactly the same as for a union mine. Is he saying that federal and state mine inspectors don't enforce the regulations in non-union mines?

[governsleastgovernsbest]

I don't know the facts; I'm reporting what the bereaved son said. He alleged that, without the union to protect them, the men were afraid to complain of safety violations for fear of losing their jobs.

[Nomorjer Kinov]

It should be blamed on democrats and the greens. They are the ones forbidding us from recovering fossil fuels from safer areas. If we were able to recover oil and gas from deposits located off either coast, or in the gulf, or in "sensitive" locations inland, or in ANWR, the lives of these coal miners might have been spared.

[netmilsmom]

A miner who used to be at that mine said on H & C, said that those violations can often be little petty things like signs being put too high and such.
It is not unusual for a mine to get this many MINOR infractions. You know OCHA goes to the extreme. BUT the question is, how many of these were actually Major infractions? How many actually had to do with this accident.
If none of them had to do with this disaster, it's a moot point.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

By the way, to Today's credit: in the second half hour Lauer interviewed NBC reporter Bob Hager, at the scene. They agreed that it was premature to start pointing fingers at the mine owners, and important to let the investigations play out.

[jwpjr]

re: Lauer followed with an apt question to Manchin of his own: "when the average person across the country hears that this mine had been cited for 46 violations as recently as late December, it is hard to understand why it was open for business on Monday when that explosion occured."

Typical. That's not a question at all, but rather a statement. I hear that all the time. The reporter makes a statement, usually one of condemnation, then end it like a question, but it's still just a statement of opinion. Drives me crazy!

[Jaxter]

Building new nuclear power plants would be a big help too.

[LOC1]

For once, why don't we all wait for an investigation to find out what actually happened, and what caused it, before castigating the usual suspects?

[johnny7]

A somewhat sigh of relief that Manchin's not a Republican.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Please see #13.

[Quilla]

Thanks for the ping and the report.

I've read on a couple of threads this morning that the mine has been managed by the current owner since November. That doesn't seem to be a long enough period to rectify safety hazards and correct OSHA violations that were recently cited.

Incidentally, my manufacturing plant has been cited for not having a large enough exit sign over a full glass door. Some citations can be annoyingly frivolous.

[kx9088]

I was listening to Talk Radio this morning and they had a caller that was claimed to be familiar with the violations at this mine. He said none of them were serious in nature. Another caller suggested that if there were serious violations that should have kept workers out of the mine, then why didn't they shut it down?