{"id":3306,"date":"2018-03-13T21:24:50","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T01:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3306"},"modified":"2018-03-13T21:36:45","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T01:36:45","slug":"don-blankenship-on-humility-and-the-limits-of-free-speech-in-west-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3306","title":{"rendered":"Don Blankenship on Humility and the Limits of Free Speech in West Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was sitting at home in West Virginia tonight when a call came in from the U.S. Senate campaign for Don Blankenship.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The campaign wanted to know if I wanted to participate in a phone call town hall with Don.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, why not.<\/span><\/p>\n

The man in charge of the town hall \u2013 a man Don referred to as Greg \u2013 said if I wanted to ask Don a question I should punch in star three on my phone. <\/span><\/p>\n

I punched in star three and waited my turn.<\/span><\/p>\n

During his opening remarks, Don laid out his conservative credentials \u2013 NRA member, pro-life, tough on liberals, on immigration illegal means illegal, drug test teachers, put America first and West Virginia first.<\/span><\/p>\n

And he took all kinds of calls from around the state \u2013 from a father whose kids were dealing with heroin and opioids, from a man who was complaining about high utility bills, from another man who complained about liberals wanting to take away our guns. <\/span><\/p>\n

Don was gracious and even tempered. <\/span><\/p>\n

My notes indicate he even railed against \u201cthe corporations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

People were given ample time to ask their questions \u2013 one man went on for a couple of minutes before Don interjected to answer.<\/span><\/p>\n

How democratic, I thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here was Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy, a man convicted of a federal crime that led to the deaths of 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch mine in 2010, a man who spent a year in jail for his crime, taking questions from random citizens from around the state. And letting them ask their questions, listening and actually answering the questions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The question I wanted to ask was \u2013 Don do you actually think you can pull the wool over the eyes of West Virginians and win a Senate seat from West Virginia \u2013 the scene of the crime?<\/span><\/p>\n

I actually think he can, because the Democrats are likely to nominate the corporatist Joe Manchin. And it\u2019s very difficult in a red state, in the age of Trump, for a corporate Democrat to defeat a corporate Republican \u2013 even if the Republican is multimillionaire CEO convicted of a crime connected to the deaths of 29 miners. <\/span><\/p>\n

A new poll<\/a> shows Blankenship is in second place (27 percent) in the May 8 Republican primary, gaining on Congressman Evan Jenkins (29 percent) who is in the lead, with West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey trailing in third place at 19 percent.<\/span><\/p>\n

But before asking my question, I opened with what was on my mind at that moment when Greg said \u2013 up next, Russell in Berkeley Springs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHey Don,\u201d I said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHey,\u201d Don said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you understand the term humility?\u201d I asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Don responded.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does it mean to you?\u201d I asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, it means when you are put in a position of power that gives you more power than you should have, you need to remember to be humble,\u201d Don said. \u201cAnd when you are in a situation, some of the situations I\u2019ve been in, it will create a lot of humility.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I raise it is because you have been convicted \u2013 \u201d I started to say.<\/span><\/p>\n

But then Greg cut me off and said \u2013 next Don we have Joy from Charleston who has a question about the economy.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was sitting at home in West Virginia tonight when a call came in from the U.S. Senate campaign for Don Blankenship. The campaign wanted to know if I wanted to participate in a phone call town hall with Don. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3306"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3311,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3306\/revisions\/3311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}